PeterWatts_Blindsight

Peter Watts 113 Blindsight
programmable asbestos. We burned through alternating layers of
superconducting mesh, and the strata of flaking carbon separating
them.
We burned through.
The lasers shut down instantly. Within seconds Rorschach's
intestinal gases had blown taut the skin of the tent. Black carbon
smoke swirled and danced in sudden thick atmosphere.
Nothing shot back at us. Nothing reacted. Partial pressures
piled up on ConSensus: methane, ammonia, hydrogen. Lots of
water vapor, freezing as fast as it registered.
Szpindel grunted. "Reducing atmosphere. Pre-Snowball." He
sounded disappointed.
"Maybe it's a work in progress," James suggested. "Like the
structure itself."
"Maybe."
Jack stuck out its tongue, a giant mechanical sperm with a myooptical
tail. Its head was a thick-skinned lozenge, at least half
ceramic shielding by cross-section; the tiny payload of sensors at
its core was rudimentary, but small enough for the whole assembly
to thread through the pencil-thin hole the laser had cut. It
unspooled down the hole, rimming Rorschach's newly-torn orifice.
"Dark down there," James observed.
Bates: "But warm." 281°K. Above freezing.
The endoscope emerged into darkness. Infrared served up a
grainy grayscale of a — a tunnel, it looked like, replete with mist
and exotic rock formations. The walls curved like honeycomb, like
the insides of fossilized intestine. Cul-de-sacs and branches
proliferated down the passage. The basic substrate appeared to be
a dense pastry of carbon-fiber leaves. Some of the gaps between
those layers were barely thick as fingernails; others looked wide
enough to stack bodies.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Szpindel said softly, "The Devil's
Baklava."
I could have sworn I saw something move. I could have sworn it
looked familiar.
The camera died.