“If I may presume.” She laid her hand on his forearm. “I think we are not safe in here.”
Eric looked at her for a moment like he didn’t understand what she said. Then he lurched towards the airlock. “Cam. Come outside.”
The android got up and obediently teetered after its master. Eric palmed the reader on the airlock, and nothing happened. He cursed through clenched teeth and undid a latch beside the door. A small compartment came open and he pulled a lever down. “Cam. Manual release procedures. Go.”
The android gripped a pair of handles on the airlock’s inner door and pulled. Reluctantly, the door gave way and Cam dragged it up the slope of the floor and latched it into place. A draft of warm air caressed Aria.
Eric and Cam repeated their actions for the outer door. His hands seemed inordinately clumsy as he worked the controls. Aria felt her patience strain.
Try to remember, it’s been ten years for him, Aria told herself, and he never wanted to come back.
The outer door opened and air rushed in, warm, rich, thick air.
Acrid, black, smoke and a billow of heat came with it. Aria coughed harshly. She couldn’t see anything except a curving wall of smoking ash. She undid her head cloth and pressed a strip of material over her mouth before she started out the door.
“Wait…” started Eric.
She ignored him. She felt as though she had walked into a furnace. Coughing despite her makeshift face mask, Aria waded up the ashy slope, waving her free hand both to keep her balance and to keep her bare hand from touching the burned ground.
Finally, she scrambled onto a patch of unburned, white sand. Forgetting pride altogether, Aria dropped onto her knees. A fresh wind caught her right cheek and Aria breathed deeply. When her lungs cleared of the stinging smoke, she stood up and looked around to see what part of the world they had come to rest in. Joints and head seemed to sigh with relief. The world wrapped around her like a blanket.
They’d come down on the shore of the Dead Sea. Whitened sand crunched under the sole of Aria’s boots and the distinctive tang of salt filled the air. Shading her eyes with her hand, she squinted toward the waterline. Fingers of steam rose from the surface. A gust of wind blew hard, sending a long, shimmering ripple across the mineral green surface of the water. No waves broke. Aside from the lichens clinging to the rocks, nothing grew. The lifeless water sprawled out a good eight or nine miles to either side, where it reached the bases of cliffs so white with salt rime that they showed even through the mists. Aria tilted her gaze to the tops but couldn’t make out any buildings.
Well, that’s something anyway. If we’d come down on the First City shore, we’d probably be dead.
Aria turned her attention inland. The white sand beach turned to stone-peppered dunes about ten yards away from them. She scanned the distant walls, searching for familiar shapes. The salty wind was free of rain and the clouds were solid overhead. That was something else. The last thing they needed right now was rough weather, but she had no idea when sunshowing had been or which wall the light was slanting over. Her orientation was gone. Without a prominent mark, they were solidly lost.
There was the Pinnacle, though, marking Red Walls. She gauged its size compared to the lower walls. They were close to the lowlands, then. She turned. The closest wall to her left glinted gold in the light. Broken Canyon. There was the gentle ripple of ground rising toward the cleft of Narroways road.
Aria felt herself smile. All they had to do was follow the shoreline to the Eel Back River. The river would lead them into the Lif marsh. Once inside the Lif, help and, maybe, family couldn’t be more than a few hours away.
“Whoever landed us had excellent aim,” she said, bringing her gaze back down to Eric.
Eric was staring at his ship. It lolled in the crater its impact had made. Its nose was buried in a wall of ash and smoking coals. Water seeped into the depression it made. Behind it a trail of ash and seared sand added its steam to the hazy air. The U-Kenai’s wings were streaked with black, pitted by tiny craters and scarred with long grooves. Then she saw that the U-Kenai’s whole smooth skin was scarred. Seams of white foam ran in jagged lines around its back and sides. It looked like the ship had been declared Notouch and marked accordingly.
Eric stood like a statue beside his ruined ship. He stared at it. His cheeks were wet and the look on his face was one of fear.
Aria wished she knew something to say. She remembered the Bad Night, when her father had hauled her and her sisters bodily off their mats before the mudslide washed their house down to the Dead Sea. She remembered the boiling, grinding roar and the horror as her home was torn to pieces by the mindless force. Security and sense washed away with it.
She wished she could tell him about that, but her mind wouldn’t hand across the words. It just kept bringing up pictures of Storm Water and Little Eye. Her children were maybe a day away. Maybe only hours, and maybe she hadn’t been gone that long. Maybe Nail had waited for her. Maybe she was still his wife and could still call her children her own. Maybe Eric would understand that what had happened on the ship could not take the place of her being mother to her children.
The strength of that wish made her suck in a breath and Eric must have heard. He tore his gaze away from the hulk of the U-Kenai and swept it across the Walls.
“You know where we are? I’ve lost all my geography.”
You lie, Eric. You’re staring straight at the route to First City.
She didn’t say that either. “We’re on the Narroways side of the Dead Sea. That means the Lif marshes are only a few hours off. There’ll be people about. Notouch,” she added, waiting for his reaction.
He looked down at his naked hands. “Well, it should be an interesting time, considering that I’m as bare as a two-day-old baby.”
“It may be for the best,” Aria said. “It’ll mean less outcry, especially if we can find my people. My mother is a force in the clan.” She laughed once. “Some say she’s a force of nature.”
“I can believe that.” There was a trace of humor in his voice, but none in his face. He was looking at his ship again.
“We’d better get going, Eric,” she said as gently as she could manage. “Is it not true that if the Vitae come looking for us, they’ll head straight for the U-Kenai?"
“Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Cam. Stabilize the ship’s condition as much as possible. Repair the comm lines and monitor transmissions. And"—he ran his hand through his hair—"wait until you hear from me.”
“Yes, Sar,” said the android. Its feet made swishing noises in the damp sand as it climbed back into the crater and aboard the fallen U-Kenai and released the catch holding the outer door back.
The door slid down and clanged shut
Eric turned quickly away. “I’m ready.”
“Very well.” Aria checked her pouch of stones to see that it was firmly knotted. She glanced at the walls again to pick her direction. “Let’s go.”
Side by side they tramped up the beach. They passed salt-crusted hollows filled with miniature versions of the sea. Nothing else broke up the landscape between the dunes and the waterline until Aria heard the faint gurgle of a running river.