Free Robert Charrette - Arthur 03 - A Knight Among Knaves by Robert N. Charrette Page B

6
    Putting down the coffee mug, Steve said, "Here you go, Gil. Radar says we've got a storm coming in."
    "Thanks," Gil replied, taking possession of the steaming mug. It might be late spring down here, but spring in Antarctica was still too damn cold. She was supposed to be used to it by now. Well, at least the coffee was hot. Life-giving, healing warmth slid down her gullet as she swallowed. "A storm, you say?"
    "Outer edge is coming across the Victoria Land now. Smart money says it'll be here in two hours, tops."
    Steve might be military, but as a meteorologist he knew his stuff. Gil wasn't going to bet against him. "We've got two teams between Vickie and here. Should we call them in?"
    "Put the word out. Sharon and her people will be able to make it back here no problem, but Jemal's team doesn't have a prayer. They'll have to batten down where they are. He should have listened to me when I told him he was going out too early. Call him first. They'll need all the time they have to get ready."
    Why did Gil have to have commo duty just now? Dr. Jemal Dickinson was not someone she liked dealing with at the best of times. He wouldn't like losing time to the storm; he and his team had lost all of last season to storms. Alighieri, Dickinson's tel-op robot probe, was an expensive toy to have sitting around doing nothing when it was sup-
    posed to be exploring volcanic craters and the corp sponsors didn't like to see their toys sitting around doing nothing. Of course the scientists riding herd on Alighieri didn't like sitting around, either, but they didn't sign the paychecks so their yelps wouldn't matter much. Just like last year.
    Gill pulled up the communications link to Dickinson's remote. Signal monitors flashed to life on the edges of her screen showing the status of individual data streams piggy backing on the main transmission. The direct communications link was dark, and would stay that way until someone responded. Resignedly, Gil kept punching the call button,she watched the flashing digits and squiggly lines of the data monitors. Seeing that the video feed from the probe's cam-eras was running, she set up a subscreen to display the video transmission. The fuzzy false-color images from the probe's camera were more interesting than digital and graphical read-outs. She punched the call button some more, and watched jumpy pictures of shadowy rocks until Dickinson answered. As, she expected, he wasn't happy about being interrupted. And when she told him about the storm, he had some very colorful things to say, finishing with, "Alighieri's already running."
    She knew that. "Can you call it back?"
    "Don't be ridiculous. The sky is clear here."
    If Steve was right, it wouldn't stay that way. "I thought I was being prudent by telling you."
    I le started to tell her what he really thought that she was being, but a call from off-camera interrupted him. "Dr. Dickinson! I think you ought to see this."
    "What now?" Exasperation filled Dickinson's voice.
    "There's something strange going on around Alighieri."
    Without a word to her, Dickinson left the range of the video pickup. Gil felt a bit exasperated herself. She checked Alighieri's video screen. Dickinson's team member was right. it looked as if something was moving near the probe. The images didn't make any sense to Gil and before she could puzzle them out, the image darkened and faded to black. She checked the feed. Nothing.
    Dr. Dickinson got back on the line. "McMurdo Station, are you getting video?"
    "Negative. Other data feeds are okay. What happened?"
    "We're not sure. Are you seeing any other changes?"
    "There's a slight but steady drop in ambient temperature. Air pressure's down too."
    "Yes, yes. We're getting that too. Anything else?"
    "Care to give me a clue as to what I'm looking for? Probe telemetry is not my field."
    "Stand by." He was gone again.
    Dickinson was an annoying man. Stand by for what?
    The data feeds from the Alighieri probe winked out.
    Surely not that.