The Colonists were unfriendly and uncommunicative as they led me a merry dance away from the Miners' Train and into what they said was a lava tube. They told me to continue along it toward the Great Plain, and that what I wanted to see was on the way. When I tried to ask them some questions, they became quite hostile.
I wasn't about to get into an argument with them, and so did what they told me. I walked away, at a brisk pace to start with, but then stopped once I was out of sight. I wasn't convinced I was going in the right direction. I was suspicious that they were trying to get me lost in the maze of tunnels, so I backtracked and…
At this point Dr. Burrows clicked his tongue against his teeth again and shook his head.
…in the process, I became completely lost.
He whisked the page over as if he was still annoyed at himself, then scanned his description of the empty house that he'd discovered, and the surrounding huts.
He moved past the entry as if it didn't interest him much, to a smeary, dirty page. His handwriting, never very legible at the best of times, was even worse here, and his hastily written sentences ran across the page at an array of different angles, blissfully ignoring the ruled lines. In places, his sentences were even written on top of one another, in a kind of literary pick-up sticks. At the bottom of three successive pages, the word LOST was scrawled in large, increasingly more erratic capitals.
"Messy, messy," he admonished himself. "But I was in a bad way."
Then a passage in the entry caught his eye, and he read it out loud.
I can't truly say for how long I have roamed through this hotchpotch of passages. At times all hope has deserted me, and I have begun to resign myself to the fact that I might never emerge from them, but it has all been wroth it now…
Directly below it, a subheading proudly announced THE STONE CIRCLE. On the next pages were sketch after sketch of the stones comprising the underground monument he'd stumbled across. He'd not only recorded the positions and shapes of the stones themselves, but on each page had drawn circles in the corners, like the view through a magnifying glass, recording in painstaking detail the symbols and the strange inscriptions chiseled into their faces. His spirits had soared at the discovery, despite his increasing hunger and thirst. Not knowing how long he had to make his supplies last, each day he'd been forcing himself to consume as little as he could.
A self-satisfied grin played on his face as he inspected these pages, admitting his labors.
"Perfect, perfect."
Then he stopped as he came to the next page, pursing his lips with an unuttered, "Ohhhh!" as he read the heading:
He'd written a couple of lines below this:
After finding the Stone Circle, I thought my luck was in. Little did I realize I was to find something that, in my opinion, is of equal or greater importance. The caves were filled with tablets, scores of them, all with writing not dissimilar to that cut into the menhirs of the Stone Circle.
Dozens of pages with drawings of the tablets followed, skillful pictures of the writing carved on their faces, all meticulously copied. But, as he turned the pages, they became less carefully drafted, until it looked as if a young child had been drawing them.
I HAVE TO KEEP WORKING was written so forcibly under one of the final, slapdash sketches that the pencil lines, pressed deep into the page, had even torn the paper in places.
I MUST DECIPHER THIS WRITING! IT IS THE CLUE TO WHO LIVED DOWN HERE! I HAVE TO KNOW. I HAVE TO…
With a finger, he felt the impressions of his words in the journal, trying to recall his state of mind at that instant. It was hazy. The food had all gone, and he had continued to work feverishly, with scant regard for his water supplies. When he found they, too, had run out, it had taken him completely by surprise.
Still trying to remember, he looked at the note he'd scrawled in a neater, almost despairing way, in the middle of an outline of a stone tablet he had never finished drawing:
I must keep working. My strength is deserting me. The stones become heavier and heavier as I lug them from the piles to examine them. I live in fear that I might drop one. I have to st
It ended there. He had no recollection of what had happened next, except that in a kind of delirium he had staggered off in search of a spring and, not finding one, had somehow managed to get himself back to the Tablet Caves.
After a blank page there was DAY? and the words:
Coprolites. I keep debating whether I'd still be alive if the two youngsters hadn't chanced upon me and fetched the adults. Probably not. I must have been in a bad way. I have a mental picture of the strange figures leaning over my journal, their lights crisscrossing as they peered at the pages on which I'd drawn my sketches, but I'm not sure if I really saw this or if it's just my mind telling me what might have happened.
"I digress. This is no good," he said sternly to himself, shaking his head. "Yesterday's entry! I must finish yesterday's entry." He fanned through the pages until he found the one where he'd started, and put pencil to paper once more:
In the morning, after I'd suited up, I was making my way down to the food stores to collect my breakfast, through the communal area where a group of the Coprolite children were playing a game somewhat akin to marbles. Must have been a dozen or so of the youths, of varying ages, squatting down and rolling these large marbles, made from what appeared to be polished slate, across a clear-swept area of ground. They were trying to knock over a carved stone bowling pin that vaguely resembled a man.
Taking turns, they flicked the marbles at it, and when they had all had their goes the pin was still standing. One of the smaller children handed me a marble. It was lighter than I expected, and I dropped it a few times to start with (still not used to the gloves) and then, with some difficulty, I finally managed to manipulate it into position between my thumb and forefinger. I was just rather clumsily trying to aim it when — imagine my surprise! — the gray sphere suddenly came to life! It uncurled and scurried over my palm! It was a huge wood louse, the likes of which I've never seen before.
I have to say, I was so astounded, I dropped it again. It had similarities to an armadillidium vulgare, a pill wood louse, but on steroids! It had multiple pairs of articulated legs, which it used to great effect, scuttling away at a rate of knots as several of the children followed in hot pursuit. I could hear the others giggling away in their suits; they thought it was hilarious.
Later that day I saw a couple of the more senior members of the encampment preparing to leave. They were touching the heads of their dust suits together, quite possibly conversing with each other, though I have never heard their language. For all I know, it might be English.
I followed them and they didn't seem to mind — they never do. We climbed out of the encampment, somebody rolling the boulder back behind us to block the entrance after we exited. The fact that their encampments are excavated into the floor of the Great Plain and the side passages leading off it, or sometimes even cut into its roof, renders them almost invisible to the casual observer. I tagged along behind the two Coprolites for several hours until we left the Great Plain, taking a passage that dipped steeply down. As it leveled out, I found we were in some type of port area.