Then Simon turned to Max. “You think we can fit in there?”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” replied Max, as he slid his hands over the holographic controls. The Spector turned on its slowly churning treads and trundled toward the opening. As they approached, Max noticed the sharpening image on the forward deepscan display: the crevice was indeed a passageway through the ice wall-a very long and twisted path that descended gradually to another dome, hundreds of feet below.
As they accelerated toward the new opening, Hayden made a disgusted sound in this throat. “So that’s the plan? Just keep running until…when? We run out of power, food, or luck? Or just whichever comes first?”
Simon was the one who rose to the bait this time. “Hayden,” he said, seething. “If you would like to wait here for whoever is on our tail, then be my guest. But we are moving on. You want to complain, fine, but right now is not the time. We’re going to be discovered any second.”
Just as the nose of the Spector entered the small passage, Andrew stiffened at his display and said, “I think we already are.”
Suddenly, a huge mechanical tentacle, a flexing arm, curled around the corner of the alcove wall at the edge of Tunnel 3 and flailed, searching for a hold. It banged into the ice, anchored itself, and pulled. An eight-legged creature made of unusual materials, three stories tall, dragged itself into view.
“Mother of god,” Samantha whispered. “What in the world?”
Max accelerated before Samantha spoke another word. The Spector cut through the ice, treads spinning, and penetrated the narrow passageway, turning slightly to the left to keep to the widest portion.
Don’t get much smaller, Simon prayed. Ten feet narrower, fifteen feet at the most, and we’ll be stuck like a plug in a pipe.
There was a deep mechanical thoom at their back. Simon didn’t have to look to know what that sound meant-the mechanical Spider, like an angry dragon from hell, was approaching. He felt a rush of adrenaline as they pushed forward.
“What are your thoughts now?” Simon asked Hayden, dripping sarcasm. The effect was dampened a bit by the sudden high, screaming contact of the Spector’s smartskin with an upthrust outcropping of ice. It sounded far too much like a human scream.
“Max,” Simon said. “Dial up the transparency on the rear-sorry, the aft-section of the Spector. I want to see what’s behind us.”
The vehicle suddenly veered to the right and nearly sent Samantha into yet another tumble, but she grabbed at a locked-down cabinet as she fell, and it helped to steady her. An instant later the entire rear of the vehicle seemed to disappear, and the crew could see the jagged opening of the passage and the bluish light of the dome they had just left behind.
The robot Spider, swooping and twitching, was still coming for them on all eight legs. They watched in horror as the huge beast wasted no time in its graceful gallop across the alcove floor. It looked more menacing the closer it came, the blinding lights attached to its limbs swiveling to focus directly on the back of the Spector.
Max was getting more and more concerned as the passage continued to narrow. He had very little room to maneuver; a few yards farther and he would have even less. And one subtle mistake would take off one of the side panels, he knew that for sure: the ancient ice was as hard as stone.
If anything irreparable happened to the Spector, they were as good as dead. They would all freeze, stuck in the icy tunnel. And given the Spiders behind them and the narrow passageway all around, Max knew there was only one way to go, and that was forward.
Behind him, the rest of the crew swiveled in their seats to look at the approaching robot, their eyes fixed on the visual displays.
Simon was both fascinated and horrified. This is the world you came to, Dad, he thought. This is the world you’re trapped in. And now he knew, as sure as he knew his own name, that his father was in terrible danger. But Simon wasn’t afraid; he was angry rather than terrified. It swelled in him like a tumor as he imagined Oliver experiencing his own version of the frozen hell they had entered.
Nastasia was transfixed by the bizarre machine crawling toward them. “From the look of that thing,” she said with typical Russian reserve, “it does not feel as if we are welcome.”
“It sure as hell doesn’t,” said Hayden, petrified at the sight of the massive machine on their tail.
By the time the Spider had reached the opening of the tunnel, the Spector had moved several hundred feet inside. To everyone’s amazement, the massive robot stopped moving at the opening of the crevice, its lights glaring, its arms waving and poking into the passageway. From their vantage point, they could see only the legs of the robot through the opening of the tunnel, not the central command bubble that glowed a dull blue.
“For god’s sake,” Samantha said through clenched teeth. “Why did it stop?”
“It has no choice.” Max responded, measuring the essential distances with his expert eye. “It’s too big for the passageway.” He glanced down at the readouts from their sensor array and allowed himself a small smile. He was right; the mechanical creatures were about ten percent too big to make it more than a few feet inside, and it would never reach as deep inside as the Spector already was. But the smile died as he looked up again. The damnable thing was huge, almost as tall as the alcove itself, and now two more of the massive creatures were joining it, their spotlights bobbing and swaying as if they were unconnected to the bodies, casting shadows and glittering points of light all along the icy walls.
The beams of light were like physical things, he realized-like endlessly long shafts of glowing force, piercing the translucent walls, cutting through the freezing air, reaching for them-pinning them-holding them in place.
And as he watched, the huge claws at the end of the robot’s flexing arms opened and closed, as if testing their strength, then gripped a chunk of ice at the edge of the opening and broke it off with a single jerk.
They weren’t giving up. They were just making the tunnel bigger. Simon had never felt more trapped in his entire life.
DOME AT FISSURE 9
Inside the DITV, Roland was seething. He watched helplessly as the Spiders clambered into the downsloping tunnel, pursuing the target-whatever the hell it was-their mechanical legs flexing and stretching to such an extreme degree they could fit almost comfortably into the shaft.
“We’ve lost them, sir,” his pilot said.
“I know,” he snapped. “I can see that. Any suggestions?”
“Sir, the only things that can go into these old tunnels are the MagCycles, but we have no way of bringing them up here.”
“How far does it go in?”
“To be honest, sir, the tunnel is no longer registered in our system. We’ve abandoned the old utility tunnels like this one over ten years ago.”
“Then use your fucking scanners, but get me an answer asap!”
The officer almost popped out of his seat to respond. “We have, sir! We have! But-but the tunnel slopes down toward Shelf 2, and we lose the visual from ice density.”
“Then I’ll alert Central Command and dispatch drones to Shelf 2.”
“But they already have their CS-”
“They can’t do it! It’s not their mission!” Roland’s head was pounding with the tension; he would not put up with bullshit from his own soldiers! “We have to stop this vessel,” he said, forcing himself to calm down. “Even if it means we go in on foot!”
The officer looked as if he had told him to shoot himself in the head. They hate the ice, Roland reminded himself. That’s why they got into Transport amp; Ordinance. They hate the cold.
He slammed the armrest on his seat, concerned and frustrated about his personal safety and the safety of the whole operation. Vector5 had a zero tolerance for intruders or leakage of information. No one knew what the consequence would be if this secret operation blew open, but Roland knew he wouldn’t be around to find out. Central Command did not tolerate failure, and they didn’t pay death benefits to widows, either. Thinking for a moment, he turned to the driver of the ice transport vehicle.