Acorna's Search Part 13

But just then Mac reappeared, pulled something else out of his pack that turned out to be a collapsible wheeled carrier. He filled it with a load of debris.

"There," Acorna said to Thariinye. "He's thought of that Mac, we can haul that away for you."

Mac looked puzzled. "But what would I do while you were I doing so? Until I am further in, Kh.o.r.n.ya, the immediate area surrounding my excavation will be dangerous for organic life-forms. I will be quick. I promise."

So he trundled off with a load of rocks and dirt and fragmented Khleevi scat, dumped it, then returned to reattach his pick and shovel, which he had removed to wield the wheelbarrow onto the growing pile beyond the cave. In a very short time Mac was so far in the tunnel he was creating that Acorna and Thariinye could remove piles of debris without being hit by the flurry of flying gunk generated by Mac's current efforts.

As Thariinye loaded up his First cartful, Acorna said, "Stay close enough for me to see you, and I'll do the same. I don't want us to go too far when we're spreading this stuff around, lest one of us disappear without the other noticing. I think if we just keep a path clear to the entrance it will do for now. The Khleevi left such a mess that our little contribution here does not matter. Uncle Hafiz can pretty things up when he terraforms."

Thariinye was more than willing to go along with this plan, always being one to maximize results and minimize work, if possible. Even working so close to the cave entrance, soon enough he was tired, his white face and silver mane brown and black striped with dirt and sweat, and his breath in short supply. But, like Acorna, he kept at the job. He was not the most industrious of males, but he was not about to let a female outwork him, either.

RK supervised his human companions as they worked, and now and then entered the cave to check on Mac's progress. He had apparently forgiven the android, deciding that the attack of the flying landscape was not personal nor was it aimed exclusively at Makahomian Temple Cats.

During the entire procedure, their communication and monitoring channels were kept open so that the surveillance s.h.i.+p could hear and observe everything that went on. The s.h.i.+p had long-range scanners and was able to watch them as they went about their tasks, so it was not necessary to speak to them directly all the time to keep them posted on what they were doing, though periodically Acorna or Thariinye would direct a comment or a question to the s.h.i.+p's personnel.

When the sun set, they kept working, using miner's lights attached to their helmets. Loading dirt and rock by hand into

the wheelbarrow by the erratically bobbing glow of her lantern, Acorna imagined herself in the place of one of the child miners she had rescued from Kezdet. She thought how hard their lives must have been as they did this backbreaking work day after heart wrenchingly weary day, with no more light than she had, far underground, punished if they slackened their pace even for a moment. When she thought of Maganos Moonbase, which she had helped Delszaki Li, her old mentor, transform from a useless moon into an educational and vocational school for the former child slaves they had rescued, it made her feel less burdened by her present task.

Thinking of the Moonbase brought her friends and family to mind. She would find Aari, Maati, Neeva, and the others. She would. She would. And they would be fine. Just fine. Nothing bad would have happened to them. Nothing at all. They only needed her to come and get them. Any other circ.u.mstance was unthinkable.

(Hold on. We're coming. I'm coming. Can you hear me, Aari yaazi, Maati, Mother-sister Neeva?)

She was so busy hauling dirt and concentrating on not panicking over her missing loved ones that she didn't notice that the incredible noise of excavation had stopped or hear Mac speak to her until he tapped her on the shoulder.

"I believe," he said, "that I have reached the entrance of the cave you spoke of. The entrance was not so badly blocked as we had feared it might be, nor the cave so damaged. There is writing on the walls that you will wish to see. I've used my laser attachment to solidify strips of the walls for support and stabilization and yes, Kh.o.r.n.ya, mindful of your instructions regarding the petroglyphs and the artifacts, I ascertained that none were contained in the material I fused before I did so. But as we lack any other sort of material with which to sh.o.r.e up the walls, the fusing was necessary to prevent further cave-ins. I have no ambition to be flattened in this adventure, nor to see you so afflicted."

"We understand, Mac. Thank you," Acorna said. She was already inside the cave as she said this, picking her way forward on the rubble-strewn floor. The pa.s.sage led steadily, even steeply at times, downward, for an amazing length considering that Mac had been doing all of the clearing by "hand."

"This job was one in which one of those picturesque little railroad devices would have improved my efficiency, and our journey," Mac remarked, practically in her ear, startling Acorna into stopping, which stopped Mac, cramming Thariinye, who was behind him, between the android and the steeply descending path.

Acorna wondered if RK had come with them and looked around for him. Becker would never forgive her if the Condor's first mate was the first of their party to disappear.

Her lamp caught two gold coins hovering above Thariinye's head, further back and higher up on the path, and then there was a streak of fur, a graze of claws, and the cat landed on the path in front of her. With an impatient glance backward, RK began stalking his way down the tunnel.

Acorna smiled. "The cat is playing the canary," she told the other two.

"He doesn't look as if he is," Thariinye observed. "He is not making chirping noises or trying to flap his paws."

Mac said. "I believe Kh.o.r.n.ya is referring to a barbaric mining custom from antiquity, in which the miners took a small caged bird with them down into the mines. If there was a leak of toxic gas, the bird would die first, and its death would warn the miners that the shaft was unsafe and they must leave immediately."

As if he understood every word Mac had said, RK suddenly stopped, turned to Acorna and gave a kittenish mew, then put his paws on her knees, clearly asking to be lifted. She picked him up and he settled around her shoulders. A natural born leader he might be, he seemed to say as he licked his fur into place, but while he was willing to a.s.sume equal risks with his team, he was not about to risk one hair of his precious pelt just so they could run off and leave him. He would ride for this portion of the journey, and hang on tight to his transport. Acorna winced a little as the cat's claws sank into her neck.

The light beams from their helmet lamps cast shadows on the jagged walls, moving crazily as they picked their way through the pa.s.sage to the cave. The shadows cast by that light made the rescue team look like a party of rubberized marionettes jerking along on invisible strings as they descended. It was an eerie journey.

All but Mac jumped when the com link came to life, and the surveillance s.h.i.+p's captain, one Yaniriin, spoke into their ears.

"Kh.o.r.n.ya, Thariinye, and Maak," he said. "We just had a sighting of something interesting near the laboratory camp. The source looks like a single person. We're sending down another flitter to check it out."

"That sounds like good news, Yaniriin," Acorna said a bit shakily, torn by hope. "Maybe one of our lost ones has re- turned. Please keep us posted as you check it out. We are now inside the pa.s.sage to the cave we were seeking. Do you need us to return to the surface and meet the new flitter at the lab site?"

"I see no reason for that, Kh.o.r.n.ya. But keep listening to us as you work. Depending on what we discover, we may need you later. And keep us informed of what you discover, as well."

"Of course," she said. "But there's not a great deal to say yet. We haven't reached our destination."

"What are you looking for? "

She hedged. The importance of this cave and the existence of petroglyphs made by the earliest Ancestral Attendants were a secret she had promised the Ancestors and their Attendants she would keep. But she didn't need to identify exactly what she was looking for to justify her actions.

"Someone at base camp talked about hearing underground rumblings when the aagroni went missing," she answered. "I decided it might be worth looking for underground installations, either left behind by the Khleevi or by our own people, to see it they could have something to do with these disappearances.

"With all due respect, that sounds like a waste of time to me," Yaniriin said. "Shouldn't you backtrack to all the places where the lost ones were last seen instead?"

"We will do that as well, eventually," Acorna a.s.sured him. "But we are hoping to find a key here as to why the disappearances occurred. Besides, if you are right, and we backtrack to where our friends disappeared, it seems to me that I stand a great risk of losing my new team members as well as the previously missing Survey members. And, although if we vanish that would probably tell me what became of the others, it would hardly enlighten the rest of you. I hope to find the reasons for these disappearances, and thus find the missing Survey personnel, without getting lost myself."

"With the sensors, you could probably be traced, if you went missing."

"Yes, that is the hope. But, until we test that theory, we have no certainty, do we?" she said. "Just find a bit more patience in your heart, Captain. The information I seek here could be very valuable."

"Very well," he said. "You must forgive me, Kh.o.r.n.ya. Aar-lii, who disappeared with three others from the SiiaaryiMaartri, is my firstborn."

'I'm sorry to hear that, Yaniriin. I share your grief. Perhaps you don't know, but my lifemate and his kin-sister, his parents, my mother-sister, and my former crewmates from the Balakiire are also among the missing. Be a.s.sured that I will do everything I can to find them all as quickly as possible."

The conversation, overheard by at least fifty people of three different races and spanning the vastness of s.p.a.ce, seemed oddly intimate, down here in dark where she, Mac, and Thari-inye moved slowly between the narrow, rough-hewn walls of the newly opened pa.s.sage.

Here!" Mac said suddenly, pointing to a spot just within the Pool of light cast by Acorna's headlamp. "The cave entrance is here!"

"We have found what we were seeking, Yaniriin," she said. "I will now explore it."

"Continue communication, please," he said. "I want a full report, and "

As she stepped out of the rough pa.s.sage and into the wide opening that had been the cave's mouth, her com unit failed. The indicator light on her s.h.i.+psuit went dull and lifeless, and her receiver was silent despite repeated attempts to hail the surveillance s.h.i.+p.

"Thariinye, please tell Yaniriin I have had an equipment 1 malfunction," she said, but Thariinye did not appear to hear her until he had joined her and Mac in the cave's entrance.

"That's funny," he said. "My com unit is dead."

"How odd." Acorna decided a small test was in order. Signaling Thariinye to stay put, she stepped out of the cave once more. 1 Her com link activated with the words, "silence. We've lost"

"Yaniriin, this is Kh.o.r.n.ya. This cave has some sort of barrier to our com units. I am not sure how or why. Perhaps the mechanism causing this is part of the answer we seek the reason why our friends and family are missing. Therefore, I feel it is essential to continue exploring, despite the communication difficulties. We will not be able to maintain contact with you while. we are here. However, one of our party will remain outside the cave entrance as long as possible to maintain visual contact with the others, and transmit our report to you."

"That sounds very risky, Kh.o.r.n.ya. Perhaps you should return to your flitter and rethink your plan."

"Negative, Yaniriin. But we will take no longer than necessary in gathering the data we need. That's the best I can promise. I am going to step back inside the cave now, but please expect contact to be resumed within sixty seconds by myself or one of my compatriots."

"I read you, Kh.o.r.n.ya, but I still don't care for"

His last word was cut off as Acorna stepped back inside the cave entrance.