City of Ruins - [Diving Universe 02]

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  He hoped those things would get them back into the caves, at least. From there, some of his team could run if they had to.

  He counted at least twenty vehicles. He shot two. Four others spun out and blocked the road. The others just went around.

  The carts came in low. For a minute, he thought they would just go down into the caves, leaving his team to fend for itself. Instead, they touched down.

  He signaled his team to shoot as they hurried toward the carts.

  He and Dix came in last, disabling three more vehicles before running to the carts.

  Two carts had already gone underground, with four of his people gone. Only he and Dix remained.

  One of the carts had a driver he didn’t recognize; the other was the woman they all called Boss.

  Coop leapt into her cart, Dix into the other.

  She waited for that cart to head into the caves before she followed.

  Ground vehicles came up over the mountaintop. Coop and Rossetti shot at them, overturning one and knocking it into another. Three went around.

  Coop cursed. He hoped to hell those ground vehicles couldn’t go into the caves. If they could, someone was going to get killed.

  And he was going to make sure that if anyone died, it wouldn’t be someone on his team. Or Boss’s team.

  He was going to protect them at all costs.

  * * * *

  SIXTY-NINE

  T

  hey’re shooting out of the back of my cart, and I can’t even turn around to see how many people they’re killing. Dammit, this is exactly what I didn’t want. Now the Empire will really have reason to search for us.

  If we get out of here at all.

  The carts in front of me are wobbling and bucking with the extra weight. I’m not sure we’ll make it all the way to the room. Not that I’m even sure my people will survive the stealth-tech field.

  But one thing the captain was right about: there is no way we could have waited for a skip.

  We’re the last ones underground, where it’s dimmer and blessedly cool. I hadn’t realized how hot I was until I got out of that sun. Sweat is running off me and I’m a little light-headed.

  We duck and weave into corridors. Ahead, I hear someone screaming.

  No one has to tell me that it’s Ivy.

  “What the hell are we doing, Boss?” Bridge asks.

  I can’t glance back. Someone else is shouting ahead. The carts have stopped at what once was the entrance to the stealth-tech field.

  I almost crash into them.

  Ivy is wailing. Mikk’s cart is blocking the way in. Al-Nasir is arguing with them. I stop behind them.

  “You’re going in,” I say.

  “We’ll die,” Mikk says.

  “They’ve fixed the problem.” I say. “You’ll be fine.”

  Even though I don’t know that. None of us know that.

  “Go!” the captain says in my language, waving his hand beside me. “Go now!”

  “Mikk,” I say, “you’ll have to trust me.”

  “I’ve seen what happens in those fields, Boss. I’m not going in.”

  “Then you’re going to die out here,” I say. “All of you. Trust me. We’ll be fine.”

  “I trust you,” Roderick says, and raises his cart over Mikk’s, driving into the field area before anyone can stop him. He pauses just past the next bend in the corridor.

  Death inside a stealth-tech field takes only a few minutes. Roderick sits there, his life the only one at risk, since he has only people from the ship in his vehicle. He grins and whoops.

  “We’re going to be fine!” he says.

  “Unless they only managed to make the field recede,” Bridge says beside me.

  “If you stay here, you risk everything we’ve worked for,” I say.

  “I don’t care,” Ivy says from Mikk’s cart. “Let me out! Let me out!”

  “I’m fine!” Roderick yells from inside the field—or where the field would have been. “Come on!”

  Ivy starts to climb out of her cart. One of the soldiers grabs her and she shakes him off, nearly upending the cart.

  Mikk guns the cart, moving it toward Roderick’s as if they’re on a collision course. Ivy screams, and only the soldier keeps her from toppling out of the cart.

  So far, so good. They’re alive.

  Al-Nasir follows, and I bring up the rear. I think I hear something behind us, although it’s hard to tell with Ivy screaming the way she is.

  It only takes a few minutes for the carts to go through the rest of the corridors. One of the soldiers gets out of Roderick’s cart and pulls open the door. The carts can’t go through it.

  We stop all in a row.

  Roderick peers inside the room.

  “Oh, my God,” he says. “It’s a goddamn Dignity Vessel.”

  “No kidding,” I say. “Get in there.”

  Ivy is still sobbing, but she’s pliable now. The soldier drags her in. My group gets out. Once Ivy’s in the room, I hear the sound of voices behind us.

  The captain says something.

  “He wants to know if they’re going to follow us in here,” Al-Nasir says.

  “Tell him I have no idea. They have maps that show them where the stealth-tech fields are. I’m not sure if they’ll cross those fields.”

  So the captain and four of his soldiers indicate that we should go into the room. They bring up the rear.

  My people slow down, looking stunned at the room’s size, and at the Dignity Vessel itself.

  No one is in the room. Apparently the captain contacted his people. Something whistles in my ear. Both Al-Nasir and I have our hands to our ears, but no one else does.

  “What’s that sound?” I ask him.

  “They tell me it’s the ship powering up.”

  The captain and his team come in. They pull the door closed, then the captain waves his hand at the ship.

  I catch his arm and point at the equipment. It’s going to fall into the Empire’s hands.

  He nods and points his weapon at it, miming a shot. I’m not sure what he means, but I think I know. He’s going to destroy the equipment.

  I hope he’s going to destroy it.

  The stairs have come down, and the door into the ship is open. My people are scrambling inside, followed by the soldiers. Al-Nasir and the lieutenant go in. The captain and I are last.

  He has his back against mine, his weapon pointed at the exterior door. He’s pushing me inside and guarding me at the same time.

  I stumble into the airlock.

  He follows.

  The door closes.

  We’re inside the Dignity Vessel, and it’s about to leave.

  * * * *

  SEVENTY

  T

  he moment Coop got inside the ship, he started barking orders. First, destroy the equipment inside the room. Second, begin the anacapa sequence and get them the hell out of this room.

  Dix was waiting for him, just inside the corridor. “Sensors show a lot of people inside the caves.”

  “I figured,” Coop said. “You get anything from those guides?”

  Dix was supposed to have been asking them about the history of Vaycehn. “We didn’t have a lot of time.”

  The outsiders were milling around, looking at the inside of the ship as if they had never seen one before. All except the woman who had been screaming. She looked almost catatonic, her face blotchy and tear-streaked.

  “I know that,” Coop said. “Did they tell you anything?”

  Dix gave him a baleful look. “They told me that Vaycehn was the oldest city in the known universe. They told me it was founded more than five thousand years ago.”

  Coop’s knees nearly buckled. He had to will himself to remain upright.

  The woman hadn’t been lying, then. She had been telling the truth all along.

  He turned toward her. She was standing just inside the door, watching her people, looking relieved. She had thought they were going to die, too.


  She had taken a hell of a risk.

  Slowly she looked over at him, and she said something.

  “She wants to watch the ship leave,” the lieutenant said. “She wants to be on the bridge.”

  He didn’t give permission. He just looked at the woman, wondering what it took for her to trust him like she had.

  “She also wants to know if you can do something to make sure the Vaycehnese won’t be able to use the room.”

  “Tell her it’s already under way,” he said.

  Then he extended his hand.

  “Come,” he said in her language.

  She grinned. She was prettier than he realized. Her smile-—a real smile— took all the edges out of her face.

  She put her hand in his. “Thank you,” she said in his language.

  He brought her to his side, then let go of her hand and put his hand on her back for just a moment, indicating that she should come with him.

  This wasn’t first-contact procedure. It wasn’t any kind of procedure. Outsiders, no matter who the hell they were, were never allowed on the bridge.

  But who was going to punish him now? Who would take away his command? He was on his own out here, five thousand years into his own future, in a universe that had backward technology and ruins instead of cities.

  He didn’t pretend to understand it.

  But he would have time to figure it out. More time than he probably wanted.

  “Let’s go,” he said to her in his language, knowing she didn’t understand the words but that she would understand the sentiment.

  She nodded, and they hurried, all the way to the bridge.

  * * * *

  SEVENTY-ONE

  I

  know enough from any time period, any military vessel, any vessel at all, to know that I shouldn’t be on this cockpit. I should be in some public area, away from the inner workings of a vessel I don’t comprehend.

  But the captain has brought me here as more than a courtesy. He knows he is giving me a gift.

  I stand near the door and marvel. The first time I saw the cockpit of a Dignity Vessel, it was an image taken by my divers, grainy, filled with particles that I didn’t entirely understand, the furniture and equipment piled against one wall, as if some field had pulled it all there.

  Then I dived that ship, and tried to rescue one of my dead teammates, stuck in a stealth-tech field, his face mummified behind the cracked mask of his visor.

  In a Dignity Vessel.

  I had once tried to imagine what these places had been like in their day.

  This is their day. It’s mine, too.

  The equipment is bolted down, just like I knew it would be. And where there was a fist-sized hole in the Dignity Vessel I dove, there’s some kind of control, something that I recognize only by its black casing. That’s where part of the stealth tech is.

  The walls in front of me—all of them—are screens.

  There’s a captain’s chair in the middle, but the captain isn’t sitting in it. He’s standing beside me. The lieutenant is on the other side, and God bless her, she’s translating.

  Four other people are in the cockpit, including a woman who had been sitting in the captain’s chair. She looks at me with great curiosity, but doesn’t say anything. A small woman up front grins at me. I can’t help but grin back.

  The tall, thin man who had been with us on the surface has moved to the console nearest the black casing. He looks grim, miserable. He’s the only one who doesn’t look up as the captain speaks.

  The screens in front of us show the room itself as if we can just reach out and touch it. The equipment looks fine.

  The captain says something; the screens opaque, but not enough to completely block the whiteness that engulfs the entire room. When the whiteness fades, the image crisps up. But there is no more equipment. It’s gone.

  “What was that?” I ask the lieutenant.

  “We got rid of anything your people can study,” she says.

  “They’re not my people,” I say, and then realize I sound churlish. “So thank you.”

  She nods and smiles.

  The captain puts his hand on my shoulder. “Now,” he says in his language, a word I’m beginning to recognize. Then he changes to my language. “We go.”

  My breath catches. I get to see the Dignity Vessel in action.

  The screens blank out. The whistle fades, and I don’t hear the thrum of stealth tech at all. The ship shifts slightly, as if we all collectively tripped over something and righted ourselves at the same time.

  The screens turn back on, and I am staring down at Wyr. It’s blue and brown and green, with the mountains rising through whitish clouds.

  I’m very dizzy.

  “What did you do?” I ask.

  “That’s our . . . drive,” the lieutenant says, using that word I can never seem to catch. “You call it stealth technology, but it is so much more.”

  Clearly.

  The captain’s hand is warm on my shoulder. Companionable. It feels like he’s holding me up. Maybe he is.

  He says something to me, softly.

  “He wants to know the coordinates of your ship,” the lieutenant says. “So we can rendezvous.”

  I give her the coordinates. The sooner we’re away from Wyr, the better we’ll all be.

  I look up at the captain. “Thank you for saving my people,” I say.

  “Thank you for saving mine,” he says through the lieutenant. “We would not have escaped foldspace without you activating the repair room.”

  “Foldspace?” I ask.

  He smiles. “I will explain if you let me. When we get away from your Empire. Can we return to your base?”

  I smile at him. I was going to ask him to come with us, but he’s already thought of it.

  “I’d love to show you our base,” I say.

  He keeps his hand on my shoulder, and we stand inside the cockpit of his Dignity Vessel, watching on the screens as we move through space toward Nobody’s Business. As if this ship is conventional. As if we haven’t already had a grand adventure.

  As if standing with a man who was born five thousand years ago was the most natural thing in the universe.

  Maybe it is.

  There is so much that we don’t understand about this universe. So many mysteries.

  And I was right all those years ago, when I first saw the Dignity Vessel.

  Mysteries are fascinating.

  They lead us to places we would never expect to be, help us discover things we never even knew existed.

  I lean into him just a little. A legend made real. A man, above all. On a ship that shouldn’t exist. In a place we don’t belong.

  Heading home with us.

  Heading home. With me.

  * * * *

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  T

  he stories about Boss and her companions first started as novellas in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine. The first two, “Diving into the Wreck,” and “Room of Lost Souls,” won the Asimov’s Reader’s Choice Award. “Diving” also won the UPC Award in Spain.

  The stories so far in the Diving universe are:

  • ”Diving into the Wreck,” first published in Asimov’s, December 2005. Reprinted in Recovering Apollo 8 And Other Stories, Golden Gryphon Press, 2010.

  • ”The Room of Lost Souls,” first published in Asimov’s, April/May 2008. Electronic edition published by WMG Publishing, 2011.

  • ”The Spires of Denon,” first published in Asimov’s, April/May 2009-Electronic version published by WMG Publishing, 2010. Reprinted in Five Short Novels from Five Story Publishing, 2010.

  • ”Becoming One with the Ghosts,” first published in Asimov’s, October/November 2010.

  • ”Becalmed,” first published in Asimov’s, April/May 2011.

  And of course, the novel that introduces Boss, Diving Into the Wreck, from Pyr, 2009.