Free The Deep Dark Well by Doug Dandridge Page A

burned her posterior.  No protection of a
spacesuit, but that couldn’t be helped.  Only a quick burst of thrust was
needed as she cleared the chasm, landing heavily on her feet to tumble into a
roll, absorbing the shock.
    Pandi was back on her
feet in a moment, turning to see what the robot was up to.  It stood on the
other side of the chasm, its sensory bundle questing, one second looking into
the chasm, the next at her.  Pandi brought a fist up, middle finger extended in
a long understood symbol.  She wasn’t given much time to celebrate.
    The robot settled down
as its legs retracted into the body.  A quadruple tentacle of blocks grew from
its front, moving swiftly across the chasm.  Pandi felt a scream building in
her chest.  Wasn’t there any way to stop this thing from coming after her?  
The tentacle touched her side.  She moved closer to get a good look at the
blocks that made up the creature.  Small flat claws grew from each open face. 
Obviously the means for the blocks to link into a complete creature.
    When it had brought
enough of itself across the chasm, a matter of moments, it formed a secure
bridge.  The bulk of the robot began to slide forward, crossing the barrier
faster than Pandi would have imagined possible.  Time to scoot , she
thought, as she turned and ran down the one corridor leading away from the
chasm and the deadly robot. 
    Again there were no
noticeable exits from the hall that bent this way and that through the mass of
the station.  There must be some kind of access beside the vent covers, too
small for her to think of squeezing through.  What use the corridor, if it led
to nowhere, with no rooms or connections along the way?  But if there were
doors they fitted too closely to the wall, and opening mechanisms were hidden
as well.
    No choice but forward. 
She ran as fast as her legs could carry her.  Her breath rasped through her
burning lungs.  She had always prided herself for staying in shape.  But duty
as a Kuiper miner required a different kind of fitness from that needed to jog through
endless corridors under what seemed to be Earth normal gravity.
    “Damn,” she gasped, as
the next barrier appeared before her. A twenty meter wide shaft, covering the
entire breadth of the corridor.  No corridor opened on the other side. 
Hurriedly she looked down.  It seemed to shrink into the nothingness of
perspective, a bottomless drop.  Looking up produced the same view.  Frantic
searching revealed openings on both upper and lower shafts, corridors opening
into what looked like a service access of some type.  Ladder rungs were set
into the walls, as well as single rungs for workers to attach safety harnesses.
    The one question
remained.  Up or down?  The robot could follow her either way.  But it could
drop on her from above.  So up it was.  Her hands grasped the rungs on the left
side wall as she pulled herself onto the ladder.  Quickly she climbed upwards,
trying to put as much distance between herself and the robot as possible.  She
looked through the first opening she came to.  Ten by ten meters, with no
apparent exit except an endless corridor to nowhere.  No better than where she
had just come.
    Up, one hand over the
other, faster and faster.  She heard a scraping sound below and looked down,
her heart beating even faster as she prepared for the worst.  The robot was
pulling itself into the shaft, forty meters below, extruding multiple arms to
grasp any purchase on the side of the wall.  It started up after her, faster
than she was climbing.  Panic started to build in her.  She reacted instantly,
her fear fueling her.  A forty-five pointed downwards at the robot, the boom of
its shot echoing deafeningly through the shaft.  Several cubes fell away and
the creature lost a handhold, but soon regained it.  Pandi continued to fire,
blasting fragments from the robot, until the pistol slide stuck in the open
position, empty.  She threw the useless gun at