America 2040 - Golden World Part 9

Seconds later the Zhukov made a hissing roar. There was an instant smell of burning rocket fuel. The small projectile easily pierced the metal of the communications-room door. The door hurled toward her, almost intact, on the wings of a booming explosion and slammed into Captain Fedor Novikov, crushing him against the unyielding bulkhead. For a moment Theresita couldn't hear, although she'd protected her ears with the plugs. But there were not t.i.tanic, rending, destroying explosions from the fuel storage areas.

She let the spent Zhukov fall to the deck. It clattered in the silence. She walked to Novikov's crushed body. His face was untouched.

Anton Emin was standing in the door when she turned. Denis and Vera Ivanov, members of the ship's medical staff, had arrived with him. Vera, a small, dark woman, begarf to make the rounds of the dead bodies, kneeling beside some, shaking her head.

"I want you to remember this," Theresita said. "I want you to look around and mark it well. Perhaps some of them would have chosen to be with us, but for the good of all, we could not risk giving them that opportunity. Just remember that we have purchased our chance to live, and to reach the stars, with the lives of others. Remember that we have a solemn responsibility to those who had to die.

"We must never forget. And we must so construct our new world that such needless waste will never be necessary again."

EIGHT.

The admiral and Mopro, robots that needed no sleep, made their preparations during the next night.Grace Monroe and Max Rosen, who did need sleep, quickly had their dinner and went to Grace's lab-they were both of a kind to put business before pleasure.

Max appropriated a pipeline-cleaning apparatus from the petroleum engineers. The bullet-shaped machine was designed to travel under its own power inside a pipeline, and its cleaning brushes could be adjusted to pipes of different diameters. Grace and Max removed the drive for the cleaning brushes and inserted into the nose of the machine a powerful light and two minicameras. They had a bit of a challenge adapting the machine control system to remote, so it was after eleven o'clock before they were satisfied.

The pipeline cleaner was now a remote-control camera on wheels that could be lowered into a hole to record an underground creature's whereabouts and behavior.

Mopro had self-mounted his most effective tracks, larger than those he normally used, then had worked with the admiral to weld sharp, long spikes to the tracks. With Mopro's considerable weight bearing down on the tracks, the spikes would dig deeply into the ground, giving the big TR5-A robot enough traction to win a tug-of-war with a front-line war tank. He was ready to haul the creature out of the hole.

Stoner McRae stayed up late, too. The capture attempt had been scheduled so he and the captain would be present. He knew that the admiral and Mopro were readying their equipment in a bay out near the scout pods, and when he had completed his own preparations, he made his way there. He was followed by a small, big-wheeled, self-propelled machine, which obeyed a remote that he carried in his right hand. He found Max and Grace with the two robots.

"This is a mobile signal generator," Stoner said. "We use it to measure underground formations. It's effective down to a couple of hundred feet. I made a few adjustments so it'll give us a definite echo if the signal hits a burrow."

"That'll be useful," Grace said. "We need to know as much as possible about those creatures before the boys try to la.s.so and hog-tie one of them."

Max explained the camera apparatus, and the admiral showed off his four-way snare. The humans decided to get some sleep while the admiral and Mopro loaded the equipment on an all-terrain cargo carrier and spent the early morning hours locating a nearby herd of silver-horns. The admiral used a stun gun to capture a young buck, and then they were ready. It was well before dawn.

Duncan Rodrick found himself very popular that early morning. His breakfast was a series of interruptions as dozens of people volunteered to join the hunt for the underground killer. But Rodrick had already chosen the capture crew on the previous evening, so they would be ready. Paul Warden had been named to prepare a heavily armed security squad.

Paul and four others in protective armor reported to the cargo crawler soon after dawn, and Paul blushed with pleasure when the camera crew joined the cargo carrier in their own small all-terrain vehicle, for the crew was headed by Sage Bryson. He went over and grinned up at her.

"Glad to have you with us," he said.

"Thank you," Sage said coldly.

She was still smoldering from an incident that had occurred the previous night. She had put in her bid early to be part of the day's effort and had waited until past nine o'clock before learning that a man with far less experience in recording important events had been chosen for the camera crew. She had accosted Duncan Rodrick in a corridor, fortunately finding him alone. "Captain, I'd like to ask you to reconsider your a.s.signments for the recording crew," she had said politely.

Rodrick knew Sage only slightly. Whenever she took her turn at the captain's table she was always withdrawn and polite.

"Many people volunteered," he said. "We can't have everybody out there."

Sage seemed to draw herself up to stand taller. "Did you find something lacking in my qualifications?"

Like everyone aboard, she had skills in more than one field. She was very good at holographic recording and not only could explain the workings of the complicated equipment, but could repair any malfunction.

"No, no," Rodrick said quickly. "You are highly qualified."

"I can only a.s.sume, then, that you chose a lesser qualifiedman for reasons of my s.e.x."

He was silent for a moment. "It's going to be dangerous out there," he said. "And if we succeed, we're going to have to haul this thing-whose strength we can only guess-into a capture cage. I chose the team for strength."

"That, sir, is a s.e.xist att.i.tude," Sage replied, her face red with anger. "As it happens, I can bench press ten pounds more than the man you picked for a job for which I'm more qualified. Please expect a protest to be filed immediately."

She turned to walk away. Rodrick's face was dark. "Ms. Bryson," he said, his voice no longer friendly.

She halted and turned to face him.

"I don't take kindly to threats. Do what you feel that you have to do, and I will do the same. I will a.s.sign my people as I decide without any unsolicited advice and-"

He was interrupted by his communicator.

"Captain," Rocky Miller said, "there's been a small accident, nothing serious. The man you a.s.signed to direct the camera crew took a fall off the cargo carrier. The medical people want to check him out."

"Thank you, Mr. Miller." Rodrick spoke into his communicator. He looked at Sage sternly. "What I said still goes, Ms. Bryson. Now, if you're still eager to be on this operation, I suggest that you report immediately to Commander Warden."

"Thankyou,sir ," Sage spit out.

She was still steaming about being second choice when Paul Warden came over to greet her.

"Sage," Paul said, "I want you to keep the camera crew well back. Use your long lens."

"I don't need to be told my job," Sage said.

Paul flushed. "I don't want anyone endangered." His voice hardened. He loved the girl, but this was service business. "You will set up your cameras no closer than one hundred feet from the snare site, andyou will not come closer under any circ.u.mstances." He turned without waiting for an answer.

Sage's face was white with her anger. She was afraid that she was going to burst into bitter tears, and that possibility angered her still further. To think that that no-neck man really believed that she would choose him made her slightly ill. He was just like all the others, the men who had s...o...b..red after her ever since her hormones had dictated early bodily development and nature had refined her face into the kind that made beauty-pageant judges rave. During high school and college she had believed that it was triumph to parade her body in the latest, scantiest bathing suit before crowds of gaping men.

She had her aunt Martha to thank for her enlightenment. Her father's sister had devoted all her time and talents to becoming one of the most celebrated writers in the United States. "They're exploiting you, Sage," Aunt Martha had told her in that cool, logical, loving voice. "You're prime meat on display."

She had been so naive then. "I don't think so, Aunt Martha," she'd protested. "They judge talent heavily, and poise, and the ability to converse intelligently."

"A talking robot can converse intelligently," Martha had said.

"But I have a chance at a movie contract-"

"Great," Martha had responded bitterly. "Then they can display your fine t.i.ts and sweet little a.s.s all over the world. Sage, you're more than bosom and b.u.t.t. You graduated at the head of your cla.s.s. You were offered full scholarships to six schools. You can be anything you want to be. You can make a contribution to this messed up world."

When she was nearly raped by the director of her first picture, a picture she refused to finish, she began to realize her aunt's wisdom. She gave up her movie contract, entered the Ma.s.sachusetts Inst.i.tute of Technology on a scholarship, and completed a four-year degree in just under two years, her master's in another year, her Ph. D. in record time-all while publishing articles in scientific magazines and winning cla.s.s honors by holding the only perfect marks ever recorded at the school.

She had been looking for new fields to conquer when she'd been approached by a representative to Presidential Scientific Adviser Oscar Kost. She had come very close to turning down the chance because of that unwritten but understood requirement to marry and bear children. But she had signed on anyway because the voyage would be an uncertain, possibly dangerous adventure. She fully expected that there would be casualties on a new world. Those casualties would be mostly male since men fancied themselves to be the only ones capable of facing critical situations, leaving her, by choice, an odd woman out of the mating game.

But to date, casualties had been almost equally divided as to s.e.x.

Furthermore, the endless months of being cooped up on the ship with not only the single men lolling their tongues at her but a few of the married ones as well had made her question her decision to accompany theSpirit into s.p.a.ce.

Duncan Rodrick had decided that it would be safe to allow the colonists off ship during the day, so now there was a sizable crowd to watch the two-vehicle expedition leave the ship.

One of the well-wishers was Tina Sells, who had celebrated her sixteenth birthday only two weeksbefore theSpirit of America had landed on Omega. Tina, the daughter of Tony and Trisha Sells, building engineer and architect respectively, thought that Dr. Grace Monroe was the most beautiful and the most intelligent woman she had ever known. She'd spent a lot of time with Grace during the outward voyage and had become fascinated with Grace's robots and the amazing skill and breakthrough knowledge that it had taken to construct them. Since she had shown not only interest but a certain talent, Grace had encouraged her. Tina was, Grace felt, especially receptive to the admiral, so at Grace's suggestion Tina, in addition to her regular schooling, had become a private student of the admiral's in computer science.

When Grace came out of the ship Tina joined her and said, "I wish I could go along."

"You can watch on the screens," Grace suggested.

"You'll be careful, won't you?" Tina asked. Grace smiled and kissed the pretty little girl on the cheek.

She was so lovely, a youthful flower with exceptional promise both in beauty and ability. "I'll bevery careful."

Grace watched with a fond smile as Tina approached the admiral and Mopro. The admiral smiled at her, standing straight and tall and handsome.

"I think you're so brave to go after that horrible thing," Tina said.

"No problem," the admiral replied confidently. He was, after all, only four and a half years old. He had matured during the voyage, true, but for the first time in his short life he was the very center of attention for many people.

"I don't want you to get hurt," she said.

"I won't. I promise," the admiral said. He grinned and reached up to pat Mopro on his armored head.

"My Little buddy will take care of me."

"You do that, Mopro," Tina said.

Mopro displayed his answer on a moving band across the upper part of his ma.s.sive head. "We shall overcome." Stoner, standing near enough to hear the exchange and see Mopro's answer, wondered if Grace had programmed a sense of humor into all of her robots.

When everyone was aboard, the vehicles moved out. The expedition didn't have to go more than a few hundred feet from the outskirts of Hamilton to begin to learn some disturbing facts about the underground monsters. Stoner deployed the mobile signal generator, and the echoes that bounced back from below the surface showed that the area was literally honeycombed with burrows of four to five feet in diameter.

The depths at which the burrows had been dug varied considerably, from five to ten feet below ground near the surface traps constructed by the beasts to an almost uniform fifty feet for long traverse burrows.

Stoner soon began to think of them as tunnels because they were so perfectly constructed, as round as a pipe, as straight as if lasered in places.

But the most astounding thing didn't show up on Stoner's small screen for a while: A tunnel he'd been following with the signal generator suddenly sloped downward from fifty feet to over two hundred feet, out of the range of the generated signals.

"Those things would make great miners," he told Grace wonderingly as she watched the image of the tunnel fade into nothing on the screen. Warden was disturbed by the extent of the tunnels. Some went directly toward Hamilton and, presumably, under the town. There was nothing to prevent the monsters from surfacing in a street to nab some unsuspecting victim. He relayed that information to Duncan Rodrick, on control.

"They tunnel through solid rock?" Rodrick asked.

"As if it were b.u.t.ter," Warden said.

Rodrick asked Emi Zuki to project the pictures he had taken with his scout ship's cameras near the dead city onto the screen. He stopped at the frame with the monster's neck and head at its greatest extension, then asked Emi for enhancement of the picture to a larger size.

Rocky Miller was acting as communicator for the four scout ships a.s.signed to fly cover for the hunters.

"Rock, what do you think?" Rodrick asked. "How does that thing cut perfectly circular tunnels through solid stone?"

So he's calling me Rock, now, Miller was thinking.

He put his emotions aside and examined the enlarged head and neck. "Not with those teeth it's showing," he said.

"No," Rodrick said. "Funny teeth. Sharp and curved backward near the front, blunt and heavy near the back."

"Let's see it with the mouth closed," Miller suggested. Emi complied.

"Looks like the business end of an auger drill," Rodrick said.

"Those toothlike protrusions on the outside of the snout are very much like the serrations on a drill head," Miller agreed. "But what's that line just about three feet back from the snout, the sort of fold that goes all the way around the neck?"

"Good question," Rodrick said. "And there are two openings of some kind just aft of that line."

"Well, we'll know soon enough," Miller said.

"Let's hope so. If that thing starts boring, or drilling, it would make noise."

"I see what you're getting at," Miller said. "Want me to give orders to implant listening devices around the ship and the town?"

"Please," Rodrick said. "I don't like the thought of one of those things surfacing in the midst of a work crew."

Jackie Garvey took Miller's place as scout communicator. She replied to the captain's pleasantries in a crisp, formal voice, using as few words as possible.

An alert came not five minutes after the first listening devices had been put into place, their long probes extending down into the ground. Rodrick amplified the sound on the speakers. Coming from a tunnel angling toward the edge of Hamilton from the east, it was faint at first, and the computer said it was originating at a distance of just under a mile from the listening post. The sound was in two rhythmic pulses. It sounded as if something dry and hard was being sc.r.a.ped against a corrugated surface. It grew gradually louder, approaching the town. A crawler was positioned directly above the origin of the sound.

It was moving steadily at a rate just under five miles per hour through a section of tunnel fifty feet below ground level.

Rodrick relayed this new information to Paul Warden, who positioned his armed squad. Mopro used his laser to sink holes for four strong steel stakes to which he and the admiral attached their capture harness.

The high tensile cables used were capable of supporting ten tons of weight. On each cable was strung a motorized, in-line winch. Once the snare had been secured around the neck of the beast, the synchronized winches would tighten, under the admiral's control, and the band of almost indestructible flexisteel used as a noose would close tightly, hopefully to snag behind the toothlike projections on the thing's head. By tightening the two cables on one side and giving slack at the same time to the other two through use of the in-line winches, the beast would be pulled from its burrow.

Grace Monroe's heart went out to the frightened, bleating silver-horned antelope used as bait. But she also felt pity for the underground creature, which was only satisfying its need for nourishment. The Americans had seen just its head and neck, and there was bound to be a sizable body attached, with a constant need for food.

What might it eat? The signs pointed to dirt and flesh. An unlikely combination, but this was, after all, an alien planet, and even some burrowing worms on Earth took nourishment from the soil.

Max had jury-rigged a camera onto a pipeline crawler that could be driven down into the creature's tunnel, so they could watch for the beast's approach. The crawler's camera, which had already picked up what appeared to be a smooth, gla.s.slike lining inside the tunnel, now showed what looked like a shadow on the wall at the extreme edge of the reach of the lights.

"Let's take a look," Max said. He stopped the crawler, turned it. The lights reflected glaringly back from the glazed walls of a small chamber. The cameras quickly adjusted themselves to the light. The fume detector was registering a strong emission from the contents of the basin. On the screen, the basin appeared to be filled with something the color of dark mud.

They saw the beast at the very edge of the light beams. In the pictures Rodrick had taken near the dead city, the beast's eyes had been small, glowing red. As this one emerged into the light far down the perfectly straight tunnel, its eyes were huge, reflecting light yellowly, and then, as the distance continued to close, the eyes began to contract, until, in the full beams of the lights, they were half-inch circles, glowing coals of malignant red.

"I think it's angry," Grace said, for now the audio receivers were bringing to them, in addition to the frantic, rhythmic sc.r.a.pe-sc.r.a.pe of the creature's movement, a chilling sound, a combination of hissing, grinding, gurgling.

"Grace," the admiral said, "I think we should move everyone back."