Exiled to the Stars (61 page)

Ken told him about Jorge, and his assignment to cut up the tube car and bring it back.

"Good idea," Vlad replied. "I think you'll want that tube clear. Don't forget, cutting out one end isn't enough. That tube must run
both
ways. Sooner or later, you're going to want to head down the tube in the other direction."

Ken looked surprised. "I hadn't thought about that. I'll have Ron post a couple of guards on that end of the tunnel. We'll want to make sure no surprises come out of it."

It was several hours before the airship arrived at the tunnel. It had actually exceeded its carrying capacity. The two nuclear-powered machines were big and heavy. Jorge had only a few hurriedly-packed supplies.

As the two large tracked vehicles trundled up the path to the tunnel, Ron, Lee and Jorge discussed the job before them.

"That stuff's
hard
," Ron said. "I used six hand-laser power packs just to punch a hole in it. It's about four cems thick, and seems to have something like very fine wires and stuff embedded in it. I can't even guess how long it'll take to cut the whole end of the car off."

"Well," Jorge replied, "That's one of the most powerful lasers we've got. Cuts through two meters of solid rock like butter. Should we get started?"

Ron shook his head. "We'll wait until morning. It's already dinnertime, and my people have worked a full day. We'll just get the machines in the tunnel, so the airship can head back."

"But…" Jorge began, but subsided at Lee's glare. He grimaced. "Oh, all right. Tomorrow morning." He agreed gracelessly. "But can I at least get a look at the car I'll be working on?"

"Oh, sure," Ron said cheerfully.

They passed the two slow-moving machines and entered the tunnel. A string of lights had been rigged over its length, and into the car as well. Ron switched them on as they entered. "We're on solar power, here," he explained to Jorge. "So, we don't have a lot of excess power available for things like lights. That's one reason I want to wait. During the day, we're generating more than we're using."

Jorge merely grunted, but his thunderous expression softened slightly. Enthusiasm was driving him, and he struggled to slow his pace to match Ron's leisurely stroll. But even his enthusiasm couldn't prevent him from putting his nose almost against the tunnel wall, examining it closely. He bumped his head entering the car, and cursed.

Jorge was disappointed in the car. It was much smaller than he'd anticipated, and contained little of interest. The posts supporting the eight 'saddles' appeared to be bonded to the car's hull. He tapped on the metal of a post, and Ron commented, "The scientists took scrapings of the metal. They couldn't identify the alloy with the equipment they had here."

Jorge grunted again and rose from his knees as Ron indicated the small laser-burned hole in one end of the car. Jorge stuck a thick finger in the hole, and nearly got it stuck. He pulled a small magnifying glass from his pocket, along with a small high-intensity flashlight.

Jorge spent several minutes closely examining the laser hole and picking and scraping at the surrounding hull material, while Lee looked around interestedly, and Ron simply stood patiently.

Finally, he stood. "Gonna be hard to get the laser here," he said. "Might have to park it in the tunnel and use light pipes and mirrors to direct the beam. But I expect it can be done." He clapped Ron on the back, sending him stumbling. "Don't worry, young man," the big miner said. "I brought a few cutting charges, just in case. We'll get you into that tube."

Ron forced a grin. "Glad to hear it. While you're doing that, I'll be practicing with the JZE-101."

Vlad had told Ron the JZE-101 contact vehicle reminded him of a "big tombstone on a box." Ron had consulted the comp, and decided the robot did, in fact resemble some of the images of a tombstone that had appeared on his tablet's screen. It stood some 150 cems high, and was mounted vertically on a horizontal box half a meter tall, and a meter long and wide. The whole thing was mounted on tracks, to permit use on nearly any surface.

The 'tombstone' was actually some 30 cems thick, and contained over a dozen drawers and compartments containing what the manual called 'contact supplies'. Doors on the edge of the 'tombstone' concealed extensible jointed arms, with articulated 'hands', and a similar door on the top concealed stalked 'eyes', visual sensors supplementing those mounted in the machine's 'face', that could survey a full 350 degrees of the unit's surroundings. What appeared to be a large, faceted jewel near the center of the 'tombstone' was actually the high-intensity, focusable light Ron planned to use in the tube tunnel. The AI informed him that it was programmed to respond to the name, "Jazzy." He had no idea of the meaning of the name, if it had one, but Ron decided it was some Earthman's idea of a joke based on the JZE part of the robot's designator. Then it occurred to him to wonder if the joker had been Vlad.

Ken decided Lee should spend the night, and he, Kerry, and Ron spent a pleasant evening, though Jorge retreated to his tent quite early.

In the morning, Lee decided the chances of outright warfare between the miner and the explorer were remote, and when Jorge estimated a few days to a week to remove the car, Ken recalled him and the airship.

Several of the Explorers helped Jorge rig the laser drill with mirrors and light pipes to direct the laser's beam. Finally the miner was satisfied, and shooed them out, donning protective clothing and a nearly opaque mask before activating the laser drill.

Though orders of magnitude more powerful than Ron's hand laser, the mining laser's beam was actually smaller in size, more tightly focused. At first, Jorge kept flicking the beam on and off, inspecting the result every few seconds, and adjusting the controls. Finally, though, convinced he'd penetrated the hull material, he began cutting in earnest. Still, it took nearly an hour to cut a few cems. Ron was disappointed, but he forced himself to be patient.

Two full days passed before the bowl-shaped end of the car fell with a loud
Thud
into the tube tunnel. The Explorers cheered enthusiastically, barely giving Jorge time to clear the car before swarming in.

Three of the Explorers worked their way precariously across the round-bottomed bowl that was the end of the car, and while others raised the end nearest the car, they turned the bowl and slowly eased it into the car, guiding it over the saddles toward the 'back' end. Jorge would cut it in half so the pieces could pass through the car's door.

With the way cleared, Ron walked Jazzy into the tunnel. The robot's tracks made moving from the tunnel into the car and the car into the tunnel no problem. The machine's advanced artificial intelligence detected the low light level, and lit its powerful floodlight. Ron sighed with relief when he saw that the AI was adjusting its beam, lighting their path for at least 100 meters ahead.

Ron had half expected guide rails at the bottom of the tunnel, but there were none. He was relieved. The smooth, flattened bottom of the tube tunnel made movement easy. Armed with shoulder lasers, the six Explorers, and Kerry, of course, started down the tunnel at a slow walk, led by Jazzy. Ron estimated they had gone less than a klick when they lost communication with the colony.

Whoever or whatever had built the tube tunnel had built well. The bottom of the tunnel was covered in dust, but there was no sign of leakage, no debris, no water standing at the bottom, and most important of all, no life forms larger than a small insect. Still, the thick coating of dust gave Ron a feeling of great age. This tunnel had been here, undisturbed, for a
long
time.

Finally, Ron called a halt. The tunnel was unchanging, and showed no signs of ending any time soon. They had discussed the possibility that it might run for hundreds of klicks, but now he was faced with the actual possibility. Still…

"Vito, take young Ras, here and head back. Get us some extra ration packs, and tell the Administrator that nothing's been down this tunnel in a
long
time. I think we've covered about eight klicks. Tell him we'll continue for two more days, and then start back, unless we find something."

Vito nodded in the dimness behind the robot. "Well, try not to find any natives before we get back. C'mon, kid." The two started back toward the car at a much faster pace than they had used coming out.

Vito and Ras caught up about noon the next day. "The administrator said to tell you he's sent the big airship with the metals detecting machine along a line heading the other direction. He's hoping it'll show which way the tunnels run. He also said he's told the old man to leave enough of the car to block the other end until you get back."

Ron cursed silently. Of
course
the tunnel would continue past the car, unless it was a dead end. Tracing tunnels could turn into a lifetime career, unless they finally met the builders.

They were preparing to spend their second night in the tunnel when Jazzy reported, "Obstruction detected. Approximate distance, 200 meters."

Ron jumped. For the most part, the robot had been silent during their trip. He frowned. "Obstruction? What kind of obstruction?"

"Radar sensors detect a large mass, apparently consisting of earth and stone, at a range of 200 meters. Further detail unavailable."

"Hold up, guys," Ron called. "Don't lay out your sleeping bags, yet. We may have something to look at."

"
Finally
!" a voice rang out. Kerry, of course. They formed up again, and resumed their slow advance.

It was a cave-in, and it completely blocked the tunnel. Ron started to send a runner back to report and request instructions, but then decided they should all go. All of them were heartily sick of the unchanging white tunnel. Besides, it would take a runner a couple of days, and the rest of the team would just be sitting there waiting.

They set up 'camp' for the night at the cave-in. Before turning in, Ron examined the blockage. From the dust on the rocks, the settling of the loose earth, and the lack of disturbance of the dust on the floor of the tunnel, he decided this cave-in had occurred a long time ago.

If so, why hadn't the mysterious builders repaired it? Maybe this had just been a minor spur route, abandoned when the cave-in isolated it. Perhaps it led only to a location that had become obsolete and abandoned. But if they'd abandoned it, why would they leave a car behind? He shrugged. Maybe the car had been cut off by the cave-in, and the builders didn't consider it worth the effort to salvage. Maybe. Perhaps. He grimaced. And maybe they'd had reasons incomprehensible to the human mind. He had no reason to believe that the creatures thought like humans.

On second thought, he decided, they may not be
that
much different. They'd come up with a tube transport system, so similar to the one humans had devised that Vlad could recognize it almost immediately. The system powering it might be totally unfamiliar, though, he argued.

Back in his teens, when he'd hung out with the 'Believers', what aliens might be like was a frequent topic of conversation. All fantasy and conjecture, of course, but the Believers discussed it as seriously as if it were real. And now, maybe it
was
!

Well, life on Crashlanding was carbon-based, and reasonably close chemically to Earth life. Close enough that nearly a third of the colonists had survived the plague. Close enough that there
was
a plague that could affect humans.

Come to think of it, a few years ago, Michiko Montoya announced her theory that the symbiont was
artificial
, that it had been developed in a laboratory. It was too perfect, and performed its function too well, to be a natural creature, she claimed. She theorized that it might be a weapon of sorts, designed as a sort of trap for conquerors, to modify them until, in time, they would become no longer alien conquerors, but part of the planet's ecology.

It caused quite a stir in the colony for a short time, until Susan Renko publicly dismissed it as 'unlikely' and 'lacking in solid evidence'. There was a rumor, of course, that Susan had made her pronouncement to defuse a panic, and that she secretly thought Michiko might be right. It
was
interesting that Michiko still worked with Susan…

At any rate, it was obvious that intelligent creatures had evolved on Crashlanding, or perhaps come here from elsewhere. But where
were
they? What were they like? He drifted off to sleep with visions of intelligent wolf lizards, and giant plains rats with a hive mind.

Jorge was glad to see him return. He'd been waiting for two days for Ron to authorize him to cut up the final part of the tube car, the 'back' end. For the moment, it served as a wall, separating the humans from whatever awaited them on its other side. Nearly all the rest of the car had already been carried out, in pieces, and was ready to be carried back to the colony.

"All right, Messer Fuentes," he said. "You can go ahead." He detailed two Explorers to stand guard, and he and the rest began discussing plans for fortifying the tunnel entrance once the car was removed.

Tran snorted. "Fortify? Why? Just plant charges all around the tunnel entrance. If anything chases you back down, just set off the charges and bury the whole place."

Ron frowned. "You have a point. Don't fortify it, mine it. With arrangements that let us detonate it from, say the cave mouth, or even farther. If we're retreating, we can let our people get into the tunnel, and then collapse it behind them."

And that was what they did. When Jorge finished cutting up the tube car, Ron had him use the laser to cut niches into the sides and top of the tunnel, and place mining charges into them. "They use standard det signals," he told Ron. "You can't set them off with a tablet or anything, that's a safety precaution. But I've mounted the transmitter on the bluff face just outside the tunnel. We can also put transmitters in the helis, if you want."

Ron called Ken to report. "Messer Fuentes is loaded on the airship and ready to head back," he said, "and Kerry has decided to go back with him. We're ready to check the other tunnel, er, the other direction. Er…"