第128页
Will slid his hand over his controls and polarized the monitor, cutting the glare. The motion came from a collection of thirty interlaced Sentinels, their booms and center spheres assembled into an oblong shape, and through its center traveled a continuous stream of stone.
To Kurt it looked like a mechanical worm regurgitating over the mountainside.
Dr. Halsey clambered into the cockpit.
"No energy spikes detected," Will said. "They're not ready to fire."
Kurt swallowed. "Steady on this heading," he told Kelly.
He watched the giant machine recede behind them. It had to have seen them. Thirty sets of eyes wouldn't have missed something as large as a Covenant dropship. Why hadn't it attacked?
Dr. Halsey tapped a control and one of the viewscreens jumped back to the combined Sentinels. She studied this a moment, and then declared, "Tinkertoys."
"I don't understand the reference," Kurt said.
"An ancient child's toy," she said, "sticks and flat round connectors. These may be the Forerunners' counterpart. They reconfigure to accomplish various tasks, having all the required basic components: antigravity units, force-field generators, energy projector weaponry It is the equivalent, I suspect, of the simple machines that comprise our technology: the wheel, the ramp, lever, pulley, and screw."
Her casual analysis of a technology centuries more advanced than theirs irritated Kurt.
"I'd say in this configuration," Dr. Halsey continued, "it is not designed for combat, and will not attack… unless, of course, they were provoked. Their programming, while sophisticated, appears dedicated; that is, each Sentinel combination special-izes lor a single task. And right now, that task is moving dirt."
"Doesn't mean there aren't more combat pairs around," Kelly said. "Orders, sir?"
Kurt detected the slightest edge of nervousness in Kelly's voice. He felt it, too, in the pit of his gut. If those thirty Sentinels back there had wanted to, they could have blasted this ship into shrapnel.
There were only two options; go forward or retreat.
Kurt felt like his luck had run dry, but he also felt like they were close to finding something.
He longed for the days of simple missions when there were only two things to worry about: maneuvering and where your team's lines of fire were.
Yet, when you broke it down to its components, forgot the consequences of success or failure, wasn't this mission the same as any other?
Move and fire. Find a target to capture or neutralize. Minimize casualties while inflicting maximum damage on your enemy. Get in quick. Get out quicker.
"New course," he told Kelly "Come ninety degrees to starboard. Take us up that mountainside."
"Aye, sir."
The tuning fork-shaped dropship banked and raced up the slope. The earth vanished under them as they crested the summit.
Beyond was a crater a hundred kilometers in diameter.
There were thousands of the earthmovers on the inner slope— all spewing rocks over the edge. The Sentinels had created a giant anthill. How much, Kurt wondered, had ONI cleared in the decades they had been here? And how much of this was the Sentinels' doing?