Марта Уэллс - Network Effect

So far so good. If I cut the implant connections before a Target could send a command through the screen, would they wake up? The one thing I knew was that if I didn’t do it fast enough, the Target could hit a killswitch and send them into cardiac arrest, like what had happened with Ras. Losing one human like that had been frustrating enough; losing seven including what might be all that was left of ART’s crew was… just not going to happen.

I reconnected with the SecUnit and said, I found the connection to the implants that are holding the humans immobile. If you could help me, we could retrieve all the clients .

Something was coming and I broke the connection. Just in time, because .05 seconds later, targetControlSystem found me.

I stopped my show and woke my drones as the drop box maintenance capsule sent an arrival alert through its local feed. It had been decelerating already but now it was braking to enter the surface docking structure. I’d been checking feed and comm for any kind of signal contacts but I couldn’t pick up anything but what was coming from the capsule itself. The downside of that was no information; the upside was that if the surface dock’s feed and arrival notification system were down, maybe nobody knew we were coming.

And it was uncomfortably similar to when Amena and I had first come aboard ART, to an apparently dead feed. And yes, I was scanning the ranges associated with targetControlSystem, but nothing was there, either.

“We’re here.” Overse shifted in her seat, edgy with nervous energy.

Thiago sat up and said, “Good timing, I just finished the preliminary module.”

Overse snorted. “I don’t know how you can work under these conditions.”

“It gives me something else to think about.” Thiago made a move to rub his face and bonked his glove on his helmet. “I used to work on language puzzles before my exams at FirstLanding. Tano thought I was out of my mind.”

“Considering what we’re doing at the moment, I don’t think Tano was wrong,” Overse told him.

Thiago said, “SecUnit—” and I thought oh great, what now. Then he finished, “I’ve been assembling a working vocabulary module of the languages the Targets are using. Without Perihelion to translate for us, it could come in handy.”

Well, now I feel like an asshole.

I pulled the module out of his feed and stored it as the capsule braked, jerked twice, then clanked as it dropped into its docking slot. Its local feed signaled arrival and Overse hurriedly used the manual controls to switch it over to standby. I was already unstrapping and pushing out of the seat. I stepped over to the hatch and stopped it as it was about to slide open. The capsule was showing a good environment outside and a gravity within acceptable parameters but I was glad we had the environmental suits. I let the hatch open just a notch and sent a drone out.

Outside was a corridor, walls, floor, and ceiling made of sandy stone, with metal support girders. (Not actual stone, but an artificial building material that looked like it.) Round light sources studded the girders at intervals but there was no power. The drone followed it out to a foyer with a taller ceiling, with round windows set high in what had to be an outside wall, letting in gray daylight. Racks and cabinets and an unused workbench lined the other walls. A thin layer of dust on the floor said this area hadn’t been disturbed in a long time, and also indicated that somewhere in this structure was an opening to the outside where there was actual dirt. The door wasn’t a pressure hatch, it was a manually operated metal sliding door.

Overse and Thiago had gotten to their feet, watching me. I sent the drone’s video to their interfaces and said, “Stay here. I’m going to take a look around. Don’t use the suit comms.” I was setting up a feed relay through my drones, which should be secure, but I didn’t want to press my luck. “Even though there’s no signal traffic, they might still have a way to monitor comms.”

Overse pressed her lips together. She clearly didn’t like the idea of separating the group but didn’t argue. “Be careful. Don’t go too far without us.”

“Are you sure you should go alone?” Thiago didn’t look happy either. All the concern was annoying, which was me being complacent or unfair or something, considering how humans being worried about me possibly going off alone to die was such a recent development in my life.

I just said, “I won’t be long,” and let the hatch open the rest of the way.

I left two drones with the humans and brought the rest with me down the corridor into the foyer to catch up with the scout drone. The absence of any kind of feed signal was still eerie, but if the surface dock wasn’t being used, it sort of made sense. A quick check showed lots of tools and maintenance supplies stored in the cabinets, neatly put away and barely used. I couldn’t pick up anything on audio except the low grumbling of the capsule’s power train in its deactivation cycle. I eased the door open along its track, which thankfully did not screech, and let a squad of five drones out.

I got views of wide, high-ceiling corridors made of the manufactured stone. A few of the flat light pads on the girders were lit, so there must be emergency power somewhere. The drones’ scan found marker paint exit signs on the walls and nothing nearby on audio, no machine or human movement, no voices. I slipped out the door and followed the drones.

Two more turns and the drones found a wide exterior sliding door that was partially open. I got drone video of what was outside but I wanted to see it myself, so I sent them back into the interior corridors to keep scouting and went outside.

From the map I’d pulled up on the space dock, the surface dock was a big oval structure, built around the shaft. I walked out onto a long stone balcony, sand grating under my boots, about three stories off the ground looking out to the west. The sky was overcast with puffy gray clouds but the view was clear. I was looking at a lake, shallow and glassy, curving away from the looming wall of the dock. A wide causeway led off from the far side of the building, crossing the lake toward another set of three large structures maybe two kilometers away, a complex big enough to dwarf the dock.

The buildings were multistory, trapezoidal, made out of a gray material, and arranged in a half circle around a raised plaza in the center where the causeway ended. They had rib-like supports curving up from their bases that might be decorative, or maybe for power-generating, I had no idea. To the east around the front of the surface dock was a sea of green plants, fronds waving in the breeze. Increasing magnification as much as I could, I saw a structure under the greenery, probably growing racks supporting the growth medium off the ground, full of water and whatever else plants needed.

What the hell kind of colony was this?

A figure stood up out of the plants suddenly, almost ten meters tall and covered with spikes. It’s a good thing I don’t have a full human digestive system because I was so startled something would have popped out of it involuntarily. Before I could fling myself back through the doors I realized it was an agricultural bot. Its lower body had ten long spidery limbs for moving around without crushing anything, and its upper part was a long curving “neck” with a long head and like I said, covered with spikes.

(Agricultural bots have the statistically lowest chance of accidental injuries but are physically the most terrifying. It’s weird how something designed to take care of delicate lifeforms looks the most like it wants to tear you apart and eat your humans.)

Anyway, back to what I was saying, what the hell kind of colony was this.