A shiver went up and down Kirsty's spine. "None at all, sir."
"How long will it take to get the drones aboard?"
"Three hours."
"Okay. Start 'em up."
"Aye, sir," Kirsty said. "I wonder, sir, if I might have just a couple of hours?"
Josh waited.
"I've just started moving one of the drones." She pushed buttons and the image of the planet turned on the screen. A pointer stabbed toward an area of featureless white. "Here's another major land mass on the opposite side of the globe. I'd like to have a drone work there for a couple of hours to see if the same grid pattern of installations is in place."
Josh nodded. "I see no problem with that."
Sheba was with Angela on the control bridge. When Josh told them that they'd be blinking out toward the Rimfire route in about five hours, Angela sighed deeply. It had become apparent, with the attack of the unmanned drone, that the Erin Kenner had encountered an alien intelligence. She had not questioned Josh openly, but she'd felt then that it was time to back off and call in the headquarters boffins with their elaborate equipment and stringent safeguards.
Sheba said, "What about the bodies of our folks?"
"Queenie, they're a part of the whole. We couldn't touch them, even if I disobeyed regulations and common sense and sent a manned launch down to the surface."
"Josh, they'll see," Sheba said. "Everyone who comes here will see what Ruth and David were doing."
Josh shook his head regretfully. "Can't be helped, Queenie."
"My father and mother are down there," Sheba said with emotion. "He was born on Tigian II, and he loved it. You were sent a copy of his will. If you read it, you might remember that he provided that his and Mother's ashes be placed in the family memorial at T-Town. That meant a lot to him, because that memorial holds the ashes of six generations of Websters. He provided a place for each of us, too, Josh. There are niches for Ruth and David."
"We can request that the remains be sent there when X&A has completed its investigation," Josh said.
"Josh, damnit, I don't know what kind of a place this is, or what the hell went on down there, but I know damned well that what Ruth and David were doing when they died was not their idea."
"No, I guess not," Josh said.
"You could separate them with one of the drones," Sheba said.
"Queenie, if a drone touches them, they'll shatter. We haven't been able to get exact temperature readings of frozen objects such as a bone, or the metal of the ships. We know that objects alien to this planet are much colder than the very thin air around them. Kirsty Girard thinks that it's close to absolute zero in the interior of the metals that shattered on touch, and that would hold true for the bodies. At that temperature durasteel crumbles like a cracker. Try to separate David and Ruth and we'd have a pile of frozen chips of flesh and bone."
"Which could be decently cremated," Sheba said.
"No," Josh said. "I'm sorry."
"Captain," said Kirsty Girard's voice on the communicator, "can you come to Science and Navigation?"
"On my way, Kirsty," Josh said.
Both Angela and Sheba followed him to stand in the door to Kirsty's
"office" as Josh leaned over a monitor. They could both see a darkness in a field of white ice.
As Josh watched, the dark spot resolved itself into a square cube of metal. The drone was airborne, and was closing on the structure.
"Why didn't we spot this before?" Josh asked.
"Because up until about one hour ago it was covered by two hundred feet of ice," Kirsty said. "I had the area on camera, a wide view, when the ice began to melt. The computer alerted me to the change in image. It took only sixteen minutes for the ice cover to be removed."
Josh felt a prickle of alarm at the nape of his neck. She had phrased her words to indicate that she believed that the dull metal square had been deliberately revealed by someone or by something.
"Keep the drone at two miles distance," Josh ordered. "Readout?"
Kirsty was controlling the drone with eye and head movements inside a snug-fitting helmet. She hovered the drone and ordered use of all of its sensors.
"No emissions. No radiation. No heat," she said.
"Bring the drone home," Josh said.
"Wait," Kirsty said, with excitement in her voice. "The shell of that square is made of the same metal that was in the hull of the ship that attacked us. No wonder we're getting no readings. That stuff would keep heat or any emissions inside."
"Bring it home, Kirsty," Josh ordered calmly.
"Yes, sir," Kirsty said. She thought the order.
The drone moved swiftly, darting directly toward the metal cubeprotruding above the ice.
"Watch it," Josh said.
"Come back, damn you," Kirsty grated between her teeth as the drone settled onto the smooth top of the cube. She looked up at Josh, her eyes wide. "It's all right," she said. "There's no danger."
Josh felt a sense of relief. A great peace settled over him. "No," he said,
"there is no danger."
"We can get Ruth and David now," Sheba said.
For a moment Angela felt protest rising in her, but she, too, felt the great sense of peace and rightness. She smiled.
"Kirsty, send a drone down to the Fran Webster. Use the earth sampler scoop to gather up the two bodies. Seal them in a specimen bag."
"They'll be mixed together," Sheba said.
"They died together," Angela said.
"We can try to gather them in separately," Josh said.
Angela felt protest rising again, sensed that something was very wrong, tried to overcome the powerful sense of well-being that engulfed her. She moved toward the drone control panel, forcing each step. Her limbs were heavy. Her feet seemed to be anchored in thick, heavy mud. She lifted a control helmet.
"Better let Kirsty do it, Angel," Josh said. "She's more accustomed to the peculiarities of each drone."
"Yes, all right," Angela said.
Kirsty had switched away from the drone that rested atop the dark cube of metal on the other side of the world. She was directing one of the returning drones to reverse direction and go down to the surface again.
"I'll just monitor," Angela said, and her movements became more free.
She put out her hand and touched a switch and felt the control contact with the drone atop the cube. She braced herself and gave the order. Thedrone shifted position and on the screen a bright speck of fire appeared as it extended the nozzle of a molecular cutting torch and began to slice into the metal of the cube.
"Angela, what the hell—" Josh began. The rest of his question was cut off by a flare of light on the screen as the drone disintegrated.
Angela made one small sound as she toppled to the deck. Josh bent over her, removed the helmet. He cried out harshly, a painful, strained male scream. The beautiful emerald eyes had been exploded out of their sockets. Blood ran from her ears and her nose, and her skull, as he extended his hand and touched her, was soft. He withdrew his hand quickly and looked at his fingers. They were covered with blood and something else, a white paste. It was as if her brain had exploded inside her skull, shattering and pulping the bone, oozing out into her long, blonde hair.
Before either Kirsty or Sheba could react, Josh was at the console. He punched in a quick order, took weapons control, and within seconds a laser beam lanced downward, curved around the horizon. Kirsty, guessing what Josh intended, focused another viewer on the cube of metal on the far continent. She gasped as she saw that it was already almost hidden by ice.
The laser beam exploded on target. It was some time before the viewers could see through the resulting cloud of steam and fragments. When the view was clear, there was a large crater where the cube had been, and even as Josh and the others watched the ice began to melt and cover the crater with a swiftly forming lake of clear water.
Josh was searching out the next target. Once again the beam lanced down and there was another crater and an expanding area of melt as another cube was destroyed.