The Full Circle Six (17 page)

Sammy returned from break after about ten minutes, bringing with him two large, steaming mugs of coffee. He set one down beside Drake and walked over to the scanners to see what he could find out about where they were going. On the scanners, he found that the inhabitants were numerous, but the activity from biological organisms was nil. Machines manufacturing products and factories that were apparently running themselves caused the only commotion. Sammy decided that he would wait for landing to voice any opinion of this oddity. He tried to make some small talk with Drake, but it was the wrong time. Drake had his hands full of racecraft, trying different maneuvers to help save the fuel.

When the planet Foughden came into view, both Sammy and Drake were taken aback by what they saw. The entire planet seemed made of metal. Even carefully landing, the racecraft shook with the impact.

“The scanners say that there are natives … but I don't see any,” Sammy said to Drake, while staring out at what looked to be metal trees.

“We'll find them,” Drake responded as he stood and stretched, “go find Kraus, Bruvold, and Freddie. We are way off course and I want to get back. We can use a time disrupter to make up for the lost time.” With that, Drake exited to the surface alone.

What he saw when he stepped out was enough to make him stop and stare. Every direction that he could turn, were the “metal trees”. Outside the racecraft, they appeared much taller than from inside. Reaching to the sky, these had to be sculptures of metal. Some were shiny, some were dull, some thick, and some thin, some leaned obtusely, some acutely, some had a few branches, others had dozens, and even metallic roots appeared. They were not set close together, as in a forest, but sporadically sprung from the metal ground and, though they varied in height, most of the tops were not visible without magnification. The intense heat of the planet made slight, wavering lines in front of everything, so that it seemed the trees were swaying, though there was no wind.

Drake became suddenly aware of a noise that he had been hearing all along, a high-pitched squealing sound. He turned to investigate and saw an enormous conglomerate of gray, metal buildings, all connected by metal tunnels. Drake saw the telltale smoke rising slowly, and his holochart gazers confirmed that was where they kept the fuel. He began to walk in that direction, vaguely curious that his steps were very quiet. He bent to knock on the ground and found solid metal meeting his knuckles. By the time he stood up, Kraus, Sammy, and Bruvold were coming out to meet him. The only one not staring around in wonder was Bruvold.

“Kraus, Sammy, I want you two to get the craft ready to refuel while Bruvold and I try to find the fuel. If you finish soon, come and look for us at that factory.” They all nodded their agreement, and Drake and Bruvold set off to find someone to sell them the fuel. Bruvold had brought along a transport cart for the barrels.

“Clock?” Bruvold's voice broke the silence as he and Drake were headed toward the factory. He had stopped walking and was looking down at the ground.

Drake breathed a sigh and walked over to see what he was talking about. Just another delay as far as Drake was concerned. Probably, it was the heat getting to his weapons officer. He followed Bruvold's eyes to the ground and his breath stopped short. It was a timer. Drake's experience with timers was limited to bombs, but it was obvious even to him that this was not an explosive. The timer was set into a large trapdoor in the metal ground. The handle of the door was plainly visible. There was writing below the timer, but it was a language, which Drake could not distinguish. One thing was clear to him, though. There was only two hours left on the timer. Drake didn't know what would happen, but he didn't want to be around when the time expired.

“We have to be quick, let's double time to get that fuel!” Bruvold ran off with the cart at a rate fast enough to impress Drake.

Bruvold was again the first to stop. Drake was close behind him and, this time saw the reason. The only way to go further was to climb a small, arched, metal walkway to a very large platform. This platform was the central connection to seven different walkways that stretched to various parts of this monstrous, multi-structural manufacturing machine.

The reason they needed to use the walkways was painfully clear. Tiny slivers of shiny metal spikes covered the ground all the way around the establishment. With the league issued boots that they were wearing, one step onto that metal grass would shred the bottom of a foot.

“We start at opposite ends and work our way to the middle.” Drake would not hesitate for an instant. Even as he spoke, he was briskly trotting his way over the arched connector to the platform. He continued to the walk ramp on the furthest left, while Bruvold followed closely, turning to the rightmost path.

Drake's route took him into one of the tunnels connecting the buildings together. He tried left first, knowing that this was one of the corner buildings. He found only a large storage area, filled with boxes lettered with the same type of writing found on the trap door. He opened one of the boxes and out spilled millions of little metal pellets. Drake could not catch a clue as to what these could be for, and did not try to waste the time to figure it out. He ran back the way that he came and into the next building. He entered so quickly; he did not notice what this building was storing. Everywhere around him were metal men. They all looked exactly the same, and were all the same height. They towered over Drake. About three steps into the room, he dropped to the ground, using his momentum to roll into a double somersault, coming to rest in a defensive crouch, ready to spring.

Nothing changed. All of the men stood dead still, all heads facing forward. Cautiously, Drake stood and looked around at them. They were inanimate, but still made him slightly uneasy. A hurried search of the room showed no promise of fuel, and no other exit. The only thing of interest that caught his eye was a piece of metal pipe, narrow on one end, with tiny spirals curling a fraction of the way down the pipe. This was set on a large pedestal, with a light shining upon it as if it were some sort of trophy.

As fast as he could, Drake made his way back to the main platform, where he found Bruvold, with what resembled the crafted apparatuses the crew had used to free themselves from the ice planet harnessed to his shoulders, beaming excitedly. He had had more fun than Drake.

When Bruvold reached the end of his ramp and entered the building, he had found any former weapons operator's dream. It was a virtual weapons warehouse. Everywhere were weapons that even the experienced Bruvold had never seen. A few of the smaller ones, he put into his pockets or his boots to figure out later. Some, he already owned. The weapon that he was strapped to when Drake caught up with him, he had found on a large pedestal, covered in planet Foughden's native language. He was so excited that he had forgotten to look for fuel, which was just as well for there was none here to be found.

“What is that, and where did you get it?” Drake demanded.

“Is weapon … is good, no?” Bruvold's smile had gotten even broader.

“Take it back to where you found it,” Drake ordered. “We're here for fuel, and we are not pirates or thieves.”

“Is very good.” Bruvold sighed disappointedly. Still, he followed the captain's orders and started slinking back down the ramp to the weapons storage.

As Bruvold was returning the super-weapon, Drake used the available time to search the path second from the left. From there, he could see that it was the middle walkway he should have inspected in the first place. It led directly to the rising smoke, which meant it led to the fuel. He quickly turned around jogged back to the main platform to await Bruvold's return with the fuel cart.

Suddenly, Drake was struck with a thought. Glancing down at his watch, he saw that there was only one hour remaining on the timer Bruvold had discovered in the ground. Despite the heat bouncing off of all the metal and turning the entire planet into a giant oven, Drake felt a chill ran up his spine. They had to get out of here before that timer went off.

Bruvold, while his commander was figuring out where to get the fuel, was having a lot of trouble deciding whether or not to follow the orders he was given. This was not something that he was used to, so the difficulty, combined with the heat emanating from the surrounding metal, was enough to put him into an even slower state of mind than usual. The feeling that Bruvold was struggling with was the same that Drake had been experiencing since the duality of crowds on the victory platform after winning the last race. He felt as if some unseen, powerful force was urging him not to put the weapon back, but to hide it underneath the fuel cart, where Drake could not see it. In fact, this force was so strong that for the first time under Drake's command, Bruvold deliberately disobeyed a direct order and fell prey to his instinct.

With his head clear, and an oddly relaxing mood, Bruvold ran full speed back to the main platform to meet his captain. Impatiently, Drake told him about the limited time they had left, and both men walked as quickly as they could toward the rising smoke. At the end of the walk ramp, they came upon two enormous metal doors, without handles, but filled with medium sized holes, about the size of the dispenser tubes. In the place where the keyhole would be in a normal door, a small, metal coupling with fine threads on the inside, spiraling outward.

“The trophy …” Drake muttered to himself. Bruvold was clueless and stared at Drake in confusion. As far as he could see, nothing around them had anything to do with trophies or winning. He was half convinced that the captain had gone mad with the heat.

“I saw something that we need. Wait here I'll be back.” With that, Drake took off at a trot back to the main platform, in order to go back to where he saw the pipe on the pedestal, leaving Bruvold to stand and stare in wonder.

Entering the room of the metal men, Drake was cautious. Things were going a little too smoothly to trust. Carefully eyeing each of the standing figures, he slowly crept up to the platform that held the pipe. Trepidation turned to suspense as Drake reached his hand toward the pipe. In a blur, he snatched the pipe and backed away from the pedestal. At first, it seemed as before. Nothing changed. But that wasn't quite true. He saw that now, every one of the metal men had a timer on its mid section. They were simultaneously counting down from one hundred and sixty. At the same time, he became aware of a low, ominous humming sound, gradually increasing in pitch and decibel.

Drake experienced a split second of horrified shock before turning back and running as if for his life. He knew now that there was going to be big trouble in just over two minutes. As his boots pounded over the walk ramp back to the main platform, Drake was struck with inspiration. If he could destroy the ramp that he was on, it would be impossible to follow him back. When he hit the platform, he turned and withdrew from his racing jacket, a round disk with flashing lights and one small button. When he depressed the button, the lights started flashing in sequence, and Drake threw the disk back down the ramp he had just vacated. The aim was impeccable. At the apogee of the curve in the ramp, the disc impacted and exploded. The result left a large gap in the ramp. Not even Drake could jump it.

Feeling triumphant and proud, he ran again back to Bruvold, who had a grin on his sweaty face once more. Without delay, Drake twisted the metal pipe into the coupling, and pulled with all of his might. Slowly, the gigantic door on the right started to swing open. Right before they barreled into the doorway, Drake heard the distinct sound of metal hammering upon metal, somewhere to his left. He could not suppress a small, knowing smile as he slid into the room behind Bruvold.

The amusement was quite short lived for Drake, however, for as the men advanced a few steps into the room, they heard a loud, metallic scraping. Looking up, they saw a big cage falling to cover them. There was no time to escape. They were trapped. Directly in front of the cage was another of the metal men, but this one was at least forty feet tall with crude metal features crafted on its face. The eyes looked to be large bulbs that gave off a faint glow. The top of its head was releasing the pillar of smoke that was visible from outside. On both sides of the neck, fuel lines were pumping into the giant. The cage had obviously fallen from the outstretched arms of the metal monster. From their viewpoint in the cage, both members of the Future Fuels number thirteen, race team could clearly see several barrels of fuel. Drake, whose strength was phenomenal, tried to grab the bars and bend them in his grasp, but was given a low dose of electrical current for his efforts.

“Is hot?” Bruvold misunderstood the look of surprise on Drake's face. He then turned and grabbed the bars in his own hands. “Is ok, Bruvold will break.”

“No!” Drake tried to warn him, but there was no time. In his strong grip, Bruvold could not immediately let go of the bars. In the end, he was thrown to the ground, and became instantly irate. Without thinking of the present company in his vicinity, he then reached into his pocket and brought out a blue sphere that he had picked up in the weapons storage area. He threw the sphere as hard as he could, and it hit the bars with a loud, resounding crackle.

It did not seem to have any affect at first, but after a moment, frost began to spread out from the point of impact. As the frost spread, it seeped into the bars, literally changing the metal's molecular structure into ice. Drake looked suspiciously at Bruvold and made a mental note to ask him about it. At the moment, he was relieved to find a quick solution. Time was running out, as the timer now had just less than one half of an hour.

Drake smashed the ice bars and they were just able to squeeze their large bodies through the opening. They were wary of the giant metal man, but it did not seem to be interested any longer. At Drake's command, they both set to loading barrels of fuel onto the transport cart. Drake was well aware that they would not make it back to the racecraft before the timer went off and whatever was going to happen, happened.