Dark Ararat - Brian Stableford [129]
She recognized the term readily enough, even though she hadn’t made the connection with the note on Bernal Delgado’s pad. “We’ve seen them before,” she said, “though not nearly as big or as strong. Like the stinging worms they’re not easy to categorize. It’s a matter of opinion as to whether they’re more closely analogous to giant sea anemones or gargantuan Venus flytraps. They can’t usually catch sizable prey, but conditions in the gully must work in their favor, allowing them to get more ambitious than their cousins and much bigger. Now we’re forewarned, the AI won’t let the legs get stuck again. We’ll come through the second stretch easily enough.”
“As long as there isn’t a brand new package of surprises waiting for us.”
“Well, yes,” she conceded. “Maybe it was a mistake to try to sleep through last night’s transit. This time, we’ll all be awake and alert.”
“What did Tang say when you reported back?” Matthew wanted to know.
“He’s not the type to gloat. He wished you a speedy recovery. Maryanne’s much better, and Blackstone’s happy to have another nonscientist around. He and Solari have been playing ball in an increasingly competitive spirit. Doctor’s orders, Solari said.”
“It’s true,” Matthew told her.
“Back at Base One the counterrevolution’s proceeding apace,” she added. “Crystallizing out was Tang’s phrase. The awareness that they’re not actually in a position to demand anything from Milyukov is only making things worse. We’ll have an appointed ambassador and a staff of diplomats soon enough, and a list of demands—but the only leverage we have is Milyukov’s reputation. What will the people of Earth think of you if you let us down or preside over a disaster? isn’t the strongest negotiating position imaginable. Especially when the disaster is resolutely refusing to make an entrance. Tang says that he can’t whip up as much interest as our expedition clearly deserves. Nobody really expects us to find the humanoids, although it’s willful blindness rather than the calculus of probability that generates the negative expectation, and nobody can imagine anything else that’s going to make a difference to the way feelings are running.”
“That’s their failure,” Matthew said. “If I had a TV camera I could make a difference easily enough. I could almost wish I was there instead of here, so that I could at least get up on stage and shout at an audience. Don’t look at me like that—even Bernal would have had twinges of that sort, with or without a sore shoulder.”
“If we have to shout for help from One you might eventually get your chance,” she suggested.
“It would be entirely the wrong way to go into it,” he told her. “Victims of misfortune always look like klutzes, no matter how innocent their victimhood. To get attention, you have to be a hero.”
“For that sort of part,” she said, only a little censoriously, “you seem to be a little out of practice.”
TWENTY-NINE
The second passage through shallow and fast-moving water passed without incident, although Matthew had to grit his teeth a time or two as the legs extended on either side of the vessel and then began to move with exactly the same sinister flow as a real spider’s legs. There was no need this time to brace the vessel’s “feet” against the sides of the watercourse, which was more than wide enough to accommodate its passing.
The multitudinous rocks that jutted up from the water’s surface or hid mere millimeters beneath it were both problem and solution. No human eyes could have plotted a series of safe steps for two legs, let alone eight, but it was the kind of task for which an AI’s perceptions were well-adapted.
Matthew knew that the eight legs had autonomic systems built into their “shoulders,” so that each one could take its primary cues from its neighbor and adjust its own attitude accordingly. He was afraid at first that the additional signals emanating from the central controller might interfere with the lower-order process of coordination, but he quickly realized that artificial intelligence must have made considerable advances between 2090 and the date