Synthesis

by Rexx Deane

  Garvin stood and they shook hands again. ‘It was nice meeting you, and please put people right about the name if you get the opportunity. It’s Sollers Hope with an “e” and no apostrophe,’ he said, forcing a brief grin. ‘And you obviously know the exact coordinates.’

  ***

  Aryx left the civic hall behind and headed across the square to the other side of town. The streets were narrow but not claustrophobic, and the ground was uneven, gravelly and dusty in places, but for the most part hard and smooth. Other than that, the town was relatively clean and litter-free. One thing that struck him was the lack of plants. While the sunlight was focused at the centre of the dome, there was still plenty of light elsewhere. Maybe it wasn’t bright enough to support useful plant life – or it was low on their list of priorities. He followed the line of a pipe that ran at high level from the cylinder in the town square, where it descended into the street and was adorned with warning signs labelled Beware, Corrosive! The pipes turned away down a side street to a small pumping station, as did several thick electrical cables that dangled from nearby buildings.

  The street terminated a short distance from the crater wall where it housed another airlock, several feet wide. By the doors stood a large map mounted in a metal frame, depicting a section through the planetoid drawn in schematic style with Sollers Hope town set at the top. It showed a processing station several hundred metres below the surface and, judging by the size of the airlock and trucks he’d passed, minerals came from there right into the town – it certainly explained the presence of so much dust. His eyes followed the line of the surface around the map. Several ports led into the core; the entire planetoid was a giant ants’ nest riddled with minerals. Ants scurrying. His thoughts drifted back to the half-remembered dream. Plants shuffled in his memory and he shook his head to rid himself of the vision and turned his attention to the key inset at the bottom right of the map. Dashed lines indicated a conveyor system, while small boxes with arrows depicted the transit of sealed hoppers, towed up from the core by a system of belts and cables.

  Curiosity sated, he moved off to explore the town further, but stopped at a tiny flash of light in space above. Shielding his eyes, he stared up through the dome. Another flash. He squinted past the dusty sunrays. Two more flashes, and the glint of metal in the sun: a ship, mining asteroids with fragmentation charges – it was all a little archaic. While he stared, something tensed in his neck – time to move before he got a knot.

  After exploring the town for several minutes further, he returned to the civic building in the square. Sebastian stood at the foot of the steps, staring up at the cylinder with a faint smile.

  ‘You look like you’re enjoying the warmth.’

  ‘I am,’ Sebastian said. ‘It was a bit chilly in there.’

  Aryx smiled to himself. Obviously, several years in Britain and three on Tenebrae was enough to reduce the Icelander’s resistance to the cold to wimpish levels.

  Sebastian turned to walk up the street towards the docking area. ‘I don’t think the thermal buffer’s that great in this suit.’

  ‘It only works if it’s got liquid in it,’ Aryx said, following him.

  Sebastian tugged at the straw in his collar and sucked. ‘It’s empty. I haven’t been urinating enough to keep it full.’

  Aryx cringed. ‘I hope you’re joking.’

  ‘Not joking … I haven’t urinated in it at all.’

  He laughed. ‘You can be disgusting at times! So, what did you learn from Havlor?’

  ‘The mineral we’re looking for is known locally as carbyne, and it’s found alongside deposits of the metal the node frameworks are made from. Carbyne is only produced here in large quantities because, as we guessed, it’s unstable in atmosphere, and there’s no atmosphere in the mines. We’re going to have to investigate the clients ourselves. Mr Havlor hasn’t kept any records.’

  ‘How incredibly useful.’

  ‘And how about you? Find anything interesting in the town?’

  ‘I did. The cylinder back there provides energy and heat for the facility. You should see the map of the place – it’s like a termite mound.’

  ‘That explains the lack of insulation in the buildings. They don’t need much environmental protection individually. Garvin said the mirrors in the dome can cover breaks until they’re repaired.’

  ‘Mirrors? That won’t exactly protect them if the dome gets crushed.’

  ‘I get your point. Nothing would defend against a massive impact, but he‘s confident about not getting hit by anything large.’

  Aryx shook his head. ‘That still wouldn’t convince me to live here. Where to now?’

  Sebastian shrugged. ‘Back to the ship? We need a plan to track where the shipments go, but we’ll have to use a method that won’t get picked up by security scanners.’

  ‘We don’t have any trackers small enough to be undetectable by scans,’ Aryx said as they passed through the airlock and made their way to the cargo trucks.

  Sebastian helped him into the cart. ‘I know. Snoopers are too big. I’ll have to think of something.’

  They rode the cargo train to the other end of the line, and this time Aryx kept his eyes shut. He could almost hear the cogs in Sebastian’s brain ticking loudly over the noise of the cart screaming along.

  ***

  Back on the ship, Sebastian fumbled around in his rucksack and drew out the vial of nanobots SpecOps had provided for the medical nanobot injector. ‘Do you think you can do something with these?’ he asked, placing it on the diagnostic console in front of Aryx.

  ‘Jeez, good idea! We could program them to assemble into a tracker later, after the shipment has been collected.’ Aryx brought up a set of tracker schematics on the computer. ‘It should be fairly easy, it’s just a case of transmitting this pattern to them.’ He tapped a few buttons and the silvery liquid in the vial crawled up the glass towards the stopper. He handed the container back. ‘How long they take to build depends on the environmental conditions and how much metal they can harvest. If the carbyne has some of this false bornite mixed in, they’ll use that. How are you going to deploy them anyway?’

  Sebastian sat at the cockpit console. ‘We’ll take the ship to one of the mine ports. I’ll sneak in, find a deposit, and sprinkle them in one of the containers, or on the stuff directly. When it’s picked up by the clients, the nanobots won’t get detected, but we’ll have to return to Tenebrae and use the long-range sensors to pick up the signal from the tracker once it’s been constructed.’

  Before Aryx could object, Sebastian initiated the launch protocols and with a clunk, the taximech towed them out of the hangar.

  Aryx monitored the scanners, but it was twenty minutes before the scanners picked up a prominent vein of bornite beneath a small metallic dome. Sebastian piloted the ship low over the surface of the planetoid and landed close to the barnacle-shaped entrance. He disappeared down the ladder and was already half-dressed in a pressure suit when Aryx caught up with him in the hold.

  ‘The mines connect in the core,’ Aryx said, ‘but it would be best to plant the bots in a deposit that’s about to get mined, otherwise the trackers could end up forming before it gets taken. Hoppers come up and down from the core on cables, but be careful – without a map, you’ll have no idea whether the shaft you’re in goes all the way through or ends before.’

  Sebastian locked his helmet in place, took the rugged infoslate from his pack, and tucked the vial of nanobots in his belt. ‘I won’t be long. I’ll plant the bots and then get out as soon as possible, but I’ve got a sample tube, so I’ll try to get some of the mineral for analysis on the way back out.’

  ‘Just be careful, okay? I don’t want to have to come and rescue you if things go pear-shaped.’

  He smiled. ‘I’ll be careful, I promise.’

  Aryx watched through the slender vertical slit of the airlock’s observation window as Sebastian disappeared down the steps and out onto the barren, airless rock.
>
  ***

  Sunlight reflecting off the planetoid dazzled Sebastian for a moment before the visor filter kicked in. The view was disorientating: the horizon curving away, the stars slowly turning overhead – he could fall at any moment. He lumbered towards the metal carbuncle, his steps a little lighter than they had been in the main dome of the town.

  The door to the mine-port was more of a maintenance access hatch than an airlock, and too small for a load of ore to be shipped through. Aryx was right about the route through the town. A security terminal by the door housed the locking mechanism. Sebastian’s instinct to bring the rugged infoslate was well-founded; a quick scan revealed the locking software to be based on outdated protocols, and easy to crack. At least his skills were useful to SpecOps, even if it was a breach of his professional integrity, but there wasn’t time to go through official channels. The security of the station was paramount.

  The locking mechanism popped open to reveal a manual hatch release. He grabbed the red lever and pumped it up and down several times. While the door opened silently in the vacuum, it moved with difficulty – if there had been air to transmit sound, the screech would have been heard miles away.

  The door opened into a tunnel that descended at forty-five degrees, and the sun cast a harsh, black shadow in the shaft. An uneasy déjà vu passed over him and he shuddered as he activated the torch on the left cuff of the pressure suit and stepped in.

  Walking down the slope, Sebastian’s feet slipped on the loose, dusty floor, and he put his hands out to steady himself. Luckily the lower gravity made going down easier work, but the effort to maintain his balance was exhausting. He crept onward in the dim light, aiming the torch low – he didn’t want to risk attracting any undue attention from anyone who might be in the mine, after all.

  He trudged down the grey tunnel, keeping one eye on the scans performed by the infoslate. The passage undulated for several hundred metres before the infoslate finally detected the ore vein picked up by the ship’s scanners.

  After another two hundred metres, the tunnel abruptly opened into a dark vertical shaft. Sebastian shone his torch across the expanse, onto the far wall six metres away. A cable ran up the centre, threaded with small metal hopper fixtures, and trailed off into darkness. Something about the shaft was familiar, unpleasantly familiar, but the only way down was to climb.

  The readings on the infoslate indicated faint life-signs farther down the shaft, but not exactly where – there was too much rock. There was no way he could carry the infoslate down with him; he’d have to leave it and be careful about not getting spotted. He memorised the layout of the immediate vicinity, put the infoslate on the floor at the side of the tunnel, and stacked several small rocks to hide it.

  The cable hung three metres from the edge of the opening, so he took a step back and made a running jump. In the low gravity he hurtled towards the cable and hit it hard. He fumbled to grab it as it vibrated like a giant piano string – with him sliding down it.

  Oh Gods, what was he doing? He must have been insane to come here! He closed his grip around the cable and squeezed his legs together. A cloud of tiny fibres billowed from his hands while the metal cord slowly ate its way through the outer skin of the gloves.

  He closed his eyes. He was going to die!

  Chapter 9

  Sebastian slid down the cable, unable to stop himself, his heart racing. A numbing pain engulfed the arches of his feet and his legs buckled. He’d stopped! He tentatively opened his eyes and looked down. What a fool he was. He’d only slid a couple of metres and hit one of the clamps. Praying the vibrations wouldn’t be noticed by anyone in the mine, he climbed down, hand over hand, and rested at each of the attachments for several seconds.

  The heavy, impenetrable darkness beyond the torchlight began to enclose him, press down on him, bringing back the sense of déjà vu, but still he couldn’t place the original memory. As he thought about it, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end and his skin itched – a most unpleasant sensation inside the suit, and one he couldn’t alleviate. What possessed people to go crawling about in potholes for fun?

  Inch by inch, he lowered himself down the cable. A cramp forming in his forearm forced him to stop and flex his fingers for a moment. If he’d thought about it beforehand, he would have brought proper climbing gear with drive motors and everything. He slowed as his arms began to tire. Was there no end to the cable? With no infoslate to guide him, he had no idea how far away his target was. He wanted to climb back up, to abandon the hunt, but he’d gone too far to turn back. He swallowed hard. Just a few more metres then he’d stop.

  The craggy walls passed at a snail’s pace, and there was no sign of an opening as he shone the torch downwards, but he carried on. His stomach churned as he stared into the abyss.

  Several metres passed and his foot struck something solid, sending a dull pain through his ankle. He was standing on the square top of a sealed ore hopper.

  ‘At last!’ he shouted. But the cable wasn’t moving … was it a hopper that was in use? If so, where was the opening? He turned around. Typical. A dim bluish light emanated from the depths of a passage behind him; that had to be where the carbyne was.

  Holding the cable with his left hand, he retreated to the edge of the lid and leapt from the hopper. He landed, clearing the lip of the tunnel by mere inches.

  Ten metres ahead the tunnel branched left into darkness, while the main path continued several metres before turning sharply right, towards the source of illumination. The light ahead flickered and shifted, casting shadows that danced across the cave wall.

  He deactivated the torch, crouched behind a protruding rock near the bend, and set the suit comms to open receive. The incoming signal was poor; faint, unintelligible distorted speech met his ears. He held his breath and tried not to move – a pointless act in the airless mine.

  After a couple of minutes, the erratic light dimmed and the crackling in his helmet faded. He moved closer to the rock and peered over.

  The tunnel was empty except for a mining drill propped up against a seam of ore. Deep furrows in the ground dust trailed away down the tunnel: whoever was working had dragged a hopper with them. The light dimmed further. Sebastian crept out from behind the rock and approached the glimmering mineral vein by the drill. He ran his hand along the vein, tracing it with his glove where it coruscated along the wall and his eyes became lost in the blue-green iridescence as it sparkled in the faint light. His fingers slipped from the ore as it gave way to a smooth, powdery surface. He activated his torch and, shielding it with his body, shone the light on his gloved hand. As he rubbed his fingers together, the soft carbyne sprinkled off with a dusty effluence like powdered talc.

  Taking the sample tube and multi-tool from the suit’s belt, he broke off a piece of the white mineral and caught it in the tube. He stoppered the tube and put it into his belt. The crackling in his helmet returned. It was time to deploy the nanobots before the miners arrived.

  He took the vial of mercurial liquid from his belt and found a gap in the bornite seam. Reaching in, he flipped off the stopper and poured the nanobots over the exposed carbyne. They flowed like molten metal, spreading thinly over the surface and locking on to the mineral’s signature. Within seconds the fluid was all but invisible. He turned back down the passage – just as the light behind him brightened.

  He dodged around the corner and turned off the torch, looking back only after he’d once again concealed himself behind the rock. The miners had returned dragging a hopper with them, and a cable with a carabineer attached trailed behind. Sebastian let out a breath … but they continued past the seam!

  Cold sweat prickled his spine before being absorbed by the N-suit. Why hadn’t the miners stopped there? He scrambled from the cover of the rock and ran back towards the shaft. He wouldn’t have time to jump on the cable and climb up out of their view, and certainly not in the dark; he needed another option. As he ran his right hand along the wall in the dim li
ght, it fell away. Of course, the branch in the tunnel!

  The crackling voices got louder. Oh Gods, they’d see him any second, and they were going to catch him!

  The light brightened and in a moment of panic he turned right, stumbled over a rock, and pitched forwards onto the floor. His breath echoed in his helmet. If they caught him now, he’d lose his only evidence, and what would SpecOps do? Fire him. Goodbye income, goodbye Tenebrae, goodbye to your education, Erik. His heart pounded furiously while he lay in the darkness and prayed not to be seen.

  The crackling and flickering subsided.

  Sebastian stood and tentatively peered around the corner.

  Two miners stood at the mouth of the tunnel, looking out. One of them held a long spear gun with the cable trailing from the hopper attached. The other wheeled the hopper to the edge of the shaft while the first clipped the cable to one of the fixings on the wire running up it. The cable pulled taut, dragging the hopper up and out of the tunnel, and the pair turned and headed back into the mine.

  Sebastian ducked behind the rock and waited in the darkness until the ground vibrated beneath his feet. Straightening, he switched on the torch and made his way to the tunnel entrance.

  The hopper fixings inched their way up the cable ahead of him like metal slugs climbing a thread. There was no choice but to jump for it again. He took two steps back and jumped. He caught hold of the cable easily – clearly, he was getting used to the lower gravity. He hung on until the cable carried him several feet past the opening and, leaning forwards, he pushed against the taut steel with his feet and let go.

  An eternity passed before his feet touched the edge of the dusty side tunnel. Touched it, and slipped.

  He flailed wildly with his arms, but it didn’t help. He fell.