Timothy Zahn - Spinneret

The Rooshrike hydroponics tanks actually wound up arriving a day late, but as Astra's microbiologists took that long to get their cultures of gene-tailored algae going anyway, Carmen wasn't inclined to press the point. The Rooshrike ship captain, apparently used to stricter insistence on contractual fine print, seemed greatly relieved at Carmen's leniency. She accepted his thanks gracefully, but made a mental note to learn more about normal interstellar business practices as soon as possible. She didn't mind getting a reputation for fairness, but she didn't want anyone thinking they could get away with murder, either.

The metal delivery was another matter entirely, and clearly under the command of someone who knew what he was doing. The heavy-duty shuttles dropped out of the sky with clockwork precision, each gliding down on its swing-wings to the new landing region north of Mt. Olympus, discharging its cargo of scrap metal, and lifting on repulsers in time for the next shuttle to take its place. The pile of boxes grew; and as it did so. Carmen worried alternately about what would happen if the leecher kicked in prematurely, and what they'd do if it didn't kick in at all.

Fortunately, the need to explain either never arose. The last shuttle was climbing into the sky, and workers were beginning to spread the piles of boxes for better ground contact, when the leecher worked its quiet magic. Carmen was standing next to the Rooshrike project manager as the metal began sinking into the ground; and though his startled comment came out untouched by the translator, she found herself nodding in full agreement.

There were some things that were universal.

In the Spinneret control tower the mood was considerably less philosophical, hovering as it did between excitement and frustration. "It's starting," Major Barner repotted, holding his headphone tight against his ear. "Leecher's gone on."

Hafner nodded, his eyes sweeping the garish control board and trying to follow the changes in the pattern of lights. It was an unnecessary exercise, of course; the cameras that had been painstakingly set up were recording every square millimeter of the tower's controls, as well as synching their data with a hundred other monitors both above and below ground. But Hafner felt useless enough here as it was, and studying the indicator lights was better than doing nothing.

The short-range radio crackled in his ear. "Got something on level ten," one of the other observers reported. "Whole bank suddenly lit up. Anything happening to correlate?"

"Hang on, I'll check." Hafner relayed the message to Barrier, then stood chafing as the other checked his own comm net. The most painful part of this, Hafner knew, was that he had originally agreed with Meredith's insistence that only a single longrange radio be allowed at each observation point. From a security standpoint it still made sense; but Hafner hadn't counted on the frustration such an awkward setup would generate. First a den mother, now an organic telephone relay, he groused inwardly, staring at the vigilant Gorgon's Heads flanking the doorway.

Why should we really care if someone gets a peek at the controls, anyway? How would they get in to do anything—bribe one of the Gorgon's Heads?

"The long coil's starting up," Barner announced.

Hafner's mind snapped out of its reverie. "You mean that solenoid that knocks flyers out of the sky?"

"That's the one." Barner listened a moment longer. "Hope it's all right—it's got a hum they can hear right through the wall, and the pitch has changed twice already."

Hafner frowned, raised his radio. "Stimmons? Have those lights changed at all?"

"Yeah: two of 'em have gone out. And listen—I just figured out what the light pattern reminds me of. It's almost like a periodic table with the top right-hand section chopped out—"

"All the nonmetals?" Hafner interjected.

"Yeah. But there's also three more rows of lights underneath where the actinide series usually goes."

Barner had moved close enough to hear both sides of the conversation. "I thought there were only a hundred and seven elements."

"Maybe the Spinners found some new ones," Hafner suggested. "The cable's made out of something we don't know about."

"So what is the coil doing, sorting out the metal that's coming in by element?"

"That'd be my guess," Hafner said, a little surprised at Barner's quickness. "They could be running the solenoid like a giant linear accelerator, where the frequency of the driving electric fields will depend on both the mass and charge of the ions being accelerated. Either it's keyed to go through each element in sequence, or else the stuff that's coming in determines what goes through first."

"Mm. You know, this whole place is using up one hell of a lot of power. You had any indication yet where it's coming from?"

"Probably put their generator at the end of a tunnel somewhere. That's sure where I—" He broke off as Barner's face abruptly changed. "What's wrong?"

"Doctor," the major said slowly, "that coil down there. If it can knock out a flyer's repulsers a thousand meters up … what's it doing to the men in the tunnel with it?"

"Why … " Hafner felt his mouth go dry. The medical people had okayed all of the observer positions … hadn't they? "But weren't you just talking to them?"

"No—it was the men in the outside hall." Barner was tapping the call signal.

"Edmonds, are you in contact with the men inside? … No, I mean since the humming started? … Damn. Get that door open and—"

"Wait a second," Hafner interrupted. "Ask them to test first for electric field strength in the hallway where they are. If there's no reading, the wall may be acting as a shield, and they'd better not breech it."

"It doesn't matter," Barner said quietly. "The door won't open anyway. It seems to have locked itself."

Hafner stared at him, then let out a quiet sigh and turned away.

The solenoid ran for another two hours before finally shutting both itself and the door safety interlocks off. The two men who'd been inside were found in contorted positions against the door, dead.

And at sundown, in full mechanical indifference, the Spinneret sent its cable out toward the equally uncaring stars.

Two more men, Meredith thought wearily, his eyes fogging slightly as he read the report. Two more men.

Sighing, he leaned back in his chair and stared out the open window into the darkness outside. It was late, and he knew he'd pay for that the next day, but his mind was far too keyed up to sleep. The whole event had come off virtually without a hitch: they'd successfully produced a cable to order, had taken disks and disks' worth of data on the Spinneret's operation, had obtained their first clues as to what boards in the tower controlled which activity.

And the deaths of two men had turned it all to ashes.

There was a tap at his open door, and Meredith looked up to see Carmen standing there. "Up late, aren't you?" he asked, waving her to a chair and flipping his terminal to standby.

"I saw your light and thought I'd drop in on my way home," she said, sitting down and handing him a disk. "You might be interested to know we now have an official balance with the Rooshrike of just over one point eight billion dollars."

"Which makes us either a fair-sized corporation or a small country," he grunted, plugging in the disk and scanning the financial data recorded there. "That's, what, two billion minus the hydroponics tanks?"

She nodded. "And we've got several hundred million in other stuff on order, so this won't last very long. But for the moment, at least, we're rich."

"Um." Ejecting the disk, he handed it back. "I trust the Rooshrike are happy with their new plaything?"

"Delighted. Last I knew they'd caught one end of it and were starting a long, leisurely turn toward the proper shift direction."