They passed cave flowers slowly extruding from holes in the rock, growing from the base and curling back like squeezed toothpaste. Titus checked one of the largest, nearly twenty‑five centimeters across, and found that the delicate formation was pure gypsum. There were also shields or palettes forming from water seepage through cracks. The ridges of calcite were deposited on both sides, growing radially into parallel plates or disks, separated only by a thin opening through which drops of water continued to fall. Jayme stopped behind two large circular shields, her light outlining her body through the translucent calcite.
Titus was more than pleased with their awe and wonder at the underground world. But he wasn’t satisfied yet. Bobbie Ray refused to acknowledge the effort it took to climb down so far, and he even scaled the wall bare‑handed to get the tip of a crystal‑clear stalactite for Jayme. Her glance at Titus clearly said who she thought was winning this little contest of skills.
Titus took them up a high talus mound and into the next cavern, where flowstone coated the cave fill, narrowing the volume of the void. This cavern was filled with fallen ceiling blocks and most of the stalagmites had been broken off near the base by earth tremors. Additional seepage gave them an unusually fat, short appearance.
They retreated back to the shaft. Though the ladder left off, the fractured hole continued down. Titus uncoiled the rope he had brought and hooked it onto his belt. The other two followed him without a word of complaint.
A couple of dozen meters down the shaft narrowed, too small for them to go any further, but another fracture led east, fairly horizontal, following the path of the caverns far above them. Water coated the walls and floor, and here Bobbie Ray had even more of an advantage with his surefooted agility. Titus and Jayme kept slipping, and once Titus would have fallen badly except for Bobbie Ray’s obliging hand.
After clambering carefully some distance through the tunnel, Titus noticed a fissure overhead only because he was looking for it. With the help of Bobbie Ray’s height and reach, they muscled their way up the fissure into another large cavern, in line with the other two they had already explored.
“It was cut off from the last cavern by the talus mound,” Titus explained nonchalantly as first Jayme, then Bobbie Ray, emerged through the jog in the fissure that led into this small cavern. They were slightly elevated above the floor.
Titus was pleased that he had guessed correctly. Jumping down, he felt the loose rock shift and slip under his feet. Jayme actually went down on her hands and knees, unable to keep her balance, while Bobbie Ray hung on to the stone lip they had just jumped over, staring up open mouthed at the dramatic low‑hanging ceiling that dripped continually. The fat drops sparkled like rainbow stars under their handlights.
Titus knelt and picked up some of the rocky debris on the floor. “Hey, these are cave pearls.”
“Real pearls?” Jayme asked, picking up a handful of the shiny white spheres. “They’re huge!”
“It’s calcified gravel and bits of stuff,” Titus clarified. “You don’t find them very often, usually only in unexplored caves. I wonder if we’re the first ones to find this place.”
“That was a tricky entrance,” Bobbie Ray agreed. “I would have never seen it.”
Titus finally had his moment of satisfaction. He felt as if he had been trying to catch up to his roommate since they both arrived at the Academy. Except that Bobbie Ray had all the advantages of a childhood on Earth, supported by wealthy parents, while Titus felt like some kind of country bumpkin, unable to tell a sonic haircutter from a steak knife.
“Look up here!” Jayme called, halfway up the gentle slope of the talus incline. “I think the ceiling fell in back here.”
“It looks like the roof sank until it ran into the ground,” Bobbie Ray agreed, swatting at the elusive, fat drops that continually bombed them from above.
They climbed the shifting slope to the point where the ground and ceiling met. The rounded debris constantly moved under their hands and knees. Titus examined some of the bits, and was surprised to see elongated pieces as well as the more traditional “pearls.”
“Why aren’t there any stalactites in this cavern?” Jayme asked, standing in the last possible space at the upper end. A dense curtain of drops speckled the air in front of them.
“This cavern is lower than the others. If there’s too much water, there’s no time for the sediment to form between each drop,” Titus explained. “That’s what makes the cave pearls–the sediment forms as they’re polished and agitated by the water.”
“I think they’re beautiful,” Jayme said, gathering a few in her hand.
Titus squatted down next to her in a relatively dripfree zone. He aimed his tricorder at one of the elongated pearls. “This is bone! Human bone!”
Bobbie Ray immediately dropped his pearls, absently rubbing his hands on his coveralls as he looked at the tricorder readings. “You’re right. They’re ancient!”
Jayme was also hanging over his arm, trying to see. “Give me a second,” he ordered, keying in the commands. “Somewhere between twelve and fifteen thousand years old!”
“That’s when humans first moved onto this continent,” Jayme breathed, gently cupping her pearls in her palms. “They must have used these caves as shelter or storage. Maybe even burial. This is amazing!”
Titus barely had a second to absorb their find before Bobbie Ray muttered, “Uh‑oh! I think we’ve got trouble.”
The Rex was staring back at the hole they had climbed up. Water was welling up and pouring over the low lip that held back the piles of cave pearls. It made a rushing sound as it disappeared into the cave pearls piled on the floor.
“Oh no!” Titus exclaimed, running back down to their only entrance to the cavern. Now it was full of water. Even worse, water continued to pour over the stone lip and began to rise among the cave pearls. Soon, it had flooded the shallow basin and was rising higher, filling the cave.
“What’s happening?” Bobbie Ray cried in true panic. “How are we going to get out?”
Jayme dipped her fingers in the water, sticking them in her mouth. “Salty. That’s what I was afraid of. The tide must be rising.”
They both turned to look at Titus, mutely demanding that he do something. He knew he probably looked as panicked as Bobbie Ray. “The tide?”
“Yes, the tide’s coming in,” Jayme repeated, frantically scrambling through the cave pearls to the wall, searching up it with her handlight. “I don’t see a high‑water mark anywhere. Could it . . . is it possible . . .”
“You mean this whole cave gets filled with water?” Bobbie Ray asked in a high voice.
Titus could only shake his head. “I don’t know! We don’t have oceans on Antaranan!”
“What!” Jayme shrieked. “You brought us in here and you didn’t know what you were doing?”
Bobbie Ray leaned over the hole, digging at the rising water with his hands. When he came up soaked, his fur sticking out in clumps and clinging to his surprisingly skinny neck, Titus had no urge to laugh. The fear in the Rex’s eyes was too real.
“I’m going in,” Titus said, suddenly feeling much calmer, knowing that he had to take control. He got them into this mess.
“You’ll drown!” Jayme cried out. “That tunnel we came down–it’s lower than this cave. It must be filled with water, too!”
Titus swallowed, remembering how long the tunnel was. “We may not have oceans on Antaranan, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t have water. I’m a good swimmer.”