Neptune Crossing (The Chaos Chronicles) (15 page)

"Third key from the right," Jake said, unperturbed.

Bandicut pressed the key. The amber light went green. He peered down and saw the drone moving away from the crawler, taking up a parallel course about five meters to the right. A thick umbilical dipped and swayed across the intervening space. It must be working right, he thought. He hadn't heard anyone yell yet.

"Deploy number three."

He pressed the button. A new rumbling announced the ejection of a second drone. He wasted no time in putting that one on automatic, and soon the two drones were flanking each other, with number four trailing behind and to the outside, forming a perfect half of a V with the crawler.

"Are we dragging now?" he asked.

"Naw," Jake answered. "Bronson'll give us the word. How we doin', Chester?"

"Hold on to your mokin' drawers," Bronson drawled. "Almost there." Bandicut glanced up and saw the boss bobbing atop the crawler, his helmet gleaming in the running lights. "Get ready to drop in about ten seconds."

Jake's voice cut in, "Bandie, on his call, press the next button to the left."

"Drop 'em
now
," Bronson said.

Bandicut jabbed the button and waited for something to happen. He felt nothing, but in the monitors, the head-on views shrank and new split-screen images appeared; and he glimpsed mining lasers burrowing into the surface and saw confusing images of surface materials churning and being separated inside the drones. Glancing back at the actual drones, he saw light flickering beneath them; and emerging from behind them were twin clouds of vapor and dust.

"Hey Bandicoot, you're a miner now!" Jake called.

He watched, nodding, as the two drones under his command churned their way through Triton's surface like two moles burrowing for metallic remnants of an eons-old civilization.

Chapter 9

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The main point of the job, it turned out, was to ride herd on the drones to keep them from blundering into each other on turns. The rest of his day alternated between stupefying tedium as he bounced in his seat watching everything track a straight line, and frantic concentration as they turned corners and he fought to keep the two drones in formation. The control board never seemed to work quite right, and the drones had a strong tendency to overcontrol, resulting in repeated fishtailing and skidding.

The effort gave him a thumping headache, and it didn't help that his every mistake was accompanied by whoops and snorts from the top of the crawler. He half suspected Fitznell of racing around the corners to see how much he could take without demolishing the drones. And he wondered at Jake's claim, when he asked why the computer didn't handle the turns, that the control module had failed so many times that they'd simply given up on it and gone to manual control.

By the end of the day, he was tense and exhausted—and ravenously hungry, even though Jake and Amy had shared their lunches with him. As they started back to base, Charlie broke a long silence to ask Bandicut if he was okay. Yes, Bandicut grunted silently, making it perfectly clear that he was in no mood for conversation. Charlie took the hint and disappeared again.

Back at the base, Jake and Amy congratulated him on surviving their hazing, and invited him for a beer after dinner. Bandicut squinted in thought, then shook his head with a sigh. "I just want to eat and go straight to bed. Rain check?"

"Sure," Jake said. "Tomorrow, you'll sail through it like the wind."

"Like the wind. Sure," Bandicut muttered sardonically. With a wave, he jumped off the ladder from the crawler and strode off to the showers.

*

In no time at all, his alarm was trilling in his ear. He rolled over in his bunk and groaned, realizing that it was time to start the cycle all over again. /Charlie, I hope you're getting used to this. It looks like I'm gonna be doing it for a while—especially if Jackson doesn't hurry up and clear me back to survey duty./

/// Well, if you can survive it,

I guess I can, too. ///

the quarx answered. But Bandicut could tell Charlie was chafing at the delay. He wanted to get back to his translator, and he couldn't do that as long as Bandicut was stuck in mining ops.

His coworkers took it easier on him the second day, and by evening Bandicut was ready for some diversion. After supper, he went with Jake to the rec lounge for a beer and a few games of EineySteiney pool. The game was played on a continuously curved, charcoal gray, three-dimensional holographic surface, with gravity wells for pockets and variable slopes for orbiting bank shots. The programming today had the balls labeled after the planets of the solar system. Charlie perked up after the opening shot, as they watched the variously colored balls flash and spin away from the center of the table. One ball, golden Mercury, spun into the end well, while the others looped around, coasting over hills and ridges until they finally came to rest in the valleys.

/// Mind if I play with you? ///

Charlie asked as Bandicut bent to take a shot, sighting along his cue wand.

/Eh?/ Bandicut paused, eyeing a shot on mirror-surfaced Venus. /You know how to play pool?/   

/// I'm learning. ///

/On my time, you want to learn?/

/// I'm pretty good at orbital dynamics.

This looks like a fairly easy set of parameters. ///

/Easy, huh?/ Bandicut let his breath out, aware of Jake and several spectators waiting. /Okay, this shot's yours./

He was half expecting the quarx to take control of his limbs. Instead he felt a gentle pressure guiding the position of his right arm as he lined up the wand with the white cue ball. He squeezed the trigger, and a laser pulse struck the cue ball, which spun up and over a rise and clicked satisfyingly into silvery Venus. Knocked out of its valley, Venus rebounded from the side rail, crested a rise, and spiraled with quickening orbits into a gravity-well pocket.

"Ho, Bandie—you been practicin', man?" Jake raised his wand in salute.

"Nah, just a little innate talent I been holding back till now." Bandicut straightened up with a grin and circled the table, looking for his next shot. /Nice work there, partner./

/// Thanks.

Let's try that translucent green-and-blue ball.

Is that Earth? ///

Bandicut nodded, then realized that he had done so in front of Jake and the others, as well. Everyone was watching him—including, he realized, that moxy-looking woman from exoarch, Julie Stone. Perhaps he had looked as though he were carefully studying the layout of the table, nodding to himself. He tried to keep his expression natural, and knew that he was probably screwing his face up more than ever. "Concentrate," he murmured as he bent over the table. "Earth in the end well."

/// All the way down the table?

There are three ridges in between. ///

/Let's do it./

The laser flashed, and the cue ball flew up off the table's surface, came back down on the far side of the target ball, then bounced out of play and dissolved in midair with a musical chuckle. Bandicut straightened up, sighing.

"Man, I wish I had some of your in-nate talent," Jake said, laughing as he moved around the table, waiting for a new cue ball to appear.

"Yeah, well, that's the thing about talent," Bandicut muttered, trying not to look as though he'd noticed Julie's presence. He inadvertently caught her eye, and a grin flashed on her face. "Sometimes raw talent is just, uh, hard to control... you know?"

"Yeah, I know. Oh, yeah," Jake said, sighting his shot and zapping the Earth in a quick loop around the upper curve of the table and down into a well. It whirred resoundingly as it spiraled in. He looked up and grinned.

Bandicut nodded graciously. /So, uh, how come we missed that shot, anyway?/

/// I'm still on the learning curve, okay?

Were you born knowing how to play the game? ///

/Okay, okay—don't get sore./

/// I'm not sore.

But we're going to win this game.

You want to impress Julie, don't you? ///

Bandicut flushed, and avoided looking at Julie. He turned back as Jake easily knocked Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn into wells. /We won't have the chance, if Jake doesn't start missing some shots./

The cue ball danced, and Uranus, pale green with silver crescents, spun around a well and back up over a ridge to come to rest in a valley. Jake took a swig from his beer. "All yours, John."

"Do it, Bandie." That was Amy Fitznell, who had just walked up carrying a drink that glowed neon pink under the rec lounge lights. "Make him suffer for the way he's abused you for the last two days." She winked at Jake.

"Okay. This one's for you." Bandicut caught Julie's eye by accident, caught a seemingly bashful smile, and grinned to himself. He sighted along the wand, measured the angles, and squeezed. The laser pulsed, the balls clicked, and not just Uranus but mirror-black Pluto spun into pockets.

"Ah, too bad!" Jake said, with an obvious mixture of glee at the premature sinking of Pluto and admiration for the physics of the shot.

Bandicut shook his head ruefully. "Sorry, Amy. I tried to get him for you."

/// What happened? ///

/I lost the game. You have to sink Pluto last./

/// Oh. Sorry!

I thought it was a pretty clever shot. ///

/It was a clever shot. It just cost me the game, that's all./

"'Nother game, Bandie?" Jake asked, pressing RESET.

Bandicut drew a breath. Julie was just standing there, and looked as though she might like some company. On the other hand, what was he going to say? He wasn't used to having company in his head when he approached women. "I dunno. Anyone waiting to get in for a game?" He held up the wand.

/// Say, John—this game reminds me.

There's something we need to do. ///

/What's that? I want to say hi to Julie./

/// Well...yes, but... ///

Amy took the wand with a predatory smile and accepted Jake's challenge for the next game. Bandicut moved around the table toward Julie.

/// John? ///

She tipped her head at his approach, bright blue eyes flashing. "Hi, there. Nice couple of shots. How are you?" She sipped what looked like a glass of tomato juice.

"Fine. Just fine," he murmured, trying to rid his mind of Charlie so he wouldn't be staring at her like a first-class idiot. "How are, uh—how are you? How's Georgia?" What a goak. Ask about her, not about her friend. "How's...exoarch? Anything interesting turning up?"

/// Is this how you approach women?

This seems...awkward. ///

/Shut the hell up./ Bandicut grinned, willing Charlie to be gone.

Julie's smile dazzled him. "Oh, we're just fine. If we find any aliens or alien relics, I assure you, you'll hear about it!" She laughed. "It's not as if the company has us here because they expect us to find anything." She shook her head and took another sip of juice.

"Right—uh—sop to the environmental lobby. Isn't that what everyone says?" Great. Now you've insulted her. "I suppose you get tired of hearing that," he added quickly.

"Yuh. Both counts." She shrugged. "But it's not as if we aren't trying. We're going over all the orbital scans, all wavelengths, looking for that one clue that'll lead us to the find." He must have been looking at her stupidly, because she cocked her head with a quizzical expression. "I mean, if there's all this metal residue, there must be something intact
somewhere
on Triton, don't you think? Even if it's hundreds of meters below the surface?"

Bandicut coughed. "Yes. Yes, I suppose that's a...good bet."

/// John, be careful. ///

He felt his head bobbing. This was leading in a dangerous direction, and he had no idea how to back out of it. He just wanted to talk to Julie, not spill everything he knew about aliens.

/// John—listen, please.   

We really need to go collect our data... ///

/What data...?/

"Well, I think so," Julie said, turning to look around the lounge. She waved at some people on the far side. "I see some of my cohorts have arrived. I promised I'd meet them. Would you like to come join us?"

"I, uh—"

/// John, that information could be vital.

We've got to have it. ///

"It's okay. No pressure," she said, laughing easily.

He forced a smile. "Maybe another time? I'd like to. But I'm pretty tired tonight. It's been...a hard couple of days. I think I'm just going to check the board postings and then go to bed."

Julie's eyes flashed penetratingly. "Okay. Nice to see you, though—okay?" Without waiting for him to stutter an answer, she waved and left to join her friends.

/Auuuggghh./ His pulse was pounding as he watched her leave. /Maybe I should have gone with her./

/// John— ///

/What were you trying to say, a minute ago?/

/// Can we go to the comm booth? ///

/It's hard enough, without trying to listen to you on the inside, at the same time./ His pulse was still pounding.

/// John—can we go to the comm booth?

Please? ///

He let out a breath. /Yeah. Let's go./

*

>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>

>>>

>

——

A burst of fireworks expanded in his vision, then crystallized into a network, which hung against darkness for a heartstopping instant—then drained like rivulets of glowing water toward him, into his vision, his eyes, his brain, his consciousness...

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