Champion of Mars (39 page)

“My team is at your disposal,” said Orson.

“Good. Please report to Engineer Patel. He will assign duties to you for the raising of the artefact. You are dismissed.”

T
HE RETRIEVAL OF
the artefact was carried out by drone bodies, operated remotely by the two AIs and Engineer Patel. First they widened the entrance to the fissure with drills. They worked carefully, almost gently, and that part of the process alone took a day. The team rotated duties in Deep Two: the Van Houdts were on together, then Holland and Orson, and lastly Maguire and Miyazaki. They watched the screens and monitored energy emissions. Deep scanning followed, again done carefully so as to avoid activating the artefact. Over a period of two days, a comprehensive picture of the cylinder built up – a short staff or baton, around forty centimetres long. Holland had the impression that the Class Six could have handled all this itself, and that they were being employed to keep them out of mischief.

All the way through the retrieval, a company merc stood guard in Deep Two’s observation suite. After each shift, a second one took them back to base in an open top, and the third waited by the door of the rec room while Lasalle debriefed them individually. They were still expected to fulfil their other station duties, and the time for sleep was limited.

More than once, Holland awoke, sure there was someone in his room, telling him to take her back.

On Holland’s third shift, they removed the artefact. Rather than attempting to shift it from the stone, Cybele and Delaware cut a rectangle fifty centimetres long and twenty wide into the rock with saws. They then drilled seven holes around it.

“I am inserting the explosive now,” said Engineer Patel. On the screens in front of Holland, thin robot fingers pushed a plug of putty-like explosive deep into the holes one by one. The holes were irregularly spaced, placed to make use of natural weaknesses in the rock.

“Retire the drones,” said Delaware.

Holland held his breath.

“Firing in three, two, one.” Patel depressed a button. There was a bang, and the rock shifted slightly.

“Any activity in the cylinder?” asked Patel.

“Negative,” said Holland. The readouts of instruments tuned to the cylinder’s energy signature remained flat.

“Proceed,” said Delaware.

Robot arms pulled the rock free. It was small enough to be carried by Delaware’s sheath, the sheaths operated by Patel and Cybele walking in front of and behind him to bring it back to the surface.

They drove it back up in its own open top.

Holland’s vivariums were removed to make space for it.

H
OLLAND SAT IN
the rec room by the kitchen. It was late and most everyone else, barring the AIs and the mercs patrolling the base, was in bed.

Holland had his tablet in front of him. The results of the tests he’d done on the insect were before him in two- and three-dimensional displays. Where the hell had it come from? An obvious explanation was that it was an escapee from an Earth spacecraft, but he’d sent the results back to Earth and it matched no insect genome from there. And there were further anomalies.

He spun a hologram of the thing’s helix round with a finger in the air, and rubbed his eyes. He was tired, but he had no desire to sleep until he absolutely had to. Too many blue girls in his dreams. There were genes here that the database on Earth had identified as coming from several different animals, some from entirely different phyla. Some had the streamlined look of artificial genes. The more he dug about in its sequence, the more it looked like the thing had been engineered.

He had an idea.

“Cybele?”

“Dr Holland,” came Cybele’s smooth, ambient voice. “How may I help you?”

“You are not busy?”

“Not at all. Delaware has no need of me at this moment. He is considering the best way to sample the artefact.”

“He?”

“It is a useful label, although I do not think he has truly adopted one of the human genders as yet.”

“But you have. Why are you a woman, can I ask you that?”

“You may ask me whatever you wish. I was programmed as a woman. I have tried to be a man, but I feel more comfortable designating myself as a female.” Her voice glided round the room. “Now, how may I assist you?”

“Could you take all the genetic material from this insect that you tested for me, and match each segment of its coding with suggested Earth species? We’ve a full genetic database here, haven’t we?”

“The exobiology suite possesses a near-complete genetic database for comparative purposes, yes. This may take some time. I estimate twenty minutes.”

“Please proceed.”

Holland’s holograms jumped off his tablet and expanded to fill the air. Cybele’s smooth voice went through each of the segments of the creature’s genetic code, as their details – type, proteins produced, other genetic structures they interacted with – flashed by, too fast to see. She began suggesting source organisms for each. Holland kept watching as he went into the kitchen and made a cup of coffee. Maguire came in, tousled haired and grumpy.

“Hey, Holly. What are you doing?”

“Working,” he said. “The insect you brought me.”

“Anything interesting?” he said. He padded across the rec room to the kitchen area, still barefoot and in his pyjamas. “Got to be ready in half an hour for my stint in Deep Two. Constant manning of that place sucks, especially since Stulynow trashed a good part of it.”

“Uh-huh. And yes. I’ll say interesting.” He told Maguire what he’d found.

“You’re kidding? All from Earth?”

“Nearly all, or engineered.”

By then, Cybele had come to the last couple of per cent of the creature’s genetic code. It was proving elusive. “I cannot determine an exact match. I suggest some species of nematode as yet undescribed. The Terran genebank project is only forty-three per cent complete. Many smaller Earth species may never be fully sequenced.”

“It’ll do, Cybele. Now, give us an overall breakdown.” The genome of the creature spun slowly round in the air.

“Thirteen different lifeforms have gone into the manufacture of this creature. Nine of Earth, representing eighty-seven per cent of the genome. The remainder are from Mars.”

“This is some kind of hybrid?” said Maguire.

“You know what part of my job is here, Dave?” said Holland. “It’s to come up with novel ways of using the genetic material in the remnant, mainly to further the terraforming, to create new ecosystems of Mars-adapted Terran creatures.”

“And this is one?” said Maguire. “That’s a ways away yet, is isn’t so? They’re not working on this sort of thing yet. Are they?” He was wide awake now, and sipped his coffee. “How did it get down into the caves?”

“That’s not all. Cybele?”

“Dr John Holland?”

“Give me an idealised, engineered genome using the base components you have identified. Eliminate evolutionary drift.”

A second helix, subtly different to the first, overlaid the hologram of the first. An animation of both creatures joined them. The one created by Cybele was smaller, and its head was a different shape.

“And?” said Maguire.

“Now Cybele, tell me how long a period of natural selection it would take to get from our idealised construct to the insect we found in the cave. Assume terraforming goes to plan, and we’re looking at an Earth-like environment here within three hundred years.”

Years ticked on a counter as the idealised genome warped. The animation of the corresponding creature changed, legs growing, carapace lengthening. When it approximated the original sample, a chime sounded, and the holograms merged and flashed.

“Circa seventy thousand years,” the AI said.

“What are you telling me?” said Maguire.

“That this thing was engineered, but Cybele’s evolutionary model suggests that it’s been wild in the environment for a long time, that’s what.” Holland felt good. A problem solved.

“And so where the feck does it come from?”

“Now
that
is the real question,” said Holland.

H
OLLAND DID NOT
want to be present when Delaware sampled the cylinder, but he was made to attend, and set on monitoring the artefact’s energy signatures. Lasalle, Orson, Patel, Kick and a pair of mercs worked or observed in the lab, preparing for the moment they drilled into the artefact. Holland sat with his back to the block by his now scrupulously tidy workstation.

The block sat on a woven carbon table, right in the centre of the lab. Around it was a diamond weave box, their view of the cylinder partly obscured by the copper faraday cage woven into the glass. A utility sheath equipped with multiple tools stood by the table.

“Are your scans complete?” asked the Class Six.

“They are,” said Patel. “I’m getting a pretty complex lattice. I think we are looking at a semi-liquid smart metal, here.”

“The cylinder is solid?”

“It is, Delaware,” said Patel, “for now. Looks to me like it might have polymorphic ability, although how it is controlled remains unclear.”

“Keep your eyes on the energy fluctuations, Holland,” said Delaware. “I will attempt a sample now.”

The utility sheath was similar to a mushroom, a long stalk mounted on tracks, topped by a hemispherical dome from whose underside depended a great many tools. At Delaware’s command, a thin, multi-jointed armature descended, a fine, ultrahard drill whining into action.

The drill-bit moved toward the surface of the cylinder.

“Contact in five...”

There was a clamour of alarms from Holland’s workstation. “We’re getting the preliminary energy pulse.”

“I see it, too,” said Kick.

“Delaware, is this wise? We can come back to this later,” said Lasalle.

“Proceed. The artefact is isolated. It cannot harm us,” said Delaware.

“Four, three...” continued Patel. The alarms rang louder.

Reality flickered in the room. The lab changed shape, and the people with it, different configurations of place, furniture, light and personnel blurring in front of Holland’s eyes, alternatives layered one on the other like a stack of subtly differing transparencies.

“Two, one...”

The note of the drill rose as it made contact with the cylinder.

The centre of the box strobed, and high-pitched noise assailed their ears. Holland shielded his eyes with his hands. Inside the box stood the blue girl, behind her a dark shadow with six glowing eyes, and behind that – limbs waving and shoving as if they were trying to force their way past the shadow – strange and disturbing beings. Organic, crystalline, it was impossible to tell. They flashed and warped, unable to hold one shape, and screaming, always screaming.

“Continue!” shouted the Class Six.

“Class Three offline!” shouted Kick. “We’ve got energy leakage! For the love of God, shut it down!”

“Continue!”

Something struggled past the shadow, and the shadow growled and snapped at the air, but it was over and through it, stretching, coruscating with colours that have no name. It slammed into the box, cracking the weave. It skittered madly around the Faraday cage.

It got out.

As a bolt of lightning, it slammed from the box into Kick’s work station. It exploded, blasting the Dutchman across the room, a smoking hole in his chest. St Elmo’s fire glowed all over the lab. Arcs of energy played over the equipment. Patel screamed as a tendril found its way into the tablet, into his hand, and up through it into his face. His eyes melted, skin shrivelled. He fell to the floor, head on fire and legs kicking.

“I... I.... I....” Delaware’s voice stuck, the same sound repeated over and over.

A wind blasted the room, blowing papers and equipment everywhere. Emergency lights flashed. Alarms wailed, and from the blaze of light a cacophony of shouts, pleas, threats and endless, howling screams.

“Shut it off! Shut it off!” shouted Lasalle. “Override code Patterson-phi-798! I am taking command. Shut it all down!”

The glass box shattered. A merc grunted, collapsing with a piece of the frame poking out of his chest.

Holland tore his eyes from the box and turned back to his workstation. He ran his fingers over holographic controls rippling with interference, found the controls for the utility sheath, pulled back the drill and shut it off. A pulsing power line drew his attention. “The artefact! It’s drawing power from the station!”

“Shut it down!” Lasalle shouted.

“I don’t know how!”

Orson rushed over to Holland, pushed him out of the way. “We need to deactivate sub and main systems simultaneously. Here, here and here! Are you ready, Holland?”

Holland nodded. He expanded his interface, and together they turned their fingers in wheels of light. Power indicators fell.

The maelstrom at the heart of the box quietened. The light and wind died back.

The station lights went with it. The pale glow of bioluminescent emergency lights lit the room. Everything stank of ozone and stone dust.

Silence came suddenly.

“Holy fuck,” said Holland.

“You said it. That was a close...”

Orson gurgled as a robotic hand closed round his neck and squeezed it flat. He struggled as he was lifted up into the air. Delaware threw him across the room into a cabinet of lab equipment; he was dead by the time he hit the floor.

“Delaware!” said Lasalle. “
Qu’est-ce que vous faites...
”

The machine leapt across the room, fingers punching into Lasalle’s eye sockets. The bone snapped loudly. Its fist closed and jerked back, and the centre of Lasalle’s pulped face came with it. Lasalle’s body was yanked off its feet, spilling blood and brain matter across shattered glass.

Holland froze. It was happening again.

The remaining merc regained his wits and opened up, pistol rounds slamming into the robot, jerking it about. It advanced on him, striding into the gunfire, then grabbed the mercenary’s gun and hand together and squeezed. The mercenary screamed; he half sank, was half pushed to the floor. Delaware drew back its other hand and smashed the man in the face, breaking his neck.