‘Let’s set the microbots to work,’ Ella suggested. ‘They can do a full detail search of the area, and we can go take a look in that tower.’
Aneka nodded and started down the slope to the floor of the pit. ‘Careful here, the sand’s loose.’
It took a few minutes to set up the lab unit, program the microbots from it, and set them on their travels. A cloud of tiny robots floated free of the box and began gliding out across the landscape, sampling and mapping as they went. Then the two women turned and headed for the tower.
The door, which turned out to be of heavy iron, was a crack open. Sand had worked its way in and it took all of Aneka’s artificial muscle to shift it, but once opened it swung easily; there was too little moisture in the air to rust the metal. Inside the tower they got something of a surprise.
‘This was a camp,’ Aneka said. ‘Old, but not several centuries.’
‘Maybe seventy years?’ Ella suggested. ‘She walked over to a crate and pulled out a metallic bar. ‘Survival rations. A little less modern than the ones I’ll be eating if we need to leave the ship, but not too much.’ She gave a little grimace. ‘I wouldn’t want to open this.’ She turned it over and then held it up to display some glyphs Aneka did not recognise. ‘That’s Herica, the script the Herosians use.’
‘We might be in the right place, but why did they leave this stuff here?’
Ella shrugged and started for a flight of stairs that led upward around the wall. Her voice came from above a second or two later. ‘Doesn’t look like whoever it was came up here much. There’s some old furniture. Metal. I guess they wouldn’t have much wood to work with. Looks like an office. Maybe some sort of planning room.’
Aneka followed her up. The room above did, indeed, contain a metal desk, a few chairs, and what looked like a chart table. Ella had opened a cupboard, which was bolted to one of the walls. Aneka could see what looked like rolled-up charts, though there was going to be no unrolling; the desiccated material crumbled into dust as soon as Ella touched it.
‘Shame,’ the redhead commented. ‘Documentation would have been nice to find.’
There was a third floor, but that seemed to be little more than a lookout post. Aneka looked out across the desert. Sand as far as the eye could see, and her eyes could see a long way.
‘God it’s bleak,’ she said, her voice low.
‘The locals must’ve been adapted to it,’ Ella replied. ‘Low resource requirements. Maybe they were crepuscular.’
‘Uh, soldier, remember?’
‘Active during twilight periods. This planet has a moderately long day, about twenty-two standard hours. Dawn and dusk may be quite long too.’ She looked around. ‘An entire civilisation, just… gone.’
‘Yeah. We can thank the Xinti for that.’
‘Sort of. I mean, yes, but there’s no way of knowing that the Idridians wouldn’t have blown themselves up eventually anyway. It’s not a certainty of high-technology. The Herosians managed to get past the self-destructive phase, and their petty rivalries are legendary, but it was a pretty close thing.’
‘Huh. Evolution. Survival of the fittest. It works on an intellectual level as well as a physical one.’
‘I guess so. I’m not saying what the Xinti did didn’t contribute to the destruction, but we can’t assume it was the sole cause either.’
‘Eve seemed to blame this kind of thing on their actions.’ The AI who had been in charge of running the uplift projects had been fairly certain that the experiments had not been entirely justified, in fact.
‘Eve was too close to it. She saw a war with the technology she helped promote and decided to blame herself and the Xinti for it. If the Jenlay hadn’t been uplifted I think we’d have ended up vassals of the Herosians, or extinct. The Xinti did us a favour, even if they did try to kill us afterward.’
Idridia.
It was getting dark by the time the survey bots had completed their work. With them back in their box, Aneka and Ella carried everything back to the, gloriously air conditioned, ship and set up the lab unit to analyse the data from the mapping.
The evening was quite long at this latitude. It stayed hot outside as the sand gave up the stored heat of the day, but Aneka was guessing it would get fairly cold later. At least inside the ship they would be warm enough and they could sleep without setting a watch.
Ella did not have much of an appetite after the hot day, but she forced down a bowl of soup while the lab did its work, and then began examining the results of the scan.
‘Here,’ she said after a minute or so. ‘I think our crashed ship ploughed into the sand outside that entrance arch, or whatever it was. It must have been buried since. Someone dug a hole down to the hull, which is still mostly clear. The bots found material down there they couldn’t classify properly aside from it being extremely hard.’
‘They dug down and then…’
‘Cut a hole in the hull, from the looks of this data. They resealed it with a metal plate afterward. Looks like an aluminium alloy.’
Aneka frowned. ‘That makes no sense. They break in, on a deserted planet, but they seal up the hole before leaving and they leave in a hurry. Otherwise they wouldn’t have left those supplies in the tower.’
‘Well, I guess the only way we’ll get any answers is to go down there tomorrow and look.’
Aneka nodded, but she had a bad feeling about it.
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Aneka looked down into the hole and sniffed. ‘We’re going to need the climbing gear this time,’ she commented.
The mysterious looters with the Herosian survival rations had cut a nearly perfectly smooth path down from the surface under the bridge into what looked like fused sand, and down about thirty metres to the hull of the ship below. The sides of the well were not only smooth, but they were glassy, as though the sand had been subjected to considerable heat either by the crash or the cutting process, or both.
‘I think the ship came down and ploughed through the southern side of the outpost,’ Ella said. ‘The impact energy must’ve been enormous to cause this much heating.’ She watched as the cloud of light-emitting microbots moved further down the well. ‘We’re probably going to need the cutting gear too. I think I can see weld marks from here and…’ She stopped, frowning. ‘Are those dents in the plate?’
Aneka looked down, her eyes zooming in to make the marks Ella was pointing out clearer. They did, indeed, look like dents in the aluminium plate, which had been welded over the breach in the hull. ‘Little hard to tell from here,’ Aneka said, ‘but those look kind of like something was trying to smash its way out.’
‘Something survived the crash and however long it had to wait until these mercs cut into the hull?’
‘Those robots lasted quite a while on Alpha Mensae.’
‘That’s a point, I guess. How about cutting a hole in the patch and letting the survey robots check it out in there before we go further?’
‘That’s actually a good plan,’ Aneka replied. ‘I’ll go get the kit.’
‘I’ll come carry the climbing gear,’ Ella said. ‘It’s still fairly cool, even in the sunlight.’
‘I’m not going to complain about the help.’ Together they started out of the shadow of the bridge toward the ship.
Something moved in the corner of Aneka’s eye, but it was too fast for her to react to it. Ella let out a shriek and clutched at her neck. Aneka moved in front of her, left hand rising as her shield energised, right hand drawing Bridget, one of her pistols. An arrow. It had been an arrow, but from where?
A tactical map appeared in-vision showing the layout of the compound and the likely source of the missile, and she turned in time to see a second arrow coming their way. ‘Al? How is she?’ The arrow bounced off her shield and Aneka returned fire. Her target was small, a squat, humanoid figure wrapped in ragged clothing a bit like Bedouin robes. The cloth afforded no protection at all against a hail of hyper-dense, hyper-velocity projectiles.
&nb
sp; ‘Wounded,’ Al replied. ‘Some loss of blood, elevated heart rate, some shock.’
‘Hold on, Ella,’ Aneka said aloud. ‘Stay behind me.’
‘Sure,’ Ella replied, wincing. ‘So much for “no dangerous life forms.”’
Aneka was too busy scanning the area to reply. There had to be more than one of them. One person, out in the desert alone? Unlikely. A spear answered her thought, flying toward her as its owner stepped out of cover on the wall. She brought her gun up and fired, cutting the figure down as the stone-pointed stick bounced off her shield. She scanned the other wall; no sign of anyone there, but could she risk that they had not considered a flanking action?
‘Stay there,’ Aneka said, and bolted toward the wall the spear and arrow had come from. ‘Watch the right-hand wall.’
‘I’m not moving,’ Ella replied.
Another spear thrower appeared as she was running up the slope and she dropped him before he could launch the weapon, shredding his body with automatic fire. There was a scream from beyond the wall, which sounded almost like a word, and when she crested the top of the wall she found herself watching four small, cloth-wrapped figures running away as fast as their legs would carry them.
‘They are still well within effective range of your pistols,’ Al commented. His tone was flat, matter-of-fact. He was not making a recommendation, just stating an option.
‘I may regret it, but…’ She holstered her pistols and started back down the slope. ‘They looked like some sort of hunting party. We’re probably on their normal route. But they looked scared shitless so I don’t think they’ll come back.’
‘That was a conspicuous display of firepower. Ella’s vitals are currently strong, but she is losing blood from the wound.’
Aneka reached to her belt and found a spray bottle of artificial skin. ‘Soon fix that, but we’ll get her back to the ship and have that medic gadget look at her anyway.’
‘I didn’t hear more gunfire?’ Ella asked as Aneka approached.
‘No, they were running like scared rabbits. I let them go.’
Ella nodded. ‘Good.’ Generally speaking, Jenlay were pacifists. Ella was a little less so than a core citizen, but she did not like needless death.
‘Let me see that wound.’
Ella moved her hand. There was a nasty gash in the side of her neck where the arrowhead had slashed through her skin. ‘Is it going to leave a scar?’
Aneka shook the bottle and sprayed some of the contents over the wound. Ella winced as the antibiotics set to work, but the bleeding stopped almost immediately. ‘With this stuff? I doubt it. We’ll get that Automed to check you anyway. Come on, up you get.’
Ella made as if to move, and frowned. ‘I… I don’t think I… I don’t feel… uhh…’ The redhead’s face relaxed and she fell backward onto the sand.
‘Ella?!’ There was no response, barely any movement. She seemed to be breathing…
‘She is still alive,’ Al said. ‘Her respiratory system is depressed, but her cardiovascular functions are still operating normally.’
‘Connect me to her implant.’ A message popped up indicating he had done so. ‘Ella?’
‘Aneka?’ Her voice sounded panicked, even over the implant communication channel. ‘I can’t move! Not even my eyes! I’m having trouble breathing. Not bad, but…’
Aneka picked her up and started toward the ship. ‘It sounds like curare. It’s a neuro-toxin. Causes relaxation of the muscles, paralyses the entire voluntary nervous system. Hunters used to use it in South America, there must be something on this world that produces a similar chemical.’
‘Is… is it lethal?’
Yes, it bloody is. You die of asphyxiation as your lungs stop working. She was not going to tell Ella that. ‘The Automed will fix you up. You just hang in there.’ I’m not losing you now!
~~~
Aneka sat with her back to the bed and her chin resting on her knees, her eyes fixed on the woman lying in front of her. Ella was asleep under the metal case on legs that was the Automed. The thing had put her out, pumped her full of drugs, and pushed a tube down her throat to feed her oxygen. Displays indicated that she was more or less stable, that the poison had run its course and was doing no more damage, but it had been close.
So Aneka sat, and watched, and waited, unwilling to close her eyes until Ella was entirely out of danger.
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‘Can I please come out from under this thing?’ Ella asked, again.
‘Not until you’ve healed properly,’ Aneka replied. She held out a bottle with a straw. ‘Drink some more of this.’
‘It tastes like gopi,’ Ella grumbled, but she sucked nutrient fluid out of the bottle. She might be a lousy patient, but she knew what was good for her.
Taking the bottle away, Aneka reached over and picked up a sample bottle. She rattled it in front of Ella. ‘I thought you might be interested. This is what laid you out.’
Ella took the bottle from her and examined the object inside it, her eyes focussing in to magnify the edge of the bladed arrowhead. ‘Knapped flint arrowhead. It’s pretty good craftsmanship. I haven’t seen one of these in… Well, I’ve never seen one that I actually found.’
‘Next time, try not to find it by being shot.’
There was a giggle; that was a good sign. ‘I’ll try. It’s got some sort of goo on it.’
‘Yeah, I put it through the chemical analysers. I was right, it’s basically exactly the same molecule as curare. Which was a good thing since this gadget…’ She tapped the metal box sitting over Ella’s chest. ‘…knew how to treat it. I also ran some tissue samples from one of our buddies and this stuff is significantly more lethal to the local life forms. They probably expected you to fall over and die on the spot.’
‘Oh,’ Ella said. ‘How close was it?’
Aneka bent down and kissed Ella’s forehead. ‘Too close for me, love. Next time you go out, you’re wearing your suit.’
‘Are you expecting me to argue? I’ll even wear the helmet.’ She grinned. ‘The suit’s climate controlled and I won’t need sunblock. It’s a win all round.’
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The Automed had let Ella out the day before, but Aneka had insisted on another day of rest before she let the grumpy archaeologist suit up and go out to the crash site. Now that she was out and Aneka was using the fusion cutter to burn through the patch plate on the old ship’s hull, Ella was significantly less grumpy but no less impatient.
It took only a second or so for the searing heat of the torch to burn a hole through the aluminium, rather longer for the metal to cool enough for Ella to send the survey robots down.
‘Whatever made the dents isn’t reacting to us cutting through,’ Ella pointed out.
‘This is your plan,’ Aneka replied. ‘It’s a good idea, so let them do their job. I’ve nearly lost you once on this trip, I’m not risking it again if there’s a perfectly good way of avoiding it.’
‘Humph,’ Ella grumped.
‘Cheer up or there’ll be no sex for a week.’
‘I already went without for days!’
‘You’d have got it this morning if you hadn’t been so keen to get out here.’
‘Humph.’
Aneka grinned and watched the hole. It was another five minutes before the bots finished their pre-programmed sweep and returned to their box, relaying the data they had collected to the portable lab.
‘There’s the source of the dents,’ Ella said, pointing at the display.
The breach had, it appeared, dropped into a curved corridor similar in design to the Agroa Gar’s orbital hallway. The material was the same as the Agroa Gar too. On the floor of the corridor was what initially looked like a body, but was actually some sort of robot. Humanoid, or Xintioid anyway, and obviously damaged. It had clearly been capable of action at some point, but the survey robots had found no evidence of electrical activity at all.
‘Think it’s safe?’ Aneka asked.
‘Huh,’ Aneka grunted. ‘Look away.’ She reignited the torch and started cutting a hole big enough for them to climb down through.
~~~
The robot remained still while Ella crouched down to examine it. Aneka still stood over it with her pistols drawn, just in case.
‘Laser burns on its armour,’ Ella said. ‘One optical sensor was destroyed, but it kept going… Hang on, this isn’t Xinti in origin…’ She pulled a large, cylindrical power cell from an open panel on the robot’s back and yanked the cables off it where they had been soldered on. ‘Herosian. The idiots jury-rigged some of their own power cells to it to get it moving. Probably thought they could control it.’
‘And it turned on them,’ Aneka said. ‘Not surprising. When they couldn’t stop it, they sealed it in, and when it seemed like it might get out they ran.’ She looked up and around. There was light from the microbot cloud as well as Ella’s helmet, and in it something else became obvious. ‘This is the same type of ship as the Agroa Gar.’
‘It certainly looks the same,’ Ella agreed.
‘Come on, let’s take a look around.’ She started off clockwise around the ship, knowing the layout from their study of the vessel she had spent twelve hundred years asleep in. They came quickly to one of the containment rooms. On the Agroa Gar it had had a cell in it with bio-plastic walls capable of holding a fairly large animal. Here the cell’s wall had been shattered and the door into the room bent outward by something using a considerable amount of force. There was one other thing that was different and very significant.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ Aneka asked.
Ella crouched down again, running a scanner over the bones lying in the middle of the floor. ‘Herosian skeleton. Dead about seventy years, according to the sensors.’ Herosians were reptilian-looking creatures with heavy bodies and heavier, bony skulls, though they were warm-blooded. The skeleton still had some scaly hide adhering to it, the brown colour leached away to near transparency. There was little evidence of the bullish neck, but the heavy jaw was obvious, and the muscle anchor points on the bones were quite pronounced. The cause of death seemed obvious: something had blown its chest open as though a hand grenade had gone off behind its ribs.
The Winter War Page 16
