Beth was sympathetically silent.
“Why don’t they use the existing tunnel?” Martin went on. “It would get them here much faster. Do they have to be completely covered by soil to function effectively, or do they just not want us to see them?”
“If they maintain their present rate of approach,” she replied, “you’ll have some of the answers in just under seven minutes.”
As he watched the trace on his screen move down the distance scale, Martin felt himself begin to sweat. He no longer felt sure that he was doing the right thing down here. His defenses might not be adequate to sustain an attack-or a serious investigation of the structure of his vehicle, which amounted to the same thing so far as the occupant was concerned-by creatures which in their behavior resembled subterranean piranha fish. And if their investigation was to prove successful…
“I’m getting out of here,” he said.
When Beth replied, she did not mention his sudden decision, or the edge of panic apparent in his voice. She said calmly, “While you were speaking just now, they stopped moving. This supports our theory that they are highly sensitive to sound transmitted through the substrata, and probably use it as a medium for long-distance communication. They are three minutes from you now, and closing. Your vehicle isn’t moving.”
“I’ve had second thoughts,” he said apologetically. “If they have a high tolerance for heat, they would be able to stay in contact with my hull long enough to start taking it apart. My only protection then would be to move away. But I can’t do that without risk to the burrowers. Making mincemeat of a few of them with the digger blades would not be a friendly act. I think the best move now is to place the vehicle across a tunnel. That way I might be able to see some of them and better assess the risks on both sides.
“As well,” he admitted, “I was having a touch of claustrophobia just then, and cold feet.”
“Cold feet,” she said, laughing, “are a prime survival characteristic in this job.”
“I’m heading for the tunnel now,” he said.
“They’re moving quickly,” Beth reported. There are no indications that they are carrying metal objects, weapons, or tools. Their body temperature is high. Maybe they are ingesting and burning up the soil metabolically rather than compressing it. Your hull heating might not be much of a deterrent.”
“I’m in position,” Martin reported.
The sensor display showed the burrowers as bright, hot blobs trailing in their wakes the dull gray tails which were the tunnels they were making.
“I’ve had third thoughts,” he said suddenly. “I don’t want them to think they can trap me as easily as they did the protector, but I want to give them the idea that I want to meet, or investigate, them as much as they, me. If they are preparing a trap, I want to make it clear that I am walking into it of my own volition. So I’ll move out again, to show that I can easily escape, then return to the tunnel a little closer to their present position. Does that make sense to you?”
“You mean,” Beth said dryly, “will it make sense to them?”
The digger lurched forward and made a narrow U-turn which ended with his lateral vision ports looking out on the tunnel. He switched on the external lighting, at minimum power in case the burrowers had sensitive vision, and waited.
The over-amplified hissing and thumping of loose soil trickling onto the digger’s hull and tunnel floor died away, and the silence closed in and became so all-pervasive that he found himself holding his breath. Beth’s voice in his headset was deafening.
“They’ve stopped moving and are englobing you at a distance of about ten meters,” she said. “I count seventeen of them close in, and another three who have stopped at about four times that distance. Maybe they are the directors of this operation, and consider themselves less expendable than the others. Now the closer ones are beginning to move in, but slowly. The other three are staying put.”
“Careful people are the safest to talk to…” Martin began.
“Those three are moving in, now,” she broke in. “But there’s something odd here. When I’m talking on your headset there is no reaction from them, but they immediately stop moving when you speak. When the digger systems are shut down, they must be able to actually hear your voice.”
Martin felt the tension in his shoulder and neck muscles begin to ease. Seemingly there was no immediate danger, either of the digger being taken to pieces around him or of the burrowers committing suicide on his cutter blades. He was being given time to think.
If the burrowers were not carrying tools, and he could not believe that they had taken the protector apart with their equivalent of fingernails, then it was possible that they knew that his vehicle, unlike the protector, had an occupant. It was also possible that they were not carrying metal objects for the same reason that Martin was not bearing weapons.
The picture on his screen flickered, then sharpened as Beth replaced it with the image being sent up from the tender’s sensors. Unnecessarily, she said, “One of them is touching your hull now. Another two are moving into the tunnel on your tight. Can you hear anything?”
She was hearing the same hissing silence as he was, so he said nothing. The touch of a burrower, it seemed, could be incredibly light. Still dazzled by the light of the screen, he turned to peer into the tunnel.
It looked as if a large, thick piece of seaweed was growing out of the soil floor and was undulating slowly toward him. Another piece emerged, but not completely, from the roof and flapped slowly like a thick flag in a breeze. Loose soil brought down by the digger blades lay piled against the lower edge of the port, and the first burrower was climbing it. He moved forward for a closer look and his helmet tapped gently against the coaming.
The creature froze motionless for a few seconds, but otherwise ignored Martin’s face, which was only inches away, and resumed its climb. He and the recorders had a perfect view of its underside as it moved up and over the port.
He was about to increase the external lighting, but thought better of it. He had no wish to frighten it off or hurt its eyes, and, in any case, he did not have to use his own eyes.
“Enhance,” he said quietly.
The screen displayed pictures of a burrower viewed from above, below, and several lateral aspects. The main computer was capable of building up an accurate reconstruction from what, to human eyes, appeared to be a mass of confusing and incomplete detail. Outlined in ghostly blue and pink, so that they would contrast with the mottled gray and brown coloration of the skin and external features, were the main bone structure and organs.
In cross section die body was a narrow oval flattened slightly on the underside, circular in plan view and just over a meter in diameter. The upper and lower body surfaces were covered with short, organic stubble with swellings at the tips, which in the bad light Martin had mistaken for seaweed-like blisters. The stubble was equal in length but showed a wide diversity in thickness, the thicker bristles being on the underside.
The principal external features were a knife-edged, bony wedge flanked by two wide slit mouths on the forward section of the body, and a long, sharp sting or horn projecting rearward. Beth called for computer animation.
The mouths opened and closed rapidly as simulated soil was ingested and expelled through vents in the upper and lower rear body. Both mouths had large upper lips which could be curled down to seal the openings so that the creature was able to move forward without having to eat its way through the soil. When that option was chosen, the thicker stubble with enlarged tips retracted and extended rapidly to drive it forward; the sharp, wedge-shaped beak divided and compressed the soil in its path. When in motion, the finer stubble lay flat along the body, which was flexible enough to bend forward or backward on itself through nearly two hundred and seventy degrees.