Abby said slowly, "From the feel of things, we've already done a significant amount of damage to the ship."
"True. I wish we had a way to assess the damage. Maybe you'll be able to make a guess from here."
Bobby Joe was about to turn back to the console when he noticed Abby's eyes. She looked puzzled, and her gaze was fixed on Richard's shoes or something near them. Bobby Joe looked that direction and saw nothing special.
Matt had noticed, too. "What's up, Abby?"
"What's that?" She pointed.
Richard raised one foot. "Did I step in something?"
Bobby Joe saw what she was looking at. A small bug stood motionless in the crack formed by the junction of the wall and the floor. "An insect?"
"I don't think so," Abby said.
Matt moved closer as Richard backed away. With his toe, Matt brushed the bug away from the wall, and then hit it toward the center of the room.
"I don't like this at all," Matt said. "Get Rudy and Julie awake."
Bobby Joe got a closer look at the bug, which was sitting still. It looked vaguely like a spider, but it had twice as many legs, and the whole thing looked too regular, too symmetrical to be a typical insect.
Matt crushed the thing under his sole, and when his foot moved away, what was left was a small pile of rubble, not a greasy stain. "They know we're here."
Julie and Rudy were up in seconds, squinting in the light. Three pistols clicked at almost the same time as their owners readied them.
Matt looked at Rudy. "I want you to—"
A tennis ball, or something that looked a lot like one bounced into the kiosk. As Matt scrambled to get to it, maybe to throw it back out like a hand grenade, two more bounced in. The first one exploded before Matt reached it, and the other two exploded a second later.
From the one Bobby Joe could see, dozens of tiny streamers shot out in every direction. Several of them touched his pants and shirt and stuck. He tried to pull one of them off his shirt, and his hand stuck to it firmly. As he pulled back toward the wall, he pulled Julie off balance. Julie fell over, and the streamers linked between her and Bobby Joe went taut and pulled Bobby Joe off balance.
He didn't fall all the way to the floor, though. A couple of the streamers had hit the wall, and so he dangled there, unable to get loose.
Chapter 14
Talk to Me
"Jeez, are my legs tired," Benny complained.
"What a wimp," Lucky said. "People run up these steps every year. Don't you watch the news? And that was in regular gravity."
"Yeah, but those are trained athletes. We're not running some race. And those guys don't carry big packs."
The men had reached the seventy–second floor of the Empire State Building. On their last two trips, they had encountered a building guard who apparently didn't have enough to do. This time they had taken the stairs to vary the pattern. Only a couple of floors earlier Benny had realized that walking up the stairs carrying packs was probably at least as suspicious as being seen a third time in an elevator. Lucky was insistent, though.
They climbed the remaining floors to the ninetieth in silence, except for the sound of Benny's panting. Fortunately they didn't run into the guard again.
This time Lucky planted more explosives along the outside walls of the ninetieth floor. When Benny had asked Lucky where he was getting all the explosives, Lucky told him he had a stockpile. Benny asked why he had such a big stockpile, but all Lucky would say was that he liked to go fishing a lot. Benny let the subject drop.
#
Unable to move, Abby was loaded onto a cart as though she were a side of beef. She could see through only one eye. The other was sealed shut by one of the sticky streamers. Thankfully, the streamer had stuck to her cheek and forehead, too, so she didn't have the other ends of the streamer tugging directly on her eyelid. Another streamer sealed her lips closed, and she thanked God nothing had blocked her nostrils or stuck to her eye before she blinked.
Someone else was piled on top of her, but she couldn't tell who. She assumed all six of the team were stuck together by the streamers that had exploded from the balls tossed into the kiosk.
"Watch where you—uh!" Bobby Joe started to moan.
Another body hit the cart in front of her, and her view was partly cut off by someone's sleeve. She felt chilled, and the claustrophobia closed in on her as she realized how little she could move. Her right arm could move forward and backward a few centimeters before a sticky strip curtailed the motion. Her left arm and leg felt immovable. Sections of the sticky strips had probably stuck to the bottom of the cart on either side of her leg. She could turn her head only a few degrees.
An Archie moved past her field of vision, and she peered at it under one squinting eyelid. This close the Archie seemed enormous, but she told herself that was only because it resembled something humans expected to be small. Its abdomen sported a mat of short black hairs as thick as the hair on a human head. As it passed by, she realized it had a short tail. She couldn't imagine how a tail would be useful to creatures like the Archies, but she still possessed an appendix that didn't seem very necessary. She was suddenly aware of an odor like that of lemon–scented laundry detergent.
A chattering sounded from somewhere out of sight, answered by a higher–pitched chattering from behind her. Their voices reminded her of dolphin sounds she'd heard except for seeming more purposeful, as though a deliberate conversation was taking place, but it was in another language. Question, reply, command, response.
She was dimly aware that their treatment implied the Archies didn't necessarily want to kill them, but she hoped they weren't just left this way for much longer; otherwise she'd probably prefer almost any alternative.
The cart moved forward. Everyone must be on board, all six of them stuck together like flies on wadded–up flypaper. Abby suddenly thought about the barbaric way humans treated lobsters about to be consumed, and forced her thoughts elsewhere.
The roof of a kiosk moved past her field of view. Abby was suddenly more nervous as she realized that she'd heard Bobby Joe speak a couple of times, but not anyone else. Were the others silent because they had nothing to say, or the sticky strips prevented them, or because they were smothering to death? Abby had no idea whether the Archies would take a close look at the humans and bother to free nasal passages for anyone in need, even if they understood what was happening.
The roof of another kiosk drifted past. Not being able to move her body was driving Abby crazy. She tried hard to straighten her right leg, and suddenly it moved, her leg moving inside her pant leg. Just as her foot moved several centimeters, it came up short as it hit something, and from that direction came an "Ooof." At least that said someone else was alive for sure, although she couldn't tell if the voice had been Rudy's or Richard's. She bit the inside of her lip and forced herself to get her mind off being immobilized. Think of anything else, anything at all.
She closed her eye and imagined herself on a cinder track. She was seventeen again. It was a spring morning, the air crisp and clean. She crouched in starting position on the track, and for a second or two her fingers pushed into the small gravel.
The starting gun fired, very loud despite the fact that it fired only a blank. You'd think they could load a little less gunpowder if they knew the blast didn't have to propel the normal bullet. She hurtled into space and began to pump her legs.
Her ears recovered from the blast, and all she could hear were cleats scattering gravel as they hit the ground, and the beginnings of lung sounds, other runners breathing routinely, not the gasping agony of the 440 finish line.
Abby was on the inside, where she liked to be, starting out behind so just pulling even with another runner before the final curve meant she was ahead, and the other runner knew it, too.
She and the other three runners hit the last curve, Abby in second place but knowing the inner curve gave her an advantage now, both physical and psychological. Her breath burned through her lungs as she hit that final s
tage where she was committing all her energy until she passed the tape. Whatever penalty her body had to pay for the effort would be put off until the race was over.
From ahead and behind came gasps for breath mingling with Abby's own, the crunch–crunch–crunch of compressing and scattering cinder, the swish–swish of arms moving forward and back, and legs pumping forward.
The runner Abby slowly overtook never turned her head, but Abby knew the instant the other's peripheral vision and hearing told her Abby was next to her. The runner pushed into a higher gear, and somehow Abby did the same.
They were even.
They held even for another second or two, then Abby began to edge ahead. The first centimeters were the hardest, but by the time Abby was a half–meter ahead, suddenly she knew nothing could stop her and she widened her lead, still widening it when she broke the tape.
She kept running, slowing gradually for fear she'd tip over and fall forward now that her body knew it could shut down the blast of energy, entering recovery mode and now letting her know how much her stomach and lungs hurt. Seconds later she was able to slow to a stop and before she bent forward to get as much air as possible into her lungs, she caught a glimpse of her parents in the stands. Her father was on his feet, cheering, more animated than she'd ever seen him, loud enough that she could even make out his individual voice in the crowd.
In that moment she realized how much she wanted to please him, to please the man who once too often let it slip that he'd really wanted a boy.
Her chest hurt. She knew she was far too young for trouble like that, but for just an instant she felt the pain had come from her heart.
The cart carrying her shook. Abby opened the one eye that she was able to, and she saw the roof of another kiosk. The bumping increased and part of the ceiling was obscured by a closer dark lip of something shorter. For a terrible moment she visualized them being levered into a large trash compactor to be disposed of like useless debris.
They weren't in a trash compactor, though. Seconds later she recognized the roof of one of the monorail cars. Before long they accelerated smoothly in an unknown direction.
They must have been heading inward, because if they'd been going outward, they would have passed through a doorway soon after they started, and she saw no signs of that. They traveled for five minutes or fifteen as Abby tried not to think about being unable to shift position.
Near the end of their monorail journey the car did pass through a doorway into a new area, after which time the ceiling was lower than it had been, now only about ten meters high. The cart was unloaded from the monorail car, and passing through her field of vision were two more Archies, chattering to each other.
They passed through another doorway and the echoes changed. They were in a smaller space now. The cart came to a halt.
Some chattering began behind Abby's back. From the sounds, three or four different Archies were present. She wished she'd had the minivid on before all this started so she would have at least the voice recording. From somewhere came a spraying sound and Bobby Joe said, "Well, it's about time."
A few seconds later Abby realized one foot was free to move. She straightened her leg, feeling a strong sense of relief. Behind her bodies shifted. Something hard fell onto a metallic surface. The air carried the scent of paint.
A weight that had been pressing on her shoulder lifted. An Archie entered her field of view. It was holding a small object like a balloon. It squeezed the balloon, and a fine mist sprayed toward the cart. The sticky strips over Abby's mouth and eye turned limp and fell off. She was able to move. She took a deep breath and slowly got up.
Two Archies stood silently on both sides of the only door in the room. Both carried in their forward two arms what had to be weapons. The gray devices bore unrecognizable knobs and attachments, but they also sported unmistakable gun muzzles that easily sliced through the language barrier. Two more Archies were engaged in getting the sticky mass of humans separated. On the floor sat a stack of minivids, pistols, and stuff from their backpacks.
Abby was the last to get free. Matt was safe and he gave her a look that said he was relieved that she was all right. He sat against the far wall. Rudy and Julie and Richard sat nearby, also looking nervous but all right. As an Archie pushed Bobby Joe toward the others, he sat down and joined them. Abby did, too.
As the six humans sat against the wall, two Archies pawed through the pile of equipment in the center of the room. Abby patted her hip and realized she no longer had either pistol or holster.
The Archies were forming two piles in the center of the room. Into one pile went holsters, empty backpacks, the minivids, computer, canteens, and things like the resealing plastic bags and rope. Into the other pile went the pistols, a power drill, flashlights, and Richard's plastic explosives. The weapons pile then went onto the cart, which one of the Archies, one with stripes of yellow in its clothing, pulled out of the room. The other Archie near the center of the room backed up so it was nowhere near line of sight between the armed Archies and the humans.
The Archies all wore two utility belts, one around each body segment, and Abby couldn't help but think of old pocket protectors and saddlebags. Their heads met their forward segments with not much opportunity to swivel. When they wanted to look in a different direction, they either moved their entire bodies, or just the eye–stalks that protruded from what would be the forehead on a human. Their knobby legs were wider near their body than at the ground, like tripod legs. At the end of each limb was a four–fingered hand. The rear two hands were idle at the moment, and she briefly wondered what joke Bobby Joe would make from that.
Abby glanced at the room itself finally. Rather than being octagonal, it was actually square. What could have been a sink stood in one corner. In the opposite corner was a console like the one in the kiosk.
The Archie who had left returned with two flimsy drawings, unmistakably drawings of the ship. It set the drawings on the floor, then took a small marker from a belt around its forward segment. On an overhead view of the plain below, it drew a short line from the Manhattan dome. On the top view of the floor they were on, it drew a small line from a kiosk out to a huge cylinder, no doubt the one they had damaged. Finally it tossed the marker onto the floor between itself and the six humans.
No one moved or said anything for a moment.
"It wants us to draw the path we took, wouldn't you say?" Abby said.
Matt stood up and moved forward. He reached the marker, picked it up, and approached the Archie, whose eye–stalk tracked him all the way. Calmly Matt handed back the unused marker. He returned to the wall and sat down.
Bobby Joe laughed softly and said under his breath, "Go spawn yourself, Archie."
The Archie stood there a moment with the marker in its hand, and then it jumped straight up in the air just high enough that Abby could see clearly that all four center legs had left the ground simultaneously. Abby tentatively cataloged the response as annoyance.
The Archie stood there for several seconds, motionless except for its eye–stalk, which scanned the row of humans. Finally, it turned and chattered at the other Archies, and they all withdrew, the armed Archies at the rear. The last thing Abby saw before the twin doors slid closed together was a pair of eye–stalks watching as if the Archie were worried that the humans might dash to the door.
It was a legitimate fear, Abby understood then. For all the Archies knew, humans might have far quicker reaction times than they did. Suddenly she decided the Archies probably had even more backup nearby, just in case.
"All right," Matt said. Abby could hear the discouragement in his voice. "They've left us with a console. If it hasn't been disabled, at least we can continue learning about the ship and the Archies. Abby, can you and Bobby Joe get started?"
Abby hesitated. "Can I take a ten–minute break first?"
Matt looked at her. "Sure."
What Matt didn't say, but Abby read into his expression, was, "No hurry." The Earth w
as probably already doomed anyway; they couldn't have done enough damage to prevent that. Exploring with the console was a busy work request that was probably most useful in just keeping them occupied. Once the Archies decided what to do about them, the humans would probably all be killed anyway.
Abby let her eyes close for just a second, and she took a few deep breaths.
Matt and Rudy sifted through the pile of possessions the Archies had left behind and began to tape up a privacy curtain in front of what looked something like a sink. Julie retrieved her minivid and began recording. Abby was surprised at how accurately the Archies had divided their equipment into threatening and non–threatening piles.
#
Abby hadn't felt this tired in a long time.
She and Bobby Joe stood at the console as Matt and Rudy and Julie watched over their shoulders. Julie had her minivid active most of the time. Bobby Joe had actually had a joke–free hour, and he'd been invaluable in helping interpret drawings of the ship. Richard slept. He also snored.
Abby held less hope than before that they'd done adequate damage to the ship. The console showed that the floor opposite the one they were on also held eight huge cylinders, one in each slice of the octagon, and the other set was even larger. Maybe they had a completely redundant propulsion system.
Their efforts at the console had concentrated on two areas—finding out what else they could damage, given an opportunity, and what escape routes might exist. Abby was a little surprised the Archies hadn't disabled the console, but the team's best guess was that the Archies figured the humans had already had access to a console so there was little to lose. Besides that, the Archies could easily have disabled specifics they were nervous about allowing access to. Abby wondered if allowing access was a way of saying they were not hostile.
Their examination of the current screen content was interrupted by the sound of the two doors opening. Two armed Archies entered, followed by two more, and two more after them. Julie aimed her minivid at the new arrivals. After the six armed Archies formed a barrier in front of the door, a seventh Archie squeezed between two of the others. This Archie may have been the one they'd seen earlier, because its clothing looked similar, yellow stripes in the material.
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