Mosaic - Jeri Taylor [50]
But the trek she had looked forward to for so long, with such anticipation, was being soured by Cheb's depression. Like kicking up silt: she knew he could be more careful, but he wasn't, he was making it less pleasant for her so she wouldn't enjoy the experience any more than he. They had been swimming through a long, tubular chamber filled with stalactites and stalagmites that jutted from above and below and threatened to snag them as they were pulled along by their hydromagnetic drives. Cheb was unspooling the guideline as he went, and she periodically fastened it to an outcropping. They would need this line to direct them back when they returned.
When the water stayed clear, Kathryn could see the formations in the light of her aquadyne torch, a mysterious and elegant arrangement of spires, like an underwater city of towers and turrets. It was a mesmerizing sight, and she imagined the millennia it had taken to form those spires, millimeter by millimeter, as dissolved calcium was slowly released by evaporating water, forming deposits that hardened and grew to astonishing proportions.
She realized they might be the first living creatures to have seen these formations.
This was what she had come for-for the ineffable thrill of seeing what hadn't been seen, of knowing what hadn't been known. She was inexorably drawn to the unexplored, fascinated by the unfamiliar. She wanted to savor the excitement of discovery, to revel in the anticipation of turning the next corner and finding something marvelous and unique. She didn't particularly want to nursemaid Cheb Packer's hurt feelings. Ahead of her, the water cleared, Cheb rose abruptly, and she realized he was surfacing. After nearly an hour, they had found an air pocket. And what an air pocket it was. As her head broke the surface of the water, Kathryn's light shone into a massive, cavernous room as big as several soccer fields. The ceiling rose fifty meters over their heads, and dripped with stalactites in wondrous, majestic patterns. It was like surfacing into the interior of a massive cathedral.
Cheb had swum to a rocky "beach" and crawled ashore; she followed him, removing her gill breather. "This is incredible," she said, and her voice echoed strangely in the hollow stillness.
"We can set up a camp here. There's enough level ground."
Kathryn unstrapped the waterproof pack from her back and dropped it to the ground. In it were concentrated food packs, dry clothing, and thermal blankets. Immediately, she began to roam, examining the stalactites that hung from the ceiling, still forming, still dripping with water, each drop leaving a minute quantity of calcium which would harden and lithify, gradually growing the inverted steeple of mineral deposits longer and longer.
"Isn't it amazing, Cheb? They're still forming. We're seeing a process that's been going on for millions of years."
He shrugged. "It happens the same way on Earth."
"But we're not on Earth. We're on Mars. And we may be the first people ever to see these caves, to see these stalactites form."
"Who has the oatmeal? Is that in your pack or mine?" She stared at him. Was he going to be like this the whole time? She took a deep breath, determined not to let him ruin the trip. "I think it's in yours."
He grunted and bent over his pack, searching through it, tossing items this way and that. Sloppy, she thought. He'll be sorry when he has to repack. She wandered around the huge chamber, studying the formations, ruminating on the natural processes that had been interrupted on