Specimen 959 by Robert Davies

Author:Robert Davies [Davies, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Robert C. Davies
Published: 2012-10-24T22:00:00+00:00

The chasm lay dark, with only the light of the few remaining fires glowing on the floor below casting odd shadows against the squalid shacks and tents nearby. The walkways between the guard towers were vacant the usual army of guards who paced along them in daylight hours. Theriani had turned in early, so that her foray to the cistern would be made without fatigue and she woke to the vibration of a timer Banen used for metering the flow of medicine. Chronometers were useless in Bera Nima, but the intravenous control mechanism worked well as a make-shift alarm clock.

As Banen lay motionless beside her, Theriani slid silently from their cot and dressed quickly. It had been decided she would make her search under the cover of an ordinary water run. If others were waiting or watching, they would see only a lone Revallan making for the cistern with empty containers and jugs. With care, she padded quietly from the cave and headed off toward the southern end of the tier, and the cistern.

On this night, no one was awake, save for the watchmen who loitered near the ramps. She passed them without a word, carrying a single, small water jug. To an onlooker, it would be obvious where she was going and why, but even the huge, brutish Khorrans who stood guard at the ramps were unwilling to provoke her.

Still haunted by the knowledge somebody was watching, evidenced in Rantara’s abrupt exposure of Banen’s lie the night they first brought Norris to Bera Nima, Theriani spun suddenly around, looking for a sign she was being followed. To her relief, there was no one near, and she hurried the last hundred meters to where a darkened, crescent-shaped opening in the rock face of the tier’s wall gave admittance into the cistern. To eliminate the chance that someone yet followed, Theriani waited just inside the entrance for several moments until finally satisfied she was alone.

The narrow passageway through the smooth rock that led to the chamber curved to the right for thirty meters until at last, she emerged into the dim light of chemical glow orbs resting inside crude, metal sconces that had been driven into the dome-shaped chamber. Beyond it stood the low wall of sand-colored stone that formed a natural barrier between the cistern’s floor and a deep crevasse through which the stream thundered in the darkness.

Theriani could feel her senses heighten, even though no one could know of her true purpose. Another who may have happened into the cistern at that moment would see the mundane task of a Revallan collecting water for her enclave. In order to make the scene complete, she first unraveled a long, thin cord attached to the jug, lowering it over the side. Its presence, she reasoned, would give her the cover she needed if interrupted.

The process was slow, but Theriani walked every meter of the low wall, leaning over to look for a sign that would lead to a way out. It

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