City of Ruins

THIRTY-TWO



Coop kept Lynda’s team on the bridge for a ten-hour shift while his ^^ team rested. His entire team was up and ready for duty within eight hours, but he ordered them to take some downtime. Dix went back to his cabin to get more sleep. Yash decided to have a proper breakfast, something she hadn’t done in weeks. Both Anita and Perkins went to the gym for some much-needed exercise.

He probably should have relaxed as well, but he wasn’t able to. His mind worked too hard. He felt like they were still in the middle of an emergency, which they were and they weren’t. Nothing actively threatened them—no attacks, no problems from the interior, no failures on board ship—but they still didn’t know where they were or what they were facing.

He let Lynda run the bridge while he inspected various systems. He spoke with the engineers repairing the anacapa. The damage there was extensive, and they couldn’t wait to get into the sector base to use backup equipment to make sure everything was running.

He didn’t tell the engineers that he wasn’t sure if the equipment was even in the base any longer, let alone whether or not it would be in any condition to use.

The other repairs were going slowly, but the mood on the ship had measurably improved. His crew usually didn’t like leaving the Ivoire, but this time, everyone he spoke to questioned when they would be able to disembark.

Being in foldspace, not knowing how long they were going to be there, or when (if) they would ever be able to leave the ship again had had an impact on everyone. They all wanted to leave the Ivoire for a short period of time, not because they wanted to visit the sector base or Venice City, but because they wanted to exercise their freedoms.

He understood that. If he were a more impulsive man, he would have left the ship already, inspecting the sector base and trying to figure out what had gone wrong.

But being impulsive was the worst thing he could do there. He had a hunch that his presence—the crew’s presence, five hundred strong—was an advantage he could keep from the outsiders. They had no idea how many people were on the Ivoire, whether or not there was anyone on the Ivoire at all, let alone the people who belonged on the ship.

He was going to maintain that advantage for a while longer, until he had a sense of the outsiders.

He stopped in the science labs last, just before he returned to the bridge. The science labs were a warren that ran along the belly of the ship. Each lab had protective walls so thick that nothing could get through. Each lab also had the capability of running its own environment separate from the ship, which enabled the scientists to run the occasionally risky experiment without endangering everyone else on board.

Coop inspected the labs twice a year, but otherwise he rarely went deep within them. He usually left the management of the labs to his chief science officer, Lay la Lalliki.

Lalliki was a tall, thin woman with large dark eyes and dark hair cut so short that Coop could never figure out what color it was. Her skin was pasty, and her gaze always seemed distant, as if she was never really looking at anything in front of her, always seeing something in her imagination instead.

Still, she was a superb officer, and despite her occasional vagueness with nonscientists, she was very good at handling her staff. The scientists were a temperamental lot, and many of them were annoyed at serving on the Ivoire instead of the Pasteur, the Fleet’s premier science vessel.

Fifty percent of the Fleet’s best scientists scattered among the regular vessels, like the Ivoire. The rest went to the Pasteur and engaged in cutting-edge research—or so he was told.

He never really paid much attention. He was just happy to have excellent minds on board his ship. The brightest minds were spread among the various ships for just the reason he was encountering here—sometimes the Fleet’s ships got cut off from each other. If all of the best scientific minds had congregated on the Pasteur, it would have done him no good.

He had brilliance here, and he knew he could rely on it.

Mostly the science team worked on their various projects, even while the ship was in a state of emergency. Not all of the geneticists, for example, needed to focus on foldspace or the current location of the Ivoire. They kept to their work and seemed content with it.

But several members of the science staff had been pulled to work on the sector base issue, as well as on those particles.

Lalliki managed all of it.

She met him outside the labs at his request.

She looked tired, the shadows under her dark eyes deep. He wondered if he looked as exhausted as well, then decided not to think about it.

“Lynda tells me that you think those particles are unbonded nanobits,” he said.

“We have no idea,” Lalliki said, sounding annoyed. “We have unbonded nanobits that we pulled from the airlock, but we have no idea if they’re ours. We discovered that the Quurzod weaponry had loosened some of the nanobits on the exterior after we entered foldspace. For all we know, they could have coated inside when we were doing the grab from outside the ship.”

He usually liked her caution, but on this day, he wanted some certainty.

“Those nanobits couldn’t be the particles we’re seeing, then?” he asked.

“Oh, they could be,” she said. “Or that could be something else. It’s just not safe to say.”

He suppressed a sigh, then nodded. Normally, at this point, he would have asked about some of the other ongoing work, but he simply didn’t have the energy or the interest.

Instead, he said, “As soon as I decide that we can enter the sector base, I’m going to need three of your people to investigate what’s going on. In addition to good minds and great researchers, I’ll need people who are good in an emergency. There’s the possibility that we could get surprised once we enter the base, and I want to make sure the scientists can respond with force if need be.”

Lalliki gave him a sideways look. “You think that these outsiders you’ve been monitoring could be hostile.”

“There’s that possibility,” he said.

“We could lose people, then,” she said.

“There’s that possibility, too.” He kept his voice soft. He understood her dilemma. Unlike other sections of the ship where the crew had redundancies, the science labs had individuals who specialized, and people who supervised them. Those who supervised often had better minds than those running the experiments.

A loss in the science labs meant the loss remained until the ship hooked back up with the Fleet. Even then, there was no guarantee. The loss of one particular scientific researcher might mean that research halted for good.

“I’ll have names for you when you’re ready,” she said.

She didn’t complain. She didn’t argue. She knew how important this was. He appreciated that. He occasionally got arguments about his assignments from the medical staff. But Lalliki was much more professional than that.

He also knew she would struggle with the decision as she tried to figure out who would do a good job, who was good enough to back up the advance team, and who, at the same time, was expendable.

“Thanks, Layla,” he said. “I’m hoping this is going to be an easy one.”

She let out a small snorting laugh, the sound she made when someone said something too good to be true.

“It hasn’t been easy so far,” she said. “I don’t know why things should change now.”

Because I want them to, he almost said, but didn’t. He knew that what he wanted and what was going to happen were probably two different things.

But he wanted to hold onto the illusion of control a little longer.

Even though he had a hunch it was an illusion they could ill afford.

* * * *