"Even if it’s not time for the regular meeting," Chappalar said, "Ms. Tupper might have called an impromptu one. Perhaps she assembled the crew so she could distribute a memo on putting away one’s tools." He rolled his eyes. I was beginning to get a picture of Ms. Memo-Making Tupper. "Or," Chappalar went on, "they may have received a delivery of spare parts at the other door, and everyone’s helping unload."
Possible. Plausible. Considering the rat’s banquet of pipe and cable strewn round the floor, they must send out for spare parts frequently. Still… the place seemed needle-nick quiet. And abandoned. I was getting a case of the hinkies, some of that "human intuition" Chappalar grumbled about.
"Let’s keep on our toes," I told him, keeping my voice low. "This is making me edgy."
He gave me a look — a studiedly neutral look reserved for first-time proctors who talk like escapees from a melodrama. Then again, his inner ear-sheaths lowered a fraction, letting him listen better for suspicious sounds. He was giving me the benefit of the doubt, even if he thought I was overreacting.
Warily, I moved forward. Chappalar followed. As we drew level with the stairways up to the vat controls, I yielded to impulse and climbed the steps — up two full stories above the ground till I was face-to-face with a jumble of fiber optics and plumbing.
Chappalar flapped up beside me and landed lightly on the other set of stairs. His head suddenly jerked; he put a hand to his cheek. "Wet." He looked down and pointed to a black poly pipe just below eye level; it had a pinhole in it, shooting up a thin spray of water that had hit him in the face.
"That can’t be good," I said.
"Not unless you’re in need of a shower." He ducked around the spray and leaned forward to peer at the pipe. "There’s more corrosion here than just that pinhole. Look at this wire. See where the insulation is missing?"
I leaned in beside him. Yes: specks of damage on several wires, on the pipe, and on the readout of a nearby pressure monitor. I could pick up something else too — a sharp scent that curled my nose hairs.
"Acid," I whispered.
"What do you mean?"
"I can smell it."
"Oh." Ooloms flip-flop in their respect for the Homo sap nose. Sometimes they act as if they don’t believe in smell at all, as if we’re shamming our ability to use a sense they don’t have. Other times they treat us with something close to awe: astounding creatures that we are, privy to profound sensations that are hidden from their race.
This time, Chappalar decided to be impressed. "What type of acid is it?" he asked.
"Don’t know." I could have downloaded the world-soul’s library of smells, to compare this pickly odor to the ones on file; but what would be the point? Showing off to Chappalar? And did I want to fill my brain with a catalogue of bitter stinks?
Our cowardly Faye, rationalizing. To avoid taking another kick at the data-tumor can.
"Who cares what acid it is?" I said briskly. "The question is where it came from."
Chappalar looked disappointed at the fickleness of my nose; but he turned back to the innards of the control panel. "I can’t imagine why anything here would leak acid. Pumping and filtration equipment shouldn’t use strong chemicals. I suppose there might be batteries, for backup power supply if the main current goes out…"
He scanned the pipes upward, searching for a source of the spill. I didn’t. I’d memorized schematics of all the equipment in the plant; nothing used so much as a dribble of high-corrosive.
"This is all wrong," I muttered. "I’m going to call Protection Central."
"Faye." You didn’t need sensitive Oolom ears to hear the reproof in Chappalar’s voice. "This is your first scrutiny," he said, "and you’re ready to see everything as suspicious. I was the same when I started. But think — this is just a water-treatment plant, in a quiet city on a quiet planet. Nothing sinister goes on here.
My guess is the workers were just cleaning out pipes with an acid wash. They spilled some, everyone rushed to the first-aid station or the shower, and…"
His ear-lids suddenly opened wider.
"What?" I whispered. A moment later I heard the sound too: footsteps tapping toward us from the far end of the room.
Chappalar gave me a gentle smile, with only a hint of I-told-you-so. "Hello!" he called. "We’re from the Vigil."
The footsteps sped up. In a moment, two figures hove into view at the bottom of the stairs below us — a man and a woman, both human, wearing the standard gray overalls of city maintenance staff. They looked mainstreet-ordinary: in their thirties, one Asian, one Cauc, both with shoulder-length black hair.
Just one problem: I’d gone through the files on everyone who worked here. The files included ID photos; and these two people weren’t in the pictures.
"Good morning," Chappalar was saying. "We’ve come to look around…"
He began to lift his arms as if he intended to launch off the stairs and glide down to the newcomers. Bolt-fast I grabbed him, pulling him back. He gave me a wounded look. "Please, Faye; this kind of behavior…"
That’s when the folks on the ground drew their pistols.
I only had an instant to recognize the weapons: jelly guns, able to shoot a blob of sticky goo up to forty meters where it would splatter on impact. Police loaded them with clots of neural-scrambling syrup — even if the shot didn’t hit you dead on, one tiny splash touching bare skin would send frazzled messages to your brain, interfering with most motor functions. Petit mal on a plate.
Somehow, though, I didn’t think the guns pointed my way were filled with knockout paste. I could almost smell the acid inside, gluey wads of it, that would cling to your skin like tar and eat straight down to the bone.
With simultaneous coughs, the pistols fired.
Standing out in the open up a flight of stairs, two stories above the floor, nothing behind me but a copper-solid wall of pipes and wires… I had nowhere to run. Yes I ducked, and I pulled down Chappalar too, though I knew it wouldn’t help — the whole point of a jelly gun is its splash, its knack for spattering you with droplets even if you dodge from ground zero. In a second I’d be sprayed with burning slush…
…except that Chappalar snapped up his gliders like a membranous shield.
I don’t know how he knew the attack was coming — he had his back to the shooters. Maybe he was just trying to catch his balance after I pulled at him… but his sails spread wide, flat to the incoming wads, and the shots broke against him with a sharp double-splat.
The air blossomed with acid’s bitter reek. Chappalar screamed.
He toppled forward, collapsing onto me — his moaning body so light, the weight was like a flimsy coat stand holding a single burning cloak. Twin splash patterns of acid speckled his back and gliders… and each droplet was starting to smoke, a thousand stringy white streamers smelling of cruel vinegar. I had to get him to safety; and do it fast, in the two seconds the jelly guns took to build up pressure before they could spew another round.
First things first: an instant Mayday over my link-seed and piss on being a nelly about data tumors. Protection Central, I bellowed mentally, defense squad, ambulance, killers! The world-soul was bright enough to fill in the details… like where I was calling from. It could triangulate on my link-seed signals. Meanwhile, I grabbed Chappalar under the armpits, hiked up his arms, and rolled us both straight over the stairs’ guardrail.
We didn’t fall. We didn’t glide. Imagine a wobbly blend of both, me dangling under Chappalar as if he were a crippled parafoil. He was halfway unconscious, but still managed to keep his arms and legs stiff enough for a semicontrolled descent — vectoring down at a steep angle till my feet jarred against the floor. Two staggering steps to catch my balance, then I was running for the exit.