Then something strikes him. He hasn’t come across the other way in on his travels. He puts that to the back of his mind. He makes his way out of the transport room and down the stairs to the corridor. It doesn’t take him long to reach the downstairs control room. He is half expecting there to be robots waiting there for him, but there aren’t any. He looks at the control desk for a full minute, before depressing the fire button and watches it crumble into nothing.
He walks slowly over to the small doorway. He opens the door and sees it is empty beyond that. There is a narrow corridor. Another door at the end of that and he is by a large metal door. He presses the button and then he is on the outside. It takes him a couple of minutes to ascertain he is alone. It would have been no surprise for him to have been fired on as he left. He needs to find the place where he left his craft. He isn’t sure of the direction. It is not as if he was brought in there with his eyes uncovered and him walking. He was carried in.
He has a rough idea where he parked it up, but it takes him half an hour, to even get close to it. He knows he is close, when he sees a robot standing by some rocks. It isn’t standing there for his own benefit, Spirit assumes. It must be guarding his craft. He circles round to see if there are any more robots guarding the area. He also wants to get into a position where he can see his craft, well as much of it as he left visible. From what he can see when he gets into that position, the craft looks like it is as he left it.
The robot isn’t looking around it, as Spirit thinks it should be. It does though have something in its hand. It isn’t a weapon, but it is a button. Spirit can only think of one reason for that. The robot will blow up his craft, if he is attacked. It will probably go off, even if Spirit hits the robot. He really needs to get close, to see what kind of trip the robot has. The last thing he can afford to do; is to lose his craft. Even if there was a way he could stop the robot from setting it off from this distance, he believes there would be something else in place that would ensure that it achieves the result it is supposed to. The only thing that really comes to him is a question. That is, why they haven’t just destroyed it? That would have been that. Maybe they are hoping he won’t make it back here and they will be able to retain the technology. They obviously haven’t tried to move it, or if they have, then they will have found they can’t. It only works for Spirit, just like his weapon!
Chapter 39 The Grand Master
With the jobs done of switching things back on, the Grand Master retires to his quarters, for a well-earned and well needed rest. There is nothing else for him to check on before he retires. He is safe under the ground. Not one other person in the universe knows about this place. Only one robot was ever involved in the building of this place and that is now getting brought back to life too. He lies down, with his head on the pillow, and closes his eyes. The place may be a little short of fresh air. The systems have not come on fully yet, but it is alright. He doesn’t notice it really and soon he drifts off in a deep sleep.
He hasn’t felt the need for a sleep like this one, for many a year. He hasn’t had the need for a sleep like this one for that long either. Being back to a mere mortal has tired him out. He sleeps for a good 12 hours, before he wakes again. At first he doesn’t know where he is, but it soon comes back to him, helped by his aching body and bones. He washes and changes clothes. The clothes are different from the ones he has been wearing, but that is just what it is. The fact that he has been able to have a shower, tells him that at least some of the systems are now on. He moves thru to the galley and gets something to eat and drink. Those systems are up and running too. That is good, as it would be impossible to stay here long without them. His next stop is to the store area. The robot is indeed ready to go. It was good enough to build this place, so it has a good capacity, just not as good as the ones he has been using recently. It is also a long way short on firepower. It has a very basic weapon capacity. It wasn’t built for fighting or defending. It was built as something to do things he didn’t want to, or couldn’t do.
What he needs more than anything else at the moment; is some means of transport. He will have some of the parts needed around the place, but other things are going to have to be lost, to achieve his goal. He sets the robot onto its task, making sure that it will check with him, before it just dismantles any old thing to utilize parts.
With that done, he needs to see what is going on at the base, if he can find a way to access that information. He also needs to get in contact with his three aggression partners. It may well cost him, to ask them to come here, but he has no choice. He has more riches than a man could ever use, particularly a mortal man of his age.
He has sent a message before, but not received a response. He needs to see if he has had one now. What he doesn’t realize is; that sending a message as a Guiding Master is one thing and that sending a message as a mortal; is something completely different. There are different rules and laws at play here. When he was a Guiding Master, a message could be sent almost instantaneously, to anywhere in the Universe. In his current state, a message can be sent, but it has to obey the rules in place in the Universe and at what individual stage the message is being sent from and where to. In other words, he might well be able to send a message, but the speed it will go at, might mean in real terms that it never arrives. This is the case in this instance. Even a message to the nearest planet to Boristal 7 would take a long time. Messages to other parts of the Universe, where Valpar, Grillech & Posdon are, will take countless years to arrive, even if they knew where to find them.
The Guiding Master has not yet come to terms with the fact that he has lost far more capability than he would ever have imagined. He sends the messages anyway, not being in the knowledge of these things. Even if they had received the messages, it would have taken them a long time to respond and arrive; far more time than the Grand Master has to play with. He knows this really and so turns his attention onto the main matter in hand; the building of some form of transportation.
The robot has barely started his task. It has acquired a few things to make a basic shell. From the looks of it, the craft is going to be little bigger than the craft Spirit goes around in. As long as it has room for the Grand Master and the robot, then it will be sufficient. He leaves the robot to it. His next port of call is to the control room. He tries to make contact with the base. Either his equipment is not working, or there is no one answering at the base. In fact both are true to some degree. In the base, they are occupied with other things. In the case of his equipment, the frequencies used are totally different. Things have changed drastically in the time gap. He can communicate with them, but not in the way he is trying to at the moment.
The other problem that he finds he has; is that the system which allows him to keep an eye on things in the vicinity of this hideaway, has been destroyed by the storms. He has no idea what might be going on, literally right on top of him. In the circumstances, that is something that needs to be rectified sooner rather than later, although the first time he goes out, is going to be a risk whatever he does. This is a job he can do. He needs the robot to concentrate on building the craft. The sooner that is built, the sooner he can get his plans back on track.
He finds the pieces he needs, to give him some sort of view of the surrounding area. He then goes about going outside and placing the cameras where he needs them to be. He completes this as quickly as he can. He is unsure of what may be going on. One thing he can be sure of, if they do find a way of getting on top, then it is only going to be a matter of time before they come looking for him.
The more he thinks about it, the more concerned he becomes. He has lost his powers. The androids and robots will have lost some of their powers too. His craft will have lost a sizeable chunk of its capabilities, as will have the base. The only things that will have become stronger are, The Keeper and the two remaining Guiding Masters. They will definitely have become stronger, particularly The Keeper.
He realizes he has been standing there daydre
aming. He has placed the last of the cameras in position. He needs to make sure they are going to do a sufficient enough job for him. He goes back inside. In the control room he switches them all on. He can see what he needs to, for now. The coast is clear and that is the way he would like it to remain for a good while. What he really has to do, is to try to make it away from here, to somewhere else in the Universe, where he can regroup. If he can’t regroup, then he wants that place to be somewhere where they won’t be able to find him or catch him. He isn’t too sure how much of that is possible.
When he goes to see how the robot is coming along with his mode of transport, he knows he is going to have to change his plans. It is seriously short of parts. The shell is almost complete, but there is nothing to go in the interior. The worst news is that the only kind of engine the robot can make with what it has available, is something very basic. It might move them over the ground at a reasonable pace, but flight or anything beyond that is just not on. Weaponry is almost as bad. The question he has to answer right now; is what he is going to do about it. Things are far worse than he could ever have imagined they were going to be. Just a simple thing, like not being able to get into the base has led to this situation now.
Then it comes to him. There is a craft that would be able to get him out of here. There is a craft that will still have its Micro Air Compounder engines and weapons. That craft belongs to Spirit. Spirit is their prisoner; at least he hopes that is still the case. If he couldn’t get into the base, it is unlikely others would be able to. All he needs to do; is to go to the place where the androids say he parked his craft and take it over. It is only big enough for him and not the robot too, but some things just have to be compromised to achieve your goals.
With that craft in his hands, then things would be more back on track again. He could go distances very quickly. He could attack or defend as he chooses. Yes that is the answer to his dilemma. Find Spirit’s craft and use it against them if he wants to, and then make his escape to anywhere he chooses to, in the Universe. Maybe he could join up with Valpar and the others and work as one force.
Reinvigorated with the thought of an answer, he goes to the store and starts to help the robot to complete the task of building his transport, to get back to the craft and the base. The sooner he does this, the more likely the craft is going to still be there. The sooner he does it, the sooner he will be back in control of things, rather than being on the back foot, as he is at the moment. The sooner he can get things going, the better he will feel. The sooner he does this, then the greater the chance he can stop The Keeper using any power he might have, to right the Universe from the path he, The Grand Master, has been trying to lead it on. The sooner he does this, then the sooner he can be back in the rightful position of power he has taken for himself.
He has to step back for a minute, because his vision is becoming cloudy. His thoughts about what he wants to do are stopping him, from actively helping his robot do the task of building the craft, to get him back on track. The need for a sophisticated craft has gone. All he needs is something to get him back across the planet in a tireless fashion. It also needs to be fast enough to evade capture, should that be needed. He tells the robot what he needs and gives it a timeframe to finish the task. It does nothing, except to change the way it is building the engine. A full hour before the time it has been set to finish, it does so. They can’t fire it up in the store, so they push it over to the lift, where it will be taken up to the surface. The robot completes this part of the task, after the Grand Master has checked the coast is clear. He takes nothing with him, except the robot. He doesn’t even bother to close up the hideaway. The engine fires at the first attempt. The robot drives them away swiftly towards the base, but in a roundabout route.
Chapter 40 The Keeper
We walk round to the front of the craft and check the door there, before we start the journey back to the base. The direction we start off in is at ninety degrees to the direction we are actually aiming for. We need to get out wider, in the hope we will have some cover, to prevent been seen approaching. It is not easy walking back towards what we know is going to be certain trouble. From what we have witnessed so far, the androids are not going to give up easily. If GM3 is indeed here, then he is going to react strongly about our escape. It has to be done though and my 2 unwilling companions are with me on this journey. I need to concentrate on what I have to do and not allow them to get into my thoughts. They are immortal, but does that mean that they can’t be killed, or just that they can’t die in normal circumstances? I don’t want to go there, so push that away from the front of my mind. I can think about that later, if I even want to.
We are about half the way back, when I spot something ahead of us, but to the right. If we had been going in a direct fashion, we would have been upon them. There are three robots, or androids, waiting in a line. They are facing towards the craft we have come from. My first thought is that GM3 has sent them out there, to wait for us. I say wait for us, as they aren’t moving. They have come so far and then stopped. It seems to be a little bit odd to me. I am fairly certain that we have seen them, before they have seen us. At least I am hoping things are like that.
We keep as low as we can and sharpen our senses. There isn’t anything to say that there won’t be others, spread out either side of this trio. We spend a couple of minutes trying to scour the land around and ahead of us, to see if that is the case. At the moment we can’t see any others than these three. We decide to move further out, so we backtrack a little, moving further out as we do so. We make sure we aren’t in their line of sight as we do so. We go back about a quarter of a mile, before we start our forward progress once more. This is far from ideal, but I don’t really want to get into a fight out here, if I can help it.
We are now way out of sight of the three we saw earlier. We get past the point where we were before and are walking a bit faster, in an effort to make up some of the lost time. I don’t know why we are hurrying, because there isn’t a time schedule to keep to. In our haste we obviously aren’t keeping as good an eye on things around us. It is GM6 who sounds the alert for us.
‘Bandits at 2 o’clock’ she says, pointing as she does so.
It takes me a couple of seconds to understand what she is on about, but I catch on soon enough. I follow her gaze. I do not like what I can see. There are two androids making their way towards us. They are walking quite fast. It is obvious that they have seen us, way before we spotted them. They haven’t started firing at us, but that is probably because the distance is too great. We take cover and from that place, have a look round the rest of the land that surrounds us. The news is not good. From the direction we have been travelling from, there are another two androids approaching us. We hadn’t reckoned that they would be coming from that direction too, but they are. More bad news awaits us, when we return our gaze to the direction we were going in. There are another two coming at us from that direction.
I look at my two companions and am surprised to see that they appear to be extremely calm about all this. I am glad they are, because I am not. I am not a trained fighter. Sure, I have destroyed two androids so far, but this is completely different.
‘You will be fine’ are the words of encouragement I receive from them both. I wish I could be so confident.
‘You’ll have to be my eyes then’ I reply ‘when I decide which ones to concentrate on first.’
Then I change my mind about things. I nod to my companions and start to walk in the only direction where there aren’t any androids coming towards me. That is further out and away from my intended destination. GM6 & 7 both move quickly to my side. We are walking away quickly and keeping an eye over our shoulders at them. They haven’t changed their speed, but two of the three groups have change direction to follow us. At least they will all be coming at me from the same direction, or thereabouts.
We only go back so far. I am concerned that they might have another two ready to come at us from that directi
on, but thankfully that threat does not materialize. I find the kind of place I am looking for. Nothing here is actually ideal for making a stand, but this place is the best I am going to get. There is a cluster of bigger rocks, which provide some cover from all directions. The land we have just crossed is quite open and although there are a few places where they could take cover, there isn’t a huge amount of places they can seek refuge from us.
I concentrate my focus on the 6 androids I can now see coming towards us. To one side and the back, I have GM6 looking, and to the other side and part of the back too, I have GM7 looking. I am sure they will also look in the direction I am taking care of too.
I decide to not wait too long and let them get too close. I set one of my weapons on as strong as it can get and fire off my first shot in this battle. It takes me a minute to get the range and direction right. By that time they have seen what I am doing and have scattered. They separate and spread out in a fan shape. They also drop to the ground, which makes it much harder for me to see them properly. I find my range, just in time to get one of them. It takes it in the chest, but from previous experience I know that won’t be enough to stop it from attacking. Only a complete pulverization is going to be enough, to know they aren’t a threat anymore. I fire some where it has dropped to the ground. I see the parts of it dancing on the ground, as my shots strike home, but I can’t see if it is totally destroyed. It needs to be totally destroyed.
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