Conditions deteriorated as we journeyed downwards. Deck Three was first. I noticed the overhead was lower, the wood-grained plastic had given way to painted steel, and the temperature had risen. Tool heads conferred, androids hurried, and an atmosphere of frantic activity held sway. The feeling was reinforced by the chatter of power wrenches, the whine of lathes, the screech of saws, and the incessant smell of ozone. Burns mouthed words, but they were inaudible over the din.
Steel shook as we descended a flight of circular stairs. We were halfway down when someone yelled “Gangway!” and a man in a pressure suit pushed past. “Move, god damn it…we’ve got a stretcher coming through!”
I looked downwards and saw three men and a droid hoist a stretcher over their heads and start up the stairs. It wasn’t easy. The stretcher cradled what looked like a load of raw meat with a hole where its mouth should have been. Pieces of bone stuck out of the meat, along with rock fragments and chunks of pressure suit. Tubes ran every which way and kept the thing alive. Words popped out of my mouth. “What happened?”
“The silly bastard dropped a wrench into the rock crusher and went in after it,” the man said grimly. “He won’t make that mistake again.”
“But why?” I asked stupidly. “Wouldn’t it have been better to let it go?”
The man shrugged. “Sure, except for the five grand the corpies would deduct from his pay.”
“Five grand for a wrench?”
The smile was bitter. “Wrenches are expensive on Mars.”
I looked at the stretcher. It was closer now. “But why come this way? An elevator would be faster.”
“It sure would,” the man agreed, “if they worked. The mining gear is repaired first. Lift tubes are towards the bottom of the list.”
The stretcher party approached. The man motioned us to the rail. Bodies rubbed as the workers shuffled by.
The man turned, spit against the wall, and looked me in the eye. “Watch your step.” He took the stairs two at a time.
I turned to Burns. “He says the elevators are broken. Is that true?”
Burns shrugged. “Sure, but so what? The exercise will do them good. Come on. Time’s a-wasting.”
I started to reply but found myself addressing the back of his head. That was when Sasha caught my eye and frowned. The message was clear. “Don’t make waves.” I swallowed my anger and followed Burns downwards.
If Deck Three was bad, Two was horrible. It was a short trip from the bottom of the stairs to the unisex locker room, where a heavily dented droid gave me a bright yellow pressure suit size XXXL.
Like most locker rooms, this one contained row after row of lockers and smelled like a jockstrap. A steady stream of workers entered. Their suits dripped water from the high-pressure spray room and left trails across the deck. Most stripped to their skivvies, checked their suits for wear, and headed for the showers. Others, more modest perhaps, got into their clothes and left. No one looked at us or said anything to us. The yellow suits marked us for what we were: tourists who, if not corpies themselves, were the next worst thing.
I struggled with the final seal on my suit, traded safety checks with Sasha, and lumbered after Burns. The inside of my suit smelled better than I did. I had caught a little bit of sleep after our interview with Norton but hadn’t managed a shower.
Steam drifted away from the spray room. We followed Burns through the vapor and into a parallel corridor. It was lined with safety slogans and multilayered graffiti. The passageway ended in front of a tractor-sized lock. Five humans, two androids, and a utility bot waited to enter. They looked, then turned away. Burns spoke in my ear. “Ms. Casad, Mr. Maxon, how’s it going?”
The words were out before I could stop them. “If we assume normal dreeble, and gardunk aterbers, the resulting krepper would be 2678.33.”
Burns was as mystified as I was. “What was that?”
Sasha hurried to cover up. “We’re fine, thank you. What comes next?”
As if to answer Sasha’s question, a beacon flashed and a buzzer sounded in my helmet. It took a full minute for the lock to iris open. Six filth-covered androids and two equally dirty humans stumbled out. Even the droids looked tired. They headed for a washdown while we entered the lock and watched the hatch close behind us. When it opened, it was into a hellish world of never-ending conveyor belts, huge sorters, massive crushers, gas-injected furnaces, and molten metal. All operating in what seemed like silence at the speeds made possible by computers and low-gravity refining techniques. It seemed as if the entire complex was on eternal fast forward.
Burns led us through a canyon of sealed machinery, past a river of pulverized rock, and out into a valley of man-made lava. It moved snakelike through the artificial gullies provided for its use and caused the atmosphere to shimmer with radiated heat. Burns spent a lot of time waving at workers who didn’t wave back.
Then the vast bay was behind us, and the deck vibrated in sympathy to the nearest engine room. We entered an alcove. It was empty except for the layer of soil that covered everything and an empty cable spool. “This is as far as I go,” Burns said happily. “The colonel owns sixty thousand shares of company stock. He can live anywhere he wants and chose this. Nobody knows why. Be careful, and watch for snakes.”
“Snakes?” What the hell did that mean? I looked to see if he was kidding, but the visor obstructed his face. Sasha moved towards the stairs and I hurried to get there first. The stairs turned in on themselves and trembled under our weight. Darkness engulfed us.
Then, just as I fumbled with my helmet light, a pair of ruby-red eyes appeared. They blinked and moved closer. I reached for a weapon that wasn’t there and found the switch. A cone of hard, white light located the snake and pinned it in place. The creature had a triangular head, flared hood, and long, sinuous body. It looked like a snake but was actually robotic. Its mouth opened, fangs gleamed, and a man spoke in my helmet.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes, Maxon…welcome to Mars.” Things happened in my head. Dreams flickered, voices spoke, and pain lanced the center of my brain. The voice spoke again. “Follow Kaa. He’ll bring you to my quarters.”
I looked at Sasha. She shrugged. We followed the snake. Light gleamed off metallic scales as the robo-serpent turned and slithered downwards. It wove in and out of the rail like a shuttle on a loom. I stayed well back, taking my time and feeling my way. A pair of luminescent eyes peered down from a ledge, blinked, and disappeared. Dirt rained down on my helmet.
The stairs ended, and a matrix of crisscrossed laser beams materialized around us. It was part of a security system, and we must have passed the test, because a blastproof door slid open. Kaa reared back, hissed through my helmet speakers, and swayed as we passed. The hatch closed and we found ourselves in a lock. It had been spacious at some point in the past but was now half filled with junk.
A robotic mouse scurried across my boots, squeaked, and scooted under a box of mother boards. The lock cycled open. I looked at Sasha, shrugged, and made my way down the tunnel. There were alcoves to the right and left. All were full.
Whatever else Wamba was, or had been, he was someone with an affinity for junk. Not just any junk, but robotic junk, of every conceivable shape and size. Walking through the passageway was like touring the android equivalent of a meat packing plant. Robotic cadavers were piled every which way, their arms, legs and torsos all akimbo, their long-dead sensors staring blankly from the shadows. One of them sat up, tilted its head to one side, and opened its eyes. The voice grated in my helmet. “Stop. Remove your suits. Leave them here. Have a nice day. Stop. Remove your suits. Leave them here. Have a nice day…”