Liquid Stone

Liquid Stone - Chapter Seven

Searcher-John stopped me from covering the table recorder with my jacket but he did leave the room so I could relieve myself.  I used the jacket to keep at least a minimal amount of modesty since I knew I was still being watch from the control room.  Apparently I was right since John returned the second I finished belting my drooping pants.  He brought more food.  Sweets and coffee this time.

"You're slowing down, Devaney. Pick up the pace," he instructed. 

I guess the sugar and caffeine was intended to speed up my story.  

The itch woke me.  I rubbed my face and gobs of dried mud fell to my clothes that I was using as a pillow.  My face!  It felt normal. My eyes!  I could see. I patted down the rest of my naked body and rejoiced at the familiar slender shape.  Either time or the mudpack healed my swollen body.  In fact, with closer examination, all my cuts and bruises felt as though they had  disappeared as well. 

Time. Oh gosh I had no idea what time it was.  How long had I slept?  I felt wonderful. I must have slept my fill so it was probably more than just a few hours.  The cave was dark but that meant nothing to the time of day.  I kept my right hand on the right wall and danced naked back to the entrance of the cave.  When I crouched to see outside, it was day but pouring rain.  There was no way to see where the sun sat in the sky.  I regretted, again, letting Liam take my eplate. 

I gathered the wood I had used as a shield from the opening of the cave to make another fire.  I was famished and parched.  Liam had packed some meal chips so I ate them right away.  I noted the dampness of my clothes.  That's a pretty nutty idea, I thought.  I couldn't collect rain water for drink.  We all knew rain was environmentally tainted and could prompt hallucinations  or, worse, seizures.  And, of course, Liam's survival kit did not include a purifier. I was afraid I would dehydrate but mostly I just wanted to sooth my scorched throat. So, crazy as it seemed, I sucked the moisture from my clothes.  The goopy clay from the pot must have dripped and rubbed off from my face.  When I plucked it away, the fibers locked in the moisture.  So, I sucked on it.  Not very appealing but it did sooth my throat.  I tried to rub my shirt over the condensation on a stone wall but it didn't seem to soak into the synthetic material.  The moss.   After all, moss is just a bunch of cell plants that swell from their water content.  Springing with my renewed energy, I peeled a piece of moss from the floor.  Yes, I sucked on it.  It smelled like typical mud including a hint of freshly-cut grass.  Even though iIt tasted like Jamie's gold fish aquarium water, it refreshed me to my toes.  I pretended I was eating artichoke leaves where you pull the petal through your teeth leaving the ground meat on your tongue.  Another two patches and I was satisfied. 

The moss trailed under the pot and up the wall beside it.  If needed, I could last a couple of days on my newfound exotic drink.  Moving my eyes beyond the three pots, I saw a group of wax lids.  Fourteen in all.  Tucked to the rear of the deep alcove were shapely cylinder terra cotta vases, each with dribbling wax, each with pointed bottoms and resting in a metal rack.  Three empty circles accounted for the three fallen pots.  The lip of the canisters stood a few inches above my head.  Directly at my eye-level, a single line of odd etchings wrapped around the narrow neck of each pot.  The bellies had one larger symbol.  It looked like a pointy letter P with an inverted triangle at its base.  

Very little light stretched from the fire so I investigated with my fingers.  Each pot seemed identical.  I assumed each contained mud.  The rack indicated to me that these had been intentionally stashed there.  I hadn't fallen upon some unknown artifacts from an undiscovered cave civilization.  The significance of keeping mud in tall clay pottery escaped me.  Certainly, when all this was over, I would have to tell officials of my find.