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Near Tomis, continent of Isuelt, Dianis
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Quorat settled the Intruder in fifty feet of water. It was as far in the fjord as he could go and still have sufficient water depth to hide the ship. The mine site, in a province called Mestrich, was still three hundred miles away. He studied the topographical map of the site. There were few options. He’d have to take the Intruder airborne and fly overland, which he was loath to do. Having no better alternative, he launched the recon package.
A laser-communications pod pulsed out of the ejection tube and floated to the surface. The pod opened, and the recon drone lifted off, followed by the relay drone. Flapping its wings, the raven recon drone rose into the air aided by the lift fan between its legs. Specially configured for Dianis, the drones and bots in the recon package were camouflaged to appear as avians found on northern Dianis continents, courtesy of published IDB research.
Rising on the thermals in the fjord, the relay drone synced with the communication laser on the recon drone. To the casual observer, the relay drone appeared to be a hawk circling, rising ever higher, moving eastward to maintain the apex of the communications triangle. Laser comms, while limited by line of sight, were the only sure, non-detectable transmission method on a world seeded with IDB sensors such as Dianis. The hawk relayed the signal from the raven to the laser receptor on the Intruder’s communications pod disguised to look like a piece of driftwood. At the intended destination, three hundred miles away, the hawk-raven recon package would be its maximum range.
Quorat settled back. The encoded video and telemetry feeds from the birds were nominal. Now, it was a matter of time. Seeking eastward air currents, the raven continuously adjusted fan attitude and wing deflection for optimum speed and energy conservation. The solar receptors on the raven helped recharge the bird’s energy cell, but most of the power came from the neutrino charger. He’d have to shut down the charger when they neared the mine site because the IDB ground sensor pods were sure to have energy emitter detectors. From there, it would be solar operation only. Regardless, the raven could only travel as fast as the real biological version, a design limitation dictated by nature and the need for stealth. So Quorat waited. The time-to-target readout indicated arrival at the Mestrich mine site in ten hours.
“Time to target thirty minutes. Time to target thirty minutes. Time to target thirty...”
“Uh?” Quorat roused himself from a deep sleep.
“Time to target...”
“I heard you!” He slapped the mute button, silencing the Intruder’s AI. Checking the drone display, he grunted. The raven had made better time than estimated, picking up a forty-mile-an-hour tailwind over the mountains. Fully charged, the energy cell status glowed green. The sun was setting over the mine site, so he shifted to infrared imaging. Shutting down the neutrino charger, he issued glide commands to the drone. Should it lose line-of-sight comms with the Intruder, the bird’s AI would follow stealth recon procedures, collecting and storing the site data, and then climb to an altitude where it could reconnect with the relay hawk.
The initial video feed was satisfactory. The mine was right where it should be, at the bottom of a granite gorge with a river running beside a mine road. A precipitous gravel trail led down the chasm into a gaping hole. A sluice works was constructed beside the trail and along the river. Vine-covered, the works were well-constructed and looked to be functional. Above the gorge, a mine building stood, more of a conglomeration of tin-roofed shacks tacked together in a meandering construction. Then the video feed cut out. “Blast!” He cursed. He slapped the mute button. “Well?”
“Recon drone sync lost,” reported the AI. “Line of sight interruption.”
Quorat took a deep breath. He’d have to wait for the raven to finish the recon and return to comms altitude.
“Sync reestablished. Sync reestablished. Sync...”
“Uh?” He woke up.
“Sync reestablished. Sync—”
“Arg,” he slapped the mute button and checked the clock. “Three hours!” The bird had hit the maximum separation-time parameter and had flown to where it could reestablish communications. He scanned the data streaming in over the laser feed, then sent a roost command to the drone. The bird would seek a safe place to loiter and conserve battery power, which was down to sixty-two percent. He instructed the AI, “Rewind the data feeds to where the sync was lost and play video and audio at 3X.”
Scrolling by at triple speed, he watched the progress of the bird as it orbited lower and lower into the chasm, and then its stealth programming took over and sent it to roost in a tall tree on the rim of the gorge. There it launched three of its recon bots. Tiny, identical to bees, the bots made their way into the canyon. The AI automatically divided the display into three separate video feeds. Something was bothering him. As he watched the bots descend, his disquiet rose. Where are the people? It’s night, and unless they are running three shifts, I should see miners topside.
There are no lights. He mentally frowned. The mine site, mineshaft, and mine building were all dark. Not a candle, lamp, or other light anywhere. “Stop video. Examine audio feed. Are there any human-generated sounds on the audio feed?”
When the AI failed to respond but the audio results scrolled by on the screen, he growled to himself and slapped the mute button.
“Negative,” came the immediate response. “Ambient noise only.”
“Blast!” He kicked the console and pushed back. He’d been here before. A dry hole. But why? “Which bot went into the mine?” he asked the AI.
“Recon Bot Two.”
“Play Bot Two video at 2X from the point it enters the mine.”
The display centered on Bot Two’s camera, and the monochromatic scene scrolled by. Quorat watched down, down, into the main shaft and then into a side shaft. He followed as the clock spun in step with the 2X display. Nearing the three-hour resync parameter, the bot had ceased the recon operation and returned to the raven.
Played out. No fresh excavations. No new timber framing, loose tools, stored water, or even lanterns. The mine was abandoned. “Damn,” he fumed, “damn, damn, damn.” The second payout clause in his contract explicitly said locate and confirm the existence of one of two aquamarine mines, and this mine was abandoned. He could send another bot back down, to be certain.... The surface of the mine site was inactive. Judging by the vegetation growth, it was recently vacated. Anything of value, anything removable, had been taken away. Hmmm, he mused, maybe there had been some sort of business squabble or political troubles that forced them to quit operations? “Scan the mine site videos and locate largest tailings pile.”
He waited as the AI executed the command. Then it reported, “Three substantial tailings piles, one of approximately thirty tons, another of fifty tons, and the third of seventy tons.”
“Show me a layout of the site and superimpose the tailing piles on the sitemap.”
Quorat cocked his head. The smaller tailings pile was at the top of the sluice works, and the largest, the seventy-ton mound, was at the bottom. That was a lot of tailings for an aquamarine mine, especially for one this primitive. The third heap was up behind the mine building, where some form of processing was conducted. The whole setup was odd. Usually, indigin miners didn’t build a sluice works three hundred feet long to separate aquamarine. A drain swirl was more typical. The layout made sense if they were mining for gold. Yes, he told himself, aquamarine can be found with gold. It was the third pile that bothered him. I wonder if that is from a smelting operation? Grumping to himself, he mentally ran through scenarios on how to maximize his payment. Even if the mine is played out or work was stopped, I can still get my triple kicker if I get an aquamarine-5 sample. “Ack, that would be a lot of work,” said aloud.
“Unknown command,” came the AI’s response.
“Shut up. I’m not talking to you.” He zoomed the display in on the largest tailings pile. He really did not want to do it: collect a physical sample. He’d have to leave the water, move to within twenty or so miles of the mine site, find a place to hide the Intruder, hop on his scooter, not the aircar, and drive to within two miles or so of the site, and then walk in. All for what? The site is shut down! In the back of his mind, he worried about the location of the IDB surveillance pods. For certain, the pods would not be in or immediately near the site as there was too great a chance the locals would encounter them. They would instead be positioned in a screen surrounding the site, probably a mile or so out. He struggled to determine his next course of action; he wanted that triple kicker bonus, but his recon drone was not equipped for sample extraction. “Damn,” he smacked the console. He’d have to go in.
“Send the raven down to the main tailings pile.”
“We will lose sync if the command is executed. The recon drone will then seek to resync.”
The AI had a point. Thinking it through, he said, “I want the raven to land on the main tailings pile, ping it with one A-wave scan, directly down into the pile, lowest setting. One ping only, and then return and resync communications. Verify command sequence for operational integrity.”
“A-wave ping violates stealth mode programming.”
“I know that! I want to know if there is aquamarine-5 in that pile! I’ll be damned if I’ll drive all the way there only to get a handful of dirt!”
“A-wave ping violates stealth mode programming.”
“Arrrg,” Quorat picked up his dented drinking bulb and aimed it at the cockpit camera the AI used to discern facial features. “Then bloody remove the A-wave ping block from stealth mode, or I’ll rewrite your circuits so you’re a castrated turd.”
“Removing A-wave ping block from stealth mode.”
“Good. Execute command sequence.”
“Executing.”
Quorat glanced at the display. The camera view of the raven showed it lifting off and then circling into the chasm.
“Communications sync lost.”
Quorat sat back in the command console chair and gave the cockpit camera the evil eye.
As if to purposely irritate him, the AI said, “At lowest A-wave ping setting, probability is thirty-two percent that a standard IDB ground sensor pod will detect the radiation if it is within...”
“Shut the hell up!” He smacked the mute button. “I know all about IDB detection pods.” Trying to calm himself, “I said I need confirmation that there is aquamarine-5 in that pile before I go risking my skin to dig a sample.” He looked up at the camera. “Is that too hard to understand?” He reached out and pushed the mute button off.
“Command prerogative understood.”
He took a deep breath and settled in the chair. Waiting, he ran through the approach vectors for the second aquamarine mine. It was on a different continent. The orbital survey showed those diggings to be smaller than this one. Not good, but the contract clauses said nothing about quantity or size of the mines, just existence.
He considered taking a stimulant shot or a down tube. He didn’t know which direction he wanted to go, up or down. Then the “resync” message from the AI forestalled his decision.
“What you got?”
The AI dutifully showed the results of the A-wave ping on the screen.
Quorat’s shoulders sunk. “Whaaaaat?”
“You have a command request?”
“Yea. Run a diagnostics check on the bird. Confirm the A-wave scanner is working, but do not pulse the scanner!”
“Confirmed. A-wave diagnostics are successful. Recon drone sensor suite is fully functional. No faults found.”
Quorat squinted at the screen. His mind churning. “What?” he breathed. Nothing. Not a spec of aquamarine-5 anywhere in the tailings pile. It was totally inert. “Shiren!” He stood and flung the drinking bulb at the bulkhead. It hit the control lever for the landing skids and snapped the toggle clean off, then caromed off the console and rolled back to his feet, complete with a new dent. Seeing the broken toggle, he yelled, “Aww—” and kicked the bulb, sending it spinning and bouncing out of the compartment.
In moments like these, the AI had self-learned the best response to reduce further shipboard damage was to remain silent.
“Damn, blasted damn!” He gesticulated wildly pumping his fist at the floor.
When he’d calmed, he slunk back down in the command chair. “Recall the raven,” he growled quietly, “best possible speed.” He looked up at the cockpit camera. “You know what the bastards did.” It was a statement, not a question.
“By bastards, whom do you refer?” asked the AI.
“The IDB.”
“My data on IDB tactics, situational characteristics, and this ship’s previous mission logs indicate there is a sixty-two percent probability that the Mestrich mine site is a decoy.”
“And why is it just sixty-two percent and not one hundred percent!?” Spittle spumed with his sarcasm.
“There is a probability, uncalculated, that the IDB was incorrect. That the mine never had aquamarine or that the coordinates were wrong from initial capture. You are correct that the probabilities of a decoy site would rise above sixty-two percent assuming the IDB were accurate in their geological data collection.”
“Bloody hell.” Someone had set a trap, and he had walked straight into it. Did the client know? Did the client suspect? If it were a decoy site, then the sensor system the IDB used would be tighter, more sensitive because they expected someone to take the bait. “Prepare to recall the relay drone and pull in the sensor package. Calculate maximum range for the raven.” He didn’t want to leave it behind unless he absolutely had to. It was an expensive toy. However, he didn’t want it leading a Ready Reaction squad straight to him. He’d have to set a rendezvous point and recover the drone later. He rubbed his face and ran his fingers through his greasy hair. Not one for showers, he never minded his own smell. Why would the IDB set a decoy site? If this dig was a decoy, did that mean the other was a decoy as well? He thought about it. He could ask the AI for its opinion, but he knew the answer. His anger started to escalate again when he realized that the triple-kicker payout was a fool’s errand. Worse, if the mines were decoys, he could lose the payment on the second clause, and that would cut most of his profit. Issuing a stream of commands to the AI, Quorat considered his next move beyond abandoning the contract and the planet.
As the sensor package was reeled in with the relay drone onboard, He churned over what he knew.
“Ready to depart.”
“Roger,” he said. “Execute.”
Listening to the drive engage, he continued to stew, and then finally decided to ask the AI for its opinion. “Given that an inert decoy site is a one-time snare and will attract a specific intrusion contractor once, and only once, what does that tell you about the purpose of the decoy site?”
The AI had its answer ready. “Seventy-two percent probability the purpose of the decoy site is to lead intruders away from valid sites.”
Quorat nodded. “Not to purposely trap extrasolars, but to redirect from true locations.”
“Affirmative.”
So, there is a real aquamarine mine, but where?
