On the third day they hit an immovable slab of odd shaped rock that served as the column’s foundation. They put ropes around it, pushed, pulled, but the stone didn’t budge. The cave ceiling was dark and looked solid.
“What if we break it up?” Milly said.
“No way. Then they’ll know for sure,” Peter said.
She hated his feebleness and insecurity. “So? Shit don’t mean shit. Remember?”
“Tris…”
“Yes, your wife might find out you and your oldest friend dug a hole. Strap you to the cliffs,” Milly said.
“Break it how? We’d need a hammer bigger than anything we’ve got. And think of the noise it would make.”
“All good points,” Milly said. “But there’s a guy.”
Milly’s friend, Jerome, had a hammer with a head made of steel salvaged from the Oceanic Eco, and he agreed to let them use it if they let him in on the caper. This turned out to be a blessing because it allowed Milly and Peter to work in the Womb and diffuse any suspicions while Jerome hammered away.
On the fourth night, Jerome yelled as if bitten by a shark. Milly and Peter went running and found him with his head down a hole in the floor. When he came up, he said, “It cracked and fell through. Grab me a torch.”
Milly complied and Jerome dropped the light into the hole. It fell for several seconds and landed with a scattering of sparks and illuminated a lava cave.
“Holy shit,” Peter said.
“Indeed,” Milly said.
“We’re gonna need rope, torches, water and food. We could be down there for days,” Jerome said. He got up and dusted himself off. “I’m outta here. Same time tomorrow? I’ll get some sleep then haul our supplies.”
“Yeah,” Milly said. “We’ll cover that hole with some rocks until tomorrow.” She was glad her partners in crime understood that it wasn’t time to tell anyone what they’d discovered. If what they’d found amounted to anything more than a cover to keep people from falling into the abyss, there’d be time enough to squawk like a kura parrot.
Milly was jumping out of her skin the rest of the night and the next day. The storm blew through and the Womb hosted a steady stream of people. She saw Jerome once in Citi and he avoided her. Curso already had suspicions, and she didn’t need to provide him any further clues by talking to someone she didn’t know. Peter said Tris suspected something also, and it had gotten so bad he offered to stay behind rather than endanger the mission. She flatly declined. She didn’t know Jerome, and she had no idea what they were in for.
They got the fire going as big as possible, but did it matter? By the end of the night the Perpetual Flame might be a thing of the past. Jerome constructed a sling, and one by one they lowered themselves into the chamber below the infirmary. Milly’s hand shook and her torch light danced on the walls. The sound of water lapping against stone echoed through the damp cavern.
The volcanic cave was thin and smooth, and they left footprints in the damp rock dust on the floor. They went left, and the tunnel turned upward and gradually closed into solid stone. They backtracked, and the tunnel got hotter, steam rising from the rock walls.
“The fire must be right above us. Your mother definitely knew about this. There has to be something down here,” Peter said.
“How long have you guys known about this?” Jerome asked.
Nobody spoke.
“OK, but whatever happens here on out, I’m in on it,” Jerome said.
The tunnel plunged downward, and in many spots they had to deploy rope to scale the steep cliffs. After an hour of climbing in the dark, they reached a large open cavern with a great lake at its center. On a ledge half way around the chamber a mound of branches and debris caught Milly’s attention. Water dripped down the walls, and the rank smell of the sea assailed them. Crabs scattered as the party made their way around the water, staying as close to the cave wall as they could manage.
“No way all those branches got here naturally,” Jerome said.
“They could have floated through the opening on the opposite side and gotten balled up in a rough sea or high tide,” Milly said.
“We’re half-a-mile inland or more,” Peter said.
“This is a volcanic island. Lava tunnels can run for miles unbroken,” Milly said.
When they reached the pile of branches, they uncovered what lay beneath, and it didn’t take long to reveal the boat. Peeled paint formed a circle around the launch, but other than several massive dents, the old tender looked seaworthy. “Aluminum. The harder you pound it the stronger it gets,” Peter said.
They pulled away enough brush to get inside, and what they found would forever change the lives of everyone on Respite.
They discovered instructions on how to get the boat to open sea using the tides to adjust for drops and rises in the cave system, tools, and charts, all stored in an airtight container. The tender’s motor was dissembled and submerged in oil, and a single five-gallon industrial tank of gas, which a note claimed had been sealed and treated. It wouldn’t work if it was over five years old, and it was much older than that. Two sail rigs were preserved and modified to fit on the roof of the launch, and the rudder control had been redirected to a large wooden arm
