Pictured is a mechanoid life-form from the moon of Titan! It resembles a stick insect made from aircraft components. That nozzle on the front is a flame thrower. [https://64.media.tumblr.com/98bbb60c35ab82aefe52c07f8a7dc383/e8d7aa55121a8006-1a/s640x960/a129fab299922b0a90fa435a1f0cb2c92f77b9b0.jpg]
It was raining gasoline.
Victor Toledo had his wipers on, but the little squeegee didn't do much except smear the petrochemicals over the visor of his environment suit.
> Visibility: 3 meters
>
> Outside temperature: -180° C
>
> Suit batteries: full
>
> O2 tanks: full
>
> Signal strength: excellent
>
> Handshake gauntlet status: standby
Beyond the glowing readouts projected onto the inside of his visor, Victor could just make out the edges of his harvester, mostly defined by the endless churning movement of the caterpillar treads on either side of him. Ahead, beyond the bumper of the huge forestry machine, he could see nothing but falling fuel.
The access road and the jungle beyond were invisible, but every few minutes, the glassy blade of the low-hanging vane of a Windmill tree sliced the curtain of rain. Mechanoids scurried over those vanes on mechanical legs like clockwork spiders. The feral robots froze as the harvester passed, tracking the machine with hungry sensors.
A human figure, clumsy and bulbous in his environment suit, swam out of the rain. Al-Waheed, one of the few biologists who hadn't joined the strike, planted his feet and stuck up his left hand up to signal Victor. His right arm stuck out in front of him, providing a roost for his tame Punisher. The eagle-sized, helicopter-winged mechanoid hunched in the rain, a heap of dripping iron pinions and glowing red headlights.
"They're close," said the biologist over the comms net. Victor didn't know whether "they" meant the striking scientists and engineers he was supposed to rescue or the Tanker trees those strikers were risking their lives trying to protect. Both, he supposed.
He slowed the harvester, crunching over whatever metallic weeds had self-assembled there since the last time this road had been used.
"Where are their lights?" he asked. "Are the strikers just waiting for us in the dark?"
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"Of course, they are," said Al-Waheed.
Why wasn't he running this mission? Victor's place in the hierarchy had more to do with his driver's certification than his skills in leadership or wilderness survival, and he'd obviously just asked a stupid question. Why would the strikers keep their lights off? Oh. "Because lights would attract mechanoids?" he asked.
"You got it, boss," said Al-Waheed. "Even Merchant and her tree-huggers don't love the critters that much."
"All right. Switching to global address frequencies." Victor brought the harvester to a grumbling halt and called up an eye-movement menu in his visor, scrolled through options…
"Maybe," said Al-Waheed, "switch on your sonar?"
"Uh, right." That was another finicky eye-menu. The software was designed for command by wrist-mounted keyboard, but of course Victor's left wrist was occupied by his handshake gauntlet.
"Dr. Merchant, if you're listening," Victor raised his voice, as if that might give his signal more power. "Stop this nonsense."
"Nonsense?" The answering voice was crackly, faint with distance and interference from jungle life, but the behavioral biologist's glossy accent was unmistakable. "You bloody fool, you drove the harvester out here to arrest us?"
She spoke so quickly. Victor concentrated, making sure he understood her and his response was grammatically correct English. "Nobody will arrest you, Dr. Merchant," he said. "But you and your people are not safe out here."
"Neither are you," she said. "Who is this?"
"Victor," said Victor. "Victor Toledo, I—"
"Damn it, Toledo, why did they send you out here in that thing?"
"I know you oppose the use of the harvester, but the resources we extract with it go into your paychecks as well, you know." Victor stood, leaning forward, breathing hard as his suit's software painted his visor with sonar and infrared. "I don't understand why you protest like this."
Ah. There they were. The strikers stood hand in hand, in a human chain stretched across the road into the forest. Behind them, outlined in the slick grays of sonar imaging, bulked the fat cylindrical trunks of the Tanker trees, each one a living store of hydrocarbon energy big enough to keep a space station running for a week.
Titan, with its chemical resources, low gravity and outer-system real estate, would have been a tempting target for exploitation even without the famous photos taken by the Huygens probe. Cryovolcanoes capped with forests. Iron trees spreading windmill leaves over plains of methane snow. Robotic predators wading through petrochemical lakes, buzz-saw mouths gaping. The impossible bulk of a Leviathan in flight. The fiery battles of mating Dragons. An entire ecosystem evolved, apparently, from ancient alien mining machinery. Why shouldn't humans step in and claim the resources those aliens had abandoned?
Now, not even two years since Xanadu had become the first permanent base on Titan, the whole plan was falling apart.
"We're protesting the wholesale destruction of yet another ecosystem," said Dr. Merchant. "Now, listen to me, Toledo, you have to turn about and leave right away."
¡Miércoles! Victor had lost focus, given her the chance to make one of her speeches. He knew how she'd look on the cameras she had undoubtedly set up to document her great statement. The shining heroine making her stand in the gasoline rain, surrounded by hostile jungle and vile corporate shills like Victor.
"Look," said Victor, "Al-Onazy says he's going to give you what you want. Caps on harvesting, redrawn logging routes so we don't disturb the local environment too much. But we must continue harvesting."
"You are not the only thing harvesting out here, Mr. Toledo."
Victor lost patience. "Get your people up on my vehicle. Al-Onazy is willing to negotiate, but not—
Something flashed through the darkness and Al-Waheed shouted, "Gob-swarm!"