The Caverns of Mare Cetus (36 page)

   "Hey, guys," said Arielle. "I don't know if you've noticed, but the water's getting deeper quick, and this passage continues to go down. Look at all the seepage on the walls. It's beginning to worry me."

   "You need to start scanning for water depth," said Renata, glancing at Trent. "Think you can you do it with the way the Vimaps have been working?"

   "Been doing it," he replied. "Right now it says we have 3.63 cm of water." He stooped and checked the water with his finger. "Yep. That's probably right." He stood up.

   "Why would Garrett need protection from Devon?" asked Renata.

   "I don't know. That's why I was wondering what else you might have found out about her—you were with her a lot longer than we were. Maybe you can shed some light on Garrett's behavior. Frankly, it has me puzzled."

   "Devon was a puzzle," said Renata, trying to hide what she knew about her while continuing to probe Trent for what he knew. She wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he was grasping for something. She stooped and lowered her head to get beneath a lowhanging limestone block. "Watch out for this one."

   "Did you have much chance to talk with her?" asked Trent. He stepped beneath the block as he stuck another section of the fiber optic line against the wall. "Did you connect with her?"

   Renata stopped dead in her tracks. She turned around. "That's a funny way of putting it."

   "Actually, those aren't my words, they're Garrett's. He said if you connected with Devon, things might still fall into place. He didn't explain what he meant by that, but I got the impression it was more than you just bonding with her."

   "That's odd," said Renata, certain now Trent knew more about Devon than he was letting on. "Devon said the same thing to me. She said we had connected. I wasn't sure what she meant by it at the time—it could have been nothing more than we had become friends—of course now I'll never be able to ask her. What do you think Garrett meant?"

   "Can you two walk and talk at the same time?" asked Arielle. "It's making me nervous just standing here." She pushed on Trent's back.

   Renata turned forward and began hiking again.

   "There's the other part I haven't told you yet," said Trent as he strung another section of the communication's line on the passage wall. "Maybe you can explain this. He said the only reason you were on this mission was for Devon. Now I found that really odd, especially since Devon was IO."

   "You know damn well she wasn't IO," muttered Renata, angered by Trent's continued charade over his knowledge of Devon. She looked down; the water was deepening rapidly. It was nearly at the tops of her boots. "Well," she said as she squelched her anger, trying to reel Trent in, "she seemed to have some kind of obsession with me early on. It was kind of a…sister-sister thing if I had to call it something."

   "Now that
is
interesting," he replied.

   "Crap! This is cold!" exclaimed Renata as the water came up over the tops of her boots.

   "Jesus!" exclaimed Arielle. "This feels like ice water. What are we looking at, Trent?"

   "Damn, I agree," he said. He took a reading with his Vimap. "About 6ºC, 43ºF if that makes you any warmer."

   "Gee, thanks, Trent," said Arielle. "Our Clothing Thermal Units had better kick on, or we won't be in this stuff for long."

   At once Renata knew her CTU had kicked on—she felt heat emanating from her clothes, warming the water in contact with her body. Though the CTU wouldn't keep her at normal body temperature, it would significantly reduce her rate of heat loss, prolonging the time she could stay in the water.

   "Rene," said Trent. "I want to make something perfectly clear. You did say Devon connected with you, right?"

   "Why is that so important?" she asked. "I said yes, didn't I? Are you saying she was some kind of psychic or something? She said she connected with me—just leave it at that. I feel good about the relationship we had. Maybe it's something you just wouldn't understand because you're a man…" Her voice trailed off.

   She put her hand over her heart—it seemed to be suddenly pounding in her chest, as if she had just finished a marathon. "One, two, three…" She took a deep breath and seemed to get a rush; goose bumps cascaded over her skin. "…ten, eleven, twelve…" She had felt this—before—with Devon. "…eighteen, nineteen, twenty…" It was her heart. She felt it was trying to tell her something. But what was it?

   "Edison," said Trent suddenly, testing the fiber optic connection. "Can you read me? How are things going?"

   "Right here," replied Edison. Then he told them everything was fine—he was running through some Vimap records on the caverns of Mare Cetus while Richelle was, of all things, washing her hair using the water in one of the larger pools in the enclosure.

   The three hiked for quite a distance farther, the passage slowly bending to the right. The water level continued to rise but not as quickly as it had in the first stretch. The water was up to Renata's waistline when she spoke again. "This isn't looking good. I can't imagine now why Garrett would have come down this passage unless he was in a boat." She stopped and turned around. "About how far have we gone?"

   "About six hundred meters," said Trent.

   "I think we should head back. If this water gets much deeper, we're going to be swimming in it. We haven't seen even a sign of Garrett."

   Trent and Arielle agreed.

   As Renata stepped forward, she felt a spray of water falling on her hardhat. She stepped back and looked up. There was a passage directly above her head with a thin stream of water leaking out of it. She pointed up. "Care to give me a lift?"

   Trent looked up briefly, then helped Renata get up on his shoulders, and she climbed into the passage. Immediately she heard a howling sound. "Hey. I hear a noise up here. Come on up." She braced herself and reached down, helping Trent get a grip on some rock-holds to pull himself up into the passage. When he got up, he helped Arielle up too.

   "Come on baby, warm me up already," said Arielle as she rubbed her hands together. She looked at two tiny green lights on her jacket collar that indicated the CTUs had gone into recover mode—drying her clothes and making certain her body temperature was back to normal.

   "Feel the breeze," said Renata as she put up her hand. "It's coming from this passage above us. It's almost vertical."

   "How can there be a wind blowing through a passage this deep?" asked Arielle, looking up. "There must be one big pressure gradient causing it."

   "Unfortunately this is no sign of Garrett," said Trent.

   Renata stood up and started along the horizontal passage they had entered, which had a small amount of water on its floor and several tiny streams of water flowing into it from its walls.

   Arielle was right behind her. "I know this is a stupid thought," said Arielle, "but I can't imagine how a Kalo could navigate what we just did."

   "It's all in the flexible cerametal," said Trent. "It can mold itself into a shape up to five meters long. Using its mobility appendages, it can move itself into passages that are some seven or eight meters off the floor. It's really quite amazing. You mean to say you've never seen that happen?"

   "No. All the times I've been on this godforsaken planet, I've never seen that even once."

   Renata stopped. She had come upon another passage leading off to the right, a nearly round tube. She peered inside, seeing that it split into two passages just a short distance in, one going up, the other going down.

   Arielle was pointing up when Renata took her head out of the passage. She looked up. There was another passage above them, an oval shaped tube that jogged markedly just a short distance into it.

   Trent moved past the women a short distance, then stopped. He pointed out a narrow passage veering off to the left and another one about two meters farther, going off to the right.

   Renata and Arielle walked up to him. "Damn," groaned Arielle. "This place is a fucking mouse maze."

   Renata took a brief look into both of the passages. The first one curved out of sight almost immediately, and the other one split into two passages a short distance in, both of the splits appearing to climb through the rocks. "This is fruitless," she said. "Even if Garrett came in here, there's no way of knowing which passage he might have taken. There are hours of searching just in here. And without maps, we're sure to get lost."

   Trent and Arielle agreed. He started counting on his fingers. "We have six offsetting passages just in this area alone, not to mention the vertical pipe back by the spot we climbed into here."

   Renata took off her pack and sat down. She began pulling out some chocolate bars, crackers, dried meats, wafers, and dried fruits from her pack, setting them on the ground as she did. Then she noticed Hunter had placed the Machine Cutter back in her pack. Tears welled in her eyes when she saw it. She sniffled and quickly wiped her tears away. She immediately closed her pack, then picked up some of the food and began handing it to Arielle and Trent, who was communicating with Edison again, telling him of their status.

   Edison replied that everything was fine and that Richelle had finished with her hair and looked like she was going to fall asleep.

   Renata pointed down the passage with her thumb as she ravenously stuck chocolates in her mouth. "Let's get out of here after we've had something to eat," she mumbled, pieces of chocolate spilling out of her mouth and onto her jacket and pants. "Tell Edison we'll be coming back soon."

   After they had devoured their food like they hadn't eaten for a month, they made their way back to the opening that dropped to the water-flooded passage. As Trent helped lower the women back into the water, they cried out in discomfort. Again Renata felt her CTU kick back on, almost immediately putting a layer of warmth around her legs and stomach. Trent cried out as well as he dropped into the water and splashed the women, causing them to complain again.

   "What's that?" exclaimed Arielle. She pointed at something in the direction they had been going before their climb into the upper passage. It looked like a piece of brown fabric was stuck against some projecting rocks just at the waterline. She sloshed through the water and grabbed it.

   "Is this Garrett's?" She held up a small watertight satchel, typical of those used by explorers to hold personal items and snack foods. She opened it up as she brought it to Renata and Trent. There were some tweezers inside, a tiny flashlight, an empty medical container, a Brunton Compass, a comb, sunglasses, some hand lotion, and several sealed protein bars, chocolates, and dried fruits.

   Trent looked at the side of the satchel as Arielle held it up. "It's Explora all right," he said. "See the monogram at the bottom."

   "Then it has to be Garrett's," said Arielle. "Damn, I'm good."

   "Then he was here," said Renata. "Let's keep going." She called to him several times on her com, realizing they still weren't working, then yelled out to him several times more. She started forward. "Trent. Keep scanning the water depth."

   "It's at 1.3 meters now." He gauged where the water was lapping up on his body. "That looks about right." He held up the Vimap and scanned ahead of them. "Looks like it holds steady at this depth for a ways. The passage seems to have leveled out here." He started after Renata, Arielle right behind him.

   Renata picked up her pace, slogging as fast as she could through the water. What was Garrett doing down here to begin with? But if he was close by, why didn't he hear her calling him? Was he hurt? Was he dead? She so much needed to see him again—for several reasons. She continued to press forward; the passage jogged to the right.

   Suddenly her right foot met nothing. Her mouth opening in surprise, she fell forward and sank like a rock, taking in water. The bitterly cold water immediately sparking waves of chills through her body, she grabbed for a wall but couldn't find one. She began flailing her arms and legs, but at once her senses took hold of her. She was cold. Painfully cold, but she knew her CTU should have already sensed it and compensated. She began moving her arms and legs in a steady rhythm, pulling herself toward the surface, but she could feel there was also a strong current pushing her farther away from Arielle and Trent. She needed a breath—badly. She popped her head above the water and gasped. She took another breath, then turned around, facing back toward where she had fallen in. She was surprised by what she saw.

   Right after the bend, there was another passage in the wall—a large, rounded tube that was pouring water into the main channel with substantial force. Since the base of that channel appeared to be just below the water level of the main passage, its flow of water wasn't making much sound. She continued to tread water as she scoped out her situation. The main passage had widened considerably, and the current from the side passage had already pushed her at least fifteen meters, at her best guess, from where she had fallen in.

   "Rene!" cried Arielle. "Are you okay?" She was standing waistdeep in water in the upper section of the passage.

   Renata waved to her, then swam toward the nearest passage wall. When she reached it, she grabbed onto some projecting limestone blocks and pulled herself against the wall, getting her left foot onto a ledge of sorts and her right into a foothold in the rocks. She felt cold now. Too cold. She looked at the CTU light indicators on her collar. They were off. "Oh, swell," she muttered.

   "Rene!" called Trent. "Try to make your way back along the rocks, and I'll meet you halfway!"

   "Okay!" she shouted. She pointed at the side channel that was pouring water into the main passage. "Watch out for the current in here! That thing's pouring out water!" Her teeth began chattering. She didn't even bother to fiddle with the CTU—there was nothing she could do to get it to engage. It was a self-contained unit. It either worked or it didn't. She told Trent and Arielle her CTU wasn't functioning, then looked at the wall in front of her. It slanted inward above her, so there wasn't any possibility of climbing up on it and out of the water.