City of Ruins du-2

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  And if Ilona is right, that field is stealth tech.

  So only the Six can move forward from now on.

  Because we’re in an environment that’s not as hostile as space, I load the Six up with extra equipment, things I wouldn’t make them carry into a real wreck. Lots of holocameras, lots of flat vid, lots of scientific sampling equipment.

  I assign Kersting the job of sampling the walls every meter or two. I make DeVries record everything. Orlando Rea is the only one of the Six who shows an aptitude for exploration, so he’s at my side. The rest must map each square meter before moving forward.

  Rea and I do something I would never do in space: we explore sections of the corridor without normal backup.

  I call them cursory explorations. We walk ahead to see if we find anything interesting.

  We finally find something interesting about one kilometer from the place where the postdocs died. The black walls here are pitted. For the first time, the shiny black material looks old.

  We bring the entire team forward, and as three of them map, DeVries records, and Kersting removes core samples, Rea and I continue down the corridor. Only now we’re going a meter at a time, using our own equipment to film each section.

  I have a slight headache, which could be caused by the stress of the dive. But I pay attention, because sometimes the sound that accompanies stealth tech starts as a vibration—a throbbing, one that could, in the right circumstance, be registered as an irritation rather than a noise.

  The lights here are gray. That irritates me. The other lights come from the spectrum—blue to red—but gray doesn’t fit. Finally I grab an equipment box, climb it, and wipe at the lighted area with my glove.

  Something flakes onto my suit, and that section of the light turns white.

  The lights here are covered with flaked bits of wall. For the first time, I’m happy for the suit. I remember Bridge’s comment from that first day: Something that small and powerful might do some harm if it gets into the lungs.

  We all stop and take samples of everything—the air, the ground, the walls, and the lights. We haven’t been able to remove the lights from the walls—the lights are truly grown in—but we scrape the surfaces. Just like we scrape the ceiling and the floor.

  When we come out with our flaked treasure, we use hazardous-procedure techniques to remove our suits. We have no idea how dangerous that flaked stuff is—if it’s dangerous at all.

  The flaking worries everyone but me. I’m finally happy to see something new and different. I was becoming afraid that we’d explore hundreds of miles of caves and find nothing except lights and black walls.

  I know now that such a worry is silly. We’re going to find something. I know it as clearly as I know my name.

  We’re going to find something, and we’re very, very close.

  ~ * ~

  EIGHT

  It takes two days.

  We map that flaked corridor centimeter by centimeter. We examine each part of it.

  Our scientists determine that the flakes are nothing more than particles that have come off the walls, just like I thought. Only they’re able to date those particles by comparing them to the samples taken from our very first day.

  The particles are at least four thousand years older.

  I say at least because Bridge says at least. He really can’t predict. When he presented the data, he reminded me that the older sections of the wall— those that formed years ago—showed no more aging than the newer sections. So he has no idea—the scientists have no idea—how long the walls stand before they start showing evidence of age.

  He makes his guess based on the historical record. He knows that we have found areas that are at least three thousand years old with no sign of aging at all.

  The corridor here is murky—we’ve disturbed so many particles that the air is gray—and a day ago, we started to get readings that reminded me (and Roderick and Mikk) of readings we got near the Room of Lost Souls.

  My headache remains, but now I know it comes from stealth tech because I hear a low humming, as if voices are harmonizing softly. Three of the Six hear it as well.

  Something is here, something strong. I almost wish it wasn’t so I can bring in a real dive team. It’s clear that the Six are out of their element. DeVries, Quinte, Seager, and Kersting are tired. Rea and Al-Nasir wonder why we have to pay so much attention to detail.

  They think the minuscule is unimportant, and their impatience infects me.

  I take Rea down the corridor two meters farther than we should go. I take him because that part of the corridor remains dark.

  “Maybe,” he says as he turns on the lamps built into his suit, “the wall lights are completely covered in particulate.”

  “Maybe,” I say, but I don’t think so. I have already trained my headlamp at the top of the wall, where the lights usually bulge out. I see no bulge. I see nothing to indicate lights at all.

  I stand in the center of the corridor and wave my arms, thinking maybe the motion sensors will pick up something, but they do not. All I manage to do is swirl the particles even more. It’s as if we’re in the middle of a dust storm.

  Then the light from my headlamp catches something directly in front of me. A movement. My heart starts to pound.

  “Did you see that?” I ask Rea.

  He turns, training his headlamp in the same direction as mine. The movement repeats and I realize it’s a reflection.

  Something is blocking the corridor.

  “Let’s check it out,” he says, and starts forward. I catch his arm.

  Now more than ever procedure is important.

  “We map,” I say, and I can hear his sigh echo through our suit comms as well as through the air. We map, we go slowly, we figure out what’s ahead.

  It takes two more days before we understand that what’s ahead is not the end of the corridor, as some of the team speculated, but a door.

  A door.

  An old, old door without warnings, markings, or lights.

  Just a latch that no one has turned in at least four thousand years.

  ~ * ~

  NINE

  I‘m going in with you,” Roderick says.

  “Me, too,” Mikk says.

  They stand outside the hovercraft, their suits already on. The guides watch us like we’re the science experiment. The Six stand in the corridor, holding their equipment like shields.

  Roderick and Mikk have seen that. They know that the Six are frightened, and they know that frightened divers make mistakes.

  They also know that I’m eager, and eager divers make mistakes as well. A different set of mistakes, but mistakes just the same.

  “No,” I say. “You can’t go in. We’re getting readings that remind me of the Room.”

  “We never really tied those readings to stealth tech,” Roderick says.

  “And these readings are significantly different,” Mikk says. “The group has been studying them for more than a week.”

  “They’re similar,” I say.

  “They’re similar the way light and sound are similar. They’re both waves, but they’re not the same thing.” Mikk’s education is showing, and he doesn’t even realize it.

  I shake my head. “That’s a specious analogy. These readings are similar in ways I don’t like. It’s as if this field is fresher than the one near the Room. Or more active.”

  “Or stronger,” says DeVries. He’s come closer to us, apparently wanting to hear the argument. “Whatever’s down that corridor, it’s powerful.”

  “And it might be behind that door. The source. Think of that,” Roderick says.

  “I do,” I say. “Then I remember that through another door was a seemingly empty room where both my mother and my friend died. I don’t want to risk both of you.”

  “What if this isn’t stealth tech?” Mikk asks. “Then we’re risking all of you.”

  “It’s stealth tech,” I say. “I can hear it.”

  They look at me.
No one except the few of us who can hear stealth tech understands what I mean. Not all of the Six can hear it. I’m not sure what the difference is, but it’s an important one.

  And I think it’s a good, nonscientific way to recognize stealth tech—at least for people like me.

  Someone behind me drops an equipment box. We all jump. The sound echoes in the enclosed space.

  “Risk is what we signed on for,” Rea says. He has gained a lot of confidence in the past few weeks. “We’re going in.”

  “Maybe we should tether,” Mikk says to me. “So we can pull you all out if there’s a problem.”

  I shake my head. “If there’s a problem, then the tether might decay before you realize we’re in trouble. I’m not sure how far the field extends. It might only be a few meters, but it might be more than that.”

  Mikk frowns at me. He’s right. We need some kind of backup.

  I say, “Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll station two divers at the first junction. Two more near the door, and then three of us will go inside—provided we can open it, of course. If we can, one will remain near the door, recording, while two of us start mapping.”

  “I don’t like it,” Roderick says.

  “I know,” I say because I can’t say what I’m thinking, which is, I don’t care what you like. This is what we’re going to do. “It’s our best option.”

  “Your best option,” one of the guide says loudly, “is to go home.”

  That would be true of most anyone else. But I have no real home. Just a mission.

  I’m not sure how the others feel, and I’m not going to ask them. They did sign on, and they will do the work.

  And I hope—no, I pray—that each one of us will come out alive.

  ~ * ~

  TEN

  Age and time have warped the door shut. It takes all five of us to pry m I the edges away from the frame, but once we do, the door moves with surprising ease. I pull on the lever, and the door squeals open.

  As it does, lights go on. Red lights at first, flaring like warning lamps, and then they turn green before they fade to white.

  Lights turn on in the corridor as well—along the floor, though, where I hadn’t thought to look. A quick check makes me realize that these lights are recessed. There was no way to locate them under the flaked particles until they revealed themselves.

  The lights coming on scared the two at the junction. They use the comm to see if we’re all right, and I reassure them. Only after we sign off do I realize they also want to know what has gotten loose. They’re so untrained they think someone else has turned on the lights, not that the door triggered them.

  I bite back irritation and peer inside.

  What faces me is not a room, but a cavern. And it’s not empty. It’s filled with equipment. Old equipment that’s slowly powering up. I can hear the whines as it restarts, see the lights on the consoles flicker on, watch as screens sparkle to life.

  Rea curses.

  DeVries makes a sound of awe.

  I make no sound at all. I’m staring at the wording on the floor.

  It’s in Old Earth Standard, a language I’ve been learning because it’s the language of the Dignity Vessels.

  I flick the comm inside my suit, hailing Roderick and Mikk. I’ve never tried to communicate from this deep in the corridors before, and I’m not sure when the two men will get the message—if ever. But I have to send it.

  “It’s a gold mine,” I say. “But you have to stay away. I’m pretty sure now that we’re in a stealth-tech field.”

  And if we are, that message could be lost to time. Or it could be delivered in a blink of an eye.

  “Ilona was right, then,” Rea says.

  I nod. And stare. And wonder how the hell I’m going to keep this secret from the Vaycehnese, and their tourist board, and their publicity machine.

  Because the moment they announce a grand discovery, then it’ll go out through the sector. Eventually the Empire will figure out what’s here.

  Eventually, they’ll try to take it over.

  And then we’ll have the fight I’ve been expecting. The fight I’ve been preparing for. The fight I want to avoid as long as possible.

  The interior of this chamber is huge—too big to be called a room. It goes on as far as the eye can see. The ceiling is domed. The walls, the floor, everything is covered with that black material, and here it hasn’t flaked.

  We continue to follow the rules, mostly because I’m scared of the traps that lie within. I think of the way the lights came on, and I wonder what else we can trigger—and if that trigger will be harmful, even to those of us with the marker.

  I make Kersting take samples from the walls and the floors to see why this area is different than the exterior. I want as much information as possible.

  To that end, we plan to map and record every centimeter. We won’t make it in one dive—this place is bigger than some cities. We also won’t touch the consoles—I’m afraid of triggering something—or the screens. We just look and wave our cameras over each section; then we describe.

  For the first time, I miss the scientists. I want their on-scene analyses, something I won’t get until we go above ground.

  We’re timing this dive, like we time all the others, even though I want to stay for the entire day. No one knows the effect of stealth tech on people with the marker, so we are limiting our exposure.

  Ivy suggested this the night before we got in the door, and I agreed with her then. I knew I wouldn’t once I was inside, and I was right. Even though the field readings—whatever they are—are stronger than anything we’ve ever seen, I don’t feel any effects.

  Neither do the Six.

  But they’re not experienced, and I tend toward the gids—something that happens when oxygen is low. There is no one to monitor us but ourselves, always a dangerous situation, and if we all get the gids, we will make bad choices.

  The bad choice that looms is my own. I want to go deep into this chamber. I want to see how far it extends. I want to know everything about it now, not weeks from now. I want to know what it is, what it’s used for, and why it was abandoned.

  For now, I have to satisfy myself with what I can see from the area near the door. Two dozen consoles, linked screens along the walls, and chairs built into the floor.

  There is nothing in the middle of the chamber except clear floor—no stains, no markings, nothing. Around the consoles, instructions written in Old Earth Standard in large letters. I recognize only one word.

  Danger.

  I would have expected nothing less.

  The consoles seem uniform except for one about ten consoles down. That one I can’t examine yet. From a distance, I note that it’s bigger and has more buttons, but that’s all I can see.

  That the consoles have buttons surprises me. There are flat areas, like we have, areas that imply a touch command. But the buttons suggest that to make things work, someone must press them or move them or toggle them, which I think is terribly inefficient. Over time, the switch itself can decay and make errors.

  Another reason not to let anyone touch the consoles. We do record as many as we can from top to bottom, examining the sides and the casing, lingering on the words so that the team outside this room can translate for us.

  After we finish the first and second consoles, we’re out of time. As I stand, the screen above me flickers to life, and I worry that we’ve somehow turned it on.

  What I see is an image of space. At least, I believe it’s space. I’m not sure where or when, for that matter. I don’t recognize any of the stars. I have never seen the placement.

  “What the hell is it?” Rea asks from behind me. I turn a little, about to explain, when I see what he’s looking at.

  He’s looking at a different screen—the one over the big console. Numbers scroll across it.

  “I can’t record it,” DeVries says. “Can I get closer?”

  “No,” I say, but the word is hard to utter. I understand his
impulse. I want to record too.

  Screens farther down the wall have activated as well. One shows the corridor we just left (at least, I think it’s that corridor), and another shows blackness growing on some rock.

  I curse softly.

  “What’s the matter, Boss?” DeVries asks.

  “I just want to get closer,” I lie. I don’t want to tell him that I think we’ve done something here, something that might be irreversible.

  My stomach is queasy and I’m feeling light-headed. I get that way when I’m nervous. I also get that way when I’m low on oxygen, before the gids start.

  I still hear the humming, but it seems more focused—not singing, exactly, but concentrated, as if someone has compressed the sound.

  “We have to go,” I say.

  “But it’s just getting interesting.” That from Kersting, who usually hates the long dives.

  “It is,” I say, “and it’ll be interesting tomorrow. Maybe by then, we’ll know what some of these readings say.”

  The entire team groans, but they obey. I make them leave the chamber single-file. I pull the door closed behind us, then press it to make certain that it shut tightly. If that door is a protection between the corridor and the chamber, I want it at full strength.

  Then we walk down the corridor. The moment we get past the area where the postdocs died, I send all the information from my comm links back to Mikk, with instructions to have him leave immediately and get the downloads to the scientists.

  The other downloads can come out with us. But we need the scientists working hard before our evening meeting. I need some sense of what’s going on here.

  I need to know if we’ve done something wrong.

  ~ * ~

  ELEVEN

  I think this is where they built the Dignity Vessels,” Ilona says. She’s set up a holoreplay system in the large conference room, and she’s actually using an old-fashioned pointer to tap an image of the center of that chamber.