Then I had to decide what to do. Obviously the Cruzatch hadn’t been able to follow me through the water, but exploring would take me away from liquid safety. After all that hellish swimming, I could get halfway down the corridor, run into a horde of Ionoth, and game over.
Sitting in a bathroom starving to death wasn’t that attractive an alternative.
I had a hot bath while I thought, withdrawing my uniform partially and studying my skin, which had wrinkled amazingly where water had been trapped beneath the nanoliquid. Mara had show me how to block my mission log for privacy – it doesn’t stop recording, just means you have to have super-high security clearance to watch the blocked bit – but I don’t trust whoever it is with that clearance to not look simply because I’ve flagged some tiny part of my life as private. And I’d been told not to turn off my mission log while I was technically on mission. Being constantly recorded makes bathroom breaks tremendously embarrassing, but at least my nanosuit helps me be discreet.
As ready as I could be, I nerved myself to go through those doors.
The balcony walkway outside was deserted. And cracked, dropping half a foot to my left. There were no Cruzatch in sight, but there was a clear view outside, and I crossed carefully over, hid behind a Pillar, and stared out.
A mountainside, three mountainsides, with a valley between them covered in white buildings, palatial and grand, with swooping, impossible-looking arches criss-crossing in the air. I could see the sky, but it looked unreal, pearly. Bright enough for daytime, though. I slowly turned my head side to side, keeping behind the Pillar as much as possible in case there was anything out there looking back. My aim was to get a good solid survey into my log and then to look at it in detail somewhere less exposed. I was at the very bottom of the valley, and decided that was a good sign. The cisterns had obviously all been of a level, and I’d climbed up about as much as I’d jumped down from the platform, so I was probably on the right level for that platform. I concentrated on studying the buildings on this lowest level, which were still a large number since the valley had a broad, flat bottom.
There was plenty of damage. Cracks, and rocks and rubble from higher up which had smashed into buildings. Try as I might, I couldn’t decide which direction I’d come from. I’d swum for so long, but had had to keep retracing my steps, and my mapping had gone very skewiff. There were no visible platforms, but I did see that there was a circle of small buildings in the centre of the valley. Pandora’s platform had taken me here, and I knew there were other towns with platforms. Since it seemed to be a transport system more than a communication device (got THAT one wrong, Sight talents) then a central circle of them would make a lot of sense, just as Rana Junction is central in Unara. But to check that out, I had to get to the nearest one without anything seeing me.
It all looked horribly exposed and open. And Cruzatch could fly. As if to underscore that thought, I saw one, drifting slowly up the far mountainside.
Sliding down out of sight, I reviewed my log of the buildings near me and plotted out a route which took advantage of fallen rubble, shadows, and anything that had overhangs and avoided open patches of ground as much as possible, but really it was all going to come down to luck. Anything that happened to be looking in the right direction would see me easily, even when crawling on my hands and knees as I did getting out of that balcony walkway. Black is not a good fashion choice for sneaking among whitestone buildings.
I can review my logs and feel silly for the way I peered around every corner and in every direction each time I moved, but it didn’t seem remotely foolish at the time. I did see Cruzatch twice, and lay still in whatever spot I was in, ready to run madly if spotted. The closer I got, the more I believed I’d make it, and then I started worrying about what if I got to the buildings and there were no platforms, or if I got to a platform and it didn’t take me anywhere.
But when I reached that central circle of buildings, I hit a bigger snag. Other than some fallen rubble and parched bushes, most of the central space was quite clear and flat. There were fifteen buildings, all facing inwards, some with big double doors opened outwards, some with them sealed. Each set of doors sat at the top of a short flight of stairs behind a few not very concealing Pillars holding up porticos, continuing the vaguely Roman theme. And drifting about the steps of the fifth building to the right were a little clutch of Cruzatch.
In some ways that was encouraging. There had been a Cruzatch at the platform I’d come through, and a cluster of them suggested they were guarding the area. After a brief peek and an extensive review of my log, I crept around behind the buildings in the opposite direction, aiming for the building which was six buildings away from the Cruzatch cluster. It had open doors, and its angle was good for concealment as I hauled my way up onto the landing at the top of the steps directly from the ground so that I was sheltered by the open door. Then I peered around the door, hoping they would all conveniently face away from me, but it wasn’t to be, so I bit my lip, chose a moment, and slipped not too quickly and not too slowly out and then inside.
Once through the door I ran. I knew that the platform, if it was there, couldn’t be too far in, since the buildings weren’t that large. And when I had a choice of ramp up or ramp down I took down, since that matched the platforms I’d encountered before.
I don’t think I’ve ever run faster. I’d seen from the corner of my eye the reaction of the Cruzatch. They’d seen me. If I’d chosen the wrong direction I’d…not be writing this now, I guess. As it was, there was a platform, and I ran up on to it, and I wanted to be anywhere but there, and all the lights went out.
I sat down hard, panting. The place I was in was hot, and closed in, and too dark for me to make out any shapes at all immediately. The platform was gritty. After a few gulping breaths, I slid to one side, worried about the Cruzatch being able to come after me, but then the Ddura arrived: a new one making the question noise. Not ecstatic, because I wasn’t Muinan, but pleased and asking for orders. Head pounding instantly, I laughed, and slid over the side of the platform so I couldn’t accidentally teleport anywhere else, and then sat there in the stifling dark and bawled.
Eventually my eyes adjusted enough to see shades of grey, and I worked out that the entrance corridor was almost completely blocked by sand. After I’d recovered from all the running and crying, I wriggled and dug my way out through the gap near the ceiling, and staggered up into too-bright sunlight.
My head felt all the better for getting away from the Ddura, but my heart fell the more I looked about me. After all that water, I’d ended up in one of the few desert areas on the planet. The town was almost completely swallowed by a drifting dune, with only a few roofs poking above the sand, and those were well-covered with a scatter of gold. The Tarens had been analysing years of satellite surveys and locating all the patterned roof ruins. I was sure they would have immediately sent ships to the ruins they hadn’t already stationed relay drones at, to check whether I’d ended up there. This was not one which was going to be visible from the air.
My interface still said no connection, of course.
It was baking hot, and dry, and just climbing up to the top of the tallest tower to get a good look around had me dripping with sweat. I converted my nanosuit to a rather scanty arrangement. You can detach bits and they’ll hold their form, so I kept my boots – reinforcing them for fear of snakes and scorpions – and made the rest into a thin layer in shorts and tank-top form, with the rest of the nanoliquid in a pad on my back.