Chapter 7: Cold Storage

We lay in darkness for several minutes catching our breaths by the vent. The only sound in the room was our breathing, and occasionally Abigail's chattering teeth. The floor was made of metal, and at 10C was rapidly pulling the heat from her body. I thought about telling her to stand, but then remembered her broken foot. Another minute passed in silence.

"I'm going to keep the flashlight off, unless we need light for something."

There was no response. I suddenly realized I hadn't asked a question, and it would be forbidden for her to talk otherwise.

"Permission to talk freely."

"Yes sire, thank you."

"Sire?" I thought. At first I felt surprised, and then I was astonished by my surprise. Abigail using my name before had broken a dozen laws. So why did I feel sad, that she was now observing the correct protocols? More teeth chatter...

"Cold?"

"A little sire, thank you."

I had memories of my winter survival training at Anqara. I never thought I'd be doing this with a girl! "Here, lie on your side. Cuddle with me."

I turned on the light for a moment. I got my first calm look at her face, and her body. She was as I had dreamed women to be, so beautiful. She seemed startled by my command but grateful, and quickly complied. We pressed ourselves against each other, my right arm underneath her, curling around the small of her back to hold her to me by her hip.

So wide! Such a pleasant, flaring curve from her trim and fit waist, so different than a man! I felt her shiver in her thin burqa and realized her problem. I had on outdoor clothes, she was dressed for interiors. She must have been underground inside the, what did she call it, a library? My mind drifted. I looked up into her eyes only a few centimeters from my face. She gave me a shy smile. I nodded and turned off the light.

I felt like making conversation. "What kind of a vault is this?"

Abigail replied very precisely. "Sire, the disks on the shelves are based on a mylar composite, protected with a dura-plasti coating. Oxygen in the air is not an issue, but the information substrates would degrade if kept at room temperature."

"Ah. Well, at least the air is breathable." I suddenly felt a little foolish for talking so inanely.

"Yes sire. It's more economical to seal the door, rather than set up a separate line for cold nitrogen." She still seemed so stiff and formal. This was so different than our brief time before the vault. I found myself yearning for her to call me Ilias again.

Perhaps her foot was bothering her. "How are you feeling? How is your foot?" I asked. "Please speak freely and honestly."

There was a pause. "Thank you sire. My foot is throbbing but the pain is bearable." There was another pause, even longer, and then she cried, "Sire! I owe you a deep apology for my hysterics!"

For all my command training, I was at a loss for what to say. The silence stretched out to a very long moment. Without thinking, I patted the side of her hip to show understanding.

At my pat, Abigail sighed and continued. "In 8224, I was in my tenth year. There was a fire here at Qataban, at the girl's monastery. Do you know of it sire?"

"No. I've only been stationed here for a few months." There was more silence. I realized that even with permission to speak freely, Abigail was going out on a limb to initiate a topic of conversation. "Continue."

I felt her nod. "It was a huge fire, on the western edge of the city. Several areas of the girl monastery dorms got involved. My wing was safe, but both our escape routes were blocked. The escape routes of the adjoining wing were also blocked..."

I felt her tremble and gasp in my arms, and then she whispered, "I heard them scream. I heard all my friends scream as they burned, and then they were gone..." She sighed. "I had nightmares for weeks, bad ones. So bad I was almost culled for my inability to adjust."

I tried to comfort her. I stroked the side of her hip, from her waist to her thigh, and whispered back, "Childhood fears..."

"Yes!" she hissed. "They shape us, become us, cause us to fail! Sire, I deeply apologize!"

"Abigail, there's absolutely nothing to forgive." There was another long moment of silence. "Continue to speak freely, about anything you want."

She nodded. "What do you think our chances are sire?"

"To survive from here? Excellent. This last door still had power when I used my card. Data and power flow on the same line. There's a record of my entry in the Security logs, and Tamir is not one to miss a thing like that."

"Tamir? The Security Commander?! You speak of him as a friend sire!"

"He is my friend."

She gasped. "The third Security Commander! I've heard rumors one was at Qataban."

I laughed. "That's right. Not what you were expecting, am I?" I felt her tremble in my arms, and my laughter turned to shame. "Abigail, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you."

I felt her tense, even more than before, and realized my apology had turned her fear into astonishment. I sighed and tried to change the subject. "Any idea what caused the explosion?"

"I know a little sire. I was in one of the archives, the section on the fourth millennium, when I heard the snap-hiss-snap of a power coupling reset."

"What?! Was maintenance being done on the power grid?"

I felt Abigail shake her head in the darkness. "At night sire? Certainly not scheduled, and there were no emergency sirens. I feared a network problem sire, a bad remote controller tripping and resetting a power coupling. That's very dangerous! We have industrial gas lines running here! I was running to report the problem when... when the world exploded."