Traveler in the Dark

15

Rebecca stared intently at the tunnel walls as they walked. They were too smooth to be natural. She focused her camera as tightly as she could. "Hackford, are you getting this?"

"I'm watching," said Hackford's voice over the feed. "The video is patchy, I think the feed is faint where you are. Al Jahi is working on it. But I'll look closer at your recordings when you get back. Ask Titov to take some samples for me."

"On it Dorothy," said Titov from ahead as he scraped the wall with his sampler.

"Can you tell if water made these?" asked Rebecca. "I can't find any edges or ripples. No tool marks at all."

"I don't think it's water. It's too regular. And there would be exposed rocks where the current dug around them. Except for the little bit of debris at the mouth of the tunnel where you fell, I haven't seen any. Are there some underfoot?"

Rebecca focused the camera on the ground below. "No, just this smooth stuff that's on the walls."

"Is it a clay, Titov?" asked Hackford. He ran the sampler and it beeped.

"It's definitely a silicate of some type. It's vitrified."

"What's that mean?" asked Liu.

"It's been heated. It's a ceramic now. A volcano, Hackford?" asked Titov.

"Where are the deposits then? You may not have explored enough to find it yet, but there should at least be some in the hole. Where'd the ash go? And the gasses? Even long dormant, there should be some signs."

"Geyser vent?"

"I'm not going to rule it out, but it wouldn't be my first idea. Not level and sideways like that. It's no good guessing, we need more information." She paused. "I wish I could be down there with you."

"Don't worry, Dorothy," said Rebecca, "you and I will come back tomorrow."

"Only if you find something significant."

"Then we better keep moving," said Liu, "and bring the lady some get-well-soon rocks."

They followed the tunnel farther in and it widened, the bore becoming larger and flaring until it ended abruptly in a massive chamber. Two enormous columns flowed upwards into the dark. Rebecca followed them with her light but the small lamp would not reach the ceiling. "I can't see," she fumed and set down the equipment case. "Liu, help me set up a few of the lamps."

He knelt beside her and pulled the small drone lanterns from their case. She switched one on, guiding it with the feed. It was soon joined by Liu's, floating around the top of the column. "What is that?" asked Titov. Rebecca made the lantern hover near a massive globe of sparkling glass embedded in the column.

"That's no steam vent," breathed Hackford.

"Liu, pull your light down toward the middle, I want to see the whole thing."

Deep lines swept down the column in gradual curves. Titov lit another lamp and it circled the back where the curves rounded into thin blades of clay, studded with large panels of colored glass where the light seeped through to the other side.

"It's a— a bug. Like one of those hopper things Spixworth has in the lab," said Liu, craning to see up through the top of his opaque helmet.

"What now? What'd you find?" Spixworth said sleepily into the feed. "No fair, been up all night and now you find the good..." he trailed off. "Oh, wow," he breathed.

"What is it? Do you know?" asked Liu.

"Hold on, I'm switching through the feed so I can see all of it. Nobody move."