"Yes, the tunnelling machine had a nightmare."

Carla Jennings shook her head wearily, and then continued in the incredulous silence.

"I don't know how else to say it, but that's what it told me. And that's why it's not going any further. It's frightened. I'll keep trying to calm it down, but for the moment, that's that."

Truman leered with contempt.

"Do tell me when it's finished blubbing for its mummy," he snarled; then he threw his candy wrapper onto the floor and stormed out, swearing.

Kasprzyk looked at her, his soft eyes neutral.

"What does this mean?"

She slumped back into her chair, exhausted.

"I don't know, Tolek."

Six weeks, she thought, six damned weeks! Six weeks of being stuck underground with no one else but the taciturn machines, showering in trickles of stale water, sleeping in tiny bunks in the primary transport, eating endless canned and dried food... No wonder they were all starting to crack. Every time she closed her eyes, she tried to remember what it was like living without constant grinding and thudding and rattling, but found she couldn't.

"Can we go and see?"

He didn't seem to be mocking her. She shrugged.

"Sure, why not. Come on."

They got up, left the room together, strode into the tunnel.

It had seemed a simple job initially. Send a forward crew to the smaller planet in the system to dig a shelter, so that if anything went wrong the colonists had somewhere to flee to, no matter how rudimentary. The colony was small and hands were hard to spare, so a tiny team of three was selected: Marcus Truman the geologist, Tolek Kasprzyk the builder, and her, the programmer and robotics engineer. Or, as she called herself, the one who herds the bots.

They were already late, by a week. And it looked like they would be even later now; the huge cavern that they were trying to breach was staying resolutely sealed, with one machine unable to pierce a wall because of unexpected structural problems... and now the other was paranoid.

She winced again. I think I'm getting a headache, she thought, rubbing her temple.

A construction scuttler shimmied past them, scoring a groove in the floor with a sharpened leg; it was followed by a second that spooled cable into the groove, and a third that sprayed it in place with brief jets of shotcrete. They clicked to each other, using audio to stay off the busy wireless channels, and they cast long, choppy shadows as they skittered along. Ahead, the darkness was sliced by orange safety lights, and she could hear the hum of a larger machine.

"I had a look at the plans," said Kasprzyk, quietly. "The cavern is reinforcable, I think. But it will be difficult. So if the machines can't get in, it's not the end of the world."

She nodded, wondering if he was trying to make her feel better.

"Well, Truman thinks there's some kind of vent that we can sink another geo-thermal into."

"I know. But we don't need a full sized tunnel for that."

It was dark now, except for the brilliant orange and white lights ahead: she could see now that it was from a cart of some sort, a device for moving goods and other machines through the tunnels. Its front headlights were lighting up a vast, white airlock door that a pair of scuttlers were fussing over, running cabling around the edges, wiring components in. Because the door was so shiny and brightly lit compared to the dirty tunnel, it felt like a gate to another, better dimension.

They both suited up, stepped into the airlock, heard the rush of breathable air being replaced by the planet's native atmosphere; and then stepped through into the freshly dug tunnel. Suddenly it was dark and silent.

Kasprzyk flicked on his suit light, looked up at the ceiling and walls. When he spoke she could hear him twice: once loudly from the radio; and again just before that, thin and faint, directly through his helmet and the alien air.

"It's pretty much dry. The shotcrete mix works well here."

She nodded, and gestured up the tunnel with her own flash light.

"Yes. It's had a few hours. The machine is a little way ahead."

Now, beyond the airlock door, there was no smooth tunnel floor, and they had to pick their way through debris. At one point a scuttler, its half-dozen eyes reflecting the torch-light like a cat, scurried away from their beams into some cranny.

"Horrible things," muttered Kasprzyk to himself, the words relayed crisply to her through the radio. He glanced at her, realised she had heard, and switched it off.

The tunneller was only two hundred yards away, but going was slow; when they arrived, they were both slightly out of breath. The machine was floating gently in the centre of the tunnel, silent: a hollow cylinder eight yards or so in diameter, ten yards long, walls a yard thick. Its lights were still on, and it was pointing at the tunnel end, quiescent.

She glanced up, saw the unsealed waste shaft leading up to the planet's surface. A very gentle pool of red light spilled from it.

Kasprzyk ran his hands along the pitted side of the tunnelling machine, almost like he was calming an animal. He glanced at the operating panel to confirm that it was off, and then walked past the machine towards the tunnel end. She could hear him whistling.

She opened the machine's comm panel. It was a simple thing, perhaps as intelligent as a rat or dog; for non-technical communications it used pictograms, not words, and there was an art to speaking its strange grammar-less pidgin. She touched the symbol for 'fear' and the symbol for 'you', and watched as a it gave the same response as when she had asked earlier, remotely: 'fear' and 'sleep', which she took to mean nightmare. But, really, it could mean any number of things.

Kasprzyk was saying something to her. She reached up and tapped the side of her helmet, to try and remind him that he had his radio off, but he either didn't notice or realise what she was saying. Instead, he gestured down to the tunnel wall, and picked up a rock.

She shrugged, and glanced at the comm panel: it was showing a red danger symbol, and a picture of a person. She frowned, and watched as it started repeating the symbols over and over again.

"Tolek!", she shouted, desperately hoping he would hear, "get back here!"; but the distance was too far, the air too thin, and she watched helplessly as he smashed the rock against the tunnel wall, obviously intending to punch his way through the few remaining inches of rock...

And the tunnelling machine fired.

The beam had only just started, so it was cold by the standards of the machine, but it was still enough to blow the rock and Kasprzyk's right hand into a sticky red gravel that was sucked through the tunneller and blasted up the waste shaft. He screamed and collapsed backwards, away from the beam; this started lazily tracking down towards him, pulling a torrent of hot gravel and stones as it traced a glowing path along the tunnel wall.

He looked at her, face twisted in fear and pain.

She slammed her hand onto the punishment button, but the machine was insane with fear and ignored her; so she flipped up a molly-guard, and threw the kill switch.

Suddenly the tunnel was silent.

#

Marcus Truman found Jennings in her workshop. She was repairing a scuttler, screwing legs onto one of the horrible arachnid things. Music was playing, and she was singing gently to the robot as she reassembled it.

Stupid cow, thought Marcus.

He would be the first to admit that she was pretty, in a nerdy way; as he thought this, she stood up to pick up a second unit, bent over, and he enjoyed a brief view of her backside. He remembered entertaining the hope that this little jaunt to this lonely lump of rock might lead to something, remembered seeing her for the first time on a pre-mission brief, and thinking, well I can imagine worse faces to wake up to every day for six weeks.

He still wasn't sure what had gone wrong, but he was pretty sure it was because she was obsessed with her little robots; or maybe the presence of the seemingly mute Pole, Kasprzyk. Marcus thought he was spoken for, but, maybe he was playing away. Shows you can't judge a book by its cover.

Well, that one won't be doing anything for a while, he thought, gleefully nastily.

Jennings looked up at him.

"Hello, Marcus."

He wondered how long she had known he was there. He replied gently, holding his irritation in check, "Hello, Carla. Are you OK?"

"I'm fine. How's Tolek?"

"He's full of morphine, strapped up in the sick bay. I'm amazed that you managed to get him back alive."

She shrugged, pushed her short hair behind her ears.

"The drill beam cauterized the wound. Melted his suit and wrist into one airtight mess. I supported him to the airlock and then we used the cart."

She spoke flatly, even more so than normal. She must be in shock, he thought. Ah well. You'll get over it.

"Well, you probably saved his life. He'll never play cello again, though."

He pulled up a crate, sat on it.

Her workshop was the whole ground floor of a concrete building in one of the main chambers. That was one of the things they had now: space. Bare, base, ugly grey space lit by relentless strip lights; but at least they weren't all stuck together in the lander any more. That first week had been the worst. Except, perhaps, for this one.

Everywhere he looked, littered across the room's floor, he could see robot parts, and robots. He felt like he was in a spider's parlour, with all the black, insectoid limbs scattered around, the scuttlers creeping in the corners. He couldn't understand how anyone could enjoy being with them.

As she didn't seem to be interested in replying, he picked up a gizmo lying on the floor, and pretended to examine it, before continuing.

"Of course, I spoke to the colony. They are sending a ship."

She nodded, but remained silent.

"I was thinking, before they got here, we should put a camera on something, one of your robots. Send it into the tunnel. Maybe Tolek managed to knock a hole in the wall after all, we can look at this cavern, decide what to do."

"They aren't robots."

"What?"

He couldn't help it, irritation flashed in his voice as he continued, "what are you talking about? Of course they are."

"They aren't. They have organic brains; I thought you knew that. You can't program them. They do what they want, what they are designed to do, which is to build a colony. I can't just run one on remote control."

He wanted to sneer at her, demand her to tell him what she could do, but he swallowed it. Instead he shrugged, stood up.

"Well, think about it. It would be useful to know. If you could work something out, that would be great."

She nodded.

"OK," he continued, on his way out, "well, I'll be getting back to work. Take it easy. There's no point beating yourself up over this..."

"You think this was my fault."

He stopped, caught off guard.

"No, of course not...", he blustered, "...this was always going to be a dangerous job..."

"Yes. And the machine went crazy; I don't know why. But I didn't tell it to start."

He tried to smile, comfortingly, "I can assure you..."

"Good. I'll be round later with a plan to check the tunnel. See you later."

He nodded, and walked away. Stupid cow.

#

Tolek Kasprzyk lay in a haze, cradled safely by the drugs that wandered lazily through his blood. A part of him knew that he was in the medical bay of the lander, surrounded by machines that softly beeped an electronic lullaby; but the rest of him floated in space, detached from reality, no longer on the lifeless ball of rock they were tunnelling through.

He was happy because, why wouldn't you be happy? The world was full of happiness. But he was sad because he was lonely, and he wished he could share his happiness with someone else; maybe Marcus, or Carla. Or his girlfriend back on the colony, Sandra Wu. He missed her.

As he was thinking this, he realised he was dreaming of walking along a grey plain; the ground was ash-covered and boulder-strewn, and when he held up his hand to it the weak yellow sun gave very little heat. He wondered where he was, and then he realised: he was walking outside the lander, on the surface of this desolate world. He was surprised because he wasn't wearing a suit, but he wasn't frightened.

As he walked, things changed. He saw alien trees sprout from the ground, long-dried river beds fill, clouds flee across the brightening sky; living things suddenly scurried and flew past him. On the horizon he thought he could see mountains, but they sharpened and he realised he was staring the tops of a city, conch-shaped skyscrapers that gleamed in the now-warm sun. He plucked a brilliant blue fruit from a plant that lazily waved its fronds at him, and sat down on the ground by a little pool. There he stared at the creatures inside, darting slivers of black in the limpid depths.

This is a happy place, he thought.

Yes, it was, something else replied.

Surprised, he twisted around, but he could see no one.

Who's there?, he asked.

None of your business, came the amused reply.

He didn't know how, but he knew that this interlocutor was female; female, and incredibly proud and old.

I can see you, she continued, crawling under the surface like worms. Burrowing your little holes. Well, our time here has long passed. The planet is yours, with gratitude. But, leave the temple. Leave that one last shred of us, to last until the sun explodes.

He smiled because that was all he could do.

I'll see what I can do.

And she smiled back, or at least he knew she was happy.

He wondered how he could tell Carla and Marcus.

#

Carla and Truman sat in the command centre. It was, like everything else, half finished: cables hung from the concrete ceiling, monitors lay around, a recently-printed chair broke when Truman leaned back on it. The scuttlers where everywhere, moving, fixing, tidying. A particularly large one, the size of a dog, dragged components into place, while its smaller siblings wired them up. Carla noticed Truman staring it in distaste. Well, that's what I think of you, too, she thought.

She made a point of patting it as it scurried past, brushed the sensory bristles on its slightly sticky, spongy back; enjoyed watching Truman wince. The scuttler reared up, clicked a happy beat to her with its front legs and mandibles, and then hurried off.

I don't care that I'm the crazy spider robot lady, she thought. At least they give a damn.

She wiped her hand on her overalls, and then turned her attention to the geologist. He was sitting primly on his chair, scratching his beard, trying to look composed.

"I asked a scout unit to see what it could find in the tunnel. It's making its way down now. We can't have it for more than an hour or so we need to be quick."

Truman nodded. "That should be fine. Where is it now?"

"At the airlock, waiting for us to tell it to go."

"Great. Let's do it then."

She nodded, and leant to the bank of computers in front of them, pressed a button: a series of clicks came from the speaker. The scuttlers in the room stopped, confused; she smiled at them.

"Sorry, boys," she said, and tapped out the instruction to continue with their work on her soda can. She leaned forward and adjusted a knob. "I think I'll turn that down."

Truman frowned.

"How's it going to get through the airlock?"

"Oh, it has its own. There are scuttler tunnels throughout the complex. They eventually become the air conditioning and sewage and goodness only knows what else."

Truman didn't reply.

With a gentle 'tick', a screen lit up, and they were staring down the tunnel, but this time from the floor. The machine hurried forward, and the view jogged around as it shimmied over and around rubble. When it reached the tunnelling machine, Carla shivered slightly, grimaced. Just the sight of it on a monitor was enough to make her want to turn away; but Truman stared on, entranced.

If it fires again, I'll never know, she thought, the scuttler will just be wasted. It can't fire again though, I hit the cut-out and no one's reset it... but then, Tolek thought it was off last time, and it wasn't.

Poor Tolek.

"What's in this chamber that's so important, anyway?", she asked, trying to take her mind off it all.

"Oh, nothing," muttered Truman, curtly, his eyes glued to the screen.

She frowned, but remained silent.

As the machine pulled itself up the wall at the end of the tunnel, she could see the dark hole ahead, cracks radiating from it like fossilised lightning strikes. The wall must have been incredibly thin, only half an inch or so of rock; she could see other cracks and seams, some the width of her finger. Presumably Tolek had seen them, realised how easy it would be to break through. The scuttler hooked its sharp claws into these, and effortlessly scaled the escarpment.

The little machine reached the gap, pulled itself up and through.

It was completely black on the other side... no, that was a lie, she could see a very faint glow resolving itself somewhere ahead. The scuttler clicked something, more to itself than to her, then the screen flickered and switched: first to a static-filled soup, haunted by vague shapes; and then to a crisp, green and black picture.

Truman gasped.

"What is it?" she asked, irritated; and then, in the jumbled mess on the screen, she saw what he had seen.

It was huge, that was for certain; it filled the cavern, its vaguely pyramid shape touching the very top, its base maybe half a mile down, vast arches stretching from it to touch the walls. It must have been warm because it glowed on their screen, plainly visible to the scuttler's infra-red camera and filling the rest of the screen with a gentle incandescence.

It looked like it was made of bones, tusks, and antlers; a great jumble of curves sketching out a spiral that coiled up to a single point. She shivered, suddenly nervous, and not sure why.

The scuttler stopped, waiting instructions.

"Oh my goodness! Did you know that this was here?"

Truman shrugged, entranced.

"Not really. There was some weird dark spots on the spectrograph. I had no idea that it would be this... Can you make your bug get closer? Perhaps to that bit that touches the wall there?"

She pressed some keys, sent it instructions. It replied, cautiously, and then started creeping forwards, gripping the side of the wall; it crawled towards the point where a huge, elegant arm was reaching out to kiss the cavern.

The scuttler clicked something to her. She glanced down at the translation pad.

"Huh. It says it has a bad feeling about this."

"Seriously?"

"More or less." She looked back up at the screen, at the curving structure ahead. "This is amazing. It's alien, right? Not some weirdo rock formation?"

Truman shook his head.

"No, I'm pretty sure that this is natural. It's a... pyroclastic rift extrusion, I think; look, if you see down there, there's a glow, where the rift is. This whole chamber was lava-filled, once. It's an extinct volcano caldera, and this was formed in the lava before it all drained. We can be sure when the bug gets there, though. Does it have any way of analysing materials? Can we find out what it's made of?"

She frowned. "This model has some primitive taste buds. If this thing is made of the kind of stuff we use for building, then yes; otherwise, maybe. It's quite keen to go home, though."

The two of them stared in silence as the arm loomed ever larger on the monitor. Only as the scuttler got closer did she appreciate how ornate it was: the complexity started at the largest level, with its huge interlocking arches and arcs, but continued down to the tiniest level, whorls upon swirls upon coils. She wondered what you'd see in a microscope.

The scuttler raised a single claw, scratched the surface lightly, brought it to its mouth. She wondered how much damage the machine had done. She almost felt sorry, defacing this thing, no matter how slightly.

"Marcus, here's the result. Looks like some kind of refractory metal? The scuttler can't tell which, it says they all taste the same. Tungsten, maybe? Oh, and it says it's coming home."

He half smiled, a strange and slightly unsettling expression.

"Can it drop what's left of the sample off for me to analyse fully? My lab, please."

"Sure."

And, without a word, he stood, and left. She sat back, and the scuttler started heading back as quickly as it could.

Funny that the scuttler was spooked. They are tough little things. And Marcus... that guy. I wonder if he's like that with everyone, or if he just doesn't like me very much.

She suddenly felt very alone.

#

Marcus was in his lab, leaning back on his chair, arms behind his head, a look of simple happiness on his face.

Jennings had no idea!

It was tantalum, sure enough, nothing else it could be. Maybe five hundred tons of the stuff, much, much more if it goes down into that fissure. Pure and perfect.

He had been trying not to laugh while he'd been sitting with her, watching her robot bug creep through that chamber. Unbelievable! Pyroclastic rift extrusion, indeed. He had been proud of that; he wondered if it meant anything. Not in geology, certainly.

The natives, whoever they were, they knew what they were doing: one of the most resilient and rare substances in the universe. Something with numerous industrial uses, if you could just get your hands on enough of it. Something that even today they struggled to synthesize and mine. Something that it would actually be worth shipping across the galaxy.

He chuckled to himself. Now he just had to work out how to sell it. He had contacts, a merchant in this sector who could take it, but that would take time; meanwhile, if Jennings guessed it was alien, she was sure to report it to, well, someone. Whoever you reported xeno artefacts to.

He idly considered the possibility of murdering Jennings. Kasprzyk need never know.

But what would be the point, other than the pleasure of the act? She had no idea. He was sure he could sell this metal, probably even while she was here, dumb woman that she was. If it came to it, he could tell her that the planet was geologically interesting and he'd stay while she went home.

It was actually worth more as an alien artefact; but he wouldn't see any of the money, because the planet would be declared a galactic heritage site, and you know what? Screw that.

Five hundred tons of tantalum. Unbelievable.

Hah!

He threw his candy bar wrapper onto the floor. Took another sip of mud-like coffee.

I should just skip the system, he thought. Take off with the metal. Help sell it, disappear. I could do that; get my merchant friend to land here, load it up, don't ask for any cash, just take a slice every time he sells a chunk. That would be better, because he wouldn't have enough money to buy it all up-front anyway.

But first, I have to work out how to cut it up.

He heard a hiss behind him; a reptilian noise that sounded just behind his head. He whirled around, not sure what he would see, but the room was empty, just blank concrete walls, strip-lights and the interminable cabling.

What did she say? The scuttlers live in tunnels in the ceiling and the floor? Horrible things. He could see why they were called scuttlers. He'd never heard them make a noise like that before though, just the incessant clicks.

He imagined Jennings, her hands caressing the vile robots, and then imagined her caressing him... he briefly entertained a fantasy of telling her everything, eloping with her across the galaxy, but then he shook his head. She would be a liability, at best. And yet...

His head full of calculated longings, he strolled out of his lab, into the primary chamber.

This vast, oblong shape had been made before they had arrived, cut by tunnellers and reinforced by other engineering machines. In the corner was the main elevator that connected the lander to the complex. Everywhere else there were the buildings that formed their home-from-home: low, uninspiring blocks of metal and concrete, arrayed in ranks across the chamber. He guessed that Jennings was back in her workshop over there.

It was totally silent, all the machines away building out the complex; all he could hear was a faint whirr from the newly working air-con, and the slow click of his shoes on the concrete floor.

I'm being followed, he thought.

He turned around, and saw nothing; but the sensation stayed with him, a tingle on the base of his neck, the feeling of eyes fixed on him.

He shivered.

This is ridiculous. I'm going to go and have a drink in my room. I deserve it after today.

He strode forwards, his footsteps quicker and louder in the echoing space than before. He tried whistling, but it sounded pathetic in the hard silence, so he stopped. Instead, he flung his door open, sat on his bed, pulled out a bottle of whisky and put on music. It filled the room with beats and light, banishing whatever ghouls lurked outside, real or imagined.

Now where, he wondered, am I going to get some cutting tools?

#

In his morphine-induced sleep, Tolek stirred, and muttered to himself, frowning. The machines around him noticed the quickening of certain nervous systems, started making changes to his metabolism with more drugs.

A single alarm started beeping slowly.

#

Carla was far from the central chamber, testing a repair unit in one of the vast farm sections. The algae tanks stood empty, huge rows of clear plastic. Everywhere she looked, she could see frantic activity; scuttlers were around and above her fitting ultraviolet lamps, electrics, and plumbing; and the gentle sound of clicks and scrapes filled the air, the noise of scuttlers chattering away as they worked. Occasionally one would run up to her, seemingly wanting no more than a pat. She smiled at them when they did; it was funny how they seemed to behave like pets.

She was watching the repair device assemble a duplicate of itself when her radio started to cheep. She lifted it up, frowning, wondering what the noise meant; she had never heard it make that sound before. The display just said 'medical alert'.

She dismissed it, and called Truman.

"What is it?"

He sounded muffled, breathy.

"Where are you? Are you in a suit?"

There was a pause.

"Yes. I'm doing some survey work outside the complex."

"You mean you're chipping bits off that rift extrusion thing."

He laughed, too loudly.

"Well, it's not every day you get to see something like this..."

"Fine, fine," she cut into his merriment, "are you getting this alarm?"

"Yes, I am. What is it?"

"I don't know. It's coming from the medical bay on the lander, I think."

"How far are you from it?"

"Closer than you, but not much. But I'm not suited up, so I'll go."

"Stay in contact."

"Sure."

She clicked off the radio, slid it back into the pocket on her overalls; then she stood up, and realised that the room was silent.

All the scuttlers were staring at her, silently, immobile.

With a pen on the side of the repair unit she tapped out the 'resume work' command, but they ignored it, remained completely still. She repeated it, twice, but nothing happened; except that a couple crept closer, but then stopped.

"Well, boys, I'm going to have to attend to something. If you want to get back to sorting this room out that would be great."

They continued their mute vigil, great banks of black eyes on her.

"Fine."

She shrugged, and hurried out into the tunnel, surprised but not particularly worried.

The first thing she noticed was that the timbre of the noise was totally wrong. There was a high pitched whine, seemingly coming from the all around her; it was quiet but insistent, and it sounded familiar, but she couldn't place it.

She hurried along, jogging along the smooth, grey floor, under the blank lights, past endless identical doorways, ducking through safety airlocks.

As she went, she passed more scuttlers. They were all immobile, frozen for some reason that she couldn't comprehend, unable or unwilling even to move out of the way as she ran; she was forced to leap a few before she realised this, nearly injuring herself when she landed.

Another alarm started, this time coming from units on the walls themselves. The whine was getting louder now, and was now accompanied by a hiss. She ran to the nearest alarm unit, stared at the display.

Multiple atmospheric leaks at level one.

What?

She was on level two, down one from the problem, so she was safe for the moment, assuming the lift seals were working; but she needed to find a suit, and quickly. The alarm's display showed a map; for a second, she stared at it blankly, trying to work out where the problem was on the level above, and then she realised that the reason the whole map was red was that the entire level was depressurising, all at once.

She pulled out her radio, punched in Truman's number, and then started running on, towards the nearest emergency airlock, where she should find a space suit. Dammit, answer, she thought. What are you doing?

There was a click on the radio.

"Marcus? Can you hear me?"

There was no response, except for ragged breathing, and a strange muttering sound, words that she couldn't make out.

"Marcus! Do you copy?"

The whine was getting louder now, and she couldn't hear the radio properly over it.

"Marcus, if you can hear me, there's multiple leaks on level one. I'm heading to the lander. Meet me there."

Was it her imagination, or was he swearing? Endless jumbled curses, meaningless, muttered abuse leaking through the speaker; he sounded drunk, or drugged, or insane.

Christ, she thought. Oxygen deprivation? Does it do that? Is he stuck somewhere?

She reached the emergency airlock. She was only one section from the main chamber on level one now; one section across, and one level down. She started scrambling into one of the suits, fitting the gloves over her hands, the radio in its slot, the helmet over her head. She realised that she was starting to panic, her hands unable to clip down the seals because they were shaking so much.

Stop it, she tried to tell herself, if you panic you'll make it worse; but she could feel a whirlwind of fear battering at the edge of her mind, a blind tornado that wanted to just rip up everything in its way and cast it aside.

As soon as she was in the suit, she felt safer. The wind was still outside, but she felt sheltered; it was like a shell around her, a plastic suit of armour. Right, she thought. I'm going to get to the lander, see what's happened to Tolek; and then get into one of the proper, hard-vac space suits and look for Marcus. If they are both dead, I kick off the emergency take-off and I go home. Screw this planet.

The suit was too bulky and heavy to run in, so she strode as quickly as she could down the tunnel. Ahead she could see the intersection with the lifts in it.

Even in her suit, the whine was unbearably loud now, a hissy, screachy roar that filled the air and shook dust from the drying concrete. What is going on? She tried calling Truman again, but he was silent. She glanced at the ceiling, and saw something which stopped her cold.

There was a black disk, about the size of a coin, with a glowing red centre. It widened as she watched, and then with a sticky noise the glowing ceiling was torn up and away, and a brilliant beam burst through, illuminating the tunnel like an arc-light. It started as small and thin as a pencil, but as she backed away, the hole widened and the beam thickened, becoming a column of pure white.

She turned around and saw a second behind her; more down the corridor. Quietly, she swore.

The tunnelling machines. They were going down, rather than outwards, punching holes in the floor, sucking the debris up to the surface with their anti-gravity devices; no wonder the entire top floor was depressurised. Thank goodness she was wearing her suit.

The atmosphere filter clicked on as the suit reacted to the toxic gas coming from the glowing concrete. She looked at he suit's oxygen meter: two hours of air. Should be enough.

She started edging around the beam, careful to keep her limbs well away; she could feel its heat, and the sweat started beading on her forehead, itching her palms. She was around and away with a few clumsy steps, panting in relief, away from the glowing, blistering floor.

She looked ahead, hoping there wouldn't be another; the way was clear.

Hurrying as fast as she could, her breathing hoarse and ragged in the helmet, she reached the lift. She was about to slam her hand on the emergency button, but then she glanced at the panel; deactivated. The lift had sealed itself to try and preserve the atmosphere down here, and it wouldn't open so long as there was a pressure differential. She gasped in fear and panic, before she pulled herself up again. Concentrate! You want to die here? No? Then stop panicking. Control your breathing so you don't use your oxygen.

And get the hell out of here.

It was windy, the air swirling in convection currents, being sucked towards the near-vacuum of the planet's surface. It buffeted her, strange alternations of heat and cold that chilled the sweat on her, made her think of fevers as a little girl. Well, she thought, the pressure will be stable soon: but do I want to be stuck in a lift with this going on? No thanks.

She looked around, saw it: the emergency stairwell was a couple of metres away. It was protected by yet another airlock, its lights indicating that it was functioning but sealed. She set off for it, the sensation of hurrying in the suit like wading through ball-bearings, stabbed the door release and bundled in, panting in appreciation that there was still power.

The air hissed around her, stabilising.

The fear was still there, at the edge of her mind, swirling around her; and yet, she could feel her mind calmly reading the situation, standing apart from it, trying to decode the chaos.

This is insane, she thought. What is going on here? Why have the tunnellers gone so wrong?

She tried to push her hair behind her ears, and her hands banged against the helmet. For the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, she smiled, and a tiny wave of release flowed over her. She looked at the pressure dial, nearly stable; then she realised, suddenly: this is not my fear. Something out there is pushing its fear into my head, trying to drive me over the edge.

The other airlock door swung open, into pitch darkness. She clicked on her suit torch, spilling light onto the metal gantry beyond. Cautiously she edged through the door, stood on the platform, and searched for the way up.

But that's ridiculous, she thought. How can that be? There is no technology I know of that can do that. That's mind-control, or hypnotism, or something. Am I going nuts?

She found the stairs upwards, scaffolding that coiled up the walls of the huge, dark shaft. She started climbing, gloves on the railing, boots echoing in the darkness. She tried not to think about the length of the climb, and the longer drop.

But, she thought, it would explain the tunnellers. They have organic cortices, they fear. They must be running away. Or just insane.

She trod as delicately as she could, terrified that she could somehow send herself tumbling down, or that the machines would hear her, or simply of the dark. The concrete walls were marked with occasional scuttler holes. Sometimes, clusters of eyes stared at her, before disappearing in a flutter of legs.

Maybe that's what spooked the scuttlers too. At least they aren't trying to kill me.

She reached the platform for the level above, the final summit of the stairs. She stepped into the airlock, started depressurising it. Jesus, she thought, if I see one more airlock, it will be one too many. Well, nearly there. She swung open the other door, and stopped dead.

Truman was standing there, in a suit, swaying in the wind that ripped around them both.

He smiled at her, and held out his hand.

"Marcus! Are you OK? Why didn't you answer?"

She could see his lips moving, heard nothing. His radio must be down.

She smiled back, falteringly; he took a step forwards. She took one backwards.

"Marcus!", she shouted, hoping he would hear her through the thin air, "what's going on?"

He ignored her, kept on walking forwards; a candy bar wrapper was whipped out of his hand and away by the wind.

She took one more step back, and tripped over the rim of the airlock door, clattering down to the floor, and suddenly he was standing over her, pointing, smiling hollowly. He started bending down, his finger inches from her suit helmet, and with a gentle noise it touched...

And her mind seemed to erupt.

She could see in him; actually into his mind, into the blaze of his consciousness. She saw the furious desire for her that had run into hatred, into fear; she saw how it sat there as a way in, a door that could be pushed if she wanted to, a way of moving his mind to allow her to step in. It was a simple matter and when she did she saw behind it a thing squatting in his mind that recoiled and hissed.

All around her she could see the fear that it was generating; the rancid, naked terror, drenching anything with a mind, forcing it to retreat or hide. It was both a weapon and an emotion; the thing was terrified and furious, both filling it to the core.

And lonely, and so, so old.

I told you to stop. To leave the temple alone.

It was female. She could tell that, but she didn't know how. What it--she--had said made no sense though. What temple?

You mean the huge metal structure, don't you. That was xeno, after all.

Truman's memories swum unbidden around them, and Kasprzyk's, testaments to her lies.

I didn't know! Tolek didn't--couldn't--tell me, and what Marcus did...

You are their queen. They love and fear you, all of them. You could have stopped them.

Around her she could see other tiny points of consciousness, other minds hanging in the space like stars. The deep fear of the tunnellers, fleeing downwards as quickly as they could, trying to find somewhere to hide, trying to find the dark places that they loved; and the crystalline, paralysing panic of the scuttlers. She could see all of them, staring at her; she felt the need of the hive for love from their repairer and protector, their brood-mother.

She found that she could reach out, and she did; she touched the nearest mind, a scuttler frozen in the act of wiring a computer, and she tried to soothe it. As she did so, she saw its brittle fear turn to love, and hope; watched as that emotion spread across the hive, transmitted as clicks and wireless packets; watched as the creatures--and she saw them as that now, not machines--crept out of their crevices and tunnels, ready to fight for their queen.

The hive. That was how the scuttlers thought. This was their hive, their home.

I can destroy you.

It was fighting for her attention now, fighting with its fear against the legions of minds around it, fighting to make her listen. And she stared back at the black, whirling thing in the core of Marcus Truman, looked at it, and smiled, sadly.

Perhaps. But I can destroy you too. And unless you stop, I will.

The thing looked at the scuttlers, creeping forward, taking cautious steps into the dark; saw how they bristled with anger at the treatment of the hive, watched as blow torches and laser cutters caused that darkness to flee.

And Carla continued, rounded on the thing, stop now, or I will take that temple of yours apart, strut by strut, bolt by bolt...

And suddenly the fear went, and the thing was gone, and the world reasserted itself and Carla realised that she was slumped alongside Truman on the floor of the main hall, staring at the ceiling, watching the scuttlers fighting to seal the holes.

#

Captain Sandra Wu was tiny, barely five feet tall; although as her lover Tolek Kasprzyk had once told her, every inch of her was as tough as tungsten. She had sat by his bed, and stared mutely at the stump where his hand had been; and then she had stood over the sedated shape of Marcus Truman, and finally she had listened to the long and rambling story of Carla Jennings.

She had left the recording device running, glanced at the records on the computers while Jennings talked so she could tally her account with what was there; and finally, now she had finished, only now did she speak.

"I don't believe you."

Jennings pushed her hair behind her ears, closed her eyes.

"It doesn't matter."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because it doesn't."

Sandra paused, surprised.

"I'm going to take you back to the colony for a full investigation. The suit cameras back up your story, a bit. They don't show a space ghost."

"No, you're not."

"What?"

"You're not taking me back. I'm going to stay here; the hive needs me. She needs me."

"You can't..."

Jennings ignored her, cut into her protests.

"That was part of the price, part of the bargain. I stay here with her. Look after her, keep the hive safe. And then, one day, become part of her. Upload myself into the temple. You can use this place: it will always be safe, while I'm here. More than safe: happy."

Sandra held her eye, mentally comparing the Jennings she knew with whoever was sitting opposite her. Eventually she shrugged.

"So you can come back. Get some rest. We fly in eight hours."

She stood, collected her equipment, and looked at Jennings, expecting a response; but the woman was sitting still, eyes closed.

She turned, opened the door, stopped dead.

Outside in the tunnel, arrayed across every inch of wall and floor, their black eyes on her, completely still, sat hundreds of scuttlers.

Behind her she heard a click, click, click, tapped on the table; the nearest took a step forward.