[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
"Nothing particularly weird," Jimmy McCray remembered.
"There were certainly no life forms down there that answered to the known
carbon- or silicon-based formulas that serve as our definition. Of course, I
don't have to tell you that our definition of life needs a lot of work.''
"Indeed," the Durquist agreed. "And certainly in your case."
McCray nodded. "It was funny. All our instrumentation, the robotic probes, you
name it all ignored. The atmosphere was rotten enough that we couldn't drop
live animals for any kind of meaningful test, so we dropped a few dead ones.
The only thing
90 fack L Chalker that seemed to happen was thai some of the dust devils moved
in and over them and buried them in the sand. No big deat, and nothing realty
suspicious enough to ring any alarms."
"You dismissed the fact that the dust devils had moved in and over them as
mere coincidence?"
"Sure. Wouldn't you? I mean, you could watch those little buggers going this
way and that with no apparent purpose or consistency and not see any sense at
all and, hell, there were so many of them, a few were bound to cross over. And
they were so insubstantial, really, that the figures said there'd be no real
problem breaking out of one if you walked into it or it rolled over you."
"So they were laying for you, as it were."
"I'm not sure. I'm still not sure of anything there. We hit the ground, fanned
out, did the usual routine, and it was like ten or maybe fifteen minutes
before the ship controller noticed any-
thing really odd. I mean, hell, we're looking at potentially hos-
tile or intelligent actions, right? We were so concerned with avoiding the
damned dust devils that it never occurred to any-
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%...arathon%201%20-%20The%20Demons%
20at%20Ra.txt (71 of 236) [1/19/03 4:36:49 PM]
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Marathon%201%20-%20The%20Demons%20at%20Ra.txt body, not even the ship's
computer, that the dust devils were avoiding us."
"Indeed. The pet that made no noise. An old error, but a common one."
Jimmy shrugged. "Well, everything went just fine until Al-
muda a Thetian and our geological evaluator went over to one of those weird
rock protrusions and decided to drill a core sam-
ple. As soon as he started, they just went wild."
"The rocks?"
"The dust devils. They had no natural enemies, or at least no natural enemies
left, and no matter how chaotic they were, they never seemed to hurt each
other, so it wasn't like we sprung a trap or anything like that, or that they
had any hidden weapons or powers but they sure blew their corks. And, in just
doing that, and converging on poor Almuda, they used the only kind of weapon I
guess they had they began picking up massive amounts of sand and then hurling
it, in effect sandblasting him.
The suit was enough to protect him from that, of course, but it was a godawful
amount of sand and thrown at great force and it quickly started to bury him."
"Did they turn on the rest of you?"
"No, just him, with more of 'em coming every minute."
"You tried to help him, I assume."
THE DEMONS AT RAINBOW BRIDGE 91
"Well, every time we made a move for him, a bunch turned on us and started
spitting sand so hard it knocked us back. When we retreated, they stopped. We
tried the pistols, we tried every kind of weapon we had that wouldn't have
killed Almuda, and they had no effect. It was like shooting air. The computers
got us to back off after that, and they tried a wide beam from the shuttle
above the dust devils, trying to superheat the air and maybe dissipate them or
something, but whatever they tried didn't work. The heat just made them
stronger. It drove us absolutely nuts, hearing Almuda's cries, his pleas for
help, and not being able to do anything."
"I see, and with a forty-hour air supply . . ."
"Yeah, you get it. Most of the team couldn't stand it anymore-
We pulled back and tried to comfort him, and we hoped that may-
be if the dust devils finally buried him completely and couldn't see or hear
him anymore that they'd give up, but they kept at it.
Night came and they kept at it. Day broke and they kept at it."
"They must have built quite a sand dune."
"It was a monster, covering even all remains of the rocks.
They finally did stop, after maybe thirty hours, but they didn't move off or
move away, and they kept keeping us away. It was as if they knew, somehow,
that he had a limited amount of time.
After a while we figured out how. Somehow they could intercept his radio,
maybe sense the broadcast energy or something. Ev-
erybody else had sort of given up, just on a deathwatch at that
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%...arathon%201%20-%20The%20Demons%
20at%20Ra.txt (72 of 236) [1/19/03 4:36:49 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20The%20Quintara%20
Marathon%201%20-%20The%20Demons%20at%20Ra.txt point, but I couldn't. I finally
figured that if we coutd get an accurate fix by beacon, then he could kill his
power and maybe that would end it and I could get to him. By that time he was
near panic and willing to try anything. He cut his power, which gave me about
twenty minutes before he'd have to turn it back on or suffocate, and, sure
enough, the things lost interest and started to drift away. We all rushed in
immediately with what-
ever we could bring in, and started digging. We quickly found we couldn't use
the automatic stuff after a while the sand was so soft it kept filling in,
burying and jamming the controllers, and potentially shifting him as well. So,
after we got as much off with the equipment as we could, there wasn't any
Page 62
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
choice but for us to just go at it like demons with shovels."
"You didn't find him?"
"We didn't get the chance- I didn't have a timer on him, but he turned his
damned power back on. It was close real close-
92 Jack L. Chalker
A couple more minutes and we'd have had him. I pleaded with the others to
help, but somebody yelled that the dust devils were coming back strong and
they just backed off and left him there, and me digging alone more or less. I
am never exactly alone.
We were so damned close\ I'm still convinced that even with them starting up
again I could have gotten to him, and, if I had, the shuttle could have taken
him with the grappler and hoisted him up out of range. I didn't want to quit,
even with the devils starting to spit again, not with Almuda so loud in my
suit that it was like we was touching helmets at full power. Grysta began
yellin' and screamin' at me, but I would hear none of it, and I
kept at it, and she finally gave me a series of painful shocks that stopped me
dead, then shot my head full of fear and adrenalin.
She was in control and I couldn't do anything except drop the shovel and run
like hell."
The expression on his face was tense, his eyes wild, his voice filled with the
emotion of that time, as if he were doing it all over again. Suddenly, he
seemed to snap out of it and sank back into a relaxed posture in his chair.
"Almuda stopped talking to us about an hour after that, and
I could only get brief fragments of his thoughts, which turned very dark. He
just, well, gave up. I tried to argue with him, even screamed at him, but all
he finally said was, 'Farewell, com-
rades, it has been an interesting life.' Then he shut down all systems, and, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl akte20.pev.pl
"Nothing particularly weird," Jimmy McCray remembered.
"There were certainly no life forms down there that answered to the known
carbon- or silicon-based formulas that serve as our definition. Of course, I
don't have to tell you that our definition of life needs a lot of work.''
"Indeed," the Durquist agreed. "And certainly in your case."
McCray nodded. "It was funny. All our instrumentation, the robotic probes, you
name it all ignored. The atmosphere was rotten enough that we couldn't drop
live animals for any kind of meaningful test, so we dropped a few dead ones.
The only thing
90 fack L Chalker that seemed to happen was thai some of the dust devils moved
in and over them and buried them in the sand. No big deat, and nothing realty
suspicious enough to ring any alarms."
"You dismissed the fact that the dust devils had moved in and over them as
mere coincidence?"
"Sure. Wouldn't you? I mean, you could watch those little buggers going this
way and that with no apparent purpose or consistency and not see any sense at
all and, hell, there were so many of them, a few were bound to cross over. And
they were so insubstantial, really, that the figures said there'd be no real
problem breaking out of one if you walked into it or it rolled over you."
"So they were laying for you, as it were."
"I'm not sure. I'm still not sure of anything there. We hit the ground, fanned
out, did the usual routine, and it was like ten or maybe fifteen minutes
before the ship controller noticed any-
thing really odd. I mean, hell, we're looking at potentially hos-
tile or intelligent actions, right? We were so concerned with avoiding the
damned dust devils that it never occurred to any-
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%...arathon%201%20-%20The%20Demons%
20at%20Ra.txt (71 of 236) [1/19/03 4:36:49 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20The%20Quintara%20
Page 61
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Marathon%201%20-%20The%20Demons%20at%20Ra.txt body, not even the ship's
computer, that the dust devils were avoiding us."
"Indeed. The pet that made no noise. An old error, but a common one."
Jimmy shrugged. "Well, everything went just fine until Al-
muda a Thetian and our geological evaluator went over to one of those weird
rock protrusions and decided to drill a core sam-
ple. As soon as he started, they just went wild."
"The rocks?"
"The dust devils. They had no natural enemies, or at least no natural enemies
left, and no matter how chaotic they were, they never seemed to hurt each
other, so it wasn't like we sprung a trap or anything like that, or that they
had any hidden weapons or powers but they sure blew their corks. And, in just
doing that, and converging on poor Almuda, they used the only kind of weapon I
guess they had they began picking up massive amounts of sand and then hurling
it, in effect sandblasting him.
The suit was enough to protect him from that, of course, but it was a godawful
amount of sand and thrown at great force and it quickly started to bury him."
"Did they turn on the rest of you?"
"No, just him, with more of 'em coming every minute."
"You tried to help him, I assume."
THE DEMONS AT RAINBOW BRIDGE 91
"Well, every time we made a move for him, a bunch turned on us and started
spitting sand so hard it knocked us back. When we retreated, they stopped. We
tried the pistols, we tried every kind of weapon we had that wouldn't have
killed Almuda, and they had no effect. It was like shooting air. The computers
got us to back off after that, and they tried a wide beam from the shuttle
above the dust devils, trying to superheat the air and maybe dissipate them or
something, but whatever they tried didn't work. The heat just made them
stronger. It drove us absolutely nuts, hearing Almuda's cries, his pleas for
help, and not being able to do anything."
"I see, and with a forty-hour air supply . . ."
"Yeah, you get it. Most of the team couldn't stand it anymore-
We pulled back and tried to comfort him, and we hoped that may-
be if the dust devils finally buried him completely and couldn't see or hear
him anymore that they'd give up, but they kept at it.
Night came and they kept at it. Day broke and they kept at it."
"They must have built quite a sand dune."
"It was a monster, covering even all remains of the rocks.
They finally did stop, after maybe thirty hours, but they didn't move off or
move away, and they kept keeping us away. It was as if they knew, somehow,
that he had a limited amount of time.
After a while we figured out how. Somehow they could intercept his radio,
maybe sense the broadcast energy or something. Ev-
erybody else had sort of given up, just on a deathwatch at that
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%...arathon%201%20-%20The%20Demons%
20at%20Ra.txt (72 of 236) [1/19/03 4:36:49 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20The%20Quintara%20
Marathon%201%20-%20The%20Demons%20at%20Ra.txt point, but I couldn't. I finally
figured that if we coutd get an accurate fix by beacon, then he could kill his
power and maybe that would end it and I could get to him. By that time he was
near panic and willing to try anything. He cut his power, which gave me about
twenty minutes before he'd have to turn it back on or suffocate, and, sure
enough, the things lost interest and started to drift away. We all rushed in
immediately with what-
ever we could bring in, and started digging. We quickly found we couldn't use
the automatic stuff after a while the sand was so soft it kept filling in,
burying and jamming the controllers, and potentially shifting him as well. So,
after we got as much off with the equipment as we could, there wasn't any
Page 62
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
choice but for us to just go at it like demons with shovels."
"You didn't find him?"
"We didn't get the chance- I didn't have a timer on him, but he turned his
damned power back on. It was close real close-
92 Jack L. Chalker
A couple more minutes and we'd have had him. I pleaded with the others to
help, but somebody yelled that the dust devils were coming back strong and
they just backed off and left him there, and me digging alone more or less. I
am never exactly alone.
We were so damned close\ I'm still convinced that even with them starting up
again I could have gotten to him, and, if I had, the shuttle could have taken
him with the grappler and hoisted him up out of range. I didn't want to quit,
even with the devils starting to spit again, not with Almuda so loud in my
suit that it was like we was touching helmets at full power. Grysta began
yellin' and screamin' at me, but I would hear none of it, and I
kept at it, and she finally gave me a series of painful shocks that stopped me
dead, then shot my head full of fear and adrenalin.
She was in control and I couldn't do anything except drop the shovel and run
like hell."
The expression on his face was tense, his eyes wild, his voice filled with the
emotion of that time, as if he were doing it all over again. Suddenly, he
seemed to snap out of it and sank back into a relaxed posture in his chair.
"Almuda stopped talking to us about an hour after that, and
I could only get brief fragments of his thoughts, which turned very dark. He
just, well, gave up. I tried to argue with him, even screamed at him, but all
he finally said was, 'Farewell, com-
rades, it has been an interesting life.' Then he shut down all systems, and, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]