The platform was a metal pegboard which braced a bundle of huge columns running through pegholes. The columns reached from the top of the abyss down toward its bottom, lost in darkness. Other arches and platforms braced the columns at various other levels, above and below.
Quaid climbed down and dropped onto the truss. “Come on,” he called to Melina, gesturing.
She climbed down next to him and contemplated the long treacherous bridge they had to cross, which stretched into inky darkness. This might have endured for millennia, but it seemed insecure now.
Suddenly a frightening crash thundered through the abyss, making them both jump.
“The mole,” Quaid said, catching on. It had reached the bottom. It had seemed like several minutes since they escaped it, but it had probably been several seconds; the splendor of the reactor had made their perception of time distort. He thought.
“They’ll be here soon,” Melina reminded him. “You have to do it first.”
“Let’s go!” he agreed. “How’s your nerve for skywalking?”
“Not great,” she admitted. “But considering what’s at stake, I’ll manage.”
“Good girl.” But she was no girclass="underline" she was a woman.
They started across the truss at as fast a clip as they dared, not looking down.
CHAPTER 26
Decision
The streets of Venusville were deserted. The people there had somehow managed to pull themselves back to their wretched hovels to die. In The Last Resort, a small cannister of air was passed from hand to hand. Tony sat on the floor, back-to-back with the bartender, cradling Thumbelina’s head in his lap. There was nothing they could do but wait for the end.
In the Pyramid Mine, Richter and sixteen soldiers stood on a platform and looked down. Richter shone a powerful light around the edges of the hole bored by Quaid’s mole. He shone the light around the area and saw the truss leading from the stone wall to the next lower platform.
He concentrated, spying something. Like two ants, Quaid and Melina could be seen walking along a truss.
Richter smiled. This time the quarry wouldn’t get away. As for the woman—he knew what he would do with her. Quaid was responsible for Lori’s death, so Richter would repay him in kind. An eye for an eye.
But the rebel slut wouldn’t die as cleanly, as quickly, as Lori had. Oh, no. And Richter would make sure that Quaid watched every minute of what happened before he killed her. Before he was done, Richter would make Quaid beg for her death.
He piled into the elevator with the soldiers.
Quaid and Melina climbed with difficulty from the truss onto the platform. There was an elevator built into the center, with its cables stretching up into the gloom. This struck him as odd, because the No’ui normally didn’t use such devices. But of course they had made this for human beings. The two of them wandered through the forest of columns, still awed. These were virtual metal sequoias with corroding bark.
“The whole thing is a gigantic nuclear reactor,” Quaid repeated. “Turbinium rods slide out of these sheaths and drop into holes in the glacier below. That starts a chain reaction. Radiation splits the ice into oxygen and hydrogen. The gas goes up, gets trapped by gravity…”
“And Mars has an atmosphere,” Melina finished.
“Not yet. That’s just water vapor: hydrogen and oxygen. We couldn’t breathe that. The hydrogen is used for nuclear fusion, merging to form helium, like the old-time hydrogen bomb. That provides the energy for the larger process. The hydrazoic acid stashed below the glacier is broken into its components, and its nitrogen joined with the oxygen from the water to make the air we can breathe. The mixture will be a bit oxygen-rich, but that’s to compensate for the reduced pressure at the outset. It will be adjusted when the atmosphere is complete. The whole thing will happen fast—much faster than any process we understand could do it.” He was amazed at how much he knew, as the rest of the No’ui information in his mind surfaced. “But that’s still only one stage. Mars is cold, so it needs to be heated so that plants can grow and people can live on the surface without space suits, just as they do on Earth. There are heat conductors spreading out all through the—”
He broke off, hearing something. The elevator was stopping. There were sounds of doors opening and boots walking on metal grating. They saw flashlight beams in the distance.
Quaid pulled Melina behind a column, but as they brushed against it, a scab of corroded metal crashed to the platform floor. Suddenly all the flashlight beams were pointed in their direction. “Time for Plan B,” Quaid murmured.
“Plan what?”
“You’ll see.”
As the soldiers advanced, they saw Quaid running and hiding behind a column, Richter and the guards rushed over, surrounded the column, and opened fire as they moved around it.
Amazingly, Quaid was not there. But four soldiers were shot and killed!
Richter scowled, uncertain how this fluke had occurred. “Spread out.”
They searched the area. A soldier closed in on Quaid, not yet seeing him.
Quaid fiddled with his watch, and a hologram became visible nearby. Melina’s eyes widened appreciatively. So that was how he had done it! She hadn’t caught it the first time. He had a holo projector, oriented on the user. Clever ruse!
The soldier spied the hologram. The soldier shot at it, charging in to be sure of his man.
The real Quaid stepped behind the soldier and broke his neck. Hauser might not have been a great person, most of his life, but he had certainly known how to fight; his reflexes made easy what Quaid might have balked at.
Richter’s search continued. Quaid popped out from behind another column.
Several soldiers spied the figure, this time. They surrounded it. They shot through it. Their bullets scored on each other. Four more bit the dust.
“Cease fire!” Richter cried. “It’s a hologram! Don’t be fooled!”
But he was too late for the nine soldiers already dead.
Quaid threw the holo-watch to Melina.
Two soldiers in different places saw Melina wander near them. They both opened fire on her hologram—and shot each other.
Three soldiers sneaked up on Quaid. They had him dead to rights. He smiled. “You think you found me, don’t you?”
But he wasn’t looking at them, but to the side. That was weird. They realized that it must be a hologram. They glanced around for the real Quaid.
But this was the real Quaid. He turned straight at them and gunned them down. “You did,” he said.
Two soldiers advanced, game to the end. Melina stepped in front of them. They shot through her. Jagged craters appeared in their chests from bullets the real Melina put in their backs.
The real Quaid met the real Melina, touching hands just to make sure. They ran cautiously from column to column toward the elevator. It was open and empty. They dashed inside.
Quaid swung the doors closed. The elevator rose at an amazing speed. They held each other, relieved.
“I didn’t know they’d gotten any of this alien system working,” he remarked. “Must be some residual power, or maybe they ran a line in. Cohaagen must have been really curious about this artifact.”
“Shut up and kiss me,” she said, lifting her face.
Suddenly her eyes widened, and she went stiff. What was the matter?
Then he heard a faint noise above them, and looked up himself. One of the ceiling panels was sliding open a few inches. Richter was on the roof! The barrel of his gun was poking through the slot. It fired. The bullet spanged around the interior, missing them.