He finally shut up, and I was left to ponder Graves words. What had he said? Something about Solstice having encountered some kind of mechanized resistance? I had to wonder what that was all about-but I didnt wonder for long. I was snoring within three minutes after sliding into my toasty-warm spider-silk bag. It was nice, and it had me jealous of all those bugs whod died in coc.o.o.ns like this one. Id never known what Id been missing.

-13-.

In the morning, we saddled up our dragons. We had some tough choices to make regarding load-outs.

These walking death-dealers were much more advanced than the one that Turov had used to such great effect aboard Minotaur back on Tech World, and they came with optional equipment. Even the armament had a variety of configurations. You could pack on extra generators, which gave the machine a shorter recharge time and more hours of running around, or you could take along extra ammo for the chest-guns instead. Another option was to adopt a more defensive arrangement, which meant about an inch of electromagnetic shielding that covered the hull, protecting the system from small arms and the like. Yet another choice involved a longer range gun system that rode on the spine of the vehicle and fired right over your shoulder.

"How should we do this, Adjunct?" I asked Leeson. "What kind of equipment does the bra.s.s want us to carry?"

"Well, we dont really know what well encounter," he said thoughtfully, "so I think we should go with a mix. Ill have Harris carry heavier generators with his squad, along with longer-range weapons and shielding. In contrast, your group will run light. No extra armament but extra cells instead, for endurance and plenty of speed."

I frowned but nodded. It was his call. Personally, I didnt think we should take the longer range weaponry at all. So far on this planet, I hadnt been able to see farther than a hundred meters from my nose. There was too much swirling mist. If we did run into a fight, it was going to be like having a battle in a blizzard. I didnt much like the idea of moving faster and rushing around blindly either, but Leeson was in charge.

We loaded up, and I rode out on point. Graves had organized his three platoons with two of them split light-heavy like mine, but 3rd platoon was all heavy. That amounted to four squads of slower machines in the center, and two faster squads flanking. The other units were farther off to either side of us. They were going to take separate, parallel paths.

On our screens inside the c.o.c.kpit, it was pretty easy to keep track of where everyone was. I knew that if those screens and sensors ever failed, however, wed be lost very quickly. Our GPS systems werent working due to the strange atmospherics and the heavily metallic composition of the planet. We had compa.s.ses and scratchy radio, neither of which was one hundred percent reliable-and that was it.

The journey up north to the methane lake took hours, and it was a strange experience. Our light dragons could run at about fifty kilometers an hour, double that for short bursts. They could spring over obstacles, climb steep hills and even ford streams. But when traveling at high speeds, we were running blind. The mist and precipitation caked up on our visors and external camera pickups. Even under the best of conditions, we couldnt see far into the soupy air.

We reached the lake and turned east. After about an hour of running along the lakesh.o.r.e, we ran into our first serious obstacle. I pulled up short and called it in.

"Leeson? This is 1st Squad. Weve hit a big river, sir."

"How big?"

"I dont know-I cant see the far side."

He cursed for a few seconds then relayed my unwelcome news up the chain of command. When he finally got back to me, he had new orders.

"Well be up to you pretty soon. 2nd Platoon just reported in from further south-same thing. We want you to scout the river for depth, McGill. Dont let that methane get up past your legs to the core of your cha.s.sis."

"Uh...right sir."

I wheeled my dragon to face the others who had gathered up and were letting their cells recharge off their fusion generators while they waited for new orders.

"Were going to find out just how deep this river is," I announced.

"Oh really?" asked Carlos. "Let me guess-its my turn to die already, is it?"

"It would be, but I need your dragon," I told him. "Anyone feel like going for a swim?"

Dragons roamed along the sh.o.r.eline, looking at the silvery surface of rippling methane. No one said anything. This must be why Harris had never asked for volunteers, I realized.

"Gorman, Roark-youre on," I ordered.

They groaned and cursed but wandered down to the edge of the flowing liquid. They both put in that first metal foot like they could feel the cold.

I goaded my machine up behind them. "Spread out!" I boomed. "I dont want you both going into the same hole. Kivi, Carlos, attach a tow cable to each of these brave souls."

With a steel cable taut on each machine, we watched them step out into the moving liquid.

"Ever seen a methane-drinking shark before?" Carlos called out to Gorman, who he had on his tether. "I hear they like shiny objects."

"Shut up, Ortiz," I heard myself saying. I had to admit, each day I spent as a veteran made me feel more sympathy for Harris. Could it be that this job shaped the man as much as the other way around?

I didnt get much more time for introspection, unfortunately. Roark ran into trouble about ten meters out. His machine went down on one leg, even though the river hadnt looked to be that deep. One minute hed been in about a meter of water, and the next he was floundering.

"Whats got you, Roark?" I demanded.

"Not sure, Vet. One foot must have stepped into a deep hole."

"Shark! Shark!" shouted Carlos unhelpfully.

"Kivi, haul on that cable," I said. "Take the slack out of it."

She did as I asked, backing her machine up the bank. She pulled, but Roarks dragon wasnt budging.

Inside my machine, I clenched my teeth. This wasnt the sort of problem I could afford to kick up the chain of command. I should be able to handle it myself.

Gorman had retreated out of the river and joined the group looking out toward Roark with concern. Instead of ordering Gorman back into harms way, I marched out into the river after Roark myself.

"Careful Vet," Gorman said, eyeing my rescue attempt. "I got a feeling there might be more holes out here."

I moved warily. It wasnt an easy thing to do. The machine didnt have sensors in the bottom of its feet. I had to feel my way like a man driving a car over uneven ground, hoping he didnt get stuck.

As a precaution, I had my tow-line hooked up to my troops on the sh.o.r.eline.

When at last I made it to Roark, I managed to use my arm segments to latch onto him. Bending my legs into a crouch then standing erect, I hauled him straight up.

There was resistance, that much I was sure of. Whatever hed found, it wasnt just a simple hole. Something was trying to keep him down.

When we were both mobile again, I noticed that Roark still had trouble. His dragon tottered to the sh.o.r.e. I accompanied him in case he went down again, figuring his leg actuator might have gone bad.

"What is that thing?" Kivi asked.

I stopped and rotated my cha.s.sis to get a good look.

Kivi was right. There was something attached to Roarks machine. It was like a cylinder wrapped around the lower leg section, and there was a glowing amber light on top of it, too.

"What the...could that be a mine?" Kivi asked.

"Back up! Hes gonna blow!" Carlos shouted.

The group scattered like hens. I stood there with Roark, who was trying to escape his fate. He had his grippers on the top of the cylinder, pushing down.

I reached out, seeing a group of wires on top. They were crude, thick wires. I snipped them with my grippers, and the amber light died. Using my dragons powerful arms, I ripped the thing loose and dropped it on the rocks with a clang.

"Well," I said, "if that was a mine, it was a pretty p.i.s.s-poor one."

The squad wandered back to us, looking paranoid. I decided it was time to report in.

"Adjunct Leeson, sir? The river is a problem. There seem to be devices in it, buried in the water. I dont know their function or who put them there, but they seem to be traps. They might disable anyone who tries to cross."

"Roger that, McGill. Weve had other reports of a similar nature. Like that battery you found yesterday. Lots of discarded hardware. Command is suspecting that this planet was once inhabited, or maybe still is, by a technologically savvy species."

Who could it be? I thought of the squids right off, but it just didnt seem to be their style. This whole planet wouldnt have been appealing to them for colonization, just for resources. Who else might be living down here on this cold, mist-covered rock?

We were ordered to abandon our attempts to ford the river. It was too deep, too treacherous and too wide. Instead, we angled south off course and ran along the sh.o.r.eline. Behind us, the main ma.s.s of troops arrived. I left the artifact wed found on the beach for them to examine.

About a half-hours run southward, we ran into something new. There was a cl.u.s.ter of low metal domes near the river. Dont get me wrong, the domes didnt have the fresh-forged look of our ships and machines. Instead, they were dirty and corroded. Everything about the place looked unfinished and crude. The domes were close to the methane, arranged in a semi-circle. We didnt march right into the middle of them as we were wary by now.

"What the h.e.l.l is this?" Carlos asked. "Some kind of fishing village?"

When he said that, it struck me that he was right. That was exactly what it looked like. A fishing village.

"Carlos, check that hut up there on the hill."

" s.h.i.t..." he said then trotted his machine to the structure Id indicated. There was a door of sorts, consisting of two heavy metal plates piled over one another. He levered it open, and it clanged and clattered to the ground.

"I didnt say to tear it up!" I shouted after him. "If natives live here, youll scare the living-"

That was as far as I got. A figure sprang up out of the door of the shack and scuttled away. Now, when I say figure, you have to understand Im not talking about a humanoid. Im talking about something that looked like a centipede built out of rusty garbage cans with churning metal struts for legs.

"Holy c.r.a.p!" Carlos shouted. "Did you see that guy? Did you see that?"

"Yeah, we sure did."

Carlos took off after the thing. It wasnt small, but it was a lot smaller than he was. Lengthwise, it was probably two meters long and a half-meter or so wide. Carlos caught up to it and launched himself up into the air, coming down on its back. He forced it down into the dirt, where it squirmed and kicked.

"Whys he killing it?" Kivi demanded.

"Carlos, shes right. Dont harm it. That thing must be part of the native population."

Carlos came back to us, holding the thing in his grippers. It squirmed and twisted but couldnt get away. It didnt make any sound other than desperate scrabbling noises.

"If this is a native, this is one weird place," Carlos said. "This-listen people-this is a machine."

We examined it, and we quickly realized he was right. The creature was all metal with cameras for eyes and jointed struts for legs. It looked like it had been a.s.sembled out of spare parts. There had to be some level of AI inside the brain-pan, however, as it was clearly pitiful and distressed.

"We should take this back to Natasha," Carlos suggested. "Shed get a kick out of dissecting it."

"I think we should let it go," Kivi said.

Something in her voice made me turn to look at her. She was staring back behind us. I turned around and followed her gaze.

There, looming out of the mist beyond the shacks, was a ma.s.sive figure. It came up out of the methane river and moved like a rolling ma.s.s of interconnected plates. Shaped like a slug, it undulated to and fro as if uncertain. It seemed to be studying us.

"Carlos, put the caterpillar-thing down," I ordered. "Gently."

"Aw, I wanna keep him."

"Do as I order, or Ill fire on you!"

"Sheesh, all right. Whats the-oh..."

Hed finally caught sight of the thing we were all staring at. He put the small machine down on the ground, and it scuttled off toward the bigger one.

-14-.

We quickly retreated uphill, away from the village along the river. The mountain of metal plates shifted around the domes and followed us, matching our pace. As a measured response, we moved slowly and gently away from the village-or nursery, or whatever the h.e.l.l it was.

"You think thats mama, Kivi?" I asked, whispering for some reason.

"I bet it is. If that little one is hurt, I suggest we offer up Carlos as a sacrifice."

"Hardly seems like a fair trade," I said. "We dont want to p.i.s.s off the locals further by giving them our most irritating trooper."

"I didnt know!" Carlos complained. "How the h.e.l.l was I supposed to know this world is inhabited by freaking machines? Thats weird, man. Really weird. Who built them in the first place? How do they reproduce? What do they-?"

"Could you shut up for nine seconds, Ortiz?" I demanded. "Im trying to report this in. Dont run, anyone. If its like an animal, its best to move slowly and confidently. Backward."

As we backed away from the village, the big machine eventually stopped following us and returned home. The bulk of it vanished into the white mists, and we were very happy to see the last of it.

"Uh...Adjunct Leeson? Ive got an unexpected contact to report."

I gave him the story, and he kicked me up to Graves before I finished the third sentence.

"Have you got video?" Graves asked.

"Relaying and transmitting the file now, sir."

Fortunately, Kivi had had the presence of mind to flip on her suit recorders when we first met up with the village. The Centurion reviewed the file and let out a long breath.

"Weve been suspecting something like this. A dozen reports have hinted around, but youre the first to encounter an actual organized habitation. Good scouting, McGill."

"Thanks. What are they, sir?"

"Native life, after a fashion. Weve theorized about this, and the Galactics have hinted that some of the inhabitants of the Core Systems resemble these beings. Theyre electromechanical creatures. Robots, essentially."

"Some of the Galactics are robots?"

"Thats what we understand," Graves said. "Its a miracle, when you think about it, that the various species from the Core Worlds were able to cooperate long enough to build an empire at all."

"Im out in the field, sir. What should I do?"

"Be friendly with the locals. Get used to them. Maybe theyll get used to you. Machine life, McGill. Just think about them as flesh and blood. Wait a second-you didnt damage any of them, did you?"

"Not intentionally, sir."