HE’D LIED TO HER. A white lie, but it still gnawed at him.

The implant kept him awake by shutting down parts of the brain in a carefully controlled sequence, letting one bit rest at a time instead of the lot. He hadn’t yet used this capability since landing because he’d always felt it a last resort. There were dangers, not the least of which was simply operating your brain in a way that went against everything the body knew. He saw no alternative, though. He was battered, starving, and dehydrated. If he fell asleep he feared he might never wake.

He’d also allowed a trickle of pain suppression. All that had been true, more or less.

What he’d left out was the heightened state of his senses. Hearing, specifically. He thought it best to keep this to himself, in the spirit of his mission.

Just after midday that became impossible.

“We need to get off the road!” Caswell shouted over the snare-drum rattle of the air engine.

The Sun, Garta, battled scattered clouds. Midafternoon light tinged slightly yellow. They had not stopped since dawn, when he’d told her the basics of what his implant could do.

“Agreed,” Melni shouted back. “I am so hungry, and this seat is—”

“I mean now!”

He accelerated ahead of her and swerved off between two giant trees. The ground, blanketed by dry fallen leaves of vibrant yellows, oranges, and reds, crunched beneath the cycle’s tires. Caswell weaved a tight path between thin gray trunks and skidded to a stop in the shade of a low rock outcrop.

Melni roared in after him, too fast. She jerked the bike to the left, skidding in a wild slide that threw autumn leaves and clods of damp earth into the air. “Blixxing cur—” she started, fighting to keep the cycle upright. The curse died on her lips because she saw him. Caswell held one hand flat across his mouth in the Gartien sign of silence, his eyes scanning the clouds above.

Ten seconds passed in near-total silence. Just the sound of rustling leaves. The emerald-green canopy swayed in the breeze. Nothing else moved.

“What is it?” Melni whispered.

“Airships,” he said.

She glanced around. “I hear nothing but the wind.”

Caswell reached up and lightly tapped the back of his neck. “I can.”

If the revelation of this ability surprised her, she hid it well. “I thought you were holding that in reserve?”

“I am, for the most part. But I also don’t want a bomb to drop on us.”

“Gratitude.”

Minutes passed before Melni finally craned her neck toward the sound. Caswell let his augmentation ebb, hearing the world again as she did. The growing noise resembled the nearby buzzing of a persistent fly, coming from everywhere and nowhere. For minutes it went on, joined by others in a droning chorus. Any second now Caswell expected to see an entire fleet of those bulbous monstrosities fill the sky, but then the sound faded until only the wind remained. Caswell rubbed his temple, listening for another few minutes before he glanced at Melni and nodded. “I suggest we move as fast as possible when they’re not around.”

“I need a bite to eat.”

“You know,” he said, “the first thing I’m going to do when we find Alice is ask what the hell she’s been eating and drinking all this time.”

The look of guilt on Melni’s face was priceless. “Regret! If you would prefer I—”

“It’s fine,” he said. “You eat. I’ll top us off.”

His wording earned a quizzical look that evaporated from her face when he began to compress more air into the thumper’s pressure canisters. While she ate he repeated the process for the other bike.

Caswell stowed the pump gear and swung his leg over the bike’s saddle. “Want me to lead for a while?”

A shower of leaves cut off his words. Melni, astride her bike, had gunned the accelerator to full and tore away from him in a flurry of sprayed debris that peppered his goggles. She looked back at him and flashed a childish grin.

“Going to be like that, is it?” he said to himself, and raced off after her.

The bumpy dirt “road” was studded with rocks and fallen branches, riddled with long trenches carved by rain, and rife with blind curves. Still, he managed to close the gap, grinning like a fool when the trail opened up into a long, straight passage through a flat patch of forest.

Hidden from the sky by a cathedral ceiling of tangled branches, Melni pushed her cycle to its limit. Caswell followed her example. Five miles into the straightaway he managed to overtake her, his grin echoed by a mischievous smile on her face. He weaved in front of her and laughed aloud as dark soil and churned leaves sprayed across her body.

The air, thick with the rampant vegetation all around, had an almost intoxicating effect. He lost himself in the race. All the fear and worry at what lay ahead was suddenly forgotten in a rush of wind and the simple competition. Every ten seconds they traded positions. She could ride, no doubt about that. And, to his delight, she displayed a competitive streak that seemed to equal his own. At one point she pulled up next to him and they playfully traded halfhearted attempts to kick the other off balance. Then Melni leaned forward, streamlining herself, and shot ahead on a burst of speed he hadn’t expected. She took a bump, left the ground, landed in a puddle that splayed mud across his borrowed army coat and splattered across his goggles. Caswell roared with laughter and leaned so far forward his face almost touched the handlebar.

Melni glanced back at him, a sly grin plastered across her face. She never saw the sharp bend in the trail. He tried to shout a warning, but it was too late.

Trampled ground gave way to raw soil, thick and muddy, strewn with obstacles. He watched helplessly as she fought for control. Her focus shifted to the immediate obstacles, not on the change looming just beyond. He felt his heart lurch. Ahead, the forest fell away. Open sky replaced the dark crowd of tree trunks. At the last instant Melni swerved right, leaned into the turn, and let the cycle kick out in a vicious skid that sent a wave of dirt and leaves over the precipice she’d almost crossed.

She stopped just inches from the cliff edge. Caswell followed her, more slowly, his heart racing. “That was close,” he managed, pulling off his goggles.

“I was holding back,” she said.

“Not the race. Christ, you almost flew right over the edge, Melni.”

She turned to look, and seemed to see the crater edge for the first time. Propping the thumper on its stand, she walked to the drop-off and stood, mouth agape, at the view below.

Caswell came up beside. “Shit,” he whispered.

The great wound had leveled forest, cleaved away hillsides and floodplains, and demolished a small village on the visible perimeter far to his left. A river—he could almost see its original winding path from before the event—entered one side, pooled into a great semicircular lake in the basin, then drained out of a dozen low points along the eroded edges. Despite plenty of trees and plants growing in the massive basin, the shape and scale of the impact zone was still apparent, even after two centuries.

“One of the titan craters,” she said. “Fifteen miles across. There are only a half-dozen of this scale.”

“Unbelievable.”

She pointed off to the right. “If I am not mistaken, our destination is up that river valley about fifty miles. We are close.”

“How long until Valix’s summit, exactly?”

“Tomorrow evening. Fifteen hours from now.”

He converted that in his head. Thirty Earth-hours to get to Alice. And two days after that, reversion would come. Everything since the Venturi, forgotten. He’d have to isolate himself by then. Lose himself somewhere in this vast wasteland. What would he tell Melni? He resolved to worry about it later. “Will we make it?”

She summoned her mental map of the area. “It is five hundred miles from there to Fineva. It will be a near thing, especially if we spend a lot of time searching for our evidence.”

“No time to waste, then.”

The playful mood of the forest race evaporated in the face of the brush with death and the press of time. Melni took the lead, picking a path along the jagged crater rim. After a few miles a collapsed portion of the steep wall provided entry. She bounded down the recently formed hillside and into the crater proper, the drumbeat rhythm of her cycle just meters ahead of his, the two machines both at the limit of their capability.

After fording two streams at their shallowest points, and another half hour of brutal riding out the other side of the crater, Melni found the cleft that led into the valley Caswell had identified on the map. A swift and narrow river gurgled down the center of the ravine. Melni followed its rock-strewn bank. Soon she began to weave, and almost fell. Her bike rolled to a sudden stop.

“What’s the matter?” Caswell asked, pulling up beside her.

“I am exhausted.”

He let her rest, sitting on a rock a few meters away where he could see most of the sky and the entire span of the crater they’d just crossed. A birdlike creature wheeled overhead, four brightly colored wings glinting in the morning light.

“Hear anything?” she asked him.

Caswell shook his head. “All quiet.”

“We should go then, before they return.”

“Rest awhile.”

She considered this for several seconds, then began to shake her head, slowly, then with more conviction. “There is no time. I will be okay if you lead. Navigating requires more focus than I can muster.”

“All right then,” he replied.

Caswell mounted up and, while Melni fiddled with her goggles, he rubbed his temples and mentally gave a series of commands. A familiar warm tingle began to spread across his scalp from the back of his neck as a chemical mixture crept through his brain. It used the last of his reserves, but he could see no alternative. Saving it for some shoot-out with Alice Vale’s bodyguards would not matter if he arrived too late. Better to make sure he arrived in time, and trust his natural skill as a killer to do the rest. He only knew that part of himself from what had transpired the last few weeks, but what he’d learned gave him confidence. Just get me there, he urged his implant, and I’ll figure something out. It’s what I do.

So he rode, like some maniac teenage motocross champion. He weaved between narrow gaps in the hairy bushes Melni called “loma plants,” darted around boulders like a fox in flight, and used the bumps in the ground to jump over dangerous eroded pits. Melni fell into some kind of trancelike zone, mimicking his path subconsciously. She fell behind now and then, but overall she held her own and their pace improved significantly.

A few hours later, a patch of color ahead caught his eye. Caswell began to slow.

“Are we here already?” she asked, sliding up next to him.

“No,” he said, “and yet…yes.”

She followed his gaze down a steep hill. Ten meters away a signpost protruded from the ground, partially obscured by tall, pale weeds. Old and rusted, tilting slightly in the soft dirt where it had been placed, the sign nevertheless had obviously been placed here recently. In the last ten years, he thought.

The sign warned of mines, if he understood it correctly. Best to be sure. “What’s it mean?”

Melni swallowed to clear her throat. “Toe-bombs,” she said. “A good thing you spotted this. I would have missed it.”

“Toe-bombs?” He could guess, but he wanted to hear it from her.

“Disk-shaped explosives buried just below the topsoil. They will explode if enough weight is detected by a sensor plate on top.” As she spoke she made a round shape with her fingers, about the size of a dinner plate.

“Mm. We call them land mines,” Caswell said. “Or, we did. They’ve been outlawed for a hundred years on Earth.”

“They are illegal here, too. For almost half a century. One of the few things both North and South agreed on. None have been placed since, so far as I know. And while many old fields still exist, I have never heard of one so far from either frontier.”

“That sign doesn’t look fifty years old. More like ten.”

“I thought the same thing.”

He knelt and shoved his fist into the soil, scooping out a handful and letting it fall through his fingers. Soft dirt. Easy to conceal a land mine just a few inches below the surface. “Well,” he said, “one thing’s for sure. We’re in the right place.”

“How do you know?”

Caswell nodded at the sign. “Someone doesn’t want people snooping around.” He crouched there, studying the landscape, for some time. “I say we leave the bikes—thumpers—here. Follow the river on foot until we reach that boathouse we saw in your picture.”

“Too slow,” Melni said. “Plus we would have to walk all the way back here to retrieve them, the opposite direction of Fineva. It would set us back hours.”

He bit back his gut response, ready to defend his instincts against her calculated logic. She had it right. Caswell swallowed his pride. “Ideas, then?”

“Keep the thumpers,” she offered. “Ride along the game trails. Look, there.” She pointed off to their left, in a gully that paralleled the river. Even from here, fresh prints could be seen in the soft dirt. “Anything placed along such paths would have been set off by wild bhar already. They are heavy enough to trigger such devices. I see no sign of prior explosions.”

“The trail might not lead where we’re going,” Caswell pointed out.

Melni shook her head. “Bhar eat the shoreflowers that bloom along the fringe in second month. They will follow the river.”

“What are these bhar? Dangerous?” The word, similar to boar, conjured an unpleasant image of large feral pigs with nasty tusks.

“They are big, yes. The size of our thumpers, but harmless. They lumber around on six stubby legs, their great long snouts sweeping back and forth plucking flowers in vast quantities.”

Caswell glanced up and down the trail, and saw no flowers. But he did see stems he’d mistaken for weeds. He pictured the animals, walking in a line, then WHAM! The leader vanishing in a cloud of smoke and chunks of meat and bone. Despite the wisdom in her plan, that vision gave him pause. “It’s risky.”

“So is fleeing Riverswidth on the eve of war. Or riding below airships that bomb anything that moves.”

He grinned at her. “Do you ever deviate from one of your plans, once formed?”

Her smile matched his. “Plans can be useful. You should try making one sometime.”

“I think I’ll leave that part to you,” he said, laughing.

—

The landscape began to feel familiar. Features gleaned from studying the photographs Melni had stolen. Certain twists in the river, and the shape of hills that sloped up gently to either side.

Half a kilometer from the boathouse Caswell skidded to a stop when the bhar trail abruptly ended. In front of him, almost concealed by the tall, bone-colored grass, were horizontal strips of razor wire. Not exactly like the kind he knew from Earth, but close enough. The sharp metal vines of the fencing ran out into the river and descended into sediment-clouded depths.

Melni watched as he dismounted and produced a pair of cutters from the tool pack each thumper had been supplied with. Old, rusty things, but when he pressed the handles together there came a satisfying snap and one of the sharpened strips of metal fell away with a twang that reverberated off in both directions—out into the water, and up the steep wall of the canyon that they had entered half an hour earlier.

He cut the remaining bands and, with a sand-coated scarf wrapped around his fist, pushed the fragments out of their way. Then he stowed the tool and stood beside his bike, ready to push it. He glanced at Melni and tried to give her a confident expression.

She met his gaze with a single raised eyebrow.

“If I’m right,” he said, “she’ll have this place well guarded.”

“We have not seen anyone.”

“Not by people. This place is her greatest secret, if it’s what we think it is. Mines, razor wire…that’s only the beginning, I fear. Stay well behind me just in case.”

He could see the small war behind her eyes, that innate desire to lead she harbored being fought back by a grudging acknowledgment that his implant gave them too large an advantage here. She relented, swung down off her bike, and began to push.

They walked in the late-afternoon sunlight. The cheerful conversation of songbirds gave way to the sighs and scratches of insects. Caswell listened, transfixed by the similarities and the differences equally.

Not far from the interwoven helixes of razor wire he came upon the narrow dirt lane glimpsed in the aerial scout’s photo. Weeds had obscured most of it, but there was no mistaking the wide bulbous puff of the greencloud tree and, in its shade, the two graves. Caswell glanced in each direction. To his right he saw the cottage, hidden in the cleft at the end of the ravine. No smoke curled from the chimney now. A good sign, he decided. If Alice had lived here, there wouldn’t be many clues left behind if someone else had moved in since.

Vegetation had all but consumed the little cottage. A small shade tree sprouted from the roof, its roots worming their way through layers of ancient mud-brick tiles and into the dark depths of two tall, glassless windows. Orange spiderwebs clung to the undersides of the eaves. An old wooden bucket lay discarded on the stone steps that led around to the back of the tiny hovel.

Caswell glanced right. The road, somewhat maintained in the photograph, was nothing more than a trail of saplings doing battle with choking weeds. Only their small size compared to the adult growth around them marked the path.

“No one has been here in years,” Melni said, echoing his thoughts.

Caswell wasn’t so sure. Something about the perfectness of it all nagged at him. As if this “nothing to see here” effect was elaborately staged. He said, “Or we’re meant to think that. Let’s have a closer look.”

He moved to the two graves and went to one knee. Knelt so, the meter-tall weeds concealed him completely. Melni came closer and knelt beside him.

Crude gravestones—crosses made from sticks and twine—poked from the far end. Near the middle of the piled dirt, dry flowers lay in bundles lashed not with twine but clear tape. The flowers, though brittle and long dead, still held faded blues and yellows of their original coloration.

“These were placed here in the last year, maybe two, if I’m not mistaken,” Caswell said.

Melni pointed at the strips of adhesive. “That tape is a Valix invention. Something of a North-wide phenomenon five years ago. Why are these mounds marked with the letter T?”

He stood and brushed dirt from his hands. “Our best evidence. That’s a religious symbol from Earth. She was here all right.”

“Did she travel here with others? Perhaps—”

“No, she came alone.”

“You are so sure?”

“Yes,” he said, more tersely than he’d intended. Caswell went back to the trail. He studied the cottage for a long time. It was far too dilapidated and exposed to harbor much in the way of evidence. He glanced the other way, toward the boathouse. In the photo that structure had a key difference compared to the cottage: a new roof. Caswell went that way and Melni fell in behind him once again.

He weaved a careful trail through what she’d called bonegrass. The knuckled segments tapped against his body and then sprang away before settling back in to mar Melni’s passage a few seconds later, like probing skeletal fingers.

A subtle change in the soundscape made him stop.

Melni almost ran into him. “What is it—”

His upheld hand silenced her. He rubbed his temple, and willed augmentation to his hearing. The dregs of his chemical reserves obliged, but only just. Caswell craned his neck and tilted his head from side to side. What was it? What had changed? Insects, like cicadas but with a wholly alien rhythm and tone, filled his ears. Beneath came the regular sloshing of the river. There had been something else. A brief, minute addition, like the hiss of a snake. Or like an air engine, settling down to a stop? Whatever it was, it was gone now.

Beside him, Melni glanced around, her brow furrowed. She hadn’t heard it, or perhaps whatever had made the sound was normal to her ear, like the rush of a field mouse through grass that he would ignore back home.

Twenty seconds passed without further anomalies. Caswell lowered his hand. “Nothing, I guess,” he said. “My imagination. Let’s go.”

The cleft between the hills weaved around for another thirty meters. With each step the sound of the river grew until finally the brown water came into view, sliding past from right to left. Roughly a hundred meters wide here. The path’s angle sloped suddenly down to the water’s edge where the boathouse waited.

While the cottage had appeared to be centuries old, the boathouse gave the exact opposite impression. Though ramshackle and filthy, it lacked the air of total abandoned disrepair. The roof sloped to either side at a shallow angle, finished in shingle tiles, even patched in places. The walls were of poorly painted wooden slats. None of it seemed to line up quite right, as if the right supplies had been slapped together by an incompetent builder. Compared to the small cottage it presumably serviced, this was quite large, a long, rectangular shape that started five meters out on the water and spanned another ten up onto the shoreline of the turgid river. The building’s uneven window frames were not empty, though they didn’t contain panes of glass, either. Instead, planks of wood had been sloppily nailed across the spans. The door itself had a length of heavy iron chain wrapped neatly around the handle and the foot latch at the base. Clasped around the links there rested a heavy combination padlock, alien and yet instantly recognizable.

The lock did not concern Caswell. His eyes were drawn instead to the signs peppered all around the building as well as on both windows and the door itself.

Each read:

QUARANTINE

DEADLY TOXINS PRESENT

Joint Gartien Assembly—Desolation Survey

Rust crept in from the edges of the brightly painted signs. One hung at a tilted angle, a broken loop of wire dangling behind it.

More theater, Caswell suspected. He smirked.

“What is funny?” Melni asked, a tinge of fear in her voice.

“Everything. It all says, ‘Go away, it’s too dangerous and besides there’s nothing interesting here. Nope, nothing at all. Please leave.’ Someone’s trying too hard, I think.”

Her gaze swung back to the boathouse, and she studied it anew with this perspective. After a few seconds she nodded in agreement.

Caswell studied the broader scene: the sloped path, the reeds along the riverbank, and the clefts in the surrounding hills now tucked in long shadows. He glanced at Melni and said, “Stay low.”

Another nod.

He bent at the waist and moved at a light jog, avoiding anything on the path that might make a noise if stepped on. At the door to the boathouse he took one side. Melni understood and slid in opposite him, her back to the wall in a mirror of his posture. He glanced at the heavy lock and then the chain. He took in the windows and up to the underside of the eave that shaded them.

“Whoever built this place did a shitty job,” he whispered.

“I was thinking the same thing.”

He gestured to the lock and chain. “The wire cutters won’t get through this.”

“Agreed.” Melni nodded toward one of the boarded windows. “Easier to pry some of those planks away, I think.”

Caswell considered that, then grimaced. “Too loud. Let’s check around the back first. Maybe it’s open out toward the water. If we can get out of here without leaving a sign of our presence, I’d prefer it.”

“Agreed,” she said.

Melni took the lead. Around the side of the structure she found a long stick. She thrust the six-foot length of wood in, probing the depth a meter off the shore. The stick descended until her wrist touched the murky liquid. No chance of walking that. Without a word Caswell began to remove his boots and clothing. Melni watched him, a total lack of embarrassment as his clothes came off.

He stood with his toes at the waterline and readied a headfirst dive.

Melni pulled the stick from the water. It snagged on something. “Hold on,” she said, a heartbeat before Caswell leapt.

He watched as she heaved on the stick. It had snagged on something. A few centimeters finally lifted out, along with a length of razor wire.

Caswell eased back and let out a long breath as a line of the barbed material broke the surface, a few meters in each direction. He envisioned ribbons of the stuff, entwined and snaking their way all around the base of the structure. “That would not have been a pleasant swim.”

“Boost me up,” she whispered, dropping the stick. “I will cross the roof and look down from there.”

He cupped his hands and hoisted her to the awning, then busied himself with his clothes.

Dressed, he stood back a ways to watch her cross the roof. The tiles were coated with slick green moss. She crept to the far end slowly, avoiding portions of the surface that dipped downward. At the back, she lay down and peered over the edge. Then she turned and crawled back. She motioned for him to approach.

Caswell moved to the wall and looked up. “What did you see?”

“An old boat, tied up. I cannot see what condition it is in. There is another door, and some toolboxes.”

“The door. Locked?”

She shrugged. “Yes, but there is a window. Boarded, but not visible from the front at least.”

“Okay. Okay. How sturdy is that roof?”

“It will hold us,” she said.

Caswell pressed himself against the wall and reached up for her offered hand. He stopped short of clasping it, and paused.

“What is wrong?”

Through his hand pressed against the wall he felt a constant, low vibration. He looked up at her. “A vibration,” he said. “Coming from within.”

“Perhaps just the flow of water against the supports?”

He thought about it. Held his hand firm for a while. The faint movement was absolutely constant. “Maybe.” His gut told him her theory was wrong. This felt electric. He decided to keep the theory to himself until he could be absolutely sure. “Let’s try that window in back.” At least there it would not be immediately obvious someone had entered.

Caswell took a running leap and clasped her outstretched hand. It made a lot of noise, but he saw no alternative. She hauled him up and led him to the edge of the roof.

“Avoid those depressions,” she said, pointing at the sinking portions.

He kept a modest distance and followed her steps. At the edge she lowered herself over the side and dropped onto the narrow edge of the dock below. The wood planks creaked under her weight. She moved in and watched as Caswell repeated her motion.

An old fishing boat bobbed in the calm black water of the slip, covered by gray canvas. The ropes that held it in place were black with mold. To either side of the moored craft were various stacks of toolboxes, air cylinders, and spare lengths of rope. Mold, dust, or a disgusting mixture of the two coated everything. The whole place reeked of mildew. He glanced at the door, which was chained in the same fashion as out front.

“Search these boxes for something we can use,” he said. Melni took one side while he rummaged through the other.

In the third tool chest he found a pry bar and set to work on the lone boarded window. The nails holding the wood in place were rusted through and, with only a mild groan, came free easily. In less than a minute he had the sill clear. He paused only to glance at Melni. At her nod he hauled himself up and in.

—

Darkness swallowed him. Even with the thin light spilling in from the now-empty window frame, he had to wait for his eyes to adjust.

Melni plopped down next to him and started to move farther in. He wrapped a hand around her forearm.

“Let your eyes adjust,” he whispered.

“Why are you whispering?” she asked, her voice as low as his.

“Just in case.” He could feel the vibration through the floor now.

Melni finally noticed it, too. She glanced down at her feet. “What is that? A bilge pump?”

“It’s warm in here,” Caswell noted. “Maybe a power generator.”

A trickle of sweat ran down his spine. He inhaled deeply. Moist air rank with decay.

“There does not seem to be anything toxic,” Melni said.

Caswell grunted his agreement. His eyes began to register details. Furniture covered with sheets once white, now coated in thick dust and those strange orange spiderwebs. Wooden floorboards creaked beneath his feet. He took a path that led around the edges of the room and looked for a closet or chest. Anything that Alice might have left belongings in. Maybe her spacesuit, or empty meal packets. Something.

Melni, able to see now, went to the center, picking her path with great care. The floorboards squeaked at first, then groaned with each step she took.

“Stop,” he said.

Melni stopped, her eyes on him.

Something wasn’t right. Caswell focused on the floor.

“What is it?” she asked.

“The sound of the floorboards changed.”

Melni glanced down. Then she closed her eyes and focused. She took two careful steps back. Groan, groan, squeak.

He came to her. His last two steps also produced groans.

A low table separated them, covered in a dusty sheet. Caswell tore the fabric aside and coughed as a cloud of dust and grit filled the air. Melni waved at it uselessly, gave up, and went to her knees to inspect the floorboards. He joined her, and together they poked and prodded the surface.

One chunk moved when Caswell’s fingers gripped it.

“Here,” he said. He lifted the broken section of wood away. Gray metal gleamed just below, unmarred by dust. A ring the size of a bracelet lay flat on it, attached to a small hinge.

Caswell slipped his fingers through the ring, raised it, and lifted. “Move back,” he said. After she did so he tried again and this time a square section of floor one meter on a side came free.

Beneath was a circular hatch of gray metal with a circular window in the middle. Familiar words were printed at four marks around the edge, in block lettering:

LATCH

PREP (BLEED PRESSURE BEFORE OPENING)

TEST

UNLATCH

Caswell allowed himself a grin. “Venturi Lander One.”

“What does that mean?”

“The proof we need, Melni. A vessel just like mine, the one she came here in.” How Alice had managed to get it under the building he could only imagine. The most likely explanation is that she built the place atop it, after landing here. A lot of work for one woman, he thought, and then remembered the two graves just up the trail. Maybe she’d enlisted help, or forced it, and then did away with them.

A hungry growl from his stomach banished that moment of revulsion. There might still be food in the stores. Alice Vale must have figured out a way to eat and drink here, otherwise she’d be long dead, but whether or not she’d solved that particular problem before running out of the supplies she’d stowed remained to be seen. He didn’t hold much hope, but even that glimmer filled his mouth with greedy saliva.

He pulled out the recessed handle and twisted it from LATCH toward PREP, grunting with the effort, his mouth pinched in a snarl, teeth clamped together. The handle lurched and clicked into position. Breath held, Caswell waited. Inside the porthole window a single red light began to blink. He hissed breath through clenched teeth as more and more lights began to wink on inside. The damn thing still had power. It was causing the vibration. But why? Why hadn’t Alice shut everything down?

Finally the circle of the porthole window glowed with a green ring of light. All clear. Caswell twisted the handle, with a bit less strain this time, to the UNLATCH marker. He eased Melni back with one arm and then yanked the whole thing up and away. There came a hiss of cool, stale air. Not pure like the air from his vessel, though. This air reeked of sweat and something foul. Spoiled food, he thought. Maybe even disease. Curious.

Melni suddenly backed away, repulsed by the odor. She looked at him with obvious worry. “It smells like death,” she said.

Caswell tried to give her a reassuring smile. She had it right, but his mind still lingered on the possibility of edible food. Rancid, spoiled, or otherwise. “Let me go first.”

She nodded emphatically, then watched in silence as Caswell lowered his feet inside and then, with only the slightest whisper of fabric against metal, slid his body down.

“Is it safe?” she asked from above.

“I think the air processors are failing, but it seems to be okay,” he called back to her.

“Seems? It reeks like skinrot, Caswell.”

“Let me open the inner door before you come in. Let some fresh air in.”

She covered her mouth and nose with one hand and nodded to him, dubious.

The inner door opened without complaint. Another rush of disgusting air, even stronger here, flowed into the boathouse. After twenty seconds he took a tentative whiff. Still awful, but at least bearable now. “All clear,” he called up.

Swallowing, searching his eyes for reassurance, Melni sat at the edge of the trapdoor and slid her body down into Alice Vale’s spacecraft.