This story is strongly influenced by the works of Tabico and fembotheather, as you may notice. Thank you heather for encouraging me to write and submit this story. Feedback is very much appreciated.
The lost cave
Chapter 1
A hollow tremor ran through the landing craft when it touched the ground. The brake engines roared a few more moments, then it became quite. The passengers started fiddling around with their safety belts when the big monitor flashed up. A mid aged woman, wearing the confederated uniform appeared: “Okay girls, you’re now on M-939, we’ll go on as planed. We’ll use the mothership to survey the system while you explore the cave. So, no communication within the next 72 hours. We’ll come back and pick you up after that. Captain Branks out.”
While the passengers got out of there seats and started to pick up their baggage lying underneath them, Tanja looked around. She wasn’t happy with how things had turned. It was her idea, her project. She worked four years, collected all available information about this planet and the extinct cave-culture and now someone else was in charge. And this was her first project, since she was only thirty years of age.
Pari wasn’t a bad leader, Tanja was sure. The corporate office had Indian origins, was about forty years old and with her long, black hair and the well toned body a respectable appearance. She was just grabbing her equipment, including a stun gun and adjusted her uniform. Tanja would have preferred to only travel with a scientific group, but she needed the money the corporation granted her and that made it their operation, with their rules. One of these rules included that the crew of a space ship, and tat included their group, too, was either male or female, no mixed crews. The corporation tried to avoid conflicts among the space-travelers on their sometimes year long journeys.
So, expect for Tanja, the European looking, brunette archeologist and Pari, the official leader of the group, their were also Meredith, the corporate technician, a stern looking blond about Tanja’s age. Then Cassandra, a biologist the corporation sent with them, even tho Tanja had explained that they didn’t needed one. She was an Italian girl with dark brown hair also about thirty years old. Next came Lucy, one of Tanja’s students, a young girl, her petite frame making her look somewhat displaced on a barren planet somewhere out of the colonized space. Dana, a sturdy woman of African origin was the geologist of the group, hired by the corporation to keep an eye open for valuable minerals, Tanja was yet glad to have a geologist in her group. Jenica was the security chief, of the group. Her strong Russian accent betryed her origin and her short, blond hair and uniform emphasized her profession. Armed like her was Melissa, she was already in her early forties, but with her slim body and curly brown hair still a looker. The next in the group was Ayako, another one of Tanja’s students, a cute Japanese girl, always a bit nervous since this was her first longer journey. Lastly, there was Esther, the groups linguist, a few years younger than Tanja, who was especially glad that she was here with her. The corporation wouldn’t have allowed her to join the expedition if they had known about their little secret.
Meredith examined the readings on a nearby control panel: “Air pressure and composition are perfect. Temperature within acceptable range. It’s save to get outside.” Pari opened the hatch and moved forward, but stopped almost instantly. She looked back to Tanja: “Miss Hain, shouldn’t it be you who steps on that planet first?”
A smile spread over the brunettes pretty face. They had agreed upon calling each other with their first names, but this official tone was an even more friendly invitation. Thankful she walked over to the hatch and almost jumped down the three steps to the surface.
The place they had landed on wasn’t overall friendly. It was a rocky plateau with no visible vegetation, to one side it was bordered by an escarpment, at least two hundred meters high, on the other side the plateau abruptly decreased, allowing a good overview over the surrounding jungle. The air was hot and humid.
“Hey look, a city!” Cassandra shouted out after she left the landing craft, pointing towards a hill about a mile away. Indeed there were towers rising out of the mist surrounding that hill, clear indications of a civilization.
“Yes, the first exploration group mentioned a small, preindustrial culture on this planet. These people aren’t aggressive, nor do hey have anything to offer that’s of interest, so the crew decided to leave them alone.” Meredith explained.
“But maybe they robbed the cave, or contaminated the remains of the cave culture?” Ayako assumed.
“Most likely not, the distribution of their villages indicates, that they avoid those places.” Esther answered.
Then Tanja saw it. The entrance to the cave was just a simple crevice, but the darkness beyond it indicated that this was actually something special. Excited she stepped closer: “Hey, Esther, look. There are carvings around the entrance.”
The redhead followed her superior: “Yes, you’re right. Interesting, they must be ancient, but the rain damaged most of it, I’ll try to copy as much as possible.” Esther took out a recorder and started to shoot the carvings.
“They look Arabian.” Lucy guessed.
“But most likely they are not.” Esther answered: “We’ve found such carvings on different planets where the cave culture had been. All carvings are different and are linked to the writings of the current inhabits of the planets. So, they originated after the cave culture vanished, a space-traveling culture wouldn’t use a different font on each planet.”
While Esther was still shooting the alien carvings, Jenica made a few steps into the cave. While the first few meters were still lighted by the daylight, the narrow corridor soon became pitch black. Jenica turned on her flashlight.
“Hey, hey! Tanja did you see this?” The security chief shouted towards her companions outside. A moment later, Tanja was at her side. Jenica moved her flashlight, letting it’s pool of light wander over the corridors wall. Wherever the light had touched the wall, a strange bluish-green light could be seen, almost like a trail following the spotlight.
“What is it?” Jenica asked sounding a little bit too precarious.
“Phosphorescing rock. That’s fascinating, they found some rocks like this on Gemal 7, but we never knew that the whole caves had this ability.”
“You think it could be dangerous in some way?”
“No, how could it, it’s only light, it’s a common phenomenon on earth. It’s not more dangerous then an emergency exit sign, okay?” Tanja ensured her.
Meanwhile Esther was done with her work and the whole group entered the cave. The corridor allowed only two girls to walk next to each other, so Tanja and Pari took the lead, followed by the rest of the crew.
Only a few meters into the mountain, they stopped again. Pari pointed at something on the ceiling, only a hand’s breadth over their heads. It was some kind of glassy plate, smooth and perfectly smooth, especially when compared with the rocky surface it was embedded in. It was semi-transparent, with green color.
“Dana could you please come here?” Tanja asked, suddenly glad they had a geologist with them.
“Isn’t that the same crystal they found on Pi XI?” Lucy asked.
“Yes, you’re right.” Tanja acknowledged: “But there, they found only a few fragments of it. I never thought of it as a part of the cave itself.”
“So what is it?” Pari asked.
“It’s some kind of crystal, we don’t know what it was for, I supposed it was some kind of building material, but why would they use it in the ceiling of a naturally cave.”
Dana was already examining the formation with her scanner: “Well, it is a crystal, but it’s structure seems alien to me, I think it has some interesting features. I would like to collect a sample for further studies, maybe I should expose it to electricity or a strong magnetic field, would be interesting to see how it would react.”
“Sure, why not.” Tanja told her.
“You think it’s solid?” Pari asked: “Can we walk under it?”
“Yes, yes, of course, it’s almost as solid as the rock itself and besides, it had been her for millenia.” Dana nodded.
While the geologist cut out the samples from the alien formation, the group continued their way. The corridor now lead down in a flat angle. Leading them deeper into the mountain with every step. Soon, they found the first junction. Tanja took out her pad. Luckily, this little electronic device also recorded the route they would take, therefore creating a quite useable map of the cave.
Going further, they found more crossroads and bifurcations,forming an entire labyrinth. Some of the corridors ended in empty rooms, and none of the scientist was able to tell whether they had been used as living rooms, storerooms or something entirely different. But finally, a wider corridor lead them downwards, right to a junction where six hallways met.
“You’re decision.” Pari said to Tanja. According to the scientists clock, it was already getting late, not that she knew when sun would set on this world, but they had been up for 20 hours now and she knew that they needed a rest before the real work would continue the next day. On the other hand, this was like cockaigne for her.
“How about we split up and explore all corridors at a time?” She suggested and when she saw Pari’s doubting face, she added: “We all have our pads and when we find another fork, we can easily return to this starting position.”
Pari nodded: “Okay, we’ll meet again here in half an hour, form teams!”
Except for the corridor they came from, there were five gateways left. So they explored them by twos. Tanja and Melissa explored the first corridor. It ended in a large room, about six meters wide and equally long. The walls consisted of the same glowing rock, but in this room, they found some kind of furniture.
“Could this be, well, their bedroom?” Melissa asked, circuiting one of the three blocks of solid stone. Tanja took some photos. Indeed the blocks had the size and shape of human beds, they even was a flat hollow on it’s surface.
“Maybe, I’m not sure, we know to little about this culture, but with some bedding on it, these things could have been quite tidy.”
“Or maybe they were altars, I’ve seen something like this on the holovision.” The brunette shrug her shoulders.
“Hm, yes, but that’s speculation, we’re here to learn more about this culture, maybe we’ll find something that will tell us exactly what this place is.”
“Whatever it is, I’m not feeling very comfortable here.” Melissa stated and Tanja noticed her hand on the gun.
“I’m more interested in these things.” Tanja changed the subject. She pointed at a short pillar beside one of the beds. It was about a meter high and maybe half a meter wide, compounded of the same rock that formed the beds and the whole cave. But it’s center was filled with the greenish crystal they already saw when they entered the cave.
“Wow! What is this place?” Lucy asked. The young student looked around in the huge hall. The room was almost circular and at least ten meters in diameter. It’s ceiling formed a dome that stud about six meters high.
“Don’t know, but it’s not Disneyland.” Cassandra answered. The walls of the dome hosted several niches, each one about two meters high and only half a meter deep. It reminded the biologist of attendant’s huts.
Lucy walked into the room slowly. The floor descended considerably and in the center of the dome they saw some kind of pond, filled with a green liquid.
“And I guess this isn’t jelly, right?” She joked.
Cassandra was already right beside the pond and examined it with her scanner: “No, no jelly, it mostly consists of water, no surprise, but I also receive signs of organic compounds and some minerals, too. Maybe this a a large colony of bacteria, or some algae.”
“Wouldn’t algae need sunlight?” Lucy objected.
“Not necessary, it’s also possible that they’ve learned to exploit inorganic compounds. But I can’t tell from here, I need to run more tests on the ship.”
Cassandra took out a small test tube and dove it into the liquid, while Lucy surveyed the niches.
“Uah. That’s disgusting!” Cassandra suddenly exclaimed. She had dipped the tube into the liquid to deep and some of the sticky substance had touched her hand.
“Is everything alright?” Lucy asked, quickly returning to the pond.
“Yes, I’m alright.” Cassandra answered, wiping away the remains of the liquid. “I’ll just have to wash my hands now.”
A while later, the five groups again met by the large junction. Tanja listened to the reports of the other teams. All had found similar “sleeping-rooms” like she did, only that some of them contained more doorways. The only exception was Cassandra’s and Lucy’s found. Tanja was more than excited to hear their report.
“Okay, we’ll really have to set up our camp now.” Pari said with authoritative voice and continued: “Meredith, Melissa, Ayako, you three go and get our baggage. The landing craft is to small for all of us and I wouldn’t want to sleep outside while there are natives on this world. Tanja, any objections?”
“No objections, no, the cave is solid and there is no risk getting lost with our equipment, it’s totally safe to stay here.” In fact, Tanja was more than thankful to stay inside the cave, they wouldn’t loose any time the next morning walking back into it, besides, now that she was here, she wanted to inhale the the atmosphere of this place as long as she could.
Soon after, all ten women had found their places on the hard ground, exhausted but quite contend with how this day went off. Jenica and Melissa installed a security system, programmed to alarm them whenever an alien creature would get near their sleeping place. Soon after, they fell into deep sleep.