Free Red Sun Bleeding by Stephen Hunt Page B

called corridors into being when they required them. That was a hell of a keep-out sign. Did she really want to go poking around their legacy? Except that Dollar-sign had got here before them and made the decision for her.  She found herself on the ledge of a cavern when the corridor ended, no barriers to protect mere mortals tumbling into the colossal space which lay beyond. Lana and the android carefully advanced, glancing over the edge. It was a circular shaft the width of a small inland sea narrowing to a distant vanishing point, maybe to the centre of the very world, no end in sight. But the chute wasn’t empty. Giant amorphous shapes moved up and down the shaft, changing shape as they drifted, sometimes merging with each other before breaking apart into squadrons of smaller objects. It was as though she was watching the universe’s biggest lava lamp. One of the shapes drifted past and she watched intently, both shocked and fascinated. Bright orange, the blob was covered in a circuit-like tracery of glowing yellow lines. Machines seemed to form around its skin, existing for brief seconds before being absorbed back into the surface. This one globule must have been as big as a zeppelin. What purpose it served, she didn’t know. More programmable matter, that was for sure. This was far from being a fossilised archaeology dig.
    ‘We’re really in trouble,’ said Lana.
    ‘This is the kind of swag that species go to war over,’ said Zeno. 
    The narrow ledge they stood on ran to corridors at either end. Passages left in their open position, both with the miner’s interface panels riveted crudely into each wall. The professor had been busy down here, getting to grips with the mother lode.
    ‘How did they know this was down here?’ Lana mused aloud. ‘It’s not like there’s any sign of the Heezy above ground?’
    ‘I figure that missing colony ship,’ said Zeno. ‘Maybe not everyone was quite as missing as the records suggest. Dollar-sign’s an expert at ferreting out obscure reports that might lead to a quick buck. He practically lives in the data-sphere.’
    ‘I feel like an ant that’s accidently crawled into the chief’s anti-matter drive,’ said Lana. ‘Looking around in astonishment and whispering “Well, this ain’t no ant hill” to myself.’
    ‘And that ant better be on the lookout for the chief’s size ten boots landing on it,’ muttered Zeno.
    With that cheery thought, Lana and her robot gang-boss crept through the passage to the left, more cold inky black walls, glistening like the veins of an unpleasant beast. A hangar-sized chamber at the end. This one contained a collection of holding equipment – obviously human – pitted ceramic tubes standing on tripods, transparent panels revealing globules of the Heezy’s programmable matter captured inside, tiny balls of it drifting around the tubes. Might be weapons. Might be computers. Might be data-nodes containing the extinct alien’s music collection. Nothing larger than the size the humans could comfortably squeeze through the narrow access shaft. Yet , Lana reminded herself. When the base drilled the main shaft using the tech she had helpfully shipped to the mine, the looting would really begin apace.
    Zeno crossed to an active screen the miners had unrolled and left standing in the middle of the chamber, marking the details of their explorations to date. ‘The professor’s people have covered hundreds of miles of this complex.’
    So, how were they getting about? Lana walked towards the one object in the room that was definitely not of human origin. Built into the wall at the far end sat a dark egg-shaped object the size of a small house. It was hollow with a raised dais built inside, like a throne for a mountain giant. The outside of the egg had another human interface panel drilled into it, which meant whatever this was, the professor had hacked into it. Lana lifted a silver tool case from the floor and flung it inside the