“Spanker One took out the battery,” someone said.
Pitt passed that information on to the Rector.
“What about the transports?” the Rector asked.
“Nobody’s fired on us from them,” Pitt said. “If they do—we’ll have to blow them.”
“Of course,” the Rector said. “Do it now, if you want.”
She did not sound like an old woman, Pitt thought. She did sound like a relative of Ky Vatta’s.
A standard hour later, they were ready to consider the door into the underground facility. How heavily was it defended? And what would they destroy that might be valuable later? A burst of small arms roused no response. The door itself sported a new lock but showed signs of having been damaged before by someone with a crowbar and axe. With the equipment they had, it was easy to drill out the lock and open the door.
Inside, they faced a small entry space and a ramp leading downward. Though daylight pouring in the door revealed light fixtures on the overhead, they were dark, and nothing recognizable as a switch was on any surface. Pitt, mindful that underground might not allow ready communication with the outside, told one of the communications teams to lay a cable. Two puppybots set off down the ramp, com-whisker tails wagging. They didn’t look much like real dogs, having various sensor gadgets stuck all over them, but the name was traditional; they even had individual names, real dog names: Fly and Peg.
Pitt stayed behind the first two teams, who themselves followed the puppybots, their dark-vision goggles on. Nothing, all the way down. When they reached a level that matched what Ky had told the Rector, the bulkheads and overhead were pocked with small-arms fire. Since there were no bodies, evidently the Torch had come in shooting but found no resistance. All the doors had their locks shot out. Pitt didn’t bother to inventory any of the rooms; she noticed in passing that the Torch had left the mess hall filthy, dirty pots piled on counters and dirty dishes left on the tables. Had their commander rushed them through a meal? Down the corridor to the left, there was an obvious communications center and an equally obvious powerplant control center. Beyond, a wall had been blown open, revealing other corridors and more ramps. So far the puppybots had found no trace of personnel except the mess they’d made.
The next section of blown-open wall led into a huge space, rather like a shuttle bay or aircraft hangar. It was empty, but footmarks showed on the gray floor, and at one end another wall had been blown open, revealing an empty passage leading off into the dark. Pitt paused there, testing her ability to communicate topside. That still worked.
“Set up a communications board here. We’ll test at intervals as we go—” That was the major. Then he held up his hand. “Wait—new data—relayed from that ISC fellow. Our friends report they’re still ahead of pursuit but they can hear it.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The next day began just like the one before. Ky woke the others. They ate a quick breakfast, mounted up, and rode along at fifteen kilometers per hour for another four hours, before coming to what looked like just another open space. But the passage ahead stopped at a blank wall that did not move when a vehicle was aimed at it; the vehicle stopped instead. A search for dimples on the wall found nothing.
“Maybe there’s an elevator,” Betange said. “We should check all the walls.”
“And the floor,” Ky said. “Remember that first one.”
“Which we couldn’t get back down,” Droshinski pointed out. “Maybe this is the end.”
“A dead end, it looks like,” Yamini said.
“We’ll stop here for the day,” Ky said. “We’ll look in every chamber, feel every wall and the floor. If the enemy hasn’t found a way into the old part of the facility, then we’re safe enough, and even if they have, they have to figure out how to get through the various shut doors.”
“Unless they just blow holes in everything,” Cosper said.
She wished he hadn’t said that. From the expressions on others’ faces, they wished the same thing. She had finally fallen asleep when an insistent warbling noise and flashing lights woke her; everyone was waking up as well. The formerly blue-white ceiling lights now flashed yellow.
“What is it?”
“Something—not good.”
“The bad guys,” Ky said. “They did something that triggered a warning system. Maybe blew a hole in a wall. Load up. We’ll try again to get that door open; maybe it will work in an emergency.”
When Ky pressed a command rod to the first vehicle in the line, the flashing lights and warbling siren stopped. “That’s a relief. Now maybe it will tell us what to do next.”
“Sir—” Barash’s voice sounded shaky. “There’s something showing up on that door.”
Dimly at first, then brightening, rows of symbols in red appeared on the door. They did not look like any writing Ky had ever seen; she had no idea what they meant. The symbols pulsed, demanding attention.
“I don’t understand,” Ky said. She was sure now that whoever had made the place, it could not have been anyone from their culture. She walked up to the door; the symbols pulsed faster. How could she communicate with an automated system—it must be an automated system—that didn’t speak her language? Or could it have learned, in the time humans had occupied part of this facility? She repeated what she’d said slowly: “I do not understand what to do.”
The symbols all disappeared. A single short vertical mark appeared, this time in blue. “One,” Ky said. Two lines. “Two.” A circle. “One circle.” A hexagon. “One hexagon.” One side glowed brighter, and then the glow moved around, pausing. Ky counted them out. “Six sides.” An arrow sign. “Arrow.” A line drawing of a vehicle. “Truck,” Ky said. She patted the nearest vehicle for emphasis—surely it was observing, whatever it was.
Those symbols disappeared, replaced by red ones: a flashing red circle, then stick figures moving into the vehicle symbol. Outline of a rod touching a vehicle. A moving arrow, with a line of vehicles after it. That was clear enough.
“Mount up,” Ky said, climbing into the lead vehicle. A screen rose from the front, showing red arrows on the floor leading away; when Ky put the vehicle in motion, it followed them, and the door in front of them opened. It was, she saw, at least three times as thick as the others they had passed through, and it opened much more slowly.
Beyond, the passage looked very different. Narrower, round in cross section, with a floor that appeared to be a series of grooved metal plates rather than a single smooth surface. Instead of the bright overhead lights, dimmer lights were spaced at intervals. The vehicles bumped up onto these plates; when all were on, Ky heard a series of metallic clunks and felt something below make a hard connection with the bottom of the vehicle. Ahead, on the screen, a line of red arrows stretched into the distance. Onto the screen came other instructions: stick figures sitting still, then one trying to step off and disintegrating. The pulsing red circle again. Stick figures’ arms out, then disappearing. Pulsing red circle. Clear as the signs in tram systems: SIT DOWN, DO NOT EXIT WHILE MOVING. KEEP ARMS INSIDE VEHICLE. DANGER.
She yelled instructions back to the others, heard them passed on. The door behind them slid shut more slowly than the others. Then, with a solid jerk, they were moving, the grooved plates sliding faster and faster. Dim lights flashed past, finally forming a pale stream along both sides. She had no idea how fast they were going, or where, but they were moving much faster than they had in the trucks. Away from danger, she hoped.
The moving plates made much more noise than their previous near-silent progress. A steady low roar reverberated from the tunnel walls. When it changed pitch, Ky looked quickly at the screen. Instead of tunnel walls she could just make out a black void stretching to either side. Then the walls closed in again, the familiar noise returned. Ky yawned. According to her implant, they’d been moving 2.4 standard hours.