The Cavern – Part 5
It took two days to put the hybridised equipment together and at every moment of it we worried we would blow the thing up, it took four units – one of my prototype and three of the echo locators – this was not what we had hoped for but much better than we had expected. My lecturer continued to be bitter towards me and I sent him out the second day with the volunteers from the general population to map an area of cave.
We now had a week and a half before they would seal us into this cavern forever, fights had already broken out due to petty thefts and three suicides had been reported. And with their news a new horror struck me – how were we to dispose of our dead?
It was so important, of course I chided myself it was all mumbo jumbo, all old superstitions but I felt uneasy about the thought of not incinerating the dead with all due respects. Were those bodies already laying around somewhere?
I shuddered at the thoughts and childhood legends and tales of daring do arose in my mind. The undead storming the Castle of Umkip, and Soonka the Everlasting Queen. I would have to check with the council it really was giving me chills.
But I busies myself with the process at hand and we had a working unit, just one. Now I had to select who was to use it, my gut reaction was to keep it close to me, to make sure it was ok but I had data coming in from the search parties and things to organise. I called a meeting and the Engineer as I come to think of him was sitting there, I sort of wanted to give it to the Youngling as I thought of the youngest of us (though in truth I think he was actually older than I was), but he really didn’t have the manual dexterity for it, strange he should have made it in the field of geology but then I wasn’t the standard either. Nor was all the team geologists. It would be the engineer I gave the instrument too, he had been fundamental in the hybridization process.
The decision was not popular with my lecturer, who was irate and indignant and I was weary of him always objecting to everything on principle. Out of the rest of the core team I had another 5 lecturers two of which had made it known they were not happy with my command but would follow me as it was the councils wish, one seemed ambivalent, another obviously had an opinion but was tight mouthed so no one knew what it was, the last was the man who had interviewed me and whom to my immense surprised had be pleased with my appointment.
Benok inclined his head to me, his purples open in pleasure, ‘I knew the risk of taking you on was worth it,’ he said happily. And it had been risk taking me on, I was not your classic miner and many had thought I would not be able to take the physical strain. I suddenly wondered if the Youngling was another one of his ‘risks’ the glint of laughter in his eyes made me think it was so.
I was starting to want to get out there and explore the actual cave system but I was buried in the insane bureaucracy of the council and bizarrely the chief academics in the team. The teams from the public sector were increasing daily and I had to keep finding them side tunnels and jobs to do and that was becoming a whole new head ache though it was bringing some useful information back.
The days seemed so long and pressing and I wondered briefly how my parents were coping as what ever I was experiencing in my little bit of the Cavern they were trying to run the whole show. I began to feel that I was coping well but with less than a week to go before we were due to be sealed in forever one of the teams did not return.
‘They should be back by now!’ shouted my old lecturer.
‘I am well aware of that, they went down the East section to fork 3/60, they have probably just gotten carried away but..’
‘You should have already sent a rescue crew!’ he snapped.
‘I do not have enough people for a dedicated rescue team nor the equipment and you know it!’
But he was right and I knew it, but I had been hoping they were just late but now it was eight hours and everyone was tired and I needed to muster a rescue crew. ‘You will assist me!’ I hissed and stormed off to get a crew together, I should not have been putting myself in danger either but I had already been called a coward by this man and it was starting to get into my purples.
I took two experienced cavers with me, my old lecturer and a medic, including me that made five. We checked our ropes and ladders and chisels and food supplies. Wearing the thick waxed canvas boiler suits we heading along the settings I had handed out. My heart hurt with anxiety, I kept hoping that the glint off of the crystalline stone was their torch light, the acrid fumes filled my lungs but we needed water proof flame.
My ears began to twitch with tension, we went deeper and deeper and then we began to see signs that they had been this way – pins for rope jammed into the cracks and crevices of the rocks. I was bone weary and ready to call it a night when we came to the cave in. I swore and hit the freshly fractured sides of the rocks, I felt sick and began to scrabble at the rocks to try and uncover those within. The medic put a restraining hand on me.
‘How long have they been in there?’ she asked her eyes full of concern.
I shrugged, ‘maybe a up to 2 days.’ I conceded.
She sighed and looked at the rocks.
‘We need to be careful,’ she whispered and I felt the fear vibrating through her fingers.
I stared in horror at the rock face.
Posted: Thursday, April 25th, 2013 @ 6:15 am
Categories: Series, The Cavern.
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