Jack L. Chalker Three Kings 2 Melchior's Fire

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It wouldn t even know that there wasn t any such thing as a panic button
creating such a vacuum.
So long as the truth is out, she said slowly, sitting down in one of the
command chairs, her stomach almost in convulsions, would you like to talk?
For another moment there was silence, and then An Li s voice asked, To what
purpose?
You re highly intelligent. Probably a lot smarter than any of us. Did your
kind evolve here or just become stranded here until those unfortunates landed
and built their colony and somehow woke you up? Were you this smart before or
only after you killed them all and stole their knowledge?
Dialogue is irrelevant. No one is dead. All have become part of us. The many
have merely become one. You will know this when you are a part of us, and we
will know you, and you will become immortal with us.
She started to protest, but then realized that, from the thing s point of
view, it probably was right. From its vantage point, it simply incorporated
their minds and mass into its own, and this was the proper way of things. To
her, the colonists were dead. To , the colonists were all right there.
it
The base gave a shudder, then came a series of vibrations that shook the
entire control room.
She thought for a moment that the alien was doing something, then she turned
and looked at the scanning screen, amazed at her own composure at this point.
The smelter! Achmed was sliding the thing back into its grooves on the base
unit and then locking it down. Next he d be opening the hatch from up top. If
they d managed to ooze in through the air vents, then he d get a sudden and
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dramatic welcoming committee!
She didn t know much about the settings, but the small cameras showing the
entire perimeter of the base, so useless in trying to find the suits, now
showed the shuttle. It hadn t docked as yet; Cross seemed wary, and was
checking over the entire structure from stem to stern.
Suddenly a heavy bolt of energy shot out from the shuttle to a blind spot
between two ground-level cameras and something jerked and then dropped into
view on the ground itself under the base, writhing and smoking. A second
expertly placed bolt caught the blue environmental suit full. It shimmered,
glowed white, and for just a moment there was the sense of a human or humanoid
body shape in the midst, then it winked out, leaving only white powder that
was quickly picked up and dissipated by the wind.
Damn! Lucky had caught onto that one, but where were the other two? Their
colors should really stand out if they were hovering in the blind spots, so
obviously they weren t. They also had clearly turned off and adjusted every
element to be as invisible to sensors as possible. So where were they? Even if
the creatures had gotten inside somehow, it was very unlikely that they could
have brought their suits in with them without access to the controls in this
room, and that she was going to deny them.
An alarm sounded behind her, and she turned, startled, to see the diagram on
the main screen showing a complete dock and lockdown of the smelter unit and
the opening of the topmost hatch. That meant Achmed was coming inside. If the
things weren t already here then he was safe, but if they d somehow gotten in
he wouldn t last long at all.
Outside, Cross was laying down a weak fire field around the entire base unit
and under it as well. That was what was causing the slight vibration she felt
now, and it puzzled her. As it reached a stronger level, though, two suits
popped out from under the base in one of those spots a scanning camera would
leave blind for a few minutes, and she realized that they d somehow dug a
shallow pit in that time and covered themselves with the fine dust. Cross saw
them, too, and came around near ground level and sprayed them with a series of
bolts just strong enough to blow the suits but not strong enough to threaten
the ground on which the base stood nor the base itself.
Still there? How do you like it now? she asked the thing.
There was no reply, but she wished she had better control of the cameras and a
better understanding of the master board now. She needed a closeup on those
two suits, or at least a second look, for she d sworn that one of them, at
least, had its helmet blown clear off and that there was nothing in it.
Cross angled a burn on the side and Queson realized that one of the things,
now in its flowing, plastic state, was crawling up the side of the base. From
being open to exposure of the hostile elements, the thing suddenly found it
very hot as Lucky Cross fried it with a heat ray, the safest powerful weapon
she could use directly against the side of the base. An outer skin designed
for atmospheric entry would not find even a full-power heat ray much of a
jolt, but anything open and exposed on the skin would find it a different
story.
Still, was that the one from the empty suit or from the other one?
Damn!
she swore to herself in frustration at the lack of communications. These [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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