Creations (34 page)

He looked at the map display again, at the warning lights flashing on the stricken colonies, and suddenly he had a vision, of a wave of destruction spreading out from the Kambria colony, as dozens or even hundreds of machines went in search of new feeding grounds.

“We need to leave,” he said. “Evacuate this place, now.”

“Why should we evacuate?” Joel said. His face was white and he was trembling from shock.

“Those things have learned that there’s more to gain from attacking us than from digging dirt,” Max said. “Our vehicles, our buildings, everything that keeps us alive; they’re all targets now, including this place. They’ve become predators, and we’re at the bottom of the food chain.”

“Food chain? What are you talking about? That’s nonsense!”

“No it isn’t, Joel, you even said it yourself; if you use nature’s methods, you get nature’s results. Well they have done. They’ve become hunters.”

“But we’re protected by the barrier. They can’t reach us.”

“The barrier counts for nothing. Ours was breached, and yours will be too. The only question is when. We have to get away from here, before it happens.”

“No, we’re not leaving. It would be ridiculous.”

“I can’t say it any other way, Joel. We have to go, now!”

Oliver stood up and walked over to them. “I don’t think you’re in any position to tell us what we should be doing, do you? I
think we’ve heard enough from you, all of you. Now as I said before, get out.” He called over one of the other ESOS personnel. “Take these people back to the accommodation block,” he said. “And this time, make sure they stay there.”

Ariel didn’t look as if he was prepared to co-operate, but Max decided it was probably the best idea. “Let’s go,” he said. “I think we need to talk.”

* * *

Back in the accommodation module, Max was the first to speak.

“Right, this is serious, we don’t have much time. Ariel, what are our chances of getting out of here and taking one of those rovers?”

Ariel didn’t answer, but looked at him uncertainly. Then he turned to Safi, as if seeking her approval as to whether the things Max had said were worth listening to. Max just hoped she’d seen enough to convince her.

“I think,” she said eventually, “I think Max is right. We need to go, whether the people here want to come or not.”

“Then let’s do it soon,” Harris said.

“But where would we go?” Damon said. “One of those open-top rovers won’t get us back to the base, even on full charge.”

“No, but we can open up some distance,” Max said. “Did you see on that map, how far those machines had spread? That was in less than twenty-four hours, and they’re going to get better, and faster. They’re learning all the time. I think this place has less than a day left. If we head back down toward the base, we can send a distress call, then someone can come up to meet us halfway.”

“And if we — if we run into any of those things?” Safi said. The look on her face showed that the events of the past ten minutes were still fresh in her mind.

“That’s why I was asking about weapons. If we run into
trouble, we’ll need to fight back.”

Ariel thought for a second, then turned to Safi.

“Safi, do you really trust this guy?” he said.

“Yes, yes I do.”

“Okay then,” he said, as if that was all the answer he needed. “Let’s go.”

They got up and started to head out of the door, Ariel in the lead. Until that point Max had forgotten about the man standing guard outside the module, but he didn’t get much chance to wonder what they were going to do about him. As soon as the man turned to challenge them, Ariel struck out at him with a controlled blow to the temple, sending him crumpling to the floor, unconscious. They practically had to step over him to get into the corridor.

The passageways were almost deserted now, and the few people they did see on their way to the airlock seemed to be too preoccupied to give them any trouble. However, when they got back to the workshop area that led into the airlock itself, they found two more personnel inside, suited up and getting ready to make their own way out. Ariel didn’t even hesitate, but instead went in and walked straight up to them. At first Max thought he was going to use the same move on them as he had on the previous man, but it seemed he had a different plan this time. He walked up to the first one, then without even giving the man time to react, bodily lifted him off the ground with one hand and hung him up on the storage rail where the rest of the suits were kept. Max was impressed; even with the lower gravity, lifting the man and his suit one-handed would have been like lifting a fifty pound weight on Earth. The second man tried to fight Ariel off but was encumbered by the bulky suit and soon received the same treatment. Within ten seconds both of them were suspended two feet off the floor, struggling to get themselves free.

“That’s what we do to new recruits on their first day at the
base,” Ariel said as the others followed him in. “Then we see how long it takes them to get down. Isn’t that right, Damon?” Damon laughed weakly.

The two men were now shouting and thrashing and were in danger of attracting attention, so Ariel turned to face them again and punched them both in the stomachs, just enough to wind them and keep them quiet. Then, again, with no hesitation, he walked along the suit rail to where their own suits had been hung and started to get the five of them down.

Max suited up in silence, trying not to look at the two ESOS men, who were now putting far less energy into their attempts to get free. He was amazed how unemotional Ariel had been about attacking them, as if it was a means to an end but nothing more. However if it helped them get out of the settlement, then he wasn’t about to complain.

Once they were ready and had sealed each other’s backpacks, they climbed into the airlock, closed the inner hatch and set the vacuum pumps running.

“Ariel, won’t it show up on their consoles that the airlock is being used?” Harris said as the air was drawn out.

“It will,” he said. “Hopefully, they’ll just assume it’s our two friends out there.”

“What if they use their suit communicators? They can still reach the controls, even hung up like that. Shouldn’t we have put them out of action?”

“If that happens, we’ll just have to deal with it.”

They continued to wait in the airlock while the vacuum pumps did their work, keeping a look out through the window in the inner door in case anyone came into the workshop. For safety reasons the controls in there would override the ones in the airlock, so if anyone did appear then their chances of escape would be gone. The pumps however were running slowly and Ariel, for one, decided he wasn’t going to wait for them.

“This is taking too long,” he said irritably. “Let’s open up
now.”

He reached over to the airlock controls and hit the switch for the dump valves, opening the air lines that sent the remaining atmosphere rushing outside. A fog of white vapour appeared in the airlock as the pressure plummeted, then got sucked outside just as quickly. Once the outer door was unlatched they quickly scrambled out and headed for the rovers.

“How many people are based here again?” Ariel said. “About twenty-five, right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Harris said.

Ariel looked at the five rovers that would be left after they’d helped themselves to one and nodded to himself. “It’s enough,” he said.

They went up to the nearest of them and Damon pulled the recharge cable out of its battery pack and threw it out of the way. They were just about to climb on board when a sudden change in light level made them stop and look up.

The floodlights that had been illuminating the rover bay were now dead, plunging the shaded side of the building into near darkness. They quickly exchanged glances, then Max went back to the outer door of the airlock and looked through the thick glass panes at the room beyond. All the lights and control panels in there appeared to be dead as well. It was as if every sign of power or artificial lighting had just gone out. Then, just as suddenly, the light reappeared, though far less bright than it had been before.

“What just happened?” Damon said.

“I don’t know,” Ariel said. “It looks like it’s switched to emergency power. I’ll take a look.”

Ariel went off to the side of the module then round the corner into the sunlight. They could see him looking into the distance. “It’s the same everywhere,” he said. “It must be the service line.”

By now the others had walked over to see for themselves. From here they could see most of the length of the settlement and as Ariel had said, the few lighted windows which were visible
were all dimmed, as if running off back-up supplies. However, the service line itself, visible at the far end of the settlement, was showing no light at all. Even when the sun was up it had some illumination of its own, purely to mark the crossing points, but now these were gone completely.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Harris said. He looked at Max as he spoke.

“Yes, I am,” Max said. “They must have got out already, then gone south and found the service line.”

Max pictured the map in his mind again, visualising the areas known to be occupied by the Kambria machines. The north and west were already taken, and if the machines had somehow cut round to the south then that meant they were surrounded on three sides. It was lucky the machines hadn’t stumbled across them already.

“Does that mean they’re on their way here?” Harris said. “They could follow the service line straight to this place.”

“Probably, though the line should keep them busy for a while. It must be the single richest supply of materials they’ve found so far. But if they work the way I think they do then they’re going to call in reinforcements to help them break it up. The place will be crawling with them.”

They looked into the south, at the service line stretching off into the distance. There was no sign of any activity there, but it wasn’t hard to imagine what might be happening just over the horizon.

“That was the way we were planning to go,” Damon said.

“Well we can’t go there now, can we?” Harris said.

“So what are we going to do?”

No one answered, until Ariel finally spoke. “I have an idea,” he said. They all looked at him expectantly. “We fly out.”

“Fly? What do you mean?”

“Who’s at base right now out of the lander pilots? Whoever it is, we call them, get them to bring a lander up here.”

“It’s Jack,” Harris said. “He got in this morning.”

“Good. If anyone can get us back to the base, he can.”

“Who is he?” Max said.

“Jack Rogan,” Harris said. “One of the transfer pilots on the geo-lunar route. He’s the best, too. An open field landing like this will be no problem for him.”

“Sounds like our best option,” Damon said. “Let’s call him.”

“Well, whatever we do,” Ariel said, “we shouldn’t do it standing here. Not if those things are on their way. Let’s get driving, then arrange a pick-up somewhere else.”

They started to pile onto the rover with Harris in the driving seat. It seemed to have been kitted out for survey work, with long flexible marker posts like slalom flags bundled together under the rear seats. They didn’t look heavy, otherwise Max would have considered pulling them out and ditching them.

“Ariel, how long do you expect it to take for Jack to get out to us?” Safi said.

“It takes over an hour to get a lander fuelled up and ready,” Ariel said. “We may be waiting two hours, or more.”

“In that case we certainly can’t wait here,” Harris said. “Let’s move.” He set the rover in motion.

“Wait a minute,” Max said. “We need to know where we’re going. If we just drive out into the open, we won’t stand a chance.”

Harris brought them to a halt again. They’d barely moved twenty feet. “So where then?” he said.

“We need to head east,” Max said. “That’s the only safe direction now. But we need to assume those things can catch us in a chase. This rover won’t be too fast with five of us on board. We need to get somewhere safe, that we can defend.”

“Defend?” Ariel said. “Like where?”

“I don’t know,” Max said. “You people are the locals here, where do you suggest?”

At first no one answered, then Safi spoke. “I know a place,”
she said. “Site six, Anchorville.”

“Is that place still there, after all these years?”

“Yeah, it’s still there, just empty. But it’s big, and solidly built, and we can get up off the ground. We’ll be safe for a few hours at least.”

No one seemed to have any better ideas.

“Let’s do it,” Max said. “We’re going to need protection though. Any idea where those blasting charges will be stored?”

“I don’t know how this place is laid out,” Harris said. “I saw some unpressurised huts when we were driven in here, they might be the hazstore.”

“Let’s try there then.”

They drove away from the settlement, toward the huts that Harris had mentioned. As they were driving, Damon looked back over his shoulder at the ESOS buildings they were leaving behind.

“I’d have thought they’d have come out after us by now,” he said. “We spent enough time talking back there.”

“I think they’re busy working out where their power has gone,” Ariel said.

“They’re going to have something else to keep them busy pretty soon,” Harris added.

“Maybe we should contact them,” Max said. “Tell them to head east, if they do decide to follow us.”

“They’ll work out where to go for themselves,” Ariel said. “They’re stupid but not that stupid. Though even if they did follow us, what would they do then? There isn’t room for thirty people in a lander, not wearing suits.”

Max couldn’t think of an answer to that one. He didn’t think there was one.

“Plus, it’s their fault those things exist,” Ariel continued. “Let them deal with them.”

They soon got to the huts and saw the familiar explosive warning marks on the outside of one of them. Ariel climbed off
first, then took a hammer from the rover’s toolbox and broke the hut’s lock clean off its door. Then he went inside, joined by Harris and Damon, and started loading up the remaining space on the rover with boxes of explosives. They shifted two boxes each, then went back to their seats and strapped themselves in.