Star Soldier Read Online Free PDF Page B

was that of their boots drumming on the cool earth. They peeled away in different directions, one or two waving, and then Marten strode alone deep underground and in a semi-dark corridor.
    His shoulders relaxed and the stiffness in his neck went away. His somber features softened. He walked and walked and walked, turning many times into many different corridors. Finally, in the distance he heard the grind and roar of Tunnel Crawler Six as it chewed into deep sedimentary rock.
    This was end of the line for Greater Sydney. This was the bottom of the city, where Level Sixty was under construction.
    Marten inserted his earplugs, snapped on his helmet lamp, fixed his oxygen mask and strolled closer to his monster.
    The mighty Tunnel Crawler Six was a vast metallic worm. The huge segmented sections slithered after the main mouth that tore at the rock twenty-four hours a day. The chewed up parts went on an internal conveyer belt to the central dump. Some of the rock was mined for useful minerals. Some went topside for construction and the rest went down the deep-core mine, there to be turned into lava and added to the Earth’s interior. Pollution as such was nonexistent with the deep-core dump. Nuclear wastes, toxic chemicals, fuel sludge—anything unwanted or non-reusable—was simply dumped deep into the Earth and never worried about again.
    Marten’s job wasn’t repairing Tunnel Crawler Six. His specs called for maintenance of the biocomp that ran the beast.
    Fine particles of dust drifted in the corridor. Marten’s light beamed through it. It got thicker up ahead as he neared the machine’s maw. The clank and roar of the chewing mouth shook the air. No one could talk here. The roar became a blanket covering other noise. It brought… well, after awhile the roar seemed to fade in one’s thinking until it became a kind of silence.
    “Silence is golden,” Marten mouthed under his oxygen mask.
    For such an utterance—if he’d been heard—peacekeepers would surely have drawn their shock rods and beaten him down as anti-social.
    Marten reached the cab, which was three hundred meters from the mouth, and hoisted himself up the rungs. The long beast shook and vibrated. He opened the cab and slipped in, shutting the heavy door behind him. Much of the roar and clanking faded away, although the vibrations were constant.
    He sat at the controls and turned on the Bioram Taw2. The cab was cramped with coils, leads, tools and screens, but the control chair was heaven compared to anything Marten had ever used.
    The Bioram Taw2 was a marvel of modern technology. Human brain tissue, from a criminal who’d been liquidated for the good of the state, had been carefully teased from the main brain mass. After a good personality-scrubbing, the brain tissue was embedded in cryo-sheets and surrounded by programming gel. One point five kilos of brain tissuehad replaced tons of specialized control and volitional systems. Unfortunately, the cryocyorgic environment accelerated decay and eventual death. Still, biocomps were the wave of the future.
    Here, away from prying eyes and busybodies, Marten had given rein to his impulses. He’d written brand new software for his Data-Five auxiliary computer. The auxiliary computer was only to be used as backup for the biocomp, but Marten had ignored that reg. In fact, he’d erased many of the D5’s programs in order to make room for his own. Then, with infinite patience, he’d teased memories out of the biocomp’s brain tissue.
    The pros upstairs thought they’d scrubbed all personality from the biocomp’s gray matter. Marten knew it wasn’t as easy as that. His mother had known more about bio-computers than the so-called experts had, and she’d taught him before she’d been killed on the Sun-Works Factory.
    Marten took off his work gloves, turned on the D5 and logged onto his Bio-Speak Program. Then he settled the keyboard on his knees, put the mike near his mouth and the audio-plugs in his