Empire of Light

A lot of them were formed relatively recently, and in the same short period of time, right?'

'Exactly It's like something turned up here, killed everything living it found, then disappeared again.'

'All right,' she said, eyeing him with wary respect. 'But if that does turn out to be the case, doesn't it lend itself rather strongly to the notion that if the Mos Hadroch was ever here, it's gone now? And you told me yourself the Atn clades used to go to war with each other. Maybe the ones in this asteroid just happened to lose a fight.'

Ty shook his head violently. 'No, the assumption used to be that the Atn must have fought amongst themselves, but the data we got from Merrick makes a strong case for the swarm being responsible for all the damage to clade-worlds we've found in the past.' He stared thoughtfully at the stack-discs for several seconds.

'But? I can tell there's a but.'

'There are clade-worlds in even worse condition than this one, back home, but I've never come across stack-discs that looked like they'd been as carefully and deliberately smashed as these.'

She glanced at the melted remains of the Atn, and then back at Ty. 'You think this one smashed them himself, before he got killed?'

'I think it's a fair conjecture. There was something in those discs he didn't want found. Maybe even the exact location of the Mos Hadroch.'

She stared at him like he was an imbecile. 'But if the stacks-discs have been destroyed, how the hell are you going to find out?'

'By looking at things differently. For a start, we've mapped out every inch of this asteroid, but there's one passageway off Shaft A that's a hundred metres too short.'

She looked at him blankly, and he explained further. 'Look, every single Atn clade in existence follows the exact same internal architecture. It's like they have a blueprint they never deviate from. They only go for bodies of a certain size, between seventy and one hundred kilometres across. Then there are always two central shafts, and exactly the same number of branching passageways and chambers, all in the same place and according to a ratio relative to a particular asteroid's dimensions.'

He grabbed her by the shoulders and gri

'You think there's something hidden behind it?'

'Why not? There's gear back on the frigate that can tell us if I'm right.'

Nancy carefully extracted herself from his grasp. 'Well, that's great. We can have Martinez send over some explosives so we can blow it open.'

'First we need to know how thick the false wall is. Too thick and we'll need a lot of explosives, except that could collapse the passageway on top of us and maybe destroy whatever they hid beyond. No,' he shook his head, 'first we image the passageway to get some idea what's back there. We can even drill a hole through if necessary. But we need to get started on this now, Nancy. Right now.'

She stared at him for another moment, then set her mouth in a firm line and opened a comms link to the Mjollnir 's bridge.

Ty felt a weight lift off his shoulders; it seemed they were finally getting somewhere. Less than an hour later, Curtis Randall and Anton Swedberg – technical specialists – were manoeuvring new equipment down the shaft and into the suspect passageway, with the help of nearly a dozen spider-mechs. A large drill mechanism, mounted on a tripod and assembled from a kit, had been set up next to the false wall, its three legs firmly secured to the floor. The drill bit itself was hidden from view behind a flat plastic shield.

'Got word from Perez,' Ty heard Randall say over their shared comms. 'Martinez is coming online in a couple of seconds. Something's up.'

Ty glanced behind himself and saw two spider-mechs delicately directing a package down the passageway towards the false wall, casting deep shifting shadows as they passed under a string of lights positioned along the ceiling. 'What is it?'

'Anton says he spoke to Tibbs on the bridge, and Mjollnir 's picking up a local increase in background tach-net noise as well as gravity flux waves in the tach-net continuum. Looks like the swarm just arrived.'

Ty felt a sudden panic flood him. They were ru

Get a grip, he thought angrily. He glanced over at Nancy, unpacking gear beside him, and caught the look of alarm on her face, even through her visor.

'If we're lucky, it's only a few advance scouts,' Randall added, as the two spiders came to a halt. Ty turned to them and began unstrapping the packages they carried. 'I'm sorry to be, you know, the bearer of bad news.'

Ty nodded, feeling numb. 'Then we have to-'

'Forgive me for eavesdropping, Mr Driscoll,' said Martinez, 'but I couldn't help overhearing.' Ty glanced down and noticed that the small, gold-coloured bar representing the Mjollnir's commander had manifested in one corner of his visor. 'The situation's starting to look pretty desperate from where I'm standing.'

Ty could hear murmured conversations and background noises on the bridge. 'How far away are they?' Ty asked immediately. 'A star system's a big place, Commander, so we might have as much as a couple of days before they figure out exactly where the asteroid is.'

'Mr Driscoll, if the swarm gets here before we leave, it isn't going to matter a damn whether you find anything behind that wall or not.'

'I know that, sir,' Ty replied carefully. 'But all I really need is a couple of hours. You know how important this is.'

The background hiss faded for a moment, and Ty guessed Martinez was consulting with Dan Perez, one of his senior officers.

'Okay, here's what I propose,' said Martinez when he came back online. 'The instant the swarm appears, the Mjollnir jumps straight out of this system regardless of whether you're still on that rock or not. The same goes for everyone else who stays there, and the choice is strictly voluntary. I have to think of the crew.'

'Nobody's under any obligation to stay here and help me if they don't want to,' Ty replied, glancing over at Nancy and Curtis, 'but I know I can do it a hell of a lot quicker if I have some help.'

'What about the spiders?' asked Martinez. 'Have you considered whether you could run the entire operation from the bridge?'

'No,' Ty said straight away. 'Look, the spiders help a lot, but they're no good for fast, delicate work. They're far too slow and clumsy for what we need to do here, and it'll end up taking much longer than it should, if we have do the entire thing by tele-operation.'

'Nathan's right,' Ty heard Nancy say. 'The spiders are fine for this kind of work only if there's no time constraint.'

'Yeah, I agree,' said Curtis. 'The more of us down here who know what we're doing, the faster we get everything done and get back out. The last of the detectors is now in place, so we should be able to pick up a video feed straight away.'

'That's fine, Curtis,' Martinez replied. 'But every analysis says we don't need more than two people down there, so I want you and Anton back here on the frigate. Nancy and Nathan, I spoke to Cesar. He's going to remain on the surface with a fast launcher. Just don't take one second longer than you have to.'

'No problem.'

Martinez cut the co

'Detectors?' asked Nancy.

'Muon detectors,' Curtis explained. 'We stuck them around the surface of the asteroid. They pick up traces of decaying cosmic-ray particles, so we can build up a picture of whatever's inside there.'

Ty nodded. 'Did you bring the screens?'

Curtis passed a rolled-up video monitor over to Ty, who opened and smoothed it against one wall, holding it flat there while Curtis retrieved a hammer from a spider's toolbox and nailed the monitor to the stone at all four corners.