by Bob Lee
“Ah, that is where I used inspiration,” Sergey said. “I modeled the treads after the famous T-80 Soviet tanks of the past. I attached small metal plates all along the treads to protect them. And I’ve grounded the whole mechanism so that any shocks are diverted around the electronics. If there really is something alive out there that disabled the rover previously, it will have to come up with some other tricks.”
“Good work, Serge,” said Commander Grant as he patted him on the shoulder. “You’ve done wonders in just a short time. Let’s pack it up and get going. I want you with us in case anything goes wrong with the rover. Chuck, as the mission biologist I want you along in case there really is something alive out there. Pack some spades and pickaxes also in case we need to dig. Brad, you stay here. We need someone at the base who can control the rover remotely and you’ve had the most experience. I want the rest of you ready in fifteen minutes.”
# # #
Probe Spit carefully inserted the inheritance instructions into the completed nest. The nest would nurture the Master as it grew, and provide the knowledge modules for learning at each correct stage. The Master would emerge in two months’ time, fully formed and with complete comprehension of the entire history and technology of its kind.
The probe had worried over the problem of how to protect itself should the bipeds return. It had combed the archives for all defensive mechanisms, both passive and active. Since it needed to conserve its resources for the Master, the probe wanted to use only the current assets of three hoppers and two electro-biosynths. It had finally settled on an ancient tried and true technique.
Spit directed the biosynths to a nearby crater, with instructions to create a smooth area in the center, with rocks placed in a circle around it. The synths would then disgorge some biological material in the form of a tube in the middle of the circle. This would attract the alien creatures. Additional instructions told the synths to go to the rim of the crater, and dig a series of pits underneath the sand leading towards the center. Any significant weight would collapse the sand, causing an approaching object to become trapped. Two hoppers would remain at Spit’s crater to monitor the situation, and the third hopper was directed to the decoy crater. The synths were given their final instructions, and dispatched.
The probe was satisfied. At worst, if the bipeds returned, they would retrieve worthless material from the decoy crater and be diverted. At best, the electro-biosynths might eliminate the threat.
# # #
Grant was once again at the helm of the MMTV transport, while Charles and Sergey discussed the situation. The modified rover was strapped outside on the trailer, along with a few digging implements.
“The guidance system shows that we’re almost back to where the rover was initially disabled,” Grant said. “When I stop, I want the two of you go out and free the rover from the trailer and lower it to the sand. When you’re done, come back inside and I’ll give Brad the go ahead to send the rover forward.”
“Shouldn’t we stay out there in case the rover runs into trouble?” Charles asked.
“No. I want everyone safely in here in case there is any danger. We’re going to rely on Serge’s enhancements, and I will decide what we do once I see if there is any activity.” He checked the navigation display, and then looked out the windshield. “That’s weird. I don’t see any wheel marks from when I stopped last time and turned around, but the display shows we’re at the same location. I’m stopping now anyway.”
Grant pulled up and directed the other two astronauts to dispatch the rover. Charles and Sergey walked to the rear of the transport, and stepped into the two click-suits located there. In a moment, the backs of the suits pivoted down and locked in place, and the transport separating panel closed. They each stepped out onto the trailer.
“Serge, you lower the ramp, and I’ll detach the rover,” Charles said over the suit radio.
“Da,” Sergey said, as he walked around the rover to the rear of the trailer. While there, he surveyed the Martian surface. “Does this look like the location where the rover was disabled? There are no marks of any kind in the sand.”
“I’m not sure,” Charles said. “That might be the crater I went to over there, but there’s another one next to it on the left that could be it too. I think we’ll need the rover to reconnoiter a few of these craters. I’m done, so come over here and help me push the rover. It’s too awkward for me to do it alone with all of this metal you put around the rover for protection.”
Sergey moved back to stand beside Charles, and the two of them managed to get the rover rolling. It picked up speed as it went down the ramp, and the new improvised prow dug nose first into the sand at the bottom. “Damn, we didn’t think of that!” Charles said. “What do we do now?”
“I have an idea. Commander, please move the transport forward slowly. The nose of the rover is stuck on the surface, with the rest of the rover still on the ramp,” Serge said over the radio. “Charles, you and I will push as the transport moves.”
The transport started with a lurch. “Now,” Sergey encouraged. The two astronauts pushed, and the ramp suddenly slid out from under the rover. Both of the astronauts tumbled to the surface.
“It’s a good thing these suits are both flexible and tough,” Charles said with a laugh as he got up and dusted himself off. “Hey, Brad. You didn’t get that on video back at the habitat, did you?”
“Yes, I did,” Brad replied. “The camera was pointed right at you. You and Serge will owe me big time for keeping your Keystone Kops routine from being transmitted to Earth.”
“Alright you clowns, enough fun. Get back in here,” Grant said over the radio.
Serge and Charles climbed up the ramp, and went up to the transport and turned around. As they touched their backs to the rear wall, they pressed a panel with their hands, which opened the transport wall and then opened the backs of their suits. The astronauts then simply stepped backwards into the transport compartment, and walked over to Grant. “Okay, we’re back,” Charles said.
Grant gave the command to Brad over the radio. “Go ahead Brad. Start the rover moving. We’ll monitor it here also.” On the dashboard, the three astronauts watched the video feed in tense silence as the rover moved forward towards the nearest crater rim. The seconds slowly ticked by.
“Wait,” Charles urged. “I saw something diagonally to the left at ten o’clock. Turn the camera that way, Brad.” The astronauts watched as the camera panned to the left and stopped. An eerie silence settled on them as nothing moved.
“I swear I saw something out there,” Charles said.
“There doesn’t seem to be any…,” Grant started to say when all three astronauts shouted in surprise! A snake had jumped up onto the front of the rover! It then slithered off in the direction the rover camera was pointed.
“Holy Moly!” Grant shouted. “Brad, turn left and go after it!”
The three astronauts watched the video feed as the snake-like creature slithered off towards another crater. “Can’t you make it go any faster, Brad? It’s getting away!” yelled Charles.
“The rover is not designed to chase,” said Sergey. “It looks like Brad is going at top speed already.”
“We’re going to lose it. It’s going to go up over that crater lip,” Charles said. “We can’t let it get away.”
“Brad, fire the ChemCam laser at it. You might be able to slow it down,” Grant ordered over the radio.
“What? No, don’t shoot it! Aim in front of it instead,” Charles yelled.
“Belay that,” Grant ordered. “Try to disable it, Brad.”
The three astronauts watched as various puffs appeared on the Martian surface as the laser hit rocks and dust with each pulse. “You’re missing it,” Grant observed.
“The laser’s invisible, you know, and I can only see it when it hits something,” Brad barked back over the radio. “It wasn’t designed to be fired on the run at a moving object!”
“Darn, we lost it!
It went over the crater rim,” Charles said dejectedly.
“Brad, keep moving in that direction. Maybe we’ll spot it when you get over the top and look into the crater,” Grant ordered.
The three astronauts watched tensely as the rover approached the crater and went up to the top of the lip. As it reached the top and started into the crater, the whole view canted to the left and stopped.
“What happened?” Sergey asked.
“I don’t know,” Brad said. “The rover’s stuck. And I can’t look down at the treads because of the metal deck surrounding the rover. Can you see anything out the MMTV window?”
The three astronauts looked up from the video display, and in the distance could see the top of the rover sticking up over the rim of the crater. It was tilted to the left and not moving.
“Oh no!” they heard Brad exclaim over the radio. “There are two of those creatures, and they’re attacking the rover. It looks like they can’t get through the metal, though. Wait…they’re climbing up. They’ve reached the neck of the camera! I can’t see them.”
The astronauts could see through the window that two snake creatures were clinging to the rover camera rod and moving towards the top. Grant heard a click behind him and turned around just in time to see the panel to one of the click-suits close.
“Serge! Where are you going! Get back here immediately!” he yelled into the radio.
“I am not letting those creatures get my poor rover again!” Sergey exclaimed back through his helmet communicator.
“Chuck, take the other click-suit and go bring him back immediately before that fool gets himself killed. I’ll be out to help after I put on the spare spacesuit.”
Charles hurled himself at the rear of the MMTV and into the second click-suit. In a moment he had separated from the transport. He could see Sergey running over the lip of the crater by the rover. He was waving a shovel that he held in one hand. Through Charles’ helmet radio he heard Sergey yell, “Get away from my rover, you…” and then a string of Russian expletives.
Charles looked around and saw one of Brad’s pick axes lying on the trailer bed. He picked it up and kangaroo hopped after Sergey. He could see that Sergey had reached the rover and was flailing with the shovel at the two snake-like creatures. “Hold on, Serge. I’m coming. I’ll be there in thirty seconds,” he yelled.
Sergey swatted at the two snakes that were entwined around the neck of the rover. “Aha,” he yelled as he managed a baseball swing that sent one of the electro-biosynths flying. The effort of his swing caused him to over rotate, and he fell to the ground, his shovel spinning out of his hands. He quickly jumped up from the ground and climbed onto the metal deck addition he had added to the rover, and reached for the other beast that was still clinging to the rover neck column. It had almost reached the top where the optics and laser were.
Charles breasted the crater rim about five feet from the rover. “No, don’t grab it with your …,” he started to shout, when he saw Sergey pull the snake creature from the rover by the middle of its body. The biosynth reared its ugly head.
“I’ve got you now!” Sergey shouted as the biosynth struck at his forearm. As it was designed to do, the biosynth released its electric charge in a jolt as it bit through the layers of the suit, passing through the hydrogen impregnated cosmic ray protection layer and into the suit’s atmosphere.
KABLAM!
Sergey spun and fell down onto the deck of the rover. The creature he was holding went flying away in two pieces, the head in one direction and the body in another. “Emergency, suit breach detected; emergency, suit breach detected,” Sergey heard a female computer voice say through his helmet. “Warning, cinching elbow, obtain medical relief,” the female voice continued.
Sergey groaned. His forearm felt like it was on fire. He slapped his other hand over the hole, before realizing that it didn’t matter, since that part of his suit was now closed off. “Chyort!” he cursed in Russian.
Charles hopped up on top of the rover next to Sergey. He had heard the blast through his suit radio as a whoosh, and had felt only a mild puff against him as he had watched Serge fall over and the creature go flying apart. “Serge, are you okay?” he asked. “Commander, Serge needs a medical kit now. He’s had a breach.”
“Damn it!” Serge cursed, in English this time. “Did you see that? It bit me! Where did it go?”
Charles looked around. The head of the creature that had bit Sergey was snapping futilely in the sand with its body flopping a few feet away. Then he saw the other slithering life form that Sergey had swatted away with his shovel. It had recovered, and was coming back at them. “Brad,” he shouted through the radio. “That other one’s approaching. Can you scare it off with the laser?”
“I can’t,” Brad said back. “You and Serge are in the way. You’ve got to move.”
Charles heard Grant through his radio. “I’ve opened the transport and am on my way with a patch kit for Serge. Hold on for a few more seconds.”
Charles decided that he could not wait for the commander’s arrival since the beast was closing and Sergey was helpless. He elected to meet the creature head on. He hopped down from the rover and started towards the beast with his pick axe. The thing in front of him stopped and reared its head, almost like a cobra. It then retreated backwards slowly. Charles stepped forward, brandishing his axe. The thing retreated once more. “I’d really prefer to capture it, but how am I going to get at this thing without getting bit like Serge?” he thought.
Charles took another step, and felt the sand immediately give way! He threw up his arms, placing the axe in front of him to halt his fall, and came to rest waist deep in the sand. The creature chose that moment to attack. It struck, but Charles managed to deflect it with the axe. “Brad, help!” he yelled into his radio.
“Duck sideways, now!” he heard Brad shout back.
Charles threw his head down to the right, and saw a puff of smoke on the left side of the creature. It fell writhing to the ground. “Bingo!” he heard Brad exalt through the radio. “It was a lot easier to get a laser hit without the rover bouncing around and that thing standing up instead of moving through the sand.”
“I meant for you to distract it, not hit it!” Charles yelled.
“Well, that’s a bunch of thanks,” Brad said. A second later, Brad yelled, “Oops, there it goes! It’s still alive and trying to get away!”
The biologist saw the creature slithering away, but it had definitely been affected by the ChemCam laser. It was traveling slowly and fairly ineffectively. Charles wriggled and used the pick end of his axe to pull himself out of the sand. He looked ahead, and saw that his adversary had stopped in a circle of rocks, next to some small tube, almost like it was protecting it, and once more took up its cobra stance.
“Wow, it’s fairly intelligent,” he thought. “It almost looks like it’s protecting a baby. I’d best be careful.” He slowly circled the creature, thrusting his pick axe forward to keep it at bay. The thing made a lunge at the axe and then returned to its upright stance. Its movements had slowed considerably. Charles made a feint. The thing made a half-hearted lunge, and as it was stretched out flat, Charles raised the pick axe, and brought the point down mid-body, pinning the creature to the ground. It flailed, but was securely trapped. “I’ve got it, but now how am I going to bag it?” he thought.
# # #
Probe Spit had seen enough. The electro-biosynths had failed to eliminate the bipeds. Although the synths seemed to have wounded one of the aliens, the creatures had some sort of protective explosive shell as a last resort. This was most interesting.
As the synths were about to be captured, the probe gave the self-destruct command to them. They had succeeded in diverting the aliens and were now expendable. The hopper monitoring the decoy crater was given the command to return as covertly as possible. The hopper tucked its legs and rolled down the far lip of the crater, and proceeded to hop around the outside of it, away from the eyes of the al
iens.
Spit noticed that a third creature had emerged from the large transport a few moments ago, and had left a large gaping hole in its side. This was too good an opportunity to miss. The probe gave a command to the one of the two hoppers located at its crater. It was told to leave its post to approach and enter the transport if it was vacant. No doubt the creatures would be too busy in the decoy crater to notice the small hopper’s movements. The probe would decide what to do once it had gathered more intelligence from the hopper.
# # #
Commander Grant ran up to Sergey and opened the emergency medical kit. “I’m here, buddy. Just hold on for a bit more,” he said. The commander grabbed a spray can of synthetic skin and squirted it into the hole in Sergey’s suit. “There, that has anesthetic and should help,” he said. Grant then took out a patch and pulled the exposed tab to reveal the adhesive backing. He smoothed it over the hole and said, “Wait a minute for it to set, Serge, and then give your computer the command to test the suit.”
“Um, Grant? I could use a little help over here next,” Charles said through his radio. “This thing is squirming all around and I can’t let go of the axe to capture it. Watch out for the head of the other one, though. It’s lying on the ground somewhere between us along with its body.”
“Okay, I’m coming over now,” Grant said.
“What? Oh no, the creature is melting away!” Charles yelled. “It’s happening just like that weird rock that I found before. There’s nothing but sand left! Quick, Grant, see what’s happening to the other one.”
Grant hopped off the rover, and walked over to where he could see something in the sand. “I see a coiled body, Chuck, but no head. I guess that’s gone.”
“Hurry! Put the body in a sample container. Hopefully it will keep by the time we get it back to the habitat lab,” Charles said. “I’ll grab the sandy remains of this thing, and whatever object it seemed to be protecting.”
Charles carefully scooped up some of the sand that was once the creature. He was then careful to use the pick end of the axe to pull towards him the small tube of material in the center of the circle. “Fool me once, creature. You’re not getting me to walk blindly into another pit trap, that’s for sure,” he thought.