The old lady spoke again. The man wearing body armor stepped forward, holding out an arm. She put her arm through his, allowing him to bear some of her weight, and they joined the line of workers heading away from the kill site.
Her captor motioned her to follow. When she hesitated, he narrowed his eyes and swept his palm through the air in a swatting motion. Lexi’s bottom still smarted from his earlier whack, and she didn’t want to give him any reason to repeat the unpleasant experience. Summoning up as much dignity as she could under the circumstances, she fell into step alongside him, joining the workers hauling bits of the creature away single file like a line of busy ants.
Wearily, she forced herself to take one step after another, plodding along for what seemed like hours. The landscape never varied — an endless sea of reddish-brown coarse sand, barren of any life form she could detect.
Except for the people around her. They sang as they walked and, even though the loads they bore looked heavy, they seemed jubilant. Maybe it was the prospect of a good meal, although they didn’t look malnourished. Just the opposite. Men and women, old and young, had a stocky, robust build, although none of them matched the impressive physique of her captor.
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Bare-chested, arms bedecked with gold that gleamed against his skin. Striding along effortlessly, spear in one hand and sword hanging from a loop at his hip, he looked like a mythical god of old.
She’d never seen a partially clad human, except herself and the sight was both disturbing and oddly fascinating. The swell of muscle rippling under his skin as he moved, the way the moonlight played across his bronze skin, covered with a fine sheen of perspiration.
The look on the face of the young woman she’d seen in the corridor back on Earth popped into her mind. No doubt these people, like the inhabitants of Neodyma, engaged in every kind of physical contact imaginable. What would it be like to be in the arms of the virile male next to her, his lips crushed against her mouth, his bare skin touching hers?
Bare skin. Everywhere around her. Her scientific mind drove all other thoughts out of her head as she suddenly realized the night must be warm. She couldn’t feel the exterior temperature through her cylerian, but those around her showed no sign of discomfort.They have air they can breathe, a source of food, a defined social structure. Somehow these people adapted, surviving and, to all appearances, even thriving in a world we thought devoid of all life.More fodder for her scientific study.
They neared a rocky outcropping. Ahead the line disappeared into the yawning mouth of a dark cave. The closer she got to the entrance, the more her heart pounded. These barbarians were preparing a feast. What if they planned to eat her too, another prize from their successful hunt? She stifled a nervous giggle.Maybe they’ll keep me tied up, fatten me up first. I’m way too thin to make a good dinner for these hefty-looking savages.
She followed the line of workers through a passageway that twisted and turned, heading downward all the way. Lexi felt like an insect, burrowing deep into an anthill. More torches lined the tunnel, their dim light bouncing off rock walls that bore the deep scars of chisels and picks. It looked as though the passageway was once a narrow crevice, widened into a corridor by human hands.
The sound of their chanting grew and swelled. The deeper they went, the louder it became. Lexi rounded a bend and stopped dead in her tracks. Nothing she’d seen so far had prepared her for the sight before her eyes.
Chapter Five
The Apache, the Anasazi, and other Pueblo Indians told stories of their ancestors dwelling in an underground world after a cataclysmic event. In these tales, the ancestors were gods who came to Earth from a home far away among the Seven Stars.
The long-forgotten snippet from a lecture years ago popped into Lexi’s mind. Her instructor had dismissed it as just another myth created by primitive people to explain their presence on Earth.
But looking around her, Lexi realized how real the origins of the myth may have been. She stood at the entrance to a bustling multi-storied city, carved out of the walls of an enormous underground cavern. It looked like the cliff-dwelling ruins of a pueblo in the American Southwest come to life, only on a much larger scale. Wide-mouthed openings to smaller caves lined the walls of the level where she stood, stalls brimming with a dazzling array of wares. Strange-shaped fruits and fungi were heaped on open tables; soft furs and delicate fabrics on others tempted passersby to stop and stroke them.
Easily twice the height of the Federation’s great hall, the cavern’s ceiling soared hundreds of feet above her head. Dwellings carved into the rock walls above were connected by winding stairways leading to the next level. The entire space glowed with a strange phosphorescent light, emanating from a substance that coated large stretches of bare rock.
The endless line of workers halted in an open area on the main level. Their singing echoed off the stone walls, magnifying the sound. They deposited their burdens then took a break, dropping to the ground or onto stone benches placed here and there to rest before rejoining the line snaking back out to the kill site.
Another group dealt with their haul. Some wrapped wads of a gray-green substance that looked like wet seaweed around the chunks of meat, piling them to one side. Others cut pieces into wide strips then dipped them into what looked like a mixture of salt and herbs before layering them into huge stone jars.
An open area in the center of the cavern held row after row of stone benches surrounding a massive fire pit, where flames danced. Yet another row of workers carried dark lumps of some combustible substance to the pit, piling them on to build the fire even hotter. Massive clay pots lined the edge of the pit. Into them went chunks of bone, left to simmer with a mouthwatering variety of ingredients. Lexi was sure she smelled onions and garlic, along with a host of other ingredients she couldn’t identify.
She looked up, following the column of smoke as it rose from the fire pit. The cavern must have had some sort of ventilation system, since the air inside was clear. Much cleaner and easier to breathe than the air outside the cave.
As her eyes adjusted to the unusual light, she caught sight of something even more astonishing. In the distance, at the farthest end of the cavern, a waterfall fell from the heights, splashing into a deep pool at its base.
The sight and sound of water made her realize how dry and parched her throat felt. She swayed on her feet, suddenly unable to take another step. Her captor sprang forward, grabbing her around the waist as she was about to collapse.
He called out, and the old woman turned. She clapped her hands, and two younger females ran toward them. All four held a short conversation. The next moment, the young women surrounded her, half dragging, half carrying her to another cavernous opening in the rock wall on the other side of the city center.
They led her into a dimly lit room, where more torches flickered high on the rock walls. After depositing her on a fur-covered stone bench, the women got to work. One disappeared and came back carrying a clay jug filled with water, while the other mashed up a handful of odd-smelling dried plants in a stone bowl. Sagging against the stone wall behind her, Lexi watched closely. She’d seen an implement like it in a museum exhibit. It was labeledMortar and pestle, used by primitive people to grind corn and grain into flour for cooking.
The second woman mixed the gray-green pile of leaves and stems into the jug of water, poured out a cupful, and handed it to her. When Lexi just sat there, the woman took the cup, raised it to her lips, and drank. Then she smiled, nodded her head encouragingly, and held out the cup again.
Lexi sniffed then took a tiny sip. The plants gave the water a bitter flavor. But at least it cut through the metallic taste left in her mouth by the air outside. She took a bigger sip then another, draining the cup. The woman took it from her, refilled it, and bade her drink again.
Before long, Lexi had emptied the entire jug. Her fatigue vanished, as did the crushing headache. She handed back the empty cup. The women seemed pleased. One of them took her by the hand, leading her farther into the cave.
They came to another room, smaller than the first, with a wide stone basin carved out along one wall. One of the women leaned forward and pulled a thick plug out of a hole in the smooth rock face. To Lexi’s shock, a stream of water poured into the basin. Somehow, these people had tapped into an underground river, diverting part of it to flow through their city. The women came at her from both sides. They took away the cloak then ran their hands over the cylerian, chattering back and forth. One tried to pull it off her.
Lexi shoved her away. The woman hadn’t expected resistance. She lost her footing and crashed against the edge of the stone basin, crying out. With a dark look at Lexi, she muttered something to the other woman. Then she scrambled to her feet and ran out of the room.
The other woman grabbed the handle of another clay jug off a table nearby, brandishing the jug like a weapon. Never taking her eyes off Lexi, she backed off to stand in the doorway, blocking the only exit from the room.
