Mark Tiedemann - Mirage

But now it was deserted, testament to the circadian of day and night from which the retreat underground had failed to free humans.

"Do we just go through the front door?" Derec asked.

"There is an employee entrance," Bogard said and moved off to the right, skirting the wall of the garage.

They had no cover now, but had to rely on the suits Mia had obtained for them to hide them from any surveillance. They followed Mia's lead and scurried along quickly in Bogard's wake.

The door Bogard opened for them led into dark corridors that connected a set of offices, a food service plant, a machine shop, and laboratories. One of the labs offered access to a tunnel that ended at a door marked CAUTION: BEYOND THIS POINT IS UNCANOPIED AREA.

"Nice of them to let us know," Derec said. "Bogard, is the door keyed to an alarm?"

The robot pressed itself against the door for a few seconds. Suddenly, it slid open. "No, Derec," Bogard said. "Thanks," Ariel hissed.

Beyond, a poured concrete apron ended at dense underbrush, through which a ground stone path led into a tangle of towering trees. Mia sucked her breath loudly.

"What?" Derec asked.

"Nothing," she said. "It's just… been a while. It's beautiful."

"The OSMA enclave is this way," Bogard said and headed for the trail.

After walking for nearly a kilometer, Bogard stopped.

"We should leave the path here," it said. "There are sensors further along."

"How far from the camp?" Mia asked.

"Three hundred meters."

"Find us a way in first, Bogard. Let's go."

They plunged into the woods, off the trail. The foliage stood out sharply in the general wash of sensor impressions. Without the depth provided by the radar it would all have appeared to be a senseless array of meaningless detail-wrinkles and lines and textures cobbled together with only a kind of vertical tendency to suggest any order. It was easy to imagine people who had spent all their lives in artificial environments-the tunnels, chambers, and warrens of Earth's cities-becoming instantly and horribly lost out here simply because nothing made visual sense. It was not only the agoraphobia that came with vast, open spaces that hobbled Terrans-there were large spaces within all Earth's inhabited areas-but the fear of disorder, the unpredictability of organic chaos, the alienness of the life of their own world which they had so carefully built to deny.

And yet there were parks within the cities, though they were tame places, manicured and confined. This wilderness overwhelmed and obeyed no geometry.

Bogard seemed to shift between obstacles, the shapes oozing around it as if they did not exist. A mirage, like heat rising off a flat surface, looked like that, rippling and indistinct. Bogard made no sound, disturbed nothing, passed through like a breeze. Derec had not known such movement was possible. Then he realized that Bogard's amalloy body was twisting and distorting and reshaping constantly to accommodate its passage. He glanced toward Ariel, but he could not see her face through the night veil. He imagined her staring at Bogard, impressed and a little frightened.

Bogard stopped a few meters from a break in the tree line.

"Wait," it said, and oozed slowly forward. It returned in less than a minute. "The boundary is a perimeter sensor. There is no physical barrier, but the sensor will trigger an alarm. It is possible that it can also release a mild electrical shock, but it seems unlikely. Please wait one full minute, then follow me out."

Bogard faded through the underbrush again. Around them, the forest hummed with rhythmic, organic sounds. Derec's pulse pounded in his ears.

"Now," Mia said quietly and he started.

They came out of the trees at the edge of a cleared strip of land. Across from them stood prefab barracks in neat rows. Walkways ran among them. A larger structure dominated the center of the compound-a kind of community center, Derec thought-and glowed more brightly than any other building, most of the windows illuminated from within.

Bogard was wrapped around a post. At five-meter intervals stood identical posts, each with a knobby crown-the sensor array-and all of them giving false readings back to whoever monitored them. Bogard was using its body to deflect and reroute connecting signals.

"Make sure you pass below one-point-seven-five meters," Bogard said. "I am maintaining a carrier signal above that height."

Mia crouched low and sprinted across the invisible boundary. Derec and Ariel copied her and hurried after. A few moments later, Bogard was among them, a silent, lithic presence.

"All right," Mia said. "Take your sectors of the camp, do your search, and rendezvous at the main building. Bogard, do the perimeter, secure what you can, guarantee us a way out."

Bogard vanished.

"I wish it wouldn't do that," Ariel said.

"Go," Mia said and scurried away.

"Good luck," Derec said.

"Be careful," Ariel answered. tactical parameters, standard field sensor perimeter, motion sensor capacity damped to ignore thirty kilograms and below, internal monitoring at entries and exits only, two human patrols walking perimeter equipped with nightvision, limited to infrared only, armed with stunners, garage containing five unmodified terrain vehicles, no surveillance, six barracks, three unoccupied, three containing eighteen individuals each, one barracks provisioned with supply of lethal weapons, three blasters and eight projectile rifles, all personnel in barracks currently asleep, monitoring links fed to each barracks, connections to perimeter sensors, patrols, and main building, generator housed in main building supplying camp power, dedicated line to feed shock field keyed to perimeter sensor, thirty-thousand volts, zero amperes, non fatal charge, direct line disconnected, monitor connection to barracks' disconnected, patrols tranquilized, UTVs depowered by removal of battery packs, internal security nullified, external security unknown, potential estimated low threat

I must locate Senator Eliton

Primary responsibility, automatic reset

I must locate and secure Primary

I must locate Senator Eliton

First and Second Law violations minimal, camp secured, risk potential low, competency level, Daventri, Mia, sufficient, competency level, Avery, Derec, sufficient, competency level, Burgess, Ariel, unknown, tentatively assigned sufficient based on available data and observation, threat manageable

I must locate Senator Eliton Aside from the barracks, the camp contained a communal shower, a communal mess with its own kitchens, and a supply shed. Ariel had checked the shower and mess. The supply shed did not appear locked.

She had passed two guards not fifteen meters back who had been tranquilized-by Bogard, she hoped-and she had removed their stunners and tossed them into the trees, over the range of the perimeter. She did not know where Bogard was and wished she did, but she did not risk calling for it.

She adjusted her grip on the stunner. The blaster nestled against the small of her back, but she did not want to pull it yet. If it came to that, then they would probably have to bum the entire camp down, and she did not know if she could do that.

She pushed open the door of the shed and a light winked on inside. She pulled it shut immediately, pulse racing, and surveyed the camp, waiting for a rush of angry Managins. When they failed to materialize, she slipped quickly into the shed.

On one wall hung a variety of hand tools, most of them worn and dirty from use. Against the opposite wall stood boxes of pamphlets. She opened one and pulled out the slim sheaf of paperlike plastic, amused at the novelty.

IDENTIFYING AND ANALYZING WILDERNESS SPOOR the title read. Ariel leafed through it quickly. A wildlife guide. She checked through others-CLEANING AND DRESSING OF INJURIES IN THE WILD, CAMPSITE ERGONOMICS AND ECOLOGICAL AWARENESS, PERSONAL HYGIENE IN UNMODIFIED TERRITORY-impressed despite herself at the evident attention to the details of living outside an urban environment.