27.
It was very different from the old mine. You/he/she had never been activated, since the city didn't have then so so many economic resources and the quantity extracted by the other concession Martian you/he/she had always made to sufficiency. In reality, however, the exabyte brought that it was really this the most ancient mine, the first concession that the city had gotten on Mars. You/he/she had not immediately been used for logistic reasons; more difficult to reach, more arduous I dig him/it and the transport of the mineral one.
While I was walking in the cavern I looked around me; the road, enough to regulate, went downward with a discreet inclination. After hundred meters in the semi-obscurity the path did him more breadth and it conducted more and more me through an ample tunnel, until it didn't open wide from now on him to me a cave of great dimensions.
The ceiling was tall about ten meters, made of dark and uneven rocks; every now and then they were detached by earth curved pillars that went to sustain the great structure of coverage with placed side by side times. The rock anywhere it was reddish or brown, often a great deal scabrous. Some ravines pierced the times allowing to glimpse the external light. It was a notable place for charm and dimensions. I continued; the cave was oblong, to elliptic plant very coarsely. Facts other two hundred meters I met a first shelter; you/he/she was set to the wall, a long taller that wide parallelepipedo. It almost reached the ceiling; it finished with a canopy slightly tilted, from which a couple of pipelines departed that the time pierced and they went to the outside. From the shelter a delicate humming originated. To few meters of distance there was another shelter, with the disclosed door; I made capolino with prudence, but inside there was not anything else other than a kind of hammock pressurized by the form to dirigible. the pallet of someone. and to lot of closed armadiature. There is who had had the liver to sleep us, down here, and alone.
There were no other constructions: over, the cave tightened him, showing however numerous fractures of which three particularly ample. There, according to my data, it began the real mine: three twin tunnels that departed with a slabs flooring in stone, almost horizontal, for then to plunge down himself/herself/themselves to the in the bowel of the highland to hundreds of meters, perhaps thousand, from the surface already depressed of the canyon.
A rapids glance was enough for everybody and three the tunnels to understand that there to think about digging and portar by the material was a non indifferent enterprise. Very better the other mine, with the mineral one almost prepared in surface.
When I finally served capolino as the third tunnel the voices they came me. You/they were communicating away radio, it is obvious; that that it was strange it is that before leaning out I had not felt a beautiful anything. Something, the physical constitution of the rocks, probably prevented the presents to transmit over that passage.
Did I enter definite and did I try to transmit to low-power, the same one of the overall, to the ship in the parking lot: a simple impulse, a kind of you are there? conventional. The ship didn't respond: I was isolated also me. I increased the power and I repeated the signal until I didn't hear the pre-arranged one I am there.
A quarter was necessary of the maximum power of which I was able. A trifle, for me, but not for the astronauts. I still lifted the power of my transmitter, so much for safety, and I advanced. The ground steeply went down: there was an amazing ramp of staircases under of me, and it conducted very more in low. The tunnel would have been dark, too much depth to hope in the natural light; there is who had provveduto to position some lamps to wall, weak but functional, every ten meters around. The light that you/they emanated was rather ghostly. I regretted not having opened the first shelter, but I imagined what I would have found: a small reactor Williamson. And that pipes that went out of the shelter toward the outside that stuff was? The motor didn't need nothing, for that that I knew. I began to go down with calm assembling me on the voices. There was a moment of silence. Had I been wrong? There was not perhaps anybody; I had taken quite a lot blows from when I had begun that trip. But no, I felt to slightly pant; any word, now, but someone was laboring. or inflating toy balloons to make carousal. I did for launching a call, but I stayed me in time: I didn't know who pits that guy and even it was not really friendly.
To the third ramp you dictate me some fool: I still felt that light piston, or perhaps more than one, since it had a fast and irregular lilt, but I was certain that I would not be me due to worry. I was under the surface Martian for a buonissima reason, even if I didn't remember with precision what. What knew with certainty, with absolute certainty, it was that of that electrifying adventure I would have owed above all if not exclusively to feel me pleased.
Happiness spread and, when it seemed to overpower me, quickly I channeled her/it in a devoted trial; I left that it continued, putting apart me. I didn't force this time: I had learned the lesson. My body took to balzellare on the steps with ability, without sometimes losing occasion of saltapiccchiare on the adjacent to wall the ramps. The tunnel did even more him steep; from the steps, served as stones of all the dimensions, I gone down on a landing of an alone plate of stone, small, well smoothed and to regulate; in other terms, a landing nanerottolo without a pebble.
"No, curse" I told me" I have to maintain me shiny, I isolate better my trial. here."
I tried not to make to condition me from the simplicity of Anchise: I stopped me and I realized some safety subroutines. I did her with a certain effort, crouched for earth there, but they didn't stink.
Over the landing, the road issued him: there was another ramp that went down down even more and there was a room whose passage without door, in raw stone, it was to half meter from me. On the stipite of the passage a weak brightness blinked, in slow movement.
"It takes some prudence" I thought.
«What imbecility the prudence; you are a fishing-line, fanne without!» it proclaimed Anchise.
«But who devil.» it said to voice that The didn'ts know.
Something went off inside of me.
I entered the good room.
«Pepperepèèèèè!» peperonò Anchise, rivolvendo to all legs on the sandy ground.
In front of. be', we there was to long metallic pipes that appeared on the surface from the ground, three connected respirators to the pipes, three connected astronauts to the respirators and three well put conspirators (ouch, son pains) that them avevan done cracked.
Robin, Zeld and Hut are sat to earth you sue to insufflare oxygen, while Lidya, Benson and a guy that I didn't know, all in spatial overall, observed in silence the three unlucky poor men. Which, besides, they had an ugly aspect: it was evident that for some reason the adduzione of the oxygen didn't work to duty. For that they breathed badly and they seemed destroyed by the work.
«Angel» it murmured someone, but so plain that only I could have felt.
«What devil of trifle six, you?» the unknown guy exclaimed.
Guy turned verse of me and you/he/she observed me with amazement and admiration (" no, porca poverty,' I am trial you/he/she is indeed a snoop. I will keep to better me. zzà, done").
In short it observed me with amazement.
«You don't see him/it, Fei, is only a probe» it said Robin.
«Beep!» I exclaimed, because he/she is known that a probe ago this way. Only that said him/it to words. «Beep! Beep!»
I taken to turn bippando here and there and inspecting everywhere, because to this it serves a probe. I had around this way way of looking me: it was a closed room, more or less semicircolare, from the graven walls coarsely. A small opening there was alone on a wall, shut by a heavy curtain of cloth that rubbed to earth; from the edges of the cloth it filtered some light. The room seemed an enough recent work, the chiseled walls were still dusty. Strolling about I saw that my three friends astronauts were imprisoned indeed: them the portable containers of the oxygen had been escaped and, if they wanted to live, they had to suck from the channel on the floor
.
Here to thing they served the pipelines in the shelter than above: they went to fish oxygen from the atmosphere Martian. The plant probably went up again to the first times of the presence of the man on Mars, when he/she anchors the threatening human beings. That residual of a phase by now old it was a perfect jail however.
«A probe» it repeated Guy.
«A round probe surrounds yourself!» Anchise exclaimed.
Raced in circle and it revolved Guy, then it lifted a threatening hand to height chiappale. «And it breaks down yourself!»
You/he/she would have killed him. Anchise didn't have the sense of the proportions: you/he/she would have clawed the overall thinking about making a ragazzata - the height pinch gluteo - but my hands were on the rough and strong one. You/he/she could break that overall in a point difficult to tag after. The man he would be depressurizzato and goodbye.
Also Fei made account: it made a leap in before, disjointed because of the redoubt gravity, and it tried to hold advanced the basin in ridiculous way. Fei looked him wipes away her, but I was not there. I was him before.
«Buu!» it made Anchise.
From behind the helmet Fei visibly whitened; it was paralysed, completely terrorized. I leaned out me verse of him, lifting my body with the four zampettes to the maximum extension. Anchise modulated the voice in way caricature her.
«Suvvia riabbiti, pitocco» it softly suggested to Fei.
The man fixed me rolled. I didn't understand as you/he/she had done one so to capture my compagnuccis; yet something told that it was him the head of the gang. A gang also served as Benson and Lidya, unfortunately. The two astronauts were to mouth open to observe the scene: I knew them from the recordings, but they didn't know anything of me. They fixed me with the same perplexity of Fei. Then inclusive well because the three had overpowered Robin, Zeld and Hut. Behind of them, so and immovable that had not noticed him, there was a robot miner. It was identical to what I had ridden but a great deal more hostile.
«Biiip!» I did him. The robot stirred; Guy commanded him/it in curious way: you/he/she had the right hand in a soft lodging, big as a baseball boxing glove. I could not see his fingers. You have to act in a some way, because the robot it was received by his/her dull immobility and it advanced a piedone toward of me. Anchise could not believe that a qualsivoglia entity, however dull, he/she wanted to hurt him such a pretty being. This way some hesitated too much and only to the last one it avoided to be crushed by the bucket of the automaton. It made a leap of side and, whereas it leaned to the ground an instant before, there was the bucket inserted for half meter and a cloudlet of dust in expansion. Anchise looked at Guy with esterrefatto malice.
«Haemorrhoidal protrusion!» exploded.
Fei whitened for the offense, but it drove the robot toward of me.
«Don't hurt him!» Robin exclaimed, reporting himself/herself/itself to me.
«It is a robottino rompiscatole» it said Benson, speaking for the first time from that I saw him/it of person.
«Already» it made echo Lidya, not too convinced.
The woman was smart, she knew well that a behavior like that of Anchise typically had a quid of human madness.
«Fei» it said Zeld. «Even if it doesn't seem, inside that iron palletta there is a man as you and me.»
«It doesn't interest him, Zeld» it said Hut, frightened. «It is him that you/he/she has programmed the robots because they killed us, in the other mine.»
«To kill? As it would be, Fei?» he/she asked Lidya.
«Nonsense» it said the man making to pursue me from the robot.
I estranged me from all of them, not so much for myself: if I/you had been crushed, you/he/she would have been a terrible loss for the whole human kind.
«Is this way! If it were for Angel to this time we would have remained without air, there inside» he/she explained Robin.
«I won't allow that this mine begins working» it said Fei. «New Sealon doesn't have to prevail.»
«I/you/they have been paid to send you the loads with the catapult and to disappear. Nobody has spoken to me to kill» it objected Lidya.
Anchise easily shifted an attack of the robot and takings to corricchiucchiare all around with a good game of legs.
A window opened me, great and central: it showed an error of system, but I didn't succeed in understanding what. I went to look for the numerical code in the exabyte.
«Let's make her/it simple» it said Fei turning to Lidya; the hand of the robot leaned on the helmet of the woman. «You regret to gather you to your friends?»
The robot created a small pressure on the neck of Lidya and that you have to lower for not falling; Benson drew near her, but not too much.
«Your oxygen. You put to earth the container» it told her.
Under the threat of the robot, took Lidya a mouthful of air, the backpack removed from him and set him/it to earth; in silence, the woman went to look for him a free connector and his/her own respirator attached you. Benson grabbed the backpack and put him/it on one side, away from the prisoners. None of them would have been able to appropriate of it and to connect himself/herself/themselves in time with his/her own respirator; not with the lack of oxygen of which it already suffered. Lidya was the more one in form, but only for the time being.
«Benson, goes to take a rock spite. There is some too hostile people, now» it commanded Fei.
With reluctance, Benson went out of the room and returned after few instants with a long steel putrella that finished to point. A deadly oggettino that the man was turned among the hands with cross air.
«This line of oxygen works badly. Do you want it stuffed out all, it is not so?» it said Lidya. «I/you/they have been a fool. It is not a matter of money.»
«It works very well» it said Fei. «We have reduced only the course of the air. It hardly has to maintain you in life. I don't want that you are in big form.»
They were not him/it of certain; with the addition of Lidya the things were also worsened: now they were four the astronauts to inhale from the old system. And you/they would still be worsened: if we gave the time to reflect to Fei, account would be made that didn't stay him anything else other than it stuffed out all. You/he/she would not have been antiseptic as the rescheduling of the threatening robots, however; you/he/she would have had to look well us while we were throwing the cuoias. Perhaps it was for this that hesitated. Or, it was not more simply a particularly bright type,: my presence had distracted him, I knew him/it. He/she wanted first to frame me. Then you/he/she would have had the full control.
I found the explanation of my inside alarm: the code pointed out a decrease of nourishing to the brain. I had need of it eats up. Oxygen or my nourishing intruglio. I had lost the sense of the time on Mars. I had been so involved by the mission that I had forgotten to have some necessities. I had to return to the place of my ammartaggio and to assume that that it served from the reserves that I had transported from the Earth. A word, approves the situation. Anchise lost boldness, doesn't know if because of my physical difficulties or for qualcos'altro. I felt his/her trial that slowly diminished.
«Four miserable loads of iridium for us are not anything» it observed Fei with arrogance. «But for New Sealon, hungry as it is of energy, I am everything.»
I stayed me master of my body. The robot estranged from Lidya and started to draw near to me.
«You have been you» I said me, turned to Fei. I was again myself. «You have destroyed the reserves of iridium of the city.»
Fei heard my voice but it didn't understand from where it came; you/he/she had received the burlesque inflexion of Anchise, until then.
I threw him a stone, that in the redoubt gravity Martian squirted above his head without giving sign to bend his/her own trajectory. The stone struck the wall and fell to the ground. I didn't want to strike him/it, only to introduce me.
«I am me, Angel» I said.
Fei fixed me with acridity:
robot or human that was, it didn't have any intention to let another throwing try me. The robot miner he directed verse of me with decision.
«Not me personally» it said Fei. «Others as me.»
«Globalisti?» I did me.
Fei started laughing.
«And you, Benson. Are you prepared to kill?» he/she asked Lidya studying him/it from his/her prone position.
It already had an a little reassuring fiatone.
Benson looked first her, then the other astronauts, then the long spite among his/her hands.
«He/she thinks of us Fei» it said. «I don't get dirty me the hands if you don't force me.»
The robot opened the two braccias. the bucket and the pick. and it rushed me against. Even if it was not fast, I didn't now succeed in moving me to the best of myself. Without the motor abilities of Anchise I could not do anything else other than ciampicare here and there from good stool. The robot struck and I moved me in time, just dirtied by the earth removed with the bucket.
«You are that of the Whip, then» I said me, turned indifferently to the two enemies.
Fei remained an interdicted instant, then it opened wide the mouth. It had a funny expression of wonder.
«You are you, that of the Whip!» it exclaimed. «You had another body, but you are you. You/he/she has spoken all New Delon of it.»
It was so, therefore. Macché Globalisti: New Delon, our city sister and our usual economic avversaria. There was New Delon behind the attacks in our territory and this pie on Mars.
«Angel, but certain» it added Fei. «You have succeeded in darkening the disaster of the Whip with the heroism of the volunteers and the sense of the duty shown by an iron man.»
Of what did he/she speak, Fei? To New Sealon the press had spoken of me, but not so much. Evidently to New Delon I had done more sensation. Or, perhaps, our authorities, mayor in head, from that sensation they had me favorite. All were involved in nice way with me, in effects.
«There have been many corpses» I told low voice.
I quickly moved me toward the wall avoiding the position of the robot.
«I ache of it» it said Fei. «The wars are so.»
«And you, Benson?» he/she asked Robin. «You are also a damned warmonger you?»
«A researcher» it said the man with an indication of irritation. «Something that the cities don't want, on Mars. This place for you is made only of mines. However Mars is a planet as the Earth. A planet. To study and to understand. I have tried to make to finance me the searches from your administration. They have started laughing. New Delon has not laughed.»
Ambition. Parochialism. Money. The usual enemies.
«A thing I don't understand, Fei» I intervened, extending sott'occhio the robot. You/he/she was setting me in an angle. «For thing all this? For it stuffed to make a bad impression? To see the people that suffer?»
«Annexation» it said Fei, triumphant. «You have darkened our prestige. New Delon will return great, correct the double one. When your administration will have to admit its impotence and the failure of your New politics Delon it will come to save you. We will be an only city. Control will be ours.»
Its reasons were absurd; that was an ambitious guy, certain, but also disturbed.
«Of all the justification that I could feel, this is the more cretina» I said.
Fei raged him.
The robot had inserted me, by now. An only possibility stayed me: I threw myself from a side and I avoided the hit of pick, that my hand grazed going to break down himself/herself/themselves on the wall. I rolled for a meter and I rose again me, taking the only way out that I/you could use: the small protected opening from the drapery. I dashed me inside and I tumbled to earth; the curtain was closed again after me. There was a hot flash of light: the environment was the more illuminated of the whole mine. On the walls there were lighthouses aimed against the ground; they scattered everywhere a pleasant yellowish light that made to also shine the building perimeter. The ground was unusual, it seemed worked: I leaned on an astute and ample furrow, well shaped, among two transparent semisferes that covered something fixture in the ground. The two semisferes were externally covered by droplets and a white-grey patina, as if the inside were heated. In effects, did my infrared vision tell me that the whole room was warmer, but the peak of the heat was there, under the caps set to protection of. thing? I drew near me to see better, up to lean me against the damp surface of a semisfera: inside there was something of known, but I had to make an effort to identify him/it so much it seemed absurd that was found there.
Asparaguses.
There were asparaguses anywhere, astute and big more than those that I once loved to eat. They plunged in the terrestrial Martian.
To the center under the cap there was a small black lip that sprouted; a lower case letter glimmering drop hesitated for an instant, then definite to fall from the extremity leaving a craterucolo in the point of impact.
I followed the line of caps with the look: you/they were regularly prepared according to the typical scheme of the gardens; each had his/her vegetables - not only asparaguses - and each was irrigated. At the end of the lines a plastic pipe was seen rather grossotto that from a side it issued him with more minute pipelines, every to service of a line, and from the other one it estranged from the ground to reach. beh, that was the most greater surprise, for me: paradoxical but true, the pipes connected him to an engaged common faucet in the wall. Just as on the Earth.
«Water» I mechanically said me.
«Yes» it said Benson. «Normal running water.»
The robot was entering; the curtain was removed and its pick leaned him against the ground to support its weight; the automaton folded up him, too much great to enter from the small entry with my same facility.
«But. the cold.» The objecteds, in danger but nevertheless curious.
«There is not cold, there» it said Benson. «A man could be in sleeves of shirt in that room, you/he/she would need alone a respirator. Behind that wall there is a deposit of almost lukewarm water; a natural condition, we don't have anything to do with it.»
The robot had gone beyond the opening; I saw the face of Fei that peered at from the other place to drive the robot toward of me. Benson had remained to his/her place, you/he/she could not see me but it was able well to imagine the amazement that I tried finding me in that room. The robot made some footsteps verse of me.
«Voialtri.» it said Benson with disgust. «You don't know anything of Mars. Yet you/he/she has happened you in concession the most interesting mine. I had suspected him when New Delon sent here me to snoop on your ownerships. In the sorvolo of the zone I was almost killed by the geysers.»
«Geyser? I have felt speak of it» I said me.
I wanted to make to chat him/it to that point. If we had gotten by, those information would have been important. But I especially wanted that it had to think to other, rather than to suppress us. Because this they wanted to do; if they didn't have provveduto before I also arrived there me, it was because you/they had not found the way of informing and to convince Lidya. They knew that she would not have directed to kill.
Until now however Fei if the era taken only with me, and I had intention to keep on maintaining their attention on my person until I was able.
«Black geyser» I said me outdistancing me from the robot. «I/you/they have been sighted since the first explorations of Mars. Solid ammonia, that heated by the sun sublimes in gas to tall pressure able to break the superficial ice. Throws able to shoot sand and dust to a height of eighty meters, with a speed of two hundred the time.»
«No» it said Benson arousing enthusiasm himself/herself/itself. «I intend true geysers. Water and vapor.»
«Of what is speaking you two?» Robin joined in conversation.
«Shuts up, lady» I brusquely said me.
It didn't have to make himself/herself/themselves involve in the conversation, my goodness. The three prisoners wer
e invisible anymore, it was better.
«The terrestrial geysers are siphon structures surrounded by impermeable rocks» I said me. «First water goes down, it heats him for the presence of a neighbor room magmatica, but it doesn't vaporize because of the strong pressure owed to the depth. Then water goes up again toward the surface, where the pressure is smaller. Then it vaporizes. The period of the throws is due to the necessary time so that the siphon him riempia.»
«Very good» it declared Benson. «The mechanism is here also the same. Only that doesn't deal with volcanism, Mars has been being inactive for quite a lot time. The source of heat is another: the heart of Fetonte.»
He/she anchors this Fetonte. Benson and Berliz would have had to be friends: they had the same ostentation.
The robot tried to catch me, but I jumped in the middle of the cultivated field. I was trying to think; I climbed without it stuffed case on one of the transparent caps but that crowds my weight. Not that of the robot. An instant after I had gone down of it, one of his/her enormous feet penetrated the cruet destroying her/it completely. The robot ploughed the brown soil among the dark bayonets: of the vegetables it made a spicinìo (if you/they had been spinaches, you/he/she would have been a spinacìo).
«Careful!» it said Benson turned to the best man.
«Bushels I calm. It is a robot, I cannot do a job of until.»
The robot he was instigating: with open braccia and the knees slightly folded up, meeting it raced me as was able rubbing to earth with bucket and pick; other two caps departed and I felt the useless invectives of Benson. But Fei was definite. The robot was me I set, the wide open braccias not to leave I space me, and I made the only thing that I was able to the moment: I jumped him in I set. I jumped on one thigh of his and I climbed me on him, I grabbed on me to his/her taurine neck and I jumped on his head. I crossed with a finger a quarter of neck of the giant and the mechanism it went off bringing the content of the skull in before on a metallic tray. Fei inveighed against me and made to make upward a jump to the robot, and then another, trying to crush me against the ceiling. For my fortune the robot didn't succeed in jumping very well; however he/she knew very well pesticciare, with its piedonis, and other vegetables were shed among the furrows of the garden. As the jumps were not enough Fei it tried with the rotations on the bust: I didn't know him/it, but the robot could rotate on same of trecentosessanta degrees, leaving the basin firm and twirling with the whole torso. It began to turn taking me of surprise; lost almost the grip and the automaton increased speed leaving seizes me to its limbs as a frightened cat.
But Fei had a problem: he/she didn't succeed in maintaining the automaton in equilibrium, this way. You have to compensate its sbilanciamento with a movement of legs that nearly produced the total destruction some caps on the ground, with good peace of Benson that howled furious. Not more resistetti: the centrifugal strength added to a certain feeling of weakness they prevented me from still staying seized. My fingers loosened him and I squirted away striking strong the wall of rock.
I had happened next to the entry of that room, so I made a mental effort and I acted on the braccias raising again me. I slowly went out. I had some second, for the robot it was not immediate to follow me, big as it was. I found me in front of the others, torpid, incapable to walk really. I deposited me to earth and it begins to roll giving me a push after the other with the hands. Pathetic.
At Fei and Benson were looked perplexed; they were not sure to be able to graze me, they preferred that to me he/she thought the robot. What, besides, you/he/she was arriving. I tumbled until on the landing and I hesitated, uncertain on the to make himself/herself/themselves. Then I had an idea: that men had acted to damage New Sealon, but without jeopardizing New Delon to the eyes of the world. You/they could not allow that I informed the Earth of their manoeuvres.
«I consent me for a few minutes, boys» I exclaimed, with a spocchia that I was well afar to try. «Here the radio doesn't take, I look for a more proper place and I transmit to New shoot Sealon her of Benson and Fei. I have recorded all, here inside.»
The two men looked again him.
«The radios don't work down here» it said Benson.
«Those of the overall» it beat Fei. «You have seen an overall on that iron bottle?»
They exchanged the evident gestures: Fei would have caught me, Benson would have held me busy to speak for preventing to communicate me with New Sealon. They didn't know what, if I/you had wanted, I would have been able to bait a dozen of trials in parallel while I was defile me; I was able to contemporarily chat with all the relative kinsmen and they.
I looked around me: the best thing was to go up again in surface, but I didn't feel me in degree to manage my legs. This way I made the only thing that I knew how to do to the moment: a spintarella dictates me and I united the limbs against the body. I began to go down the staircases bouncing on the steps.
«I thought that I was a more curious type, Angel» it said Benson. «You have not asked me of Fetonte. I will speak of it me.»
Oh, no, still. If it were that that planet was already destroyed, I would have destroyed him me.
Benson started his/her lesson.
«Fetonte was a planet with a next orbit to that of Mars. When exploded Fetonte its various parts squirted in all the directions getting further himself/herself/itself to big speeds. For the nucleus of Fetonte it was different. Heavy as it was, sets in the center of the planet, it disintegrated him slowly distributing himself/herself/itself in the space. It struck Mars in many points. A part, thick, it literally rubbed the planet slashing him/it. It is so that Valles Marineris is created. An open wound in which the oceans of Mars fell him disappearing under the surface. For this the crust of Mars supports on caverns: the strength of the impact created a terrible heat until in the depths of the planet. The rocky crust inflated him, then cooling himself/herself/itself was compacted becoming as porous. Some of that pore, small on planetary staircase, but in certain enormous cases for us, they were filled with the water of the old seas»
It was good to invent lies, almost as Anchise.
Or did he/she speak seriously, that man?
I was stupidly bouncing from some, when I saw that more aloft the robot followed me and you/he/she was tailed in turn by Fei. Benson continued.
«But the nucleus of Fetonte is not limited to engrave the surface of Mars. There is also fixture. Part of the heart is here under, heat and button. It distributes heat to the underground ocean. The room that you have seen, with the plants that you have contributed to destroy, it relatively confines with a knapsack of small water. When I/you/they have entered for the first time a minuscule rivulet there it was glimpse. I didn't succeed in believing us. Then the robot has worked the walls, you/he/she has found and defined the confinements of the knapsack.»
I kept on falling, I went down in a zone where there was not even by now more illumination. The steps finished, there was only a tunnel with disconnected flooring, pietrame shed and little sand. The robot he was approaching and my body had just beaten against what seemed the terminal: a wall of rock I metal. To the infrared ones I observed immovable the man and the robot that followed there me under. They were in difficulty, fifty more meters on. The end of the steps meant to walk with a lot of greater caution, especially for Fei. They didn't stir in the total obscurity: the robot had a light pettorale, rather weak. It was not big that, but however it was enough for not stumbling.
It was time to stop her/it with the gossips on Fetonte.
«Tell me a thing» I intervened. «Because this violence? You could leave that the things followed their course. The other our mine had lost the vein. New Sealon was in difficulty however. For you it was all right, Fei.»
«No. All other» Fei responded panting. «Once dismessa the exhausted mine you would have come here. You would have discovered the heart of Fetonte. They are everywhere bits of it, all it takes is digging. An endless quantity of iridium.»
«You would have destroyed my job, my searches» it added Benson. «Agronomy Martian. The terrestrial Martian is more fertile than that earthling in this zone. Think of us: endless fields of cereals and vegetables under the surface. Boundless alimentary resources. For my worth. With my profit.»
«If you had been successful» I did me, «New Sealon would also have granted you everything to have the iridium that the maids. This mine would have become of New Delon.»
«But we have been successful» it said Fei. «They remain only of the particular ones to systematize. Robetta.»
As the astronauts and the undersigned.
The robot was me I almost set, you/he/she had quickly crossed the last meters: Fei was taking us the hand.
I didn't succeed in moving me. The window of alarm damages it flashed in front of me. The robot stopped him for an instant, it lifted the pick, it struck. I jumped down to the for desperation. The pick inserted him in the wall of stone, deeply; the robot didn't succeed in freeing himself/herself/themselves, so it began to strike with the bucket around the point in which the pick was plunged.
It struck and ricolpiva with a noise of hell.
The pick came out together with some quintal of rocks. The automaton brought the bucket on me, but I made another side leap. The robot could not stop the bucket in time; this inserted him in the rock as it was butter, the blade penetrated as you/he/she had made the pick. The robot changed destroyer arm: the pneumatic hammer to the place of the pick. It hammered wildly around the bucket making to squirt away a lot of pebbles and stones of more serious dimensions.
A terrible trembling, then a whole wall collapsed flaking himself/herself/itself as pits of cardboard.
Over that I didn't see that obscurity.
I looked at Fei: the man was not interested neither to me neither to the mechanical monster; you/he/she had drawn near too much, you/he/she had not foreseen that fury demolitrice. You was looking I nauseate him/it in the exact point in which a pebble was penetrated in the overall. It had a terrorized expression: you/he/she was losing air and he/she didn't know whether to mend.
The robot kept on demolishing: it was now standing not because under the control of someone, but because it was the rock same that sustained him/it; it waved everything, its hammer didn't end her/it to devastate the wall. It fell a pair of rocks from the ceiling and one broke the helmet of the man. Fei wheezed and collapsed to earth with the head tilted in unnatural position, the destroyed face and the wide open eyes. The robot continued the work of shattering.
I threw above me with my residual strengths: I could not allow that the backpack that Fei still brought on the shoulders lost the whole precious oxygen. I slipped toward the dead body and I grabbed the backpack. I closed the valve, then I unhooked him/it from the body of the dead person estranging him/it from him.
A pandemonium has happened: lost contact with the ground, had the perception above that the world put on under. The rocks grazed me jumping around me and some struck me making to squirt me as a twig here and there; then something of fluid and pleasant it damped the tones of that hammering making every gradual and velvety movement. The rocks softly fell, I now had the time to move me of side to avoid the worse.
It was matter of few instants: an enormous quantity of water had run over me dragging me street together with dusts and rocks.
Then, the things slowly, settled in.
I don't know how much he/she wanted us, probably few second.
When the world calmed down, I still felt me very confused. I was firm.
I tried to make local mind.
I was me stretched out on a sea backdrop.
The robot was next to me, inactive. The backpack of the oxygen was incredibly still in my hand.
Above of I saw the last ramp of the staircases submerged, but the preceding one was still exposed Martian to the air.
«Thing has happened?» he/she asked alarmed Benson. «Here you/he/she has started waving all.»
I was absorbed in the water of one of the knapsacks of Benson, it was evident. That that irrigated the garden. The robot had destroyed the diaphragm that separated of it and the knapsack you/he/she was expanded englobing that last room and part of the staircase.
Water was practically firm, now.
I was not able to move me. I was not able to help anybody.
Benson would have killed my friends; I, was as for only matter of time. I could not drown, I would be dead for the difficulties. Fantastic.