Fiction

“Just going to have to rearrange us a bit, Captain, so I can reach the oars. Can you sit up properly?”

There was no way her knee was allowing that. After too much awkward fumbling in the dark, the Captain ended up reclining, feet on the edge, head on the other woman’s knee.

“How do you plan to find the exit, exactly?”

“Well, I have two plans, you’ll be pleased to hear. The worst involves me paddling until we hit a wall, and then slowly making our way along it in hopes I catch the rope. The other is simpler–” and she was leaning over the Captain, dripping on her as she fumbled along the edge of the raft – “as long as the instructions weren’t out of date–” and then a loud velcro noise and a self satisfied snort told the Captain she’d found what she was looking for. “Watch your eyes!”

The first flare screamed to life.

She held it high as they both craned their necks to find the cavern opening – and of course, they’d ended up almost over at the far wall from it. They both sighed.

The Navigatrix wordlessly handed the flare to the Captain, and picked up the oars and started paddling.

The emergency life raft was not particularly hydrodynamic, and they weren’t even halfway across when the first flare died.

“Hand me the next one?”

“I can paddle in the dark for a little; let’s save them for getting up the rope.”

“Right.”

Assessing the climb, the Captain sighed.

That made the Navigatrix stop paddling. Silence descended again, but now in much closer proximity.

“…Navigatrix?”

“Are you angry with me, Captain?”

“I’m always angry with you.”

“I’ve always thought of you more as… grumpy.”

“Fine. I’m grumpy with you.”

A quiet snort.

“Look, do you need me to do the paddling? I’m done with this cave.”

“Oh, shush, you never let me rescue you.”

The Captain felt a gentle hand on her hair, which made her jump, which made the Navigatrix pull her hand away just as fast.

“Just – just get us out of here, Nav.”

Both headlamps swept to the far end of the cave, where an enormous fountain of water was pushing up from the floor.

“Shit–”

“RIGHT NOW, get off the floor!”

Faster than the captain had expected, the Navigatrix leapt over to the nearest stack of ruins, and started climbing up.

The water had coalesced into a roiling wave, growing taller as it pushed down the cave towards them. The Captain bit her lip as she watched her crewmate drag herself and a significant weight of equipment up steeper and steeper slopes of bricks. The noise was filling the air – and then the water was right beneath her, rising much too fast, and the Captain could only yell as it snagged her legs and started pulling her away from the tower – and then there was a POP! – somehow audible over the rush of the waves – and the liferaft had inflated.

The Captain couldn’t watch any further, though, as the pillar of blocks she was sitting on was hit by the torrent and the shock nearly knocked her off again; she was out flat on her side, arms akimbo, breathing with relief, when the water bubbled up to touch her dangling feet, and then some further thrust of the tide pushed a wave right over the top and knocked her back in the drink.

It was worse this time – her knee was screaming as she tried to kick to the surface, and there was a brutally strong undertow dragging her deeper into the black water, clogged with silt and bubbles – and then she was pushed up to the surface again and knocked against stone.

It took out her headlamp, but mercifully not her skull, and she had the wherewithal to find an edge to hold on to as the water swept her up and down, back and forth, in a now very dark cave. Where was the Navigatrix? Where was the raft? Was the Captain getting them both killed?

She thought she saw a flicker of a yellow headlamp beam, as the water started to calm and the roar of the tide in the cave started to quiet.

“Nav!” 

And, oh, what a relief, to hear in return,

“Captain! My light’s out, keep shouting and I’ll find you.”

So the Captain called “Marco!” and the Navigatrix called back “Polo!” and made a symphony of splashing noises, and the water finally calmed down, and then the squeaky rubber of the life raft bumped against the Captain’s outstretched arm, and an invisible Navigatrix pulled her up.

And for a second, or a minute, or ten, they lay on the bottom of the life raft gasping and breathing and then laughing. It wasn’t the first or the last time they were going to pull a stunt like that, and they both knew it.

“You fucking daredevil idiot,” the Captain wheezed, and the Navigatrix punched her in the arm, or near the arm,

“At least this idiot brought basic equipment with them into the cave!”

– and then they both dissolved into laughter and snorts and gasps until finally, the mania passed, and the Captain felt the Navigatrix sit up again.

The drips were louder, echoing all over the cavern. She didn’t feel like sitting up and checking, but the Captain thought the water must be meters lower than before. She was probably going to be stuck on this island till high tide again.

That is, unless she was on a particularly climbable island, and the squared off edges of the flat bit did not bode well. Ruins, ruins, everywhere on this damn moon.

“It’s like the whole damn thing is built of these horrible blocks!”

“The what? Oh-” and the Navigatrix was moving.

The Captain could hear her voice, talking to someone outside as the last pieces of disturbed gravel rattled down the cavern. Disturbingly, she didn’t hear them splash.

Caving in to curiosity, she sat up and turned her headlamp back on.

“Oh, shit.”

The water was gone – completely gone from anywhere she could see. And she was indeed resting atop a steep pile of overlarge stone bricks, stacked upon one another haphazardly, stretching hundreds of feet in the air above a sandy, silty floor. In fact, it was one of many.

In fact, it really did look like the only thing holding up a layer of sandy soil and foliage was piles and stacks of these worn out bricks. What the Captain had read as cliff walls were, closer to the bottom of the drained lake, clearly made of the same blocks.

The lake floor was sand and gravel and rubble, except for where the current of the draining water had revealed, underneath, bricks. In fact, it almost looked like the vertical piles were originally evenly spaced, as if this … cavern, had been made intentionally.

Grimacing, the Captain looked up to the ceiling – and mercifully she saw something that looked more like a natural cave. There were mineral deposits dripping down, and thin tendrils that could be roots. If there were ruins involved, they were hidden well.

Scuffling noises returned, the scrabble of gravel as it moved underfoot.

“Navigatrix?”

“Just had to secure the rope; heading your way now.”

“No, wait! Tide’s out, it could come back at any moment!”

But the Navigatrix’s headlamp was illuminating the tunnel now, growing brighter. The glare flooded the Captain’s eyes as she made it to the end of the tunnel.

“Lovely to see you, Captain!” Then the beam pointed away, at the rest of the cave, and the Captain could see her, loaded down with climbing harnesses, rolled-up raft, another rope, who knows what else. “Not what I was expecting, I have to admit.”

She started winching herself down the steep cliff side.

“Navigatrix, seriously, it’s going to flood again, just wait.”

“No – huff – I don’t think – hff – – that I’ll bother with waiting.”

She paused to salute the Captain.

The Captain pulled herself closer to the edge of the flat block she was reclining on, to better see as the Navigatrix landed on the cave floor and shook out the cramps from her legs and arms. She immediately bent down to poke at some rubble.

“Hey! No time for research!”

“There’s bones here, Captain.” She pulled out what was visibly a femur, even from a distance. “Human bones.”

“Are you – are you collecting them?”

Muffled, as she was half bent to the floor sifting through sand, the Navigatrix shouted “I promised the Engineer!”

Finally she started walking over the slimy, rubble-strewn terrain, picking her way towards the base of the Captain’s tower of blocks.

The Captain strained her ears desperately to try and catch any hint of water crashing back into the cave. The drips felt like a cacophony.

She looked down, and once again the Navigatrix was bent over something half buried in the sand.

“You are going to get very, very wet if you don’t hurry up!”

“Do you still have your scanner, Captain?”

“What?” The Captain had to pause to check. “No, no it fell first, then me.”

The Navigatrix pulled a rattling pile of rust out of the sand. “Well, I found it.” She tucked it into her pack. “Trust me, you’ll want to see it.”

“Could you please focus?”

“It’s fine, Captain, I’m sure–”

And that’s when the gurgling noise came back, but much louder.

Wind whistled across the cave mouth, sending a deeper hum around the cavern. The Captain tried bending her injured knee again, gently, and it felt fine, totally fine and then– “Fuck!”

“Captain! What are you doing down there?”

She breathed slowly through her nose until the pain spike passed. 

“I’ve fucked up my knee. It’s fine.” Well. “I mean it’s not fine, but it’s… I’m fine. They’re sending a splint, right?”

“Splint, boat, rope, more rope – anything else?”

“Wouldn’t mind a stiff drink and a beach umbrella, actually.”

A snort was just audible, echoing down into the cavern. And then silence once more. The Captain focused on massaging her knee, which had swollen up enough her pant leg was tight around it.

They had enough medical supplies on the ship itself that she wasn’t worried long term about it; short of a full break, they could handle most things in the field. She’d be off it for a few days, but that was fine. She could supervise; no more research trips, stick to repairs.

It did hurt like a bitch, though. Maybe shock had worn off? She was shivering a bit still; maybe it hadn’t quite passed. How long a trip was it back to camp if you were jogging? How fast could the Stowaway run for supplies – and how heavy was the inflatable raft?

The logistics of her own rescue were fascinating, and the Captain was deep in thought about how best to optimize the immediate circumstances when the Navigatrix mumbled something down the tunnel.

“You what?”

“I said it’s – it’s very peaceful on this moon.”

“Besides my peril?”

No response to that, of course.

“No, no, it’s a very peaceful sort of spelunking disaster, my mistake.”

Quiet. Then.

“Captain,” almost too quiet to hear, down the tunnel and into the cavern, “do you miss Lucy?”

Oh, no. No no no. Not now. “Don’t do this, Navigatrix.”

“It’s just, I thought I missed her before, but now we’re here – I just, I really feel it, her absence.”

The Captain flopped back onto her back in frustration. Why NOW. “We all miss her, for sure, but, it’s been a long time–”

“Well, now, no. It actually has been almost no time at all–”

“–that’s not what I mean, you pedantic–”

“I think we’ve had maybe a month of linear time–”

“She’s gone! She’s gone, and we all had that meeting about it, and why are you bringing her up now?”

Wind whistled.

“I just keep thinking that she would have gotten a kick out of all this.”

“She made it clear she didn’t enjoy any of this when she LEFT US.”

“Captain, are you still this mad at her?”

The Captain was overwhelmed by frustration with the Navigatrix; so much, her eyes pricked and she had to blink and blink and whisper “fuck” under her breath a few times.

“I’m not mad. I’m disappointed.”

“Are you sad?”

“Disappointed!”

It was amazing, how audible the Navigatrix’s skeptical silence was down in the cave. The Captain rubbed her face, extremely furious.

“Captain – I’m not going to tell you what to do, but you’re allowed, if you like, to miss your little sister.”

“She doesn’t deserve to be missed.”

Well, that came out of her own mouth, didn’t it. Might as well dig this pit even deeper. “She’s the one who abandoned us! We were a crew. We had a job to do!”

“We all know we’re only doing them for fun now, Captain.”

“They’re still jobs!”

“Well, don’t you ever think about retiring?”

“What?!” Why was she bringing this up? “No! Why! Are you planning to leave me too?” The Captain cringed to herself as her voice cracked. “Because just – just tell me and fuck off so I can find another navigator.”

That got a snort.

“I might be the least likely of this crew to do such a thing, Captain.”

It sounded like a joke, but the Captain heard some of that gentleness in her voice that so often pissed her off. She must be out of adrenaline, because she had to admit she almost felt comforted.

No need to say it aloud, though.

If it was possible for the subsequent silence to be awkward, after all their years in absurd situations together, it somehow was. The Captain felt the silence descend again, so complete that she thought she could make out the subtle sound of deep water draining out of the cave.

She was starting to hear drips, presumably as the cave walls were exposed, and whatever slime grew in an unlit lake shed its water. She could even, she was absolutely certain, hear the Navigatrix breathing, as if the tunnel magnified it into intimacy across the distance.

It was awful, absolutely unbearable. Silence was not an option.

“How, uh, how is everyone?”

“At camp?” The Navigatrix sounded as sulking in a cave was a perfectly normal thing for the Captain to do.

“Yes at camp! Did the Engineer’s cipher work?”

“Oh, her cipher. She revved it up, yes. She was able to start the engines from shore to power it.”

“But did it work, Navigatrix! Could you talk to the Stowaway?”

“Oh, no, not at all. Not even remotely.” The Navigatrix paused as if in respect. “The Engineer said that she may have to do a hard reset on the computer tonight after the shit she put it through today.”

“Goddammit.”

Silence again, with definite audible drips now, torturously echoey.

“Navigatrix!”

“Yes, Captain?”

“What, uh-” Topic, Captain, find a topic, what did they normally talk about? “-what made worried about the Stowaway?”

“Oh, well, I’d be delighted to tell you. Just a moment.”

Scrabbling noises again, the sandy crunch of footsteps receding, footsteps returning, and a flap of what had to be the Navigatrix’s cape, and then.

“Just checking that we’re actually alone, Captain.”

“If it’s this big, why am I only hearing about it now?”

“Well, I did warn you-”

The Captain felt the comfortable irritation returning finally.

“You gave me a cryptic warning and then never mentioned it again! How worried could you really be?”

The drips echoed in the silence.

“Well, my Captain, I wouldn’t like anyone to think I worry.” She sighed, audibly. “But-” she continued, “it was hard to put my finger on for a few days. Hard to be certain without being able to check. I didn’t have any further information for you at the time.”

“Why are you so infuriatingly cryptic!” The Captain returned the audible sigh as loudly as she could.

The Navigatrix did not snap back with some glib remark immediately. The Captain let herself breathe out some of her frustration, however helpful she found it. Then, gently, calmly:

“Feet back on the ground, Navigatrix, and tell me what’s wrong.”

Drips, breathing, a distant glug as some natural drain continued pulling the water away. Gravel skittering down the tunnel and falling into the water as the Navigatrix moved around up there for some reason. This was so much worse than face to face conversations.

“I’m going to need you to let me get cryptic, Captain.” The Captain kept her thoughts about that to herself this time. “It’s been strange times for us, quite literally. And I didn’t pay much attention to our … guest… when they arrived.”

“You were always in the Orb.”

“Yes.” A huff, echoing into the cavern from the tunnel. “Yes, I was always in the Orb. And if I could, now, I think I would still be in there. Time is beautiful, and I miss looking at it.” 

That was a strangely vulnerable statement, and it sounded like it cost her to say it aloud.

“But since I am forced out of the Orb, trapped here, I have been paying more attention to the Stowaway.”

“We all have,” the Captain grumbled up the tunnel. “Have you seen them use a knife?”

“Yes, but that’s not it. Their voice – or whatever it is we hear -”

“Nonsense noises.”

“No. Well. I don’t know. But Captain – they sound like the Orb.”

“They- what?” The Navigatrix did not repeat herself. “The Orb. Navigatrix, do you think the Orb speaks to you?”

“Well I didn’t, but now I’m worried that it might be trying, the same as them!”

“You told me it was inert! Are you saying it’s conscious?”

“No, but…” She sighed. “…what if it’s relaying someone else’s voice?”

That gave the Captain a shiver. She’d gotten so used to weaving in and out of time, she had forgotten how little they really knew about the Orb. The idea of someone eavesdropping on them through it was surprisingly credible.

“We need to get at it. I need you to figure this out, Nav.”

“I know.” The Navigatrix did sound worried, which was actually really worrying. “I know, I know, I know, but if I hold it again it will be very, very hard for me to look away.”

The Captain let that sink in.

“If I have to climb in it and drag you out so you can tell me if we were sabotaged, so be it.”

The Captain was cold, somehow still damp after hours of lying in the dark, headlamp off, trying to conserve battery while she let her knee calm down. Flexing it wasn’t too bad now, but putting weight on it was unsteady and threw her back into the water once already.

Climbing steep cliff walls was no joke with all four limbs; she wasn’t sure how she was going to get up them with only three, but, as she kept repeating aloud, she’d been in much worse scrapes than this before. Now, normally she wasn’t alone for them, but the point stood.

Normally, of course, she would be lectured at length by her crew; she thought fondly of the Bosun’s robust vocabulary of swear words, punchy little four letter additions to the mood, whether tense or triumphant; she could almost hear the Engineer’s elaborate threats and curses delivered in a spirit of motivating dialogue, despite the content thereof. She could remember, so clearly it hurt, Lucy’s stubbornly optimistic listing of all the cocktails and novelty foods they were going to eat once they were out of whatever scrape they’d all fallen in.

She could bring to mind the perpetual absentminded hum of the Navigatrix, some tuneless noise that was annoying in how relaxed it always sounded, as if she never really was worried, no matter how dire the straits they were in.

And honestly, after hours in the echoing dark listening to the kind of silence a huge body of utterly still water made, her ears were starting to hallucinate. It was as if that irritating hum was getting louder, realer, the more she thought about it – and that couldn’t bode well.

And then, blythely, her imagined Navigatrix shouted “Captain! Any chance you’re in this hole?” and, well, what was there to do but to reply?

“Navigatrix, you’re going to need a lot of rope, and an inflatable raft, and a splint, and hurry up!”

“Let me relay that to my guide here -” and then the imagined, or real, or did it even matter? – the Navigatrix could be heard, ever so quietly, talking to someone else. The Captain laid her head back down on the stone, and reached over to the water, to prove she was really awake – and confusingly, the water was farther away than she remembered.

That also didn’t bode well. She bit the bullet, sat up again and switched on the headlamp. Mercifully, the lake was still there – she hadn’t imagined it – but it was at least a foot lower than she remembered.

“Well, Captain, the Stowaway’s heading back for your shopping list, but I think I’ll stay here and keep you company by shouting into this hole.”

“Is it sunrise already?”

“Is it what? Sunrise? I can’t see it over the ridge –” Frustratingly, scuffling noises echoed down the tunnel.

And then silence, long enough for the Captain to return to her prior suspicion that this was all a stress dream, and yet; 

“I’m guessing it’s about half an hour after sunrise, maybe?”

“Ah shit, shit, the tide’s going out in here -”

“Are you … swimming?”

“You’re gonna need more rope.”

“Oh, I’ll tell camp -” and then a very confusing array of beeps and static echoed off the rock walls. A robotic version of the Engineer’s voice could be heard crackling through the static, and she and the Navigatrix had a clipped shouting match about rope and climbing equipment.

Further beeps and then silence, and then further scuffling.

“What are you doing? Don’t come down here and fall in as well!”

“I would never. I’m sitting down in the tunnel so I don’t have to bend over to talk to you.”

“Real brave of you to rest here instead of lug supplies.”

“You sound like you could use cheering up, honestly. Want to play Eye Spy?”

“Fuck you.”