Robot Empire_Planet of Steel

by Kevin Partner

  “Hmm. I see what you mean - they don’t seem quite alien enough, do they? I mean, that looks a bit like the letter E.”

  Hal leaned forward and stabbed his finger at one of the symbols. It went into orbit around his hand and rotated as he turned his wrist.

  “Careful,” McCall snapped. “We haven’t worked it out yet!”

  “I reckon we could ponder this until our air ran out,” Hal responded, continuing to select and turn symbols. “But if this is an airlock, then one of these will activate —”

  Arla felt the door begin to swing open in the silent vacuum.

  “— the hatch.”

  “Smart-arse. Let’s hope we can work out how to open the inner door when we get inside.”

  Light erupted from the newly exposed chamber and they shuffled in. It was larger than expected on the inside, broadening out so that it could have accommodated dozens. On the opposite wall was a hatch identical to the one they’d come through. As Hal approached it, the outer door swung shut.

  “Right, are you ready to find out what’s on the other side?” Hal asked as he activated the panel and the familiar symbols sprung into relief. “This green one opened the outer door, so I guess it’ll do the same for this one.”

  “Go for it,” Arla said.

  Hal reached out for the symbol and twisted. Nothing happened.

  “Shit!” McCall said. “Look at the walls!”

  Arla spun around to see the chamber quickly becoming smaller as the walls collapsed inwards with a silent remorselessness.

  “Quick, try something else! Get the door open!”

  Hal began feverishly grabbing and rotating holographic symbols. “But that was definitely the one I used to open the outer hatch!”

  Nothing he did had any effect. The walls continued their relentless squeezing of the space until it was barely wider than the hatch itself.

  “Come on!”

  And then, with a surreal suddenness, the hatch sprung open, flooding the chamber with light and the three of them stumbled through, collapsing onto the ground, their hands sinking into something soft. The airlock hatch clanked shut behind them.

  The light was different here. The sterile white of the airlock chamber had been replaced by a softer light that reminded her of a warm summer day in the valley back on Dawn. She was lying where she’d fallen and brought her gloved hand up to her helmet visor. Sand was flowing between her fingers. “Where are we?”

  “Help!”

  Arla flipped over to see Doctor McCall on her knees, her hands covering her visor. Around her, around them, stretched a sea of sand and yellow rocks. Set into the cliff behind her was the faint outline of the hatch.

  “My helmet’s cracked!” McCall called as Arla scrambled over to her. “I landed on that blasted rock.”

  Arla fished in her belt for a box of patches. She pushed McCall’s hands away. “By the Goddess, I can’t fix that.”

  “I can smell it, the air in here!” McCall said. “Hold on … The suit says the air’s safe to breath. Thank the Goddess.” She rocked back on her heels and began twisting the helmet off.

  Hal took it from her and watched as she drew in a couple of deep breaths before removing his own helmet. “This is incredible,” he said.

  Arla shrugged and breathed the fresh air. It tasted warm and dry with an almost undetectable metallic tang. As soon as she’d twisted off the helmet, the suit’s environmental controls had shut off and she’d begun sweating, so she unzipped and let the suit fall to the sand. The breeze chilled her arms and legs as she stood, in an alien landscape, clothed in nothing but her undersuit.

  It was astonishing. She knew that, somehow, they were still inside the alien vessel, but every sense told her she was on the surface of a planet. She sought the horizon and, when she found it, there was no hint of the upward curve of Dawn. And yet it should be there - the Intruder, while massive, was roughly cylindrical, it wasn’t a globe. So there must be some sort of wall straight ahead, opposite the hatch they’d entered and similarly disguised. On that wall was projected a glowing orb hanging in a sky of sapphire blue.

  “I feel weird,” Hal said. He’d also ditched his suit and was standing, pale and unsteady, the light bouncing off his leg calipers.

  McCall took his hand. “Your pulse is elevated. What’s the problem?”

  Hal’s head snapped from side to side as if he was looking for something. “It’s so open,” he stammered.

  “Come on,” Arla said, let’s head for those hills. We’re bound to find shelter there. “Have you never stood on the surface of a planet before?”

  “We’re not on the surface,” McCall said.

  “You know what I mean.”

  Hal shook his head. “I grew up in the mines. I’ve never been outside, if that’s what this is. It’s freaking me out.”

  Arla took him by the arm and began marching across the sand. She could feel the texture of the scrubland through the thin soles of her inner boots and the odd sensation of the front of her body being warm and the back cold. They were walking towards the globe hanging on the horizon - it couldn’t be a star and yet it had to be.

  The line of cliffs marking the point they’d entered through the hatchway was directly behind them, and the scene to left and right was a flat, rubble-strewn landscape - nothing like the temperate environment of the North Valley. Ragged hills sprung up ahead of them, the pebbly sand giving way to larger boulders and, it appeared, eventually to solid rock. Arla had no better plan than to find shelter there - she was thinking no further ahead than the next few hours. And the orb was dipping towards the horizon.

  They had barely set foot on the firmer ground at the foot of the hill when a voice called. “Halt, strangers! Raise your hands and turn slowly.”

  Arla turned and gasped. Next to her, she heard McCall mutter, “What the hells? Romans? Now I know I’ve lost my mind.”

  For a microsecond, Arla thought the figures gathered around them were robots. Then she saw the faces above and the legs below the dull grey metal and realised they were men wearing armour of some sort. Their faces were largely obscured by the metal helmets they wore and their chests were protected by burnished iron. Each carried a spear, except for one man who held a short sword.

  “Who are you?” Arla managed.

  The man with the sword stepped forward and gave a curt bow. “I am Quintus Plinius Pavo, squad leader serving in the 2nd Legion. I was told to wait for you.”

  “Can we put our hands down?” McCall asked. “You can see we have no weapons.”

  Quintus flushed. “Yes, of course. You clearly have little of anything.”

  Arla collapsed onto the nearest rock. Several of the soldiers stepped forward, but Quintus put out a hand. “I was warned that you might find this …” He gestured at the landscape. “… disorienting and that you might be strangely attired.”

  “Pinch me, Doctor,” Arla said as McCall sat down beside her. “I think I’m seeing things.”

  McCall grunted. “You and me both.”

  “What is this armour you wear?” Quintus pointed at the calipers on Hal’s legs.

  “I was injured. They help me walk,” Hal responded.

  Quintus’ face lit up as he regarded Hal. “I was told you might bear strange instruments. But I was also instructed not to ask questions. My pardon. Now, we must go. The sun is setting and our camp is some miles away. My commander will be displeased if we do not arrive before the watch is changed.”

  With a groan, Arla got up. “Okay, we’ll go with you. But tell me this - who told you to look out for us and who is this commander of yours? We were contacted by a Gaius - where is he?”

  “The answer to all three questions is the same, honoured guest,” Quintus said. “It was my commander who warned me of your arrival and, though I would not presume to call him by his praenomen, his full name is Gaius Julius Caesar.”

  Gaius

  “You will kneel before Caesar!”

  “Peace, Titus, they are f
rom outside where customs are different. You may sit, my friends.”

  Gaius Julius Caesar gestured at three chairs that had been placed in an arc facing the throne he sat on. Arla slumped down, her mind overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of weird she’d been forced to endure. Her senses told her she was inside a large circular tent, lavishly furnished and currently occupied by the three of them, as well as the man calling himself Julius Caesar and his lieutenant. Her logical mind, on the other hand, knew this could not be the case. And yet here they were. She’d been given a coarse tunic to wear over her undersuit and yet felt cold to the bone.

  Caesar was a middle aged man whose head bore a receding hairline and a small circlet of silver. He reminded her a little of Wells, but with a presence that she could quite believe would inspire armies.

  “You may leave us, Titus,” Caesar said with a dismissive wave of his hand. For a moment, his lieutenant hesitated, suspicion written on his swarthy face. “Go, Tribune. We have a battle to prepare for and I do not have anything to fear from my guests.”

  The tribune spun on his heels and left. As the tent flap was drawn aside, Arla caught a glimpse of the bustling army camp they’d passed through. It was now fully dark outside, but the pathways between tents were lit by braziers and hung lanterns.

  “Now, please take refreshment while we talk. I doubt not that you are thirsty and hungry - I am sorry, I should have instructed Quintus to at least give you water on your journey here.”

  Arla took a few of the grapes and popped them into her mouth. They were less sweet than those grown on Dawn, but to her parched tongue, they were like nectar.

  “Tell me something,” McCall said, after swallowing a mouthful of sharon fruit, “how is it that I can understand you? You look like a Roman and, as far as I can tell, you act like one and yet the Romans used their own language.”

  “Seriously?” Hal broke in. “That’s your first question? I mean, seriously?”

  McCall nodded. “Yep. That’ll do to start with.”

  “I do not know what you mean, I am speaking in my own tongue. Admittedly, I am a soldier, so my language is, perhaps, a little more coarse than that of an orator, but, nevertheless, it is my tongue and you clearly also know it.”

  McCall took another bite. “So you are the Caesar, Emperor of Rome?”

  “Emperor? Rome is a republic, though the gods only know it could do with the unifying hand of a small group, or even of one,” Caesar said, leaning forward eagerly. “But, alas, I am merely a consul. I govern in Gaul and am charged with pacifying the tribes here.”

  “Gaul?”

  Caesar looked puzzled. “Yes. Though it is strange. I seem to know that it is Gaul and yet that is not an arid land. Perhaps we are far in the south.” He ran his hands over his forehead as if fighting off exhaustion. “There are troubling gaps in my memory.”

  “And it was you who signalled us? Warned us not to come?” Arla said.

  “Yes. It is a pity you did not heed my warning. That would have been the wise course.”

  Hal, who’d been demolishing a loaf of coarse brown bread, looked up. “Hold on, how did you communicate? And, come to think of it, who did you imagine you were contacting?”

  The older man looked from one to the other of them and, having come to a decision, drained his goblet of wine. “That is a matter for Gaiana, priestess of Apollo. It was in her orb that I saw your ship approach. She asked me if I wished to send a message into the ether, so I sent a warning not to come here.”

  “It sounds as though this orb is some sort of interface with the real universe outside,” Arla said. “We need to see it.”

  Caesar shook his head. “That is impossible. The oracle is a holy place - only those chosen by Gaiana may approach it.”

  Hal went to protest, but Arla cut across him. “Hold on - why did you warn us not to come here?”

  “Because we are engaged in a war without end and everyone here must fight. They must fight until death and then beyond it.”

  “A war with who?”

  Caesar settled back in his throne. “With the incarnation of evil. A beast in man-form who calls himself Alexander.”

  Arla lay awake, watching the patterns made on the canvas roof by the dimly flickering candles. She and McCall were together in one tent, and Hal was, it seemed, in the next one. The tent had none of the luxury of Caesar’s - it was merely a place to sleep, with two slatted cots raised off the ground on wooden legs. She could hear the guard outside shifting position from time to time as the night seeped away.

  McCall had fallen asleep almost immediately, but Arla, despite her exhaustion, couldn’t rest. Her mind was tying itself in infinite knots as she desperately sought an explanation for what she was experiencing - preferably one that didn’t involve hallucinations and psychotropic drugs. No, the answer had to be rational.

  What was she certain of? For one thing, she knew she was inside the Intruder. They had entered through a perfectly recognisable airlock, the impression of which had remained on the cliff face. They had not exited and she had experienced no sense of movement other than that of her own legs, so it was logical to assume that, however impossible it might seem, they were still within the beast.

  But how could it fit? Scout’s sensors had measured the Intruder and it was no more than a kilometre wide at its narrowest point and she couldn’t come up with any way of explaining why it was that the physical space inside was so much greater than the ship’s outer dimensions.

  And what of Caesar and the others here? She felt certain of one thing - whether he believed he was the Gaius Julius Caesar, he could not be. No amount of time bending could reconcile the fact that the historical Caesar had died thousands of years ago - stabbed in the back, according to McCall, by political rivals. It had quickly become obvious that his enemy, the one he labelled the devil incarnate, was the man known to later times as Alexander the Great - a man born, according to McCall, two centuries before Caesar. Indeed, the general claimed to have visited Alexander’s tomb. He thought him a creature of the underworld, leading an army of the risen dead.

  None of this brought her any closer to her primary mission of stopping the Intruder. There had to be a point to this charade, something connected to the Intruder’s ultimate purpose, so perhaps her only option was to play along in the hope she could figure that out. Of course, even once she’d decoded the mystery, she’d still have to work out what to do about it. If, indeed, there was anything she could do in the face of what was obviously the product of power and intelligence beyond her understanding.

  As she lay in the dark, listening to the quiet bustle of an army camp at night, she allowed her eyes to gently close and welcomed the oblivion of sleep.

  Apollo

  The screams woke her. Rolling out of bed, she shook McCall and stood, listening, trying to work out what was happening.

  The night had ended but the day hadn’t yet begun, so all she could see through the tiny gap between tent flaps was a confusion of running, the sweeping of weapons and then, quite suddenly, the amber glow of fire as it spread through the camp.

  A man in bronze armour ran past the tent, stopped and, to Arla’s horror, turned in her direction. With a roar, he ran at her, his bearded face twisted with rage. She fell back into the tent, frantically scanning the interior for a weapon of any sort. Nothing. Side by side, McCall and Arla shrunk back, throwing the cots across the tent in a futile attempt to delay him.

  The man’s eyes flitted from one to the other. “Pretty girl,” he growled as he looked at Arla, his sword moving between them, its tip shaking. “But I like older meat too.”

  Simultaneously, and without a word, Arla and McCall leapt at the warrior. The surprise and ferocity of their attack sent him toppling backwards. McCall kicked him while Arla tried to pin him to the floor. She was too light, however, and, with a roar, he rolled over onto her, roaring drips of wine-infused spit onto her face.

  Arla could feel McCall’s attempts to pull him off, but he las
hed out with one leg and sent her to the floor. His hands were around Arla’s throat, strong and immovable for all her thrashing. And then her fingers touched something at his waist. A handle. She pulled and something came away. With all her strength, she jabbed it into his back and his roars of murderous lust transformed instantly to screams of agony. He rolled off and scrambled on the floor like a wounded spider trying to reach the knife embedded in his back.

  Arla got to her feet and helped McCall to the tent flap. A shape stood there in the gloom.

  “Stand back.”

  Gaius swept into the tent, Hal hobbling behind him, and with one swift motion pulled his gladius across the throat of the Greek warrior before throwing him to the floor where he drowned in his own blood.

  “We must go. He is here.”

  Hal had pulled on a leather doublet and carried a short sword, with two more under his arm. Wordlessly, he handed them to Arla and McCall and followed them out into chaos.

  Miraculously, they made it to the edge of the camp and watched from a small rise as it burned below them. Screams and battle-cries echoed in the new day as they collapsed to the ground. Caesar wiped his brow.

  “Titus,” he said, pointing wearily down the slope, “thank Jupiter you made it out. Who is with you?”

  Caesar’s lieutenant saw him and staggered closer before stumbling and falling onto his front. The spear in his back vibrated gently as men in Greek armour swept past him and headed, weapons drawn, up the hill.

  “Run, now!” Caesar called.

  But Arla could see it was hopeless. There were at least a dozen warriors and, at their centre, a slight young man in gold plated armour that glinted in the morning light.

  “Put down your weapons,” the man said as he halted and stood, hands on hips, gazing up at them. “You are defeated, General. Come, there is no point in resistance. Surrender now and we can end this quickly.”

  Caesar shook his head. “But you and I both know, Alexandros, that it is not the end. Kill me and the war will simply begin again. The only way to finish it is to agree to live in peace.”