Ned and his four closest friends ambled down a dark maintenance tunnel in the Curiosity colony’s transorbital station. That late-night arrival had been a letdown. It was right on schedule, which meant that it wasn’t an apology shipment from Earth giving back the ores needed to resume construction at Site-2. This was an ice shipment, necessary in the long run for sustaining a water supply on the surface, but a shabby sight compared to what they needed—and had been promised.
“Think maybe we give the Earthlings a chance to come through?” Wil asked from the back of the single-file row as they slunk through the bowels of the facility. “I read the transcripts. They’re trying to get us our shipment. The old lady’s putting her weight behind this one.”
“Nah,” Ned said without turning back. “You can’t plan for what-ifs. For what it’s worth, I hope she tears those Solar Mining rock-brains a new input port. But the old hag’s barely hanging on. She hasn’t got much in her, and I doubt she’s got what it takes to force those clamp-fisted bastards to cough up our ore. Plus, the reactor’s where we’ve got the real need. It’ll be six months before another one’s up for grabs. Nah, we stick to the plan.”
“I’m still not sure I like this one,” Calvin grumbled.
“No backing out now,” Les replied firmly.
The clomp of their boots on the steel-grated floor echoed in the darkness. It didn’t matter if the ship’s crew heard them or not. Nobody would suspect anything. Ned had their alibis locked up tight if anyone bothered to ask.
They all had business with the transorbital pilots. If the Mars Terraforming Initiative couldn’t get answers from Earth on when they might expect ore, they’d get the real lowdown from the crews themselves. That was all. A nice chat.
The tools were for just in case. If they spotted a system that needed tweaking along the way, Ned and his four friends would be happy to lend a hand.
“We in range yet?” Ned asked.
“Almost,” Gregor said, staring at a geolocator beacon in his hands.
“We start that thing, we’ll have a hell of a time if they catch us,” Wil warned.
“In range,” Gregor reported. “Just say the word.”
“Hit it,” Ned replied without hesitation.
Gregor tapped a command on his portable. Visibly, nothing happened.
“We covered?” Ned asked.
Les had his portable out. “No signal. We’re good.”
Solar flares rarely affected Mars, but there were still oddities of the planet’s artificially induced magnetosphere that weren’t fully understood. Communications blips happened. Sometimes, the few local scientists interested in those sorts of things discovered a cause. More often, everyone just thanked God that the colony life support didn’t go out and moved on with their lives.
Tonight, Ned was expecting the rest of the colony to just move on.
“Let’s move.”
The quintet quickened their pace and stormed through the maintenance underbelly of the transorbital dock. Heavy automated equipment rumbled overhead on pre-programmed routes, hauling the load off a ship larger than the colony itself. Ice would be offloaded into the melting fields. The runoff would pour down canals and off to the arboreal preserves—though “arboreal” was more like algae at this point. It’d be days before the load was fully emptied.
There he was. James98, captain of Mining Vessel 30, was ambling by overhead. Ned shifted his course and headed for the nearest stairwell.
Les, Calvin, Gregor, and Wil hustled along behind him.
“James?” Ned called out as the robot walked in the other direction.
James98 stopped and turned. The orange glows of two robotic optical sensors shrunk to pinpoints before widening to normal view. “Ned Lund? To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Any robot who claimed it was a pleasure to talk with Ned was either willfully ignorant or throwing sass in his direction. He suspected the latter.
“Listen, I know this isn’t your department,” Ned called out, lowering his voice incrementally from a shout as he drew near. “But I’ve got a project to run here, and I’m not getting anything but committee double-speak whenever I try to get a straight answer about when I can expect to see an ore shipment this way.”
As Ned pulled short an arm’s length from the robotic pilot in his durable, space-worn coveralls, his men fanned out in a semi-circle, hemming the robot in.
James98 didn’t appear the least bit concerned with the proximity of the terraformers. The robot gave a simple shrug. “I don’t know what you’re hoping to get out of me. The next nearest ship to mine was farther from me than we are from the sun right now. It’s not like we’re out there scooping up ice and minerals eight hours a day, then swooping over to a bar for happy hour. Even laser communication has a lag that gets to be minutes long.”
“Yeah,” Ned persisted, burying himself deeper in the robot’s attention. “But you must exchange cargoes once in a while. You can’t just ignore ore you find, same as Vessel 87 can’t pass up huge collections of ice crystals.”
James98 wobbled his head back and forth in annoyance. “Once in a while, sure. Not often. And we don’t get to set delivery policy, regardless. We just—what are you doing?”
The sizzle of the plasma torch cut out as quickly as it had started. Ned shielded his eyes against the sting of the glare reflected off Calvin’s auto-dim goggles.
“Get his arms,” Ned ordered, taking James98 by the ankles as the uncontrolled robot teetered.
Gregor and Wil complied. Les came over and took one of the ankles as Ned gratefully passed along the weight.
“Thank God for these lightweight, low-energy models,” Wil said under his breath.
“What’s going on?” James98 demanded. “Where are you taking me? Ned? Whatever you’re planning, reconsider.”
“I’m done reconsidering things,” Ned replied brusquely as he waddled back for the stairs with his limp load. “And I’d conserve power if I were you. Cal, here just severed every connection in your spine. Data, motor control, and, yes, power.”
“Why?” James98 asked, as if the question were the last he might bother with as he clung to what little charge his skull kept locally.
Ned grunted. “Nothing personal. Just politics.”