Free The Caverns of Mare Cetus by Jim Erjavec Page B

seemed continually drawn to the narrow passage on the far end of the spring, as if it was beckoning to her. She swam into the middle of the pool and stared into the murky opening, the light from the lamps barely penetrating it. As she searched the shadows, looking for something, anything, she tried to reason with the feelings she was getting. Though the passage appeared to be a clone of all the other passages she had seen so far, there was something intriguing about it. She swam closer and gazed into it, imagining it crying out to her. Rene. Come to me. Cast your eyes upon a history that has been eternally cloaked in darkness. Come now, or forever miss your chance . The seduction was overpowering.
       She swam to the bank, grabbed a lamp and her Vimap, then swam back to the opposite end. She climbed out of the water and stepped into the passage. Immediately the cool air collided with the thin veneer of water covering her body, sending a thousand glistening goose bumps cascading across her skin. She shivered, then looked down at her nudity. What are you doing, Rene? You're going to freeze your ass off. Go back and get your clothes. This is totally shameless, not to mention—stupid. What would Hunter think if he found you doing this, what would he say… She glanced toward her clothing, then scoffed out loud. "No! Not this time. You're not going to win, Ramon. You want me to feel ashamed of my body—well, it's not going to happen. I'm in control of me—you aren't. To hell with you…"
       She started walking slowly into the passage, carefully examining its walls, but she found nothing unusual—only thin-bedded rocks— brown, lifeless, drab. Still, she couldn't overcome the feeling she had a reason for being there. Her pace quickening, she pressed forward a short distance. Something seemed to be luring her on. Luring her? Something? Ludicrous! Abruptly she stopped. What in God's name was she doing? She was naked, totally naked, and completely alone in an unexplored passage. She didn't even have her com—it was still on her jacket.
        This is insane, she thought, then pictured Ramon's face—mocking her, calling her sexless, frigid, afraid. "I am not frigid," she said loudly as if retorting to Ramon. "And I am not afraid." She started forward again and rounded a corner, immediately noticing a sparkling in the wall on her left. She stopped. The featureless limestone had been transformed, magically, like a curtain opening at a play. The wall was filled with thousands of embedded, rounded, glistening greenishbrown pebbles. Many of the golf ball-sized pebbles were formed in long, parallel, horizontal chains, some grouped in spirals, and others in convoluted, snaking forms that resembled strings of beads glued on the wall. As she turned, she gaped. The entire passage had been metamorphosed into masses of pebbles, and as she searched through the maze of shapes surrounding her, she saw something new at every glance.
       She stepped back from the wall and was instantly astounded. As if she had been standing too close to a Rembrandt painting, seeing only globs of meaningless colors, she realized now the shapes weren't random but were repetitive. The spirals at each end of the dense, nearly perfectly horizontal layers were proportional in size to the vertical width of the layers and appeared to mark the ends of the horizontal beds. The horizontal groups became gradually less horizontal near the top and transitioned into convoluted groups above them, which in turn transitioned into another group of perfectly level pebbles above that. Every so often, places within the horizontal pebbles were filled in with limy sand, which obscured the rocks behind them. Though she wanted to deny it, it almost appeared as if each sandy area was a tiny refuge, protected by the safety of the structure surrounding them.
       "I have to record this for Ari." She slowly waved her Vimap over one wall, then turned around to record a panoramic