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Aurelie wriggled through the rocky opening. She sipped the fetid smell into her nostrils, enjoyed the rush of sensory stimuli. 'It's a male,' she thought. 'Where's the female?'
She drew the night vision goggles from her pack and put them on. She adjusted her headlamp so it provided just enough for the goggles to give a clear image.
The passage ran amongst loose rocks. She was able to raise up onto hands and knees, and crabwalk downward. The river water lay amongst the stones at the lowermost point of the passage. Then she could see the broader opening where the stones led into the mouth of a limestone cave. Could it be sitting there, just inside, awaiting this noisy intruder?
Aurelie inched forward, ducking her head low, high, left, right, looking for the telltale heat, any part of the beast. Daniel's description of the size intrigued her. A male that large couldn't survive this climate. Someone had released it from captivity where it had outgrown their ability to care for it, a reptile lover, like herself, but a damned terrorist. But where the hell did they get it in the first place. 'I'd kill to have...' she thought, and didn't finish.
Soon she was within the mouth of the cave. It went further, rising back into the hillside. She was able to stand up. Slowly she crept forward, looking, listening, smelling. The air moved in from behind her. Somewhere ahead there must be openings to the surface again. It may have moved up and out to find its next meal. She crept forward.
Suddenly she saw them! A small ball, writhing slowly upon one another. She easily made out five heads and knew there must be twice that many, all the size of the dead one. A breeding ball! They were breeding. The timing was right. The heat had been consistently high for the whole of July and now into mid-August. She pulled the bag from her pack, drew out her imobilizing rod. 'Thisss issss insssane!' she thought.
She moved toward them, held the bag open. She was paralyzed. It may have been mere seconds, but she felt it and imagined herself running back up and out to those waiting above. Then she gently rolled the ball into the opening of the bag, lifted the edge with the rod, and drew it shut! 'All of them?' she wondered. The goggles showed no sign of any other living thing.
'Now what?' she wondered. 'Back out to sssssecure this treasure, or on to see that mighty male, somewhere ahead?'