City of Ruins - [Diving Universe 02]

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “That’s one step,” Mikk says.

  We both know the next step will be even more difficult. Without the hovercart, getting to the surface will be incredibly hard.

  We don’t say anything, though. Instead, we return to the group.

  Mikk is going to lead them through the two rock falls. This time, I’m going to bring up the rear.

  It takes another hour to get us through this new series of fallen rocks. I don’t watch the group make its cautious way through the pile.

  Instead, I investigate the hovercart.

  The force of the rocks has crushed the front half. The back is mostly intact. The middle is damaged, but not as badly as I would have expected.

  Even though I touch the rocks and the ground near the cart with my bare ringers, I feel nothing liquid. No blood. I don’t smell anything rank either, and death without environmental suits would have a smell. When they die, people’s bladders void. Their bowels let go.

  And in this warmth, the blood itself would have an odor.

  It does not.

  I am more relieved than I want to say.

  I’m the last through the second rock fall, which is remarkably stable. I reach my group in the daylight-filled corridor. The Six sit, sharing a bottle of water. Mikk and Roderick are investigating the opening.

  The opening differs from the openings you normally find going into ships. It doesn’t come down in a straight vertical. It has a slope. The upper part of the opening is steep, but almost immediately widens into the cavern. The walls themselves go upward at an angle.

  However, that angle gets sharper and sharper the closer to the top one gets.

  There’s a built-in ladder. I’ve noticed it every time we come down. It’s precarious, and even more so now. The ground could shake again, and we’d be stuck. Whoever is on the ladder might get shaken off, might fall, might be crushed.

  Of course, the group waiting below might get crushed too.

  I saunter over to the Six as if I don’t have a care in the world. I glance up, see no obvious debris on the edge of the cave opening above, and see no visible cracks in the wall.

  “I’ll climb it,” I say.

  “Boss,” Roderick says. “We need you. If something happens ...”

  He doesn’t finish the sentence.

  “If something happens, I’m in as much danger down here as I will be on that ladder,” I say. It’s not entirely true; being shaken off the ladder might make me fall, and the fall could kill me.

  “I’m not sure I can climb that,” Kersting says.

  “You don’t have to,” I say. “That’s why I’m going up. We’re either going figure out if there’s another way to lift you guys out or we’re going to pull you up with some kind of rope. I won’t know until I get up there.”

  “Boss, this isn’t like pulling someone out of a wrecked ship,” Roderick says. “We—”

  “I know,” I say. “Gravity isn’t our friend. But I need you and Mikk down here to help the others. You’re the strongest, most athletic members of this team. You can boost them if need be.”

  Roderick and Mikk can also tie rope properly, attach cable well, and can handle most emergencies. And, most important, Roderick knows how to pilot.

  “So, I’m the logical one to climb.” I sound braver than I feel. I’ve never climbed something like this in full gravity, but I have climbed, and I’m in good shape as well.

  Before I can change my mind, I stand beside the ladder.

  “I’m assuming you’ve tried to communicate,” I say to Mikk.

  He taps the communicator in his ear. “Nothing,” he says. “I shouted too.”

  I heard him do that.

  “No one has responded,” Mikk says.

  I nod. Those guides have never struck me as particularly trustworthy.

  “All right, then,” I say, and grab the rung directly in front of me before I can change my mind.

  I’m not wearing gloves. I’m surprised at the coolness of the black surface. The rung is carved into the wall, not sticking out of the wall. I expected the rung to be smooth as glass. Instead, it’s wavy, with a bit of roughness, something that will hold a boot.

  And there’s an actual hand-sized hole in the back of the rung, something I can easily grip.

  I’m going to be free-climbing, but I’ll be free-climbing with handholds and a relatively safe place to put my feet.

  “Don’t look down,” Roderick says to me. He’s speaking very softly.

  He’s right; I know that. I also know that if he had not reminded me, I would have looked down at some point.

  It’s not the same to look below you when you’re working in zero gravity. First of all, what’s below you might be above you if everything spins or shifts. But, second, if you lose your grip, you float.

  I will not float here.

  My heart is pounding.

  I take a deep breath—and climb.

  * * * *

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  H

  and up. Foot up. Followed by opposite hand. Then opposite foot. I concentrate on each movement, marveling at how well constructed the ladder is. The handholds fit my fingers. The rough surface keeps my boots steady.

  The early part of the climb is easy. It’s almost like walking. The slope is gentle, the ladder more of a guide than a necessity.

  But a third of the way up, the wall’s angle gets steep. Suddenly, I’m climbing, hand over hand, foot on one rung at a time, with nothing to support me except my grip and my caution.

  I feel awkward, my torso hanging out in the air. I also feel heavy. I can feel the weight of my body with each movement.

  My arms are tiring first. Apparently, I lack upper-body strength, something I didn’t know. But my legs are getting tired as well. And I’m getting thirsty, which means I’m getting dehydrated. I have a slight headache between my eyes, caused by the growing dry heat.

  Sweat drips off my nose and chin.

  As long as I sweat, I’m all right.

  I should have left the damn environmental suit on, though. I hadn’t thought that through.

  I really hadn’t thought any of this underground stuff through, not until now.

  When I’m halfway up, I hear sounds. I’m not sure what they are—some kind of rustling, or maybe even conversation. It’s not what I expect in any way, but I haven’t really listened before. The hovercart moved so quickly as it went into the caves that I couldn’t notice details like sound and distance.

  “Hello the top!” I yell as I pause, hanging there.

  I don’t like hanging. It feels precarious. It also makes me want to look down.

  “Boss?” I hear a relieved female voice.

  Then Ilona leans over the edge, her black hair surrounding her face. She’s not supposed to be here. She’s supposed to be collating the research and doing some work with the City of Vaycehn.

  “That’s me,” I say.

  “God,” she says, and stops so quickly that I hear the rest although she doesn’t speak it. We thought you were dead.

  Yeah, well. We could have been.

  “They wouldn’t let us go down there. They say it’s not safe,” she says.

  “They’re right. It’s not safe,” I say. “There’s fallen rock everywhere.”

  “Let me get you help,” she says, and backs away before I can tell her not to. I don’t want a rope or a guiding hand or some equipment sent down here. I want to keep climbing, one hand over the other, moving slowly, until I reach the top.

  I think—just for a moment—of climbing faster. But that way lies error, and error can cause death.

  I resume my pace—right hand up, followed by right foot. Then left hand up, followed by left foot. I climb another three meters before she reappears.

  “Are you the only survivor?” she asks, and in spite of my best intentions, I shudder.

  “The Six are fine. So are Mikk and Roderick,” I say. “If anyone else was below, we haven’t seen them.”

  Which is a poli
te way for me to tell her that any guides who were waiting by the hovercart have either fled or been crushed.

  “Are the others climbing behind you?” she asks.

  “No,” I say. “I’m coming up, then we’re going to figure out how to get them. I’m not sure the Six can climb this.”

  I barely can, although I don’t admit that to her. I’m not sure I like admitting that to myself.

  I continue to climb. I count to keep my pace steady. I make sure I breathe. I try not to notice as I’m getting light-headed with heat and the increasing light.

  I can’t get careless now, so close to the top.

  “Are you up there by yourself?” I ask as I get closer.

  “God, no,” she says.

  “Are there guides?”

  “Yes,” she says. “No medical personnel, though. They had to leave.”

  I don’t want to know why.

  “Get someone who can help me over the edge,” I say. “I’ll need water and food. In fact, we’re going to need to send water and food down. Can you do that?”

  “Easily,” she says, and disappears again.

  The medical personnel have left, even though we might need medical attention. Something has gone wrong elsewhere, or maybe even nearby.

  As I reach the top, two of the guides lean over the edge.

  I stifle a gasp. I’m afraid they’ll knock me loose.

  “Don’t touch me,” I say. “Help when I tell you.”

  Still they put their hands near me, so they can grab me if they need to. I’m alarmed at their closeness, but I’m comforted by it, too. I’m not alone here.

  I was afraid I’d have to get over that edge on my own.

  My head pops over the top.

  Rubble everywhere, and another hovercart on its side. I see dust, rising in the distance, and hear faint voices from far away. The skyline looks different, but I’m not sure how.

  I don’t care how, not at the moment.

  “Okay,” I say. “Help me up.”

  They grab my armpits and pull me over that edge. I scramble several meters away before stopping. I don’t want to fall back into that damn hole.

  Ilona gives me a bottle of water. McAllister Bridge hands me some of that amazing applelike fruit that I enjoy. I’m surprised he’s there. I look around, realize that everyone is here—everyone I brought with me, my entire team.

  It’s unbelievably hot, and I’m incredibly tired. But we’re nowhere near done.

  “Get food down to the others,” I say to Ilona.

  “Already doing that, Boss,” she says.

  I nod. I’m a bit dizzy, and there are black spots in front of my eyes. I will myself not to faint. I grab that water and pour it over my head, cooling myself down. Bridge hands me another bottle of water without saying a word.

  I wipe the water off my face. My hand comes away black. I must be filthy.

  “All right,” I say. “Now how the hell are we getting the rest of the team up here?”

  * * * *

  TWENTY-NINE

  C

  oop managed four hours of sleep before his active brain woke him up. ^^ He went to the captain’s mess, had a huge breakfast, and then headed to the communications array.

  Shipboard communications ran through the bridge, but the bulk of the equipment was in the engineering area. Engineering covered the largest part of the ship. Located in the very center of the ship as a precaution, engineering was usually one of the most stable parts of the Ivoire.

  Although the engineering section hadn’t been stable since the Quurzod attack. Their quick, sharp one-man ships had gotten too close to the Ivoire, and their weaponry, while lacking power, had a directional focus that went into one part of a key system and moved through that system, effectively destroying it.

  The engineers were rebuilding certain parts of the ship from scratch, including much of the Ivoire’s weaponry. The anacapa, the most protected part of the ship, had been damaged, but not destroyed.

  The communications array, however, suffered the most damage. Coop needed his best engineers on the weaponry and damage to the anacapa, so he pulled some of the linguists to work on the communications array.

  Linguists got engineering training on the communications array so that they could tweak it to meet the needs of some unknown language. Most of the linguists had no knack for engineering or repair, but one of them had an intuitive understanding of the array that bordered on genius.

  Mae, his chief linguist. Also his ex-wife.

  She stood near the door, a repair pad in hand, studying the schematics before her. The communications array filled the entire room and looked like many of the ship’s important systems—tiny panels with flips and lights that provided a redundant entry to the touch screens on each panel’s front.

  An efficient communications array would be small enough to fit on the bridge. But the Fleet had more redundant systems than any other group of ships Coop had encountered. Because the ships of the Fleet were designed to operate on their own for years without going to a sector base, having redundant systems made sense. One part of the system might go down, but other parts would still function.

  Every system on the ship had that kind of backup except, of course, the anacapa.

  He stood in the doorway and watched the team of five work on the array. Mae didn’t realize he was there. She seemed focused on the flat screen in her hand.

  She was a beautiful woman, even with her red hair pulled severely back away from her face, a face that actually had some frown lines now. The lines gave her character, although he would never tell her that.

  “Mae?” he said softly.

  She jumped. She had been on Ukhanda for several months before the disaster. Her team had died at the hands of the Quurzod, and she had barely survived. It had taken her some time to heal once she returned to the Ivoire. Coop had pushed her into the repair work quicker than her doctors wanted, but he knew she had to keep busy.

  And she couldn’t be busy with language. She felt that she had screwed up linguistically with the Quurzod, and she had lost her confidence. He wanted to ease her back to work. He figured fixing the array would do it.

  “Hey, Captain,” she said with a bit of a smile, the smile she always used when she called him by his title and not his name. “I thought you’d be on the bridge, worrying about this strange place we find ourselves in.”

  Two of her team members peeked out from behind the array. She waved them back to work. The other two didn’t even look up at Coop. They knew their priority was getting the array in top condition.

  “So you’ve looked outside,” he said to Mae.

  “I think everyone on the ship has,” she said. “We’re relieved to be out of foldspace. Some people don’t care that things are strange here. They’re just happy to be somewhere.”

  He didn’t correct her. They had been somewhere when they were in foldspace. He just didn’t know exactly where.

  “Repairs are slow, but happening,” she said, anticipating his question.

  But of course, you know that from the daily reports.”

  He nodded. She knew that he wasn’t here for the update.

  “When we came here,” he said, “we came because they received our distress signal, right?”

  She looked at him sideways. One of the benefits of closeness was that he understood the look without words. She wasn’t going to talk in front of her team.

  He pivoted and went into the corridor. She followed. They moved away from the door.

  “We sent distress signals on all channels the entire time we were in fold-space,” she said. “The base did receive our signal, but that’s where the information gets fuzzy.”

  “Fuzzy?” he asked. She chose that word deliberately. Mae spoke twenty-five languages fluently, but her best language was Standard. She believed in precision on all things. So when she said “fuzzy,” she meant “fuzzy.”

  “It blurs together,” she said, “and the condition of our array does not all
ow me to figure out exactly what happened.”

  “What’s your best guess?” he asked.

  Her lips thinned. Mae did not like guessing.

  “I need a theory,” he said.

  “From what I can tell, this sector base was offline for a long time.” She held up her hand. “And before you quiz me, I can’t tell how long.”