Perhaps she had found it. Tarvi had a special fondness for caves; he had at various times called them orifices of the Mother Earth, entrances to the mysteries of her creation and construction, and windows into her magic and bounty. Even though this was Pern, he worshipped the same mystery that had dominated his life so far.
Their current trip was to make an aerial reconnaissance of the location of several mineral deposits noted by the metallurgy probes. Iron, vanadium, manganese, and even germanium were to be found in the mountainous spine that Sallah was aiming at as they followed the course of a river to its source. She was also operating under the general directive that unusual sites should be recorded and photographed to offer the widest possible choice. Only a third of those with stake acreage had made their selection. There was a subtle pressure to keep everyone in the southern continent—at least in the first few generations—but there was no such directive in the charter. The broad, long river valley that lay to their right as they approached the precipice was, to Sallah’s mind, the most beautiful they had seen so far.
Rene Mallibeau, the colony’s most determined vintner, was still looking for the proper type of slope and soil for his vineyards, though to get his project started he had actually released some of his hoard of special soils from their sealed tanks for his experiments in viniculture. Quikal was not a universally accepted substitute for the traditional spirits. Despite being poured through a variety of filters with or without additives, nothing could completely reduce the raw aftertaste. Rene had been promised the use of ceramic-lined metal fuel tanks which, once thoroughly cleansed, would provide him with wine vats of superior quality. Of course, once the proper oak forests had reached adequate size for use as staves, his descendants could move back to the traditional wooden barrel
“Rather spectacular, that precipice, isn’t it, Tarvi?” Sallah said, grinning rather foolishly, as if the view were a surprise that she herself had prepared for him.
“Indeed it is. ‘In Xanadu did Kublai Khan,’ ” he murmured in his rich deep voice.
“ ‘Caverns measureless to man’?” Sallah capped it, careful not to sound smug that she recognized his source. Tarvi often quoted obscure Sanskrit and Pushtu texts, leaving her groping for a suitable retort.
“Precisely, O moon of my delight.”
Sallah suppressed a grimace. Sometimes Tarvi’s phrases were ambiguous, and she knew that he did not mean what his phrase suggested. He would not be so obvious. Or would he? Had she penetrated that bland exterior after all? She forced herself to contemplate the immense stone bulwark. Its natural fluted columns appeared carved by an inexperienced or inattentive sculptor, yet the imperfection contributed to the overall beauty of the precipice.
“This valley is six or seven klicks long,” she said quietly, awed by the truly impressive natural site.
From the steep, right-angled fall of a spectacular diedre, the palisade led in a somewhat straight line for about three klicks before falling back into a less perfectly defined face that sloped down in the distance to meet the floor of the valley. She angled the sled to starboard, facing upriver, and they were nearly blinded by the brilliant sunlight reflecting from the surface of the lake that had been charted by the probe.
“No, land here,” Tarvi said quickly, actually catching her arm to stress his urgency. He was not much given to personal contact, and Sallah tried not to misinterpret excitement for anything else. “I must see the caves.”
He released the safety harness and swiveled his seat around. Then he walked to the back of the sled, rummaging among the supplies.
“Lights, we’ll need lights, ropes, food, water, recording devices, specimen kit,” he muttered as his deft movements filled two backpacks. “Boots? Have you on proper boots . . . ah, those will do, indeed they will. Sallah, you are always well prepared.” He compounded his inadvertent injury to her feelings by one of his more ingratiating smiles.
Once again, Sallah shook her head over her whimsical fancy, which had managed to settle on one of the most elusive males of her acquaintance. Of course, she consoled herself, anything easily had is rarely worth having. She landed the sled at the base of the towering precipice, as near to the long narrow mouth of the cave as she could.
“Pitons, grappling hook—that first slab looks about five meters above the scree. Here you are, Sallah!”
He handed her pack over, waiting only long enough to see her grab a strap before he released the canopy, jumped down, and was striding toward the towering buttress. With a resigned shrug, Sallah flipped on beacon, comm unit, and recorder for incoming messages, fastened her jacket, settled the rather hefty pack on her back, and followed him, closing the canopy behind her.
He scrambled up the scree and stood with one palm flat against the slab, looking up its imposing and awesome spread, his face rapt with wonder. Gently, as in a caress, he stroked the stone before he began to look right and left, assessing how best to climb to the cave. He flashed her an ingenuous smile, acknowledging her presence and assuming her willingness.
“Straight up. Not much of a climb with pitons.”
The climb proved strenuous. Sallah could have used a breather as she crawled onto the ledge, but there was the cave opening, and nothing was going to deter Tarvi from immediate entrance and a leisurely inspection. Ah, well, it was just 1300 hours. They had time in hand. She rolled to her feet, unlatching the handlight from her belt just a few seconds after he had done the same, and was at his side as he peered into the opening.
“Lords, gods, and minor deities!”
His invocation was a mere whisper, solemn and awed, a susurrous echo. The vast initial cavern was larger than the cargo hold of the Yokohama. Sallah made that instant comparison, remembering how eerie that immense barren space had seemed on her last trip, and in the next second, she wondered what the cavern would look like occupied. It would make a spectacular great hall, in the tradition of medieval times on Earth—only even more magnificent.
Tarvi held his breath, hesitantly extending his still-dark handlight, as if reluctant to illuminate the majesty of the cavern. She heard his intake of breath, in the manner of one steeling himself to commit sacrilege, and then the light came on.
Wings whirred as shadows made silent sinuous departures to the darker recesses. They both ducked as the winged denizens departed in flight lines just clearing their heads, though the cave entrance was at least four meters high. Ignoring the exodus, Tarvi moved reverently into the vast space.
“Amazing” he murmured as he shined the light up and judged that the shell of the outer wall above them was barely two meters thick. “A very thin face.”
“Some bubble,” Sallah said, feeling impious and wanting to regain her equilibrium after her initial awe. “Look, you could carve a staircase in that,” she said, her light picking out a slanting foot of rock that rose to a ledge where a large darkness indicated yet another cave.
She spoke to inattentive ears. for Tarvi was already prowling about, determining the width of the entrance and the dimensions of the cave. She hurried after him.
The first chamber of the cave complex measured an awesome fifty-seven meters deep at its widest, tapering at either end to forty-six meters on the left and forty-two meters on the right. Along the back wall, there were innumerable irregular openings at random levels; some were on the ground level leading into apparent tunnel complexes, most of which were high enough to admit Tarvi’s tall frame with considerable head space; others, like great dead eyes, peered down from higher up the inside wall. Entranced as Tarvi was by their discovery, he was a trained scientific observer. With Sallah’s aid, he began to draft an accurate plan of the main chamber, the openings of secondary ones, and the tunnel complexes leading inward. He penetrated each to a depth of a hundred meters, roped to a nervous Sallah who kept glancing back at the cave’s opening for the reassuring sight of the waning day.