He shrugged. “Crazies haven’t come down here yet. If they do, they’ll get more than they bargained for.”
Soon human voices were audible, and the path disgorged them into an open field, maybe half a mile across. In its center was a stockade of rough-hewn timber, easily twice Ru’s height, surrounded by neatly ordered gardens. There were several people working those gardens, dressed in lab uniforms with short-sleeved shirts and drawstring pants in a dull blue-gray. They looked up when they heard people approaching, and tensed at the sight of Ru. How long had it been since they had last seen a stranger? The nearest ones backed away nervously as Ivar led her toward the compound’s gate. God alone knew what they thought she was capable of.
Inside the compound, small huts were huddled together in groups, narrow paths wending between them. A few larger shelters stood apart from the others, and Ivar directed her toward one of those. The whole place looked primitive, but that didn’t surprise her. She’d seen enough worlds in the course of her outrider duties to know that even the most advanced colony could devolve to a primitive state, if circumstances warranted. And here they clearly had.
Upstairs there’s a station full of clean modern rooms, she thought. The inner ring is probably full of vacant apartments. Why did they come down here, instead of claiming some of that space?
The house Ivar led her to had a real wooden door, clearly a luxury here. He knocked on it.
“Come in,” a woman’s voice said from within.
The interior lacked the rummage-sale quality of Ivar’s abode, though the roof was the same open framework. A table, several chairs, a bed, and a chest had been hewn from natural wood, and there were even a few decorative pieces on the walls. On a table Ru saw pieces of pottery, rustic in design, and the small rug on the floor looked handcrafted. If the message of Ivar’s hut had been Fuck it, I’m not staying here! the message of this one was, Well, if I’m stuck here, I’m going to make the best of it.
A tall red-headed woman stood as they entered. Like everyone else here she was dressed in lab clothes, but she’d torn the sleeves off to reveal smoothly muscled arms with colorful tattoos. Thorned roses on one arm, a dragon on the other.
Ivar nodded respectfully to her. “This is Ru Gaya, the one we found upstairs.” He looked at Ru. “This is Zevi, chief of the Seventh Collective.”
Ru bowed her head slightly, as he had done. “Honored.”
There was a moment of silence as Zevi looked her over. Her gaze rested briefly on the places on Ru’s body where weapons might be hidden. “Ivar vouches for you,” she said at last.
“I’m grateful for that.”
“He says you’re an independent. Bounty hunter.”
Ru nodded. “That’s right.”
“So you have a ship.”
“It wasn’t able to dock.” Maybe someday she would trust someone here enough to tell them the truth. “It’ll be coming back for me later.”
Zevi’s eyes narrowed. “You understand our situation here?”
“Enough to know you need evacuation. My ship’s too small to handle all of you. But I promise, once I return to Harmony I’ll get a rescue team out here.”
“We’ve waited a long time for help.”
“Two fucking years,” Ivar muttered.
The angle of light in the room shifted suddenly. It took Ru a moment to realize that the solar lamps overhead must have changed their settings, imitating the motion of a sun across the faux sky. When ‘night’ fell, would it get dark?
“But I’m being a poor host,” Zevi said. She gestured toward the table and chairs. “Please, sit. Have something to eat. It’s not great food, but it’ll fill the stomach.”
God alone knew how long it had been since Ru last ate. She sat down gratefully and tore a piece of bread from a grayish loaf. It was dry and bland, but her stomach welcomed it. Zevi poured her a cup of what turned out to be totally tasteless water. Probably distilled. Seeing the question in her eyes, Zevi said, “We tap into irrigation for it, so it has to be filtered. Not exactly vintage wine. Biome Four supplied us with grain, and we have more leafy plants than we know what to do with, but not much else.”
“No protein?” Ru asked.
“Not down here,” Ivar said. “Not unless we want to eat each other.”
Zevi scowled at him. “There were insects, but once they died that resource was gone. Everything down here was bred for experiments, and carefully controlled; no animal or insect species was allowed to reproduce on its own. So they’re all gone now, save for the plants you see. We have to pollinate the crops ourselves.”
“Aren’t there emergency supplies?” Ru asked. “A station like this should store enough food to support its population for a long time.”
“Yeah. But that’s all upstairs, and the crazies are guarding them. Can’t hardly blame ’em. Resources are finite, and there’s been no hope of relief.” She looked pointedly at Ru. “Until now.”
“How many people on the station?” Ru asked.
“There were nearly a thousand when all this began. Now we estimate two dozen of the crazies left upstairs. Maybe fewer than that. Down here . . .” A muscle along her jaw tightened. “Eighteen. We’re down to eighteen station personnel left, plus this one came from the outside.” She nodded toward Ivar.
“It’s been a long war,” he said quietly.
So many deaths. Each person here must have done their share of killing. “How did you come to this point, exactly? Ivar didn’t give me many details.”
Zevi tore off a piece of bread for herself. “The trouble started in one of the lab sections. Nothing big at first. Reports misplaced. Data misread. Just a few more errors than usual; nothing to set off any alarms. Then some people started acting erratically. Hot-tempered. Disoriented. And then more people. By the time the folks in charge realized something was seriously wrong, nearly everyone in that particular section had been affected. Soon it started affecting them in body, as well. Flesh wasted away, skin turned the color of rot, sometimes it fell away altogether. They looked horrific.”
Ivar nodded grimly. “Like fucking zombies.”
“We couldn’t call for help right away. We had to lock down the station and confirm it wasn’t a contagious condition first. That’s standard corporate protocol. Meanwhile, the affected ones lost any semblance of sanity. We locked them up for their own safety, but they managed to break out. Started attacking people. Labs were trashed. Equipment was gutted. By the time it was confirmed that their condition wasn’t contagious, so we could call for outside help, our communications equipment had failed. Maintenance couldn’t figure out why. Some of the healthy workers tried to flee the station at that point, but there weren’t enough ships for everyone. The ones who left promised to send transports back for the rest of us, but we never heard from them again.”