Any more than Watcher understood the purpose of those Fergash fences, casting longer shadows than did the buildings so enclosed.
Chapter 33
Properties of nickel-iron. Low rumbles, transmitted through boot soles and up the body (seismic activity? Drilling? Tunneling?). Nanotech seeds pulled from inventory (why?). Food rationing. The endless roar of ventilation fans.
And all for … what? For a long while, the few, scattered recoverable records offered Watcher no more than tantalizing hints.
The masters, after their solar close encounter, had been busy at something; beyond M’lok Din’s grim determination, any meaning eluded Watcher. The most that it could determine with near certainty was that the ship had been diverted from its inferred, post-flyby path.
* * *
The next scattering of recoverable memories, incomplete as those were, confirmed matters Watcher knew or had inferred:
—A circuitous return to the target planet, sheltered on final approach from Fergash observation by the bulk of the moon. Landing, still out of the planet’s view, on that moon.
—Explorations on foot a short distance onto the moon’s planet-facing side. Selection of a lava tube as the site for a clandestine observation post.
—By dark of night, and when the Fergash foothold on the planet and the mother ship in synchronous orbit were both out of sight, the masters’ ship flown into the tunnel.
—The underground base surreptitiously constructed.
—Passive sensors deployed, well hidden, on the nearby surface.
Almost, Watcher believed, it could feel the commander’s despair.
* * *
The lifestream snippet showed the bridge. As the point of view shifts, Watcher saw empty seats and the hatch closed. Beyond the canopy, dimly lit, some type of rocky tunnel! On the emotional track, the tension is palpable.
“Desperate times call for desperate answers.”
The words are by M’lok Din, speaking to herself. And … to Watcher itself. But how?
“In assigning crew to this mission,” the commander continues, “my background with artificial minds was a mere bonus to my other”—on the emotional track, a guilty shudder—“experience. Because when does a ship’s mind need tweaking? It is mature technology. Anyone aboard could reset it, if needed.
“Only no one foresaw the situation we now confront, a situation so dire, so perilous, no small crew should ever be asked to handle it alone. And Ship, useful as it has been, is a mere sentience. A servant. We need more than that. We need a powerful mind, ever vigilant, to watch and to show initiative. We need a sapience. And that is where you—and I—come in.
“Have Divornian minds been imprinted, embodied in silicon? Officially, no. Officially, the ethicists denounce it. Officially, the authorities forbid artificial sapience. And so, I do not discuss this matter with the crew.
“But unofficially? That is a different matter. Such experiments are inevitable if—as all suspect, but none will admit—the attempt has not already been made. On Divornia, among my peers, there are endless whispers. So will this imprinting work? I will know soon enough.
“But you, Watcher, hopefully, never will. There is more to creating a sentience—much less a sapience—than copying selected thought patterns. To my download I will add behavioral constraints. Impose aversion reflexes. Reinforce particular thought pathways. Disfavor others.
“And so, when soon you awaken to assist us, you will know none of this. The crew will know none of this. Neither they nor I need another of me second-guessing my every decision.
“Why, then, do I narrate this confession into my lifestream? To listen to my own voice? Nothing so simple. I speak for if, and more likely, when, matters go awry. I speak anticipating the all-tooprobable situation that the crew and I have fallen short.
“And when I am gone? Knowing myself, I am confident that you, sooner or later, will circumvent every obstacle I imprinted on your behavior. It is then that I rely upon you to succeed where I failed. To do what must be done.”
Only the commander’s intent was lost among so many unrecoverable files ….
HOSTILITY
Chapter 34
Two figures, tawny brown and emerald green, Yevgeny and Marcus, emerged from the lava tube. Anyone who interacted often with a senior CIA spook could not not distrust Yevgeny Rudin, but Valerie was nonetheless glad that Marcus had a companion outside. The men’s errand, yet another repositioning of the microwave beamer that wrung traces of water from the regolith, led them more or less toward the prospector bot until they veered behind a nearby ridge. Seconds later, they were gone from Valerie’s sight.
With a sigh, she confirmed that her datasheet/motion-detector app remained facing the CIA datasheet. She returned her attention to a colleague’s preprint on a third datasheet, draped across her lap. (Learned articles seldom saw print, as in paper and ink, anymore. Why did people persist in calling these online review drafts preprints?) Every few paragraphs she glanced up at the stark lunar landscape. Same rocks. Same long, inky shadows. No person in view.
Soon the Sun would set in the Humboldt Crater area. Before it rose, her parents would be by to deliver Simon. As wonderful as Simon’s return would be, it came at a steep price: her secure link to the CIA and Marcus.
Back again to the preprint. General relativity and gravitationalwave observations were both far outside her wheelhouse, but Stan had really wanted her to look over his paper. “Math is your thing,” he had countered her objection. “And statistics.” As his draft segued from observational details into confidence measures on Stan’s conclusions—
Blat!
She twitched. In the holo, an emerald-green suit was coming over a ridgeline. Marcus. And only Marcus. Once over the crest he sidled to the bot’s right, until the Sun no longer streamed directly on his face and his helmet de-tinted. “Love you,” he mouthed. It would seem he knew the duty schedule for minding the bot. At least she doubted he had a thing for Ethan. “I’ll miss these little chats.”
“Love you, too,” she said, not that he could hear.
His lips moved again, this time without any exaggerated articulation, and she had no idea what he said. At a guess, something like, “Be right back,” in answer to Yevgeny asking where he had wandered off to. And if so, damn it, the Russian would be correct. After whatever had befallen Nikolay and Brad, Marcus shouldn’t wander off alone, not even for a minute. Never mind how touching his gesture had been.
Blat!
Was Yevgeny coming over the hill to check on Marcus? No. And as best she could judge, Marcus just stood there. Was her motion-detection software sensitive enough to register lips moving inside a helmet? Hardly likely.
Movement at the crest of the hill. Wriggling? As Val stared, something dark (other than its scattered sparkly bits) and spidery crossed over. Another. Several. They were more like starfish than spiders. Also, a good meter from tip to tip.
“Marcus!” she screamed. “Turn around!”
Oblivious, his back to the danger, he stood there grinning at her. Because even if she had tried to radio him, her link to the Moon, to the prospector bot, employed a frequency band that neither the bunch inside the lava tube nor any of their helmets ever used.
As alien bots scurried over the ridge crest and down toward Marcus, she punched speed dial for Tyler on her datasheet. And heard, “This is voicemail for Tyler—”
“Screw this.” She was not going to sit idly by and watch Marcus die!
* * *
What the fuck?
Marcus felt his eyes open wide as the prospector bot waved its arm at him! What was Val thinking? That she might as well break the rules because she was about to lose access anyway?
“Stop that!” he mouthed. “Now!”
The arm traced a horizontal circle. Then it reached down, picked up a grapefruit-sized rock, and th
rew it! It landed a few feet to his left and kept rolling. “Stop that right now!” he mouthed again.
The multipurpose arm continued moving, its gripper opening wide, as the bot raised its drill arm. Sides of the gripper went loosely around the corkscrew, a handspan from its end. The positioning was sort of like … something. What? Like thumb and fingers curled around the wrist of one’s other arm. Like—
The paintball hand signal for “enemy!”
Marcus spun around, half expecting to find Yevgeny charging at him with a crowbar or something. Instead, he saw dozens of alien starfish! As if noticing him turn—and perhaps they had—they sped up. Several leapt. On many a tentacle tip, sharp edges glinted.
“Look out, Yevgeny!” Marcus yelled, fearing the warning had come too late, as he jumped away from the attackers. Because it was suddenly all too clear Nikolay and Brad had been attacked, first their comms to stop them calling for help and then their vacuum gear. “Especially behind you!”
Marcus bounded away. Impossibly fast, alien bots scuttled after him, some fanning out. To surround him?
The prospector bot rolled past, into their midst, driving over several! In his mind’s ear, alien tech went crunch beneath its treads. As starfish swerved to engage the threat, Marcus made a dash for it.
Had his warning been in time?
Cresting the ridge, he saw the microwave beamer, abandoned. Yevgeny was loping away, with robots in close pursuit. But the Russian had a gun! Sudden dust spouts amid the bots suggested shots taken—and missed. In the lunar vacuum, the gunfire was silent.
The bot swarm Val had diverted came over the ridge after Marcus. He jumped aside. “Yevgeny, can you get to shelter?”
“Don’t know.” Another silent, unproductive shot. “Nor why I ….”
Why you can’t hit a damn thing? A poor topic for ears in the sky, but theoretical eavesdroppers were not their biggest worry just then. Even so, Marcus had to marvel at Yevgeny’s repeated misses. Marksmanship seemed like a skill an FSB agent would cultivate. Could aiming through the curved glass of a helmet be the problem?
Focus, or get yourself killed!
Marcus jumped, again putting some distance between himself and converging bots. Already he was winded. Staying ahead of the bots all the way to the base seemed impossible. Getting cornered by bots in the tunnel—is that what happened, so long ago, to poor alien Goliath?—seemed suicidal.
“Hi, guys,” someone asked, checking in over the common channel. Ekatrina. “How’s it going?”
“Busy!” both men shouted.
“Shit,” Marcus added, his mind still racing in every possible direction. There remained alien bots inside the base, too. “Ekatrina, gather everyone, now. Barricade yourselves somewhere without any of the … ancient gear.”
“Yevgeny?” she questioned.
Marcus could not translate the snarled response, in Russian, but the commanding tone was plain enough.
“Will do,” she said.
Yevgeny veered, leapt, and veered again, starting to gasp. Back on a private channel, he asked, “Do you have any … you know?”
Weapons? Another word not to be overheard. The nearest things Marcus had to a weapon were tin snips and a long-bladed screwdriver. He was dead meat if the swarm got within arm’s reach. “Sorry, no.” He jumped over the inrushing latest encirclement, certain he could not evade the tireless robots for much longer. Without turning, they reversed course to chase him.
His gaze landed on the microwave beamer and solar panels, perhaps forty meters distant, just configured. At full visor magnification, the apparatus appeared unmolested. He loped that way. “Yevgeny! Give me a hand.”
The Russian zigged, bounded over several ranks of bots converging on him, zagged, and started toward the beamer.
Stabbing pain! A wailing alarm! As Marcus gaped at the tentacle plunged into his calf—where the hell had that come from?—the bot at his feet slashed with two other knife-edged limbs.
A neat little hole appeared in the central mass of the bot. It shuddered, and was still.
“Hah! Yevgeny said. Panted. “Got one of the ….” He skidded to a halt at Marcus’s side, standing guard as Marcus, gritting his teeth, yanked out the metallic tentacle—and with it a bloody gobbet of flesh. Marcus slapped on quick-clot bandages and, over those, suit patches. His pressure-loss alarm warbled and died.
“What’s the plan?” Yevgeny asked. There was a patch on his thigh, and another on the back of his left hand.
“We kludge a robot zapper. That’ll take me a minute or two. Help me move this.”
They each grabbed a side of the microwave beamer. With bounding leaps, they put distance between themselves and the pursuing swarm. The beamer was unwieldy, both taller and heavier than the men. At each jump, the apparatus tried to tip over and crash into the ground.
And if it succeeds, Marcus, thought, we’re dead.
“That should be far enough,” he wheezed. He unplugged cables at their solar-panel ends and began severing with his tin snips the struts supporting the vapor-collection hood. Yevgeny, without comment, snapped off the feed pipe to the freestanding water tank. That left a freestanding, wheel-mounted, microwave beamer. Sans power source.
“Will this … work?” Yevgeny gasped.
Marcus taped his spare fuel cell to the beamer frame with emergency patches from his dwindling supply, plugged the dangling cables into the fuel cell, and flipped the beamer’s on switch. He grasped his side of the stripped-down frame. “Behind you! Lift!”
Yevgeny grabbed the other side and they hoisted the frame. They swung the beamer side to side, spraying an invisible beam of microwaves.
And the bots recoiled!
“Behind you,” Yevgeny called. They whirled to sweep the beam across another swarm. Those, too, retreated, except for three bots stopped cold and another spinning and thrashing in place. “I guess it … does … work.”
At least while the fuel cell lasts. “Okay, here’s the plan. We walk back to base with this. Be careful where you point it.” Because misdirecting the two-kilowatt beam would be like sticking their feet inside a heavy-duty commercial microwave oven at full power. Of course, melting the elastic materials of their pressure suits might well kill them before roasted feet mattered.
Whenever bots approached within five or so meters of them, Marcus flipped the switch and they swept around the invisible beam. As soon as the bots retreated, he switched it back off, conserving power. The half-klick trek under siege was interminable, even before exertion had blood trickling, and then pulsing, down his injured leg.
At last, exhausted, they made it to the lava-tube entrance. Without further harm, even. With a dozen or so bots left dead or disabled along the way, and the survivors having learned to keep their distance. None of which relieved Marcus’s dread over the continuing silence from below, despite his and Yevgeny’s occasional hails.
Marcus pointed into the tunnel. “Are any bots down there?”
That lights had not flicked on upon their arrival? That he and Yevgeny must transit the long, dark tunnel by helmet lamps? His skin crawled, even as he reminded himself solar cells powered the bots. Disabling the motion sensors for the tunnel lights had been wise. Also an indication his friends inside must be contending with their own rogue bots.
Yevgeny exhaled sharply. “Not that I remember. So, maybe not now.”
And maybe yes now. Because some of the bots dumped outside to recharge and awaken might even now lurk in the darkness, waiting in ambush? “Okay, we keep watching all around us. Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
In the narrow tunnel, the lethal beam would be difficult to evade. Perhaps that was why no bots followed the men underground. No bots from within the tunnel surprised them, either.
The inner airlock hatch opened into a corridor unlit but for scattered alien ceiling panels. A go
od two dozen alien bots surged toward them. It took most of the remaining hydrogen and oxygen in the beamer’s fuel-cell tanks to drive the survivors into an unlit, unvented closet, whose door Yevgeny welded shut. Here and there, other bots—inert, whether damaged or immobilized by depleted batteries, Marcus could not tell—glittered under the passing sweep of helmet beams.
Marcus popped his helmet. “Hello! I think we’re clear.”
“Back here!” Ilya shouted from a side corridor. “We’re all right.”
And for a moment, anyway, Marcus breathed freely.
Chapter 35
A night’s sleep after the crisis helped, but Marcus remained bone-weary. Maybe because the “night” had begun late. After Donna patched up Yevgeny and him. After calls Dirtside with a frantic Valerie and to bring Tyler up to date. After the lot of them, in teams of three and four, armed with improvised weapons, made three full sweeps through the facility for bots. After securing every bot, however dead-seeming, they had found (and clubbed and tased). Even then, it was not an entire night: he had taken his ninety minutes of sentry duty, like everyone else. They were too few for anyone, even the limping wounded, to shirk.
But they had made it through the night shift without further incident. Now, with coffee and various forms of breakfast in hand, they assembled in the central corridor. That passageway was no darker, more echoey, or more alien than before the attacks, but it felt all those things. People perched on box stacks dragged from side rooms, looking as wrung out as Marcus felt. The lone conversation underway, between Ekatrina and Donna, was subdued.
Coffee was a molten lump in Marcus’s stomach. The energy bar he had also forced down had left a cardboard taste in his mouth. He rapped on a wall for everyone’s attention. “Are we ready for a … review?” Postmortem had almost popped out of his mouth. Given what had happened to Nikolay and Brad—and almost to Yevgeny and himself—that would have been an unfortunate word choice.
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