Chapter 498

The Prison Planet

... Turning to fully face Morales, the General continued, “I need a straight answer. Did you train them to do this?”

Morales sighed, “I ... don’t think I did. In the very beginning, I’m sure I asked Lobo to search at some point or other, but that’s about all. I just ... knew he would, and when Lila came along, she must have started paying attention to what Lobo was doing and began doing her part. Even in the beginning, I didn’t make any effort to train either of them. They are the ones that came up with any kind of pattern or anything like that.”

The General continued. “But what I’m seeing isn’t ... haphazard. They seem to be going through a learned routine. It’s hard to believe that an animal would devise something like that. They aren’t just running around searching here and there like you might expect a dog to do. I’ve just watched them complete their pattern, and they each used the same routine. They go out a certain distance, split up, and each checks his or her part of the pie before meeting at their starting point again. I’ve never seen or heard of animals doing anything like that. To say the least, I’m fucking impressed.”

Morales sighed. “As I said in the cave, Jasmine thinks that at least part of it is the result of some sort of mental connection between the two of us and the wolves, but it’s also equally obvious that Lobo and Lila are one hell of a lot smarter than I would expect them to be.”

The General thought for a moment, before, “Have you seen any other wolves in the area?”

Morales shook his head. “No, and if they’re as smart as my two, I sure as hell don’t want them stalking my ass.”

The group of laughing women appeared and headed toward the men, Jasmine taking up the rear, her crossbow ready as always.

As they neared the cave, “By the way, are you guys ready for some hot bread straight out of the oven and slathered in butter? Well, dehydrated butter, anyway?” she asked with an accompanying chuckle.

There was a chorus of agreements as everyone went back inside. Moments later, Jasmine removed two perfect loaves of bread from the clay oven. Assisted by Arlene and Kayla, the women sliced the bread and spread butter on the hot pieces.

One loaf was soon history, even though they had eaten pizza only a short time prior to the bread coming out of the oven. Fresh-baked bread just smelled too good to pass up.

After wrapping the second loaf in a dishtowel, Jasmine, with a smile, nodded to her lover.

“Okay,” Morales said loudly enough for all to hear, “Is everybody ready to get the crap scared out of them in the column room?”

“Damn straight,” Jeff returned.

“One moment,” Diana said loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I need a box brought in before we go to the ice cave. Baby,” she said, turning to her husband, “it’s a big box with a red ‘X’ on the side. When you go out, it should be on the left side of the pile near the front.”

“Be back in a sec,” the Prime said, hurrying out.

Morales grabbed his weapons to go guard Jeff, but the General intervened. Putting his hand on Morales shoulder, Whitworth said, “Trust me. There’s no need.”

“But...” Morales tried to argue.

The General went on. “If one of those tigers tries to attack him, it will get its ... butt spanked and sent on its way. Should it really piss him off, he might use one of those balls on that fancy belt of his. If he does, we’ll all know about it.”

Morales just stood staring at Whitworth.

“He’s telling the truth,” Diana inserted.

Jeff was soon back with the box, which he opened. At an unspoken word from Diana, her sister-wives began handing out personal headlamps to everyone. “We brought a number of lanterns similar to the ones you already have, and in addition, we also brought these personal headlamps for all of us. We didn’t, however, have time to put batteries into everything, but we brought plenty of regular ones as well as rechargeable ones, and ... several solar chargers. With everything, we should have an abundance of light.”

Both Jasmine and Morales thanked the Matthews, and Jasmine continued by saying, “I broke my headlamp on my last mission and forgot to draw another one from Stores. These will be great,” she said as she inserted the batteries and turned hers on for a moment, exclaiming at the brilliant light it put out.

After walking several hundred yards toward the ice cave, Morales in the lead, called a halt. Turning to the group, he said, “Shortly after I found the cave, I tried exploring the main passage on past our living area. I only had torches made out of plants soaked in tallow. I could almost see my feet with the light they provided,” he joked. “I wasn’t as brave as I thought I was, and it didn’t take long for the dark to get to me. I turned back because I was beginning to imagine falling into a bottomless pit in the blackness. We have, what? Seven lanterns and headlamps on now. Let’s switch everything off for a moment so you guys can see what dark is really like inside a cave.”

Arlene, suspecting what was about to happen, whispered, “Oh, crap.” It must have been loud enough for Kayla to hear, because she giggled.

Morales, having also heard, said, “Ok, on three, we turn our lights out as quickly as possible. One. Two. Threeee.”

There was some fumbling with unfamiliar switches, but within a few seconds the last light went out with an accompanying gasp from several of the cave newbies.

“I’ve heard the expression about it being so dark you couldn’t see your finger stuck in your eye. Now, I know what they meant,” Arlene grumbled.

“This is, indeed, very interesting,” Selina commented.

“That’s one way to put it,” Kayla said, obviously not pleased with the dark any more than Arlene was.

“Now, can you imagine finding your way back to the entrance?” Morales asked.

“Well, with all the boulders and rocks scattered about that we’ve come past, not to mention the uneven walking surfaces in many places, I suspect that I would, at a minimum, have a selection of scrapes and bruises before I could find the entrance. Even then, that would be assuming that I went in the correct direction in the passageway to begin with,” Diana commented to the accompaniment of agreement from everyone.

“Okay. Turn them back on,” Morales instructed. “One of these days, I’m going to explore the main passageway the rest of the way, but I won’t do it with just one lantern, no matter how much light it puts out. Between the darkness and the sound of rushing water that I have heard from time to time, I sure as ... uh, heck don’t want to risk losing my light source.”

“I don’t think I’m good with caves,” Arlene complained. “I must be a little claustrophobic. There’s an awful lot of rock above us. If it came down...”

Jeff reached to hold his daughter’s hand. “Hon, this passageway has been here a very long time, right Ms. Conners?”

Jasmine smiled. “You’re correct, of course, but to tell you the truth, I felt the same way the first few times I went into a deep cave. But, over time, the feeling went away. I am at home in our living area, and, at first, I was comfortable in the ice cave, but after our visit to the column room, as I said before, I began to feel something – almost like an animosity or as if something were going to happen. Morales says he feels like someone or some thing is watching us. On our first visit to the column room, he seemed to feel it more strongly than I did. But on our second visit, I began to feel, like he says, as if there is something in there that does not like our presence. He refers to it as a feeling of ‘dread’.

“Now that I’ve thought about it, I wish we hadn’t mentioned it,” Jasmine continued as they started forward again. “Now, I worry that the power of suggestion will sway your reactions. Please, everyone, try to keep an open mind about this.”

Before any of them could answer, Morales, who was leading the way, called over his shoulder, “We’re coming to the first of the narrow sections, and the path will soon become extremely rough at times. It gets a bit interesting through here when you’re trying to bring out an ice chest full of meat.”

A few minutes later, Jeff held back to offer a hand to the women as they worked their way past huge boulders. Kayla seized the opportunity to kiss him as they were momentarily out of sight of the others. The kiss didn’t last long and they bumped their headlamps, as well as blinding each other with the other person’s light so close to the eyes, both things causing Kayla to giggle, but before the others noticed, the two hurried to catch back up with the group.

It wasn’t long before most had zipped their coats and pulled their hoods over their heads before resetting their headlamps, their breaths now puffing white under the intense beams.

“You should begin watching for patches of ice. It won’t be long before we’ll be entirely on ice.”

Eventually, Morales called a halt. The group had been walking on ice for a hundred yards or more, and the passageway walls had changed from rock to ice as well. Switching his lantern to a beam, he shined it down the narrow, sloping path ahead of them. “I’ve only gone a couple of hundred feet farther. The gentle slope that we’re experiencing here soon increases until it becomes dangerous. One slip on the ice and no telling where you would wind up. Maybe one of these days I’ll dig out steps and explore farther, but so far, I haven’t found the time, nor had the urge.”

Jeff stood looking around at the sides and quarters of meat hanging from long poles suspended between large boulders and from short poles driven into the ice walls. “Well done, Morales.”

“Thank you, Mr ... uh, Jeff. This isn’t quite all of it. We keep our salted pork in another passage much closer to our living area. Plus, we have a stash of several types of vegetables as well as an abundance of jerky. Hopefully, we’ll be able to raise even more vegetables next year.”

Jasmine came over and hugged Morales. “He did all of this himself.”

“Well, you killed one of the porkers,” he said, pointing to the hanging pork.

Her voice softened as she said, “We make a good team,” but she didn’t kiss him in front of the others.

“Now, where’s this infamous column room we’ve heard so much about?” Whitworth broke in to ask.

Raising her voice a little so everyone could hear, Jasmine spoke primarily to the General. “There, on the other side of the hanging meat where you see the crack running down the wall,” she said, shining her light to direct everyone’s attention, “is the room we have been exploring. To summarize, so far, we haven’t been able to measure the room’s dimensions, and I remind you that we wound up at our starting point, although we did not deviate from what we considered to be a straight path.

“We have learned little in the two exploration trips. Basically, many of the things I measured ... changed even as I measured them. Temperatures inside the columns seemed to vary erratically. Even while I was recording it, the density of the columns also seemed to vary over time. Measured reflectivity varied without my having moved my instrument – almost everything I could measure with my meager equipment changed frequently. The rangefinder on our binoculars tends to show infinity more than anything else. The room contains numerous almost perfectly clear columns of various sizes. Some give a hint – on occasion – of an almost perfectly clear liquid or gas moving inside. I must caution you that with all the reflections from the floor and the columns, it would be very easy to become disoriented, perhaps even presenting a problem finding the exit again. To facilitate our finding our way back should we become lost, Morales has brought along a long section of paracord that we will play out behind us. Also, each of us will be secured to the others with a shorter section of line, allowing us roughly fifteen feet of slack each to use in our personal exploration. With all the reflections, I suspect it wouldn’t take any great distance before we would not be able to see someone who had become separated from the group. Please don’t even think about removing the safety line to go off on your own.”

Turning to the General, she went on, “Sir, I should have asked you to bring radios...”

“The Colonel and I each have one, and I will see that you receive radios as soon as I am back at the base.”

Jeff turned to Morales. “Good idea about the paracord.”

As the group’s attention turned to Morales, he shrugged the line off his shoulders. “I’m going to tie an end of the main line to one of the boulders out here. With everyone’s permission, as Jasmine said, I’ll secure each of us to another section of line, spacing us about fifteen feet apart so that no one can become lost from the group. If the same thing happens this time as the other two times we tried to walk across the room, we’ll at least all still be together when we’re suddenly back at the entrance, assuming the same thing happens this time, of course.”

A few minutes later, with one end of the paracord tied to a boulder and each person secured to a separate section of line, they all made their way through the crack. “Oh, my,” Diana said as she, like the others, stood looking around in awe. With all the headlamps as well as the lanterns, the reflections were both beautiful and very distracting.