A description of the annex cistern beneath the city of Cos Besta. From the recent chapter I'm editing of "Out There: The 1K."
Daj led them through a small room with a ladder leading up to a hatch, a few seats, a control panel, and storage.
Yune got his bearings in the rusted old space. “Cozy,” he remarked, “Don’t tell me this is it. It’s pathetic.”
“Nope,” she pushed a large button beside the single-wide twin door at the other end, then cranked a massive wheel in its center to the right. The ancient gears creaked. A loud ‘click’ and the red light above the button turned green.
She pushed open the thick door and gestured for them to go inside, anticipating their reactions, and eager to see it, “This is.”
Will stepped through first and his jaw dropped, “Whoooooaa!”
Siffon gasped, “By the Light…”
Yune stared in slack-jawed awe.
The door let them out into a dimly lit, massive, cavernous room larger than the palace’s main hall. Great support pillars spaced evenly through the room reached up from the water like the arms of gods to hold up a lofty, arching ceiling three stories above their heads.
Geometric carvings decorated the cupping tops of the columns and the arches connecting them. Whether the designs were mimicked at their bases, the group couldn’t tell, since they dipped into the dark water out of sight.
The broad balcony they stood on connected to a series of double-wide, stone-railed bridges that formed a plus sign with circular central hub. Multiple bridges formed a grid connected to those. Stone stairs lead up from the largest western bridge to a door near the top - an emergency escape route in case any infrastructure crew became trapped down here.
All of the railings were ‘recent’ additions installed for safety a couple hundred years ago.
A round water intake hatch cut into the wall directly across the huge square room. Two more just like it lay to the east and west. All were sealed tight. Manual valve controls lay at the ends of each bridge.
The walls themselves consisted of oscillating concave and convex waves flowing around them, making it seem like part of the ocean; form and function.
Fresh water churned by an unseen perpetual motion turbine filled up only eight feet above the floor, which was six feet below the bridges.
Calling it a ‘room’ would be an insult; it might as well be another dimension.
Or at least that's what it looked like to Yune, Will, and Siffon.
The ancient cistern made the small group of about thirty people already inside it milling about look even smaller. They were mostly yondi and humans, but there were a couple of angular-featured, orange-skinned enkai with spots along their cheekbones, tagron, o’alli, and a few laemurians. Some leaned on the railings, some were in conversation, and some noticed the newcomers.
They had sent a bot with hover capability to attach ephypsan battery powered lights to the closest columns. Survival gear and crates filled the center circle with heaters placed in the middle, and personal sleeping/living areas creating rays like a sun around it. The smells of cooking food came from electric camping galley equipment.
Yune finally spoke, “Ok. Didn't see that one coming.”
"Where are we" Will asked.
“An annex cistern beneath the city. They use in emergencies during major floods if the main network fills,” Jeina led the group forward across the bridge to the hub.
“It’s enormous,” Will turned in a slow circle as he walked, “A giant could live in here and have room to sprint. Does Ilthall have giants? Do anuleans count?”
"No and yes," Yune replied quickly.
“It’s beautiful. Who built it?” Siffon tried to take everything in at once.
“Your people did; long before the war began - before they traveled the stars.”
This was the work of yondi artisans and stone masons hundreds of years ago, perhaps thousands, maintained for generations. Siffon soaked up the new knowledge, wondering what else her ancestors had done.
“This is where we hid from the keth. I’m glad to see someone remembered it was here.”
Yune’s and Will’s ena crystals were still glowing clearly beneath their shirts - still excited. Both were grateful no one else could see their light but Jeina.
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