anywhere. The only technology that had superseded the wheel was gravitics. Wings, hovercrafts, and jet propulsion had all fallen by the wayside. Not every planet had an atmosphere suitable to aerodynamics. Not every planet had an atmosphere.
But they all had gravity, and they all had surfaces. Gravitics and the wheel had carried man to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Why change?
“How are you supposed to drive one of those things?” Kyle had mastered several versions of the ground car, with various numbers of wheels from two to twelve. He couldn’t imagine what kind of controls would be needed for legs.
“That’s the trick,” his companion said. “You don’t. They drive themselves. They’re robotic. That’s why they can justify paying us less. No human can operate those bloody machines, so they don’t have to pay for skilled labor.”
No human could
The image of the spinning disk flashed through Kyle’s mind.
Would anybody else make the connection? Would anyone on Altair think of this distant mining camp and its eight-legged robots? Probably not, because no one on Altair had any reason to. They were thinking about hairy monsters from the dark, not technological beings who made machines in their own image. But that might change when they found out their prime minister had a twin who played with spiders’ toys.
The foreman was right. After five hours of heavy G, Kyle could feel the weight of his eyebrows pulling on his face. The thought of lying down and taking a nap wasn’t refreshing. He knew that his ears would try to stretch to the ground, his lips would slide off his teeth and into his jowls, his tongue would fall back into his throat and suffocate him, if the effort of lifting his chest with every breath didn’t. Lying down would just be giving in to the gravity.
Instead, he pointed his laser at a gleaming patch on the ground. Human brains were good for something. In a matter of minutes he had learned to distinguish between dross and value, with an accuracy the dumb robots could never match. One color of laser for inert material that needed to be hauled away to the dump, and another for ore to be fed into the refinery. That was tiring enough. He couldn’t imagine wielding a real shovel in this environment.
The mechanical spider that towered over him waltzed to his signal, lowering itself over the spot and biting into the earth with black iron jaws. Fangs of shining steel jackhammered from its lips, cracking the ground into rubble, while knobby teeth chewed and swallowed. When the beast was full, it waltzed off to the appropriate destination while he sought out the next target.
So many legs in motion could not be described any other way than waltzing. The contrast between the elegant dance and the slavering feast sickened Kyle. He was tired of contrasts. He wanted something in his life to be pure and simple, without silver linings or feet of clay. He wanted something to be straightforward, without hidden depths or secret angles.
The spider-machine stood, began its waltz. Two steps and it faltered, like a dancer losing the beat. Years of paranoia moved Kyle before he was conscious of the danger. His puny biological brain, so adept at recognizing patterns, sent him stumbling backward on a tangential line for no logical reason.
He collided with an iron post. The leg of another spider, too close behind. His own machine put down legs at random, confused, while the choreographed waltz transformed into senseless flailing. The machine toppled under its momentum, falling with unnatural acceleration.
The side of the beast slammed into the ground where Kyle had been standing. Ore spilled from the top, flowing over him, knocking him to the ground under its weight.
He rolled with the blow. Better to be crushed under weight than to tear his suit trying to escape. Broken limbs could be healed, but the atmosphere would poison him in minutes.
Voices yelling. Hands at his suit, digging him out.
“Is your suit still sealed?” The foreman held Kyle’s helmet between his hands, shouting at him, demanding attention.
Kyle focused his eyes on the virtual display projected onto his faceplate. Warning beacons flashed in red. Belatedly, an alarm began to beep. Underneath it he could hear a rushing hiss. The air felt heavy and dense in his face. The foreman must have seen the answer in his face.
“Earth-fire! Can you stand?” The foreman wasn’t panicking, so Kyle didn’t either. He stood up, shocked that nothing was broken. From his left shin white vapor spewed forth. Kyle stared at it stupidly, but the foreman was already kneeling, swatting at the plume of precious air.
The hissing stopped. A few seconds later the alarm bell shut off. The air still felt dense and confining.
“What’s your pressure say now?”
Kyle tore his attention away from the patch on his shin, and looked at the display. “A hundred and twenty- seven percent.”
“Okay, good. Can you walk? Don’t worry about the patch. It’s stronger than the suit. But you gotta move, show us if there are any other ruptures about to blow. Do it while you still have over-pressure. The blowback will keep the atmosphere out. You’ll be fine.”
Kyle took an experimental step. Nothing bad happened. He could see men crowding around the wreckage. He could see his young companion, paralyzed by horror, standing next to the offending spider.
His spider. The kid had steered his beast too close, and Kyle’s had become confused and lost its footing.
“Earth-damned model sevens.” The foreman gave in to swearing, which meant the danger must be past. “These bastards get in each other’s way. Only happens when they’re trying to stand up. I know they have an upgrade module. Heard it went through quality testing. Ought to have all these units retrofitted. Take another step, man. Tell me where it hurts.”
“I’m fine,” Kyle said. Bruised and battered, but not broken. He could still wiggle his fingers and toes.
The foreman walked around him, visually checking for damage to the suit. “Okay, go ahead and vent your over-pressure. I’ll plug in another emergency canister, just in case. Take these patches. If anything starts spurting, slap one on it.”
Kyle wasn’t sure he was in a state to be slapping anything, but he took the patches. They felt comforting in his hand. He spoke the command word and a jet of vapor shot out of the side of his neck.
His face no longer felt like invisible hands were pressing on it.
“You okay?” The foreman was asking about his mental state this time.
“Yeah, I’m good.” Kyle forced himself to breathe through his nose. “I’m okay. But my spider’s down.”
The foreman shrugged. “Forget that piece of shit. Go back to the truck and sit down. The shift’s almost over, anyway. If you get woozy or anything, trip the alarm. Don’t let yourself go to sleep, though. That will trip the alarm too. I’ve got your suit’s vital sensors jacked to mine, so just kick back and take it easy. Can you do that?”
“Sure,” Kyle agreed. That was pretty much all he was capable of at the moment.
“I’m sorry.” The kid had come over, close enough that Kyle could see his blush. Kyle wondered how the vid industry was managing, since apparently the League had hired all the best actors and turned them into assassins.
But that was paranoia talking. The kid wasn’t necessarily trying to kill him. The accident could have been caused by someone else, remotely messing with the spider’s programming. Really, any of a number of people here could be trying to kill him.
It was even conceivable that it had merely been bad luck.
He waved the kid off, unable to deal with the turmoil of suspicion. Stumbling to the truck, he thought about how the puzzle pieces fit together. From the too-early tip, to the twin prime minister, to Radii Development Corp. The stray threads kept popping up all over the place, and when he tugged on them, things exploded, caught on fire, or fell on his head.
Maybe the only puzzle, then, was why he kept tugging.
But when he closed his eyes, all he could see were visions of Altair in ruins, its beautiful cities shattered and lifeless like the smoking husks of towns on Kassa.
