Rift in the Sky (48 page)

Root?

Aryl shook away the confusing image.

More isolated sections of slanted wall connected the floor and ceiling as far as she could see. Between, everywhere, immense pipes writhed like growths. White ones. Red ones. Black. Some narrow, some oval. Some looped up to a distant ceiling. Others flopped along the floor and headed in either direction as far as the eye could see.

They could see, Aryl realized, because one kind of pipe glowed. She stepped closer. The pipe was clear-sided; what produced the changeable bluish light was inside. And moving. Aryl averted her eyes quickly. What flowed within was more disturbing than this place.

“Maintenance Layer,” Naryn informed them, and pointed left. “The next lift is over there.”

“This one's the only access below?”

“To the theater, yes.”

Haxel looked to have as many questions as she did, Aryl thought, but merely nodded. “Aryl. Call Karne, Galen, Bula, Josel, and Imi.”

She nodded. An instant's concentration to send those names into the M'hir, less to find the five, and their groups, standing beside them. They looked around in awe, then focused on Haxel. “We're going that way,” she pointed. “The rest of you fan out, look for a way to the next level. Naryn?”

Naryn used her hands to mark out a square. “Lifts are marked by a panel, this size. On a wall, or in the floor. Press it and the lift shows itself. You speak your command, up or down, to control it.”

The others nodded.

“When you find one,” Haxel took over, “check the next level. If it's promising, send for your next three groups and have them fan out. If not, keep going up on your own till you find something worth exploring. Understood? I don't want M'hiray scampering over each other or worse, being noticed. We need to see as much as we can, not take risks. Don't 'port where you could be seen. By anything.”

Several looked uneasy at this. Karne d'sud Witthun among them. “What do you mean, ‘anything'?”

“Stonerim III is more Commonwealth than Trade Pact,” Naryn answered, making, in Aryl's opinion, no sense at all. “Most of the beings you'll encounter above will be Human.

They look like M'hiray. But you'll see those who don't. Avoid conversations with either.”

Haxel's scar gleamed white. “I'll want reports. Often.”

Agreement.
The scouts turned and left.

“Syb?” The First Scout turned to the grizzled Chosen. “Picked your spot?”

“Up there.” His nod indicated a shadowed rise of gray pipe. He'd have a perfect view of anyone approaching the lift.

“Good.”

Aryl nodded to herself. Haxel knew her people. If Veca and Syb couldn't stop would-be intruders—unlikely, but most of what was around them was unlikely—from here, they could 'port back to the others to deliver a warning and share the locate to this layer.

While she, Enris, and Naryn would receive the scout reports. Good news, she hoped.

Their own quiet footsteps were swallowed by the gurgle and thump of the pipes as Naryn led them across the floor to another slanted wall.

“Maintenance Layer,” Enris commented. “So these carry water, heat, whatever's needed above us. Makes me wonder.”

Aryl glanced at him. “Go on.”

“What's above that could need so much?”

He didn't expect an answer.

Aryl wasn't sure she wanted one.

When they reached their destination, Naryn ran her hands over the featureless smooth wall, and gave a helpless shrug. “There should be a lift here. I thought there was. This is all—it didn't matter,” with an odd desperation. “Only the theater mattered.”

Aryl understood Haxel's somber expression, the
grim
that leaked through her shields. None of the other groups had found a lift yet. If Naryn's memory couldn't guide them . . .

“We'll split up here. You try that way,” the First Scout ordered, waving Enris right, Aryl left. “Make it quick,” she added.

And careful,
Aryl sent to her Chosen, who grinned back at her.

Quick suited her. Aryl ran along the wall, eyes searching for a panel. When the wall ended, rather than follow it around, she sped to the next section, doing her best to ignore the sudden drafts of cold or blasts of heat when she passed under different pipes, listening for danger past the gurgle and occasionally loud thunks coming from the same source. Not a place for living things, she decided.

But living things were what she found.

Voices, ahead.

Avoiding one of the glowing pipes, Aryl veered into the shadow of a black one and crept closer. Closer. After a cautionary touch to be sure the metal wasn't of the too hot or too cold variety, she found a seam and eased herself on top.

There.

She grinned. Perfect.

Who needed a lift, when there were stairs?

Stairs currently in use by a raggedly dressed assortment of beings, some M'hiray-like—Human—others definitely not. The arrangement of poles and steps appeared solid, if clumsily built.

And not, she guessed, supposed to be here.

The beings had attached a cluster of small tubes to a yellow pipe's lower loop using some kind of disk. The tubes led to a droning machine that spewed forth a white liquid the beings were collecting in a variety of containers with every indication of delighted greed. Full containers were being carried up the stairs, while others carried down what Aryl presumed were empty ones to fill.

One tripped, its container spilling on the floor.

“That's outta your share!” shouted a Human near the machine.

The sloppy individual lifted its container. “Lemme refill. There's plenty.”

“Get greedy and you'll get gone, my friend. Think this is a perm-tap? Them as work for Grandies will be down sooner than not. We'll all be locked then, won't we.”

“I've a family—”

“Who don't need juice? Ack. Take your due and hurry it. All a'you.” This as others on the stairs slowed to watch. “We need to wrap this.”

The mess was ignored; the sloppy one refilled its container and ran up the stairs.

Good, Aryl decided. The sooner they finished their theft, the sooner they'd leave the staircase and the opening to the layer above they'd made through the wall at its top.

No reason not to encourage them.

Smiling to herself, Aryl slipped her hand through her metal bracelet and tapped it sharply on the pipe.

She might have poked her finger in a rattlers' crate. Everyone scrambled. Most threw away their containers and ran—or tried to run—up the stairs, disappearing through the opening. One fell—she winced—from near the top, to land with a sodden thud. It didn't move again.

The two nearest the machine dropped down behind it, which she hadn't anticipated. One leaned from that cover to point a small device in her direction. The other shouted in protest then leaped up as if running for shelter.

Aryl slid down, using the pipe as protection.

A
snap,
a flash of light and . . .

As explosions went, Aryl told herself, that hadn't been much, but when she cautiously looked past the pipe, she saw it had been sufficient.

The puddles of white burned. The machine was in scorched pieces—as were those who'd been near it.

The staircase, however, was intact. Mostly.

I've found a way up,
Aryl sent to Enris, Naryn, and Haxel.

Aryl blinked at Enris. “It's perfectly safe.”

“A part just fell off,” Naryn pointed out, her face pale. “How is that safe?”

The First Scout shrugged. “Wait here, then.” She went to the staircase and began to climb, using the supports rather than the steps themselves.

As Aryl went to do the same, Enris protested. “Haxel can send a locate once she's reached the top. If she does.”

Though made from scraps of metal and fastened with everything from rope to elaborate clamps, the stairs were solid. After all, they'd carried a multitude of beings and outlasted an explosion. They'd most certainly hold two M'hiray. He should know that.

How did she? The question distracted . . . the answer eluded . . . “Wait if you want,” Aryl said more tersely than she intended. Turning temper to action, she swarmed up behind Haxel, quickly catching up.

Warned by Haxel's sending, she leaped through the opening at the top.

To find herself staring into golden eyes the size of her fist.

A
RYL WASN'T SURE WHICH of them shouted first, but she knew which took off at a run. She was giving chase before Haxel's exhortation to “Get it!”

Something in her responded to the speed, to following a target. She grinned as she hit the right pace, arms and legs pumping smoothly, focus narrowed to the figure ahead. Her surroundings mattered only when they presented obstacle or hazard.

Like the aircars filling this tunnel. Aryl stayed close to the curved wall, avoiding that traffic as it whizzed alongside. Not aircars, she noted absently. Most were the same size, and a featureless gray. 'Bots. Machines that could fly on their own. Moving too quickly to avoid, in both directions. At least some had lights on their sides so she could see.

One zipped across her path, aiming for the wall. Aryl dove and rolled, feeling her clothing lift in the wind left by the machine. There wasn't a collision. The wall simply opened a circle to receive the machine and then closed again.

Interesting layer,
she sent, breaking into a run again.

The one she chased kept looking over its shoulder, huge eyes reflecting the lights of the 'bots. Hardly wise, Aryl thought. Not only did it slow by a stride each time, but exiting 'bots were a constant threat. A shame if one of those killed the creature before she caught it. They needed a guide.

A guide with special knowledge. Its trailing coat was tanta lizingly close to Aryl's outstretched fingers when another 'bot zipped in front of it. Instead of stopping, her quarry whirled to follow the machine through the opening wall.

She leaped after both, the unusual door closing too quickly for comfort. On the other side, the 'bot darted into yet another stream of moving machines, one that curved upward within their tunnel.

The thud of footsteps heading right told Aryl which way to go. And that her quarry hadn't slowed.

Admirable. If annoying.

Immense pipes. Now thousands of machines. Just as well, Aryl decided cheerfully, she didn't have to worry about such things, only to catch one irritating creature.

Two legs. Two arms. A green fuzz of what might have been hair sprouting from its head. Those overly large golden eyes were all she remembered of its face. The flapping white coat disguised everything else. It had screamed in a voice like hers; presumably, it could talk.