Nanny Proxima Four

Rishi awoke the next day alone on his bed roll. It took a few seconds for him to realize who he was and where he was.

Light outside the cave indicated it was early morning, around 8:00 AM. Rishi looked to his left and saw a bottle of water. He picked it up, opened it and took a long drink. The water tasted wonderful.

Jonny heard his father stirring, walked from the back of the cave and said, "You okay Dad?"

"Yeah. Why kiddo?"

"You started to bleed clear liquid from your ears. Mom said it was a swelling of the brain. She and Bob left the cave to travel to town to see about getting you lifted before noon today, but I haven't heard from them and, well, they've been gone all night."

"That's not a good sign."

Jonny held out his hand and said, "Here. Bob gave this to me to give to you when you woke up. He said you have to do it, its part of the agreement."

Rishi drank more water, took the paper and opened it. On it was a note from Bob. "You must return without us. Your wife has much to experience."

Rishi looked at his son. "Did you read this?"

"Yeah. What does it mean?"

"I made a promise kiddo. I have to go back with Paul. You can stay if you like and wait for them or you can come with me."

"Can I look for them?"

"I don't think there's any point in that. That old man knows stuff and your mother gave him a very special gift so he gets to help her a lot. We have to trust him."

"I want to look for Mom, but, I know I should stay with you."

Rishi and Jonny waited expectantly for Terrie and Bob's return through breakfast and lunch, but they never came. Paul showed up at about ten minutes after noon with his ship hovering right outside the cave entrance.

Its was a stunning space craft. About thirty feet long, ten feet wide and a sleek oval shape. It was black with oddly reflective highlights of gray and white.

Jonny had waited outside for it and called his father when it appeared.

Rishi walked to the entrance as Paul Ashvale stepped out of the ship through its oval portal.

"Come on," said Paul, "we gotta get you to a hospital."

"But Mom's missing," said Jonny.

"I know," said Paul, "she called me and said she and Bob, that crazy old man, had fallen into a cavern and Bob was hurt. There is nothing we can do for them until they can get to another exit of the cave. Bob knows the cavern and the way out so he'll tell Terrie where they need to go, but it will be slow moving because of Bob's fractured leg. Once they get out, she'll call and I'll go get them." Paul looked at Jonny and said, "Don't worry Jon, she'll be okay."

Johnny and Paul helped Rishi into the space craft and lead him to the copilot's seat. Paul sat in the pilot's seat and said, "Xray-Seven-Alpha-Foxtrot-Delta-Niner-Echo to space traffic control tower seven-two, over."

Rishi put on his headset in time to hear the reply. "Xray-Seven-Alpha-Foxtrot-Delta-Niner-Echo received. Go ahead. Over."

"Permission to leave earth atmos and engage course for Proxima Centuri. Over."

"Permission granted, leave atmos on heading niner niner seven mark six zero five. Be careful around the moon, there's a concert today and a lot of kids who may or may not be paying attention to space traffic control. Over."

"Roger that. Thanks for the expediency. My friend is pretty badly hurt and time is of the essence. Over."

"Glad to be of service. Space traffic tower seven two out."

Paul closed his eyes and the space craft jumped through the atmosphere hitting nine times the speed of sound in a heart beat.

Leaving Earth's atmosphere, Rishi and his son marveled at the beautiful green, brown and blue ball below them.

"Dad?" asked Jonny.

"Yeah kiddo," said Rishi as he got a bit dizzy.

"How did she ever survive us?"

"Ha! I don't know. I guess she's just very resilient."

The space craft left the atmosphere of earth and completed the jump to hyperspace. In a matter of minutes they left hyperspace and were near the fourth planet from Proxima Centauri: a man made planet which, although quite stunning, carried none of the mystique of Earth.

Paul requested landing permission at the planet's main hospital and received docking instructions.

Upon landing a team of medical droids examined them one by one as they left Paul's ship.

Droid One, met Paul first and said in a very motherly tone, "Paul Ashvale! How many times have we told you to drink plenty of water on these inter-solar jumps?"

"Yeah. Yeah," said Paul. "I know. I know. I'm not the patient. Jon Rishi is."

"Oh my," said the Droid Two, "What happened to Jonny?"

Jon Rishi stepped out of the space craft and the Droid Three chastised the Droid Two and said, "Didn't you read Paul's travel report? Its Jon Rishi Senior that's hurt."

Droid Two said, "Oh my! I didn't even know you were still alive!"

Droid One said, "You haven't been in for a checkup in over two years, Jon Rishi Senior. You are such a naughty boy!"

Rishi shook his head and said, "Haven't they shut down those personalities yet? I mean aren't they annoying enough?"

The head shake had not been a good idea. He lost his balance and Droid One caught him.

"I'm going to ignore your careless remark," said Droid One, "now lets get that skull fracture looked at, shall we?"

Droid Three peered into Paul's ship and said, "where is Terrie?"

"She's trapped on Earth," said Jonny.

"Oh my! Can we go to her?" asked Droid Two.

"No." replied Paul. "That planet would destroy you in a matter of days. Medical bots do not do well in high moisture environments."

"But I could be retro-fitted!" demanded Droid Two.

"And who would pay for this retro-fitting?" asked Paul.

While the argument between Droid Two and Paul continued, Droid One was helping Rishi onto a hover stretcher while continuing to scan his body.

"My lord Jon Rishi Senior! You are dehydrated, malnourished, have a fractured skull, a damaged shoulder probably from a dislocation, many many scrapes and contusions and a fractured left tibia. What happened to you?"

"I walked off a 100 meter water fall," replied Rishi.

"Goodness!" Exclaimed Droid One. "Perhaps a psychological evaluation is needed. In any event you'd be much safer here, there are no such waterfalls on P.C. Four!"

By now Paul had requested the language circuits of Droid Two disconnected. Begrudgingly Droid Two complied.

Droid One took silent advice from Droid Two and stopped complaining.

Droid Three and Droid One pushed Rishi's stretcher down the hospital corridor to the waiting staff of humans and droids. The happiness was easier to read on the human faces, but clearly present on all of them. Its as if they were shouting, "Horay! Someone's sick or hurt!"

"I feel like a quark about to be observed," joked Rishi.

"Well," replied his son, "at least they'll not know where you're going, just where you've been."

Rishi smiled. His son had done a lot of growing up in the last couple years.

The medical team took Rishi to a special room and began mending him at the cellular level. The process took about forty minutes.

As the last doctor left the room with his assistant droid he said, "Imagine that! Forty minutes!"

"I know," replied the droid, "That's the most work anyone has needed for two hundred years."

"Feeling better?" asked Jonny.

"Yes. Much better. Lets go look for Terrie and Bob."

"We can't. I'm working on permission to go back. It'll be a while," replied Paul.

"The bureaucracy has gotten worse, huh?"

"Thats an under statement. They are calling it Nanny Proixima Four now."

The World Invades the Cave

Rishi awoke in the muted light of morning which drizzled in from the end of the cave like light through a cathedral window.

Terrie stared at Rishi from his side. She mopped his brow with a wet cloth and smiled at him. "Welcome back to the world of the living Jon, How do you feel?"

"Pretty much like I fell off a hundred meter waterfall."

"Is that what happened?" asked Terrie.

"Yeah. That's what happened."

Rishi's son heard his parents talking from the cave entrance and ran back to them. "Its so cool here Dad! Can we stay?"

Before Rishi had a chance to talk Terrie said, "No Jonny, we can't stay here we have to get home, I've been away from my job for far too long."

At this moment Bob walked up from within the bowels of the cave with a glass pitcher full of water. Bob was wearing new blue jeans and a white undershirt. This was the first time Rishi had seen Bob in clothing.

"Were you wearing that last night?" asked Rishi looking at Bob.

"Yes sir. Fascinating story. I met this lovely woman in town while I was trying to rustle up some grub. She was so taken to my wretchedness she insisted on buying me some clothing and a good hot meal."

Terrie continued, "I had this coconut with me that I bought at the shore and I offered it to Bob after his meal."

Rishi looked at Bob and Bob smiled really wide and winked his left eye.

Terri continued, "That's when Bob brought up the fact that the man he lives with had gone missing in the caves. He told me the most fascinating story about how this worldly man shows up at his cave entrance and then proceeded to almost get them both killed. I thought, 'that sounds like Jon's luck.'

"As he continued the story," said Terrie, "he mentioned in passing that your name was Rishi and then everything started to fall in place."

"How long have you been waiting here?" asked Rishi.

"We've been here a few days."

Jonny spoke up, "And its been so much fun!"

Rishi sat up very slowly holding his head. "Man what a headache."

"That's a nasty concussion, you're very lucky to be alive," said Bob and he winked again.

Rishi leaned toward him and whispered, "What did you change?"

Bob smiled and said quite obviously, "You should be happy to survive such a fall. You could have died."

Rishi, taken aback, said, "Thank you. Thanks again for saving me."

"You're not saved yet lad," replied Bob, "but perhaps soon you'll be out of the woods."

"You mean out of the cave," interrupted Terrie, "this place is awful."

"Awe Mom," said Jonny, "I really like it here."

"Me too kiddo," said Rishi, "me too."

Terrie looked thoughtful for a moment and said, "well you can't leave here right now, in fact you should stay on your back until the swelling subsides, but I'm fairly certain that you're past the danger point."

"Where's Paul?" asked Rishi.

"He's back in the states, he'll pick us up once he gets air clearance for flying through Nepal."

"I'm not leaving here," said Rishi.

Bob smiled and shook his head.

Terrie said, "You can't stay here! You have a son to support!"

"You don't need me. You told me so yourself when you left me for Paul."

Bob's smile grew even wider. Apparently what ever fruit he was seeing in his head revealed where Rishi would be in a day's time.

"Look Jon," said Terrie, "I just didn't... I mean... I couldn't help falling in love with him."

"Lets not get into this here and now," said Rishi, "just know that I'm staying."

Bob shook his head again and Rishi wanted to smack him.

Terrie's phone rang in that instance and she walked toward the mouth of the cave as she opened it.

"How you doing kiddo?" asked Rishi of his son Jon.

"I was really worried about you Dad. You stopped calling."

"My phone died at some point."

"I figured as much," said Jonny, "look I got you a new one!"

Jonny handed his father a new phone. It was silver, about the size of a match box and perfectly smooth.

"How's this one work?" asked Rishi.

"Its so cool Dad, watch."

Jonny slid his finger along the side of the box and a virtual panel opened above it.

"Wow. That is really cool Jonny. Thanks so much for bringing it."

"You're welcome Dad."

Jonny handed his father the phone and Rishi stuck it in the pocket of his mostly destroyed pants.

Looking at Bob, Rishi asked, "so she brought you a coconut?"

"Yep. There were nearly sixteen trillion trillion possibilities for me to sift through. I found the few where you were alive and focused on them."

"And by affecting her choices you kept me alive?"

"Yep."

Jonny looked puzzled but realized he was privy to special conversation and kept his mouth shut.

"You know if I have to go, so do you," said Rishi.

"Ha ha! You wish," replied Bob.

"You look at those possibilities and tell me where the better outcome is: you stay here or you come with us."

Bob pulled up the rutabagas and began sifting the possibilities. It was a simple divide and compare.

"What's a rutabaga?" asked Bob.

"Its a vegetable, why is that your next gift?"

"Yes it is."

"Strange huh?"

"Very."

Bob finished his divide and looked at Rishi. "Okay, I'll come with you but on one condition."

"What's that?" asked Rishi.

"You do anything I say, no questions asked."

"Deal," said Rishi.

Jonny, a perfect eleven year old copy of his father, was far wiser than most kids. He actually grasped a lot of what was being said by the adults because of an inborn clarity ability. But even with this form of sixth sight he couldn't grasp the level his father and this old man were talking.

Terrie walked back to the men and said into her phone, "okay Paul, we'll see you at noon local time." She hung up the phone and said, "Paul will have the ship here tomorrow at noon. He's got my GPS transponder location so we're good to go."

Rishi sat down and leaned against the wall.

"I'm not feeling very good. I think I need to..."

Rishi lost consciousness again. Terrie checked his head and she and Bob gently laid him down on his bed roll.

"He should have had some water," said Bob.

Jonny kept searching himself for answers to the puzzled conversation between his father and Bob. He kept finding nothing so he kept searching.

Return to The Chamber of Possibilities

Rishi climbed as best he could in the darkness for a couple of hours. He hadn't eaten in more than a week, but didn't realize it because he'd spent large portions of that time unconscious.

He grew tired quickly and stopped in a small chamber which, according to his calculations should be well above the level the water should ever get to.

Instead of sleeping, he tried to meditate and succeeded.

When his eyes opened, the water was six inches over his head and he was about to inhale water.

He hadn't floated which was odd. He hadn't inhaled water and yet the room was quite deep with it.

Rishi felt water streaming down on him from above, he stood up into the torrent of a water fall. Apparently a higher cave had filled and poured its excess into this cavern from above. That's how the room had managed to fill so quickly without bringing him to awareness or drowning him.

The room was pitch black and filling with water rapidly. He dare not follow the water down so he began to climb. He climbed out of the water a minute or so later and realized that the water drained at about the same rate as the waterfall filled the room so the room itself would not fill any deeper for the time being.

Feeling around he found the source of the water fall. It was the only exit to the room and the water pressure might be too much for him to climb through. However, he had no other choice but to try.

Reaching up for stones around the falling water he started to climb the wall. He made good progress alongside the falling water. Then he noticed the mist from the water fall diminished. Reaching across he found the ledge it poured out from and put his weight on it.

It was slimy, his hand slipped and he fell headlong into the raging water below him.

He felt himself swirling clockwise around the cave. Landing in the water had been lucky and unlucky at the same time.

Some small intuition bothered him. He had missed something important.

Swimming against the whirl pool Rishi felt himself being drawn down toward the cave he had come up through. He couldn't allow that, he'd drown.

Rishi remembered his advice to the old man and swam toward the center of the small whirlpool. He shot out toward the edge of the water and grabbed hold of a stone. He climbed and found himself at the base of the waterfall, ready to start climbing again.

He remembered some of his hand holds and made good progress, then when the time came to grab hold of the base of the water fall it dawned on him.

He reached carefully into the water, wiped his pointer finger and then stuck it in his mouth.

In a minute or so he could see the algae glowing from within the cavern. It was an old cave and he knew it lead out, it had to.

He found a few hand holds on the ceiling of the room and managed to swing his torso above the waterfall.

The crawlspace where the water flowed was a mere meter high and the rock from where the water fell protruded into the room by perhaps a hundred centimeters.

Rishi propped himself on his legs, with one hand gripping the ceiling and reached inside the water tube. He looked for places to grab, anything to help him fight the currents. Seeing a place that was not alight with algae he grabbed it. At that moment the hand that grasped the ceiling slipped and he fell against the water fall. The hand in the mouth of the water tube found nothing to grip and he fell again into the water below him.

The room was slowly filling. He had a limited amount of time.

He climbed again and finding his old hand hold he tried to reach in again. This time he found something he could grab and slid into the cave. Once his feet were on the sides he was safe: at least until the room behind him filled.

He climbed along this flat and small corridor quickly now that he had the algae to guide him and in about fifteen minutes he passed under another water fall into a chamber that had five exits and seemed vaguely familiar.

He found himself in the chamber of possibilities. He'd not noticed the tunnel through which he emerged before because it was so very small, perhaps only a third of a meter tall and masked by the water flowing out through it.

"If I had followed the water," he thought, "oh that's not important now..."

Running along familiar territory, Rishi found his way back to his home and there he found Bob waiting with a bowl of rice and soy sauce.

"Thanks!" he said as he started eating voraciously.

Bob said, "you're welcome, you need to take it easy on that, you've been without food for nearly ten days."

"Really? It seems like only a few to me."

"That head wound has probably caused all sorts of reality distortion for you. Had any good meditations?"

"I tried but they were nothing."

"Oh so you did have some good ones then."

Rishi looked toward the lit cave entrance and saw movement. The light was too bright for his unaccustomed eyes. He heard someone clear her throat.

Bob put his hand on Rishi's shoulder and said, "You'll never guess who I met in town while fetching supplies."

"Who?" asked Rishi.

"Jon?" said a woman's voice. "You're alive?"

The feminine form walked toward Jon and he remembered her.

"You look like crap," she said.

A young boy appeared behind Jon and said, "Dad!"

All this was a bit too much for Jon and he gently fell into unconsciousness with a full mouth of rice.

Blinded By The Dark

Rishi awoke some days later.

The thirst overwhelmed him. He heard a torrent of water flowing nearby and with great effort forced himself onto his stomach. He crawled carefully toward the sound of the river.

"Pitch blackness, yet again. Somehow I wish this was all just a dream."

Groping carefully as he slid himself along he reached the water's edge and realized that he once again climbed along quartz crystal.

"It must be beautiful in here. I wish there were light.

There was light, but the pounding throb he felt on the front of his head was the buildup of fluid on the front of his brain which prevented his vision from working. His eyes were on, but his visual brain was not.

He bent into the water drinking in a full bellies worth. The water tasted wonderful. Truly wonderful.

He recognized the danger of the torrent flowing so close and began climbing higher in the cave. He felt every crack and crevasse, and avoided the smooth crystal when ever possible.

The echo of the water in the chamber told him that the room was huge. As he climbed he reached a precipice and started climbing down. In a few minutes he his the stream again.

Had he just climbed in a circle? It was a possibility. The spliting headache might be interfering with his sense of direction. He might have come full circle.

"No." He thought, "The stream is flowing the opposite direction. I'm on a peninsula or an island.

He began following the edge of the stream, fifteen minutes of crawling, climbing and walking told him he was on an island.

"Swim now or later?" he thought. "Later. When my head stops splitting."

He climbed to the precipice and found a large flat rock. Shifted it until it made a nice place to sit, sat in full lotus, and closed his eyes.

He reached up and felt his head. It was badly swollen and he felt a scab on the center of his forehead. He must have struck it on his fall. Surely not at the bottom. Probably on the way down. Perhaps that was what knocked him unconscious. Not being a doctor he wondered how badly he had been hurt.

Rishi drifted out of consciousness sitting in full lotus.

The water seemed to grow faster and faster by the hour. When Rishi woke up he could hear it all around him. It had been a mistake to wait.

"If the river takes me," thought Rishi, "so be it. I think I will honor my UncEgg and try to meditate."

Rishi focused on his breath, watching it move in and out. Then he remembered something the old man had said about his breath. "One count inhale, four count hold, nine count exhale."

He practiced this breathing and drifted off. When he returned he was still breathing one, four, nine and his head felt better.

The water flowed around him. Perhaps a couple of inches. It was cold.

He recognized light through his eye lids and tried to open his eyes. They acclimated quickly and he saw the chamber. "The Thousand Meter Cave!" he exclaimed out loud.

His vision was blurry and the light caused pain in his eyes and head but he looked around and saw that the stream to his right was only four feet across and there was a way up to a higher portion of the chamber.

Rishi stood up carefully and noted the beauty around him. Then making a huge leap he just made the ledge and fell onto it.

His strength diminished, as did his eye sight. He crawled as quickly as he could up the chamber to a level at least ten meters above the surface of the water. His strength left, his vision followed and then consciousness put out his lights.

He awoke with the water nipping at his heals again. He could see but it was dark. There was a glimmer of moon light streaming through the quartz at the top of the chamber. He scurried up the chamber. His head felt better and he felt like himself again. "Who had I been before?" he thought.

Looking through the bleak light he saw a cavern opening about twenty meters up. It looked completely attainable. But he wasn't sure it truly was a cavern, it could have been a shadow playing tricks on his eyes.

The water was rising fast now. Although there was no way to know how long it would take because he had lost all sense of time.

He climbed along a wall, along a treacherous outcropping and made his way toward what may have been a cavern opening.

It was a cavern opening and it lead up along a steep incline of loose stone.

He waited at the cave opening, hoping to see the chamber in the light but the water got to him before the sun light did, so he took a drink and he began to climb.

The loose stone made his steps precarious. Often he would pull the rock down risking an avalanche just so he could find decent footing.

He found a small off shoot that lead toward the cave and thought, "I may never be able to come here again. I have to look."

He walked down the smooth surface of what may have been an ancient pathway for the river. There was no loose stone on it. It got quite short and wide at one point and reminded him of the water fall. But then he saw light and crawling forward he stepped into an opening half way up the side of the thousand meter cave. The sun had just risen and he could see the quartz, gypsum, and various other minerals glistening.

"I wonder," he thought, "if this cavern is safe from the water throughout the spring. What a great place to visit for attempted meditation."

Feeling a little tired he sat and drifted to sleep. He awoke a day later with the water just a meter or so from the entrance to his haven.

"I guess its not safe during the spring," he thought as he sprinted down the cavern, crawled on his belly though the narrow portion and then as the light ran out found his up slope and continued up it."

The 500 Meter Waterfall

Rishi began to find it easier and easier to walk as the water became more and more shallow. There were large stones once in a while but for the most part it was easy going.

He used the current to guide him and every once in a while he would trek perpendicular to the current to check the side of the cave.

The cave was amazingly smooth here, the current also amazingly gentle, almost not noticeable. The walls became wider and wider.

He walked forward a few hundred meters and the water continued to get more and more shallow.

"There should be some structure coming, either a narrowing of the chamber or the roof above me."

Rishi stopped walking. Feeling up ward he touched the ceiling. "Lucky thing I checked. I'm going to have to be more careful."

He began walking forward scraping the ceiling with his finger tips, as it descended toward his head he thought, "I'll be crawling in a little bit."

That turned out to be quite wrong as in a few feet he stepped off the top of a water fall that didn't currently have very much water flowing off it.

"Oh Crap!" he said as he slid off the edge of the precipice. He thought, "I should have known!" He lost consciousness shortly after.

He awoke, laying on his back in shallow water. His skin burned, his head ached and he tasted blood in his mouth.

"But? I'm still alive? That's impossible," he sad out loud.

He did a body check and found all parts of him in tact, but he felt scrapes on his back. No, they were definitely cuts and his head was throbbing violently.

"I must have struck stone on the way down, but must have landed in a deep sink hole that the waterfall had gouged. That must be why I'm still alive."

This cavern was completely dark. Rishi tasted the water and strained his eyes hoping for a miracle but there was nothing to see here.

He rolled onto his stomach and swam across the flow of the water and his feet touched stone. He felt a bank and crawled onto it. Groping in the darkness he found his way to higher levels in the cave. He felt along the floor and kept climbing. If the spring thaw happened soon he would need to put distance between himself and this gentle river because it would become torrent soon.

He found a round cave entrance. A previous passage point for the river or perhaps an overflow he thought.

He climbed through it and felt glass on the other side. Six sided glass points to be precise. He crawled gingerly over the quartz and proceeded up wards.

He started to feel a bit groggy, like his head was going to float away, and decided that there was enough distance between himself and the potential flood below him. He found a large smooth crystal that reminded him of the one he'd laid on two years early and curled upon it.

He laid in full sunlight, streaming in from the top of the 1000 meter cave, but he couldn't see it because his mind had been concussed. He was lucky to be alive. But if the old man were there he would say, "luck had nothing to do with it."

He might have felt the sun, given enough time, but he had already passed out from exertion.

Groping in the Darkness

Rishi's back and side felt as if he had just climbed out of a molten lava pit. He ignored the pain, that was easy at this moment because the adrenalin still coursed through his blood.

"How big is this room?" He asked out loud. The echoes of his words had a noticeable delay. And unless his lessons from previous sojourns had failed to teach him, he sensed that he was on a stone precipice with wall to his right and a sheer drop off on his left.

"God I hope not," he thought to himself.

He reached to his right and felt around. Indeed the rock lead upward.

He felt to his left and there was very clearly a steep drop off.

No light. No flashlight. Nothing to see. No way to get back up to the crevasse at the top of the cave. There would be no going back today. Just like two years ago, he would have to find a new route home.

Rishi carefully sat up and crawled on his hands and knees, seeking to understand his predicament.
He approached the wall, crawling over large and small pieces of sharp rock. The rock cut into his hands and knees, and where it failed to draw blood it wore away his skin.

"I wonder?" Rishi thought and then caught himself and realized, "No. Even if he did come looking using his insight, there was no way Bob could help me."

Proceeding to his perceived precipice, Rishi carefully felt the stone. He was careful to not put too much weight on his arms, lying flat and slowly moving forward. This turned out to be a good strategy because the slight overhang that had caught him, peeled off and fell.

Rishi recoiled and sighed a relief that he hadn't been on the stone.

He paused for a fraction of a second and listened to the silence. "Something," whispered his intuition, "isn't right."

A huge splash sound rang up from beneath him. The rather large piece of rock that separated had fallen all that time and landed in water at the bottom of this cave.

Rishi explored his little area for a half hour or so. He stood up feeling along the walls. He moved stones around looking for exits. But he knew in his heart of hearts that he was trapped on a ledge, part way down this tall thin chamber.

Only one way out had been provided, and that was to swim in the dark down a cold stream which would likely carry him so deep as to make it impossible for him to ever get out.

He sat and leaned against the wall. Pain from his open wounds shot from his back out to his finger tips, down to his feet and straight up into his neck and head.

That pain hit him like a wall of fear. He instinctively knew he would go into shock if he didn't keep alert and moving. But likely that cold water and his old phobia would have the same effect.

"There's no point in waiting," he thought and he jumped off the precipice where the stone had fallen from.

He fell for much longer than he expected. Several seconds. That means he fell almost a hundred meters. "I'll know soon enough," was all he had time to think.

His body splashed into the icy cold water and the pain in his skin fired so high as to feel like numbness to him.

Relaxing, he closed his eyes and waited for his body to gently float to the surface. That was the only way to be sure which way was up.

He had not touched bottom, so the river was deep here. He was lucky and thankful.

Rishi tasted the water and listened and felt for currents. The water did not contain algae and there didn't seem to be any fast currents.

"Eenie, meenie..." Rishi thought as he swam up stream knowing that to be the safest way to travel in a subterranean river.

He swam right toward the wall that he'd jumped from and found it to be sheer and unclimbable. The stone hadn't been worn long but it had been worn enough to be too slippery to climb when wet.

He swam toward the left wall and found it to be similar to its right hand sister. A "Slippery when wet" sign flashed through his mind.

He swam up stream for several minutes along the left edge of the river. The water was gentle, calm and not so cold now that he was used to it. "I would have enjoyed learning to swim in this water," he thought, "although I'd like a rather large flash light to learn anything."

The wall was sheer its entire length and ended at a wall where there was evidence of a water fall. This chamber was fed by water from upper chambers and there was no way to go up it.

"But I can feel a current," said his geologist self.

Carefully he dove down into the water, repressing his pain, ignoring his fear. He found small openings in the stone where water flowed in but there was nothing big enough for him to swim through. Back at the surface of the water he thought, "I'm glad I don't have to decide to swim with a risk of not finding air, but honestly upstream was the preferred direction."

He allowed himself to float down stream while he thought.

Then kicking himself toward the right wall, the wall from whence he fell, he felt along it to see if there was even the slightest place to grab on.

He found one and then another and pulled himself out of the water. He methodically climbed upward and up stream. He used his fingers to find and plan every hold. He could not assess his grip with his eyes and soon he found that to be an advantage. It was slow going and in an hour or so he'd gotten to twenty feet off the water, but found there were no more hand holds. Nothing to take him any farther. Back and forth along his path he traveled for another hour. He memorized everything he used, knew where all the grips were. He sought new hand holds, new places to jam his feet. But to no avail. Ultimately he jumped and splashed back into the water.

The current had grown a bit, he could feel it. The snows were melting above him. Soon this river would be a torrent of runoff.

He floated gingerly down stream, checking the wall for hand holds or for places he could grip. He wasted countless hours climbing, only to fail and fall or have to return to the water.

The cavern he swam was long and seemed endless. "Its more like a lava tube," he mused, "than a limestone cave."

About a mile down stream he bumped his feet on some stone. It surprised him and he let out a little yelp of surprise. He summarily laughed at himself and felt another stone.

The floor came up under him and soon he was walking on broken rock, feeling the cave's edge, looking for something.

"I used to hate the green glow of that algae," he thought, "now I'd give anything to have it back."

Search for the 1000 Meter Chamber

Rishi opened his eyes and looked at the six exits from the chamber of possibilities. One lead to the surface, three others lead to small caverns above this chamber and were fully mapped by old man Bob without him taking a step in them.

Rishi chuckled, "Bob," he thought. "His name is Bob."

The first of the two remaining openings were small and each was roughly 15% mapped by Rishi. But he didn't know that because he didn't know how big the caves were. Rishi had spend most of his time on the left cave because it felt as if it lead in the general of the 1000 meter chamber. Rishi had made a mistake: the left cave system was considerably larger than the right cave, but would not lead to the 1000 meter chamber. Bob had never entered these caves, but knew where each could lead.

"He wants to keep me busy huh?" Thought Rishi.

Rishi pointed to the left cave and said, "Eeenie meenie miney moe," changing the cave at which he pointed with each syllable he spoke. "catch a rishi by his toe, if he hollers let him go. Eenie meenie miney moe."

His finger rested now on the right cave, as he knew it would, so he knelt down, squashed himself flat and squeezed into the narrow and low corridor. For almost 100 meters, this tunnel was just big enough for him to get through. There it opened again into a four door chamber of possibilities.

Rishi had explored three of the four caves. He had not found the end of any of them but today was special. It marked the first day of his third year at the cave and he had saved this new tunnel for today.

He had stood up long enough to stretch and then squashed himself sideways into the tall narrow slit which was made when the stone cracked and separated. His geologist mind told him this crack was new, certainly less than a thousand years old. It was actually less than thirty years old.

As he squeezed down the cave it became more and more narrow. To the extent that he was unsure if he could continue forward without risking being stuck or not being able to get out again. He decided to go forward anyway.

He attempted to place his sideways foot farther on the path but found to his surprise that there was no floor. He had come to a precipice.

He was very wedged into that rock but he felt himself lose his balance and start to sway toward the bottomless crevasse. He attempted to put his foot back up and catch himself but there was no way to bend it to accomplish that task. He attempted to grab hold of the stone but his hands could not get leverage without the ability to bend an elbow out.

Rishi slowly slid off the edge of the precipice. As he fell the slit widened and he began a free fall.

"Well. I guess that's it," thought Rishi, "time for me to check out. You'd think Bob would have seen this coming. Perhaps he did..."

Rishi began accelerating downward into near total darkness. This cave had little or no algae which explained why he couldn't see the ledge he fell from.

For a few seconds he scraped the wall but then he felt a room open up around him.

"How far would he fall?" He thought to himself.

At that moment he felt smooth stone brush him from the left. He found himself rolling onto it until his back was downward against the surface.

The smoothness didn't last and soon he was scraping along coarse lime stone.

It was pitch black in this chamber.

As he plummeted feeling the burning of his skin flaking off from the sandy surface of the rock he noticed that the wall he brushed was slowly changing angle.

After a few more seconds he noticed that he was sliding along an decline of perhaps 45 percent and the rock was still leveling out.

He had just enough time to wonder if he would get lucky when his feet struck a large stone causing him to flip over and land on his face.

He rolled over and felt himself slide to a stop.

"Anything broken?" he thought.

"All systems in pain, but operational," replied another part of his mind.

Looking around he realized there was no algae.

"How am I going to get out of here?" Rishi thought.