No human could
design
those bloody machines.
The image of the spinning disk flashed through Kyle’s mind.
Eight resting places. Eight kickplates. Eight legs.
Would anybody else make the connection? Would anyone on Altair think of this distant mining camp and its eight-legged robots? Probably not, because no one on Altair had any reason to. They were thinking about hairy monsters from the dark, not technological beings who made machines in their own image. But that might change when they found out their prime minister had a twin who played with spiders’ toys.
The foreman was right. After five hours of heavy G, Kyle could feel the weight of his eyebrows pulling on his face. The thought of lying down and taking a nap wasn’t refreshing. He knew that his ears would try to stretch to the ground, his lips would slide off his teeth and into his jowls, his tongue would fall back into his throat and suffocate him, if the effort of lifting his chest with every breath didn’t. Lying down would just be giving in to the gravity.
Instead, he pointed his laser at a gleaming patch on the ground. Human brains were good for something. In a matter of minutes he had learned to distinguish between dross and value, with an accuracy the dumb robots could never match. One color of laser for inert material that needed to be hauled away to the dump, and another for ore to be fed into the refinery. That was tiring enough. He couldn’t imagine wielding a real shovel in this environment.
The mechanical spider that towered over him waltzed to his signal, lowering itself over the spot and biting into the earth with black iron jaws. Fangs of shining steel jackhammered from its lips, cracking the ground into rubble, while knobby teeth chewed and swallowed. When the beast was full, it waltzed off to the appropriate destination while he sought out the next target.
So many legs in motion could not be described any other way than waltzing. The contrast between the elegant dance and the slavering feast sickened Kyle. He was tired of contrasts. He wanted something in his life to be pure and simple, without silver linings or feet of clay. He wanted something to be straightforward, without hidden depths or secret angles.
The spider-machine stood, began its waltz. Two steps and it faltered, like a dancer losing the beat. Years of paranoia moved Kyle before he was conscious of the danger. His puny biological brain, so adept at recognizing patterns, sent him stumbling backward on a tangential line for no logical reason.
He collided with an iron post. The leg of another spider, too close behind. His own machine put down legs at random, confused, while the choreographed waltz transformed into senseless flailing. The machine toppled under its momentum, falling with unnatural acceleration.
The side of the beast slammed into the ground where Kyle had been standing. Ore spilled from the top, flowing over him, knocking him to the ground under its weight.
He rolled with the blow. Better to be crushed under weight than to tear his suit trying to escape. Broken limbs could be healed, but the atmosphere would poison him in minutes.
Voices yelling. Hands at his suit, digging him out.
“Is your suit still sealed?” The foreman held Kyle’s helmet between his hands, shouting at him, demanding attention.
Kyle focused his eyes on the virtual display projected onto his faceplate. Warning beacons flashed in red. Belatedly, an alarm began to beep. Underneath it he could hear a rushing hiss. The air felt heavy and dense in his face. The foreman must have seen the answer in his face.
“Earth-fire! Can you stand?” The foreman wasn’t panicking, so Kyle didn’t either. He stood up, shocked that nothing was broken. From his left shin white vapor spewed forth. Kyle stared at it stupidly, but the foreman was already kneeling, swatting at the plume of precious air.
The hissing stopped. A few seconds later the alarm bell shut off. The air still felt dense and confining.
“What’s your pressure say now?”
Kyle tore his attention away from the patch on his shin, and looked at the display. “A hundred and twenty-seven percent.”
“Okay, good. Can you walk? Don’t worry about the patch. It’s stronger than the suit. But you gotta move, show us if there are any other ruptures about to blow. Do it while you still have over-pressure. The blowback will keep the atmosphere out. You’ll be fine.”
Kyle took an experimental step. Nothing bad happened. He could see men crowding around the wreckage. He could see his young companion, paralyzed by horror, standing next to the offending spider.
His spider. The kid had steered his beast too close, and Kyle’s had become confused and lost its footing.
“Earth-damned model sevens.” The foreman gave in to swearing, which meant the danger must be past. “These bastards get in each other’s way. Only happens when they’re trying to stand up. I know they have an upgrade module. Heard it went through quality testing. Ought to have all these units retrofitted. Take another step, man. Tell me where it hurts.”
“I’m fine,” Kyle said. Bruised and battered, but not broken. He could still wiggle his fingers and toes.
The foreman walked around him, visually checking for damage to the suit. “Okay, go ahead and vent your over-pressure. I’ll plug in another emergency canister, just in case. Take these patches. If anything starts spurting, slap one on it.”
Kyle wasn’t sure he was in a state to be slapping anything, but he took the patches. They felt comforting in his hand. He spoke the command word and a jet of vapor shot out of the side of his neck.
His face no longer felt like invisible hands were pressing on it.
“You okay?” The foreman was asking about his mental state this time.
“Yeah, I’m good.” Kyle forced himself to breathe through his nose. “I’m okay. But my spider’s down.”
The foreman shrugged. “Forget that piece of shit. Go back to the truck and sit down. The shift’s almost over, anyway. If you get woozy or anything, trip the alarm. Don’t let yourself go to sleep, though. That will trip the alarm too. I’ve got your suit’s vital sensors jacked to mine, so just kick back and take it easy. Can you do that?”
“Sure,” Kyle agreed. That was pretty much all he was capable of at the moment.
“I’m sorry.” The kid had come over, close enough that Kyle could see his blush. Kyle wondered how the vid industry was managing, since apparently the League had hired all the best actors and turned them into assassins.
But that was paranoia talking. The kid wasn’t necessarily trying to kill him. The accident could have been caused by someone else, remotely messing with the spider’s programming. Really, any of a number of people here could be trying to kill him.
It was even conceivable that it had merely been bad luck.
He waved the kid off, unable to deal with the turmoil of suspicion. Stumbling to the truck, he thought about how the puzzle pieces fit together. From the too-early tip, to the twin prime minister, to Radii Development Corp. The stray threads kept popping up all over the place, and when he tugged on them, things exploded, caught on fire, or fell on his head.
Maybe the only puzzle, then, was why he kept tugging.
But when he closed his eyes, all he could see were visions of Altair in ruins, its beautiful cities shattered and lifeless like the smoking husks of towns on Kassa.
THIRTEEN
Party Shoes
Jandi only made her wait three days. By then, early vid recordings from Kassa were all over the network. Garcia was frantic, wailing about the opportunities they were missing all day, and drinking himself into a coma every night. But Prudence didn’t have a destination yet.
Or a complete crew. Melvin was missing. She hadn’t heard from him since they landed.
“Captain Falling? If you could attend for dinner, I would be delighted.” Jandi’s smiling face was strained and haggard through the vid screen.
“Of course, Dr. Jandi.”
Pretending it was part of her disguise, she dressed for a dinner party. Girly clothes instead of jumpsuits. A silk frock, deep royal blue, purchased in a moment of weakness years ago and never worn.
It didn’t exactly go with work boots. Even the cabbie complained.
“The restaurant won’t let you in,” he announced. “Not in those shoes.”
“I’m not going to a restaurant.”
“Then your friends will make fun of you, and your young man.” Jorgun was wearing his best jumpsuit, spacer-gray and slightly worn. “I will take you to the shops. They will fix it, cheap. You will see.”
She let him have his way. It would give her more time to check for surveillance.
The shopping mall was the most extravagant structure she had seen on Altair. Glowing signs stretched a hundred meters into the sky, and there was at least one building up there that had to be grav-supported. Chattering people thronged the walkways, sitting on the grass in little groups and socializing. The cabbie led her through the crowds to a storefront.
“Here, you see. Ten minutes. I come back for you.” He strode off in a different direction. Altairian cabbies were worse than Virtue police. The police at least were prepared for the prospect of disobedience.
She almost did disobey. The store was full of teenage girls. Not the kind of place she fit into. But before she could walk away, a pretty young clerk approached her and Jorgun.
“A spacer party? You don’t want to go as a deckhand. Why not go as an admiral?” She pointed to a wall hung with costumes. Deep blue and soft gray uniforms with gold braid sprouting from them like shrubbery. “We have a special on.” She smiled at Jorgun. “Because of the spiders. Fleet outfits are very popular.”
“Can I be a captain?” Jorgun asked Prudence, like a child asking for something he knew he wasn’t allowed. She didn’t think the clerk noticed. The girl was too busy admiring him.
“Sure.” What difference did it make?
Jorgun grinned stupidly and started walking toward the wrong section—the children’s section, with outfits from his cartoon shows. The clerk attached herself to his arm and gently redirected him.
“Can we help you, too, ma’am?” Another young female clerk swooped down on Prudence.
Restraining a grimace at the terrible word, Prudence shook her head. “I think I’m good.”
“We have some very nice temporaries. The cost is extremely reasonable, considering what you get. Take a look at these shoes—they would really set off your dress so much better.”
The girl was like a gravity field. Subtle, constant, and too much effort to escape. Prudence let herself be led to a different display counter.
“How about these, for instance?” The clerk pointed to a beautiful pair of white strapped sandals with an arched heel. They were stunningly elegant and sparkling with clear gemstones. Prudence couldn’t believe the price.
“The tag must be wrong.”
The clerk grinned. “Not at all. Yes, they look just like Sammon Steps, because they are. A perfect replica of his latest, most fashionable design. A real pair would cost over five thousand credits, but you can wear these tonight for only twenty.”
“You’re renting them?” The shoes were brand-new, clearly unworn.
“Not the shoes, the design. They’re time-stamped. Eight hours after you put them on, they will melt into a nontoxic, perfectly safe lump of plastic. But until then—you’ll look like a millionaire.”
It was the stupidest marketing scheme she had ever heard of. Even Zanzibar wasn’t that shallow. But the shoes really were lovely.
While she was still justifying the expense, the other clerk brought Jorgun back.
The uniform would have looked silly on a smaller man. On Jorgun, the tangles of braid were tamed by his blond hair and massive frame. White and gold were not normally what Prudence thought of as a match, but the cloth of the uniform had a pearly, holographic sheen that reflected subtle colors as the light shifted. It wasn’t an official Fleet uniform, of course. It was much too flashy for that. With his glasses on, Jorgun didn’t quite look like an admiral. He looked like a vid star pretending to be an admiral.
On Altair, that was probably better than being a real admiral.
The clerk let go of him, reluctantly, and handed Prudence a bill. “We hope you enjoyed your shopping experience at Cinderella’s, but we know you’ll enjoy your party experience tonight! Come back soon.”
Prudence touched her credit stick to the bill, handed it back to the girl. Then she put her arm through Jorgun’s and led him away. The clerk watched them go, wistfully.
Was that part of the act? Any normal man would have been puffed up by so much attention. Maybe the girls did it on purpose.
Except that plenty of girls were watching Jorgun now. Teenagers, she thought, until she looked more closely. Most of the girls weren’t really much younger than Prudence. They just acted like children.
Jorgun, who really was a child, didn’t notice them at all.
“I wanted to be a Space-Wolf, but she said you would like this one better.”
“It’s wonderful, Jor. You look great.” She hadn’t expected to be able to say that so truthfully.
The cabbie pounced on them, his mouth and hands full of an aromatic treat from one of the vendor carts that dotted the pathway. “You see? You see, yes?”
“Yes, I see. But we’re going to be late now.”
He shrugged. “All the best people are late to parties. You will see.”
Standing outside Jandi’s door, she tried not to be nervous. The house was dark and quiet.
The little green man still guarded the door. Perversely, when Jorgun reached out to press the animated button on the little box he held, the cartoon figure didn’t move it out of the way. A doorbell chimed in the house. Eventually the door creaked open.
“Angels!” Jandi cried in mock horror, staring at them. “Am I already that far gone? But I haven’t even tasted the fish yet. Come in, come in, my glorious friends.”
He led them to the dining room, the smell of fine cooking growing stronger with every step. The room was gently lit by candles hanging from a chandelier. Real candles, burning with the pleasant scent of sandalwood.
Silver dishes sat on the table, maintaining the temperature of the food. Jandi began whipping off covers, revealing a feast of real fruits and vegetables, steamed to a perfect consistency. The biggest dish contained an entire salmon, missing only the head and tail.