Because of the bright illumination she noticed the corridor’s murals for the first time. They showed scenes of Kostroman life during centuries past. The backgrounds were so varied that they must be of specific different islands. Fishermen cast hand lines from a sailing vessel; a farm family picked citrus fruit; a starship lifted from the water as a crowd cheered.
The artist had been skillful, but grime and the band rubbed by shoulders of those passing in the hall had reduced them to a shadow of what they must have been. Adele thought of her library. Was it perhaps enough out of the way that the palace’s new masters had spared it, or had the books been treated with the same brutal unconcern that had tossed antique furniture from the windows of reception rooms to clear them for office space?
She should be worrying about humans, not books; but the books and their probable fate filled her mind anyway. She smiled at herself with wry humor.
The single soldier on guard at the narrow staircase down straightened when she saw a detachment of commandoes coming toward her. She carried a submachine gun and to Adele looked very young.
“Out of the way,” Adele said with a curt nod. The Alliance soldier jumped sideways, knocking her weapon against the wall, pitting the ancient plaster.
Adele pulled open the door and led her detachment down the stairs in single file. Lighting had been improved even here: battery-powered lamps were stuck to the wall at each landing.
She hadn’t expected the guard; there’d been no reference to a post at the stairhead in the electronic media Adele had examined. It would have been a mistake to try to explain what the detachment was doing, however. The guard must have been placed by someone of relatively low rank, so she was therefore best ignored by commandoes claiming to operate on the instructions of Blue Chrome Command.
Blue Chrome Command was Markos. Adele wondered if that would amuse him. He hadn’t seemed a man with a sense of humor.
Adele smiled faintly. She was finding more humor in life herself since she became a Cinnabar pirate.
The door to the basement level was open. A guard stood there as well. He turned from watching workmen installing power cables to stare as the detachment trooped past down the stairs. Adele gave him a hard glance.
The subbasement was well lit also, but that was a doubtful virtue in a region so decayed. The brick flooring rippled like the face of the sea—a useful simile, because at least half of the surface was under water. The ceiling arches dripped condensate, and an apparent spring stirred one pool clear of the pale algae that scummed the others.
A pump rumbled disconsolately, and the generator at the far end of the building vibrated at a higher frequency. Workmen had drilled fresh holes through the ceiling to pass power lines to the upper stories. The air danced with brick dust.
Adele approved of the additional wiring in principle. The execution of the work was simple butchery, however. One might as well shear a book down on the upper and lower edges so that it fit your new shelving.
Her detachment had returned to double file; the only sound they made was the splash of boots in the foul water. The bays filled with the detritus of past generations looked like the wrack of a terrible storm. To Adele it was a sad reminder of the ephemeral nature of human civilization; but then, she saw most things that way. Hogg and the sailors probably had a different viewpoint.
The pumps were in four brick alcoves jutting from the lengthwise exterior walls, arranged in an X pattern with the outside entrance between the pair on the north side. The pumps were huge cylinders sunk beneath floor level and venting through ceramic pipes half a meter in diameter. They had more than sufficient capacity to keep the subbasement dry.
Only the southwestern pump still worked, and a grumble from it suggested not all was well with that one either. As Adele passed between the eastern pair of pumps, she glanced through the arch to her right. Workmen had recently removed the end cap of the big electric drive motor. The Alliance planned to put this portion of its house in order also.