Below Mercury (35 page)

‘Keep moving it around, very slowly,’ Elliott said.

The sound broke up and faded as the antenna moved again. Elliott felt that they were close now, and he concentrated, trying to catch any change in the background noise coming from the radio. He thought he heard something, and he strained to hear.

‘—OFF AND ON AGAIN TWICE, OR MAKE CONTACT—’

Both men recoiled in unison from the voice that blasted out in their headsets. Elliott turned the gain down hurriedly. Too far – the voice faded. He got it back, and the recorded voice carried on: ‘—Deep Space Control calling. We have lost contact with you. We have seen an x-band beacon signal on the Erebus Mine frequency. Please respond by switching the beacon signal off and on again twice, or make contact on any deep space channel. Repeat. Mercury Two Zero Seven, this is Deep Space Control calling—’

‘They know we’re here!’ Abrams yelled, his voice jubilant. ‘They’re trying to reach us!’ He came across to Elliott, and thumped him on the shoulder. ‘Fantastic work, Martin!’

Behind his darkened visor, Elliott was grinning.

‘I’m going to try to get the message out. Let me set the frequency, and we’ll see if they can hear us. Have you got the text?’

‘Sure.’ Abrams pulled out another plastic slate from one of his suit pockets, and passed it to Elliott.

‘Okay, here goes.’ Elliott studied the message written on the slate, and looked up. ‘Just like it says?’

‘Just like it says. We don’t want to tell them
everything
we’ve found, at least not yet.’

Elliott held the slate up in front of his visor, turned the transmit switch on, and read out: ‘Deep Space Control, this is Mercury Two Zero Seven. We have crashed in Chao Meng-fu crater following a landing accident. Zero casualties. Spacecraft is destroyed repeat destroyed. We have entered the mine and it still has breathable atmosphere. No survivors located. We have located sufficient supplies for several weeks, and have limited solar power only. Request assistance. Please respond.’

Elliott repeated the message three more times, leaving a pause between them, and ended the transmission.

‘There. Let’s see if they can hear us. It’ll take eighteen minutes for the round trip signal, even if they acknowledge immediately.’ He looked round. ‘Shall we have a go at moving the power array?’

The reply came a little over twenty minutes later. They were directing Bob Five to turn the jammed power array to face the Sun, when the voice of Earth sounded unexpectedly in their headsets. It was faint, and distorted by distance and by the makeshift radio setup, but they could make the words out clearly.

‘Mercury Two Zero Seven, Deep Space Control. Are we glad to hear from you guys.’ A noise of cheering could be heard in the background. ‘We’ve got some people here who would really, really like to talk to you, but we need to know if you can hear us. Please respond when you receive this, and stand by for a relay message from Andersen Base.’ There was a short pause, and then an unmistakeable drawl came on the line.

‘Two Zero Seven, this is Colonel Helligan. We’re sure glad to hear that you’re all okay. We’ve been really worried about you back here, and there’s a whole team of people working here to figure out how to help you. We need to know that you’re getting this, so I’ll keep this brief, but if you have access to the mine computer, we can tell you how to restart the mine reactor and get some more power.

‘This is a privileged command sequence, and you need to follow these instructions carefully. First, you need to login using the following user name and password …’

Matt Crawford and Rick Bergman stepped out from the cage into the sub-main shaft station, on the 400 level. After their grim discovery deep in the mine, it was good to escape the dank confines of the long shaft, and Matt breathed deeply of the fresher air, as Bergman tried the comlink.

‘Shit, there’s still no coverage. We’ll have to walk back to the main shaft and see if we can get a signal there. Why can’t these fucking things work?’

They hurried back along the haulage way, towards the bottom of the main shaft.

The continuing delay in being able to warn the others of the danger from the robots wore at Matt’s nerves. His anxiety for his crewmates was tempered by the fact that Bob Five seemed to have no memory of the accident or of what happened afterwards. On the other hand, how had the robot known that there was air on the other side of the inner hangar doors? Yet if the robot intended to kill them, why hadn’t it done it before now?

He couldn’t work it out. They had argued the points back and forth on the journey back up the sub-main shaft, and had come to no conclusion except that they had to warn the others of what they had found, and power Bob Five down immediately.

Matt wondered if the others had tried to get any more robots started up, and that thought made him pick up the pace.

They had been walking for a few minutes, when Bergman stopped and tried the comlink again. To their surprise, it worked; there seemed to be plenty of signal strength, and almost straightaway, the comlink beeped, announcing that it had messages.

Bergman ignored them, and tried to raise Abrams.

He swore in frustration as the comlink indicated that Abrams was out of coverage. He called Clare, and to his relief, she answered immediately.

‘Foster,’ her voice said from the speaker.

‘Bergman here.’ He turned the handset so that Matt could listen to the conversation. ‘We’ve found the mine personnel. They’re all dead, and their bodies are at the bottom of the sub-main. There’s—’

‘Jesus. Did you—’

‘Hold on, this is really urgent, just listen.’ Bergman cut Clare’s reply off. ‘There’s also a pile of dead robots down there with small arms damage, and all the bodies have been hacked apart. It wasn’t a mutiny –
it was the fucking robots.
I don’t know how they did it, but they must have been commanded to kill the survivors. We’ve got to get in touch with Abrams and Elliott and tell them to power down Bob Five.’

For a moment, there was silence as Clare digested the information.

‘Okay. That’s – not good news.’ Her voice was filled with concern.

‘Right. Do you know where they are?’

‘I heard from them about thirty minutes ago. They’ve come back from the peak and they’re on their way back to the control centre. They made contact with Earth and they’ve had a response.’

‘Good. At least they’re not in any immediate danger. Listen, if you can get hold of them, will you tell them to power the robot down? Matt says all you have to do is turn the main mode switch to Shutdown, and that’s it. Have you got that?’

There was a slight pause before Clare answered.

‘Roger that. You guys get back up to the control centre right away. We’re going to stay here with the ship.’

‘Right. How’s the prep going?’

‘All the spare seats and equipment are out. We’re nearly ready to go. When you guys are back in the control centre and the robot is secured, we can talk launch windows.’

‘Excellent.’ A smile crept across Bergman’s face. ‘Hey, what did Earth say? They must have been relieved to hear from us again!’

‘You bet. Helligan himself came on straight away, apparently. He’s given Elliott instructions on how to restart the reactor from the mine computer and get power back. That’s why they’re headed to the control centre. They’ll be nearly there by now.’

As the words from the comlink’s speaker sank in, a chill ran down Matt’s spine. He looked at Bergman, and suddenly reached out and grabbed the comlink. His voice was urgent.

‘Crawford here. Exactly what has Helligan told them to do?’

‘Restart the reactor, get power working again.’ Clare’s voice showed a trace of irritation.

‘How has he told them to do it? Exactly?’

‘Uhh, Elliott said something about a supervisor login on the mine computer, and executing a special file that would restart everything.’

Everything went very clear and sharp for Matt, almost like it had done in the aftermath of the crash. For a moment, he said nothing, his mind racing. Then he gripped the handset tightly.

‘Listen. You’ve got to stop them. If PMI know we’re here, they know what we’ve found, and that file could do
anything
. Call Elliott and tell him not to touch the computer until we’re there. We’re coming up to the control centre.’

Matt and Bergman were running along the passage, back towards the bottom of the main shaft, before Clare had even acknowledged.

In the control centre, Abrams and Elliott flung down their helmets, and sat down in two chairs on the lower control deck, facing the windows. Bob Five thumped to a halt by the ruined doors.

Abrams blew out his cheeks. It had been a long haul back from the peak in the heavy spacesuits, but he felt proud of their achievements today. Contact made with Earth, the solar power array realigned, the possibility of getting main power back, and the news he had just had from his call with Clare – a working spacecraft that could get them back up to the tug, and back home.

‘Good piece of work, that,’ he said, grinning at Elliott. ‘Something to tell the kids in a few years.’

Elliott snorted, but he was delighted with the praise. The mission had gone from a disaster to having a rescue plan, in less than 24 hours. It was a textbook case of how to do things right, he thought, and wondered what plaudits would be heaped on them on their return.

Abrams stood up again. ‘Listen, I’m going to go back to my room and get a shower, change out of this suit, then we can try to contact Rick and Matt again, and see if they want us to start up the reactor. Can you stay here, look after things while I’m gone?’

‘Sure.’ Elliott felt pleased that Abrams trusted him.

‘Okay then. I won’t be long.’

Abrams strode out of the control centre, heading for the entrance lobby and the stairs back down to the living quarters.

Alone in the control centre, Elliott got up and walked about the lower deck. He decided he would do the same as Abrams when he came back, and get the heavy suit off and some normal clothes back on.

He climbed the short flight of stairs to the upper command deck, and surveyed the wrecked consoles and dangling cables. It had certainly been one hell of a battle up here.

He sat down at the mine management computer, and looked at the status display. Already, the increased power from the realigned solar power array was showing on the readouts. He and Abrams had done a solid job, he thought.

The comlink on his wrist console beeped, and Elliott pressed the answer key.

‘Elliott.’

‘Foster here. Listen, these instructions from Helligan. I’ve just spoken to Crawford, and he thinks we shouldn’t run them – they might be designed to do something to the mine.’

‘
Do
something?’ Elliott made no attempt to keep the scorn out of his voice. ‘Do
what?’

‘I don’t know, he just said not to.’ Clare’s voice sounded uncertain.

‘Look, I heard Helligan myself. He was trying to help us – he’s given us a chance to get some power and light going. There’s more help on the way, as well. This is just Crawford being – paranoid.’ As he thought of Matt, Elliott’s face darkened into a frown. Opinionated bastard had spent too much time with relatives and conspiracy theorists. There had clearly been a mutiny here, and yet Crawford was still clinging on to his delusions about PMI’s involvement.

The comlink speaker was silent. Far away in the silo, Clare held the comlink to her ear, undecided. She certainly didn’t trust Helligan, but she didn’t trust Matt completely, not any more. She had to decide this on her own.

If she waited until Matt got back up to the control centre, who knew what arguments he would use to get his own way. Why was he so adamant that they shouldn’t follow the instructions Helligan had given them? They needed power, and they needed help. It just didn’t make sense.

She had to trust her own judgement.

Her voice came from Elliott’s comlink again. ‘Okay. If you and Abrams think it’s okay, go ahead and do it. But if there’s the slightest sign of anything happening that shouldn’t, abort the sequence and shut it down, okay?’

‘Okay. You won’t regret this, it’s the right thing to do. Out.’ Elliott ended the conversation, and leaned back in his seat, an expression of satisfaction on his face.

PMI would be pleased with him, he thought. There might be a fat bonus on top of his pay when he returned, and a more senior position. Maybe even another mission. He could see himself, leading another team somewhere, finding out the truth where others had missed it.

He drummed his fingers on the management console. He really should wait for Abrams. Wouldn’t Abrams be impressed, though, if he returned to find the reactor already starting up and main power restored?

What harm could it do to try, anyway? They could do with more power, and better light to explore the mine. The startup sequence could be halted at any time.

Elliott’s mind had already taken the decision; he was too arrogant to recognise that he was just running through the justifications, rationalising what he was about to do next.

Almost without conscious thought, Elliott opened a login window on the management screen. His fingers tapped out the username and password that Helligan had provided up on the peak.