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The moment the mantador’s teeth dislodged, I forced myself in deeper, vanishing at least from the predator’s range. On the downside, I was stuck. No matter how much I wiggled, or sucked in my chest, I couldn’t move forward. Cursing, I slapped the rock to no avail as breathing became more painful. My chest yearned to extend in a deep breath, but at this point I worried, I would break my own rips.
Somebody tapped me on the arm, Samurg, he pointed up, and it took my oxygen starved brain a moment to comprehend what he was telling me. With monumental exertion, I exhaled and moved my fin clad feet back and forward to move me up. There was some give, before my chest caught me again. This time Samurg maneuvered me a little down and sideways.
Still only taking shallow breaths, I allowed him to lead me through the rocky labyrinth while my sight turned hazy. It was only a matter of time now until I would pass out.
That Samurg was here though, directing me, gave me hope that the other end wasn’t too far off and that it would offer more room.
Just as my vision was turning black, Samurg pulled on my left arm and I was out of the narrow rift. My shoulder hurt, my lungs hurt, my chest screamed at me, but the rest of my body jubilated as I took my first deep gulp of oxygen.
Samurg pointed up and to my utter astonishment, I made out a faint glow from above. Light! Questioningly I looked at Samurg, who shrugged and gave me an expression that told me to prepare myself for the shock of a lifetime.
Grim faced, I turned my head up, moving my feet toward the light. We were inside a tunnel, it was still narrow, but nothing compared to the rift I had just fought myself out of.
The illumination was getting brighter, but there was no indication that we were actually making our way toward the surface. Soon I made out the moving fins of my dragoons, the bound up tail of the siren, who had obviously regained consciousness as she fought in one of my dragoons arms. She was gagged, so she couldn’t call her brethren and tied, still she jerked her body around catching the dragoon off balance here and there.
My eyes fell on a jagged piece of jutting out rock and I indicated for the dragoon to take his captive there and to bind her against the rock.
Samurg kept pointing up, there was something he wanted to show me. Satisfied the siren wouldn’t cause any trouble right now, I followed Samurg.
A small translucent bubble came into view, glowing from within, the size of my hand. Then another, this one a bit bigger around and another. Something dark moved inside the fourth. Curiously I swam toward it. Inside the translucent bubble, was another, darker shadow that wiggled. Was it a worm?
Samurg tapped my shoulder, pointing. I followed him to another bubble, this one bigger than the others. My breath caught when I realized the dark form inside was an embryo. An embryo with a long tail.
These were eggs. Or birthing sacs.
A commotion to my left turned my attention. Three of my dragoons were fighting with two sirens. Three more of my dragoons swam toward the battle. I kicked my feet to propel me forward just as a fourth siren appeared.
If this was where they kept their offspring, than this place had to be their nest, a very, very protected nest.
As if on cue, more sirens appeared, so many, they soon outnumbered us as the fight turned deadly. Knives were drawn, to ward off extended claws.
A hand made a grab for my tank. Knife out I turned, facing a siren.
No matter what though, I couldn’t bring myself to stab at a seffy and neither could my dragoons. All eyes were on me when I dropped my knife, pointing at my scales I showed the sirens who I was. They wouldn’t dare hurt a vissigroth, their vissigroth. Even if we had inadvertently invaded their nest.
With a sigh I resigned myself to a very unpleasant conversation with Sarissa.
We followed the sirens as they kept going up, then turned to the left, where more eggs or sacs hang from lines, filled with dark shadows. So many, it was turning into a blinding sight.
As we swam by though, I noticed that not all dark shadows inside had tails, some had obvious legs and I swallowed, as I began to suspect that this was where our annual crop of younglings came from.
The stone tablet I picked up from the bottom of the sea turned out to be a wealth of information even though at that time I didn’t know how life changing it would be.
After a thorough cleaning, I got to work on my palmtop, since this tablet wasn’t filled with images like the walls and columns, but filled with actual writing. The palmtop was amazing, it took me all night, but I managed to decipher the entire text.
Stunned I leaned back on the sofa, tablet in front of me, palmtop with the translated text in my hands, staring at the lines. The people who had lived here before had called themselves Zuten.
Just like I had figured out from the mosaics, the Zuten had made incredible headways in the discovery of gene manipulation for both fauna and flora. They had even discovered some sort of spaceflight, but it had been in the early stages, kind of like when humans first landed on the moon. Well, a bit more sophisticated than that. But the Zuten were lucky to have several colonizable planets in their solar system, and weren’t as isolated as Earth had been.
They had managed to send some of their species to the other planets, leaving me to conclude that they most likely had been the Leanders forefathers. Assuming this, I felt an urge to explore the other planets in the Leander system for ruins. Hoping Myles would be amenable to the idea.
Unfortunately, the Zuten biological experiments got out of hand one day when they tested a gas in the atmosphere that would increase rainfall, to cultivate more barren parts of the planet. Well, it did begin to rain, the problem was, it didn’t stop.
When the Zuten realized their entire planet was about to flood, they sent a few more spaceships into their solar system to save as many of their species as possible. The others were left to drown or to find refuge at what was now known as Fall Mountain Island. At the time it had been the biggest mountain on Oceanus.
The story described how they hollowed out the mountain with explosives to make it livable and stopped there, I imagined the writer had either made his or her way to Fall Mountain Island or drowned. They had left the tablet behind though.
I drummed my fingers on my palmtop, trying to figure out if I should take a ship to let Myles know or wait for him to return. I doubted that after all these years, there would a survivors inside the mountain on the island, but… how amazing would that be? Finding another species, or their descendants after all these years?
