Revolution's Shore by Kate Elliott

ceiling of the tunnel, although broad and high, showed rough-hewn and incomplete in the filtered beams lancing out from their helmets.
    Jenny stood in an open door, a gap in the tunnel wall, turning her head back and forth slowly as she used her light to sweep the room beyond. Her hand, encased in the same slick material that made up their standard government guard issue coveralls and much of their helmets, tightened on an outthrust knob of rock as she counted bodies. Ahead, Kyosti knelt alone in semidarkness. He had shut his helmet light off.
    After a moment Jenny pushed away from the doorway and returned to crouch by Lily. She leaned forward until her head touched Lily’s. “It’s enough to make you join Jehane.” Her voice sounded muffled and tinny through the mike and the thin remains of the poisoned atmosphere. “It just occurred to me that if what we’re wearing is standard issue, then none of the prisoners had any protective gear at all.”
    â€œStops them from escaping.”
    â€œRight. I wouldn’t attempt the surface even in this , and neither would you. But why would the guards wear this gear in the mines if they thought it was completely safe? It was a precaution against this kind of disaster.” She made a gesture of disgust; her gloved hand, brushing the wall, caused the dripping pipe to stop leaking, leaving the discarded toy lying pathetically in two melted halves. “Although what else I could expect from Central I can’t imagine. The sort of people they would indenture to Harsh certainly weren’t worth the price of one of these suits.”
    â€œHow many bodies did you count?” Lily asked.
    â€œI stopped at fifty. Say, we didn’t lose the ’bot, did we?”
    â€œNo, he went ahead to sound out the thickness and stability of the rock separating the two digs. I just input the map and sent him off.” Lily used the butt of her rifle to jostle the pipe so that it leaked again, dissolving the toy into a lump of unrecognizable slag.
    Jenny turned her head to watch Lily’s movement and then rose abruptly. “Hey!” Her shout carried at least as far as Yehoshua, despite the dampening hush of the tunnel. “Hawk! Are you crazy? There’re chemicals in this air that’ll eat right through your skin.”
    In the darkness of the tunnel ahead, Lily could scarcely see Kyosti’s figure, enveloped in the murky fabric of the guard suit, until a flash of pale, bare hand alerted her to his position.
    â€œHawk!” Jenny repeated.
    Lily felt a person push past her, grabbed, and found Yehoshua in her grasp.
    â€œI’ll take care of this,” she said, sweeping past him. “Are you crazy?” she asked as she came up beside Kyosti.
    He turned, his tall figure outlined against blackness by her helmet light. “Probably. Why do you ask?”
    â€œDo you want to lose that hand? You heard what they said about the atmosphere down here. You saw the bodies. Or do you think you’re immune?”
    He did not reply immediately, but she could suddenly tell from his posture and his eyes behind the helmet that he was smiling. “Did you know,” he said at last as he slowly slipped the long glove back on his hand, “that this tunnel is almost one hundred and seventy-five years old? It’s no wonder they had trouble. They doubtless did not maintain it properly.”
    â€œDoubtless,” she replied brusquely, not interested in humoring him. “I didn’t have time for any research except what Callioux summed up for us before we left. Come on.” She waved to Yehoshua, and he and the Ridani miner came forward to lead them on. It took her some minutes of careful walking over the uneven rock floor to realize that Kyosti hadn’t had time, or opportunity, for research either.
    The transition from the main level 9 tunnel to a side, working shaft, came as a shock to one accustomed to the smooth-bored