Below the picture of the shaft, all the way down to the floor, was a series of carvings. The first showed the sphere and what looked like a rectangular console. The second frame showed the sphere dropping into the shaft's depths. The third appeared to illustrate an explosion, an explosion that destroyed the thin supporting pillars, shattering them like brittle crystal candlestick holders. The fourth frame showed the ship and the tunnel complex tumbling in on itself, collapsing under its own weight. The last frame in the series illustrated some kind of flood. Liquid filled the tunnel and rocktopi appeared to be bursting into flames.
"Sanji,” Connell said breathlessly. “Come take a look at this."
Sanji stared for a moment, then his eyes widened with surprise. “Oh my goodness,” he said, his voice filled with sudden dread. “They will do anything to avoid their enemy."
"What do you mean?” Veronica asked, her eyes squinting in concentration. “They're going to flood the tunnel with water?"
"Not water,” Connell said. “Magma. They would drop that sphere down that tunnel. It would detonate somewhere near the mantle. Everything we've been in, everything we're standing on, the ship… everything… would cave in and then fill with magma."
"That's impossible,” Veronica said. “Look at how deep that must be. We're already over three miles down; there's no way they could dig that deep."
"Judging by what we've seen so far, the Old Rocktopi knew what they were doing,” Connell said. “I can't imagine they'd paint such a picture unless it were true."
"A doomsday device,” Sanji said. “But why?"
"Because they only understand death,” Veronica said, her eyes glassy and unfocused. “Their culture is military. They'd die before admitting a final defeat. See that first frame? That looks like a control console or something — they left instructions for their descendants, instructions on how to blow up the whole mountain and the rocktopi race along with it."
"There is no way such a device would work after all this time,” Sanji said, standing and stretching. “I do not think anything has worked down here for thousands of years."
Connell checked his watch; they still had three minutes before they had to head back. He looked up — Veronica was already heading for the next alcove. Connell followed her, intent on cutting the little jaunt a few minutes short and getting her the hell out of there.
O'Doyle awoke instantly courtesy of a sharp slap to the face. Before he'd even sat up he reached for his knife, only to find it gone. He blinked twice, seeing that Lybrand had slapped him. Her stare focused outward, away from him, away from the towering ship. She was rock-still in a half crouch, black hair hanging limply in her face, eyes hawklike and focused. Her knife pointed toward the threat.
He scrambled to his feet as fast as his tortured body would allow, wincing from the agony that rippled through his leg like a blender on puree. Even though she held the knife, he instinctively stood a few feet in front of her.
Two silverbugs flashed impossibly bright with mirrorlike reflections of the artificial suns burning high above. They crouched in the sand at the water's edge. O'Doyle instantly recognized the newness of the machines, just as his trained mind already sought for a way to deal with the six-inch-long saw-toothed blades that protruded menacingly from the wedge-shaped heads.
"Our little friends are adapting,” O'Doyle said quietly. “Put the knife away. It won't do any good against them and you'll need both hands if they attack."
Lybrand slowly and wordlessly put the K-Bar into her belt sheath. “What do we do?"
"Reach down slowly and grab the biggest rock you can,” O'Doyle said. He stooped, grimacing, and sank his fingers into the sand to wrap around a rock the size of his head. Lybrand bent slowly and came up with a smaller stone. “On the count of three. You take the one on the left, I'll get the other. One… two… three!"
He launched the heavy rock. It seemed to hang in the air; with a blur of movement the silverbug scurried clear before the rock smashed into the sand. O'Doyle's eyes widened with surprise at the silverbug's blinding speed — it was probably twice as fast any he'd yet seen.
Lybrand's silverbug also sprinted away from O'Doyle's throw, then stopped on a dime and stood statue-still. She whipped her arm in a back-swing circle, releasing her rock in practiced softball-pitcher style. The silverbug moved, but not fast enough — the rock smashed into its legs, tearing one of them clean off and bending another. The wounded silverbug jerked and writhed. The severed leg squirmed spasmodically in the sand with a sudden life of its own.
The uninjured silverbug blurred forward impossibly fast and launched itself toward Lybrand's head. She brought her hands up in a defensive posture, catching the long-legged machine in mid-air. The blade flashed. Two fingers on her left hand fell to the ground as if they'd never really been attached at all.
She screamed in pain and fear. Two of the silverbug's multi-jointed legs wrapped firmly around her arms. The other two flashed forward and grabbed her head — pulling her eye straight toward the knife's bloody tip. She turned her head at the last second: the blade skimmed across her forehead, cutting her from the left eyebrow across the center of her left ear. The top of her ear fell uselessly into the sand as blood gushed down her face and chest. In a half-second the blade pulled back for another attempt at her eye.
Suddenly O'Doyle's strong hands grabbed the ball-shaped body. He ripped it upwards with all his strength. It clung to Lybrand, sharp claws ripping through her KoolSuit sleeves and into the tender skin below as O'Doyle yanked the machine away. Arcing spurts of blood trailed from the silverbug's split-foot claws.
O'Doyle roared with primitive rage as he used both hands and all his strength to slam the machine onto a rock. It smashed into the stone with a satisfying metallic crunch. The legs squirmed as they reversed themselves, sharp claws suddenly digging into his forearms. He bellowed as he lifted it up and slammed it down again and again and again like Thor smashing his hammer downward with all his fury. O'Doyle heard something break inside the dented shell. The legs quivered once, then fell limp.
He looked toward the other silverbug, his eyes wide with psychotic fury, his body pulsing with adrenaline, hate and rage. The wounded machine tried in vain to scurry away on two good legs. It looked like half a crab crawling across a dark-sand beach. Fury fueled his body. He hopped toward the wounded silverbug, covering the ground with three strong thrusts of his good leg.
Grabbing the silverbug by one thin, struggling limb, he swung it in a blurring arc and brought it smashing down on a large boulder. The shell split, spilling sparks on the riverbank. The thick smell of burned chocolate wafted through the air. O'Doyle bellowed at the crushed silverbug, a primal scream of victory and rage. He blinked a few times and looked at the squirming leg still clutched in his hand. It flexed spasmodically. He dropped the leg and hopped back to Lybrand.