118 – Hiking and Caving

  The trail Steven traveled finally left the cavern just before lunch. Not far beyond, he found a carved stair leading down, and a second passage that had a faint odor of decay.

  Karen had said to take the stair, and a memory from somewhere said that when underground always follow your nose. The odds of something being nasty increased with the smell.

  Steven stopped for lunch, in process he drained the last of his water pack, and packed away his trash. The elfin-made gear was comfortable, but its newness still made it stiff. Once done and packed, Steven started down the stairs. They did not descend straight, but slowly curved and then turned back on them selves. Also every so many there was a landing, allowing three steps on the same level. Steve did not think to count the stairs, until he was already a significant way down. Along the way he did wonder who had carved this trail and to what purpose.

  After several sharp turns, as he descended, something landed on Steven’s back and they both went tumbling for a ways. Steven’s torch stopped a few stairs farther, on a landing. A creature comprised more of attitude than size came scrambling up at Steven as he started to get up, and tried to get Steven’s neck into its smelly, toothy mouth. Steven managed to get his right forearm in the in its mouth but he could feel this things bite-strength through his gauntlet and vambrace. Its large paws and small body were scratching and thrashing, trying to do damage and bring him down. It kept catching on Steven’s harness and some pouches.

  With this thing on him, Steven could not get his feet under him. So he rolled to his right, and managed to get it between him and the wall, and leverage its head away with his arm.

  With his free hand Steven managed to find his ka-bar knife on his belt. He pulled it out and the things thrashing almost caused Steven to stab himself, then nearly to drop the weapon. Steven got a good grip, and swung, stabbing into the side of the thing repeatedly. Blood began to flow, things smelled worse, and Steven felt his blade hit bone a few times.

  After several hits, the creature changed from thrashing to injure, to escape. It scrambled out from under Steven and across him up the stairs. Growling and yelping as it crawled over, it scratched Steven’s ear and cheek. Steven could hear it laboring up the stairs as he picked up his torch. He felt blood on his fingers, but had no idea whose it was.

  After retrieving the torch, he followed the thing back up the stairs, noticing its blood trail as a wet stain on the stone. It did not get far. About twenty steps up, it collapsed and was bleeding from its side. Some of its bowels had come out, and blood came from its mouth and nose. Looking it over, Steven guessed its closest Terran relative would be a badger, or a wolverine. Whatever it was Steven grabbed its huffing snout and slit its throat wide, finishing the job of killing it.

  “Don’t eat anything that attacks you.” Caspian had said that early on. Steven remembered his father had once told him that meat-eaters taste bad. Someone in the Corp’s had told him that any fur-bearing animal was edible. Well, he had no desire to taste this thing, but there was no sense leaving it here. After cleaning his knife on it then putting it away, Steven took hold of the creature’s tail and began dragging it. He got to the bottom after three landings and found the room Karen had next told him about.

  This branched off from the cavern he had spent the morning traveling along. As such, the path stopped one pace into the chamber, and then the wall dropped away followed by a big second step. Except for a litter of pillars that came up out of the abyss and extended beyond the light cast by his torch. Steven kicked the dead thing over the edge. After a 27 count the sound of its first thump echoed back with some gravel sounds, and more thumping. Then a cluster of three pillars collapsed out of sight with the dull glumps of falling crusty dirt where the body of the thing he carelessly dropped ran into the bases. For a moment Steven realized how dumb he had been to carelessly dump the body this way, as he might have destroyed his path. But fortunately he did not. Looking across the room Steven planned his way across, as far as he could see.

  Karen had said these crusty pillars were safe enough to walk on, but not to stand on. Each pillar was a bug colony, and would collapse as weight was applied. The skittering of insects was heard as this happened. For whatever reason, the pillars did not extend up far beyond the level of the trail.

  Steven had not been looking forward to this.

  “The trick is to keep moving. The bugs are deadly, and the pillar will collapse under you.” Steven recited this to shore up his courage.

  Steven took a deep breath, plotted his course, and started. The crunch of the pillars shell taking his weight was mildly disconcerting.

  Sure enough, the pillar began to fall as his weight rested on it. Steven stepped onto the next one and walked quickly across. Each pillar beginning to fall under his weight. To add to the fun, some pillars were slightly higher and lower than the others. Steven had to concentrate to keep his balance and keep moving in a forward direction.

  The glumping of pillars and chatter of bugs got louder as Steven went. After almost one hundred paces Steven came to the end and to firm ground. This not quite flat outcrop was slightly bigger than the one he started from on the other side.

  Once on solid ground Steven stopped, put his hands on his knees for a moment, and took a deep breath. He looked back for a bit. Where he had crossed was a line of emptiness. The pillars had collapsed, and sometimes collapsed neighbors. Then he saw a bug.

  It crawled around the side of a pillar, was about the size of a newborn puppy, and looked like a nightmare version of a praying mantis crossed with a roach. It crawled around its pillar and disappeared. Steven decided not to stick around, as the chittering of the bugs increased.

  Moving to his left from his course of travel Steven found the entrance to the next passage.  Karen had said he would find water in a chamber not far from here. The water would be drinkable. After a few turns and corners, what Steven found was a mineral hot spring and strange lichen that glowed.

  “Hum. Bio-luminescent.” Steven looked at a patch, and touched it. There was no visible residue. Aside from the luminescence, Steven figured they processed what CO2 was here into O2. He turned to the rest of the room.

  The chamber was dim compared to daylight, but bright compared to what he had been in the last two and a half days. A pool occupied about two thirds of it, with the acrid smell of a mineral spring filing the rest. His torch smoked more, indicating less breathable air, near the mineral spring outlets. The flat ground was damp, and stretched to either side as a kind of curving floor. Surprisingly the roof of the chamber was low compared to the previous ones he had been in. Water seeped out of two of the walls, but where one was covered with glowing lichen, the other was not. The glowing lichen covered almost every other surface, to the waters edge. The pool looked to have a rippling surface, but the light was not enough to do more than glint. The chamber exited on the far side, with water flowing out the exit.

  “Oh, boy. Got to get my feet wet,” Steven muttered. “Wish I had a long stick to test the depth.”

  Steven had hoped to find potable water here, but wasn’t sure from the smell. But he decided to test both in-flows. On his right the water smelled bad, seemed to scour the rocks clean, and it was tepid. He put his fingers in it, and it felt oily and gritty.

  He moved to the left, and tested this flow. The lichen glowed softly under it, and refracted a bit as the water tumbled. This water was cool, and felt clean, if slightly gritty. Like spring water always did when Steven found it. He was a bit put off by the lichen, but was otherwise not troubled.

  Putting the torch aside by stabbing it into the damp ground, Steven quickly pulled out the water filter and connector to his drink tube from pouch at his side. He put the pump/filter on his drink tube in place of the bite-valve and the other end in a likely spot in the flow, and began slowly pumping water into his pack. He could hear it dribble in and slowly expand the collapsed bag. Also he could feel the weight increase. Once his bag was full he carefully filled the two spare water skins attached to his pack, then put the filter away, looking himself over as he did. The remnants of the blood from the beasty was still damp on his clothes and gauntlets. Steven decided to clean this off, as best he could.

  He dug out a rag, and soaked it in the water, then wiped first his face and forehead, then one gauntlet and the other. Then he did his best to wipe up his vest and knife. The leather wiped off easily, the fabric less so. Once done, he rinsed the rag as best he could, squeezed it out and shook it. The water in the pool felt mostly mineral, and warm. As he folded the rag to tuck it away, he heard a chittering that chilled him. Turning he saw a pair of bugs scouting in, following his bloody foot prints. They stopped at each one, and tested it, then moved on to find the next. Steven decided not to stick around.

  Karen had said the only way out was through the water. Steven wished again for a walking stick, and stood up. Then without thinking, he drew the sword. It was a bit long for use here, but Steven did not want the bugs any closer. Something about them set off the short hairs on the back of his neck. Steven turned and used the sword to test the depth, and discovered the pool stepped down to thigh deep in three steps.

  The water was warm, and flowed briskly, and the fresh water seemed to overpower the mineral water fairly quickly

  Steven turned one last time, and could see more bugs crawl into the room. He considered grabbing for the torch, it was still burning where he had put it. But decided to leave it behind. The stick was still usable, but the current oil soaked warp was about done, and starting to catch the stick on fire. He had two more, and a good sack of oil and rags yet to use. He turned and left the torch he had been using.

  The bio-luminescent lichen continued into the tunnel, and here it began to go below the water level. The water flowed quick enough to push Steven along, but not over balance him. Since the bugs did not seem to follow, Steven decided to put the sword away.

  The tunnel turned into a rough carved tube, slightly taller than he was tall. Steven walked along this for nearly an hour. Every-so-far Steven found more water running down the walls. Most of it was fresh and cool. Some was acrid and dirty. All joined the flow bubbling along, tumbling over itself, and making the flow increasingly cool. The tube seemed to follow the natural seam of the rock, but had been cleared of debris that might trip. So while it twisted and turned some, and was uneven in its surface, there was always good footing. Provided he stepped carefully.

  The lichen seemed to glow stronger where fresh water flowed over it. Steven stopped at one point. “Wait a moment. Lichen does not grow under water. Does it?”

  Steven touched it, and it felt like any lichen he had encountered.

  “Oh, well.” He shrugged and moved on.