“Don’t trust me to do my job?” Duke’s voice made Hans jump
slightly. It was fairly early and he hadn’t expected any of the daytime staff
to be in yet.
“It’s just habit. I’ve been checking my crafts ever since I
started flying.” Hans stood up and stretched. “It looks good to go and I
expected nothing less.”
“I’d do the same. Still planning what you were planning the
last time we talked?” Duke leaned up against the plane blocking the way into
the cockpit.
“Nothing’s changed. I’m still taking a little vacation,
that’s all.”
“Uh huh,” Duke shrugged and walked away. Hans stared after
him until he turned the corner. He was starting to get concerned with Duke’s
interest in what he was planning. There was no way Duke could know the truth of
what Hans was really doing heading out to where he was. He didn’t have
necessary knowledge to connect all the dots.
Hans climbed into the cockpit. He had a scheduled flight
plan to stick to and he wasn’t one to put such things on hold for minor
suspicions. He took off and felt the same joy that he always felt when he left
the ground. It was a pure, simple joy that being in the air always gave him. It
was the place that he belonged.
It didn’t take long for him reach the destination that he
had chosen just outside of the Mantou Islands. It wasn’t terraformed yet, but
there was a mining camp there inside a protective dome. He had flown plenty of
workers in and out of this location and there was a small town there for the
families of the workers. It wasn’t ideal, but it was as close as he could get
with drawing too much more suspicion than he already had.
He checked into the only hotel that the town had. The room
was small, but clean. It didn’t matter to Hans though it was just going to be a
place to store his stuff once he got geared up. There were a few things he
wanted to get still, but hadn’t wanted to buy outright. Here he could rent it
easily enough with no one asking questions.
Hans went back down to the front desk to get the information
he needed about where to rent the equipment he wanted. He wanted a reliable
renter who wasn’t going to be asking any questions about where he was going and
what he was planning to do. He was directed to a company called Sure Thing
Rentals.
“Hi there. How can I help you?” The friendly clerk piped up
as soon as Hans walked in through the door.
“I’m planning on doing a bit of exploring out around the
islands. I need a boat and some emergency supplies for the journey.”
“No problem at all, sir. Do you want any terrain or nautical
maps with that?” He didn’t seem the least interested in why Hans wanted the
items.
“Yeah, that would come in handy.” Hans smiled. “I’ll be
needing he rentals for about a week. I plan on leaving this afternoon.”
“Right-o. You should probably know that ocean conditions in
this area are pretty dodgy in the afternoons though. High winds and all. That’s
why they haven’t made the equator areas more habitable yet.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty familiar with the peculiarities of this
area and its weather patterns.”
“Great. I’ll get it all arranged for you then.” It didn’t
take the clerk long to set it all up and Hans was all set to go within in 15
minutes. He packed up his gear and headed out for the largest of the Mantou
Islands. It was his best bet as far as he could guess and it was, at least, a
place to start.
As expected, the sea was rather choppy and the winds were
nearly hurricane force. It was a hard go across the small straight to his
destination, but it seemed to take forever. Hans wished he could have flown in,
but he knew Duke would check the GPS tracker on the craft he had borrowed and
he didn’t need any more questions.
It was an hour of hard going before he arrived safely at the
largest of the four islands within the chain. Conditions on the ground weren’t
ideal, but he landed on the more protected side of the island. He was glad that
he had paid a bit extra to rent a full atmosphere suit. It would protect him
from the debris that was being carried by the wind.
Hans pulled out a small hand held device that was the only
thing he had ordered in from off planet for his expedition. It was very
sensitive to magno-electric fields and he was pretty sure that it would point
him in the right direction. Right away it began to light up and he fiddled with
the settings until he could better pinpoint the exact location of the where the
field was coming from.
It came as no surprise that what he was detecting came from
beneath him, but he was surprised by how deep the signal seemed to be coming
from. It was several kilometres beneath the surface if he was reading things
right. It wasn’t what he was expecting, but he had come prepared.
Hans pulled up his tablet to get the few survey plans that
existed for this particular island. There wasn’t much to go on, but a few of
the caverns had been charted by one of the early expeditions that had come this
way. Hans studied the map for a second before deciding on which entrance he
wanted to attempt first.
He headed confidently northeast towards the entrance he had
chosen. Despite the wind, it was pretty easy going. Cantun had been a fairly
dead planet before the terraforming had started. No life above the single cell
stage. Even once a stable atmosphere had been created, a large part of the
planet was still considered barely habitable. Very few plants managed to
survive here and the equatorial region would have been ignored if not for the
rich ore deposits.
Hans stopped for a moment as he came to the worn base of
what at one time could have been a mountain, but the wind had worn it into a
humble hill. It didn’t take any special equipment to see the partially
collapsed entrance to the cavern system. As a safety precaution Hans marked the
entrance with tracking gel just in case. He wasn’t keen on the idea of getting
lost down there.
Hans took one last look at the bright daylight before
crawling through the small entrance that the cave-in had left and into the
darkness. He paused just inside the entrance to give his eyes a chance to
adjust to the dim light that came in from behind. He had brought lights with
him, but this was one of his favourite parts of going underground.
He looked around in the dim light and was disappointed by
what he saw. There were no formations of any kind, just rough worn rock that
continued at a slight slope downward. He had been hopeful that there would be
more to see than that, but it was pretty dry in this area.
With a sigh, Hans turned on his light and got a better idea
of the size of the cavern. It wasn’t quite tall enough for him to stand in, but
at least he didn’t have to crawl. He stood slightly stooped as he followed the
cave downwards. It seemed to go forever, no branching off to either side. So
far it was exactly has described in the report. He could expect pretty much the
same for close to a kilometre or so and after that it would be a mystery
because the surveyor hadn’t bothered to continue at that point.
Hans glanced down at his GPS unit to check his status. Even
this far down, it seemed to still be working quite well. He had long passed the
one kilometre mark that the initial survey had recorded and it was still much
the same. Although the ceiling had raised just enough for him to be able to
stand straight once again.
Checking the time, Hans sat down for a rest and leaned
against one of the walls. It was getting late and he was hungry and tired – and
he was getting frustrated with the lack of anything interesting. It was just
the same dark blue and grey rock with nothing to distinguish one part of the
cavern from another. He had at least hoped for some good spelunking even if he
was wrong about what was causing the magno-electric field.
He felt around the ground and, without any surprise, noted
that it was dry and relatively even in this section. It was as good a place as
any to call it night. He set up his compact camp and started to make a dinner.
He had another three days he could keep going for before he had to turn back
and he prayed that he would find something before then.
