by Allen Steele
By this time, however, the scientists had worse things to worry about than their new American co-supervisor. The investigation had stalled; a critical window of opportunity to establish communications with the pseudo-Cooties had been lost because of the ‘labor strike.’ Exactly twenty-four hours, thirty minutes and 35.25 seconds after Ben Cassidy established first contact—precisely the measurement of a Martian day—the pseudo-Cooties had closed Room C4-20 again.
They left alone a single sensor pod, but dismantled the portable airlock and TV cameras and rebuilt most of the chamber’s walls, leaving a single man-sized opening. Yet, when Paul Verduin ventured down to the chamber in a skinsuit, he found his way barred by several of the metallic robots; they did not attack him, but neither would they permit him to go any further than the entrance to C4-20. It appeared as if an unspoken deadline had been reached, and passed, for human contact: now the pseudo-Cooties—which Kawakami now believed to be autonomous self-replicating robots, similar to the conjectural Von Neumann machines theorized in the last century—had locked themselves away in the catacombs beneath the City.
‘Catacombs?’ Sasaki raised an inquisitive eyebrow. ‘Why do you think they have catacombs down there?’
‘We placed a series of seismographs around and within the City,’ Kawakami replied. ‘After monitoring them closely for some time, we observed an irregular series of vibrations emanating from beneath the pyramids. After computer modeling, we believe that this is coming from underground tunnels, converging in the central area between the four City pyramids.’ He shrugged. ‘What these tunnels are for, and what the Cooties are doing down there, is a complete mystery. We spotted what looked like machinery when C4-20 was first opened, but what it was, what role it performed…’
He opened his hands. ‘Completely unknown, if it was even machinery in the first place.’
However, he told them, the seismography did establish that the subsurface vibrations extended as far to the south-east as the D & M Pyramid, leading the science team to believe that a tunnel might lead straight from the catacombs to the tomb of the Cooties. This proved to be correct, and further surveys and computer modeling revealed what turned out to be a lucky break: the meteor which had destroyed the northeast wall of the D & M Pyramid had also formed a deep pit just above the tunnel, resting at the bottom edge of the meteor crevasse. L’Enfant requisitioned drilling equipment from Arsia Station, and after months of patient digging in the pit, they managed to break through into the tunnel, creating a narrow shaft straight down from the surface into Mama’s Back Door.
Sasha Kulejan had volunteered to explore Mama’s Back Door. Wearing Hoplite II recon armor, he was lowered by cable into the tunnel, with the intention of making his way back toward the City and, hopefully, locating the catacombs. Yet this was not on the cards; the Russian scientist only managed to advance less than fifty yards down the tunnel when he reported seeing movement ahead.
His suit’s TV camera caught a brief glimpse of pseudo-Cooties coming toward him. Then visual transmission was interrupted; after a final scream was recorded on the audio track, all further contact with Sasha was lost. When a remote-controlled spider-probe was sent down the shaft after him, no trace of Sasha Kulejan was found—no body, no blood, no fragments of his armor—before the probe itself was attacked and destroyed.
‘It was then that L’Enfant began to be…’ Uncharacteristically at a loss for appropriate words, Kawakami’s voice trailed off.
‘Weird?’ Nash supplied.
Kawakami nodded, then quickly shook his head. ‘Paranoia is the most accurate description, Mr Nash…’
‘Call me August.’ He smiled tightly. ‘So long as you call me Andy when L’Enfant and his men are around.’
‘Whenever we’re in the base, even by ourselves, I will have to call you Andy.’ Kawakami’s face was grim. ‘We have some reason to suspect that our quarters may now be under electronic surveillance. Our private communications have to be written on slips of paper, which we afterwards chew and swallow.’
Sasaki hissed between her teeth; Kawakami glanced at her with sad eyes. ‘Yes, Miho, it has gone that far. We can trust no one except ourselves, and even if we could establish candid communication with Arsia, I’m not sure whom we could trust at the station.’ He paused, then added. ‘I believe L’Enfant may have informants there, but I cannot be certain.’
It was a disturbing revelation, but Nash didn’t want to get side-tracked now. ‘Go on, please,’ he prodded.
In the aftermath of Sasha Kulejan’s death, Kawakami revealed, L’Enfant took several actions, all of which he claimed were to ‘assure the security of the expedition.’ First, he assumed total command of the base; since Kulejan had been the Russian co-supervisor and Kawakami’s illness prohibited him from making more than token resistance, this was an easy task. It was also enforceable by his aides; it was then that the assault rifles, which had been hidden from the science team, made their first appearance. From thereon, at least one of the four Americans was awake at all times, taking shifts in the command center.
Then L’Enfant imposed a communications blackout; all messages and reports had to be cleared by him in advance. At first, L’Enfant allowed the science team to file technical memoranda with Arsia Station, until he became convinced that the briefs themselves contained encrypted communiqués (‘And he was not incorrect in that assumption,’ Kawakami added, ‘but he managed to figure out what we were doing before they were transmitted’). After that, only the most routine status reports were sent to either Arsia Station or Earth.
Then, one by one, came more restrictions. A CD-ROM copy of all new scientific data had to be given to him. No one was allowed on the surface by themselves or within the City without military escort, and an EVA curfew was imposed from sunset to sunrise. Similarly, either L’Enfant or one of his aides had to be in the monitor center during all important researches.
Finally L’Enfant demanded that he himself be formally addressed by his naval rank; by now this was only a redundant formality, since it was obvious that he had taken paramilitary control of Cydonia Base.
And there was another change, albeit one which was not imposed by regulation: at odd moments, L’Enfant had taken to referring to the Cooties as ‘the enemy.’
Kawakami rested his elbows on the table and placed his forehead on his palms. ‘We have tried as much as possible to work within his guidelines,’ he continued wearily, rubbing at his eyes, ‘but it has been very difficult. Our only hope has been that someone at Arsia Station would notice the absence of regular communications and report to Earth that something was amiss.’
Miho reached across the table and cupped his hands within her own. ‘We did, Shin-ichi-san,’ she said soothingly. ‘That is why we’ve come.’
She glanced at Nash, and he found himself nodding in agreement. Yet the word paranoia didn’t do justice to L’Enfant’s mental condition. Judging from Kawakami’s story, it appeared that the man had become xenophobic, irrationally frightened by the Cooties and the vast unknown which they represented.
Perhaps the condition was nothing new and had been part of L’Enfant’s psyche for many years; it would account for his torpedoing the Takada Maru, all those many years ago aboard the Boston. But, like many phobias, his state of mind could have been misconstrued as something else…even as a positive quality if one wished to see it that way. Preparedness. Being alert to possible danger. Willingness to take charge. The good old Annapolis gung-ho spirit. The Pentagon might have known all along what he was doing up here and, taking L’Enfant’s own interpretation of events as gospel truth, had quietly decided to give him a free hand. After all, in the minds of many people in Arlington and Washington, he was a responsible officer who had once already demonstrated the ability to take decisive, split-second action. This was a high-risk situation forty million miles from home, where it took fifteen minutes to transmit a simple radio message to Earth; they needed someone out there who could think for himself.
; And were these not aliens? Their intelligence had evolved within a frame of reference far beyond the planet Earth; even the first exobiologist to receive a Nobel could not provide conclusive answers to their many mysteries. In the absence of knowledge comes fear, and fearful men are only too willing to fire blindly into the darkness. Or trust someone who will stand guard for them.
So you take this man—an undiagnosed xenophobe—and post him at the entrance of a labyrinth. You give him an open-ended mission, supply him with guns, soldiers, whatever else he needs…
And then you cut him loose.
‘You stupid bastards,’ he murmured to himself.
Kawakami raised his head. ‘Pardon me?’ he asked. Miho looked appalled.
‘No. Sorry.’ Nash took a deep breath. ‘I didn’t mean you.’
Now, more than before, he realized exactly what needed to be done and why. If his purpose, which he had never really admitted to himself, had been simple revenge, now there was a more urgent reason for bringing down L’Enfant. The mentally-ill son of a bitch was out of control, and he had to be shut down…
Nash shook his head, bringing himself back to the present. He remembered his last message from Control. ‘I was informed that a cargo pod was recently dropped to the base from a freighter,’ he said. ‘Can you tell me anything about it?’
Kawakami shook his head and drank from his lukewarm tea. ‘Very little, I’m afraid. It landed due west of the base several days ago, but only Marks and Akers have been out to visit it. They attached a trailer to the back of one of the rovers, and what they brought back was covered by a tarp. Tamara caught a glimpse of the trailer before it was brought into the garage module and believes that it contained a new combat armor suit…’
‘Like a Hoplite?’ Sasaki asked.
‘Yes, but she couldn’t be certain. Since then, L’Enfant has prevented anyone else except his men from entering Module One…that’s the garage. He changed the code on the main airlock, since that leads into Module One, and has forced us to use the auxiliary airlock in Module Ten instead.’
He stopped, then added, ‘I’m not certain if this has anything to do with it, but I’ve also seen them working on the Hornet.’
Miho took a deep breath. Nash shook his head. ‘Pardon me…the Hornet?’
‘The F-210 Hornet,’ Miho said. ‘The space-to-surface attack fighter which was used during the Steeple Chase operation. It was grounded after the mission. Waylon had been using it for a while for spare parts for the Burroughs, but otherwise it was useless junk.’ Her eyes narrowed as she considered the idea. ‘They might be trying to make it flight-ready again, but what good would that accomplish?’
‘And why a new CAS?’ Kawakami asked. ‘The ones which have been used in the past have been ineffectual in the tunnel and the Labyrinth. Why would they want to bring yet another one to this base? If Tamara wasn’t a good observer, I would question what she reported.’
‘Even then,’ Nash said, ‘why would they seal off the vehicle garage? If it’s just another combat suit…?’
‘No,’ Kawakami agreed, ‘it does not make sense.’ He gazed pensively out the window. ‘But I’ve also given up on making sense out of L’Enfant. It’s all I can do just to reason with the man. He still accepts my role as senior scientist, but with each confrontation we have, what little control I have over him is further diminished. Soon he will stop listening to me entirely.’ He sighed. ‘This matter with Paul and the MRV is only the latest example.’
‘He’s taking that thing down into the tunnel tomorrow morning?’ Nash asked. ‘Isn’t that risky?’
‘Extremely. Yet there’s nothing I can do about it now.’ Kawakami knitted his long fingers together on the table. ‘Several months ago, we sent another teleoperated spider-probe into Mama’s Back Door. Paul piloted it, and his goal was to attempt to penetrate the tunnel and find his way into the catacombs.’
He steepled his index fingers and tapped them against the table. ‘The probe was destroyed, of course, but from what very little he saw before the pseudo-Cooties tore it apart…and, judging from the tape of the encounter, I have to agree…Paul has become convinced that the pseudo-Cooties interact as a sort of hive mind, similar to that of terrestrial insects. The most appropriate analogy might be to driver ants. Given their past behavior, I have to agree with his assessment. If the original Cooties, as represented by their automechanical counterparts, are highly-evolved insects, then this would seem to make sense.’
He chuckled and shook his head. ‘The great entomologist, E. O. Wilson, would have been fascinated. I remember his guest lectures from my student days at the University of Osaka when he…’
‘Shin-ichi-san…’ Sasaki began.
‘Sorry. The woolgathering of an old man.’ The smile disappeared as Kawakami paused to discipline his train of thought. ‘Paul, however, is also familiar with Wilson’s theories. He has become convinced that, like ants, the pseudo-Cooties share some sort of common, central purpose, directed upon some activity deep within their lair and that the only way to be certain of this is to personally explore the catacombs. Unfortunately, L’Enfant has also become convinced that Paul is right…he helped Paul get the MRV shipped from Earth. I’m against Paul visiting the catacombs in the MRV to find out whether his theory is correct, but L’Enfant has made it a top priority and has overridden my objections.’
‘And Paul…?’
‘Paul wants to go through with it,’ Kawakami said. ‘Despite my misgivings and Tamara’s, he insists upon making the sortie. He thinks the MRV will be sufficient protection against the Cooties.’ Kawakami shook his head again. ‘They’re both obsessed, but for different reasons. Paul sees it as a quest for scientific knowledge, however unsafe—it may be, but L’Enfant…’
‘Wants a recon mission against the enemy,’ Nash finished.
The exobiologist closed his eyes. ‘That is correct.’
There was a brief silence in the wardroom as Sasaki and Nash considered all that they had been told. Kawakami slowly let out his breath. ‘Regardless of the outcome,’ he continued, ‘we are all in great danger. This is why I have a request to make. Mr Nash, you plan to leave here tomorrow, is that correct?’
‘If my…’ Nash glanced at Miho. ‘If our objectives have been completed by then, yes. Tuesday morning at latest.’
Miho hesitated, then nodded her head in agreement. ‘Very well,’ Kawakami said. ‘Then I want to have you smuggle Tamara and Paul aboard this airship and take them with you, as soon as Paul has completed his excursion.’
He quickly lifted a hand before either of them could raise objections. ‘They’re unsafe as long as they remain here, and I do not want either of them to become…ah, permanent residents of this place, as I have. It will be tricky, but we can get them both in the airship and hide them. Yes?’
Nash could not honestly disagree. Two people could easily be hidden in the interior of the Akron’s envelope; it was large enough to conceal a platoon. At the very least, they could hide in the observation blister he had discovered earlier. ‘And you yourself?’
Kawakami grinned at him. ‘I will remain here, of course.’
Miho was aghast. ‘Shin-ichi-san, you can’t…!’
‘Hush, Miho.’ His voice was calm, almost self-sacrificial in its resolve. ‘After all, it is my cooperation which L’Enfant desires the most…and getting all three members of the team into this ship cannot be accomplished without arousing suspicions. When the proper time comes, I will make the necessary diversion…non-violently, of course, but enough for you to get Paul and Tamara aboard without being noticed.’
‘And if their absence is noticed…’ Nash began.
‘All you will need to do is get aloft with them aboard,’ Kawakami said. ‘L’Enfant has the capability to shoot down the Akron, certainly, but he won’t use it. Far too many questions would be raised if it was destroyed…especially since you two are aboard. Once you’re in the sky, they cannot touch you nor the others, who will help validate what
ever you wish to tell your respective authorities back home. That alone is worth spiriting them away.’
Nash opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He could see no flaws in Kawakami’s logic, and it was maddeningly clear that only logic could be used on this man; emotional arguments alone would be dismissed as simple sentiment. At the same time, he could not see Boggs raising an objection; he had been friends with Paul Verduin and Tamara Isralilova for too long for him to reject them as stowaways. Now that the MRV had been unloaded, the Akron certainly had the lift-capacity to ferry two more passengers back to Arsia Station.
‘If Boggs doesn’t have a problem with it…’ he tentatively began, when the inner airlock hatch abruptly gave its distinctive triple-buzz, signaling recompression.
‘We’ll discuss this later,’ Nash finished.
A second later Boggs shouldered the hatch open, followed closely by Paul Verduin. ‘Okay, gang, we’re all set to go.’ Boggs tossed his helmet and gloves on a bunk, but didn’t bother to clamber out of his skinsuit. ‘The Jackalope’s checked out, tarped up and lashed down. Not that any one of you were of great help, of course.’
‘Waylon…’ Miho began.
‘Miho…’ he replied, imitating her voice almost exactly. He suddenly bent over, ducked his head, grasped her shoulders with both hands, and planted a long, wet kiss on her lips. She was too shocked to fight it; however, Nash was surprised to note that her face held, for a fleeting instant, an expression of pleasure just before she shoved him away.