“I think we must take our chances here ... at least until the threat has passed. They will not look forever. Eventually, they will decide you have died and go on about their business.
“In the meanwhile, I need to see if I can find something more comfortable and defensible. And we will need supplies. I had little to bring with us. And there is nothing at all to eat now.”
Annika stared at him. “I got the part about nothing to eat. And something about safe or not safe.” She thought it over. “I suppose, maybe, you were talking about the virus? Unfortunately, it is still present and living—and probably right here in this area—but I’ve been inoculated. I think you must have developed an immunity, too. I still feel like I can feel it crawling on me, and I don’t like it, but I think we’ll be ok. Hope.”
Zhor scrubbed a hand over his face tiredly. He was almost a hundred percent certain she had not understood what he was trying to tell her, but he did not especially feel up to trying to explain it after the night he had had.
Ordinarily, he did not really mind spending an hour talking, gesturing, and pantomiming until he was certain she understood—and that he understood what she was trying to tell him.
At the moment, he was feeling a little ill from little sleep and little food. He could do nothing about the sleep. But he was hopeful he could do something about the food.
“Ah-na stay here. Safe. I go. Get food.”
Annika was tempted to argue with him, but she decided against it. She could just as easily wait until he left and look around as much as she pleased.
In fact—better. If she tried to get him to take her to explore, he’d just argue that it wasn’t safe. “Ok.”
He studied her, instantly suspicious that she gave in without argument. “Stay here?”
She looked around rather than meet his gaze. “Right here? In this very spot? What if I have to pee?”
He gave her a look.
She batted her eyelashes at him and made a shooing motion. “Go find food. I’m hungry.”
When she was sure he was gone, she got up, dusted her suit and looked around curiously.
She hadn’t actually lied. She did need to relieve herself, but she saw no reason not to look around while she was at it—because she damned well wasn’t going to just squat right there!
And she might find something useful to take back with her as proof that the people ofDFY1360 were an advanced civilization—or at least had been—which made them peers not inferior animals.
The climb down, she discovered, was definitely hazardous. The place was cracked, crumbling, and littered with debris. There were some pretty big holes in the material they’d used to build the structure—something that looked very similar to the concrete used by Earth people.
She considered just picking up a piece, but even though it was clearly manufactured material, she didn’t want to load up with rocks. Maybe a piece just big enough for testing? Then she would look for something mechanical or electronic in nature—nuts, bolts, maybe circuits from something?
She had to find something that couldn’t be discounted out of hand, dismissed as being something dropped by Earth explorations.
Therehadto be a lot of stuff left!
She didn’t believe the place had been abandoned more than fifty years—possibly a lot less than that. Anything like paper that was exposed or iron would probably be long gone, but conglomerates or metal alloys should still be relatively intact since that sort of ‘unnatural’ thing was designed to last and not break down.
And the key word was abandoned. She doubted anyone had taken much with them when they’d fled the city.
As she carefully picked her way down, pausing to look each floor over carefully for the proof she was seeking, she realized she didn’t actually feel the urgency to get back and report that she knew should have felt.
Truthfully, she supposed she’d felt way too comfortable around Zhor even in the beginning considering he was a stranger—and alien at that! And she supposed that accounted for the lack of desperation.
Well—she’d felt pretty frantic to search for the others in the beginning, but the discovery that she was living in a hole on the side of a mountain had curbed a lot of her enthusiasm.
That and the realization after she’d convinced Zhor to let her look that her crewmembers were long gone and well beyond her help.
As much as she liked her job, she wasn’t especially anxious to get back to work.
It wasn’t as if ‘comfortable’ was part of her job description. Most of her time was spent on board the ship in pretty tight quarters sharing supplies and space with two guys. Roughing it certainly was, and although the equipment and supplies furnished by the company were the very latest thing, the running water Zhor had had in his cave dwelling beat that all to hell.
