Horizon Storms - Kevin J. Anderson [159]
Anton spoke reassuringly: “There, see? It’ll be all right. Nothing to be afraid of.” He seemed to be the only one not panicked.
During the previous day season, when he’d asked a group of Ildiran tourists to go to the dark-side construction site of Maratha Secda, they had clearly thought Anton unbalanced. But he had egged them on with stories of human bravery and finally gotten a large enough group to go. Now the skeleton crew stared at him as if he were a fool for not understanding their peril. Therefore, instead of just talking about bravery, Anton would have to show his mettle and be an actual hero. As a bookish, lifelong scholar, he smiled at the irony of it.
“All right, let’s think about this. Until we can get the generators fixed, do you have any candles?” In the uncertain light, he pointed to the kithmen who served and prepared food. “Any cooking flames or torches in the kitchens?”
When the Ildirans nodded uncertainly, Anton gathered two of them and took one of the emergency blazers. In the dining hall, the rest of the crew was reluctant to let a light source go away, even temporarily, but Anton was firm about it. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring back even more light. Think of it as an investment!”
Forcibly keeping his good cheer, he hurried his reluctant volunteers along before the Designate could countermand his instructions. The three of them followed the blazer down the frighteningly dark passageways until they reached the kitchens. Inside storage cabinets they found boxes of ignition sticks and flammable gels. When Anton led them all back to the dining room and lit the new lights, the Ildirans clutched them like lifelines.
Finally the Maratha Designate quelled enough of his blinding panic to grow angry. “Nur’of, you are my engineer. Learn what has gone wrong, and get those lights back on.”
“I will need to take one of the blazers, and several workers to do what—”
“Hurry!” Designate Avi’h cried. “These ignition sticks won’t last forever.”
Anton rested a reassuring hand on Rememberer Vao’sh’s arm. “I’ll go with Nur’of’s team and keep them company until we find out what caused the blackout. Stay here and tell funny stories to the rest of these people. Keep them entertained and distracted. Shine a light on your face so they can see the colors in your lobes.”
Accompanied by Anton, the engineer and four of his technicians hastened down a succession of ramps into the lower levels of the domed city. The underground silence was oppressive. One of the technicians rummaged in an equipment locker and found three more emergency blazers, which he quickly switched on.
Always before, the thumping rhythm of generators and the buzzing of complex equipment in these levels had sounded like a growing storm. Now the chambers were quiet as death. All of Maratha Prime’s power, all of the machinery, had been shut down.
“I heard an explosion or two immediately before the lights went out,” Anton said to Nur’of. “Is it possible that one of the generators blew up or broke down?”
The large-eyed engineer turned to him, his face thrown into sharp relief by the stark light of the blazer in his hand. “Bekh! We have redundant power systems, and backup generators. It is not conceivable that all of them failed simultaneously.”
Nevertheless, when they entered the equipment room, Anton saw his answer. The energy production and distribution machinery had been ruined, turbines blasted open, cables severed, generators torn apart.
And clearly, it was no accident.
When at last some of the lights flickered on again, Anton and the team of technicians returned to the central dining hall. They received giddy cheers and a look of great satisfaction on the Designate’s drawn face.
Anton had surprised himself by remaining cool throughout the crisis, since he had always been a book-learner, someone who looked at life from a detached and objective position—not a man of action! However, his parents had taught him to solve problems, to rely on himself, and not to panic. With pleasant conversation and suggestions, knowing