from below. The flyer’s engine note rose as the computers increased thrust to
absorb the last remaining momentum of its descent.
“Has Karl talked to Massey about it?” Abaquaan asked.
“He couldn’t locate him, but he’s trying again right now,” Frazer answered.
“Does Karl still think Lang was bluffing?”
“He doesn’t know what to think.”
The flyer gave a final lurch on its shock absorbers, and something deep down in
Abaquaan’s stomach lurched with it. The engines fell to idling speed, and the
computer displays switched to a series of postflight test routines. “We’re
down,” Abaquaan said. “We’ll be over in a few minutes. Talk to you then. Out.”
Clarissa leaned forward to scan the ground ahead of the nose, and a few seconds
later a light appeared from among the shadows. The figure of Joe Fellburg, clad
in an EV suit and carrying a flashlamp, an M37 automatic infantry assault cannon
slung across his shoulder, moved forward and guided the vehicle out of the open
and into its parking area beneath the girder-lattice roof supports of what had
once been a building of some kind. More forms took shape in the gloom behind him
as some of Moses’ followers from the Taloid encampment nearby came closer to
watch.
“What do you think?” Abaquaan asked, reaching for his helmet as Clarissa cut the
engine.
“I don’t know what to think either,” she said as she proceeded quickly through
the systems shutdown sequence. “It doesn’t sound too good.”
Abaquaan unbuckled his harness, hoisted himself from his seat, and moved into
the forward cabin to put on his helmet. Clarissa followed, and they exited
through the main lock. Fellburg was waiting for them outside. “Good night?”
“It went fine,” Abaquaan said. “Moses is on his way into the city.”
“It’s a pity we can’t bring him back. There might be problems.”
“Yeah—you mean about what Dave Crookes heard. Hank told us.”
“Drew thinks we’ll have to call off the whole operation.”
“What about Moses?” Clarissa’s voice asked, sounding clipped. Fellburg threw out
a heavily gauntleted hand. “It’s tough, but what can you do?”
Just then, something scurried furtively in the shadows below one of the flyer’s
wings. Fellburg snapped on the flashlamp, and the beam caught a silvery,
insectlike machine, about the size of a kitchen chair, with an elongated,
tapering head, a body covered by sliding, overlapping plates, and six slender,
segmented legs, in the act of stretching one of its sensory appendages to
investigate the flyer’s extended landing pad. A piece of metal hurtled from the
darkness and bounced off the creature’s flank, and a moment later two Taloids
rushed forward waving their arms wildly to chase it away; the creature had fled
before Fellburg’s gun was even half unslung. As they resumed walking toward the
black silhouette of the lander, Fellburg swung the lamp from side to side to
pick out the bullet-riddled remains of a half dozen or so similar machines.
Another flashlamp shone briefly some distance ahead of them where Clancy Baker
was patrolling on the far side of the lander. “Looks like some of these
overgrown tin bugs are partial to NASO-specification alloy,” Fellburg grunted.
“But they’re learning pretty quick that getting too close ain’t all that
healthy.”
Inside the lander, Zambendorf and Drew West were standing in front of one of the
screen consoles on the flight deck, with Andy Schwartz sitting to one side.
Across the aisle, Mike Glautzen sat in the flight engineer’s seat, which was
reversed to face them. Hank Frazer and Vernon were watching from in front of the
doorway leading aft into the main cabin. “We managed to get hold of Massey a few
minutes ago,” Frazer murmured as Clarissa and Abaquaan arrived from the midships
lock.
“I’m not sure what to believe, Gerry,” Zambendorf was saying to the screen. “Do
you think that what Dave Crookes overheard could have been deliberate—a plant
intended to scare us off?”
“Who knows? It’s possible,” Massey replied.
“But how could Lang have known that Crookes would pass the information on?”
Glautzen queried from behind.
“Easily,” Zambendorf said over his shoulder. “He was one of the few among the
scientists who were solidly behind Gerry in protesting the mission’s policies.