City of Ruins

TWENTY-SEVEN



We walk.

We walk through the darkened corridors, stepping over fallen rock, dealing with dust that remains even though the walls are still covered with black. The air is humid and a little too warm for my taste, although I know it is cooler than the air on the surface.

Sometimes I think I should put my environmental suit back on. But I don’t. Instead, I tell Mikk and Roderick about the ship.

“I’m amazed you left the room at all,” Mikk says, but his eyes twinkle. He knows that I’m a slave to the schedule, but he also knows how tempted I can be by the unknown.

“We had no idea that anything had changed outside,” I say. “We thought we’d take a break, sleep, eat, and come back to work.”

Now I’m not sure when we’ll be back. I’m not sure what we’ll find when we get out.

If we get out.

I don’t say those things, but I know the others are thinking them. We all know they’re implied.

Finally we reach the end of the main corridor, where we left one of the hovercarts. This area is dark, and my heart starts pounding as we get close. Something is wrong. I can sense it, but I’m not sure what I’m sensing.

We round the corner—and stop.

I can’t see the hovercart. There’s a pile of rock where we left it, a pile that reaches to the ceiling and stretches as far as the eye can see.

DeVries curses. Quinte makes a small sound of dismay. I glance at Mikk.

“Roderick,” I say, happy to have experienced people with me now, “you stay with the group. Mikk and I are going to see how far this goes.”

Roderick nods. No one complains. Mikk and I walk forward, and as we do, he says softly, “We’ve been working with these rock piles. They’re incredibly unstable. We have to be very careful.”

“Do you think it would be better if you and Roderick investigate?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “But you and the group will have to listen to me if we need to move rock. And you’re going to let me go first here.”

I almost protest until I realize he’s right. He’s got a few hours’ more experience with this stuff than I do, and that’s a few hours more than any of us have.

He slides into an opening along the left side—they all seem to have openings along the left side; I wonder if that means anything—and then beckons me forward.

The enclosure is tight, almost tighter than the one we came through earlier, but it’s shorter. Mikk is standing in an open area. Another rock fall lies in front of him, and its haphazard pattern is what gave the illusion of an unbroken rock fall from farther back in the corridor.

The back of the hovercart is here, bent forward from the weight of the rock on its front. The back end is unbroken, not even marred by dents or dust. The bench seats, however, are full of rock.

“Where are the guides, you think?” I ask.

Mikk shrugs. He knows as well as I do that they usually don’t wait near the hovercart. They often return to the surface while we work.

The guides might be under the rubble. They might be just fine up above. We might not know until we get out of here.

If the guards are under that rubble, they’re dead.

We don’t say anything more. We walk across the unbroken part of the corridor to the next rock fall. There I peer through the opening, which is, again, on the left side.

Through it, I can see natural light. The cave opening, up above. Several meters above, meters we’ve traveled only by hovercart so far.

“We can get to the opening,” I say, “and there’s daylight.”

“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.

* * * *