Boneyards (11 page)

T
he skip, at least, is a completely familiar piece of equipment. Even though I've upgraded models since I started the Lost Souls, the improvements have been mostly cosmetic.

Skips are small ships designed for short distances. They fit a small crew. On overnights, four is a crowd. In a short run, like we're doing, three is relatively comfortable—at least for me

The skip has two main rooms: the main area, which includes the command center—a big phrase for controls set against the corner—and a back area that can be used for resting, recreation, or sleeping. All new skips have a thin galley between the two rooms, as well as a full bath, which is something new. Before, the skip only had a partial bath, and the galley—if there was one—was part of the main room.

I left the
Two
far enough away that it should be outside of Treffet's space—if Treffet follows the same rules that both the Empire and the Nine Planets follow. I still don't know.

What I have learned from my research team's quick scan of the information is that this sector of space has not unified. No big governing body coordinates anything among the planets, and some say that the area outside of planetary space is a gigantic free-for-all, favoring whomever has the most firepower.

There are several starbases nearby, but they're all privately run and not owned by any governments at all. If we can't find Sector Base Y, then those bases might be a good place to go for research and information. There might be some rumors or legends that hold the key to the Fleet's pass through this area thousands of years ago.

I've learned to rely on legends. They hold a kernel of truth. Of course, what part of the truth isn't always obvious. But they can at least point us in a direction.

Treffet is big and rocky with three visible oceans through a cloudy layer. We settle into orbit, and I keep all channels open in case one of the governments below decides to contact us. We have cloaked, but I have no idea if the cloak works here.

If it doesn't and if someone controls the space around Treffet, then that someone will most likely contact us. If no one does, then we're free to do what we want.

If we get caught—if we're violating some law we don't know—then only the three of us are at risk. Mikk and I are used to these risks, and from what I understand, Rossetti took them all the time when the
Ivoire
was still with its Fleet.

Once the skip is in orbit, I relinquish the command chair—not because I'm relinquishing command, but because standing makes it seem less crowded near the control panel.

Rossetti sits down. She's going to use the scanning equipment we've added to the skip to see if she can find the sector base. On a planet as mountainous as this one, we're all assuming that the sector base, like the other two, is deep underneath some mountain range.

I stand beside her. I'm going to monitor her work, but I'm also going to scan the pad that Stone handed me before we left. The pad is filled with the research I requested. Even though the Six ran the research, Stone organized it as best she could in the time allowed.

I scan over it, looking for an ancient city, one with a history that goes back thousands of years. Vaycehn on Wyr had just that kind of history. There was no place on Ylierr, and of course, in my quick scan, I find no place here either.

So I look for stories of lost cities, and find hundreds. Apparently a goodly portion of Treffet is desert, and the planet's cultures have a history of settling in an inhospitable place, giving life there a try, and then abandoning the place for somewhere a bit more welcoming.

The mountains are even trickier. Not only are they incredibly high, but they have very deep valleys that also have deserts running through them. There isn't a lot of water in the mountain range, except rivers fed by spring snowmelt—rivers that apparently dry up in Treffet's brutal summers.

I'm not feeling very encouraged, but I don't say anything.

Mikk is pacing. He has no real patience for this kind of research, and I know that he would prefer we do it somewhere safe, like our own space station.

If we can't find anything quickly, I will recommend that. At some point, we'll be wasting time and taking unnecessary risks, particularly in a sector where we have no support whatsoever.

“I have something,” Rossetti says.

“An energy signature?” Mikk sounds hopeful. Sometimes the only way to find a weak
anacapa
signal is through its energy signature.

“No,” she says. “Some tunnels underneath one of the mountain ranges that look symmetrical.”

“You're kidding, right?” he says. “Shouldn't you be looking for the base itself?”

She doesn't acknowledge him with a look. Her fingers remain on the control panel. In the past, the insubordination of my team used to irritate Rossetti. In fact, the insubordination irritated everyone from the
Ivoire.

But over time, the members of the crew who remained with us have gotten used to our working method. They still don't like the questions, but most crew members have come to realize that the questions do not waste time. They clarify things so that my crew can work better.

Rossetti does wait a moment before responding. That's the only way I know that she did not like his question.

“I have been searching for the base, but I'm not finding anything,” she says.

Something in her tone alerts me. I glance at her, studying her from the corner of my eye. She's one of Coop's most trusted officers, calm and collected even in the face of danger. I saw her in action years ago, and I realized she was the kind of person I would trust my life to. She doesn't let anything bother her. She works hard, and she thinks quickly.

But this bothers her. Her jaw is set and she's blinking hard.

What I thought was irritation at Mikk is actually a deep emotional upset.

“You should be able to find the base,” I say so softly that I'm not sure Mikk can hear me.

“If it's here,” she says tightly. The corridors have shaken her. Perfect, seemingly man-made tunnels, without a gigantic room that her people could have built.

“Is there any way that those tunnels could have been built by someone else?” I ask.

“Of course there is,” she says, and straightens her back, as if the thought has given her strength.

“What about the sector base itself?” Mikk asks, but his tone is gentle. He must have seen her face too. It probably shook him as well. It's hard for us to remember sometimes our history is the crew of the
Ivoire
's past. “Could the base be shielded somehow?”

“You mean is the
anacapa
functioning?” She looks up at him. Her expression is impassive now: the old Rossetti, not the emotionally fragile one. “No. We'd have some indication.”

“What about some other kind of shield?” Mikk asks. “You know, something as primitive as ours.”

To my surprise, she smiles at him. “No,” she says. “We would never use something that primitive.”

I can't tell if she's speaking the truth or just saying that to irritate him.

“Besides,” she says, “that shield would have had to last for a very, very long time.”

He nods once, seemingly unperturbed by her jab.

I'm clutching the pad. “Where are those tunnels?”

She shows me. She's run her scans repeatedly, and there doesn't seem to be a sector base. Nor does there seem to be any kind of ruin. Just those perfectly designed tunnels. The tiny map she's created looks like the map for the original corridors around Sector Base V.

No wonder she's feeling a bit unnerved.

“Let me see what I can find,” I say.

I lean against the control panel as I tap on the pad, looking for an ancient lost city in the vicinity of those tunnels.

It takes only a moment to find one, primarily because the city factors into the mythos of several of Treffet's cultures. It is the ultimate lost city, the one that everyone discusses. It's referenced in myth and legend and histories alike.

No one knows exactly where it is, and apparently there is some debate as to whether or not it existed at all. But most scholars—at least according to the rather cursory information that Stone had time to find—believe it was located not too far from those tunnels.

I sigh. “I think I found something,” I say, and hand the pad to Rossetti.

She looks at the information, then looks at me.

“What?” Mikk asks with impatience.

“There's a lost city in this area,” I say to him. “It existed more than forty-five hundred years ago, and some legends say it was built by a race of superbeings.”

“Lost how?” Mikk asks. “What happened to it?”

“They don't know,” I say. “They don't know much about it at all. It might not have existed. It might have fallen through the ground.”

Mikk straightens. He recognizes that. Sometimes malfunctioning stealth tech creates a plume of energy. If that tech is underground, then the energy flares outward, destroying anything in its path.

“According to this,” Rossetti says, shaking the pad at us, “the city was destroyed in a cataclysm.”

“Meaning what?” Mikk asks.

“Fire from the sky,” Rossetti says.

We look at each other. We're all silent for a long moment.

Then I speak up. “You know what Stone would say. She would say we don't know enough about Treffet to understand if that's important. We don't know the various features of this planet, if ‘fire from the sky’ is some kind of natural phenomenon.”

“You're right,” Rossetti says. “We don't know. But I want to go down there and see what we can find.”

N
ormally, when we need to study something on a planet, we go to the appropriate government, request the appropriate permits, do the appropriate diplomatic dance, and follow the appropriate regulations. We don't always do this under our legal names. If the place we need to study is in the Empire, for example, we use aliases. So many of us are wanted there that it's just safer.

But Treffet isn't the Empire. Nor is it part of the Nine Planets. We know nothing about Treffet, and it hampers us.

Of course, following the rules anywhere would hamper us. Usually it takes months to run through official channels. I know without even asking that Coop doesn't want us to take months. He wants us down there now.

He has waited this long; he feels he can wait no longer.

The skip is back in the
Two
, and we're in the
Two
's conference room. In my previous ships, I always used the recreation area as a conference room, but the
Two
is big enough to have one. I actually like the room, and I didn't think I'd ever like something that official.

The conference room is in the center of the ship, and has no portals at all, nothing that looks out at anything, including the ship's interiors. Instead, the walls are covered with screens and access ports and specially designed holoreplays that can turn the entire room into someplace else should someone want to. I can hit a button to bring various-sized tables and chairs out of the floor. The tables and chairs are collapsible and actually have weight limits, but I figure no one who travels with me should have any trouble meeting those limits. Divers, spacers, and explorers are generally too thin. Scientists who travel have learned spacer habits.

The only person we've had to worry about is one of the Six—Rollo Kersting. Despite all of his activity over the years, Kersting has never lost a pound. He stubbornly consumes more than he needs, and I have come to view that trait with more affection than irritation.

The Six are all civilians who got roped into working for me because of my father. My father, who once headed military stealth-tech research for the Empire, discovered that some people have a genetic marker that enables them to work in malfunctioning stealth tech. The marker was difficult for the Empire to find through genetic testing, so my father ruthlessly tested for this marker primarily by sending anyone he suspected of having the marker into a malfunctioning stealth-tech field. Many people—including my mother—died in those fields.

I did not. Neither did the Six.

All of whom came to work with me long before we met the crew of the
Ivoire
, who also have the marker. The marker guaranteed that anyone in the Fleet could survive if the
anacapa
drive malfunctions. Apparently those of us with the marker are descendants of Fleet members who chose to live on the surface of various planets rather than continue forward with the Fleet itself.

We're all in the conference room because we're about to take a risk, and I've learned the hard way that asking your people to take a risk without explaining that risk is a recipe for disaster.

The Six have stuck with me for years and have, over time, become completely different people than those who helped me dive Sector Base V. They have all gained a love of history, and some have found that they enjoy diving. Orlando Rea, in particular, has become one of my best divers, and so has, surprisingly, Elaine Seager, who was initially one of the most timid of the Six. Fahd Al-Nasir has become quite a linguist, specializing in the dialects of Old Earth Standard. Nyssa Quinte is now our dive medic, a role Squishy used to take back when I dove old wrecks. Julian DeVries is the only one of the Six who hasn't really changed much. He is still a bit of an outsider, reserved, a bit pompous and more reluctant to take risks than he initially seems.

For the most part, they're disappointed that they didn't get to see Sector Base W, and hope they get to go to Sector Base Y. The
Ivoire
crew members, for the most part, never let their wants and desires be obvious.

Most of the
Ivoire
crew members that Coop brought are not in this meeting. They're along in case we find an intact base or if we need them to shut something down.

The only
Ivoire
crew members here at the moment are Yash, Rossetti, and of course, Coop, who looks impatient. Mikk, Tamaz, and Roderick round out the potential divers. Lucretia Stone is here to advise about working on the ground.

At the moment, however, we're discussing how to get to the ground. I've already stated my desire to go in quick and dirty, to see if the site of this lost city—which Stone says is called Isstahn in most of the histories—is also the site of Sector Base Y. If we're going to go in essentially illegally, then I want to take two skips, have a pilot waiting in each, and have everyone on the team be prepared to run if something goes wrong.

“I'm not sure you're going in illegally,” Stone says when I finish my presentation.

I look at her. I know better than to argue. Stone is much more rules-oriented than I could ever be.

We're all looking at her. She's been pacing as I've been talking. She clutches another pad as if it's a lifeline. She seems nervous, and I'm not sure why. I thought it was because she didn't approve of my unwillingness to go through channels, so her comment surprises me.

It also surprises Coop. He's standing near the door, his back against the wall. He has one foot against the wall as well, as if he's trying to look relaxed when he clearly is not.

I haven't sat down either, although my hands rest on the chair at the head over the long conference table.

“I'm not sure I understand, Lucretia,” I say. “Does Treffet have different rules than other places?”

“That's the thing,” she says, flashing a nervous smile. “Treffet is different. Not only is it not aligned with other settled planets in the area, but it has two hundred and forty different cultures that I've counted, and they appear to be unaligned as well.”

“Okay,” I say, “so there's no one central government to negotiate with. We ran into that in Vaycehn. We had to work with the locals.”

“That's the most interesting part,” Stone says. “There are no locals.”

I frown at her. Coop turns his head toward her sharply.

Rollo Kersting, who is sitting near Stone, leans his head back so that he can see her better. “You just said there are two hundred and forty governments. Those people are locals.”

“No, they're not.” Julian DeVries adjusts his silk suit. He always prefers to dress as if we're about to go to some diplomatic function. This habit has gotten worse over time rather than better. He shifts slightly in his chair so that he faces Stone. “You mean that no one lives in this area.”

“More than that,” she says. “No one claims this territory.”

“How is that possible?” Mikk asks. Like me, he was raised in the Empire. All land, in both the Empire and the Nine Planets, is owned. I'm aware that other places do not have the custom of ownership, but I've never run across it outside of historical research before.

“I'm doing this on the fly,” Stone says, “so I could be in error. But everything I'm finding refers to this as a no-man's land, a dangerous place that no government has been able to conquer and hold. Partly, from what I can tell, because there's nothing here for a government—no water, no good places for settlements, nothing.”

“But you said that the city had been there,” Kersting says, “so there was a good place for a settlement once.”

“And water,” DeVries says.

“We use different methods of providing water to our sector bases,” Yash says. “At some bases in the past, we have used underground springs to supply water to a base and the settlement around it.”

“I think water is the least of their problems,” Stone says. “There's mention throughout the record of how deadly the area is, and how it seems haunted.”

Coop's gaze meets mine. The malfunctioning stealth tech made the area around Sector Base V deadly.

“Well, then,” I say. “We have an argument now. We'll take your research, Lucretia, and claim that we thought there was no government to negotiate with—should someone try to stop us, which it doesn't sound like they will.”

“I can be wrong,” she says somewhat nervously.

“We all can, Dr. Stone,” Coop says. “But you're quite cautious, which I appreciate. I would like—.”

Then he stops himself and looks at me. He has trouble staying back and letting me run things.

“Go ahead,” I say with just a bit of amusement.

He nods and smiles at Stone. “I would like you to figure out the best place to land, given the topography that we know. I'd like to be in the city if possible. If not, I'd like to be in the most likely site for that city.”

“I already have that, Captain,” she says. “I was about to make suggestions.”

“Good,” I say, because I can't quite tell Stone's mood, and I don't want another argument between the two of them. “Given the reports of danger in that area, our ground team can only include people with markers.”

Mikk glares at me, but knows better than to say he'll be all right. People without the marker die horribly in malfunctioning stealth tech. Generally time passes faster for them. They try to get out, can't, and die, waiting for help that is—realistically—just outside the stealth-tech field.

Mikk, Roderick, and Tamaz have all seen that kind of death up close. They don't want to die that way.

“We'll monitor from up here. But you're going to need some good pilots,” Mikk says. “And the pilots can't be the explorers.”

With that last statement, he looks at both Coop and Rossetti. Then he gives me a solid glare just in case I haven't thought that through.

“I have some good pilots on my team,” Coop says. “They don't need any risk assessment here due to Dr. Stone's assumptions. Besides, we might not be down there long enough to cause any problems. We aren't even sure we're in the right place for the sector base.”

He says that last to everyone, but his gaze catches mine. We both know that there's enough detail here to indicate the presence of a sector base.

If it exists, we'll find it.

Maybe this very afternoon.