Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [46]
Standing beside her, the Roamer workers remained silent, watching. The weight of the loss hung heavy over them. They waited for Cesca to make the first move, but she didn’t know what else they expected her to do.
Before she could tell them to return to their tasks, one of the hemispherical grazers came toward the launcher at a rapid clip over the uneven ground. Normally, the lumbering vehicles merely crawled along, spewing steam and exhaust from digesters and distillers. But this grazer’s harvesting systems were turned off so that it could move in rapid mode. Maybe the driver had realized he was late for the funeral.
“Now what’s going on?” Purcell said. He and Cesca stepped forward to meet the harvester as it approached. “Whoever’s in that grazer, identify yourself. Has something happened?”
“This is Danvier Stubbs, vapor miner. I’ve been driving all day from the other side of this planetoid!” the message came back, crisp and clear. “Jack and I made an interesting find—it’s the damnedest thing. We need to get more equipment and prepare an official expedition. In fact, you might want to send an extra team or two, Purcell. The damnedest thing!”
Cesca interrupted, her voice loud and firm. The funeral had left her feeling unsettled, and she was in no mood for such vagueness. She expected that they had discovered a mineral-rich pocket of ores or some pure hydrocarbon veins. “This is Speaker Peroni. Please be specific. What have you found?”
The grazer crunched to a halt near the crowd at the launcher, spraying thin steam from its mobile treads. “Well, I sure can’t explain it,” the man said. He laboriously cycled through the double hatch, then raised his gloved hands in confused excitement. “We found Klikiss robots buried in the ice. A whole bunch of them.”
Chapter 20—ANTON COLICOS
Though he was a scholar who had studied both human and Ildiran legends, Anton knew that myths and stories were not reality, and people did not automatically become heroes in times of crisis.
But looking at the distraught group of Maratha survivors trudging across the bleak landscape, he saw that his confidence might be the only thing keeping the few remaining Ildirans alive in the darkness of an empty planet.
The members of the skeleton crew had been stranded here after sabotage destroyed the power generators in the domed city of Maratha Prime. Then more sabotage had wrecked two of the three shuttles as the refugees tried to fly to safety. Now only eight of them remained.
The small party trekked across the planet’s cold nightside. The Maratha Designate, his bureaucrat assistant, and the lens kithman stumbled together in grim silence. Rememberer Vao’sh walked with the digger Vik’k and two agricultural kithmen. Anton took the lead beside engineer Nur’of.
“Right this way,” Anton said brightly through the protective suitfilm. He pointed at the distant horizon. “Straight on until morning.”
“We cannot cross a continent in only a few days,” the bureaucrat Bhali’v grumbled.
“We covered a lot of distance before our ships went down, so we aren’t necessarily far off. And we’ve got enough supplies.”
“Rememberer Anton is right. Our suitfilms will work for several days, even without drastic conservation measures,” Nur’of admitted. “It is possible that we may make it.”
Anton set a brisk pace as they plodded along. He still found it amusing to think of himself as a leader!
The Ildirans seemed on the verge of panic, wanting to bolt forward until they either reached the dawn or dropped from exhaustion. Anton did his best to keep them all focused and under control.
From above, the barren plains of Maratha had appeared featureless, but here on the ground, tumbled rocks and lumpy frost heaves made the journey difficult. More than once, he