Rats in the Pipes

30: The Cave of Uncle Var

Per and I shifted the panels to catch the last bits of sunlight. Mik seemed to be fine with not having a bath. The pool was too deep to be safe for him anyway but I decided to heat up water and give him a good wash. Per used the remains of the water to try and scrub some of the dirt and green stains out of Mik's clothes. Mik was happily running around with no clothes on but since by now the whole terrace was in shade I didn't think he'd come to any harm. All the solar cells were fully charged by the time Sol and Jan, who was wearing his dress, returned from their clean up. Both of them looked inordinately pleased with themselves so I assumed the sex had been good. There wasn't a lot of daylight left and fun though it was to be here we had limited supplies. We needed to get busy and get Mooke operational. We folded down the panels on the charger and moved it back to the cave. Per corralled Mik who was now as dirty or possibly dirtier than before I'd washed him and put him in clean clothes. 

Jan and I grabbed a fully charged solar cell and a ledlight each. The back section of the cave splits into two lobes. The left hand lobe is almost at right angles to the entrance and only goes about fifteen metres but it's absolutely dry and it was Uncle Var's workshop. The right hand side runs about four or five hundred metres back into the rocks getting narrower as it goes. This is the side that has two pools. I think there must be cracks that allow the water to run down from the surface. The wall which is about half again as high as Per extends half way across the cave and completely hides the right hand lobe. The front section has a plastic table and chairs all of which I remember Uncle Var telling me are over four hundred years old. There's a sleeping platform and piles of assorted items Uncle Var brought back from his expeditions. None of the stuff could count as an art work nor are they valuable in anyway other than as interesting relics of a lost civilisation but they are fun.

We led the others round the wall and stopped. After the brightness outside it was almost impossible to make anything out in the gloom. We switched on our ledlights and let them roam round the heaps.

"What the fuck!" Sol gasped. Mik laughed and clapped his hands

"Welcome to the cavern of Uncle Var." Jan waved a hand "The home of many curious and strange things."

I carried my solar cell over to the side with the workshop where I plugged it into the batteries for the light system. Four lights suspended from the roof of the cave flickered into life and gradually brightened.

"Thank goodness at least the lights work."

Per started laughing "What is that?" he was pointing to the object taking up most of the workshop floor.

I turned and grinned "That is Mooke."

I looked at Mik who was absorbed in stroking a plastic model of a polar bear. "What do you think Mik?"

He looked at me "Fant and me like it. Can we live here?"

I smiled and shook my head "We have to go to the Warrens but if we get Mooke working we'll be able to visit."

Sol was inspecting a nearly life size figure. "Ch-ew-in Tob-ac-co?" She sounded the words out sounding puzzled. "Is that it's name?"

Jan shook his head "No I think that's what it advertised. Don't ask me what that was, no idea. Uncle Var found it in several pieces. It's some sort of ceramic. He stuck it back together."

"He used to go what he called 'troving'. He went out in the swamps to places that had been abandoned and found stuff that had been left behind. Basically rubbish that no-one else wanted. He made things, some of which actually worked."

Jan laughed, "Mostly they didn't."

Per walked round Mooke. "So do you two know how it works?"

Jan shook his head "Not exactly. We know how to charge it up and start and stop it but we didn't build it so if there's something seriously wrong your guess will be as good as mine. The last time either of us came here I was fourteen and Ben fifteen and we didn't ever spend long here. Mostly it was a few hours, occasionally a day or two. Quite a lot of that time we were simply cover to allow Uncle Var to sign out a big enough skimmer so he could move people to the Warrens."