Kristine Rusch - City of Ruins

He couldn’t tell, however, if the others were people who had come in before.

“Shouldn’t we go talk to them?” Perkins asked.

She stood near the screens, her hands clasped behind her back, unknowingly mimicking the posture that Coop had every single time he stared at the same images in the captain’s suite.

Only he was trying to quell his own emotions, to keep his mind even, focused, and calm.

Perkins, so far as he could tell, was excited. She wanted to throw herself into the work.

“Not yet,” Coop said to Perkins. “We don’t want to startle them.”

She turned and gave him a winning smile. “C’mon, Captain,” she said in a wheedling tone. “They know we’re here. How else would the ship have come in?”

“The anacapa,” Dix said, his tone as dismal as his posture. “Working automatically.”

Perkins frowned at him. “They’re outsiders. How would they know that?”

“How do they know anything?” Yash asked. She was going over the data in front of her as well. “They’re explorers in this place. That’s clear from the way they move. We have no idea how they manage or what they do.”

“Which is why we’re not going through that door until we’re ready,” Coop said. “We don’t want to surprise them. For all we know, they’ve never seen a spaceship before.”

“I’d wager you’re right,” Yash said. “I can’t imagine how those environmental suits would survive in space. They probably have just started developing their own space program. And those suits aren’t going to take them very far.”

“That we can tell,” Perkins said. “Cultures always mix old and new. Sometimes people wear things that are ceremonial.”

“With equipment ?” Yash said. “I don’t think so.”

Coop smiled. Yash wouldn’t. She always wanted the latest, best, most improved. That was one of the reasons he had hired her in the first place, because she tinkered and improved everything around her.

The seven outsiders clustered in a group, and the woman gestured. He was right; she was the one in charge.

“Five are the same, two new, just like it looks,” Dix said without inflection.

“Do you think they’re always going to be coming in forty-eight-hour intervals?” Anita asked.

“Doubtful,” Coop said. “If I had to guess—and it would just be a guess—the two new are arbiters of some kind, or people with a particular expertise.”

Perkins shifted, as if she couldn’t contain the energy she felt. “I could go ask.”

“And get attacked?” Yash asked. “They’re wearing knives.”

“Knives, I know,” Perkins said. “How old-fashioned is that?”

“Actually,” Dix said, “only one of them is wearing a knife, and it seems more like an all-purpose tool than a weapon.”

“The woman in charge,” Coop said.

Dix nodded. “She’s also carrying something that looks like a laser pistol. Her hand hovered near it as she came in the door. She was expecting an attack.”

“Or worrying about one,” Coop said more to himself than the others.

“They shouldn’t see anything different,” Yash said. “We made sure of that.”

“I think we should go out there,” Perkins said. “If they’re already expecting us—”

“To attack them,” Coop said. “They thought we might attack them. Coming out the door is not the best idea at the moment.”

Although he wanted to go out there himself, quiz them, and figure out if all of the readings his team had taken were right. He wanted to find out what was going on, what had happened to Venice City, if there were still members of the Fleet (or descendents of it) on Wyr.

Perkins sighed, but said no more. She understood she’d been overruled.

The outsiders split into three teams, two people staying by the door, two going to the equipment, and three coming to the ship itself.

“I hope they don’t touch anything they shouldn’t,” Anita said.

“They can’t tamper with much,” Yash said. “Most of the equipment is in shut-down mode.”

“Who knows what time has done to corrode it?” Dix said, without looking up.

“I guess we’ll find out,” Coop said, as he settled in to watch.

The hours pass quickly and we haven’t found anything. Or at least, we haven’t found anything we understand.

We’ve gotten lots of information, recorded many things, explored many parts of the room and a little bit of the exterior of the ship. We even found a name and a vessel number on the Dignity Vessel. I can’t read the name because it’s in Old Earth Standard—or at least, I think that might be standard. It’s an ancient Earth language, anyway, and my Old Earth Standard is mostly limited to helpful words like “danger” and “keep out.”

I’ve given up on the door. I found the latch quickly enough—it is exactly where latches always are on Dignity Vessel doors—but I can’t open it. I’ve pressed it, moved it, changed it, and it still won’t budge. Either the door is locked from the inside—which is something I’ve never seen in a Dignity Vessel—or it keeps relatching every time I think I’ve opened it.

Al-Nasir and Quinte have found some overrides for the door leading to the corridor. They’ve also found a way to turn on the interior lights—all without touching a thing.

The interior lights came on after Quinte ran her hand over a part of the wall nearest the door.

We all blinked in the brightness and then got back to work. Or at least I did. DeVries and Rea and Al-Nasir and Quinte all stared as if they hadn’t seen the place before.

And when I finally gave up on the latch, I stared, too.

It’s not exactly what I thought it was. When the room had been shrouded in darkness, it had the feeling of a place that went on forever, of a room that led to other rooms, which led to even more rooms, which then became a compound.

Now that the lights are on full, I realize that the room is really one gigantic repair shop. There are several platforms marked “danger” in Old Earth Standard, and unlike the one I’m standing on, those are all empty. There are other equipment consoles built into the walls around each platform, and those consoles show nothing on their screens.

I wonder idly what would happen if we touch them. Would we get another Dignity Vessel?

I’d try, except that I want to find out more about this Dignity Vessel first, and then there’s the problem of the death hole.

This morning before we left, Gregory informed me that the new death hole—the one we think the Dignity Vessel caused (and by extension, we probably caused)—is the largest in Vaycehn’s recorded history.

I don’t want to do that again. I didn’t want to do it before.

So I’ve warned my people away from the other consoles, at least for the time being. Not that they were hurrying over there. We’re swamped with the consoles we have.

I’m proud of Kersting and Seager. They’re going over the consoles we have touched millimeter by millimeter, making sure they miss nothing. I can hear their conversation in my comm— ”You take that.” “Got it.” “I’m finishing this.” “Good.” —and it feels like an accompaniment to the constant strumming of stealth tech.

I wish my equipment measured the sound of stealth tech, because it seems to me that the sound has changed since the last time we were here. It was louder just before the ship came in, and slightly different once the ship arrived. Now the sound has less treble and more bass. Even the treble has a bit of vibrato in it that wasn’t there before.

It’s distracting, and the conversation between Kersting and Seager takes my mind off of it.