Spinneret

Chapter 28

The last glint of sunlight had vanished from the inner lip of the volcano cone when the gravimeter fastened to the edge of Meredith's helmet began to change.

"It's started," he announced quietly into his microphone. "Two percent down and picking up steam."

"Your restraints set?" Barner asked, his voice barely discernible over the static that was beginning to fill the radio bands.

"Yes," Meredith told him, trying to sound more confident than he felt. The lines and bracing bars fastening him to the inner cone wall near the air vent weren't nearly as secure as he'd hoped to make them—unlike the Spinneret cable itself, which stuck to other things with a vengeance, the flat panels with which the volcano cone and cavern structures had been built were made of a very inert substance. Depending on the gradient of the zero-gee field, it was conceivable Meredith would wind up being shot into space along with the latest batch of cable.

With a conscious effort, he put the thought out of his mind and reached out to press his bare hand against the air vent again. The gentle breeze that was starting to spring up kept him from hearing any scratching, but he was sure the Gorgon's Head behind the wall had detected and identified him. What it would do with that knowledge, though, was still an unknown.

The gravity was dropping rapidly now, and the local atmospheric pressure was beginning to follow. Cool air hissed behind Meredith's head, filling the pressure suit that covered all of the colonel except his hands. The general medical consensus was that such a limited exposure to vacuum would be safe enough for a reasonable length of time, but no one on Astra really knew what the limits actually were. Keeping one eye on the air vent and the other on his gravimeter, Meredith gritted his teeth and waited.

Brought up on a diet of American cliff-hanger drama, he was rather expecting the Gorgon's Head to wait until the last second before taking action … and it was therefore almost anti-climactic when, with the gravity only down to point four gee, a section of wall suddenly slid back and down, exposing the short-tunnel-andelevator- shaft arrangement that had also been used in the cavern control tower.

Meredith hit his harness release with one hand, reaching out with the other to try and get a grip on the edge of the opening. He needn't have bothered; from an alcove just off the tunnel a tentacle snaked out to wrap itself around his neck, and before he could do more than get his hands up to grip the metal hose he'd been pulled inside the tunnel and released. Massaging his throat, he watched the door slide shut again and, giving silent thanks to the Gorgon's Heads' programmer, set to work locating the inside controls.

Half an hour later the static cleared and he was able to reassure the anxious listeners that the gamble had worked. Twenty minutes after that, Andrews and the ten-man commando team had joined him. Together they crowded into the elevator and started down.

It was a long trip. Meredith hadn't until that moment had a real feeling for how far below Astra's surface the Spinner cavern was—the gentle slope of the entrance tunnel had effectively masked that fact—and he was beginning to get fidgety by the time the elevator finally stopped. Moving quietly, the men fanned out, weapons ready.

They were, as Meredith had anticipated, in an unexplored area of the cavern complex. The room they'd entered was as large as the storerooms leading off the main entrance tunnel, but without the curlicue floor designs and with a much higher ceiling. At either end of the room were huge doors; and linking them—

"Railroad tracks," Andrews muttered, poking carefully at one with the muzzle of his Stoner 5.56. "Heavy-duty, from the look of them."

Meredith looked back and forth between the two doors. One led directly under the volcano cone, he estimated. The other was flanked by two very familiar-looking bulges … "Let's backtrack it," he said, starting toward that door.

The Gorgon's Heads emerged from their alcoves before the group was within fifteen meters, walking on their spider legs to stand in front of the door release.

"It's all right," Meredith told them soothingly, speaking—he realized belatedly—as if they were a pair of pet Dobermans. Stepping forward, he ran a hand over the top of each, then reached between them to poke the release. The doors slid open … and Meredith found himself facing what could only be a spaceship.

A big ship, too; nothing like the Aurora or Pathfinder, of course, but certainly comparable to the UN's Ctencri-built courier ships. It rested on a transport cradle which, in turn, squatted across the tracks in the floor; and despite their age, Meredith had the feeling that, like the Spinneret itself, both would prove perfectly functional.

"At least," Andrews murmured from beside him, "we know now why they needed to make the volcano crater so big. Should we take a look inside, Colonel?"

Meredith swept the room quickly with his eyes, noting the quantities of support gear stacked around the walls. "Not right now," he told the other. "I doubt there's anything here that would help us with Dunlop, and even if there were it'd take us too long to find it. We'll mark the door and bring the experts in later." Stepping back, he looked around for another way out of the first room. "Back to the elevator," he decided. "We must have come down one level too many."

The guess turned out to be right, and a minute later they were moving silently down a corridor in what Meredith hoped was the direction of the cavern.

Assuming they didn't get lost, they should be in range of Dunlop's rebels in a couple of hours.

There had been a long and—or so it had seemed to Hafner— heated debate going on over by the barrier for nearly half an hour now. Digging his spoon into the selfheating can of field ration stew, Hafner strained to pick out as much of it as he could. The topic itself wasn't hard to guess: Perez's latest message, delivered via bullhorn from down the tunnel, had succeeded beautifully in its obvious goal of undermining morale. If he'd been telling the truth—if Astra really was rallying unanimously behind Meredith—then Dunlop's cabal was indeed facing ultimate defeat and possible death besides. Apparently, the argument centered around whether the rebels should continue to maintain what was being increasingly seen as an indefensible position or whether they should withdraw to the cavern control tower. Hafner couldn't tell which side Dunlop himself was on … but when the major strode up to him a few minutes later, his lips were tightly compressed with anger.

"On your feet, Doctor—if you don't mind," he added in a token effort at courtesy.

"We're moving deeper in."

"Oh?" Deliberately, Hafner scraped one last spoonful out of the can and ate it before leisurely getting up. "I'd have thought the other direction would be smarter."

Dunlop apparently had too much on his mind already for Hafner's pinpricks to have any effect. "We're moving you to the tower," he growled. "From the top we'll have a clear line of fire at anyone who tries to approach—and as you've already pointed out, Meredith won't dare shoot back at us there. Get in that car—we'll be leaving in a few minutes."

Hafner did as he was told, his mind spinning with unanswerable questions. Had Meredith pushed Dunlop into this move in the hope that he, Hafner, would find a way to escape in all the activity? Should he try and make such a opportunity? Or was the colonel expecting him to still be in custody when he made his counterstroke? A pity we never planned for this kind of thing, he thought, watching the soldiers breaking camp around him. We could have set up contingencies, code words—something. I don't know how to play this by ear.

But whatever move Meredith had planned, it didn't come before the cars began to move through the Spinner village. Looking out the window, Hafner noted with a growing tightness in his stomach that fourteen men—a quarter of Dunlop's force—had been left as rear guard at the tunnel barricade. He's split up his people, Hafner thought. Somewhere on this trip the attack will come.

It didn't come as they drove down the winding streets; nor did a squad roar up from behind as they piled out of the cars by the Great Wall. Unreasonably, Hafner tensed as the first four men slipped through the narrow opening—unreasonably, since no one could have slipped past the tunnel guards to set up any such trap by the wall. Sure enough, a moment later they called an all-clear, and when Hafner and his knot of guards squeezed through, he saw the terrain was indeed as empty as ever. Nothing moved but the usual number of Gorgon's Heads—

And a hundred meters from the tower, Dunlop abruptly signaled a halt. "Smith, Corcoran; go check out the tower entrance," he ordered two of the soldiers.

"They can't get in without me," Hafner spoke up, a shade too quickly. "The Gorgon's Heads will stop them."

Dunlop eyed him for a long moment. "All right, then," the major said, "stand back from the machines and lob a couple of grenades through the opening. That shouldn't hurt anything, should it?"

Wordlessly, Hafner shook his head, his eyes on the soldiers moving toward the tower. They were barely five paces from the opening when, without warning, three khaki-clad men appeared in the doorway, the stunners in their hands sweeping the group of rebels. Even as he dived toward the ground Hafner felt a tingle ripple across his skin … and he'd barely hit the alien soil when the thunder of automatic weapons fire exploded into the air around him.

His ears were still ringing from the burst when a hand grabbed his collar and roughly yanked him to his knees. Peripherally, he saw Dunlop's men stretched out on their bellies, rifles pointed toward the tower … but his main attention was focused on the pistol Dunlop held against his temple. A pistol gripped by a whiteknuckled hand.

"Meredith!" the major yelled toward the tower and directly in Hafner's ear. "I've got Hafner here—you hear me? Surrender or I'll kill him. I mean it!"

He paused for breath or an answer … and in the silence Hafner heard, dimly, the sound of distant gunfire. Dunlop's hand twitched; but before he could do or say anything, Meredith's voice drifted faintly from the tower. "Give it up, Dunlop.

You haven't got a chance."

"I've got Hafner!" the major shouted again. "You want to see him die?"

"Don't be a fool," Meredith called. "You can't get into the tower, your rear guard at the tunnel's been taken—you've got no supplies and nowhere to run. What the hell is a hostage going to buy you? You or your men?"

"Just shut up!" Dunlop yelled.

"Major," a sergeant spoke up tentatively, "maybe we ought to surrender—"

"Talk of surrender will be treated as desertion," Dunlop cut him off harshly.

"Meredith! I'll make you a deal. You call the UN ship and have them send down a shuttle for us. Then have your people pull back and let us leave here."

"What about Dr. Hafner?"

"I'll ask Msuya to send him back down once we're aboard."

"Forget it," Meredith called. "However, I'll make you a counterproposal. If you turn Hafner loose right now, I'll guarantee you all safe passage to the UN ship."

"You think I'm stupid enough to trust you? We're leaving, Meredith—you'd better call your people off." Cautiously, Dunlop stood up, hauling Hafner to his feet.

"All right; everybody get up and fall back to the cars."

Slowly, even reluctantly, the soldiers complied—and because he was watching them, Hafner saw the shocked expressions as they began turning to leave. "Oh, bloody hell," someone muttered.

Preoccupied with the gunfire and shouted negotiations, Hafner had completely forgotten about the Gorgon's Heads. But the machines had obviously not forgotten them … and as he gazed at the six Gorgon's Heads standing motionlessly between them and the Great Wall, Hafner had the eerie feeling he was seeing a new level of programming being brought into play. With their tentacles poised like angry rattlesnakes, they seemed unnaturally alert, almost as if they sensed the tension and danger and were preparing to do something about it. Even Hafner, who was used to the things, felt uneasy; the effect on Dunlop's soldiers was an order of magnitude higher. The shocked expletives were punctuated by the clicks of rifles being put on full automatic.

"Take it easy," Dunlop snapped, pushing Hafner a step closer to the wall. "As long as we've got the doc here they won't touch us."

"They're not armed, and they wouldn't understand what 'prisoner' means if you drew them a picture," Dunlop countered. "Come on, men."

"Hell with that," someone behind Dunlop muttered. "Meredith! I'm accepting your deal!"

Dunlop swung around, releasing Hafner's shirt as he brought his pistol to bear.

"Back in ranks, you!" the major snarled— and Hafner leaped for the Gorgon's Heads.

He'd covered less than half the distance when something that felt and sounded like a small bomb blasted into his thigh, slamming him hard into the ground. A scream of pain welled up in his throat … but even as his clenched teeth blocked the escape he was deafened by a second thunderclap. He tensed for a new wave of agony, but it never came; and as the smell of ozone finally penetrated his painfogged consciousness he realized something else entirely had just happened.

Raising his head with an effort, he looked back over his shoulder.

Where Dunlop had been standing a charred figure now lay sprawled on the ground. Around it the rebel soldiers stood frozen, their weapons sagging in their hands. From the tower a new group of soldiers was running toward them. "Well, what do you know?" Hafner heard his own voice say, as if from a great distance.

"I guess they are still armed."

And then, thankfully, the darkness took him.