Sensors, transducers and padding now touched him everywhere. Flex-struts enclosed his midbody. Waste tubes connected to his penis and anus, while feeder-needles penetrated abdominal Contacts—for nutrient nourishment, drug injection, and blood gases monitoring. Finally, moving along the nape of his neck like a lover’s caress, Suit’s
fiber optic cable snuggled up. Thousands of optical fiber pins drove home, socketing into his cyborg implant at CV1. The omnipresent mental weight of Mata Hari, interrupted when he stepped out of direct lightbeam contact and into the shielding interior of Suit, returned with the cable connection.
“Hello, Matt. Feel good?”
Mata Hari asked. Her voice sounded normal and reassuring.
“Good enough,” he said. “Is Suit outfitted for Antigen defense and any local bacterial and viral vectors on file with the Library?”
“Of course.” In his mind’s eye there materialized the chain-mail clad battle maiden of Nordic legend. Her black eyes carried a intense look of duty that matched his own feelings. “Like my look?”
“Yes,” he said. “I especially liked it when we boarded the harvester starship. I believe your look helped to reassure the captives.”
“Thank you!” she said, a dimple-smile breaking through her intent look.
He turned, waved at a suited up George, then mind-cast to the holo form of BattleMind. “Shall we depart?”
“Follow,” growled the giant dragon as it stomped out of the Bridge and down the Spine hallway, heading for the space above the shuttle’s hangar. Clearly it had chosen to adopt the ‘get there on foot’ motif of normal organics.
Matt smiled to himself,
waved at Gatekeeper who was staying behind, then turned his thoughts to the internal checkout of Suit’s systems, sensors, weapons and life supplies. While he did not expect a battle once they landed, he had long ago adopted the life mantra of an obscure human group. Their customary motto was “Be Prepared.” He had always liked that phrase. Almost as much as the Paladin motif of “Have gun, will travel.”
This time his travel was on an alien planet filled with unknowns and puzzles. At least the instant communications via tachlink would keep everyone on the same level of awareness. Now, if only their arrival did not activate some kind of automatic defense machinery.
Two yellow laser beams hit him and George seconds after they stepped out of
Ariadne
and onto the central plaza of the capital city. Twisting, he let his sapphire crystals flare away the beam as Suit automatically backtracked the beam and fired a shoulder pulse-cannon at its dome top location.
“The Defense Modulus has shut down
at my command,” BattleMind said in his mind as Matt and George stood up from their automatic squat and shelter effort.
Matt stepped into a water fountain bowl, standing with its central pedestal to his back even as the brown-stained water at his feet rippled away sluggishly. Nothing tried to bite his boots nor did the pedestal release a shower of water. Clearly that part of the plaza had died long ago.
“Damn it!” he said to the rushing mind-current of BattleMind. “Why didn’t you sense the power level of that laser mount? Even at rest mode it should have emitted a power signature you could read!”
“Matthew,” said the nearby holo of Mata Hari, “we lack all of the instrumentalities we have aboard the ship. Remember, our holos here are projections from holo emitters seeded into yours and George’s suits. So, we act through devices in each suit. Not through our own instrumentalities.”
BattleMind ignored his complaint as it spread its massive wings and began holo-walking toward the massive yellow geodesic dome that fronted on the open square. “The Planetary AI is based inside that structure, the one where the defense beam came from. Follow.”
“Matt,” called George over Suit’s comlink, “do I stay outside and keep guard against something
else automated?”
“No, come inside with me and the others. But do tell you
r suit to eject some SpyEye floaters just outside the entrance. We can keep an eye on everything from their vidfeed.”
Matt walked up to the stone bulwark that surrounded the yellow stone of the giant dome. Unlike entrances to places where ground-bound folks lived, this place did not have a ramp or stairs to provide access to the giant archway that was an obvious entry point. The people here, who used to live here,
flew up to the bulwark and just walked inside.
“George,
Nullgrav on the boots,” he said, releasing a flock of SpyEye remotes and sensorBeads from Suit as he rose up the three meter face of the bulwark. He tasked them to float around and inspect any building with open access to the interior. He wanted to see what condition the interior of the buildings were like, especially any habitat blocks. Were there people bones lying around? Did things look like a shambles inside? Were there active house AIs? Was anything living inside the tall buildings and house blocks? There were several wrecked groundskimmers and cargo floats on the plaza surface, but no lifeforms beyond dead leaves. He noticed George lifting his Magnum laser rifle to port-arms position as he rose, showing readiness in case another laser mount tried to zap them as they entered. Good.
“Matt,” called George. “I see dead leaves, thick dust and pebble-sized debris lying on top of this bulwark. Also, my eye scope sees the same thing in nearby walk-streets, though distant alleys are overgrown with jungle creepers and small crevice plants. I’m putting my suit’s Combat CPU on AutoDefense mode.”
Just right
. Matt signaled Suit to do the same, though he kept the reaction zone fairly small. He didn’t want Suit to attack his combat partner. Arriving at the flat expanse of yellow stone that gave access to the wide archway entrance, he settled down onto the dusty yellow stone and looked to his right as the holos of Mata Hari and BattleMind also stood on the flat stone. He noticed that Mata Hari’s boots did not leave an imprint, unlike her movement in the park or elsewhere inside their ship. Not enough mini-tractors available from Suit, he assumed. He strode forward in Suit, his own Magnum rifle held in his right hand as his left pointed fingertip lasers ahead. The 360 AllAround vision afforded him by Suit’s helmet was good for seeing lifeforms trying to sneak up on him, but somewhat disorienting when he moved. But seven years of Vigilante work had taught him how to split his visual awareness in several directions.
The wide archway showed no sign of individual stones, unlike human archways. While the building exterior showed the flat triangle slabs of a geodesic design, it appeared to be a unified structure. Whatever. After sending a SpyEye floater ahead in order to trip any entrance defense, he sent it further down a wide central aisle. It fed back to his helmet Eyes-Up display images in the UV, infrared, visual yellow and microwave ranges as his chestpack pulse-Doppler radar whined on.
The glow of BattleMind’s holo came to a stop. “Strange. There is no sign of active ecofields or sensor emitters, such as is normal inside the structures of my masters.”
Mata Hari pointed with her sword. “There are side hallways that intersect this aisle. They appear to be
in radial mode, versus the right angles of some species.”
“Of course,” BattleMind said verbally, even though the overflow from its mind made Matt feel crowded in his own mind. “That is the standard interior access design for all T’Chak structures. Let us move forward. My memory of the access mode to the Planetary AI module is that we must avoid the central convocation room and turn to the right down the fifth hallway from the building entrance.”
George and Matt followed the two AI holos, their suits on 360 scan mode. Matt felt his biceps rocket guns rustle as they filled with Fire-and-Forget nanoshells, while his waistband neurotoxin gas dispenser vibrated as it loaded gas into miniature floater globes that would be spit out by either Matt or Suit’s CPU. His belly’s ultrasonic blaster had moved to Power Up status, read to liquefy the organic contents of any opponent. After years of Suit doing the identical preparations whenever they entered a likely battle zone, he might have smiled. Except his attention was focused on a brief flash of movement detected by his pulse-Doppler microwaves.
“Movement on the ground, small thing, at the entry to hallway Five, George and everyone. BattleMind, did you perceive any emissions?”
The armor-plated back of the dragon bunched up and its wings lifted high, with the grasping claws at each wing’s forward edge opening and closing. Hungrily he thought. “No. But I am limited to the sensors on your combat suits and in the autonomous floaters and beads. We proceed.”
Matt resumed his walk ahead as George brought up the rear, walking backward so he saw the receding entrance archway while Matt watched the views ahead.
Then his left side faceplate Eyes-Up quadrant filled with four images transmitted to him by four different SpyEye floaters that had reached a housing block. This his AI friends needed to know.
“Mata Hari, BattleMind, four of my floaters have found skeletal remains inside four different housing block locations. To me, the remains look . . . as if they died in place, not running from something. Either a killing
gamma ray beam took them out with no structure damage, or maybe a bioweapon killed them.” Matt looked closer at the images. “The personal items often found in a home are present, like plates, goblets, wall murals and similar non-organic items. There is no evidence of the residences being ransacked by later raiders.”
“Curious,” growled BattleMind. “I have even more questions for this AI, once we reach its residence module. Turn here, and follow.”
Matt and George turned right down the fifth radial hallway from the entrance. They marched nearly halfway around the dome’s interior before the T’Chak dragon holo stopped, turned to face a wall of yellow stone, then reached out to claw at it with his armhands. Of course there was no mark left. Hissing with frustration, BattleMind’s angry image appeared abruptly in Matt’s mind. “This is the entry zone for the module that lies below us. But it is unpowered. Or, it requires an organic being to be within sensor perception. Stand before it and open your faceplate!”
Matt slowed the rapid beating of his heart, resisted the impulse to say “Fuck You!” and walked forward to stand where the dragon holo had stood. With a blink of his right eye, he opened helmet’s crystalline faceplate. A scent of dryness and dust came to his nose. There was no moisture to sense nor any odor of decay. “BattleMind, this place seems to be—
”
“
Opening
,” said a harsh voice that seemed to come from the stone itself. The language spoken was unknown to him, but not to BattleMind since he felt the AI translate the phrase even as Suit’s external speaker heard it. A five meter high triangular slab slowly dropped down to floor level, leaving a dark open space before them.
“It did require an organic,” muttered BattleMind. “At least this part of the structure has basic power. But I detect no building-wide power emissions, similar to the way your data
pads link to one another by broadcast power. However, every T’Chak structure is built with radioactive power capsules that last a half million cycles, as a backup to the normal broadcast power. At least something of my masters continues to function.”
Matt told helmet to close his faceplate. While he did not expect this place to be teeming with biospores, he did not believe in careless behavior. Carelessness hurt you every time. “George, follow after me as we three enter, but bring in a few sensorBeads in case the entry closes and blocks out any EMF reception from our little spies.”
“Got you, Boss.”
The two AIs entered the dark corridor that lay
ahead. Matt followed behind, counting on his physical movement to tell any corridor sensors that people were about. Overhead, a portion of the ceiling began glowing, providing a whitish light that illuminated the corridor. Matt saw almost no dust on the floor, but what was there showed two tiny lines, as if something that ran on wheels or tracks had preceded them. The small object he’d seen with the microwaves?
The corridor made a sharp right turn, then became a spiral
ramp that moved downward. High enough for a full-sized T’Chak dragon, the width of the spiral corridor was broad enough for three of them to walk together. Though the white light did appear dim. Perhaps the radioactive power flow was very limited.
“We are nearly there,” BattleMind said as the corridor ramp stopped descending and flattened out.
“So it seems,” Mata Hari said, holding her sword before her in a two-handed grip.
Matt did not chuckle at the battle-readiness of his friend. For in truth she was his friend, and as real a part of his life as Eliana had become. He moved to the side of the corridor wall and stared at the image of a T’Chak dragon that was carved deep into the stone wall that blocked their further movement. “Do I open my faceplate again?”
“No,” growled BattleMind. “But your suit with its external sound emitters is needed where I now stand. It will emit my T’Chak access code.”
Matt moved to stand before the five meter high wall with the triangular shape. “Here?”
“Wait, BattleMind!” called Mata Hari. “Matt, George, turn off your external Ears. The sound that BattleMind will speak is likely to damage your organic ears.”
Damn
. BattleMind should have told them that. It might be a little more organic-sensitive than before the Megadeen battle, but clearly it saw only its need and its Task. In his faceplate’s right quadrant he saw the signal from George that his outside Ears were off. “We are ready, BattleMind.”