Prodigal Read Free Page B

worry.
    “Explain,” the captain ordered.
    “Just what I said,” Nathan told her. “The readings indicated some kind of interconnected activity. It was pretty faint and very brief, but no doubt it was real.”
    “Human?”
    “Not a chance,” he stated firmly. “Nobody could have survived on Mars for that long. And besides—human minds don’t form networks.”
    “Then what could it be?”
    Nathan thought about it.
    “An idiosyncrasy of the crawler,” he said. “It finds something in the construct it can’t explain, so it interpolates the data the only way it knows how: by ascribing its own neural characteristics to the readings.”
    “The damn thing sees a reflection of itself on the surface?” Farina chuckled, suddenly realizing why her ICO had been so spooked. “Sounds like you’ve been spending too much time down in the core, Straka.”
    He shrugged. “Well, these systems can get a little punchy trying to orient themselves in an environment with so many variables. A little ego projection isn’t unheard of—especially when they encounter something they can’t explain. Anyway, you asked for my opinion.”
    “Indeed I did.” The captain didn’t pretend to understand Nathan’s complex relationship with the crawler, but she had every confidence that he knew what he was doing. “Helm,” she ordered, “put Olympus Mons back on the main viewer.”
    The helmsman punched up the image. As the bridge crew stared down into the massive hole atop the flattened volcano, one thing was very clear: the summit lay far beyond the reach of the plague that had consumed the terraforming settlement. What might be up there now, Farina couldn’t even begin to imagine.
    “Those readings,” she asked her ICO. “If I got you close enough, do you think you could reacquire the signal? Track it to its point of origin?”
    “Probably.”
    “Then I suggest you get a team together,” the captain announced, sinking back into her chair, “because we’re about to test your theory.”

     

    Two hours later, Nathan had his team. He kept the list short—a pilot to handle the landing craft, a mission specialist with detailed knowledge of the terraforming venture, and himself. They were already waiting for Nathan when he arrived on the flight deck.
    The pilot was a veteran spacer who went by the call sign Pitch. If he had another name, Nathan had never heard it. He acknowledged the ICO with a simple nod, projecting the assured demeanor of a man who could make machines fly. The specialist, meanwhile, eyed Nathan nervously as he approached. According to the roster, her name was Eve Kellean—a smart girl, about ten years older than most newbies, paying for graduate school with a few years in the Directorate reserve. As Kellean was working on her doctorate in xenobiology, Nathan surmised—correctly—that she never thought she would actually get called up.
    “Lighten up, Kellean,” Nathan said, slinging his gear pack over his shoulder. “You’d be surprised at how many spacing careers begin in the reserve.”
    “My father tried to warn me,” Kellean replied, taking it in stride. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your confidence in me, Commander—I really do. I just wasn’t expecting to do any field duty.”
    “Afraid of getting your hands dirty?”
    “No, sir, ” came the spirited response. Nathan had to smile as he started them on a brisk walk toward the lander. “It’s just that I usually work in an advisory capacity. Mission briefings, research—that sort of thing.”
    “Sounds dull,” Nathan remarked. “No offense.”
    “None taken, sir.” By her tone, it was obvious she meant it. “At any rate, since Almacantar is my first deep-space assignment, I was wondering why you didn’t select somebody with more field experience.”
    “Nobody knows this rock better than you, Kellean.” Off her curious reaction, he added, “I checked your file. You also did a minor in military history. With everything