“Regulus,” Steenini called back. Lindy was in no way surprised that his friend had been so readily able to supply him with the answer. The man never forgot anything, or so it seemed.
Lindy turned back to the dog. “Okay, Regulus,” he said slowly, “if you understand me, nod your head like this.” He demonstrated. The dog dutifully nodded in return. “All right. So nodding your head means yes is the answer to any question. Do you understand?” Lindy continued to speak very slowly and clearly, like a tutor addressing an underachieving child. The black hound reciprocated with another nod. “Great,” Lindy said, mildly excited now, but still using the same tone and cadence. “If the answer to a question is no, paw the ground. Do you understand?” The dog nodded again, but only after rolling his eyes mightily. The gesture was not lost on Lindy. “All right, sorry,” he said defensively, “but I’m not used to speaking with members of the animal kingdom.” He began to question the dog anew, only this time with greater rapidity and in his normal voice.
After a short session he found that Regulus knew where more medical supplies could be found and wanted to take Beccassit to them. Lindy communicated his findings to the doctor, who readily agreed to accompany the dog but refused to leave until he had stanched O’Keefe’s bleeding as much as possible with the supplies at hand. Lindy turned to inform the animal but it had obviously heard every word. The canine nodded and gave Lindy another sarcastic look before the pilot could even begin to speak. Lindy struggled to find an appropriate retort to the dog’s silent deprecation, started to say something uncharitable, but at length merely muttered, “Yeah,” and turned back to Beccassit.
The doctor was by now almost finished sewing up O’Keefe, with Steenini following behind him bandaging the long gashes. Immediately after he tightly taped a dressing over O’Keefe’s last visible wound he sprang to his feet as quickly as his maltreated body would allow and spoke urgently to Regulus. “I need access to the colony network,” he said to the dog. “If I can get into the system, I think I can arrange for us to get out of here. But I need an interface. I assume there is one in Elorak’s quarters, but I don’t know how to get there. Can you help me?”
The big alpha nodded and almost immediately one of the larger dogs, one with a dusty, golden coat, broke from the circle around them. It trotted over and sat attentively before Regulus. After a moment, it moved to lie down on the floor beside Steenini with its head on its forepaws, just as the hounds in the corridor had done previously. There it remained while Steenini stood waiting and unsure of what to do.
“What does this mean? What does it want?” he finally asked in exasperation. At that, Regulus stepped behind him and unceremoniously grabbed Steenini’s waistband in his teeth, hoisting the Akadean’s scrawny body into the air. The dog then deposited him onto the back of the other hound.
The animal was up and moving before Steenini was fully aware of what was happening. He grabbed at the beast’s thick coat in a panic, seeking handholds and gradually pulling himself further up the dog’s back until he was able to wrap his arms tightly around its neck. The dog then broke into a dead run across the arena and disappeared into the access tunnel, Steenini holding on for dear life, his howls of protest at their speed echoing from the mouth of the exit.
Lindy shook his head in wonder. He would have laughed at the sight if there had been any laughter left in him. But before he could ponder the implications of that thought the doctor was up and at his side. He motioned toward O’Keefe, whom he had turned to once more lie on his back. “Stay with him,” he said. “I believe he is stable now. If he comes to, just keep him still and his legs elevated until I get back.” Lindy nodded his understanding.
Beccassit turned to Regulus. “Let’s get those supplies,” he said. “And if you don’t mind and it’s not too far, I’ll walk. I’m too frail to be bounced around on the back of a sprinting dog if it is not absolutely necessary.” The dog nodded its acceptance and the two of them walked away together, Regulus anxious for more celerity and the doctor huffing and puffing along as quickly as he was able. Lindy was left alone with O’Keefe inside the ring of overwrought canines, all of them still taut from battle.
He took a seat on the floor next to his unconscious friend, wishing to help him, but not knowing anything further to do. At length, he simply took one of O’Keefe’s limp hands in his own and held it, patting the top of it every so often. Minutes passed, stretching into over a half hour, and still the doctor did not return. Lindy began to wonder if something had gone wrong but quickly put those thoughts aside as the ring of dogs still sat looking outward vigilantly, apparently no more agitated that before. He sensed that if something did go awry, his first hint of it would be increasing turmoil within their ranks.
As he watched, the beasts on one side all turned their eyes in a single direction. Lindy followed their gaze, standing and hopping up and down to catch glimpses of the arena floor between the dogs’ shoulders. Beccassit and Regulus were making their way quickly toward him. The dog carried a large leather bag gently between his teeth while the doctor held what appeared to be a rolled up stretcher in his arms. Seconds later Beccassit was yet again kneeling beside O’Keefe.
“I’m sorry to have been gone for so long,” he muttered to Lindy, “but I needed to type and collect some blood. The dog took me to an automated clinic that I knew nothing about. It was hidden in Elorak’s quarters. It looks as if it was one of the first places on the dogs’ list of areas to secure and guard once they disposed of the lizards. Your friend was already there, working at a computer terminal; he helped us gain entry into the infirmary. There is everything we need in there and more. I’ll have Hill here as good as new in no time. But first I need to get some blood into him.”
As he was speaking Beccassit had been pulling various components out of the bag that the dog had been carrying and was busily attaching one to another. A hook to a telescoping shaft of metal, the shaft to a tripod base, some clear tubing to a needle, and a transparent bag of bright red blood to the tubing. Beccassit hung the bag from the now elevated hook and quickly inserted the needle into O’Keefe’s arm. Shortly, the life-giving serum was dripping slowly into O’Keefe’s veins. Next Beccassit pulled a pistol-grip injector from the bag and began shooting measured doses of antibiotics and painkillers through the aberrant’s skin.
“All right,” he said when he was done. “Let’s get him on the stretcher and then take him up to the infirmary. There’s a molecular knitter up there that I can use to close his wounds. Once that is done I can take those stitches out straight away. It should keep the scarring to a minimum.”
Lindy and Beccassit gently pulled O’Keefe up onto his side, placed the stretcher as close to his back as they were able, and then rolled him over and on top of the canvas litter. Lindy then grasped the two handles at one end while a stranger wandering the floor was recruited to lift the stretcher from the other. The doctor walked at O’Keefe’s side, directing the aberrant’s bearers and carefully holding the transfusion assembly where it would not pull the needle from O’Keefe’s arm. The dogs, meanwhile, formed a moving shield, clearing the way, while Regulus walked opposite Beccassit, refusing to leave O’Keefe’s side.
Thankfully they did not have far to go. In the space of only a few minutes they reached a large, unapt steel door built into an opening in the ubiquitous stone walls. Several blood covered tank hulls were scattered randomly about the area and the floor was littered with the gruesome remains of reptilian guards. The door, round and nearly a foot thick, was ajar and guarded by several canines. One of them employed a clumsy paw to push it completely open as the group of humans carefully approached through the gore. Beyond the door was a burnished chamber, clearly an elevator. Lindy and the stranger placed O’Keefe inside as Beccassit followed. Not to be left behind, Regulus nosed his way in as well.
The dog’s form nearly filled the car. It was enough to make the stranger bolt from the lift; he disappeared, running, back into the crowd outside. Chills ran d
own Lindy’s spine. The dogs all seemed more helpful than dangerous now, but Lindy had feared the beasts for so long that the emotion that gripped him was visceral and quite beyond his control. To be locked into a confined space with one of the animals was almost too much for him to bear. He glanced at the doctor with protests in his eyes.
Beccassit, however, did not seem to be affected by the presence of the animal at all nor did he seem in any way aware of Lindy’s disquiet. Instead he touched a control panel next to him as if he were merely changing floors in the Union Academy of Sciences library. Inner door panels slid horizontally and silently shut before them. As soon as the panels were secure Lindy felt a lurch and then the slightly stomach-sickening sensation of rising at great speed. It did not last long. In only moments it abruptly ceased, and his heels felt lighter against the floor as the car rapidly decelerated to a halt. The door opened and the elevator was flooded with light; extraordinary, blinding light. More light than Lindy’s optic nerves could endure. He winced, turning his head away and instinctively squinting as his arm flew up to cover his face.
“I’m sorry Willet,” Beccassit said with genuine concern. “I should have warned you. Living below, you’ve not seen natural light for months. Stand still for a moment, and let your eyes adjust. They haven’t forgotten how; they’re just not used to it.” Lindy obeyed, and slowly he was able to take his arm from before his eyes and more slowly still part his eyelids from their squint. “There,” Beccassit said soothingly. “Better?” Lindy nodded an affirmative. “Good. Now let’s get our man here into the infirmary. Quickly now.”
Lindy picked up his end of the stretcher, two fingers of his right hand grasping the transfusion shaft as well, and followed the doctor’s lead until they were placing O’Keefe atop a medical table in what was, aside from bloody footprints, an immaculate infirmary. No mote of the ever-present rock dust floated in the air here; the infirmary fairly reeked of sterility. In response Lindy unconsciously wiped his always soiled hands on his stained gray trousers. The doctor ignored him, going right to work on O’Keefe and leaving Lindy to feel useless and in the way. He turned and shuffled out into Elorak’s former rooms.
He discovered they were enclosed in a large, transparent environmental dome. It was all that protected them from the poisonous atmosphere of the planet. Above him an enormous star hung in the yellowish sky, baking the barren and lifeless surface to oven-like temperatures. A sea of desolation surrounded the structure; rock strewn, arid soil punctuated by huge, craggy outcroppings of chiseled mountainous stone stretched out in every direction; as far as the eye could see. The vista spread before him made him shudder. He had never before spent time on a world so desolate. But more shocking still was the sight that came into view as he approached the wall of the enclosure. In the outside area immediately adjacent to Elorak’s quarters were spread the remnants of human beings, all in various stages of decomposition ranging from skeletal remains to blackened bodies. It was an abject explanation of what became of the favored who were taken up into their goddess’s quarters. Apparently the last pleasure they were able to offer her was the sight of their own choking, broiling deaths.
Lindy turned away, sickened; and began to survey other aspects of his late tormentor’s residence. The interior of the dome was starkly antithetic to the nature of its surrounds. It was fastidiously clean and ornately furnished, separated into rooms by walls whose top edges were the only reference point defining the extent of the dome. Artwork hung everywhere, and beneath his feet the carpet sank luxuriously at his every step. He walked to a sofa and took a seat, the faux leather enfolding him as the padding beneath conformed to the now sharp edges of his body. Laying his head back and closing his eyes, he relished the comfort he had stumbled into. It was a far cry from the straw mattress he had bunked on since his arrival.
To his left and further back in the dome, he suddenly heard muffled curses and recognized them as coming from Steenini. He forced himself to rise and followed the sound of the expletives, passing several sadistic looking restraining devices, until he entered a sleeping chamber and found his friend bent over a virtual keyboard, oblivious to his entry. Lindy fell loudly into the softness of the large bed that dominated the room, eliciting a start and a frightful glance from his friend, who had been sitting with his back to where Lindy now lay. “You scared me,” he said, turning back to his work. “I didn’t know there was anyone else up here.”
“I helped the doctor bring Hill in. He is working on him now in the infirmary. From what he said, I think it is all good news. It appears that our aberrant friend is going to be fine, and in the not too distant future. So all we need to do now is get off this repugnant planet.”
“Don’t fret, mate. I’m presently endeavoring to accomplish that very thing.”
Lindy sat up on the side of the bed and took a position directly behind Steenini’s right shoulder. “What are you doing exactly?” he asked.
“I am attempting to hack into the command functions of the colony network, or more precisely I am trying to make the command functions respond.” His fingers worked the keyboard furiously even as he conversed with Lindy. “I had none of the problems that I had foreseen getting in, but for some reason, even though the system appears to be accepting my commands, nothing is happening. I’m not sure what the problem is. This would be so much easier if I had voice actuation, but I don’t have the tools to trick the thing into giving me that. Damn!” he suddenly expostulated.
“What?” asked Lindy, seeing nothing worthy of note on the display and a little shaken by his seeing his genius friend exasperated.
“It’s the same thing all over again. See? Look here.” He typed in a long sequence of keystrokes. “I just commanded the system to close off access to the dock area, and the network accepted the command. Right now all the blast doors leading to the docking hangar should be closing. But I’m not getting any confirmation of that here on this board. And watch this.” He quickly typed in new commands and the display came alive with a half dozen video feeds sectioned across the screen, each showing an open doorway, guarded by two or more dogs. “There. I’ve got video feeds from all over the colony. Apparently anything deemed to be of critical importance is monitored constantly by the colony network. These are the entrances to the storerooms surrounding the dock. Not one door has moved an inch, and they should all be closed and locked down tight by now. Something’s not right here.” Then more to himself than to Lindy, he added, “I think I’ll check the power systems. Maybe there is some glitch there.”
Lindy watched as Steenini worked his way expertly into the power grid. Screens flashed by so quickly on the monitor that Lindy could not follow clearly what Steenini was doing or where he was going. Schematics gave way to video feeds, each showing various pipes and pumps, some partially obscured by jetting steam. Then there were feeds showing various scenes of destruction, one shot after another of areas covered with debris. Finally the view settled into a sectioned screen of several rubble filled shafts and corridors. “This is not good,” Steenini muttered. “This is not good at all.”
“What do you mean?” Lindy demanded, still confused.
“The network computers are operating perfectly, and we still have plenty of power, at least for the time being. Neither one of those things is the problem. That’s why it was so easy for me to get in, because the network doesn’t care.” As he spoke Steenini shook his head gravely, his face falling into an expression of embittered despair. “The Vazileks couldn’t care less whether we hack into the system. It doesn’t make any difference. This isn’t a computer problem or a power problem, it’s mechanical. The mechanical interfaces that actually do the work have been destroyed. Even the repair bots and the towing vehicles have self-destructed. That’s why so many things are not working. Apparently the systems were rigged to render themselves inoperative in the event of Elorak’s death. She must have had some sort of implanted sensor that set the program in motion.”
“So what?” asked Lindy
. “We just repair the damage by hand. We have plenty of time and all we have to do is get the hangar doors open and then we just leave.”
“I wish that were true, Willet,” Steenini said flatly, swiveling in his chair as he spoke so he could face Lindy without turning his head. “But we don’t have plenty of time. The power for the colony is generated by fission reactors buried deep beneath the complex. The coolant lines are breached, the repair bots are destroyed, and the access tunnels are blocked with rubble. The reactor cores are all in the process of melting down. And there is nothing we can do to stop it. Even if we could somehow dig our way to the pumps, we’d never be able to repair them, and it is too late anyway. Soon we will have no power except the emergency batteries, and after that, nothing. There will be no air purification. It will simply be a matter of how much rubble is blocking the access tunnels as to whether we die from asphyxiation or radiation exposure.”
Both men were silent for some time before Lindy jumped up from the bed where he sat and began to stalk about the room ranting. “Fission plants? For the love of Stirga, who still builds fission plants? What is wrong with those people? What kind of fools are the Vazileks?”
“The kind of fools that are cheap and don’t mind killing people,” Steenini said quietly.
“Yeah,” Lindy answered with a sigh. He sat down heavily on the bed once more and his face fell into his hands, while he searched every corner of his mind for a way out.
“There has to be some way to get those doors open. That’s all we need.” His voice was muffled, as it came from between his palms. “Once we’re on board the ships we don’t even need the air.” His mind raced from one line of reasoning to another and back again, yet still he could find no possible solution. They had no cutting tools, no robots at their disposal, and soon they would have no power. All they had were the borers. They were independently powered, so they would still operate even after the electricity died, but what good were they? He could think of no way to raise a borer to the level of the hangar doors, and even if it were possible, and one of the machines managed to drill a hole through the ceiling of the hangar, without the field generators to contain the colony air, all they would accomplish would be to evacuate most of the breathable atmosphere to the outside. And once the pressure was equalized the colony would be open to the toxic surrounds of Ashawzut. The first hole opened would rob them of their air and in all likelihood kill them before any larger opening could be excavated. What they needed was something that would make a nice big hole in a nice big hurry.
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