Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [7]
SELECTED: CANCEL. REFERENCE. THIS SECTION
OFFERS DETAILE– NO ENTRY: DEACTIVATING
ARMAMENTS. NO ENTRY: DEACTIVATING
WEAPONS. YOU HAVE SELECTED: ARMAMENTS,
DEACTIVATING: AN OVERVIEW. IN CERTAIN
CIRCUMSTANCES.’ The robot’s fist connected with the trapper’s jaw. He fell. ‘YOU MAY CHOOSE TO SHUT
DOWN SOME OR ALL OF MECHINF’S WEAPONRY
SYSTEMS. THIS PROCEDURE IS RELATIVELY
STRAIGHTFORWARD: –’
One of the Kosnax swept forward. She raised her claw, preparing an energy blast. The robot caught her wrist and broke it, punching her hard in the stomach with its other hand. The fist withdrew slightly, then the robot extended a finger and plunged it into her torso, puncturing the chest wall. She froze, energy crackling over her pale skin. The wardroid had short-circuited her dragon energy, forcing it to backlash. Ziyou watched, fascinated, as the young Kosnax woman boiled away, disintegrating in wave after wave of blue light. Her expression hadn’t changed the whole time. The wardroid pulled back its hand.
‘FIRST PRESS COMMAND SEVEN. NOW ENTER
YOUR PASSWORD. PASSWORD INCORRECT,
PLEASE TRY AGAIN.’
‘SIr, IF I might INTErvene?’
‘Yes, SAM?’
‘THe MecHInf version 4.12 has A RESet swiTCH, SIR.
Just TO the LEft of YOUR HAND.’
The Doctor pressed the control, and jumped clear as the robot sunk to its knees and crashed to the floor.
‘So it has. Thank you, SAM.’
‘SIr, tHREE ARMourED HOVErcopters HAVE JUSt enteREd THE WAysTATIoN’S DEFEncE Perimeter.’
‘ETA?’ Ziyou asked.
‘IMMinent, sir.’
There were sounds from outside of skimmerfields dying down and marching: boots pounding against the pathway.
Ziyou heard shots. It sounded like a burster. Then a couple of rapid bursts from a machine pistol. Half a dozen shapes advanced through the hole torn in the wall by the wardroid. One grabbed Ziyou’s hair and pushed his head down. Another was behind him, forcing him into handcuffs Ziyou could hear the robot guillotine trundling itself into place.
‘Ziyou Wanle, you are under arrest. You are charged with violating Planetary Emergency Directive Three disseminating propaganda with treasonable intent and terrorist acts. There are also a number of less serious misdemeanours against you. Judgement has been passed in your absence and you have been found guilty on all counts Do you have anything to say in your defense?’
‘I saw a ghost,’ he spat. ‘I saw a ghost, everyone here saw a ghost, and killing us won’t change that.’
2
On the Rocks
Gradually, light dawned in the chamber.
Prospectors had entered this cave system a year ago looking for palladium and jabolite. They had found a vast rock gallery only slightly smaller than the Carlsbad Caverns back on Earth. The mainly sedimentary rock had been eroded away over millions of years by the stream that still ran through it. It seemed unreasonable that such a vast space could have been carved by such a tiny thing, but it had taken tens of millions of years to do so. Each year, the water had only dissolved away an amount of rock the volume of a sugarcube. Time had done the rest. The cavern itself wasn’t the discovery that excited the miners.
The Machine almost filled the cavern. A thick central column as tall as a skyscraper pierced the roof and floor of the chamber, at a slight angle. It was an oily gunmetal grey.
Yellow and orange lights flickered dimly along its sides.
Gleaming panels spilled from it over the floor and were splashed across the ceiling. Vast power couplings and ten metre-thick cables loomed from the cavern roof like Jungle creepers. The sheer size of the Machine was disconcertingly too large for the human mind to take in.
Imagine, then, how the scientists felt when the dating techniques they used showed that the Machine was older than the rock that surrounded it. A few panels were showing signs of corrosion there was evidence of fossilized organic material in