Children of Steel Read online

  The third death was a little more upsetting. Sure people do get killed by the local wildlife occasionally, but this was totally unexpected. The biologists had only identified several smaller sea mammals prior to then, things that were like penguins and seals and such. They had also found a small land carnivore, and a few small land omnivores. There wasn't much plant life on the land, so there wasn't a lot of animal life either.

  Then this big one turned up, and it was big, about thirteen feet when it reared, and weighing in at eleven hundred pounds. Anyway the first we saw it, it was attacking one of the geologists, a Bear, on one of our remote trips. By the time Tiberius and I had our rifles unslung, and started firing, his head and chest had already disappeared down the thing's throat. You could hear the bones cracking, it wasn't a pretty sight.

  We closed as fast as we could, I was on my second clip when I got there, and it had just finished off the Bear. I just stood there and put about thirty rounds into the head, while Tiberius put a whole clip in the chest of the thing. We must have been annoying it, because it charged and took a swipe at me. I managed to dodge most of it, but still got knocked a good ten feet back. It fell dead then, at Tiberius' feet, and we quickly cut it open with our knives, but it was pretty hopeless.

  It hadn't swallowed without chewing.

  I then had to fly back to get the biologists to look at it of course. They wanted me to load it in the shuttle and bring it to them, but I refused, even when Klaus threatened to fine me fifty grand. Good thing too, Tiberius had to put forty more rounds into it a half hour later when it started moving again!

  When they finally got there, it was really quite a mess. But due to the cold, at least it had frozen quick. It turned out that it had a very interesting nervous system, with the brain spread out in six different areas. It also had at least twenty separate hearts. Kate told me later that she suspected that it could regrow lost body parts quite easily.

  We packed up and went back to camp for a few days after that, most of the team being rather demoralized. I also needed to have my armor repaired, the 'swipe' had torn three long gashes in the jumpsuit that held it together, and broke one of the plates as well.

  After that we were a lot more careful about setting up camp. We did see a few more of them, but managed to keep our distance. For the most part they weren't terribly bright, just tough. Why they were so tough was the question that worried Kate.

  The fourth month was just a lot of hard work, except for my seventeenth birthday, which I celebrated with Rudy, Sheen, Kate, Franz and the Tigers of our security detachment. The biologist's came up with a poison for the Yeti, the new name of our nasty little snowman, and went out searching for one using one of the helicopters. It took two weeks to find one, then another couple of days to get it to eat the poison, but they got their specimen without it getting them.

  In the fifth month, disaster stuck again. The marine biologists had gone with a Rottie scout and one of the Tigers from security, to study the sea life in one of the helicopter's. They had set up a station on the ice shelf about sixty miles away, and when they didn't come back to camp that evening, I flew out in the other heli with two of the Tiger's.

  What we found was a forty foot hole in the ice where the station had been. Nothing else, not even the copter. I landed us about a quarter of a mile away, and we all went back to search. We found a set of track's leading away, so while I went back to get the heli, the rest tracked them down. We found one of the Otter's wandering around in a daze about an hour later and we all went back to the camp.

  Well the biologists finally found out why the Yeti’s were built so tough, the seas held something tougher. When Toiuson finally came around she told us that the ice just started crumbling beneath them. She was able to scramble to safety with the scout; the other two got sucked down. A moment latter, tentacles came up and sliced the Rottweiler in half, as he was crawling from the edge. She had run at that point and just missed being killed herself.

  That night, everybody was pretty quiet; I was a bit moody myself. The earlier deaths hadn't been as upsetting because I was just getting to know the people here. But now I was pretty good friends with a few of them, and Shaw, the tiger that had been killed, was one of those. Sheen was upset as well, she also had been close to Shaw, and it goes without saying how the other Tigers felt.

  Sheen and I were on the first watch that night, and had volunteered to go straight through, so the Tigers could mourn their loss. Watch was a pretty easy affair now with the sensor fence set up and running anyway. Kate and Franz showed up early on, they knew we were both upset, so they kept us company. About eleven the Tigers came in, still upset and feeling the lack of numbers, so we all ended up sleeping in a pile on the floor, using the cushions from the couches and chairs.

  It was about an hour later when Toiuson, the surviving otter came in. She was supposed to be under light sedation in her room, but when she had called the security office asking if we could get the doctor to get her something heavier, we asked her to join us. Being the only one of your kind is a lonely thing sometimes. So the morning found the room packed with more bodies than it was meant for, but at least it was warm.

  The next day nobody really felt like doing anything, so Klaus gave everybody the day off. We only had about a week’s work left on the geological surveys anyway, but it would be maybe a month before the Astra came back.

  The final piece of work involved setting off several large explosions and then recording the results through the several thousand sensor probes that had been buried in the planet. The first three explosions were set off a day apart, two were on the other side of the planet, about sixty degrees of latitude apart. The third was at the north pole.

  After these results were analyzed for a few days it was decided to set off two more blasts as well. They were both placed a third of the way around the planet from us, in opposite directions of course, about twenty degrees north of the Equator. On all of the flights to deliver the bombs it had been just Rudy and me flying, with Tiberius baby sitting the bombs. He was the only one on the base with the detonation codes, other than Klaus maybe.

  The bombs weren't that big of an affair really, about eight inches in diameter and two feet long, with a yield of maybe one megaton. Small stuff really, but I still didn't want to be near them when they went off! I really wasn't sure of the need for all of this seismic work, or the explosives, but the geologist had told me that this was the 'quick and dirty' method of doing the work.

  It took the three of us two days to set the charges. Fortunately, we were able to use drill holes that had been sunk in the previous months work, but it still took all day to lower them down to the bottom of the bore holes. It all went without incident, I'm happy to say, and we didn't run into any of the Yeti's either fortunately.

  By the end of the week, the remaining geologist had analyzed the findings with the engineers and geo-techs. They all agreed they had enough data for the company's supercomputers back at Hobson. The biologists had determined that they had all the samples they wanted, having decided to let the next group deal with the sea life. So we started to pack the gear up for removal. That took about three days of relatively easy work.

  Then we waited. We didn't have that much to do at this point, the Astra was due in about two weeks, but could show up any time now. We all hoped it was soon, as we had all gotten fairly sick of the place, and wanted off. Our hopes were answered five days later when the Astra came in system.

  A week and a half later, we were all back on board ship and bidding a happy, if not so fond, farewell to the planet. We had left six of our comrades behind, but I was still surprised to hear Franz say that our losses had been 'light'.

  "If that's light, then what's heavy?" I asked sarcastically.

  "Oh, anything over half the survey team," he answered non-plussed, "and if you work long enough, you'll probably see it happen at least once too!" he said giving me a sad smile. "That is of course, assuming you survive it!"

  "Ug
h, I knew it was dangerous work, but isn't there anything we can do to make it a little safer?"

  "That's why the send us, my boy!" he laughed, "To make it safer, for them! To make it safer for us would cost a fortune, probably more then we do."

  "It ain't fair!" grumbled Terease from the couch; we were all at the monthly clan meeting.

  "Who ever said life was fair?" Asked Herza, lying comfortably across my chest.

  "Yeah," put in Banner, "It even treats humans bad sometimes, that's why they don't like to come out here and give it any extra chances!"

  "Just remember this, if it wasn't such a dangerous job, they may not have ever created us to do it," said Balizar quietly from the couch.

  "Word's to live by!" replied Herza.

  "And it's not all that tough when you're built like we are!" I added smiling. After all it could be worse, I could have been stuck in a weak human body and expected to survive the same things. I felt pretty lucky over all.

  20

  We were on the final run in to Pharaoh a few months later, yet another planet I had never been to, or even heard of, but one on the ship's occasional route. We had a four week run in, as the Astra was loaded down with two full cargo pods. They were full of a lot of heavy construction equipment that we had picked up at our previous stop. It seemed that the people on Pharaoh liked to build things, very large things at that. I really had no idea why, somebody said it had to do with the local religion.

  Since Samia things had returned to the standard routine as always, which was a welcome change after the reception we had gotten back there. The ship had made two more stops before retrieving us from Winterland and after this one the rumor was we’d be back at Hobson once more.

  When we got to Pharaoh and started the unloading job, I was surprised to find that most of the heavy equipment was for mining and transporting rock.

  "Hey, what gives?" I asked Winston, the Quartermaster, he was the same Fox who had originally outfitted me when I had come onboard.

  "Whadda ya mean?" He asked looking up from the manifest.

  "I thought this equipment was for building. This is all mining and transport stuff."

  "Whadda ya know about Pharaoh's inhabitants?" He asked me looking back at his scan board.

  "That they build things, supposedly very big things, why?"

  "They build using rock, mined rock, in blocks."

  "You're kidding!" I said surprised.

  "Nope, ever hear of a place on earth called Egypt?"

  "Can't say that I have," I admitted embarrassed. They didn't teach us a lot about earth and its countries at the crèche.

  "It’s the place with the pyramids in the Middle East."

  "Oh, the place where they fought all those classic tank battles in the late twentieth century!" I remembered those, it was the place where the two classic schools of tank combat first met, and in relatively equal equipment.

  "Geez, is that all you kids are taught nowadays? Where the big battles were fought?" he grumbled, and marked another piece off his list. "But yeah, that’s the place."

  "Well I remember it, so what does it have to do with this place and what they build?"

  "They're mostly from the same region, and they're building their own pyramids now, that's all."

  "But using modern equipment. Not bad I guess."

  "That remains ta’ be seen," was all the response he gave. "Break's over, get back ta’ work!" and he walked down to the next section of equipment.

  I got back to it.

  The unloading took us about five days, a little longer than one would expect normally, but it was pretty hot and dry where the equipment was going. It seems that the Pharaohians had decided to do their building in the desert, but then half the planet's land mass qualified for that distinction.

  So the ground crews had to work in some pretty extreme heat, which slowed everything down accordingly. After we had finished, we all went through the company's local customs briefing, which turned out to be a real eye opener.

  "Okay everybody, welcome to the Tri-Star Mining and Manufacturing Corporation's Pharaoh installation. My name is Kareem, and I'm here to brief you on the local situation," began the company rep, an eagle sporting a lot of fancy jewelry.

  "Now first off, the political structure is fairly simple, the King runs the country, and the priests often run him. The planet was founded primarily by a group who worshipped the same gods as the ancient Egyptians back on earth.

  "The good news is that they worshipped animal gods then, and still do now, so some of you are going to be in for good treatment. Of course they also practice slavery, and rumor has it ritual murder or sacrifice occasionally as well. Of course if the King or one of the High priests declares you outlaw and sentences you to death on the spot, that's it. No appeals, nothing.

  "However, unless you really go pissing somebody off, that isn't bloody well likely. Now for the Monkeys and the Orangutans in the group, a word of caution: Most of the slave labor here is done by your and similar species, so watch out. You get in trouble here, and you'll find yourself working on one of the Pyramids or other monuments being built out in the desert, and I don't have to tell you the survival rate isn't that high. They send all of their criminals to work there as punishment, both human and animan.

  "Remember also that this is a very rigid class society, while the Bird, Dog and Cat groups may get some special treatment occasionally, we're all still bottom shelf, so don't misbehave. The people here are fairly nice and tolerant of outsiders. As long as you don't get out of line." He paused for a moment and looked around the room before continuing.

  "That's it, enjoy your stay," he finished and left the room.

  "Well, what do you think?" I asked Mist.

  "It's not a bad place really," she replied leading the way out of the room. "Just don't insult the Priests or the ruling classes mostly. Cats are held in high regard, so we get a little positive fallout from that."

  "Just remember one thing," said Rudy, coming up from behind.

  "What's that?" I asked.

  "Don't accept any jobs from the locals here, even if their offer to buy out your contract is proven sincere."

  "They'd do that?" I asked Mist.

  "Oh sure, they've got the largest diamond and gold mines in the known universe here. They also make some very interesting hardware using those diamonds and the gold."

  "So why not take a contract here?"I asked Rudy.

  "You'll always be a member of a local household, must be in fact to live on the planet."

  "So?"

  "Well when a major house's head dies, they sometimes have a tendency to bury his slaves with him."

  "Alive?"

  "Of course alive," he said smiling, "kind of defeats the purpose if they're dead now doesn't it?"

  "People allow this behavior?" I asked flabbergast.

  "We're out on the rim of settled space Raj, they can do damn well anything they want to here. When the King dies they strangle his wives and bury them too. That's what the pyramids are for."

  "I hear that the human slave trade is picking up in places like this too," added Mist. "So don't be too trusting of the natives."

  "I thought that human slavery was outlawed through all of settled space!"

  "The more thing's get spread out Raj, the less control that Earth has over what goes on. Everything spread out pretty fast and it’s still going. Some folks don't go along with old mother Earth, so they do as they please. The more that do it, the harder it gets to stop them. Especially when you're about two hundred light years away."

  "Anyway, why should we care?" laughed Mist, "If it's good enough for us, then it's good enough for them too!"

  I had never really though of it that way before, I wonder what humans thought about the whole thing? I'm sure the ones who were slaves disliked it a lot more than we did. "I wonder if they get to buy out?"

  "Who?" asked Mist.

  "The human slaves."

  "No, I don't think so. But then, that's
the idea of slavery, isn't it?"

  "Suddenly I don't feel so bad about the deal I've been handed," I laughed.

  "It really isn't that bad, is it?" smiled Rudy.

  We headed outside and started for the front gate. As usual, most everybody else had the same idea, so there was quite a crowd heading in that direction. We ran into Lyle, who decided to join us too, rather than go out solo.

  It was hot out, real hot, somewhere past a hundred. At least it was dry, but I still found myself panting very quickly from the heat. I noticed everybody else was in pretty much the same condition.

  "Is there some better way of getting to the city, other than walking that is?" I asked.

  "Bus at the gate," stated Mist simply, pointing ahead.

  "It's times like these that I'm glad I'm not black!" Lyle grinned, looking up at the hot sun. "I can actually feel where my spots are, you two must really be suffering."

  We came to the gate where there was a fairly large shaded area, Mist and myself made directly for the water fountain, and gratefully poured water over each other. Lyle was right; having black fur was going to no fun here.

  "First thing we do, is buy some umbrellas when we hit town," said Rudy, as we cooled down in the shade waiting for the bus.

  "I sure don't see any rain," I said giving him a stare, "So what are the umbrellas for?"

  "Shade stupid," stated Mist still panting.

  I thought about that a second, "Oh, I get it! That's a pretty good idea.

  "How do you stand him?" Lyle asked Rudy.

  "He's a trial sometimes, I admit." he snickered, "But on the other hand, everybody figures they better be good to me, or I'll sic'im on them."

  "You can be replaced by a machine you know," I said still panting.

  "Not likely, you probably wouldn't be able to work it!" He laughed and I chased him out into the sunlight. I suddenly realized that wasn't a smart idea as I heated up rapidly. As his fur was a light gray, it wasn't half so bad on him.

  "I have a feeling I'm going to be receiving a lot of abuse from him today," I said as I retreated back to the shade.