Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [78]
“But why would Klikiss robots be sunk in cold storage way the hell out here?” Purcell asked. He had a habit of nodding when he talked.
The vapor miner shrugged inside his thin environment suit. “Hey, I’m not the administrator, Purcell. I just do things. You’re the guy in charge of explaining them.”
Purcell let out a long-suffering sigh. “I knew I wasn’t cut out for this job.” The base’s acting manager was in his late fifties. His dark hair had gone mostly gray, and he kept it cut short in a spiky, unruly mass. His eyebrows were heavy, but had retained their original dark color, which gave them extra prominence on his long face. “I wish Kotto would come back—he could probably figure it out.”
Cesca knew about Kotto Okiah’s short attention span, though. He had set up Jonah 12, then rushed to Theroc to work on rebuilding the world-forest settlement, then he’d hurried to Osquivel to study the hydrogue derelict. Some Roamers even joked that Kotto’s Guiding Star was a variable sun. Purcell was stuck here with the responsibility for the foreseeable future.
For most of a day, the vapor miner retraced his path to where he’d left his companion studying the mysterious enclave. Along the way, the grazer laid down a straight track across the frozen surface, grinding through rough patches and evening out lumps in the terrain.
Finally, when the slow vehicle came over a rise, they looked down on bright temporary lights the cryoengineer had strung around the dark entrance. It was an open vault like a crypt dug into the planetoid’s dead surface.
“Let’s see what Jack’s dug up down there,” Danvier said. “By now he should have all the answers for us.”
“I wonder if we can salvage any of those robots,” Cesca said.
“Jack and I expect to get shares, if you’re going to sell them.”
“I doubt we can reprogram a Klikiss robot like you would a compy,” Purcell said. Roamers had little to do with the enigmatic black machines that occasionally appeared on Hansa worlds. The ancient robots had been created by the long-vanished Klikiss race and then uncovered by Ildirans more than five centuries before. “Weren’t the first robots found on an ice moon in the Hyrillka system? Maybe we’ve discovered another cache like that.”
Leaving the grazer up on the rise, the three donned their helmets again, cycled one at a time through the small airlock, and trudged across the icy ground. Earlier, Danvier and Jack had broken through the piled layers of methane and hydrogen ice, then cut through the protective polymer shell that blocked the entrance to this grotto.
While working here alone, the cryoengineer had applied chemical illumination strips along the walls and powered a small portable generator to keep himself comfortable. Leading the way, Danvier ducked unnecessarily as he entered the opening. “Hey, Jack! You have company!”
The cryoengineer responded over their helmet comm systems, “I hope you brought somebody important. You won’t believe how extensive this is.”
“I brought the Speaker herself, and Purcell. Is that impressive enough?”
“It’ll do.”
The tunnel looked as if it had been burned with acid, cut out of the ice and then fused. Danvier ran his gloved hands over the passage walls. “No question that it was artificially cut. It’s like the robots made a nest for themselves.”
The three walked around the curve, and Jack waved at them, shining a bright suit light. “Come, look at this. There must be more than a hundred of them in here. The chamber goes farther back than I can see.”
Cesca drew a quick breath when she caught sight of the black metal sculptures of fearsome beetles standing upright. The cryoengineer knelt to tinker with the exoskeleton of the first Klikiss robot. Other motionless machines stood in frozen ranks behind it.
She came closer. “I’ve never seen one of these before, certainly not up close.” The flat headplate had an angular outline with hints of a crest and comblike side