Below Mercury

by Anson, Mark

  ‘Good. At least they’re not in any immediate danger. Listen, if you can get hold of them, will you tell them to power the robot down? Matt says all you have to do is turn the main mode switch to Shutdown, and that’s it. Have you got that?’

  There was a slight pause before Clare answered.

  ‘Roger that. You guys get back up to the control centre right away. We’re going to stay here with the ship.’

  ‘Right. How’s the prep going?’

  ‘All the spare seats and equipment are out. We’re nearly ready to go. When you guys are back in the control centre and the robot is secured, we can talk launch windows.’

  ‘Excellent.’ A smile crept across Bergman’s face. ‘Hey, what did Earth say? They must have been relieved to hear from us again!’

  ‘You bet. Helligan himself came on straight away, apparently. He’s given Elliott instructions on how to restart the reactor from the mine computer and get power back. That’s why they’re headed to the control centre. They’ll be nearly there by now.’

  As the words from the comlink’s speaker sank in, a chill ran down Matt’s spine. He looked at Bergman, and suddenly reached out and grabbed the comlink. His voice was urgent.

  ‘Crawford here. Exactly what has Helligan told them to do?’

  ‘Restart the reactor, get power working again.’ Clare’s voice showed a trace of irritation.

  ‘How has he told them to do it? Exactly?’

  ‘Uhh, Elliott said something about a supervisor login on the mine computer, and executing a special file that would restart everything.’

  Everything went very clear and sharp for Matt, almost like it had done in the aftermath of the crash. For a moment, he said nothing, his mind racing. Then he gripped the handset tightly.

  ‘Listen. You’ve got to stop them. If PMI know we’re here, they know what we’ve found, and that file could do anything. Call Elliott and tell him not to touch the computer until we’re there. We’re coming up to the control centre.’

  Matt and Bergman were running along the passage, back towards the bottom of the main shaft, before Clare had even acknowledged.

  In the control centre, Abrams and Elliott flung down their helmets, and sat down in two chairs on the lower control deck, facing the windows. Bob Five thumped to a halt by the ruined doors.

  Abrams blew out his cheeks. It had been a long haul back from the peak in the heavy spacesuits, but he felt proud of their achievements today. Contact made with Earth, the solar power array realigned, the possibility of getting main power back, and the news he had just had from his call with Clare – a working spacecraft that could get them back up to the tug, and back home.

  ‘Good piece of work, that,’ he said, grinning at Elliott. ‘Something to tell the kids in a few years.’

  Elliott snorted, but he was delighted with the praise. The mission had gone from a disaster to having a rescue plan, in less than 24 hours. It was a textbook case of how to do things right, he thought, and wondered what plaudits would be heaped on them on their return.

  Abrams stood up again. ‘Listen, I’m going to go back to my room and get a shower, change out of this suit, then we can try to contact Rick and Matt again, and see if they want us to start up the reactor. Can you stay here, look after things while I’m gone?’

  ‘Sure.’ Elliott felt pleased that Abrams trusted him.

  ‘Okay then. I won’t be long.’

  Abrams strode out of the control centre, heading for the entrance lobby and the stairs back down to the living quarters.

  Alone in the control centre, Elliott got up and walked about the lower deck. He decided he would do the same as Abrams when he came back, and get the heavy suit off and some normal clothes back on.

  He climbed the short flight of stairs to the upper command deck, and surveyed the wrecked consoles and dangling cables. It had certainly been one hell of a battle up here.

  He sat down at the mine management computer, and looked at the status display. Already, the increased power from the realigned solar power array was showing on the readouts. He and Abrams had done a solid job, he thought.

  The comlink on his wrist console beeped, and Elliott pressed the answer key.

  ‘Elliott.’

  ‘Foster here. Listen, these instructions from Helligan. I’ve just spoken to Crawford, and he thinks we shouldn’t run them – they might be designed to do something to the mine.’

  ‘Do something?’ Elliott made no attempt to keep the scorn out of his voice. ‘Do what?’

  ‘I don’t know, he just said not to.’ Clare’s voice sounded uncertain.

  ‘Look, I heard Helligan myself. He was trying to help us – he’s given us a chance to get some power and light going. There’s more help on the way, as well. This is just Crawford being – paranoid.’ As he thought of Matt, Elliott’s face darkened into a frown. Opinionated bastard had spent too much time with relatives and conspiracy theorists. There had clearly been a mutiny here, and yet Crawford was still clinging on to his delusions about PMI’s involvement.

  The comlink speaker was silent. Far away in the silo, Clare held the comlink to her ear, undecided. She certainly didn’t trust Helligan, but she didn’t trust Matt completely, not any more. She had to decide this on her own.

  If she waited until Matt got back up to the control centre, who knew what arguments he would use to get his own way. Why was he so adamant that they shouldn’t follow the instructions Helligan had given them? They needed power, and they needed help. It just didn’t make sense.

  She had to trust her own judgement.

  Her voice came from Elliott’s comlink again. ‘Okay. If you and Abrams think it’s okay, go ahead and do it. But if there’s the slightest sign of anything happening that shouldn’t, abort the sequence and shut it down, okay?’

  ‘Okay. You won’t regret this, it’s the right thing to do. Out.’ Elliott ended the conversation, and leaned back in his seat, an expression of satisfaction on his face.

  PMI would be pleased with him, he thought. There might be a fat bonus on top of his pay when he returned, and a more senior position. Maybe even another mission. He could see himself, leading another team somewhere, finding out the truth where others had missed it.

  He drummed his fingers on the management console. He really should wait for Abrams. Wouldn’t Abrams be impressed, though, if he returned to find the reactor already starting up and main power restored?

  What harm could it do to try, anyway? They could do with more power, and better light to explore the mine. The startup sequence could be halted at any time.

  Elliott’s mind had already taken the decision; he was too arrogant to recognise that he was just running through the justifications, rationalising what he was about to do next.

  Almost without conscious thought, Elliott opened a login window on the management screen. His fingers tapped out the username and password that Helligan had provided up on the peak.

  That’s odd, he thought. The login was successful, but all that came up was a small box in the centre of the screen with a COMMAND? prompt and a blinking cursor next to it. Well, it was a special login after all; if you knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t need to ask. He tapped in the command name that Helligan had given them, the command that would automatically restart the reactor and restore power.

  Although he had come this far, his finger hesitated over the ENTER key. Some voice at the back of his mind was whispering something. He frowned, trying to understand the worm of fear that twisted inside his mind. Then the voice became Crawford’s, and it was telling him not to trust Helligan, or PMI.

  That settled it. He thrust the thought aside, leaned forward, and pressed the key with a decisive stab of his finger.

  Crawford was a fool.

  Abrams was in the shower when the lights came on, a sudden white glare after the blood-red glow of the emergency lighting. He spun round in surprise, and nearly slipped on the shower base.

  Towelling himself down, he hurried to t
he bedroom and tugged on the clothes he had left out on the bed. His face was grim as he sat down and pulled his boots on. If Elliott was responsible for this, the stupid little shit had put all their lives in danger. There was no knowing what condition the reactor was in; they should have talked this through with Bergman and Crawford first.

  Abrams got up and headed out of the apartment, into the corridor outside, towards the pressure doors and the fire stairs. The lights dimmed suddenly, and then brightened again. Large loads going onto the power circuits, Abrams thought, quickening his pace. What the hell was happening?

  He went up the fire stairs at a run. The stairs uncoiled before him as he went up flight after flight, past the next level, where the other living quarters were, and on up towards the control centre level. His heart pounded in his chest with the exertion, and he thought grimly of what he was going to say to Elliott when he got there. Why couldn’t he have listened, and just waited?

  Abrams rounded the last corner, went up the final flight of stairs, and burst through the fire doors into the control centre lobby.

  He knew instantly that it was bad. He could hear the alarms sounding as he ran through the open pressure doors and down the corridor that led to towards the control centre. He ducked past the immobile form of Bob Five by the control centre doors, and into a room filled with the piercing sound of emergency alarms.

  A red light swept round the ceiling. He saw Elliott, white-faced, sitting at a console on the upper command deck.

  ‘What the fuck’s happening!’ Abrams yelled above the noise of the alarms, leaping up the stairs. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘I – I ran the commands Helligan gave us,’ Elliott stammered, turning round in his seat to face him, ‘and it was all going fine at first, but now—’ he gestured helplessly around him. ‘I just don’t know what’s happening!’

  In a sudden flash of anger, Abrams hauled Elliott out of the seat, and threw him sprawling across the floor of the command deck. Abrams turned his back on him, and went back to the console. The noise of the alarms made it almost impossible to figure out what was happening. One window of the display was full of warnings in red text, scrolling upwards off the screen, and another window appeared to be executing a series of automatic commands.

  Abrams couldn’t take it in for a moment, then realisation rushed up on him, drenching him with fear.

  He wasn’t a reactor design expert, but he knew how they worked, and the main features of their operation, and the safety interlocks that prevented what was being done now.

  The control rods were being withdrawn, one by one, while the reactor ran up to full power, in defiance of every safeguard he knew.

  The voice of the master warning system started up, adding its terrifying words.

  ‘Danger – uncontrolled reactor power increase. Danger – low feedwater supply. Danger – insufficient control rods in reactor. Danger—’

  The warnings continued as Abrams tried in vain to shut down the command script, but nothing he did had any effect. The console was completely locked out. All the control rods were out now; this was never supposed to happen – it couldn’t happen! He pounded the screen in frustration.

  The command script paused for a moment, and then in a new dawning of horror, Abrams saw a fresh series of commands start up. Having done its work on the reactor, the script turned to the airlock doors on the hangar levels.

  ‘Oh my God, no,’ he whispered.

  The lights dimmed again, as the master warning system carried on: ‘Danger – airlock control malfunction. Danger – mine integrity failure.’

  Below them, back in the main hangar, the latches opened on the main doors to the mine. Just as it had happened nine years ago, the doors started to open, and a hurricane of escaping air burst out through the widening slit, racing out over the crater floor.

  Elliott slithered away from the console, pushing himself backward across the floor, shaking his head in denial at what he had done.

  Then, the final, terrible announcement, that the crew of the mine had heard all those years ago, and had looked up in fear, not understanding what it meant:

  ‘Warning – mine robot startup sequence initiated. Danger – safety protocol malfunction.’

  Elliott stood up, and staggered down the stairs to the lower deck, just as the full fury of the escaping air reached the control centre. Paper and rubbish whirled around him. He grabbed a handrail, and clung on, as the gale tried to tear him away.

  Standing solid, barring the main doorway, Bob Five’s head swivelled round to look at Elliott. The ring of green LEDs round the robot’s eyes went out, and came on again, in a baleful red. The air roared round the robot, but it stood unperturbed, an immovable pillar against the gale.

  The rush of air started to fade, as pressure in the command centre dropped. Elliott saw his chance, and ran across the lower deck to where he had left his helmet. Bob Five moved with terrifying speed to cut him off, catching up with Elliott just as he reached his helmet, lying on one of the consoles.

  The robot’s pincer smashed down on the console, shattering the helmet to fragments.

  Elliott looked up at the robot in disbelief, and tried to speak, but no sound came out; there was no air. He fell to his knees. His lungs laboured, trying to breathe, but there was nothing, and suddenly he felt deadly cold. The robot’s eyes glared down at Elliott, and it raised its arm one more time.

  On the upper deck, Abrams saw the robot’s arm swing down on Elliott like an executioner’s axe, and the sudden spray of blood that erupted over the ceiling.

  Abrams fell back in his seat. His legs had turned to water. He knew he should run, but he felt so weak. Black specks exploded in his vision. He had to warn the others, he had to tell them that the robots were coming for them, but it was too late, too late.

  He slipped off the seat and onto the floor. He saw the robot mount the stairs and advance until it loomed over him, one pincer covered in blood. Abrams tried to crawl away, but anoxia had taken hold of him, and he could only manage a couple of metres before he fell onto his side.

  In his last few moments, everything became very quiet and still. Abrams looked up, and saw the robot’s eyes, staring down at him as he lay there on the floor. The edges of his vision faded to black, closing inwards on him, until all that he could see were the twin red circles, boring into him, watching him die.

  As consciousness failed, the eyes seemed to swoop after him, following him down into darkness as the robot’s arm lifted, and swung down one last time.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Clare was in the commander’s seat in the shuttlecraft, trying to raise Abrams on her comlink, when the main power in the mine came back on. Across the silo in the control room, she saw Wilson look around in surprise. He looked down at the console, then back up at Clare, concern written on his face.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ she said softly to herself.

  Wilson’s voice came over her headset.

  ‘Captain, I think you’d better take a look at this.’

  Clare sensed that something was terribly wrong. She tore off her headset and ran out of the cabin, along the docking corridor, and back round to the control room.

  Wilson swivelled in his seat, and pointed at a display that had started up. They appeared to be showing warnings of some kind.

  ‘I don’t like the look of this,’ he said. ‘The reactor’s just started up, but the power levels are climbing out of control.’

  Clare leaned closer, and her mouth fell open as she saw the warning messages.

  ‘I think we’d better try to get hold of—’

  She didn’t get any further. Her words were lost behind a klaxon that blared out in the control room, followed by the strident warning: ‘Danger – pressure loss. Danger – pressure loss.’

  Trained to act instantly at the sound of such a warning, both of them dived for the emergency close button, which would slam the pressure doors shut and isolate the silo from the rest of the mine.

  �
�They’re not responding!’ Wilson yelled, above the rising roar of air in the passage outside. The security camera confirmed the truth; the pressure doors at the entrance to the silo complex remained stubbornly open, no matter how many times he hit the emergency button.

  The full force of the escaping atmosphere reached them a moment later; a tornado of air tore round the silo complex, scattering debris and dust into the air. Clare and Wilson dived for cover, grabbing the heavy leg supports of the control console to stop themselves from being sucked out and into the passage.

  Outside, in the rest of the mine, a huge river of air coursed up and out of the mine, swirling along the empty passages, emptying out into space through the opening hangar doors.

  Suddenly, a sound like a crack of thunder exploded in the passage outside, and a long, low rumble shook the complex. On the security camera displays, the view of the open pressure doors vanished behind a grey curtain. The rush of air faded, and a dense cloud of grey dust erupted into the control room, covering Clare and Wilson where they sheltered under the console.

  A faint pattering of falling debris faded, and Clare looked up in amazement. The mine had vented, but incredibly they were still alive; what had happened?

  Wilson stood up and blew dust off the monitors, and whistled. ‘Shit. The passage collapsed, look.’ He pointed to where, a few moments before, a view of the main airway had stretched off into the distance. Now, all that remained was a vast pile of broken rock where the roof fall had been. The roof had collapsed completely, sealing the passage.

  ‘What’s the O2 partial pressure?’ Clare demanded as she stood up. It could already be too low to sustain them, and they could black out without warning.

  ‘Uhh, it’s just above the red line – point one six bar.’

  Just enough to survive on, Clare thought. She tried to piece together what had happened, and crossed to the display that had been showing warnings before the mine breached. To her horror, she watched as the air pressure outside the silo continued to fall; in moments, there would be nothing left. The huge mine was emptying completely; every scrap of air exhausting through the open hangar doors, and the open pressure doors throughout the mine.