PART TWO
At first, Harper could see nothing at all. He blundered his way down the tunnel, feeling ahead of him with his uninjured arm. After a while, however, he could make out the route ahead of him, and it seemed that it was getting slightly lighter. "I must be getting near the way out, " he thought to himself at one point. Most of what went through his head was less optimistic, though.
Not long after leaving Trance, a doubt crept into his mind about whether he should have trusted her judgement so completely. He had not felt any sort of breeze, or had any sort of inclination that this narrow passage, which he was now following, would lead him to the surface of the planet. He had trustingly, and maybe rather foolishly, done exactly what she had said without really thinking things through himself. He did not doubt Trance's good intentions, but wouldn't have it been better to wait and see if Tyr came around? He doubted that the Nietzschean was badly hurt, or that it would have taken him long to recover. Surely Tyr would have been able to help them get out an easier way? There must have been a better plan than this. The passage seemed to go on forever...
Then he stopped dead in his tracks and his thoughts. Ahead of him he could see a vast cavern filled with light. He could tell from the way that it flickered that it wasn't daylight; somebody or something was lighting it up with torches. He remembered the signpost at the front of the cave and was hit by the horrible realisation that whoever the League of De Maistre were, they were still here.
Harper almost laughed. How could he have been so stupid to imagine he could be so lucky as to miss out on that lot? Human sacrifice may have not been his style, but hey, neither had been a lot of stuff he had been mixed up in. He'd never been too keen on watching people he loved suffer horrible deaths, but that hadn't stopped it happening. If there was a God, he definitely had it in for Seamus Harper. What the hell should he do now?
...
About half an hour after Harper left, Tyr woke up. He was a little surprised to see Trance, and very surprised to find out where he was. He remembered going into the cave, but after that nothing. However, what most surprised him was that Harper appeared to have taken off, on Trance's advice, on some badly conceived rescue mission.
"You told him to go...by himself. And he was injured?"
Trance said nothing, but looked at him with an expression that was obviously supposed to convey some sort of seriousness and worry. As usual, she also looked rather cute, although to Tyr, this was not a positive attribute. He couldn't help wondering what was going on below that sincere, purple surface.
"Do you know about the League of De Maistre?" he asked.
Trance hesitated and then answered. "No. Nothing," she said. "I saw the sign and I thought they might help us, or that you might have gone to their community. But then we fell down here and, well, we forgot all about them. What do you know?" she asked?
"I know they are a secret society. There are branches on many planets, but I have no real idea how large the organisation is. But a member of my pride, a cousin, had encounter with them and knew their ways. Their beliefs are loosely based on the ideas of Joseph De Maistre - an earth thinker who lived centuries ago. Some say that he foreshadowed Nietzsche...but I do not believe they had much in common."
"Why not? Are they evil?"
"From what I have heard most of them are just submissive. They believe all beings are weak and pathetic, and that the universe is governed by mysteries we cannot explain. Because of all the chaos, evil and suffering in the universe, they believe that must be the divine plan, and surrender to it, not even trying to fight it or understand..." Tyr broke off. He couldn't decide if all this explaining was worthwhile to a being like Trance. Either she was too silly to understand or...she already knew? Her expression was indecipherable.
"What do you think we should do," she asked. "What if Harper didn't make it back to the ship?"
Tyr rose to his feet. His head spun a little at first, but in a few seconds he was fine. He looked at the sides of the shaft down which they had fallen to see if he could pull himself up. Possible hand and foot grips were few and far between, but he knew it would not present him with much difficulty. "I can climb out of here," he said.
"But, Harper..."
"He might have made it back to the ship. It is not worth risking getting lost down here for just the possibility that he did not. If he is not at the ship...then I'll think of something else." Trance could see no purpose in arguing with Tyr, so she agreed. He crouched down, allowing her to climb on his back. Then, using all of his massive strength to pull the two of them up, he began to ascend the walls of the pit.
It was only when they were about half way up that they realised that the passage above them was now lit. Standing above them were three men, all dressed in black leather and each holding some sort of primitive laser weapon. One of the men pointed his gun at Trance. With a slight smirk, he looked Tyr straight in the eye.
"Just keep coming up, and maybe we will see no need to kill her."
...
Keeping himself hidden in the darkness of the tunnel, Harper peered into the lighted cavern. "If it was really bad," he thought to himself, "I will just have to try and find my way back and tell Trance there was no other way out. I mean, Tyr would probably have woken up by now, and...oh wow!"
All thoughts of running away evaporated the instant that Harper saw the cavern and it's single occupant. The flickering light revealed that the jagged rocks in front of him gave way to a dark blue spring pool, besides which a young woman was preparing to take a bath. She had settled on a boulder, and had placed a book and some sort of towel carefully beside her. She was currently in the process of pinning up the cascades of dark hair that were tumbling over her shoulders. "Then," thought Harper, "she's gonna get her kit off!"
Harper did not move, choosing to remain concealed in the darkness of the passage. Lost in the tide of lust that had swept over him, he had all but forgotten Trance and Tyr. He simply could not believe his luck - this sort of thing NEVER happened to Seamus Harper. No, he always got the crap stuff - nasty diseases, family bereavement, rejection by sexy computers, uncertain messages from the girl that he loved...no, he wouldn't think about any of that now. He was going to stand back and enjoy the show. "Hey," he thought to himself. "There is a God and HE RULES!"
The girl began to slip out of her loose, white top. "Here we go..." thought Harper gleefully. Unfortunately, at this point his conscience began to have a violent argument with all his male instincts and that kind of spoiled the moment. "Damn it," he thought, averting his eyes for a second, "I didn't know I had a freakin' conscience...why do I feel so bad about doing this. Can't I have any fun?" The girl, still partially clothed, had slipped under the water. Possibly, this was the moment to introduce himself and ask her if she wanted to have sex...NO...he must ask her the quickest way out of here. He stepped out of the shadows.
"Er...hi, there!"
The girl screamed and grabbed her top, holding it in front of her while still in the water. "Who are you...stay away, please!" She paused, breathless, and took her first look at the young man who had emerged from the darkness. He didn't look too threatening, but you could never be sure. She didn't know whether to be angry or frightened, but her initial assessment of the intruder told her that anger would probably be the best defence. "Have you been watching me?" she asked, sounding fairly aghast.
"Er...yeah. But, hey, I'm sorry...it's just that you were taking your clothes...er, well, I thought you were going to get naked. And you're gorgeous!" Harper could hardly believe he could be so stupid or so honest as to actually say that.
"Oh my Goodness!" said the girl, and climbed out of the pool on the furthest side of the cavern to Harper. She wrapped her towel around herself and then turned and looked at him. She took a deep breath and made an important decision. "Look...my community is not far from here. If I shouted loudly...somebody would come. Then, when I told them what you did, they'd kill you." She paused and hoped she was doing the right thing by not shouting. "Look. I don't know who you are, and I don't know where you've come from. But, if you just leave now I will not tell anybody about this."
Meanwhile, Harper was having a reality check. Watching quietly had been one thing, but that last thing he said had just been dumb. This wasn't Rommie or Trance, who he could kid around with. The girl was a babe, but he had no idea who she was, whether she was good or bad, or whether she was some alien mutant about to turn into some blood sucking slimy thing. However, the thought of going back into the blackness seemed even more daunting. "Seriously, I'm sorry. But, I can't leave, I'm not sure I can remember the way. Look, er...Miss," he decided that was a better thing to call her than Doll or Babe in the circumstances, "I need your help."
The girl looked at him with a mixture of disbelief and intrigue. On her second assessment, this boy did not look like a threat at all. For a start, he carried no weapons. He was quite short, and his blonde hair was a disorderly mess that almost made her laugh. Furthermore, he was wearing the most ghastly shirt she had ever seen - a mixture of blues, oranges and greens - and wrapped around his arm was a piece of purple sparkly material soaked in...blood. On seeing this she frowned, but did not mention it.
"Alright," she said. "I may be able to help you. But if I take you to my people, you must not tell them how we met. If you do, it will mean your death, and very possibly mine. Can I trust you to keep that secret?"
Harper nodded and the girl beckoned him to come around the pool and follow her.
....
The three men ordered that Tyr and Trance should stand up against the rock wall, with their hands above their heads. Tyr was totally not amused and pretty much un-intimidated. Trance knew he was not going to stand for this very long. She had a nasty feeling what he was about to do may not make the situation any better in the long run.
The older of the three men spoke. "I am the leader of the Malthus 7 Troglodyte community."
"You're not the League of De Maistre?" asked Trance. Tyr shot her a "be quiet" look.
"We are members of the League. We live by De Maistre's prophesies. Knowledge of the evil and suffering in the universe is the only truth, and all beings should be obedient to it."
Tyr snorted in disgust. "Not all are so weak and blind. I demand you let us go. It will be in your interests to do so."
" The divine plan is our concern - not our own interests. We must judge whether you deserve to live and, from what you have said, I do not believe you do. Why are you here? What are your intentions?"
"We only have good ones," ventured Trance. "Ultimately, we're trying to restore the Systems Commonwealth."
The men looked rather shocked, as if they were unsure how to respond to this news. Then the ringleader spoke: "He's a Nietzschean. They live by their own rules, not by those of some ancient commonwealth. I do not believe you." Here he pushed his laser weapon right into Tyr's face and laughed. This was a mistake. The aggressor had had no real contact in his life with a Nietszchean before and knew about their ways and strength only from stories. If he'd ever encountered one, he'd have known that if there's one thing a real life Nietzschean hates more than being pushed around, it's being laughed at.
With one blow Tyr knocked the gun out of the man's hand and sent him flying across the room. Faster than any normal human could react, he turned on the other two, kicking the first forcefully in the stomach and landing the second a resounding punch on the nose. He tossed Trance over his shoulder and marched resolutely out of the cave, not slowing his pace until he reached the Eureka Maru.
END OF PART TWO