Part 6 (1/2)
Joe nodded. ”Let's test that idea. Two, return to our deepest point in the complex and then walk back here. See if there's any discrepancy in the inertial navigator readings.”
Two tramped away dutifully. Joe stood thinking as he waited for it to return. After a minute there was a sc.r.a.ping noise, and Joe saw that the orange creature on One's leg was beginning to move downwards on the metal column.
”One, don't move. Let that stupid thing run off to wherever.”
”Acknowledged.”
The crablike thing crawled down to the metal foot below it and hesitated. Eventually it abandoned its post on the leg and crawled away down the corridor, b.u.mping into the wall periodically. Two returned, walking carefully around the orange creature.
”The test is complete. The inertial locating system is showing no errors,” Two said.
”Okay. First thing, help me smash through this wall. I want to see if the entrance is behind it.”
The robots worked with Joe to break through the wall. Its surface was made of fairly flimsy materials with a reinforcing honeycomb structure behind. Joe had a hard time with this support material, but the robots ripped it methodically to pieces, revealing the s.p.a.ce beyond. Joe looked through the hole.
”It's just another room. The entrance really isn't here,” Joe said.
”The entrance has moved,” Two agreed.
Joe shook his head. ”We're missing something. The inertial systems seem to be working, but the entrance has been moved. Or closed, or hidden, or something. Let's move out in a right-handed maze search of the entire place. I want to find the exit as fast as possible.”
Joe indicated One to lead. The Series Seven moved out, keeping the wall at its right side. They moved into a room with long tables and chairs in the middle with numerous metal cabinets lining the walls. Joe resisted the urge to search through the cabinets. He wanted to find the way out quickly. He felt trapped in this strange place. He would come back and search more once he had returned to the surface and made his report.
They moved through another series of rooms typical of what they had already seen. They reminded Joe of an emptied university or research center. The trio had just walked up a stairwell when One came to a halt in front of him.
”Sir, there is an anomaly ahead.”
Joe stepped forward and looked over the robot's shoulder.
”Whoa,” Joe said. Just ahead, the smooth concrete floor ended in an irregular hole. The room at the top of the stairwell emptied into a large cavern. Cl.u.s.ters of odd red and beige blocks the size of his fist grew out of the wall in random patches. The groups of cubes had greenish-colored sticks or spines poking out of them at all angles. He stared at the odd cavern for a long moment.
”One, do you have any record of this sort of... cave?”
”These structures are unknown,” One reported.
Joe walked up to the edge of the cave. He kneeled down to examine the border where the floor ended. The concrete was sheared off smoothly. There were no chunks or debris of the room on the floor of the cavern beyond. The walls and ceiling had been cut off in the same way.
”This cave or whatever it is was somehow created after this place was built. The floor wasn't built this way, it was cut off.”
One and Two didn't say anything. Joe shook his head and paced.
”None of this is making any sense,” he complained. ”This whole place... I just don't understand what's going on. Something is happening that I'm missing here. These funny blocks look like kid's toys.”
Two leveled its rifle and stepped forward.
”There is a possible lifeform reading up ahead.”
”The orange crab-thing?”
”No. The reading is much larger. A high-metabolism creature with metallic accoutrements. Possible electronics signature detected.”
”s.h.i.+t!” After years in the service, Joe had never heard these words except in training VRs. He unslung his rifle, then considered his sidearm for a moment. The sidearm would be more useful in close quarters, but it was a lot less sophisticated than the rifle. Its slugs were undiscriminating. Joe decided to stick with the rifle.
”Send the profile over to my rifle,” Joe ordered. He could set the seeker slugs to match the reading they were getting. ”How close is this d.a.m.n thing?”
The end of his question was lost in the painfully loud stutter of automatic weapons fire. One moved quickly, darting into the tunnel while Two moved up to the edge and added its own fire.
”Hold your fire!” yelled Joe. He almost followed the demand with the question, Why are you shooting? But two things changed his mind. First, Joe realized that the robots had been told to a.s.sume anyone they met were artifact poachers and should be shot at, and second, Two's head exploded.
The Series Seven's torso leaned to one side. Fragments of metal shot out in all directions and the robot's legs froze in place, sending it hurtling to the ground. It fell and twitched, more lifelike in death than it had been while operational. Then it stopped moving.
Joe hit the ground and crawled back, retreating from the mysterious smooth cavern. He heard the boom of One's rifle. There was another hissing sound and a metallic crackling. Any second he expected to feel the impact of a projectile.
”s.h.i.+t! I think we've found something capable of harming humans,” Joe commented dryly. He accessed his rifle's interface and logged a target around the corner, then started shooting as he backed up further, taking a few steps back down the stairs. He didn't know if he was. .h.i.tting anything, but he hoped that the rounds flinging around the bend in the cave would be enough to keep the thing from pursuing him.
”What have I done?” Joe asked himself in dismay. He should have told the robots to hold their fire as soon as he realized the lifeform was possibly an intelligent alien. As it was, he actually hoped that it was just a trick of the smugglers. At least that way, he hadn't just started a war with an alien race.
Joe turned around and ran back down the stairs. He couldn't hear any more sounds of fighting behind. He kept running down, past the level from which they had arrived until he hit the bottom of the stairwell three floors down.
Joe linked to the nearest information service and asked about the floor. A list came up. Joe read ”archives” and then the link scrambled and dropped out. He tried again and read ”fire control station” before the link disconnected.
He pushed through the stairway door. A gray corridor stretched to his left and right. He went to the left until he saw a doorway and pushed through it. Joe found himself in a restroom. The wall before him was lined with mirrors and sinks.
Joe looked at his reflection in the nearest mirror. He saw a wild-eyed man with the beginnings of a beard from his long flight to Yarnitha. He held his rifle in a death grip. What chance did he have without any real a.s.sault robots on his side? Just one man?
He had only felt this much fear one other time in his life. Years ago he had been a cadet in training at New Kellur, a student of military science at the finest academy the s.p.a.ce force had.
Joe thought he had found a way of communication outside the censored loop at the academy and shared certain cla.s.sified facts with his brother, an engineer outside the service. When they discovered his transgression despite his precautions, he had been gripped with a terror that his entire life had been destroyed. That had felt like he felt now, helpless and ruined. Joe believed that there were worse things than death, and living as a prisoner of the world government was one of those things.
As it turned out, he had been thrown out of New Kellur and a.s.signed to another, less prestigious officer school on a faraway planet. He heard years later that his brother had been interrogated and placed under increased surveillance for a time. Joe's career had been downgraded, but despite the bitterness he cleaned up his act after that. A life in the s.p.a.ce force was the only thing Joe had ever wanted.
Joe thought about that close call so long ago. He told himself that if he died now, it would not have been such a bad life. Not as bad as if he had been thrown into a mining colony to rot and had never joined the s.p.a.ce force at all.
”I'm gonna die in this s.h.i.+thole,” Joe mumbled to himself. He checked the load on his rifle and walked back out into the corridor.
Chapter Seven.
Telisa examined the brightly lit hallway. The light came from glow rods affixed in the corners of the ceiling. Thin, dull-colored carpet covered the floor. The walls were colored a deep green.
”It's amazing. We could be on Earth,” she said.
”This has to be a UNSF facility. The power sourcea”it must be some kind of secret research facility,” said Thomas.
”But why hide the entrance in a tube in the middle of a Trilisk ruin?” asked Telisa.
”And where are the guards, the security robots, the automated checkpoints?” added Magnus.