The Trilisk AI (28 page)

“We
could give Scout the seed and send him on alone,” Magnus said.

“The
idea is logical, yet I don’t want to let the seed out of my sight, or my
protection,” Telisa said.

“I
know. Scout could probably make it up a bit faster, though, unless there are
new cave-ins or problems ahead.”

“If
Shiny is there to pick it up he might just grab it and leave us here. Let’s
just keep going and be flexible.”

I
don’t blame her for wanting to stay close and protect the seed, but what if we
get killed because we’re so close to the destroyer’s target?

They
emerged from the top of the first shaft. Things looked pretty much as they had
on the way down. The refuse and bodies lay scattered about. Scout had spotted a
few of the scavenger creatures, but so far there had not been any signs of
large numbers of them.

The
destroyers were slowly finding the false signatures. The machines still moved
cautiously.

“If
we have any real Vovokan machines left to distract them, now’s the time,”
Telisa said.

“Okay,
I’ll use everything I have,” Magnus agreed.

They
moved out again at a slow run. The adrenaline and their physical conditioning
made the pace easy to keep up. If it came to it, their packs held performance
enhancers that could drive their bodies closer to the limit at the expense of
some excessive wear and tear. Of course, doing that always held slight dangers.
Pushing oneself with drugs could result in tendon ruptures, burst blood
vessels, or even broken bones.

We’re
beyond slight danger at this point
,
Magnus told himself as he contemplated it.

They
stopped to re-anchor the ropes. Magnus split his time watching the destroyer
display, Scout’s input, and his own sweeps of the area with his light. He saw
two small creatures but they did not seem inclined to attack.

We
might make it this time.

The
ascent resumed. Scout had already reached the top. Magnus decided to send it a
bit farther ahead than usual and check the coliseum for activity. Telisa
continued the ascent at a furious pace.

“Take
a stimulant,” he suggested.

“Already
did, at the bottom of this shaft,” she said.

He
smiled. “Great minds think alike.”

Magnus
took a dose of the stimulant himself.

“Yes.
This is a situation critical enough to warrant a chemical boost. I think we can
make it to the top with only one more shot, through that hole over there,” she
said, indicating a break in the debris above them.

As
Magnus sent another smart rope up to anchor itself for the next leg, he checked
the information from Shiny’s probes. They showed him what he didn’t want to
see: a destroyer was coming toward them.

Magnus
responded by setting up two more false signatures between them and the
destroyer. The fakes moved slightly away in other directions. The destroyer
dispatched smaller machines to investigate.

“The
coliseum-place is wide open,” Telisa said. “There are many connections to it. A
destroyer can get there easily.”

“This
distraction may work,” Magnus said.

They
pulled themselves out of the lowest shaft and found the door below the wide
open space where they had fought the eerie, suborned Vovokans. Scout didn’t see
any threats, though the area was still filled with so much sand and debris an
ambush was possible.

Magnus’s
body worked smoothly. He felt strong and his head was clear. He knew this was
somewhat the effect of the stimulant, but it also reflected on successful
execution thus far. Other than a few minor bumps and scrapes, he remained in
peak physical condition.

“So
odd that with all our technology, so much is still riding on our physical
capabilities,” Magnus said over his link.

“That’s
the frontier for you, I guess,” she said.

“As
you said, we need more robots for the next expedition.”

“The
next
expedition? Ha. But yes. We could even stay up in orbit next time.”

“That
would be no fun.”

Magnus
carried the seed into the sandy interior of the spherical coliseum. Telisa had
already shot a smart rope up to one of the exits of the huge chamber. Shiny’s
probe hovered nearby, disturbing the sand as it moved. Scout had an anchor rope
ready to ascend but Telisa had asked it to wait a moment.

In
case her zombies attack again
,
Magnus guessed.

He
stared at Telisa’s weapon. It had saved them once.

“I
wish Scout could use that, but I think that weird double-handle is just a bit
beyond his manipulation capabilities,” Magnus said.

“Let’s
just get out of here,” Telisa said. “I’ll keep it as our last line of defense.”

They
emerged from the coliseum, out one of the dozens of entrance tunnels with the
strange handholds. Magnus noted a grim picture on the probe network display.
The nearest destroyer had picked their trail back up. Other destroyers had
cleaned up a lot of the real targets. Some of them were returning to the
surface, while others still slowly hunted ghost signatures.

The
seed must be a stronger signal than most. I think another one is veering this
way from the far side.

“It’s
getting uncomfortably close,” Magnus said about their nearest threat.

“Then
suicide a Shiny drone at it.”

“No,
I think we need Scout to do it. I can paint it with a Vovokan signature. We’re
almost out.”

Magnus
didn’t feel any frustration at the prospect of losing Scout. It was a machine,
and expendable. That was half the point of its existence. Besides, superior
Vovokan-based Scout parts awaited him on the
Iridar
.

Scout
scampered away down a side tunnel toward the destroyer that had been dogging
them.

“Let’s
hope that does it,” he said.

Telisa
and Magnus attacked the last major ascent in their return leg. They shot their
ropes up and started to climb.

Suddenly
a tremor passed through the entire shaft. A distant rumbling noise came from
below. Debris started to rain down. Magnus felt his rope slip. Something struck
his shoulder, but he gripped his ascender and made his silhouette as compact as
possible. A burst of adrenaline raged through him, spiking his heart rate, but
the rope didn’t slip farther.

“Are
you okay?” he asked Telisa, coughing in the aftermath of the sandy rain. He
heard Telisa cough in reply. A few seconds later she could speak.

“Doesn’t
the complex usually explode at the last moment just as the heroes pop out?”
Telisa asked.

“It
seems to be a bit ahead of schedule,” Magnus said.

Magnus
saw activity flower across his internal display of the house. Many destroyer
machines reversed their courses. New signatures appeared and a few disappeared
on the display. A couple of destroyers’ red dots winked blue and disappeared.

“I
think Shiny is putting his last resources into the effort,” Magnus said. “Maybe
even some real Vovokan weapons out there.”

“He
knows we’ve almost got it.”

Telisa’s
ascender ground to a halt.

“It
says it’s out of juice,” she reported. “We need another power pack.”

“There
are no other packs for that,” Magnus said. “We’ll have to do this ourselves,”
Magnus said.

“I
found one right here,” Telisa said, holding up a new power pack. It told his
link it was fully charged.

“There
were no other packs,” Magnus said.

“You
must have—”

“No,
Telisa. I’m telling you. There were no other packs. This is another random
event like the appearance of our friend Meer there on your back.”

“What
do you want me to do, toss it down the shaft?” she asked, but she quickly
installed it. Of course Magnus didn’t stop her. He knew how badly they needed
to get out.

A
few meters farther up, Magnus had almost ascended to the top of his current
rope position when his own ascender died. Following Telisa’s lead, he checked
his backpack.

“No
such luck for me,” he said.

Telisa
said nothing. She stopped next to him and pulled her own backpack around again
so she could look through it. After a few moments, she brought out another one.

“Okay,
you’re right. That definitely wasn’t in there.”

“Weird,
but good,” he said. His voice sounded disturbed.

She
handed it over. Magnus had no choice but to drop the old pack and slap the new
one into his ascender. They resumed at the fastest pace possible.

At
the top of the first pit, they checked their entourage. Shiny’s probe and the
artifact cabinet were still with them, showing no signs of damage, though a bit
of dust and sand had settled atop the cabinet.

“Remember
the screw tunnel? Just ahead,” Telisa told him.

They
didn’t hesitate this time. Telisa jumped right into the tunnel and started
crawling forward. The tunnel sensed them and moved them along a bit faster,
revolving in the opposite direction this time, to convey them toward the other
exit.

Will
this tunnel attract a destroyer? Or is it so mundane even they don’t bother to
destroy it?

Telisa’s
thoughts must have mirrored his own. “I hope we haven’t provoked the destroyers
to the point of making this tunnel a target. After all, it has some power
storage or it wouldn’t be working.”

Magnus
watched as Scout encountered a destroyer machine down below. The destroyer
apparently didn’t quite know what to make of the non-Vovokan machine that
looked like it was talking on Vovokan frequencies. It hesitated, shining lights
down upon the robot it had discovered. Magnus decided to get its attention. He
selected the most lethal grenade Scout carried: an incendiary warhead. Scout
launched it at the destroyer machine.

The
rest happened faster than Magnus could follow. There was a flash, which Magnus
thought was the grenade, until it disappeared a second later. Then the feed
from Scout went dead.

“So
much for my first expeditionary helper,” Magnus said.

“It
was a great machine. I’ll remember it fondly if I get out of this place alive,”
Telisa said.

Chapter 22

The
surface of Vovok hadn’t changed in the time they had spent below the rocky
surface.

“It
feels good to be above ground again,” Telisa said.

“Shiny
isn’t responding.”

“Oh,
no. Is he going independent again? We’re going to be stranded. With the damn seed!”

“No.
The seed is exactly what he wants,” Magnus said. “In fact, we should make a
plan in case he takes it and decides we’re no longer useful.”

“Then
what could be wrong? Destroyer interference? How long can we expect to be here
before—”

“Hold
on. The
Iridar
is coming in to pick us up.”

“Maybe
he’s afraid to talk to us now that we have the destroyers all stirred up,”
Telisa said.

Magnus
nodded. “I don’t know. He could reach us with our own Terran comm systems now.
Let’s just sit tight.”

Telisa
hugged the stone, trying to make her profile narrower. She realized it was
probably a futile action, given the incredible technology the destroyers had to
detect things, but it was all she had now. The drones showed some enemy
activity. Magnus moved many of the underground decoys deeper, drawing forces
away from the surface. He added a large number of false signatures on the
surface, many kilometers away, trying to bring destroyers in the atmosphere in
the wrong direction.

“Good.
Exactly what we need,” Telisa said.

“The
Iridar
is coming down right over there,” Magnus pointed. “Still no
response on our channel to Shiny.”

The
ex-scout craft dropped through the atmosphere rapidly. The destroyer capital
ships ignored the ship. Telisa didn’t see any destroyer machines moving in on
them.

“He’s
not screwing around!” Magnus said. “I’m impressed.”

“The
destroyers are ignoring us now—and the other surface signatures you gave them.
They know the Vovokans aren’t surface dwellers.”

“I
wonder if they would have had a chance if they’d surfaced en masse when the
invasion came?”

“I
doubt it. The machines would have learned in time. Besides, if you were a
destroyer-maker, wouldn’t you have come along to oversee the initial attack?
They probably got bored and left by now.”

The
Iridar
became visible.

I
can’t believe it. It looks like we’re going to make it!

They
stood clear of the thrusters as its gravity spinner ran down. Telisa noted a
few rocks flying around low to the ground. She felt her weight shift in
throbbing waves.