It whirred and buzzed and went into the outer reactor room, the control room and warpfield generator as she called it. We closed the door and exited out of the room. We carefully removed the suits as she told us, being sure to touch no part of the outside. I used a little pole we found and tossed them into the room with the bodies. Then we waited.
Lucy, the one in the reader in the lab, said, “As I thought, I have no communications with me inside. Let us hope the program works correctly. You have two hours.”
It seemed like days went by before she said, “Okay, time is up. Listen, get the new suits on and do a quick peek around the corner. If the door is open, leave the area immediately because I failed. If it is closed go in with that box that ticks. It is called a radiation counter. If it is in the high red, again leave. If yellow or green it is okay for a while. See if the special box was moved by the door and if the green stick is on top. If it is, check it with the counter as well. We will go from there.”
We followed her instructions. The box was moved, the door was closed and secure, the stick was there and all was yellow on the ticker except around the bodies—it went red by them—she told us to stay away. No problem there.
We took the heavy box and stick to a little shower room we didn’t know about until Lucy told us. A decontamination and containment center, she called it.
We washed the big box with soap and some brushes, and she had us keep wiping the stick with these throwaway paper things until both read green on the counter. We had to repeat the taking off of the suits and throw them in the room with the rest. We showered and took the stick and box to the lab.
My mind won’t allow me all the image details we saw from the green stick as Lucy played back what the robot had seen. Two missing parties were both inside that room and the inner door was open. It almost looked like their flesh had simply vaporized from the bones. It was horrid.
The robot closed the inner door and hit some switches and large sprays turned on all over. It then opened the inner door again and went into that room and came out with something small and box-like. It closed the door, hit the sprays again, and when done, it put the little box inside the big one and was hooking up wires and plug-ins. I had no idea what they did. Finally it closed the big box and moved it. The last I saw from it was when it took the stick out, but Lucy said it went back into the core room and waited to die. Its job was done.
We ate and finally slept. I had dreams of feeling my flesh burning away from my bones, screaming in agony as I saw myself turn to a skeleton—the bones fell in a heap and I woke up.
Loka lay there beside me, awake. “You too, I see,” she said.
I described my dream. Hers was similar, she was running away, burning and trying to put the flames out. “I think we both understand this reactor thing is very, very dangerous,” she said.
Lucy came on the earpiece, “Good afternoon. Your nightmares didn’t stop you both from sleeping almost 13 hours.”
We ate some food, and went to the lab. Lucy explained what we next needed to do, maybe three more weeks work. I noticed the magic box had three rows of little lights, green, yellow, and red. I asked about them.
“Output warnings. Green up to low yellow are okay, if it goes above that, put the box as far away as you can and leave. A few miles should be safe.” She snickered at us. “It is a small self sustaining fission-fusion reactor. It will power the new me and, if we can find them, some decent weapons systems. I don’t have access to how advanced GMT2 was when this was all built but this F/F was among the first built that didn’t need large scale cooling systems and used part of the cold fusion process.”
I found Loka was deep in thought. She finally asked, “Question, Lucy. If we blow this reactor thing and shut down the door, will it stop them?”
“No dear, it will slow them, not stop them. We thought at first that it would stop them cold, but they adapt and absorb. They are like a plague. No, they will slowly eat their way in and expand into this Galaxy unless we can destroy them.”
Loka again went into deep thought. I could tell as she shut out the world around her. She finally asked, “Okay, tell me if I understand this all correctly. The humans of Earth found a way to expand through space, in so doing they opened into a galaxy of insects that eat people. Rather than stop and destroy them, and control the situation, they simply closed the door and hoped it would all go away, except it didn’t?”
“The door was closed too late, we let enough through that they now live and breed here, in our galaxy. Yes, the humans ran, you call it panicked. They overreacted and caused more harm than good, but now we are trying to go on the offensive and take our galaxy back. I cannot calculate the odds of success because of too many variables, but we try, we must try…” the computer hesitated, “…or die.”
“Well Eldon dear, this isn’t a castle and I suspect it is more a curse, but I think we need to prepare to stomp on some bugs.” Loka’s smile did not hide her doubt.
Using her new power pack and scrounged parts we had a little cart and a camera setup. I pushed Lucy all over, collecting this and that as she identified various parts she needed.
Over the next month we built a weird looking contraption that moved, a camera in the center and a single robot arm coming from the top, various items hung off the power box and finally Lucy said that was it. “Until we can get the real deal from Earth or another linked planet, we are done. It sucks, two light lasers and one heavy are the best they had, all very crude.
“Let’s check all the linked gates except Earth and Hepron, where you found me. See if any lead to a technologically advanced planet,” Lucy said.
“We checked some already. A swamp was one, a large desert, your planet, and Earth of course,” Loka said.
“Okay, then we check the rest and see as well,” Lucy said.
“The swamp planet showed some sign of sentient life, but splitting logs and securing them with vines doesn’t strike me as technologically advanced,” I told her.
We spent almost a week going through each honor gate and having Lucy scan for signs of advanced life, none located. She recorded star patterns for future location data and we were back where we started. She asked all sorts of questions about our civilization and seemed satisfied, but said she had no way to get down off our mountain as she was designed. We were up to throwing liquid fuel rockets toward the heavens, but nowhere near what she claimed she needed. She made a memory stick of some of what we needed along with an adapter to fit our equipment and we assembled another plane and launched it with all the data, but it could take a year before we’d catch up to where she wanted us to start from. This left us one option, Earth.
“You are not true human, nor bug, so the robots probably are programmed to attack anyone other than the programmers. What I found most interesting about your story is your honor gate was not in any of the gate rooms, rather through some storage area, so it may be another reason it was never found. I will see if the robots leave me alone or attack. If possible I may be able to reprogram one or more to help us.”
”We go too,” I said. “You are the greatest archeological find in our history and I’ll not let you get away!”
“No, if you both die I will be stuck in this tin can forever! Well, at least until your people progress and come to help or the MKs come to destroy you. I need you alive,” Lucy said.
“Sorry Lucy, not open for discussion, he said we go, we go. Now, show us how to use these weapons and belt things please? Or do we need to experiment?” Loka asked.
“Well, I see you have human stubbornness anyway,” Lucy said.
We received a crash course on 50 Cal. Handguns that kicked like a mule when fired, and pulsed laser rifles along with some timer bombs that Lucy said make big explosions. It was decided we would stay at the door and only get involved to rescue Lucy if it became necessary.
After some sleep and food we were by the bronze door. Lucy left three blue sticks and a dark green one behind with copies of her. ‘Just
in case’.
She made the ice disappear and we stood at the wall going into the huge room. There were no robots immediately by us. Lucy said, “Interesting, just like they said it was when we lost Earth to the bugs. Stay alert, I am moving in.”
She looked nothing like them—they were smooth running, almost totally quiet; she squeaked, and thumped, but they seemed to take no notice. She moved around the room and was out of sight a long time, but was talking on the earpiece. “I scanned the area, nothing alive. I found two scarlet sticks! Think of each as a large office building, massive room. I found a terminal and am downloading everything I can into them. From what I see crossing the screen the bugs may have left earth after killing all life bigger than an ant—all the robots here seem to have been reprogrammed to attack any form of life they find, even bugs.”
I saw a couple guard robots like the ones that fired at us last time coming along the wall we were standing by. I told Lucy. We went back and activated the ice, leaving Lucy in the warehouse. We lost all communications instantly.
I was visualizing the speed of the guards and we waited until what I felt was more than enough to have them go past, then we waited a bit more and opened the door. Lucy was there with a box in her arm. “Take this inside, I’ll be right back with more.” We relieved her arm of its burden, it was heavy. She disappeared back into the huge room and was back in ten minutes pushing a cart full of gear. “And this,” she said. “Be right back.”
Well, she made four trips and came back with carts full of strange gear. Some I recognized as weapon barrels.
“Okay, I am going to try to see if I can access the programming of one of the guard bots. We need to know who programmed them and why. Wish me luck,” she said.
As she went to the nearest guard bot I saw her try to open a panel on it and the bot started shooting at Lucy. Without thinking I fired the 50 cal and blew off its little red light. Loka fired a long steady laser burst at the bot’s head and I pumped a few rounds into the body. I saw red lights all over the place start up, but we ‘killed’ it. I watched Lucy pushing the carcass toward us so I ran into the room and helped her push the bot through the honor gate. We activated the gate about the time the bots started shooting at us.
Lucy chewed us out for endangering ourselves, then just said, “Thanks.”
We helped her get the carts and the robot carcass to the lab and found all the items she said she needed from various stores.
“Okay, I now have the two main items I needed. Memory and four molecular constructors. With this site’s reactor I can get them to work. I need you two to assist me for another two days and then I have a job you must do for us all,” she said. The barrels were the constructor thing.
“What?” Loka asked.
“While I build things that we will need I will need you to return to your people and see if they will help against the MK. If so how many and how soon. The ledge outside, you described it as big—can one of your planes land on it?”
“No, way too short,” Loka said.
“Do you have helicopters?”
Loka said, “Yes.”
“We don’t have any that can come this high, not enough oxygen to run the engines effectively and I think they said the air is too thin to support them. Even we have trouble breathing, but we trained ourselves on the way up,” I told her.
“What kind of engines?” Lucy asked.
I tried to remember what little I knew. “They run on a light oil in a turbine with large intakes in the front. About all I know.”
“Great, jets then, no problem. How many people can the biggest hold at sea level?” she asked.
“I think they hold eight plus the pilot and co-pilot.”
“Good, two trips will give us a defense force then,” Lucy said.
“He told you, they can’t fly that high,” Loka told her.
“Easy fix, trust me. We will need some on permanent assignment as well. Okay, how long for you two to get down carrying eighteen additional pounds plus food and fuel?” she asked.
“It took 27 actual climbing days to get up here so knock off seven or eight because we are accustomed to the lesser air density, and going down is easier if we can follow our route back,” I explained.
“Excellent, then help me finish up. I’ll make up the presentation and you can be on your way in a few days.”
The next three days were hectic. Lucy developed a new type of arm with special tools she needed to disassemble the robot carcass we brought back. She received a huge memory upgrade and freshened data.
“Well, the good news is the robots were put on auto defense by Earth people as they left. Looks like the bugs either never found that warehouse or never cared, and avoided it,” she said, as we were informed our part was done.
“Now, while I make a new me and a few weapons I want to try to use on the MK, I need an army, and for good or ill I think we are hooked at the hip, so to speak.
“Loka, place these three blue sticks in that old reader, take this box and a couple power cords; remember, these run on 240VAC three phase only. I wrote the instructions, and everything they need to know will be organized on those sticks, enough to get you started in getting 2,000 years ahead in no time.” Lucy snickered. “No, it isn’t necessarily a good thing, but is a necessary thing.”
The box was a special container for a reader, to keep it safe for the long haul down. Loka and I went to eat and get some sleep. I rearranged our packs so I took the extra weight of the reader and still carried a decent amount of food. It almost came out even, as most of the food was now dehydrated stuff from here, all but a few energy bars of ours was long gone.
We would carry a linkpen and, after Lucy told us what was in each pouch in the belt, we wore them as well. They had special ‘fuel’ and weapons, tiny little stun grenades that could knock out people for ten minutes, magic line that was on a little reel, like a bobbin of thread, but only broke using the special laser cutter provided, unless you had a massive amount of energy to waste. Frequency sensitive, as she described it. Of course there was a safe storage for the memory sticks, but one that helped us reduce our overall weight was the tent. You took this little pill, I swear, it wasn’t a quarter inch across, and you set it on the ground, or snow. You took the vial of green stuff and placed one drop on it and stood back as it literally grew into a two-man tent with a fuzz coating on the outside that either gathered heat or shed it, all automatically. There were 16 pills in each pouch and Lucy said there were a few hundred more in the storage. She was finally expanding, and reading all the data disks from the GMT2 team. The next to last pouch had one gizmo in it: a cylinder, about five inches long and the full two inches of the pouch wide. The outside had a single yellow button on it. She made us leave them behind.
“You remember the mushroom cloud? It is one of those. Normally impossible for that size, but you’d be surprised the reaction a little anti-matter can cause with fission materials.” She actually laughed. “They are safe, it takes input from you and a special signal from me to activate one and we only have two here. They came about long after GMT2 went missing. If the bugs get here we use them to seal the gates and destroy the reactor.”
The last pouch contained four small, round cylinders. I recognized them from the trip to Earth, the dead robot had a couple on it.
“Okay Loka, show him the two pistols I made for you, please?” Lucy said.
Loka opened a desk drawer and took out two funny looking pistols. They reminded me of the water pistols we had as children. Round cylinders with a barrel, handle, and a trigger.
Loka showed me a little slide lever on the side. You lifted it out of the little lock notch—it was spring loaded so it wasn’t easy—then slid it to the rear. The top of the pistol slid open. You dropped one of the round cylinders in it, flat side forward, and closed and locked it again.
“She will demonstrate it, I have more charges. Loka, point it toward the far wall, say that little red sign. Squeeze the handle grip hard.” As
Loka did it a little laser pointer light turned on. “Now, point and squeeze the trigger but only for a second, then release.
I saw the laser track across the wall and stop on the red sign, then, poof I guess you’d say. Seems it was all I heard. The sign was still there.
“Go check it out,” Lucy said.
At first glance it was hard to tell, but careful inspection showed it was full of tiny little holes. I took it off the wall and the holes went on through. I went into the hall the wall was part of and on the opposite side were tiny little splinters of metal sticking out the wall of solid rock. They had spread out and without thinking I touched the end of one of them. The pain was fierce as it simply went clean through my finger and nail like they weren’t there. I yelped and Lucy hollered from the Lab, “Don’t touch them, they’re rather sharp!” She laughed out loud as she knew it was too late.
I went back in sucking the blood from my wound. Loka laughed and wrapped a little bandage around it.
Lucy said, “That was what the guards shot at you as the wall went up. We call them needlers, almost microscopically thin slivers that started life as a man-made crystal called calcium borosilicate hydroxide, or Howlite. It is then further refined and carefully slivered. You get twenty shots per cylinder, each shot fires twenty-five of those slivers at a time. Use them wisely, you won’t find any reloads from your locals.” Lucy snickered again. “Leave the 50’s here; too heavy.”
We slept and ate and were ready to go.
Last I saw of them, she had all four of the Micro Compilers going, making weird looking parts, all light blue and very shiny. “Robot parts for a new me,” she said. I picked up one that was complete; it looked heavy but was light as a feather. She told me to try to bend it. I tried; it didn’t bend.
“We are ready,” I said, while slipping on the backpack. Pen in pocket, the special belt with pistol stored in the packs for safekeeping—no way you could wear them and climb. Ropes coiled and securely attached and our lifelines wrapped around our waists. We wore some of the little cloth footies we found in one of the storage areas and carried our crampon boots.
A Planet's Search For History Page 5