"Echo?" He tensed.
"Full echo." She sent the recognition signal that would turn on landing assistance beacons and alert the AI that there was someone Upstairs, the AI was supposed to open the voice-channel in the absence of humans capable of handling the com. The AI came online immediately, transmitting a ready to receive instructions signal.
"Worse, they've got full com. I just got the AI go-signal."
She blipped a compressed several megabytes of instructions to give her control of all external and internal recording devices, override any programs installed since the base was established, and give her control of all sensory devices still working.
"Get the AI to give me some pictures," he said, all business. "If it can."
"Coming up, ah, external cam three, this is right outside the mess hall and, oh, shells and back!"
"I'll second that," Alex replied, just as grimly.
The camera showed them, somewhat fuzzily, a scene that was anything but a pretty sight.
There were bodies lying in plain view of the camera; from the lack of movement they could not be live bodies. They seemed to be lying where they fell, and there was no sign of violence on them. Tia switched to the next camera the AI offered; a view inside the mess hall. Here, if anything, things were worse. Equipment and furniture lay toppled. More bodies were strewn about the room.
A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature in her shell held her in thrall. Fear, horror, helplessness. Her own private nightmares.
Tia exerted control over her internal chemistry with an effort; told herself that this could not be the disease that had struck her. These people were taken down right where they stood or sat.
She started to switch to another view, when Alex leaned forward suddenly.
"Tia, wait a minute."
Obediently, she held the screen, sharpening the focus as well as the equipment, the four-second lag to orbit, and atmospheric interference would allow. She couldn't look at it herself.
"There's no food," he said, finally. "Look, there's plates and things all over the place, but there's not a scrap of food anywhere."
"Scavengers?" she suggested. "Or whatever, whatever killed them? But there are no signs of an invasion, an attack from, outside."
He shook his head. "I don't know. Let's try another camera."
This one was outside the supply building and this was where they found their first survivors.
If that's what you can call them. Tia absorbed the incoming signal, too horrified to turn her attention away. There was a trio of folk within camera range: one adolescent, one young man, and one older woman. They paid no attention to each other, nor to the bodies at their feet, nor to their surroundings. The adolescent sat in the dirt of the compound, stared at a piece of brightly colored scrap paper in front of him, and rocked, back and forth. There was no sound pickup on these cameras, so there was no indication that he was doing anything other than rocking in silence, but Tia had the strange impression that he was humming tunelessly.
The young man stood two feet from a fence and shifted his weight back and forth from foot to foot, swaying, as if he wanted to get past the fence and had no idea how. And the older woman paced in an endless circle.
All three of them were filthy, dressed in clothes that were dirt-caked and covered with stains. Their faces were dirt-streaked, eyes vacant; their hair straggled into their eyes in ratty tangles. Tia was just grateful that the cameras were not equipped to transmit odor.
"Tia, get me another camera, please," Alex whispered, after a long moment.
Camera after camera showed the same view; either of bodies lying in the dust, or of bodies and a few survivors, aimlessly wandering. Only one showed anyone doing anything different; one young woman had found an emergency ration pouch and torn it open. She was single-mindedly stuffing the ration-cubes into her mouth with both hands, like...
"Like an animal," Alex supplied in a whisper. "She's eating like an animal."
Tia forced herself to be dispassionate. "Not like an animal," she corrected. "At least, not a healthy one." She analyzed the view as if she were dealing with an alien species. "No, she acts like an animal that's been brain-damaged, or maybe a drug addict that's been on something so long there isn't much left of his higher functions."