City of Ruins

FIFTY-FOUR

It took Perkins nearly two weeks to figure out the outsiders’ language with any kind of precision. During that time, the engineers repaired the anacapa and most of the weapons systems. Other repairs remained, but none to the major systems. Coop sifted through much of the information pulled from the repair room’s equipment, but he didn’t come up with any more information than his team was finding.

He repeatedly had communications contact Venice City, but didn’t get any response. He mapped the underground caverns around the repair room a second time. The entire complex was much bigger than it had been the month before.

And as the remaining sensors came back online, he had his team see what they could find on the surface.

There was a city in the narrow valley, just like there had been for decades. But the city was no longer in the same place. Instead, it was scattered along the mountainside, far away from the city center that Coop had visited several times.

All of these pieces of information didn’t add up to anything coherent, not yet, which made talking to the outsiders all the more imperative.

The number of outsiders never changed, and although Perkins asked the woman what their group was called, she never got an answer she understood.

Perkins was understanding more and more, however, partly because of the outsiders themselves. After a few days, the man showed an increasing ability to speak Perkins’s language. It took Perkins another day or two to understand him because the man mangled every single word he tried to say. It was almost as if he was familiar with the language in its written form, but hadn’t ever spoken it.

At least, that was Perkins’s hypothesis. Coop wasn’t so certain. If the outsiders could read Standard, then how come they hadn’t heeded the warnings written all over the floor in the repair room? How come they seemed surprised when the ship nearly crushed one of them?

Still, Coop wasn’t the linguist, and he had to rely on Perkins’s expertise to figure out what was going on. In less than two weeks, Perkins decided that the language the outsiders spoke was a form of Standard, but so changed by time and distance, as well as influence from other cultures, as to be practically unrecognizable.

The fact that the man could speak her language, though, didn’t bode well, as she told Coop in one of their briefings.

“Sir, I think all of this means that we speak an old and possibly forgotten form of their language. One that is no longer active, but lives only in archives.”

He felt a chill run through him. “How long does it take for a language to change like that?”

She shrugged. “There are instances of that happening within a few hundred years of no contact.”

“But?” he asked.

“But generally, it happens over many centuries. Five, six, seven hundred years or more.”

He stared at her. It was within the realm of possibility. They had gotten the ship to talk with the equipment in the repair room, but hadn’t gleaned any more information about the time factor. Some of the scientific tests had come back that the equipment itself had aged several hundred years, but, as the scientists said, some of that could have been due to the proximity of a working (and possibly malfunctioning) anacapa drive.

“They can’t be from the future of Venice City,” he said. “Their suits aren’t as evolved as ours.”

She shrugged. “They’re from our future somewhere. Somewhere they acquired our language. Then they lost touch with us, and the language changed, as languages do.”

“It’s time for me to talk to them,” he said. “Can you clearly translate for us?”

“If we do it in the Ivoire,” she said. “I need the computer and our linguistic team to back me up.”

He thought about that for a moment. He had always envisioned the meeting to take place inside the repair room. He hadn’t wanted the outsiders in his ship.

But he understood Perkins’s point. And he needed the information now more than he needed to protect the ship’s secrets.

Not that it had a lot of secrets from the outsiders. They had access to similar equipment in the repair room, and they clearly hadn’t understood that.

“All right,” Coop said. “Set up an appointment.”

“Yes, sir,” Perkins said.

“And I don’t want her whole team in here. Bring her and the man who speaks the language into the briefing room. You and I will talk to them.”

“All right, sir,” Perkins said, and looked relieved. Everyone on the Ivoire was nervous. Everyone wanted answers because, as Dix told Coop, they were making up worst-case scenarios the longer this went on.

Coop had been making up a few on his own.

Initially those scenarios had involved being stranded in Sector Base V forever, but now that the Ivoire was getting repaired, he knew that wouldn’t happen. Now he just had to figure out where he would take his crew, and when.

And for that, he needed to talk to the outsiders.

FIFTY-FIVE

We have been struggling against the language barrier for more than two weeks. Every day seems the same; we go below, go into the room, and separate. Al-Nasir walks to a small table that the Dignity Vessel crew set up on the second day, sits down, and talks to their lieutenant, doing his best to understand her while she does her best to understand him.

The rest of us scatter and look at the equipment. Only now, we each have someone from the Dignity Vessel shadowing us. They watch what we do, not that we’re doing much. We’re afraid to touch the consoles. We still don’t understand them.

I’ve been going to the console that sits below the image of our science station. I think I’ve got some of these images figured out. The consoles are tied to particular Dignity Vessels, and the vessel that my people are currently working on is intact enough to send this image to the room.

However, the ship isn’t working well enough to appear in the room itself. Or maybe I need to pull a lever or press a screen, which I have not done.

I have spent a lot of time near that console, taking images back to our scientists and engineers on the surface. My people there are working as hard as we are below. They’re trying to decipher the secrets of the language and the secrets of the room, trying to figure out the parts of the conversations that Al-Nasir is having with the lieutenant that he can’t entirely understand. It’s slow going, but Carmak and Stone both assure me he’s picking up the language quickly.

I have walked the length and breadth of the room, startled at its size. The minders have opened the doors in the back for me, and I am stunned by their emptiness. A gigantic room with shelves and storage. Suites of rooms behind another door that might have been quarters or a living space for the ship’s crews. And a door that opens onto what seems like nothing, but looked, after closer investigation, like a blocked tunnel.

I am intrigued and frustrated. I want to learn more, but everything I see raises more questions.

My team on the surface feels the same way. They have finally been allowed to visit the death hole. Stone has asked for permission to explore it, but so far the Vaycehnese government has refused her. She has walked around the edges, which, she tells me, have been smoothed by the same blackness we see below.

The guides have been asking questions about our work, wanting to know what we’re doing so deep in the corridors. I simply say, “Exploring,” and don’t explain any more.

Ilona has asked for an extended stay, saying that we’ve discovered a few things that might prevent death holes. She has told the Vaycehnese government that the death holes and the dangerous parts of the caves might be caused by the same thing. She has also told them we are searching for a solution to their problems.

So far, they haven’t asked much, but that worries me. I hate having governments watch everything we do.

I am standing in front of what I now think of as my console, staring at the screen, when a hand touches my shoulder.

I turn, already protesting that I haven’t touched anything.

Al-Nasir is behind me.

“They have a request,” he says. “And I think you need to deal with it.”

I don’t even try to hide my surprise. I haven’t talked with their lieutenant since the first day. I follow Al-Nasir across the floor, heading toward that little table.

Someone has brought out a third chair.

The lieutenant stands when she sees me. She’s no longer wearing that black uniform, which I gather was something official. She wears a white shirt and black pants, along with a loose jacket that has writing on it that I can’t read. I suspect this is a more informal uniform, but I don’t really know.

She’s also younger than I would expect. I’ve only watched from a distance, since there is no way I can oversee this language transfer.

She smiles at me, and beckons toward the chair.

I put my hand on the side, then wait. She understands. We sit together.

Al-Nasir sits as well.

I wait for her to speak.

She says, “Boss—?” then looks at Al-Nasir for confirmation.

He nods.

She says in good, if accented, Standard, “My captain would like to meet you.”

“Okay,” I say.

“He would like it one leader to another,” she says.

“Okay,” I say, not quite sure what she wants.

“He would like you and Fahd to come on board…” and then she says a word I do not understand. “The meeting would be private.”

“On board the ship?” I ask.

She nods.

“I haven’t figured out that word yet,” Al-Nasir says to me softly, even though we both know the lieutenant can hear. “I think it’s the name of the ship.”

My heart is pounding. I would love to go on board that ship. “My team will come with me, of course.”

She shakes her head. We’re communicating a lot better than I would have expected two weeks ago.

“My captain would like you and Fahd only,” the lieutenant says. At least I think she said Al-Nasir’s first name. She mangled it terribly.

“That’s not our custom,” I say. “I go with my team.”

She looks at Al-Nasir. I can’t tell if she wants him to convince me otherwise or if she doesn’t understand me.

“Boss wants all of us to go with her,” he says to the lieutenant.

“I understood that,” she says without frustration, even though I can see it in her eyes. “I do not know the word ‘custom.’”

“Now you see what we’ve been doing?” Al-Nasir says to me. “It seems fine, and then we hit a word that we can’t translate.”

“I have no idea how we’ll have a meeting, then,” I say.

She looks at me. She understood that.

“I am a—” And then she says another word I do not know. “I learn— Again, a mystery word. “—and I am good at it. But I cannot learn—” A third unknown word. “It is too much to learn in a short period of time. So, we have a—” I’m getting really frustrated with this. I’m suddenly quite happy that Al-Nasir has taken point on it. “—and it can figure out—” I glance at Al-Nasir. He’s staring at her as if he’s getting some of this. “—faster than I can.

“I’m sorry,” I say, letting my frustration show. “I didn’t understand that at all.”

“I think she said they have a computer program that will help us communicate,” Al-Nasir says.

She looks at him, then at me.

“Maybe we should wait until we understand each other better,” I say. Much as I want to get inside that ship, I don’t want to do it on their terms. I want my team to come with me. I want us to be safe.

She sighs and looks at her hands. Then she glances at the ship, then she looks at me and leans forward just a bit.

“We have waiting too long,” she says, and the grammatical mistake makes me relax a little. She’s not scary brilliant, just good with languages, like Al-Nasir. Unlike me.

“We need to know things,” she says, “and we cannot get that—” Another word, but this time I can guess. “Information,” “knowledge,” whatever those things are that she needed to know. “—from our—” And as she says that last word she looks at the consoles.

“You need information?” I ask, looking back and forth between her and Al-Nasir, to make sure we both understand correctly. “From us?”

She nods.

“And you need it now,” I say.

She nods again.

“Why not two weeks ago?” I ask.

“We cannot understand enough then,” she says. “This is the first time we can talk clearly. With you and my captain. And the help of the—”

This time I recognize the word she used. She used it before.

“That computer program or computer or whatever,” Al-Nasir says.

“You’re sure of the translation?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I’m not sure of anything, Boss.”

“Can you bring the—” I try to say the word she used, mangle it, wave my hand, and then look at Al-Nasir. He says it, and I continue. “Can you bring it out here?”

“No,” she says. “A small—” And she mimes handheld while she says another word. “—is not good enough yet.”

She’s convincing me. Or maybe I’m easy to convince. I really want to go in there.

“Why only two of us?” I ask.

Al-Nasir starts to rephrase the question, but she waves him off.

“We are a—” Another of those unknown words.

Al-Nasir fills in. “Military, I think.”

“—ship,” she says. “We do not let most people inside her. Only leaders.”

A military vessel that only allows people inside who are military or heads of state. My stomach twists. Apparently I was wrong about the origin of the ship after all.

“I thought you were a Dignity Vessel,” I say.

She starts and repeats, “Dignity Vessel?”

“Part of the Fleet?”

She relaxes a bit. “We are part of the Fleet.”

“And the Fleet is military?” I ask.

Al-Nasir says the word she used, but I don’t wait for her answer.

“What government do you represent?” I am suddenly worried. Are they a part of the Empire now? Has the Empire acquired enough Dignity Vessels that they are actually using them?

“Government?” she asks slowly. She bites her lip. She’s not sure she understands me. “We are govern us. We belong to no other country. We are the country.”

“The Fleet governs itself?” I ask.

She nods.

“The military serves only the Fleet?” I ask.

She nods again.

“Who runs the Fleet?” I ask, trying to get to it a third way.

“The Fleet has a ship of leaders,” she says. “Ours is not that ship.”

I let out a small breath. I hope I’m understanding her right.

“No one hurts us,” I say. “We leave when we want to.”

“Yes,” she says. “Tomorrow, then?”

I can tell she has said that phrase countless times to Al-Nasir.

“Yes,” I say, and clasp my hands together so that they don’t shake.

Tomorrow I will go inside my first working Dignity Vessel. Tomorrow I may get some answers of my own.

FIFTY-SIX

Coop was nervous. He hadn’t expected to be. He barely slept, thinking about the upcoming meeting.

So much could go wrong.

He was trusting, when he wasn’t sure he should.

According to first-contact protocols, if he were actually following them, he was making a large mistake. He should know who the people he was talking to were, how they fit into their society, and what their society was.

All he knew about them was that there were seven of them, their spokesman had said yes when Perkins asked him if they were explorers, and they seemed to be technologically behind.

But he knew nothing for certain, and that fed his nerves.

Although that wasn’t the only cause. He worried about what the woman might tell him.

He spent the morning overseeing the preparation for the meeting. He used the formal briefing room, one usually reserved for heads of state. This briefing room had state-of-the-art screens and sideboards for meals should a meeting go late. The crew kept the table that dominated the room polished so that the fake wood shone. The chairs surrounding the table had padding and could actually be adjusted for the sitter’s comfort.

Coop hated this room—he wasn’t a formal man—but he was taking no chances here.

The communications team, led by Mae, had set up the translation programs, with a receptor near each seat. Even if someone spoke softly, something would pick up the sound and translate it. Mae’s team would monitor the entire conversation in real time in the communication’s array.

Perkins would be in the briefing room itself to facilitate the translations. She would have a chip in her ear so that she could hear any corrections or alterations Mae made to the translations, although Mae had already told Coop she wouldn’t actively participate in the conversation.

Perkins seemed as nervous as Coop. She double-, triple-, and quadruple-checked the systems, then went early to the airlock just in case their guests arrived early.

He had his personal chef make some pastries and lay out various snacks. He set out bottles of wine he had picked up at Starbase Kappa. He also had flavored waters cooling on a sideboard, and various hot liquids on the other side of the room.

He wore his dress uniform. He posted two guards inside the room as a show of force, and had several others standing by. But he still planned to meet the woman and Al-Nasir with only Perkins at his side.

He adjusted everything as he waited, the bottles of wine, the dishes, even the chairs. He had the screens on so that he could monitor the repair room. He would watch the woman make her way to the briefing room, as if her movements might give him a clue to her personality.

It unnerved him that he knew nothing about her. He wasn’t even certain of her name. Perkins called her cagey, as if she thought about every statement, and he got the sense that Perkins didn’t much like her.

Her team seemed to respect her, though, and it didn’t seem to be a respect based on fear.

He had to trust that as well.

He knew her voice better than anything else. He had listened to her conversation with Perkins in the communications array with the linguists. The conversation showed confusion, but it also showed thought.

And it had caught everyone’s attention when the woman used the phrase “Dignity Vessel.”

Dignity Vessel was the original name of the ships in the Fleet. The name came from the Fleet’s original mission, to bring peace and dignity throughout the known universe.

The Fleet never did bring peace. They focused more on justice. And they did try to restore dignity where there was none.

But they didn’t call themselves Dignity Vessels, although the words were still part of the ships’ identification numbers. That these people knew what Dignity Vessels were gave Coop hope that less time had passed than he feared.

A movement caught his eye.

The outsiders had entered the repair room, all seven of them, none of them in environmental suits. The woman looked different. She wore something flowing, a dresslike top over a pair of tight-fitting pants. Her shoes remained practical, however.

Her companion, Al-Nasir, wore a white shirt and black pants, almost looking like a member of Coop’s crew in casual dress. Everyone else on the team dressed as they had before, as if they expected to work.

The five who would stay in the repair room wore their masks. The woman and Al-Nasir did not.

Coop watched them, no longer pacing.

The other problem he had with this meeting was one of intent. He knew what he needed from her. He needed to know who she was, and who her people were. But that was secondary to the history lesson she could give him.

He had never gone into a meeting like this needing something. Usually he’d been the mediator or the person who could grant someone else’s wishes.

This time, the woman had that control.

She could leave at any moment, and take her answers with her.

And he had no idea how—or even if—he could stop her.

FIFTY-SEVEN

I feel like an idiot. Ilona and the historians convinced me to dress as if I were meeting with the head of the Vaycehnese government, which I have. I brought one very dressy outfit (which, honestly, is all I own), for just that sort of meeting, and now I’m wearing it in the room I should be exploring.

I miss my environmental suit. I feel more like myself when I wear that.

I’m not carrying my laser pistol, although we discussed it. I don’t want to go into this meeting armed. Al-Nasir and I are already outnumbered just by the lieutenant and her people. If there are more—and there is at least one, this mysterious captain—then we’re seriously outnumbered.

A laser pistol won’t save me.

I am, however, carrying Karl’s knife. It’s strapped around my waist. I doubt they’ll let me bring it inside the ship, but I’m going to try. I’m going to tell them it’s ceremonial, which it is. I keep the knife close, for sentimental reasons and as a reminder that things can go wrong.

We’re inside the room. The others are going to wait. Seager and Quinte will guard the door. They’re to leave as quickly as they can if it looks like thing: have gone badly. Rea, DeVries, and Kersting will continue our not-so-great investigation of the room. I’m sure they’ll attract minders, and that’s all right

Al-Nasir stands beside me. He keeps rubbing the palms of his hands together. He’s afraid he’ll screw up the translations. I figure if the conversation doesn’t seem to be going well, I’m going to leave. The Dignity Vessel people can try to stop me if they want to. But I’ve asked for respect, and I’m going to continue to demand it.

I wish we had a translation program, too, but my people couldn’t put one together yet. I’m rather astonished that the Dignity Vessel people have. Stone believes—and I actually agree—that this is a sign of a full complement of crew on the ship itself. If five people work on something, they, by definition work slower than fifty. A group doesn’t have downtime. They can work more efficiently.

The ship’s door opens as we approach. The staircase lowers, and then two men in those black uniforms emerge. They walk to the base of the stairs and move to the side. Either they’re going to guard the ship or they’re going to escort us.

They each extend a hand. The person on the right extends his right hand and the person on the left extends his left. It’s choreographed, formal, and immediately sets a tone.

Ilona was right to make me dress up—much as I hate it.

“You ready?” I ask Al-Nasir.

He nods, then takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. We head into the ship, me first.

We’d argued about that. Everyone wanted me to go second, as if that makes a difference. If something goes wrong, I’m going to be in the same amount of trouble whether I hit the danger first or I hit it second.

Besides, my going first shows leadership, and that’s what I need to do here.

As I put my foot on the first stair, my heart rate increases. I am going inside a working Dignity Vessel.

The first time I went inside one, I had to lower myself through a hatch, with all of my suit lights on. I felt like a tourist then, nervous on her first dive, and Squishy warned me that I’d get the gids.

She was right.

If I were wearing a suit, I’d have the gids now.

I step inside the door into the airlock. It’s familiar and unfamiliar. We have this part of the ship on two different Dignity Vessels, but neither of those vessels work. Here there are lights in places I don’t expect them, circular lights on either side that are clearly assessing me and the kind of threat I pose.

Al-Nasir comes up beside me, and as he does, the door closes. The lights grow brighter.

The interior door opens, revealing a bright corridor and the lieutenant, standing just inside it. She’s wearing her black uniform, her hands clasped behind her back.

She’s nervous, too.

With the lights on and the environmental system working, the corridor seems bigger than it actually is. This one now holds me, Al-Nasir, the lieutenant, and two guards.

“Welcome,” she says, speaking a Standard so clear that it startles me.

“Thank you,” I say.

She smiles. “Please come with me.”

She’s practiced this part. That’s all right. I’ve practiced a few phrases too. I hope I can pull it off.

We walk too quickly through the corridor. I want to go slowly, like we would if we were diving.

I want to mark each intersection, take note of every turn. I want to examine doorways and the ceiling, and figure out exactly what the glowing panels are.

Our feet tap against the floor. The sound seems odd, dampened somehow, not at all what I’m used to when I go into one of the Dignity Vessels.

We go up two levels. I make a map in my head, compare it to what I know. We’re heading toward the cockpit, but I have a hunch we’re not going there. We’re going to one of two large rooms that I believe to be conference rooms. One is just off the cockpit, and I can’t imagine a captain bringing strangers there.

The other is one level down, and several meters away. That’s the one I would use, and as we turn right, that’s the one we’re headed to.

I don’t say anything. I’m too busy looking at things—the black walls, just like the walls in the caves; the writing that is missing in my Dignity Vessels; and the cleanliness that comes from constant maintenance.

None of the ships we’ve found have these smooth black walls. I suspect that beneath them is the gray metal we’re used to, with the rivets and the welded parts. This blackness is something new, or it’s something that doesn’t last when a ship loses power for centuries.

We reach the door to the conference room. The door is closed. There are no guards outside it.

The lieutenant stops and looks at me.

“The captain wants to have only four of us inside,” she says slowly.

“All right,” I say.

Then she swings the door open and waits until we go in.

I step in first.

The room is nothing like I imagined it to be. Only the dimensions remain the same as the rooms I’ve seen in the other two Dignity Vessels.

This room has a table down the center, so well polished that I can see my own reflection. A dozen chairs are bolted to the floor, and there are actual sideboards. The walls show an unfamiliar skyscape, but that’s no painting. It’s a recorded image being shown on the screens that encase us.

A man stands at the head of the table. He’s surprisingly tall and broad shouldered, with dark hair that touches his collar. His eyes are blue, his features sharp.

He doesn’t have the thinness of someone raised in space. He’s muscular with strong bones, certainly not something I would have expected, even though the lieutenant doesn’t look space-raised either.

He bows slightly to me. “Welcome,” he says in Standard, mangling the word so badly that I almost don’t recognize it.

“Thank you,” I say in his language. I’m probably mangling that phrase as badly as he mangled “Welcome,” but I don’t mind. The phrase brings a smile to his face, one that softens his features.

He greets Al-Nasir personally, and Al-Nasir answers. Then the captain offers us refreshments from the sideboard. There are baked goods I do not recognize, carafes of something that looks like wine, and a variety of fruits and cold vegetables.

He lets one of his hands linger near a carafe. I nod. He picks up a glass, pours an amber liquid for me, another for Al-Nasir, and hands them to us. Then he pours two more, one for himself and one for the lieutenant.

Apparently the polite customs are the same in both of our cultures.

He indicates the chairs near the table. The lieutenant sits, then looks pointedly at Al-Nasir. He sits near her.

The captain stands near the head of the table. He says very slowly, “My name is Jonathon Cooper. I am captain of this ship. People call me Coop.”

His nickname. “Coop,” I say, careful to pronounce it the same way. “People call me Boss.”

He pulls out his chair and sits. I sit at the same time, taking the chair to his right.

“Boss,” he says as he sits. “Lieutenant—” And then he says that word I can’t quite understand, clearly her name. “—is not sure Boss is your name or your title.”

“Both,” I say.

He doesn’t understand that, but she does. She repeats it to him.

He replies in his own language and looks at me. I don’t understand a word, but she is able to translate.

“They call you by your title?”

“I prefer it,” I say.

The conversation is slow as the translations go back and forth, but it feels right, as if he and I are actually talking. I glance at Al-Nasir. He nods. He’s understanding us both so far.

The captain says through the lieutenant’s translation, “Surely you understand my position. As commander of this ship, I cannot call someone else Boss.”

I shrug. I expected this. “Then call me what you will.”

His lips twist into a slight smile, and the game is on. He now knows I’m only going to tell him what I want to tell him and nothing more.

“Fahd Al-Nasir will do his best to translate for me,” I say.

No one has said anything about my knife, which surprises me.

“I have a team of linguists monitoring the conversation,” the captain says. “They might be able to assist if we need it.”

“A team of linguists,” I say. “I am impressed. How large is your crew?”

“Five hundred strong,” he says.

Five hundred. The number staggers me.

“We guessed perhaps a hundred,” I say.

“You’ve never encountered one of our ships before?” he asks.

I’m going to be as honest as I can with him, unless I believe some of the information is not to our advantage. “Not a working vessel,” I say.

He frowns. That answer clearly disturbs him. “How many of our ships have you encountered that don’t work?”

“Five,” I say.

“Five,” he repeats, then holds out his open hand. “Five?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Do they have any crew?” he asks.

I study him for a moment. He expects Dignity Vessels to have a crew. I expect them to be abandoned and ruined. Something is quite off here.

“No,” I say. “They have all been abandoned.”

The lieutenant touches her ear. She repeats my word again. Clearly the linguists are working on it.

“They’re empty,” I say to him. “The ones I find are derelicts.”

The lieutenant looks at me, her face a little slack, not from the linguists nattering in her ear, but from my words.

“Empty,” she repeats. “Destroyed?”

“A couple of them,” I say. “I don’t know if they were ruined by time or by some kind of battle.”

“You found them all in the same area of space?” she asks, her Standard fluid.

“No,” I say.

She looks away from me, blinks hard, and frowns. The captain says her name sharply. She nods but doesn’t look at him. Then she swallows visibly.

My words have disturbed her.

The captain asks her something in their language. Al-Nasir answers, slowly, trying to translate my words.

The lieutenant raises her hand, as if asking for a moment. Her palm is shaking.

She then turns to the captain and speaks rapidly. Al-Nasir leans forward as if he’s trying to understand.

The captain’s frown deepens, and he looks at me. He says something to the lieutenant, clearly meaning for her to translate.

“How long abandoned?” she asks.

“We don’t know exactly,” I say.

She repeats this. The captain speaks. She translates: “You have a guess.”

I shrug a shoulder. This seems momentous to them.

“Please,” he says to me in Standard. “Please.”

That moves me more than I expect. Beneath this show of diplomatic courtesy, beneath the rigid military behavior, beneath the patience of the past two weeks lives panic.

I have just tapped into it.

And I think I’m about to make it worse.

“My guess is based on what little we know about Dignity Vessels,” I say. “We believe they’re legend. Myth.”

The lieutenant translates. The captain looks surprised. He narrows his eyes and looks at me. Then he nods, asking me to continue.

Maybe the mood in the room is catching, because I’m suddenly nervous. “The ships we’ve found are at least five thousand years old.”

The lieutenant doesn’t translate. She tilts her head and looks at me as if I’m crazy. I feel crazy.

“I know it sounds impossible,” I say. “We have no evidence that the Dignity Vessels could travel more than fifty light-years from Earth. But clearly you’re here, and they got here, and something enabled you to get here. But we’ve done studies on all of the ships we’ve found—not just us, but the Empire, too, and we know those ships are at least five thousand years old, maybe older.”

She still doesn’t translate. Her mouth is open slightly.

The captain says her name. She doesn’t respond. He says her name again, then touches her shoulder. He says something else.

Al-Nasir leans into me. “He’s asking her if she needs to leave, if they need to bring in someone else.”

She’s shaking her head. She rubs a hand over her mouth, squares her shoulders just like Al-Nasir did before we got on the ship, and then she speaks for several minutes to the captain.

He repeats a phrase a couple times. I don’t need Al-Nasir to tell me that the captain is asking about my numbers, about that five thousand years.

He turns to me, his lips thin, his eyes steely. He’s not angry. He’s not upset like the lieutenant is. But he’s disturbed and trying to hide it.

He asks something with a great deal of intensity, the words sharp and hard.

“How long has this base been empty?” the lieutenant asks slowly, as if she’s afraid of my answer.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“What do they say in—?” and then she uses a phrase I’ve never heard. Before I can ask her to clarify, Al-Nasir says, “Vaycehn. She’s asking about Vaycehn.”

“What do they say about the base in Vaycehn?” I ask. “They have no idea it’s here.”

The captain speaks without her. “You know.”

I understand him. He’s not commenting. He’s asking. How did I know the base was here?

I try to think of a way to answer him, one that will be understandable without a lot of explaining in languages neither of us completely understand.

“We didn’t know,” I say. “This place surprised us.”

That much is true. I brace myself for the next question, trying to figure out how to explain energy signatures and death holes and all of those problems in a way that the lieutenant and those unseen linguists could understand.

The captain asks his question, and the lieutenant translates.

“How long has—Vaa-zen—been here?” she asks, mispronouncing Vaycehn.

“Here?” I ask. “On Wyr? This planet?”

She nods.

“It’s the oldest city in the sector,” I say, stalling because I know instinctively that he’s not going to like the answer. “Vaycehn has been here more than five thousand years.”

FIFTY-EIGHT

Five thousand years. The woman who wouldn’t tell him her real name kept saying five thousand years.

The woman watched him, concern on her face. Coop had a hunch she understood more than she was saying. Al-Nasir had his hands clasped, his forehead creased with worry.

And Perkins fidgeted beneath the table, having as much difficulty as Coop, but in a different area. She believed the number.

He did not.

Five thousand years just wasn’t possible. At least that was what his logical brain told him.

But his subconscious kept whispering that five thousand years was possible. The anacapa could have malfunctioned badly. No one knew exactly where it would take people when it did malfunction. That was the danger of the Fleet vessels.

Coop shook his head slightly, banishing that thought which snuck into his mind. He wasn’t going to deal with that, not now.

He had another problem to deal with first.

“She keeps saying the same phrase over and over,” he said to Perkins. “You’re translating that as five thousand years. Are you sure you’re right?”

She looked at him. The terror in her eyes was answer enough. But she said through her comm link, “Please check that phrase through the system again.”

Coop had already told the linguists this conversation would have to remain secret. But he wasn’t sure about something this big. It would be hard for anyone to keep it secret.

If the translation was right.

“It’s a fairly simple phrase,” the lieutenant said. “And their word for ‘thousand’ is remarkably similar to our word.”

“You told me that similar words could make people misunderstand languages. It’s a common mistake, you said.”

She nodded. “I’m not sure how to check this.”

He knew how to check it. The woman and Al-Nasir were watching closely. Coop picked up a pad from the sideboard and typed in the number: 5,000.

Then he slid the pad to the woman. “Is this the number?”

She bit her lower lip, then looked up at him. He knew the answer before she spoke.

“Yes.”

He ran a hand over his face. Five thousand years was impossible. Five thousand years forward. The Fleet might not exist anymore. She said it was a legend, that they had only found ships without their crew, long empty.

Not abandoned. Maybe no longer useful.

Maybe no longer in use at all.

He stood up, clasped his hands behind his back, not so much to prevent them from shaking—although he needed to do that as well—but to make sure he stayed calm.

Five thousand years.

He took a deep breath. He couldn’t settle the conundrum of five thousand years right now. But he still had a few questions for the woman.

He turned. She was watching him, her body tense. She clearly wasn’t afraid of him, but it was also clear that she wanted to be prepared for anything.

“Why were you here?” he asked. “What made you come to the sector base?”

Perkins had to translate. She seemed relieved to be talking again.

The woman said, “It’s complicated. The short version is that we came because of the stealth technology.”

“Are you sure you got that right?” he asked Perkins. “Did she say stealth technology?”

“Yes,” Perkins said.

“Ask her to explain,” he said.

The woman talked for a moment, waving her hands, indicating the ship itself. Coop silently cursed his lack of understanding. The language barrier was worse than he expected, but why wouldn’t it be, with five thousand years between him and this woman? It was amazing they could talk at all.

“I think I have this right,” Perkins said to him when the woman was finished. “The old Fleet ships that she has found give off an energy signature that they call stealth technology. They call it that because they believe it’s a cloaking device that the Dignity Vessels have.”

“The anacapa,” he said softly.

Perkins nodded. “I think so. She says that it was unusual to find the signature underground, but they came down to investigate, and found the room.”

“Does she live in Venice City?”

“No,” Perkins said.

“So what brought her here?” Coop asked. “How did she even know the signature existed? And why now? If it’s the anacapa, the signature has been here for five thousand years.”

Perkins repeated the question. The woman looked nervous for a moment. She glanced at Al-Nasir as if silently asking him a question. He shrugged.

The woman was clearly deciding what to tell Coop, and she was making that decision on her own.

“What remains of the stealth technology is malfunctioning,” she said so slowly that Perkins was able to simultaneously translate. “The malfunctions are not as big a problem in space because a person actually has to go into an empty Dignity Vessel to encounter it. But here, in Vaycehn, the stealth technology is causing something the locals call ‘death holes.’”

“Death holes,” Coop said to Perkins. “That’s the phrase? You’re certain?”

Perkins nodded, then asked the woman to clarify. This time, the woman spoke for a moment before Perkins translated.

“As best I can understand it,” Perkins said, “something goes wrong, and a wave of energy explodes out of the base, blowing a hole in the surface. Then the nanobits coat that hole, and a new part of what she calls the caves are formed. The problem is that no one on the surface knows when or where a death hole will happen. Holes just open up and suck people and buildings into them.”

“My God.” Coop understood the phenomenon the woman described. It was the way the base got built. The base engineers would pick a spot, then start the nanoprocess on the surface, guiding it with their equipment and burrowing into the ground or a mountainside or wherever the base was supposed to go. Then the nanobits would coat the surface, so that nothing could leak or fall or create problems.

The system was supposed to remain self-repairing, even after the shutdown, so no one could get trapped in the base. But it wasn’t supposed to malfunction. It wasn’t supposed to do this.

“How long has this been going on?” he asked.

The woman shrugged. “Throughout Vaycehn’s known history.”

Someone shut down the base wrong, or something went awry and never got fixed. He should have been horrified—maybe he was, beneath it all, beneath the shock of five thousand years—but he was actually a bit relieved.

“We can fix this,” he said to the woman.

“Good,” she said, and he actually understood that word. Then she spoke a bit longer, and Perkins had to translate. “Do you mean you can stop the problems here on Vaycehn or can you help us with the malfunctioning Dignity Vessels as well?”

Dignity Vessel. That term still startled him. “One problem at a time. We can stop the death holes.”

“Then you need to know something else,” the woman said through Perkins. “The worst death hole in centuries happened when your ship appeared.”

He frowned. That made things more complicated. The problem was tied to the anacapa, as he had thought initially.

“My engineers will need to see this, and all the records,” he said. That would also get his people on the surface, gathering history so that they could figure out what exactly happened to Venice City.

“There’s one more problem,” she said. “The people of Vaycehn don’t know that you’re here.”

Something in her voice made him stop. He looked at her, really looked at her. She was worried now, maybe even frightened.

“Why don’t they know about us?” he asked.

She glanced at Al-Nasir. He was biting his lower lip so hard that it was starting to bleed. Something was going on here, something Coop didn’t understand.

“We’re a group of scientists, explorers, and academics,” the woman said. “We’re here to study the phenomenon. You were a surprise.”

“Clearly,” Coop said.

“Politically, this is all complicated,” she said.

He shrugged. “Why should that matter to me?”

“It shouldn’t, I guess,” she said. “You can come and go as you please. But I would request that you don’t leave until we figure out how to solve the death hole problem.”

Coop nodded. “We will,” he said. “It won’t take much to fix it.”

“Good.” She sighed. “Otherwise, the minute you leave, more people will die up there.”

“That seems to make it more imperative that they learn about us,” he said. “They’ll know that their long-standing problem will be solved.”

“But it will create a new one,” she said, “one that might cost infinitely more life.”

He sat back down and waited for her to explain.

FIFTY-NINE

How do you explain five thousand years of history succinctly? How do you describe the sector as it is, without sounding overly dramatic? I glance at Al-Nasir, who looks terrified. My heart is pounding hard, my mouth dry. I somehow did not expect this to be an issue.

I didn’t expect any of it, really. For some reason, I thought the Dignity Vessel was a modern ship, with modern experiences, part of the Fleet that continued on and had somehow got called back here.

I didn’t expect the captain’s shock at five thousand years. I expected him to be surprised by distance, yes, but not by time.

The captain sits across from me, his emotions now so deeply under control that his features are smooth. He watches me with those intense blue eyes. The lieutenant keeps glancing at him, as if she can’t tell his mood either.

All my study of history has taught me that there’s a right side to history and a wrong side. No matter where these people are from—somewhere far away, but part of our timeline, or somewhere from the dark and distant past, brought here through that malfunctioning stealth tech somehow, in a reverse of what happened to my mother and my teammates—these people are not part of our history. They don’t understand the details, the agreements, the deaths, the dangers.

Those things don’t really matter to them.

And I want this to matter.

“Can you translate what I have to say in parts?” I ask the lieutenant. “I don’t want you to miss anything.”

She nods.

I look at Al-Nasir. “I need you to help her as best you can,” I say. “And help me.”

He nods.

The captain looks at the lieutenant, and she translates what I’ve said. Then I take a deep breath and begin.

“Much of this sector is part of the Enterran Empire,” I say. “Vaycehn is part of that Empire. My people are not.”

I feel my stomach twist as I say this. We haven’t told anyone on Wyr who we really are.

“We’re part of the Nine Planets Alliance,” I say. “The Nine Planets have an unstated truce with the Empire at the moment. Eventually, it will try to swallow us up.”

I pause so she can translate. He doesn’t move, and he keeps his gaze on me.

“The Empire is what the Empire is,” I say. “I don’t like it, but I don’t aim to bring it down. I grew up in it. And, at the time, I didn’t really notice parts of it. It’s just big and wants to get bigger.”

I glance at Al-Nasir. He shakes his head. It’s impossible to say all of this without sounding ridiculous.

“It shouldn’t get bigger,” I say. “The bigger it gets, the more unwieldy it is, the less it knows what its governors and leaders in the various communities are doing. People become less important—”

I stop. I’m about to go into a rant about a subject the captain knows nothing about. He probably doesn’t even care. He only wants to know how it would affect him.

That’s what I would want to know.

That’s what I used to want to know about the Empire, before I learned about stealth tech. I just operated small, stayed out of their way, and didn’t let them notice me. I figured as long as they didn’t notice me, I wouldn’t matter.

I didn’t realize that I had already lost my mother to their desire for stealth tech. I didn’t realize that when I was as young as four, the Empire’s reach completely altered my life.

I glance at the lieutenant, who is waiting for me to continue. I sigh, then shake my head slightly, mostly at myself.

“I can give you history lessons all that you want,” I say in a less strident tone, “and you can figure out how you feel about the Empire and the Alliance, and all the politics in the middle of it, which probably will not matter to you at all. What matters to me is this.”

I pause here so that she can translate. Also, I get to choose my words as I get deeper into the discussion.

“The Empire wants your stealth technology. They’ve been trying to recreate it in the lab for more than one hundred years. The Empire’s scientists kept doing it wrong. They’ve lost, I don’t know, dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of researchers and scientists to these experiments. People die in rather hideous ways.”

I don’t tell him about Vallevu, settled by survivors who keep waiting for the scientists to return, or Squishy, who sees her work with us as a penance for all the people she inadvertently killed working for the Empire. I can’t make it understandable.

“Years ago,” I say, “I found a Dignity Vessel. It had malfunctioning stealth tech, and it killed some of my people.”

I stop, unable to explain all the complicated emotions—my initial unwillingness to destroy history; the way that ship started everything, my entire current life, with all of its ups and downs.

“It’s a long story, too,” I say, “but eventually that ship got into the hands of the Empire, and they started using it in their stealth-tech experiments. They even re-created some parts of stealth tech through the ship, and through the Room of Lost Souls.”

The lieutenant repeats the phrase, “Room of Lost Souls,” asking me what that means.

I shrug. “I’m sorry. I think it’s an old base. It has stealth tech too.”

She nods, then translates for me.

The captain frowns at her, then shakes his head. They’re not sure what I’m talking about.

“Okay,” I say. “Here’s the thing important to us. If the Empire gets stealth tech, they’re unstoppable. They’ll take over the rest of the sector and then move on to other areas. Right now, they’re limited in their resources and through their own abilities. They can’t fight every single enemy they encounter. Their ships are too vulnerable. Stealth tech will allow them to encircle a planet and launch an attack without anyone even knowing they’ve arrived.”

The captain frowns as if he doesn’t understand any of this. The lieutenant has been speaking slowly. So have I. I touch Al-Nasir’s arm, then nod toward the lieutenant.

“Is the translation going right?” I ask softly.

“I think so,” he says. “She seems to be doing okay. The Room of Lost Souls threw her.”

“A lot of this is throwing me,” the lieutenant says to me. “I’m doing what I can. We are still new at the language.”

“Yes, we are,” I say, then look at the captain again.

His gaze meets mine. I’m startled at the power in that gaze. I feel a slight flush build in my cheeks.

“Look,” I say to him as clearly as I can. “If we discover how stealth tech works first, ‘we’ meaning my people, we’ll be distributing it throughout the sector. That way the balance of power remains the same. The Empire doesn’t have the ability to suddenly take over a planet or an area of the sector. We remain on equal terms.”

“No,” he says, even before the lieutenant finishes. He speaks quickly to her.

She shrugs, then looks at me.

My flush has grown deeper. “They’ll try to take your ship,” I say. “If they find this room, it’s one more gigantic piece in the puzzle. They have good people working on this, and eventually they’ll figure it out. The entire—”

He holds up a hand and stops me. “Let me speak to my people,” he says, and walks out of the conference room.

SIXTY

They didn’t understand the anacapa drive. At all.

Coop walked down the corridor, unable to stay in the room for another minute. The woman, clearly intelligent, was speaking to him as if the anacapa drive was a simple cloak, and it wasn’t.

The Fleet used it to avoid fighting. From the perspective of the foe fighting the Fleet, the anacapa could be the best cloak ever. The ship would disappear, and never show up on scans.

But it was so much more than that, and so much more difficult. Traveling through foldspace was perilous, as he well knew.

And these people—if that woman was to be believed—were playing with the technology as if it were a simple cloak.

No wonder so many were dying.

The corridors were empty per his orders, except for the guards he had stationed near the doors. He walked all the way to the bridge, where Lynda was leading his team. Dix glared at him over the console. Anita straightened her shoulders, trying to look taller, which she often did when she was nervous.

Yash’s level gaze met his.

“I need you to send your best people into the sector base,” he said. “The anacapa is malfunctioning. It’s occasionally sending out streams of energy that are so strong they’re blowing through rock and opening holes on the surface. At least that’s what the woman is telling me.”

“It would explain the strange map we got of the facility once the sensors came back online,” Yash said.

“That’s what I thought,” Coop said. “I want you to check on this, of course, but it would explain a lot. It would also explain how we got here, whenever here is.”

Yash nodded. “A buildup of energy in the systems. I’ll put someone right on it.”

Coop nodded. “Dix, I’m going to need a team. At least a dozen soldiers, you, me, and Rossetti. I need them ready in half an hour.”

“Are we in some kind of trouble, sir?” Dix asked, suddenly formal.

“I’m not sure,” he said.

“The woman and her translator, are we holding them?” Dix asked.

Coop shook his head. “They’re going to take us to the surface. They just don’t know that yet.”

“You want a landcar ready, sir?” Dix asked. “We’re a long way underground, and the emergency lift doesn’t work.”

“I know,” Coop said. “But if the anacapa is malfunctioning badly, I’m not sure what added energy from our landcar would do. I’d rather not risk that at the moment. We’ll either use the woman’s transportation or we’ll walk.”

“Getting out—”

“Will be hard, I know,” Coop said. “We might have to come back for the car. But there are too many questions here, and I need them answered before we go any further.”

“What’s going on, sir?” Anita was having trouble remaining still. She wanted to be part of this as well.

“I’m not sure,” Coop said. “I’m hoping this woman is lying to me. Because if she’s not…”

He let his words trail off. He shook his head.

“If she’s not?” Lynda asked. They all needed to know.

“We’re in trouble,” Coop said. “And the situation we landed in is a real mess. Maybe the worse we’ve ever encountered.”

“Is it our business, sir?” Dix asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” Coop said. “But I’m terrified that it might be.”

“Terrified?” Anita asked, her voice trembling.

He looked at her. He realized he had never used that word, not once, in his entire command.

“Terrified,” he confirmed. Then he nodded once and left the bridge.

SIXTY-ONE

I sit there, my mouth open. The captain has just left. I’m not even sure what he’s understood, what he’s really been told.

Al-Nasir is sitting stiffly beside me. The lieutenant gets up. She sweeps a hand toward the food. We haven’t touched any of it.

I get up as well. I haven’t left the table since we started this discussion.

“What was the last thing you told him?” I ask as I reach for a pastry. It looks fresh and home baked, and I even recognize the form. Some things do move from culture to culture. “Did you tell him that the Empire would try to take his ship?”

She smiles at me distractedly. She takes a pastry, too, then waves a plate at Al-Nasir. He shakes his head once.

She sets her plate in front of her place, as if we’re at a formal dinner.

“No one can take this ship,” she says.

I frown. “We’ve found a lot of damaged Dignity Vessels.”

“You do not know if they were damaged by time or by someone else.”

“You have weapons scoring on the side of your ship.”

She blinks at me. For a moment, I think she’s going to pretend she doesn’t understand. Then I realize she’s listening to a link in her ear. Someone has confirmed the translation for her.

She nods. “They did not take our ship, did they?”

I set my plate down, then walk back to my seat. But I don’t sit. Instead, I take a sip of the wine. It’s strong, too strong for a business meeting. I set the glass aside, then go back to the sideboard for some water.

I am moving because it keeps me calm. I want to try the door, to see if Al-Nasir and I are prisoners here, but I do not. I said some alarming things to their captain. Perhaps he is checking on them. Perhaps he is consulting with their people. Perhaps he is checking the translations. I don’t know, but I’m going to give him a little time. Not a lot, but enough to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I hold up a pitcher, silently offering Al-Nasir some water. He nods. I pour him a glass as well, then give it to him. His hands are shaking.

“So what is going on here?” I ask the lieutenant.

“I’m not exactly sure,” she says.

“And if you were sure,” I say, “you wouldn’t tell me, right?”

“I do not know,” she says. “It would depend on my orders.”

She’s honest, at least.

I take a sip of my water, which has a filtered taste. I don’t try the pastry, not yet. I did sound melodramatic, telling him about the Empire. He has no way to confirm what I’ve said, either. It would sound as strange to me as the stories I heard about the Colonnade Wars when I was searching for information about one of their generals, years ago. Something that didn’t concern me, except in the way that it had just intersected with my life.

The door opens, and the captain comes back. His cheeks are flushed, his eyes radiant. He looks like a man who has come to some kind of decision.

I set the water glass down so that my hands don’t shake. I want to be prepared for anything.

His gaze meets mine, and he speaks with more animation than I’ve seen from him. The lieutenant translates.

“I’m sending a team to fix what you call the death holes. It shouldn’t take long. It’s a relatively common malfunction that we usually have safeguards for. Clearly all of the safeguards have failed.”

“Clearly,” I mutter. A common malfunction that kills a lot of people.

“What I need from you,” he says, “is guidance. I’m taking a team to the surface. I want you, Al-Nasir, the lieutenant, and I to accompany them. I need to see this Vaycehn myself.”

My breath catches. In my shock, I note that he actually said “Vaycehn” and pronounced it correctly.

Al-Nasir speaks before I do. He’s shaking his head as he does so, speaking in their language. I know what he’s saying. I walk over to him and place my hand on his arm. The protest should come from me.

“Captain, if you go to the surface, you jeopardize my team, my work, and this room, as well as your ship.”

“You have told me that they do not know we’re down here,” he says.

“And suddenly a military force climbs out of the hole?” My voice rises. “They’ll know then.”

I make myself take a deep breath as the lieutenant translates my words. Before she finishes, I add, much more calmly, “Al-Nasir and I will take you and the lieutenant to the surface. We’ll leave two of our people here, and hope the guides don’t notice the difference. We’ll show you around, and you can see for yourself—”

The captain is shaking his head before the lieutenant even tries to translate. Either he understands what I’m saying or he knew I was going to protest and is prepared for it.

The lieutenant gamely tries to translate, but he talks over her.

“I am sorry,” he says, and this time, it’s Al-Nasir translating for me. “But I cannot rely just upon your word. I have problems of my own that the Fleet needs to know about. I need to know where and when I am. My ship is in no danger, and we will be fine.”

I start to protest when the lieutenant’s translation gets to “my ship is in no danger.”

I say, “You have no idea what the Empire can do.”

“If what you tell me is true,” he says, “then we have nothing to worry about from your Empire. My ship can take care of itself.”

I flush. What I’m telling him is true, and something I said made him leave. Not, then, that the Empire would try to take his ship. Something about stealth technology.

“What did I say earlier that caused this decision?” I ask.

He tilts his head slightly. I can see him thinking about how to answer me. He’s weighing a few options. Then his mouth tightens and he nods, as if he’s picked an option.

He says in Standard, his words so clear the translator is redundant. “Five thousand years.”

There is an honesty to those words. I probably would have believed him even if I hadn’t seen his reaction to that number earlier. In spite of myself, I understand. I remember finding the first Dignity Vessel, not believing that it was what my eyes and my computer told me. No Dignity Vessel could have been in our sector of space, and yet there it was.

This captain doesn’t believe me in the same way I did not believe in that Dignity Vessel. He needs to know, and he will not stop until he gets answers.

Only he wants to do it right.

I understand that, too.

I also understand that I will not be able to change his mind.

I sigh.

“Give me five hours,” I say. “I need to get my people off Wyr before you get to the surface.”

“You have two,” he says, through the translator. “And I would like you and Al-Nasir to stay as we prepare.”

Even though the lieutenant couched that as a request, it is clearly not a request. We must stay. He doesn’t trust us, yet he needs us. We’re his guides to the surface.

“I will get you off planet if there is trouble,” he says.

“In your damaged ship?” I ask.

“The damage is repaired,” he says.

“There will be trouble,” I say. “So let Al-Nasir leave, too.”

“No, Boss,” Al-Nasir says. “You need me.”

“I can survive,” I say.

“It’s all right,” Al-Nasir says, even though we both know it is not. I had thought so little of him, and here he is, trying to protect me. He shouldn’t protect me. I need to take care of my people.

“Let me go to the room, at least, to get my people out of Vaycehn,” I say. “It would be better if you give us more time.”

“I am giving you as much time as I can,” the captain says. “And even that is too much if you are untrustworthy.”

I stare at him. I hate understanding this. I hate the realization that I would make the same requests.

“All right,” I say because I have no real choice. “Two hours. And this better work.”

SIXTY-TWO

I don’t look at anyone as I leave that room. I know my way out of this ship.

I’ve been inside several Dignity Vessels, and the structure of this one is no different from the others. I know my way to the door as if I had marked it in my diving suit.

The guards look alarmed, and I don’t care. Nor do I care if anyone is following me. I expect Al-Nasir to keep up. I’m sure we’re going to pick up other handlers along the way.

I reach the main door in only a few minutes. My hair flies around my face, and my breath is coming in rapid gasps. There are two female guards in front of the door, and a team of people talking to one side. They appear to be gathering equipment.

“Let me out,” I say to the guard in Standard. I don’t care that they can’t speak my language. They should understand my tone.

They answer with a phrase that I now know means “What?” or its equivalent.

I slam my hand against the door. “Out,” I say in what I think is Old Earth Standard.

The smaller guard looks at the other. She nods once and hits the release beside the door. It slides open, and I hurry into the airlock before the guards change their minds. I hear a commotion behind me, Al-Nasir yelling “Wait!” and against my better judgment, I do.

He’s running, and he finally reaches me, sweat pouring off his face, his shirt drenched. He’s not in the right kind of shape to keep up with me.

The door closes behind him, and the exterior door opens. I hurry down the steps.

The room is transformed. Dozens of people are inside, all wearing the black uniform of the Dignity Vessel. They’re underneath consoles, around consoles, near the back walls. In the very middle, a crowd has gathered, and something has risen out of the floor. They seem to be taking it apart.

My team is separate from all of the action, watching but not touching. Rea and DeVries are the deepest into the room, looking at that middle section as if they’ve never seen anything like it. Seager is near the door, and Quinte has moved toward the original console, the one that we had initially touched, her hands behind her back, staring at the blank screen.

All of the screens are off. In fact, it looks like the consoles are off as well. And the hum I’ve come to recognize as stealth tech is gone.

Kersting is the only member of my team who I don’t see immediately, but when I shout “Hey!” he appears from beside the ship.

“I need my team now! Right now!” I yell as I get close to the main door. A few people stop work and look over their shoulders at me. None of the rest of the ship’s people bother with me at all.

Seager looks alarmed, but doesn’t move since we’re coming to her. Quinte comes over, as does DeVries. Rea seems reluctant to leave the middle of the room.

“Now!” I yell again. I don’t think I’ve ever sounded this shrill in my life.

“Hurry!” Al-Nasir adds.

We gather near the door. If I look anything like Al-Nasir, I look panicked. His hair falls all over his face, his clothes are sweat-stained, and his face is flushed.

I wait until everyone is within hearing distance.

“The captain of this ship is sending a team to the surface in two hours, and we can’t stop them.”

“Oh, my God,” Quinte says.

“He can’t,” Kersting says at the same time.

“Doesn’t he know—?” Seager starts.

“Yes, he knows,” I snap. “He doesn’t care. I’ve already argued with him. They’re going. He gave us the gift of two hours. He could have gone right now.”

Al-Nasir looks at me in surprise at my use of the word “gift.” Apparently he thought I was angry about the two hours.

“I’m evoking our emergency procedures,” I say. “You have to get out of here now, and after you get out of the stealth-tech field, you need to contact all of our people on the surface. Tell them to drop whatever they’re doing, gather the equipment, and get the hell off Wyr. As soon as a group is assembled, take a ship and go to the Business. Make sure everyone is out of here. If you have to leave equipment behind, then do it. People are more important.’

“What about you?” Rea asks.

“I’m staying,” I say. “I’m going to escort them to the surface, and try to minimize this thing. After you’ve gotten out, send the hovercarts back down for us. We need to get to the surface, and I don’t think they’ll be using their own equipment to get us there. At least I hope not. So go, and don’t assume you have more than the two hours he gave us.”

“I’m staying, too,” Al-Nasir says. “She needs a translator.”

I shake my head but don’t argue.

Kersting frowns. “What about you and Fahd? Will we ever see you again?”

“The captain assures us he can get us to the Business. Pull out of orbit and wait for us at the rendezvous spot. If we haven’t arrived in three days, head home.”

Rea is shaking his head. “But—”

“The captain’s got a powerful ship, and he assures me they’ve fixed it. So I’m going to trust him. Think of it this way: I get to ride in a working Dignity Vessel.”

They all smile at that.

“Now get the hell out of here,” I say.

I actually give DeVries a little shove. Rea doesn’t have to be told twice. He pulls open the door and hurries through it. Quinte and Seager take off at a run. Kersting gives me a haunted look, then jogs out.

“Go,” I say to Al-Nasir.

“No,” he says.

We stand at the door and watch them run until we can’t see them anymore. I wish the captain had given us five hours. I wish he wasn’t going to the surface at all.

I hope to hell the Vaycehnese government doesn’t notice that we’re leaving like scared rabbits.

I hope to hell no one says a word to the Empire.

But I have a hunch my hopes are just that: hopes, and nothing more.

SIXTY-THREE

Coop’s land team was gathering near the doors, but Coop was still on the bridge, making final plans. He wished he hadn’t given the woman two hours. He should have stuck with one hour, but he hadn’t.

Still, she’d been incredibly panicked when she heard they only had two hours. She’d fairly flown off the ship, and her people had vanished instantly. She’d stayed, however. She didn’t come back inside the ship, choosing to wait and watch one of the teams fix the anacapa inside the base itself.

Al-Nasir had stayed with her. Coop was a bit surprised at that. He had worried that all of her people would leave. The fact that they didn’t led credence to her story—credence he wasn’t sure he wanted.

Dix was already below, preparing. Lynda was in the captain’s chair.

Coop signaled Yash. She had been monitoring the anacapa repairs from her station. She left it reluctantly.

“If this woman is right,” he said without preamble, “we might have to leave here quickly. We’re not going to be able to use the regular drive.”

The regular drive worked like any other ship’s drive. The Ivoire had left the sector base using the regular drive a little over a month before. The technicians inside the base had opened the base’s roof, and the Ivoire had floated out.

Even if the roof opening was working—and there was no guarantee that it was—Coop didn’t have a good map of Vaycehn. For all he knew, opening the roof would destroy entire neighborhoods and kill countless people.

“Given the problems with the base’s anacapa,” he said to Yash, “can we safely use ours?”

Yash frowned. “How soon?”

“Maybe later this afternoon,” he said.

“If we manage to finish the repairs to the base’s anacapa,” she said. “If the problem is as simple as we both think—and so far, my team has no reason to doubt that—then we should be able to activate our anacapa without any risk to anyone.”

“Not even us?” Coop asked softly. “We’re not going to be sent through the wrong fold in space again?”

“I’m not sure we went through the wrong fold in space this time,” Yash said. “But whatever malfunction brought us here shouldn’t repeat. We fixed our anacapa. I think it was both anacapa drives, malfunctioning in tandem, that caused the bulk of the problem.”

“You think or you hope?” Coop asked.

“I think,” she said, but she sounded doubtful. “I can go out there and help with the repairs.”

“Will it speed them along?” Coop asked.

She grinned like a kid who had gotten caught. Like everyone else, she wanted off the ship, even for a short time. “Probably not.”

He smiled. “Then you know what I’m going to say. We need you here.”

“We need you here, too,” she said. “It’s foolish for you to go to the surface. Dix and Rossetti can do just fine.”

“I know,” he said softly. “But I have to see this. I can’t work off supposition any longer.”

“You don’t trust your team?”

“Of course I do,” he said. “But if this woman is right…”

He let his voice trail off. He didn’t want to give voice to his thoughts. If the woman was right, then his life would never be the same. None of their lives would. And he would have to lead his people through this without too many breakdowns, without too much despair.

He needed to know first, not last. He needed to be prepared.

“Just make sure everything is functioning,” he said to Yash.

“It won’t be,” she said. “We still have a lot of work to do.”

“But not on the anacapa,” he said.

“Not on our anacapa, no,” she said. “I hope we don’t have a lot to do on the base’s either. But some of the secondary systems on the Ivoire still need work.”

“We can do that in space if we have to,” Coop said. “We do need the weapons systems online, however.”

She looked at him sharply. “You think we’ll need weapons?”

“We might,” he said. “I’m not sure what we’re facing.”

“Good God,” she said.

“I want all of the weapons working,” he said. “Even the minor ones. Especially the minor ones.”

Her face had paled. “You think we might do some shooting down here.”

“I doubt it,” he said, “but I want to be prepared for all possibilities.”

She put her hand on his arm. “Let the others go up there, Coop. It sounds more and more like this trip is completely inadvisable.”

He studied her for a moment. She cared about him, yes, but also she cared about the ship. She knew that in a moment of crisis, the last thing the ship would need would be a new commander.

“The trip has been inadvisable,” he said, “from the moment we listened to the Xenth about the Quurzod. We can’t change that. We’re here now, and I’m going to figure out what to do.”

“Even if it makes things worse?” she asked.

“It can’t make things worse,” he said. “No matter what way this goes, we’re only facing different degrees of the same problem.”

She was silent for a moment. Then she nodded.

“I hope you’re right,” she said, and returned to her post.

SIXTY-FOUR

I fidget in the center of the room. The engineers from the ship are working on something I’ve never seen before. I’ve seen the shell, though. It looks like part of the stealth tech we’ve seen on the various Dignity Vessels.

The shell is contained inside a part of the floor that rose up when the engineers started their work. They’re delving deep inside it, and of course, they’re speaking in a language I don’t understand.

Al-Nasir isn’t listening. He’s pacing. He keeps looking at the exterior door, his expression tight. I wonder if he’s regretting his decision to come with me. He could be on one of our ships, heading to the Nobody’s Business right now, and he knows it.

Safe, without any complications.

And God knows there are going to be complications.

At exactly two hours, the door to the ship opens. People step out, one at a time. They’re all wearing the black uniforms that I’d seen, and they all have a weapons belt around their hips. Their laser pistols—if indeed that’s what they have—-are smaller than ours, but they look just as lethal.

Everyone is expressionless. Soldiers, heading into battle.

Three, six, nine, twelve. More than I ever expected. My heart twists. What have I done?

What have I agreed to?

I always try to stay away from the military, and now I’m marching with them into a city that has done nothing to me except make me follow a few rules.

The lieutenant comes next, followed by the captain. As he comes down the stairs, he scans the room until he sees me. Our gazes lock.

He nods.

He looks so official in his black uniform with its gold trim. None of the other uniforms have as much gold trim, so his must show his rank somehow. His shoulders are square, his jaw set. He looks like a captain of legend, which, I suppose, he is.

I’m doing nothing to hide my qualms. I’m staring at all of those soldiers with complete dismay. Men, women, all of them staring straight ahead, all of them in some form of position, awaiting command.

I hate this.

He stops in front of me and bows a little. He speaks slowly, but I still don’t understand what he’s saying.

The lieutenant reaches his side, but before she can translate, Al-Nasir says, “He’s apologizing for inconveniencing us. He hopes that nothing will go wrong, and he’ll do everything in his power to make sure we’re all safe.”

“I’m sure the soldiers will guarantee that,” I mutter.

To my horror, the lieutenant translates my words.

The captain’s mouth thins, but he’s clearly not angry. “It’s a first-contact team,” he says through the lieutenant. “We bring a team like this whenever we’re faced with people we’ve never interacted with before.”

“And you come with them?” I ask. “Really? That’s not wise.”

“That’s not procedure,” he says. “But I have to see… .”

Her translation misses his wistful tone. He’s worried that I’m right. I wonder what he’ll do when he figures out that I am.

“Let’s go, then,” I say, and I lead. If I have to march with a group of soldiers, I’m not going to hide behind them.

“Please,” the lieutenant says, “stay in the center with us.”

“No,” I say, and walk to the door. I pull it open and step into the corridor. It looks normal to me. I’ve been in and out of here so many times that I’m used to it.

But I wonder what he’s seeing, what he’s feeling. Is this corridor normal for him? Is it unusual? Is it what he expected?

No one talks as we walk. When we reach the demarcation line between the stealth-tech field and the rest of the caves, I half expect to see Mikk and Roderick waiting for us.

But of course they aren’t. They’ve evacuated, just like everyone else.

For the first time, I realize just how alone Al-Nasir and I are. If something goes wrong, if the captain’s military proves hostile, we’re as good as dead.

I continue to walk and don’t look around. The hovercarts aren’t where we left them, but that’s also as it should be. If the hovercarts are still below, they’ll be just below the cave’s entrance.

I should have asked for someone’s weapon. I went into the Dignity Vessel unarmed, which means I’m unarmed now.

So is Al-Nasir. Everyone else has those laser pistols and a lot of determination.

My curiosity brought me here. From the moment I saw that first Dignity Vessel until the moment I walked on board the captain’s ship, I’ve been curious about the ships and their crews. Now I know. The military forces of legend aren’t romantic and sweet.

They’re as tough and dangerous as any military force.

As the Empire’s force.

And I’m leading them to the surface.

I only hope that my people have had enough time to get away.

SIXTY-FIVE

The woman set the pace faster than Coop would have liked. Had he set the pace, he would have lingered and examined the walls, noting that the lights lining the edge of the ceiling were gray with unbonded nanobits. He would have asked someone, maybe Dix, how that was even possible. The nanobits were black; how had they turned gray?

But he didn’t. He walked rapidly to keep up with her, just like the rest of his team did.

She didn’t like the team. He could tell that from the start. She didn’t greet them, didn’t talk to them, didn’t seem at all curious about them. That edge of panic she’d had since he had told her he was going to the surface remained.

The corridors looked familiar and unfamiliar. He’d been in a thousand corridors just like this, in various sector bases. The newer sector bases had smooth corridor walls like this, or the newer corridors had them, before someone went in and reprogrammed the nanobits to make some kind of art. The reprogrammings were limited in time, so that various artists had a chance to work. He never knew what he would see going through a corridor, from representational art to calligraphy to school projects by very young children.

What had been here when he left was long gone, no longer even remembered.

If she was right.

They rounded a corner and the light changed. Natural light filtered in with the lighting created by nanobits. The team wasn’t far from the opening.

They rounded one more corner, and there were four vehicles parked side by side.

His breath caught and he looked at the woman. She looked relieved to see them.

“Tell her to wait for us,” he said to the lieutenant.

He studied the vehicles. Flat, open, with bench seats and controls that looked primitive. He walked to the nearest, ran his hand along the edge, and shook his head slightly.

What had happened here? He had left a thriving community filled with scientists, engineers, and intellectuals, a community that used the cutting edge of the Fleet’s technology to build these caverns as well as the repair room, to keep the anacapa running and to create a city above.

He had returned to a place with technology that looked ancient and unwieldy, to people who did not speak his language and who thought energy spikes that blew holes in the ground were some kind natural phenomenon that they superstitiously called death holes.

“Coop?” Dix came up beside him. “She wants us to go up in these things?”

“I haven’t asked,” Coop said, “but since they’re the only vehicles here, I’d think the answer is yes.”

He walked around them and headed to the opening of the caves. The ladder remained, carved into the walls, just like he remembered. But the opening was twice as high as he remembered. That climb would tire all of them.

The woman spoke.

“She says you don’t want to do that,” the lieutenant said. “She did it a few weeks ago, and it exhausted her.”

Coop turned and looked at the woman. She had her arms crossed. “Did these vehicles fail?”

“There was a groundquake when we arrived.” The lieutenant didn’t even translate his comment. She had known this. “It destroyed their vehicles. She’s the one who climbed out for help.”

Coop watched the woman as Al-Nasir translated for her. She climbed out for help, even though her people looked fit. She didn’t command others to do the hard tasks. She did them herself.

She might not have a military force, but she acted like a leader.

He walked over to her, the lieutenant trailing him.

“Please,” he said in her language. Then he had to use his. “Sit beside me as we go to the surface.”

She didn’t take her gaze off his face as Al-Nasir translated for her. “Why?” she asked.

He wasn’t sure why. If he were to give a reason, he would say that he didn’t want her to go first to warn people on the surface, but that wasn’t the reason. Whether she was right about the five thousand years or not, something was very wrong at this place, and she had nothing to do with the wrongness.

He wanted her beside him because, even though they didn’t speak the same language, they had the same attitude toward the people under their command. It was a small bond, but it was the only one he had at the moment, and he valued it.

He didn’t say that. Instead, he said, “So you can explain what I’m seeing.”

She sighed and looked at the vehicles. Then she said, “I’m driving.”

“Perhaps she’d better show the rest of us how to drive these things,” Dix said softly to Coop.

He nodded. “We’re going to send a team up first,” he said to the woman. “Would you show Rossetti how to pilot this?”

The woman beckoned Al-Nasir, then walked with Rossetti to the vehicle closest to the opening. Both women leaned over the controls. The woman spoke as her hands illustrated her instructions.

“I got it,” Rossetti said to Coop. “It’s pretty straightforward.”

“You hope,” he said.

“You hope,” she said.

“Make sure there’s no one waiting for us up there,” he said. “If there is, and there are too many of them, come right back down.”

“Got it,” she said. She picked a team of three, and they climbed into the vehicle. Then she got in and started it. It immediately rose an inch above the ground. She did something that Coop couldn’t see and it wobbled precariously, then righted itself and floated slowly upward.

“Teams of four,” Coop said to the others. “Dix, you’re in the next vehicle.”

“Yes, sir,” Dix said.

“Perkins, you’re with me and our guests,” Coop said.

She nodded.

Everyone else got into the various vehicles. Dix’s vehicle slowly followed Rossetti’s. Then the next vehicle.

The woman climbed into the last vehicle, her hands moving with an expertise that none of his people showed. He shouldn’t have trusted her to do this, but he did. Even though he knew she could upend the entire vehicle and hurt both him and Perkins, or maybe even kill them.

Theirs was the only vehicle that floated up smoothly without a single wobble. The cave’s opening narrowed toward the top, but there was still plenty of room to go out.

The other vehicles had landed around the opening. Several of his people had gathered around two other people, preventing them from moving, maybe even detaining them.

The ground didn’t look the same; he remembered dozens of buildings here, vehicles, people. Now there was only one outbuilding, the opening, and a broad expanse of dirt.

“Can you ask her to take it high enough so that I can see the city?” Coop asked.

The lieutenant complied.

The woman let the vehicle rise even higher.

Along the mountainsides, he saw buildings, more than he could have imagined. The city had sprawled outward. He looked into the valley and saw some buildings, but not nearly as many as he expected.

But the ground itself was familiar. He knew the peaks on those mountains, recognized the orangish red color of the sky. The air smelled right—a mixture of dryness and something a little sweeter than any other place he had ever been.

His heart ached.

This was—or had been—Venice City. He was on Wyr. He recognized the mountains, the valley, this little bit of the planet itself.

But the city, the city was terrifyingly unfamiliar.

No city grew like that in a few years.

“What happened to the valley?” he asked through the lieutenant.

“Death holes,” the woman said. “I’m told it wasn’t safe to live in the old city any longer.”

Death holes. For centuries. The anacapa had been malfunctioning for centuries.

He was shaking. This was what he wanted—some kind of confirmation that the Venice City of his memory had become something else.

Years had clearly passed, but he had no way to know if there were eight hundred years or five thousand.

Although no military force awaited them. And, he realized, the woman had no reason to lie.

“You want me to go higher?” she asked through the lieutenant.

“No,” he said in her language. “Thank you.”

She moved the vehicle toward a landing spot and slowly brought it down.

He glanced at his team. Rossetti was standing on the edge of the landing area, staring at the city beyond. Dix was beside her. Four of his men had detained two heavyset men who were dressed in brown uniforms.

“Those two men,” Coop said to the woman, “are they yours?”

“No,” she said with force. “They’re our guides. The Vaycehnese government insists that they accompany us at all times.”

“Locals,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “They know the history of Vaycehn. You can probably ask them all the questions you want.”

He studied them. They looked confused and terrified. They clearly hadn’t expected a force to come out of the caves.

Talking to them would be easy. But he wasn’t ready for easy.

Besides, they could lie to him.

He needed someone not connected to the woman and her friends.

“Later,” he said. “Is the old city habitable?”

“Yes,” the woman said.

“Then I’d like to get close. I’d like to see it.”

She gave him a sideways look, filled with something—sadness? Compassion? He didn’t know, and he wasn’t going to analyze it.

“We can take the cart,” she said, and without giving him a moment to answer, let it rise.

He felt dizzy for a half second as he realized what she could do. She could take him and Perkins into the city, without the rest of his team.

But she didn’t. She hovered there while he instructed everyone except the four guarding the guides to get into their vehicles and follow her.

They did, and then she led the way, driving the vehicle above a mountain road as if she had done this every single day of her life.

SIXTY-SIX

As we rise out of the cave, I say to Al-Nasir, “See if you can reach anyone from our group.”

I’m hoping he can’t. Right now, they should be on our ships, heading toward the Business. Our communicators are for land only, and have limited range. We shouldn’t be able to reach anyone if they’re off-planet.

He nods. I glance over my shoulder at the captain and his lieutenant. The captain’s expression is fixed, but he can’t control the slight frown forming between his eyes. He recognizes Wyr.

I recognize the guides, surrounded by the captain’s people, and I curse. The two men are our two most regular guides. They know all of us. They were probably wondering why most of the group left, and why they insisted on having four hovercarts waiting below ground. And I’ll wager that none of my people took time to explain beyond “Boss wants it.”

When the first hovercart rose out of the cave, those guides had to know why I wanted it. They were probably shocked at seeing a military group, but these two guides know their stuff. And as they tried to flee, I’m sure they contacted someone. Police, the guide office, the regular government—I have no idea.

But someone in authority on Vaycehn now knows that we’ve brought military to the edge of the city, somehow.

The captain really isn’t noticing any of this. He’s asking me questions about the city, about death holes. I’m keeping my eye on Al-Nasir, whose gaze is focused far off.

So far, so good. I can tell just by his expression that he hasn’t contacted anyone.

I’m not sure what we’re going to do next. That’s the captain’s decision, although at some point I have to tell him that the city government knows about us. I’m hoping he’ll just look around and then go back below ground.

I try to lead him in that direction when I ask him if he wants to go higher.

Of course, he doesn’t. He wants to get as close to the old city as he can.

I’m going to stay in control of this cart and keep the right height. If I see locals heading this way, I’m turning us around, no matter what the captain says.

We float several meters above the ground. The air is hot, particularly after a day spent inside the room. Some kind of insect buzzes to my right. The city sprawls below us and around us. It’s familiar to me now, but to him, it must look like some crazy quilt made of the remnants of a place he once knew.

If it’s that familiar at all.

“Where are you?” Al-Nasir says, putting a hand to his ear. I glance over at him.

His gaze meets mine. He looks terrified.

“Who are you talking to?” I ask.

“Mikk,” he says.

I curse. Behind me, I can hear the lieutenant attempting to translate. I don’t give a damn. Instead, I set the cart to hover right here, over just a road and bare patch of ground, and I tune in. I hear Mikk’s voice saying, “… locked down. I’m not sure what we can do.”

“Mikk,” I say. “How many are with you?”

“Four,” he says. “Boss, we’re in deep trouble here. I can see the spaceport from here, and there are a lot of official vehicles. Several passed us as we came over the rise. We’re trapped.”

I curse. “Can you get out of the area?”

“I think so,” Mikk says. “No one seems to have noticed us yet.”

“Keep it that way. Come to the caves. I’ll see what I can do. Let me know if there’s trouble.”

“Oh, there’s trouble,” Mikk says. “I’ll let you know if it gets worse.”

He signs off.

I whip the hovercart around and head back to the cave opening.

“What’s going on?” the captain asks. The lieutenant translates, but it’s not necessary. It’s pretty clear what he asked even before he asked it.

“Just like I told you,” I say. “We’re in trouble now. The guides let the authorities know about your little invasion force and now the rest of my team can’t get off-planet.”

“They had two hours,” the lieutenant says before she translates for the captain.

“Yes, they did,” I snap. “And clearly that wasn’t enough time.”

“What will happen to them?” she asks.

“Arrest, a trial for treason within the Empire, probably. And then the Empire will know about you, your ship, the underground room, and the fact that there are now what—five hundred?—people somewhere in the area who not only know how to operate stealth tech, but can repair and build it.” I curse again.

She translates. We reach the top of the rise. Al-Nasir is holding onto the front of the cart for balance, which means my driving is a little shaky, not that I care.

We land near the other hovercarts.

I turn in my seat and lean toward the captain. To his credit, he doesn’t lean back, and most people do when I get angry at them.

And he knows I’m angry.

“You can get out here,” I say. “If you want to be suicidal enough to go into that city, be my guest. But you’re going without me and Fahd. If you want to learn the history of the area without going in, talk to the damn guides. They’re trained in Vaycehnese history. They’ll be able to tell you more than I can.”

The lieutenant simultaneously translates, but neither of them move to get out of the vehicle.

“Get out,” I say.

“What are you going to do?” he asks through her.

“I have no idea,” I say. “I’m hoping they make it up here. Then I’m going to see if we have enough time to get a skip down from the Business—that’s my ship in orbit—to load up the group before the authorities get here. Otherwise, we’re all in trouble. Unless you want to have an old-fashioned shootout like the Fleet of legend, protecting the underdog.”

I say that sarcastically, but I’m half hoping he’ll say yes. It’s our only hope. We need their military might to protect my people long enough for one of my ships to get down here.

His frown grows. “Why can’t they just come with us to the ship?”

I roll my eyes. These people really don’t know the trouble they’ve caused, do they? And somehow I’m elected to tell them.

“Because it will kill them. They don’t have the genetic marker. They can’t go into a stealth-tech field without dying.”

He stares at me as the lieutenant translates.

And then he smiles just a little and shakes his head.

“No,” he says in my language. “No.”

Then he talks rapidly, and I don’t understand a word until the lieutenant translates.

“It’s fine,” she says for him. “Anyone can go in and out of what you call a stealth-tech field—”

“Not anymore,” I say before she finishes her translation. “Something has gone horribly wrong.”

“No,” she says. “If what you say about stealth tech is true, then no one we meet in our travels could go in our ships or onto our bases. We could not interact with the populations we meet, and that’s not true at all. What you call stealth tech is only deadly when it malfunctions. The genetic marker that you discovered only functions in that circumstance. It allows us to repair our own field—and to survive in it, should something go wrong.”

I pause, struggling to understand. “You think my people will survive going into your ship?”

“We’re fixing the… drive now,” she says, using a word I don’t know and don’t understand. “Ours is repaired. You watched us work on the one in the room. As Captain Cooper said, it is an easy fix. It should be done when we get back.”

“Should be,” I say. “If not, five of my people will die.”

He speaks. She translates: “They could die anyway. If the authorities shoot first trying to capture them. I take it you do not know what these Vaycehnese will do now that we’re here.”

“That’s right,” I say.

“Waiting for your skip, which might not make it to the planet, is not an option. We will help you.”

“You will attack people you’ve just met?” I ask him.

His gaze meets mine. “We will rescue people who have done nothing more than help us.”

I study him. He seems determined.

Either way, I risk losing five people. If we wait for the skip, all of us could end up in prison and tried for treason.

If we go with this captain, then five of my people could die.

I don’t feel like I can make the decision for them, and yet I’m the only one who can make the decision.

Besides, the Vaycehnese might attack my skip. Maybe more than five people will die.

“I hope to God this works,” I say to the captain.

“It will,” he says. “Believe me. It will.”

SIXTY-SEVEN

The captain climbs out of my cart, along with the lieutenant. As he does, he snaps his fingers and gives orders in a voice I never want to hear directed at me.

Suddenly six other people join us. The captain gives instructions, and Al-Nasir translates for me before the lieutenant can.

“He wants them in the other hovercarts,” Al-Nasir says. “He says two people per cart, one driving and one with a weapon, would be best.”

A weapon. I frown at the captain. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I almost protest, but then I don’t. It’s better to be prepared. How many times have I told my people that?

“You get in another cart,” I say to Al-Nasir.

“But you need me,” he repeats.

“I can talk to Mikk just as easily as you can,” I say. “If something happens to me, you can lead the others to our group. Get them off this damn planet, okay?”

He nods, then scrambles into a different cart. The captain watches, catches my gaze, and nods at me. He approves.

A woman gets in beside me. She’s one of the people the captain has sent ahead. He clearly trusts her. She taps her chest. “Rossetti,” she says.

“Boss,” I say.

She nods, but doesn’t repeat my name any more than I repeat hers. She pulls out that small laser pistol and holds it. I glance behind me. Two people per cart, just like the captain ordered—one in the driver’s seat, the other holding a weapon just like she is.

Al-Nasir is driving, just like I am. I don’t know if he’s ever driven a cart. That should be interesting. But I am not going to watch.

I tap my ear. “Mikk, your position?”

He tells me. They’ve made it away from the spaceport. They’re in a vehicle, but it’s a land vehicle.

“We’re coming for you,” I say. “Take this route.”

I’m going to get him as close to the cave opening as I can. With all of us on the move, we’ll get him here quicker.

I glide down the mountainside, wishing for more power. These hovercarts aren’t built for speed. They’re built to carry cargo and people into different environments, not to go speeding down a mountain toward a spaceport.

But I open up as best I can, not caring if the others can keep up.

As I glide, I see the roads spread before me. The spaceport glows yellow in the distance, the fog lights giving the place an odd tinge even in the daylight.

Official vehicles, with Vaycehn’s city insignia on the side, are speeding toward the spaceport from the city itself.

But Mikk is on one of the side roads, climbing up the mountain. The city officials don’t believe my people would go back to the caves we fled. As far as they know, we’re all trying to get off this godforsaken planet—which we are. We’re just taking a different route than they expect.

I glance over my shoulder. To my surprise, Al-Nasir is the pilot who can keep up with me. The others wobble behind us, uncertain about the speed and the balance of the machine. Instead of clutching the weapon the way that Rossetti is, the other soldiers are clutching the side of the cart.

A cloud of dust heads toward us. Mikk isn’t on the side roads. He’s blazing his own trail.

Two official vehicles have made U-turns and headed on the side road he initially took.

We’re running out of time.

I kick the cart into the highest gear. It dips, and for a moment, I think the power is going to fail. Then it recovers and we head toward that first cloud of dust.

It only takes a few minutes to reach it. I float above the vehicle, see that Roderick is driving, Mikk beside him. My two best people. What the hell are they still doing here?

Then I see their passengers: Lentz, Bridge, and Ivy. Of course, the ones who didn’t quite understand the meaning of “emergency” and didn’t get off-planet quickly enough.

Mikk and Roderick clearly tried to save them.

Dammit.

Roderick stops the vehicle, kicking up even more dust. It gets into my mouth and eyes, and as I cough, I hope to hell that the dust doesn’t have any effect on the inner workings of the cart.

Al-Nasir arrives just as I lower the cart. He lowers his as well.

“Mikk, Roderick,” I say, deciding not to greet the other three. “I want you two to pilot the other two carts. We’re heading back to the caves.”

“Have you called for a skip?” Mikk asked.

I shake my head. “We’re going to try something else.”

The third cart lands, then the fourth. One of the other pilots says something.

Al-Nasir translates: “The city vehicles are getting close.”

“Tell them that Mikk and Roderick are piloting. Lentz, Bridge, you’re with me. Ivy, you’re with Mikk.”

“Gee, thanks, Boss,” Mikk says softly.

“Everyone else with Roderick and Fahd,” I say.

Al-Nasir translates for them. My rearrangements still keep one person with a weapon in each vehicle.

Bridge climbs into my cart, Lentz right behind him. Ivy needs to be helped to Mikk’s cart, not because she’s injured, but because the stupid woman is frozen with terror.

The dust cloud is coming closer. We only have a few minutes.

Everyone rearranges.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I say, making the cart rise. This time, I wait to make sure the others can get off the ground, that the dust hasn’t had an effect on their equipment.

Roderick takes off faster than I realized a cart can go, with Mikk on his heels. Al-Nasir and I will be bringing up the rear this time.

The city vehicle is so close I can hear the thud of its wheels on the ground. Rossetti has turned so that her weapon is pointed at the city vehicle.

Someone in the city vehicle shoots up at us. I hear the shot whiz by. Rossetti is about to answer with her own weapon when I touch her leg and shake my head. Not yet. If we can get out of this without anyone getting hurt, I’ll be happy.

It doesn’t surprise me that the Vaycehnese are shooting. They now see us as hostile, which makes getting off Wyr all the more dangerous.

“What the hell happened?” I snap as we head back up the mountainside. “When you got the evacuation order, you were supposed to drop everything and run.”

“We did,” Bridge said. “Bernadette and I were at the death hole. We couldn’t get back in two hours.”

“And you, Lentz?”

“I was talking to a friend about the problems here on Vaycehn,” he says. “I couldn’t bring my communicator into the meeting. I had no idea until Mikk found me.”

“Risking his life,” I say, and then bite back the rest. Recriminations won’t help.

Mikk and Roderick are good. Their carts are much farther ahead of mine. I stay back just enough to give Al-Nasir cover. More and more city vehicles are coming in our direction.

A small army is heading up this mountainside, and we’re only moments ahead of them.

“Fahd,” I say into my communicator, “tell one of your people to let the captain know we’re coming in hot.”

“Okay,” he replies.

Rossetti seems focused, as if nothing exists but those vehicles below us. She isn’t shooting, but I’m not sure if the vehicles below have shown the same kind of restraint.

I’m pushing this hovercart as fast as I can make it go, but I’m beginning to doubt that “as fast as it can go” is going to be fast enough.

SIXTY-EIGHT

Coop could see the trouble building down the mountainside. Roads filled with official-looking vehicles. He knew that there would be a small army of people heading up to the cave opening before he officially found out the group was in trouble.

Immediately, he had Dix and Perkins stop interrogating the guides and move them to a rock formation some distance away. Then Coop got his team into position around some of the rises on the mountainside.

He gave the team a simple order: disable the ground vehicles, but not the people in them. He wanted everyone to get out of this with no injuries at best, minor bruises at worst.

The old-fashioned carts were coming in low, and not nearly fast enough. More and more vehicles were joining the chase up the side of the mountain, both on and off the roads.

A few people in those vehicles were standing and firing some kind of weapon at the carts. He couldn’t tell if those were projectile weapons or not, only that the shots didn’t seem to be causing any damage.

He sprawled next to his team, his own weapon out. Then he gave the order to fire.

First they shot up the ground ahead of the land vehicles, hoping that would stop them. But the damn things just bounced over the ruts. So he gave the order to shoot the vehicles themselves.

The carts got closer, and they were full.

That was the biggest problem he could foresee. Those carts were badly built, with technology so old—new? (the idea of that made his brain hurt)— that they might not be able to take the weight of the additional people they’d have to carry.

He hoped those things would get them back into the caves, at least. From there, some of his team could run if they had to.

He counted at least twenty vehicles. He shot two. Four others spun out and blocked the road. The others just went around.

The carts came in low. For a minute, he thought they would just go down into the caves, leaving his team to fend for itself. Instead, they touched down.

He signaled his team to shoot as they hurried toward the carts.

He and Dix came in last, disabling three more vehicles before running to the carts.

Two carts had already gone underground, with four of his people gone. Only he and Dix remained.

One of the carts had a driver he didn’t recognize; the other was the woman they all called Boss.

Coop leapt into her cart, Dix into the other.

She waited for that cart to head into the caves before she followed.

Ground vehicles came up over the mountaintop. Coop and Rossetti shot at them, overturning one and knocking it into another. Three went around.

Coop cursed. He hoped to hell those ground vehicles couldn’t go into the caves. If they could, someone was going to get killed.

And he was going to make sure that if anyone died, it wouldn’t be someone on his team. Or Boss’s team.

He was going to protect them at all costs.

SIXTY-NINE

They’re shooting out of the back of my cart, and I can’t even turn around to see how many people they’re killing. Dammit, this is exactly what I didn’t want. Now the Empire will really have reason to search for us.

If we get out of here at all.

The carts in front of me are wobbling and bucking with the extra weight. I’m not sure we’ll make it all the way to the room. Not that I’m even sure my people will survive the stealth-tech field.

But one thing the captain was right about: there is no way we could have waited for a skip.

We’re the last ones underground, where it’s dimmer and blessedly cool. I hadn’t realized how hot I was until I got out of that sun. Sweat is running off me and I’m a little light-headed.

We duck and weave into corridors. Ahead, I hear someone screaming.

No one has to tell me that it’s Ivy.

“What the hell are we doing, Boss?” Bridge asks.

I can’t glance back. Someone else is shouting ahead. The carts have stopped at what once was the entrance to the stealth-tech field.

I almost crash into them.

Ivy is wailing. Mikk’s cart is blocking the way in. Al-Nasir is arguing with them. I stop behind them.

“You’re going in,” I say.

“We’ll die,” Mikk says.

“They’ve fixed the problem.” I say. “You’ll be fine.”

Even though I don’t know that. None of us know that.

“Go!” the captain says in my language, waving his hand beside me. “Go now!”

“Mikk,” I say, “you’ll have to trust me.”

“I’ve seen what happens in those fields, Boss. I’m not going in.”

“Then you’re going to die out here,” I say. “All of you. Trust me. We’ll be fine.”

“I trust you,” Roderick says, and raises his cart over Mikk’s, driving into the field area before anyone can stop him. He pauses just past the next bend in the corridor.

Death inside a stealth-tech field takes only a few minutes. Roderick sits there, his life the only one at risk, since he has only people from the ship in his vehicle. He grins and whoops.

“We’re going to be fine!” he says.

“Unless they only managed to make the field recede,” Bridge says beside me.

“If you stay here, you risk everything we’ve worked for,” I say.

“I don’t care,” Ivy says from Mikk’s cart. “Let me out! Let me out!”

“I’m fine!” Roderick yells from inside the field—or where the field would have been. “Come on!”

Ivy starts to climb out of her cart. One of the soldiers grabs her and she shakes him off, nearly upending the cart.

Mikk guns the cart, moving it toward Roderick’s as if they’re on a collision course. Ivy screams, and only the soldier keeps her from toppling out of the cart.

So far, so good. They’re alive.

Al-Nasir follows, and I bring up the rear. I think I hear something behind us, although it’s hard to tell with Ivy screaming the way she is.

It only takes a few minutes for the carts to go through the rest of the corridors. One of the soldiers gets out of Roderick’s cart and pulls open the door. The carts can’t go through it.

We stop all in a row.

Roderick peers inside the room.

“Oh, my God,” he says. “It’s a goddamn Dignity Vessel.”

“No kidding,” I say. “Get in there.”

Ivy is still sobbing, but she’s pliable now. The soldier drags her in. My group gets out. Once Ivy’s in the room, I hear the sound of voices behind us.

The captain says something.

“He wants to know if they’re going to follow us in here,” Al-Nasir says.

“Tell him I have no idea. They have maps that show them where the stealth-tech fields are. I’m not sure if they’ll cross those fields.”

So the captain and four of his soldiers indicate that we should go into the room. They bring up the rear.

My people slow down, looking stunned at the room’s size, and at the Dignity Vessel itself.

No one is in the room. Apparently the captain contacted his people. Something whistles in my ear. Both Al-Nasir and I have our hands to our ears, but no one else does.

“What’s that sound?” I ask him.

“They tell me it’s the ship powering up.”

The captain and his team come in. They pull the door closed, then the captain waves his hand at the ship.

I catch his arm and point at the equipment. It’s going to fall into the Empire’s hands.

He nods and points his weapon at it, miming a shot. I’m not sure what he means, but I think I know. He’s going to destroy the equipment.

I hope he’s going to destroy it.

The stairs have come down, and the door into the ship is open. My people are scrambling inside, followed by the soldiers. Al-Nasir and the lieutenant go in. The captain and I are last.

He has his back against mine, his weapon pointed at the exterior door. He’s pushing me inside and guarding me at the same time.

I stumble into the airlock.

He follows.

The door closes.

We’re inside the Dignity Vessel, and it’s about to leave.

SEVENTY

The moment Coop got inside the ship, he started barking orders. First, destroy the equipment inside the room. Second, begin the anacapa sequence and get them the hell out of this room.

Dix was waiting for him, just inside the corridor. “Sensors show a lot of people inside the caves.”

“I figured,” Coop said. “You get anything from those guides?”

Dix was supposed to have been asking them about the history of Vaycehn. “We didn’t have a lot of time.”

The outsiders were milling around, looking at the inside of the ship as if they had never seen one before. All except the woman who had been screaming. She looked almost catatonic, her face blotchy and tear-streaked.

“I know that,” Coop said. “Did they tell you anything?”

Dix gave him a baleful look. “They told me that Vaycehn was the oldest city in the known universe. They told me it was founded more than five thousand years ago.”

Coop’s knees nearly buckled. He had to will himself to remain upright.

The woman hadn’t been lying, then. She had been telling the truth all along.

He turned toward her. She was standing just inside the door, watching her people, looking relieved. She had thought they were going to die, too.

She had taken a hell of a risk.

Slowly she looked over at him, and she said something.

“She wants to watch the ship leave,” the lieutenant said. “She wants to be on the bridge.”

He didn’t give permission. He just looked at the woman, wondering what it took for her to trust him like she had.

“She also wants to know if you can do something to make sure the Vaycehnese won’t be able to use the room.”

“Tell her it’s already under way,” he said.

Then he extended his hand.

“Come,” he said in her language.

She grinned. She was prettier than he realized. Her smile—a real smile— took all the edges out of her face.

She put her hand in his. “Thank you,” she said in his language.

He brought her to his side, then let go of her hand and put his hand on her back for just a moment, indicating that she should come with him.

This wasn’t first-contact procedure. It wasn’t any kind of procedure. Outsiders, no matter who the hell they were, were never allowed on the bridge.

But who was going to punish him now? Who would take away his command? He was on his own out here, five thousand years into his own future, in a universe that had backward technology and ruins instead of cities.

He didn’t pretend to understand it.

But he would have time to figure it out. More time than he probably wanted.

“Let’s go,” he said to her in his language, knowing she didn’t understand the words but that she would understand the sentiment.

She nodded, and they hurried, all the way to the bridge.

SEVENTY-ONE

I know enough from any time period, any military vessel, any vessel at all, to know that I shouldn’t be on this cockpit. I should be in some public area, away from the inner workings of a vessel I don’t comprehend.

But the captain has brought me here as more than a courtesy. He knows he is giving me a gift.

I stand near the door and marvel. The first time I saw the cockpit of a Dignity Vessel, it was an image taken by my divers, grainy, filled with particles that I didn’t entirely understand, the furniture and equipment piled against one wall, as if some field had pulled it all there.

Then I dived that ship, and tried to rescue one of my dead teammates, stuck in a stealth-tech field, his face mummified behind the cracked mask of his visor.

In a Dignity Vessel.

I had once tried to imagine what these places had been like in their day.

This is their day. It’s mine, too.

The equipment is bolted down, just like I knew it would be. And where there was a fist-sized hole in the Dignity Vessel I dove, there’s some kind of control, something that I recognize only by its black casing. That’s where part of the stealth tech is.

The walls in front of me—all of them—are screens.

There’s a captain’s chair in the middle, but the captain isn’t sitting in it. He’s standing beside me. The lieutenant is on the other side, and God bless her, she’s translating.

Four other people are in the cockpit, including a woman who had been sitting in the captain’s chair. She looks at me with great curiosity, but doesn’t say anything. A small woman up front grins at me. I can’t help but grin back.

The tall, thin man who had been with us on the surface has moved to the console nearest the black casing. He looks grim, miserable. He’s the only one who doesn’t look up as the captain speaks.

The screens in front of us show the room itself as if we can just reach out and touch it. The equipment looks fine.

The captain says something; the screens opaque, but not enough to completely block the whiteness that engulfs the entire room. When the whiteness fades, the image crisps up. But there is no more equipment. It’s gone.

“What was that?” I ask the lieutenant.

“We got rid of anything your people can study,” she says.

“They’re not my people,” I say, and then realize I sound churlish. “So thank you.”

She nods and smiles.

The captain puts his hand on my shoulder. “Now,” he says in his language, a word I’m beginning to recognize. Then he changes to my language. “We go.”

My breath catches. I get to see the Dignity Vessel in action.

The screens blank out. The whistle fades, and I don’t hear the thrum of stealth tech at all. The ship shifts slightly, as if we all collectively tripped over something and righted ourselves at the same time.

The screens turn back on, and I am staring down at Wyr. It’s blue and brown and green, with the mountains rising through whitish clouds.

I’m very dizzy.

“What did you do?” I ask.

“That’s our… drive,” the lieutenant says, using that word I can never seem to catch. “You call it stealth technology, but it is so much more.”

Clearly.

The captain’s hand is warm on my shoulder. Companionable. It feels like he’s holding me up. Maybe he is.

He says something to me, softly.

“He wants to know the coordinates of your ship,” the lieutenant says. “So we can rendezvous.”

I give her the coordinates. The sooner we’re away from Wyr, the better we’ll all be.

I look up at the captain. “Thank you for saving my people,” I say.

“Thank you for saving mine,” he says through the lieutenant. “We would not have escaped foldspace without you activating the repair room.”

“Foldspace?” I ask.

He smiles. “I will explain if you let me. When we get away from your Empire. Can we return to your base?”

I smile at him. I was going to ask him to come with us, but he’s already thought of it.

“I’d love to show you our base,” I say.

He keeps his hand on my shoulder, and we stand inside the cockpit of his Dignity Vessel, watching on the screens as we move through space toward Nobody’s Business. As if this ship is conventional. As if we haven’t already had a grand adventure.

As if standing with a man who was born five thousand years ago was the most natural thing in the universe.

Maybe it is.

There is so much that we don’t understand about this universe. So many mysteries.

And I was right all those years ago, when I first saw the Dignity Vessel.

Mysteries are fascinating.

They lead us to places we would never expect to be, help us discover things we never even knew existed.

I lean into him just a little. A legend made real. A man, above all. On a ship that shouldn’t exist. In a place we don’t belong.

Heading home with us.

Heading home. With me.