One of the drones released some roamers, which popped out customized screwdrivers, and attacked the attachment points on the panel. I had a moment of - I don’t know, déjà vu? nostalgia? something like that - as I noticed that the Snarks used a screw head virtually identical to a Robertson. I guess some geometry problems are universal.
The roamers couldn't re-seal the hatch properly from the inside, so once all our units entered, the roamers pulled the hatch closed and performed a small spot weld. It wouldn't hold against any kind of assault, but the point was for things to appear normal, not for us to fortify our rear. Job complete, the roamers climbed back into the drone and we continued on.
We couldn't wait around to catch a ride on the rail system, since there seemed to be no rides to catch. We certainly couldn't activate the system on our own, and even if we could figure out how to do that, it would probably attract unwelcome attention. That seemed like the kind of system that would require some high-level management involvement, if only for approvals and scheduling.
That left us with the strategy of scurrying around the innards like rodents trying to make our way to the inside of the megastructure. Which was easier than you’d think. Rodents had been finding pathways through everything humans had built for millennia. One advantage of the containers all being parked was that the ring was empty, like an elevator shaft with no elevator, and the drones had sufficient acceleration to be able to match up with the inner shell while following a circular path, so we would be able to dock on the inner shell receiving station.
It took several hours of preparation, mapping out small spaces and dodging maintenance bots, but we eventually found ourselves ready for the big step: lying from the stationary outer shell to the rotating inner shell. We decided to try out the strategy with one single drone before risking the entire squadron. There was some initial wobbling until Gandalf got the hang of it, then the drone’s path smoothed out.
The drone landed on a small maintenance platform in what I suppose I’d call the station or terminal on the inner shell, that was supposed to give the inhabitants of the topopolis access to the elevator system. I could see where the elevator containers would meet up with the pressure door, allowing passengers to go from a pressurized elevator cabin to a pressurized megastructure interior.
Up to this point, we’d been operating in vacuum. Now we’d have to figure out how to get into a shirt sleeve environment - again, without setting off any alarms. Once the entire squadron arrived, the next step was intelligence gathering. A couple of drones ejected roamers, which swarmed over the hatch system. In about 10 minutes we had a report.
“Well, the good news is that the systems are well-designed,” Gandalf said. “That means they have manual overrides, in case something goes wrong.”
“And the bad news?” I asked.
“The manual overrides have what I expect are alarm sensors, so as soon as we use them, management will know.”
“So…”
“We'll gimmick the sensors. If the door-opened sensor doesn't trip, no one will be the wiser.”
“That could take a while.”
“Yep. And some of the sensors are on the other side of bulkheads, so we have to drill through to get to them. We’ll send in the 2 mm roamers.”
“And this won't set off any alarms?”
Gandalf shook his head. “This isn't a top-secret military base, they wouldn't expect anyone to be trying to break in like this, so why would the engineer for it?”
That seemed like dubious logic, or wishful thinking. “Confidence level?”
“We scanned it, Bob. There’s just the one level of sensor security.”
I nodded, satisfied for the moment. But if alarms went off heads would be… slapped.
“Think about the scale, Bob,” Bill added, sidling up to me. “A billion miles of megastructure with doors, airlocks, passageways, restricted areas… how would you police that? You’d have to set up automated processes and trust those processes to bump alerts upstream. You want to avoid redundant signals as well, to keep the overall processing down.”
“So, kill the alerts at source and nothing happens.”
“Yep,” Gandalf said looking up from his monitor.
I'll give the Gamers there due: they were careful and methodical. It took almost half a day to defang the airlock to the point where it could be used without bringing Armageddon down on us. Finally, Gandalf gave the thumbs up, and we began manually cycling our devices through.
At one point had a thought and snorted. “It would be a helluva thing if you got this far, only to discover that the drones couldn't fit through the airlock.”
“It would indeed,” Gandalf replied with a smirk. “Which is why we checked for that during the planning stages. That is why you pay us the big bucks?”
“Assuming I paid you any bucks.”
“A valid point.” He grinned at me, then turned back to his monitor. “And this is the last load. Next stop: megastructure interior.”
Once past the airlock, our drones found themselves in a corridor leading from the spin-transfer system into presumably the main part of the station. I spent some time examining the corridor. There was much to see. Low-level lighting illuminated the area, and I could see what appeared to be traditional elevator doors at the other end. Unless you were shaped like a Krell, there were only so many ways to design corridors and doors, so it wouldn't have looked out of place in a human-based installation. Even the writing. Apparently, the need to label every damn thing was another universal. Although I couldn’t read any of it, I amused myself for a few moments by imagining Snark exhortations to “not injure one's limbs by sticking them in the crushy grindy place,” and other legally mandated warnings for idiots.
The elevators were reminiscent of any random office building on Earth. There was also, because the Snarks had
