Shadow Of The Past Trilogy ∞ THE DISPLACED

112 ∞ the matter of antimatter

Day Twenty ∞ Wednesday evening (PST)

"IT MATTERS NOT," Mickmi said with her eyes on Atlas, "and it concerns us not. Blanc, please maintain vigilance of the situation 'on the ground' and outside our perimeter."

—Will do, my Queen. Selina contracted and widened before fading.

Mickmi floated forward to position herself before them inside the shield. "Gentlemen... Let us get to work."

Danny headed back to the ships with the others to find both flanked with extruded brackets holding the netting-wrapped metal pole bundles they'd travelled with, a few of the protruding ends now curved into arcs. A 3D schematic popped up on his HUD, virtually moving each pole into position to create a support frame.

"Please secure the parts according to the assembly instructions on your displays."

Mickmi pulled two short straight poles and held them out, parallel to each other. Muzzy reached for a long, curved one as Danny's display highlighted another with a flashing green outline.

That was the one he was supposed to take. He pulled it out of the mesh wrapping by floating away from the bundle, and turned the two socket protrusions toward Mickmi's poles as the arrows indicated. He and Muzzy pressed from either side, joining the four pieces into one as Eckstein approached with a curved pole.

Danny found assembling the frames both easier and harder than he expected. Without gravity guiding his sensory awareness, there was no "up", no "down". Every direction was the same. He had to calibrate himself to working in this environment, as well as getting used to the servomotor assistants in his spacesuit that responded as if they were a part of his musculature.

He floated back to inspect their handiwork. It looked like a pair of skeleton wheels, each with three columns of mesh attached along its circumference, open and ready to receive the load. The other team was securing the last piece of their second frame when a new person indicator popped up on his HUD next to the line marking the factory boundary.

"Internal delivery mechanisms operational for two ports," Artemae said via the comms, "ready for loading."

Danny looked up. Framed by one of the yellow squares, Artemae hung in her usual attire, her bob hovering around her head like a black halo. But her red skirt did not behave the same way. He puzzled over it for a moment before remembering it was part of her Nanite construction. It would be a simple matter to keep the material stiff. Why she didn't do the same thing with her hair escaped him.

Muzzy stared at her. "Is there an invisible airlock there?"

"What for?" She threw out a cheerful hand. "The plant is completely autonomous. Air is not a requirement."

"Wait, what?"

"Damn," Eckstein said as she leaped toward them.

"My Queen," Artemae halted before Mickmi, "reactivating the hull shield requires more time than we have here."

Mickmi thanked her and waited for Lora's team to join them.

"I don't get it. Shouldn't she be dead by now?" Jagg asked, voicing what Danny knew would be on every man's mind. "Why isn't she wearing a spacesuit?"

The men were all staring at her.

"She's not human either," Danny said. "She's more like a living machine... artificial intelligence. So she doesn't need air."