Ntoko squatted down, and beckoned Lawrence and Colin over. He pointed at the floor. "There, see?"
Lawrence upped his light amplifier sensitivity, knowing there must be some abnormality. The original gray concrete floor had been darkened from age and chemical stains. Dust lay amid the small ridges and pocks. He pulled the focus back. There was a broad track leading to the tank. Wheels and feet had been moving to and fro in what must have been a regular procession. Interesting but hardly alarming. He switched to the second tank, but the floor there had an even distribution of dirt.
"So?" he asked cautiously. "They serviced this one recently."
"Try infrared," Ntoko said softly.
The tank with the track leading to it was five degrees wanner than the other.
"That was what clued us in first," Ntoko said. "The signature is completely different. Yet according to the plant's AS inventory they both have exactly the same fluid inside."
"So what's—"
This time everybody's sensors picked up the movement. They swiveled toward the source as one, weapons ready. Against all training and instinct, nobody fired.
An alien was creeping out of the machinery three meters above the ground, hanging on to the conduits and support struts so it was ninety degrees to the vertical. Lawrence's first thought was of disappointment; it was unimpressive. A body the same size as a German shepherd, with six (or eight—he couldn't quite see) spiderlike legs, bent almost double round the knee-hinge joint, which ended in small horned pincers. Its fuzzy scale hide had the shading of a dirty oil-stain rainbow. The only gross abnormality, a true alienness, were the eyes, or what he assumed were the eyes: chrome-black buds along the flanks that were flexing about constantly. There was a head of sorts; one end of the body was bulbous, with a blank slit for a mouth.
It wore some kind of plastic bracelet on each of its limbs, right up by the body joints. They seemed to be fused with the flesh.
"General alert," Ntoko was announcing calmly. "Come in, Ops, we have a contact situation here. Ops?"
Lawrence's HUD was flashing red communication icons at him; the local net relays had crashed. He paid little attention. Another alien was crawling out of the machinery.
"Up there," Meaney croaked.
A third alien was walking along the ceiling above them, its limb pincers gripping the pipes with little effort as it picked its way along.
There were eight limbs, Lawrence saw at last. Definitely nonterrestrial, then. He watched the creatures with a mixture of elation and astonishment. The bracelets were hightechnology artifacts. They were sentient! He was making first contact with sentient aliens.
This moment was everything he'd ever wanted from life. He let out a soft, nervous laugh; incredulous that this should be happening here and now. His hand was trembling. He hurriedly engaged the pistol's safety, then asked the skeleton AS to find the rules governing first contact. They ought to be in the memory somewhere.
"Corp, what do we do?" Colin asked, his voice high and excited. He was shuffling back toward the tank, keeping his weapon trained on the first alien.
"Just stay—"
The alien in front of him extended a limb. A maser wand of very human design was gripped in the pincer. Lawrence stared at it numbly.
"That's..."
The alien fired. Lawrence's HUD instantly displayed a schematic of his armor suit Red icons clustered round like enraged wasps, indicating the energy impact pattern. Superconductor shunts were racing toward burnout as they tried to dissipate the beam.
"Move!"
Lawrence dived to one side, trying to break the maser's lock. The effort sent him flying close to the roof, limbs waving in panic. An automatic weapon opened fire below him, projectiles hammering into concrete and metal. The lights went out. Lawrence hit the floor and bounced almost a meter. His HUD reported that the maser was no longer on him. He waved his scatter pistol about ineffectually.
The space around him was illuminated by the muzzle flashes from two guns. Their topaz strobing revealed huge plumes of thick vapor screeching out of the processing equipment. More aliens were scuttling out of mechanical crevices. He saw two of them lugging a mini-Gatling between them.
"Ho fuck!" He rolled fast, abandoning the pistol and reaching for his carbine.
"How many?" Kibbo yelled.
"Where?"
"What happened to the lights?"
Lawrence's motion detector was rendered useless from the billows of vapor. Infrared struggled to acquire targets through the cloying haze. The i-i simply expanded the swirls in the fog, shading them a sparkly green. Another warning icon flashed, accompanying an audio tone, alerting him to the rapidly increasing toxicity level of the chamber's atmosphere.
A carbine opened fire, sending explosive rounds thudding into the dark. Detonations were swamped by the cloying gas, their flashes turning into a whiteout haze. Visibility was down to fifty centimeters and closing fast "Hold your fire."
Lawrence aimed the carbine in the direction he'd seen the aliens with the mini-Gatling and shot off twenty rounds. "They've got heavy artillery, Corp," he shouted as the weapon juddered in his arms. Explosions pulsed around the bunker. Someone else was shooting as well, small-arms fire. A round slammed into Lawrence's armor below his right pectoral. He was flung into the air, spinning. Red and amber icons traced elaborate circles around him like a protective swarm of holographic birds. Pain thumped straight through the hard outer shell and muscle skeleton to punish his ribs.
The radio channel was a caterwaul of yelling and bawled orders. Nothing made sense. Lawrence landed on his back, the impact pushing the last gasp of air out of his lungs. He dropped the carbine. Something moved under his legs, writhing about urgently, pushing his knees apart. Shock mobilized him instantly, allowing him to overcome his pained daze. He twisted quickly, bending down to grab at whatever was lifting itself up between his legs.
Excruciating pain bit into his leg, just above the knee. Icons reported both his armor and muscle skeleton had been sliced open. His hands rumbled into contact with a broad object, his brain telling him it was the same size as an alien's body. Through the swirling vapor he could just make out the ruddy infrared blur. It was an alien, and one of its limbs was holding a power-blade. Lawrence lunged for the knife, jerking it free from the pincers. He saw the alien's limb snap from the force of his grab, took a breath and punched the body with his free hand, delivering the full power of the muscle skeleton behind the blow. His armored fist ripped straight through the creature's hide, squishing into internal organs.