He walked to the far end of the sector base, crossing landing pad after landing pad, trying not to think of the openness and the emptiness.
As he walked, lights came on just ahead of him, revealing consoles covered in unbonded nanobits and even more, sending up a dust cloud along the floor. He coughed once, thought of returning for his hood, then changed his mind.
Instead, he headed to the personnel quarters, storage, and the emergency lift.
It took him nearly fifteen minutes to reach the far side of the bay. When he did, he pulled off his glove and put his hand against the door leading into the personnel quarters.
For a moment, the door stayed dark, and he wondered if the recognition lock had broken. Then lights came on, revolving slowly around his hand.
A creaky voice, sounding just a bit warped, said, “Jonathan Cooper, captain of the Ivoire. Recognition queried, but granted.”
He nodded. He had expected queried but granted status, although he had hoped for just a simple recognition granted. Queried but granted meant that he didn’t belong in this place; he was an anomaly. But the system had to recognize anomalies, since the anacapa sometimes created them.
So long ago—from his perspective, decades (maybe centuries) before he was born—someone had invented the queried but granted status. What it usually meant was that someone else, a living person, would double-check the credentials later, and then update the system.
He doubted that would happen here.
Not that it mattered at the moment.
What mattered now was that the door slid open and the interior lights went on.
A waft of dusty, stale air greeted Coop. He didn’t even have to go inside. Normally quarters on a sector base were for guest workers or people who hadn’t yet been cleared to join the community up top. The quarters were state-of-the-art, built for comfort and relaxation.
Every other sector base quarters he had visited smelled of food and cleaned air. A month before, this one had, too. But it didn’t now. It had no furniture. Only a slightly dusty floor, and doors that opened into the room, revealing more empty quarters beyond.
He had hoped to find furniture, a functioning kitchen, maybe even a caretaker hiding from the ship. Not more emptiness.
Although the emptiness didn’t surprise him. It made sense, given the information his crew had already gathered.
He stepped back, let the door slide closed, and then put his hand on the door to the supply area. He had a hunch he would find the same thing, and he did, except it looked like the tool safe remained. That part of the supplies closet was supposed to exist as long as the base did, in case someone needed handheld tools in order to repair something.
Like a ship.
He opened the safe long enough to see that, yes indeed, there were tools inside. Whether they were the proper tools or the best tools or the most useful tools, he would let Yash decide.
He closed the safe, then backed out of the supply area.
Finally, he walked to the emergency lift and pressed his hand against the door, waiting for it to identify him.
It did, with the same queried but granted notification the other doors had given him. The door slid back and revealed something he didn’t want to see.
The lift was gone, filled in with dirt and debris, trapped on the lower level by a wall built of clear nanobits.
Exactly as the handbook said that any emergency lift should be decommissioned. When a base was deemed no longer useful, the lift to the surface was shut down, so that a gaping hole would not exist beneath the ground, something that could cave in once the passage of years let everyone forget exactly where the emergency lift opened onto the surface.
“Dammit,” he said softly. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.
Nothing had been that easy on this trip. And nothing would be.
Not for a while, at least.
Maybe not for years.
~ * ~
FORTY-SEVEN
We huddle outside the door to the Dignity Vessel room, all seven of us. The moment feels momentous. We’ve tested and retested all of our findings about the particles. They’re large and could be harmful if swallowed, but they have no effect on the skin—at least short-term. They don’t hurt us in any known way.
The air inside the room is a bit stale, but otherwise fine, and the temperature is just a little cooler than the caves themselves.
In other words, we don’t need the environmental suits.
However, I’m going to wear mine, all except the helmet, which I have attached to my belt. Lentz’s university professor friend has surreptitiously given us two dozen face masks, the kind that the Vaycehnese wear when they go deep in the caves.
The Vaycehnese have encountered the floating particles as well, and have found that some people suffer no ill effects from them whatsoever, while others end up with lung problems for years. The masks have a thin weave that prevents the particles from being inhaled. The masks go over the mouth and nose, and their bright whiteness looks a bit odd against the skin.
At our meeting last night, Lentz laughed when I mentioned that. He reminded me that the mask will probably get caked with particles in a matter of minutes, taking it from white to gray to black.
Some of the others—Quinte and Seager, in particular—have decided to wear the helmets, although I made them bring masks as well. We’re carrying quite a few things, actually. A small ladder, a pouch of tools, and my own personal pair of grippers so that I can climb the side of the ship and see what’s above us.
We’re stopped outside, however, because Al-Nasir is dithering. He holds his mask in one hand. In the other he clings to his helmet. He hates being confined, but the room still makes him nervous.
We’re all a bit more nervous than we’ve been, although the smoothness of yesterday’s mission has gone a long way toward calming us down.
I pluck the mask out of Al-Nasir’s hand. “Put it on. You’ll feel better.”
He takes it from me, stares at it, then puts it in the pouch along his waistband. Then he takes his helmet and attaches it to the rest of the suit.
I suppress a smile. I knew if I made the choice for him, he would know what he really wanted.
I put my hand on the door. “Same order as yesterday,” I say. Which means me first.
I pull the door open, and freeze.
The lights are on. We figured out how to shut them down just before we left yesterday. They were off. I’m as sure of that as I am of my own name.
“Okay,” I say softly, the mask moving gently against my lips and nose as I speak. “We could have a problem. Rea, DeVries, I need you with me. The rest of you can wait here if you want.”
I don’t wait for an answer. I pull my laser pistol and go in, heart pounding.
Someone has been here. The lights are on, the equipment is on all the way around the room, the various screens showing parts of space both familiar and unfamiliar.
One screen shows my science station back home. The station is empty, but through the glass viewing area on the far side of that room, I can see one of my scientists, taking readings.
I step all the way inside. Rea and DeVries follow me, laser pistols out. The two men are flanking me, as I taught them when they first came into the group, back at their very first tourist dive.
The other four come in as well, proper position, half a step behind each other, as if we’re a trained military unit. Without my telling them to, Quinte and Al-Nasir remain by the door, and they keep it open, making it easier for us to escape if we have to.
I glance at Rea and DeVries, then nod. We pointedly do not look at the screens, and we carefully examine the room from our stopped position.
I see no one, not out here, not with us.
But I have a hunch I’m not supposed to see anyone.
This is a message.
Someone is on board that Dignity Vessel—and they want me to know it.
~ * ~
FORTY-EIGHT
Coop stood as th
e door to the repair room opened. Everyone on the bridge turned toward the screens. Even Dix looked up, and Dix hadn’t looked at much of anything in days.
The outsider woman stopped when she saw the lights. They glistened off her hair, a chestnut brown that surprised Coop. She wasn’t wearing a helmet, but she was wearing a mask of some kind over her mouth and nose. The particles worried her.
For some reason, that reassured him. These people weren’t that different after all.
As she looked at the lights, she drew her weapon—not that silly knife, which he couldn’t even see. From this distance, the weapon looked like some kind of laser pistol, but bulkier than he expected.
“Zoom in on that weapon,” Coop said to Anita. “See if we can figure out exactly what it is and does.”
“I don’t blame her for drawing it,” Perkins said. “She doesn’t know—”
“I don’t blame her either, Lieutenant,” Coop said. “Let’s just watch and figure out what they’re going to do.”
“Can’t I suit up?” Perkins asked.
He glanced at her. She had turned toward him, her back straight, her eyes glistening. She wanted to go into the repair room.
And she was right; she was the one who should go out there. He had said first-contact situation, which meant the linguists were in the main team, and Mae, his best linguist, wasn’t on rotation.
“Yes,” he said to Perkins. “I want you in your dress uniform.”
“Sir?” She sounded surprised.
“And no weapons,” he said.
“But they have them,” she said.
“And I would too in this circumstance, if I were them. But we have the upper hand here. So let’s use it.” He turned his attention back to the screen.
All seven had come into the repair room, and they were using a flanking maneuver he hadn’t seen since military training. Half of the woman’s team wore the same kind of mask she did. The rest still had on their helmets, which had to limit visibility.
They all carried those laser pistols, and the hands of at least three of the seven shook as they clutched the grip.
Great. Amateurs. Frightened amateurs.
This could get dangerous.
He almost rescinded the order to Perkins, thinking he didn’t want his people in the middle of a group of scared amateurs. Then he changed his mind. The amateurs would be scared no matter what, and then, if his people didn’t appear, they’d get emboldened.
He needed to retain this upper hand.
“Dix,” Coop said, “I need Rossetti up here now.”
“Yes, sir,” Dix said.
“You’re sending them out immediately?” Yash asked.
Perkins shot her an almost angry glance, then hurried off the bridge, as her absence would prevent him from changing his mind.
“No,” Coop said. “I’m going to give the outsiders an hour. They need to regroup, think a bit, calm down. We surprised them. The last thing we should do is surprise them again.”
“I think you should observe more,” Yash said.
“Duly noted,” Coop said, closing debate. “What are those weapons, Anita?”
“Laser pistols,” she said. “They have the right power signature, but they’re pretty unwieldy. I wouldn’t want to fire one.”
“I assume they’ll do a lot of damage if they hit someone?” he asked.
“Can’t tell without actually test-firing one. But that’s a safe assumption.”
He watched the outsiders, slowly exploring the room, clearly responding to commands. The woman kept glancing at one of the screens; it seemed to make her nervous.
They all made Coop nervous. The screens were all tied to ships within the sector, and showed what the ships saw. But, logically, there shouldn’t be any ships in the sector. They should have left decades ago with the Fleet.
The visual that disturbed him the most was the one the woman kept glancing at—three screens down, it looked as if he were looking at some kind of station, one he didn’t recognize.
Questions, questions, and more questions.
He hoped that once his people talked to the outsiders, he would finally start getting answers.
~ * ~
FORTY-NINE
I know we’re being watched. I can feel it, even if I can’t see it. I’ve had the feeling from the beginning that we weren’t alone, and now I have confirmation of it.
Yet there’s no one visible in this gigantic room.
“Did we interrupt them?” Seager asks, her voice shaking. “Are they hiding from us?”
“Have you looked at that ship?” Quinte says. “Do you know how many people can be in that thing?”
The best guess of our own tech people is that the average Dignity Vessel held at least one hundred people, and possibly as many as a thousand. It depended on how many were needed to run the various ship’s systems, and how many people got crammed into the various rooms.
I have always doubted the thousand number. The rooms on the partially intact Dignity Vessels we found looked more like suites or apartments than single bunks. But who knew how these ships were used.
And really, we don’t know what they were used for.
What they are used for.
I look up at the side, exactly where the cockpit is on every single Dignity Vessel I’ve encountered. I stand in front of it for a long time, just to make sure that they’re all watching me.
And then I slowly, carefully, ostentatiously, holster my laser pistol.
“Boss! Don’t!” Rea says. “We have no idea if they’re hostile!”
“If they’re hostile, they would have lain in wait for us,” I say. “They observed us the last two times we were here. This time, they would have sent out a small crew, and blasted us away.”
At least that is what I would have done. If I felt threatened by people coming near my ship, and I thought those people were dangerous, I’d attack first and ask questions later.
I extend my hands, showing that they’re empty.
Come and see me, I’m trying to say. We’re harmless. Let’s talk.
But the door remains closed.
“Put your weapons away,” I say to my team.
“I don’t want to,” Rea says.
“I don’t think it’s wise,” Kersting says.
“Can’t some of us keep them?” Seager asks.
That seems the most sensible. A few weapons, but not a bunch. The problem is that I doubt anyone except me and Rea have experience with weapons, and I’m not really sure about Rea.
I’m more worried about an accidental discharge than I am about the people on that Dignity Vessel.
“How about this?” I say, willing to compromise with my team. “Seager, Quinte, Kersting, lower your weapons. Point them at the floor. If something goes wrong, raise them and use them. But wait until my signal.”
“What if something happens to you?” Quinte asks.
“I think that would substitute for a signal, don’t you?” I can’t help the sarcasm. I miss my real team. I miss Mikk’s quick thinking and Roderick’s impulsive piloting skills. I miss Tamaz’s muscle. I miss their loyalty and their ability to anticipate what I’m about to do.
“The rest of you,” I say, after I manage to regain control of my voice again, “holster your weapons.”
I turn toward them. Rea clutches his like a lifeline.
“Now,” I say, wondering how I’ll enforce this if they don’t listen.
But they do. Rea makes a show of holstering his. DeVries puts his away as if the grip has already burned him. Al-Nasir carefully holsters his as if he thinks it’ll go off if he hits it wrong.
I sigh. I’m stuck in the strangest, possibly the most dangerous, experience I’ve had since some of us went after the Empire’s guards, and this time, I have a bunch of tourists who can’t think clearly if their life depended on it.
And of course, their lives do depend on it.
As does mine.
“Now what?” Rea asks.
“Now,” I say, “we wait.”
~ * ~
FIFTY
“My God,” Dix said. “They’re putting their weapons away.”
Coop looked up from his consultation with Rossetti. She was in full dress uniform as well, just like he had requested, but she would be putting an environmental suit over it for added protection. The dress uniform was for her and not the outsiders. It was to remind her—and her entire team—that they were in a diplomatic situation, not a military one.
Apparently the outsiders thought they weren’t in a military situation, either —or at least the woman did. She held her hands out, showing that they were empty.
That fabric mask she wore over her mouth and nose moved slightly—she was talking to her people. Three of them had holstered their weapons, and the other three had turned the muzzles downward, although the heavyset man would probably shoot his own foot if the weapon discharged.
Amateurs.
That detail still disturbed Coop.
Still, he couldn’t prevent a small smile. He and the woman were communicating already.
She wanted him to know that her people were not a threat. She wanted a dialogue. But she also wanted him to know that she would shoot if shot at.
“Get out there,” he said to Rossetti.
“I had told my team we had another half an hour,” she said.
“I don’t care,” he said. “They’re ready for us now. Get out there as quickly as you can.”
“Yes, sir.” She nodded and left the bridge.
“This isn’t some kind of ploy, is it?” Yash asked, looking at the outsiders
“What kind of ploy would that be?” Coop asked. “We’re the ones who notified them we were here. They didn’t seem too concerned about us before today.
“They didn’t know we were here before today,” Yash said.
“We’ll be careful,” Coop said.
“I hope so,” Yash said. “I really do.”
~ * ~
FIFTY-ONE
The ship’s door opens. It rises upward, and a small staircase eases out, sliding its way to the floor. I’ve seen the doors open like that on Dignity Vessels we’ve found, but I’ve never seen the staircase. It makes my breath catch again. The magic and mystery of the Dignity Vessels. I’m so overwhelmed, I have to remind myself to remain calm.
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