Gyre Price settled her new hand on the outcropping and flexed her fingers, settling her grip. It would take some time to get fully habituated to the new arm, but it was good. Functional. The best Arasgain Industries money could buy.
She took one foot off her foothold and let herself move down. The drop wasn't quite sheer, but there was a flexural point here, just like at the Long Drop. It was only three meters or so. She saw a half-decayed corpse at the bottom. Broken neck. Best practice said she should set up a line, but she was much past best practice by now. She sank her foot to another little outcropping and moved her flesh hand once she'd found it took her weight. Just a bit more-
"Gyre?"
Gyre looked up. Em stood in silhouette, the open sky bright behind her.
"The shuttle to the ship leaves in twenty minutes."
The heart of the planet called to her from the depths of the pseudocave. She felt it pull at her bones like gravity, calling her to a home lit only by bioluminescent fungus. It would be so easy to shimmy down to the bottom of this drop and then climb down to the bottom of this rift in the planet's crust. No Tunnelers lived here. Nothing would impede her.
"Gyre? Please come up, Gyre."
Except Em. Gyre pushed up against the foothold she'd found and hauled herself back up to the top of the drop. She stood and walked away. The sky was bright and blinding. She closed her eyes against the light and looked over her shoulder. The cave was dark and inviting and much less harsh on her senses. It called.
So did Em. "Let's go," she said and grabbed Gyre's hand, leading her out of the pseudocave.
They were at the very edge of the flat region that housed the spaceport. The main buildings were half a kilometer away and the city center beyond them. Beggar children and mugging gangs reigned in the immediate vicinity, with the rest of the city dedicated to other forms of organized crime. This pseudocave had seen much, so close to the city. Gyre recalled hearing people refer to it as the Death Pit. It wasn't more dangerous than the pseudocaves she'd grown up exploring, but it was easily accessible, luring in all with even a passing interest in caving. Every desperate youth who thought they had a chance at suiting up and getting a caving job and eventually offworld. And many would die, due to judgement errors or sabotage from competitors.
Gyre had been dreading the walk through the spaceport, if only due to Em being such a promising target for robbery or hostage-taking, but apparently Arasgain money also got them through the security fence at a discreet, locked door Gyre otherwise wouldn't have noticed. There they were led to a corner building, where a harried-looking person checked their tickets briefly – on Cassandra Five, not even Arasgain money would buy a smile – and directed them to the departure gate.
People already milled at the window. They didn't glace twice at Em and Gyre, too intent on staring at the shuttle that stood on the ground. Gyre had a vision of the shuttle igniting its drive flame only to sink into the ground, to join Eli and Isolde and the others. A giant coffin for her as she returned to her true home.
A blink, and the vision was gone. "Will you miss this place?" Gyre asked Em.
Em squeezed her hand. "I don't think so. Even if-" She looked around the room, then shook her head. "We can discuss this more on the ship."
Of course. They were still on this wretched world, and money made Em a target. Gyre squeezed her hand back as apology and promise.
A staff member came, opening the doors, and led them to the parked shuttle. They were each led to a seat that was half couch and strapped in. Gyre wriggled in hers. It was soft and cupped her in a manner that almost resembled the way the suit had held her. Coupled with the enclosed space, she could close her eyes and almost imagine she was back in the cave.
Then someone laughed behind her and the smell of humans and the sound of the air circulation system came rushing back. She sighed and reluctantly opened her eyes.
"Welcome to our humble shuttle," the pilot's voice crackled over the speaker system. She sounded much too laid back to be a permanent resident of this world. "In a moment, we will be taking off. Please remain in your couch until released by a crewmember. You will experience a variety of physical symptoms, including but not limited to shortness of breath, due to the acceleration. Ervane Transit Corporation does not accept liability for any physical or psychological distress, up to and including death, which..."
Gyre listened to the pilot drone on for a moment longer. All of this had been included in the small print of the tickets, which Em had read her last night.
Eventually, the pilot shut up and the shuttle rumbled to life. It began with a rattle that grew into a roar.
Then a tonne of rocks landed on Gyre's ribcage and pressed her into the ground. The cave roared at Gyre's attempt to escape it, stepping on this futile gesture, driving her deeper into its unyielding maw.
Had she ever even left? Her field of vision distorted around the edges. There had been no rescue, then. Em must've overriden her will once more and administered the overdose. All this – the surface, freedom – was just her dying dream. A new Tunneler must've come, disturbing Camp Four and her corpse, the cave forcing her home.
The pressure began to ease. She drew gulping breaths, gasping like all her neighbors, smelling the humans around her and the light mist of ozone in the air. If this was just a dying dream, it hadn't ended yet.
Gradually she rose from her couch to her straps, going through sitting regularly to neutrally buoyant. She was floating in the air as if it were water.
A few twists as if she and the shuttle were floating in slightly different currents, and a giant clang ran through the shuttle, followed by a groaning sound.
Gyre let a crewmember unbuckle her and kicked off the couch into the air. She spun around with only her own body motion, clumsy and slow as the air provided next to nothing to push against.
Em was rising from her own couch as well, going straight for a handhold on the wall. Gyre reached out, and Em reeled her in so they could both float along the wall to a thick tube perhaps two meters in diameter. Gyre recognized the material from caving suits.
Then they were in the actual ship. Em received a pair of key fobs from another crewmember and made down a corridor. This, too, was painted a sterile white, with colored stripes dotted with handholds on three surfaces. One of them was interspersed with doors and schematic maps of the vessel.
It felt cozy – the corridor was only just large enough Gyre couldn't reach from one wall to the other. There were too many people around, and it didn't quite feel like swimming, but there was none of the paranoia that came with open skies.
"This one," Em said and let them into a room.
It was even narrower than the corridor. A bunk bed and a locker on one long edge, a foldable table and chairs beneath a display on the other. Like the rest of the ship, it, too, seemed to be built around only one direction possibly being down. Gyre stretched out, palms flat on opposite walls, and discovered she couldn't straighten her arms. "I like it," she said.
"Figures you would," Em said with a smile.
The display showed Cassandra Five beneath. The planet was gray, dull, and pockmarked by canyons and mining operations.
"Will you return?" Gyre asked.
Em floated next to her, a hand on her shoulder. The pressure of another human's touch still startled Gyre. "All of Arasgain Industries's research base is here, but..." She glanced at Gyre. "I could set up elsewhere. What kept me here was the cave."
The cave. Gyre couldn't have picked it out on the planet's face even if she had rememered its relative coordinates. "Any place you want to visit?"
"My mother was from Yulo Prime. It also has some mining activity; I might be able to find a market." Em glanced at her again. "Would you like to come with, after we visit the Viarsian system?"
"Yes," Gyre automatically replied. She put her real arm around Em's waist and pulled her in.
Em turned to kiss her temple. Gyre leaned into it, relishing in the pressure and warmth.
Yulo Prime. Caves. Mining. Gyre might have ruined her chances with any reputable firm with the Tunneler video, but there were always less reputable corporations. And if Em wanted to set up a remote outpost of Arasgain Industries, she'd need someone to test the suits.
They slowly drifted to the ground as gravity returned. The view of Cassandra Five shrank gradually.
She might've left the cave and even its planet, but she still felt the pull. She would find a cave system somewhere and do what it called her to do.
Descend.