The Best of All Possible Worlds (30 page)

We’d saved the strangest for last. The taSadiri had settled mainly in the equatorial
and tropical belts, keeping to a warm climate whenever possible. It was what they
were best adapted to, and the Sadiri are nothing if not traditional
and
practical. The last settlement on the schedule was the most distant, sited on a peninsula
barely clear of the polar regions. We traveled by air and set down near a fjord under
the shadow of a large, low volcano. When I stepped out, braced for the worst in my
insulated jacket and hood, I slowed in shock.

“Stinks,” said Lian, exiting close behind me.

“Hot,”
I said in utter surprise, lowering my hood and unsealing my jacket.

And it was. The waters of the fjord steamed, and the atmosphere was a curious mix
of warm, heavy air and puffs of sharp, icy wind. The landscape was treeless, sloping
down the narrow inlet with a cradling effect and alternating between green lichen
and black basalt. Nasiha, Tarik, and Joral exited from the jump jet looking ambivalent,
unimpressed by the fluctuating heat and humidity but curious at the idea that Sadiri
would have chosen to live in such a place.

Fergus, who had been piloting, stuck his head out and sniffed the air suspiciously.
“You sure you know where you’re going?”

“Quite sure, Sergeant,” said Nasiha calmly, making slow, sweeping movements with her
geosensor. “All we need to do is find the entrance.”

She deserved to feel a bit complacent. It had been her hard work and brilliance, and
Tarik’s too of course, that had uncovered this place from the various legends and
folktales they’d diligently collected in every settlement and town we’d visited. A
little cross-checking with the records of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources
and the Polar Exploration Institute had borne fruit that would be worth at least one
paper, maybe two. The taSadiri settlement had been
underground
, sheltered from the extreme weather, running on geothermal energy, and thus still
the right temperature to remind them of home.

Of course, this was a scientific expedition, not a diplomatic one. The settlement
had been unpopulated for centuries. The Commissioner and the Councillor were back
in Tlaxce, already bogged down in interviews with Cygnian and Sadiri media and meetings
with representatives of global, interplanetary, and galactic bodies. That left us
to have the fun—and it
was
fun. Of all the places I’d been to, this was the one that I took care to record
with my comm. I’d probably never be this far north again in my life.

“Over there.” Tarik pointed.

It looked like rock at first, but it was a regular, man-made structure, built low
and strong against the wind into the hillside. We found a door at the side, half sunk
into the ground with steps going down, like the entrance to a bunker. When we entered,
the lights came on. I felt first disorientation, then vertigo.

“Do we all go down?” asked Joral doubtfully, hitching a large, bulky bag higher up
on one shoulder.

Tarik examined the small elevator-like structure hanging suspended in the center over
an unfathomably deep mine shaft. “The carrying capacity is more than adequate. However,
there are also emergency chutes at the circumference if you prefer.”

Joral turned to examine them as Tarik pointed them out. He blinked. They were narrow
tubes of some transparent material, even more claustrophobia-inducing than the main
lift. “No,” he said quickly. “No, that will not be necessary.”

Tarik turned to Nasiha. “There is no need for you to come with us.”

“So you have already told me,” she said. “You have my response on that matter. Further
discussion at this stage is—”

“Then at least grant me this. You will return to the surface immediately if I consider
it to be too dangerous.”

I was impressed. I had never heard Tarik interrupt Nasiha before.

“That sounds reasonable,” she admitted reluctantly.

I looked away from them to hide my smile.

The ride down was long, dark, and filled with ominous creaking sounds, but I wasn’t
too worried as I knew this technology was a relatively recent addition by the Mineral
Resources people. Nasiha led us out of the lift to the rim of the single pool of light
around the shaft. Pale lights came up and slowly strengthened as she tapped access
codes into her comm. Joral opened his bag and handed out hard hats with miner’s lights—old,
solid technology but with a few modern additions like built-in nav and emergency oxygen
generators. I put mine on gladly and vidded myself with my wrist comm looking all
adventurer-like while Lian laughed at me.

“Where do we go?” asked Joral, and it was a good question, because the mine’s lights
illuminated at least six different paths leading away to God knows where in the vastness.

Nasiha’s reply was reassuringly prompt and confident. “This way.”

She led us for half an hour along a path with damp, dripping rock above and around.
The water was warm, and I couldn’t help but feel that there must be some pools nearby
worth soaking in, fed by hot springs and rich with minerals. Decadent taSadiri of
this austere outpost kicking back in their hot tubs while the weather above them went
to subzero—I could picture it.

We turned away from the lights onto a less even path, scrambled through a few narrow
places, and then we were there. It was worth it! I’d missed seeing Piedra in real
life, so I had no comparison, but as far as cities carved out of sheer rock go, this
was damned impressive. I hurt my neck swiveling around trying to get my headlight
to capture the full scope of an arch that was two stories high and bracketed by windows
that hinted at rooms within the rock. The arch itself led into a cathedral of a passageway,
with more windows high in the walls and arched doorways a little above path level,
their steps crumbling as if eroded by running water. I could imagine the subterranean
street lit by cool, pale lamps during the night and warm, bright lamps in the day.
Greenhouses near the surface were a possibility, Nasiha had said, close enough to
take advantage of skylights but deep enough to
tap into the earth’s heat. Rivers and inlets were filled with fish adapted to living
underground, feeding on algae swept in by the tides of the fjord. A glitter caught
my eye, and I went closer to see the muted sheen of crystal in the rock, not excavated
but incorporated into the carvings of the door lintel. It was a rich place, an unexpected
Eden. Why was it deserted?

Tarik approached one set of steps more closely and beckoned us over. “Look,” he said.
“The path has risen. We are walking on the remnants of a lava flow.”

That put my vivid imagination to work in a less pleasant area. I imagined the street
illuminated with a hellish red, oozing past doors and trapping people in—wait a minute.

“Tarik, was this place abandoned before the lava came through? Did they find any remains?”
I asked.

He nodded approvingly at the question. “None. They must have had warning of the eruption
and evacuated to some other place. Then, when they returned, they found it uninhabitable.”

I understood what he meant when the path went sharply upward, allowing us to walk
along the level of the first-story windows and then past them until the ceiling of
the tunnel stopped us.

“Who knows how much more lies under that rock,” Lian said wonderingly. Lian had also
missed seeing Piedra. “How do you know for certain that taSadiri lived here?”

“This is similar to the stone carving of Piedra, and some of the symbols here can
also be found in ancient Sadiri texts,” Joral explained. “However, there may have
been other—”

We froze. There was a sudden scuttling patter that made me think uncomfortably of
giant spiders—my own fault for having watched preholo monster movies with Joral and
Lian two nights previously.

“Rockfall,” said Nasiha crisply after the echoes had died
away. “Small earthquakes are common in this area. It is nothing to be concerned about.”

I would have believed her in an instant, but Tarik was frowning and checking his geosensor.
“Seismic data from the mine’s sensors do indicate that caution may be advisable. How
much longer do you need to record—”

The path beneath us fell away ten centimeters or so, then surged higher, leaving us
first stumbling and then gasping on our knees.

“We go now,” Tarik ordered, clipping his geosensor to his belt and seizing hold of
his wife’s arm.

Nasiha tried to collect herself. “Wait, the—”

“Good idea,” Lian interrupted briskly.

We staggered out, disoriented by the occasional vibration of the ground and the wavering
shadows as our headlights bobbed. That’s how I ran into Tarik’s back.

“What is it?” Joral asked sharply.

There was no answer, and for a moment I wondered hysterically if the way was blocked
and he was afraid to tell us, but then, one by one, we turned and squinted up through
the dust, half unsure about what we were seeing.

“Everyone, turn off your lights,” Tarik commanded.

Far from the mine’s lamps and with our own lights out, it was obvious. There was a
slender beam of illuminated dust, as if someone had cracked open a window several
stories up.

“But we’re so far down,” Lian murmured in awe.

“A light well,” Nasiha said. “Another part of the city must have been opened by the
earth tremor.”

Lian switched a light back on and swept it along the ground leading to the beam. The
terrain was steep but passable. “You guys stay here. We’ll scout ahead, see if there’s
anything worth investigating.”

I dithered, trying to decide whether I wanted to be classified as a “you guys” or
a “we,” but as Joral followed Lian, curiosity got the better of me. With an apologetic
glance back at Nasiha, I scrambled to catch up with them. When I arrived, out of breath,
at the source of the light, they were crouched beside the gap, staring transfixed.
I huddled in to take a peek and saw a huge cavern lit by massive tubes of mirror and
glass. Some were dim and dark—perhaps covered over by earth where they were meant
to emerge into sunlight—but there were enough tubes still functioning for us to see
that the street we had just walked was a mere back alley.
This
was the heart of the city, its
forum magnum
. I vidded what I could see and stuck my arm out to vid what I couldn’t.

Lian began to pull at the rocks around the edge of the gap, trying to clear more space.
“Let’s see if we can get down there.”

Stair-connected balconies ridged the walls of the cavern. Lian went through the gap
and carefully climbed down a few meters of rock face to stand on one of them.

“I’m sure that’s dangerous,” I said nervously. “Joral, don’t you have some rope in
that kit bag?”

“A very good idea,” he said, also looking apprehensive. He took out a length of slender
cord. Securing one end to a projection of rock, he lowered the other end to Lian,
who caught it and hooked it onto a belt loop without comment.

“Tarik should see this at least,” I said. “I’ll go back and stay with Nasiha so he
can come up.”

I made the switch, consoling Nasiha with some images from my comm vid while Tarik
went to examine the find. Then the earth shook again, a long, powerful tremor.

I gasped. “Let’s get out of here,” I said to Nasiha.

We stumbled a short distance, and then she cried out, “Tarik!”

“Delarua! Take Nasiha to the surface now!” he shouted back.

“You promised,” I told her, unfairly perhaps, but it had an
effect. She let me pull her into a near run as we headed for the main path, and once
the way was lit, she outpaced me to the shaft lift.

“Get in,” she snapped. “They can use the emergency tubes.”

I got in. The earth had calmed again, but I felt as if I’d had my fill of adventures
of this kind. Several different phobias assailed me as we ascended. We were so high
up—what if the lift failed and we fell? What if it got to the top and didn’t open,
trapping us in a box? What if it failed, fell, and left us to be buried alive in the
dark? I breathed deeply, marshaling everything I had learned in meditation practice
to keep myself sane. Nasiha had only one fear, and I could read it in her eyes.

“Tarik will be right behind us,” I promised.

The lift opened. I grasped Nasiha’s hand and ran out and up the stairs into the open,
not giving her a chance to think about waiting for the others inside that windowless
chamber. We collapsed on the hillside, sitting facing the door. Nasiha frowned at
her geosensor, then tried her comm, tapping and calling Tarik’s name, then Joral’s,
then Lian’s. There was no response.

“I am a fool,” she whispered, her face bleak.

“Come on, come on,” I muttered at the empty doorway. “You’re all okay; you’ve got
to be.”

A long, agony-filled minute later, Tarik came out, coughing and covered in dust. Nasiha
went to meet him, took his hands, and seemed to sigh. I ran past them.

“Lian! Lian? Joral?” I whipped back around. “Where are they?”

Tarik looked at me, somber and ashamed. “We must call for help. There has been a significant
collapse of the exit tunnel.”

I slapped on my comm. “Fergus! Call Emergency Services. We have two missing.”

By the time we got down to the jump jet, we found that Fergus
had called Emergency Services and also managed to contact Lian by using the jet’s
comm. They were both uninjured, but there was no way out. Nasiha scanned the data
provided by the Ministry, but to no avail. The newly discovered cavern was unmapped.

I tried to be cheerful as I chatted to Lian and Joral. “Look on the bright side. You’re
in the warm, there’s sunlight all around, and you’re in the middle of the discovery
of the century. Walk around; take some pics and vids for us. Find something Nasiha
can write a paper about.”

As we talked to them, the first team from Emergency Services turned up. They were
a small group from a nearby science outpost and they lacked excavation equipment,
but they did have all manner of scanning technology to determine the extent of the
collapse and figure out where to start digging when the heavy equipment arrived. They
also checked us over, giving Nasiha particular attention, then declared us fine and
tried to ignore us as we told them everything we knew and a few things we didn’t and,
frankly, breathed down their necks in a very unhelpful way.