What do you propose?
Monica and I were both present when Dr Mzu escaped from Tranquillity.
Now wait a minute—syrinx protested.
I could do that,Oenone said. If the Udat can, I can.there was considerable eagerness in the voidhawk’s mental tone.
No,syrinx said, instinctively protective. Tanjuntic-RI is a hell of a lot smaller than Tranquillity. You’d never fit into one of the rings.
But I would fit into the level-one chambers.
That was what I was going to suggest,samuel said. We ought to be able to reach one of them. And I doubt the hellhawk could swallow in to harass you. Whereas if you came back here to fight your way past the Tyrathca ship, it could certainly complicate the situation for you.
I can do it,Oenone insisted.
Are you sure? This isn’t just bravado, is it?
You know I can. And we would honour Udat ’s memory by doing so.
All right.syrinx couldn’t hide the pride and simmering excitement in her mind. Samuel, we’ll attempt to pick you out from one of the axial chambers.
Thank you,samuel said emphatically.
Oski and Renato were almost running as they emerged from the control office airlock. Their suit programs were having to limit the augmentation to stop them from hitting their heads on the airlock chamber ceiling. “I’ve found the archive.” Renato datavised the layout file over to Monica, Samuel, and the serjeants. “It’s on the other side of the ring, a kilometre away.”
“Move out,” Monica datavised. Her guidance block was analysing the new data, incorporating it into existing files.
“According to this file, there’s a ramp up to the second level just past the archive,” Samuel datavised. “I’ll blow the airlock hatch, and we’ll evacuate through there as soon as you’ve got the information.”
“Sounds good,” Renato datavised.
The five of them were skating along the lightless streets in long low bounds, utterly reliant on their guidance programs. Nothing changed around them. At every turn, the wintered towers were the same ahead and behind, their infrared signatures identical.
“The Tyrathca are on their way down the ramp to this ring,” datavised the serjeant who was guarding the entrance. “I’ve rigged the airlock. Do you want me to blow it?”
“No,” Monica datavised. “Wait until they’re all inside the ring, then blow it.”
“You want to trap them in here?” Renato datavised. “With us?”
“Good tactics,” Samuel confirmed. “If we block them now, we won’t know where they are, nor how they gain entry. But once they’re in, they can’t get out easily, and we can monitor them via the sensor disks. It gives us the strategic high ground.”
A glimmer of infrared started to shine down the corridor ahead of the diversion serjeant, like an autumnal dawn. Ione stopped and slapped a magazine of smart-seeker missiles in the launcher, datavising the Tyrathca profile into their processors. Suit sensors showed a similar infrared glow expanding behind her.
Surrounded,she informed her other selves. Be warned. They really are making good use of their knowledge.
A couple of neutron pulse tipped missiles were fired at the group behind her. She dropped a grenade, and started to run forwards. Smart-seeker missiles sliced out of the big launcher ahead of her. The neutron pulses went off. She triggered the grenade, bringing down the corridor roof. Small EE detonations were flaring up ahead as the missiles punctured the Tyrathca spacesuit fabric, burying themselves deep in the xenoc bodies before detonating.
Infrared vision was wiped out in splashes of brilliant crimson. Still firing missiles. Something like a medium-sized cannonball hit her right leg. Exploding. She was flung violently against the ceiling, bouncing down against the floor. Internal bones snapped. Cracks multiplied across her exoskeleton. But the armour held, reinforced by the molecular binding generators.
The diversion serjeant raised its head, dislodging various rocks which were lodged on its helmet. It moved its arms, actuators pushing hard against the weight of rocks holding its torso down. More rocks slithered off the armour. Two soldier-caste Tyrathca were bounding towards it. Ione waited until they were fifteen metres away, and fired a couple of homing grenades.
The sensor disk by the spiral ramp up in level one noted a rise in the thermal environment beyond its pre-set parameters, and broadcast an alert. Visual observation showed twenty new Tyrathca marching into the interior.
“Oh God,” Monica datavised. “Just what we need.”
“It will take them forty minutes to reach ring five,” Samuel datavised. “If Oski hasn’t retrieved what we need by then I doubt it will matter.”
They were fifty metres short of the ring wall, passing the last of the towers. Five sets of suit lights slithered erratically over the wall, kindling small refractive auras from the curtain of frosted creeper leaves.
“There,” Renato datavised. Rather uselessly, he raised an arm and pointed. But the others saw where his suit lights had come to rest, and focused their own beams on the spot. The airlock door to the archive was very similar to those of the control offices. And like them, open.
“It’s recent,” Oski datavised. “Several faint infrared footprints, very similar to those at the control offices.”
“Monica, you go in with them,” Samuel datavised. “I’ll set the charges ready to open that ramp for us.”
Monica drew an X-ray laser rifle from her belt, and switched her homing grenades to active mode. Feeling slightly more confident, she stepped through the open airlock. Oski and Renato had been issued with the same weapons suite as she, but not even full field combat programs could turn a pair of academics into decent troops. She didn’t have surprise on her side. Instead she went for speed, flashing through the final doorway with sensor gain on maximum. Radar and infrared covered the whole interior of the archive chamber in milliseconds. The results filtered through her tactical location program, which declared there was nothing active inside.
“You can come in,” she datavised.
The archive was substantially different to the control offices. A lot larger, a long hall tunnelled out of naked rock, with an arching ceiling thirty metres high. Despite having Tyrathca-sized computer terminals and display cases, it was the most human place they’d seen in Tanjuntic-RI.
Principally, Monica decided, because it was instantly recognisable: a museum. Five-metre glass cube display cabinets were standing in regimented rows the whole length of the hall. The glass was fogged by grime and ice. When they shone their suit beams on the cabinets, the contents were visible only as intriguing dark shadows. From what they could discern, it was machinery inside; the outlines had too many flat sides and regular angles to be anything biological.
Each line of cubes was divided into sections by broad areas given over to computer terminals clustered round a central hexagonal pedestal of giant display screens. Oski walked over to the nearest one. “These zones must be the archive’s operating stations,” she datavised. Her light beams fanned up and down the casings, then settled on the screens. “There’s a plaque here.” Neural nanonics put her Tyrathca translation program into primary mode. “Atmospheric engineering,” she read out. “They must cover different disciplines at each station. Try and find anything relating to navigation or communications.”
“Can you see if the Kiint repaired any of the terminals?” Renato asked. “That would save a minute or two.”
“Nothing like that showing yet,” Monica datavised.
Renato walked along a row of the big cubes, annoyed they were all so opaque. The first station of terminals was mineral distillation, followed by thermal maintenance, then distillation mining. On impulse he wiped a gauntlet against the ice on one cube, upping the brightness on his suit lights. It was a chunk of machinery inside. “These gizmos look like they’re brand new,” he datavised. “I’m not sure this is a museum. Could be they archived actual physical components, the ultimate template back-up in case something screwed up their electronics.”
“Any kind of disaster big enough to eradicate their crystal memories would wreck these machines first,” Oski datavised. “Besides, think how many different components there are to make Tanjuntic-RI work. A hell of a lot more than we can see in here.”
“Okay, so it’s just the really critical ones.”
“I think I’ve found it,” Monica datavised. “This terminal has been spruced up, and it’s still a couple of degrees warmer than the rest.”
Oski scanned her suit sensors round to locate the ESA operative. “What’s the station?”
“Planetary habitation.”
“That doesn’t sound quite right.” She hurried over to where Monica was standing, suit lights converging on one of the terminals.
“The Tyrathca are now in ring five,” the serjeant guarding the ramp entrance datavised. “I am blowing the airlock behind them.”
Despite her high suit sensor resolution, Monica could receive no indication of the explosion. “Oski, we really don’t have any more time to hunt round,” she datavised. “Just get what you can from this terminal, and pray the Kiint knew what they were doing.”