City of Ruins - By Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page 0,44
the stealth-tech field from the normal area.
“Good God,” I say. “Did you see this happen?”
I move closer as I walk. The closer I get, the more I realize that one of the walls has lost its integrity. In addition to the larger chunks, smaller rock and debris litter the floor.
“It got dark,” Quinte says. “I walked up to see what happened and found that.”
“It got dark all at once?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says. She sounds less panicked now, as if she was more afraid of my absence than she was of the events before us.
“So this happened quickly,” I say.
“We think so,” Al-Nasir says. “But we don’t know. We were more concerned with you.”
“We weren’t sure if we were in the only intact corridor.”
Behind me, Kersting curses.
“Are we trapped?” Seager asks.
“Not at the moment,” I say. “But we’ll have to proceed with caution.”
I stop at the dividing line. Inside the stealth-tech area, the wall remains intact. Outside looks like a disaster area.
I take a deep breath and step across that invisible line, careful to avoid big chunks of rock. I find areas on the floor to put my feet. It’s probably not safe to stand here, but I do.
Instead of a fractured wall, the smooth blackness covers everything, as if nothing happened. I look at the ceiling. It too is intact. The lighting is gone on that side, however.
“Where did this debris come from?” I ask.
“The walls,” Quinte says.
“But there’s no damage,” DeVries says.
“There was,” Quinte says. “The black stuff is already covering it over.”
“Impressive,” Rea says.
I’m thinking the same thing. The guards had described this phenomenon, but to see it is another matter entirely. The black stuff seems almost magical.
I peer ahead. The corridor is filled with rock and debris. None of it shuts off the corridor, at least as far as I can see, although some of it comes close.
My mouth suddenly goes dry. We’re outside the stealth tech. If this collapse happened throughout the corridors, then anyone in the caves could have been hit.
Could have died.
“Mikk?” I say into the comm. “Roderick? Come in, please.”
I get no response. I look at the others.
“Have you tried them?” I ask Quinte.
She shakes her head. “We were afraid to leave the stealth-tech area.”
I almost snap at her, and then I realize that their decision was the smart one. They’re inexperienced. I urge caution on my inexperienced divers. Mikk, Roderick, and I would have gone into the danger area as soon as we realized the other area was safe, but the Six didn’t know that.
They have no idea how to behave in a true emergency.
And, frankly, neither do I—not in an underground emergency, at any rate.
We can’t just go back and find another way out. This is the only way out. We’re a long way underground, and there’s no blasting our way out of it.
I step back into the stealth-tech area.
“Have you been observing this corridor?” I ask.
Al-Nasir nods. “We’ve been going back and forth. One of us would stay at the junction and the other would investigate the debris. We’d go in fifteen-minute intervals.”
In spite of myself, I smile. They did listen, after all. Their training has paid off. One of them would go forward, like a scout, then return. They’d wait for us, then the other would go out.
“Good job,” I say. “That’s exactly how you should have done it. Now, has there been any change since you discovered the problem?”
I’ve learned with tourist dives that any time you encounter something unexpected, you use the mildest word you can. While I’m thinking the debris is a possible disaster, I’m not going to let the Six know that. “Problem” is as advanced as I go.
“No,” Quinte says. “It looks the same.”
“How long ago did this happen?” I ask, even though I think I know the answer.
“About two hours ago,” Quinte says, her voice trembling.
“When the ship arrived,” Seager says to me.
“Ship?” Al-Nasir asks.
“We’ll explain in a few minutes,” I say.
I bite my lower lip, then stop myself. We’re here because of the death holes, which we believe to be out-of-control stealth tech. The idea that the ship’s arrival had caused a new death hole had fleetingly crossed my mind, but I had quickly forgotten it in the excitement of the ship itself. Besides, I figured the death hole would be on some other part of the mountain, not causing a disturbance in the corridor.
Although there’s no death hole above that spot in the corridor.