Day of Honor - Michael Jan Friedman [2]
Besides, it would be a lot more fun to see the chute for herself, first. She could always show it to her mother and father later.
"All right," she told her friend Dougie. "Let's go."
Together, they set out across the sunbaked flatlands that separated the colony from the hill country. It didn't take long to cross them, either-maybe half an hour at an easy lope. B'Elanna was so excited, she barely felt the afternoon heat.
"I don't get it," she said, as the rust-colored hills loomed in front of them. "Why didn't we ever find anything like this before?"
After all, B'Elanna and her friends had explored the hills many times already. They had found some small caves, but nothing even vaguely resembling a firechute.
"You'll sec," was all Dougie would tell her.
It was another couple of minutes before they found Erva Konal. Though she was a year older than Dougie and two years older than B'Elanna, her diminutive size made her look younger than either one of them.
Erva was sitting outside one of the caves they had explored weeks earlier, her thin, delicate features hidden behind patches of sparkling, dark rock dust. Her clothing was covered with the stuff, too.
"It's about time," she said, in her high-pitched
Yrommian voice. "I feel like I've been waiting forever."
"We can't all move as fast as you can," Dougie reminded her.
It was true. Despite their small stature, Yrommians had a funny, ground-eating gait, and Erva was no exception. Try as she might, B'Elanna had never been able to keep up with it.
"So where's the firechute?" B'Elanna asked.
Erva jerked her head in the direction of the cave.
"In here," she said. Then she got up and went inside.
B'Elanna shook her head as she followed the Yrommian into darkness. "This isn't a joke, is it?"
"No joke," Dougie confirmed. He was right behind B'Elanna as they headed for the depths of the cavern. "I know we were in this cave before and everything, but this time we saw something in the back of it."
"Like a flash of light," Erva explained.
"We found an opening in the rock," the boy added. "It was too narrow for me to get through, but not too narrow for Erva."
"Come on," said the Yrommian. "I'll show you. Just watch your head. The ceiling gets pretty low here."
B'Elanna couldn't see well in the darkness, but she managed to keep track of Erva. Her friend got down on her hands and knees, then gestured for B'Elanna to do the same.
"I wish I could go with you," Dougie sighed. "Maybe we'll find another chute," the Yrommian suggested. "One a little easier to get to."
"Yeah," said the boy. "Right."
B'Elanna felt Erva's hand on her arm. The Yrommian's fingers were cold, but that was normal for her people.
"It's this way," she said-and slipped forward into the darkness.
Suddenly, B'Elanna couldn't feel her friend's hand anymore. It was gone. "Erva?" she said.
She moved forward herself and extended her hand. It brushed against a rough, hard wall of stone. She moved it to the right-more stone. Then she moved it to the left.
And found an opening. The one that Erva must have gone through.
"Let's go, already," said a high-pitched voice.
With a little care, B'Elanna figured out the dimensions of the opening. It was about three feet high, but very narrow. So narrow, in fact, that she was sure she wouldn't fit through.
"What are you waiting for?" asked her friend.
"I think I may be too big," B'Elanna told her.
"Nonsense. Give it a try."
B'Elanna did as Erva told her. It was a tight fit, all right-but in the end, she did fit through. As she dragged her legs out of the hole, she could see the opening outlined in the faint, gray light from the cave mouth.
"You made it!" Erva cheered.
B'Elanna looked around. She couldn't see anything in the darkness ahead of her, not even the Yrommian. "Now what?" she asked.
"Now we wait," her friend told her.
But they didn't have to wait for long. The words were barely out of Erva's mouth when the place lit up with a blood-red light. And in that sudden flood of
illumination, B'Elanna saw a thin lash of ruby flame emerge from