Spinneret

by Timothy Zahn

  Chapter7

  ASTRA’S SUN WAS PEEKING over the eastern horizon as Carmen eased open the throttle to send the flyer drifting smoothly into the air. Hafner kept his eyes on the handful of displays and meters as she shifted from vertical to horizontal flight, but if the maneuver was in any way a tricky one, it wasn’t apparent. On the contrary; the more he watched, the more it seemed that a bare handful of the dozens of controls were all she needed to guide the craft. He wondered what the others did, but their glowing labels were more confusing than informative. Eventually, he broke down and asked her.

  “Most of those are used only when the flyer is in its spacecraft mode,” Carmen told him, raising her voice over the low rumble of the repulsers.

  “Ah.” At least they wouldn’t be needing that capability today, Hafner thought.

  “Have you decided yet where you’ll want me to land?” Carmen asked.

  “If we have the time, perhaps we can circle the cone first. I need to find a good area to sample.”

  She nodded and for a few minutes neither of them spoke. Looking out his window, Hafner let his eyes drift over the landscape. Just south of their path Unie was a collection of tannish blocks set on slightly darker tannish ground. Much farther to the south the white-edged peaks of the Kaf Mountain range provided only a slight contrast of coloration; and most of that, he knew, was due to shadows and other basically optical effects. No ferric red, no cupric green—the whole territory had all the washed-out blandness of a Hawaiian hotel beach. His eyes drifted ahead to Crosse … and narrowed a bit. “Carmen,” he called, “can you slow down just this side of Crosse?”

  She glanced curiously at him. “Sure. Anything wrong?”

  “I think I can see the outline of a shallow circular depression between the river and the Unie-Crosse road. I want a better look at it.”

  “What is it, a dead volcano or something?” Carmen asked, shifting the flyer’s course toward the area he’d indicated.

  “More likely an old meteor crater,” he said, peering down. “A little higher, please … yes … yes, damn it. That’s what it is, all right. Too circular to be anything else. Thanks; we can go now.”

  The flyer tilted slightly to her side and he saw her take a quick look for herself before resuming their horizontal flight. “You sound annoyed,” she ventured. “Are you worried about meteors hitting us?”

  “Yes, but not the way you’re thinking.” He waved toward her window. “Teardrop Lake over by Ceres. If you look at it on satellite photos you can see that it’s a circular depression that’s been eroded by the rivers entering and leaving. The Dead Sea southeast of Olympus is the same thing plus what appear to be fault-line appendages. Even Splayfoot Bay shows a deep area in the center that’s basically circular. This planet has been literally pelted with rocks over maybe the last half million years—not surprising when you consider how close we are to the asteroid belt here. So where’s all the metal those meteorites brought down with them?”

  Watching her, he noted with approval the furrowing of her forehead. At least she recognized the paradox there; some he’d talked to hadn’t even made it that far. “Well … could the Rooshrike survey data be wrong?”

  “That’s the most likely explanation,” Hafner nodded. “The problem is that we’ve done our own spot checks since then. Our equipment doesn’t have their half-kilometer range, but the chunk of rock that dug out Splayfoot Bay ought to have left some of itself scattered through the topsoil.”

  “Then maybe the asteroids that hit were just as metal-poor as Astra,” she suggested. “If the whole system formed from the same cloud of dust … no. Doesn’t work, does it?”

  “Not when we know the Rooshrike are mining metals on the first planet,” Hafner agreed. “Besides which, some of the smaller asteroids were analyzed by the original survey team and turned out to have a reasonable metal content. No, whatever happened here happened only to Astra.”

  They rode in silence for the next few minutes. Ahead, the hazy cone of Mt. Olympus gradually became sharper, the low angle of sunlight showing first the gross and finally the fine structure of its surface. Hafner watched with undivided interest, eyes probing for clues as to the type of lava that had formed it. The steepness of the cone suggested viscous lava flows, which on Earth would mean a predominance of andesitic rock. On the other hand, he could see little evidence of the surface characteristics that usually accompanied that type of lava. Still, if the volcano had been dormant for a long time, erosion would have altered many of the visual reference points. As with everything else in geology, there was ultimately no substitute for physically digging out the rocks and analyzing them.

  “What about some weird process that breaks the metal down?” Carmen spoke up abruptly. “A nuclear fission sort of thing. Maybe it’s some organism’s way of producing energy.”

  “Chemical energy is a lot safer to work with,” Hafner grunted. An interesting idea … but the flaw was easy to find. “Besides, that would only get rid of elements in the bottom half of the periodic table. Sodium is far too light a metal to fizz, but Astra hasn’t got any of it, either.”

  “Oh. Wait a minute.” She threw him a puzzled look. “No sodium either? But I thought Astra’s ocean was salty.”

  “Not really. There’s a fair assortment of stuff dissolved in it, but none of it strictly qualifies as salt. A salt, you see, is formed by replacing the hydrogen atom in an acid by a metal, as in hydrochloric acid to sodium chloride. Without metals, the acids remain as is or make bonds with oxygen or silicon.” He shook his head. “We’re sitting on a genuine treasure trove of strange chemistry here. Compounds that wouldn’t last five seconds on Earth are just lying around waiting to be examined. I think we’re up to eighteen brand-new carbon compounds alone since we’ve landed.”

  “Anything valuable?”

  “You mean in terms of sending to Earth? So far, no. But we haven’t even scratched the surface. We’ll find something useful here—I’m sure of it.”

  “I hope you’re right.” She paused. “All right, I’m starting a clockwise circuit of Olympus. Pick your spot this time around, because I’ve got to get the flyer back soon.”

  “Right.” A metallic glitter a few kilometers south of the cone caught Hafner’s eye; but even as he opened his mouth to shout the discovery he realized what it was. Even with the incredible scarcity of metal, no one had yet found it worthwhile to come out here and scrape up all the tiny fragments of steel and magnesium scattered across the landscape by the ill-fated Flyer Two. Shivering, he resolutely turned his eyes back to the volcano.

  He found the spot he was looking for in less than half a circuit: a small lump halfway up the slope that might indicate an old pipe vent. “There,” he told Carmen, pointing. “It’s at least a ten-degree slope, though—can this thing handle that?”

  “Easily,” she told him. The dull background roar changed pitch as she switched back to vertical thrusters. Three minutes later they were down.

  Hafner’s core-sampling equipment, while bulky, was not very heavy, and it took only fifteen minutes to unload it from the flyer and move it out of range of the repulsers. “Now you sure you’re going to be all right?” Carmen asked as he dropped the last load of bracing bars onto his pile.

  “I’ll be fine,” he assured her. “It’s not like this is my first time on an all-day expedition, you know. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Fine. Okay, then, I’ll be back to pick you up around twenty hundred. ’Bye.”

  It was closer to twenty-one hundred by the time she returned, but the delay didn’t especially matter to Hafner. With all his samples taken, he had nothing to do for the moment but sit on the ground and brood … and brooding he could do anywhere.

  “Zilch,” he told Carmen as the flyer lifted off. “Not a single bit of metal in any of the half-dozen samples I ran.”

  “So that means Astra’s magma is metal-free, too?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I just got anomalous samples. The r
ock looked more heat-treated than actually melted—and, no, I don’t know what could account for that. Say, would you take me the rest of the way around before we head back? I might as well look for a second test site while we’re here.”

  The flyer tilted slightly as she complied. “I’m afraid it’ll probably be a month or so before you’ll be able to get back—I don’t think I’d better pull this trick again.”

  He grunted. “Unless the borings show something promising it’ll be a good stretch longer than that.”

  For a moment he studied the ground in silence. Directly ahead the blue water of the Dead Sea glinted in the fading sunlight; a couple of kilometers to the west of it he again saw the wreckage of Flyer Two. To his immediate right Olympus sat profiled against the multicolored western sky, and he noticed for the first time that the southern slope of the volcano seemed climbable, a bit of information he filed away for future reference. As the flyer continued its slow circle, the Dead Sea began to disappear from his view. He glanced one final time at it … and frowned. “Carmen, take us back to the east, would you? There’s something funny in the Dead Sea.”

  “What is it?” Carmen asked as the flyer banked to the left.

  “I’ll let you know in a minute.”

  Seconds later they leveled out, bringing the Dead Sea into Hafner’s view again. “Look down there,” he told her. “The Sea’s northwestern shore. See it?”

  “You mean that white stuff? Looks like the offshore mineral deposits near the colony.”

  “Right. Like its namesake, our Dead Sea hasn’t got any outlets, so minerals collect there. As the water evaporates, some of them are left to encrust the shoreline. But why only on the northwestern side?”

  “Well … why do the offshore deposits only show up near Splayfoot Bay?” she countered.

  “Presumably they’re just more visible there because the continental shelf has a very gradual slope,” he said, with waning enthusiasm. “You’re right; it’s probably something like that. Let’s go on home—I think I’ve had it for one day.” A fast dinner and right to bed, he told himself firmly. For once, the samples can wait till tomorrow.

  An hour later he was at the lab, eating a sandwich at his desk as the analyzers chugged industriously away. The results, when they finally came, were painfully predictable: no metal, of any sort, in any of the borings.

  Chapter 8

  “… AND UNLESS THE MILITARY leaders become more responsive to the people, there will never be the close cooperation and mutual respect that distinguishes a people from a mere assemblage of individuals.” Perez paused for a smattering of applause, led by the other four Hispanics on the Council.

  Grimacing, Meredith slapped the video player’s Off switch, blanking the screen as Perez’s image began speaking again. “Quite the demagogue, isn’t he?” the colonel commented.

  Carmen looked as uncomfortable as her image on the tape had. “There’s very little I can do,” she told Meredith. “He is a duly elected representative, and I think it’s obvious he speaks for the other Hispanic councillors, as well.”

  Beside her, Major Brown cleared his throat. “It seems to me, Colonel, that all these thinly veiled demands for Council authority could be construed as incitement to disaffection. Maybe we could get him sent back to Earth on that basis.”

  “I doubt it,” Meredith shook his head. “It’s becoming rather clear that he was shipped here specifically to get him out of the Arizona authorities’ hair.”

  “The hell,” Brown growled. What are we running here, Devil’s Island West?”

  “Not yet. But almost certainly someone’s been thinking along those lines. Or hadn’t you noticed the odd mixture of highly skilled scientific people and low-to-moderately-skilled Hispanic laborers?”

  “You didn’t find that significant a month ago,” Carmen put in quietly.

  Meredith looked at her. “No, I didn’t,” he agreed. “I’ve had time to think about it since then. It’s pretty clear that, at least as of our departure date, Congress hadn’t really decided whether or not it really wanted us to succeed. At least a dozen senators thought the UN was playing us for fools, putting just enough international support in to keep the U.S. from simply cutting its losses by pulling out. An even bigger group was sort of behind us but busy arranging cover for their own tails for whenever we eventually failed. Somewhere in all that hostility someone surely ran the numbers and realized that Astra doesn’t cost much more per person than a maximum-security prison—and if we get any reasonable agriculture going that price tag will come down.” He paused, taking a moment to get out of what had been referred to as his preachy mode. “You’ll forgive my slight bitterness toward Congress, Olivero, but it should be clear now why Perez’s high democratic goals have got to be cooled down. I don’t want us to be ordered home on the grounds that we’re spending too much time rioting to accomplish anything, and I don’t want anyone to start thinking how nice it would be if all troublemakers could be put this far away from the voters. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, nodding. “I’ll talk to Perez, see what can do.”

  “I’d appreciate it. Thank you for dropping the tape by—I’ll have it returned after I’ve finished with it. Dismissed.”

  She stood to go, and as she did so Brown’s phone beeped “Yes?” the major answered. “… What?” He looked a Meredith, a look of disbelief on his face. “Martello Base say all the tools in the flyer hangar are gone—along with the shelves they were stored on.”

  Meredith keyed his own phone into the connection. “Meredith here. Put a guard on the docks immediately.”

  “Already done, Colonel,” the duty officer reported. “We’ve started a full search and are checking to see if anything else is missing.”

  “Good. Major Brown and I will be right there. Keep us informed.” He broke the connection and headed for the door.

  Brown was already halfway there. “Why would anyone bother with the shelves? They’d have to disassemble them to even get them out the door.”

  Meredith suddenly noticed that Carmen was still in the room, standing with one hand on the knob. “Get back to your computer,” he ordered her. “Call up a description list of the tools stored in that hangar and put it out on the military net under a theft alert.”

  “Yes, sir.” She frowned. “I don’t like this, Colonel. It doesn’t sound like a normal robbery to me.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough. For now, just get that alert out.”

  It was only a two-minute car ride to Unie’s docks; but even before the colonel, Brown, and Andrews arrived there, Carmen’s hunch was proved correct as new and increasingly bizarre reports began to flood in. In Ceres, a tractor lost its harrow—somehow—while working on a new section of field. In Wright, a bulldozer sank out of sight in ground that wasn’t even remotely swampy, leaving only various hoses and glass parts to mark the spot where it’d been. The rattled operator had had to be sedated, as had two of the five workers who had lost their shovel blades in an attempt to locate the vehicle. And Martello called back to report that shelving all over the base was missing, as were large numbers of tools. Spare parts, in cardboard and plastic boxes, were left in piles where the shelves had been.

  Andrews was the first one to actually come out and say it. “It’s the metal,” he said as they piled out of the car and jogged to the nearest motorboat. It’s all disappearing into the ground.”

  “That’s impossible,” Brown said, without conviction.

  “Of course it is,” Meredith snapped as he stepped off the dock into the boat’s stern and swiveled the motor to drop the propeller shaft into the water. “But it’s happening, isn’t it?”

  Andrews threw off the bow rope and gave them a hefty push toward deep water. Simultaneously, Meredith hit the starter and they were off.

  For about two seconds. Then, abruptly, the motor’s roar became an anguished squeal that echoed in Meredith’s ears ever after he slapped the throttle back down. Cursing, he reached for
the starter again … but halfway there he changed his mind and instead swiveled the motor back out of the water.

  From the waterline down, the shaft had simply vanished.

  Meredith looked up to find both Andrews and Brown staring at the ruined motor. Finally, Andrews shifted his gaze to Meredith and cleared his throat. “I guess whatever’s stealing our metal works underwater, too.”

  There was nothing even Brown could say after that. In silence the men unshipped the boat’s oars—plastic ones, fortunately—and headed back to shore.

  The chaos lasted three hours more, and Meredith considered it a tribute to his officers and men that the colony remained an orderly as it did. Pockets of panic among the civilians were quickly defused by a combination of authoritative orders and up-to-the-minute information. One unexpected plus was that no one’s life seemed to be in immediate danger; a series of quick tests on the plants and fish indicated that living tissue was not subject to the general metal loss, and Meredith was able to broadcast assurances that standing on furniture was unnecessary. The few people who went into hysterics anyway because they had touched the ground were bundled off to their local infirmaries, where they could be kept away from their already edgy neighbors while the doctors calmed them down. For while, Meredith had teams of soldiers searching for equipment that might be salvaged, but soon gave the effort up. Metal not directly in contact with Astra’s surface was untouched and apparently untouchable; for everything else, it was already far too late.

  As it seemed to be, in fact, for Astra as a whole. When the phenomenon finally ceased, it left behind a ruined colony.

  It was nearly sunset before the final list came through. Scanning the pages of close-spaced computer print, Meredith felt a numbness settle in over his mind. Tools, heavy equipment, assorted spare parts—nearly a half-million dollars’ worth, not counting transportation from Earth. Exhaling heavily, he looked up at the four senior officers grouped around his desk. “Suggestions, gentlemen?”