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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 57: Cooper 91
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Kondor 274
Cooper looked around the room. The light of the sword did not reach to its edges, and although he presumed there would be some light coming through the ceiling at the point where they fell through, it was not adequate for him to see against the background of his own light.
“We are in Sovereign hands,” he said aloud to himself.
“What was that?” Ren asked.
Cooper was about to say, “Nothing,” but checked himself. Of course it wasn’t nothing, and it was important, and gave him an opportunity to say something else important.
“It’s something of which I remind myself when situations look bad or dangerous. It means that God is guiding our lives and bringing us where He wants us to be. It doesn’t mean nothing bad will happen; it does mean that whatever does happen, He is in control.”
Afo said, “I like that. So,” he continued more to the group, “what do we do now?”
Lodotti again took charge. “We’re here; only one of us is injured, and he says not badly. One of our options is to push forward and explore, see what we can find. I’m willing to bet no one else has been in this room for a very long time.”
Murane responded. “On the other hand, we don’t have a way back, and we could easily die down here if we don’t find one. I say we should focus our efforts on getting out of here. It was a good idea, but it’s taken a bad turn. I think luck has turned against us, and we don’t want to press it.”
“Fah on luck,” Afo said. “Sovereign hands. I like that better.”
“We could split up,” Ren suggested. “Those who want to find a way back can start working on it, while those of us who want to explore can push back and then find our way back here.” Cooper deduced that Ren preferred exploring.
“Oh, no,” Kark said. “We’re not splitting up. Bad enough we’re lost down here; we need to work together, whatever we do.”
For a moment no one spoke. Cooper’s eyes still scanned the darkness. Then he thought of something.
“For the moment,” he said, “the question is moot. After all, we don’t know a way out; we can’t even see the hole in the ceiling, or at least, I can’t, and there’s nothing near at hand from which we might make a ladder. We’re going to have to explore, even if we want to find an exit. The only question is, if the choice comes, do we go down or up? And it’s not entirely clear that that’s going to matter. Down might take us somewhere others have been and show us a way out; up might get us even more lost. So unless someone sees a way to start building a stairway to the roof, I think we have to go forward and see what’s here and where it takes us.”
He remembered a movie in which a huge ocean liner capsized, and a group of passengers trapped inside had to find their way up through the inverted vessel to the hull so that someone could cut into it and get them out. This was not that–but at least that was a reminder that no situation was hopeless. “We are,” he repeated, “in Sovereign hands.”
Lodotti seemed to hesitate, then did what passed for shrugging in his alien body. “Terri is right,” he said. “There’s no point debating whether we’re going in or out. All we can do is explore, and hope we find a way out, and maybe something worth finding while we’re in.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
