“There it is. Shiny’s module describes how to open it,” Telisa said. “But it looks like the destroyers made it here ahead of us.”
“You must have spent a lot of time studying his house,” Magnus said.
“Of course. Didn’t you? I guess it’s more up my alley.”
“Well, I was putting the finishing touches on Scout here. You just watch.”
The machine walked slowly up to the ragged edge of the pipe and looked down. Magnus saw the tunnel in several different sections of the spectrum: infrared, visual, and an ultraviolet band. It looked cold and dead. There was wreckage lying about. Nothing caught his eye as either valuable or dangerous.
Scout’s tail grew a smart rope. The rope’s end found a strong purchase point outside the entrance and wrapped itself around it. Then Scout jumped over the edge. The machine reeled down rapidly, dropping like a spider from a strand of webbing. Telisa and Magnus were arriving at the opening as Scout settled onto a surface thirty meters below the ground. The smart rope released its hold above and reeled back into Scout’s body. Then the machine started to scan its new surroundings.
“Impressive!” Telisa said. Magnus could tell from her tone she was only a little impressed but hamming it up for him, so he played along.
“Of course! Who built it?”
“Now it’s our turn.”
Magnus scanned Scout’s vision in his own PV. “Looks clear enough. I agree.”
“So nice to have him down there, and know we’re not about to be ambushed. We need more robots!”
“Yeah. Next time,” he said. He handed her a smart rope.
“I have my own, thanks,” she said, digging into her pack. Magnus smiled. She wanted to prove she’d come properly prepared. Of course he hadn’t insinuated otherwise. It was just her way.
Magnus chose the same spot Scout had used to anchor his rope. He simultaneously monitored the feed from Scout, showing a wrecked chamber filled with dust and garbage. The machine caught a bit of movement to one side.
“What is it? Did I miss something?”
“Something down there,” Magnus said. “It was small. Must be a critter.”
“Great. A critter,” she said flatly. They stood for a moment as Scout rooted about more, looking for the source of the movement.
“Should be fine. Just keep practicing. Learn to watch both at once.”
“While I’m climbing down a pit?”
“Gravity and the rope are doing all the work for us,” Magnus pointed out. “Doesn’t matter what you’re doing, we need to see what he sees.”
Magnus swung out over the pit on his line. The smart rope had controllers that responded to link commands. Each end had artificial muscles and retractable claws that could wrap around and latch onto objects, then release themselves at the top once a climber had slid down the rope. Magnus also had a launcher that could shoot the rope to high targets, and even a pair of climbing insect devices that could carry a rope up into areas where it could not be shot with the launcher.
Scout continued to patrol in a small circle as Magnus slid down his line. Telisa followed close behind. At the bottom, they told their ropes to release. The lines fell gently and rolled themselves back up.
“Sand everywhere,” Magnus noted. A large beam had smashed through the wall of the tunnel, sitting at an angle. The grit covered everything.
“Remember the Vovokan habitat in the Trilisk trap? The tunnels used some kind of sand as a self-cleaning carpet and transport system.”
“I doubt it’s either anymore. Whatever system was in place has probably been disabled.”
“What if the critter lives in the sand? There could be a hundred of them and we’d never know.”
“Momma Veer will take care of you. I doubt it could bite through your suit.”
Magnus took a deep breath. The air was dry. It smelled like metal. They had brought masks just in case, but the air was breathable as-is.
“Okay, I’m sending Scout in down this side passage,” Telisa announced. “We have a long ways to go through this, so...”
Magnus sent a short nonverbal acknowledgement. They had only taken a couple of steps down the new passage before Magnus got an alert through his link. It came from Shiny’s probe network. He added a pane in his PV to see a map of the situation beside the feed from Scout.
A red dot moved toward their position. Magnus assessed what it meant.
“A destroyer is coming,” he said.
“Damn.”
“Up against the wall!”
They curved their bodies to match the circular wall of the passage, facing each other from opposite sides of the narrow tube. Magnus halted Scout.
A light wind came up in the tunnel. The light from the opening above altered. Magnus caught a humming sound.
“What the hell?”
The humming noise became louder as the wind picked up. Grains of sand whipped their legs and feet.
Shit, Telisa said, switching to link communication. Either Shiny’s right or we’re dead.
Magnus felt his heart accelerate. He breathed in quick, short bursts to avoid the sand in the air. He wished he had made his mask more accessible. But the wind abated. The light returned to normal.
That’s encouraging, Magnus sent.
They waited a few more moments. Magnus monitored the red dot. It moved away rapidly.
“Actually, it simply serves to remind me how dumb it is to go poking around on alien planets,” Telisa said.
“We’re okay. Shiny was right.”
They came to an intact hatch at the end of the passageway. The hatch was circular, though it had thick bars of reinforcing metal or ceramic crisscrossing its surface.
“I know how to open this, though the sand may get in the way. I think the sand is from a side system. This is supposed to be clean. We aren’t in the natural-looking tunnels yet, where they lived.”
“And died,” Magnus added.
Telisa grabbed two struts along the surface of the hatch. The struts clicks and moved slightly, then the hatch clanged loudly. Telisa scraped the hatch open. A thick fog roiled out just a bit at the edges.
“Great, just like a house of horrors,” Telisa said.
Magnus just shrugged.
“Masks?” Telisa asked.
Magnus sent Scout in.
“Just watch,” Magnus said.
Scout scampered through on its long legs. There was only a slight crunch of sand with each footfall. Magnus saw another dim passage filled with sand.
A message came from Scout. It showed an analysis of the air inside.
“Looks fine,” Magnus said.
“It kind of smells,” Telisa noted.
“There’s most likely dead things in there.”
Magnus heard a slight rustling noise through Scout’s senses. The machine peered down a tunnel. The entire inner surface of the tunnel spun clockwise. The noise came from a bit of sand Scout had knocked into the spinning tunnel, but it quickly abated.
“We have to go in there?” Telisa asked.
“You tell me. Isn’t this Shiny’s route?”
“Yes,” Telisa said.
Magnus told Scout to wait until they got there to look at the tunnel themselves. They slipped through the hatch. Magnus swept the room beyond with his own light, covering the illuminated areas with his weapon. Telisa seemed content to rely upon Scout’s initial sweep. The room wasn’t large. The walls became irregular, with a low ceiling. Magnus had to stoop just a bit.
The two stood in front of the tube. Their lights revealed a long spinning tube, but they couldn’t see the end of it. The tunnel was round, with a spiral depression winding down its length like a reverse screw.
“It carries things forward,” Magnus surmised.
Telisa put out her hand. She touched the surface. “It’s pretty slippery.”
Magnus squatted to scoop up some sand. He tossed it in the tube.
The sand scattered into the depression then moved away as the spiral
carried it down the tunnel.
“It’s a transport tube,” Magnus said. “The ridges carry you along like an inside-out screw.”
“This thing is still working somehow... shouldn’t it have stopped? Everything else seems destroyed or dead from lack of power.”
“It is strange,” Magnus agreed, staring down the tunnel.
“It’s probably just great for Vovokans, but looks uncomfortable to me. Or dangerous. We’ll be moving forward out of our control. Can we even walk in it? What if it dumps into...? Never mind, let me look at the map.”
Magnus nodded. He gave the rest of the chamber a look while Telisa consulted the data from Shiny. The walls sloped like natural caverns, though they had a smooth surface, just like the ones he remembered from Thespera. These were the real thing, though, not the creation of a Trilisk machine emulating the preferred environment of its inhabitant. They glistened in the light with tiny pinpricks of reflective material. Other than sand, the only things on the floor were two ceramic columns about a foot tall.
“I think those ceramic things are Shiny chairs,” he said. “Vovokan, I mean.”
“Okay, this tube is about a quarter of a kilometer long. It should be okay to get into, I guess,” Telisa said.
“We’ll send Scout first, of course,” Magnus reassured her. “We’ll see any danger through him.”
“Okay,” she said. Magnus sent Scout scuttling into the spiraling tunnel.
The robot appeared confused. The spinning tube slid it up the right hand side, until it balanced the friction against the gravity. A couple of its legs caught against the depression, then it started sliding forward. At the same time, it took steps forward.
“It’s not quite that smart,” Magnus said. “I bet with the Vovokan walker’s brain...”
Telisa laughed. “You can’t let go of that, can you? We’ll use the improved one soon enough. I think it’s easier for Scout to get through than it will be for us. It has more legs to catch in the depression. I bet that’s exactly how Shiny would move through there.”
Scout emerged on the far side. Its feed showed more sandy ruin. The area looked more open. Magnus saw a much larger tunnel perpendicular to the transport tube, with dozens of doors or windows opening into it.
“I think I’m going on my stomach,” Telisa said. “I don’t trust myself to run or walk through it.”
“Yeah, stomach sounds fine. You want to attach a line or just go for it?”
“Worked for Scout,” Telisa said. She knelt forward, feeling the moving surface with her hands.
She’s not afraid to go first, even after the close call with that destroyer-thing. A natural-born explorer.
Telisa hopped in. She moved slowly at first, then picked up speed as her boot tips fell into the depression and pushed her forward.
“Piece of cake,” she said aloud.
Magnus pointed his rifle behind him and followed her. The ride was novel but uneventful. They emerged from the spiral tube in a minute or two.
On the other side, he became nervous. They couldn’t see well. Telisa must have felt the same way, because she switched to link communication. She preferred her link when she felt threatened.
“It’s dark,” Telisa said over her link.
“Scout to the rescue,” Magnus answered. The spider-legged machine returned to their location, flooding the area with light. The reflected illumination scattered through the space below, bringing it into view.
The scene revealed looked like a subway disaster. A long cylinder of metal ran overhead down the center of the tunnel, with no discernible supports. The ceiling was easily ten meters overhead. The light showed several openings in the walls of the tunnel, hinting of rooms beyond. Before them a huge hulk of a machine or vehicle lay partially covered by sand.
Magnus immediately got the feeling that, whatever it was, it had fallen from the metal rail above. He swept his own light down the tunnel in both directions. It was a big wide open space, filled with sand. The openings in the wall continued as far as his light could reach.
Shiny’s drone flew quickly from one side of the room to the other. It jerked about a bit, hovering around the debris in a corner.
“What’s it doing?” Telisa transmitted.
The drone settled down near the floor. Then it started to change. Its shape started to divide into two bulky parts separated by a thinner span.
“I have no idea,” Magnus said.
The drone dropped onto the floor. One of its ends had flattened into a base. Its middle thinned smoothly then expanded again, forming a flat top like a little table.
“Wait. It looks exactly like all those other things. Like the chair-things.”
“So…it’s playing chair?”
“Wait a second…one of those red dots is getting closer.”
“Those are the destroyer machines. Something attracted one of them,” Telisa said. “Now, the machine is coming so the drone is hiding. What about us?”
“Stay calm. Let’s hide.”
“Over here,” Telisa said. “By that ruined...whatever it is. Train car, maybe.”
They scrambled over toward the ruined husk. There was an opening under it, but it was too small to hide in. Once they were up against its surface, nestled beside the base, Magnus grabbed a large plate of metal debris and dragged it over. He leaned it against the hulk, forming a small space for them to crawl into.
“Scout? There’s no room for him in here,” Telisa sent over her link.
“I’ll leave him out there. To distract this thing, just in case.”
The humming noise became louder. Magnus just crouched and waited. We can’t hope to fight these things... so just play rat and hope it goes away.
White light washed over the room. Magnus shut his eyes. The machine moved to the far side of the room by Scout. The light moved. There was only a steady hiss of moving air pushing sand around. Something moved to the far side of his cover, but the plate didn’t move. Neither did Magnus.
Magnus watched the view from Scout carefully. The destroyer machine was an ovoid, emitting bright white light. The illumination made it difficult to see details of the machine. It floated in the center of the wide open passageway, moving slowly toward the wreck they hid against. As it paused above Scout, Magnus saw several bulbous protrusions of equipment, including ominous-looking holes he imagined could emit projectiles or energy attacks of some kind.
Then it had moved over Scout and the wreck. It continued down the tunnel, picking up speed as it left them behind. After another minute, Magnus opened his eyes and pushed away the plate. They stood up and looked down the tunnel after the receding white light.
“I must have come up on Vovokans just like that, then killed them,” she said.
Magnus noticed Telisa stood still with her arms wrapped around herself.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “It’s gone. More evidence the destroyers don’t really care about us.”
“I’d forgotten,” she said. “Now I’ve been reminded twice.”
He puzzled through her statement for a moment. “What it was like to be in danger?”
“Yeah. To think I was about to die. How could I forget that feeling?”
“It’s good you forgot. Some people can’t shake it. Even when they go home and they’re safe, they can’t shake it. It’s good you can handle it and get over it.”
Telisa stared at the drone camouflaged as a chair. “It had to shut down. I wonder how it will wake back up?” she said.
“It could be a timer. Or the other drones might send it a signal when they see the hunter go away.”
“Hunter. That’s exactly what it was. Just think, those things came here after Shiny’s kind. And they killed millions, he said.”
“It sounds horrible, and yet—” Magnus said.
“What?”
“And yet, I wonder if they deserved it.”
“We sure are willing to trust him, despite the fact that we don’t trust him,” she said nonsensically.
<
br /> “I know what you mean. But he saved us before. And he’s offering us a lot now, even though he’s after something himself. An industrial seed. I think he must plan to restore his civilization, but on his own terms.”
“Yes. ‘In absence of heavy competition.’”
“So, what’s this wide open road? And why the cylinder above us? It doesn’t seem to attach to anything.”
“It’s a rail. A transport rail,” she said.
Magnus nodded. “I agree. But why the open windows? Did it carry something worth seeing? Because in a human city—”
“In a human city they have to keep the noise out,” Telisa finished for him.
“Oh. Of course. Yes, Vovokans might have a lot less trouble with the noise, since they’re deaf. A bomb could have blown the windows out. But I meant, was something on this rail worth seeing?”
“Maybe. Scout is moving ahead. I see the next room.”
They left behind the wreck and followed Scout. Shiny’s odd probe revived and floated after them. The robot took a right, disappearing into one of the dozens of passageways that opened onto the underground thoroughfare.
The machine sent back images of a big room with a low, irregular ceiling. One side of the room had caved in. Rows of familiar golden creatures were arranged on small platforms of machinery.
“Something very interesting ahead,” Magnus said.
“Looks...not good to me,” Telisa said.
They entered the room. Scout had already moved around the circumference and identified a possible exit. Magnus told it to hang close until they could figure out where they were.
Telisa approached the first golden thing on its complicated throne. Magnus saw tubes or wires going into or around it. It was definitely a Vovokan.
“It’s a body. Like Shiny.”
“Well, we knew we would see this. Though I was expecting more of a them blown to pieces, rather than just sitting dead in these weird machines.”
“I wonder, did Shiny know them? Is this his family? His employees? Slaves?”
“Ask him.”
Telisa walked closer.
“Why are they hooked up? I thought everything was wireless here.”
“These machines could keep them alive while they’re in virtual realities until they lost power, maybe.”
The Trilisk AI (Parker Interstellar Travels #2) Page 9