💾 Archived View for lantashifiles.com › writing › hybridShadows › chapters › chapter01 › scene05.gmi captured on 2024-07-09 at 00:05:14. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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Kendra moved slowly into the cave. She did not have anything to light her say, but it didn't seem to matter. A luminescent moss was growing on the cave walls, and a very dull glow provided enough light for her to navigate by. This was a small cavern, and she could other caverns opened on her left and right. There was a tunnel directly ahead, flickering light coming from the tunnel. Here by the waterfall, the stone was slick, and the girl slipped as she moved away from the entrance and fell on her butt.
"Ouch!" she said out load, and her voice echoed around the caverns. She gingerly picked herself up off the stone, and moved to a drier part of the cave.
The beast she was following was here. It was walking into the tunnel, and moved around a bend. Kendra, watching her footing now, followed. She continued to keep a respectful distance from the creature. The tunnel was short, maybe 20 meters long, and soon she was at another cave portal.
Kendra stepped from the cave, into a valley filled with light. But it was not the light of the sun, but of some other source. The valley was about no more than two kilometers to a side, and surrounded on all sides by high cliffs. The morning was still young, and Kendra doubted that this valley saw much sunlight throughout the day, what with those mountains all about.
This valley has its own light, a glow that was rising from the land itself. It was filled with vegetation, ferns and flowers and here and there trees. The flowers were tall against Kendra, rising almost to her chest. They were beautiful, of many different colors, of red, blue, yellow, purple, orange. There were flowers that looked like roses, lilacs, hot pokers, sunflowers, foxglove, and even bluebells. But these flowers were bigger than anything she had seen from pictures of her homeworld, or the limited specimens that were kept aboard ship.
The glow rose from the flowers themselves.
The glow that lit up this valley seemed to come from the flowers and the trees about. It was still, with very little wind in this sheltered place. Here and there was the song of birds, hidden somewhere among the flowers and trees, and there were a lot of what looked like honey bees flying about among the flowers.
As she walked among the flowers, Kendra’s breath was taken away by the beauty of this place, this hidden valley. She ran her fingers over the top of the flowers, feeling their texture. Closing her eyes she took in the smell, all of the sweet fragrances that surrounded her. The fragrance of the flowers flowed through her, enveloped her.
She felt a bit dizzy, and her perception started to change. As she watched, the land about her seemed to shimmer, her vision blurred, and Kendra found herself suddenly off-balance. Kendra shook her head, trying to clear it, but found she could not. She turned and looked back to the entrance of the cave. She could see it, but it was fifty meters away now. Kendra's legs were becoming weak, and she knew she could not make it.
After what seemed like hours, even though it was probably just a few minutes, Kendra was back to the mouth of the cave. Slipping back inside, she turned back to look at the field again. It looked the same, gentle, serene, but Kendra knew better now. Something was wrong with it, poisonous, a trap. The shimmering, the blur, was still there, stronger than ever, but there was movement in the blur, somewhere near the moss bed she had sat upon. Kendra concentrated on the movement, and there, in the distance, she saw the large, incredible, majestic beast that she had followed down to the waterfall, and up to the cave. It was standing there, looking at her, and she again felt the emotional assault that it had hit her with earlier.
She stumbled around the corner, back into the cave. The feeling swarming over her stopped, but Kendra felt exhausted. Going into the first small cavern on this side of the cave complex, she looked for a small cliff-ledge, just about three meters up off the ground. Running her fingers along the rock, she found nooks to dig her fingers into, and pulled herself up, onto and over the small ledge. She rolled onto it, and looked back to the cavern. She could rest here for a few minutes, regain her strength.
Kendra closed her eyes. She felt darkness coming for her, but she could no longer resist. In a few more moment Kendra was asleep.
A long time later, just how long Kendra didn’t know, she opened her eyes again. Much more light was pouring into this cavern from the cave entrance. Kendra had a splitting headache, one not caused by her lying on the hard rock shelf, though she was certain that had not helped. But there was something more, a painful ache running through her body, her chest, limbs, and torso.
Something was broken. Something was broken not in her body, but in her mind, in her spirit. Kendra did not feel right. Rolling over onto her hands and knees, her vision seemed to lag behind the movements of her body, of her mind. A wave of nausea roiled through her, causing her to stop. She closed her eyes tight, and gritted her teeth, willing it to go away. After a few more moments, it was gone.
Kendra moved to the side of the ledge, and dropped heavily to the floor. Upon impact, she dropped to one knee, the experience of her lagging vision continuing. But there was nothing to it, Kendra had to force herself up, and to head back to the colony. Something was wrong, and it was time for her to find people she knew, to find a warm bed, and to lie down again.
She pushed herself back to her feet, and began the long trek back to the colony, this time walking, stumbling slowly, rather than the fast run that she had performed on the way out here.
"Kendra's signal is live again," Lieutenant Goya said, swiveling her chair to face the captain.
"Condition?" Leonard McKnight queried.
"She's... not good. Her vital signs are all over the map. Kendra's heart is racing one moment, and then running at 60 beats a minute the next. Her temperature is down, 34.4 degrees. She might have been injured."
"On screen," the captain ordered.
A moment later one of the bridge's main view screens lit up with view of the valley. It was zoomed out, but a small figure could be seen walking unevenly among the trees. The picture was blurry, and within a few seconds static covered the screen.
"I'm sorry," Goya said. "She is too close the the rim. The atmosphere is interfering with the picture."
The bridge crew had all turned to view the shaky image on the view screen. It was becoming increasingly difficult to analyze data from orbit, or by drone, or by any automated means. There was an unease in the Song about the lack of technical capability planet-side. This was one more instance of what the Celestial Dawn was facing in orbit, and the danger that the interference could pose to the colony below.
"If we lose Kendra Furnandiz, she will be the first colonist to die, though we had some close calls with beasts in the valley." Lieutenant Nickels stated. "Do you want me to send out a drone to pick her up?"
"Will a drone work that close to the valley wall?" the captain asked.
Lieutenant Nickels frowned. Electronics failed more the farther you got away from the center of Parimyr Valley.
"No, hold on that," Captain McKnight said. "She is part of a non-hybrid unit, correct?"
"Yes, captain," Nickels replied.
Leonard's sight faded as he accessed the roster of the non-Hybrid crew. In his mind's eye, he looked at the command structure, those she had worked with aboard ship, and those that were new to her experience working on the planet.
"Kendra seems to have a good working relationship with Matthew Utrasti. They worked together on a larger maintenance ship, a Rozhdenie Zvezd'i. Send Matthew out to get her. Have him take a rover as far as he can, still at a safe distance from the valley wall, and then proceed the rest of the way by foot."
"How do you want this order relayed?" Lieutenant Nickels asked.
"Quitely," the captain answered. "Have it come down through the ranks, quickly, so we get to her, but let's not alert everyone that we are sending out someone to rescure her."
"With all due respect, why are we treating her with kid gloves?" asked Goya. "For her insubordination, shouldn't she been arrest and detained in the brig."
"It may come to that," McKnight answered. "But sometimes we find what we need to know from non-hybrids by letting events play out. We cannot just interface with their thoughts on the Song."
Lieutenants Goya and Nickels exchanged a look, one of the methods of communication that could still be private, not tracked, indexed, and stored on the Song. Goya could tell that Nickels also disapproved.
"I will issue the order," Andre Nickels replied. "We'll get her back inside quickly." He turned his sight inward again, onto the song, and quietly issued the order. He suppressed his feelings.
The captain was being irrational. This would bring trouble.