by P. N. Elrod
“Better than nothing,” she responded.
“Not by much. These are service tunnels? To where?”
She gave no reply, not sure herself.
The tunnels had been carved into the raw earth with flash-dry crete-foam sprayed to keep the walls from caving in, cheaper and faster than laying pipe. She couldn’t smell sewage, which was a plus.
“Which branch do you fancy?”
“The center.” She had no idea where it led, but she had to sound decisive.
“Think anything’s living down here? And hungry?”
“You’ll be the first to know.” She gestured ahead with an open hand.
“Thanks very much. I suppose it hardly matters, I’m so starved now I wouldn’t make a good meal anyway.”
The pace was faster on a level floor. Kella counted steps; at fifty they reached a locked door in the right-hand wall.
“I suppose you want me to open it?” he asked without enthusiasm.
It could be a storage closet or a cavernous service bay for ships, no way to tell. She pressed a palm flat to the surface. “This might lead to the power plant, feel the warmth and vibration?”
He nodded. “How old is this place?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Radiation. Sometimes older complexes were thrifty on protection, especially down in the cellar.”
It was a legitimate worry, but then Farron liked to worry. “This is the top,” she reminded him.
“Oh, wonderful, that has to make a difference.”
She continued along the main tunnel. “Come on.”
“To where? Is there an end to all this?”
“When we find it. The maintenance crew had to live somewhere when they weren’t working.”
“Are they gone? I mean, is this place empty?”
“Yes.”
“Seems odd to build something this big then move out. Was it System?”
“Who else would have the resources?”
“That means this is System military?”
“Yes. One of their groundside bases.”
“But the soldiers—” His eyebrows climbed well up into his high forehead.
“They’re gone,” she told him in a firm tone. She’d overheard quite a lot from the prison guards on the subject.
“If it’s empty, why is the reactor still online?”
“It has to be ready when they come back.”
“When is that?”
She shrugged. “Everyone was pulled out and deployed elsewhere during the war. Losses were too high to make manning this base practical immediately afterward, but they meant to return and left the automatics running.”
“I just hope no one stayed behind. Why are we here?”
“To look for a way out.”
“That makes sense, since we just got in.”
They approached another heavy door, this one with a thick transparent panel and garish warning notices attached. The lighting was better, and more pale light bled out from the panel.
Farron halted, crossing his arms. “That’s the reactor section and I’m telling you flat out, I’m not going in.”
Kella peered inside. There wasn’t much to see, just an entry room and another door in the opposite wall bearing even more warnings. It was ajar.
She stopped breathing.
“You think the soldiers might come back?” he asked, shifting unhappily from foot to foot.
This was indication that they’d already returned. She had, in fact, been counting on it, but it seemed wise not to burden Farron with the knowledge. Kella tried the lever, but it was solidly locked, as it should be.
All that she could see through the second door was a slice of innocuous corridor. The lighting was dim, though. If the System had begun a reactivation of the base, the techs would have started here first to bring the power fully online, including plenty of light to work by.
Its lack reassured her. Only now did a wave of fatigue wash over her, and she realized how fast her heart had been beating.
“There’s another opening ahead,” Farron announced.
The lighting improved as they approached.
She tried the lever. It gave easily. One open door, especially in the reactor section was suspicious enough, but two. . . “I don’t like this, it’s not right.”
“Someone just forgot to secure it.”
At times the man could be as dense as a neutron star. “Or someone else was recently here instead.”
That put a new face on it for him. “We can go back.”
“Not a chance.”
They cautiously entered a wide gray passage lined with more doors. The lights were closely placed and brighter, the walls finished and vertical.
Farron looked inside one of the empty rooms.
“Living quarters for drones. Nothing but bare wall cots. There has to be a mess hall close by. Drones have to eat.”
Kella passed him, having spotted something useful. “Map.”
It covered a large portion of the wall and might have been mistaken for decoration with its patchwork of colored blocks showing hundreds of sections. The code key and other labeling were dark, along with the info-screen. Kella rested a tentative finger on one spot.
“We’re here, this is the only intersection of this type off the reactor area.”
“If that red part is the reactor and not just a big lavatory.”
“It’s the reactor.” There was an unnecessary edge to her tone. Farron had only been joking, she told herself. Get a grip. Don’t let him see you sweat.
But Farron was too distracted to notice, busy tracing pathways on the map. “All right, then light blue is barracks, yellow is for halls, the access and service ducts are green, and dark blue is. . .?”
“Let’s find out.”
Ignoring side passages, they went straight to the dark blue sector, finding themselves in a large, dim room. It was furnished with chairs, gaming tables, entertainment screens, and other comforts.
“It must be the officer’s lounge,” she said.
“Decadence at last,” Farron sighed and made straight for a long wall of food dispensers. He punched hopefully at their buttons, but nothing happened. He punched again; the panels remained dark, the servers empty. Slamming a hand against the unit in frustration, he dropped into a chair, finally overcome with dejection and fatigue. Even his cough sounded disappointed and depressed.
Kella smothered her own black feelings.
She needed to catch her breath, look around, and think what to do next. Perhaps a trip back to the reactor section—the map would provide another way in. If others were around, they’d be there, but she was in no shape to deal with them. She needed water, food, and . . . a year’s rest in a revive unit.
She unfastened her now painful boots, easing them off. Despite the padding of the dead guard’s socks she had blisters. She spied a basic aid box clamped to a wall and limped over, pulling it down.
As she hoped, the supplies inside offered a temporary fix. She passed over the tech items, found antiseptic spray and made use of it. The stuff was cold, but numbed things nicely.
She looked at Farron and felt an unfamiliar twinge. What the hell was that? Oh. Sympathy. For him. He was in worse condition, his prison scuffs worn through and bloodied. He’d not complained about it, though.
She went to him, setting the aid box on his table. He looked at it with no comprehension.
“Off,” she said, pointing at the remains of his scuffs.
He obeyed, staring. She sprayed his damage.
Farron wiggled his toes, sighing. He had damned ugly feet, pale, with long, knobby toes, tufts of hair sprouting on the big ones. For some reason that amused her.
“Thank you,” he said.
She nodded back, experiencing another twinge. Connective emotions like sympathy and gratitude could get you killed. They were to be exploited in others, but one should never get caught in their trap.
Farron pawed through the box. “No protein packs, no w
ater. You’d think they’d put those in.”
Given this venue, there was no need for either. Plenty of food and drink were available, when the power was on.
He tore open a cleansing pack and ran the wipe over his face and hands. “Some useful stuff here, though,” he added.
She walked away to end the exchange.
I was not being kind. I did that to keep him functioning.
She abruptly forgot Farron at the sight of a control node on the other side of the room. She padded to it, the floor warm under her bare feet. Had minimal heating been left on when they closed this place or did it mean others had activated things? If the latter, how long before they noticed two intruders? She’d have to keep moving.
But the prospect of obtaining food outweighed the risk.
The labels on the node were intact; she had only to enter a basic security crack to turn on the power for the dispensers and eat. She knew dozens of them—
Cold sweat ran down her flanks, and her hands shook as they hovered over the buttons. Her too-busy mind stalled.
What did they do to me?
She had to turn away or be sick.
Damn them. Damn them for this.
She quit the node, found a chair, and sat. Weariness replaced the panic. Sleep might help, but she didn’t dare. The aid box had stim patches. One of those would sort her out.
Farron stood over her with some kind of med device in hand. She’d been so far gone as to not notice. That was dangerous. She had to pay attention, dammit. He knelt in front of her, cupping one of her heels. She jerked, resisting the reflex to kick.
“Easy now, sorry for the cold hands. Just trying to help.”
She stared, forcing herself to hold still as he lifted her foot. He had an auto-healer and waved it close over her blisters.
“Feel anything?”
“No, rack up the power.”
He smiled and made a smaller adjustment. “That’s a beginner’s mistake, putting these things on full. Have to work your way up slow or cause even worse damage.”
The healer put out a barely audible hum, and he tried again. First it tickled, then burned.
“Ow.”
He yanked the device away. “Too much. Let’s try this level. . .how’s that?”
“Itchy.”
“Just right, then. Hang on. . .”
Her damage itched madly as the thing stimulated the nanos in her blood to focus on specific spots. Evidently enough were still left to respond.
He worked quietly, gently. It struck her that this was somehow a far more intimate contact than when she’d huddled against him during the eclipse. Of course, he’d been dozy from tranqs then.
“You’re a good woman, Kella,” he murmured.
“No, I’m not.” Too late, she hadn’t meant to say that aloud.
“Bother that. I know you’re doing your best. I’m grateful you saved me. Maybe I can pay you back somehow.”
“Count on it.”
“We should rest here a bit.”
“Sleep’s for the dead.”
He snorted, working on her other foot. “That’s what I like about you, always such cheery company.”
You can’t like me. I will use that against you. This time she refrained from vocalizing.
But why even think a warning? That was not normal for her.
He’d formed an attachment to the outward shell she projected. It’s what humans did automatically, a survival mechanism so groups could function and work together.
She balled both hands into fists.
Farron paused. “Did that hurt?”
“It’s fine. Keep going.”
She wanted him finished so she could put space between them. This level of physical proximity might encourage him to ask questions she couldn’t answer, and, by not answering, undermine the illusion of command she’d taken onto herself. If he once realized just how dependent she was upon him, that it wasn’t the other way around, then he might not be so cooperative. She needed his cooperation, his—she regarded the word with distaste—trust.
That’s a good one for you, Kella. Needing trust when you can’t give it. She had never before been troubled by that particular facet of human behavior. Its lack had helped her to survive this long, but until now she’d been supremely self-sufficient.
Was still self-sufficient. They may have jumbled some of her neurons, but the rest of her could get around it.
“Done,” he said. “Looks like new. How’s it feel?”
“Better.” She remembered to add: “Thank you.”
She got up before he could pass the auto-healer to her.
“There’s some useful stuff here,” he repeated as she walked away.
“Then use it.”
Glad to be clear of the contact, she resumed exploration, checking a corridor that led to a series of private quarters. It was definitely officer country. Though stripped of personal effects, basic furnishings remained. If they had to starve to death at least it would be in comfortable surroundings.
Kella located a washroom and found the water running, which was something to celebrate. She gulped greedily from the tap, then cautiously shifted the lever, hardly daring to hope. . .yes, it grew warm, then hot. She splashed her face and neck, ducking her head in and scrubbing her scalp, reveling in the luxury of abundance and time. In the name of water conservation, Riganth allowed each prisoner a fifteen second spray in the icy showers for daily cleaning. The doped population never complained about the wet-animal smell, but some of the more sensitive guards wore filter masks.
She stopped the water and regarded the gaunt and wary face looking out from the mirror. It was less of a shock than anticipated, since she’d roughly gauged her own appearance from Farron’s. Neither had had the benefit of grooming supplies. Prisoners were rotated every twenty days to have their heads shaved and beards (if any) removed. Her dark hair was shorter than she preferred, with a few premature gray strands at her temples and along her brow; there were new lines and deep circles under her eyes and a harder set to her expression—nothing unexpected after what she’d been through.
Farron called to her, fairly bellowed.
She rushed back, thinking that they’d been found, but his tone was excited, happy.
He’d gotten a panel open on one of the food dispensers. His face was coated with transparent goo.
“Come on,” he urged. He dipped a hand into the guts of the machine. “There’s plenty.” He sucked the stuff down with gusto.
“Raw nutrient gel?”
“There’s no taste to it, but it’s food.”
She’d wash the mess off later. There was a primitive joy to dipping both hands into the stuff and eating all she wanted. It had a chemical bite, faint, not enough to put her off. Perhaps they could get a prep machine going. It would turn the taste-neutral gel into something palatable, injecting flavor, form, and texture, heating or chilling to order.
Farron abruptly turned away. Coughing. He took longer to recover, and did not resume feasting. She tried to make out his coloring, but the light was too low. No matter. He did not look well.
She paused. “We should go easy on this stuff. We could deplete the tanks in one go.”
“Not a bit of it, I checked. They’re full up or nearly so, there’s enough to last us for years.”
“Dismal prospect.”
“You’re right, what we need now is some friendly company. The next lady that comes in will have her golden opportunity with me, providing she’s pretty. On second thought, I don’t care what she looks like.”
“Let’s hope she feels the same about you.”
Yes, the suppression drugs were losing their influence if he was thinking that way again, unless it was force of habit. Farron loved his physical pleasures, she recalled. It amused Kella to know that he still regarded her as a work companion and nothing more. Not, she sensed, that either of them wanted more. Neither appealed to the other in that way and both were content with the arrangement.
; He’d been a civilian tech on board at the wrong time when a System dreadnaught caught up with their ship and turned half the crew into freeze-dried corpses on the first attack. With the bridge fragged and internal communications gone, no organized defense had been possible. The survivors had been easily mopped up by a boarding party. Kella tried to escape; she’d modified all the shuttle pods with special coding for just such an emergency. If activated, any one of them would have enough shielding to sneak her safely past the dreadnaught’s sensors, but she never got a chance to run. She’d taken a knock on the head that had flattened her for hours, waking up in the infirmary with the other wounded long after the fuss was over.
There’d been initial questioning and her current cover had not been good enough. The ship’s computer picked up something on her ident chip and tagged her for special interrogation, which meant immediate transport to Riganth Prison. Farron, too, along with half a dozen others that the computer hadn’t liked.
And what had happened to them? Dead or drugged to the eyeballs and past caring, she thought. It didn’t matter now. Whatever information they’d possessed had been scraped from their heads long ago. The only relief she had about her own unwilling betrayal was that much of her data had been obsolete. Had the attack come a week later when she’d been scheduled by her cell for a new assignment. . .
Kella finished off another handful of gel and felt full. The stuff was concentrated in this form; it didn’t take much.
“Why didn’t you activate it?” Farron asked. Recovered from his bout, he settled in across from her for a second helping.
“Activate what?”
“You found the power node; what was so important to keep you from faking your way in and starting things up?” He seemed to take for granted she’d know how, but then anyone above drone level knew a few hacking tricks.
Aside from the fact that she no longer knew how and had panic attacks if she tried? “Nothing, I was too tired to think.”
