The Lost Colony

Chapter 34

Sparr tried touching every location on the screen, carefully moving his finger no more than one centimeter at a time in between presses. The speaker only played music. He cursed. The device had power and data storage. It had to be connected to something. Desperately, Sparr checked his communicator.

Short-range radio waves nearby, five meters down.

Sparr leapt up. While he had been absorbed by the panel, the children had left. He hardly cared. Retracing his steps he found a stairwell, scrambled one flight down, and located the room directly beneath where he had just been. Here he found several of the glossy panels, none of which responded to his touch.

Archaic terminal, his communicator stated. Low power mode active.

"Activate display," Sparr said.

Done, the communicator indicated. Most panels damaged.

One panel, though, came to life, its display barely visible through the coating of dust. Sparr almost wept. He wiped away the grime.

Component replication mode, the display read. It had two options: 'component library', and 'manual key'. Sparr touched the first.

Component library null, the display read.

"What the f**k?" Sparr muttered. He pressed the second option, 'manual key'.

Enter manual key.

"What manual key?" Sparr asked, but the machine either had no voice recognition capability, or couldn't understand his request. He saw no keyboard, optical lip reader, pointer, or other input device. Was the machine damaged in more ways than were evident? Frustration began to set in. He was so close. Finding this one working machine had been a fluke. The idea that it might do nothing at all was depressing. He sagged to the floor.

There, in front of Sparr, was a rectangular slot. From his crouched position, Sparr inspected it. The slot was directly below the screen. It was roughly three centimeters wide, and less than half a centimeter thick. Below, he spotted a tray, slightly larger. He ran his fingers around the edge. Was it for some sort of vintage storage device? Sparr couldn't remember enough about Earth technology at the time of the colonization. In any event, would a storage device be referred to as a manual key?

Overhead, the light was fading. Several floors down, even with the gaping ductwork holes, Sparr could barely see. He would have to leave soon, or risk getting lost. The two tokens he had spent to find the machine would have been wasted.

Tokens. Sparr pulled one from his pocket and examined it. As he had noticed before, each token was almost infinitely complex, with multiple layers. Each layer consisted of multiple sections, and each section had a different depth, shape, and details along its edge. Each was just under three centimeters in diameter.

Enter manual key.

Numbly, Sparr placed the token into the slot. A whir of hidden machinery reached his ear, almost too soft to detect. The screen refreshed.

Soft mineral drill housing, front assembly.

An image appeared, a cutaway view of what must be a drill housing with the front portion highlighted. Beneath the image was a statement and a question.

Stored to component library. Fabricate now?

Both yes and no showed as options. Sparr jabbed at yes.

This time the mechanical sound was unmistakable. Sparr heard the hiss of what could have been liquid, or highly compressed gas. A low rumble could be felt more than heard. After no more than thirty seconds, a previously-unseen panel opened to the left. In the space beyond lay what could only be the front housing of a soft mineral drill, still smoking from its rapid fabrication. The token reappeared, dropping into the tray with a rattle.

"Holy s**t," Sparr gasped. He had no need of a drill housing, but the discovery was monumental. The tokens adopted as currency on Kaybe were, in fact, manufacturing specifications stamped into near-indestructible discs. What's more, at least one colonist-era machine still existed capable of fabricating the components. Sparr dug out a different token and fed it into the machine.

Hydraulic coupler for tilling/seeding expander.

Sparr studied the new image, which showed a piece of farming equipment, and the exact placement of this subcomponent within it.

Stored to library. Unable to fabricate: inadequate resources.

Frantically, Sparr fed one disc after another into the machine, hoping for something useful. There were parts for ventilation systems, fasteners for assembling storage containers, a heating element for an oven, reinforced corner bricks for construction, and an axle housing for what was either a trailer or a vehicle. Only something called a Universal Electrical Bus Current Adapter showed any promise for building a radio. Sparr fabricated one, then with the last shreds of light to guide him, returned to the surface.

He emerged to chaos.

Almost as soon as he climbed into the canyon, Sparr was stampeded by a throng of locals fleeing into the myriad cracks and openings that lined it. They cursed him, pushing by desperately. "Hide!" an aging woman with wide, fantic eyes shouted, before plunging by. A youth elbowed him painfully. Only by lowering his head and pushing forward like a bull could he make any progress.

Once at the top, Sparr looked either for Kern or Toph among the panicked crowd. By now most of the locals had found shelter, either in the subterranean rooms along the canyon, or in the gutted hulks of the buildings themselves. He saw several people laying on the ground, unmoving, either dead or paralyzed. Only a few merchants trying to secure their wares were still in the open. "What is it?" Sparr shouted at one.

"A demon machine!" he cried. "Leave me be!"

Radio waves detected, his implant reported.

Sparr stormed forward, desperate to reach the caravan. He rounded the end of the canyon before doubling back toward the Overlook. That's when he saw it.

The demon machine was an Alliance drone. The high-pitched whine of its thrusters was unmistakable, as was its simple, barrel-like shape, ringed with sensors. As Sparr entered the plaza, the flying weapon locked onto one of the princes, fleeing in terror. In a space of less than three seconds it caught him. Sparr watched helplessly as the drone shot the prince with a stunwire. The youth collapsed immediately, his muscles paralyzed by a potent electrical shock. The drone hovered over him, scanning the inert body.

Sparr scrambled beneath the last wagon in the caravan, gasping with fatigue and fear. His eyes swept the ground around him. Several drivers and guards had already been stunned, as had any princes and pilgrims who had tried to flee. Their bodies littered the plaza. One wagon groaned forward, its draybeasts agitated, but unguided. Sparr could hear the screams of the pilgrims and maidens that must be cowering inside it, and the other wagons. He peeked out, trying to get a fix on the drone.

"Haaaaa, fuuuuuuuuk!" Tuck burst from cover, dashing toward the drone with his short sword raised. The device detected him immediately and, with alarming ease, shot the boy with a stunwire. Tuck dropped with a thud. The drone, however, failed to detect Kern, who had waited for just such a distraction. The guard captain charged forward. Before the drone could react, he landed a powerful blow against its side, then another against one of the four thrusters. The drone lurched away crazily, briefly out of control. Kern pursued it.

Sparr counted the wagons, then sprinted, leaping into the back of the one he hoped was Liette's. It was. The occupants shrieked at him, crazed with fear.

"What is it?" Liette demanded. "What is that thing?"

"My magic kit!" Sparr screamed. "Where is it?"

Liette stared back with hollow eyes. "What? What is happening?"

"My magic kit!" he repeated.

Liette said nothing, her eyes wide with terror.

"There!" It was the chef, Silla, who he hadn't noticed earlier. She was clutching a cleaver in one hand, pointing under one of the seats with the other. "Your bag!"

Sparr dove under the seat, clawing at the row of crates and sacks stored beneath. His hand found the distinctive fabric. As he yanked it toward him, a new chorus of screams erupted behind him. The wagon lurched as the normally docile draybeasts spooked. The contents of the bag spilled out.

There it was! Sparr spotted his pistol among the energy bars, water pouches, and first-aid kits. He clutched at it, doing his best to regain his feet. The screams were coming from the wagon behind them. When Sparr peered through the canvas, he spotted the drone torching the other wagon's cover. He crouched, aimed the pistol, and fired.

The reaction was immediate. The machine spun, sparks emitting from its body, and from one of the thrusters. It shot toward Sparr, who stumbled back into the wagon.

"s**t!" he said. There was no time to change ammunition, and in any event, Sparr was certain he had nothing that would be more effective against the armored drone.

The drone fired a stunwire, but perhaps thrown off by the damage to its thruster, missed. Sparr fired again. The drone shuddered, but flew closer. It wouldn't miss a second time.

"Fuuuuuuuuuck!" Silla lunged at the drone, cleaver raised. She stabbed it into the drone, wedging the blade into a ventilation port just above one of the thrusters. The chef stumbled to the ground. The drone turned, seeking the new threat, but now, with two thrusters damaged, lost control. As Sparr watched in relief, the machine lurched across the plaza, spinning faster and faster. With a tremendous shattering sound it crashed into the glass merchant's stall.

Wary, exhausted, and near broken by the last two hours of discovery and threats, Sparr jumped from the wagon. The drone spun on the ground, unable to fly, but still alive. Sparr picked up a timber from the shattered stall. Only after he administered fifteen or twenty blows did the thing finally grind to a halt. A gout of flame shot from one of the damaged thrusters.

Sparr moaned, half in shock. In the space of just a few minutes, he had learned something he had been eager to know for months. The Odysseus had survived whatever had befallen the ship prior to his escape. The Alliance mission was intact. They were on the surface somewhere.

And they were hunting him.