City of Ruins

FOUR



The first morning dawned clear and hot. I almost regret my order to bring our suits. The very idea of pulling mine over my sweaty skin makes me shudder, even though the suit’s environmental controls will probably give me a more comfortable day than the natural environment of Wyr.

We meet our guides just outside the collapse zone. The Vaycehnese have not rebuilt this section of the city. Instead, they put reinforcing walls around the hole and have removed the debris from below.

Signs plaster the few remaining nearby buildings, warning of danger and proceeding at your own risk in almost every language used in the sector. The roads are all blocked off, and floating signs higher up warn that the drivers of any unauthorized flying vehicles will be subject to search, arrest, and crippling fines.

Five guides sit beneath the first set of warning signs. All five are men of about thirty, wearing uniforms and the same expression—a reluctant wariness to take even more researchers to the grounds below.

But Ilona’s work yesterday has paid off. We have permits to work the site for the next six months if need be. And as part of the agreement, the months are measured in Earth Standard, not Vaycehn Normal, which is nearly ten percent shorter.

Still, we don’t need five guides for six people. I’m about to tell them that a few can go home when their leader walks over to me. He’s a big man tending to fat, which surprises me. Most of the people I see can’t have extra weight, either because of their constant space travel or because they dive. He has a mustache that somehow narrows his face.

“Before we take you below,” he says, “we will tell you our regulations.”

He speaks with an accent. He brings a music to Imperial Standard, as well as a precision that I rarely hear in speech. He pronounces each word carefully, as if he’s afraid he’ll be misunderstood.

“First,” he says, “regulations require five guides, no matter how small the tour group is.”

I want to correct him. We are not a tour group. But he holds up a pudgy hand, silently instructing me to hold my questions until he is done.

“The five guides have different skills. We are required by law to have two pilots, two trained medical personnel, and one area specialist. I am the specialist. The medics have badges on their arms. . . .”

In spite of myself, I glance at them and see that the two men in the middle—the only two in any kind of good physical shape—do have small round insignias on the biceps of both arms.

“. . . The pilots are the only ones licensed to fly the hovercarts. In case the pilots are disabled, we will send for another licensed cart operator to remove the team. Under no circumstances may anyone not licensed fly the carts below.”

I do not nod at this. I can think of a dozen circumstances that would require one of our pilots to fly. On this team, there are two of us who could handle the flight—me and Roderick.

Right now, Roderick is standing very close to one of the carts, inspecting its tiny pilot array, his body almost vanishing in the brightness of the light.

The guide continues. “You may not touch anything without official permission. You may not—”

I wave the documentation at the guide, which startles him into silence. Now I feel the need to correct him. “We’re not a tour group. We’re scientists. We’re here to study. We will touch.”

He takes the documents from me. The Vaycehnese government prefers everything in triplicate: computer files, like the rest of the sector; hardcopy files, which is just plain odd; and a video agreement, in which both parties verbally acknowledge they’ve entered into a contract.

The hardcopy files—the actual documents—must accompany us everywhere.

He studies them, then hands them back to me. “I do not think ‘study’ is advisable. You will look only.”

“We will look, touch, dig, or do whatever we need to,” I say.

His cheeks are flushed, which makes his eyes seem extra bright. “The last study group did not do well below. I am opposed to this action.”

I shrug. “It’s your laws that state we need guides. Either find us someone who is not opposed or take us below.”

His flush is even deeper. He hands the documents back to me. He’s about to speak when Bridge comes up beside me.

Bridge looks at the guide but says to me in a loud voice, “Maybe you should tip him.”

The guide straightens his shoulders. His face is so red now that it looks painful. “We are not allowed to take gratuities.”

He makes the word “gratuity” sound like it’s obscene.

“Then I think Boss here is right,” Bridge says. “You do your job or find someone who can. Because you’re wasting valuable time, my man.”

The guide nods once, then walks back to his group. He talks to them softly, waving his hands as he does so.

I turn toward Bridge. “I can fight my own battles.”

“Oh, believe me, I know that,” he says.

We’ve had a few run-ins of our own. I realize after he speaks that he’s never taken control from me before, unlike Stone, who dislikes anyone else being in charge.

“But,” Bridge says, “this is a male-dominated culture. I figured it might be better to go with the cultural norms rather than lose the morning fighting against them.”

It’s my turn to flush. I knew that the culture was male-oriented. I’d actually warned my female staff about it, telling them to let a lot of gender issues slide because of our cultural differences.

The guide pilots head toward the carts. The medics grab their gear.

“You want to act as liaison between me and the so-called specialist?” I ask.

Bridge grins. “Not really. But I’ll do it for the sake of getting this operation under way.”

“Good.” I sigh. “Tell him that we’re in charge of how fast we move, what we examine, and what we touch. We set the pace, not him. If we have questions, he answers. If he doesn’t like it, he can—”

“Find someone who does.” Bridge’s grin grows. “I got that.”

He walks over to the leader and speaks to him just as carefully as the man spoke to me. They clasp elbows—a sign of agreement among the Vaycehnese —and suddenly all the problems evaporate.

The guide directs us to the carts. He frowns when he realizes how close Roderick stands to one of them, but says nothing.

The carts are strange contraptions. They hover and fly just like the large enclosed hovercrafts that brought us into Vaycehn do, but they have a more limited range. Theoretically, they have more maneuverability, but they don’t look like it to me.

The tops are down, revealing one pilot seat up front and three bench seats behind. The top is crumpled behind the bench seats, ready to go up if the pilot needs it.

The carts might be maneuverable, but I wouldn’t pilot one without the top up all the time. A quick dodging motion might cause a passenger to get clipped or worse.

I wonder if I should mention the tops when the guide leader presses a button on the back of the nearest cart. A hinged trunk opens, revealing more storage space than I would have imagined.

“For your gear,” he says to Bridge.

The other team members—Mikk, Ivy, and Dana Carmak the historian— dump their gear into one of the carts. Dana is a strawberry blonde whose skin is already turning bright red in the heat.

I make sure I’m in one cart and Roderick is in the other one. We both sit in the first row behind the pilot’s area so that we can jump into the pilot seat if necessary.

The morning has grown even hotter. Sweat runs down the side of my face and gathers in drops on my chin. The guides have brought bottles of water and salt tablets; apparently the heat is a problem for many of the groups they ferry below.

My cart has the local pilot, me, Mikk, the guide leader, a medic, and Bridge. The rest of the team has found its seats in the other cart.

“Before we go below,” the guide leader says from behind me, his voice amplified by some kind of system I can’t see, “let me tell you how this place was discovered. A cave-in ...”

I tune him out. I know this part of the history. The others watch him as he waves his arms toward the remains of destroyed buildings below us.

The entrance to the caves is black. The opening is wide and arched. The structure itself is curious. What little I’ve seen of Vaycehn architecture shows an affinity for layered construction, bricks placed on top of bricks, sections placed on top of sections.

But the arch seems to be one smooth piece of blackness, shiny in the headlamps of the carts waiting to go in.

“We’ve known for centuries that some of the earliest settlers lived in this part of the Basin,” the guide was saying, “but we never knew exactly where. Not until this latest cave-in showed us an astonishing set of ruins.”

The word “latest” catches my attention. Both Ivy and Bridge glance at me. They caught it too. But we seem to decide as a group not to interrupt the guide—or perhaps they are waiting for me to interrupt him.

The guide has a spiel. I’m going to let him run through it. If I have other questions, I will have Bridge ask them later.

When the guide finishes, the carts rise simultaneously. Our pilot nods at the other pilot, who then goes into the archway first. We follow at a reasonably safe distance, although I do notice that the air—which had smelled faintly of some kind of flower—now smells harsh with a chemical afterburn.

I ask our pilot about raising the cart’s top, but he doesn’t even turn around.

“We’re not going far enough,” he says.

The lights from the other cart reflect against the black wall ahead. That darkness I saw was part of the construction, not a darkness of an unlit area. The cart hovers for a moment, then eases downward as if it’s going into a shaft.

It disappears. The light on the far wall is diminished by half, and I can almost see the materials.

Our pilot eases our cart into the archway, and immediately the air cools. The afterburn smell is gone; here the air is tangy, almost salty, as if there is an ocean nearby.

I don’t have time to reflect on that. I barely have a chance to look at the walls around me before we descend.

The descent is slow. We are going down a shaft. The pilot holds the cart at a steady speed. If it weren’t for the reflections of light on the smooth walls, undulating in a strange wave, I would think we aren’t moving at all.

There’s almost a feeling of weightlessness to this slow descent. I feel a pang. I understand weightlessness. Even though I’m landborn, I’ve spent most of my life in space. The idea of going down a shaft into the dark ground, the weight of an entire city above me, makes my stomach clench.

Finally, we reach the bottom of the shaft. The shaft opens onto a large chamber with the same smooth black walls. Only here there is lighting, and it looks like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s bluish, recessed into the smooth black wall, and seems to coat everything.

My skin seems paler than it ever has. Paler, with a touch of blue. The light seems almost cool—the opposite of that harsh sun above. I blink and realize that my eyes don’t hurt for the first time since we landed on Wyr.

The carts hover next to each other.

“Normally,” the lead guide says, “we continue forward down various passages, giving the history of this place, but you are in charge here.”

Then he looks at me with such contempt that I start. He waits for a moment, studying me.

Finally he says with a bit of annoyance, as if I haven’t answered a question, “What would you like to do?”

There is nothing in this chamber except the lights, the walls, the ceiling, and the floor—all made of that black material.

“I think we should disembark,” I say.

The guide’s lips thin.

The carts lower and my team climbs out. The pilots remain, letting the carts hover. The other guides get out slowly.

Ivy immediately heads to the walls, slips on a pair of gloves, and touches the surface. I’m busy trying to keep my balance on the slick floor. This material is as smooth as it looks—maybe even smoother.

The other team members gather around me, awaiting orders.

I’m watching Ivy.

“You didn’t build these, did you?” she asks the lead guide.

“No,” he says. “We think they grew.”

Mikk starts beside me, but I’m not quite as surprised. I knew that some of the caves had walls that were “grown,” but I thought they were made of a recognizable stone. I figured the caves would be natural caves, with natural caverns created by water, time, or more cave-ins.

“Grew,” Ivy repeats. “This doesn’t look like a natural material to me. Is it native to Wyr?”

Bridge tries to walk to her. He slides and nearly falls. One of the guides crosses his arms, looking satisfied.

They don’t like us, and they resent our presence. I’m not sure if that’s the typical attitude Vaycehnese who work with tourists have—I know I had it when I ran tourist dives—or if their resentment is directed at us for altering the format of the tour.

“We don’t know if it’s native,” the guide says.

Bridge puts on his gloves as well. He pulls a small device from his pocket. I haven’t seen it before. He holds it close to the wall.

“You don’t know,” he says conversationally. “Does that mean you’ve seen this before?”

“There are other places below the city that have black walls,” the guide says, then hastily adds, “and they’re not open to the public.”

We’re not public, but I’m not going to remind him of that.

“What makes you think it grows?” Bridge asks.

The guide licks his lips. Two of the others look at him and shrug. He tilts his head just a little.

“This chamber wasn’t here before the collapse,” he says.

We are all looking at him now.

He flushes under the scrutiny and looks from one of his men to the other. But they say nothing. They let him tell us.

“The collapse revealed stone walls, like the Basin walls,” he says.

I get the sense that he’s choosing his words carefully, possibly revealing more than he should. That flush of his is telling; if nothing else, it shows us all how uncomfortable he finds this topic.

“After the first day, the black threaded through. No one noticed it right away, but the images taken of the site showed it. We went back after ...”

He let his voice trail off. He gives the other guides a helpless look. They look away from him.

Curious. Has no one asked about the black walls before?

Bridge has his hands behind his back. He’s watching the lead guide as if he were a test subject. Ivy has taken her hand from the wall and is surreptitiously glancing at her fingertips, as if they make her nervous.

“After what?” Bridge prompts. “You went back after what?”

The guide swallows. “After the room formed. We examined each day’s images. It grew over the stone. All this black. It just grew.”

“Into this chamber.”

He nods.

“And the shaft we came down?” Bridge asks.

The guide thins his lips but nods again.

“But it didn’t continue along the surface?” Bridge had noticed that. I hadn’t.

“It stops about a centimeter from the lip of the shaft,” the guide says.

No one says anything for a moment. I’m feeling a little dizzy, which could be the unexpected information or it could be the unusual climate. I make myself drink some water and take several deep breaths.

Bridge is frowning. It’s a look of concentration, as if he’s trying to absorb everything the guide is telling us.

Ivy has started to rub the tips of her fingers. Dana Carmak walks over to her and, after putting on some gloves of her own, removes Ivy’s, placing them in a specimen bag. Then she hands Ivy some extra-strong cleaner.

The guide doesn’t seem to notice. He’s watching Bridge for some kind of reaction.

“I take it your scientists have studied this,” Bridge says.

The guide nods.

“What do they think happened?”

He shrugs.

One of the medics steps forward. He has been watching Ivy. “Our scientists say it’s not harmful. We’ve brought hundreds of people down here. No one has gotten ill. No one has had black grow on them. It doesn’t seem to leave the cavern.”

“And it goes all the way back?” Bridge asks him.

“All of the caves have it,” the medic says.

“All of the caves on this side of the city,” Bridge says.

“No,” the medic says. “All of the caves in the Basin.”

I feel my breath catch. Mikk glances at me, apparently trying to see if I’m following the discussion. He doesn’t seem real sure about it.

But Mikk knows more about relics and history and shipwrecks and diving. He has never professed to know much about science.

“But you said there was no black when there was a cave-in.” Roderick has joined the discussion. He’s looking at the leader. “Have you seen it grow before?”

The guide looks trapped. “I haven’t, no.”

“But there have always been stories,” says the medic. “Quarantined houses because they accidentally punch through the subbasement wall, and then the entire lower level is subsumed.”

“What do you mean lower level?” Bridge asks.

“The subbasement. The basement. Anything below ground.”

“But the black stops when it gets above ground?” Bridge asks.

The medic nods.

“Even if that above ground area is protected by a roof or shade?” Bridge asks.

The medic nods again.

“Is this simply rumor or do you know this as a fact?” Bridge asks.

The medic rubs his hands together. It’s his turn to give his colleagues an uneasy glance. “Fact,” he says. “My grandparents lost their home to a quarantine when I was a boy.”

“So you’ve seen the growth before,” Bridge says.

The medic nods.

“How come you don’t study it?” Bridge asks. “You needed to study science to have medical training. Why didn’t you branch into a study of the cave walls?”

“That’s not a course of study,” the medic says.

I frown. I’m not quite sure what Bridge is getting at, but I’m finding the path there interesting.

“The walls aren’t a course of study,” Bridge says.

“That’s right.”

“But don’t the local geologists want to know about this? Or do you think it belongs in the biological sciences? Maybe bio-chem?”

The medic seems confused. The lead guide steps in again.

“We are a small city,” he says. “We don’t have the scientific resources available to people from other places.”

“Surely you could have brought them in,” Bridge says.

“It’s a natural phenomenon,” the guide says. “Nothing more.”

And with that, he has clearly closed off his part of the conversation.

I’m trying to review the data I’ve studied about the Vaycehn ruins. I remember mention of growth on the walls, but not this. And I seem to recall that the implication was that the growth preexisted the discovery, that it didn’t grow afterward.

“Is the material removable?” I ask Ivy. After all, she’s the one who has been studying the tips of her gloves, where she touched the blackness.

“I don’t know,” she says.

“We’ll take a sample,” Bridge says. “Not just here, but at the top. We’re at a disadvantage, though. We’re to look for a certain kind of tech, which is a higher form of physics than we’re familiar with. I don’t think this is.”

I appreciate Bridge’s discretion. He doesn’t mention stealth tech in front of the guards.

“Because this stuff grows?” Roderick asks. “Or because it stops near the surface.”

“Certain fungi won’t grow above a certain level. The different environment on the surface doesn’t allow the growth.” Ivy is still rubbing her fingertips together, as if she’s afraid of what she touched.

“Yeah, but to grow that fast . . .” Mikk lets his voice trail off when several of the others stare at him. “Right? Nothing grows that fast.”

“Bacteria does,” Ivy says. “So do a lot of other natural organisms. You just don’t encounter most of them in a vacuum.”

Meaning that those of us who work primarily in space are ignorant of what we’re facing here. Which is probably true. Although I knew that many things grow quickly. Just because we work in space, doesn’t mean we haven’t encountered deadly bacteria or viruses that run through a space station in a matter of hours.

But I’m staying silent through this discussion. That’s one of the many management tricks I’ve learned. I hire the best I can find. I have to trust them to do their work, which is what this speculation is.

Bridge turns back to the lead guide. “Was this room shaped like this, then, when the blackness came?”

The guide shakes his head. “This was a—” He pauses, as if he had been about to say something forbidden. “A certain kind of cave-in. The blackness covered it and created the shaft. That’s why no one came down here for years. They were afraid they’d get trapped inside.”

“But the growth stopped,” Bridge says.

The guide nods.

“After the chamber was formed.”

The guide nods again.

“Fascinating.” Bridge glances at me. His eyes seem brighter than usual. He’s excited about this.

“We’re spending our day here?” I ask him.

“I think this is important,” he says. “We need a lot of samples.”

I try not to sigh. I want to go deeper, to see what’s ahead. I just want a sense.

Then I realize that he doesn’t need all of us for the samples. “You and Ivy and Roderick stay here. I want Dana and Mikk to accompany me farther into the tunnels. I want to know what’s ahead so that we can plan.”

This is not how a dive would work. On a dive, we would all stay together and let the person whose work takes precedence take charge of that part of the mission.

But my archeologist, scientist, and historian don’t know that. Only Roderick and Mikk do. They’re looking at me in surprise, but they say nothing. They know this is a different kind of exploration.

“You,” I say, pointing to the lead guide. “You’ll join us, along with you—” I point to the medic who told us about the blackness “—and whatever pilot you feel is necessary.”

“It’s not accepted protocol to break up the group,” says the lead guide.

“But it’s not accepted protocol to stop here, either, is it?” I say.

He nods once, reluctantly.

“We’re trained for dangerous situations, just like you are. We’ll take every precaution we can. And we won’t be gone long.” I say that last for the three I’m leaving behind.

The guide looks at the other two members of his team helplessly. They say nothing. He goes to the cart I rode in on and climbs aboard. After a moment, the medic joins him.

Then I get in, followed by Mikk and Dana.

“Where are we going?” the guide asks with that bitterness he seems to reserve only for me.

I give him my most level look. “We’re going to the edge of the section where the fourteen archeologists died.”

* * * *