Boneyards by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Read Free Book Online Page B

She did know it better than most. That was why she had come here in the first place. But she wasn't going to tell him that. At least, not yet.
    “Yes, I do know that,” she said. “But this time, the entire research station paid the price instead of a few volunteers.”
    “A few…” His face turned red. She had forgotten about that reaction he had until just now. She had made him angry. It was amazing that she still knew what buttons to push after decades apart. He finally managed, “It wasn't a few.”
    She knew that. It had been hundreds of people, most of whom hadn't volunteered at all, unless their induction into the Enterran military counted as volunteering.
    They had fought about this before, the two of them. She still remembered every word of those fights.
    “This time no one died in the unstable stealth tech,” she said.
    “That you know of,” he said.
    “No,” she said. “I know this for a fact. No one died.”
    He glared at her. He didn't believe her.
    He never had.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS EARLIER
    W arning sirens whooped. Rosealma recognized the sound from the drills. Something had gone wrong in the science lab.
    Her lab.
    She raced across campus, across the sidewalks, and through the gathering crowd in front of the Ancient and Lost Technology Building. Somehow she had grabbed her identification out of her pocket while she ran and clutched it in her left hand.
    Guards stood in front of her holding laser rifles.
    She had never seen weapons on campus before, and they frightened her more than the alarms did.
    The day was sunny and bright, the grass bright blue just like it was supposed to be. The weather warm, the air fresh. Only the sirens marred the perfection.
    She held up her identification. It was supposed to get her into any lab connected with Ancient Technologies, and it should definitely get her into this lab. This was her lab. She was one of the research assistants.
    “I work in that building,” she said, trying to sound brave. “What's going on?”
    The guards didn't answer her, at least not directly. They glared at her. She had never seen people look so fierce. They held their laser rifles sideways, blocking her passage. Other graduate students arrived, running from all parts of campus, just like Rosealma had.
    “What the hell?” someone asked behind her, but no one answered.
    The building looked normal. Its windowless black façade reflected the other buildings around it, just like it always had. She expected to see some kind of cataclysm through the blackness, something that would indicate what kind of problem she faced.
    If she knew what the problem was, she could solve it.
    Or she could try.
    Guards couldn't try. Guards had no idea how to solve problems. She had learned that on the Bounty , the cargo ship she had grown up on. Guards were just there to protect things or to prevent something, not to solve anything.
    “Please,” she said, stepping closer. “Let me in. I can help.”
    She couldn't quite understand what had gone wrong here. There were several such laboratory buildings on campus. Ancient and Lost Technologies was not the most dangerous lab on campus. Not even close. In fact, the most dangerous labs weren't on campus at all, but in a small industrial park several kilometers away, covered with protective domes and barriers in case anything bad happened.
    Nothing encased the Ancient and Lost Technologies Lab Building. There was no need. Everything they did here was in the name of history more than in the name of science. The experiments that occurred here were hopeful experiments designed to recover lost knowledge, without any real chance of that happening.
    Or so she had been led to believe. That was part of the speech she had heard when she accepted the post-doc to work in stealth tech. She was told they might discover something that could aid ships in the region in their cloaking, but probably not. Not unless they actually found some kind of schematic from a Dignity Vessel or