Attanasio, AA - Solis

comlink.

He hears nothing, for Mei has shut down her link. The static that fills the enclosed space is the thin wind of the sun nagging at the electrons of the ship's antenna. It is a cold and unfailing sound.

Mei Nili fires her jetpak and, with a whooping cry, is flung through the hatch of the command pod and across the vault, Charles hugged tight against her. Aparecida, squatting atop the pod, lashes her spiked tail at the streaking

figure and misses.

Shooting through the smashed gap in the geodesic dome, Mei skids to a stop at the entry to the gigantic bore tunnel. A charred screech from the demolition androne sends Mei fleeing through the dark corridor, using short kicks from her jetpak to bound as far ahead as her cowl light permits her to see. She must find a vent that ascends to the surface. The plasteel case in her arms whispers through her comlink, "Mei Nili, Mei Nili, are you still with me?"

"Yes, Mr. Charlie, I'm here. Calm down. I can't talk now. Aparecida is after us."

Charles hates not knowing what is happening. He wants to help, to participate in his own salvation, and he rakes his mind for some worthy counsel. "Do you have a weapon?"

"No. Nothing that would stop a demolition androne."

Mei dares not even glance behind. Her full attention is ahead of her, among the numerous escapes in the rive rock wall-the vent holes and sludge chutes. Some, she knows, must be dead ends, terminating in dross bins and catch chambers. Very few will lead to the surface. Desperately, she strives to bring forward in her memory the bore-tunnel pattern that is the model for the ore

processors she has helped install. But she has lost track of where she is in the tunnel.

Jarring vibrations quake the thin air with Aparecida's hammering stride, and the whipstroke whistle of her tentacles lashes its screeching echoes like a slicing siren. At any instant, Mei expects a shatter-blow to slam her into blackness. Stifling her terror, she fixes her gaze on a likely cavity directly overhead. A tight burst of the jetpak launches her upward, and she curls about in midleap and slides into the opening feetfirst.

Below her, she sees Aparecida lunge at the rock wall, talons biting into the stone, tentacles hoisting her along the sheered surface with weightless agility, her long head tilted back, fixing Mei with a pulsing, fireshadow glare.

"Where are we?" Charles asks. "What's happening now?"

Mei scuttles backward into the cavity, her fear coiling tighter with the rapid pounding of the androne's pursuit. All she can hear is her panicked breathing.

"You're scared," Charles moans. "Tell me what's happening!"

"She's after us," Mei manages. As fast as she elbows backward, the opening before her crumbles and the androne's tentacles reach closer. The rock-cracking noise of Aparecida's frenzied approach jars the roots of her teeth, and she

chatters curses in a fury of fear and rage at herself that she entered the duct backward, succumbing to the temptation to see her pursuer. Now the tight space prohibits her from turning around so she can use her jetpak to propel her faster through the channel.

Though she is facing the wrong way, she fires her jetpak anyway and shoots through the loops of the blind tentacles and out of the duct, streaking past the blunt face and spiked claws of Aparecida. A razorfiash of tentacles loop and swirl after her, and she darts daringly into the blackness.

"What's that sound?" Charles presses. "Did we get away?" Mei glances off the opposite wall and ricochets back into the darkness as Aparecida pounces swiftly on the space where she had been. Sizzling arcs of flogging tentacles drive Mei back and forth across the tunnel until her heart cannot pump oxygen out of her lungs fast enough and her strength no longer fits her muscles. With clambering, wobbly strides, she hauls herself up the broken face of the wall and heaves herself into the first opening she finds.

"Tell me what's happening!" Charles pleads, frightened by the gasping sounds of Mei's terrified exertion. "Where are we?"

Mei slaps off her comlink arid tries to steady the raw fieriness of her breathing to get a grasp on where she is. The oblique angle of the narrow

channel indicates it leads elsewhere than to the surface. A wrenching roar kicks her deeper as Aparecida's powerful limbs burrow a larger entry.

In moments the androne will have sufficient rock debris to fire projectiles. Skidding forward with boosts from her jetpak as fast as she dares in the dark pipe, she roots her stamina in the hot current of her fear and finds the strength and clarity to push the plasteel case under her, down between her legs where she can clasp it with her ankles.

The first projectile whacks so hard against the case that her bones shudder, and she releases Charles. The plasteel case rolls backward down the pipe, but

the next projectile smacks it back between her legs. Then the channel opens into a conveyer chute, and she tumbles out of the pipe.

Mei recognizes this chute as the same one she had followed earlier to the command pod. She releases a distressed cry, knowing the chute only descends deeper into the asteroid. From here there is no chance of reaching the surface. Stabbing into the darkness with the light beam from her cowl, she begins the climb toward the core chamber and the command pod, gnashing her teeth in frustration. The regularly spaced ducts in the chute wall all lead back to the main bore tunnel, and entering them would be certain death, for Aparecida's heat sensors would spot her at once. Her only hope now is to return quickly to the command pod before the androne can cut her off and trap her in the chute.

Employing all the alacrity she can muster from her weary muscles, she climbs along the cable track. With conveyer trucks before her and cables looping above, her jetpak affords her no help. She fights to quiet her breathing so she can

hear the danger ahead, while at the same time she demands fierce haste from her legs. Each sinewy second that she lags decreases her chance of getting out of the chute before Aparecida blocks her way.

A truck mounded with cinders appears out of the dark, and she cat-scrambles over it, vaulting the gap to the next truck. The plasteel case in her arms bobs cumbersomely, and she hopes that the blows it took in the pipe haven't damaged its precious interior. She considers flicking on her comlink to contact Charles but at that moment notices the blue glow from the power coils at the end of the chute.

Safeguarding her already wrenching heart from the excitement of making good her escape, she steadily keeps her alertness on her balancing leaps along the crests of the trucks. Her breath inadequate, her legs leaden, she won't relent, hoping she can reach the mouth of the chute and fire her jetpak. But as she reaches the last truck, her jouncing stride breaks at the sight of a blurred, groping tentacle.

Mei ducks behind the truck as Aparecida swarms into the conveyer chute, limbs thrashing. The truck whangs loudly with the impact, and the whole linkage is shoved deeper into the chute, knocking the plasteel case from her grasp. Tentacles scything above her, Mei ducks lower, her hands working furiously to

uncouple the end truck. The pin jumps out, and she snatches the plasteel case from the ground and clutches it hard to her chest as she throws her jetpak to full throttle.

The force of the thrust hurls Mei, the cinder-laded truck, and the demolition androne across the giant vault toward the geodesic dome. Spewing ash, the

jet-powered truck hurtles through the ripped gap in the dome, shoving Aparecida ahead of it and crashing violently into the towering column of a power coil. Lightning rigs a thundery harp between the smashed coil and the vault's dark peak, and clots of blue fire geyser through the chamber and crawl wildly over the naked ground.