On the Planet of Robot Slaves

by Harry Harrison

  "Ah must say, you really are a fighting devil," he said.

  "Eponymous, that's me," it agreed and shots rang out as it blew away a charging nenitesk.

  Because their explosive passage expedited their journey through the forest they reached the edge of the great mossy wastes just as the sun was setting behind the distant edge of the plateau.

  "They are there," Jonkarta said, pointing grimly, which is not easy to do. "You can make out the dark forms of their tents, the even darker forms of the grazing thoats..."

  "Speaking of thoats," Meta interjected, "I'll have a bit more of that ham."

  "You think more of your stomach than you do of mah darling Dejah Vue!"

  "Right now, yes, Red. Eat first, fight later."

  Since Fighting Devil needed no sleep it took the first watch that night. Then the second and the third, and woke them just before dawn.

  "What's your plan, Jonkarta?" Bill asked after they had broken their fast with the last of the ham and snuck out behind the trees to make peepee.

  "There is but one plan — fight and win!"

  "Brilliant." Fighting Devil was not impressed. "But if you want some advice on fighting from an experienced Fighting Devil you ought to organize things a little bit better than that. How many of them are there?"

  "Countless hordes!"

  "You wouldn't like to be a little more precise?"

  "Don't bother," Bill said. "I've danced this one before. This lad counts one, two, more."

  "Ah'm a better shot than you are paleface," Jonkarta sulked. "Ah don't need to count — just fight!"

  "You'll fight, you'll fight," Fighting Devil bemoaned, fed up with all soft, wet aliens. "Let's make this simple. What do you say I walk in there and blow everyone away?"

  "You will kill mah darling princess!"

  "OK, we modify the plan. You sneak in now under cover of darkness and find where she is. Then when I arrive at dawn you point to her tent and I blow everything else away."

  "But how do I find her in the darkness?"

  "Use your nose," Meta said, fed up with the bickering. "If she doesn't stink you can smell her out among the smellies."

  "Stink! Were you not female you would be dead. My darling has the aroma of sweet roses, delicate dafs, all the fair flowers..."

  "Terrific. Sniff out this bouquet of beauty and let trigger-happy know which tent she is in. Can we now get this war on the road?"

  "Ah will now seek out my darling. Silence is the word so ah dare not take Ol' Betsy here, mah trusty radium rifle. Ah leave it in yore care, Ma'am..."

  "No way! Hang it from a tree and it will be here when you get back."

  Jonkarta had no choice. He secured the weapon high in a ginja tree, then silent as a wraith slipped out into the desert.

  Fighting Devil hummed to itself as the sky lightened in the west — the planet of Usa rotated backward — as it reloaded all its weapons and charged up the ray projectors. Bill stretched out to get a quick thirty winks, it had been a long night, but Meta had better ideas. She crept under the shrouding shrub that concealed him, settled beside him on the soft moss and the night was filled with the music of zippers being unzipped. And being rezipped when they saw an infrared detector protruding from the shrub.

  Meta grabbed for it but it slipped away. "If vegetative reproduction is your bag," she shouted, "how come this big interest in heterosexuality?"

  "Maybe I feel frustrated. Sun's up. The lark's on the wing, the thoat on the thand. Here I go!"

  The camp was already astir, and it astirred even more at the sight of Fighting Devil trundling towards them. A horde of ravenous, verminous, carious green martians poured out of the tents roaring evil oaths and firing at their metal attacker. Fighting Devil raised its guns and aimed them, but held its fire.

  "Soft red squishy one — where are you?"

  "Here," Jonkarta said, raising his head out of a ditch — and ducking again when radium bullets began to whistle by. "Kill as you will — but spare the tent with the mark of the beast on it."

  "I'm afraid that I'm not familiar with the term."

  Jonkarta quickly traced 666 in the sand. "It looks like that."

  "Gotcha." Fighting Devil aimed its electronic telescope, ignoring the bullets clanging on its hide, and swept the line of tents. "I've found it — and here I go!"

  It was very dramatic. The grotesque green men never stood a chance before the maelstrom of fire and bullets. Stormed at by shot and shell, they all exploded well. Gobbets of green flesh flew in all directions and thudded into the sand among the debris of broken tents, fur rugs, silken drapes, gold bangles, contraceptives, pistols and swords, portapotties — all the things that made life in the harsh desert possible. Meta and Bill, hand in hand, came to watch the noisy demonstration of invincible firepower. Within instants the proud camp was a smoking ruin — from which a single tent projected. It was unharmed, although it was well spattered with green blood.

  "Mah darlin' Dejah Vue — is she safe?"

  "You bet," Fighting Devil bragged. "I never miss." It extruded a compressed air hose and blew the smoke from a smoking gun muzzle.

  "Ah'm here, darlin', longing for your embrace!" Jonkarta cried leaping forward and throwing wide the tent flap.

  Then he screamed in agony as a giant green monster leaped out and trod him to the ground.

  "You have destroyed my entire tribe!" he bellowed and beat his great chest. "I thirst for vengeance and your blood!"

  "Tars Tookus...you were in the tent, alone — with her! What have you done with my loved one?"

  "Guess!" the jolly green giant leered through his tusks as it leaped aside. "Draw — and defend yourself!"

  Jonkarta's sword leaped to his hand — which is easier than drawing it — and he roared and attacked. But Tars Tookus had drawn his sword. Swords. All four of them, which is okay if you have four arms. Undaunted, Jonkarta pressed home his attack, so furiously that his sword was a whirring circle of steel that forced the green warrior back despite his four to one advantage. When they were clear of the tent Jonkarta called out for aid.

  "Bill — to the tent! See if any harm has befell my loved one!"

  Bill circled the battling warriors and poked his head into the tent and stood, paralyzed.

  "How is...she?" Jonkarta gasped out between crashing blows.

  "She — she looks really great to me!"

  And she did. Lolling back on the silken cushions, Dejah Vue was the acme of female beauty. Her delicate red skin — and there was a lot of it showing — glowed with health and desirability. Mere wisps of transparent and diaphanous cloth revealed rather than concealed her rounded charms. Breasts like melons fought for freedom.

  "Are you...are you all right?" Bill husked.

  "Come here and find out," she husked in turn.

  As the tentflap fell behind him the fierce battle was drawing to a close. Even with four swords, Tars Tookus was no match for Jonkarta's superior swordsmanship. His upper right arm tired and his opponent sensed it and lunged forward, parrying the sword aside and, with one mighty blow, cut the green man's head off. Jonkarta roared with victory as the gigantic figure collapsed into an immobile heap, green blood spurting from the severed neck.

  "Thus die all those who dare come between me and my loved one!" he crowed victoriously, spun about and threw wide the tentflap. And roared in anger when he saw what was happening inside.

  "Thus die all those who dare come between me and my loved one!" he cried out yet again and rushed in.

  "I was just examining her to see if she was wounded!" Bill cried out, dodging behind the red princess before he could get pierced through and through.

  "Out coward! Out of the tent and fight like a man!"

  Meta and Fighting Devil looked on with great interest as Bill came shooting out of the tent with the frothing Jonkarta a step behind him. Meta put her foot out when the red man passed and the raging warrior fell on his mush.

  "Shame on you, attacking an unarmed man. If you are g
oing to duel, do it by the rules. Bill's choice of weapons."

  "You are right of course," Jonkarta said climbing to his feet and brushing off a few gobbets of green flesh. He folded his arms and glowered at Bill. "Choose. Radium rifles at twenty paces. Daggers, pistols, swords, maces — the choice is yours. But decide at once for I cannot contain my rage for long."

  Dejah Vue joined the other spectators, drawing a diaphanous wisp of cloth over her charms that inflamed men's minds. Meta glared down her nose at her, sniffed and turned away. Fat, she thought. She'll need a girdle before she hits thirty.

  All eyes were on Bill now — and he did not like it. He had seen what this muscle-bound ape had done against a giant with four arms. "I know," he said. "Finger-wrestling!"

  "Weapons, your choice of?" Jonkarta roared in anger. He kicked one of the fallen swords towards his opponent. "And you have just run out of time. Pick that up and defend yourself — or say a quick last prayer before I run you through."

  "Help me, faithful Fighting Devil," Bill begged. "Stop this madman from murdering me."

  "Not my fight, buster. I was sent out to bring Meta back alive — and that I will do. You get into trouble messing with the local girls — that's your problem."

  "Meta...?"

  "You want this pudgy thing — you fight for her. I'll watch."

  "Time is up," Jonkarta said with grim pleasure as he aimed his sword at Bill's belly button. "Is that where your heart is?"

  "No, here," Bill said tapping his chest, then jerked his hand away. "I mean, no, you can't do this..."

  Iron biceps tensed. The sword started forward.

  And Dejah Vue screamed a piercing scream and they turned as one to see her in the loathsome grip of Tars Tookus.

  "But-but —" Jonkarta butted, "I just cut off your head."

  "Ha-ha! And so you did," the green warrior leered and gestured towards the stump of his neck with one of his free hands. "But what you didn't know is that I have two heads, the other was tied down my back so you couldn't see it. When your attention was diverted I tied a tourniquet around this stump, freed my second head — and have captured this wench." He whistled shrilly and a great thoat galloped up on six legs.

  "You dare not shoot for fear of hitting my captive," he cried victoriously as he bounded into the saddle, the screaming princess pressed tight to his noisome body. "And now I go! I do not kill you, but leave you instead to visualize what her fate will be!"

  His maniacal laughter was drowned out by the muted thud of thoat's hooves on the moss as they vanished over the horizon.

  CHAPTER 14

  "After mah darlin'!" Jonkarta bellowed. "We must save her."

  "We just did," Meta told him. "If you had cut off both of Tars Tookus's heads we wouldn't be having this problem."

  "How was ah to know he had two heads? Ah'm no prevert — ah never looked at his back! We must follow them — after ah butchers this philanderer!"

  His sword whistled a deadly tune as it flashed in the warm Barthroomian sunshine. Bill raised his gun and pulled the trigger. A lightning bolt flashed from the muzzle and blew the sword from the red man's hand.

  "That ain't fair!" Jonkarta howled, then poured some kvetch over his burnt palm. "Yore no gentleman."

  "Damn right — I'm an enlisted man, although temporarily an officer."

  "Mah sword seeks to drink yore blood..."

  Once more Meta had to resort to her gravity pistol to stop the argument. While both men lay gasping on the moss she looked into the tent. It was heaped with moldy furs and stained silks and stank of green man. There was a sealed bottle that she first sniffed at, then drank from and smacked her lips. She carried it out to see that Bill was sitting up wearily.

  "Try some of this — it's better than the kvetch."

  He glugged happily as Jonkarta came around. He sniffed the air and cried aloud.

  "That smell? What are you all drinking?" Meta held out the bottle and he cried aloud, and not for the first time. "The incredibly rare perfume of the shtunkox vine that blossoms but once a century, so precious that..."

  "You want a slug or do you want to lecture?" Meta asked with touching sympathy. "It's got alcohol in it. That's it, incredibly rare, knock it back. And no more talk of polishing off Bill. I've had enough of this macho crap. You can have your duel — then go on alone. Or forget the whole thing and you got a small army, namely us and Fighting Devil. What's it going to be?"

  "Mah darling's life comes ahead of mah honor..."

  "That's a speedy bit of rationalizing. So what do we do next?" she asked, taking command, fed up with men for the moment.

  "We will use their thoats to follow them. The creatures lack saddle or bridle and are directed by telepathy."

  "An unlikely story."

  "If they act unruly you must beat their skull with the butt of your pistol."

  "Sounds dangerous — but I'll try everything once. Fighting Devil, you circle around the thoats and move them in our direction."

  The sight of one red Barthroomian, two pinkish humans and a metallic Fighting Devil rounding up a herd of twenty-foot long, six-legged, oversexed thoats is one best left undescribed. Suffice to say that too much later four brain-damaged thoats, they had been beat about the head too much, staggered across the trackless plain bearing their fatigued and moss-covered riders.

  "Let us not do that again...soon..." Meta gasped. Then pointed and shrieked. "We're being attacked!"

  A hideous, pallid, ten-legged creature was hurtling towards them, salivating as it charged. It had three rows of long, sharp tusks, which meant it had to keep its mouth open like it had adenoids. Because there was no way it could close it with all that bad-fitting dentition in the way.

  It bounded forward, leapt high into the air and crashed into Jonkarta.

  Who scratched its head while it panted and drooled down his harness front.

  "This is mah faithful hound, Rayona. It must have run day and night for two weeks to get here. These creatures are tireless."

  Rayona promptly dropped unconscious and began to snore, draped across the thoat's back.

  "We march," Jonkarta gasped as he pushed the dead weight off his legs which were being crushed. "That way, towards the dead city of Mercaptan on the shores of the Dead Sea. Pray to your alien gods that we are not too late."

  They galloped off, and as they ran Fighting Devil directed his thoat to Meta's side. It obeyed its rider's every wish — it had no choice with a cannon in each ear. Fighting Devil was quite itself and was posting very nicely.

  "An unusual experience. I will have quite a tale to tell back in the Fighting Devil's mess with my mates. What was that red squishy talking about, alien gods or some such? He has such a thick rebel accent that it is hard to follow him at times."

  "Not...now, Fighting Devil. If you think I am going to explain comparative religion to a metal life form while thundering across a dead ocean bottom on a six-legged thoat's back — you are out of your gourd."

  They galloped most of the day, since Jonkarta would not heed their cries for a break. He only called a halt when the crumbled towers of Mercaptan appeared ahead. They all, with the exception of Fighting Devil of course, rolled off onto the soft moss gasping with relief. The thoats began to graze and the faithful hound, Rayona, woke up and broke wind.

  They forgot their fatigue and ran for safety, all except Fighting Devil who had no sense of smell.

  "Here is my plan," Jonkarta said after the air had cleared and he had kicked the faithful hound's ass around the moss for awhile. "We must take them by surprise since we are outnumbered. I know a secret way in..."

  "Why surprise?" Meta asked, surprised. "Why don't we just send Fighting Devil in like last time and blow them all away?"

  "Because now they are warned. At the first gunshot they will kill my darlin'. That must not be! We will slip through the upper stories of the deserted buildings, which move they will never suspect."

  "Why not?" Bill asked, getting more confused all the time.


  "Because these upper stories are inhabited by the hideous white apes, giant fearsome creatures that lust to kill."

  "Won't they lust to kill us?" Meta asked.

  "I suppose so," Jonkarta pouted. "I never thought of that. I know! If they attack your metal warrior will kill them."

  "Smart. Explosions and bang-bang upstairs. The gruesome greenies will never notice that."

  "I can do it," Fighting Devil said. "I have silent death-rays, coagulator rays that turn a body hard like a hard-boiled egg, poison gas, that sort of thing. Want a demonstration?"

  "Demonstrate on the white apes," Bill said. "Shall we do it before it gets too late?"

  Jonkarta led the way. Into a ruined building and up the great staircase, ever upward until they reached the full garbage pails of the top floor. They made their way through one room, then another — and found their nemesis in the third room they entered.

  "There!" Jonkarta shouted fearfully. "The hideous great white ape. Kill!"

  "White ape indeed!" the creature roared back. "And that from you, you red commie bastard. I'll give you five of the best where it will do the most good!"

  "Wait," Bill said, laying a restraining hand on Fighting Devil's gunbarrel as it surged malevolently forward. "Don't fire yet. That creature appears to be able to talk."

  "Creature indeed! And who are you to come barging into a man's parlor with a murderous looking machine and this red idiot. And a fair young colleen, I must admit, to make the party complete."

  "Kill!" Jonkarta ordered and the murderous form of the ten-legged hound hurtled forward.

  "Down," the white ape ordered. "Heel. Nice doggy. Here's a bone for you." The skull of a thoat dropped to the floor and was instantly seized by Rayona and a great crunching followed.

  "My name is Meta," she said, stepping forward. "I hope you don't mind our barging in like this."

  "Not at all, not at all! An Lar is the name, but my friends call me An. Or Lar. Or An Lar. The wife and kiddies are out shopping. We're having roast leg of green Barthroomian tonight and you can join us if you like."