Anna thought they weren’t very professional, as they were silhouetted against the light, and easy targets. But so were they.
Snark thought carefully. He could fight. He had his suit, and the best weapons there. But he quickly came to the same conclusion as Anna. The others were too vulnerable.
Anna, Sissness, and Old Hootsmoon, dropped anything they were holding, and started to cross the ground to the entrance carefully. They looked around for shadows which could provide cover. Any of the standing stones were potential redoubts, but what would they do then? They couldn’t stay in here for ever.
As they came closer, they could see the Bats more clearly. They were wearing some kind of uniform, black with red patches on the shoulders.
The owl swore softly to himself. Bhatet’s, or Brotherhood working for Bhatet. It didn’t really matter which.
Anna wondered what had happened to Snark and Patters. She didn’t know Snark was half sitting just meters from her in the darkness beyond the lights.
Snark stayed still.
They reached the entrance. A bat roughly grabbed Anna, and another one grabbed Sissness. The owl was behind them. Anna and Sissness were roughly pulled through the passage to the entrance.
As Anna was pushed into the light outside the cave, there was a flash, and then a rumbling roar in her ears. A violent force flung her forward, and she blacked out.
Sixty
Anna came to in silence, with the earth seeming to fall in around her. A violent rushing noise and wind was pulling at her. Her ears started ringing, and then sound seemed to return to her, like a volume control was being pushed from mute through to full.
She shook her head, and her vision cleared. She was lying on the ground. Clods of earth and other things were falling around her. Wet things sloshed against her face. She looked around in bewilderment.
A bat was near her, floundering around. She looked at him, and could see blood soaking through his black uniform. Black on black. She couldn’t shake the thought. She tried to stand up, and made it to her knees. She retched and threw up. Sissness was further away, lying still. Another bat was running towards her. It was alight. She got to her feet, and staggered out of the way, as the bat-torch blindly blundered past, screaming.
She was in shock, she knew. Nothing was working. Everything truly was in slow motion, as she’d seen in vids she’d watched, it seemed centuries ago. She tried to hurry her senses up. She needed to move, she knew, she sensed, but it was like wading through mud.
She saw another bat get to its feet, clutching its weapon. She needed to move quicker. Whatever had happened, had potentially saved them.
Yet another bat emerged from the side of her vision. It was staggering with an arrow sticking out of its throat. It fell over. Another one was coming towards her, raising its gun, the muzzle like a tunnel seeming to reach towards her. It looked like it was going to shoot her, but instead, the bat was flung backwards, an arrow sticking out of its chest.
The first bat was firing. She felt something tug at her arm, and the bat staggered back, another arrow in its eye. It grabbed the arrow and pulled it out, blood spurting. It fell to its knees, and then down.
There was another roaring, rushing sound, a new sense in the chaos around her. The rumbling grew and grew, a crescendo of noise and dust surrounded her, and then it was gone. She looked up and cleared her eyes. The entrance was gone.
Just as she thought she was clear, a bat appeared from nowhere. It was unhurt. It grabbed her around the throat, and held a gun to her head, her body shielding him from, from what? She could smell something rank surround her. The bat body pressed against her.
"Stop, or I’ll shoot!" the bat screamed at the surrounding bushes.
Screams, shouts, and sobbing penetrated her hearing, as well as the hot breath next to her ear of the Bat.
"I will kill her! Put down your weapon, and show yourself!"
There was a pause. The gun barrel ground into her cheek.
Nothing.
The bat grunted, and jabbed her again with the gun.
Nothing.
The bat swore. Anna knew he was wrestling with a decision. Shoot her and lose his bargaining power?
He waited.
Another bat was kneeling at the periphery of her vision, his weapon raised, and aimed at the bushes.
Nothing.
Anna was terrified. She was close to death, she knew it.
The bat pulled back the gun from her cheek, but kept her body in front of him. He pulled her roughly back with him towards the cave entrance, the second bat covering him with his weapon.
Sissness lay like a broken doll just outside the entrance. She couldn’t be dead, could she?
Where was Patters? And where was Snark?
Where was Old Hootsmoon?
The bat flung her away from him to the ground, as he brought his weapon up to scan the surrounding area. The other bat did likewise.
She lay on the ground, spitting out the taste of vomit.
What the hell had just happened?
Sixty One
Patters had taken a great risk, she knew. The bat could easily have shot Anna, but she’d banked on him keeping his hostage. She'd put Anna’s life in danger. But she wasn’t about to give herself up. Their odds of surviving this were much better if she was free to rescue them if she could.
But where was Snark? The owl was also missing. A huge explosion had blown up several Bats, and she’d picked off several remaining. But she'd failed to neutralise the whole threat.
But what had caused the explosion? She had an idea, and thought she knew. The owl had not let her touch his backpack. He’d not been carrying lights, but it had been bulging. He hadn’t appeared out of the cave. She speculated he’d set off an explosion, and been killed as a result.
He must have delayed long enough for Anna and Sissness to be out of the cave, and then detonated. She sang a quiet spirit song for him in her mind. She couldn’t do it out loud.
Sissness had not been moving, Snark was missing, and Anna captured. The owl was presumed dead.
She'd failed.
She ran through the scrub towards the landing zone.
Inside the cave, rocks, pebbles, and sand pattered down, and slowly came to a halt. Snark’s paws were firmly over his ears trying to block the cacophony of the explosion, and subsequent cave in. The echoes of the final death throes of the entrance slowly faded and died.
He finally took his paws from his ears. He could hear nothing. Either he was deaf, or there was actually no sound. He coughed. He could hear that, as well as the echoes which rang out a polyphony chorus of the original cough.
There was darkness apart from the pools of light from the lights which had fallen, and were shining in strange directions, casting bizarre shadows against the stones, the floor, and the walls of the cavern.
Snark thought about what he'd seen, and tried to make sense of it. The girls had been pushed out of the entrance, Bats following, with the owl at the back. And then the explosion. It had to have been Old Hootsmoon.
He couldn’t have survived the explosion. He had been the epicentre. The explosion, and then the cave-in. The entrance was completely blocked.
Snark was trapped.
Just to be sure, he made his way towards where the entrance had been. A rock fall of stones blocked his path. No light penetrated. There could be tonnes of rock, or a short distance between him and freedom, but how could he tell? And who could help him?
He went back towards the central stone. He turned off the lights as he went, but hefted them in his backpack, and in his arms. He might need these. He wanted to save as much power as he could.
He leaned against the angle of the central stone, took a deep breath, and another. He was trapped. The owl had not mentioned another way out of this cave, so he had to assume the entrance was the only one. There was a tonne of rocks, stone, and sand blocking the entrance. There were Bats outside, and they were presumably in control out there. No-one knew he
was still in here.
Snark started to panic. He knew this was happening because his whiskers quivered, his tail thrashed, and his legs wobbled.
He got a grip. He roughly told the doubters in his mind, where there was life, there was hope, and they should just shut up! He felt much better. Bloody mop heads for getting him into this mess.
He sighed. Obviously the Brotherhood and Bhatet had tracked them to the station, and down to the planet. How much did they know? They would soon know more if they had Sissness and Anna. And what about the Seasprite? If they were on the station, had they captured the ship as well? What about Patters? Was she captured or still at large?
One thing at a time.
He had to get out of here. There had to be another entrance. He looked around him. The dark hemmed him in. He looked up and checked the ceiling. No sign of light. He looked around in every direction. No sign of light anywhere.
What now?
Sixty Two
Anna had been roughly thrown down next to Sissness. She took the opportunity to lift a paw, and check for a pulse. To her relief it was beating strongly. The Bats were talking amongst themselves, and pointing at her and Sissness. One of them was talking into a communicator. So there were more of them somewhere.
"You!" said the main one, pointing at her. "We need to leave."
"I can’t leave Sissness," said Anna, indicated her stricken friend.
"She’s dead! It’s you we wanted anyway. They didn’t say anything about a female cat."
The Bats pulled her roughly to her feet. She wished they’d make up their minds. She hated to leave Sissness, but she at least wouldn’t be a captive. As long as they weren’t thinking about a coup de grace.
They weren’t. They led her away down the track to the Landing Zone.
When Patters reached the Landing Zone, she was dismayed. There was another group of Bats, and a large black shuttle craft. Too many for her to take on. The owl had only given them a breathing space. She cursed the fact she hadn’t been able to kill the remaining Bats at the cave site. That might have given them a chance.
One of the Bats was talking on a communicator. She guessed they were waiting for the other Bats, and the prisoners.
What could she do? They seemed disinterested in their own shuttle, probably because it was as it looked, a pile of junk. She waited. Soon the two Bats from the cave arrived, with Anna walking before them. There was no sign of Sissness. Patters' heart sank.
The Bats from the cave joined the group at the Shuttle. There was some shouting, obviously a dressing down for the debacle at the cave. The Bats boarded the Shuttle, with Anna.
Patters ran as far out of the Landing Zone as she could, and the shuttle took off. She was devastated. She felt as if she’d let everyone down. Particularly herself.
What now? She made her way back to the cave site.
The place was a mess. Bat bodies lay strewn about. Debris and rocks were scattered across the area.
Patters spotted Sissness near the cave entrance, now completely blocked up. Although she looked dead, Patters could see a pulse beating in her neck, and checked by placing a paw there. Yes, definitely a pulse. But Sissness wasn’t moving. She checked her all over for wounds, but found none. No breaks. Perhaps a serious concussion?
She looked around.
Where was Snark?
Snark had reached the far end of the cavern, where the altar stone was. He had the lights, but was using his torch. He'd also found the other's torches as well. For now he had a supply of light.
He sat up on the altar, and studied the far wall of the cave. There were murals here too. Perhaps he now had all the time in the world, or at least his lifetime, to study the murals, and the standing stones, before he died of thirst, in the dark.
He’d found Anna and Sissness’ tablets on the cavern floor by the central stone where they’d dropped them. They held the photo evidence of what they’d discovered here. He put them in his backpack.
The far mural was interesting, Snark thought. It showed a 'god-like figure' standing in a field. There seemed to be a range of animals around the figure, not sentients, but farm animals. Snark didn’t recognise any of them.
The central figure was holding something. Snark moved closer. It was a staff, or a hook. What was this?
He moved closer still. There was another figure, not god-like at all. It looked like an ordinary human, strangely, like Anna! The figure was standing next to another figure seated on a stone. The stone was a lump of rock, nothing like a gem stone, or something precious. He felt let down. The Destiny Stone was the Stone of Destiny. And it was just a lump of rock.
But he still had his own quest. His Grandmother had tasked him to find the stone, which was linked to the cold evil. It was still important to do this. Even if it was just a lump of rock, it had power, and it shouldn’t fall into Bhatet’s, and his likes’, hands.
As long as people believed in it, it would hold power. Perhaps that was the ultimate power, the power over people’s beliefs. He now knew much more than he did before. But he still had to get out of here. He sighed. The cavern sighed back. Or that was how it seemed. There was a breath, a sigh, and then another breath.
And a steady breeze. Very slight, but definitely there. That couldn’t be. The entrance was sealed tight shut. A draught would need two open points to create the flow, so where could they possibly be?
There was definitely a breath of air, so where was it coming from? He shone his torch around the walls, and realised what he was doing. He shut the torch off. The cavern was plunged into darkness.
He waited.
His eyes adjusted to the blackness, and his dark-sight came into play. While cats' eyes were best at dusk, and just before dawn, they could also see well in the darkest of dark, as long as there was some light.
Snark could see a gentle light source, and felt a breeze, coming from out of the mural, from the heart of the picture. He paused to detect the light, and yes there was a shadow in the picture, around it showed a halo of light, and the sighing of the draught also came from here. He checked the painting. It was at the top of a strange pyramid construction. There was a beacon, and a starburst effect where the beacon was shining. The heart of the starburst was the dark-space, and the sunlight was part of the beacon.
Why hadn’t they noticed it before? A shaft of sunlight would have shone through the cavern. But they’d immediately set up the lights, so it wouldn’t have shown. Perhaps that was it.
He was too short to reach the hole. It was too small anyway for him to get through. Perhaps it was just a crack in the rock, too small to enter and travel through, but enough to provide a light. He thought carefully.
A shaft of light. A beacon. He turned around to see where the shaft of light pointed. It cut through the stones, over the altar stone, across the central stone, and shone out through the entrance stones to the entrance.
That couldn’t be right.
Snark’s vision had adjusted enough so he could pick his way along the light to the entrance. Just before it, there was a smaller standing stone which had fallen over, perhaps the same earthquake which had dislodged the central stone, and caused other damage.
He felt the surface of the stone with his paw, and found there were scratches in the stone. He turned on his flashlight and found the chalk he'd used before. He scraped the chalk over the surface, and some kind of writing appeared. It looked ancient, and the scratches in the rock appeared smooth and worn, unlike the central stone.
He moved the light down. Below the writing, was another star chart, with a particular star circled, and some writing below it. These scratches were newer.
It was the clue they needed. The writing was strange, not something the translator on his pad had in its lexicon. Which meant not only was the language unknown in this galaxy, it was unknown to the humans as well, since his pad had come from Jane, and her people had combined both translation systems.
He took several pictures with his pad. He checked the
stone for more writing, but there was nothing. He turned off his flashlight, and waited for his eyes to adjust again.
The beam of light became visible once again, and he could see the stone when standing, would illuminate the ancient writing.
He speculated. Perhaps the standing stones had already been here, when the 'god-like' figures had come. They'd used the existing stones, to mark their own messages, or perhaps just to record their journey. Who had painted the murals and why? The mural at the back with the pyramid, must have been painted by the alien 'gods'. Or was it the local inhabitants, now gone?
The beam of light flickered, and went out.
Snark stood for a moment in the pitch black. The beam must be aligned in a way which only shone at particular times of the day on this planet. This wasn’t getting him out of here. He turned on his light again, and made his way back to the far side of the cavern.
There was still a breeze, a draught, a pulling of air from somewhere to this hole in the wall. He tried to orient himself to where it was flowing from, with his eyes closed. He turned around so it was blowing on his face. He opened his eyes, and looked out across the cavern. The opposite side to the mural was just rock wall. He started to cross to it, keeping the breeze on his face. His flashlight shone onto the face of rock. Was there a shadow there?
He felt the rock, and there it was. A fissure, just large enough for a cat to squeeze through. He switched off the flashlight and waited. A soft glow came from the fissure. So it opened out to where there was light. But could he fit through?
He took off his backpack, and emptied it of everything but the bare essentials. The tablets he needed, maybe the flashlight? He found some cord, and tied it to the handle of the backpack, and around one rear ankle. This way if it got tight, it would follow behind him.
What if he got stuck?
He couldn’t think of that now. He couldn’t stay here. In or Out was not an option, he had to be Out to survive.
He squeezed his body through the fissure, and moved toward the light.
Snark's Quest Page 22