Architect Neron's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

The map was done. Neron knew where the shelf lay and where the first leg would go. He carried a metal frame to the marked spot at dawn. The frame would drop through the mud and grip the rock below. But when he reached the shelf, the herd stood on it. Dozens of large herbivores grazed across the exact ground he needed. Their heavy feet churned the mud. They pressed close, curious, nosing at the frame. Neron set the frame down and stepped back. One animal swung its head and knocked the frame flat. Another walked over it, driving it into the mud. "They'll crush it," he said. "Every piece I leave here." He could not work while they trampled the site. He could not move them off the ridge either. They would sink in the deep mud and die. Dax crouched at the shelf edge, counting the herd under his breath. He was the android child who had watched these animals longer than anyone. His cracked chest glowed faint blue through the mud on his overalls. "F-fourteen on the shelf," he said. "They come for the roots. The roots grow thick right here." Neron knelt beside him. "So this spot draws them." "Every morning," Dax said. "They leave when the roots run dry. Midday. Then they move to the far beds." Neron looked at the sun. Hours until midday. He could not wait. The mud would swallow his window. Then he saw the empty far end of the shelf, where the herd had not yet grazed. "They follow the roots," he said. "So I move the roots." Nevin arrived with the supply crate and heard the plan. He pulled out a case of glossy spheres, sleek and hand-sized. "Capture shells," Nevin said. "They hold living things. You meant them for the herd once." "Not the herd," Neron said. "The food." He dug a clump of wet roots from the shelf and sealed it in a shell. Then another. He carried the filled shells to the far end of the shelf, past his work site, and released the roots into the mud there. The smell spread. Dax watched the herd, counting. "Ten now," Dax said. "S-seven. They're turning." The herbivores lifted their heads. One trotted toward the fresh roots. The rest followed, drawn off Neron's site to the new patch. Within minutes the marked ground stood clear. The mud sat empty where the first leg belonged. Neron drove the frame down fast. It punched through the mud and struck the rock shelf. He tensioned the cables and locked them. The first leg held. He pressed the ground reader against it. The needle climbed and stayed. Solid. He stood back, breathing hard. One leg stood where the herd had grazed an hour before. But the roots he moved would run dry by midday. The herd would drift back, hungry, straight into a site now full of frames and cables.