“I’m fine,” Doc replied absently, scanning the terrain for the telltale glint of water. They were high over the boreal forest, and from what he remembered, it was a small lake. At least the wing had lots of lift at low speeds, especially if he extended the front engine pods.
Less than five minutes later he caught sight of the lake. It was about ten miles ahead, an oval shape pointing toward the shadowy outline of the impact epicenter. Doc loosened his grip on the controls and flexed his fingers. The lake was smaller than he thought, less than a mile long, and that was going to be a pain to put a plane five hundred feet across into.
“Are you ready for this?” Tigress asked from her seat across the console. “I would try but my night vision isn’t what it once was.”
Doc smiled. “I’m just glad you know the controls at all.”
“It’s my flying wing; I wouldn’t have been much of an Air Pirate Queen if I couldn’t fly it even if I was a glorified backup pilot most of the time.”
As they looped over the lake, Doc kept an eye out for any sign of the wind. They were coming in dark without a ground crew, and that always made him nervous. Vic liked this kind of flying, not him; the limits he liked to test were things like speed and altitude, quantifiable limits you could accurately measure. One eye on the altimeter, he brought the wing lower and lower. When he dropped to an indicated one thousand feet, Doc flipped on the lights.
A pair of high-intensity beams lanced out and downwards, showing the ground less than a hundred feet below! He had almost flown them into a hilltop.
Doc pulled back on the yoke and threw more power to all twenty engines, easing the flying wing upwards. Now that he had lights, he took the opportunity to circle the lake, picking out the land features. Anyone below would know they were here, but better strange lights in the sky than a fireball on the lakeshore. It wasn’t like the Soviets had any pursuits in the middle of nowhere.
Once he had the lay of the land, Doc lined up for the landing. At what looked like five hundred feet he lowered the flaps band extended the front engine pods and reduced throttle. As the plane slipped forward through the air he stretched his senses, feeling the airflow over the wings. Doc relaxed into the controls letting them teach him the flying wing. He felt the vortices around the turrets; not part of the original design they threw off the aerodynamics just enough to be noticeable at low speeds. The rear ones weren’t as bad, shielded by the pontoons in front of them.
A burst of fire rose from somewhere near the Tunguska epicenter.
“They’ve spotted us,” Gilly muttered. He was back at the flight engineer’s station, monitoring the engines. Doc would have rather flown with a full crew, at least on the engine deck, but that hadn’t been an option. Gilly was going to have to do the best he could from the flight deck.
“Better they spot us now, than a crash landing where nobody finds our bodies ’til spring.” Ming finished strapping herself into one of the other seats.
“Exactly.” Doc let the flying wing do the work as he gently guided it in toward the water.
Moments later they crossed the lakeshore and Doc immediately feathered the rear propellers. The reduced thrust took effect almost instantly, cutting forward velocity. They hit the water at forty knots and Doc slapped the air brakes while Tigress reversed thrust on all twenty engines. Everything shook as a battleship’s horsepower fought over five hundred tons of mass to a stop.
The engines screamed as Tigress pushed the throttles through the gate; kicking them up to full emergency power. Twenty needles bounced off the red line on as many tachometers. Massive pylons thrummed as they channeled power through the airframe and down to the pontoons.
As they dropped through thirty-five knots Doc opened the pontoon brakes, trying to balance water resistance against the reverse thrust. Spray shone in the lights, blanketing the lake in a field of white and making it almost impossible to see where the lake ended and the forest began. Seven stories up was high enough to be out of the spray, but it didn’t stop the glare.
Doc cut the lights, blinking his eyes rapidly as he forced them to adjust. Thankfully, Gilly was on top of things, as he shut down the flight deck lights at the same time.
Doc’s eyes came back about half a minute after splashdown, showing a forested shoreline racing toward them at almost twenty knots. They had already killed over half their speed but it wasn’t enough. The wing was still going too fast.
He stomped full left rudder, sending the wing skidding sideways. A moment later, Doc stomped on the right rudder, trying to stretch the lake by swinging from side to side. He didn’t have a lot of room to maneuver, but he took every inch he could get. Even at under twenty knots the wing fought his every move, the rudders pushing back against the controls like barn doors in a tornado.
Each turn bled a little more energy, giving him a few more precious feet for stopping. Reaching out with his finely tuned senses, he focused on the wing and the surrounding airflow as a whole. In a near trance, he was one with every control surface, feeling the air for any hint of instability. With the extra sensory input he was able to instantly determine exactly how much force he could apply before the aircraft lost control.
Sweat broke out on his forehead, as he fought the flying wing to a stop, pushing five hundred tons of aircraft to the very limit. Superbly honed muscles stood out like iron as he wrung every ounce of mechanical advantage from the boosters. No normal human could have driven those controls; and no normal human could computed the fluid dynamics equations necessary to know exactly where to stop in real time.
After twenty seconds that felt more like twenty hours, he reached out and feathered the propellers.
As Tigress ran through the shut down procedure, Doc relaxed in the pilot’s seat. The flying wing rocked quietly in the water just off the shore of a peaceful northern lake.
Gilly was the first to move, unstrapping from the flight engineer’s station and heading to the front of the flight deck. He spent a moment just looking over the trees, each outlined with a light dusting of snow. “You figure Vic came here on purpose?”
“If I’m right about the gout of flame I saw coming in, then I’m sure Vic came here on purpose.”
“Flame? What do you mean?” Ming was standing beside Gilly, staring into the darkness as if she could pull Vic to her by sheer force of will.
“There was a fire a few miles away to the south west when we came in.” Tigress had finished her post shutdown check, and was unstrapping from the co-pilot’s seat.
“From the color, it was precisely the same temperature as the flamethrower that robot had back in Darien.” Doc finally moved to stand up. “That’s not likely to be a coincidence. Unfortunately, it also means they know someone’s out here.”
“I don’t know about you,” Gilly joked, “but I don’t think I can take on one of those robots like Vic did.”
“I have some ideas of how to deal with them, but I couldn’t duplicate her feat either.”
“I know this was designed for warmer weather, but you wouldn’t have any winter gear aboard would you?” Gilly made a face. “I left my long underwear at home.”
“I don’t know about my people, but the Japanese were planning to use it in the war effort.”
“I’ll have a look.” Gilly headed aft.
“Don’t take too long, we need to be out of here before they find us.” Doc found a space and started doing some limbering exercises. Even with isometrics, twenty hours in the pilot’s seat was more than enough to stiffen anyone.
“We also need warm enough clothes that we don’t get hypothermia.” Ming turned away from the window, one fist clenched. “You may be immune to cold, but the rest of us aren’t. Just because it’s warmer than the middle of the Antarctic Plateau doesn’t mean we can take the weather lightly.”
Doc nodded, a day or two at fifteen or twenty degrees wouldn’t be too bad for him; at least not with the trees to block the worst of the wind. Give Vic enough mineral and she would probably outl
ast him. None of the rest stood a chance, and only Ming had really experienced cold weather. Even he shuddered at the memory of crossing the Antarctic Plateau in winter.
Five minutes later, Gilly was back with winter clothing. Most of it was too small for the two men, but it was much better than nothing. Once everyone was dressed they made their way down to the pontoons, they double-checked the anchors and unshipped one of the smaller lifeboats. They were barely a hundred feet off-shore and it wasn’t long before the prow crunched to a stop just ten feet from the edge of the water. Doc picked his way forward and leaped off the prow.
Ice water bit his calves but he ignored it. With everyone else at the rear of the boat he heaved it forward, dragging it onto a narrow beach.
“Quick, everyone out.”
From his position at the bow, Doc was quickly able to help Tigress and then Ming ashore. Gilly, being taller just waved him out of the way and jumped ashore himself.
Something rustled in the bushes behind him, and Doc turned to see a squad of Red Army soldiers facing them over the muzzles of leveled Moisins. There were only fourteen of them, and for a moment Doc considered taking them on.
Four spotlights swept the team as two giant robots rose in front of the group, filling the air with the sound of snapping branches. The dull roar of a flamethrower told him it was a bad idea. They were caught.
#
Vic fell into line behind her mother; just another shuffling figure among the rest. She was easily the tallest woman in line, but her exhaustion made it easy to stoop enough to conceal her height. Cold air bit through her clothes, but all she could do without calling attention to herself was shiver. The Sun wasn’t even up and what lights there were, were aimed more at the fences than the interior. For the most part, the guards ignored the women, except for occasionally poking bayonets in their direction whenever anyone slowed down.
Their route took them through a path covered in about half an inch of slush, just enough to thoroughly soak Vic's feet through both her boots and socks. As her toes squelched wetly, Vic consoled herself with the thought of how Ming would insist she stop and change them immediately.
Unable to get a good look at where they were going, she was surprised when the path suddenly led them into a large hut with a door wide enough to let them through three abreast. Moments later they were hustled onto a large platform, which rattled into motion as soon as the last woman was aboard.
Although she hadn’t been able to sense even a hint of Tunguskite from ground level, once she made it about twenty feet down she felt a familiar tingle at the back of her neck. It was all she could do not to leap off the platform, but it was too close to the shaft so she had to force herself to be patient. Along with the tingle came the warmth. Barely noticeable at first, the rising temperature made itself felt in the smell of unwashed bodies.
After about five minutes of slow movement, by which time Vic figured they had come down about a hundred and fifty to two hundred feet, the platform clattered to a stop. The doors opened onto Hell.
Here in the deeps the air was thick and smoky, lit by flickering electric lights and the occasional safety candle. The clinks and clanks of picks and shovels blended into a dull roar. Guards hustled them out into the heat; Vic’s blouse instantly stuck to her skin as if glued there. She took one step off the platform and instantly regretted it. Rubbing her forehead where she’d smacked it on the ceiling, she stooped a little further and shuffled after her mother.
The guards down here were lightly dressed, armed with submachine guns and short whips. Men worked the walls, expanding the tunnels in all directions, while the women scrabbled at their feet pulling the loose rock into carts that ran along central tracks.
“Follow me,” Ekaterina whispered; leading the way into a side tunnel. “If you stay here, you’ll be out of the guards’ view and you should be able to rest.”
Vic shook her head. “No, let me help you work.”
“But you can barely stand; you almost fell coming off the lift.”
Vic chuckled. “That’s because I’m too tall. I’m already feeling better.”
Kneeling down in the darkness, Vic found a piece of ore about the size of her fist and wrapped her hand around it. Closing her eyes, she felt for the Tunguskite; there wasn’t much, just a few grains, but it was enough to give her a quick boost.
“Rocksferatu, my ass,” she muttered as she drained the ore.
“What was”—Ekaterina doubled over coughing for a moment— “that?”
“They said I’m not human, Mama.” Vic reached out and hugged her mother. “This stuff you’re mining, this stuff that’s killing you. I need it to live.”
Before Ekaterina had time to respond, one of the guards shouted something and the two women hurried to work. At first it was simple enough, just pick up the rock and throw it into the cart. Simple didn’t mean easy; it was stoop labor, hard on her arms and especially her back.
After less than an hour, Vic couldn’t imagine how her mother was handling it. Ekaterina didn’t complain, she just worked steadily and methodically. If she hadn’t been continually drawing energy from the rock itself Vic would never have made it through a day even without her weakness. Ekaterina didn’t have that advantage; all she had was an iron will and failing body. Just watching her made Vic want to dig in and fight. She had to get them out of here.
As her energy levels rose, Vic started taking advantage of her enhanced senses to scope out the mine level. Every time she got a new cart, she watched the guards. Guard troops were rarely the best available, but these ones were particularly bad. They just didn’t care; they were sloppy. Vic had seen her fair share of prisons, too many of them from the inside, and she had never seen guards like this. They weren’t checking on the prisoners, they didn’t seem to care how much ore made it into the carts.
One of the guards was spending more time picking his nose and wiping it on his sleeve than actually guarding. Another was playing scratch and sniff inside his pants. The only ones paying any attention to what they were doing were those guarding the platform. The rest didn’t seem to care.
It wasn’t just the guards that caught her attention, it was the mine itself. The mineral samples Vic was used to seeing were heavily infused with Tunguskite. She got a big boost from a small sample. Here, it was like digging for gold through mine tailings. There was hardly any active element; Vic wasn’t a miner, but this felt like it was played out.
“Has it always been like this?” Vic whispered when their heads were close enough that no one else could overhear.
Ekaterina shook her head; her hands still going in the same methodical fashion. Hard worn hands that Vic remembered as fine and aristocratic, now worn and marred with broken joints and knuckles. “No, the guards were much stricter before. The ore was different, too. More black, less gray.”
“You’re sure?”
“You have to tell me why you say you’re not human.”
“I will, Mama.” Vic gave a quick smile; she couldn’t deny her mother. “But you’re sure the minerals were more black and less gray.”
“I’m sure.”
The rest of the day was filled with more hard labor. By the end of the shift Vic was doing most of the work, more than covering both her own assumed quota and her mother’s real one. It was hard work, but even with the poor samples Vic was gaining more energy than she was using. When the guards finally chivvied them onto the platform, she felt almost as strong as Doc.
Riding the platform Vic did her best to hunch her shoulders; she wanted to look like the defeated woman who had ridden the platform downwards before dawn. Coming upwards, she felt her senses extend the way they had back in Dairen. Back then, it had been the power core glowing like a second Sun. This was different, more diffuse.
There was dust everywhere, all of it carrying tiny amounts of Tunguskite. When she’d reached the camp the night before her senses had been too weak to notice it; now she had enough energy not just to sense the Tunguskite, but to
use it.
The platform shuddered to a stop, and Vic stumbled off it among the press of the crowd. Images flooded her senses; a bowl of thin borscht here, a samovar there, an office, the back of her own head, the inside of her mother’s left ankle. It was weird enough that she had to put her hand on Ekaterina’s shoulder and close her eyes while the older woman led her along. Even that wasn’t much better; taking her eyes out of the mix helped but it did nothing for the Tunguskite visions which were feeding directly into her mind.
One large chunk sat on a shelf in an office, looking down onto a cluttered desk. A sheet of paper sat in the typewriter, and she pushed her attention toward it. The page was at a weird angle, and Vic hadn’t read much Russian beside hymnals in a while, but she was able to puzzle it out.
After completion of the project, all guards are to be transferred to other duties beginning October 23rd. Mechanical troops are scheduled to demolish the mine head October 22nd.. No escapes.
Another note read.
Two squads assigned to demolish barracks October 22nd. Burn everything.
All the papers had unfamiliar headers; rather than referencing the USSR, they referred to something called the “Siberian Soviet Empire,” which was new to Vic. She didn’t find any other papers; there were no other pieces of ore large enough to give her more than a few inches of vision. Instead of papers, she saw empty shelves, and the last of a kettle of soup being dumped into a serving bowl.
When Vic came back to her senses she was sitting on a bench facing the worst looking bowl of borscht she’d ever seen in her life. Moving mechanically, she took a spoonful and almost choked. Then it hit her: this was supposed to be their last meal. The Soviets were planning to bury them alive.
She looked over at her mother; spooning up soup with the fatalism that twenty years in a camp would give a person. They had to get out, and they had to do it soon.
Giant Robots of Tunguska Page 13
