grabbed
one of the stalagmites, the armour’s gauntlet slipping round alarmingly on the iron-hard ice until he killed his momentum.
Crawling around the tapering cones hunting for some kind of break in the shell was hard work, and slow. He had to brace himself
firmly each time he moved a hand or leg. Even with the sensors’ photonic reception increased to full sensitivity the floor
obstinately refused to resolve. He was having to feel his way round, metre by metre, using the inertial guidance display to
navigate to the centre, logically where the break should be. If there was one. If it led somewhere. If, if, if…
It took three agonizing minutes, expecting Sam’s exuberant mocking laughter and the unbearable searing heat of a laser to
lash out at any second, before he found a crevice deeper than his arm could reach. He explored the rim with his hands, letting
his neural nanonics assemble a comprehensible picture from the tactile impressions. The visualization that materialized in
his mind showed him a gash which was barely three metres long, forty centimetres wide, but definitely extending below the
floor level. A way in, but too small for him to use.
His imagination was gibbering with images of the pursuit Sam and Octal were putting together behind him. Bubbling up from
that strange core of conviction was the knowledge that he didn’t have time to wriggle about looking for a wider gap. This
was it, his one chance.
He levered himself back down to the widest part of the gash, and wedged himself securely between the puckered furrows of ice,
then took the thermal inducer from his belt. It was a dark orange cylinder, twenty centimetres long, sculpted to fit neatly
into his gauntleted hand. All scavengers used one: with its adjustable induction field it was a perfect tool for liberating
items frozen into ice, or vacuum-welded to shell sections.
Joshua could feel his heart racing as he datavised the field profile he wanted into the inducer’s processor, and ordered his
neural nanonics to override his pacemaker, nulling the adrenalin’s effect. He lined the thermal inducer up on the centre of
the gap, took a deep breath, tensed his muscles, and initiated the program he’d loaded in his neural nanonics.
His armour suit’s lights flooded the little glaciated valley with an intense white glare. He could see dark formless phantoms
lurking within the murky ice. Pressure ridges that formed sheer planes refracted rainbow fans of light back at the collar
sensors. A gash that sank deep into the shell section’s interior, a depth hidden beyond even that intrusive light’s ability
to expose.
The thermal inducer switched on simultaneously with the lights, fluorescing a metre-wide shaft of ice into a hazy red tube.
At the power level he used it turned from solid to liquid to gas in less than two seconds. A thick pillar of steam howled
past him, blasting lumps of solid matter out into the Ruin Ring. He fought to keep his hold on the ice as the edge of the
stream grazed the armour suit.
“See you, Joshua,” Sam’s datavise echoed round his brain, laughing derisively.
The thermal inducer snapped off. A second later the rush of steam had abated enough to show him the tunnel it had cut, slick
walls reflecting the suit’s light like rippled chrome. It ended ten metres down in a polyp cave. Joshua spun round his centre
of gravity, fists hammering into the still bubbling ice, clawing desperately for traction on the slippery surface as he dived
head-first down the tunnel.
Madeeir
’s laser struck the ice as his boots disappeared below the floor. Stalagmites blew apart instantly under the violent energy
input, ice vaporized across an area three metres wide. A mushroom cloud of livid steam boiled up into space, carrying with
it a wavefront of semi-solid debris. The laser shone like a shaft of red sunlight at its centre.
“Got the little shit!” Sam Neeves’ triumphant
one of the stalagmites, the armour’s gauntlet slipping round alarmingly on the iron-hard ice until he killed his momentum.
Crawling around the tapering cones hunting for some kind of break in the shell was hard work, and slow. He had to brace himself
firmly each time he moved a hand or leg. Even with the sensors’ photonic reception increased to full sensitivity the floor
obstinately refused to resolve. He was having to feel his way round, metre by metre, using the inertial guidance display to
navigate to the centre, logically where the break should be. If there was one. If it led somewhere. If, if, if…
It took three agonizing minutes, expecting Sam’s exuberant mocking laughter and the unbearable searing heat of a laser to
lash out at any second, before he found a crevice deeper than his arm could reach. He explored the rim with his hands, letting
his neural nanonics assemble a comprehensible picture from the tactile impressions. The visualization that materialized in
his mind showed him a gash which was barely three metres long, forty centimetres wide, but definitely extending below the
floor level. A way in, but too small for him to use.
His imagination was gibbering with images of the pursuit Sam and Octal were putting together behind him. Bubbling up from
that strange core of conviction was the knowledge that he didn’t have time to wriggle about looking for a wider gap. This
was it, his one chance.
He levered himself back down to the widest part of the gash, and wedged himself securely between the puckered furrows of ice,
then took the thermal inducer from his belt. It was a dark orange cylinder, twenty centimetres long, sculpted to fit neatly
into his gauntleted hand. All scavengers used one: with its adjustable induction field it was a perfect tool for liberating
items frozen into ice, or vacuum-welded to shell sections.
Joshua could feel his heart racing as he datavised the field profile he wanted into the inducer’s processor, and ordered his
neural nanonics to override his pacemaker, nulling the adrenalin’s effect. He lined the thermal inducer up on the centre of
the gap, took a deep breath, tensed his muscles, and initiated the program he’d loaded in his neural nanonics.
His armour suit’s lights flooded the little glaciated valley with an intense white glare. He could see dark formless phantoms
lurking within the murky ice. Pressure ridges that formed sheer planes refracted rainbow fans of light back at the collar
sensors. A gash that sank deep into the shell section’s interior, a depth hidden beyond even that intrusive light’s ability
to expose.
The thermal inducer switched on simultaneously with the lights, fluorescing a metre-wide shaft of ice into a hazy red tube.
At the power level he used it turned from solid to liquid to gas in less than two seconds. A thick pillar of steam howled
past him, blasting lumps of solid matter out into the Ruin Ring. He fought to keep his hold on the ice as the edge of the
stream grazed the armour suit.
“See you, Joshua,” Sam’s datavise echoed round his brain, laughing derisively.
The thermal inducer snapped off. A second later the rush of steam had abated enough to show him the tunnel it had cut, slick
walls reflecting the suit’s light like rippled chrome. It ended ten metres down in a polyp cave. Joshua spun round his centre
of gravity, fists hammering into the still bubbling ice, clawing desperately for traction on the slippery surface as he dived
head-first down the tunnel.
Madeeir
’s laser struck the ice as his boots disappeared below the floor. Stalagmites blew apart instantly under the violent energy
input, ice vaporized across an area three metres wide. A mushroom cloud of livid steam boiled up into space, carrying with
it a wavefront of semi-solid debris. The laser shone like a shaft of red sunlight at its centre.
“Got the little shit!” Sam Neeves’ triumphant
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