The broad outside stairs were a continuation of the light well that provided natural illumination for the basement level. The sliding doors that could offer twenty feet of width for large objects—the pumps and the fusion generator were obvious examples—were closed and barred, but the pedestrian door set in one of the larger panels stood ajar.
The guard post covering this entrance was outside and up a level, at the basement landing. Through the door Adele heard a jig, distorted by reverberation in the stone-lined masonry pit of the light well. The soldiers were playing music that had been popular when Adele was on the staff of the Bryce Academy.
She’d never had a taste for music and she doubted that a connoisseur would have found the jig to have been of any particular merit, but it took her back to a time that was now forever past for her. She regretted its loss, as surely as she regretted the loss of her childhood.
The music shut off in mid-chord. Well, so had that stage of her life.
The fusion generator was in a masonry room on the western end of the subbasement. According to architectural files, the original plan had been to enclose the generator in all directions but one, a curtain wall to the west. That way if the Tokamak failed it would vent its plasma harmlessly into the open air.
Later Electors had added to the initial structure. The ionized plume would now envelop the west wing and everyone in it, but Adele had found no evidence in the records that this was viewed as a problem. Fusion bottles rarely failed; and if this one did, well, the west wing was given over entirely to servants’ quarters and the offices of low-ranking clerks.
Alliance officials had used the three bays in the northwest corner of the subbasement as a high-security prison. The wall of the generator room formed the south side, and a mesh of barbed wire woven on a steel frame closed the open end.
Twenty Kostroman citizens—Walter III and members of his immediate family—shared two bays of the makeshift prison. The Aglaia’s five officers were in the remaining one, brightly illuminated by floodlights in the vaulted ceiling outside the enclosure.
The prisoners had no privacy and no chance of escape, but Adele saw as she approached that the twelve Alliance soldiers on duty were a great deal less than alert. She and her detachment made no attempt to conceal themselves, but they were still within twenty yards of the post when a guard looked up, realized the splashing footsteps weren’t condensate dripping after all, and shouted in surprise.
Guards jumped to their feet and zipped their uniform tunics closed. They’d appropriated furniture from the upper levels. The luxurious chairs, couches, and tables made a dissonant tableau among the utter squalor.
“Who’s the officer in charge?” Adele demanded. She didn’t raise her voice, but the tinge of scorn in her voice was proper either for the lieutenant she pretended to be or the craftsman she truly was.
A lanky soldier, the oldest in the squad by several years, stepped forward. Instead of identifying himself he said, “Sir, this is a restricted area.”
He tried to sound forceful and threatening. His act wasn’t nearly as good as Adele’s.
“Yes,” she said, “it is.” She handed him the routing card. The codes Adele had implanted in the chip would direct the guards to turn over the five Cinnabar officers to the detachment of commandoes.
The chip wouldn’t explain why: that was beyond the guards’ need to know. The guards would have been sure something was wrong if Adele had included unnecessary information.
Some of the prisoners moved forward, drawn by hope of something to punctuate the boredom. The individuals weren’t identifiable until they almost touched the wire mesh. Light glinting from the steel threw a haze over those beyond it.
Walter Hajas was in the middle bay. Captain Le Golif, whom Adele had seen during the Founder’s Day Banquet, stood grim-faced with his four juniors. She didn’t think either man would recognize her.
The sailors had bunched slightly when Adele and Hogg stopped. Woetjans suddenly pushed through her subordinates, put her lips to Adele’s ear, and whispered tautly, “Sir! Two guys come down the side stairs and they’re behind us!”