A glowing anthill filled the hall; it brightened as the hall lights dimmed.
Neon vermilion tunnels, dozens of them. Hundreds of bright green dots chewed at the tips, extending the tunnels, then flowed back up to the trunk of the beast. Cadmann remembered an ant farm his brother had built when both were small. These tunnels had more of a fractal look. Despite irregularities in the topography of this mainland mountain range, the automated widgets were following a plan; you saw a symmetry, large patterns repeated in diminishing scale.
In the tip of a tunnel, light flared. A conspicuous shock wave, confined, flowed upward to a main trunk. Refining machinery flared red, then pulsed red-black, red-black.
The crowd's whispered reaction was immediate, and ugly.
Linda raised her voice above, the sound of that evil wind. "Something exploded. Not high explosive, something more like gunpowder. How it got down there... well. All we know is that the refinery has shut down, and we can't correct the damage from here."
Toshiro raised a hand. "Couldn't this be any sort of normal equipment failure?"
Linda said, "Toshiro, these bore collectors are just drills and a bucket for the ore. They run on solar cells and fuel cells, the fuel cells are just high-tech batteries, they can't explode, and there aren't any fuel cells where we're having the problem anyway."
"Of course you thought about this before. Sorry."
"It's okay. But people, it really was an explosion, and it really did come roaring up from the tip of a bore tube. Cassandra, show us the interference waves."
Which wasn't a lot of help, Cadmann thought. And there was Mary Ann, delighted, proud of their daughter, and knowing damned well he couldn't read the patterns now flowing across the wall either. Mickey probably could, but he wasn't saying anything.
Cadmann leaned over to Carlos. "Did you know about this? Anything at all?"
"News to me, amigo. And I don't like the sound of it." Carlos stood and thrust his hand aggressively into the air. "Request to be recognized."
"Sure," Linda said.
Carlos cleared his throat. "There is a word which hasn't been spoken, but which I sense may be on many minds. The word is sabotage, and there are a thousand reasons to believe that no one here would do such a thing. This is no prank. It's the wrong style. It profits no one and it isn't funny. Before we form any opinions, I assume that arrangements are being made for an on-site inspection?"
Linda petted the baby, looked out to her husband for a moment, and nodded. "Why would it be sabotage? How could anyone have put an explosive there? A gnat couldn't get into those tunnels. Of course we'll go look at the machinery. We'll look, and we'll find out it was something weird. Avalon Surprise!"
Tip of a tunnel. No Merry Prankster could have crawled down a tunnel, Cadmann thought. Too narrow, and the central processing plant was a metal plug massing hundreds of tons. The mine was all nanotechnology; it had been growing in place for seventeen years. The tunnels led to it, not past it.
Cadmann leaned toward his son. "Mickey? You know mines. Any suggestions?"
Mickey frowned and shook his head. "Avalon Weird," he muttered, but not loud enough for anyone but Cadmann, to hear.
As good as any other theory, Cadmann thought. You couldn't even... hmm. Cause a bore collector to deposit a charge of dynamite or gunpowder? Acquired how? From the fuel cell dump? A bore collector had been at work when the explosion happened.
It would have been a hell of a difficult prank. Would it be enough for the Merry Pranksters that it was impossible? There didn't seem to be any other motive. The mine was the colony's mineral source. Why choke that off?
Joe Sikes limped up to the platform. "Linda's right, it's Avalon Weird. Something else about this planet we don't know. Something that happens on the mainland and not here."
"And it's time to take the Grendel Scout candidates over to the mainland anyway," Linda finished for him. "I just wanted everyone to see how much trouble this was causing... "
She thinks it's sabotage, Cadmann thought. I guess I do too.
"Impossible" is a challenge to the Surf's Up crowd.
"So what should we do?" someone asked. "Can we fix it?"
"We have to go look," Linda said. "There's no point in fixing it until we know what happened."
There's that tone again. She really does believe it's the pranksters.
They get their joke and the mainland expedition they want all at once. Linda hates this, and she's talked Joe into leaving it lay. Wonder if that's the right approach?
It was clear enough that Joe would prefer it was the Pranksters. That would give him the moral high ground. Joe seriously wanted to be an alpha male, particularly now that he'd hooked up with a much younger woman.
Cadmann would have stopped that marriage if he could. He still wondered what they saw in each other. Because Linda looked very like her mother, and Mary Ann had slept with Joe Sikes before Cadmann staked his claim? Be honest. She reclaimed me from an alcoholic fog. It's her claim on me, not the other way around...
Old news. Cadmann Weyland's effector nerves didn't extend into other human beings, not even into his daughter. It was a thing he had to relearn constantly.
Meanwhile: the bomb.
It was a difficult prank, but possible. Develop your own nano-beasties. Or drill straight down from the surface to where a convenient bore collector would be in a week, or a month, if you could just work out the damned fractal pattern-
But it didn't feel right, and Cadmann felt the hairs trying to stand up along his neck and arms. An Avalon Surprise, on the mainland, where there are dragons. Alarum: Linda would go to the mainland with his grandson. She never left Cadzie. Mary Ann had raised her children the same way, with lots of affection and bonding.
Linda and Joe knew those mines better than anyone, and they had no clue, so what was more probable? This didn't feel like the Pranksters. It was destructive and unfunny. And if not them, than an Avalon Surprise: like the grendels.
Mary Ann's hand closed over his. "Penny?"
"Bad bargain," he said quietly. "Bad memories. I'm going to be helpless again."
"You don't like that feeling, do you?"
"Being tied to a table with a grendel in my lap. Being tied to this island while my grandson is half a world away."
"Go with them."
"I don't think they want Daddy tagging along." And what he didn't say was: I've had enough, Mary Ann. I don't want any more excitement. I've had all I need for one lifetime. Let someone else deal with the damned dragons.
And Linda was handling herself beautifully. She was in a spot: she had to admit the possibility of sabotage-but could only admit it to herself. She couldn't let that uncertainty infect the Earth Born. On the other hand, she had to let potential perpetrators know she knew, and hope to God they had enough sense to stop.
A fine line, indeed.
There was another general murmur, and both Jessica and Little Chaka raised their hands.
"Jessie," Linda said. "You wanted to say something?"
Jessica pushed Little Chaka ahead of her, and they both strode onto the stage. Linda and Joe Sikes retired hand in hand to their seats. Chaka strode to the podium and blinked at the crowd. "Cassandra, display my Long Mama Demo, please."
The screen behind him lit to show the eel struggling up the Amazon, flashed ahead to show it in the glacial pool, then cut to the covered tank where it glared up at the camera. "Our visitor. She's not really an eel, but that's the closest thing Earth evolved to this, a big saltwater eel."
"Sure startled me!" Jessica said. "Came right into the living room at the Hold."
Someone guffawed and an adult voice shouted. "Good thing for Long Mama Cadmann wasn't home!"