City of Ruins du-2

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Coop wished he did. But he had a hunch understanding would be a long time coming.

  And he had to accept that.

  ~ * ~

  TWENTY-THREE

  “Okay,” I say. “We’re going to get out of here very carefully.”

  We’re standing behind the stealth field, where everything is normal. If you can call being many meters underground in corridors lined with a strange black substance normal. Ahead of us lay the corridor we had come through to get to the room, only now that corridor is littered with debris.

  Debris that Quinte and Al-Nasir tell me has come from the walls, but the walls themselves now look the same as the walls inside the stealth field. If I hadn’t seen it without the debris a few hours before, I never would have believed that the debris had fallen off the walls.

  I cross the invisible line, and then I stop and crouch, examining the rocks. They’re jagged, the breaks obvious and, to my untrained eye, fresh.

  I carefully pick one up. It’s heavy. It also has no black material on any parts of its exterior. Some of that might be because it had broken away from an area behind the black material.

  But I look at the other rocks littering the floor, and I see no black material on them either.

  I want to know why. I’m back in diving mode. In diving mode I learn everything I can about everything I see. I absorb information. I question everything.

  But I also know I can’t get immediate answers. I collect information like some people collect toys.

  I can’t slow us down too much, however. I don’t know what caused this debris field, even though I have a hunch, and because I don’t know, I need to get my team out of here. We have no food and not enough supplies. We can’t get trapped down here. For once, I didn’t prepare for an emergency, and it is all my fault.

  I’m inexperienced underground, and even though the archeologists had talked about how dangerous their work could be, I hadn’t really taken them seriously.

  Just like Mikk.

  My heart twists at the thought of him. Have I killed another of my valued team members?

  I make myself take a deep breath, then I turn to the team.

  “Anyone have experience with this kind of thing?” I ask.

  None of them move. It’s as if movement would commit them to something difficult, something they’re not prepared for.

  “We figured you’d know how to get us out,” Al-Nasir says, and this time his voice is the one that quavers.

  “I have ideas,” I say. “I’m just used to disastrous wrecks and debris in space, not debris on the ground.”

  And then, because they still haven’t moved, and because they expect me to be upbeat and to get them out and to let them know they’ll survive, I add, “This is a lot safer than it is in zero gravity. There we’d have to watch for floating debris. Here we just have to be careful about what’s below us.”

  “Unless whatever caused this happens again,” Quinte says.

  “I think it was the ship,” Rea says, his voice soft.

  “We don’t know that,” Kersting says.

  “We don’t know anything except how to get out of here,” I say. “And we’re going to do that very carefully.”

  I wait until they’re all looking at me—or until it seems like they’re all looking at me. I can’t see behind all of the faceplates, but their heads are turned toward me.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” I say. “I’m going to go first. Orlando, you’re going to be last. The rest of you, I don’t care what order you’re in, but I do want you all to record our trip. We’ll get different information because we’ll be focusing on different things, and that’ll be useful once we get out.”

  “If we get out,” Seager mutters.

  I turn to her. I wish I can see her face through the helmet, but I can’t. I want to make eye contact.

  Actually, I want to shake her, but I know that’s not productive at all.

  “We are going to get out,” I say. “I’ve been in much worse situations by myself with no backup at all. We’ll be fine if you listen to me and do exactly what I tell you.”

  “Okay,” she says, but doesn’t sound like she agrees.

  “All right,” I say, as if she is enthusiastic. “You will step where I step. You will touch what I touch. We’re going to assume those rock piles are unstable. We’re not going to disturb them. We’re not going to step on them unless we can’t get by any other way. We’re not going to touch the debris on the floor. Is that clear?”

  “You think the stuff on the floor could harm us?” Kersting asks.

  “If we step on it wrong, yes, I do,” I say. “I don’t want broken legs or twisted ankles. I don’t want any of us to bring rock piles down on us. We’re going to proceed slowly. No crowding, no pushing, no panicking. If you feel yourself panicking, you will take a deep breath, silently count to ten, and release it. You will do that five times before you speak again. Is that clear?”

  “And what if one of us sees something wrong?” Rea asks.

  At least he’s not asking out of fear. He’s asking because he knows that despite our best intentions, someone might dislodge something and we’d lose half the group to a rock fall.

  “Speak up immediately and calmly,” I say. “Calmly is as important as quickly. Got that?”

  They nod.

  “Okay. If you see a problem beginning or if you’re having trouble, say ‘Boss, stop please.’ I will stop immediately.”

  I pause until they nod again.

  “All right then,” I say, realizing I’m repeating that phrase “all right” as if I’m trying to reassure myself.

  Maybe I am. I want to shut off the gravity. I want to float around the debris. I want to travel closer to the ceiling of the corridor because the debris piles are bigger at ground level. If we were able to travel along the ceiling, we’d be able to get out a lot quicker—and with almost no trouble at all, at least as far as I can see down this corridor.

  “Orlando,” I say to Rea, “you and I will have our suit lights on. The rest of you will not. Orlando, you’ll train yours upward. Mine will focus downward for obvious reasons. If any of you lose sight of me or need to slow down, ask me to stop. We stay in communication at all times.”

  On a beginner’s dive that has gone wrong, this is where I’d extend a tether. We’d clip to it and travel slowly, one hand over the other, until we reach our destination.

  But a tether won’t work here. In fact, a tether would be counterproductive.

  So much of my training is counterproductive.

  I take a deep breath.

  “Ready?” I say, more to myself than to them. “Here we go.”

  ~ * ~

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Coop sat in the conference room with Lynda Rooney. Lynda was a big-^^ boned woman, raised planetside like Yash, but with more experience on a bridge than Coop had. A screw-up early in Lynda’s career had derailed her climb upward for nearly ten years, but she was back on track, and now, more than ever, he was glad she was on the Ivoire, glad she was going to take command.

  Much as he respected Dix, much as Dix deserved first officer status, when it came to running the bridge in his absence, Coop secretly preferred Lynda.

  She sat across from him. The huge table, designed to handle twenty or more, seemed even larger than usual. He opened the wall screens here, too, so that he could monitor the exterior.

  So far, the outsiders had not returned. That relieved him somewhat. He knew now that they didn’t have extra teams, at least not extra teams on the ready. He suspected—he hoped—he would have time to work whenever the outsiders were not around.

  He had briefed Lynda on everything that had happened since the Ivoire landed. Dix was briefing her bridge crew. Normally Coop would have briefed everyone together, but he needed to talk to someone who was fresh, someone rested, someone who was thinking clearly.

  “I’m sending my team to get eight hours of sleep,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll b
e effective if we stay on the bridge much longer, at least in this situation.”

  In a fight, in something harrowing, with the adrenaline flowing, he had no trouble keeping the bridge crew on for thirty-six hours straight as he staggered the sleep schedules. But he felt that inappropriate here.

  Lynda did not say anything, but he hadn’t asked her to. Not yet. She watched him, her face impassive, as she waited to find out what he really needed.

  “I’m hesitant to do anything that might alert the outsiders to our presence,” he said. He’d already explained to her that he believed the outsiders did not know whether or not the ship was manned. “I want to study them more. I also want to know what those particles are. We have a lot of data to sift through.”

  “Not to mention the ongoing repairs,” she said softly.

  He rubbed a hand over his face. He was tired. He was not as sharp as usual. “We definitely need the repairs,” he said. “We might need to get out of here quickly.”

  “So I’m to keep my crew sifting through the information, facilitating repairs, and monitoring the sector base.”

  “Yes,” he said, glad that his implied instructions were clear. “I also want you to continue trying to hail someone on the surface. See if you can contact the Fleet as well. Maybe someone is closer than we think.”

  Her expression wavered just a little. She didn’t believe anyone was nearby. But she was a good officer. She said simply, “Yes, sir.”

  “Finally,” he said, “the minute the outsiders return, you summon me.”

  “Even if it’s only twenty minutes from now?” she asked. “Because we can monitor them just fine.”

  “I know that,” he said. “That’s why I don’t want you to alert my team. But I want to know what these outsiders are up to, and until I have them figured out, I want to be on the bridge when they’re in the room.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  He was silent for a minute, gathering his own thoughts. He had called her in here to discuss possible scenarios, but now that she sat across from him, her hand resting lightly on the table, he worried that he would sound overly dramatic.

  He sighed.

  “I’m not sure what’s going on here,” he said. “But between us, I think something terrible happened to Venice City.”

  “I’m inclined to agree, sir.” She sounded almost relieved that he had said that.

  “We might have to leave immediately,” he said. “So repairs are the top priority, especially to the anacapa drive.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Secondarily, I need you to get a team making sure our weapons system is fully functional.”

  “Sir?” She looked surprised at that. “We can’t use most of our weapons down here.”

  “I know that,” he said a little more sharply than he needed to. “But we might not want to be cautious, if you understand my meaning.”

  “You think we might have to blast our way out?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I want to be prepared for all contingencies. We need to figure out which weapons would be best to carve a hole to the surface if that’s what we need.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “I don’t want the bridge crew to overhear that instruction,” he said. “Just like I don’t want them focusing on the anacapa drive. We have engineers. Let them work.”

  “On that and the particles?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “Plus we need the best assessment your team can put together as to what has happened here. We need to do whatever we can from inside the ship. I don’t want anyone leaving the ship unless I order it. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “When I leave here, I’m going to make a shipwide announcement, saying we’ve clearly arrived at an abandoned sector base, and no one should expect to leave the ship until it’s cleared with me. If there are any problems, the crew should report them to the bridge immediately.”

  “Are you going to elaborate on what you mean by problems’?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “Because I’m not sure what I mean by ‘problems.’ We’re in a new situation, Lynda, something that’s not in the guidelines. I told the bridge crew we’re going to proceed as if this is a first-contact situation, but that’s not entirely accurate. This situation is fluid and unsettling, and might be a lot worse than a hostile first contact.”

  “Worse how, sir?” She asked that with no trepidation. In fact she leaned forward slightly as if this was the piece of information she’d been waiting for.

  “There is the possibility that we’re not at Sector Base V,” he said. “Just some place that resembles it. Our navigation equipment might be very far off. We could be in an ancient base. The anacapa was damaged worse than I initially thought. It could have sent us through a different kind of fold. We’ve heard speculation about the problems with foldspace all our lives. We might be in one of those situations.”

  She nodded, then swallowed visibly. “I’ve been thinking that since we got stuck, sir.”

  “We’re going to take this one shift at a time, one problem at a time,” he said. “It’s our job to make sure the crew remains upbeat and working toward our future. But it’s also our job to keep the promises to a minimum. I don’t want us to reassure them that we’ll rejoin the Fleet. I don’t want to hear discussion of friends and family on other ships. If someone tries to talk about that, I want the conversation redirected or truncated as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

  “Won’t that make people suspicious, sir?” Lynda asked.

  He shook his head. “They’re already suspicious, just like you were. They know something is very wrong here. We’re going to prepare them by degrees for the worst-case scenario. If by some chance we get reunited with the Fleet and not much time has passed, then the crew will appreciate our caution. If we don’t, then they’ll have acclimatized more or less to the new reality.”

  Her finger tapped the table, for the first time revealing her nervousness.

  “What do you think that worst-case scenario is, sir?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I honestly don’t know.”

  ~ * ~

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Picking our way through the rock-strewn corridor is easier than I expected. Some parts of the corridor have very little debris, just a bit of gravel, none of it black. The walls are pure smooth black as if nothing has changed. The ceiling is dark. The lights, however, are dim if they work at all.

  I have to move slower than I want to. My heart pounds. I am having trouble regulating my breathing.

  Because I thought of all the dangers that can occur down here, I’m now focused on them. I worry that the ceiling will cave in, the walls will crumble, big chunks of blackness will fall on us. I want to find out if Mikk and Roderick are still alive. I’m terrified that the opening of the cave is blocked.

  For the first time in years, I’m afraid I’m going to die.

  I am not monitoring the Six as well as I should. I should keep an ear tuned to their breathing. But I don’t. I try not to hesitate, try not to show the fear that I’m feeling.

  The rocks look eerie in the light from our suits. I have my lights on bright, casting a clear white light ahead of us, catching the rocks in shadow.

  Rea’s light from his suit, bringing up the rear, augments my lights. I can see the shadows of the Six elongated around me, as if they’re right next to me. I use those to track their progress.

  Often I stop, particularly after I’ve executed a difficult walking pattern. I watch them pick their way over the debris, turning their heads so that they can watch their hands or looking down to keep track of where they place their feet.

  The Six are following my instructions. They’re trying to walk in my footsteps.

  I round a corner, and pause. Rocks litter the corridor in piles taller than I am. My light barely seems to penetrate the opening on the left side of the corridor.

  A tight squeeze.


  Something I’ve been afraid of.

  I make my way there, careful to keep my boots away from the larger rocks in the center of the floor. I reach the huge pile, and hear a sound beyond it.

  Voices.

  In my ear?

  “Mikk?” I say.

  “Boss?” I hear relief in his voice, but it can’t match the relief I feel.

  He’s alive.

  “Is Roderick with you?” I ask.

  “He’s helping me,” Mikk says. “Don’t move. We’ll get you out as quickly as we can.”

  Don’t move?

  “We’ve been moving,” I say. “We just got here.”

  “All of you?” he asks. “You’re all right, then?”

  I don’t want to explain what happened over the comm link. “We’re fine,” I say. “It’s not so bad here.”

  “The rock fall blocked the corridor,” Mikk says. “We’ve been trying to clear it, but the stack is pretty precarious. Don’t touch anything. You might bring the whole thing down on us.”

  The others have joined me. They’re pressing closer than I like, as if they want to see through the opening, just like I do.

  “We’ll wait,” I say as much to the Six as to Mikk and Roderick. I can see their movement through the opening on the left side. The poor men—they’re lifting rocks and moving them aside.

  Have they been doing that since the rockslides happened?

  I stand near that left side so they can see me. The rock fall is deeper than I thought. It is at least six meters wide. The fact that I can see through it is a testament to how hard they’ve worked.

  “We should help,” Kersting says, surprising me.

  “No,” I say softly. “They asked us not to. And this thing is pretty big.”

  We watch as they work. Our side is relatively clear. The block is on their side of the corridor. That’s why my light had trouble penetrating the crack. I keep the light shining on their work area.

  We take the time to rest.

  And we wait.

  ~ * ~