But he didn’t. He just sighed so heavily that his bony shoulders heaved. “It would be easier to show you.” He tilted his head to indicate the trapdoor.
“Do so,” ordered Avir, and she switched to the Proper tongue. “Bio-tech, tend the artifact. Stabilize her if you can.”
“You hold my name,” said Nal absently. He was busy fumbling in his tool belt for analysis patches.
Panair climbed down the rope ladder first, followed by one of his Beholden. After a long moment, he shouted, “Clear!”
“Go,” Avir said to the Unifier.
With another resigned sigh, he fastened his tool belt around his waist and climbed down the ladder like it was something he’d been doing all his life.
Avir envied his poise as she herself descended. The ladder wriggled and wobbled under her weight. She was very glad to see the Unifier didn’t dare to grin at her when she stood beside him. Avir was not surprised to see the string of lights that led down the corridor and glinted off curved walls of translucent silicate that held back drifting shadows.
This was Avir’s first chance to see the shadowy containers up close. She leaned toward the wall, pressing her hands against the smooth, cool surface. She watched the blobs that moved with a fluid grace and random pattern. She swallowed hard. It was as if they stood in a vein the Ancestors had sunk into the world and were now surrounded by the blood the Vitae had sworn by for all their centuries.
Ivale and six of the security team descended the ladder, one by one. Panair waited until the last of them were down before he gestured for the Unifier to lead them onward.
The shadowed corridor was one continuous archway extending toward a second drop. The Unifier took them down another rope ladder and down a second corridor toward a brightly lit arch. Shadows drifted silently past them and Avir felt them like a weight sliding across her skin.
The archway opened into a chamber. Avir’s gaze slid over the more ordinary ruins—the empty tables and rotted chairs. It caught for a moment on the banks of empty sockets and gleaming stones. Then it swept the room, trying to take in everything at once. She saw tanks of gelatinous matter bulging from the walls. Bundles of capillary-like tubes pressed against the chamber’s walls. Blobs and nodules of silicate, all seamless, held viscous liquids that rippled like the shadows in the corridor did. Star-shaped patterns pressed against the skin of what could have been a table. Nerves. The liquid pulsed in the smooth bank of empty sockets against the far wall as if controlled by a heartbeat.
There was no question of it in Avir’s mind. This place was alive.
Avir felt her own breathing become shallow. “How big is this place?” she asked, not caring about the hushed tone the Unifier couldn’t possibly miss.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve mapped out about ten square kilometers’ worth of tunnels. Not that it’s done that much good.” There was a smirk in his voice. “Half the stuff back of the walls and tanks didn’t even show up until we’d had the lights on twenty-four hours. And you should see what’s down there.” He nodded to a second archway.
“Ivale, see what you can find out about this place,” she said, already halfway to the other arch and barely aware that the two Security Beholden had closed ranks to follow her.
Avir knew she was letting herself get distracted. Exploration should wait until they had the proper personnel, but she kept right on going. There was no light, except what was at their backs. One of the Beholden raised a hand lamp to light her way.
Ahead, the corridor curved. A burst of red light flashed off the smooth, clear walls. It flashed again, and again. Avir’s steps quickened. The footsteps of the Security Beholden echoed as they marched behind her.
She rounded the curve and the pulse of light hit her right in the eyes. Dazzled, she dropped her gaze and raised her hand. She saw the reflection of another flash on her own boots. The shadows under the surface of the corridor roiled as if in response. The intensity of the light faded as her faceplate darkened.
At last, Avir could look up again. She stood less than a meter from a cavernous opening. The corridor came out near its ceiling, but the floor, if existent, was invisible. The far wall was likewise lost in shadow. From darkness to darkness stretched more of the Ancestors’ veins. Avir knew they must be enormous, but the cavern around them made them look like silken threads. They crossed each other and spread out again at every angle. It was a geometrician’s dream. It was the work of a thousand spiders over a thousand years. The ruby light flashed down the threads like bottled lightning. A single strand flashed on the edge of her line of sight. A dozen lit up right in front of her. Ten meters below, five, now ten, now twenty, horizontal strands pulsed with light and then blacked out all at once. Pulses of light raced up and down the verticals, chasing each other through the network of threads.