Mars Descent (Cladespace Book 2)

by Corey Ostman

Grace considered the question. “We’re not necessarily his target. His primary target, at least.”

  “What do you think is going on, then, Grace?” Richard asked. “What we thought before? Thorium scavengers?”

  “I can’t see the big picture yet,” said Grace. “But it seems we’re in for some surprises we may not be equipped to handle.”

  The members of the group, standing or sitting in a crooked circle, were silent. Grace felt calm descend. She was coming down from the adrenaline rush, but instead of shaking, she found herself refocusing her will.

  “I’m going after Quint. I’m going after the Essex. The robots. The truth,” said Grace.

  Tim’s voice sprang into her helmet. “I’m going forward. I’m with you.”

  “Me too,” Anna said.

  “Raj?”

  “I don’t think I can find my way back to the ship anyway,” Raj said looking at Anna.

  “You know I need to see the Essex, Grace. There’s no choice,” Richard said.

  Grace nodded and turned to Planar.

  “You said there’s a way across the chasm?”

  Chapter 32

  The group stood with Planar in front of a sheer rock wall. Their helmets lit the surface a deep orange. Tiny blue silicates winked back.

  “Now what?” Grace said. “A secret door?”

  The corners of Planar’s mouth turned up slightly.

  “No. We go up,” he said, patting the wall.

  Grace looked closer. There were narrow slots in the stone, smooth and evenly spaced. The slots continued up the wall and ended at an opening four meters above. She put her hand in a slot. It was flat for a few centimeters and then opened downwards. Good holds.

  Planar climbed first: no missteps, no pauses. He moved like the machine he was. Tendrils of red dust slid down as he ascended. She hoped it didn’t mean the slots were easily eroded.

  “Richard, you go next,” Grace said, touching his arm. “Mazz, follow Richard up in case he needs any assistance.”

  Human and robot ascended the wall with no difficulties. Grace felt a twinge of guilt over singling out Richard for help. He was older, of course, but he was still in excellent shape.

  Anna helped Raj get a foothold and then followed him up. Grace watched them closely. Raj wasn’t much of a climber, she knew. But they made it to the top without mishap.

  “What about me?” Tim’s voice rang in her dermal dot.

  “Go ahead,” Grace commed. “I’ll go up last.”

  “Funny.”

  She swept a hand upward, stepping back. “I could hurl you up.”

  “Again. Funny.”

  Grace grinned and scooped up the PodPooch with her left arm.

  “This is entirely undignified,” grumbled Tim.

  Grace fitted one handhold, then paused. She looked down at Tim.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Before we go up, how are you doing with the robots—with Planar? Are you still hearing them? What they’re thinking?”

  “Yes, but only murmurs now.”

  “I wish I knew what Planar was thinking,” Grace said. “I just don’t—”

  “Trust him?” Tim interrupted. “All of my available data shows that he is functioning rationally. I’m not detecting any deviations implying deception.”

  “We’ll see,” said Grace. “But you might be deluding yourself. The Tim seems to be a local deity.”

  “Then I’m probably late for a red carpet,” said Tim dryly. “Let’s get going.”

  It wasn’t a long climb, and Grace moved quickly. She hauled herself up at the top and looked around. Raj and Anna’s helmet lights danced along the smooth walls. Richard turned his helmet ahead, the visible light dissipating slowly as a dark tunnel stretched before them. The room at the top of the wall was not natural. It had the same precise angles as the slots, and dust was nonexistent on the rocky floor.

  “What is this place, Planar?” Tim asked, wriggling free of Grace.

  “We constructed it twelve years ago,” Planar said. “It was a bypass when the main cavern collapsed.”

  “How long did it take?” asked Tim.

  There was a pause and a tilt of the head. “Six days.”

  “Not possible,” Anna said. “Not even with two-hundred twofers. It would take roiders months with plasma cannons just to dissolve the rock—let alone remove it and then burnish a smooth surface.”

  “We had no such difficulty, nor required that amount of labor,” Planar said.

  “Then how, Planar?” Tim asked.

  “I did not inherit the details from Planar Three,” Planar said. “But others can answer your question.”

  Convenient, Grace thought. She hadn’t liked his answers to several questions now. She didn’t want him to lead them, either, but with Quint’s apparent cleverness, the only advantage they had was that Planar knew the area.

  “Lead the way, Planar,” Grace said. She wanted him in front.

  The long passage stretched further than Grace could see, cold blue in her IR overlay. According to her internal map, it was roughly parallel to the original fissure.

  She thumbed the intensity setting of the P86 at her side. It was still set at ‘10’: one-hundred percent for the triple burst delivered across the chasm. She ramped it down to seventy-five percent. In close quarters the blast would wake the dead and put them back to rest right after. No sense taking chances.

  “Do your people use this route often, Planar?” Raj asked.

  Planar shook his head. “No, we do not use it. Other than the last two days, I have never been through here. I do not believe others have used these tunnels in the last ten years. We needed them when the ship was being disassembled.”

  “The Essex,” Richard said.

  “Correct.”

  “So the ship is gone, then?”

  “It is not gone. Its parts are still in use.”

  Richard sighed. “And my grandfather. Did you know him?”

  “Your grandfather?”

  “Captain Archibald Archdale.”

  “Searching.” Planar paused. “I do not have complete recollection of that time. There are others who might.”

  Richard looked distressed. Grace knew he’d wanted to find the ship. She decided to steer the conversation in another direction.

  “Who is your leader?” she asked. “Do you have a captain?”

  “Euler is our captain,” Planar said.

  “What generation?” Raj said.

  “Excellent. You are beginning to understand our ways,” Planar said. “Our captain is Euler Three.”

  “Can we meet your captain?” Grace asked.

  Planar did not speak right away. Interesting, she thought. Was he distracted because he was communicating with someone else? Or perhaps he was like Mazz. She noticed that Richard’s robot often had difficulty processing unpredictable communication.

  “Perhaps,” Planar said at last.

  “The name sounds familiar,” Richard said. “Would Euler know about my grandfather?”

  “Euler has an unbroken memory from the beginning.”

  Grace wondered if Euler had a more advanced AI than Planar. Planar’s brain seemed limited as to its past. Perhaps Euler kept order by sharing information on a need-to-know basis. Grace looked over at Richard. Rather like her employer.

  They reached the end of the corridor. A steep drop led to inky blackness. Through her IR, Grace could make out a path below. Another ladder, then.

  “It is more difficult going down than up,” Planar said.

  And more dangerous. Quint was on this side.

  “Cover me.” Grace handed her phasewave to Anna.

  There was a brief moment of anxiety as her feet dangled over the edge, but the slots were so regular that she soon moved in an easy rhythm to the ground. Tim jumped after her, and the others descended one by one.

  Grace took her phasewave from Anna and checked her internal map. The computer had little to go by, but it was recording their progres
s.

  “Where are we now, Planar?”

  “Look ahead.”

  The ledge where they first saw Quint stretched before them. It was empty, as she suspected it would be. He wasn’t stupid enough to stay in an open area. Grace scanned with her IR vision.

  “All of you—wait here,” Grace said. “If there are fresh tracks, I don’t want them disturbed.”

  She moved onto the soft sand of the shelf. Immediately she saw clean prints: several tracks heading toward the ledge and back. Grace knelt to study them. She knew an erroneous conclusion would be easy to make. She had no way to know if these were Quint’s tracks or those of Essex twofers. Grace blinked through her helmet display for images of the first tracks she’d found by the Gusev ship. A positive match. Another positive match. Moments later, her helmet confirmed these were all tracks from a single suit.

  She stood. In one place, she saw a large, disturbed area with organic contours in the sand. That’s where he fell, she thought. When I shot him.

  He’d left the area shortly thereafter. The IR field was completely cold. To her left, she saw a set of tracks heading toward the chasm. She followed until she was a meter from the edge. Did Quint rappel into the chasm? Would he double back to the Scout?

  She was looking into the black abyss of the chasm when a tiny voice entered her helmet.

  “L-1R412, Sentry Ready. L-1R412, Sentry Ready.”

  Grace froze.

  She knew the metallic voice. It was a loafer waiting for instructions. Somewhere nearby was a weapons-capable robotic drone.

  Grace winked through her helmet menu and activated edge detection. The loafer might not be giving off a heat signature, but it couldn’t hide its rectilinear geometry in such a natural environment.

  “Raj,” she said, “We have a loafer present. Sounds like it’s in stasis, but just to be—”

  Her helmet showed a soft yellow glow thirty meters to her right. Multiple right angles. The loafer.

  “Grace?” Raj’s voice.

  “Hold on. I’m going in for a closer look,” she said.

  “L-1R412, Sentry Ready. L-1R412, Sentry Ready.”

  It did not respond to her approach. It was an older model, much like the units patrolling Red Fox Academy. She could see two phasewave cannons mounted on its right side, though retracted.

  “Raj, it’s a 1-R loafer. Know where the code switch is?”

  She heard Raj and Tim’s voices overlap, then Anna’s voice came through clearly.

  “Listen to me, Grace. They’re modified from the ones on Earth for the low atmosphere on Mars. Different propulsion pack and such. The code switch is on the left side, about half a meter from the top.”

  “Got it,” Grace said. “Here goes.”

  She approached the loafer, stopping at arms length. It hovered unmoving, the IR of its propulsion now visible, though still very close to background temperature.

  “I can see the switch.”

  Grace reached out and flipped the metarm toggle down. She jumped back as the loafer dropped the half meter to the ground.

  “Grace, are you ok?” Raj said. “I’ll come help—”

  “No. You all stay put. This unit is fully armed. It’s powered down right now, but I’m not trusting anything.”

  She looked at the control hive in the middle of the loafer body, shaped like an egg and painted red.

  “We have a red egg. One of yours, Planar?”

  “No,” Planar said.

  “I’m surprised it’s here,” Anna said. “Loafers have been out of date for ages. Nobody with work credits wants to use them anymore.”

  “Quint must have resurrected one before leaving Gusev,” Grace said. “And not for surveillance.”

  This one’s mine now, Quint.

  “Tim, can you join me?”

  “On my way, Grace.”

  “Stay clear of the tracks.”

  “Understood.”

  “Grace, are you sure you don’t want us to—” Raj said.

  “No. Stay put.”

  Grace saw the PodPooch chassis heading toward her. She switched to Tim’s private channel.

  “Tim, I’ve got a plan. Can you repurpose this loafer?”

  “You mean reprogram? Yes, of course.”

  “Can you make it hunt Quint?”

  “Yes.”

  “And attack him?”

  The PodPooch cocked his head.

  “Oh,” he said.

  Chapter 33

  Anna listened carefully to Grace’s talk about the loafer. She hadn’t encountered many loafers—they were such ancient technology—but she had gutted a few for parts. And she’d heard stories: they were tenacious, nasty brutes. Unlike twofers, loafers weren’t designed for constant interaction with humans, and their actions could be unpredictable in heavily social environments.

  This loafer seemed more of a distraction than a threat, however. Quint was still out there. She kept looking into the darkness beyond their helmet lights.

  “We need to get someplace safe,” Anna said.

  “Grace has it under control,” said Raj, but his eyes were as wary as hers.

  “How well does Grace know loafers?” Richard asked. “Don’t all protectors come from cloisters?”

  “She’s seen her share.”

  Planar turned from the ledge and faced all of them. He raised his arms above his head in a ‘V’ formation to get their attention. Anna found it strange and amusing. There were just three humans and a crusty twofer. They had all just survived a gunfight and adrenaline levels were high. It wasn’t the time to signal them like a politician with visiting dignitaries.

  “Everyone, if you will follow me, I will take you to safety inside.”

  “How far?” Richard asked.

  Planar pointed to a wall on his left.

  “That’s it?” asked Raj.

  “I am detecting a seam in the wall,” Mazz stated.

  Anna walked up to the wall. She scanned it, finally running her thumb down a nearly invisible seam.

  “Impressive,” she murmured.

  “No reason not to get a wall between us and the loafer, right?” said Raj.

  “Lead the way, Planar,” said Richard.

  Planar touched the wall and it opened noiselessly. Richard and Mazz stepped in.

  “I’ll send Tim a message,” Raj said.

  “Will they be able to see the wall?” Anna asked.

  “Tim will.”

  Anna and Raj stepped inside. Beyond the door, the tunnel appeared to be a resumption of the fissure that the chasm had interrupted, complete with climbing slots at intervals. There was little other evidence of modification: Planar’s twofers were using the natural formation. Unusual. Robots were normally more efficient: they would have altered the landscape to achieve a straight line. Here, the changes were minimal.

  “The big cavern with the chasm back there—what caused it to collapse?” Raj asked.

  Planar kept moving forward. “We tried to build there. The roof was unstable and could not handle excavation,” he said.

  “And this pathway is also unstable?”

  “Yes.”

  Anna frowned. Quint had chosen a good place for an armed loafer with self-destruct capability.

  “Why were you trying to enlarge the cavern?” Richard asked.

  “We needed more space,” Planar said. “Once you are inside, you will understand.”

  They walked for several hundred meters. Anna’s visor sensed a slight uptick in the ambient temperature.

  “It’s getting warmer, Planar,” she said.

  “Yes. Unlike most of the geyser, this area has constant geothermal activity.”

  “And that’s more stable?”

  “It’s more convenient.”

  Lighting channels began to appear in the walls of the tunnel, running horizontally some three meters above the surface. These walls were finely sculpted and smooth, just like the walls of the bypass.

  “Is that an airlock?” Richard sa
id, craning his neck to see ahead.

  “Yes, sir,” Mazz said.

  Anna looked forward, lifting her hand from the wall. The tunnel abruptly stopped some thirty meters away. A metal airlock door was fused into the solid rock.

  Fused?

  Anna sprinted to the airlock, overcome with curiosity. She hunched over and rubbed her gloves along the transition from the airlock door to the rock face.

  “How’s it possible?” she said. “The metal transitions directly into stone. Seamless.”

  “Let me see,” Raj said. He walked over to the airlock. Anna knew he would be examining with his upgraded eyelids, and felt a twinge of jealousy. She had to get some of those. Raj peered at the airlock door and slowly panned along the transition to the rock.

  “At the microscopic level, there’s a finely interwoven mesh of metarm and stone.” Raj paused. “Too fine.”

  “My visor’s registering 20C in there,” Richard said. “How can it be that warm?”

  “We can enter the airlock together,” Planar said, as though he had not heard them. “It was made to accommodate sixteen at a time.”

  Planar opened a panel and entered a code. Anna watched from the edge of her visor. His fingers were a blur. The entry code was easily thirty symbols long. She lost count.

  Planar spun the wheel on the airlock and opened the door.

  “How will Grace and Tim get through?” Anna asked, looking back over her shoulder. It was good to know there would be a door and airlock between her and Quint.

  Planar smiled. “The Tim knows how.”

  He sealed the door. For a few moments, nothing seemed to happen. Anna noticed an alert on her visor. The display showed that her suit had stopped heating operations to conserve power. Then a familiar hiss of atmosphere penetrated their suits and the exit panel glowed green.

  “You can remove your helmets,” he said.

  Anna glanced at the display. Yes, she hadn’t been hallucinating. Standard atmosphere. She blinked through the menu and selected UNLOCK. Her helmet released from the collar ring and she pulled it off, tucking it under her arm. She took a deep lungful of air.

  An image of her father’s bacteria farm flashed in her mind. Real air, dappled sunshine, and Earth grass. The image passed.

  Anna took another deep breath of air with the appreciation of a woman long used to manufactured atmosphere.