Звезда Пандоры

The gateway control room was nothing like the center used for interstellar exploratory work. This was a simple box ten meters on each side, full of consoles, with glass-walled management offices along one side, all of them currently dark and unoccupied. Eight people were working the shift, sitting behind the consoles to monitor the huge assemblage of machinery that was buried in its own cavern beyond the control room. Three giant high-rez portals on the wall opposite the offices revealed the gateway’s status with dense three-dimensional graphic displays.

Heads came up to frown at the intruders. Right on schedule Rob’s e-butler reported that its interface with the cybersphere had just dropped out; kaos software was infiltrating all the local nodes.

“Everybody be quiet and stay calm,” the other guard said. “Keep your hands where we can see them, and please don’t do anything stupid.”

One of the console operators stood up, giving Rob an incredulous stare. “What the hell is going on? Is something wrong?”

Rob shot the ceiling above him, with the pistol on minimum charge. The manager got out a short animal screech as sharp splinters of the polyphoto strip came crashing down around him, trailing thin wisps of smoke. An alarm started to shrill loudly.

“You were told to shut up,” Rob shouted above the noise. Frightened faces stared at him. Hands were being held high in the air.

“Shit, man!” The tech was staring at the fallen manager, who was still crouched down on the floor, arms over his head, shaking badly.

“Do your job,” Rob snapped back at him.

He nodded with a fast jerk, and pressed the button to close the door.

“What?” The other guard shot the alarm, killing the sound.

“Thank you,” Rob said.

“You lot,” the tech shouted at the managers. “Get away from the consoles.”

Rob and the other guard waved their pistols meaningfully, shepherding the managers over to the glass wall. They were made to crouch down. “Joanne Bilheimer,” Rob called. “Front and center, now.”

One of the women looked up fearfully. “I’m Joanne. What do you want?”

“Up.” Rob beckoned with all four fingers. He pointed to the console marked Chief of Operations. “Secure this room, activate level three isolation.”

“I…” She gave his pistol a frightened glance. “I’m not…”

“Please,” he said. “Don’t give me any bullshit about not having the authority. And you really don’t want to make me start issuing threats, because I’ll carry them out. Now, level three?”

“I can’t interface. Something’s contaminating the console nodes.”

Rob smiled pleasantly. “That’s why CST provided you with a backup manual system as well.”

She bowed her head, then got up and walked over to the console.

The other guard was standing facing the captive managers. “This is just an anesthetic,” he told them. “Nobody’s going to be killed, we’re not homicidal lunatics.” He went along the line, pressing a hypotube against their necks. One by one they went limp and keeled over.

A big metal slab rumbled out of the floor, sealing the doorway. A similar slab covered the fire door. The air above them shimmered, then hardened as the force field came on, reinforcing the molecular structure of the walls. Two fat cylinders came telescoping down out of the ceiling at opposite ends of the room. Rob grinned in satisfaction at that: air filter, recycling the atmosphere now the force field had sealed off the air-conditioning ducts. “Thank you, Joanne.”

She didn’t even have time to look at him before the other guard slapped the hypotube against her neck.

The tech had gotten the panels off one of the consoles. He’d tipped up his tool kit, a number of custom array units spilled onto the floor around him. They all sprouted a long bundle of fiber-optic cable, which he was working frantically to connect into the ridiculously complicated console electronics.

“Can you do it?” Rob asked.

“Shut the fuck up and let me concentrate. We’ve got about two minutes left to verify control before the RI shuts us out.”

“Right.” Rob and the other guard looked at each other and shrugged. Rob didn’t have a clue what the man was doing, nor how to help him. The kaos software was still contaminating the nodes, blocking access to the cybersphere. He didn’t know what was going on outside in the rest of the complex, if the other units in the mission were going ahead, if it had stalled, if they’d already all been shot. Being cut off like this wasn’t good. He wanted to know. He needed to know. His virtual vision timer was relentlessly counting down the mission elapsed time, crossing off events that should have happened. Ninety seconds left, and the tech was still working with obsessive fever inside the console.

Come on,Rob urged him silently. Come on.