City of Ruins

FORTY-THREE



We go back to the room in the same configuration we used two days ago. Mikk and Roderick wait as close to the stealth-tech field as they can. A hovercart sits near them in case we need it quickly. Four guides bring us down, and they have a hovercart too.

This time, however, they have orders to remain below ground, and Bridge has volunteered to stay above ground to make sure they follow those orders.

The only other change is one that the Six have asked for: all of them get to go into the room at the same time.

“After all,” Quinte says, “no one can get into the stealth-tech field unless they have a marker, so I don’t think there’s a reason to guard the door from the outside.”

“And rocks can’t fall inside a stealth field,” Al-Nasir says, even though we’ve discussed this. We don’t know if that’s true or not. Still, he’s got a point. If a disaster happens inside the room, it won’t matter if we have someone outside or not.

I personally think they don’t want to repeat the experience of waiting in those corridors with nothing to do. They’re not trained divers like Mikk and Roderick. Al-Nasir and Quinte are not used to waiting long periods of time.

I see no harm in letting them accompany us into the room.

So I let them.

We go in as silently as we can. I go first, which is risky, because I have no idea if we’re alone. I’m worried that we’ll encounter someone—or lots of someones, someones who think we’re invading their private area, someones who are used to this place when we are not.

I’ve been thinking about it all night, and I have found myself wondering if this isn’t normal for Dignity Vessels. Maybe they have bases like this all over the known universe, dark except when a Dignity Vessel needs repair.

I keep remembering those laser score marks on the side of the ship, and wonder if it was damaged in some kind of fight, and if so, if this is where it is supposed to go for repairs.

Of course, I also wonder if it is a dead ship whose arrival was somehow triggered by us. I spent half the night on that, pacing and worrying that I want to believe this scenario, because that means I can figure out how to open the ship, then go inside and investigate it.

The second scenario also means the Dignity Vessel is mine—or can be mine, if the Vaycehnese government never finds out about it, and we can somehow figure out how to get the ship out of this enclosed underground room.

One problem at a time, though.

We stand at the door. My heart is pounding. I can tell from the readings on the Six’s environmental suits that their hearts are racing as well. They’re trying to control their breathing, but they’re as nervous as I am, maybe more so. Their palms are sweating, and their suits are trying to cool them down.

I’m not that nervous. But I’m excited.

I can hear Squishy’s voice warning against the gids, and for once, I care. I want to survive this trip into the room, and the next, and the next. I want to enjoy every minute of this discovery.

And I want the discovery to be there.

That’s what really has my heart racing: I’m afraid the Dignity Vessel is gone.

I put my hand on the door itself, ready to push. First, though, I turn to the Six.

“Be prepared for anything,” I say, and then I try the door.

It opens easily. It’s not locked or barricaded.

I step into the room, and the particles swirl around me. I can’t help myself—I immediately look at that landing pad.

The Dignity Vessel is still there.

I let out a small breath. Relief.

I step all the way inside, cautiously. I look around.

To my quick gaze, nothing looks different. The Dignity Vessel sits on the pad, the screens above the equipment show the inside of the room and nothing else, and the rest of the equipment looks like it has been off for a very long time.

Now mingled with the relief is just a bit of disappointment. I half hoped someone would be exploring or using the room. I was ready to have a difficult conversation with one of the people who had arrived on the Dignity Vessel.

But if no one has emerged in forty-eight hours, then I’m more inclined to think the ship is empty, drawn by something we did, some button we pressed, something we activated.

After all, we have found seven half-ruined Dignity Vessels throughout the sector. We have no idea if anything is wrong with this one. For all we know, the interior may be partially destroyed, the controls gone, some part of the vessel that we can’t yet see open to space.

DeVries stops beside me. Rea walks just a little ahead, as if he can’t believe that the Vessel is still there. I can feel Quinte behind me, and I know without looking that Al-Nasir is behind her. Seager is on my other side. The only person I seem to have lost track of is Kersting.

I turn slightly. He has wandered in the opposite direction from me, head tilted back, looking up at the Dignity Vessel.

I sense the awe in his movements, and I smile.

I feel it, too.

“It’s still here,” I say, stating the obvious. But someone has to. I have to let the relief I’m feeling become part of the group’s emotion.

“I didn’t think it would be,” Rea says.

“Me, either,” Seager says.

We all stop. We have an agreed-upon plan for this trip, one of two that we made. We agreed that if the Dignity Vessel was here we would proceed with caution. DeVries, Rea, and I would search for a way into the vessel. Kersting and Seager would go to the first section of equipment and take readings off of it, recording as much as they could so that our linguists and scientists ran figure out what’s going on here. Most of what we got the last time was distorted by our own movements.

Quinte and Al-Nasir will explore the area near the door, to make sure that there are no hidden ways to lock us in or activate something that we don’t want to activate.

Their instructions specifically warn them not to touch anything.

They were both happy with both parts of the instruction: the fact that they’d be looking and not touching, and the fact that they would be closest to the door in case something went wrong.

I get the area near the door. DeVries goes toward the back where the ship’s wings stretch out. Rea is going to walk beneath the curved front of the ship—or what I think of as the front—and see if there is a hatch anywhere. On half of the Dignity Vessels we’ve found—or I should say, on the half we’ve round with an intact front—we’ve found hatches.

That was one of my first clues that not all Dignity Vessels are exactly alike. They were altered, either by time or convention or need or all three.

We move cautiously, as if we are diving. That was my instruction up top, and I plan to live up to it down here, despite my own excitement. We’re also running on a time limit: six hours, which might feel extra long, considering now much oxygen we’re using.

We’re all nervous and excited. The causes may be different—I think Al-Nasir is frightened enough for all of us—but the result is the same.

If we were actually in space, I’d worry about our oxygen use rate. I’m less worried about it here.

We’re taking more readings from the air and the particles. We can breathe here if we need to. It’s not the oxygen that’s the problem; it’s those particles. And with the groundquake, the rescue, and all of the things that followed, our own team of scientists hasn’t had a chance to adequately test anything we brought back from our last trip.

We’re proceeding exactly the same way in this one as we did the last time, because we have no new information.

I move slowly across the floor, stopping after each step and looking around, just like I would on a dive. The others do as well. It looks like we’re doing a particularly well-timed ballet, but we need to be cautious.

Part of me feels as if something has changed here, but I have no idea what that would be. And I can’t really trust my feelings at the moment. They might be based on excitement or expectations or sheer nerves, nerves I’m not entirely admitting.

Still, I have a sense that we’re being watched.

I force myself to concentrate on the ship as I walk toward it. The laser sears are as I remember them; the door is in the same place, and it is closed.

But there is a difference.

A vast difference.

One that makes my breath catch.

The exterior of the ship is different. The color is richer. The score marks look deeper, more damaging. The outline of the door is clearer.

And the ship itself glistens as if it’s waiting for us.

As if it’s waiting for me.

* * * *