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pulling something apart."
Something bigger than the moving things. Jordin said, "Looks like they're
slicing up a ... zand."
Her stomach clenched, looking down at the black ice. "They attack the zand at
night. The zand are bigger, but they're sleeping, I guess."
The vague forms had pulled pieces away. Quick, scurrying moves.
"Let's have a look, okay?"
Jordin nodded and started their last deceleration. Zero hour; no more time for
dispassionate study and idle speculation. It felt good.
He hit the controls. The lander danced up and away, maneuvering above the
center of the great pit. Their steam blurred the view.
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Shanna took a deep breath. The lives below were at risk, and maybe she didn't
fathom what was going on here ... but she had to act; it was in her nature.
Her pulse pounded in her ears. She had gotten here by following her instincts,
the deft feel of intuition.
Even if I'll regret it the rest of my life.
They could see better. "Yep, that's a dead zand," Jordin said. The shapes
nearby moved into a circular pattern. "They see us. Maybe hear us, too-if they
have ears."
Shanna said tightly, "That li'l trick you rigged up-"
"On it," Jordin said.
"They're coming fast-"
"Man, they look-"
"Yeah, dangerous." He put his hand on a little switch on the far side of the
module from her. She hadn't noticed it before, and he hadn't mentioned it,
either.
So I wouldn't bump it by accident? But the call is mine...
More shapes swarmed in below. Jordin said very casually, "Y'know, we can't
hover forever."
"Check. Okay, land in that big broad spot. Looks rocky."
"Yep, it is."
He took the lander into a bare plain, several kilometers from the Darksiders.
They touched down, and the steam plume seemed to blow off the hard ice nearby
without even provoking a liquid shimmer.
Jordin read off the shutdown protocol, and she echoed it. They spent several
minutes checking the engine readouts, relayed the digital package up to
Proserpina, and Jordin carefully evaluated the lander pads. "No melting under
us."
"Good, let's-" Their audio rang with pops.
Jordin put their local radar on the big screen. "Yeah, I see it."
Dots were converging from all around, making local radar give off a chorus of
pings.
"Let's get out of here," she said quickly.
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"Done." He slapped the overrides, and the nuke flared again. A quick burst
took them up a hundred meters.
"I think," Jordin said mildly, "a professional biologist would label that
aggressive behavior."
"I tend to agree."
Below, gray boxes moved with startling speed. They had rushed in under the
lander's plume, meeting just below. They now clustered and dispersed in quick,
jerky movements.
"Ummm," Jordin said. "Walking washing machines."
"More like combinations. Legs that end in wheels. See that one? It's rolling
over the flat rock, then steps over the small boulders. Ingenious."
"Wheels. Gotta be machines, not zand."
"Right. And look, they're extruding pipes out the top." She pointed where a
cluster was poking narrow tubes upward. Their steam dispersed quickly, so the
boxy forms seemed to ripple. More came in steadily from the sides. There were
at least a hundred within view. As the newcomers arrived, they, too, started
extending their tubes.
"Ummm. Don't like the look of that."
"Me, either." She felt a sudden prickle of fear.
"Like they were ganging up to ... shoot at us."
"That switch?"
"Yeah."
"Draw them in." She thought, Jordin and I have fashioned an instrument
designed for delicate exploration of an alien world ... into a bomb.
"Then... do it."
Something flickered in Jordin's face. "You-really-"
"I know, it's a big step-"
"Let's just clear out of here." His lips set firmly, resolved.
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"We've got to act," she said quickly.
He looked at her. "We?"
"Okay, me. I'm captain, I'll take the responsibility."
He nodded, lips working, then nodded again. "Right. Your call." His thumb
touched the jury-rigged relay. He made the lander lower a bit. Darksiders came
flocking in from the sides, moving even faster.
Shanna felt sudden fear. They were so fiercely agile, and in this deep cold.
How could anything-
"Should drop some." Tensely Jordin counted. The minicam showed the rocks below
growing larger. An instant before impact, he hit the probe's cutting torch.
The oxy-hydrogen mixture exploded.
A giant yellow fist blasted out of the pit. Vapor boiled up, thick fog
condensing at once into glinting crystals. Debris shot far and wide.
A shock wave slammed into the lander. The deck rocked. Something solid
screeched right through from wall to wall, in and out again. Its passage rang
like a giant's handclap.
Shanna was in her armor-otherwise explosive decompression would have finished
her. In the air around her she saw crystals rattle down in a frigid shower.
Air screamed out of the lander.
Jordin fought the lander's controls. The vehicle swayed and sank like a
drunken express elevator.
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Deceleration jets sputtered, then coughed out. With a shriek of twisting metal
the lander thumped down.
Too hard.
Three legs groaned and buckled under, canting the deck steeply.
Shanna slammed against the wall and felt blood run down one cheek. Her right
shoulder hurt, sharp and biting. The silence in the shattered cabin, after so
much thunder, seemed eerie. Pluto's cold gases sighed in. She saw her breath
frosting over the faceplate and turned up the armor's heater. It gave a wan
warm breath at her neck. She breathed in shallow gasps, and the air cut her
throat. Her legs were already getting numb. Not much more time.
She glanced sideways, stopped. Jordin was sprawled halfway out of his couch,
mouth sagging, unconscious. She shouted, but he didn't move. Dead? She
couldn't tell if he was breathing.
Proserpina rasped in her ear, demanding answers.
The cold
... A pouch near her mouth held medication designed for just such a terminal
emergency. No pain, the briefers had told her; a bland taste, drowsiness, and
then-nothing.
She had told them back Earthside to take it out, but after launch she found
that it was still there.
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No, damn it.
With blunt fingers she punched in the suit command to call
Proserpina on the hailing frequency. "We're down, hull breach, trying to-" Her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]