Pale Flotsam Is Floating

Proust turns to face the crunching sound.

A faint light fans over the walls of ochre and limestone.

It grows.

A blinding flash bursts round the corner.

Waahah!

When Proust recovers his vision he sees a object he had not expected.

In the air floats a glowing glass bottle, with Daniel the spider inside.

.......

Albertine, several turns down the passage, in darkness, is making her way towards what she supposes is Arthur, although he sounds weird.

Is he mumbling some sort of incantation? She stops and listens.

.....and from then on I bathed in the poem of the cave, infused with glass spears bristling from tubular mouths spitting poison devouring the black verses like a pale piece of flotsam....

She likes it, as poetry. But he doesn't sound very well.

Arthur, says Albertine. Wait for me, will you.

But Arthur keeps going.

And going.

Albertine hears a splash.

All she can think is: Now he'll be a pale piece of flotsam.

.......

Proust notices, as it gets nearer, that the floating glass bottle containing Daniel the spider, has legs.

Not spider legs, but legs in coveralls, and sensible boots.

And the glass bottle has fingers wrapped around it.

In fact, it is no ethereal floating phenomenon, but is held aloft by Gaius, illuminated by the torch on his helmet.

Well met, says Gaius. Or in the modern vernacular, ' You're busted!

I'm a sensitive man, says Proust. I may never recover.

Come, come, says Gaius. Where are the others?

Further along, says Proust.

I see you've brought your mechanical arm, says Gaius. Don't try to hide it.

I wasn't, says Proust. I had hoped to surprise Albertine.

This may be the wrong place for it, says Gaius. In the pitch dark, and with an over abundance of bizarre animals and insects, it may not be received as you intended.

True, says Proust. The way you surprised me, just now.

Apologies, says Gaius. But I'm here for two reasons. No, three. One, Arthur. I realised he must still have the key, and I knew where he'd be. Two, my pencil is down here. Do you know how many questions I've invented to which the answer is cheese, and then lost them because I didn't have a pencil?

May I ask why you need a list of such questions? asks Proust.

For the spider, says Gaius. He has learned to say cheese.

Then I ask you again, as a logical person, says Proust, if he can say cheese why not ask him a question to which the answer is something different? Extend him.

It is easy to see you are no scientist, says Gaius. An experiment must be repeatable.

In this way they proceed down the narrow passageway to the central cavern and the bacterial lake in which ......

Albertine is checking her iphone for messages, and pale flotsam is floating.