The Mind Pool

Chan realized, with gloomy satisfaction, that from the Stellar Group’s point or view everything was safe enough. The capsule s current parking orbit was low, and atmospheric drag would bring it to re-entry and burn-up in only a couple of weeks. Whatever happened, Nimrod would not gain access to the Q-ship, and the Mattin Link that sat within it. Everyone except Vayvay became subdued when they entered the shaft. Chan felt particularly depressed. As they gradually lost the sunlight, his mood sank to match the shadowed gloom of Travancore’s lower forest. The spiraling path seemed to go on forever, down and down and down. The journey took longer than Chan had expected, because Vayvay always wanted to stop and nibble at any promising growth of leaves.

“As we were warned,” said Angel. “Browsing-distance-days.”

At last they persuaded the Coromar to keep going by additional bribes from the stores that they were carrying. The downward pace increased. Finally they came to the end of the vertical shaft. The drop to the surface took place in a close and dripping darkness. It felt to Chan like an irreversible and unwise step when he released his hold and fell lightly to the forest floor.

He was claustrophobic and filled with u

He could not remember. Somehow he could not bring himself to ask Angel to check the official record.

The floor of the jungle was flat, spongy, and damp. Nothing grew here except the immense boles of the megatrees, each one scores of meters across at the base. Long trailers of creeper depended from the upper levels and hung between the trunks. Faintly phosphorescent, their intertwined filaments hindered the path of any traveler moving on the natural surface.

After a few seconds of squeaking and searching, Vayvay set off across the forest floor, burrowing a way through the tangled creepers. Soon they came to one of the horizontal pathways. Two minutes more, and Vayvay had found the entrance. They walked into an arched structure, shining their lights around them on the orange and brown walls of a primitive roofed chamber.

“Home of the Maricore,” said Angel. “Apparently they do a poor job of maintenance. Vayvay says that we should not expect to meet the Maricore. They are nervous, and will keep out of our way.”

They set off along one of four tu

Chan walked last, in a foul mood. When they met Nimrod, they had to act at once to disable or destroy the Construct. He had warned the others. This time there could be none of the do-as-you-please behavior that had somehow worked on Barchan. They had all agreed — but how could he be sure that Shikari and Angel and S’greela would follow any instructions when the critical moment came?

It was a time for fears, memories, and introspection. No one spoke. Chan, hot and sweating, looked around him and observed their surroundings with the floating, feverish intensity of a bad nightmare. It was hard to plod along across soggy, decaying leaves and molds, and realize that only five kilometers away Travancore’s sun was still illuminating the emerald green grottoes of the upper forest. If the descent had seemed long, this march through the broken pathway on the surface was interminable.

More than three hours passed before Vayvay halted again, and finally. No amount of prodding would persuade the Coromar to move. They were at a branch point in the surface network, with enough room for Angel to glide forward and stand alongside Vayvay. There was a short conversation. To Chan, even the ultrasonics sounded damped and muffled by their dank surroundings.

“Vayvay will go no farther,” said Angel. “Not even for abundant food. We are within two kilometers of Nimrod’s presumed location. Vayvay says, if we continue along the broader branch here, and ignore any narrow side branches, we will come to the location that we specified.”

“What will Vayvay do now?”

“If we desire the Coromar to do so, it will wait here — with the supplies.”

“Say that he is to wait here for two days, if Vayvay knows what a day is,” said Chan. “If we are not back by then, everything is his.”

“Vayvay is not he,” corrected Angel. “But a Coromar possesses a sense of time. The message will be delivered.” While that was being done, Chan insisted on a final check of equipment. Each team member carried weapons, but after the training on Barchan, Chan was sure that for Angel and Shikari it was a total waste of effort. It took forever for each of them to train and fire. He wondered again about the way that pursuit teams were being used by the Anabasis. Now that he had met Brachis and Mondrian, it seemed more in keeping with their natures to lob a bomb in from orbit. They might blow away a few cubic miles of Travancore along with the Morgan Construct, but it would be a no-risk operation.

He suspected that they had thought about it long ago — and known it would be vetoed in horror by the rest of the Stellar Group.

The most dangerous time was approaching. Chan moved to lead the way. S’greela came next, holding a pencil light high above Chan to cast a narrow, bobbing beam along the roofed corridor. Behind them Vayvay gave a squeak of farewell, answered by Angel, and then everything was silent. The loudest sound in the tu

Earlier progress had been glacier slow. Now they seemed to be rushing forward. Soon they had less than one kilometer to go. Chan found himself staring hard at the darkness, trying somehow to see beyond the farthest point illuminated by S’greela’s ghostly light beam. There was nothing. Nothing but silent walls of orange-brown, stretching out forever in front of them.

And then, suddenly, it ended. The rounded tu

According to Angel, Nimrod should be less than fifty meters ahead. So what now?

Before Chan could give any command, three things happened at once. An insane burst of metallic clicking came from Angel’s communicator, and rose to a supersonic scream of activity that hurt Chan’s ears. Shikari burst apart, filling the air in the clearing with a whirling swarm of components. At the same moment S’greela’s light jerked high into the air, then abruptly went out.

Chan froze. Angel went suddenly silent. The darkness around them was absolute. Chan turned to move closer to the others. Before he could take a step he was gripped tightly around the waist and whipped off his feet. Something immensely strong and wiry spun him dizzily end-over-end, then violently threw him, outward and upward.

He flew on for ages. Chan curled into a ball and protected his skull with his arms. At any moment he might smash into one of the huge and solid tree trunks. The impact would be fatal at this speed.

The feared collision never came. Instead his wild flight was ended by a soft material that stretched and stretched to absorb his momentum. He was slowed to a halt, then dropped headfirst. He prepared for collision with the spongy jungle surface, but that too never came. Instead he found himself suspended in mid-air, wriggling in the restraining hold of a rubbery, fine-meshed net.

Chan had never felt so helpless. He had lost his weapon. He could not see. The net offered no resistance, nothing tangible to struggle against. Even if somehow he were able to escape from its hold, he would have no idea what to do next.