Archive of Our Own ^beta

The hadesopter hovered a neat half-motra over the building roof. Zhaan hopped out, hanging onto the door for a microt to steady herself, then quickly moved out of the way so the rest of the team could disembark. She was always secretly pleased when she managed to be first out of a vehicle, taking point, as it were. It wasn't as if she wanted to be injured or killed, but being coddled because she was her parents' daughter was enough to drive her fahrbot. It helped her case that, unlike most members of the Center for Eleemosynary Medicine, she carried a pulse pistol and knew how to use it.

She pulled the weapon out as she looked around the roof. It was supposed to be clear, according to distance sensors, but no one had been up this far to check, yet. Not very surprising in a 100-floor building with no power to the lifts. It didn't seem *too* likely that there would still be "zombies" hiding up here, but better safe than sorry.

//I still can't believe *everyone* is calling them that.// Zhaan's father had tossed the word out as a nickname for the Nebari worst affected by -- whatever it was -- when he'd first seen a recording of the chaos and carnage, and the Eleemosynaries had picked it up during their stay on Moya before they got to Nebari Prime. She was pretty sure the word referred to a mythical Earth monster, and that using it for the afflicted Nebari was -- well -- *tacky*. But it took a lot less time to say "zombies" than "the Nebari who are just mindlessly attacking everything in sight", so the term was probably not going away.

The rest of the team disembarked, along with numerous bags of equipment. She grimaced at the reminder of just how *much* they had to do. There were a lot of floors to clear if the building was to make a decent field base -- and only five of them to do it. //Kobak's in charge, there's Palad, me, Renyr, and the Fahrbot Orderly.// Alarming thought -- she might actually have the most formal medical training of the team. //But Kobak and Palad have plenty of experience.//

Renyr -- the only Nebari in their group, as far as she knew the only Nebari Eleemosynary, and only a very junior intern -- stepped up next to her and looked around. "Frell, this is rotten."

Zhaan had to agree. Smoke was still rising from points all over the city, more than she could quickly count. She hadn't been able to keep track of where fires were starting and where they were finally going out, but she could see a gutted-out building or two where there *had* been fires. And, of course, there were the flooded streets, courtesy of *somebody* destroying a dam two metras away.

The city was in ruins. You couldn't see it from here, but the *planet* was in ruins. Frelling Nebari *territory* was in ruins.

//All this because the Resistance tried to make people think of their own priorities.// Well, and because the people had been so easy to *steer*. So the Establishment could be blamed, too. //Oh, admit it, Zee, you'd just rather blame the Establishment because Aunt Chi's in the Resistance. Wherever the frell she is.//

The hadesopter hummed away, and their team leader Kobak, a Banik like most Eleemosynaries, clapped his hands together. "All right. Let's get to work. Count bodies, take pictures, genetic samples to identify them later, record where we found them."

"Roof, two," put in the Fahrbot Orderly.

"What was that?" Kobak asked.

The Fahrbot Orderly pointed. "Bodies. Two of them."

Kobak sighed. "Right. Time to work."

 

--100--

Top floor appeared to be mostly utility, some storage and residential.

Zhaan looked down at the blue trail on the floor, and adjusted the air filter over her nose and mouth before going any further. //Quite a trail. I bet I find this poor person lying exsanguinated in a pool of drying blood. Blue blood.// But -- no. "Dren."

"What was that, Zee?" Palad asked. They were all on open comms.

"Someone *was* here, but it looks like the poor frellnik went out the window." Zhaan looked around the tiny apartment. //My cell on Moya is bigger than this.// "Wonder if he lived here?"

"No time to speculate. Keep moving."

"Right." She paused. "How do I put this on the body count?"

 

--99--

Residential (communal)

Zhaan backed out of another minimalist bedroom. "Nothing on this side of the hall. What do you have?"

"Something big," the Fahrbot Orderly replied. "Looks like... might be a cafeteria. Frell. We've got some in here."

Going to join him, Zhaan adjusted the brightness of her torch up a notch -- the cafeteria, or whatever, was an interior room. "Tables, chairs... food on the tables..." Not to mention on the chairs and the floor and the walls. The Transmission had been during lunch. "Yeah, I think it's a cafeteria." She panned her torch along a long table, stopping when the scattered food gave way to a still, black-haired body. "Aw, dren. I'll start the snap-and-sample."

Her companion nodded. "This might be a good place to collect bodies on this floor. Lots of open space, and there are so many here already. Want me to check it with Kobak after I check the prep area?"

"Sure, go ahead." Zhaan pulled on her fluid-tight gloves and the elastic bands to hold her loose sleeves out of the way before she advanced further. All right... sampler and mobile recorder, set to go. Gingerly, she nudged the body on the table onto its back, and snapped a picture of the bloody, puffy face. "Floor 99, cafeteria, number one." She took a genetic sample, and moved on. There was another body a few paces away, on the floor. "Floor 99, cafeteria, number two." Against one wall was a shallow holoprojector, now powerless and silent. That would have been where these Nebari saw the Transmission that made them crazy. "Floor 99, cafeteria, number three. Um." The picture of number three wasn't very good, as someone seemed to have hit number three repeatedly in the face with a chair, so there wasn't much face left. //Somehow it seems callous to say "ew", but... Ew.//

The Fahrbot Orderly emerged from the door on the other end of the room. "Not a prep area. Looks like the food was sent up from somewhere else, and they just stuck it on trays here." He looked consideringly at the nearest table, which was one of the ones with no bodies at it. "They were eating better than I'd've expected."

Zhaan glared at him. "Ew."

 

--98--

Residential (communal)

They were in a shower room, this time, oddly enough the biggest, most open room on the floor. Palad rubbed her eyes as Kobak placed the flash detonators. "Two bodies on the roof, one on the top floor--"

"And my self-defenestrator," Zhaan added.

"And Zhaan's self-defenstrator, *forty-two* on 99, and now *three*? Not that I don't appreciate a break, but it seems odd."

Zhaan shrugged. "The cafeteria. It happened during midday meal."

"Anyone who made it off that floor probably made it farther away," the Fahrbot Orderly agreed. Which was... weird.

Renyr, huddled by the door where he didn't have to see the bodies, flinched. Zhaan drifted in that direction -- hopefully nonchalantly -- to squeeze his shoulder. Why Renyr had been put on cleanup duty she could not begin to imagine.

Kobak backed away and triggered the flash detonators, and the three bodies vanished in a flare of light.

 

--97--

Residential (communal)

The small dormitory looked to have housed about ten people, and none of them had died there, which made it a good place to break for the night. Palad broke out the rations while Kobak talked to Tash on the communicator, updating her on their progress.

The room was warm and stuffy. Zhaan pulled off her Eleemosynary smock, then her sweaty undershirt, and wished any of the showers were working. She sacrificed one of the sanitary wipes to clean herself off, but wasn't quite confident enough to strip off her black halter top to get clean, and there was nothing to be done about the clothes. "Frell, by the time we get done with this we're all going to stink like elderly grun-hounds."

"We're going to be doing this forever," Renyr groaned into his mattress.

"We're not going to be doing this forever," Palad replied. "There's another team working up, remember?"

The Fahrbot Orderly, who had been unenthusiastically examining his ration of food cubes, looked up. "When we meet up, can we celebrate by getting really drunk?"

 

--96--

Residential (communal)

"This is going to give me screaming nightmares about dormitories for the rest of my life, you know. When we get back to the Center I'll have to camp out in the dining hall -- no, wait, I won't be able to go in there, either. I'll have to co-opt an empty surgery. And I'll probably be sending Pax panicked, incoherent messages begging her to get an apartment--"

 

--95--

Residential (communal)

Palad stuck her head through another door. "Dormitory, clear in here. We really should be counting beds."

"What?" Zhaan asked. She checked the next door on her side of the hall. "Dormitory. *Trashed*, but I don't think there are any bodies... I'd better check." She waded into the debris of clothing and mattresses and... not much else, actually. No jewelry, no annoying electronic games, no pornography. What the frell did Nebari *do* all day? "What did you say? About beds?"

"We should be counting them. To guess how many people lived here. Is there anything in there?"

"Just a mess, I think." Zhaan retreated. "We could get an estimate by counting beds per room, and rooms per floor, couldn't we?"

 

--94--

Residential (communal)

"Ten."

"Five."

"I'm sure there were more than ten in that one back there."

"All right, but it's *usually* ten."

"Are you sure about that?"

 

--93--

Residential (communal)

"Here's another five-person room. We can't get any kind of estimate if they aren't consistent."

"What they *are* is consistently dead."

"You're a ray of sunshine.

 

--92--

Residential (communal)

"This really seems like too much sleeping space for that size dining hall."

"Maybe they ate in shifts?"

"Well, then where were the *rest* of them watching the Transmission?"

"Oh, great."

 

--91--

Residential (communal)

Zhaan walked into the bathroom and stopped. "Whoa, hey!" She keyed her comms. "Does anyone read Nebari script? Something's written on the wall in here."

There was a pause, then, "I do. Be right there."

She blinked. The *Fahrbot Orderly* read Nebari?

He'd turned up about a cycle and a half ago -- wandered into the Center for Eleemosynary Medicine fully armed, wearing what looked like combat fatigues, and asked for work. Any experience? First aid only. Why was he there? "Needed a change." Was he on the run? "Not as such, no. Although my sister may come after me in, oh, four cycles or so." What was he? "That's an interesting question..." His name? "I usually answer to 'Hey, you'."

Of course all that (and his multicolored face and funny hair) just made him mysterious, not fahrbot. Well, the name was pushing in that direction, but fahrbot was cemented with his distractibility, disregard for -- *obliviousness* to -- his personal safety, his habit of either talking nonstop or being silent for arns, and his inexplicable fondness for Hynerian romance novels. He seemed to be working his way through *all* of them in order of publication.

//Well, he's never fazed when I use Dad's slang. Maybe he just picks up languages easily.// Though would that explain the slang?

Upon arriving, he studied the writing on the wall. "It says, 'There's a hadesopter. We are trying to get away from the city. If we can, we'll wait near the fallow fields in number four.' Then it lists six names."

"Ah." Zhaan backed up, and took a picture of the whole block of writing, being sure to get the names at the end. //Put them down somewhere as "maybe-survived".// "I hope they made it out."

 

--90--

Residential (communal)

"I don't think these rooms were even occupied," Renyr said, running a hand along a bare mattress. "From what my parents have said, I always thought Nebari Prime was more crowded than this."

"It probably seems more crowded when you're living in a dormitory with nineteen other people," Zhaan offered.

"Nine other people."

"Four."

"Eleven."

"Whatever."

"It should be a good place to spend the night, anyway," Kobak said, not weighing in on the room capacity debate. "No ghosts."

 

--89--

Residential

"Not dormitories," Zhaan said in surprise. "So they do stop."

"Maybe there's a laundry on this floor," Palad suggested. "I've been thinking we're about due for one."

"I'm still dreading the next cafeteria we find. Not to mention the kitchen."

 

--88--

Residential

"Fan-frelling-tastic. Now I'm going to have nightmares about *apartments* for the rest of my life."

 

--87--

Residential

Zhaan held it together until she found the toddler's body, but then she ended up vomiting in the corner until her stomach was empty, then dry heaving for what felt like arns. //Frell, Zee, get it *together*, do your *job* -- oh, god--// All she could think of was her nephew, Ry. Two and a half cycles old now, and she still hadn't met Ry in person. Why was that?

"Shh, Zhaan, it's all right," Palad said, rubbing her back. When had Palad gotten there? "Deep breaths. That's it. Shhhh."

Eventually, she got control of herself. "I'm sorry, it's just--"

"Yes. I know."

 

--86--

Residential

Her little breakdown got her excused from body checking, the next floor down. Instead, she sat with Renyr in an untouched apartment -- it had probably been vacant when the crisis came. Renyr seemed happy to sit and stare out the window, or at least willing to do so, but Zee found herself searching the apartment for some sign of any form of entertainment. Art supplies? Board games? Raslak? Inspirational tapes?

//Maybe they just sit around meditating on the Greater Good.// She grimaced. //Sat around. Well, who knows who lived here, I'll just say they got away.//

"Zhaan," Renyr said suddenly. "Come over here. Bring the field goggles."

She looked up from her inspection of the very boring clothing, and went to get the goggles in question. "What is it?"

He pointed out the window. "Look. Roof of the next building over."

//People. And? Only--// "*Oh*hoh. That's where those 'pack' people are." She peered through the field goggles to see a ragged, filthy man tear open a packet of... food cubes, probably. Several others immediately surrounded him, and they tussled over the food, hitting and kicking and biting. Someone else ended up with possession of the packet and most of the food cubes; the unlucky guy who'd brought them retreated off to a corner of the roof with his handful, and devoured them. "Wow."

"Give me those." Renyr grabbed for the field goggles. "I haven't gotten a good look at them before."

"It's not like I have either. What are they doing now?" Without the goggles, she could see them moving around, but no details.

"One man is distributing food cubes. Must be the guy in charge." He paused. "Or maybe not. This woman just grabbed him from behind and bit him."

"Wasn't happy with her portion?" Zhaan suggested. //How many of them are there? One, two, three, that's five, eight -- no, seven -- eight, ten, eleven...// It was difficult to count them when they wouldn't hold still.

The comm crackled. "Zhaan? Renyr? What are you doing?" Kobak sounded amused.

"Fighting over the field goggles to spy on the neighbors," Zhaan replied. "There's a very good view of the roof."

 

--85--

Residential

Next floor down, all five of them spent a good half arn in an apartment with a good view of the building next door. With the food cubes distributed, the fighting had tapered off, but so had much of the activity, period. Two women seemed to be finger-combing each other's hair, and another woman was *unquestionably* in aggressive amorous pursuit of "the guy in charge", who appeared amusingly disconcerted by this, but most of the rest wandered off downstairs or stood around aimlessly.

"Are they talking at all?" Zhaan asked. It was *not* appropriate to try to pry the field goggles away from Kobak, no matter how long he'd been monopolizing them.

"Hard to say, but I don't believe so."

"Maybe they've lost the ability to speak," she suggested. "So they can't communicate."

"It's obviously more than *just* that."

"We really do need to get to work..."

 

--84--

Residential

"Do you suppose there's any way I can describe this to my parents that *won't* bring them racing down here to drag me home?"

"Only if it ends with 'but we're all done with that now'."

"Ha, yes, good point."

 

--83--

Residential

Palad declared the day to be over after they found a laundry room with four bodies stuffed into clothes agitators, three of them in *one* clothes agitator. Zhaan supposed it didn't say anything good about her own state of mind that she was bemused rather than horrified.

"Why the frell would anyone do that?" she asked after they had found someplace clean to sleep. "People go crazy and murderous, sure. People stuffing people into washing machines -- I don't get it."

The Fahrbot Orderly looked up from staring out the window. "So, everyone, before you got here, what was the weirdest place you'd ever found a body?"

Renyr snorted. "I hadn't. Unless you count getting lost at the Center and wandering into the cadaver room. I couldn't read the sign right. I thought it said something about assembly room."

"More like disassembly room," Zhaan muttered. Cadaver dissection had not been her favorite part of medical training,

"So I guess that was kind of weird. It was certainly a surprise."

Kobak smiled wryly. "Well, a long time ago, before the Liberation, I walked into the welding laborers' equipment closet and found a dead Zenetan hanging upside-down from the ceiling."

"That's... definitely weird," the orderly noted. "And I thought I had a winner with body-stuffed-into-a-frag-cannon."

"I thought I saw a body under my brother's bed, once, but it turned out to be a pile of clothes." When everyone looked at her, Zhaan shrugged. "Hey, I was five. But I want the whole stories behind the Zenetan and the frag cannon."

"Ullggh, it's too grim for gruesome murder stories." The Fahrbot Orderly shrugged. "It was an attempt to hide a body after a murder, that's all. More *creative* than usual, but that's about all you can say for it. He thought the cannon would destroy the body completely when it was fired, and it might've, but he shoved the body too far in, it jammed the firing mechanism, and the problem showed up on a preflight check. After that, it was a straightforward investigation, not that I thought so at the time."

"And what did you think at the time?" Zhaan prodded.

"Oh, something like, 'Eeeaaauuugghhh, there's a body up there!'" He grinned. "It was a long time ago, y'see -- I wasn't even out of the creche yet -- and I was small enough to crawl up inside the cannon when they needed someone to try to get a look at what was wrong with it."

"And where was this?" she asked, hoping it sounded casual, but he just grinned again.

"But that would be *telling*, Zhaan!"

Renyr groaned. "All right, Kobak, what about the dead upside-down Zenetan."

"Also not as interesting a story as you might think," Kobak said dryly. "Overseer, other overseer, feud that got out of control. I never learned the details. I need to contact Tash to update her, but you children should ask Palad about the *live* body she found in a mortuary."

"Oh, frell, that," Palad groaned, burying her face in her hands. "That woman was *insane*. I'm *still* not quite sure what she thought she was doing."

 

--82--

Residential

"Floor eighty-two, apartment the number fell off, number one." Sample, snap. "Floor eighty-two, same apartment the number fell off, number two." Sample, snap. "Ditto, ditto, number three." Sample, snap. "Floor eighty-two, apartment everyone goddamn died in for some reason, number four." Sample, snap. "Could I get some help in here?"

 

--81--

Residential

"Is it out?"

"I think it's out."

"It's still smoking..."

"That's normal, it's out."

"Whew. Well, that was embarrassing."

"Make a note of that -- they were serious when they said a three-motra radius was needed for the flash detonators."

"I think I'll remember without notes, thanks."

"Ooohh, that looks painful."

 

--80--

Residential

Zhaan sighed, and pushed her hair our of her face with hands sweaty from too long in fluid-tight gloves. "Anyone want to bet on whether floor seventy-nine will be more apartments? I'm thinking not."

"Don't be fooled," Renyr warned. "When Zhaan says bet, she's not actually betting anything."

"Sure I am. Bragging rights. Best thing *to* bet, and I'd think you'd agree since last I checked you don't have a krindar to your name--" She broke off as she almost ran into the Fahrbot Orderly. "What?"

He pointed to a door a little ways down the corridor, and held his torch on the door sign. "That sign. Childcare."

"Aw, dren."

"Ahmet."

Several microts passed.

"We're going to have to go in there eventually," Zhaan said after a while.

The Fahrbot Orderly nodded. "Yes, but I was sort of hoping Kobak and Palad would come and do it."

Renyr shook his head. "He'll be off that foot for at least another two arns. Burns are nasty even with immediate treatment."

"And Palad will be *keeping* him off it," Zhaan agreed.

Several more microts passed.

"Frell, I don't wanna do this."

 

--79--

Residential

"And more apartments," observed the Fahrbot Orderly. "I should've taken that bet, Zhaan."

Both their comms crackled noisily. "*Raslak*!" Renyr crowed. "I found raslak!"

 

--78--

Residential

Zhaan regarded her glass with the solemnity it was due. "My parents," she announced, "say drinking to excess is not a good way to cope, and I -- and D'Argo and Pax -- should avoid it."

"True, medically speaking," Renyr said, taking a small sip from his own portion.

"Uncle Rygel and Aunt Chiana," Zhaan continued meditatively, "have indicated that both of my parents have so little room to talk on that subject as to make their giving such advice hilarious." She knocked back a large swallow of raslak, and barely avoided spitting it out again. "Frell, this stuff's horrible!"

The Fahrbot Orderly didn't seem bothered by it. "Have you had any before?"

"*Yes*." She paused, then conceded, "Not often. Mom and Dad don't keep a lot on board. But I swear it wasn't *this* bitter."

"Well, I think this is cheap stuff," the Fahrbot Orderly replied. "And probably contraband."

Renyr raised his glass. "To the free-thinking person whose raslak we are about to drink!" he declared. "May he or she be safely off on a ship somewhere."

"To raslak," Zhaan countered. //Because without it I don't think I can close my eyes without seeing that damn Childcare.// They'd let Renyr take the rest of the floor instead, because she knew he was an oldest child.

"Lots of raslak," the Fahrbot Orderly agreed. "Stupid metabolism."

//*Your* stupid metabolism, maybe. I think Renyr's looking tipsy already.// Zhaan knocked back another shot. "Either of you know any drinking songs? No, no, s'disrespectful. Dirges! Know any dirges?"

"What's a dirge?" Renyr asked.

By the time Kobak and Palad caught up with them, they were lurching through an extremely unsteady chorus of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", because Zhaan didn't know any dirges, either, and songs with complicated rhyme schemes did badly with translator microbes, anyway.

 

--77--

Residential

Zhaan kept a tight grip on the stair rail, because she still wasn't completely sure it was holding still. "I hate you," she informed the Fahrbot Orderly. "You an' your stupid metabolism." Renyr wasn't nearly as bad off, either, but he hadn't matched her drink for drink.

"You did say your parents warned you."

"They warned me raslak was a bad way to cope. They didn't say anythin' about spendin' the next day wantin' to cut your own head off."

He cocked his head at her. "You're talking funny. Your nasals are shifting forward."

She blinked. "*You're* talkin' funny," she retorted. "And droppin' 'g's when hung over is a -- a venerable tradition of my father's people."

 

--76--

Residential

"Can I please take the side of the building facing *away* from the sunrise?"

 

--75--

Residential

"Well, between Kobak trying to blow up his foot and the children getting completely soused on bad raslak, yesterday was rough all around," Palad said.

Zhaan froze in position, not rounding the corner -- she must be on the quiet-comm with Tash. //What does she mean *children*? Beyond the obvious, anyway.// Interesting that the Fahrbot Orderly apparently counted as a child.

"Oh, he's fine. It's just a burn. It could have been much worse. After the children got the fire out, I stayed with him while the patch set and sent the others on ahead. They did very well. Until the raslak at the end, anyway."

//Oh, that was after we'd stopped for the day.//

"*He's* none the worse. Zhaan and Renyr are more than a little ragged, though. ...That sounds useful."

//If "that" is why the Fahrbot Orderly doesn't have a hangover, I wish he would share.//

"I suspect the hangover-induced whining is a major reason the comms are *not* standing open. There still haven't been any unaccounted-for lifesigns, have there? Good."

//The comms aren't open? I can't believe I didn't notice that."

"I don't have an exact count. We're on the seventy-fifth floor, though."

 

--74--

Residential

"Hey, Palad, where's the crew working *up* gotten to?"

 

--73--

Residential

"Aw, frell."

"What?"

"My headache's eased up--"

"For that you're swearing?"

"--and now I can think about what I'm doing again. I was distracted the *whole* *morning*."

"Good point. We need more raslak."

 

--72--

Residential

"Hey, look!" Renyr called.

Zhaan finished the snap-and-sample on a man without a mark on him and backed out the apartment. Renyr was just across the hall. "What, you found more raslak?"

"No, more writing." He pointed. Half of one wall of the living area was covered in Nebari script. It wasn't oversized script, either.

"Huh. *Someone* had a lot to say. Have you checked the rest of the apartment?" She looked down. "There's blood on the threshold, and -- hang on, I'm going to look at the outside of the door. Yeah, looks like it took a beating. Someone must have been trying to hold off zombies in there. Have you checked the rest of it?"

"There aren't any bodies, if that's what you're asking," Renyr replied. He joined her to look at the blood-smeared dents in the door. "Why didn't they go after the hinges?"

"I assume they didn't think of it." You could make out a few dark blue handprints amid the smudges. "Have you seen any zombies? In person, not on The Recording?"

He shook his head. "Not close up, anyway. Tash said she thinks--"

"--Their mortality rate must be really high. Yeah. We still don't know if they feed themselves, do we?" Zhaan went back into the apartment to capture a few images of the writing-covered wall. "We'll have to get the Fahrbot Orderly to translate."

Renyr nodded. "Where the frell did he learn to read Nebari, anyway?"

 

--71--

Residential

"So how many people do you think lived in these apartments?"

"Do we really want to have another one of these discussions?"

 

--70--

Residential

"The apartments have to stop soon. I *know* they don't go all the way down. I think twenty floors of apartments is plenty."

"Twenty floors already?"

"*Yes*. Of apartments -- thirty total. The next one down had better be something else."

"And you're hoping for... what?"

"I don't know. Something really empty would be nice."

 

--69--

Storage

"Ah, storage. Lovely."

"It's not apartments."

"It's not empty, either."

"It's also not well-lit. At all. Better break out the glowlamps."

"I knew something was up when we had to walk down twice as many steps to go down one stupid floor..."

 

--68--

Storage

Zhaan scowled at the corpse. "It's so desiccated, it must have been here a lot longer than just since the Transmission."

"So... what, there's a murder victim stashed in this giant storeroom?"

"You said it, not me. Kobak! I found a weird one!"

 

--67--

Storage

"I sure hope there are fewer floors of storage than apartments."

 

--66--

Storage

"Floor sixty-six, huge warehouse room, number four." Snap, sample. "Wait a microt, how are we counting in here?"

 

--65--

Storage

"Renyr! Come see what I found!"

"Raslak?"

"No, but maybe even better. Hover sledges!"

"Think we can get those down the stairs?"

 

--64--

Storage

Zhaan flopped down on her bedroll. "You ever been camping, Renyr?"

"That depends on what you mean by camping." The Nebari was wandering around the crates near their "campsite", shining his torch around, taking things out and putting them back.

"I've been camping," the Fahrbot Orderly put in. He had apparently decided to sleep on one of the hoversledges, despite the fact that they'd been hauling bodies around on them. "Is this camping?"

She pursed her lips. "No, *this* isn't camping, but *we* are camping."

Renyr looked back over his shoulder to frown at her. "I think my microbes missed something there."

 

--63--

Storage

"Does anyone know what these orangish things are supposed to do, anyway?"

"I have no frelling idea."

"Presumably *someone* knows."

 

--62--

Storage

"I wish these storage room-warehouse things had windows," Zhaan remarked to Palad. "Between them and -- um -- well, the raslak, I haven't gotten a look at the neighbors in two days."

"Well, try to keep that in mind," Palad said dryly.

"Sorry?"

"Because this crate is full of raslak."

"Ah." Zhaan sighed. "Well, as long as we're wandering through warehouses, I think I can restrain myself." //Just not more kids. I don't want to find more kids.//

 

--61--

Storage

Renyr looked behind another stack of crates. "It's really funny to think of my parents growing up somewhere like this."

"Which part of like this do you mean? Everything in one building? Everything so... regimented? Look, more orangish things."

"Everything so... *clean*. Before it went to hezmana, anyway." Renyr shrugged. "I always pictured Nebari Prime as being... *nastier*, somehow."

Zhaan shrugged back. "Some parts of it could be -- we've just been through the one building. But it's really the mental landscape people object to."

"Yeah, I guess so. It's just--" Renyr broke off and they both started violently at the *crash* that echoed through the room. "That came from the stairs."

"Come on."

 

--60--

Storage

"It was a public service," the Fahrbot Orderly explained earnestly, trying to bat Palad away from his head. "Stop it, I'm fine."

Kobak looked up from the dented hover sledge. "And how do you come to that conclusion?"

"Sooner or later *someone* was going to try riding the hover sledge down the stairs," the Fahrbot Orderly explained in reasonable tones. "If not me, it would have been Zhaan or Renyr, and they wouldn't have been able to jump clear when it hit."

 

--59--

Manufacturing

"Ah, no wonder they had all those floors of storage between this and the apartments. Muffle the noise."

"Assuming they were noisy when they were active."

"Look at these things. There is no way they weren't noisy."

"What do you suppose they were making?"

 

--58--

Manufacturing

"Oh, that is gross. That is the most disgusting thing I've seen since... uh, since the kitchen."

"*Thank* you, Zhaan, I was *trying* to block the kitchen from my memory. The things people do to each other."

"This could have been an accident, actually, especially given how the -- zombies -- aren't very careful. Factories are dangerous places."

"But he's -- his head -- it's all -- eeeuuggghhhh!"

"Well, there's a reason so many planets use slave labor in factories."

"Eeeuugghhh."

 

--57--

Manufacturing

"A window!"

"The neighbors! Hey, we're a lot closer, now. Little farther down and we'll be level with their roof."

Pause.

"Oh, frell, are they--"

"Frelling? Sure looks like it."

 

--56--

Manufacturing

"Um."

"Okay, I think *this* is edging out the clothing agitator."

 

--55--

Manufacturing

"Kobak!" Renyr yelled from somewhere not too far away, his voice cracking and sliding up a scale. Zhaan's head snapped up, not that she was *too* reluctant to look away from the guy who'd run into the sorta stamping-machine. "Kobak -- I think I found the lunch room."

"Oh, great," Zhaan muttered. "And the body count jumps again." //And did he have to be the one to find it?// Renyr was taking this hard, Zhaan thought. It was understandable. Kobak and Palad were Baniks, she was Sebacean-human, and the Fahrbot Orderly was -- well -- whatever the frell he was, but Renyr was Nebari, and she kind of thought he was seeing his family in every dead face *more*, not *less*. //He needs a break, poor guy.//

The comm crackled on. "That's a positive on the lunchroom," Kobak said wearily, in more moderated tones. "We'll need some help."

Zhaan touched her own comm. "I'll be there, just let me finish up with this..." //mess// "...guy."

 

--54--

Manufacturing

It was well after dark when they managed to set up camp, but nobody had wanted to sleep on the floor with the lunchroom even *after* they cleared it. It had been even worse than the cafeteria upstairs. But there were no kids, so Zhaan restrained herself to a single cup of raslak. Well, maybe two cups. But that was it. Kobak and Palad abstained, Renyr was drunk on four cups and dozing, and the Fahrbot Orderly had finished a bottle all by himself and was trying to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", and doing remarkably well for someone who'd first heard the song two days before and -- theoretically -- didn't speak the language.

"What *is* he singing?" Kobak asked, sounding amused. "All three of you were working on it the other evening, weren't you?"

Zhaan flushed. "Just something my father used to sing to us -- well, actually, just as often *I* was hearing it from my brother. Generally when he was trying to keep me from worrying about something horrible happening elsewhere." She shrugged, embarrassed. "It's really pretty stupid, considering most of the time we were on a ship between stars, and we started learning what they were about the same time we learned to read--"

Kobak laughed. "No, it's pretty. I think I've heard it before, at Nron."

"Funny how these things spread, isn't it?" Zhaan said rather desperately. She searched for a good line, and finally said straight out, "Could we please not talk about my family right now?" Not in front of Renyr, drunk or not?

"Of course. Sorry, Zhaan." Kobak smiled. "Everyone's history has its own little problems."

"Up above the worrrrld so high..."

Palad regarded the Fahrbot Orderly. "I do have to wonder about *his* history." When Kobak didn't immediately reply, she shot him a look. "You know? Tell, Kobak, tell!"

"He's probably an escaped mental patient," Zhaan said, and yawned. "Ah. Time to sleep. But first... Kobak, Palad, will you *please* tell me how many floors to go? The building's only got a hundred floors, I think we should just *stop* at fifty and wait for the other team to finish. If they hurry we'll leave them some raslak."

"Twinkle-- Yeah, especially since they must have had lots of help for the first ten floors or so."

Palad gave the Fahrbot Orderly an exasperated look. "Are you *ever* as drunk as you act?"

"Sadly, probably not. The team coming up?"

"Has had a harder job than us, actually, and not just because they're *climbing* stairs," Kobak said firmly. "A lot more people ran *down* than *up*. So we're not just stopping at fifty. However, we do expect to meet the other team tomorrow or the next day, somewhere in the forties."

Zhaan nodded. "All right. Okay. I can deal with that." She paused as something occurred to her. "Of course it would be easier if we weren't immediately returning to work in the aid camp."

 

--53--

Manufacturing

"Well, that's what you get for being drunk."

"Oh, like you're one to talk. Come *on*, Zhaan, tell me what he said."

"Ask him yourself."

"*Zhaan*! Oh, fine. It must have been good news, or you wouldn't be in such a good mood."

 

--52--

Manufacturing

"Hey, I just realized you owe me," Zhaan said, as she waited for the Fahrbot Orderly to shift a piece of equipment.

"How's that?"

"I interrupted Palad when she was asking Kobak about your background. Who knows what he would have told her?"

He gave her a skeptical look. "Who says he would have told her anything?"

"He might have. Palad can be very bossy. Is there another body back there?"

"Uh-huh. From the funny way he's lying, I'd guess he fell off the big spinny machine thing." He stepped back to let her through. "So *what* do you think I owe you?"

"Information about your past," she replied promptly. "Something. Anything. Your name. Why don't you give a name, anyway?"

"Is that the piece of information you want?"

"No -- hang on. Floor fifty-two, sector five, number three." Sample, snap. "No, it's not. How about your name?"

He made a face at her. "I don't know if I want to... it's become such a wonderful running gag."

"What if I promised to keep calling you the Fahrbot Orderly?"

"Well, in that case, I might be persuaded to tell you that--"

Her comm squawked. "Zhaan, I could use some help here -- over opposite the staircase."

//Dammit!//

 

--51--

Manufacturing

"So these floors come in blocks of ten, right?"

"Or twenty, yeah."

"So do you suppose they did that no matter what? I mean, what if they only needed nine floors of manufacturing, did they put in ten anyway?"

"Planet this developed, I think you can safely assume it'll be needed eventually."

 

--50--

Manufacturing

"Of course to stick consistently to blocks of ten, they'll need a floor zero. How do you suppose they worked that?"

 

--49--

Storage

"Oh, great. More storage. Just what I was hoping for."

"What *I'm* hoping for is that that blood trail on the stairs keeps going down until the other team has to deal with it."

"And that would be where?"

"Somewhere in the forties, Renyr. You really could have asked Kobak yourself.

 

--48--

Storage

"Oh, hey, I know what these are. My mother described them. They're personal hygiene kits -- sort of a shower in a box."

"All right, *these* we're taking with us! We all smell like the locker room..."

"No we don't, actually."

"Oh?"

"The locker room -- last time I was there, anyway -- didn't smell of blood, waste, or decomposition."

Renyr groaned, but Zhaan just widened her eyes in mock horror. "You haven't worked out since the new class of students arrived?"

The Fahrbot Orderly raised his hands. "A point to you."

 

--47--

Storage

"Hellooooo down there!" Zhaan called, her voice echoing in the stairway.

A few microts later, there was an answering call from below of, "Hello! What floor are you at?"

"Just starting forty-seven!"

"What?!"

"For-ty-se-ven!"

"Got it! We just got done with forty-one!"

 

--46--

Storage

"Someone's been through here already," Palad observed, stepping over a discarded lid to look into a crate. "Food cubes."

"Could be the nonaffected survivors who were camped out in the thirties," Kobak offered. "They probably had to forage some."

"Or it could have been affected people passing through."

"Well, whoever it was, they didn't care about making a mess. Zhaan, what are you doing?"

"Checking to see how the food cubes bounce. My aunt told me once that really new food cubes bounce like crazy."

"And you believed her?"

"I don't know, that's why I'm checking."

"You realize that since we don't know the age of these food cubes, this proves nothing?"

 

--45--

Storage

"So people *are* turning up downstairs to seek aid, right?"

"Oh, yes."

"Good, because it would be a real pain in the eema to do this for nothing."

 

--44--

Storage

"Baben! Good to see you!" Palad greeted.

"Likewise, Palad, Kobak. We're -- oh -- maybe two-thirds done with this floor. Everyone has been determined to finish the job tonight."

"Some definite agreement here," Kobak said dryly. Zhaan, Renyr, and the Fahrbot Orderly nodded in enthusiastic endorsement.

"Hey, Kobak, their group's bigger," Zhaan pointed out. "You didn't tell me they had more people."

"They also, I believe, had more bodies to deal with. Shall we get to work?"

With twelve people, clearing the rest of the floor went relatively quickly. When the last flash detonators had flickered out (barely), Renyr broke out the raslak to the enthusiastic acclaim of practically everybody. Even the Baniks drank, this time -- although not very much. Zhaan stopped after she started giggling uncontrollably. //Last thing I need is to start trying to teach anyone any more songs.//

 

--Lower levels--

Converted for use of Center for Eleemosynary Medicine Aid Mission

Of course the building's water wasn't working either, so they had to shower in the transport shuttle, which had its own intake and filtration system. As cramped as it was, it was still an enormous relief to get clean. Of course, the shuttle had been taxied into the ground-floor vehicle parking, so it was in a motra and a half of dirty water, like just about everything else at ground level -- until recently, there had been a reservoir nearby. *Somebody* had decided it would be a good idea to destroy the dam. She still hadn't heard any stories about who or why (or how). In any event, there was a rather shaky hanging bridge from the upper shuttle hatch to the stairs to the second floor. Zhaan made her way across quickly, glad she'd remembered to put on shoes.

The cleanup crew ongoing debrief (ongoing, as everyone felt it was a good idea for the cleanup crew to shower first, and the shower fit at most two) was up on the fourth floor. The second floor had the newly arrived and miscellaneous refuge-seekers; the third was more organized medical space. Eleemosynary quartering whatnot was on the fourth. Crossing the first floor to the other stairs, she studied the people. Shaken, scared, injured to varying degrees... yes, there *were* still people around to help.

The fourth floor looked like it might have been some sort of public space -- offices? Stores? Without reading Nebari, and after the other cleanup crew had come through, it was hard to tell. Someone had slapped up signs in a few more standard scripts, indicating which way to go for, "sleeping", "mess", "storage -- medical", "storage -- other", "pack watching" -- must be a window -- "coordination", and "conference". Zhaan headed towards "conference", listening to the familiar sounds of an Eleemosynary aid encampment. She paused when she saw what looked like a two-dimensional projection of the planet, scribbled all over with notes like "Luxans", "Kalish", "Hynerians", "Royal Sebaceans", and "Zenetans???" Several of that last -- looked like no one quite knew where the Zenetans were, which was unfortunate. //Yes, the carrion birds are definitely circling.//

"Pack watching" and "conference" were in the same direction, and when she arrived at the conference room, she found it, too, had a large window and a nice view of the building next door. Half the people present were staring out, some with field goggles, and the conversation seemed to have died away. Zhaan found a seat between Palad and the Fahrbot Orderly, and looked at Tash. "So what are we discussing?"

"At the moment, how you can see two kids through the window across there," Palad said, pointing, "and they seem to be looking back."

Zhaan looked. "So they are. Has anyone waved?"

"Not just now," Tash said. "They might run away if anyone did. As I was saying, we've pooled the data from your samplers -- in our computers, as none of the units here are functioning at all."

"Frell them," muttered their Interion computer expert. What was she doing in the meeting? Oh, of course, compiling data. "Don't know if their frelling database even exists anymore. But from what you lot gathered--"

"Thank you, Heli," Tash said firmly. "All told, we cleared one hundred floors, the roof, and the Hynerian forces kindly lent some assistance to clear the basement and subbasement. We located, sampled, and disposed of three thousand, one hundred and seventeen bodies."

"Dren," Zhaan whispered. "In one building?"

Tash nodded. "In one building. I invite you to take the rest of the day off, but after that -- your help is needed for the living." She frowned. "Heli, what's the time?"

"Ah, a hundred microts after you were supposed to comm Shanu."

"Yes, and *my* help is needed dealing with our Kalish friend." She looked over the group. "You're still missing four people. Kobak, will you bring them up to date when they turn up?"

"Of course, Tash. Good luck with the Kalish."

"Thanks."

Zhaan looked over at the children in the building next door. //Help is needed for the living.// Right. About time they got down to *proper* work, anyway.

There was a light touch on her shoulder. "Tacer," the Fahrbot Orderly whispered in her ear.

"What?" she hissed back.

"My name. Tacer."

"What, that's it?" she replied, almost forgetting to whisper. "Tacer? I was expecting... I don't know, Pancras, or Bestiality, or at least Ffloyd or something."

He shrugged, and grinned. "I have my reasons."

"Escaped mental patient."

"Possibly."

Zhaan shook her head. "Oh, go bother Kobak. I need to send a message to my parents." //*Not* mentioning the body moving business.//