It bore a label reading Mycoborer, experimental, GSA Patent Applied For. Do not remove from GalacTech Company premises without authorization, under penalty of immediate termination and criminal prosecution. Inside the box were layers of trays holding an array of thin, dark sticks, each about fifty centimeters long.
“How deep should we go for the first vertical shaft?” asked Amiri.
“Since Pearl’s location has given us the first two stories down for free, I think eight meters should be enough to start,” said Grandmama judiciously. “We may have to dogleg down more later, depending on what we find between, but that should put us approximately level with the top floor of my old laboratory bunker.”
“What diameter? A meter may not be very roomy, if we have to bring much stuff back up and out.”
“Mm, we may be able to drive a parallel or diagonal shaft later. For the moment, the chief urgency is to get someone inside to inventory what’s still there as swiftly as possible.”
If anything, Tej couldn’t help thinking.
“Right,” said Amiri, and gingerly took up a pair of cutters, measured eight centimeters along one of the sticks, and snipped it through. He then took a half-meter-long drilling rod, descended to the hole, and began twisting it down through the hard-packed soil. Everything still all by gloved hand.
“If we’re doing this,” said Tej, “then why do I have to spend all day tomorrow driving Star around to engineering and plumbing supply places?”
“To give your nice ImpSec people something to look at, dear,” said Grandmama. “They will be happier that way, I’m sure.”
“By the time they think we’re ready to start, we should be done,” said Pearl. “How did you find out about this”-she bent to peer at the label-“Mycoborer product, anyway?”
“I did some consulting a few years back for GalacTech Bioengineering, and struck up an acquaintance with one of the developers.”
“Did you steal it out of their labs?” asked Pearl, with an air of incipient admiration.
“By no means,” said Grandmama, with a bit of a sniff, possibly at so crude a concept. “But when I and your mother and Shiv thought of this possible resource, I remembered Carlo, and went to see him. He was happy to give me a large supply. I thought it might be needed.” Her tone was a touch smug.
Amiri slipped the stick down his new hole, eyed it for straightness, climbed out, and drew from his valise a liter bottle of perfectly ordinary household ammonia, apparently purchased from some local grocery. He descended again and gingerly poured about half of it in around the stick. It disappeared into the dark with a bare gurgle, only its pungent aroma rising, along with Amiri, from their little excavation. Tej hastily readjusted her mask.
Four people stood around the pit, staring.
“Nothing’s happening,” said Tej after a minute.
“I thought you said this would work fast,” said Pearl.
“It’s not instantaneous,” chided Grandmama. “Macro-biological processes seldom are.” She added after a while, as anything visible continued to not happen, “The Mycoborer was developed as a method of laying pipe without having to dig trenches; the genetic developer hopes it can be trained to build its own custom pipe as it goes, but that seems to lie in the future. For the moment, they’re happy to have it proceed in a straight route with uniform diameter.”
“Pipes,” said Tej, trying to picture this. “Will they be big enough for people to get through?”
“Some pipes are quite large,” said Grandmama. “For civic water tunnels and underground monorails, for example.”
“Oh,” said Tej. “Um…if it’s really alive, what stops it from just growing forever?”
“The tubular walls, which are composed of its own waste products, eventually choke it off,” said Grandmama. “Failing that, there is a suicide gene built-in after it loses enough telomeres, and failing that, there is ordinary senescence. And failing that, it can be sterilized by heat. Really, I was entirely in sympathy with poor Carlo over his frustration with the delays about the scaled-up outdoor testing. Those Earth regulatory agencies are so obstructive.”
Amiri blinked. “Wait. This stuff has never been tested?”
“Outdoors, no. It has been tested most extensively in Carlo’s laboratory.” She added pensively, “It is supposed to penetrate fairly swiftly through soil, subsoil, and clay. So-so through sand. Poor in limestone, stopped by granite and other igneous rocks and by most synthetic materials. It is possible we may be compelled to reroute a few times, if the Mycoborer comes up against unexpected subsoil inclusions.”
Amiri was staring downward, looking disconcerted. “Never been tested…and we’re betting the House on it?”
“It’s being tested now,” said Grandmama, in a voice of utmost reason. “And in a very tidy legal isolation from its Earth-based parent company, too. Biological isolation as well. Although I have promised to send Carlo a full report of the trial, sub rosa of course. That was, as dear Shiv would say, our deal.”
She took the cold light from Pearl, knelt, and squinted. “Ah,” she said, sounding suddenly satisfied. “Now you can start to see something.”
All Tej saw was what appeared to be a foam of black goo forming around the lip of the borer hole, but Amiri seemed vaguely impressed.
“No noise, no vibration, no power surges of any kind,” said Grandmama. “Silent and stealthy as a fungal filament. Nothing for sensors to detect, until we start to walk about down there. I trust you all can contain your chatter, when the time comes.”
“Great,” said Pearl. “Now can we go to lunch?”
“Excellent idea,” said Grandmama. “Certainly.”
“Is it safe to leave this stuff alone?” asked Amiri.
Grandmama shrugged. “If it’s not safe to leave, it’s not safe to stay with, now is it?”
“That’s…a point,” said Amiri reluctantly. He didn’t say what kind.
Tej helped shift the slab back, move the shelves, and tidy up. When they finished, there was no sign of their intrusion but a new crack in the concrete, which, since the floor had a few others, ought to pass visual inspection. They exited the garage into a cold afternoon rain, and then she had no attention left for anything but getting them all through Vorbarr Sultana traffic alive.
As a first step toward re-seducing Tej, Ivan had a splendid dinner waiting her return that evening. And waiting, slowly drying out. About two hours after she’d said she’d be home, the door at last slid open, and voices sounded. Ivan arose grumpily from the couch, schooled his face into a smile, and lost it again as not only Tej, but Rish and Byerly strode in. In the middle of a raging argument.
“-and stop putting bugs in my hair!” Rish snarled to By. “You’d think you were twelve!”
“If you would just talk to me, we wouldn’t have any need for this roundabout method of communication,” said By, his normally suave voice slipping a bit.
“And where do you get the we need, anyway? If I need to talk to you, I will, believe me!”
Tej rubbed her temples, as if they ached. “Hi, Ivan Xav,” she said in a dull voice. She did not advance to kiss him or, as had been her even more charming habit considering her fetching build, hug him. “Sorry I’m late. Things ran on.”
“What things?”
“Just things.”
“Well, dinner?” said Ivan brightly. Yeah, it looked to be hypoglycemia city all around, here.
“I had a late lunch,” said Tej.
“I’m going back to the hotel,” said Rish. Ivan didn’t even get out an Oh, good, before she went on, “Are you coming with me, Tej? Or do you want to stay here and be interrogated?”
Tej cast Ivan a grimace that had little in common with a smile, and a tired wave. “Yes, all right…”
“Wait!” Ivan called as they reversed direction, shedding By. “When will you be back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, will you be back here to sleep? Should I wait up?”
“I don’t know.”