The Falls [05 Diving Universe] 2016

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  And, just beyond that, a hint of the gray ocean, twinkling at its own jokes.

  The waters of Rockwell Pool siphoned off in the spring to create their own stream (called, unoriginally, Rockwell Stream). But some of the water flowed to a much smaller, less impressive underground waterfall, which fed the springs that provided the city water.

  Those springs—and their annual growth as the snowmelt covered everything—were the reason why Sector Base E-2 never got built underneath Sandoveil, the way that many sector bases were built under their cities.

  Rajivk preferred the distance. He liked to think of the city as separate from the base. The city would become even more separate from the base in the upcoming years.

  He approved of that, just as he reveled in this view of his favorite corner of this world.

  He stepped up to the wall separating him from the Falls. Usually he kept staring forward, but on this day, he braced his hands on the wall’s cool surface.

  If he pushed his body up just enough to gain an extra foot or two, he could see the part of Rockwell Pool at the base of the waterfall. There was a smaller section of the pool there, a place where the water gathered, a place that seemed deceptively calm.

  It was deep and it was dangerous and fortunately, it was inaccessible from any of the paths and lookouts.

  But it was the one place that a reckless person who jumped from here, or the overlook below, might actually end up.

  He leaned a little forward, felt his heart trip-hammer harder than it had in years. He hadn’t told anyone he was coming up here. If he unbalanced, he would fall forward, and if he fell forward, he would die.

  He tried not to think about that. Instead, he looked down.

  The water fell in a stunningly organized fashion, only a few drops venturing away from the large gush of water. The sun had moved, so this side of the Falls did not have any more sunlight rainbows.

  The water fell into the pool below, churning the water.

  Except in the side pool. He didn’t see anything there, thank goodness. He lowered himself, and let out a small breath.

  Then he frowned as something registered on his brain. He had seen something. A bit of light brown.

  There shouldn’t have been any brown at all. The rocks were almost black from the constant wet. The water was frothy white, gray, and blue, and the pool itself a blackish-green.

  There were no visible rocks in that part of the pool, nothing that would—that could—be brown.

  He had imagined it.

  He turned away, then caught himself.

  At this time of year, there was a very slight chance that someone who stupidly (or accidentally) went into the Falls had survived. There was also a chance that all he saw was another shoe.

  But he had to look.

  He placed his hands on the top of the wall again, and levered himself up slightly. The water seemed to flow even faster, taunting him. His heart beat harder than it had before.

  For some reason, looking the second time felt a lot more dangerous than the first. Maybe because he was going to focus more on what was in that second pool than on his own safety.

  He coudln’t really do both.

  He leaned forward slightly, being very careful of his balance. His lower arms trembled underneath his weight.

  The water churned and splashed, filling the side pool with eddys. He thought he saw more brown, and something else—yellow?

  He needed to lean farther forward, but he wasn’t sure he dared. If he were younger, or maybe if he wore the right gear, he would sit on top of the wall, but he didn’t dare do that. Not alone.

  And he wasn’t sure he should lower himself down, then raise himself up, trying this again. So he only had this one look—for as long as his arms could hold him.

  The trembling had moved into his elbows. He could actually feel his muscles burning. He walked everywhere, but he never did much with his arms. They weren’t very strong.

  He saw brown tendrils, canary-yellow something—soggy, like fabric.

  Maybe whoever took off their shoes had tossed their clothing into the waterfall. Maybe it had been some kind of ritual.

  He could only hope.

  And then an unmistakeable foot floated out of the water, attached to a leg wearing bright red pants. The foot floated toward the middle of the side pool, followed by a full torso (in yellow) and a bare arm. The brown tendrils were hair. The side of a face turned toward him as the body spun, revealing the remaining limbs.

  A face. Buried in the water. Clearly not breathing. From here, it looked like the person was dead. He couldn’t see any aparatus for breathing, not even those thin clear hoods that someone had designed for planetside environmental suits.

  He couldn’t see any protection at all.

  And the feet were bare.

  That really bothered him, given the shoes on the lower overlook. Who would do that? And why? Had they sat on the edge of the wall, dipping their feet into the waterfall? Had there been some other reason?

  Was there someone else in the water?

  His right arm bent involuntarily, and his hips hit the wall, sending a burst of pain through him.

  He slid back down the side, then stood in the overlook, his heart pounding.

  Someone had clearly died. A barefoot someone had died. And Rajivk had found two pairs of shoes.

  He didn’t like the implications. He didn’t like them at all.

  FOUR

  SECURITY ARRIVED FIVE minutes later. Two men and two women, all of whom barely fit into the lab along with Bristol Iannazzi’s equipment, the screens, and the boxed anacapa drive she had been working on.

  At least this team knew how to maneuver in one of the labs. The team came in one at a time, each moving in a different direction, watching where they stepped so they could avoid any tools on the floor or open pieces of something she had been working on.

  An experienced team, then.

  Good. That meant whoever had received Bristol’s message had taken her seriously.

  She felt squeezed in her own environmental suit. Clearly, she hadn’t put it on in months, maybe a couple of years, and she had gained weight in that time. The suits were designed to compensate for about twenty pounds, and apparently, she was just on the outside edge of that.

  After she put it on, a recommendation did flash across her eyes, requesting that she purchase a larger suit. She told the suit to fuck off before she established working communications links.

  The four security team members had the latest environmental suits. The security teams—both on the base and in the city of Sandoveil—had the best equipment. They were constantly updating everything, as they should.

  The entire community relied on them.

  This team wore clear hoods, so she could see their faces. She recognized all four of them, but in that casual we-work-in-the-same-building way. She didn’t know their names.

  She gave them the hand signal that everyone at the base had learned for let’s sent up a private communications link. She had never set up one of those links, however, so she hoped one of them would do it.

  She bit her lower lip, visibly, and made herself look like she was pleading with everyone. Maybe they would get the message without her having to resort to a real comm link.

  Then a man said in her ear, “Okay. Can you hear me? I’m setting up a private comm band for the five of us.”

  “I hear you,” she said. The hood of her environmental suit was so tight that it moved when she spoke.

  Everyone stared at it, and she flushed.

  “Sign in,” he said to the rest of the team.

  “DuBerry,” said the tall woman near the door, her gaze on Bristol.

  “Fitzwilliam,” said the shorter man standing next to her.

  “Tranh,” said the muscular woman on the other side of the door.

  “Wèi,” said the man to her left, clearly the one who had started this all. “You’re Bristol Iannazzi, right?”

  He mispronounced her la
st name, but she didn’t care. She nodded. Then when that was greeted with silence she said, “Yes.”

  “Good. Brief us.”

  She did. She had taken the security training every year since she started at the base, and she knew the essentials: tell the team what happened succinctly. Make sure to include what seemed threatening, unusual, or out of place, because they often did not have the scientific training that the people calling them did.

  Bristol told them about the slamming blast door, which made Wèi lean his head back in surprise. And she thought about it for a moment, a chill running through her.

  That door was too heavy to slam. It was also designed to ease closed slowly. No one wanted a door that heavy to hit them with that kind of force.

  She should have thought of that, and she hadn’t.

  “Can you open the door manually?” Wèi asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Would you like me to?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “Show me the recording.”

  She had the recording cued up. She showed it to all four of them, on one of the regular wall screens, not the holographic screen. They all watched without moving.

  “It looks like the door was blown open,” Tranh said. “Is that possible?”

  “I’ve never seen it,” Bristol said. “But with enough force, anything is possible.”

  They all remained in place, staring at each other. Apparently that idea unnerved them as much as it unnerved her.

  “I can open the door,” she said, even though the very thought of it made her heart pound even harder. “I know what I’m looking for.”

  “No,” Wèi said. “We’ll do it.”

  The woman, Tranh, shifted beside him.

  He shook his head slightly. Then he corrected himself. “I’ll do it.” As if he didn’t want to upset anyone on the team.

  But wasn’t that what the team was here for? Bristol didn’t know. She didn’t like working with a team, which was one reason why she had been so glad to get her promotion all those years ago.

  “We’ll do it,” DuBerry said, and moved toward the door.

  Bristol rubbed her hands together. The gloves pulled against each other, and she remembered why she hated wearing them. Why she hated wearing the suit in the first place.

  “I-I…um, I should go with you,” she said.

  “You should wait right here,” Fitzwilliam said as he passed her. “If there’s a hostile in that room, we should deal with it.”

  “If there’s a ‘hostile’ in that room,” Bristol said, “wouldn’t they have harmed me already?”

  “People are most dangerous when they’re cornered,” DuBerry said, and flashed a smile at Bristol. Bristol thought the smile was weirdly inappropriate.

  Tranh was the last person to walk past Bristol. The security team waited by the door.

  “Do you need a code to get in?” Wèi asked. “I’d rather not override.”

  Overriding any of the door commands sometimes set off alarms too.

  “Yeah, you do, sorry,” Bristol said. “I can open the door from here. You want me to?”

  “On my mark,” Wèi said. He looked at his team. “Ready?”

  They must have given him some kind of response because it only took a second before he said,

  “Okay, Ms. Iannazzi. Here we go. Mark.”

  She swallowed hard and hit the command that opened the door. It remained motionless, which it wasn’t supposed to do. It was supposed to open slowly, just in case someone might be standing nearby.

  Then the door opened, but the movement was jerky, as if the mechanism were damaged.

  The team stood to one side. They seemed to expect someone to rush out of the room or shoot at them or something.

  She was standing in the same spot she’d stood in all along, which put her directly across from the door. She felt a sudden, violent anger that they hadn’t warned her that she might be in danger standing there.

  But she didn’t move and she didn’t act on it. Instead, she watched them.

  Wèi went in first, followed by Fitzwilliam and DuBerry. Tranh remained outside. Bristol wondered if they had a private comm link as well, or if they were just following standard procedure.

  She had a hunch it was both, in case they needed to discuss her.

  She couldn’t hear anything on the group comm link, and that worried her. She shifted slightly, so that she could see the area near the door more clearly, but she couldn’t see anything behind the door.

  Her heart was pounding harder than she’d ever felt it pound. It made her entire chest cavity vibrate. Her suit issued a warning and a question. You’re having an adrenaline spike. Would you like something to calm you?

  No, she sent back, then wondered if she should have made the decision so quickly.

  It was normal to be alarmed, she knew that. She also knew that she had set up her suit to keep her calm. She was an engineer, and she didn’t dare have an adrenaline spike when she was working on something as touchy as an anacapa drive. Her hands might shake or she might knock something loose.

  Over the years, she had cultivated calmness. She needed calmness more than she needed the reliability of a fight-or-flight reaction. So this reaction bothered her.

  She stared at that open door, at the lights, which had come up, and at part of the bare black floor beneath. Shouldn’t she be seeing more? Shouldn’t she be hearing from the team?

  Shouldn’t she be doing something?

  “Ms. Iannazzi?” said Wèi’s voice through the comm link. “Will you join us, please?’

  She let out a breath—or tried to. She apparently hadn’t been breathing much so she didn’t have a lot to release.

  She nodded her head before giving verbal consent, even though he couldn’t see her.

  Damn. If something had gone wrong with any of the tech in the room, she could have handled it calmly. But the idea of walking into the storage room, with the security team inside, made her palms sweat.

  She wanted to ask him if it was safe. She wanted to ask him if he was all right. She wanted to ask him if the team was requesting her presence of their own free will.

  But she knew (she hoped) she was making things up.

  She said, “Yes.”

  That single word sounded choppy, revealing her nervousness. Her cheeks grew even warmer. She wasn’t sure why she was embarrassed that she was frightened, but she was.

  Apparently, she had imagined herself differently than this.

  She walked across the workroom. The walk took longer than it ever had before, and yet it happened instantly. She wasn’t sure how she had a dual perception of time like that, but she did.

  She reached the door, her heart pounding so hard that she could feel it in her throat, her mouth, her ears. She half expected the suit to chastise her again, but it remained silent.

  Apparently, the offer of calmness was a one-time thing.

  First she looked at the blast door itself. It seemed bowed in the middle, just a little. She glanced at the edges and tried to remember: had it seemed off-plumb when she had been staring at it earlier?

  Not that it mattered. She wasn’t here to examine the door—yet, anyway.

  She didn’t cross the threshold. Instead, she leaned forward slightly and peered inside.

  The storage room was larger than her main workspace. Small ships had to fit inside, and they often did.

  There were fewer wall screens here, and no place to store an anacapa drive. If she wanted to do the delicate work, she did it in the main part of her lab.

  However, the storage room usually looked cramped to her. It always had a ship that barely fit lengthwise or was almost too tall. Even the smallest of ships made it difficult to maneuver around them.

  So when she saw the room, and registered how large it was, she frowned for a half a moment. The security team members stood on the edge of the lowered work platform. They formed a rectangle, whether they knew it or not.

  And they were all looking at her.

&n
bsp; “I thought you said there was a ship in here,” Wèi said.

  “Yeah,” she said softly. “There was.”

  FIVE

  MARNIE SAR ARRIVED at the overlook ahead of her team. The Falls roared and threatened, like they always did, the water cascading over the edge down to its lowest volume of the year. Even that amount, though, seemed like more water than she would ever have thought possible.

  She wasn’t fond of the Falls. She’d seen too many people die here.

  She had been on her way home, shift over. She did one weekly stint at the headquarters of Ynchinga Search & Rescue—Sandoveil Region. One weekly stint was required of anyone who had more than five years’ experience with YSR-SR. Usually the stints were quiet, especially if they were in the middle of the night.

  She had so much seniority, though, that her shifts were never in the middle of the night. She had her choice of days and times, and she always chose midweek because the tourists always arrived toward the end of the week and stayed for a few days.

  She didn’t like her shift to be completely quiet because she preferred to rescue locals. They at least had an idea that they were in trouble or they had done something stupid.

  Tourists usually expected rescue and never apologized for the inane things they had done to get themselves in trouble.

  She hiked up to the top overlook, gear on her shoulder. Rajivk Agwu leaned against the stone wall, arms crossed. He was not a tall man, but he was strong, particularly considering he was space-born. He had been part of YSR-SR off and on for years.

  Right now, he was off, but he had followed procedure. He had contacted them, said he saw a body in Rockwell Pool, a body that was only visible from above, and that he would wait until YSR-SR arrived.

  He had clearly known that he might wait longer than that: Sometimes witnesses had to go through a lot of hoops before they were allowed to leave.