An Unexpected Delivery

You have a message, coughs Proust. Shall we pause while you read it?

No, coughs Albertine. It won't be important.

But how do you know? persists Proust.

It's just from my aunt, says Albertine. Let's get up the rope and into the starlight.

All right, says Proust. But I couldn't help noticing her name was Daniel.

Does Albertine hesitate? Or is she suppressing a cough?

A-h-um, says Albertine, She goes by the name of Daniel, my aunt. Her real name is Danielle.

Proust's ears prick up at this.

How fascinating. And do you ever call yourself Albert?

No, says Albertine. I am not like that. Nor is she. It's just that she's writing a book at the moment, the Book of Daniel.

That book has already been written, says Proust.

It's already been written twice, says Albertine. Have you read Bel and the Dragon? That is also a Book of Daniel. In it, Daniel escapes being eaten by lions by means of an unexpected delivery.

You mean, I suppose, a deliverance, says Proust.

No, says Albertine, I see you don't know it. Daniel receives an unexpected delivery of stew.

And the lions eat it? says Proust. Instead of eating Daniel?

No, says Albertine. Daniel eats it.

They have now reached the end of the narrow stone passage where a pile of broken glass marks the place where the rope to the surface is dangling.

You go first, says Proust.

No, says Albertine. You go first. I am wearing a travelling skirt.

You didn't worry about that on the way down, says Proust. You were on the rope above Arthur.

Arthur is different, says Albertine. Arthur stays focused.

You admire that? asks Proust.

In the end I found him too reckless, says Albertine. Cut by broken glass, bitten, drowning, all to compose a mad poem....

Too reckless! This is promising.

But the aunt and stew story is decidedly suspect.

.......

Meanwhile, Arthur has pulled himself out of the toxic lake, assisted by Gaius.

What happened to your knees! says Gaius.

Arthur had forgotten. He looks down at his knees.

They are loosely bandaged with the colourful scarf that Albertine tore into strips for him.

The scarf strips are entangled with slimy bacterial strands to which cling tiny water creatures, opening and closing their spiracles. O!!! where are we????

Water scorpions! says Gaius. Allow me.

He opens the bottle containing Daniel the spider ( named after Albertine's aunt).

Daniel breathes in (without the use of any active muscular breathing mechanism) the refreshing methane and sulphurous air.

At once he remembers that he has relatives in the Canaries. Yes! He wants to go there!

But what happens next is a let down. Gaius dips the bottle into the bacterial lake, and half fills it with water.

He gently lowers three water scorpions inside.

Look, says Gaius ( to Arthur, not Daniel) See their scythe-like front legs, and the long thin whip-like structure at their posterior ends? This tail, made up of two attached respiratory tubes, is extended above the surface of the water to take in air. Remarkable! Do you see that?

Daniel sees that.

But Arthur is not paying attention. Arthur is coughing.

Time to get going.

Gaius checks off the bottle, the pencil, the mechanical arm, Arthur. That's everything.

Everything but the key.