The Cavern – Part 4

Jenleg had made me rest after I’d read the mountain of paper work, she must have given me a sneaky shot of something – or maybe it had been a delayed activation sedative in the food, what ever it was she tucked me on my make shift bed and had hurried away to supervise the ‘hospital’ she had people building. I wondered dreamily if she had slept herself yet or weather she had ODed on stim. Sounds bounced around the caves giving me weird and strange dreams, they seemed too real, almost prophetic in nature, I had trouble shaking myself to full awakeness, the dreams lingered.

The cave filled with blood, a wailing that went on for an eternity, people standing around their ears dropped down and down and doing nothing as the Nesu slaughtered us one by one by one. My hairs stood on end giving me the look of a new babe after the egg fluid has been cleaned away.

I couldn’t face breakfast but knowing just how tight the food was going to become here in the cavern I stowed the cheese, bread and apple in one of my satchels. It was time to meet my team. I was escorted through the labyrinth of wood and canvas until I came out the other side of it. There was a space that had been made into a sort of assembly hall, what I assumed to be my team or part of it sat stiffly on too small chairs, geologists tended to be big, I always assumed it was because they liked climbing mountings and whacking rocks with hammers. I as always broke the mould – I was small and not particularly strong though I had trained my physique to a wiry strength – I wondered how long I would keep it in the cave.

My steps faltered as I noticed not one but two of my lecturers sitting on the seats, what could the council be thinking? I was nothing compared to these pioneers and making a prototype that may or may not work was something they had pretty much all done – except their’s had work. An unbidden thought that sprang to mind was – yeah but not on the first time… followed by – I hope mine actually works. After all what use was arrogance, if my worked failed it was not a grade or career at stake it was everybody.

My gut squirmed as I walked in front of them – I had a plan of action. To my surprise – I had feared I would just stare and stare at the reports but there did seem to be resonance pulses as well as the echo locators in the equipement – with those we could tell how thin or thick the walls were.

I began to talk and though I stuttered at the beginning I soon got into the flow, concluding with, ‘The question is, will our activity be detectable outside the cave and how sensitive are the results going to be with all of these people padding about?’

There were murmers and shrugs and a not quite youngling scribbling away on his note pad, I had seen him around the department but had not ever actually spoken too him, first years tended to laugh at him. Suddenly he put his hand up, ‘erm yes?’ I said not really sure how I was supposed to react.

‘They will not be able to tell it is us because of the pounding feet of everybody… but calibration is going to be difficult.’

I began to nod when one of my old lectures sneered, ‘it will be impossible to calibrate!’

Ears around the room flopped, I found myself glaring at him.

‘No we can and make it more accurate,’ said the scribbler, ‘we can take one of the new Cho-Lo units and hybridise it..’

He was cut of by the same lecture, fuming enough to have his ears stand directly up from his head, ‘it’s bad enough we are trusting to those things for the basic cavity search! Untried, untested and we would still not have exact readings!’

I opened my mouth but the scribbler was talking in his gentle tones once more as if he hadn’t noticed the aggression from the older man, ‘but we don’t need to know exactly – we just need to know which bit is thinnest and nearest the surface so all we have to worry about is making sure the readings are consistent. It’s a relative result we are looking for.’

Murmurs again, ‘he is right,’ I said wondering at the authority in my voice. ‘But I’m not sure I see how to hybridise the two machines?’

Everyone fell to discussion and I made it a stim break, I felt much better and slightly less shaky once I had the warm receptacle cuddled in my hands. One of the older members of my team came over and handed me a rough drawn schematic he’d obviously spent the tea break on. I glanced at it and then looked deeper, ‘can it really be that simple?’ I breathed.

‘Yes I think so, but I am nervous – I know there were only 7 of your prototype made and we would be taking at least one out of service to make this – there is no room for error.’

‘I know… I don’t even know how the prototype is doing – no one told me this would be it’s testing ground.’

He smiled, his teeth all fine little squares, ‘it behaved well for my team – a bit power hungry but then you expect that with prototypes.’

I blushed and smiled and felt silly all at the same time then my lecturer spat verbal venom at me, ‘interesting how you are in charge of the team, must be nice having parents on the council.’

I blinked in surprise and wasn’t entirely sure what to say, ‘they did not make the prototype you know that, nor were they happy with me studying geology, I know how the council works and I know geology – I am a go between and you know I am the best at extracting the meaning of the data… at least in my year.’

He nodded graciously but it was stuff and I could see the hate burning in his eyes.

Sighing I turned back to the engineer and began planning who would help him take apart my baby.

Posted: Thursday, November 8th, 2012 @ 8:38 am
Categories: The Cavern.
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