Subterranean

"Tidy too," said Ben.

Ashley shook her head. "Conservation."

"What?"

"This ecosystem's energy is limited. Everything must be put to use. For this fragile system to survive, nothing can be wasted."

"Still… remind me not to shake this fella's hand."

Their guide continued forward with hardly a glance back. Ashley followed.

After two more hours of travel and two more stops to remove leeches, Ashley dragged at a snail's pace, drenched in sweat, every part of her anatomy scratched and poked.

Their guide turned to her. "Daga mond carofi," he said, his slit-pupiled eyes narrowed with concern.

She shook her head, not understanding. She uncapped her canteen and drank.

He pointed toward the distant wall; the path now turned in that direction. "Carofi!"

She wiped her forehead and squinted where he pointed. Just barely distinguishable from the shadows on the far wall was a pattern of black dots, arranged in rows and levels. She recognized the pattern, similar to the grouping of dwellings in Alpha Cavern. Even from this far away, she could see plenty of motion. Little figures clambering among the dwellings.

"My god, Ben. Look! A village!" she said, turning to him.

Pulling on his right ear, he wore an odd expression, a mixture of surprise and fear. "Do you hear…? A buzzing…?" His eyes rolled back, the whites of his eyes showing.

"Ben?"

He began to sway a bit, teetering, then collapsed into the field.

Ben struggled against the darkness. He could hear Ashley call to him, but it sounded like she was down a deep well, so far away, fading. The blackness swallowed him further.

He felt a tugging on his shoulder, at first tenderly, then more urgently. Ben's eyes fluttered open. His grandfather shook him again. "Be

Not again, he thought, as he looked around at the familiar cavern. Trunks of rock, bearing red bulbous fruit, surrounded him. He was dreaming. But how could that be? His grandfather was naked except for a loincloth, his chest painted in primary colors.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"Come. Follow." His grandfather stood up and pointed to a cavern opening with a star scrawled above the door-way. "This way." His dead grandfather crossed to the opening and climbed inside.

Ben tried to follow but found he couldn't sit up. He was paralyzed. "I can't move!" he called.

Only a voice from the cavern answered. "Come when you can. You are one with us!"

Blackness swallowed him up once again. He tried to push it back, succeeding this time. Light burst around him, and he found himself staring into Ashley's worried face.

"Ben?" she asked. "What happened?"

"I don't know." He sat up. "I don't know."

As they approached the encampment, Ashley stared up, her mouth hanging open. She tried counting the number of dwellings carved into the wall but lost her concentration after a hundred. The grouping of homes was crowded in a scalloped declivity about a mile wide, forming a natural amphitheater. The level of homes climbed some twenty tiers up, carved stairways joining landing to landing, thick ropes and crude pulleys draped down the face of the cliff in several locations.

These cave dwellings, though similar to the ones found in Alpha Cavern, were not the stark spartan dwellings found there. Rather, they had been transformed into comfortable-looking homes. The walls were festooned with multicolored weavings; entryways were draped with blankets in intricate designs; woven ba

Ben reached across and took her hand as they left the yellow fields and entered the curve of homes. Squeezing his hand, she noticed the rock floor had been polished to an almost smooth surface-whether from years of arduous labor or simply from centuries of ordinary foot traffic, she wasn't sure.

She followed the guide through an increasing throng of spectators. Some hung back with wide-eyed awe, some crept up to gently touch her arm or pluck at her clothes, and some hid behind others, peeking around a shoulder. She stared up at the cliffs surrounding them. Small hands held blankets aside to stare at them. The carved stairs between levels were crowded with thousands of sharp faces peering from above. A scattering of toddlers ran between the legs of their parents.

All were naked, like their guide. A few, however, were adorned with various crude necklaces, and some wore caps of woven reed. One group of males, all charcoal-haired, had some type of sharpened bone piercing their noses.

Their guide stopped and knelt on a stone, head bowed, waiting.

Ashley and Ben stood behind him. Looking over their guide's shoulder, Ashley caught sight of one adult female who drew her attention. While only slightly less furred than their guide, her pendulous breasts were bare, with wide tan nipples drooping down to her bulging belly. She exhibited all the signs of pregnancy. Ashley was about to turn away when a sudden motion caught her eye. A tiny hand popped out of the bulge in the female's belly; it reached up and grabbed a handful of fur beneath a breast. Using this handhold, a mewling infant, pink and hairless, pulled itself from her belly and began suckling. The mother seemed unaware and just continued to stare at Ashley. Ashley squinted, fascinated. The infant, made nervous by the commotion around it, lowered itself back down into its hiding place. Into a pouch!

"Look, Ben!" Ashley said, her words causing the spectators to back a step away. "That mother over there. She's carrying a child in a pouch."

"Yeah, so what? Did you see those guards at the entryway with the spears and leashed wolf creatures? If we want out of here, it ain't go

"I don't care. I'm not leaving here until they push me out kicking and screaming. There's too much to study. Do you realize what this means?" she said, nodding toward the female.

"What?"

"Only marsupials carry their young in pouches. These creatures must be evolved from marsupial origins!"

"Great, we've been captured by a bunch of kangaroos."

She ignored his remark, still thinking out loud. "The huge predators that attacked us were also a type of early marsupial. It's like this whole ecosystem's environmental niches have been filled with various marsupial species. But how? How did they get here? How did they survive?

Ben shrugged.

"I mean, think about it, Ben. A whole marsupial ecosystem, separate from mammalian competition and intrusion, has evolved here. In these caverns, evolution has taken an entirely different branch to sentience."

Just then a hush descended on the whispering crowd. Total silence. Ben nudged her and nodded forward.

A towering creature strode out of the entrance to the largest dwelling. He was black-haired, but a spattering of gray dotted his beard, his eyes so richly yellow they almost glowed. The creature stood a head taller than their guide, shoulders wide and muscular. He carried a walking stick taller than himself in his right hand, topped by a ruby the size of a grapefruit.

Their guide raised his head for the first time and began speaking rapidly. The other, clearly the leader of the community, blurted a word here and there. Ashley watched the exchange, curious what was being said. Their guide spurted out a last growl and lowered his forehead to the stone before him.

The leader finally turned to them, eyeing Ashley first, then Ben. He seemed to be studying them, absently scratching at his belly. He barked something at them. Though unintelligible to Ashley, his words caused the crowd to gasp and step away from them. Some even darted away, scurrying behind drapes.

Ashley turned to Ben.