Compendium Effect : : Tolen's Trial

Suspend (thine own) Disbelief 2

Kim backed the recording up and played it again at half speed. The playback began and again stop-start motion but slower. Kim moved play to the frames closer to the interpreter's captured behavior. The footage had her touching her temple. "Do you see that?" Kim said when the next frame played. She paused play. "Just like that she's facing the camera, no incremental movement at all."

Osbourne adjusted his earbud. "Keep going, I want to hear it again," Osbourne whispered, ignoring a shift in the barge, dismissing it for finding the edge of the requisite current, the current that is only active now, on the eve of the monsoon's possession of the Son Doong Caverns.

The footage waded through the rapid speech, syllable by nonsensical syllable.

Blinded suddenly by very bright light, Kim and Osbourne groaned loudly in protest, both squeezing shut their eyes and covering their faces. 'Ehte' came the next syllable to Osbourne's ear. Osbourne caught the earbud when Kim's side fell free. "We have found your current, professor Osbourne," the interpreter said. "We may use light, but we must be not make noise that echoes," the interpreter said.

"...solce..." continued the video. Osbourne waited for the last word, the clearest of the three he had heard the first time.

"Let me guess, some kind of monster," Kim said.

"Keep your voice, yours especially, very low, Professor Flannery," the interpreter said.

The footage yielded another syllable, "...can—"

The interpreter continued, as if playing for time, or perhaps not. "The tales of monsters causing people to disappear in these caves... it is no beast, but pieces of the cavern dome, chunks of falling rock."

"—di—"

"There must be more to it. The lore predates the discovery of these caverns," Kim said.

"The darkness here and the space is so vast that when a large stalagmite free-falls, upon hitting the water, or the boat, it is easily mistaken for a beast rising from the river's depths. It is sound, of a certain frequency range, amplified by the water that causes this," said the interpreter. "—date," the video played clearly. A cold feeling crept up the center of his spine as last word, his frontal lobe thoroughly in its thrall, repeated itself, shouting at a whisper into the echoing void of his mind, CANDIDATE.

Who are you? No. No, no, no, no where do I know you from? Your name; I never get your name. But there is always particle time winding down.

"Professor," the interpreter said. Her tone had changed. "Are you alright?" she asked, her British inflection trickling through.

Osbourne shook away the fog blurring his cognizance and realized in that moment that he had recovered some of his night eye vision. Kim stood... was it the port side—his sense of relative bearing was shot to hell—taking footage of a a sheer, rock wall. He had not been aware of her departure. "Professor?" The interpreter asked. "Do you need assistance?"

Osbourne stood, making it seem harder to do than it actual was. "No, no. A slight motion discomfort is all. I haven't eaten," Osborne said. '...candidate-candidate-candidate-candidate...

"Doctor Tuttle," the interpreted said, "did you hear? We're coming about to the auxiliary sump. We'll need the temperature sensor."

"Yes, of course. Let me drop that, now." Osbourne said. He went to the bench and connected the waiting probe with the plumb line the interpreter had handed him. He lost track of how long he stood, leaned against the workbench. Then he was standing in the middle of the deck and Kim was next to him, placing her arm around his shoulder, urging him downward. "The archway, Oz, we have to go under."