Kristine Rusch - City of Ruins

She sighed and looked at the vehicles. Then she said, “I’m driving.”

“Perhaps she’d better show the rest of us how to drive these things,” Dix said softly to Coop.

He nodded. “We’re going to send a team up first,” he said to the woman. “Would you show Rossetti how to pilot this?”

The woman beckoned Al-Nasir, then walked with Rossetti to the vehicle closest to the opening. Both women leaned over the controls. The woman spoke as her hands illustrated her instructions.

“I got it,” Rossetti said to Coop. “It’s pretty straightforward.”

“You hope,” he said.

“You hope,” she said.

“Make sure there’s no one waiting for us up there,” he said. “If there is, and there are too many of them, come right back down.”

“Got it,” she said. She picked a team of three, and they climbed into the vehicle. Then she got in and started it. It immediately rose an inch above the ground. She did something that Coop couldn’t see and it wobbled precariously, then righted itself and floated slowly upward.

“Teams of four,” Coop said to the others. “Dix, you’re in the next vehicle.”

“Yes, sir,” Dix said.

“Perkins, you’re with me and our guests,” Coop said.

She nodded.

Everyone else got into the various vehicles. Dix’s vehicle slowly followed Rossetti’s. Then the next vehicle.

The woman climbed into the last vehicle, her hands moving with an expertise that none of his people showed. He shouldn’t have trusted her to do this, but he did. Even though he knew she could upend the entire vehicle and hurt both him and Perkins, or maybe even kill them.

Theirs was the only vehicle that floated up smoothly without a single wobble. The cave’s opening narrowed toward the top, but there was still plenty of room to go out.

The other vehicles had landed around the opening. Several of his people had gathered around two other people, preventing them from moving, maybe even detaining them.

The ground didn’t look the same; he remembered dozens of buildings here, vehicles, people. Now there was only one outbuilding, the opening, and a broad expanse of dirt.

“Can you ask her to take it high enough so that I can see the city?” Coop asked.

The lieutenant complied.

The woman let the vehicle rise even higher.

Along the mountainsides, he saw buildings, more than he could have imagined. The city had sprawled outward. He looked into the valley and saw some buildings, but not nearly as many as he expected.

But the ground itself was familiar. He knew the peaks on those mountains, recognized the orangish red color of the sky. The air smelled right—a mixture of dryness and something a little sweeter than any other place he had ever been.

His heart ached.

This was—or had been—Venice City. He was on Wyr. He recognized the mountains, the valley, this little bit of the planet itself.

But the city, the city was terrifyingly unfamiliar.

No city grew like that in a few years.

“What happened to the valley?” he asked through the lieutenant.

“Death holes,” the woman said. “I’m told it wasn’t safe to live in the old city any longer.”

Death holes. For centuries. The anacapa had been malfunctioning for centuries.

He was shaking. This was what he wanted—some kind of confirmation that the Venice City of his memory had become something else.

Years had clearly passed, but he had no way to know if there were eight hundred years or five thousand.

Although no military force awaited them. And, he realized, the woman had no reason to lie.

“You want me to go higher?” she asked through the lieutenant.

“No,” he said in her language. “Thank you.”

She moved the vehicle toward a landing spot and slowly brought it down.

He glanced at his team. Rossetti was standing on the edge of the landing area, staring at the city beyond. Dix was beside her. Four of his men had detained two heavyset men who were dressed in brown uniforms.

“Those two men,” Coop said to the woman, “are they yours?”

“No,” she said with force. “They’re our guides. The Vaycehnese government insists that they accompany us at all times.”

“Locals,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “They know the history of Vaycehn. You can probably ask them all the questions you want.”

He studied them. They looked confused and terrified. They clearly hadn’t expected a force to come out of the caves.

Talking to them would be easy. But he wasn’t ready for easy.

Besides, they could lie to him.

He needed someone not connected to the woman and her friends.

“Later,” he said. “Is the old city habitable?”

“Yes,” the woman said.

“Then I’d like to get close. I’d like to see it.”

She gave him a sideways look, filled with something—sadness? Compassion? He didn’t know, and he wasn’t going to analyze it.

“We can take the cart,” she said, and without giving him a moment to answer, let it rise.

He felt dizzy for a half second as he realized what she could do. She could take him and Perkins into the city, without the rest of his team.

But she didn’t. She hovered there while he instructed everyone except the four guarding the guides to get into their vehicles and follow her.

They did, and then she led the way, driving the vehicle above a mountain road as if she had done this every single day of her life.

As we rise out of the cave, I say to Al-Nasir, “See if you can reach anyone from our group.”

I’m hoping he can’t. Right now, they should be on our ships, heading toward the Business. Our communicators are for land only, and have limited range. We shouldn’t be able to reach anyone if they’re off-planet.

He nods. I glance over my shoulder at the captain and his lieutenant. The captain’s expression is fixed, but he can’t control the slight frown forming between his eyes. He recognizes Wyr.

I recognize the guides, surrounded by the captain’s people, and I curse. The two men are our two most regular guides. They know all of us. They were probably wondering why most of the group left, and why they insisted on having four hovercarts waiting below ground. And I’ll wager that none of my people took time to explain beyond “Boss wants it.”

When the first hovercart rose out of the cave, those guides had to know why I wanted it. They were probably shocked at seeing a military group, but these two guides know their stuff. And as they tried to flee, I’m sure they contacted someone. Police, the guide office, the regular government—I have no idea.

But someone in authority on Vaycehn now knows that we’ve brought military to the edge of the city, somehow.

The captain really isn’t noticing any of this. He’s asking me questions about the city, about death holes. I’m keeping my eye on Al-Nasir, whose gaze is focused far off.

So far, so good. I can tell just by his expression that he hasn’t contacted anyone.

I’m not sure what we’re going to do next. That’s the captain’s decision, although at some point I have to tell him that the city government knows about us. I’m hoping he’ll just look around and then go back below ground.

I try to lead him in that direction when I ask him if he wants to go higher.

Of course, he doesn’t. He wants to get as close to the old city as he can.

I’m going to stay in control of this cart and keep the right height. If I see locals heading this way, I’m turning us around, no matter what the captain says.

We float several meters above the ground. The air is hot, particularly after a day spent inside the room. Some kind of insect buzzes to my right. The city sprawls below us and around us. It’s familiar to me now, but to him, it must look like some crazy quilt made of the remnants of a place he once knew.