Moving Mars (56 page)

Dandy shook his head, bewildered. Ive never even seen a live scorpion, he said.

More coded transmissions came in on the Presidential net. There had been a great many plans made besides Preamble; we had simply put more of our stake in the Olympians. Now the other plans were being explored: individual station defense against locusts, neighboring stations pooling their resources as well as defenses, more sweeps of all automated systems

Thirty minutes away from Preamble, I spoke with Charles in the laboratory. He listened, face drawn and colorless, as I described what had happened at Lai Qila, and relayed the Presidents message.

Were being toyed with, Charles said. The government treats us like children. On, off. On, off.

Thats not our intention, I said defensively. Ti Sandra wouldnt call on you unless

Were on for good this time, he said. Theres no other choice. Theyre going to wipe our slate. Ill have to stay near the big tweaker. Ive been training Tamara as backup in case something happens to me And last night we sent a tweaker to Phobos again. Stephen put Danny Pincher in charge. Everythings in place for war.

War. That word summed everything and gave our preparations a horrible, urgent edge.

Whats the President going to decide, Casseia? Charles asked.

I knew what concerned him. Having once held the sword of Damocles, he did not want to see it raised again.

Theyll have some defense against Phobos ready if we send it back, I said.

The Ice Pit, Charles said. Our spyhole has been closed.

What? I asked, startled.

We cant tune in on their activities, Charles said. They must have complete control of the Pierce region. They could use the Ice Pit against anything we send If theyve mastered it.

Leander joined in the conversation. Better than ninety percent chance they know more than we do now, he said gloomily. Maybe theyll drop the Earths moon on us.

I wasnt going to dismiss any possibility yet.

Ill be near the large tweaker full time now, Charles said. We can be ready within an hour. You have to read the signs and give us the order. If Earth decides to blow Mars to pieces We may not be fast enough to get it out of the way.

Charles is being a little evasive, Leander said. I dont want to speak out of turn, but

Its nothing, Charles said, voice tense.

Weve run into some difficulties, Leander persisted. Handling a mass as big as Mars presents special problems. First, it puts a huge drain on Charles or Tamara, whoever watches over the QL thinker.

Its manageable, Charles said.

Yes, but at a cost. The QL becomes particularly intractable when dealing with so many large variables. I know Charles can handle it, but theres also a physical problem. Our tweaker may show instability when moving so much mass across so great a distance.

Charles sighed. Stephens been working over some anomalies in our test results.

What kind of instability? I asked.

The mesoscopic sample at absolute zero asserts its own identity. Its a kind of perverse dataflow problem. So many descriptors being channeled through so small a volume. It may reduce the effectiveness of the Pierce region.

Charles said, Weve encountered the problem before. We can control it.

Leander said, I think our masters should be informed, just in case.

Can we do it? I asked, far too tired to argue physics now.

Yes, Charles said.

Stephen hesitated. I think so.

Then stay on alert.

We signed off and I slumped in my seat, anxious to be on the ground working direct and not puppeteering from a hundred kilometers.

Minutes later, Dandy unhitched and stood, stretching, to use the wasteroom at the rear of the shuttle. He passed Meissner and DMonte and they exchanged brief whispered comments. Falling into a reverie, I jerked to full alertness on hearing a few scraping sounds, and a sharp expletive.

Maam, Dandy called from the rear. I leaned over the arm of my seat and looked aft. He stood with the two other guards near the wasteroom door. I unhitched and joined them.

Somethings wrong, he said, pointing to a series of pits and holes in the rear bulkhead. A section of floor had been unprettily removed as well, edges appearing eaten or chewed. I followed Dandys probing fingers; something had termited much of the rear of the passenger compartment.

It was fine a few minutes ago, said Jacques DMonte.

Dandy rose from a crouch and wiped his hands on his pants legs. Go forward, maam, he said. Hitch in. Kiri, tell the pilot to get us into Preamble as fast as possible.

Kiri Meissner went forward, passing me with a breathless apology. I stooped to slide into my seat when I heard a heavy chunk and a cry of surprise at the rear. Face bloody on one side, Dandy staggered forward and collapsed in the aisle.

Kiri swung about and immediately placed herself between me and the rear of the shuttle. Stay down, she grunted. She hunkered and pulled out her pistol, then frog-marched aft. Something clicked and hummed and Kiri jerked, clutched the seat arms on each side of the aisle, fell to one knee and rolled over on her back. A pattern of bloody holes on her chest poked through her black shirt. She coughed and convulsed, eyes asking a silent question of nobody in particular, then lay still. Her mouth foamed pink.

Jacques backed up beside me, straddling Kiris body, cursing steadily and softly. He pointed his pistol at a dark shape hanging from the ceiling and rear bulkhead. Again the click and hum. Slowly, he twisted on rubbery legs, and the pistol dropped from lax fingers. He leaned over like a man about to be sick and pitched forward on his face.

I remained crouched behind my seat near the front, heart Earth-heavy in my chest. Aelita Two had disengaged her carriage from the mount behind me; my seat flexed as it moved.

The shuttle flew on as if nothing had happened. Had there been time to trigger an alarm? I could not restrain myself any longer; I peered aft around the edge of my seat.

A dark shape extended thin arms and legs, then rose tall from the exposed recesses of the rear compartment. It bumped against the ceiling, dropped slightly, made a high-pitched machine noise and crawled into the glow of an overhead light.

The locust bulked about the size of a man, its body a green twisted ovoid like the pupa of an enormous insect. Its multijointed legs probed at the seats and floor with a gingerly grace that made my blood freeze. A glistening trio of black eyes topped the body, and below the eyes, a flexible snout, thin as the barrel of a gun, swiveled purposefully.

Bioform nanotech, designed to survive on Mars and be deadly.

I stared in fascination. The machine climbed over Dandy, hindmost legs raised as if in effete distaste. My body shivered in expectation of the thin flechettes that had felled at least two of my guards, no doubt peppered from the questing snout.

Decapitation.

The seed of this locust had come aboard the shuttle at Lai Qilaperhaps with the duplicity of Achmed Crown Niger, although I could hardly believe such villainy even of him. More likely he faced a similar assassin even now.

The machine seemed reluctant to push past me. Knowing I was soon to die, a deep calm stole over me, replacing the nausea of seeing my guards so quickly dispatched. I knew I would join them soon.

Still, my mind raced, trying to think of ways to survive.

The pilot thinker would know something was very wrong. It would radio an emergency signal ahead. We were only a few minutes from Preamble.

With a start, I considered the possibility the locust wanted to be taken to Preamble. It would kill me, attach itself to the shuttles thinker, take over the controls And carry itself, and more progeny, into the research site. I could not allow that to happen.

I faced off the machine for more long seconds. I slowly bent down hoping to grab Kiris weapon, the closest to me. I didnt make it. With a slight shudder, as if making a sudden decision, the locust rushed along the aisle, grabbed the gun, and shoved me aside with bone-bruising strength. It moved forward and began to work on the bulkhead door to the pilot thinkers space.

Quickly, I bent over Jacques and Kiri. They were dead. I ran aft down the aisle and rolled Dandy over. His eyes flickered and opened. He moaned. The machine had hit him hard on the side of his head but had not shot him.

I dragged Dandy forward and hefted him into a seat, clicking his harness. His head lolled and he looked at me.

Cant let it get to Preamble, he murmured.

I know, I sad. Facing forward, I shouted at the pilot thinker, Bring us down, now! Crash the shuttle!

Dandy shook his head. Wont do it. Tell it to land.

The locust expertly sliced through the forward bulkhead and locked door. Beyond, I saw the shuttles cockpit, pilot thinker mounted above the controls. The locust grew a new appendage and poked at the thinkers box.

Crash, damn you! I cried. Land! Bring us down now!

The shuttle lurched and rolled. The locusts body slammed against the luggage bay and released the cases of the dead guards. Behind, Jacques and Kiri seemed to rise off the floor, given new life, limbs flailing. Aelitas carriage fell past me to the rear of the shuttle, smashing into Jacques body.

I did not know that the pilot-thinker would obey my orders, but there was no other explanation for the crafts wild antics, unless the thinker hoped to throw the locust away from its case.

But the locust would not be thrown. An insectoid limb flew past me, black and gleaming, but despite the loss, the locust clung to the front bulkhead and continued to probe the thinkers case. Above the roar of stressed engines and the crashing of luggage and awful slapping of bodies, I heard a drilling whine.

I pulled myself into a seat with all the strength I could muster. Jacques slid past me and spattered my leg with blood. The shuttle rolled again just as I locked the harness.

Before assuming crash position, I glanced forward and saw the pilot thinkers case ripped open, gelatinous capsules spewing forth.

The locust became the center of a spinning nightmare.

We hit.

My shins pushed painfully against the rack in front of me. For some immeasurable time I felt nothing, and then another slam. Bones snapped and I blacked out, but only for an instant. The shuttle was still sliding and rolling as I came to, tumbling across the ground. I heard plastic and metal scream and the hiss of departing air, instinctively shut my eyes and mouth and pinched my nose, felt the touch of vacuum as my skin filled with bloodand the pressure canopies ballooned around our seats, sucked down against the cabin floor, filled quickly with compressed air hot as the draft from an oven door.

The shuttle stopped rolling, slid with a shudder and a leap to a nose-up angle, and lurched to a halt.

I sat strapped in my seat, wrapped within a canopy like a lizard inside a rubbery eggshell. My rib cage had become a plunging of knives with every gasping breath. I gritted my teeth to keep from screaming. My vision shrank to a hand-sized hole of awareness. Going into shock. Fighting to stay conscious, I glanced through the foggy membrane at Dandys seat. He had slumped to one side. I couldnt figure out why; then I realized he had unstrapped the upper portion of his harness before passing out.

I could not see forward. Debris blocked my view. I could not see the locust.

I pressed my head back against the seats neck rest. I could stand the pain now; shock numbed me. I felt cold and sweaty. Battle over. Earth wins.

With some irritation, I felt small emergency arbeiters wrap their tendrils around my wrist. The shuttles tiny little life-saving machines had scrambled to check us out. I tried to pull my wrist out of the way. The tendrils tightened and a tube of medical nano entered the arteries at my wrist. The silver and copper arbeiter, barely as large as a mouse, tied to a shining blue umbilicus, crawled up my chest and exuded a cup over my mouth and nose. I tried to shake my head free but sweet gas filled my lungs and the pain subsided. The chill lessened. I grew calm and neutral.

The little machine hung on my chin and projected a message into my eyes. You are not badly injured. You have three cracked ribs and ruptured eardrums. Torsion units will reset the ribs and wrap them in cell-growth and sealant nano. The ruptured eardrums are being sutured now. You will not be able to hear for at least an hour.

I could feel the action in my chest, specked little fibers growing from bone to bone, rib to rib, tightening inexorably, torquing the ribs back together.

All right, I said, hearing nothing.

The shuttle cabin atmosphere has been breached. Integrity cannot be restored. No rescuers have responded to our emergency signal. The pilot thinker is damaged, perhaps destroyed. We will soon exceed our programming. Do you have any instructions?

I tried to look at Dandy again. The fog on my canopy had cleared a little and I saw him still slumped forward. Is Dandy alive?

One seated passenger is alive but unconscious. He will regain consciousness soon. He has a minor fracture of the tibia and minor concussion. There are two dead passengers. We cannot repair the dead passengers.

What about Aelita?

Copy of thinker Aelita condition unknown.

Dandy lifted his head and raised an arm to wipe the inside of his canopy. He peered at me groggily, plugs of nano sticking out of his ears like muffs. Are you okay? He mouthed the syllables extravagantly and signaled with his free hand.

Alive, I replied.

Can you move? He waggled his hand.

I shrugged.

I caught part of the next message: move with me Get out But he could not coordinate his fingers to unhitch himself. He shook his head groggily.

I would have to rescue my guard.

I knew in theory how the canopies worked. They could stretch and roll with my movements, keeping a tough membrane between me and the near-vacuum of Marss atmosphere. I unhitched and stood, feeling the nano shift within me, the edges of my broken ribs grinding.

The cockpit of the shuttle had been torn off and the nose lay open to the sky. Part of the cockpit bulkhead panel, cut by the locust and pushed aside in the crash, stuck out at a crazy angle. An emergency safety symbol decorated a small hatch on the panel. Pushing forward in my canopy, I wiped at the moisture inside the membrane, trying desperately to see where the locust had gone.