Miranda's Demons

by Ian Miller

  As the squad began to leap across the ridge, Harry was hanging on for dear life. He had had far less training on this machine than any of the others, and although he understood the principles well, the execution required all his concentration. He peered continuously at the screen; he had to select an area, fix a spot, wait for the microprocessor to accept the area, then lock on. While the microprocessor then took control of the vehicle, a flick of the switch altered the screen to show a white spot and a cross. He then had to alter his centre of gravity so that the white spot coincided with the cross, hold it there until ground contact was made, then the machine would leap into the black sky, the rocks would recede, and the process would be repeated. Select, fix, lock, adjust position, leap; select, fix, lock, adjust position, leap . . .

  Harry was just beginning to feel some confidence, when his screen flashed. His next leap would be the last leap before his first canyon. The selection here was more difficult; he had to get as near to the edge of the canyon as possible, and if possible, choose a face sloping inwards, but a slope that was firm. He selected and gained the lock, and after the leap towards the spot there was nothing for him to do except worry. This was the frightening bit. When the tail hit the ground, the microprocessor would release pins that would embed themselves in the rock and hold the tail for an instant. The spot swam slowly towards them; he leaned back to allow the tail to bite. Harry felt his heart almost skip a beat as the tail grabbed, while he and the rest of the stick slowly lurched forward. Then, as the line between the point of the tail and the centre of gravity of stick and rider made an angle of thirty degrees to the horizontal, the pins withdrew and, with a mighty thump of the ground, Harry and his stick were launched into space.

  There was nothing for Harry to do; the launch was fine, and he finally managed to stop trembling for long enough to take in the view. There near the horizon was a tiny disc of brilliant white in the jet-black sky; so small, so bright, the sun could barely cast heat on this torn and twisted moon. But the sun was decisive; through his visibility enhancers, where it fell there was brightness, where it did not, the shadows were harsh. In the other direction was a huge green-white ball hanging coldly in the sky. Not completely round, the three-quarter Uranus cast a ghostly light across the landscape. Its huge size restricted the harshness of its shadows, so that it washed the moon with cool greenish light. In the spots where no light fell, there was absolute blackness.

  Behind him, the wall of the canyon was gradually receding; a harsh wall of jagged ice, made even colder by the eerie greenish light. Below, three kilometers down, where the green light struck, giant lava flows lay where they had poured along the canyon floor; lava of ice, bound by the jet-black depths of the far side. Ahead, the bright white face emerged from the inky depths to glisten and beckon.

  A warning light flashed, and Harry had to focus on the screen. Again, location of the centre of gravity was important, and Harry had to move both his own body up and the proboscis down. Harry felt a slight shudder. The stick had selected its target, and from the proboscis a dart was propelled towards the wall while at the same time a correcting jet of gas prevented rider and stick spinning. The axis of the drum was pointing towards the target, and kilometers of fine nylon thread sped out after the dart. The dart disappeared into space, but somewhere on the ridge before them, it would fall, and fine steel pins would embed themselves into the ice. Those pins could take ten kilograms of force, the breaking strain of the nylon thread was five kilograms. It was here, on Miranda, that these soldiers would realize as never before the difference between weight and inertial mass.

  Each soldier, together with the equipment they carried would, on Earth, weigh over two hundred kilograms. The impulse required to propel a mass to a given velocity, neglecting gravity, friction and other retarding forces, was the same anywhere, and that was why the pogo stick had its large springs and electric motor. But when that dart struck home, the electric motor on the drum would tighten the thread, and as the gravity of Miranda began to pull the stick and rider down into the canyon, they would suddenly become the end of a pendulum. The five-kilogram breaking strain thread could very easily hold their weight, which on Miranda was a full eight hundred grams. Of course the humans had sufficient muscle power to do what the pogo stick was doing; what they did not have was the control of its microprocessors. A human could have thrown a dart the necessary five kilometers to the next ridge; what he could not do was to select a target and hit it.

  After what seemed an eternity, Harry began to notice the gravitational effects; they were gradually losing altitude, and soon they would be below the level of the far ridge. There was a long way to drift yet; the drum and the counter-rotating guidance vane were now winding thread in rapidly, but it was not attempting to increase his velocity towards the wall. This would be the big trap; he had been given a significant horizontal thrust when he took off; to increase that substantially now would mean that he would strike the far wall with too great a velocity. Miranda was a marvellous place to demonstrate the Newtonian laws of motion

  Gradually the distant wall came closer, the black and white, light and shade, giving clues as to its jagged structure. It was here that Harry had to use some judgment. He had to study the face, and select a broad area where he could impact without colliding with a pinnacle, which could break. That would not in itself matter, but jagged ice could tear at his pressure suit. He noted such a spiky area, with a relatively flat area above it. As the thread was now angled at eighty degrees to the horizontal, he could afford to wind more quickly, as it would give much less horizontal velocity. He wound until he was certain the stick would hit a flat, solid area, then he locked the thread. He then waited. It seemed an eternity, but he knew this was an illusion caused by the vastness of the canyon. He adjusted his weight so that the axis of the pogo stick was at right angles to the thread, then remembered just in time to set the tail for a cushioned impact.

  The wall slowly became larger and larger, he braced himself, then the tail struck. The cushioned impact was one where the rear supports for the springs collapsed slowly, so the tail became a giant shock absorber. The stick left the wall again, but at a much-reduced velocity, and Harry immediately set the drum to wind as fast as it could. He reset the tail for leaping, and as the wall came closer again, this time the machine leapt away from it, giving some added upward impulse. Four leaps, and the top of the ridge came in sight. He leaped again, and held the line steady. As the pogo stick described a circular arc across the lip, a rapid search for an immediate landing site commenced, in line with his curve for he could control distance only with the length of his thread, then while up there, he had to find a second site. Fortunately, the low gravity meant everything happened in such slow motion. Just as the line passed the vertical and a lock had been obtained, a signal was sent to the dart, and the pins were retracted. The dart was quickly wound in, and once again he was back to select, fix, lock, adjust position, leap...

  Chapter 7

  Marisa took the small mirror from her compact and adjusted her makeup. Troy Munro had just walked into the foyer of the restaurant, one of the most expensive in Tashkent, and it was important that she made it seem that her appearance mattered. When he saw her, she appeared to just notice him, and she hurriedly put the compact away.

  "You wanted to see me?" Troy said with a touch of arrogance. "No doubt you have arranged for me to pay the bill?"

  "Of course," Marisa smiled.

  "I get the bill, but little else, it seems," came the sour reply.

  "On the contrary, you get something of considerable value. You get proof of my ability to deliver."

  "And what, may I ask, is the information?"

  "An attack is being launched on the enemy base at Miranda."

  "That," Troy replied caustically, "is hardly news. The fools actually let the media see the fleet being launched!"

  "And you expect the M'starn to intercept the fleet and destroy it?"

  "Over the next month or so,
yes."

  "Then they'll be too late," Marisa smiled.

  "What do you mean?" For the first time, Troy was puzzled, and concerned.

  "They are using a new drive," Marisa smiled. "They are on Miranda already. The attack will be launched in about an hour."

  "But . . ."

  "The information, as you may have noticed, is too late for you to do anything with it. Even if you transmitted now, the attack would be over before the message could get there."

  "Then why give it to me?"

  "To prove I can deliver valuable information."

  "This is of no value whatsoever," Troy protested.

  "That's because you have paid nothing whatsoever for it," Marisa replied. "If you want something of real value, get those accounts filled. You should also transmit my information, with an explanation as to why it is so late."

  "Why do that?"

  "So the M'starn recognize the value of what I can give them. There will be one and only one further piece of information. That is the Terran battle plan to defend their new tantalum supply. To be worth the four million I am now asking, it has to be credible."

  "Four million!" Troy shouted. Four heads turned towards their table.

  "Shsh!" Marisa hissed. "Do you want to tell the world what we're doing?"

  "You only said two million before," he protested.

  "And you didn't pay," Marisa said simply. "Now, you have the chance to verify what I can deliver. That makes the transaction so much safer for you. If you don't believe me, ask the M'starn what value they would have placed on this information being timely."

  "I can't do that," Troy began.

  "You shall do that," Marisa replied. "If I have to take the sort of risks I'm taking, the least you can do is verify its worth. Now, Troy, be a dear and get me a drink. The management are beginning to get restless."

  Chapter 8

  The party assembled outside a simply enormous cavern that had been excavated into the sides of an ice-wall that stood at least two kilometers high. The site had been chosen for ease of access, for there was a relatively large, for Miranda at least, unbroken area that would permit the space ships to approach slowly on an unobstructed path. Obstructions might be kilometers high, but thanks to the curvature of Miranda, the next obstruction on the approach vector was over the horizon. Harry strolled over to the mouth of the cave and stared in. The cavern dropped at an angle of about twenty degrees, and got increasingly narrow as it descended, seemingly to act as a funnel for incoming ships. The walls were made of unmarked polished ice, the surfaces having been melted and vaporized by motor exhausts. At first Harry thought that the ground would be terribly slippery, but he soon found that the ice on Miranda was as firm as most rock on Earth. Ice is slippery because it melts under pressure, and the temperatures of Miranda were so cold that it was never going to melt, except when the motors of the giant space vehicles passed by. When they did, they left the ice as smooth as glass.

  Gaius and Natasha had arrived before them. Natasha had expressed initial reservations: if the M'starn could kill them, the entire command was gone. Gaius had simply shrugged, and said that he had to be there, because he alone had had experience of the M'starn, and he alone might recognize something that might make the difference between success and failure. On the other hand, Natasha was not so important, and she could remain behind.

  "If you die," she had replied, "we lose the Actium as well, in which case defeat is probably inevitable. So I'd better go and keep an eye on you."

  "Being there will raise you in the eyes of the troops," Gaius nodded. "In my time the commander did not actually lead the troops from the front, but he was always close to the critical action. It most certainly halts waverers, and you'll gain a lot more respect."

  "So there's a good reason for my being there," Natasha continued, "so there I'll be."

  "It's also most important for other reasons," Gaius added, "as my namesake Claudius pointed out."

  "That's not why I'm going," she had protested.

  "Good!" had come the toneless response.

  She was half convinced he did not believe her. Added to which, she was not entirely convinced that she believed herself. The fact was, field experience would put her unquestionably ahead of Streckov, and yes, it would greatly strengthen her voice after this was over. There was . . . Such thoughts had to be put behind her, for now there was work to do.

  They had landed in a cloaked shuttle, behind the last defence system. Gaius had immediately got to work, and had already placed a system into the surveillance lines that would give a continuous recording of an empty canyon. They had been lucky. The outer sensors were largely thermal detectors, used to detect traces of heat from vehicle exhausts, and these were not sufficiently sensitive to detect the pogo sticks. The inner sensors were to detect movement, and these had been neutralized before the squad arrived. The element of surprise remained.

  The groups assembled, then they all marched down the gently sloping cavern floor for over five hundred meters. Had the enemy decided to launch a ship about then, Harry realized, the entire expedition would have been over immediately. Gaius had reassured them that was not possible, as it took quite some time for such giant motors to start. Harry had believed him, nevertheless he was quite pleased when they came to the bottom of the cavern. Here there was a great cavity in the floor, where a massive ramp would raise or lower the space vehicles, and at that moment, the floor of the ramp was over a hundred meters below. For some reason there was a dim artificial light, and as they stood on the edge, more than one of them had qualms about the next move.

  At one side was an entrance to a sheltered bunker, and inside this they found a 'mule': a small but powerful vehicle that was presumably used for dragging ships into the launch position. Beside it were some steel sections that were presumably used to connect the mule with the ships. They each had what appeared to be fittings, and one had a strange fitting on the end that presumably connected to the space vehicles. Two engineers who had worked with Harry on the captured M'starn vessel were left behind to determine whether they could get this mule to work.

  Very carefully they lowered themselves over the edge of the cavity and placed themselves against the polished wall. Now only their fingers suspended them, yet some found themselves surprised that they could maintain their position quite effortlessly. Then on a signal from Gaius, came the scary part: they allowed themselves to fall. Gently they drifted downwards, as if in thick oil, into a lightly lit dome-shaped cavern hewn from the glistening rock. The landing, when it eventually came, was no cause for concern after they had done it, and more than one looked up to marvel at where they had come from. Some of them worked out why they had dropped like that instead of simply jumping. Had they jumped, any linear momentum would keep them travelling in that direction until they landed, and since it took so long to reach the floor they could have ended up anywhere.

  Within the next section, the pale yellow light that emanated mysteriously from the 'ceiling' over fifteen metres up let no shadow mar the gently curved walls, smooth walls sputtered by the ice subliming under the residual heat of motors. A fine dust of snow covered the floor, dust as hard as gravel. Any snowman here would collapse as if made from fine sand, but collapse in the slowest of slow motions. To the south was a giant winch, crudely made from what were pieces of a space ship, pieces warped and torn by terrible forces, evidence of the tortured history endured by these creatures, evidence that the almost universal glistening white ice dust vainly tried to bury, but instead brought out more fully where the blackened metal protruded. Beside this winch was a panel, with controls to the motors that raised and lowered the ramp.

  To the north, there was a tunnel through which the space vehicles were presumably winched up from their hangars prior to departure. The party began to make their way down the tunnel when Gaius noted a cable running along the ceiling. This appeared to provide the power for the ramp motors. He signalled to the remainder of the party, then he leaped gently up
wards. His body drifted upwards, barely slowing under the feeble gravity, until he reached the ceiling. He took the cable between his fingers and began speeding down the tunnel, hand over hand, his body and legs held up near the ceiling by his own muscles. The marines present were not going to let a living fossil shame them, and they followed, a little too enthusiastically. The rest gaped, then followed.

  The tunnel ended in a large assembly room where a number of the labour force was working around one of the space vehicles. As the party emerged from the tunnel, they reached out with their hands, grasped the edge, and launched themselves upwards and out into the room. Neither the pressure suited workers nor their guards noticed the soldiers drift across the gigantic room, to come to rest on top of the M'starn vessel. Harry gave one glance at the vessel, and felt very relieved. This ship seemed to be the same type of ship as the one he had spent weeks studying.

  There were three guards who were clearly bored with the business of supervising workers, and who were leaning against pillars of ice. They were armed, but their weapons were sheathed in scabbard-like devices hanging from their belts, and they clearly believed that this duty was more of a punishment to them rather than a useful task. There was one further M'starn, who appeared to be organizing the workers into carrying out tasks, although it appeared that the only job being done was to dismantle the last of a scaffold. The implication was that work on this ship was completed, a thought that pleased Harry. Command of this part of the exercise had been left to the American Marine Colonel, a delegation that had surprised Natasha as well as the Colonel.

  If there was one thing he was not going to do, that was to disgrace the name of the Marine Corps. He indicated directions to six men, and they quietly propelled themselves through space to drift across to the far wall, where they absorbed the impact through their arms and held onto the ice by means of steel pins. They then pushed their way down to the floor behind the guards, and crept up behind them. With no noise in a vacuum, the first the guards saw of trouble was when a hand turned off their intercoms, and another drew the aliens' weapons. The guards were then tied to the pillars on which they had been leaning.