Chapter 4
Chapter Four
From hard-won experience, Rylando knew not to trust the airsled’s self-navigation capability in an unknown structure. Taz and Hatya said the much-patched AI needed total reconstruction from its neural net on up. Considering GSAR’s budget woes, there was a less than zero chance of that.
Unfortunately, it meant he couldn’t both operate the airsled and keep in mental contact with his animal team. He trusted them not to create havoc, but sometimes they let their mission get in the way of their good sense.
He wasn’t much better. Though she hid it well, he knew Taz disliked being underground.
He’d instinctively wanted to save her from having to descend into a deep shaft by sending her with the group they’d freed.
Not only was it against the regs—and common sense—to operate solo, but she’d have been deeply insulted. And rightly so.
It came down to trusting her to tell him if she couldn’t handle something. And hoping she trusted him enough to admit it. The trouble was, considering how diligently he’d kept her at a distance, first out of wariness, then while fighting his fascination, he wasn’t sure he’d earned that trust.
The wide hallway opened into a wider area that served as the lift lobby. At least the building plans proved accurate about the location of the lift shaft, but neglected to note the fact that it was at least three times larger than usual.
He slowed the airsled to a hover and triggered its scanners.
The lift’s sliding doors should have been closed, not gaping open to expose the shaft below. To the left sat Shen and Moyo, both watching him and Taz for orders. A quick check with his talent told him the cats were around the corner in the far hallway, investigating an interesting smell.
On the walls, static directional displays showed maps and listed occupants in that section of the L-shaped building.
A separate display advertised the storage business in the basement, listing the features and prices for their units and reminded existing customers to use their access token to operate the lift.
Too bad the building AI wasn’t speaking to Taz, or they could have queried it about the number of token uses that morning.
Pieces of the patterned ceiling littered the floor, especially near the dimly lit shaft.
Taz’s tone sounded in his earwire. “My scans say the decorative ceiling layer isn’t stable, but it’s thin. The denscrete above it is solid. I might be getting more lifesigns below ground to the west, but it could be echoes. The lift shaft is lined with more incalloy.”
The airsled’s results came back a moment later. “My scans confirm.” He was more inclined to agree with Taz’s theory about the settlement company running up the planet’s debt. It would have been cheaper to line the shaft with rainbow corundum crystals set in hand-wrought filigree.
He eased the airsled forward and grounded it. At his request, Moyo and Shen trotted over and jumped in the open side door. The two cats agreed to think about it.
Taz crossed straight to the shaft opening, crouched, and extended her shoulder camera array and floodlight pointed down. “Hello! Subcaptains Correa and Delroinn from Galactic Search and Rescue. Do you need assistance?” Her suit-amplified words echoed on the hard walls.
“Yes! I’m stuck down here. You must help my father, too!” The faint German-accented voice sounded like it might come from the teenage girl he’d seen in Moyo’s memory. He increased the sound detection on his console.
“Is your father with you?” asked Taz.
“No, he’s in the storage section. I hope.
When the earthquake hit, the frelling lift took me all the way below the basement and wouldn’t move.
When the wallcomp wouldn’t wake up and I couldn’t get comms on my percomp, I climbed to the top of the car and opened the service access.
But I’m too short to reach the service ladder. ”
Taz’s words echoed again. “Is anyone else with you? Are you hurt?”
Rylando brought up the holo image and readouts from Taz’s cameras. No wonder the girl’s voice had sounded faint. The shaft bottom, which should have only been five or six meters, was almost twenty meters deep.
A girl with intricately braided but dusty hair and light brown skin looked up.
Her long-sleeved coat puffed out on all sides.
He’d have thought it was too hot to wear for summer, but fashionable civilian clothing baffled him.
In GSAR, he had a choice of formal military dress greys, rescuer yellow and red, or sleep pants.
He wasn’t ever off-duty long enough to make it worth owning anything else.
“Not really. I fell on my butt when my belt broke.” She pointed to the bottom rung of the service ladder, well above her head, where a short length of strap still dangled. He gave her points for trying.
“Okay,” replied Taz. “Let’s get you free first. Then we’ll go for your parent. What’s your name?”
“Jhidelle Barallone. My father is Xolor Stramlo.”
Taz’s voice came through his earwire. “The sled will fit in the shaft with plenty of room to spare. You could fly her up while I climb down a few meters to see if I can get better readings on the lifesigns.”
“Do it.”
The lights flickered several times, then steadied.
He couldn’t tell if it affected what should have been always-on emergency lights in the lift shaft.
Current construction codes required bright lights with independent thousand-year power sources.
No telling what a flagrantly corner-cutting settlement company had used a century ago.
Hatya’s tone pinged. “Silver Team status check. I’m a glorified autocab. Just dropped off medics and supplies at the ERC.”
As usual, thirty minutes went by fast in rescue situations.
His percomp would have reminded him if Hatya hadn’t initiated the check-in first. He touched his earwire.
“We’re good so far. Cleared our initial target.
Six and a half lifesigns headed for the ERC and one evac capsule headed for the medics. No recoveries needed.”
“That’s good,” replied Hatya. “I hate cremation duty.”
“Sync that.” Rylando hated attending memorial services for the dead, too. They made him feel guilty for not having saved them. “We have detailed building scans to share with the ERC, too. Should help them with repairs.”
“Speaking of scans,” said Taz, “are you near enough to deep-scan from the shuttle? We think we might have multiple lifesigns in the basement, but it’s denscrete and heavy metal construction. We’re at the lift lobby now.”
“I’m already in the air. Be there in two,” replied. Hatya. “Meanwhile, I sent you as-built records and occupants for the building. No one can explain the power glitches.”
Rylando confirmed the new data and pinged acknowledgement as he watched Phobos and Deimos stroll across the lobby and jump into the airsled.
“Baskets,” he told his team, and reinforced it with the hand sign. They jumped into their respective crates without a fuss, though Phobos chose to stay with Deimos instead of going to his own. Rylando sent them all the mental equivalent of a quick pat of praise.
All the animals suddenly stood up. Phobos meowed and Lerox gave a low warning grunt. Mariposa, the little owl, woke and rocked side to side on her perch. Moments later, a low vibration rumbled beneath him. He leaned out the airsled’s open door and shouted, “Aftershock!” then closed it.
Taz scuttled back from the shaft opening and maintained her crouch. The walls swayed. More pieces from the ceiling dropped onto the airsled’s roof and the floor.
Six seconds later, the vibration and swaying faded to nothing.
Rylando sent reassuring thoughts to the rest of the team as he threaded his way past the equipment to the back.
He opened Otak’s crate and gently slid the tense rat into the low chest sling he wore under the harness.
The other animals would be all right in a few minutes, but Otak needed warm physical contact to climb out of his spiral of panic.
Outside, he heard Taz’s amplified voice. “Jhidelle, are you okay down there?” On the console’s display, holographic Taz rose to her feet and stepped toward the shaft, though not as close as she’d been before.
The airsled’s console amplified the reply. “Ja, ja, I’m fine. Just more dust.”
Hatya pinged again. “Confirming your lifesign readings. Three clustered about seventy-five meters west of the airsled. Never seen a whole community building of incalloy. What did the builders do, salvage a crash-landed interstellar freighter for construction materials?”
Taz described their plan of action to the girl while Rylando lifted the airsled to glide slowly to the opening.
“You go first.” She pointed to the shaft. “Don’t scrape me off the service ladder on your way back up.”
“I won’t.”
Carefully easing into the shaft, he let the airsled sink slowly. He kept his scans running realtime in case the metal walls hid unexpected damage.
The shaft could have fit two more big sleds like his. Maybe the architect planned the lift to hold a hundred people at a time, to fulfill the CAC’s alternate purpose as the town’s emergency shelter.
He keyed the airsled’s amplifier. “Jhidelle, I’ll land at the far side. Please stay where you are near the ladder until I open the side door for you.”
Keeping a steady pace, he glanced at his cameras to see Taz in her suit climbing down. She made it look so easy to adapt her human motive agility to the tech. The only time he’d tried on a mech suit, he’d tripped over his own two feet and done serious damage to the commander’s favorite shuttle.