The Cave - Part 4

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The Cave - Part 4

-Lionel I feel difficulty in breathing, -said Enmanuel, speaking agitately.

-Relax and breathe calmly, we've only been walking for a few minutes, you can feel claustrophobia from the confinement, -said Lionel trying to calm his companion.

On their way they had found another gallery similar to the first one, where everything was illuminated by the bioluminescence of the fungi and microorganisms that proliferated on the walls and in the water. At the opposite end of it was a new entrance through which the cave continued to extend.

They went through the tunnel for another half hour and then decided to return to the beginning, to set up the camp and rest to start the tour again the next day.

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-Because of his height and weight he must be Dr. Emmanuel Rivero, I see no signs of life and the trackers are scattered around his body, -said LEONARD while observing the surroundings of the location of Enmanuel's body.

-Can you see Dr. Gouveia anywhere? -asked Hernán from the ship.

-No, there doesn't seem to be anyone else in this gallery, -said LEONARD, and then paused, he doubted what he should do next.- Do I keep going? -he asked.

-No, we're going to recover Rivero's body, please bring it back to the ship, tomorrow you'll go deeper into the cave, -replied Hernán.

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During the night Lionel and Enmanuel, locked themselves in the portable room, there, under the security of a controlled atmosphere and free from the danger of contamination thanks to a decontamination module attached to the room, they were able to remove their suits, during their first tour they did not collect samples, they only began to recognize the cave.

During the night, they could hear many noises and murmurs. Small flying creatures, similar to bats, flocked out shortly after dusk, they had not seen them during their journey, they would probably live more inside the cave. Also from the outskirts they heard screams and howls, which reminded Lionel of the noises made by animals such as wolves and gibbons.

Despite being sheltered inside the room, they could not fall asleep, the endless sounds, splashes in the water and occasional small blows on the walls, kept them awake, almost all night; they never expected so much activity in a place that in the light of day seemed uninhabited.

Almost at dawn they could see how the flying creatures that had gone out before, returned again to the depths of the cave. By the time of dawn, again the cave and its surroundings were in complete calm.

They would have breakfast and then they would go back to the cave, this time they would go with enough supplies to stay away from the camp all day and so return shortly before nightfall. They would be accompanied by a small assistant robot, simply an automaton that would follow them wherever they went, carrying part of the equipment and the container for the biological samples.

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-Here is ROBERT, but I see no sign of Dr. Gouveia, -said LEONARD, before the attentive gaze of Hernán, from the control unit of the ship.

-When they split up, they were not in a position to get far away from that place, - replied Hernán -. He couldn't walk for long.

LOENARD had travelled seven kilometres through the tunnel that followed after the second gallery, just over eight kilometres from the camp set up by Lionel and Enmanuel. Again, his journey inside the cave had not been very different from yesterday's, walls gleaming with the bioluminescence of the colonies of microorganisms that inhabited them and occasional mushrooms between one and a half and two meters high.

This was so until he found the small robot assistant lying on one side, it was just a platform with six wheels that had some containers attached, whose contents had been dumped on the floor, it was some capsules of dehydrated food and bottles of water, in both cases of those that fit the connector of supplies of hermetic suits.

Even subject to ROBERT, there was a container of biological samples, which apparently contained some of the samples that had been collected by the explorers, LEONARD, examined their contents on instructions from Hernán.

-I think the samples are still viable, apparently the small container did a better job than could be expected, - commented LEONARD, after examining the samples.

-Recover them and bring them to the ship, also bring ROBERT and the remains of food and water.

That's how far LEONARD's journey was for that day, he had to return to the ship again. As he had done, by bringing Rivera's body, before being decontaminated, he had to leave ROBERT and his cargo in the isolation room, where it would be studied by Patricia and Midori, the other two crew members, both biologists from the University of Palas.

Text of @amart29 Barcelona, Venezuela, November 2019

Other stories from the series The Age of Perseus

• The Cave - Part 1
• The Cave - Part 2
• The Cave - Part 3
• The Cave - Part 4

Thank you all for visiting my publication, I hope your comments and I appreciate your support, until next time

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