Subterranean

'Ben! Benny boy. Wake it up there, son!'

Ben's eyes snapped open. Who the hell…? He still sat in the same cavern, the ring of columns and pulpy fruit surrounding him. But instead of the old creature, his grandfather sat cross-legged across the pit. He waved a liver-spotted hand in his direction. Ben glanced around. The place was otherwise empty. Not even Ashley was there. He craned his neck, peering. That was odd; he could still hear her, moving off to the left, mumbling something, but she was invisible.

'Benny, whatcha lookin' for?'

'Where am I?'

His grandfather lifted a finger crooked with arthritis and pointed to his skull. 'In here, my boy.'

Ben took a deep breath, his heart beginning to beat faster. This was insane. His grandfather and the chamber began to fade to blackness.

'Whoa there, boy. Ya need to calm yourself. Can't get all riled up, or this here won't work.'

Swallowing hard, Ben began to get an inkling of what was going on. He concentrated on letting his body relax, starting with his toes and working up. The imagery around him intensified with clarity.

'There ya go, Benny. That's better.'

He concentrated on breathing evenly and deeply as he spoke. 'You're not my grandfather.'

'No, I'm not.' His grandfather smiled slightly, then his image slowly shrunk and swirled, his brow thickening, his eyes widening; a staff appeared resting across his knees. The swirling settled into the figure of the old crippled creature. 'This is, of course, my true image. I am called Mo'amba.'

The elder's voice still sounded like his grandfather. It was disconcerting to hear it coming from such an alien face. 'How? Why?' Questions tumbled in his mind.

'Benny, neither of us speaks the other's language. So I speak to you with the language of the mind. My thoughts are translated by your mind into images and words you understand.'

'So you stole the memory of my grandfather to represent yourself.'

'Not me. You did. It was your mind that pulled up your grandfather's image to represent a heri'huti.'

Ben pictured his grandfather's stern sober face. 'And just what the devil is a heri'huti?'

'I am. As are you. Someone with the ability to connect on the dream plane. To see farther down the dark paths to the unknown.'

'But why me?'

'I can read the history of your blood. A strong heri'huti glides in your bloodline from the distant past. Very strong. You are still unlearned, but with time your skill might even surpass mine. A skill that my village needs in order to survive.'

'What do you mean, survive?'

'I am the last of my people with this ability,' Mo'amba said, his expression suddenly pained. 'With the passing of time, I have seen the other heri'hutis depart this world until only I was left. Now even I can't lead the hunters to feed our people and protect the boundaries from the crak'an anymore. The hunters go out alone. Blind. Without the guidance of a heri'huti to see beyond the next bend, it is very dangerous, and we have lost many hunters. Widows wail every night. We cannot survive much longer without a new heri'huti to guide our people.' He pointed one finger at Ben. 'You are the one.'

'Me?'

'I have been calling for many years seeking to draw others like me here to our village. But you were the only one to answer.'

'Bloody hell, there must be others. Others like… well, like you. Maybe another village would share their heri'huti with this village.'

Mo'amba shook his head. 'After the Scattering, the other villages were lost to us. In deep dreams, I sometimes hear inklings of the Lost Ones, but it may just be wishful dreaming rather than true dreaming.'

'Still, you can't expect me to-'

Mo'amba's form drifted back into the image of his grandfather, anger lines deep around his eyes. 'Blood runs true! You are one of us!'

Ben opened his mouth to protest when Ashley's voice suddenly intruded. 'Ben, you must see this!'

With her words, the images around him faded, the face of his grandfather swallowed by blackness. He opened his eyes and shook his head, clearing the clinging cobwebs of his dream.

Ashley stared at him with a crinkled brow. 'Jesus, how could you sleep at a time like this?'

'What?' Dazed, he rubbed his temples, a vague throbbing still there.

'Come see this,' Ashley said, oblivious to what had just transpired. She crossed a few yards and knelt by a painting, waving him over.

He glanced across the clearing to the old man. He still sat staring.

With a shiver, Ben pushed up to his feet and slid over to Ashley, unsure what to tell her. 'What did you find, Ash?'

'Look at this painted petroglyph. It's a triptych.'

'A trip… what?'

'Three pictures. See the last one.' Ashley crouched before three painted red circles and pointed at the third one.

Ben knelt closer, not quite believing what he was seeing. The third circle held a crude map of landmasses of the southern hemisphere. 'My god, that's Australia.'

'I know. It's crude but fairly accurate. Now look at the other two.'

Ben studied the other two circles. The first showed the Australian continent connected to the Antarctic continent by a thick land bridge. The second showed the same huge land mass breaking away. 'What about them?'

'It's the connection! It explains how the Mimis of Australia-at least some of them-ended up here.'

'I still don't get it.'

Ashley sighed as if she had already adequately explained. 'Millennia ago, land bridges connected various continents. With the continental plates shifting and ocean levels changing dramatically, land bridges rose and sank frequently, some disappearing in a matter of months. The fossil record also supports the existence of just such a bridge. Many fossilized remains of extinct marsupial species have been found in Antarctica.'

He shrugged. 'So you think…?'

'Yes! Look at the first map.' She pointed to the link between the continents. 'That's the land bridge. The second picture shows the breakup of the bridge. The third picture shows how the continents eventually became isolated.'

'But how could these people know about this? Map this?'

Ashley sat back on her haunches. 'They obviously lived through it. And mapped it, like the American Indians did their coastlines. And through either an oral or pictorial history, they kept the memory alive.' She pointed to both Australia and Antarctica on the third map. 'They were once connected. Then something drove these people out of Australia, at least some of them. They were trapped here when the land bridge sank.'

Ben studied the images, imagining a people forced to flee to the icy continent across a bridge of rock. He placed a finger on Antarctica. Two tribes separated. 'My god… the Scattering,' he mumbled. 'Maybe this was what Mo'amba was talking about.'

'Who?' Ashley asked, turning her nose from the middle picture.

'Ash, you better sit down for this one.' He watched as she gave him her full attention, her eyebrows knitted tightly together. As he explained what had just occurred between him and the old man, her eyebrows drew apart and climbed high on her forehead.

'You mean he can speak to you!' she exclaimed when he had finished. 'They do use some rudimentary telepathy.' She glanced toward the creature seated cross-legged across from them. 'Is he listening to us right now? Reading our minds?'

'I don't think so. We both have to be in a trancelike state. Like the Aborigines do with their dreaming pools when they communicate.'