“Some bubble,” Sallah said, feeling impious and wanting to regain her equilibrium after her initial awe. “Look, you could carve a staircase in that,” she said, her light picking out a slanting foot of rock that rose to a ledge where a large darkness indicated yet another cave.

She spoke to inattentive ears, for Tarvi was already prowling about, determining the width of the entrance and the dimensions of the cave. She hurried after him.

The first chamber of the cave complex measured an awesome fifty-seven meters deep at its widest, tapering at either end to forty-six meters on the left and forty-two meters on the right. Along the back wall, there were innumerable irregular openings at random levels; some were on the ground level leading into apparent tunnel complexes, most of which were high enough to admit Tarvi’s tall frame with considerable head space; others, like great dead eyes, peered down from higher up the inside wall. Entranced as Tarvi was by their discovery, he was a trained scientific observer. With Sallah’s aid, he began to draft an accurate plan of the main chamber, the openings of secondary ones, and the tunnel complexes leading inward. He penetrated each to a depth of a hundred meters, roped to a nervous Sallah who kept glancing back at the cave’s opening for the reassuring sight of the waning day.

His rough notes were refined by the light of the gas fire on which Sallah cooked their evening meal. Tarvi had elected to camp far enough into the cave to be protected from the stiff breeze that blew down the valley, and far enough to the left so as not to interfere with the habits of the cave’s natural residents. Later, a low flame from the protected gas fire would discourage most of Pern’s wildlife from investigating the intruders.

Somehow, in the cave Sallah did feel like an intruder, though she had not previously been bothered by that notion. The place was truly awe-inspiring.

Tarvi had gone down to the sled to bring up more drafting tools and the folding table over which he had hunched almost immediately. With no comment, he had eaten the stew she had carefully prepared, absently handing back his plate for a second helping.