Crystal Universe - [Crystal Singer 03] - Crystal Line Read Online Free PDF Page B

over the material several times, being careful not to touch it. “Any heat readings on record?”
    “None, and I’m getting none either from the instrumentation you’re carrying,” the ship responded, sounding slightly disgusted.
    “Any movement?”
    “Negatory.”
    “Can you give us a reading on whether the ground beneath us is solid or not, Brendan?” Killa asked.
    “You are currently standing on the intersection of three caves approximately two meters below you. Two of them are large, the other is small, less than half a meter in width and height. My readings corroborate the expedition’s report that this satellite is riddled with cavities, probably right down to what used to be its molten core, in irregular layers and with equally irregular cavities.”
    “Can you keep a scan on possible spots too thin to bear any weight?” Killashandra had a quick vision of herself falling through level after level of cinder.
    “Monitoring” was the ship’s response.
    Killa realized she had been holding her breath and expelled it. That allowed her stomach to mention it was empty, so while she made a confident circuit of the cavern, she sucked up the ration. In several places and with great care, she placed her gloved hand on the walls; her wrist gauge gave not so much as a wiggle. The ambient temperature of the cavern was the same as that on the satellite’s surface. But there was something she was missing. Unable to think what that was, she shrugged and sucked on her tube.
    “Hey, this glop’s not bad, Bren,” she said.
    “Not eating already?”
    “On the hour, every hour,” Lars answered. He hunkered down by the visible end of the material and poked, careful not to let his chisel touch the glowing substance as he scraped out a semicircle. He gave a grunt. “It’s going down. But where? Any access to the next level, Bren?”
    “I think so,” the ship answered after a bit. “Sort of a maze, but your suits have tracers on ’em, so I can keep track and direct you. Go out the way you came in …”
    Following his directions, they traveled one of the more tortuous routes they had ever followed, accustomed as they were to the vagaries of sly crystal in the Milekey Ranges on Ballybran.
    “I’m glad we don’t have to stay too long in this place,” Killa muttered, shining her lights around. The passageways seemed darker than ever after the subtle radiance of the junk-jewel cave. She preferred to have as much light around her as possible in dark burrows. The rock around them seemed to absorb their lights. “You eat it,” she growled as she walked.
    “What? Me? Oh, you mean the rock?” Lars asked. “Yeah, it does sort of soak it up. Speaking of which …”
    “Not you, too!” Brendan exclaimed, almost sputtering. “It’s scarcely two hours since you consumed an immense meal.”
    “Hmmm, true!”
    “Humpf.”
    “We can last about another hour, I think,” Lars said, and grinned as Killa glanced back at him. Would Brendan catch the teasing note?
    “At this rate,” Brendan replied trenchantly, “we’ll be here for months! Turn obliquely right now, and watch that it
is
oblique—there’s a hole!”
    “Whoops, so there is,” Killa said, teetering on the edge as her hand and head lamps outlined the even deeper blackness. Then, as she swung right, the comforting arch of a passageway was visible. “Nice save there, Bren. And what have we here but another cave!” Her tone was richly facetious. “And,” she added, as she shone both lamps in a swing, “our little creepy-crawly has fingers in this pie, too.”
    Lars stepped around her and walked up to the glittering nubbin just entering the roof of this cavity. He dropped the beam of his light to the floor, and they could both see a small pile of debris. Lars hunkered down and, with the end of his hammer, carefully prodded the mound, examining the end of the tool when he had finished.
    “Nope, not a melt. More like simple dust.”
    “Take a