It was an unbeautiful structure, strictly utilitarian in design Its multitude of pipes and chambers and conduits had been scoured and pitted by decades of wind-blown rock and sand. It was as efficient as it was ugly. Working around the clock for years on end, it and its sister stations scattered around the planet would break down the components of Acheron's atmosphere, scrub them clean, add to them, and eventually produce a pleasant biosphere equipped with a balmy, homelike climate. A great deal of beauty to spring forth from so much ugliness.
The monolithic metal mass towered over the armoured personnel carrier as Wierzbowski braked to a stop across from the main entryway. Led by Hicks and Apone, the waiting troopers deployed in front of the oversize door. Up close to the complex the thrum of heavy machinery filled their ears, rising above the steady whistle of the wind. The well-built machinery continued to do its job even in the absence of its human masters.
Hudson was first to the entrance and ran his fingers over the door controls like a locksmith casing his next crack.
'Surprise, chiluns. Everything works.' He thumbed a single button, and the heavy barrier slid aside to reveal an interior walkway. Off to the right a concrete ramp led downward.
'Which way, sir?' Apone inquired.
'Take the ramp,' Gorman instructed them from inside the APC. 'There'll be another at the bottom. Take it down to C-level.'
'Check.' The sergeant gestured at his troops. 'Drake, take point. The rest of you follow by twos. Let's go.'
Hudson hesitated at the control panel. 'What about the door?'
'There's nobody here. Leave it open.'
They started down the broad ramp into the guts of the station. Light filtered down from above, slanting through floors and catwalks fashioned of steel mesh, bending around conduits ranked side by side like organ pipes. They had their suit lights switched on, anyway. Machinery pounded steadily around them as they descended.
The multiple views provided by their suit cameras bounced and swayed as they walked, making viewing difficult for those watching the monitors inside the APC. Eventually the floor levelled out and the images steadied. Multiple lenses revealed a floor overflowing with heavy cylinders and conduits, stacks of plastic crates, and tall metal bottles.
'B-level.' Gorman addressed the operations bay pickup 'They're on the next one down. Try to take it a little slower. It's hard to make anything out when you're moving fast on a downslope.'
Dietrich turned to Frost. 'Maybe he wants us to fly? That way the picture wouldn't bounce.'
'How about if I carry you instead?' Hudson called back to her.
'How about if I throw you over the railing?' she responded 'Picture would be steady that way, too, until you hit bottom.'
'Shut up back there,' Apone growled as they swung around a turn in the descending rampway. Hudson and the rest obliged.
In the Operations bay Ripley peered over Gorman's right shoulder, and Burke around the other, while Newt tried to squeeze in from behind. Despite all the video wizardry the lieutenant could command, none of the individual suit cameras provided a clear picture of what the troops were seeing.
'Try the low end gain,' Burke suggested.
'I did that first thing, Mr. Burke. There's an awful lot of interference down there. The deeper they go, the more junk their signals have to get through, and those suit units don't put out much power. What's an atmosphere processing station's interior built out of, anyway?'
'Carbon-fibre composites and silica blends up top wherever possible, for strength and lightness. A lot of metallic glass in the partitions. Foundations and sublevels don't have to be so fancy. Concrete and steel floors with a lot of titanium alloy thrown in.'
Gorman was unable to contain his frustration as he fiddled futilely with his instruments. 'If the emergency power was out and the station shut down, I'd be getting clearer reception, but then they'd be advancing with nothing but suit lights to guide them. It's a trade-off.' He shook his head as he studied the blurred images and leaned toward the pickup.
'We're not making that out too well ahead of you. What is it?'
Static garbled Hudson's voice as well as the view provided by his camera. 'You tell me. I only work here.'
The lieutenant looked back at Burke. 'Your people build that?'
The Company rep leaned toward the row of monitors squinting at the dim images being relayed back from the bowels of the atmosphere-processing station.
'Hell, no.'
'Then you don't know what it is?'
'I've never seen anything like it in my life.'
'Could the colonists have added it?'
Burke continued to stare, finally shook his head. 'If they did they improvised it. That didn't come out of any station construction manual.'
Something had been added to the latticework of pipes and conduits that crisscrossed the lowest level of the processing station. There was no question that it was the result of design and purpose, not some unknown industrial accident. Visibly damp and lustrous in spots, the peculiar material that had been used to construct the addition resembled a solidified liquid resin or glue. In places light penetrated the material to a depth of several centimetres, revealing a complex internal structure At other locations the substance was opaque. What little colour it displayed was muted: greens and grays, and here and there a touch of some darker green.
Intricate chambers ranged in size from half a metre in diameter to a dozen metres across, all interconnected by strips of fragile-looking webwork that on closer inspection turned out to be about as fragile as steel cable. Tunnels led off deeper into the maze while peculiar conical pits dead-ended in the floor. So precisely did the added material blend with the existing machinery that it was difficult to tell where human handiwork ended and something of an entirely different nature began. In places the addition almost mimicked existing station equipment, though whether it was imitation with a purpose or merely blind duplication, no one could tell.
The whole gleaming complex extended as far back into C-level as the trooper's cameras could penetrate. Although it filled every available empty space, the epoxy-like incrustation did not appear to have in any way impaired the functioning of the station. It continued to rumble on, having its way with Acheron's air, unaffected by the heteromorphic chambering that filled much of its lower level.
Of them all, only Ripley had some idea of what the troopers had stumbled across, and she was momentarily too numb with horrid fascination to explain. She could only stare and remember.
Gorman happened to glance back long enough to catch the expression on her face. 'What is it?'
'I don't know.'
'You know something, which is more than any of the rest of us. Come on, Ripley. Give. Right now I'd pay a hundred credits for an informed guess.'
'I really don't know. I think I've seen something like it once before, but I'm not sure. It's different, somehow. More elaborate and—'
'Let me know when your brain starts working again. Disappointed, the lieutenant turned back to the mike. 'Proceed with your advance, Sergeant.'
The troopers resumed their march, their suit lights shining on the vitreous walls surrounding them. The deeper they went into the maze, the more it took on the appearance of having been grown or secreted rather than built. The labyrinth looked like the interior of a gigantic organ or bone. Not a human organ, not a human bone.
Whatever else its purpose, the addition served to concentrate waste heat from the processor's fusion plant. Steam from dripping water formed puddles on the floor and hissed around them. Factory respiration.
'It's opening up a little just ahead.' Hicks panned his camera around. The troop was entering a large, domed chamber. The walls abruptly changed in character and appearance. It was a testimony to their training that not one of the troopers broke down on the spot.
Ripley muttered, 'Oh, God.' Burke mumbled a shocked curse.
Cameras and suit lights illuminated the chamber. Instead of the smooth, curving walls they'd passed earlier,
these were rough and uneven. They formed a rigged bas-relief composed of detritus gathered from the town: furniture, wiring, solid and fluid-state components, bits of broken machinery, persona effects, torn clothing, human bones and skulls, all fused together with that omnipresent, translucent, epoxy-like resin.
Hudson reached out to run a gloved hand along one wall casually caressing a cluster of human ribs. He picked at the resinous ooze, barely scratching it.
'Ever see anything like this stuff before?'
'Not me.' Hicks would have spat if he'd had room. 'I'm not a chemist.'
Dietrich was expected to render an opinion and did so 'Looks like some kind of secreted glue. Your bad guys spit this stuff out or what, Ripley?'
'I—I don't know how its manufactured, but I've seen it before, on a much smaller scale.'
Gorman pursed his lips, analysis taking over from the initial shock. 'Looks like they ripped apart the colony for building materials.' He indicated the view offered by Hicks's screen 'There's a whole stack of blank storage disks imbedded there.'
'And portable power cells.' Burke gestured toward another of the individual monitors. 'Expensive stuff. Tore it all apart.'
'And the colonists,' Ripley pointed out, 'when they were done with them.' She turned to look down at the sombre-visaged little girl standing next to her.
'Newt, you'd better go sit up front. Go on.' She nodded and obediently headed for the driver's cab.
The steam on C-level intensified as the troops moved stil deeper into the chamber. It was accompanied by a corresponding increase in temperature.
'Hotter'n a furnace in here,' Frost grumbled.
'Yeah,' Hudson agreed sarcastically, 'but it's a dry heat.'
Ripley looked to her left. Burke and Gorman stayed intent on the videoscreens. To the lieutenant's left was a small monitor that showed a graphic readout of the station's ground plan.
'They're right under the primary heat exchangers.'
'Yeah.' A fascinated Burke was unable to take his eyes off the view being relayed by Apone's camera. 'Maybe the organisms like the heat. That's why they built—'
'That's not what I mean. Gorman, if your people have to use their weapons in there, they'll rupture the cooling system.'
Burke abruptly realized what Ripley was driving at. 'She's right.'
'So?' asked the lieutenant.
'So,' she continued, 'that releases the freon and/or the water that's been condensed out of the air for cooling purposes.'
'Fine.' He tapped the screens. 'It'll cool everybody off.'
'It'll do more than cool them off.'
'For instance?'
'Fusion containment shuts down.'
'So? So? Why didn't she get to the point? Didn't the woman realize that he was trying to direct a search-and-clear expedition here'
'We're talking thermonuclear explosion.'
That made Gorman sit back and think. He weighed his options. His decision was made easier by the fact that he didn't have any. 'Apone, collect rifle magazines from everybody. We can't have any firing in there.'
Apone wasn't the only one who overheard the order. The troopers eyed one another with a combination of disbelief and dismay.
'Is he crazy?' Wierzbowski clutched his rifle protectively to his ribs, as if daring Gorman to come down and disarm it personally.
Hudson all but growled. 'What're we supposed to use, man? Harsh language?' He spoke into his headset. 'Hey, Lieutenant you want maybe we should try judo? What if they ain't got any arms?'
'They've got arms,' Ripley assured him tightly.
'You're not going in naked, Hudson,' Gorman told him 'You've got other weapons you can use.'
'Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea,' Dietrich muttered.
'What, using alternates?' Wierzbowski muttered.
'No. Hudson going in naked. No living thing could stand the shock.'
'Screw you, Dietrich,' the comtech shot back.
'Not a chance.' With a sigh the medtech yanked the fully charged magazine from her rifle.
'Flame units only.' Gorman's tone was no-nonsense. 'I want all rifles slung.'
'You heard the lieutenant.' Apone began circulating among them, collecting magazines. 'Pull 'em out.'
One by one the rifles were rendered harmless. Vasquez turned over the power packs for her smartgun with great reluctance. Three of the troopers carried portable incinerator units in addition to their penetration weapons. These were unlimbered, warmed up, and checked. Unnoticed by Apone or any of her colleagues, Vasquez slipped a spare power cell from the back of her pants and slipped it into her smartgun. As soon as the sergeant's eyes and all suit cameras were off them, Drake did likewise. The two smartgun operators exchanged a grim wink.
Hicks had no one to wink at and no smartgun to jimmy with What he did have was a cylindrical sheath attached to the inner lining of his battle harness. Unzipping his torso armour, he opened the sheath to reveal the gunmetal-gray twin barrels of an antique pump twelve-gauge shotgun with a sawed-off butt stock. As Hudson looked on with professional interest the corporal resealed his armour, clicked back the stock of the well-maintained relic, and chambered a round.
'Where'd you get that, Hicks? When I saw that bulge, I thought you were smuggling liquor, except that'd be out of character for you. Steal it from a museum?'
'Been in my family for a long time. Cute, isn't it?'
'Some family. Can it do anything?'
Hicks showed him a single shell. 'Not your standard militaryissue high-velocity armour-piercing round, but you don't want it going off in your face, either.' He kept his voice down. 'I always keep this handy. For close encounters. I don't think it'l penetrate anything far enough to set off any mushrooms.'
'Yeah, real cute.' Hudson favoured the sawed-off with a last admiring look. 'You're a traditionalist, Hicks.'
The corporal smiled thinly. 'It's my tender nature.'
Apone's voice carried back to them from just ahead. 'Let's move. Hicks, since you seem to like it back there, you take rear guard.'
'My pleasure, Sarge.' The corporal rested the old shotgun against his right shoulder, balancing it easily with one hand, his finger light on the heavy trigger. Hudson grinned appreciatively, gave Hicks the high sign, and jogged forward to take up his assigned position near the point.
The air was thick, and their lights were diffused by the roiling steam. Hudson felt as though they were advancing through a steel-and-plastic jungle.
Gorman's voice echoed in his headset. 'Any movement?' The lieutenant sounded faint and far away, even though the comtech knew he was only a couple of levels above and just outside the entrance to the processing station. He kept his eyes on his tracker as he advanced.
'Hudson here, sir. Nothing so far. Zip. The only thing moving around down here is the air.'
He turned a corner and glanced up from the miniature readouts. What he saw made him forget the tracker, forget his rifle, forget everything.
Another encrusted wall lay directly in front of them. It was marred by bulges and ripples and had been sculpted by some unknown, inhuman hand, a teratogenic version of Rodin's Gates of Hell. Here were the missing colonists, entombed alive in the same epoxy-like resin that had been used to construct the latticework and tunnels, chambers and pits, and had transformed the lowest level of the processing station into something out of a xenopsychotic nightmare.
Each had been cocooned in the wall without regard for human comfort. Arms and legs had been grotesquely twisted broken when necessary in order to make the unfortunate victim fit properly into the alien scheme and design. Heads lolled at unnatural angles. Many of the bodies had been reduced to desiccated lumps of bone from which the flesh and skin had decayed. Others had been cleaned to the naked bone They were the fortunate ones who had been granted the gift o death. Every corpse had one thing in common, no matter where it was situated or how it had been placed in the wall: the rib cages had been bent outward, as though the sternum had exploded from behind.
The troopers moved slowly into the embryo chamber. Their expressions were grim. No one said anything. There wasn't one among them who hadn't laughed at death, but this was worse than death. This was obscene.
Dietrich approached the still-intact figure of a woman. The body was ghostly white, drained. The eyelids fluttered and opened as the woman sensed movement, a presence something. Madness dwelt within. The figure spoke in a hollow, sepulchral voice, a whisper conjured up out of desperation. Trying to hear, Dietrich leaned closer.
'Please—kill me.'
Wide-eyed, the medtech stumbled back. Within the safety of the APC Ripley could only stare helplessly, biting down hard on the knuckles of her left hand. She knew what was coming knew what prompted the woman's ultimate request, just as she knew that neither she nor anyone else could do anything except comply. The sound of somebody retching came over the Operations bay speakers. Nobody made jokes about that either.
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