21st May
I sat in the darkness, thinking back over the events of the past few hours.
I had exchanged a brief few words in Turkish with Archangel. I spoke no Turkish, but I had been schooled in the expressions for ‘I do not understand your dialect’ and ‘I have to go’, together with the accent of an obscure southern Turkish hill tribe. This had been offered to me as a strategy to deal with unplanned conversations.
Angela Rikard had obviously not been fooled. The last words I had heard her say were ‘Very clever, Mr. Morrison’. Then we had been surrounded by smoke, and the ground seemed to give way beneath me.
I pondered for a moment on Arkangel’s words to me. Her voice had been very deep for a woman. In other than face to face contact, it would have been difficult to judge the gender of the speaker. It was the same voice, however, that I had heard during my videolink call with Arkangel, and it was the voice that was on the recording made by Walt Cooper at Lee-on-Solent. That voice explained why, with a disguised face, we had all assumed Arkangel to be a man.
I must have been knocked out in the fall. I had no idea how long I had been unconcious. When I came round, I was in total darkness. The side of my head was painful, although I could not feel any moisture that might be blood – as I had when taken from my house on the night of the meteorite impact. My latex mask and sunglasses must have come off during the fall.
I had begun to explore, by touch, the chamber that I was in. It seemed to have smooth stone walls and a flat floor that appeared remarkably clear of the rocks and debris that one might associate with a natural cave. Stretching my arm upwards, I could not reach a ceiling.
As I moved around the wall, I suddently touched something with my foot. The object was moved by my contact with it. I bent down and felt a warm arm. It was that of a woman, so I assumed my companion to be Angela Rikard.
She was still breathing and, from the simple first aid checks I was able to undertake in complete darkness, she did not appear to be badly injured.
I placed her into the recovery position and then continued to feel my way along the wall of the chamber.
Having explored a further ten metres, however, I conculded that a better strategy was needed: the chamber could be any size and lead anywhere or nowhere. I might encounter a dangerous hazard with my next step. Also, the only person who might have some idea of where we were, and how to get out of here, was Angela Rikard.
My best hope seemed to lie in staying with her, monitoring her pulse and breathing – to give her the best chance of reviving – and then hoping that she would soon regain conciousness and explain a few things.
I returned to where she was laying.
I checked her pulse and breathing again, which seemed normal. Then I sat down on the floor beside her and waited.