“I guess we’ll just get as close as we can and figure things out once we get there. Also, I hesitate to ask: Any indication that Future Karter or Purcell have followed us?”
“No. It looks like you lost them, but detecting pursuit or discovery is difficult,” Coal said.
“I figured as such. Let’s get to this, then,” Lex said.
Entry to the planet was uneventful. Coal visualized the troublesome sensor sweeps, highlighting the portions of the atmosphere that could lead to detection. As they drew closer to the point on the surface Ma indicated the era-appropriate Karter could be found, the no-go zones became far larger and far more common. Soon finding gaps large enough to slip through became difficult, and not long after that, Coal was forced to set down behind a rocky hill that shielded her from detection.
“Karter’s facility is twenty kilometers away. I have updated your suit’s system with a crude visualizer equivalent to what we’ve used so far. Your suit has a mental cloak but not a regular one, so you’ll still show up on electronic surveillance. You’re small though, so you’ll be harder to spot unless they’re doing active sweeps.”
“Are satellites doing active sweeps?”
“Yes, there will be one in forty-seven minutes and sixteen seconds,” Coal said.
Lex opened his helmet’s visor and dug out a stick of gum. He tossed it in his mouth.
“Just in case,” he said. “I’m going to leave the GMVD with you. No sense taking it along when it might get stolen or damaged. We’ll bring you in once we convince Karter to help us out.”
He turned to Ma, who looked him in the eye and struggled a bit more. Since gravity had kicked in, she’d been dangling like a tape-wrapped piñata.
“Now’s the question of what I’m going to do with you,” Lex said. “I can’t very well leave you here with Coal. Who knows what sort of mischief you’d get up to. So you’re going to have to come along.”
“That is prudent.”
He reached up and untied her tether, clipping it instead a belt loop of his suit, and balanced her on his shoulder. Coal opened the door, and Lex, with a bit more grace than his past few attempts, dismounted. As Coal suggested, as soon as the hatch was open, his own visor filled with a lower-resolution version of the tie-dye field of red, yellow, and green blotches tracing out where he should and should not go.
“I didn’t expect to be using this thing in anything resembling an official context,” Lex said, opening the hidden compartment and deploying the quad-bike he’d been given as a keepsake.
“It does not surprise me. Ziva had the benefit of fifty years of planning,” Ma said. “She therefore had the benefit of considerable foresight. It is quite likely she provided you with the vehicle with the expectation that it would be useful, if not crucial, to the success of your mission.”
Ma activated her pack, which in the presence of gravity didn’t have quite the power to get her comfortably airborne. It did yank her from his grasp and require him to reel her back in.
“It’s a shame she didn’t give me a butterfly net to wrangle you with.”
“One cannot hope to plan for every contingency,” Ma said.
Lex plopped himself in the seat of the quad-bike, sat Ma between himself and the handlebars, and turned to Coal.
“Keep your ears peeled for a message from me, in case I need you,” he said.
“I don’t have ears, Lex,” Coal said.
Lex looked flatly at the ship. “It was a metaphor, Coal.”
“It is unclear what figurative meaning could be applied to the nonsensical notion of peeling one’s ears.”
“Please monitor for incoming transmission,” Ma said.
“Okay. Was that so hard?” Coal asked.
“Thank you, Coal. Thank you, Ma,” he muttered. “Let’s get out of here.”
He turned to the rocky landscape and powered up the motor. Once Coal had shut her hatch, he revved up, slung some gravel, and took off into the field beyond the sheltering hill. It was an utter desert, and not the sort one would imagine if one had only seen Earth. The only erosion had come from sun and wind. This made for rocks a good deal sharper and more jagged than their terrestrial counterparts. If his little buggy had rubber tires, they would have been shredded in minutes. The studded metallic wheels chewed into the soil efficiently, and soon he was moving at quite a clip.
Up close, the land also revealed some color variance not visible from higher altitudes. The yellow light of the sun, which the atmosphere shifted down to something closer to orange, gave them an odd and sickly color shift, but granules of vibrant blue and crisp green mixed with the sand. Spires of the same colors jutted like scattered spines along the field as well. A dose of full-spectrum light would probably make this world seem downright psychedelic.
Unfortunately for Lex, he couldn’t enjoy the view for very long. He slowed to a stop and studied the landscape.
“These surveillance signals or whatever are getting pretty thick,” he observed.
Without wireless communication active, they had to deal with speakers and microphones to talk, and thanks to the gusty wind, each had to raise their voice to be heard by the other.
“Yes, Lex,” she said.
He looked down at her in time to see her make a brief, ill-fated attempt to escape with her pack. He caught her and wedged her a little tighter.
“I have to ask, what exactly would you do if you got away from me? You’re tied up on a foreign planet.”
“When a comprehensive plan cannot be developed, it is necessary to enact what parts of that plan can be developed. I will, figuratively speaking, cross the other bridges when I come to them.”
Lex measured her for a moment, then took his hands from the handlebars to tap and swipe at the control pad on his forearm. “Where exactly are these signals coming from?”
“Overhead satellites at extreme angles. We are too near the pole for geosynchronous satellites to give thorough coverage. Hence the upcoming dedicated sweep.”
He gazed through his overlay, secured Ma a little more tightly, and continued on his way. The colorful visualization soon limited safe travel zones to thin strips of lowland between subtle hills, and they shifted seemingly at random. Nimble though the buggy was, staying in the green took razor-sharp reflexes and a healthy dash of luck. He’d managed well enough for the first few minutes, but then the first physical instance of Karter’s handiwork reared its ugly head.
Lex spied an uncharacteristically dark hunk of something peeking out of the soil and turned aside, sliding to a stop.
“Ma?” he said.
“Yes, Lex.”
He picked her up and pointed her at the object. “What do you make of that?”
“Processing… It would appear to be a bounding mine.”
“What does it do?”
“Upon being triggered, it launches an explosive into the air to detonate at waist or head height.”
“What do I do?”
“Avoid triggering it.”
“Well, yeah, but how?”
“Traditionally they are pressure or tripwire activated. Karter has probably produced this derivative to be proximity activated.”
He rolled backward to what he hoped was a safe distance, then tucked Ma back into her place. They thought for a moment about how best to deal with the situation. The beginnings of a notion had only just begun to form when the specific nature of Karter’s brand of innovation presented itself. The mine shifted, scrabbling up out of its burrow on a set of spidery robotic legs, then scuttled across the ground for three or four meters before burrowing down again.
“… He made them spiders. Karter made spider mines.”
“He is fond of mechanizing traditionally inert weaponry,” Ma observed.
“That’s going to make avoiding them a lot more difficult, wouldn’t you—”
A second scrabbling sound caught his attention, and he turned to see gravel at the peak of a nearby mound spill aside, tumbling down toward him. He turne
d and juiced the throttle away from the mine that scuttled toward him. It stopped and burrowed down not far from where he’d been. When it was still, a small nub at the top of the mine popped up. It wasn’t clear if it was Lex himself or the gravel he’d kicked up that was responsible, but the mine was convinced that it had seen something worth killing, because a hiss of propellant sent the central canister into the air.
Lex’s retreat took him up one side of the nearest hill, briefly passing through a high-risk sensor region. He quite wisely decided the blast radius was the higher-risk region to be in. When he crested the hill, all four wheels left the ground, and he was briefly left to the mercy of physics. The decreased gravity kept him aloft longer than it should have, giving him a fraction of a second to look over his shoulder and see that the mine had launched very high. It was only just coming down when he did, and by the time it detonated he was behind the hill and sliding to a stop.
The dust was settling when Lex finally eased back up to the peak of the hill and surveyed the aftermath. A portion of the ground was churned up and pockmarked, producing a shallow, distinctive crater. He turned to the remainder of the field between himself and his destination. From his elevated vantage, he could see a dozen or more such blemishes. Some seemed fresh. Others were dusted over by the wind.
“That, uh… that thing had a hell of a hang time.”
“It would appear to be miscalibrated,” Ma said, shifting as best she could to survey the situation. “Though the detonation height seems appropriate. There are a number of false detonations evident along our intended path as well.”
“Yeah… What do you propose we do?”
“Straying far from this path will likely lead to our discovery by a satellite sweep,” Ma said. “I would recommend you proceed slowly along the low route and attempt to avoid any mines encountered along the way.”
“Slowly,” he said, glancing at the time display on his visor. “We’ve got less than a half hour to get to the facility before we’re guaranteed to be caught by a sweep, yes?”
“I believe so.”
“Then slow isn’t going to cut it. How much time you figure that thing was hanging in the air?”
“One point four seconds.”
“And what do you suppose the… what do you call it…?”
“The blast radius appears to be approximately fifteen meters.”
“… How fast do you think this thing can go?”
“I believe Ziva clocked you at thirty-eight meters per second at top speed. Eighteen meters per second on average.”
“So to get in one side of the blast radius and out the other, that would take…”
“One point six repeating seconds at average speed.”
“So I only have to go a touch above average speed to effectively outrun these things?”
“Based upon this one data point, that would appear accurate, but additional data would be necessary to be certain.”
“Screw certainty. Nothing’s certain, right? It seems to me this is a situation, like most situations, that can be improved by moving at reckless speeds for prolonged periods of time.”
“This course of action is inadvisable. But as no clear alternative exists, I request that you take extra care to avoid dislodging me during the journey. Killing me purposefully in order to prevent my unwilling betrayal is acceptable. Bringing about my death by mere carelessness is less so.”
He chomped down on his gum in earnest. “You got it, Ma.”
Lex revved the motor of the quad and blasted down into the twisting stretch of lowland. It didn’t take long for the first of what would turn out to be a truly excessive number of spider mines noticed him and did its duty. The explosions came randomly, but seldom with a significant lag between them. They thumped in Lex’s chest and more than once raised little puffs of dust on either side as chunks of shrapnel struck the ground.
“One point two one seconds,” Ma called out.
“What?”
“The average time from trigger to detonation is one point two one seconds. The single data point upon which this plan was based would appear to have been an outlier.”
He heard two rapid thumps, and something whistled past his helmet.
“So I should go faster then,” he yelled.
“That would be advisable.”
A frenzied smile came to his face. “That I can do.”
He squeezed the throttle, and for an all-too-brief moment, all his doubts, all his failings, all the terrible things he’d been forced to endure were drowned in a glorious sea of adrenaline. His life was in danger, yes. But more importantly, he’d taken his life into his own hands. Say what one may about racing heedlessly through a minefield, veering from side to side to miss rising explosives without daring feather the brakes, it was firmly within his skill set, and if he failed, it was not because he’d been given an impossible choice, but because he had taken an unlikely chance. Statistics were against him, but as Ma had often said, he was a walking statistical anomaly.
Very little conscious thought was involved. He followed the sliver of green on his overlay and dodged mines. A part of him slipped away from the task at hand to admire the little things. The rattle of the handlebars in his hands. The momentum of the turns and the little crunch of the gravel. It was different from the ships and hover vehicles he’d spent most of his life piloting. Somewhere along the way he felt a few extra bumps and thumps, but that was no reason to interrupt an exhilarating jaunt like this one…
Twenty minutes of blinding speed and split-second timing later, he noticed he was rapidly approaching his destination, a building.
“Lex.”
He blinked. The burning associated suggested it might have been the first time in a while that he’d done so.
“Lex, you can slow down.”
“Why?”
“There hasn’t been a detonation in three minutes, and from my vantage I have not observed any craters in that time. We are out of the minefield.”
“Oh… good. That’s good.”
He eased off the throttle, which he’d been squeezing tight enough to whiten his knuckles and practically brand his palm.
“Do you require medical attention?” she said.
“Why would I need medical attention? We got through that clean.”
“That is not an accurate assessment.”
He looked down. Ma’s helmet was feathered with cracks radiating out from two impacts, one of which was still sporting a twisted piece of metal. The flood of adrenaline continued to ebb, and as it drifted down to baseline, the crash that followed brought a dull ache in his back and thigh.
“Are you okay?” he said.
“I believe I asked you first.”
“I…” He coughed. “I’m feeling a little bruised… but I don’t think I’m bleeding. What about you?”
“I was struck by three fragments. The nano-lattice suit and high-density polymer appear to have prevented them from penetrating, but I am feeling considerable discomfort. I believe I too have received some bruises.”
“It feels like my back took a few hits, too.”
“I suggest you run a suit diagnostic to ensure it is still able to hold an atmosphere.”
“I’ll do that just as soon as I can get my hands to let go of the handlebars.” He shakily pried one hand off the bars and slowed his speed enough to make glancing away less suicidal. “Am I losing my touch? It seems like that’s the sort of thing I would have gotten through without a scratch in the past.”
“Unless you have neglected to tell me of them, I am not certain you have faced anything with that degree of navigational challenge in a vehicle of such primitive operating principles. The issue at hand is not the degradation of your skills, but the overapplication of your skills in situations that are better off avoided.”
“Mmm…” Lex murmured thoughtfully.
“Have you been detected by satellite?”
“How would I know?”
“The signal detector should
have a peak indicator. Have you passed the threshold?”
“… Hang on… No. And it seems like the suit doesn’t have leaks, though it says the jet pack took a hit. You guys make a hell of a spacesuit.”
“We aim to please. Or more accurately, I aim to please and Karter aims to innovate. While your evasion thus far has been impressive, we must assume Karter’s facility will have its own surveillance, which we will not be equipped to evade. It will thus be necessary that we have him alter his records or hook me up to his system to perform the alteration directly.”
“That first one sounds hard, and that second one sounds like you’d escape and try to get Coal.”
“By the time that opportunity arises, I will be separated from Coal by nearly twenty kilometers of minefield.”
“Yeah, but I blew up a bunch of them on the way, and you’re resourceful.”
“Those are valid observations.”
#
A few short minutes later, Lex and Ma rolled up to the entryway of the facility. It was a far cry from Karter’s lab back on Big Sigma. Rather than the towering industrial brick of a building that looked like it was built to survive a war, this one looked decidedly temporary. The walls were rickety corrugated metal coated with something Lex had heard called Sure-Seal to keep it airtight. The roof had the deep iridescent blue-black of old-style solar panels. As he watched, automated squeegees ran along one of the panels, pushing away a layer of the yellow dust that caked every surface. It was rather sizable, just a single floor but covering more land than a football field. The roof rose to about five meters for most of the facility, but a makeshift hangar of sorts occupied each of the two rear corners, featuring boxy towers that rose to fifteen meters or so.
“Any thoughts on what I can expect?” Lex asked.
Temporal Contingency Page 39
