City of Ruins - By Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page 0,52

in the corridor without our suits on.

“No,” Roderick says.

“That’s not a good sign,” DeVries says.

“It’s not?” Roderick asks.

“Think about it,” DeVries says. “What would you do if you had a team underground and the ground shifted?”

“I’d try to get to them,” Roderick says slowly.

DeVries nods. “No one is here yet.”

“Does that mean we’re trapped?” Quinte asks from behind me.

“There’s no way to know,” I say.

“What else could prevent them from coming?” DeVries asks.

I look at him, surprised. He’s usually so level-headed. He sounds levelheaded, even now. But he’s not thinking clearly.

“We’ve had damage down here,” I say. “We have no idea what’s happened on the surface.”

The others have joined us.

“What do you mean?” Kersting asks.

“We only know a few facts,” I say.

Rea starts, “The ship, the—”

“Ship?” Mikk asks.

“In a minute,” I say, just like I had to when we met up with Quinte and Al-Nasir. “What we know about Vaycehn is that it’s plagued occasionally by death holes. We have no idea what happens underground when a new death hole appears.”

Mikk breathes out a curse.

“You think there could be a new death hole on the surface?” Roderick asks.

“I think anything’s possible,” I say. “And there’s no sense in worrying about what could be. We have to concern ourselves with what is.”

They’re all looking at me. Quinte and Seager look frightened. Even DeVries seems uneasy.

“And the only way to know what is,” I say, “is to carefully make our way out of here.”

“I don’t like being underground,” Roderick says softly, speaking to me.

“I’m not fond of it myself,” I say. “But this is where we’ve chosen to work. Let’s just be smarter about it the next time we come down here.”

If there is a next time.

If we get out at all.

* * * *

TWENTY-SEVEN

W

e walk.

We walk through the darkened corridors, stepping over fallen rock, dealing with dust that remains even though the walls are still covered with black. The air is humid and a little too warm for my taste, although I know it is cooler than the air on the surface.

Sometimes I think I should put my environmental suit back on. But I don’t. Instead, I tell Mikk and Roderick about the ship.

“I’m amazed you left the room at all,” Mikk says, but his eyes twinkle. He knows that I’m a slave to the schedule, but he also knows how tempted I can be by the unknown.

“We had no idea that anything had changed outside,” I say. “We thought we’d take a break, sleep, eat, and come back to work.”

Now I’m not sure when we’ll be back. I’m not sure what we’ll find when we get out.

If we get out.

I don’t say those things, but I know the others are thinking them. We all know they’re implied.

Finally we reach the end of the main corridor, where we left one of the hovercarts. This area is dark, and my heart starts pounding as we get close. Something is wrong. I can sense it, but I’m not sure what I’m sensing.

We round the corner—and stop.

I can’t see the hovercart. There’s a pile of rock where we left it, a pile that reaches to the ceiling and stretches as far as the eye can see.

DeVries curses. Quinte makes a small sound of dismay. I glance at Mikk.

“Roderick,” I say, happy to have experienced people with me now, “you stay with the group. Mikk and I are going to see how far this goes.”

Roderick nods. No one complains. Mikk and I walk forward, and as we do, he says softly, “We’ve been working with these rock piles. They’re incredibly unstable. We have to be very careful.”

“Do you think it would be better if you and Roderick investigate?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “But you and the group will have to listen to me if we need to move rock. And you’re going to let me go first here.”

I almost protest until I realize he’s right. He’s got a few hours’ more experience with this stuff than I do, and that’s a few hours more than any of us have.

He slides into an opening along the left side—they all seem to have openings along the left side; I wonder if that means anything—and then beckons me forward.

The enclosure is tight, almost tighter than the one we came through earlier, but it’s shorter. Mikk is standing in an open area. Another rock fall lies in front of him, and its haphazard pattern is what gave the illusion of an unbroken rock fall from farther back in the