The Deep Dark Well (8 page)

“Launch a couple of
long range torps at them,” ordered Garasi.  “They can coast most of the way and
power up when they’re close enough to come in under continuous boost.”

“That will take quite a
while, sir,” said the tactical officer.

“That’s OK.  Let them
sweat for a while.  Just keep me apprised of their approach and detonation
time.”

*    *    *

The computer had
alerted him to what had happened.  Not something to ignore, even as he watched
his guest in a battle with
his
minions.  He compartmentalized his mind,
each part focusing on a different section of screens and readouts.  Even as his
heart quickened watching his guest battle for her life, he calmed his mind to
view the other intruders.

These are crueler and
more destructive than most
, thought Watcher, as he played back the destruction of the
Maurid ships by the intruders.  His sensors covered the entirety of the
system.  He had known of this particular group of Maurids.  Their kingdom had
been no crueler than any of the others in the Supersystem.  Less cruel than
some.  They did not deserve to be destroyed in such a manner. 

The acceleration of the
torpedoes bespoke a high technology.  The bright flares of their antimatter
warheads, blasting the Maurid ships into spinning, melted pieces, told of their
great destructive power.  A dangerous enemy to be sure.  He doubted they carried
enough firepower to severely damage the
Donut
.  He also doubted that
their intent was such.  They wanted what the
Donut
had to offer, and
they were sure to try and assault the station, to take it for themselves. 
Brave men, to challenge such an imposing structure.  Brave, or foolish?

“Computer,” he called. 
“Is there anything we can do to prevent those torps from reaching the Comet
base?”

“Targets at extreme
range of graviton beams,” replied the AI.  “I am unable to guarantee their
destruction.  However, I should be able to deflect them from their course.”

“The intruders will
know that something is happening.”

“Yes,” agreed the AI. 
“But they will not know exactly what.”

“Very well.  Proceed. 
Let me know when the task has been accomplished.  And what the reaction of the
intruders is.”

Watcher focused his
whole attention back to the struggle of his welcomed guest.

*    *    *

A billion kilometers
out from the station the vast machine in orbit about the black hole came to
life.  A cylinder one hundred kilometers in length, half that width, ending in
a quintet of long globe topped booms, it surged with the power transmitted to
it by the great dynamo that was the
Donut
.  Far faster than light was
the space warping effects of the generated gravitons.

The torpedoes were
slowly pulled away from their target.  Their drives tried to pull them back on
course, but the space warp to their flanks was too powerful.  After a time
their drives went dead, and the target they had been launched toward was safe
from their destructive power.

Chapter 4

For tribal man space was the uncontrollable
mystery.

For technological man it is time that occupies
the same role.

Marshall McLuhan, 1951

Pandi moved
reflexively, ducking behind a pillar as soon as the faceplate went opaque.  She
guessed it had been a laser of some sort.  And not a com laser based on the
speed of the faceplate’s change.  She chanced a glance around the pillar, in
time to see the robot moving toward her hiding place.  Still it walked slowly
toward her in its leg-rotating gait; rear leg circling up pointing to the
ceiling, then sliding forward as if it were on a track.  The leg rotated down
as it approached the front of the robot, setting back onto the floor.  The body
slid forward as the new rearmost leg repeated the maneuver. 

She pulled her head
back just in time as the laser struck the side of the helm.  The helmet burned
her with its heat.  She dropped it off her head in haste.  The side that had
been struck was melted, a hole burned through the com unit ear piece.  She had
seen the long tube on the front section of the robot point toward her before it
fired.  How many of the weapons did the thing carry?  She could recall seeing
at least three of them.

Both pistols were in
her hands as she thought out her next move.  There were several exits from this
side of the hall.  As she didn’t know where any led, one was as good as
another.  Could she reach one before the robot burned her through?  She doubted
it. 
Maybe a diversion
.

Her boot kicked the
helmet from behind the pillar.  It flared with heat as metal and plastic vapor
flew into the air above it.  She was on her feet in an instant, springing from
behind the pillar with guns blazing.  The gold cup match pistols spit fire as
they recoiled in her hands.

Pandi had been a young
girl when her Uncle Matt had given her the guns, the same ones he had used to
win championship after championship.  She had practiced incessantly, determined
to win her own championships.  Her first had come at age fourteen.  Her last
just before she entered Kuiper miner training.  She hoped that she hadn’t lost
too much of her skill since. 

The bullets struck as
accurately as could be expected given the range.  The robot was still over
fifty meters away, the effective range of the guns.  The bullets slammed into
the forward section of the mechanism.  Fragments of steel jacketed bullets and
shattered metal and plastic flew into the air, filling it with a thin cloud of
particles.  She felt the heat of a near miss, the laser exciting the air close to
her ear, as she ran for all she was worth, firing away with both guns. 

Another pillar to duck
behind.  She ejected both empty mags, shoving them hastily into her pockets. 
Her expert fingers shoved in new magazines, then hit slide locks to jack a round
into each chamber. 

She ventured a look
around the pillar and was shocked to see how close the machine was to her.  The
legs moved in blurs as it hauled its bulk toward her hiding place, as fast as
she could run.  Shattered cubes lay along its path, and she could see the
ripple of its exterior as new cubes slid into place.  Only one of the weapon
barrels was evident on the front of the thing.  At least she had crippled some
of its long-range firepower.

She ran toward another
pillar, trying to keep the one she had just been behind between her and the
robot.  She hugged the pillar as she stopped behind it, trying to quiet her
breath.  It might not have seen her, but she was sure it would hear her if she
kept breathing loudly.  One more sprint would take her toward the door she had
chosen.  Hopefully that would be the right choice, because if she ended up in a
dead end it would more than live up to its name.

Her head came around
the side opposite her intended sprint.  The machine swiveled its head as the
barrel of the laser tracked her.  It continued toward her as she pulled her
head back and spun into a sprint, striding from behind the pillar on her way to
the door, both guns blazing.  She knew she missed with a few rounds, but she
was sure enough were hitting when she saw the barrel tilt toward the floor. 
She reached the door as the hammers clicked on empty chambers. 

No use delaying.  She
was sure the robot was still coming toward her.  She doubted her guns had that
much effect on it.  She jumped through the door and started running down the
hall revealed.  For a moment she thought about dropping the weight of the jetpack,
but didn’t want to stop long enough to undo buckles and shrug it off.

She turned a corner and
the hall ended abruptly.  A heavy door lay ahead, and she prayed to the God of
her father as she hit one of the buttons on the wall beside the door. 
Nothing.  Another button, and the door slid swiftly open.  She hit the same
button on the display on the other side, and the door slammed shut in silence. 
A quick look showed a hand latch on the door.  She pulled the lever into place,
locking the door. 

Pandi scanned the
room.  It was small by the standards of this place, only ten meters square. 
Another door led out on the other side, and she hastily locked it as well. 
Boxes and cabinets were set against the lower walls, two vents set in the upper
walls providing air.  This room looked a likely sanctuary right now.

A thunderous pounding
on the door she had entered by interrupted her thoughts.  The robot.  It was
trying to force the door.  The pounding increased in fury.  The robot was
hitting the door a dozen times a second.  But the door seemed to be equal to
the task of holding it at bay.  For minutes the pounding went on, as Pandi bit
her knuckles, trying to keep the panic from invading her mind.  She stifled a
scream, her eyes darting around the room, looking for a weapon that could stop
the monster assaulting her refuge.

As suddenly as it
started, the pounding stopped.  A quick inspection showed that the door was
still strong.  The robot had not harmed its integrity.  She waited for minutes
for the pounding to start again, but nothing happened. 

Pandi wondered if she
should leave the room.  She wouldn’t go through the door to her front for anything. 
The robot was probably lurking out there, waiting for her to come out as it
tried to figure out how to get in.  The other door?  She didn’t know where that
one led.  It could lead her right back to the robot.  No, it would be better to
stay here for a while, to rest up and think about what she had already gone
through, and what might lie ahead. 

The woman sat down
against the door, trying to clear her mind.  Exhaustion overcame her and she
was sound asleep before she was aware what was happening.

*    *    *

Watcher screamed at the
display.  There was nothing he could do to help her, at least for the time
being.  She was sound asleep on one of the monitors.  One of the other displays
showed what worried him.  The Fractal robot had pulled a vent cover from the
upper wall of the hall.  As he watched it reconfigured itself, sliding blocks
into a thin, questing tendril, one section thick.  Quickly it extruded more and
more of itself into the ventilation shaft, until it was gone.

*    *    *

Pandi dreamed.  Alabama,
and her father was lecturing her again on religion.  On the need to honor God,
and turn away from the temptations of man.  He had just caught her with her
latest boyfriend, in the boy’s embrace in the hayloft of the barn.  His face
was red with righteous rage, his voice shrill.  What was he going to think when
she told him she was leaving home after she graduated?  When she told him she
was to study aerospace science, a discipline he considered the handiwork of the
devil.  After all, God gave the world to man.  What right did man have in
trying to leave the home God gave to him?

The sound of the vent
cover hitting the floor roused Pandi from her dream.  She flinched, waiting for
her father to hit her, as her mind tried to orient itself.  She had always been
a sound sleeper.  But through exhaustion her mind struggled up from the haze of
slumber.  This was not the time or place for sleep, unless she wished to sleep
forever.  It took her a second to focus her eyes.  She immediately honed in on
the bent vent cover, lying in the middle of the floor.

Her gaze flicked from
one wall to the other.  The one on the left had an intact cover.  The one on
the right?  It took Pandi a second to realize what was flowing out of the
vent.  A quadruple thick flow of two inch wide square blocks, sliding to the
floor.  The floor, where a larger collection of blocks was expanding every
moment as it gathered more of itself to it.

Pandi pulled her
pistols and aimed them at the robot, realizing as she did that she had not reloaded
them.  A quick check of her ammo pouches confirmed her fears.  Only one seven
round magazine left for each gun.  She could totally destroy fourteen blocks of
the massive robot, if she was careful.  Pandi didn’t think that the creature
would have any trouble dispatching her minus fourteen blocks. 

The blocks started to
reconfigure while it was still gathering itself from the vent.  Legs grew from
the sides while a sensory cluster formed to the front.  Pandi was happy to
notice there were no barrels protruding from the
head
.  She must have
destroyed them all.

She looked at the
doors, the one she had entered by and the other.  She knew where the first
led.  To the openness of the
subway
station.  That left the other door
as the only possible path to refuge.  A thought to leave behind the jetpack was
put aside.  She knew how to work this piece of equipment, which was more than
she could say about the stuff she might find along the way.  It had the
potential to become a weapon, and any weapons were welcome at this time.

The robot lurched onto
its legs as she went through the doorway, pushing the button that slid the door
closed.  Pandi pivoted into a full out run down the hall.  She heard the sound
of the door swishing open behind her and knew the robot was in pursuit.  There
was no illusion in her mind as to what it would do to her if it ever grabbed
her.  She turned corners as the corridor bent, looking for any hint of an
entrance.  But there was no way to go but forward.