Leah turned to point over the edge, as Ishmael flowed and fluttered to form a living blanket around her legs. “Is that a solid layer of leaves? I can’t see a thing below it.”
“You will not,” said S’glya. “The vegetation of this planet is structured in dense and continuous strata. We are looking down at one of them.”
“The lower regions must be in complete darkness.”
“Certainly. Even the microwave signals were somewhat damped in the first kilometer. We must evolve methods to work together in the dark.”
“Where do the lower levels of vegetation get their energy?”
S’glya raised a clawed forelimb and gestured around her. “From here. Where else?” She leaned far over the edge, oblivious to the chasm below, and touched a half-meter shaft of bright yellow trunk. “I believe that we could follow this all the way down, five kilometers, and find its roots set in the soil of Travancore. As for its width at the base . . .” The Pipe-Rilla pirouetted on the brink. “Who knows? Many, many meters.”
Behind them the Angel had come creeping out onto the lip of the tent. When it reached full sunlight the Chassel-Rose extended all its fronds and turned to face Talitha’s morning beams. “We have been performing . . . confirming analysis,” said the translation unit, after half a minute of silent sun-bathing. “From the data of the orbital survey, we now have an estimated location for the Morgan Construct.”
There was a flutter through Ishmael’s whole composite, but the Tinker held together.
“Where is it?” asked Leah.
“About three thousand kilometers from here, to the north-east. It is deep in the vegetation, and probably down on the surface itself.”
“So we are safe enough here.”
“Unless the Construct has chosen to move since the time that the survey was performed. We do not judge that as unlikely. The probability is high that the Construct was able to monitor our descent from orbit. We believe that it knows we are here.”
“But we must go closer,” objected S’glya. “We are supposed to meet the Construct, and then we are supposed to—to . . .”
Leah found the other three waiting expectantly. On every question of pursuit, they deferred to her without hesitation. And when the subject was the destruction of the Construct, they would do anything rather than mention it.
“We have to kill it.” Leah said the forbidden word, and watched them cringe and edge away from her. “We’ll have to go closer at some point. But not yet. We need to know more about this planet. The Construct has been here for months, with nothing to do but explore Travancore.”
“And it is supposed to be very intelligent. We should not go near.” S’glya changed her mind quickly, when Leah made her think the unthinkable.
“And we have been here less than four days,” added Ishmael. “We should not hurry. We should not seek out the Construct until we are ready.”
“Better safe than sorry,” said the Angel. “Look before you leap.”
The three aliens fell silent. Leah knew the problem. The others had agreed to become part of the pursuit team. But in their hearts (if the Angel had a heart) they had not expected to be asked to kill. That was a task only for a human.
Talitha rose higher in the sky. At last S’glya, rubbing her midlimbs against her side, spoke almost too softly to hear. “But if we do not now go to the Construct, then what should we be doing?”
Was it so difficult? Leah turned to the Angel. “We need to leam more about this place, especially what lies under all the vegetation. Can you determine from the orbital survey data how far we are from the nearest entry shaft?”
“That is known to us already. We are less than two kilometers from a spiral tunnel.”
“Then that’s where we go next. We must take a trip down, and learn what conditions are like on the lower levels of Travancore. We’ve been thinking of this as just a vertical forest, but that’s pure speculation.”
“And we should all go?” asked S’glya.
Leah hesitated. She thought she had heard uncertainty in the Pipe-Rilla’s tone, and with reason. It might be wise to leave one member of the team on the upper levels, for a possible rescue. But if so, who? S’glya would have to carry Angel, while Ishmael was easily the most mobile. More and more, Leah was convinced that the team had power because it was a team. Every element was important.
“There is safety in numbers,” said the Angel slowly, as though it had been reading Leah’s mind. “Many hands make light work.”
“All right.” But Leah was still not sure. If Angel were right, and the Construct had monitored their arrival . . .
“I guess we all go,” she said at last.
“When?” asked Ishmael.
“I see no advantage in waiting.” Leah was surprised that her decision was accepted so instantly. The team members were all equal—and yet she was the boss. “As soon as we can all be ready, we head for the shaft. Don’t bring a lot of equipment with you. On the first trip we travel light.”
“Yes,” said S’glya.
“Yes,” echoed Ishmael.
“Never do tomorrow,” said the Angel, “what can be done today.”
* * *
The deep shafts noted during the first orbital survey were far more than simple gaps in Travancore’s vegetative cover. Closer inspection revealed a true tunnel, with well-defined and continuous walls of ribbed leaves plaited into tight hoops.
“Artificial,” said S’glya, running a sensitive antenna lightly over the surface. “Nature does not braid so. The sign of intelligence?”
“Not necessarily. We have insects on Earth that build systems far more complex than this, and they are not intelligent.”
“In your terms,” said Ishmael. “Which others suspect.” But the Tinker was making a feeble attempt at a joke, and Leah was pleased to hear it. Morale was recovering.
Overflow tubes set into the tunnel walls every twenty meters or so would be enough to carry off heavy rain. They were very necessary. Leah had expected near-vertical tunnels, mine shafts plunging straight down to Travancore’s solid surface. Instead the openings were more like spiral roadways, curving down at a constant and moderate angle. It was possible to walk along the shallow gradient without supporting lines. At these angles, a rain storm would impose a massive load on the tunnel’s curving floor.
Leah took a last look round before she led the way deeper into the tunnel. With Travancore’s thirty-seven hour day they would have ten more hours of light. But how much use would that be, as soon as they were a couple of hundred meters down?
Ishmael followed close behind. The Tinker was very nervous, with clouds of components constantly leaving and returning to the main body. Leah had given up long ago on the question of how Ishmael preserved any continuity of thought—if it didn’t worry the Tinker, she wasn’t going to let it worry her.
The Pipe-Rilla came last. S’glya had the Angel tucked easily under her midlimbs. She sang softly to herself, until Leah asked her to be quiet. They did not, she reminded all of them, want to attract attention—no matter what was on Travancore to be attracted. The Construct might not be the only danger.
The light slowly faded. At two hundred meters they were moving through a green twilight, floating along in light gravity as though underwater. A rare upward kink in the tunnel, followed by a more steeply plunging section, took them through a curtain of pulpy leaves. The light level dropped abruptly. The temperature was noticeably higher. By the time they were down three hundred meters they were shrouded in an intense emerald gloom.
Leah stopped and turned to the others. “I can’t see a thing, but I don’t want to use my light. S’glya, you take over the lead. Carry Angel with you. Angel, I want you to use a thermal band and see what you can find out about the path ahead.”
They were still changing places when there was an urgent whistle from Ishmael. “Something ahead! Something moving.”
Leah turned, in time to see a pearly-white glow in the tunnel. As she watched it
slid beyond the turn of the spiral wall. A dozen Tinker components disconnected and flew away along the shaft. A minute later they returned, one by one, and rejoined the main body.
“Native form,” said Ishmael after a few seconds. “And large. Over ten meters long, snakelike, no arms or legs. Bioluminescent. The glow comes from a row of lights along each side of it. And it seems afraid of us, because it went wriggling away at a good speed. We followed it as far as a branch point, about three hundred meters down the shaft.”
“Is it safe to go on?” asked S’glya. They all looked again at Leah.
“I don’t know.” She stared into the gloom ahead, and saw nothing. “If we turn back every time we find evidence of a native life form, we may never get anywhere. So I say we keep going. S’glya, would you lead the way again?”
They continued a cautious descent. Soon they were moving in total darkness. It must be full day above them, but every trace of sunlight from Talitha was blocked by the multiple screens of leaves and stems. At Leah’s request, S’glya shone a faint pencil beam now and again to allow them to see the tunnel for a few paces in front of them. The Angel’s thermal sensor could see far beyond that. It reported that the curving tunnel was clear, as far ahead as line-of-sight vision could go.
The temperature had stabilized at a level that Leah found just bearable and S’glya relished. The team went on in silence, winding deeper and deeper. The air was denser and more humid, and Leah could smell a faint, pleasant aroma like new-cut Earth flowers. It made her nostalgic for the Gallimaufries and Bozzie’s floral obsession. The tunnel at these depths was less well-maintained, with ragged gaps here and there in its sides and roof. When they came close to one of the bigger holes they heard a soft, rustling sound like wind-blown dry leaves.
S’glya reached out to send a more powerful flash of light into the opening. It lit the surroundings as briefly and brightly as lightning. Less than five meters from the tunnel wall Leah saw a small four-legged creature clinging to a thick branch. As the light hit there was a brief quacking sound of alarm.
S’glya pulsed the beam again. The creature turned to face them. Leah had a glimpse of a brown, eyeless head, split by a broad mouth. A second and narrower slit ran all the way across from temple to temple. There was another sound, a high-pitched squeak of fear or complaint, then the animal was scurrying agilely away around the side of the shaft.
“Intelligent?” said Leah.
“According to survey data,” replied Angel, “there are no native intelligent life forms on Travancore.”
“How could a survey know that, without going down to the surface? And none of them did.”
“We were merely reporting what is stated. Ours not to reason why. In any case, intelligence is too subtle an attribute to be inferred from appearance.”
While Angel was speaking, S’glya had switched to a steady illumination and moved the beam slowly around the region just outside the tunnel.
Leah saw the great boles of trees, each one many meters across. The trunks were dark tan and deep purple now, rather than the bright yellow of the upper leaves. From them grew thousands of wilting finger-like excrescences, black and crimson and vivid orange. Legless sluglike creatures on each extrusion inched slowly away from S’glya’s light. As they moved they left faintly glowing trails on the tree fingers.
At this depth, greens and yellows had gone from the vegetation. Photosynthesis was impossible. Everything must depend for its existence on the slow fall of upper-level detritus or the transfer of nutrients up and down the massive trunks. Leah wondered about a pumping stem that could lift fluids for five kilometers, even in this weak gravity.
The group went on, always downward. In another hour the pleasant floral scent was replaced by a nauseating stench of fleshy decay. Everything became coated with a misted layer of condensation, and dark, slimy droplets hung from the ribbed roof of the tunnel. Leah felt as though they had been descending for days when finally Angel waved its topmost fronds and poked Ishmael in the side. “We must stop here. Put me down. The tunnel ends in thirty paces.”
Leah came to stand by the Pipe-Rilla. “How does it end?”
“It simply terminates. However, we are less than forty meters above the true surface of Travancore. My microwave sensors tell me that there is solid material beneath us, but descent past this point will be difficult for all except Ishmael’s components. We face a sheer drop, or we must climb down a vertical trunk.”
“Would we be able to move over the surface itself, if once we were there?”
“That should present no difficulty.” Angel paused. “Descent can be made with the aid of a simple rope. But return would present problems, at least for human and Angel forms.”
“I’m not suggesting we go down today.” Leah turned to stare back up the tunnel. Only five kilometers—but five kilometers vertically. “We have a long way to climb, even in this gravity. I propose that we head back and plan a trip with more equipment tomorrow. We know what we need now. The next descent—” Leah stopped abruptly. Gazing upwards she had seen a movement in the faint scattered fight from S’glya’s pencil beam. It was far above, indistinct, at the very limit of her vision.
“Angel, can you see what that . . .”
The question became unnecessary. The object was approaching rapidly along the shaft. Its shape was engraved deep in her memory.
Leah was looking at a rounded silver-blue diamond, four meters high and more than two across. At the upper end was a blunt, neckless head with well-defined compound eyes. Latticed wing panels shrouded the middle section of the body. In their folded position they were compact and unobtrusive, no more than pencils of stiff wire. Extended, they could be shaped as needed to form solar panels, communications antennae, or protective shields. The base of the body ended in a tripod of supporting legs, each one able to be totally withdrawn into the body cavity. The mid-section also contained a dozen dark openings. They held the weapons—the lasers, the fusion devices, the shearing cones.
Leah registered everything in a fraction of a second. She gasped and stumbled back a pace along the tunnel. Around her she felt a sudden blizzard of Tinker components as Ishmael dispersed instantly from its composite form. A high-pitched scream of terror came from S’glya.
Angel’s hedging of probabilities back at the tent had been completely appropriate. The Morgan Construct had indeed moved since the time of the orbital survey.
* * *
Fifty-six lightyears away, Esro Mondrian was still watching and listening through Leah’s mentation monitor. He had followed the group all through its long descent. The feeling that rippled along his spine was an odd mixture of awe, fear, and exultation. The Morgan Construct was indeed on Travancore. It was alive and undamaged—and functioning with its full powers.
The encounter, Construct against Team Alpha, was beginning.
Mondrian watched everything, until the monitor no longer sent back any message.
After that he was silent and thoughtful for a long time. At last he went back to the record, and watched—three times over—the final few minutes of the transmission.
* * *
The call came while Luther Brachis was asleep. A tiny unit behind his right ear provided a soft but insistent summons. He grunted, lifted his head, and looked at the time. The middle of the night—and he had arrived home after the marathon session at the Sargasso Dump less than ten hours ago.
He swore, eased himself free, and slid quietly over to the edge of the bed.
Godiva gave a drowsy murmur of complaint. She slept like a child, deeply, peacefully, securely, snuggled against Brachis with one arm across his body. She usually fell asleep at once and claimed that she never had anything but pleasant dreams. Once she was asleep, Luther’s departure from her side was one of the few things that would produce any reaction at all.
He waited to make sure that she would not waken, staring down at her as he pulled on his uniform. As always, Godiva slept naked. The skin of her bare body was so f
ine and fair that it seemed to glow like a pink pearl in the faint light of the ceiling panels. Brachis cursed again as he left her and hurried through into the living room. Three in the morning! But the communication unit was already in message receiving mode.
“Commander Brachis?” said a weary voice, as soon as Luther touched the keys.
It was Mondrian. He might have known. “Here. This is a devil of a time to make a call.”
And if it were Mondrian, there had to be a good reason for it. Brachis was already straightening his uniform and pulling on his boots.
“I need to talk to you. At once.” The dry voice had a tone that Brachis did not recognize. “You look as tired as I feel. Come to Anabasis Headquarters. To Communications. Alone.”
The unit went dead. Brachis snorted. Alone! What did Mondrian expect, that he’d lead in a brigade of bagpipers? But he headed for the door with his boots stiil unstrapped. Mondrian would never add that unnecessary word unless the situation were truly abnormal.
The door to Anabasis Communications was locked. That was significant, too. Brachis banged his fist hard on the metal, taking some of his own irritation out on the panels. After a long delay and a clicking of tumblers the heavy plate slid open. Mondrian stood waiting. With one stiff movement he gestured Brachis to enter, and locked the door at once behind them.
Luther Brachis stared at him. “I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but I suggest you stop it. You look freeze-dried, like one of the things we pull out for identification after a major airlock failure.”
Mondrian did not smile, did not greet him. “Travancore,” he said.
“We lost the team?” Brachis was not too surprised. He had always thought that the first team in was likely to get wiped out. There was no substitute for experience, and the second or third team would have a much better chance.
“Worse than that.”
“Christ. The Construct is out and on the loose?”
“And worse than that.” Mondrian took the other man by the arm. His fingers bit into Brachis’s biceps. “There’s something terrifying on Travancore, fully operating and incredibly dangerous. I want you to watch this. Then we must talk.”
The Mind Pool Page 29
