Earth Star(123)

‘Try a couple more,’ I said, ‘and then Krath can start shifting rocks too.’

‘How can you be so calm, Jarra?’ asked Krath.

‘Calm?’ I gave a nardle giggle. ‘I’m not calm. I’m scared stiff.’

That wasn’t entirely true. I’d got whole waves of emotions churning around inside me, and there was plenty of fear in the mix, but there was tension, disbelief, and a mad sense of exhilaration as well. The overriding effect was more like being powered than anything else. Mason Leveque might be able to stay relaxed and calm even at a time like this, but I couldn’t. I had to compensate by deliberately double and triple checking every decision and move I made.

Amalie and Krath had shifted the tagged rocks now. I floated forward again, carefully tagging the next set, calculating how to create an unstable situation in the mass of debris littering the steep slope ahead of me. I wanted to create a landslip, but I mustn’t overdo it or I could bring down the whole hillside.

I gave a last look, and backed off to the tag support sled again. ‘Amalie, Krath, go ahead.’

I watched as the next rocks were lifted away, one by one, and nodded. This was working. I’d carefully left one large boulder untagged, and it was now the one thing holding up a whole bank of earth and rocks. When that was removed …

‘I hope you aren’t going in close to tag that, Jarra,’ said Fian.

‘I’m planning to distance shoot it,’ I said, ‘but you may still have to yank me out of trouble if that lot moves before we’re ready.’

I raised my tag gun, took careful aim, held my breath and fired. Tag guns aren’t the most accurate things in the world, and I didn’t want to have to take a dozen shots and look an idiot in front of the vid bees that hovered around the sleds. Fortunately, the boulder was so large it was hard to miss.

I retreated to safety again. ‘Amalie, shift the boulder.’

Her lift beam moved out, locked on to the tag, changed from white to red as the power increased, and the boulder soared upwards into the air. Below it, earth and rocks cascaded downwards, and I was startled to hear applause on the broadcast channel.

‘This is Site Leader Pereth. Beautifully judged avalanche there, Major.’

I felt the heat of embarrassed pleasure at such praise from a true expert, and swapped temporarily to broadcast channel to reply. ‘This is Major Tell Morrath. Thank you. I think we’ll need at least two more like that, so let’s hope they go just as well.’

I let the heavy lifts do a cautious drag net next, to remove the worst of the loose earth and pebbles, then tagged the bigger stones for removal. That went smoothly, and so did the second avalanche. It was on the third and final one, that I misjudged the stability of a key boulder. It gave way early under the strain, and Fian pulled me out just in time to save me from the torrent of debris. As I dangled in midair, being smoothly swung back towards the tag support sled, I had a perfect view of the hillside. I felt a stab of excitement as I saw a dark opening.

I spoke on broadcast channel. ‘That’s cleared part of the tunnel entrance. There’s still a mess of loose rocks below it, but I’d rather not risk using lift beams closer to the tunnel. We can climb over the rubble and get inside.’

I glanced around for a moment. ‘It’s getting dark, but that won’t make any difference when we’re inside the tunnel. Turn the floodlights on now, please, Dalmora. Captain Eklund and I will get our equipment set up, and then the rest of my team had better pull back to join the crowd by the Earth Rolling News dome.’

‘Can’t we stay?’ asked Krath, on team circuit.

‘Sorry, but no,’ I replied. ‘There’s no point in risking more than the two of us. If we do something wrong, or even if we do something right, we’ve no idea what may happen.’

He gave a heavy sigh, but shut up. Playdon came over and helped Fian and I with the extra equipment. We’d decided to take the minor risk of wearing impact suits and hover belts as we entered the tunnel, though we’d keep the hover belts turned off unless we needed them. Logic said the protection of the impact suits outweighed the danger of them being affected by alien technology. My skin wasn’t entirely convinced by logic, and was busily screaming away, but I promised it I’d be out of my suit in record time if there was the slightest sign of a problem.

As well as impact suits and hover belts, we needed lights of course. We attached those to our suits, together with special small sensors, and relays for the vid bees. I’d grudgingly agreed to take two of the nosy little vid bees with us, not for the benefit of the Earth Rolling News audience, but so the Military could see exactly what was happening and advise us. Dalmora and her father, Ventrak Rostha, would be controlling the vid bees remotely via the relays.