Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  "Might as well," Omegaburn sighed.

  "That's unofficial, Jace," I said. "Just like 'Jace'."

  "I understand."

  "All right, I'm reading four hours of air left," Omegaburn said. "Lets head on down to launcher one."

  "Launcher?" Jace asked.

  "This used to be a nuclear missile silo," I said. "It's been converted to other purposes. The name is an artifact from the previous use."

  "I see." Jace fiddled with the device on his left arm.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Monitoring background radiation levels."

  "Just to clarify, the missiles were not themselves nuclear powered, and the warheads were shielded, so the levels shouldn't be any higher than anywhere else."

  "Oh. Of course. I think I'll leave it on for when we reach the other side of the gate."

  We left the command center and headed down the tunnel towards the TNT Research end of the facility. I'd never actually gone down that way, and was surprised when the tunnel split three ways. We followed the sign for Launcher One and approached a security door. Two SRT guards looked us over, but opened the door. They were not typically stationed here; I'd have noticed SRTs moving around Gruefield. Special Response Teams were meant for places like Vanguard Hospital, Sterling Towers, and such. Anywhere there were a significant number of unpowered staff that powered criminals might hit. Their exosuits were semi-powered armor that gave them a fighting chance at buying time for the cavalry to arrive. From what I hear, the exosuits were still a bit flaky. The color scheme was sky blue and black, trying to make them look more like security guards than soldiers.

  There were two modules off to the side of the main launcher. What ever their original purpose, they were now stuffed with equipment. One was chock full of monitoring equipment, and the other was stuffed with bank after bank of batteries or capacitors. Figures in white lab coats were crammed into what little free space remained. One of them was positively brimming with excitement. She had sandy gray hair and was only about as tall as my nose. We couldn't hear what she was saying, and a few gestures at our helmets got the message through. She picked up a headset and put it on.

  "We have an active carrier wave lock on the other endpoint," she said. "We've run two test connections with the other endpoint. On the second run we sent a probe through. It wasn't able to send a signal back through, but it did return without damage."

  "I'm glad we're not the first guinea pigs," Wolfjack said.

  "I'm not familiar with that phrase," Jace said.

  "Guinea pigs are most famous for being used as scientific test subjects," I said. "As such their name also refers to any living test subject."

  "I see."

  The exuberant scientist flipped a switch to turn on the lights in the main launcher. We were mid way up the shaft. The heavy concrete-and-steel door topping the launcher was hidden in gloom far overhead. A platform had been erected in the middle of the column, with a rat's nest of wrist-thick cables linking it into the equipment in the side modules. The centerpiece of the assembly was an octagonal 'ring' of metal. A mesh of fine wires filled the interior space. As I stepped closer, I realized the wires were wound together in a manner that created a pattern of octagons and squares within the open space.

  I stepped back as the mesh began to glow.

  "Sorry, I turned off my headset to answer a question," the scientist said. "We're beginning link initialization. Don't touch the endpoint until I say it's okay."

  A yellow glow spread between the red of the wires, filling in the intervening space. The yellow brightened to blue as the red brightened to yellow. It moved on to white and blue before flashing pure white. And then it all faded.

  "What happened?"

  "Emission spectrum above human visible range," Jace said.

  "We're getting dosed with ultraviolet?" I asked.

  "Your suits and your helmets block UV light," the scientist said. "You'll be fine, you won't even get a tan from it." She paused for a moment. "Link established."

  "It still looks like a wire mesh."

  "It's active, you can go through it now."

  Kevan stepped forward, looked at the mesh in a moment of trepidation, then stepped towards it. He vanished in a flash of light.

  "Is he..?"

  "It all reads normal," the scientist said. "It's not like the thing disassembles you, you're transferred in one piece to the other end. The photon release is a side-effect."

  As I drew in a nervous breath, I stepped forward and into the gate.

  My foot landed on another world.

  Part 6

  A broad ramp led up to the octagonal endpoint. Its burnished metallic surface led down to a wide door. The door was solidly closed. There were no lights on, and the metal walls showed no signs of being painted. My eye adjusted to the conditions, but my feet did not. I stumbled forward, expecting more weight on my back than I had. Kevan caught me and I found my footing again. In a flash of light, Wolfjack appeared. He strolled casually past me. I strangled a flash of envy. The whole reason we'd brought him along was because the low gravity wouldn't impact him. Omegaburn and Jace showed up a moment later.

  Kevan paced up and down the ramp, fiddling with the dial on the front of his belt. The original Ranger Roy's gravity belt was still a one-of-a-kind device. I guessed he was looking for a comfortable setting. I simply had to suffer through the complaints coming from my confused and rebellious viscera. "This was a poorly-planned mission," I said.

  "We just got here," Kevan said.

  "No griping, or I send you back," Omegaburn said.

  "Atmospheric pressure is higher than Earth average," Jace said.

  "What?" Wolfjack asked.

  "We're within the Builder facility," Kevan said. "It's probably set up for them."

  "Your associate is correct," Jace said. "Spectrographic analysis indicates a nitrogen-methane atmosphere with near zero oxygen content.

  "I'm glad this gate has a gas seal." I said. "Where are the controls?" Everyone looked around the room we were in, save Jace, who tapped away at the device on his wrist.

  "Uta|la||tek|li design philosophy would have this device computer controlled and activated by a portable access device carried with or in the individual user. We will need to gain computer access before we can activate it from this side."

  "As a failsafe, the staff back at Gruefield will be turning it back on in three hours," Omegaburn said. "In case we need to return and recharge the life support packs before we gain computer access."

  "How will we know if it's on?" Wolfjack asked.

  "By the radiation signature," Jace said. "I recorded it from the other side. It is fairly distinct."

  "Can you get computer access from here, or do we have to get that door open?" I asked.

  "I will not know until I have finished my attempt," Jace said.

  "We're in an alien box on Mars," Kevan said. "In theory, that's really cool. But it just looks like the inside of a shipping container. And all I can see is what the HUD lights illuminate."

  Wolfjack reached over and tapped the side of Kevan's helmet, turning on the built-in lights. A moment later, he turned on his own headlamps.

  "Okay, was there a manual I didn't get?" Kevan asked.

  "I sent it to all of you," Omegaburn said, turning on her own lights. "Did you not check your Fund messages?"

  "Junior Redemptioners don't have access to the Fund network," I said.

  "Oh," Omegaburn said.

  "So, yes, there was a manual I didn't get," Kevan said.

  I hadn't checked my messages, but I stayed quiet on that point. The psychic circuitry in my mask and my wrist computer were taking up the slack with respect to my ignorance. But I should have probably read that since it pertained to life support equipment.<
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  "The nodes here are not accepting my attempts to gain access," Jace said. "We need physical access to the main processing node to reprogram the security."

  "So, first step is that door," I said.

  "Shouldn't there be a manual override?" Wolfjack asked, looking over the metal door.

  "If there is," Jace said. "It will be on the other side. The emergency exit from this room is that." He pointed at the gate we'd entered through.

  "And if the base loses power?"

  "I do not know."

  I walked towards the door, or rather bounded towards it. I still wasn't used to moving about in one-third gravity. The door was very clearly made from two sliding panels that came together in the middle. Near the seam, about halfway up, was a set of four indentations in a circle. Not a circle, another seam. Was that a doorknob? I put three fingers in indentations and tested to see if I could turn it. The patch rotated rather readily, and at about a quarter turn to the right, there was a thunk I could feel in my bones. The door split at the seam and sank most of the way into pockets on either side of the frame.

  "The door wasn't locked," I said.

  "I didn't see any controls," Wolfjack said.

  I pointed to the circular patch I'd turned and three sets of lights converged on it. While they were examining the control, my eye was caught by the sky. The ceiling of the corridor beyond the door was made of transparent panels. They were in desperate need of washing as ruddy dust had accumulated on the outside, particularly along the edges. Through the wind-swept middle, however, I could see a blue-gray sky swirling with rust-colored clouds of migrant dust. A single glimmer of light hung in that sky, possibly a tiny moon. As it all sunk in, I smiled.

  I really was on Mars.

  The moment was interrupted by Jace. "What is everyone staring at?"

  "I'm sorry, Jace," I said. "This is the first time any of us have been off of our home planet. I know it may be a bit more mundane for someone who's part of an embassy to an alien world. But it's new to us." Technically, it wasn't true, but the artificial gravity and lack of windows had made the Ygnaza transport feel too much like an Earthbound facility. Here, it was very clearly another world.

  The floor of the corridor was made of knobbly panels laid atop a burnished substrate. There were more doors on either side, and the end of the hall opened up to a larger space. A few harsh, angular glyphs had been painted on each of the doors. I guess it was Uta|la||tek|li writing.

  "These rooms are labeled as supply storage for the habitat section," Jace said.

  "Shadowdemon, show us exactly what you did when you opened that door," Omegaburn said.

  "Right." I bounded over to the nearest door on the left. "It was simple really, I just gave this thing a slight turn." I put three fingers in indentations and gave it a turn until I felt the thunk and the door slid open. The room beyond was an empty box. Whatever was meant to be stored there hadn't been loaded into it.

  "How do we close it?" Kevan asked. On a hunch I rotated the same control in the opposite direction and the door slid closed.

  "I guess nobody likes overly-complicated doors," I said.

  "All right, leave the door to the gate room open, just in case," Omegaburn said. "Do we know where we're going, or do we have to search?"

  "We should begin by checking the common area at the end of this hall. If it contains the access node proper, I may be able to gain control from there," Jace said.

  "If? May?" Wolfjack asked.

  "Did I speak wrong?"

  "I believe Wolfjack is more concerned about the uncertainty than your use of language, Jace," I said.

  "I am familiar with Uta|la||tek|li technology," Jace said. "Not the precise layout of this mining station. Please forgive my conditionals."

  "Right, so we're going to check out the end of the hall," Omegaburn said. Instead of bounding around like I was, she'd taken to floating a few inches above the floor. Probably so she wouldn't embarrass herself. As we moved, I ran into the most infuriating inconvenience of this trip so far. Worse than the gravity. Worse than the nagging reminder that the atmosphere I was bounding through was toxic. No, it was far more basic, and cruel. My face started to itch. There was a cloth pad inside the helmet for this eventuality, but the itch crawled up under my mask where the pad couldn't help. The worst part was, I knew it was entirely psychosomatic. I was itching because I couldn't scratch it. The same thing happened when the topic of conversation went to lice, fleas, or bedbugs, itching without physical cause. Thinking about it was not a smart move, because the rest of me started to itch too.

  I fought to ignore the infuriating sensation as I bounded down the corridor towards the open space at the end. The room was four or five times as wide as the corridor, and the corridor had been wide enough that all five of us could have walked side-by-side down it easily. That is, if there were normal gravity. As it was, I had trouble moving in a straight line. The space had two tables, or what I took to be tables. They were flat and at about chest height. Arrayed around these tables were pieces of furniture that looked like plastic models of hammocks supported on a pedestal. They were more or less waist high. A darkened display sat next to another door out the other side of the room. There was no other decor, unless the large windows counted.

  The view out of the windows was desolate. Ruddy, wind-blown dust danced over a massive gray pit. Terraces were gouged into the sides of the pit. A trestled causeway ran from near the habitat to a distant tower resting on caterpillar treads. Two other causeways ran to smaller tracked platforms on the rim of the pit. A broad arch connected it to another tracked tower from which a single large boom hung. The boom ended in a disc rimmed in massive toothed buckets. Judging by the catwalks hanging from the structure, each tower was the size of a skyscraper and the distance from me to the bucket wheel was well over a mile. The hole it had dug in the ground was only about half the height of the towers, and varied between six and seven terraces deep. In the distance, rust-colored peaks marked the horizon, though the haze left them disconnected from the rent ground of the pit.

  Jace moved over to the display by the door and fiddled with the device on his left arm. It was not a terribly interesting moment to watch, so my gaze drifted back out the window.

  "It's funny, really," Kevan said. "Razordemon comes up to me and says 'we have a job that is perfect for you.' I find out it's a trip to Mars, and I get all excited. Now that I'm here, it's stand around a big hole in the ground while an alien futzes with other aliens' stuff. It's a bit of a let-down."

  "They told you what the objectives were," I said. "If this were a movie titled 'Ranger Roy goes to Mars', then the contents would be exactly what it said on the tin. Here you are. What exactly were you expecting?"

  "I don't know, some sense of awe, or wonder, anything but boredom."

  "We wait until Jace says we're good, we hit our three-hour mark, or something happens," I said.

  "Or," Omegaburn said. "You three can search the remaining rooms on this level and see what's in them."

  "Three rooms, three of us, lets each take one and get this over with," Wolfjack said.

  I bounded towards the hall we'd come down and picked the closest door. With the trouble I was having moving, the other two didn't argue with me. Wolfjack picked the room across the hall, and Kevan moved to the room opposite the first I'd opened. My room contained boxes marked in the harsh glyphs of the Uta|la||tek|li language. I prised the top off of one of the boxes and found neatly packed rows of foil-wrapped bricks. Each was about nine inches long, four wide and one thick. The embossed markings were as illegible as the outside of the box. I picked one up. It felt light, but under the conditions here, I wasn't sure how heavy it was. Something in the back of my mind said 'food bar'. But that would make it a thirty-year-old food bar - for aliens who breathed methane. I dropped it back in the box.
<
br />   As I moved to open a box whose markings didn't match, Kevan cried out, "Holy crap!" A loud thunk drew me to the door. Kevan peeled himself off the wall of the corridor as a pair of metal legs stepped out of the door he'd been checking out. It was followed by another pair. The robot skittering out of the room had eight in total. The body was a simple box with a mass of smaller robotic arachnids hanging on its back. It raised up on its back four legs and moved in on Kevan. The young man took hold of one of the legs and ripped it off. He swatted the robot back with its own leg. It slumped against the door jamb and Kevan dropped the leg.