The Chaos Chronicles

by Jeffrey A. Carver

  /Does that mean I'm immune to poisoning from the water?/

  /// Maybe yes, maybe no.

  I wouldn't deliberately put it to the test,

  if I were you. ///

  /Oh./

  /// But we'll do the best we can. ///

  *

  Ik put away his binoculars and pointed up the steep slope. "There, John Bandicut. There is the door."

  Bandicut could see nothing but shadows, even with Charlie's light-augment. The cliff was not quite vertical, and looked as though it was crazed with crisscrossing fault lines. He saw no path, though with the fault marks it was undoubtedly climbable. Preferably in daylight. He took a deep breath. "Whatever you say, Ik."

  The Hraachee'an peered at him. "I believe that this may be a—" rasp "—changeable door. When we reach it, you must not delay in following me, or we might become separated." Bandicut nodded, and Ik began climbing, hand over hand.

  Bandicut watched in amazement as Ik scaled the wall. The Hraachee'an stopped and peered down at him from a perch maybe a quarter of the way up the face. Bandicut felt his breath tighten with a sudden fear that another tornado would come along and sweep them away. Suppose the tornado had been triggered, not by Li-Jared specifically, but by the mere fact of someone approaching the portal.

  "John Bandicut—hurry!"

  He shook himself. "Shall I start up?"

  Ik's rope was already dangling in front of him. He started to wind it around his waist. "John—the robots first!"

  "Oh, right," he said dazedly.

  /// Your blood sugar seems low.

  You should have had something to eat.

  I will try to help. ///

  Bandicut took a deep breath and bent to wrap the rope around Copernicus. By the time he was done, he felt something like a sugar rush. /Okay, okay!/ he murmured dizzily. /Enough!/ He gave the rope a tug. "All right, Ik!"

  "Turn the robot, please!"

  "Ah." He told Copernicus to face the cliff, as though to drive straight up its face—which, in a sense, was exactly what he wanted it to do. "Go ahead!"

  "With you, Cap'—" Screech. The rope twanged and tightened, and the robot began a perilous climb up the rocks, grating and bouncing. Bandicut couldn't tell if Ik was doing the pulling, or the rope itself.

  Soon the end of the line was dangling in front of him again. "Nappy, you ready?" He turned. "Nappy? Oh, damn!"

  Napoleon was crumpled on the ground, his sensors dark. Bandicut knelt and checked the diagnostic panel. It was dead. Either Napoleon had completely run out of power, or something else was very wrong. "Nappy, can you hear me?" Bandicut cursed. The tornado must have broken something internally.

  /// Will you leave it? ///

  /Like hell I will, Charlie! I might have to carry him on my back, but—/

  /// And what then? ///

  /How the kr'deekin' hell do I know?/

  "John Bandicut—what is the delay?"

  "Problem with Napoleon!" he called hoarsely. He passed the rope around the robot, leaving extra on the end, then attached the rest to his own waist. "I'm going to have to come up with him and help him over the rocks. That okay, Ik?"

  "Hrrrrrrrl. Whenever you're ready."

  "Reel us in." Bandicut got the best grip he could on Napoleon and braced his feet against the rocks. He half climbed, half banged against the rocks, rising on the end of the line with the robot just above him. Three-quarters of the way up, his arm got caught between Napoleon and a protruding rock, and he yelped.

  Ik peered down. "Are you safe?"

  "Yeah!" he gasped, pushing himself from the rock. "Keep going!"

  The rope contracted upward. Finally, he heaved Napoleon's crumpled form over the top. It took another effort to get himself up onto solid rock. He gasped, lying in a heap.

  "Are you injured?" Ik asked, leaning close.

  "My arm hurts. But I don't—"

  /// Bruises. Minor laceration.

  No breakage of bone. ///

  "—think it's broken, though." Bandicut sat up with a grunt and gazed at Napoleon. What the hell was he doing, hauling a dead robot up a cliff?

  Ik was probably thinking the same thing. "John Bandicut. Your robot—"

  "I know. But I'm not ready to abandon it."

  Ik muttered something inaudible and turned to study the cliff face. There was a sizable crevice nearby. Was that the door Li-Jared had gone through? Bandicut squinted, and thought he saw—for an instant—stars shining through the crevice.

  "We should not delay." But something in Ik's voice suggested uncertainty.

  There was a chittering sound, and three pairs of meerkat eyes glowed in the darkness behind Ik. "Hraah?" Ik sounded startled, but was reluctant to shift his attention from the crevice. The meerkats screeched. Ik looked at them finally, and they fell silent.

  Bandicut glanced back and forth. Were the meerkats trying to say something about the crevice? The portal? "Ik, you don't suppose—?" He stared at the meerkats, willing them to speak in words that his translator-stones could understand. The meerkats gazed back at him; then, one after another, they shifted their eyes to the crevice. They were trying to communicate. Something had just changed about the crevice, he realized, something in the quality of the light surrounding it. "Try stepping toward it again," he said to Ik.

  Ik did so, and the meerkats screeched. "They do not want me to go through."

  "Let's wait a moment longer," Bandicut said, eyeing the creatures.

  "We are losing time, John."

  "I know. But I think they want to help us."

  "Why?"

  "I can't imagine." Bandicut swallowed and rose to a crouch, hoping that the meerkats would not flee. They didn't. He gently lifted Napoleon, to see how heavy the robot was, as dead weight. Heavy enough. But he could carry it a short distance.

  Hiss! Chitter-chitter—SQUEAK!

  The meerkats were bobbing their heads excitedly. "Now?" he asked.

  Chitter-squeak! SQUEAK!

  Bandicut took a breath. "Let's try, Ik."

  The Hraachee'an reached into the crevice. His hand seemed to pass through the rock, with a twinkle of starlight. "Urrr, yes. Follow me, John Bandicut." He stepped into the rock and winked out of sight.

  Bandicut trembled. "Coppy—go!" The wheeled robot spun its wheels on the rock and lurched into the crevice. With a flicker, it winked out of sight. Bandicut took another breath, nodded to the glowing meerkat eyes, and staggered with Napoleon toward the crevice.

  Squeak SQUEAK!

  "Thanks," he whispered, and fell through. Sparks of light shot in circles around him, and he felt a rush of dizziness. His feet went out from under him on a smooth surface, and he sprawled, losing Napoleon and his balance in one unstoppable movement.

  Chapter 8

  The Shadow-people

  /// Are you okay? ///

  /I think so. That first step was a bitch./ Bandicut was staring up at an iridescent ceiling, which flickered with moire patterns that made his eyes pulse. Ceiling? They were indoors? He pushed himself painfully to a sitting position. Indeed, they were in a room of some sort, about the size of a typical human-scale classroom. There was no furniture, but a glassy-smooth floor and some sloped consoles along one wall. All the surfaces—ceiling, walls, floor—shone with a pearly iridescence.

  Ik turned toward him from a silvery window in the far wall. "Are you all right? I believe we may be near a control center."

  "Good." Bandicut closed his eyes against the shimmering patterns, then opened them to look for a door in the room. He could see none, nor any sign of the portal that had put them here.

  "The door has closed," Ik remarked, rubbing his chest. "John Bandicut, your robot looks rather unwell."

  "Nappy!" Bandicut scrambled to examine Napoleon, sprawled on the glassy floor.

  Copernicus was there, poking at his partner with a probe. "Cap'n, Napoleon is not functioning."

  "The tornado must have broken something," Bandicut said. "Shorted out his power supply,
maybe. Can you tell anything from the diagnostics?"

  The robot clicked. "I am unable to establish a diagnostic link. I can offer no information." Copernicus backed off a short distance.

  Grunting, Bandicut opened the only access port he could find that didn't require special tools, a square panel on Napoleon's back. He peered inside, but found nothing. With a sigh, he snapped the panel shut. "I don't know. I hate to say it, Coppy, but we might have to leave him behind. I don't know what else to do. I'm sorry."

  Copernicus drumtapped haltingly.

  /// I can't help noticing.

  "Him"? Napoleon? ///

  /Well, he feels like a person to me. I feel as if I'm abandoning him. Killing him, if he's not already dead./

  Bandicut left Napoleon and walked over to the window Ik had been looking through. It appeared opaque to him, but he did see his own reflection, and the face he saw shocked him. He had left Neptune Explorer—what, less than two days ago, though it seemed much longer. The eyes peering back at him seemed much older. Were they wiser, or just tired and scared? He didn't know. They were the eyes of a poor sap cut off from everything he'd ever known, flung across the galaxy and left for dead, inhabited by an alien mind, altered by alien technologies, with an alien for a friend. What the hell was he supposed to think? Except that it was lonely here. Damned lonely . . .

  /// It sounds depressing

  when you think of it that way. ///

  /It is depressing, Charlie. I don't know who I am anymore. I don't even know who my robots are./ Staring at his reflection, he realized something else. He hadn't grown any stubble since leaving the ship. Had the "normalization" stopped his beard growth?

  /// It's possible. If the

  system noticed your efforts at trimming,

  it might have judged that you desired your beard

  inactivated. ///

  Bandicut grunted in annoyance. /They could have asked me first./ He sighed and returned to Napoleon. His heart ached at the thought of leaving the robot behind. But there was really no point in dragging him any farther. Was there?

  "John Bandicut, it is possible we might find places to recharge or—" rasp "—rejuvenate your robot."

  Bandicut looked up in surprise. "You think so? I don't know what's wrong with him. It might be more serious than just needing a recharge." /Charlie, I just thought of something. Could your translator-stones do anything for him?/

  /// Perhaps. Not directly,

  I don't think.

  But if we could get him to a place

  where the stones could intercede . . . ///

  /You mean, like, communicate with a repair service?/

  /// Something like that. ///

  Ik was speaking, and it took him a second to catch up. "I cannot . . . brrrik-k-k . . . be certain. But if it is important to you, can you carry the robot?"

  Bandicut pursed his lips. "Not very far. Coppy! Could you carry Napoleon, if I strapped him onto your back?"

  Copernicus drumtapped. "Certainly, Cap'n."

  "What's your power status?"

  "Seventy-two percent, including reserves."

  "Good. Come here." Bandicut lifted Napoleon and draped him awkwardly over Copernicus's back. Copernicus clicked and whirred, trying to hold the other robot in place with two of his gripper arms, but he couldn't quite manage. Bandicut looked up to see Ik holding out his coiled rope. He took it gratefully. As he wound the rope around the two robots, he suddenly peered into Coppy's sensor-eyes. "You gave me your power level differently this time."

  "Cap'n?"

  "You said, seventy-two percent including reserves."

  "Yes, Cap'n."

  "Mind if I ask why?"

  "Well, I—wished to sound optimistic, Cap'n."

  Bandicut blinked. "Optimistic?"

  "Sixty-seven percent, plus reserves, would not have sounded as encouraging. Cap'n."

  Bandicut stared at the machine.

  "Is that acceptable?" said Copernicus.

  "Yeah," he said slowly. "Just as long as we're clear on what we're telling each other." He rose. /I guess./

  "I should tell you," said Ik. "I do not immediately see how we are going to leave this room."

  "Ah. Do you know where we are?"

  "Not precisely, no. I must take time to examine these consoles. Perhaps you should rest. We may yet have a long way to travel."

  Bandicut was, in fact, exhausted. He shuffled around for a moment, circling like a dog preparing to lie down, and finally stretched out on the hard, glassy floor. He was surprised to feel it give a little, under his weight. Before he could think about it much, he was asleep.

  *

  Ik did not rest immediately. He studied the consoles for a while, before concluding that he could do nothing without the correct access protocols. But he recognized the consoles' type, and thought he knew in very general terms where they were now, which was something, at least. He believed they had traveled a considerable distance from the tornado plain; but he did not think they had left the continent.

  Was Li-Jared still ahead of them? That was the question. Ik had discovered no sign of his presence here. But Ik imagined that after watching that tornado dive upon him, Li-Jared would have been reluctant to linger in any one place without some assurance of safety. So even if he had been here, he probably had moved on at once.

  Which meant that he must have found the way out of this room. Ik, for the moment, was stymied on that count; but he wasn't unduly worried. Either the portal would reappear and take them to another location, or they would find a way to the other side of this window. He couldn't see much through it—the pane seemed to pass only a narrow wavelength band—but it did look like a corridor of some kind beyond. Where there was a corridor, there should be civilized activity not too far off. Ik made a slow circuit of the room, lightly touching the walls with his fingertips. He felt no response, no tickle, from his voice-stones. If there was anything here for them to connect to, it was apparently inactive. Very well, then—if he could not pursue Li-Jared, he would use the time to collect his thoughts.

  There was much that he did not understand here, but he did have a kind of faith about things, based on his experience. He and Li-Jared had been separated and reunited several times in the two turns of seasons they had been friends. It was as if they were caught up by eddies curling around a great invisible whirlpool, and drawn back, time and again, to help each other in times of need. Was it random chance, or intentional manipulation? Ik couldn't say for sure, though he had his suspicions. But one thing he was sure of was that someone wanted something from Li-Jared and him. And now apparently from John Bandicut, as well. What that something was, he didn't know.

  Several times he and Li-Jared, who in the beginning had had nothing visibly in common except their stones and their status as exiles, had found themselves plunged together into circumstances of dire need—not their own but someone else's. They had never been able to say no to the need—and their presence had always made a difference, to someone. But quite apart from the sense that his life was no longer entirely his own, Ik had often felt that something else was missing from the picture; something was incomplete in the way he and Li-Jared struggled to find their way here. He felt, certainly, an infuriating sense of ignorance about their role in this world, and the identity of those who determined it. But now he wondered: was John Bandicut a missing piece of their destiny on Shipworld, someone they had not known they needed until he arrived?

  Ik sat crosslegged on the floor, and studied Bandicut. The human was stretched out flat, in a deep meditative trance. It was apparent that Bandicut and Ik had knowledge and skills to offer one another, though the role of those metal creatures was less clear. Ik rather liked his excitable human companion, but he could not help wondering: did Bandicut have even the slightest inkling of what he had gotten himself into, by joining with Ik? The complexity and uncertainty, the frustration, the risk?

  Probably not. And perhaps that was just as well. It was not as if Bandicut woul
d be better off alone. Ik rubbed his fingertips on his chest and murmured softly to himself. These questions could not be resolved now. And it was time he, too, took some meditative rest.

  *

  Something startled Bandicut awake: a dream about walking . . . through duststorms and whirlwinds, with voices chittering at him to walk faster, faster . . .

  He blinked awake and sat up, wincing. He had a painful stiffness in his back. Ik was sitting nearby, eyes closed. It took Bandicut a moment to remember where he was; and when it all came back to him, he didn't feel a lot better. They were in a room, somewhere. Trapped. And he needed a bathroom. Badly. He wondered what people used for bathrooms around here.

  /// Let me pose the question to the stones.

  In the meantime, I believe you've been given

  greater endurance in that area. ///

  /Swell./ He got up and walked the perimeter of the room, running his hand along the wall. At the beginning of the third wall, he was startled when a large oval dematerialized, revealing a cubicle beyond. /What's this?/

  /// Um, I think it's a bathroom. ///

  He stared suspiciously into the enclosure. Finally he stepped cautiously inside, and glanced back at once. The opening was obscured by a shimmering translucency. /So where's the—you know, plumbing?/

  /// Turn around. ///

  He did, and saw a haze of light dancing around him, with sparkles and swirls. After a moment, he felt a certain kind of relief. Then the lights faded. Was it measuring him for a custom-made commode?

  /// Uh, John? ///

  /Yeah?/

  /// Do you still have to go? ///

  He blinked. /Oh. I get it, you mean we're done?/

  /// Pretty good system, huh?

  I mean, when you have who knows how many

  different species to service. ///

  He gaped around in amazement. /Uh, yeah, I guess. As long as they don't take the wrong thing out. If you know what I mean./ He stepped out of the cubicle, and found Ik waiting. "Your turn," he said wryly.

  "Hraah."

  While he waited for Ik, Bandicut took a bite from his carbonut bar and swallowed some water from his bottle. Then he stood at the window and cupped his eyes to the silvery surface. He could make out vague geometric forms of light, but not much more. As he pressed his hands to the pane, his wrists touched the glass. It suddenly turned opaque. But beside it stood an open rectangular doorway. Surprised, he leaned through the door. A wide corridor of shimmering light stretched away as far as the eye could see. The doorway was located at the elbow of a sharp bend in the corridor. "Whoa!"