City of Ruins - By Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page 0,76

command.”

Touch command. Meaning that the systems would only reactivate if the equipment got touched by human hands. Coop would have to confirm that with Yash, but he didn’t think that some kind of falling debris would activate the system. Just contact from a member of the Fleet. At least, that was what he had been told.

“How long has this base been dormant?” Coop asked.

“Impossible to tell, sir,” Cabral said. “When the system goes dormant, even its internal clock mechanism ceases. Only the anacapa drive continues to reaction, at a very low level, of course, and then only because it is safer to keep the drive running than it is to shut it down.”

Coop nodded. He had been told that as well.

“If I may, sir.” One of the scientists, a middle-aged woman, spoke up. She was thin, with harsh lines around her mouth and eyes. Coop had to struggle to recall her name, which he had only heard in the context of this mission, “The evidence points toward the machinery being off for a very long time.”

One of the other scientists held up his hand, as if to stop her, but she caught his hand in her own and brought it down.

“What evidence?” Coop asked.

“The particles, sir,” she said. “Nanobits are durable. They don’t lose their bonding except in a few instances. Most nanobits lose their bonding through a particular kind of weapon fire, which we see no evidence of here. It could also be caused by a chemical reaction, which we also have no evidence of. In fact, if the chemical reaction had occurred, the room itself would be toxic.”

“And the other instance?” Coop asked.

“Time,” she said. “Specifically, five hundred to a thousand years, sir.”

“We don’t have proof of that,” said the scientist whose hand she still held. “We just have supposition.”

“And past experience,” she said. “We’ve encountered this before, and by we, I mean the Fleet. Never have the nanobits lost their bonding in less than five hundred years.”

Coop’s stomach flipped. He had to work to keep his hands relaxed, so that his knuckles wouldn’t show white.

“We’ll have to test to be certain,” said one of the other scientists. He wasn’t looking at Coop, but at Dix. Dix, who sat rigidly next to Coop. Dix, who, rumor had it, had fallen in love with one of the chefs on the Geneva.

The Geneva, which was traveling with the Fleet.

If the Fleet was five hundred years distant from them, in no way could Coop plot the Fleet’s course. There were too many variables. Two hundred years was at the very edge of possible.

Five hundred years meant that the Ivoire might never rejoin the Fleet.

Coop wouldn’t let himself think of that. He didn’t have proof.

“The equipment itself isn’t damaged,” Rossetti said, trying to take control of the briefing back from her scientist. “It’s just old.”

Coop nodded.

“We should be able to use information in the database to help us fix the

Ivoire,” she said.

He nodded again. He wasn’t thinking about that quite as much. He knew his engineers could fix the Ivoire. She had extensive damage, but none of it was catastrophic.

He was more concerned about their current situation.

“The outsiders,” he said, and paused. Everyone looked at him. They clearly hadn’t expected him to mention the outsiders at this point. “You told me their suits looked underdeveloped.”

He said this last to Yash.

She nodded. “Ours are technically superior, if that glove is any indication.”

“Oxygen cylinders, knives, inferior suits,” he said. “Their society didn’t develop from ours, then.”

“Probably not,” Yash said.

“So the settlement on the surface is gone,” he said.

She shrugged. “We don’t know that.”

He nodded again. Two hundred years was a long time. They were going to need to know about the history of Sector Base V as well as Venice City, what they had missed, and what they faced.

“I assume that the shutdown was a standard shutdown,” he said to Rossetti.

By that, he meant that the sector base was shut down because the Fleet had moved on, not because of some problem on the planet itself.

Rossetti had to look at her team.

José Cabral nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said, answering for the team. “The shutdown was ordered by the Fleet and completed according to procedure. Staff remained behind. At that time, Venice City was a thriving community, and many people did not want to leave.”

“No indications that anything went wrong on the surface?” Coop asked.

“None,” Cabral said.

Coop nodded. “Clearly, we’re going to need more information. We need to know how much time has lapsed. We’re