Boneyards (13 page)

I
t takes almost two hours, but suddenly we're standing in the middle of a beautiful fantasy. The default on the equipment Stone sent with us creates a hologram. It's a suggested image, something that's composed of all the information that the equipment has, plus a great deal of speculation.

Even so, it makes tears well in Yash's eyes.

The hologram envelops us. It spans the entire valley—or at least, the illusion created by the hologram
seems
like it spans the entire valley.

Around us, a ghostly city rises. It has the design structure of other Fleet cities, pulled from the records of the
Ivoire.
It follows the underground footprint that the equipment has mapped, and shows us what the city might have looked like in its heyday.

The hologram is accurate down to the ground level. We seem to be floating several stories in the air, the city sprawling below us, and climbing up the mountainside. The river that runs against the farthest mountain range has bridges and buildings beside it. Although, oddly, the bridges are underwater, because apparently when ground level rises, rivers rise as well.

The hologram includes properly dressed icons of people, and those make Coop avert his eyes.

The city must have been very lovely. If this suggested hologram is even half right, this place has a bit of magic. The buildings blend into the environment, the roads are made of bonded nanobits, and the people look like Coop's people, hurrying about their day.

No one else seems to have noticed what bothers me.

On a mountainside not too far from us, a moving staircase leads to a gigantic closed door. Every once in a while in this simulation, the door opens and a ship goes in or comes out.

The three crew members from the
Ivoire
haven't even looked at that mountainside yet. Neither, it seems, has anyone else.

Everyone stares gape-mouthed at different parts of the city, the artwork on the public buildings, the parks, the children. Kersting is staring at the children as if they're real. He looks shaken too. He's such a kind-hearted man.

“Now I understand why the people of Treffet consider this city legendary,” DeVries says. He stands beside me, shoulders straight, hands clasped behind his back.

“Why?” I ask.

“It's lovely. It's the kind of city that would live in memory. Some cities just aren't worth remembering. This one would be.” He speaks softly, as if he doesn't want the three members of the
Ivoire
crew to hear him.

But they can, of course. They aren't responding.

“I also see why it's lost,” Seager says. She extends a hand toward the high mountain walls, which seem steeper and even more rugged somehow. “I don't see a way in, do you?”

“It doesn't look like there ever was a city here.” Coop says. It takes me a minute to realize he's not looking at the suggested images of the lost city. He's looking at the way the ground has overtaken the ruins. “This is just another valley, as far as they're concerned.”

“And if you looked at the topological map,” DeVries says, “you'll realize that there are dozens of these closed-off valleys throughout this mountain range.”

“All that worry about what might happen if we're discovered by some government on Treffet,” Kersting says, “and they couldn't get to us if they wanted to.”

“On the ground anyway,” Rossetti murmurs.

“It does explain why no government has claimed this land,” DeVries says. “Why claim something so remote?”

“In the Empire,” I say, “remote places get claimed all the time. It's a way of owning the land before anyone else can.”

Coop sighs. “This doesn't tell us what happened.”

DeVries says, “Five thousand years—”

“Is a long damn time, I know,” Coop snaps. “I know it better than anyone, and I wish you people would stop reminding me about that.”

My cheeks heat even though I'm not the one who said anything. DeVries mutters “sorry” and turns away. Kersting looks down. Seager examines a see-through image of a building near her, as if she could go inside it. Yash wipes at her face, and I realize she's wiping away a tear.

I touch Coop's arm. Since he's already upset, I may as well make matters worse.

“Did you see that?” I ask, indicating the opening that the program created on the mountain wall.

He turns, freezes, then closes his eyes for just a moment.

Kersting says, “I didn't know that the entrance to a sector base would be so obvious.”

Proving that he hasn't done all of his research. Even the opening into Sector Base V on Wyr once had all kinds of outbuildings and businesses near the entrance. The Fleet never saw a reason to hide the entrances to sector bases, since the Fleet expected only its own people, or people it approved, to be in the cities near the sector base.

Coop stares at that opening for just a moment before he goes to the equipment that is supposed to be searching for the sector base. He runs a hand along the screen, then glances sideways at Yash.

She goes to his side, as if she has been given an order. All traces of tears are gone from her cheeks. It's as if they never were.

I join them. She's using her pad to put the basic map of a standard sector base over that mountainside. It all falls into place, lining up to the remaining tunnels.

Coop says, “This stupid machine isn't finding any evidence of a sector base.”

“That's because it's looking for the wrong thing,” I say.

They all look at me. My cheeks grow even warmer. I hadn't realized there was a problem when Stone made her presentation about the equipment, but now I understand.

And I feel bad that I haven't thought it through.

“What do you mean?” Coop asks, a strange tone to his voice.

“If I understand what Lucretia was telling us,” I say, “then this equipment is looking for evidence of a human presence. Something regularly shaped or a building's footprint or a garbage pile.”

“So?” Yash asks.

I nod toward the image on the mountain's side, and as I do, I resist the urge to mention just how long five thousand years is. I need to trim that very phrase from my vocabulary.

“We haven't found any stealth-tech residue,” I say. “There's no
anacapa
signature.”

“So?” Yash says, and this time it's not a question. It's a command to get on with what I have to say.

“So,” I say as calmly as I can, “the equipment your people put down there isn't working.”

“But the tunnels still exist,” Rossetti says.

I hold up my hand. I have no answer for that, at least not yet. “One thing at a time,” I say. “The sector base itself is one gigantic room, with some rooms off to the side. Like a network of caves.”

“That's where the initial idea came from, or so the histories tell us,” Yash says, no longer trying to hide her sarcasm.

“Which means that there is no footprint. Lucretia's equipment will read those areas as if they're a natural phenomenon.”

“Except that they're hooked up to the tunnels,” Rossetti says.

“Only they're not,” I say. “We would have found that.”

I have their complete attention now.

“When we were in Vaycehn, we experienced one cave-in. The nanobits took care of the damage, but you said the nanobits weren't working in the remains of the city.” I said this last to Yash.

She lifts her chin slightly. “That's right.”

“So,” I say, “if they're not working below—”

“They're not rebuilding after a rockfall,” Coop says slowly, as if it's all becoming clear to him as well. “The natural footprint looks more and more like a cave.”

“That's right,” I say. “And we haven't programmed this equipment to look for Fleet technology.”

“Our tech is good,” Yash says, “but not good enough to survive thousands of years without the constant maintenance provided by an intact
anacapa
drive and a working nanosystem.”

The three of them look at each other. Coop's shoulders drop, and he sighs.

“There's no way to know what happened here, is there?” he asks.

“Not without a lot of research,” I say.

“We've found three sector bases so far,” Rossetti says. “One was properly shut down and still worked. Another was destroyed probably by bombs. And this one could have just had some kind of malfunction.”

“Stone loved the idea of a lost city,” I say. “We can have her bring in a team, interview the locals, do some real excavation—”

“I don't want to wait that long,” Coop says. “There've got to be histories we can access.”

I bite my lower lip, then realize what I'm doing. I don't want to tell him he's chasing phantoms, but it's hard not to.

“It seems to me,” I say slowly, picking my words carefully, “that a people who build a city in such a remote place, and put their most important on-land equipment underground, don't really want the locals to know that much about them.”

“But if there was a giant battle, surely that remains in the lore,” Coop says.

“How will we know if that battle we find in the lore is what destroyed this city?” I ask. “No one on Treffet even knows where Isstahn really is. They have theories. I'm sure they have theories about what happened to it as well. And theories aren't facts.”

“Besides,” Yash says, “we have no idea if this sector base was properly shut down and the equipment just gave out. Maybe Sector Base V was more of a fluke than we thought.”

“Or the underground environment there was more conducive to the equipment,” Rossetti says.

Coop stares at the holographic image of the opening on the mountain's walls. “We don't know if that image is right or if it's a guess.”

“It's a guess that matches those tunnels,” Yash reminds him.

He doesn't move for a long time. Neither do the rest of us.

The fake city continues around us, as if we're the ghosts and it's the reality.

Finally, Coop says, “I don't like not knowing.”

Yash nods in agreement. I remain silent. As much as I think I understand what they're going through, I really do not.

“For some reason,” Coop says, “I thought that history was an absolute. It happened, someone recorded it, and we should be able to get answers from it. I didn't expect all of this guesswork.”

“We might never know what happened,” I say gently. I've been wanting to tell him that for years.

He shakes his head. “I don't accept that.”

But Yash does. She looks at me, and I can see the sadness in her eyes.

“Maybe we should let Lucretia work,” she says to Coop.

“And wait years to find out what happened here?” he asks. “We have more sector bases ahead, a lot of history to cover.”

“We can try to find the next one,” Rossetti says.

“You want to tell me how?” he asks. “We didn't have a suggested location for Sector Base Z when our ship left the Fleet. If something happened—if Sector Base W was destroyed by an enemy's bombs—then the Fleet might have changed course ever so slightly. And ever so slightly magnified by centuries turns into a hell of a mathematical error.”

His voice rises with frustration. My team looks at us. I met Seager's gaze, and she looks away. The others follow, as if they don't really want to know what we're discussing. Maybe they don't.

“I can put a research team on this,” I say.

Coop glares at me as if I'm being stupid, but I continue anyway.

“We can investigate ancient cities in a radius you choose. Some might be Fleet cities. Vaycehn was.”

He sighs. Then he glances at that opening again.

“I just thought this would be easy,” he repeats. “I think, of all people, I should know how much time changes things.”

And then he walks away.

W
e are almost to the
Two
when Coop says, “Starbases.”

He has been extremely quiet up until now. In fact, the entire team that we brought to the planet has been quiet. I don't feel claustrophobic around them, even though they sit inside the cockpit and galley, instead of in the seats in the back room.

Once we loaded the equipment and took off, conversation stopped. I'm not sure what Kersting, Seager, and DeVries are thinking. I know that Rossetti, Yash, and Coop are thinking about the answers they didn't get.

Once I got us out of that box canyon, I was much calmer. When the skip hit Treffet's atmosphere, I felt even better. As we head toward the
Two
I feel even lighter. My hands are on the controls, I know what I'm doing, and I'm ready to go home.

I find myself thinking about something completely different from everyone else. I find myself wondering when Lost Souls became home, and how a woman who likes to wander has actually managed to settle down.

I am double-checking the distance between us and the
Two
when Coop makes his little outburst.

He speaks loudly enough to get everyone's attention.

“What?” I ask.

“Starbases,” he says, but he's not talking to me. He's sitting in the copilot's seat, but he has his back to me. He leans closer to Yash, as if they're continuing a conversation that they've had before.

Maybe they are.

“We've been worrying about sector bases,” he says. “We haven't given a second thought to starbases, and they're on a trajectory too.”

“There's just fewer of them,” Yash says.

“Which could work to our advantage,” Coop says.

“You want to explain this for the rest of us?” I ask.

“I need to check the records,” he says, still talking to Yash. “There should be a starbase somewhere in the vicinity of Sector Base Y. We might even have its specs in our database.”

“Even if we don't,” she says, “starbase trajectories are more precise.”

“More precise than what?” I ask. I'm feeling quite confused by this, and since it's going to be my ships taking everyone where they need to go, I'd like to know what this discussion actually entails.

Coop swivels in his seat so quickly his knees nearly hit my right thigh.

“Starbases get set up first,” he says. “So even if something bad happened to Sector Base W, the starbase would have already been established, and it would be farther out.”

“Closer to Sector Base Y,” Yash says.

“Or even Sector Base Z,” Coop says. “Or the place where the Fleet initially planned to put Sector Base Z.”

“Starbase Kappa is in its proper location,” Yash says. “So we just map the next point from there, and see if we come up with anything.”

Starbase Kappa is known in the Empire as the Room of Lost Souls, which is where my adventures with stealth tech began decades ago. The Room of Lost Souls is an empty base, filled with rogue stealth tech, and people have died there for centuries.

Including my mother.

I was just a child when I went in there with her. I came out. She did not.

And my father planned it. He suspected that my mother lacked the marker. He knew he had it. He was willing to sacrifice me to find out if I had it as well. If I hadn't, I would have died with her.

“A starbase could have vanished a long time ago,” I say. It's really hard not to mention how much time has actually passed because it is relevant. I know of starbases that haven't lasted a hundred years, let alone five thousand.

Besides, the Room of Lost Souls isn't a starbase any longer. It's a curiosity, something spacers warn each other against.

“We were lucky to find Starbase Kappa,” I say, using their name. “Even if the starbase that you're searching for still exists, it probably isn't a base. It might just be floating parts.”

“We learned some things from Starbase Kappa,” Coop says. He had taken the
Ivoire
there against my instructions because he said he wanted to shut down the stealth tech.

He had done that, but it took me a while to realize he was also trying to find some hint about his past.

That was early in our relationship, less than six months after we found the
Ivoire
, and he still had no comprehension about the dangers the Empire faced.

Fortunately, no one from the Empire saw the
Ivoire.
No one saw him; no one realized what had happened.

And as far as we can tell, no one knows that the
anacapa
drive that was malfunctioning on Starbase Kappa, causing the strange effects that made it the Room of Lost Souls, has vanished. The Room of Lost Souls is a safe place for ships to stop now, because Coop brought its
anacapa
back to us.

I sigh. “I'm not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?”

He grins. “I don't even know why you tried.”

I want you to be sensible
, I nearly say, but I don't. There is nothing sensible about his quest. But I do realize that it gives him focus.

So many others on the
Ivoire
were more realistic. They lost their focus, and some of them couldn't face the new world that they were in.

I don't want to take Coop's main prop away from him, but I also hate wild-goose chases.

I'm about to say something like that, and then I remember: a find like that starbase would be something like the wrecks I used to dive. I could get in touch with my former self, which I have wanted to do.

“All right,” I say. “We'll go back to the
Two
and do a proper search.”

“Thanks,” he says, and claps his hand on my shoulder. But he's not thinking about the rest of us. His mind is already on that starbase, and what he might find there.

I hope he finds something. I'm not sure how many more disappointments his crew can take.