Scattered Suns (46 page)

Chapter 96—CESCA PERONI

Even in the heated interior of the Aquarius, Cesca couldn’t stop shivering. “I never thought I’d feel warm again.” Purcell said to Nikko, “We need to get away, take off before those robots come back for us.”

“I’m sure they saw my ship when I flew over,” Nikko said. “And I don’t have any weapons aboard to defend us.”

Cesca glanced at the wrung-out administrator, then at Nikko Chan Tylar, dreading what she had to say. But she was the Speaker, and she had to protect the clans. “We can’t just leave here. We’ve got to prevent those robots from launching their ships. Then they’ll be free to destroy any other Roamer bases they find.”

Purcell’s voice came out as a squawk. “What are
we
supposed to do against them? You saw what they did to the base!”

“And we can’t let them do any more. Those were
our people
they slaughtered. Once they get off Jonah 12, we’ll have no way of stopping them.”

Nikko said nervously, “I’ve done some foolish and ambitious things before, Speaker Peroni, but even
I
would never tackle a thousand Klikiss robots.”

She still felt cold and empty, bearing the burden of so many more deaths, so much unprovoked slaughter, and she intended to do something, before it was too late.

“I don’t know what we ever did to anger those robots, but I have never seen my Guiding Star so clearly. Whatever they’re doing, we
can’t
let them succeed. Do you have any doubt that we’ll pay for it in the long run? We can nip this in the bud—and it’s got to be the three of us. If we just run, the robots will be long gone before we can return with reinforcements.”

Purcell turned his long face away, looking sick. “I never said you weren’t right, Speaker. I just said I didn’t like it. How are we supposed to stop them?”

Her smile felt as cold as the temperature outside. “Purcell, we had an idea when the robots were attacking the base. It seemed too drastic, and there wasn’t enough time. Now, though, I can’t think of anything more appropriate.”

The black machines remained intent on their own plans, far away. Nikko deployed his ship’s most sensitive sensors to keep watch, but none of the robots came to investigate, allowing the three of them time to prepare. As the acting administrator, Purcell described the details of the Jonah 12 base, sketched out the locations of all possible resources, and explained what they had to do.

When they were ready, Nikko flew the
Aquarius
to the perimeter of what had been the mining base, skimming only a few meters above the stippled ground to keep out of sensor range. He landed gently out of sight, beyond the lip of a crater, kicking up a dust of hydrogen and methane ices.

“The Klikiss robots might have detected us,” Purcell cautioned.

“If they’re even bothering to watch.” Nikko scratched his lank, dark hair. “They seemed awfully preoccupied with those ships when I flew over.”

“They aren’t worried about us,” Cesca said. “They knew where our grazer was stranded all along, but they didn’t even bother to come looking.”

Though her suit heaters were turned to maximum levels, Cesca still felt a chill as she walked beside the two men. They crept over the crater’s rise, closer to the expanded site of the mining base. Here, not long ago, she had stood watching Jhy Okiah’s wrapped body as it launched out into space to roam among the stars. Now everyone else at the base was dead too.

The three spied on the construction complex, trying to determine what the robots were doing. Cesca used a focused line-of-sight communication beam so that no signal would bleed over for the robots to intercept. “I never expected something quite this...drastic. There’s nothing left of the base, nothing recognizable at all.”

Purcell made his assessment. “They’ve taken our processed metals and dismantled our machinery, ripping components out and reassembling them.”

“The ships look almost ready to launch,” Cesca said.

The administrative engineer looked at the glowing small-pile reactor. The shielded power plant was a standard design, a proven workhorse for centuries. “They’ve ramped up the reactor to expand its output, but it was never designed to tolerate so much. Kotto would have a fit. That pile wasn’t meant to run at such levels for any length of time. That’ll make our job easier. The reactor’s got to be halfway unstable already.”

Cesca could easily see Purcell’s troubled expression through his faceplate, but she was smiling. “Then let’s make it all the way unstable. Still think you can coax the plant to melt down?”

“Shizz, Speaker Peroni, the way that pile’s jury-rigged we’ll be lucky if that’s all it does. We’re more likely to generate a major supercriticality.”

“As long as we’re back to my
Aquarius
in time.” Nikko fidgeted in the cold. “Are we going to sit here and keep talking while our heat reserves run out, or should we get going?”

The trio moved quickly across the dark and uneven landscape. Cesca wished they could have left Nikko aboard his ship to arrange a quick getaway, but they needed all three of them for Purcell’s plan.

Over where the base domes had been, the hulking Klikiss robots moved about assembling the frameworks of their vessels. Long cables tapped into the energy generators, and thick conduits extended from the reactor pile in sloppy tangles. The robots showed no finesse, no inclination to build anything that would last longer than their current needs.

As the three approached the workhorse reactor pile, Cesca could feel the machinery vibrating through her suit. The lights around the shielded facility were bright, and the metal was hot. Around the power plant the ground was uplifted, melted and cracked from a backwash of radiant heat.

The robots remained focused on their work.

Studying the reactor building, Purcell continued his nervous muttering on the line-of-sight channel. “Remember, I was never a genius engineer. I always did what Kotto said, and everything turned out all right.” When they reached the harsh shadows of the shielded structure, he studied the external controls. “I’m not much of an innovator. I couldn’t just rig a solution out of thin air—”

Cesca cut him off. “We’re not asking you to find a solution, Purcell. We want you to screw the reactor up very badly.”

He gave an anxious laugh. “
That
I can do.”

Cesca and Nikko followed the engineer’s clipped instructions as they pulled flow regulators from the circulating coolant systems. At a different bank, Purcell removed a cover plate and yanked out control rods doped with neutron poisons. Almost immediately, the pile began to run hotter.

Scrap metal from the torn-apart domes lay strewn on the ground; Nikko wedged a bar into the coolant systems and used the leverage to twist the pipes until they snapped. Hissing coolant spilled out onto the ground and froze hard.

Moving fast now, Purcell and Cesca tore the last of the control rods loose, tossing them far away in the low gravity. The robots would never retrieve them in time. “That’s done it!” the engineer shouted. “This reactor is like a runaway ship with a blind pilot in an asteroid belt. We, uh, better get out of here.”

Nikko saw a group of the insectlike automatons scuttling toward the reactor pile. “I think the robots spotted us.”

“We’re done here—let’s go!”

With long bounds in the low gravity, they circled the overheating reactor. The
Aquarius
lay unseen just on the other side of the crater rim.

As they emerged around the corner of the shielded pile, Purcell careened to an abrupt halt in front of two looming black robots. “How did they get here so fast?” His boots skidded on the slippery, broken ground.

One of the robots reached out to grab the back of Purcell’s suit. The clicking claws touched him only lightly, and the administrative engineer tore himself loose from the black metal grip and lunged after his two companions. They bounded away, each step a giant leap in the low gravity. “Keep going! Get to the
Aquarius
!” Purcell gasped for breath, and a loud whistling sound came from his suit radio.

Behind them, the throbbing reactor pile was obviously growing hotter. They could even see the glow from metal stressed to its limits. While two Klikiss robots set off after the three saboteurs, other machines converged like diligent ants to work on the reactor systems.

“They’ll never fix it in time,” Nikko said. “Will they, Purcell?” He turned.

The administrative engineer staggered to a halt. “I think...maybe they...it’s just a nick.” He collapsed and fell forward.

Cesca raced back to him. “Purcell, get up. We have to make it to the ship before—” She rolled him over and saw that his faceplate was covered with frost on the inside. Whistling steam bled from the back of his insulated suit. The robot’s claws had torn the fabric, opening it to the supercold environment. Purcell’s face looked oddly flat and angular, as if it had flash-frozen and then broken, falling in upon itself.

“He’s dead.” Cesca clenched her teeth in fury, then grabbed Nikko’s arm as he stood staring. “We’ll mourn him later.
Right now
we’ve got to get off of Jonah 12!”

Behind them, more robots scuttled over the terrain, relentlessly closing the distance. Cesca muttered a curse and knew they would have to leave Purcell’s body with the other fallen Roamers. She and Nikko raced to the ship, hoping they could take off before the robots caught them, and before the reactor blew.

Chapter 97—DD

As their sharp-angled ship entered the outer system where the last Klikiss robots hibernated, Sirix continued to tell DD horrifying stories about his progenitor race. The Friendly compy was much more disturbed to know that the robots’ plans for the extermination of the human race were about to begin.

Upon approaching the distant planetoid that held the final cluster of dormant robots, Sirix discovered a great deal of unexpected activity. “I detect numerous Klikiss language transmissions. These robots should not have been activated yet. Something is wrong.”

Their ship descended toward the small icy world, and the glowing base camp suddenly came into view. Sirix displayed the full complex on their tactical screens. “Those are indications of human technology. Your creators have come to this world before us.”

Now DD was interested. “A human habitation? Did they awaken the robots by accident?”

“That is an advantageous possibility. Our remaining companions appear to have nearly completed their own work. They have independently acquired materials and components from the humans there.”

Acquired
. DD saw to his dismay that the human settlement was destroyed; no doubt the people had all been massacred, just like the colonists on Corribus.

Transmitting his identity and mission, Sirix flew toward the central base where a flurry of reactivated machines moved about. “I detect anomalous power levels and unusual energy buildup. There are many simultaneous transmissions from the robots on the ground.”

“It sounds like they’re distressed.” DD spotted a blip of engine exhaust as a ship lifted off from the planetoid’s surface. Even with the limited scan, he recognized the configuration of a human ship. Someone was still alive down there.

A ragged human voice came over the communications system, a frightened-sounding young man. “Incoming ship, back off! Jonah 12 is going to get awfully hot in a few seconds. I’m not kidding—” The voice cut off in sudden alarm as the pilot realized he was not in contact with a human vessel.

Sirix swiveled his head toward DD. “If humans have discovered our secret enclave of Klikiss robots, we cannot allow them to escape and spread a warning. This is a crucial time in our plans.”

Sirix changed course toward the human vessel as it raced up out of Jonah 12’s gravity well. DD heard a hum of systems, hydraulic machinery locking into place. Sirix said, “Until now, DD, you have been unaware of the weapons systems built into this craft.”

“You do not have to kill them,” the compy pleaded.

“It is necessary.”

Without delay, Sirix launched two heavy-artillery projectiles, which streaked toward the human ship. Shouting, the pilot spun his craft, wildly changing course. The projectiles soared in, converging in space.

The escaping vessel swooped and corkscrewed, but one of the targeted projectiles slammed into its engines. The explosion sent the human spacecraft into a tumbling dive, out of control. DD watched the ruined ship plummet toward the icy surface. It fell near the horizon and struck a frozen outcropping, crashing far from the robot-infested base camp.

“Now I can concentrate on what has agitated the other robots,” Sirix said. “The human pilot implied that a disaster is about to occur.”

DD desperately wanted to scan for survivors, to help them, but Sirix would never allow it.

The black robot said, “You need not be concerned, DD. A team of Klikiss robots can go to the crash site and dispatch any human still alive, as we did on Corribus.”

They descended to the construction site, while Sirix continued to transmit requests for information. On the ground dozens of robots clustered around a large containment structure. The power levels were throbbing.

DD shifted frequencies in his optical sensors and saw in infrared that the structure was blazing hot. The uncontrolled thermal output swelled visibly second by second. Finally the robots on the ground acknowledged Sirix’s insistent signals and transmitted a burst summary of what had happened.

DD intercepted and translated the message, swiftly concluding that there was no way to stop the runaway supercriticality of the reactor. Sirix reached the same conclusion and immediately shifted course. “I am aborting our landing. We must escape.”

For once, DD agreed with the black robot. Their angular ship accelerated away. According to the compy’s interpretation of the readings from the runaway reactor pile, less than a second remained—

With a sudden flash and a burst of energy, the containment structure vaporized. The shock front mowed down the Klikiss robots clustered around the reactor pile, flattening the large escape ships and disintegrating everything in its way.

The increasing shockwave rose much faster than Sirix’s ship. Accelerated protons tore through the robotic craft like a high-energy blizzard. DD anchored himself, knowing that the destructive pulse could not be stopped.

The nuclear blast slammed into them from behind. Structural girders smashed, plates buckled, and an explosion erupted from one of their own engines. In a blur of articulated arms, Sirix grappled with the controls, extending four more insect appendages to manipulate numerous systems.

Far below, the Jonah 12 base was a white-hot pool, an expanding bonfire that vaporized frozen hydrogen and methane, melting structures as it continued to spread outward in a vast crater.

Burning and damaged, the robot ship tumbled out of control, careening into empty space.