It wasn’t actually warmer in here, but they were out of the pervasive wind, and the interior walls were smooth, not corrugated. Presumably, in this climate, the walls would be insulated. If they could heat up the interior, even a little—but as the cold bit into her ungloved hand, she turned her pin-light on the inside of the door. They needed it closed all the way, and they needed not to be locked in.
No emergency bar for exit, but also no card slot or numerical keys for a code number. It did have a lever. She focused her pin-light on the edge of the door, where a bolt—no, three of them—would come out when the door was locked. She moved the lever up and down. The bolts slid out; the bolts slid in. There was a push button on the door as well; she tried that, and found that it kept the lever from moving up and pushing the lock-bolts out. She set the button to prevent locking, picked up her glove, and closed the door.
The others had moved around the room; some were now sitting on the bunks, on the chairs.
Sergeant Cosper’s pin-light was now off to her right. “There’s a little kitchen on one side and a toilet and shower on the other.” He sounded excited. “Maybe there’s food. Supplies.”
“And there must be power, with those outlets,” Ky said. She looked on the wall near the door and found a touchplate. Nothing happened when she touched it, but her pin-light aimed at the ceiling revealed lighting panels. “But first—running water? Food in the kitchen?”
“There’ll be some kind of powerplant,” Cosper said.
“Of course. Thank you. One of the other buildings, maybe.”
They were all tired, stumbling-tired, but unable to rest until they’d explored a little more. They found a generator in the smallest building, primed and ready to start. Yamini looked at Ky, brows lifted.
“Go ahead.”
He pulled the lever and the generator came on. So did several lights, immediately blinding them to the darker night around, but showing up other details they’d missed.
“Power’s standard,” Kurin said, looking at the readouts on the generator. “Just like any other power source. And this thing’s a Foster-Moray Model 3100-D. It can’t be more than a few years old; there’s one of these on my cousin’s farm.”
“So the failed terraformed continent’s inhabited,” Ky said. “Did you ever see anything about that on the news—in the last few years, maybe?”
“No. If we can find whoever it is, they can call for help, can’t they?”
“If they’re friendly,” Ky said.
“Why wouldn’t they be?”
She couldn’t think. She was too tired, too hungry right now. “We’ll go back to the first building, see if there’s anything in the kitchen, any heat source, a furnace or something—”
“Right.”
The kitchen was basic—a very small version of the big kitchens in the houses she had known. A stove across from the door, its top marked with the circles of heat sources. A counter running along the wall to the right, with a large deep sink halfway along it. No programmable drink dispenser. No automatic recycling cleaner unit. No speed oven. But the simple stove worked when Betange turned the knobs, heating the circles quickly.
They all crowded into the tiny kitchen as the room warmed. On the shelves they found rows of sealed containers, none of them labeled, and several sizes of cooking pot, as well as a stack of plates and another of bowls, and mugs hanging from hooks. But water did not flow from the kitchen faucet, nor was there water in the toilet.
“Someone drained the pipes for winter, so they’re probably not coming back anytime soon,” said Cosper. “I guess there’s a well; we’ll need to find the pump.”
“In the meantime, we’ll melt snow,” Ky said. “Take the biggest pot and fill it with snow.”
Drawers below the counter contained cooking utensils, openers for the containers, and—in one drawer—eight each of knives, forks, and spoons. What, Ky wondered, would they find in those containers? Her mouth watered at the possibilities: canned stew, canned fish, any of the foods carried on spaceships. But the first opened container turned out to be flat round crackers, just like the ones in the life raft kits. They looked delicious. The next container had more of the same; the next was full of bean paste. They all looked at her, eyes almost feral with hunger.
“We need to be careful,” she said, remembering her earlier experience with hunger. She didn’t want to be careful; she wanted to eat the whole thing herself, now. “We don’t know how long this must last, and if we eat too fast we’ll waste it by puking it back up.” They looked sullen, but nodded.
“When Sergeant Cosper comes back with snow, we’ll melt that, boil it, make a sort of soup with the paste and the crackers and the protein strip from our rations.”
Though it took longer than any of them wanted to wait, the snow finally melted and then warmed to a simmer. Betange put some of the water into a smaller pot, stirred in some bean paste, two handfuls of crackers, and the protein strips from everyone’s ration pack. Ky handed out mugs, and Betange served out the mixture precisely.
“Drink it slowly,” Ky warned. “We don’t want to waste any.” She took a spoon from the drawer and tasted hers. It wasn’t raw fish. It wasn’t raw shellfish. It was hot, thick, bland with the bean paste. She could have wolfed down the whole mug in one go. She made herself use the spoon, methodically, spoonful by spoonful.
“More,” said Cosper.
“Wait a little,” Ky said. “We’ve been hungry a long time; we’ve all lost weight.”
In an hour she let Betange heat more; everyone had another half mug. She herself felt more alert, though still hungry. She began automatically making lists: what they would need here for the next few days. If they couldn’t get the water working again they would need some kind of latrine and a better water source than snow. They needed heat in the building, not just the kitchen. They would need to move everyone up here—even with just this one building, and crowded as it would be, this was better than the canopies of the life rafts down by the shore. Someone would have to go back. Tomorrow. Two, not one—one might be injured, and anyone who lay out alone at night would die. Did they dare delay one day to check out the other buildings? No—the situation below was too critical. In another day or so, some of those would not be able to walk up the slope. She could send a canister or so of food down to them; that would help.
Once it started, her mind buzzed on, busy as usual. She authorized another half mug of the warm mix, this time diluted with hot water. As she sipped her own serving, she considered how those who stayed could ready this place for the others and who should go. Some had struggled to make it here; they couldn’t possibly make a return trip so soon. But Sergeant Cosper could, and so could Sergeant McLenard. “You four”—she pointed them out—“get some rest now; we’ll be hot-bunking later. Double up on the lower bunks; if you find bedding storage in the next five minutes, wonderful—otherwise, in your suits, under the survival blankets. Betange, we need a complete inventory of food supplies here. A team will take a couple of canisters down to the bay tomorrow, share that food, and bring everybody up the next day.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Exit clearance went as smoothly as Stella has predicted, and then they were in a small, plain departure lounge. Shortly, a dark-skinned, gray-haired woman whose family resemblance to Ky was clear came through the docking tube.
“Ready to board?” she asked. “I’m the captain and first pilot. Ginny Vatta. Second pilot’s Daran Vatta.”