Neptune Crossing (The Chaos Chronicles) (19 page)

The voice that answered was flat and unpleasant. "That you, Bandicut?"

"Yeah, it's me. I'm in the ready room. Bronson said you wanted to talk to me."

"Get out of your suit and come to my office."

"Why didn't you tell me
before
I got suited up?"

"When you're in charge, you can ask the questions."

"I see."
Jerk.
"I'll be there in a little while."

"Make it snappy, Bandicut."

/// This man doesn't like you,

does he? ///

Charlie noted in a concerned tone.

He didn't bother to answer, but yanked his comm plug out of the wall jack and started unzipping his pressure suit.

/// I suspect that he's...baiting you.

Is that it? ///

Bandicut nodded silently, darkly. He had a feeling that he knew what Massengale had in mind for him. And he was going to like it even less than the crawlers.

*

Massengale didn't look up from his desk. "What took you so long?"

"I could have been here an hour ago," Bandicut said evenly, "if you hadn't—" He paused and shrugged.

Massengale drew a nostril-flaring breath and lifted his gaze to stare at Bandicut. "Siddown." He jerked his thumb at a bench against the wall.

/// What a shithead. ///

Bandicut snorted, trying not to laugh.

Massengale's eyes narrowed. "Problem?"

Bandicut shook his head silently, turning away to walk to the bench. /Stuff it, Charlie, until we get out of here./

/// Even if he is a—? ///

/Yes.
Especially
because that's what he is. Anyway, how'd did you get to be so good with the cuss words, all of a sudden?/

/// I'm exploring

prememories of your culture.

Such expressions are common among your class,

are they not? ///

Bandicut had to agree that they were. But he was aware that Massengale was watching him suspiciously. To camouflage the blank gaze that had undoubtedly come over him, he rubbed the side of his jaw as though smoothing out a facial tic. "So," he murmured. "I assume you have some other work for me?"

"Yeah," Massengale said. "I thought maybe you'd been loafing out there on the crawlers long enough, and it was time for you to earn your keep. Since your own department hasn't seen fit to ask for you back..." He paused to appraise the effect of his words, but Bandicut returned his gaze expressionlessly. Massengale shrugged. "I need you in Shaft Three. I got men out with injuries, and they're short-handed."

"I don't know squat about deep mine work," Bandicut pointed out.

Massengale chuckled. "So what else is new?" Bandicut flushed. "They'll show you what you need to know. Just don't screw anything up this time." Massengale stared at him for a moment longer, and Bandicut could almost hear his thought:
We don't need any goddamn neurojack fairies down there, either, so whatever that look is on your face, wipe it off.
But all Massengale actually said was, "There's a supply van going out in twenty minutes. That oughta give you enough time to grab a suit." Massengale's lips curled into a faint smile.

/
That oughta give you enough time,
/ Bandicut mimicked, as he returned to the storeroom to check out a deep-mine suit. /I'd love to drop that guy down one of his own mine shafts./

/// In this gravity,

would he not fall slowly?

I wonder if that would create

the result you desire. ///

/It was a rhetorical comment./ The first Charlie would have understood that, damn it. But Bandicut didn't have time to talk about it, and he didn't
want
to have to explain things to this quarx. The storeroom robot was handing him the components of his suit, and he didn't plan to step out of the ready room without thoroughly inspecting the pieces that would separate his hide from near vacuum. It was another thirty minutes before he was exiting through the airlock in search of the supply van.

/// What's different about this suit? ///

Charlie asked, as he strode down the departure dock.

/A few more lights, more air, more protection against cave-in crushing,/ Bandicut murmured.

/// I see.

Cave-in crushing...? ///

/Don't worry, it rarely happens./ Bandicut peered around, and finally spotted the van in the glare of the floodlights. Two suited men were walking around outside it. /At least, I hope that's true./

Charlie considered that for a long moment.

/// Do I understand that as

...humor? ///

/Ha ha ha./ Bandicut waved to the apparent driver of the van. He was answered by a gesture to hurry up and get in.

Charlie was quiet as Bandicut settled into the back of the vehicle and hooked his wrists into the restraints. The van jerked into motion, and he watched in silence as they pulled out of the docks and drove to the south, away from the surface mines, toward shaft three.

The ride was a short one. But Bandicut had a terrible sense of traveling a long way from where he wanted to go. A long way from Charlie-One's cavern, a long way from the translator. A long way from understanding what the hell it was he was supposed to do—since Charlie-Two didn't seem to know.

Before he knew it, he was hanging on to a handhold lift, descending into the sub-Triton depths.

*

As he stepped off the lift, he was some hundred meters beneath the surface, far deeper than he had been in Charlie's cavern. With vapor lamps arrayed everywhere, it was considerably brighter here than Charlie's cavern had been; but he couldn't help shivering at a certain feeling of déjà vu. As he peered down the horizontal mine shaft, he saw that the walls here contained less ice and more rock than Charlie's cavern. The ceiling had been laser-fused for structural strength, but it still made him nervous. /Does this remind you of anything?/ he asked Charlie, wondering if the quarx had memories of their first meeting.

/// Yes... ///

the quarx said weakly.

/What's the matter?/ Bandicut was puzzled by Charlie's abruptly subdued demeanor. /You do remember meeting me—with your translator—don't you?/

The quarx seemed to have trouble answering. He clearly found this place disturbing, for some reason.

/Say, you aren't claustrophobic or anything, are you?/

/// No, I— ///

Bandicut frowned, beginning to wonder if something really was wrong with the quarx. /You lived in a cavern smaller than this, for millions of years. Don't you remember?/

/// Yes...I remember...

But this...reminds me of...

something else... ///

The quarx's voice trailed off.

Bandicut realized that the other men from the van had gone off somewhere and disappeared. They probably had assumed that he knew where he was going. /Reminds you of what?/ he asked absently, wondering where in the hell he was supposed to go now.

/// ...of... ///

The alien couldn't seem to finish its thought. Someone who looked as though he might be the mining foreman was walking in Bandicut's direction along the corridor shaft. Down at the far end of the tunnel, Bandicut glimpsed a flickering of light and shadow, men working. /
What's
it remind you of?/ he muttered.

/// Of the war, ///

Charlie whispered.

Bandicut felt a sudden chill. /What?/ he asked softly. Something had been touched deep in the quarx's memory, something very sharp and painful, something that fitted with this underground image of tunnels in the rock and ice. Before he could ask, he felt a sudden sense of memories falling into place like the tumblers of a lock, and the quarx murmured,

/// It reminds me of...

our burrowing deep, very deep

to avoid the destruction

at the end. ///

Bandicut fought off a wave of dizziness. The quarx's voice carried great waves of sorrow and fear. Images flickered in Bandicut's mind, too quickly to follow; but he recognized glimpses of what the first Charlie had shown him—memories of Triton millions of years ago, in another star system, at war. The end of the Rohengen civilization. This time the memory seemed to carry a keener sorrow—as if the sight of this mining tunnel touched a nerve that ran darker and deeper than any he'd touched before. /Charlie? Are you okay?/

/// What do you mean? ///

the quarx whispered hoarsely.

/You don't sound so good. Are you having some kind of flashback or something?/ He felt the quarx flinch, and an image flickered in his mind of someone running, desperately running, fleeing from approaching explosions. The image vanished, squelched at its source, and he sensed that it was not gone, but hidden from him. /Charlie?/ There was no answer. He had a fleeting impression of the quarx burrowing, curling into a ball, pulling away from him. Great, he thought.

He heard a voice on the comm, "That you, Jimmy?" It was the suited man, approaching. "Who is that?"

"Bandicut!" he called back. "Herb sent me down."

"What the hell for?"

"How the hell would I know? He said you were short-handed. I'm supposed to help out."

"Aw, you mean I'm supposed to train a new guy, on top of everything else? Man, I need this like I need hemorrhoids—"

"Listen!" Bandicut flared. "I didn't ask to be sent down here! Who is that—Jones?"

"Yeah, it's Jones." The foreman waved for Bandicut to join him. "Hey, nothin' personal, Bandicut. I'm sure as a miner you're a helluva good pilot. It's just that we're a little busy here. We're on a bum streak and the man up in the office is tellin' us to move our butts and get the output up, and what does
he
know about mining? Know what I mean?"

"Yeah. I know." Bandicut could now read the man's name stenciled on his suit: JQ Jones. At that moment, he felt a shiver run up his spine. It had nothing to do with Jones. It had everything to do with where he was, and why, and the fact that he was separated by a pane of cryosafe plastic from everyone around him. No connection...linkage...neurowarmth...neurostim...

Oh no.
/Charlie!/

He couldn't feel the quarx; Charlie had withdrawn into his own memories; but he felt something else, something disturbingly familiar. There seemed to be a distance growing, not quite physical or tangible, but a distance nonetheless, between himself and the foreman, himself and the cavern, himself and anything else that might touch him. The silence-fugue was just in its beginning phase, but he already felt a certain comfort in the familiarity of the sensation.

"Here y'go, Bandicut. Want to help us out here?" Jones stopped beside a bank of equipment which, as far as Bandicut could tell, might have been used for drilling or for dishwashing. Was he going to be expected to operate this stuff? Then he saw that Jones was pointing not at the equipment, but just beyond it to what looked like a pile of rock rubble. A small, hunchbacked robot was picking its way across the pile. "Quasimodo here is sorting through these tailings for traces of metal that might have gotten through the big processor. You want to help it?"

Bandicut's head was buzzing. He wasn't sure he had heard correctly. "Say again? You're joking, right?"

"Naw, our big sorters sometimes miss bits that are worth as much as half a crawler load."

"And you just dump it here and let a robot claw through it?" Bandicut felt great bubbles of disbelief billowing open in his head. He'd thought he understood how things worked around here, but was it possible they were even more idiotic than he'd supposed?

Jones shrugged without apparent humor. "Quasimodo here does a pretty good job—bit of a perfectionist, really. He'll show you what to do."

Bandicut's vision flickered with little tongues of flame. He was to be a servant and apprentice to a
robot
? "Now, wait a second—"

"I tol' you, I don't have anyone here to train you." Jones grinned. "If you get real good at this, maybe we'll promote you tomorrow. Now, I gotta go. Lunch break is at eleven-thirty Zulu."

Bandicut stared at the foreman's dwindling back and thought, time is fleeing, and
this
is what I'm doing?
Charlie?
He turned to stare at the little robot. It was dusty and nondescript, with a couple of flickering lights and three eye lenses. As it rose from a crouch, it looked like a tiny, ancient man, plucking at the rocks. It examined the chunks one by one, then flicked them aside into the shadows. Bandicut brushed off the top of a small boulder and sat down, blinking.

He was casually aware that the robot was looking almost alive to him, and for that matter, the corridors were starting to remind him of a hive maze, and his safety-net Charlie was nowhere to be found; and he was dimly aware that he was teetering on the brink of a potentially major silence-fugue, perhaps as bad as the one that had sent him careening toward Charlie's cavern in the first place. He had no power to take any action, but he watched what was happening in his mind with keen interest and an avid curiosity. Spectator mode: the kind of silence-fugue that he liked best, really...

He felt a little shiver from Charlie, but nothing more.

He was suddenly aware that the robot was utterly still. It was watching him. It extended one telescoping arm and poked at a chunk of rock. "Yeah?" Bandicut said dreamily. "What do you want?"

The robot raised its arm and pointed at him. He chuckled, "Get outa here."

The robot hooted softly.

Bandicut squinted at the metal creature, and imagined an army of them crawling around, scrabbling at loose rock in search of stray grains of metal which they would deposit in a small pile. He imagined a storm gathering up the meager collection in a whirlwind and blowing them away as fast as the robots could collect them, all of their efforts coming to nothing as they dug and probed and toiled, for nothing at all.