by Brian Daley
“Just turn on the heaters!” yelled Hasti.
The valley widened quickly, then gave way down to an open plain carpeted with bobbing, spindly amber grass. The hover-raft was equipped with rudimentary navigational gear. Han set a course for J’uoch’s mining camp. Not wanting to use the raft’s running lights, he cut his speed back and peered through the windshield, thankful it was a bright night.
The wind of their passage snatched the warmth out of the heater grids. Hasti discovered a folded tarp in one corner of the cargo bed and pulled at it, but stopped and called to the others. “Look at what they had onboard!”
Han couldn’t turn from his steering, but Chewbacca, sitting next to him, pulled a handful of the tarp over the back of the driver’s seat. Carefully fastened to the tarp were strands of plastic, meticulously fashioned to look like the amber grass of the plains. A camouflage cover.
“This crate comes equipped with an aerial-sensor, too,” Han noted. “With a little warning and time to cover up, this thing would be just about impossible to spot without first-rate equipment.” And the cave had been big enough to hold more rafts like this one. But that left the question of how a group of primitives like the Survivors, on a back-eddy planet like Dellalt, had set up an operation like this.
Han slowed just enough for Chewbacca to wrestle the collapsible canopy into place. They crowded onto the short couches of the cramped pilot-passenger compartment, lit by the glow of the dashboard instruments and Bollux’s photoreceptors. Outside, the moons and stars lit a sea of waving grassland as it blurred under the raft’s darkened bow. Eventually the heaters made some headway, and Han opened his flight jacket.
Badure sighed. “If that was the Queen’s log-recorder disk back there, we can write it off. The antenna mast destroyed it completely.”
Han posed the question: “But how did the Survivors get it in the first place? I thought it was back in the vaults.”
“They were talking like it’s been theirs all along,” Hasti put in, shifting in a futile attempt to find more room between Bollux and Badure in the back seat.
Skynx, in his best classroom voice, chimed in. “The facts, as we know them, are as follows. Lanni somehow obtained the log-recorder disk and deposited it in a lockbox in the vaults. She evinced an interest in the mountains. J’uoch discovered her secret, or some part of it, and killed Lanni in trying to obtain the disk. And, here were the Survivors with either the same disk or one identical to it.
“Now, Lanni was a pilot, flying freight and operational missions, isn’t that right? Suppose she happened to be airborne when the Survivors were holding one of their outdoor ceremonies, and either traced their signal or saw the light?”
Han nodded. “She could’ve landed somewhere, scouted, and bagged the log-recorder!” He trimmed the craft and corrected its course a bit.
Hasti agreed. “She could have. Dad taught her to fly, and a lot about wilderness survival and reconnaissance.”
Badure picked up the thread. “So she put the disk in the lockbox and stopped off across the lake to see if she could detect a bounce or signal leakage or find out anything about the Survivors’ base, or if she’d stirred them up. I bet the treasure’s back there under the mountain.”
They rode in silence for a time. Then Han spoke: “That would only leave two questions: how to get the Falcon back … and how to spend all that money.”
Han’s best efforts failed to nurse much speed from the antiquated raft. He kept the airwatch sensor on, depressed as low to the horizon astern as possible, but he detected no pursuit. He was still unsatisfied, having come up with no conclusions as to what the Survivors had been doing with those cargo craft, what the hatch face off the Queen of Ranroon actually meant, or how it was all connected with the treasure.
Dellalt’s sun set off a purple dawn; grassland disappeared under the hover-raft’s bow. They had nearly crossed the basin of grassland formed by a curve in the mountain range and were bearing toward the mining camp when Bollux leaned over the driver’s seat and said, “Captain, I’ve been making communication monitoring sweeps as you ordered, listening for activity on the Survivors’ frequency.”
Han immediately became anxious. “Are they on the air?”
“No,” answered the ’droid. “After all, their antenna mast was destroyed. But I also checked other frequencies mentioned in Skynx’s tapes, and I’ve found something peculiar. There are transmissions on a very unusual setting coming from the direction of the campsite. They’re odd because, although I can’t pick them up clearly, they appear to be cyber-command signals.”
Han’s brow furrowed. Automata-command signals? “Mining equipment?” he asked the ’droid.
“No,” answered Bollux. “These aren’t the usual heavy-equipment patterns or industrial signals.”
Badure turned the raft’s commo rig to the setting Bollux had been monitoring but was unable to pick up anything clearly. Taking a bearing from the ’droid, Han changed course minutely and made a slow approach toward the mountains. Setting the airwatch sensor to full-scan, he readied Chewbacca and the others to pull the camouflage tarp over the raft at a moment’s notice.
He came in slowly, taking his direction from the ’droid. They had already walked into one trap by investigating signals and, though it was important that they find out what these new ones meant, Han had no intention of being ambushed a second time. He lowered the raft’s lift factor until it was bending the grass down, barely clearing the ground.
“Signals strengthening, Captain,” advised Bollux.
They were approaching a rise in the plains, a ripple in the landscape preliminary to the sloping of the mountains. Han settled the hover-raft in behind the rise and got out of the craft. Parting the grass delicately, he and Chewbacca belly-crawled to the crest to have a look.
Less than a kilometer away the foothills began. Han squinted through his blaster’s scope. “There’s something down there, where that gully comes down to the plain.”
The Wookiee agreed. They withdrew with care and told the others what they had seen. Sunrise was near.
“Skynx and Hasti, take lookout on the rise,” Han directed. “Bollux and Badure, guard the raft. Chewie and I will move in; you all know the signal system. If you have to get out, at least you’ve got a boat now.” None of them made any objections, though Hasti looked as if she wanted to.
The Millennium Falcon’s captain and first mate split off to the right and left of the rise, moving stealthily through the tall, amber grass, each of them keeping careful count in his mind. They had worked together so often that they automatically orchestrated their moves, without benefit of chrono or signal.
Han swept left, approaching the anomaly in the terrain that had attracted his attention. As he had thought, the lumps at the base of the foothills were a cluster of camouflage covers, a little too sudden and consolidated to be a part of the landscape. He saw no sentries or patrols, no surveillance of any kind, and so changed course to his right.
He heard something in the grass that might have been a small insect’s buzz; the sound scarcely traveled a few meters. Han assumed his partner’s signal had been sounding for a while.
He homed to it, parted a tuft of grass, and met his copilot with a grin. They talked in quick hand-motions; Chewbacca’s recon had yielded the same results as Han’s—with one addition; there was a guard, evidently a Survivor, walking a slow post. They made their plan and moved forward again. Han’s first inclination was to use the stun-gun carried by Badure, but there was too much chance that someone would hear the discharge or see the blue light of the shot.
The sentry was dressed in common Dellaltian mode rather than in Survivor garb. He strolled along his circuit carelessly, armed with a Kell Mark II Heavy Assault Rifle. He carried the Kell at a sloppy shoulder arms. Like sentries in most of the places Han had ever seen, the man was convinced that nothing would happen and that he was walking guard for no good reason. He sauntered past, thinking thoughts of no great consequence�
�which was just as well. Those idle thoughts were dispelled a moment later when a hulking shape rose out of the grass behind him and expertly tapped him behind the ear with a bowcaster butt. The guard fell face-first into the grass.
Han retrieved the heavy-assault rifle, and the two partners made a hasty scout of the area. There were no more guards, but the thing that had attracted Han’s attention through the blaster scope proved most interesting. All manner of ground-effect surface vehicles, all of them cargo models, were gathered there under camouflage covers, secured. A quick series of random checks revealed no cargo aboard any of them.
“What’d they need twenty flatbeds for?” Han wondered aloud as he waved his companions forward. “Plus two or three back at the mountain base?”
The others came up behind them. Badure explained that they had secured the stolen hover-raft with its own camouflage cover, behind the rise. They helped Han and Chewbacca in a precautionary smashing of the fleet’s communication equipment. None of them could come up with a plausible reason for the strange gathering of craft either.
“There’s a gully leading up into the foothills,” Han said, jerking his thumb. “How far are we from J’uoch’s mining camp?”
“Straight up that way,” Hasti told him, indicating the gully. “We can work our way along a few ridge lines and we’ll be there. Or, we could go along the valley floors and washes.”
Han hefted the Kell rifle. “Let’s move out now; we’ll all go. I don’t want to leave anybody behind in case we get a break and get the Falcon back; we can raise ship right away.”
They started into the foothills, eyes darting nervously for any sign of ambush. Bollux, monitoring, picked up no evidence of sensors. The gully’s floor had been sluiced by rains down to hard stone, scored and chewed as if heavy equipment had passed over it. They had seen no track or tread marks on the plain, but the resilient grass probably wouldn’t have held them.
Bollux reported that the automata-command signals were much stronger now. “They’re repetitive,” the ’droid informed them, “as if someone is running the same test sequence over and over.”
The gully cut through the first two ridges and gave out on the next, the highest they had reached. The ground here was all rock, still showing signs of the passage of what Han assumed to be machinery. That the Survivors had some special interest in J’uoch’s camp was obvious; it remained to be seen if it had to do with the treasure. But uppermost in Han’s mind was recovery of the Millennium Falcon.
They topped the ridge, advancing at a low crawl, to look down into the valley below. Hasti gasped, as did Skynx with a sound like a subdued hiccup. Bollux gazed without comment, less surprised than the others. Han’s and Chewbacca’s mouths hung open, and Badure whispered, “By the Maker!”
Now the fleet of cargo craft, the marks on the stone gully floor, the gist of the Survivors’ ceremony—even the huge chamber in which they had been imprisoned—all made sense. Those monolithic stone slabs set deep in the mountain warren weren’t tables, runways, or partitions.
They were benches.
And below were gathered the occupants that sat on those benches, at least a thousand of the bulky war-robots built at the command of Xim the Despot. They stood immobile, broad and impassive, mightily armored—man-shaped battle machines half again Han’s height. They gleamed with a mirror-bright finish designed to reflect laser weaponry. Survivors moved among them with testing equipment, running the checks Bollux had detected.
“These are the ones!” Skynx whispered gleefully. “The thousand guardians Xim set onboard the Queen of Ranroon to look after his treasure. I wonder how many trips it took to ferry them all out here? And what are they here for?”
“The only possible reason’s over there,” replied Hasti, gesturing with her chin, raising up on her elbows. From their vantage point they could see J’uoch’s mining camp, which straddled two sides of a great crevasse. The barracks, shops, and storage buildings were on one side, the kilometers-wide mining-operations site on the other, the two connected by a massive trestle bridge left from old Dellaltian mining efforts. The camp seemed to be operating as usual, its heavy equipment tearing away at the ground.
And on the side of the site, Han saw something that nearly made him whoop out loud. He pounded the Wookiee’s shoulder, pointing. There, the Millennium Falcon sat on her triangle of landing gear. The starship seemed intact and operational.
But she won’t be, Han caught himself up short, if those groundpounders of Xim’s get at her.
At that moment there was a flurry of activity among the Survivors below. Their testing sequences were done. They scurried out from among the irregularly placed robots and gathered at a gleaming golden podium that had been set up on one side of the valley. A transmission horn projected from the podium, which was adorned with Xim’s death’s-head emblem. The Survivor on the podium touched a control.
Every war-robot on the valley floor straightened to alertness, squaring shoulders, coming to stiff, straddle-legged attention. Cranial turrets swung; optical pickups came to bear on the podium. The Survivor on the podium spoke.
“He’s calling the Corps Commander forward,” Skynx explained in a muted voice.
“I know that man on the podium,” Hasti whispered slowly. Then more quickly, “I recognize the white blaze in his hair. He’s the assistant to the steward of the treasure vaults!”
From the massed robots stepped their leader, identical to the others in his corps but for a golden insignia glittering on his breastplate. His rigid, weighty tread shook the ground, the epitome of military precision, his movements revealing immense power. He halted before the podium. From his aged vocoder came a deep, resonant question. Skynx translated in whispers.
“What do you require of the Guardian Corps?” the machine intoned.
“That with which you were entrusted is now in jeopardy,” answered the Survivor on the podium, the steward’s assistant.
“What do you require of the Guardian Corps?” repeated the robot, uninterested in details.
The Survivor pointed. “Follow the gully trail as we’ve marked it for you. It will bring you to your enemies. Destroy all that you find there. Kill everyone you encounter.”
The armored head regarded him for a moment, as if in doubt, then replied: “You occupy the control platform; the Guardian Corps will obey. We will pass in review, as programmed, then go forth.” The Corps Commander’s cranial turrets rotated as he issued the squeals of his signalry.
The war-robots began moving, forming an irregular line, moving just as their commander had. Without cadence or formation, they grouped to one side of the podium. But as they passed it, the transmission horn’s command circuitry automatically directed them to assume their review mode. From a massed group, they separated into ranks and files as they passed the podium, ten abreast, heavy feet rising and falling in step. With their Corps Commander at their head, the thousand war-robots marched, completing a circuit of the little valley.
Even the Survivors were hypnotized by it; the sight of their ancient charges walking again was nothing less than magical to them. Metal feet beat the canyon floor; arms as thick as a man’s waist swung in unison. Han wondered if J’uoch’s people wouldn’t be able to hear their approach even over the sound of mining operations.
At some unseen signal from their Corps Commander, the robots stopped. The commander came around to face the podium with a rocking motion. From his vocoder boomed the words: “We are ready.”
The Survivor on the podium instructed the robots to stand fast for a time. “We go now to a vantage point, from which we will observe your attack. When we are in place you may proceed against the enemy.” He and the other Survivors hurried off to watch the carnage. Presently the air was still, the war-robots waiting patiently, the only sound the distant buzz of the mining camp.
“We’ve got to get to the camp first,” Han declared as they drew back from the ridge and got to their feet.
“Are you completely vacuum-happ
y?” Hasti wanted to know. “We’ll get there just in time to go through the meat-grinder!”
“Not if we hurry. Those windup soldiers down there will have to go the long way around; we can run the ridge line if we’re careful and get there first. The Falcon’s our only way off this mud-ball; if we can’t get to her, we’re going to have to tip J’uoch that the robots are on their way, or they’ll rip my ship apart.”
He wished he could figure out why the Survivors were intent on destroying the mining camp and slaughtering its personnel. “Everyone keep up. I’ll go first, then Hasti, Skynx, Badure, Bollux, and Chewie on rearguard.”
Han put the heavy-assault rifle across his shoulders and set off, the others falling into their assigned places. But when Chewbacca beckoned Bollux, the labor ’droid hesitated. “I’m afraid I’m not functioning up to specifications, First Mate Chewbacca. I’ll have to come along as best I can.”
The Wookiee was torn by indecision for a moment, then trotted off after the rest, making it clear with hand motions and growls that Bollux was to come along as quickly as he could. The ’droid watched Chewbacca disappear from view, then opened his chest plastron so that he and Blue Max could speak in vocal-normal mode, as they preferred.
“Now, my friend,” he drawled to the little computer module, “perhaps you’ll explain why you wanted us to stay behind. I practically had to lie to First Mate Chewbacca to do it; we may very well be left behind.”
Max, who had taken in the situation via direct linkage with Bollux, answered simply. “I know how to stop them. The war-robots, I mean; but we’d have to destroy them all to do it. We needed time to talk it over, Bollux.”
And Blue Max related the plan he had conceived. The labor ’droid responded even more slowly than usual. “Why didn’t you mention this before, when Captain Solo was here?”
“Because I didn’t want him to decide! Those robots are doing what they were built to do, just like we are. Is that any reason to obliterate them? I wasn’t even sure I should tell you; I didn’t want you to blow your primary stacks in a decisional malfunction. Wait; what’re you doing?”
