The Naidus were thelast, thanks to Rohan’s back. Terry stepped forward to look up atthe countdown. “Not gonna make it,” he said, sticking his footonto the pod’s threshold with the street.
The counter hit zerowhile the Naidus were still ten feet away but the pod remained whereit was. The pod’s other five gates sealed but the opening withTerry’s foot didn’t close.
It was now filledwith a sheet of orange light that pulsed in time with a blaringalarm. “Remove all livingtissue from the doorway or initiate emergency safety override!” asynthesized voice commanded from a ceiling projector.
Rohan and his familypassed through the orange haze. He gave Terry a nod of thanks as hestood there, gasping.
Terry withdrew his footand the opening snapped shut. Everyone looked around and at eachother. “Are we moving?” one of them asked.
“Listen,” anothersaid.
Though there was nosense of motion, there was a sound coming through the walls. Itsounded like a cross between ripping linen and someone whistling asingle note.
“I think… that’s…the air rushing… past our capsule…,” Rohan wheezed.
His wife patted himabsently on the back. Kiara put a hand on his shoulder.
Frank noticed how, inthe crush of colonists, Terry and Kiara had managed to stand shoulderto shoulder but they were acting like they hadn’t even noticed eachother.
The nonchalancewas a dead giveaway. He looked down to see they were holding handsbehind her back. Frank wishedhe hadn’t looked because that was the moment that their handsparted and Terry’s came to rest on her backside.
Frank looked up againquickly, seeing Kiara lean her head slightly toward Terry. He turnedto Trisha, only to find an amused smile on her face.
She leaned in andwhispered in his ear. “It’s quite crowded in here. I doubt anyonewill catch them.”
Her eyes widenedwhen he let his own hand graze over her bottom. Itwas just his fingertips but slowly enough to make it clear that theywere there on vacation and not just a chance impact. “Pleasetell me that was you just now,” she whispered.
“Me what?” heasked innocently,then laughed as she jabbed him in the ribs.
By that time, they’dreached the bunker and the noise stopped. The sides opened and theyfound themselves in a large room, forty meters in diameter.
Everyone exited thepod.
“Hard tobelieve we’re nearly a kilometer under the mountains!” Terrysaid, squintingup at the distant light fixturesoverhead.
“Alright,”Mal’s voice boomed, “wehave almost everyone but there are still a little more than thirtycolonists still in Unity. We want to see a better turnout next time.We still have a few minutes before the pods come in from the fieldsbut I see no reason why we shouldn’t carry on.
“If you can allfollow your holo-icons, we’ll show you to the shelter.”
“You mean this isn’tit?” a colonist shouted from the back of the crowd.
“You’re inthe debarkation chamber,” Mal said, sounding surprised at thequestion. “We built this place to keep you all alive for severalyears. If a war happened to find its way out here, we might have tolive down here for a long time before rescue comes. Wewouldn’t just build a big room filled with bunk-beds...”
Frank could see a greencircle with his name hovering in the air nearby. Trisha had alreadyfound one for her and Vikram. He stepped over to his and it beganmoving once he was within a couple of steps of it.
He stood still and itstopped as well. “I guess we just follow them.” He shrugged andstarted walking.
They passed into anarched tunnel in the cavern wall and it led them out into a spacethat dwarfed the debarkation room.
It was a largeunderground canyon roughly three hundred meters in height withfifteenlevels of walkway along each side. Several walkways on each levelallowed convenient access from one side to the other.
The open space runningdown the middle of the canyon was at least fifteen meters wide wherethe debarkation room emptied into the ‘shelter’.
“It’s more like acity than an emergency hideout,” Frank muttered in awe. The pressof the crowd behind him helped him realize that he’d stoppedwalking.
Their icons ledthem to one of the upper levels where Frank, Trisha, Vikram and Terryall found themselves standingin a three-bedroomapartment set back into the rock of the mountain.
It wassurprisingly comfortable, for an emergency shelter, and Vikram wasthe first to voice thatopinion.
“Nanites,” Terrysaid. “We can make as many or as few of the things as we want, sothere’s no limit on what we can do for a shelter like this.”
“This must be astandard imperial pattern,” Trisha said, running a hand along awall. It was finished in arelief pattern of hexagonal groups, some large hexagons flowed intopatches of smaller ones. “It’snice enough but it just feels…”
“Alien?” Franksuggested.
She nodded. “Howdo we prepare…” She nodded again and turned to walk into an openroom with no apparent counter-space.
“What is…” Frankgrunted. “A kitchen, as an imperial citizen would know it.”
“These mattresses areweird!” Vikram bounded out of a door shaped like an elongatedhexagon. “They look like they grew in some ocean somewhere. Kind ofstiff.”
“How do they usethe…” Frank grimaced. “Hole in the floor?”
“Takes some gettingused to,” Trisha said. “It’s not uncommon back home.”
“I suppose I can giveit a shot,” Frank groused.
“Yeah,” Terryguffawed. “Literally!”
“Ayyoh!” Trishaexclaimed, silencing the young man.
“You know,” Terrysaid, rubbing the back of his neck. “We could probably get a nanitecohort to put in a toilet. We just need the design specs.”
“I’ll makesure we add that to the agenda at the next council meeting,” Franksaid, still trying not to laugh.
“Why is theshelter built like this?” Vikram asked. “Wouldn’t it bestronger if it was a sphere?
“Ah,” henodded as the answer percolated up from his stored patterns. “Ifwe’re forced to live down here for a year or more, the chance ofmass-murder and civil unrest is reducedif our habitat has a more natural feel.
“If you walk out ofthe apartment and can see the entire place, you feel like a prisoner.If some of it is out of sight, around the corner, the subconsciousneed for exploration is less urgent.”
He waggled hisshoulders. “It’s a love-hate thing, as far as this implantedknowledge goes. I feel like I have a ghost inside my head.”
“Not that we haven’tall had
