They were very mazy, and seemingly very extensive. It wasnt easy to make marks with the chalk because the walls were covered with the same vitreous tegument that covered the cave where wed woken up, but I managed to leave an identifiable trail.
Hollowing out an asteroid and using the transplanted material to erect several layers of superstructure on the original surface may sound like a straightforward sort of project, especially if the hollowers have the advantage of working with an iron-rich specimen, but complications set in when you begin the work of figuring out what sort of internal architecture you intend to produce and a step-by-step plan for producing it. Id only seen VE models of such projects back in the twenty-second century, but Id tried to take an intelligent interest in all kinds of VE modeling while I was in the business, so I had a rough and elementary grasp of the principles involved.
So far as I could tell, the would-be colonists of Polaris had laid down the primary network of arterial tunnels and numerous side branches, but they hadnt gotten around to hollowing out the chambers along each subsidiary spur which meant that there were an awful lot of blind corridors. La Reine des Neiges had taken what advantage she could of the chambers that had been hollowed out to install her own networked equipment, but every part of her that I could find seemed to be dead.
If shed had a fall-back position, I reasoned, the part of her that shed preserved would probably be close to the fuser that was still pumping power to the cave where the cocoons had been established. If I could locate the fuser, Id be in the best place to look for her secret self and the best place to search for anyone else whod gone looking for the same thing.
I knew that the fuser would probably be in the center of the microworld, which would be identifiable because it was a zero-gee region, but a gravity cline that starts from one-sixth normal isnt easy to follow for someone whos lived almost all his life on Earth, especially when the tunnels hes following seem to go in every direction except the one hes interested in.
In the fullness of time the excavators would probably have installed 3-D maps at every intersection, but thered been no point in doing that while the formation was only half-complete and any indicators they had put in place had been overlaid by la Reines all-enveloping skin. I tried to console myself with the thought that I probably wouldnt have been able to understand any maps even if Id been able to access them, but there wasnt much comfort to be found in thoughts of that kind.
The feeling of luxury I obtained from being alone wore off more quickly than Id expected, to be replaced by a creeping unease. I had to remind myself that I, unlike those of my companions who had preceded me in this research, was a true human: a pioneer, an adventurer, a risk-taker.
It paid off. I didnt actually find the fuser, or any working machinery,
but I did find lots more artifacts.
There were countless antlike robots, some no bigger than my thumbnail and others bigger than my foot, and there were larger motile units that looked like surreal crustaceans but they were all inert and seemingly useless. I also found a nanotech manufactory, but if anything there was active it wasnt visible to the naked eye.
I would probably have found more if my explorations hadnt been brought to a sudden conclusion by the discovery of the creature from the tenth cocoon.
At first I thought it too was dead, but when I brought my lantern close to its head in order to examine it more closely it opened its eyes. Then it made a peculiar sound like garbled VE-phone static, as if it were testing its own resources to discover whether it was still capable of speech.
The android bore a certain resemblance to Davida, presumably because it had been constructed according to the same fundamental logic, but it looked more like a manikin than an actual human being. Its outer tegument was colored to resemble a smartsuit, but the texture looked wrong. The face had been molded in a kind of plastic whose resemblance to flesh was manifestly tokenistic, as if it had been manufactured to a cruder specification than the one which Niamh Hornes artificial flesh had been required to meet.
I presumed that the creature was as sexless as Davida, but I immediately began thinking of it as her for the same reasons that I had begun thinking of Davida as female. Her eyes were blue, and seemed more natural than Niamh Hornes. The microgravity simulated by Polaris spin was even further reduced hereabouts, but there was enough of it to hold the tiny body to the corridor floor, helplessly spread-eagled. She had brought a lantern of her own but the fuel cell had run low and its glow was almost extinct.
She waited until I had knelt down beside her before she tried her feeble voice again.
Whats wrong with you? I asked.
Everything, she whispered. Seeming to take heart from the fact that she had pronounced the word, she added: It seems that humanity is far more difficult to fake than la Reine anticipated.