ABANDON

Chapter 22 -- Akai'nii

Oosa grabbed Michael by his shirt and dragged him out of the group, shouting back to Kill and John who nodded their heads. Micheal didn't know what was going to happen, but he didn't resist.

Soon followed and when Michael glanced at her, she nodded towards Oosa and shrugged. The look was more apology than uncertainty. Soon spoke to Oosa, who snapped at her but then let go of Michael. Soon winked at him.

Maymio, in the dune buggy with Jane, had stopped in front of a crevice in the wall. She got out of the dune buggy and Michael watched her put her hand motheringly on the top of Jane's head. It didn't take long for the rest of them to join her. Oosa motioned for Michael to pick up Jane. Michael leaned over Jane, trying to find the best way to move her. Her eyes were rapidly moving under her eyelids. Her arms spasmed and Michael put his hand on them to quiet them. The moment he did, Jane sat up and screamed. Michael jump back as though something had exploded.

"Seehoiah." All three women agreed, then moved forward to help, but Jane stopped them by thrusting out her arms.

"I'm fine. I'm fine." She stood to prove her statement. "I fell asleep." Jane's eyes grew wide as she looked around. They were in a cave, lit by thin tubes of yellow that ran in masses along the bottom walls of the cave, snaking through rooms and tunnels like blood vessels. Many people were standing all around them, a few paces off, staring at her. Jane shrank back. "What's going on?"

Michael introduced the three women. They exaggerated their smiles in an attempt to calm Jane, but all she could see was the distortion. She moved away from them, towards her brother. "How long was I asleep?"

"Nine or ten hours. I'm not sure. I know it's been more than six."  He shook his head, momentarily reliving the hours in decontamination.

"Where are we?" Jane cradled the cuff on her broken arm as she stood and moved out of the dune buggy.

"Home I guess."

Jane stared at her brother. What Michael said bit Jane and it bit her hard. She had been trying to get everyone, including herself, back home. She had tried so hard, her mind raced bringing up so many things: the program she wrote, navigating the Holiday after it had died, blindly freeing the transport, figuring out how to stay alive on the surface of a dead planet, exploring the darkness of the building—the list went on and on. Suddenly she felt like everything she had been trying to do, everything she hard worked so hard for, everything she believed in was nothing.

Michael tried to encourage by smiling. "Oki is how they say hello."

Jane looked at the three women, each of them said Oki. Jane bit her lip and muttered the same word back. She glanced fearfully at the crowd beyond the women, then back at the women. "What do they want?"

"Want?" Michael laughed. "I don't know."

Oosa almost grabbed Michael's shirt again. It was Soon who stopped her. They exchanged words and Michael was quite sure Soon was teasing the older matron. Then Soon smiled mischievously at him, winked again, and headed into the tunnel entrance, beckoning them to follow.

"Where are we going?" Jane couldn't hide the fear in her voice.

"I don't know." Michael shrugged his shoulders.

Jane thought of many vicious retorts for her brother, but she was too tired inside to say any of them. Besides, she was wrong to say anything, she was always wrong about everything.

The tunnel entrance was tall—more than five times Michael's height, as they descended down the rock steps the top of the passage descended even more rapidly than the floor did. The rock was touching Michael's head when the passage dead ended in a room. The rock in this room was no longer layered and the walls and ceiling were perforated by thousands of holes. Most of the holes were tiny pores, but occasionally there was one that was big enough to hold a glass jar or bundle of clothes. Near the floor, there was a long shallow hole that held a mattress and a blanket.