Chapter 448

The Prison Planet

With Morales pulling and Jasmine pushing, they got the first case to the entrance.

“What the hell do you have in this thing?” Morales grumped.

“Oh, you will be surprised,” she answered with a grin.

“Well, let’s see if we can get the skis out of the way so we can put the thing in the cave,” he said as he tipped the case a little to the side. Quickly, she scooped the snow out of the way, then unlocked and pushed the first ski toward the center until something clicked.

With a grin, she stood up. “Now the other ski.”

With the skis retracted, they were able to roll the still heavily loaded case into the cave proper.

“One more to go,” she said with a chuckle. “Then, after we eat, we can have ice cream – if you want some, of course,” she teased.

Morales tried to ignore her, but it was hard to get his mind off the ice cream. “I cooked some dried beans this afternoon. I had already brought up extra meat for breakfast, so we can use that tonight. When we take the ice cream to the frozen area, I’ll bring up more meat for breakfast. How about steak, beans and potatoes for our evening meal?”

Jasmine smiled. “I was so busy getting everything lined up to go, that I think I must have skipped a meal or two. When you mentioned food, my appetite woke up. Suddenly, I’m starved. Steak, beans and potatoes sound wonderful. But, even as hungry as I am, I still need to get that other case in where it will be safe.”

As they walked back out the entrance toward the brilliant light of her lantern, Morales was again impressed with the amount of light it put out. She brought three of them and says she’s going to leave one with me when she goes back to Earth, he thought, almost chortling aloud.

When everything was finally inside the cave, other than the ice cream that was still buried in the snow by the entrance, they took a break, Morales sitting on his cooking stool and Jasmine sitting on the padded rock. Yet again, he glanced at the hand truck as if it were a new Mercedes. “Shit, that thing will come in handy,” he told her. “I wish it had been here when I built the rock wall in the entranceway. It would have made one hell of a difference with all those fucking rocks I had to carry.”

Jasmine thought back to her last meeting with the General. One of the last things he had done to try and discourage her was to remind her that Morales’ speech was gruff and full of profanity. “He’s a lifer. He isn’t coming back, so he doesn’t give a shit. And he talks to himself,” he finished with a laugh.

Her response was, “I’m a big girl and I have worked with men in the field before.” Then with a grin, “I’ve been known to talk to myself on occasion, too. As far as language is concerned, scientists in the field curse and use profanity, too, and believe me, some of them use rough language in front of women to try to discourage them from working in a ‘man’s world.’ Oh, some of the guys were nice, but others went out of their way to make it as difficult for women as they possibly could. Some female scientists have complained, of course, but those that did seemed not to get many field assignments after that, and working in the field also relates to advancement. If you can’t work in the field, you wind up basically doing someone else’s paperwork while they work in the field. General, I’ll get along just fine with Mr. Morales, and ... I know how to take care of myself should anything happen.”

Whitworth had sighed while drumming his fingers on his desk. Then as if he had just made up his mind, “Morales seldom associated with women other than an occasional prostitute, nor does his background reflect any sexual complaints, or I would never even think of allowing you to do this.”

Jasmine’s mind snapped back to the present. With a smile, she responded to Morales comment about the hand truck with, “I thought you might like it.”

Morales couldn’t stand it any longer. He had to try it out. Using the new piece of equipment, and with Jasmine trailing along, he took all but one three-gallon container of strawberry ice cream to the ice cave after surrounding the one they left at the entrance with good-sized rocks to keep animals from digging into the ice cream.

Jasmine had been intrigued by the ice cave since the first time she saw it on a vid, but the reflections from the bright lantern light in the sometimes-faceted ice only made her want to see the place in person even more.

As they neared the area of what Morales called a maze, he nodded toward what seemed to be just a crack in the ice wall. “This place almost ... scares me. When I was drilling holes to hang poles for the meat, I kept seeing what seemed like movement out of the corner of my eye. When I turned around, it was gone, but one of those times, I noticed what I, at first, thought was just a vertical crack a couple of feet wide in the wall there,” he said, pointing as he let the hand truck settle to its upright position.

“I haven’t had time to explore in there much, but I did walk in a few feet before I realized that it was a great way to get lost. There are all kinds of weird effects from the light, as well as what seems to be numerous corridors jutting off at odd angles.”

As he selected an out-of-the-way area and they put the ice cream safely there, “Have you seen any artifacts in here or in any of your exploring outside?” she asked as her eyes were drawn back to the crack.

“Artifacts?” he asked as he stood back up.

“Something old that someone or some race might have once made or used?” she responded as she started for the narrow opening that he referred to as a crack.

“Hold up, Woman,” he snapped. “Number one. That place ... feels weird. And number two, it looks like a great way to get your ass lost. I intend to explore it one of these days, but I’ll use a strong cord to mark my way back, and ... I’ll have my crossbow with me. I’m telling you it gives me the willies in there.”

Jasmine looked at him and grinned. “You should see some of the places I’ve been. I just want a look,” she insisted while reaching for the lantern he had hanging on his chest.

As her hand touched the lantern, Morales locked his hand over hers. “I’ll keep the lantern and let you go through the crack if you will promise me you won’t go more than ten steps. I’m telling you the place is fucking dangerous, Woman.”

“I won’t be able to see much if you keep the lantern,” she groused. “I won’t go far...”

“ ... And that’s the reason I’m keeping the light.”

“Oh, all right, but at least come through with me so I can see a little of what’s inside.”

Muttering under his breath about annoying females, he followed her through the crack.

“Oh, wow. Just look at that,” Jasmine exclaimed as she stood a few feet past the entrance. “This,” she said with a sweeping motion of her hand, “is something I’ve never seen before. I have a geologist friend that would go nuts in here. I have no idea how this could have formed. It’s almost as if these,” she said pointing, “are ... artificial. They’re far too uniform. Oh, I’ve seen numerous stalagmites and stalactites, and these are obviously ice, but just look at that,” she said pointing inside one of the crystal-clear columns. “See that?” she demanded as she tapped the side of the column with a gloved fingertip. “How can that be a natural phenomenon? It seems almost ... artificial, as if it isn’t natural at all. But I’m certain it’s just groups of minerals trapped in the ice,” she finished as if trying to convince herself.

Then going on after staring into another column of ice, “It’s just frozen water with a high mineral content and with different colors and shading. Granted, this isn’t my field, but I’ve been in a number of caves. This is drastically different from anything I’ve ever seen in regular or ice caves. I wish...”

“It’s cold as a witch’s tit in here and...” Morales began before she interrupted.

“Oh, it can’t be any colder in here than in the area we just left. It’s just your mind tricking you. Come on; let’s go down this corridor a little farther,” she said, pointing to a narrow passageway between the crystal-clear columns, that angle slightly downwards while disappearing to the right of their position.

Morales grabbed her arm. “Remember what I said before we came in here? We’re leaving before you talk me into doing something that will get us dead. Now let’s fucking go. We can explore when we’re prepared and not one damn second before. Besides, I have a ton of things I need to do before even thinking about wasting time exploring in here.”

Jasmine unconsciously put her hands on her hips, her temperature rising when he wouldn’t listen to reason – at least, her reason. “But, I won’t get lost, and it will only take a few minutes,” she protested, but he ignored her while gently pushing her backward in the direction of the entrance.

When she stumbled, she spun around and wiggled through the crack back into the ice cave proper before turning to him. “We have to explore in there. It almost seems ... artificial, somehow. Could some race have made the maze, do you suppose?”

“How the hell should I know? I didn’t even know we had been on other planets until the General and that other guy sentenced me to this place. Hell, they gave me a bow and a crossbow along with a lot of paperwork that told about 2214. And ... they and the guards advised me to learn as much as I could if I wanted to live. My former partner, asshole that he was, didn’t believe them. He fucking should have.”

As if she hadn’t been listening to him, she seemed to answer her own comment, “Oh, no one has found anything to suggest a prior race settled this continent. There are artifacts from a previous civilization, long dead, on the other side of the planet, but...”

Paying little attention to her rambling, Morales went on, “This damn ice cave gives me the heebie-jeebies, particularly in there,” he said, motioning toward the crack, “but I guess I can see the attraction – for you, at least. To tell the truth, though, if it weren’t for the meat, my ass wouldn’t be in here, ever.”

“I gathered that,” she said with a chuckle that both intrigued and pissed him off.

They didn’t say anything more about the maze as Morales had begun to think of it, and he took enough meat for breakfast and lunch tomorrow, handed it to her, took the hand truck and started back.

A few minutes later, he broke the silence with, “I’ll have to show you where I store the salted pork, and of course, I have lots of jerky put aside. It comes in handy when I’m working or hunting and don’t want to, or can’t, take time out to cook.”

After returning to Morales campsite, Jasmine, having realized that she had pissed him off about the maze, decided that she wouldn’t mention anything more about it for now. Instead, she nodded toward his oven, “I’m a decent cook and I love the challenge of cooking under primitive conditions. I’ve been wanting to try your oven ever since I watched you build it.”

Morales felt a little jolt inside him when he realized, yet again, that she, and probably others, had been watching him. He turned his mind away from that, because he suspected that whoever was watching would get a kick out of his frustration if he let it show.

Jasmine had been enthralled by the building of the oven and the care he had used in doing so. But having seen the oven on a vid was not the same as a hands-on demonstration, so she walked over, then turned to ask, “May I?”

“Sure. Knock yourself out,” he said with a grin. “But keep in mind, it’s the first one I’ve ever built.”

On her knees, she moved the flat rock aside and peered into the oven, “Excellent.” Then tactfully, “I can work with this and certainly want to, with your permission, but it would have made things easier...”

“ ... If I had put the oven on supports so you didn’t have to get down on your knees to use it,” he finished for her. “Unfortunately, I didn’t figure that out ahead of time. It was a bitch to build the thing, and it seemed to take forever. Maybe one of these days I’ll build a new and improved model.”

“Hmmm,” she said as she pointed out, “There are two of us now, and with all the cooking I hope to be doing, I suspect we will need a bigger oven soon. And I’ve brought a couple of things that will make using your oven a lot easier. One of those is a flat grill to go on the floor of the oven. That way, whatever you’re cooking doesn’t have to go on the same surface that your fire does. After you rake the fire out, you slide the grill in with your bread or whatever on it. When it’s finished baking, you just grab the handle and pull the grill out with your food sitting on it. It’s better than trying to wipe the hot surface clear of fire residue before putting your bread dough in. Think you’ll like that?”