Asimov's SF, April-May 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  No one else knew.

  No one else could know.

  “What about Meklos Verr?” she asked. “Will the security team get in the way?”

  “Have you told them about the caves?” Yusef asked.

  She shook her head.

  “You have to,” he said.

  “No, I don't,” she said. “I'm just going to tell them we've found water, and we need to make sure that it's not undermining the city.”

  “The guy in charge seems smart. He'll know you're lying.”

  “Only if you tell him,” she said. “No one else has been in the caves.”

  Yusef sighed. “Then I guess we have to keep it that way, don't we?”

  “At least for a while,” she said.

  * * * *

  10

  They landed their air-to-ground deep exploration ship on the far side of Denon's Secret, far away from the sanctioned trails that wound their way up the mountainside. Even though the ship was in a forest of some kind, she still had the pilot camouflage the craft.

  She didn't want anything to go wrong.

  Because of that, she hadn't brought Zeigler, even though he had begged.

  Shortly after the ship arrived, Navi ran the scanning equipment. If the Unified Governments of Amnthra had some kind of law against scanning from the ground near the Spires of Denon, she wanted to be the one who broke it. She could argue necessity and flash her credentials.

  By the time the Unified Governments figured out that she was subject to the same rules as everyone else, she'd be long gone. But she hadn't gotten a notice about the scan, like she did when they tried to scan Denon's Secret from above. The scan worked. She found caves.

  The images on her screen looked familiar—a tangle just like Zeigler predicted. She bet if she put a two-dimensional image of the Spires of Denon on top of the image before her, one part of it would match.

  She didn't have time for that. She had to find exits from the City of Denon that didn't show up on any modern map. So far, it looked like this side of the mountain had about two dozen of them.

  * * * *

  11

  It had taken Meklos two days to figure out the best way to deploy his team.

  Fifteen wasn't enough. Fifteen wasn't close to enough. If he ran long shifts, he only had seven actual humans on the ground. He and Phineas had to monitor the robots and the various detectors. Since he and Phin were on opposite shifts, they wouldn't see each other except when they relieved each other.

  He didn't like that set-up at all. Usually he and Phin coordinated and put an able but less important team member on the equipment.

  He had already sent for reinforcements.

  They wouldn't come for a week. He'd stressed the urgency, but he couldn't name the threat, so he knew he'd gone into the queue behind some less important but more easily definable jobs.

  And now, Dr. Reese had thrown him another curve. She had hired two new experts to come into the city. She wouldn't define their area of expertise, nor would she let him vet them.

  They're my responsibility, Meklos, she'd said in that snotty tone of hers, and no matter how much he argued, he couldn't convince her otherwise. So he was going to meet them near the old Command Center at the base of the mountain.

  Instead of pulling one of his seven-member team off recon, he woke Phin just before heading to the Command Center. He also took two members of Phin's team with him down the mountainside. They would set up as if they were guarding the Command Center.

  When Meklos had asked to accompany Chavo to the newcomers’ ship, Dr. Reese had denied his request. I need to see exactly what they're flying and where it came from, Meklos said. They're vetted, Dr. Reese said. And besides, you'll escort them into the city and out of the city. They won't be able to do anything.

  Little did she know. He'd seen a single person disrupt one of the most orderly jobs he'd had. That person had destroyed everything in a short period of time. So he pulled rank on Dr. Reese again, and told her that he would inspect the newcomers’ equipment and supplies. What he didn't tell her was that he would take their names and any other identifying information and vet them himself.

  Meklos had sent Valma Tanis to the old Command Center ahead of him. He and Declan Ceema, who had been with him almost since Meklos had begun security work, climbed down the mountainside together.

  Going down was considerably harder than coming up. He hadn't quite realized how steep the grade was. Fortunately, his hands were free. He carried his usual weapons—a laser pistol (even though they were banned near the Spires), a knife, and a small explosive charge that he didn't dare use near the top of the mountain. All of those were hidden away on his person. Most people wouldn't be able to see the weapons at all, just his small comm unit, attached to his hip.

  Declan had similar weapons, although not the explosive, since Meklos didn't want a member of his team forgetting where they were and accidentally causing damage to the Spires.

  The old Command Center had been the original base for the first Scholars team to come to Denon's Secret. The team had arrived shortly after some members of a mountain climbing expedition realized that the Spires weren't some kind of natural phenomenon.

  Initial Scholars teams were so well funded that they always built a command and control center. The center had sleeping quarters, a fully stocked kitchen, indoor plumbing, and a communications array that rivaled the ones on many ships.

  The building itself was located below the lines that the Monuments Protection Arm had designated to protect the Spires. He suspected the line was designed to exclude the Command Center, since it predated not only the line, but the Monuments Protection Arm as well.

  He appreciated the lack of designation—because it meant that he could use the communications equipment without worrying about damaging the Spires. He suspected he would have a lot of work to do here, even after he had vetted the newcomers.

  His other team member waited outside the Command Center's main door. Valma Tanis was a tall woman. She wore shorts and a T-shirt that bared her muscular arms despite the sunburn threat. Long ago, she had led a military unit stationed on a planet hotter and brighter than this one; the implants she got as part of that service would allow her to stand in light two times brighter than this without any noticeable skin damage.

  “Any sign of them?” Meklos asked.

  The center itself stood in the exact middle of the path that Chavo and the two newcomers would take to come up the mountainside.

  “Not yet,” Valma said. “I checked for ships. They have a single space cruiser parked in the designated zone. The ship is small and had to have come from a relatively short distance away.”

  “How short?” Meklos asked.

  “The nearest star base is about the extent of its range.”

  He felt a surge of irritation. If Dr. Reese had told him more about these two, he wouldn't worry about such things as ships and ranges and travel times.

  “Any identifying marks?” he asked.

  “Just commercial ones. The ship was purchased from a regular dealer, without any government or business labels. It's not connected to the Scholars, and it's not part of any known business.”

  Which could be good and bad. If they weren't affiliated, then they had no real contacts, and couldn't be expected to have any kind of back-up. Or the ship looked deliberately innocuous, to make anyone who wanted to check on it relax their guard.

  “Ships in orbit?” he asked.

  “More than I care to count,” she said. “This center doesn't have the equipment to surreptitiously scan them, but I did check with the Unified Governments, and they say nothing out of the ordinary is going on up there.”

  Well, that was something, at least. He gazed down the trail. It was quite a hike from the designated parking area, and if the two newcomers didn't know how to pack, they'd be struggling by the time they got here.

  Declan came around the building. He was short and squat, stronger than he looked and older as well. Hi
s fatigues were covered with the red dust from this lower section of the mountain.

  “They're winding their way around the last part of the trail,” he said. “Chavo, a man, and a woman. They have professional level backpacks.”

  “Any idea who they are?” Meklos asked.

  “I can go inside, scan, and see if I get identifiers,” Declan said.

  Meklos shook his head. He could see them now, both taller than the too-thin Chavo. “There isn't time.”

  He turned to Valma. “Get them water,” he said.

  She nodded and disappeared into the command center. He should have thought of that earlier. People were much more willing to subject themselves to search when they thought the people searching them were kind.

  She came back out with three chilled bottles in her right hand just as Chavo and the other two arrived. Chavo saw Meklos and rolled his eyes. Meklos ignored him.

  Meklos stepped forward and extended his hand. “Meklos Verr, head of security.”

  The woman was the one who took his hand, which meant she was the one in charge.

  “Navi Salvino,” she said, “and my partner, Roye Bruget.”

  Meklos nodded at Valma. She handed out the water. Bruget put the bottle against his forehead and closed his eyes. Obviously the heat was getting to him already.

  Salvino opened her bottle and took a dainty sip. She seemed fine, but Meklos didn't know if that was an act or not.

  “I'm sorry,” he said as gently as he could. “I need you to state your purpose here so that I can check it against our logs.”

  “We're the cave divers that Dr. Reese sent for,” Salvino said.

  Salvino's words so shocked him that he nearly repeated what she'd said to make sure he'd heard it correctly. Cave divers? Dr. Reese had said nothing about caves. If caves honeycombed a mountain like Denon's Secret, then they were a security risk, and one he should have known about from the very beginning.

  Meklos hoped his shock hadn't shown on his face. He glanced at Chavo, who shrugged. Apparently he hadn't known either.

  Declan had moved slightly into a more defensive position. Valma watched warily from the side of the path.

  “We need to search your packs,” Meklos said.

  “Sure,” Salvino said.

  She slid her pack off her shoulders and set it on the ground. Bruget did the same, opening his quickly, then stepping back.

  Salvino stepped back as well. They'd clearly been searched many times before.

  “We'll need to search you as well,” Declan said.

  They both nodded.

  Valma watched. Meklos had been shot once during a search. He'd been so focused on the search that he'd forgotten to keep an eye on the people whose items he was going through. Ever since, he'd had three people on a potential search: two to search and one to watch. The packs were a revelation. He'd worked with water divers before. They always had breathing equipment, some kind of environmental suit, and supplies, but these two also had recording technology, a variety of lights, and special sonar. He didn't see the breathing equipment.

  He held up one of the sonar pieces. “You'll have to clear that with Dr. Reese. You might be operating it too close to the Spires.”

  As he mentioned the Spires, both Salvino and Bruget looked up, their mouths open slightly.

  Declan ignored the movement. He continued the hands-on search, then followed it with a full body scan.

  “Clean,” he said.

  Meklos pulled out one of the suits. “This seems more like a space diving suit than a water diving suit.”

  Salvino shook her head. “It's made specially for cave diving,” she said. “You can get trapped in a very small space in a cave, and you need to survive, sometimes for a day or more, while you're waiting for your partner to go for help. Which is why, you'll note, we also have an extra suit, in case there are divers above who could assist.”

  Meklos wasn't sure he believed the explanation. He had done water diving himself, but never with a suit this thin. Suits like this worked best in the vacuum of space. The oxygen was threaded through the material instead of in sturdy containers worn at the hip.

  He always thought suits like this dangerous because they could rip so easily, which would disturb the oxygen flow. Still, he noted the make of the suits, and the design number. He would vet those as well. Otherwise he found nothing in the packs. He slid them back to their owners for repacking.

  The other thing he noticed about the packs was that they had no room for extras. Everything inside had a purpose for this trip, and there was no way any of it could be left behind.

  If these two people wanted to smuggle something out of the City of Denon, they would have to do it by leaving all of their equipment behind.

  “Okay,” he said after catching Declan's nod. “You're ready to go up. Declan and Valma will join you. Chavo here will give you both the speech about the Spires as you climb. If you need more water, say so now. It'll only get hotter the higher we go.”

  Neither Salvino nor Bruget looked surprised when he said that, which bothered him. He had been surprised about the warmth up top, and he had researched the Naramzin Mountain Range as well as the Spires. Maybe their research was more thorough. Or maybe they weren't just experts in cave diving. Maybe they were experts in something else as well.

  He hoped he would have enough time to find out.

  * * * *

  12

  Navi climbed slowly, pretending she wasn't familiar with the path. In truth, she'd studied it for nearly a week. The path and the Spires and the ground around it all, as well as the designated areas.

  She also had a complete map of the caverns, made with her scanning equipment. The deep exploration ship was where she had left it, with her people inside. They could no longer send her updates, but she didn't need them. Unless there were cave ins or some serious problems (and, honestly, wouldn't the cave-ins have shown up in the scan?), all they had to do was wait for her all-clear.

  She could finally understand why Zeigler had fallen in love with this place. The light alone was refreshing, even though it was amazingly bright. The Spires were spectacular. She was actually excited about seeing the city.

  The diving worried her—she hadn't done anything like that in a long time—but it would end quickly. She had lied about the timing to that security guard. These caverns and passageways were too honeycombed to get lost in for long. As long as she had a partner and as long as they were vigilant about going one at a time, only one could get trapped. And they had the equipment to get that person out, which the guard hadn't really said anything about. Maybe he hadn't noticed. More likely, her ruse was working.

  She wasn't sure how long it would. That guard looked smarter than she liked. And while all of the information she had set up on nearby databases about her cave diving experience was true, it wasn't complete. She had left off dates and travel times because they were too far apart for a professional cave diver.

  Someone smart might also realize that most of her cave diving experience was near archeological digs like this one. She'd tried to cover it in the bio she'd created, saying that she specialized in diving digs, but she wasn't sure that was enough.

  And since she'd used her own name, there was always the possibility that someone who dug deep enough might find out how she really made her living. Then she'd be in trouble. But she wasn't going to think about that. She was going in, she was going to inspect the site, she would do her dive, and she would leave.

  After that, she would decide what to do next.

  * * * *

  13

  The information on the cave divers was clean, but sparse. Meklos didn't like sparse. It was his experience that sparse was rare. In general, there was too much information on most people, and even more on most businesses.

  Meklos was hunched over the control board, looking at an actual screen. The command center was quiet. He was alone.

  He hadn't worked on equipment this old in quite a while. He hated how slow
the information flow was. He had a limited amount of time, and the system itself was holding him back.

  The fact that he could only find the necessary information on the cave divers made him suspicious. It seemed like information had been removed from their bios.

  He could always find added information. Added information announced itself, often by being in the wrong place. Added information also had the wrong or misleading dates, or dates that didn't somehow jibe with other dates already in the biographical information. But when information was removed, the gaps weren't as obvious. The gaps could simply be that: gaps. It would take time he didn't have to prove that the missing information was somehow important. He would have done all of that if he had been consulted before Dr. Reese hired these people. If Dr. Reese had problems with her cave divers, those problems would be her own fault. He had to file a report for Scholars—the standard weekly update—and he would note the lack of consultation.

  He would also remark that, even though Dr. Reese had requested a security team, she didn't really seem to want one. She certainly wasn't working with him, and the lack of cooperation made his job that much harder.

  He would also make note of the caves.

  He sighed. One reason he couldn't properly vet the cave divers was that he wanted to see what he could find on the caves. He had a hunch that Dr. Reese would lie to him about them. So far as he could tell, no one knew that caves existed beneath the City of Denon.

  Some academic from a college too small to be in the Scholars system postulated that caves existed beneath the city; he figured it was the only way the ancients could survive all the sieges. He also postulated a river running through those caves as well. But that was just an hypothesis, not fact.

  Meklos figured if Dr. Reese had hired cave divers, she had found caves—and they were filled with water.

  He wondered what else she was searching for. He doubted she would tell him.

  He could only hope that he would figure it out before there was any trouble. But he doubted even that.

  * * * *

  14

  By the time they'd reached the City of Denon, Navi was exhausted. She was getting too old for this much exercise, particularly in an environment as hostile as this one. The heat was oppressive, the light brighter than anything she could have imagined. Her pack's normal weight seemed too much for her.