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