23.
The catapult was on a notable open space; slightly in inclination as a shield volcano, the ground reached the tallest point whereas the hyperbolic structure of guide had been built for the cart. When I reached the layers, busy in a light ascent, I saw the empty cart to beginning run, deposed to earth, to contact with the thin shiny platform that salivates at first in invaluable way, for then to dart steep and game toward the depth of the sky Martian.
Of the construction turned to the sieve, the shelter of access was seen, with a dusty oblique hatch for the men and the showy dirty cone for the I unload some materials.
Around nient'altro was not seen for hundreds of meters.
The ground was smooth and deprived of imprints, as if anybody, from years, it was past than there. You/he/she had been the storm: you/he/she had covered every thing with the sands furious and lost those traces that would have been able to tell me where the dragonfly was landed. Patience. I brought me to the station of sieve with my elephant footstep, I made to kneel to earth the robot, so much to give him a stable posture, and I jumped down from his/her head. I bounced on the ground and I put me around four legs. I had the hatch of entry in front of me.
«Here Angel» I called. «They are to the entry of the sieve. How does he enter?»
I had the information in the exabyte, but the astronauts could not know him/it. I wanted only to hear their voice.
«Here Robin. There is a small panel in front of you, on the door. Reward him/it three times.»
I felt to puff as if to the radio there was a cooled facocero.
«You are taken yourself a cold, Robin?» I asked.
«Here Zeld. My guilt, had out slightly the radio place. I systematize her.»
The rustles stopped.
«How Hut it is?» I asked.
«If really you want to know him/it, Angel, has not killed me yet» it said the young one.
«I wanted to assure me that you were all whole ones.»
«Certain» it said Robin.
«I am entering» I said, after having opened the steel rolling shutter. «Qual is the first thing that you/they would have made Benson and Lidya, once done arrive until here?»
Robin thought continuosly about an instant for his/her account recalling to the mind the protocol of routine.
«Uhm. the procedures foresees first the restocking of the reservoirs of the chemical solvents, then the loading of the catapult with the material ready stoccatis already for the throwing, and finally the sequences of throwing up to the exhaustion of the escorts. Do you feel the active cars, Angel?»
There was no sound. I could not hear, but the vibrations of the ground I would certainly have perceived her.
«No, I don't feel her.»
«Well you don't owe. The system arrests when someone opens the door. It starts over working when the door is sealed again.»
«Where I find the siloses?»
«You go straight always, you cannot be wrong you.»
I left the entry and I gone down a long comfortable staircase.
I found me in a wide corridor with a lot of doors to the sides, all dams. I continued. After a curve, the corridor widened and I was me in a great circular stanzone with others handed to the walls; in a hollow of the wall there were the siloses, tall and transparent. Each had a steel cover that directly gave on the sky Martian. One was almost empty, the other heights for half.
«They have to be all full ones for at least two bystanders» it said Zeld.
«I/you/they have not been supplied» concluded me. «Something has happened before. I will give a glance to see if there are traces of recent visits.»
Went looking for around imprints as a detective, but the environment recycled and filtered the external air removing the dusts of it, so it was everything enough clean. I opened wide I don't know anymore how much handed, finding a lot of apparatuses; the deposit of the rocks to be sifted, full for a bystander and the deposit of stoccaggio of the ready material to be launched, practically empty. I counted twelve minutes of useless searches, therefore I returned to the outside and I sealed the porthole: now that knew him/it, I made case to the low and deep trembling of the automatic systems that the operations of sieve took back. I allowed to lose, and I went up again on the robot: I didn't want that my alter ego ridanciano sprouted again out. I went to inspect the outskirtses making a turn in the plain one of the catapult.
Tells a look the cart, and I noticed that in reality it was astride of the metallic guide, but it didn't touch her/it; the big small truck leaned for earth with two ample thick roller skate. A glance in more and I perceived me that, of fact, those were two cylinders that contained the powerful propellers of the vehicle. I crossed the steel platform, shiny for the lashes of the winds; for the almost horizontal line I placed side by side me trotting us as a drunk, then I brought below of it up to find to observe me the apex of the run, taller than me of about ten meters. On the ground, below the almost vertical portion of the thick gun carriage, the vector at the most of the turns you/he/she had left two light circular imprints, whereas the puffs of the reaction propulsion you/they had come up to earth. The two small depressions, identical, they had a dark complexion, different from the surrounding ground. I went over and I closed the circle around the catapult finding again my imprints.
The moment had come to make the summary of the situation:
To) I had not found trace of Benson or Lidya, neither of their vehicle.
B) I didn't have the palest idea of where you/they would have been able to be.
C) I had left alone the other three astronauts, with the possibility that among them there pits a murderous saboteur or two.
An intervention, mine, decidedly ficcante and effectiveness.
I didn't have to make to take me from the nervousness; the things were not a lot of that knew to do, but in a thing by now I excelled: to use the exabyte. I activated him/it and I studied what was on the installation, on as it worked and on as it interacted with the outside. I saw a lot of simulations and of video on the systems of sieve, filtration and stoccaggio of the materials. I also saw the automatic shuttles in orbit around the planet as light skeletons waiting for to catch material jewels.
But, above every other thing, the throwing impressed me in the space with the catapult. There was also the sonorous one and it was what upset more me: I was not almost more gotten used to feel the true sounds, and that was the first damned noise that had been penetrating inside of me for a lot of time, even if in digital form. It was an inexpressible din. The lightnings of the motors as solid lances on wipes away her some cart, they disappeared aloft there so in hurry not to be seemed real.
In short: it studies, I studied, I studied. I let me take the hand and I found around me with about twenty mental operations for the brain, each busy to study something of complex; I had some difficulties to put again all together. I was sits of it there, on the head of the robot, immovable as a statue.
It seemed me they spent times, but the exabyte informed that you/they were spent only two minutes from when I had activated him. Absurd. After that time, not some two minutes, I had considered everything that that I had available and I had already started to give me some fool. I continued for some, so much to offend well me for, called then Robin.
«Here Angel. Does he/she anchor all whole ones?»
A choir of three yes and a triplex fiatone of foundation.
The accounts returned, for the time being.
«Someone has operated the catapult. From few» I announced.
«Lidya.» it said Zeld.
«You/he/she can give him» I said me.
«How you know him/it?» he/she asked Hut.
«Because there were two imprints under the guide of the catapult, where the rockets have shot their throw on the ground.»
«Because you say that has happened from few?» he/she asked Robin.
«Because those are the imprints that I have seen in the video
of the throwing. Not big holes in the ground, that you/they would have been able to be partly covered by the storm leaving a residue. No, small forms. If a storm was followed, you/they would immediately have disappeared, confused by the sand. I/you/they have been done later then.»
«There is a way to verify him/it» it said Robin. «We can see if one of the shuttles of transport has received the material.»
«And as?» I objected. «The shuttles make world to themselves. I am the most antiquated piece of the system. They don't interact, they don't share the data; they limit him to accumulate them for the postdiagnostica on the Earth.»
«What kind of data?» Hut joined in conversation.
«Gives on the harvest of the materials. On the coincidence with their target, the container of the mineral ones. On the efficiency of the capture with the nets. Gives that serve for improving the operation of the system. A lot of techniques have been tried, but the most efficient has remained that of the capture with the visual survey of the target. The most ancient.»
And idea matured at that time: I would have opened wide the mouth, if I/you had had one of it.
«How you know all these things?» he/she asked Robin, doubtful.
«I have studied a database, when I have left the station of sieve» I mechanically said, while I was starting over giving me some idiot.
«In two minutes?» it said Robin.
My goodness, then you/they had been really two.
«Already» I did.
My mouth was ideally still wide open.
«I am an imbecile stratosferico» I admitted.
«If you tell him/it you» it commented Zeld.
«What Angel takes you?» he/she asked Robin.
«I perhaps know whether to find the dragonfly. Unfortunately for me» I said.
Silence.
«You regret to explain?» it made Hut.
«Some. I have to arrive on one of those ships in orbit.»
«To do of it?»
«Visual coincidence» I explained. «A shuttle remains waiting for a load for a piece. It watches the catapult. It attends the moment of the throwing to understand if it will pass nearby and it will be her turn to catch the mineral one; he/she esteems the rout and currency of it the point and the useful instant for the throwing of the net. Everybody data that you/they remain in memory.»
«Caspita» Hut exclaimed. «In the memory of the transport that has recovered the load there is a resumption of the surface Martian. That part around the catapult. However, the shuttles with the full one of materials go on the Earth.»
«True» I said. «But the images are also in all those that stay. The next shuttle to the point of arrival of the mineral one picks him/it up and goes, but the others.»
«Fantastic» it admitted Zeld. «All it takes is looking at the last recording in chronological order.»
«How you think about going on that freighters, Angel?» he/she asked Robin.
«You know him/it» I said.
Alarm clock was too not to have I happen me.
«You are crazy» it said with emphasis.
«There is no other way» I beat.
I would never have liked to do him/it; the legs trembled me to the only thought. Literally.
«You were right Angel. You are an imbecile stratosferico» it sentenced Robin.
«The catapult!» it howled Hut.
«Yes» I said.
«I imagine that you know how to make to work her/it» it made Robin.
«I believe. There are some complicanzes, however» I confabulated. «A piccoletto as me would be ignored from those ships. I have to launch me with a true load. If however I do him/it, when we are taken in the net the ship it favors the inactivity of the material and it estranges from Mars to the speed of escape I pour the Earth. If I also took the commands, it would be arduous to return back. The motors of those shuttles are tired, they put us a lot of time to win the inertial mass of the mineral ones. But we admit that I/you/he/she succeed us. The only way that I have for returning on the surface Martian is to fall. The shuttles are not made for flying in the attenuate atmosphere of Mars; they have some wings, but not enough great to sustain the really weight. Here The portanza would be too much scarce.»
«However you would have that data however» it said Zeld.
«Yes» I admitted.
What did he/she want to say that man?
«You could make him/it the attempt however, and to remain on the shuttle up to the Earth.»
«Zeld!» Robin exclaimed.
«What there is?» it made Zeld. «Would not happen him nothing. It is not at all a human being him. It would not starve.»
I could not give him blame if he/she thought her/it this way.
«Instead yes» I said me. «It serves me food and oxygen, exactly as to you.»
«And is, then» taken back Zeld. «We appraise what both better. To sacrifice two members of our group, two human beings; or Angel, a kind to be biomeccanico.»
«. that you/he/she has saved us the life. You cannot speak seriously. As for the human beings.» Robin started.
«You/he/she is not saying badly» I joined in conversation. «But I don't know how much the data would be useful. I would not use those as needle of the balance.»
«Thing is, a damned turnaround?» it said Zeld, angry. «First they were important, now that it speaks of your skin I am not him/it more?»
I kept the calm: I could not give now even him blame.
I felt the three that they discussed on the matter with rather power on tones. To see something of the surface while there were being Lidya and Benson you/he/she could serve, and I was for that to help them there. If indeed an indication could be had of where or as to find them, as would I have been able to abdicate? Two human beings to comparison with one fifty-fifty. In reality the comparison there was not at all. To decide was easy.
«Well. Does someone know where I can find a load for the catapult?» I asked.
The three stopped shouting and they made silence for a long moment.
«What you want to say?» he/she asked Zeld.
«The container of the mineral one, what is hoisted on the vector of the catapult. I have not seen of it, in the station of sieve.»
«A crane will serve you to transport him/it.»
«I have him, the crane» I said.
I had that robots I toast.
«Ah. Be', load and container are directly assembled by the station, once that you/he/she has been selected and prepared the material by to send in the room vector.»
I knew him/it, I had looked at the whole procedure on the exabyte. But I would have had to interact with the system, to make a load me same, since in the rooms of stoccaggio you/he/she had not been anything there. in short, to waste to lot of time. The room vector: the ready bullet for the throwing was extracted from there and brought on the cart with the crane. The container was found there already inside; the system filled him/it according to the model of occupation of the spaces thought by the human operator, then it opened a botolone and the crane you/he/she could extract him/it as a cork from a neck of bottle. I looked in the exabyte where the room was found vector. Forty more meters in there from where I was; I taken a good footstep and I reached the botolone; at least, the point in which I thought that, under that homogeneous layer of sands, it owed us to be the big metallic cover. I rotated the left shoulder and I grafted the aspirator of dusts. I turned on and I sent to everybody, aiming the mouth ingluviatrice, black and dirty, against the ground. Noise departed difficult, but then the hell instigated him: I lifted a miniskirt storm of sand over my shoulders, confiscating in the hungry gun carriage of my arm an exaggerated quantity of particles that you/they were projected back to the with all the energy of which I prepared.
Grants me few second, so much to see if it worked. My goodness: I had not only polished up the ground revealing the botolone, but I had fleshed the tawny rocks of the outskirtses.
«How other
opens this cover?» I asked.
I knew that it opened alone, once that the load had been ready, but I wanted to open him/it now.
«Be'» it said Hut. «Only the system opens him/it, after.»
«With the cabbage» I said me.
The three astronauts had to have an unpleasant auditory perception, when I pierced the botolone with the pneumatic hammer and I tore away it with the bucket. The big deformed plate ristette oscillating winds more meters in there swept by a delicate sandy breeze.
«Damages to the city ownerships» it commented Robin.
I knew that you/he/she was smiling.
«I see the container. A big blackish sphere with a thick handle in top.»
In effects in low, in the hole that I had uncovered, there was a very strong hook which you/they evidently had to stick the crane.
«I try to lift her/it.»
It was a damned problem: even if the sphere was empty and therefore easier to move, I didn't have the correct tools to grab her/it. The mighty hands would have served me that had my old metallic body. But, I could regulate otherwise perhaps me,: I had a great pick, in alternative to the pneumatic hammer. I rotated the shoulder right middle turn and I grafted the arm with the great steel arc, inserting an extremity of it in the ring. It was a lot of difficulty, not so much for the pick but for the rest of the body of the robot. I had to stick out downward it without falling, since the sphere was not shaved earth but boxed in the subsoil of about seventy centimeters. I didn't know whether to put the legs of the robot, to make strength and to lift that round thing. Divaricai the legs and I planted the feet on the edges of the opening in the ground, but it was accursedly an unstable position. I hoisted the sphere throwing the hook; I almost capsized me. I stuck out the left arm over the back and I leaned the bucket against the ground Martian. This way it was all right, at least I could not fall. I hoisted again and the big ashy ball squirted aloft out of the hole making to upset back me to the.
The bucket stopped me, the sphere went beyond my body and timidly tumbled on the sands. The operation had put me to hard test: the robot didn't belong to my body, to make to move him/it in unusual way I had had to make a great work of creative communication forcing the protocols in times ridottissimi.
«It is light» I murmured, the sphere that blandly pitched looking. «There is an opening below.»
Its lightness was impressive: it was a dark ball of four meters diameter, but I could move her/it without problems. You/he/she had to have made of a special material, because it was undoubtedly strong. The inferior counter was enormous. You/he/she had still opened, since the system didn't have provveduto to close again him/it. The lock had to be magnetic, but there was also luckily a mechanical lock that I could easily use.
I built the robot.
«Angel» it said Robin. «You don't have to do him/it for strength.»
You/he/she had put to come to say him/it of it of time; I knew that it felt like serving him/it as the moment in which I had decided to climb on the catapult.
«Thanks» I said. «But I have decided.»
«Then, beh. of accord» it said her. «However you have to know that according to me it won't work to empty vector.»
A blow ideally dictates me in head. Imbecile, for the nth time. I didn't try taste to offend me, but when he deserves him.
«The attrition of the air» I said me.
«Yes. The atmosphere of Mars is attenuate, but the catapult projects in thousands the vector of kilometers the time. If the vector doesn't have enough mass, the strength of attrition with the atmosphere reduces too much the speed in hurry and instead of reentering in orbit the vector it reverts to the ground.»
«Not to worry you. I will fill this large case. I have the correct equipment to play with the sand.»
Often from a problem an idea that resolves him/it systematizing a second of it in unexpected way rises. I am not a physicist but the idea to be able to regulate the weight of the vector and in this way to work on the decrement of his/her speed it gave me a new perspective. I had to give me to do, however. Holy exabyte. I don't remember to how much you try says away the, this time; I had to compensate my ignorance. This way I studied the physics of the atmosphere Martian, the characteristic densitometriches of the sands of zone, the aerodynamic mechanics and the whole mathematics of support. To the meantime, I measured with the maximum precision the capacity of my bucket, and this was nice; I had looked for the datum in the exabyte, but there was not. I pretended too much perhaps. But there was another interesting fact: the robot was able to measure the volumetria of the material risucchiato through the aspirator on the left arm, all it took is asking him him; and I was able. This way I filled the bucket, tilting a grain not to even lose her/it, then I rotated the shoulder and I used the other arm, that of the aspirator, turning him/it on the bucket to my shoulders. I inhaled every thing, up to the most minute powder, and I checked the quantity. I passed the information to the trial that checked the densities of zone and I calculated the weight of a bennata. The mathematical trial told what mass I had to have for going out of the planet with the speed that I wanted, to the quota in which I knew how to be himself/herself/themselves the shuttles, departing from her/it well note speed in gone out of the catapult. To do this I integrated the density of the atmosphere to the different quotas with the preceding data and I appraised the strength of in operation attrition of the speed of flight and the quota; therefore I resolved the simple equation that the quota of harvest of the transports tied I pour the Earth, the speed to that quota and the mass of the vector to the clean one of the container. I tried first with mass zero, and obviously I saw that I would never be gone out of the orbit. I knew him/it, but it was so much to make a small verification. I started to increase the mass, but after a pair of attempts I baited a trial iterativo that went on for his/her account, and meanwhile I filled to bennate the sphere holding the account of the shovelfuls. I finally reached the hoped result; known the necessary mass and knowing the weight of a bennata, I also knew of how much bennate I had need to reach the anticipated weight.
I realized me that I was about to mistake everything: I would have been climbed on board also me, and with the robot; together we weighed not little. I translated our weight in bennate of sand and I did the difference with the calculated one.
Here I had ended, the manual job stayed.
He/she didn't want a lot us to fill the sphere of the wanted quantity. It was very lighter than the normal launched loads, I wanted that the effects frenantis of the atmosphere practiced a conclusive action: more plan I/you had gone, you/he/she would have stirred more slowly the shuttle that would have come to pick up me.
I closed the fund of the sphere, then I built me and I grabbed with the pick the ring of taking; I started to throw. It was everything rather heavy, now, but that robots it was a boulder. I dragged the sphere on the ground leaving behind a long and wide wake of me; I went me to the catapult, naturally. The cart was not far, but I was in slope; I taken to climb above for the slope strongly aiming the feet against the ground. The piedonis sank of quite a lot about ten centimeters. Three minutes and I was close to the big cart.
The following footsteps were simple: I hoisted the sphere on the shoulders of the robot (ahia, to moments it fell) and I inserted her/it inside the small truck. It suited us precise precise. A spazietto remained on the before, but I was not able he/she anchors infilarmici: I owed first to activate the catapult. There was a panel you orchestrate on the side of the cart. I opened him. Behind the panel there was not anything else other than a great round button. Premise him/it. The cart started, it rippled, starting to wave; therefore it lifted him from earth bringing the side sleighs to embrace the hyperbolic guide, ten centimeters from it on both the sides. It was not some external sign of it, but it began a countdown that would have made to depart the vector of to half minute there. I put again to place the panel, therefore I drove the robot until inside the cabin. You/he/she was not d
one for guests, only for the vector, and there was a discreet claustrophobic feeling, to be there inside. I moved a leg of the robot so that it grabbed the frontal hook of the sphere and another leg so that it held well firm me.
«Angel, is there still? We don't feel you from some» it said Robin.
The correct moment didn't seem me to chat, but it always needs to be polite with the ladies.
«They are in the cart. They miss few second to the throw» I said.
«Porca poverty» it said Hut.
«It will be an acceleration of the devil» it made Robin. «You are certain to be able to bear her/it?»
"Porca poverty" I also told me me. Now he/she asked me him. So much for curiosity, did me a pair of accounts to calculate that acceleration. I had not reached a precise value, but I discovered enough to conclude that you/he/she would have been the worse blow that inferta had ever been me. The trip toward Mars with my impromptu vehicle was a foolishness to the comparison.
I didn't have the time to worry me. The walls of the cart brutally shook him; I imagined the flames to erupt wildly on the back of the mean. An unbelievable noise that I would never have been able to hear attended, but before I made indeed me of it account the whole universe he/she was closed on me.