MINNIE: M’s only. Our audio’s inop. I’m all clear now. Aim for my landing spot and hold balls. Infra on high.
JOHN: Okay. Clear out of the way.
Minnie kicked and paddled downward into the hole in the side wall. Semi-transparent root-like hairs protruded from the craggy tube’s top. Even with the infra, she couldn’t see more than a few meters ahead. She accessed her suit controls and enabled the helmet’s infra emitters. The tunnel was suddenly alight, blinding like daytime, and she quickly decreased her optic sensitivity.
JOHN: Right behind you.
MINNIE: Just turned on my emitters. You can reduce your sensitivity.
JOHN: Already done. That was blinding.
Minnie sighed, fogging her visor for a moment.
MINNIE: How long is this tunnel?
JOHN: Should curve upward into main cave soon.
Just as his M popped up, the path of the tunnel began sloping upward.
The tube shrank and tightened around her, dangling roots grazing over her visor and helmet like long brittle fingers. Aether’s scent entered Minnie’s nostrils, Aether’s presence beside her, stretched out in their bed, stroking Minnie’s hair, helping her to fall asleep.
Her helmet scraped against the jagged roof, jolting her senses. She’d closed her eyes.
He’s going to have to say something about that.
JOHN: You okay?
MINNIE: Fine. Cavern ahead. Switching to therm.
The tunnel widened out in all directions like a funnel on its side. Minnie stopped herself a meter below the glassy water surface. John drifted up beside her. She scanned the vast cavern for heat, finding only subtle hotspots on the ceiling and walls.
JOHN: Looks like only plantlife and microbes. We’ll still need to sweep the rest of the tunnels and subcaverns.
Minnie deleted her M with the same conclusions and proceeded upwards to the surface.
JOHN: Are we sure the air in here isn’t toxic?
MINNIE: You tell me. Does it have any surface supply?
They stepped carefully up the slippery slope until the ground flattened out. Minnie switched back to infra and surveyed the scene. Small puddles and stalagmites carpeted the ground beneath a thousand stalactites. Many had joined into columns thick and thin. As they walked to the other end of the cavern, the walls tapered in as if by a belt at a waist, then widened again into a small subcavern. At the smaller cave’s far side, Minnie spotted a concentration of thin columns. The only other tunnel into the cavern was blocked off by a hundred reedy pillars, like delicate prison bars, along with an equal number of unjoined stalagmites and stalactites. It looked like a prehistoric fish mouth full of deadly teeth, but what it meant was nothing larger than a mouse could enter the cavern via that tunnel. All over the cave, the stalagmites jutting from the ground—thousands of years in the making—confirmed they’d never been visited by Hynka, or anything else of concern.
JOHN: The air is fine for now. Also, if you look at the fragile cave features, you can tell nothing’s been in here. It’s all been undisturbed for centuries, at least.
I know. But I don’t need to tell you I know.
Minnie removed her helmet and sucked in a breath of the cool, moist air. There was a subtle sulfuric scent, like old eggs. Eggs. Other than the artificial sensory input of her game, she hadn’t smelled anything remotely appetizing in decades.
Food…
They’d soon need to recommence ingestion and digestion. They only had three days of supplement-infused water. Fortunately, this had been planned before they left Earth. The SSKs had meds and calorie bars to aid the process, but it’d be painful. The mere idea of swallowing solids made Minnie’s throat protest. And they’d eventually need to source sustenance from a planet without much to offer. The SSK only contained a couple weeks’ worth of calories.
Minnie loosened and removed her pack, setting it down in the cave’s only area that was flat, dry, and free of head or knee-cracking formations. John was squatting in front of his, fishing around inside. Minnie unsealed the top of her suit and peeled it away from her chest. The cavern air was even colder than she’d expected, but she needed to be out of the suit, free of the added weight. Conceptually, Epsy’s 1.5 g hadn’t seemed all that drastic a change, but paired with the suit and helmet, full water veins, and loaded backpack, it felt like she was carrying around a horse.
John sat down in front of a little contraption, popped it open, and expanded it into a box shape.
“What’s that?” she asked. It felt strange to speak again. Strange perhaps because they were, for the time being, safe. They could now discuss things besides that which was immediately required for survival. She could say what needed to be said.
“Heater. It’s seven-C in here. Probably still best to build the shelter and sleep inside.” The device began to glow orange, bathing the cavern in light, probably for the first time ever.
“Right,” Minnie said as she stepped out of her boots. “That thing powerful enough to raise the ambient temp in here?”
She glanced down, realized she was in nightclothes, and didn’t hear John’s lengthy response. She’d just thrown on whatever her hands had found in the wardrobe. Thin PJ pants and a draping top that reached her thighs. It was one of Aether’s.
How much time had passed? She looked at her clock. Just one hour ago they’d been in orbit, Minnie sleeping peacefully.
“You know it’s only been an hour?” She spoke without intent, simply sharing the surreality.
John merely looked at her eyes for an instant, then picked a little case out of his SSK. He walked into the darkness at the far end of the cavern.
“What are you doing?” she called.
“Launching a dragonfly into the blocked tunnel. See where it leads or if there’s anything we need to worry about in there.”
The high-pitched buzz of the dragonfly echoed in the cave for a minute as John fumbled with a headlight. His shadow stretched across the damp floor and swept back and forth as he messed with the tiny flying probe. The buzz grew louder as it lifted off his hand, hovered for a beat, then zipped between columns into the dark tunnel. John stood in silence at the end of the cave, presumably watching the dragonfly’s progress through his fone.
“Anything interesting?” Minnie called.
“Not yet.” He walked back and sat down on the other side of the heater, rubbing his hands together and holding them out to warm up.
The sound of the dragonfly gradually dissipated to nothing. Now there was only the heater’s soft, infinite exhale.
John glanced up at her through his eyebrows. “We should probably talk now.”
Yes, we should, she thought.
She unwrapped and shook out the survival blanket, allowing its tiny pores to sponge in air and expand. Piling it into a little circle in front of the heater, she sat down on it and folded her legs under each other. John bent his legs in front of him and rested his arms on his knees. His giant shadow stretched out and painted black the cavern behind him.
Minnie began before he could start. “Why aren’t we in the Backup Habitat right now, sitting in the mission room doing a postmortem?”
John appeared stunned. He rubbed his right temple as he stammered “Well… I wasn’t going to—”