Ktheg!lik stirred from her sleep to the sound of someone shouting her name. She felt hot and ached all over. The horrible tube was propping her airway open, and it felt extremely uncomfortable. She had to fight the urge to try to pull it out, but knew that she would probably suffocate and die without it.

  She opened her eyes, and saw nothing.

  Am I blinded? Ktheg!lik started to panic, and struggled to calm herself. Breathe. She could hear the whisper of air moving back and forth in the tube down her throat. I am not suffocating. I am alive. She needed to reach for stillness, but Geh!kin's voice shouting for her kept jarring her away from it. She waved her arm, gesturing for him to stop, but his voice persisted. He couldn't see her.

  She realized that she could see a little bit now.

  That alone helped her to push the panic back. She was in almost total darkness, but there was a faint glow somewhere above her. She focused on it, and realized that the light was coming from the alien radio unit on the table.

  Why are the lights off? Ktheg!lik reached for the glowing board she had brought into Nik!eh's nest with her, but it was completely dark and inert now. It was slowly dawning on her that there was something very wrong besides her being deathly sick.

  What happened?

  Geh!kin kept shouting for her, and she wanted to yell at him to shut up for a zeg, but couldn't speak because of the awful tube. Gathering her strength, she forced herself to crawl out of the nest and over towards the chair. A painful tug on her throat brought her up short.

  The oxygen tank. I'm connected to it, she reminded herself. Feeling her way over to it, she grasped the tank in one hand and dragged it along with her. She tried again to reach the chair and this time succeeded.

  She pulled herself up slowly, wheezing, and waved into the camera. Geh!kin shouted again, this time in relief. Good. He can see me. Now, please shut up for a zeg! She gestured for silence, and he finally was quiet. She gestured to make it obvious that she was reaching for stillness, and he gave her the moment she needed.

  She closed her eyes, breathed slowly and deliberately through the tube, and drew calmness inward, pushing the panic out through her hands and feet. She felt kinn sluggishly begin to flow through her again. Her thoughts steadied, and her pulse slowed. Once she could feel enough of the panic had left her, and air, blood, and kinn were all flowing smoothly, she opened her eyes.

  She looked at the radio's glowing picture board, which was very dim. She could barely make out Geh!kin sitting there. Carefully, she started to gesture and pantomime, as if playing a children's game. What happened?

  “We don't know. Nik!eh shouted something, and then he went silent. The golem stopped responding to both questions and orders. Those alien lights he gave us turned themselves off; someone's bringing a lantern now. The same thing happened where you are, I take it?” Ktheg!lik shrugged. She had no idea; she had just woken up.

  The lantern arrived, giving reasonable light to the mine shaft alcove where they had placed the alien radio. She could see Geh!kin clearly now, and enough light spilled through the screen to give her a modicum of visibility. There were plentiful shadows, but at least she could see the shape of the room and the presence of a couple of automata. They were silent and unmoving.

  She reached over and tapped one automaton on its top experimentally. There was no reaction. Well, that's not good. She looked at Geh!kin, and gestured for him to keep talking. It wasn't as if she could contribute much to the conversation. Tell me what you know, she thought at him.

  It wasn't much. Nik!eh had apparently had some ordinary conversation with everyone while she slept. Mostly he spoke to the golem, but just before they lost his signal, he had reported finding some vanadium.

  Nik!eh and the golem had some kind of accident out there, and the golem's control over its creations has been severed. I should be grateful the radio is still working, but I am deep underground and if nothing else is functioning, I'm in even worse trouble than before.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  What can I do to help my people? Ktheg!lik forced herself to focus, which was difficult given how awful she felt. I'm weak as a babe, I'm burning up, and I'm trapped in the dark. Just surviving seems like a good goal to strive for, for starters. Maybe my body can fight off whatever this is, but the golem is right; our immune systems are weakened from lack of vanadium and other minerals.

  Suppose I'm about to die—what can I do for the others? She wasn't able to think of anything. Ktheg!lik considered just crawling back into the nest and going to sleep again, but if anything needed to be done here, she would have to find a way to manage.

  For starters, she needed to use the toilet.

  She gestured to Geh!kin that she would be moving around, then waved goodbye and attempted to stand. It didn't go well, so she sat there for another couple of zegs to gather her strength. Her next try went a bit better, though carrying the oxygen tank was a burden she could have done without. She made her way to the door by the faint light from the radio.

  The door wouldn't open.

  Ktheg!lik's hopes fell. I can't do much if I can't even get out of the room. She remembered the door at the very top of this tunnel complex was an ordinary metal one that she could work by hand, and there weren't any other doors between this one and the top of the stairs. If she could just get this one to open, she would be able to move around the complex.

  There has to be another way to open the door, right? Wise and powerful aliens wouldn't trap themselves in their bedrooms the first time something malfunctioned. There must be a way to open the door without the golem's help. I just have to find it.

  She started to feel around the edges of the door, at least as far as she could reach. There wasn't anything obvious, but she kept going. Once she had felt all of the likely spaces, she went back and did it again. Still nothing.

  Ktheg!lik panted, mostly worn out just from that much, and stared at the door. How did it move, again? It slid sideways into the wall when you pressed the button. It slid...to the right, I think. There's no doorknob, no lock. No handle. She felt for a groove, a hole, anything. Finally, she pressed directly against the door, then did it a few times quickly, trying to shake something loose.

  She heard a faint click.

  Ktheg!lik wheezed a bit of a laugh. You knock. That's the trick.

  That clearly wasn't the whole story, as the door was still closed, but she dared to hope that it was at least unlocked, now. Setting down the oxygen tank at her feet, she pressed both palms against the door as firmly as she could, and pulled to the right.

  The door glided out of the way as if it had never heard of friction. She actually fell down from the unexpected motion, but now she could feel fresher air from the central room. It was still completely dark out there, however.

  I need a light, and I'm not going to be able to carry the radio with me. I wonder whether I could find something to start a fire with? Come to think of it, how is this complex maintaining a comfortable temperature, anyway? Why aren't I freezing or baking?

  Well, first things first. To the toilet.

  It felt like an epic saga to her mind, that short trip down the hall to the bathroom. Trials, tribulations, despair, determination, fumbling in the darkness, hallucinations and moments of clarity—ripe material for a novelist, definitely. The Voyage of the Wheezer, she thought might make a good title.

  She supposed it was possible that she wasn't entirely right in the head at the moment.

  At the conclusion of the saga, so to speak, she set off on another journey, this one to the kitchen. Food and drink were the next priorities.

  Her eyes had adapted well to the dark, but there was only so far the meager light from the alien radio could reach around corners. She didn't want to accidentally destroy food or break things because she couldn't see. She really needed a light.

  Ktheg!lik wondered whether the lights themselves were powerless, or if they simply lacked instruction from the golem. Were they like the door? Was there a way to turn lights on without the expected control at a remove? She found herself struggling to remember where, exactly, the light fixtures were.

  It took a few minutes, but her hand finally caught on a slight niche in the wall, about as high as the top of her head. She felt around in the stone pocket, and found a small, loose metal ball. She pulled it out and felt it with her fingers. It wasn't as uniform as a marble; there was a ridge around its equator, and a couple of small depressions. If she pressed one—

  Kazz! She tried to swear aloud, but of course she couldn't, as a brilliant flare of light completely blinded her for a moment. She closed her hand around the offending little globe and waited for the spots to fade from her vision. Once she could focus clearly on the light escaping between her fingers and faintly lighting up the area, she worked the little object until she had figured out the controls for brightness and narrowness of beam.

  Better than a torch, she conceded, once she had had time to get used to the cursed little thing. At least I can see now. Should I turn the others on as well? Maybe not. I've no idea what they use for fuel, nor how close they are to running out. I'll carry this one around and see how long it lasts.

  Breathing, dropping water, light, drinking water, and next: food. I will conquer this cave of wonders, one small step at a time. I have to survive. I have to. I refuse to let my people go extinct.

  I will not lie down in the dark quietly to die. Fuak!a are fighters. Survivors! We continue when all seems lost. We fight the impossible. We never quit.

  We fight the impossible, and sometimes...we win!