City of Ruins du-2

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “We could have been trapped in that room with no way out,” I say. “Rocks blocking the door, the corridors filled. We’d have been stranded.”

  I don’t go on to say that they all could have died, and no one would have known we were there. Bridge starts to speak—and I know what he’s going to say as soon as he starts, that he’s going to mention the way that the rock clears itself, something I haven’t told them yet—but I don’t want him to bring this up.

  “Please,” I say, “let me finish before we discuss the rest of this.”

  I pause now, almost daring them to interrupt me.

  “I came here reluctantly.” I nod at Ilona, acknowledging that she was right. “I didn’t prepare the way I normally do. I thought we’d come in, look around, realize this isn’t the place for us, and leave. Instead, we’ve found absolute treasure. We’ve found a working Dignity Vessel.”

  Everyone smiles at that. Just for a moment and the smiles fade.

  My fingers squeeze the chair’s back. “But this is my obsession, not yours. You all work for me, and our job is dangerous. We all know that sometimes things go wrong, and someone dies.”

  Mikk looks down. He’s gone through this before. So has Roderick, who looks away, and Tamaz, who studies his water glass as if it has writing on it.

  “The problem is,” I say, “I have just realized that this mission is so dangerous that many of us could die, and some of us might die trying to rescue others. I can’t, in good conscience, let you go back into those caves without telling you this. And I can’t, in good conscience, let you continue your work without giving you the option to walk away.”

  They are all looking at me again, my long-term team, with great surprise.

  “I won’t be upset,” I say. “You can stay in the hotel if you like, continue to draw your paychecks, have these meetings with us and offer your expertise, or you can return to the Business and wait for us there. I’m going to return to that Dignity Vessel, and I hope enough of you stay to help me with that. But I understand if you don’t.”

  No one speaks. For a moment, I wonder if I’ve been clear.

  Then Bernadette Ivy says, “I don’t want to go back into those caves.”

  “Me, either,” says Gregory.

  Ilona has taken out a pad and starts tapping in names. Thank goodness, because I hadn’t thought to do that.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Bridge says. “This is just getting interesting. Why quit now?”

  “I don’t mind the danger,” Mikk says.

  “I wish I could see that ship.” Roderick sounds plaintive. He keeps thinking that we see marvelous things inside stealth tech, and until that ship arrived, we never had.

  “I’d love to see it too,” Ilona says softly. “I have always imagined what the Dignity Vessels looked like new.”

  I’m watching my team with a bit of surprise. Some of them share my obsession, something I hadn’t realized.

  Several people haven’t spoken up at all, as if they’re thinking about this. I look at the Six. They’re the ones who matter. I want them to accompany me into that room. We’ll get so much done if there are seven of us.

  If I’m alone, this might take months. Years.

  I’m a pilot. I know science. I know history. But I’m not a scientist, nor am I an engineer. I’ll be guessing at so many things if I go in alone.

  I don’t want to guess. I want to know.

  Rea looks at the other members of the Six. They don’t meet his gaze. He shrugs and grins at me.

  “I’m fascinated,” he says. “I can’t wait to go back.”

  Kersting picks up his beer. “Never say that Rollo Kersting isn’t up for an adventure.”

  “An adventure that might kill you?” Seager asks.

  “Life kills you,” Kersting says. “It’s just a question of how you’ll go out. Imagine if I go out trying to start up a Dignity Vessel.”

  “What if you go out crushed under tons of rock?” Al-Nasir asks.

  “Hell, the way I eat,” Kersting says, “I might have a massive heart attack in my sleep. I’d rather have a romantic death, even if it involves rocks and a groundquake.”

  “You’re unrealistic,” Bernadette Ivy says. “If you get crushed by rock, it won’t be a quick death. You’ll suffocate, most likely, from collapsed lungs and broken ribs. It’ll be agonizing. Or it might take a few days, because no one can find you.”

  Ilona looks at me, as if she expects me to stop this part of the conversation. But I’m not going to. They have to be able to imagine the risks now, when I’m giving them the chance to quit.

  Because the one thing I haven’t told them is that this is a one-time offer.

  “You’re extremely dramatic, you know that?” Kersting glares at Ivy. “I’m saying the risk is worth it to me. I’ve been dragooned into working in stealth tech by Boss’s dad, and he was one big ass who never told me the risks. I’ve been part of this group for a long time now, and we’re finally getting to the good stuff. I have a weird genetic ability, and it lets me see things that—no offense, Bernadette—you might never have the chance to see. So I’m going to quit right now? You have to be joking. Of course I’m not going to quit.”

  “Me either,” Quinte says, surprising me. She had been so afraid when the groundquake quit. She’d been terrified on most of the journeys we’ve taken together.

  But she hasn’t quit, either. She hasn’t walked away.

  “Really, Nyssa?” Al-Nasir turns slightly in his chair so he can see her better. His voice wobbles.

  “Really,” she says. Then she looks at me. “I know I’m not the best person you have. I’m probably the worst. I don’t think well in a crisis. But it seems to me that unless another groundquake happens, and it somehow affects that room, we’re moving into a research phase of this operation, and I like research. I grew up on stories of the fleet of Dignity Vessels, and I’ve always wondered what they were like. I used to think they were so romantic, showing up places, rescuing people, moving on. I thought they were fiction. And now to discover that they’re not…”

  She shakes her head, then shrugs and grins.

  “I love the idea of them,” she says, “and to think I might have a small part in understanding them makes me happier than you could ever know.”

  Al-Nasir bites his lower lip. Then he stops and rubs his hand over his mouth, as if he’s suddenly aware of what he’s doing.

  “I’m inclined to stay above ground,” he says to me, as if we’re alone in the room. “I won’t lie. I was terrified down there. But I’m also terrified of not going down. I walked to some of the groundquake rubble with Lucretia this afternoon, and I could just as easily have died in this hotel or on the street.”

  “Maybe more easily,” Lucretia Stone says. “They’re not as quake-proof here as they say they are.”

  “I never dreamed I’d be doing any of this,” Al-Nasir says, as if Stone hasn’t spoken. “So I have no romantic illusions about Dignity Vessels. I’ve seen people die in stealth-tech experiments, and I’ve seen what the Empire can do, and what’s really scary is if we don’t do this job fast, they might hear about this ship, and then they’ll have it.”

  He takes a deep breath, stopping himself.

  “I guess,” he says more slowly, sounding a bit surprised. “I guess I’m convincing myself to continue.”

  “You’re convincing me, too,” Seager says.

  “And me,” DeVries says. I look at him, eyebrows raised. I thought he’d come with us. He seemed so coolheaded when we were in the room. I hadn’t realized that he was disturbed as well.

  “So all six of you are coming back?” I ask, and I let my surprise into my voice.

  Kersting looks around, then grins at me. “Guess so.”

  No one denies it. They all stare at me.

  “I don’t want you changing your minds once we go below ground,” I say. “Tonight’s the night for decisions. After that, we’re not going to discuss death or risks or possible trouble un
less we need to do so to avoid it.”

  Al-Nasir glances at everyone else. Kersting is nodding. Rea is smiling. Seager makes little fists and raises them, in a let’s-do-this gesture. DeVries nods once. And Quinte puts her hand on Al-Nasir’s shoulder.

  “We’re coming,” she says.

  “Fahd,” I say to Al-Nasir. “Don’t let them pressure you. Are you going to join us?”

  His mouth thins. He takes another deep breath, as if that’s the only way he can calm himself.

  “I’d be stupid not to,” he says.

  “We’re all staying,” Mikk says.

  “Bernadette, Gregory,” I say. “Are you willing to stay in Vaycehn and help us?”

  Bernadette shakes her head. “I think you guys can send me the information on the Business and I can work there.”

  “You’ll be working alone,” Gregory says. “I don’t like it here, but I’d rather be here than orbiting Wyr for six months while everyone else gets all the glory.”

  “Fahd is right,” Stone says. “Every place is a risk. And now that you’re willing to listen to us, Boss, we’ll be able to mitigate some of it.”

  Her tone makes me bristle, but I don’t show it. She’s right. I was wrong to ignore the warnings of the archeologists. I’m going to listen. We’re going to plan this properly.

  We’re going to do this next stage right.

  ~ * ~

  FORTY-THREE

  We go back to the room in the same configuration we used two days ago. Mikk and Roderick wait as close to the stealth-tech field as they can. A hovercart sits near them in case we need it quickly. Four guides bring us down, and they have a hovercart too.

  This time, however, they have orders to remain below ground, and Bridge has volunteered to stay above ground to make sure they follow those orders.

  The only other change is one that the Six have asked for: all of them get to go into the room at the same time.

  “After all,” Quinte says, “no one can get into the stealth-tech field unless they have a marker, so I don’t think there’s a reason to guard the door from the outside.”

  “And rocks can’t fall inside a stealth field,” Al-Nasir says, even though we’ve discussed this. We don’t know if that’s true or not. Still, he’s got a point. If a disaster happens inside the room, it won’t matter if we have someone outside or not.

  I personally think they don’t want to repeat the experience of waiting in those corridors with nothing to do. They’re not trained divers like Mikk and Roderick. Al-Nasir and Quinte are not used to waiting long periods of time.

  I see no harm in letting them accompany us into the room.

  So I let them.

  We go in as silently as we can. I go first, which is risky, because I have no idea if we’re alone. I’m worried that we’ll encounter someone—or lots of someones, someones who think we’re invading their private area, someones who are used to this place when we are not.

  I’ve been thinking about it all night, and I have found myself wondering if this isn’t normal for Dignity Vessels. Maybe they have bases like this all over the known universe, dark except when a Dignity Vessel needs repair.

  I keep remembering those laser score marks on the side of the ship, and wonder if it was damaged in some kind of fight, and if so, if this is where it is supposed to go for repairs.

  Of course, I also wonder if it is a dead ship whose arrival was somehow triggered by us. I spent half the night on that, pacing and worrying that I want to believe this scenario, because that means I can figure out how to open the ship, then go inside and investigate it.

  The second scenario also means the Dignity Vessel is mine—or can be mine, if the Vaycehnese government never finds out about it, and we can somehow figure out how to get the ship out of this enclosed underground room.

  One problem at a time, though.

  We stand at the door. My heart is pounding. I can tell from the readings on the Six’s environmental suits that their hearts are racing as well. They’re trying to control their breathing, but they’re as nervous as I am, maybe more so. Their palms are sweating, and their suits are trying to cool them down.

  I’m not that nervous. But I’m excited.

  I can hear Squishy’s voice warning against the gids, and for once, I care. I want to survive this trip into the room, and the next, and the next. I want to enjoy every minute of this discovery.

  And I want the discovery to be there.

  That’s what really has my heart racing: I’m afraid the Dignity Vessel is gone.

  I put my hand on the door itself, ready to push. First, though, I turn to the Six.

  “Be prepared for anything,” I say, and then I try the door.

  It opens easily. It’s not locked or barricaded.

  I step into the room, and the particles swirl around me. I can’t help myself—I immediately look at that landing pad.

  The Dignity Vessel is still there.

  I let out a small breath. Relief.

  I step all the way inside, cautiously. I look around.

  To my quick gaze, nothing looks different. The Dignity Vessel sits on the pad, the screens above the equipment show the inside of the room and nothing else, and the rest of the equipment looks like it has been off for a very long time.

  Now mingled with the relief is just a bit of disappointment. I half hoped someone would be exploring or using the room. I was ready to have a difficult conversation with one of the people who had arrived on the Dignity Vessel.

  But if no one has emerged in forty-eight hours, then I’m more inclined to think the ship is empty, drawn by something we did, some button we pressed, something we activated.

  After all, we have found seven half-ruined Dignity Vessels throughout the sector. We have no idea if anything is wrong with this one. For all we know, the interior may be partially destroyed, the controls gone, some part of the vessel that we can’t yet see open to space.

  DeVries stops beside me. Rea walks just a little ahead, as if he can’t believe that the Vessel is still there. I can feel Quinte behind me, and I know without looking that Al-Nasir is behind her. Seager is on my other side. The only person I seem to have lost track of is Kersting.

  I turn slightly. He has wandered in the opposite direction from me, head tilted back, looking up at the Dignity Vessel.

  I sense the awe in his movements, and I smile.

  I feel it, too.

  “It’s still here,” I say, stating the obvious. But someone has to. I have to let the relief I’m feeling become part of the group’s emotion.

  “I didn’t think it would be,” Rea says.

  “Me, either,” Seager says.

  We all stop. We have an agreed-upon plan for this trip, one of two that we made. We agreed that if the Dignity Vessel was here we would proceed with caution. DeVries, Rea, and I would search for a way into the vessel. Kersting and Seager would go to the first section of equipment and take readings off of it, recording as much as they could so that our linguists and scientists ran figure out what’s going on here. Most of what we got the last time was distorted by our own movements.

  Quinte and Al-Nasir will explore the area near the door, to make sure that there are no hidden ways to lock us in or activate something that we don’t want to activate.

  Their instructions specifically warn them not to touch anything.

  They were both happy with both parts of the instruction: the fact that they’d be looking and not touching, and the fact that they would be closest to the door in case something went wrong.

  I get the area near the door. DeVries goes toward the back where the ship’s wings stretch out. Rea is going to walk beneath the curved front of the ship—or what I think of as the front—and see if there is a hatch anywhere. On half of the Dignity Vessels we’ve found—or I should say, on the half we’ve round with an intact front—we’ve found hatches.

  That was one of my first clues that not all Dignity Vessels are exactly alike. They were altered, either by time o
r convention or need or all three.

  We move cautiously, as if we are diving. That was my instruction up top, and I plan to live up to it down here, despite my own excitement. We’re also running on a time limit: six hours, which might feel extra long, considering now much oxygen we’re using.

  We’re all nervous and excited. The causes may be different—I think Al-Nasir is frightened enough for all of us—but the result is the same.

  If we were actually in space, I’d worry about our oxygen use rate. I’m less worried about it here.

  We’re taking more readings from the air and the particles. We can breathe here if we need to. It’s not the oxygen that’s the problem; it’s those particles. And with the groundquake, the rescue, and all of the things that followed, our own team of scientists hasn’t had a chance to adequately test anything we brought back from our last trip.

  We’re proceeding exactly the same way in this one as we did the last time, because we have no new information.

  I move slowly across the floor, stopping after each step and looking around, just like I would on a dive. The others do as well. It looks like we’re doing a particularly well-timed ballet, but we need to be cautious.

  Part of me feels as if something has changed here, but I have no idea what that would be. And I can’t really trust my feelings at the moment. They might be based on excitement or expectations or sheer nerves, nerves I’m not entirely admitting.

  Still, I have a sense that we’re being watched.

  I force myself to concentrate on the ship as I walk toward it. The laser sears are as I remember them; the door is in the same place, and it is closed.

  But there is a difference.

  A vast difference.

  One that makes my breath catch.

  The exterior of the ship is different. The color is richer. The score marks look deeper, more damaging. The outline of the door is clearer.

  And the ship itself glistens as if it’s waiting for us.

  As if it’s waiting for me.

  ~ * ~

  FORTY-FOUR

  They’re back.” Anita Tren sounded excited. She blew up the real-time image of the exterior of the Ivoire without Coop’s permission. Suddenly all of the screens on the bridge were filled with images of the abandoned sector base.