Kristine Rusch - City of Ruins

The conversations from the other team members echoed in the emptiness. The base felt bigger than it actually was. Bigger and lonelier.

The last time the Ivoire had been here, there had been two other ships in the bays.

He walked under the Ivoire, deliberately tracing the outsider woman’s steps. She had known where the hatches would be—or at least it seemed that way. She had also released the latch on the door four separate times.

Fortunately, Dix had programmed the doors to guard, so no one could get in without using a weapon.

But the woman’s ability to release that latch caught Coop’s eye. He hadn’t mentioned it to the bridge crew—he would later, during a briefing— any more than he had commented on her ability to find the hatches.

He was convinced she had touched a Fleet vessel before. Her actions belied his earlier supposition that the outsiders had never seen a spaceship before.

They had—or, at least, she had—and they had seen a ship from the Fleet. They had been close enough to it to know where the lower hatches were.

He checked the sides, saw no knife marks, nothing except a glove print near the hatch’s release on the far side.

He smiled. Maybe that meant she spoke Standard. Maybe he would have someone to talk with, after all, someone to tell him the history he had missed, the things he needed to know.

He hoped so.

But he wouldn’t count on it. He needed to find out information on his own.

He walked to the far end of the sector base, crossing landing pad after landing pad, trying not to think of the openness and the emptiness.

As he walked, lights came on just ahead of him, revealing consoles covered in unbonded nanobits and even more, sending up a dust cloud along the floor. He coughed once, thought of returning for his hood, then changed his mind.

Instead, he headed to the personnel quarters, storage, and the emergency lift.

It took him nearly fifteen minutes to reach the far side of the bay. When he did, he pulled off his glove and put his hand against the door leading into the personnel quarters.

For a moment, the door stayed dark, and he wondered if the recognition lock had broken. Then lights came on, revolving slowly around his hand.

A creaky voice, sounding just a bit warped, said, “Jonathan Cooper, captain of the Ivoire. Recognition queried, but granted.”

He nodded. He had expected queried but granted status, although he had hoped for just a simple recognition granted. Queried but granted meant that he didn’t belong in this place; he was an anomaly. But the system had to recognize anomalies, since the anacapa sometimes created them.

So long ago—from his perspective, decades (maybe centuries) before he was born—someone had invented the queried but granted status. What it usually meant was that someone else, a living person, would double-check the credentials later, and then update the system.

He doubted that would happen here.

Not that it mattered at the moment.

What mattered now was that the door slid open and the interior lights went on.

A waft of dusty, stale air greeted Coop. He didn’t even have to go inside. Normally quarters on a sector base were for guest workers or people who hadn’t yet been cleared to join the community up top. The quarters were state-of-the-art, built for comfort and relaxation.

Every other sector base quarters he had visited smelled of food and cleaned air. A month before, this one had, too. But it didn’t now. It had no furniture. Only a slightly dusty floor, and doors that opened into the room, revealing more empty quarters beyond.

He had hoped to find furniture, a functioning kitchen, maybe even a caretaker hiding from the ship. Not more emptiness.

Although the emptiness didn’t surprise him. It made sense, given the information his crew had already gathered.

He stepped back, let the door slide closed, and then put his hand on the door to the supply area. He had a hunch he would find the same thing, and he did, except it looked like the tool safe remained. That part of the supplies closet was supposed to exist as long as the base did, in case someone needed handheld tools in order to repair something.

Like a ship.

He opened the safe long enough to see that, yes indeed, there were tools inside. Whether they were the proper tools or the best tools or the most useful tools, he would let Yash decide.

He closed the safe, then backed out of the supply area.

Finally, he walked to the emergency lift and pressed his hand against the door, waiting for it to identify him.

It did, with the same queried but granted notification the other doors had given him. The door slid back and revealed something he didn’t want to see.

The lift was gone, filled in with dirt and debris, trapped on the lower level by a wall built of clear nanobits.

Exactly as the handbook said that any emergency lift should be decommissioned. When a base was deemed no longer useful, the lift to the surface was shut down, so that a gaping hole would not exist beneath the ground, something that could cave in once the passage of years let everyone forget exactly where the emergency lift opened onto the surface.

“Dammit,” he said softly. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

Nothing had been that easy on this trip. And nothing would be.

Not for a while, at least.

Maybe not for years.

We huddle outside the door to the Dignity Vessel room, all seven of us. The moment feels momentous. We’ve tested and retested all of our findings about the particles. They’re large and could be harmful if swallowed, but they have no effect on the skin—at least short-term. They don’t hurt us in any known way.

The air inside the room is a bit stale, but otherwise fine, and the temperature is just a little cooler than the caves themselves.

In other words, we don’t need the environmental suits.

However, I’m going to wear mine, all except the helmet, which I have attached to my belt. Lentz’s university professor friend has surreptitiously given us two dozen face masks, the kind that the Vaycehnese wear when they go deep in the caves.

The Vaycehnese have encountered the floating particles as well, and have found that some people suffer no ill effects from them whatsoever, while others end up with lung problems for years. The masks have a thin weave that prevents the particles from being inhaled. The masks go over the mouth and nose, and their bright whiteness looks a bit odd against the skin.

At our meeting last night, Lentz laughed when I mentioned that. He reminded me that the mask will probably get caked with particles in a matter of minutes, taking it from white to gray to black.

Some of the others—Quinte and Seager, in particular—have decided to wear the helmets, although I made them bring masks as well. We’re carrying quite a few things, actually. A small ladder, a pouch of tools, and my own personal pair of grippers so that I can climb the side of the ship and see what’s above us.

We’re stopped outside, however, because Al-Nasir is dithering. He holds his mask in one hand. In the other he clings to his helmet. He hates being confined, but the room still makes him nervous.

We’re all a bit more nervous than we’ve been, although the smoothness of yesterday’s mission has gone a long way toward calming us down.

I pluck the mask out of Al-Nasir’s hand. “Put it on. You’ll feel better.”

He takes it from me, stares at it, then puts it in the pouch along his waistband. Then he takes his helmet and attaches it to the rest of the suit.

I suppress a smile. I knew if I made the choice for him, he would know what he really wanted.