The Cyborg and the Sorcerers

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  He was primarily interested in obtaining supplies from the storage lockers, but could not resist taking a glance at the control cabin. He was surprised to see that the chameleon fur was now an unpleasant, murkily iridescent gray; he had never known how the stuff worked, and had not realized it required electricity to keep its color. Kurao's ruined head still lay on the couch where he had left it.

  He considered taking a few of his favorite books from the bookcase on the forward bulkhead but decided against it; unnecessary weight would be a mistake. He was unsure where he would be going and what he would be doing, and therefore did not know what he might need; he planned to cover as many possibilities as he could.

  The lockers were shut, of course, and could not be commanded to open; instead he had to work each individual emergency door release. The magnetic equipment clamps still held; apparently they were ordinary magnets, and not dependent upon electricity.

  The snark in his vest pocket was down well below half charge; he replaced it with another, fully charged, that had been disconnected from the recharging circuit when the power failed and therefore hadn't drained back. He kept the laser, as a tool with any number of uses. He considered various firearms.

  He did not want anything big and cumbersome; that let out anything heavier than a submachine gun. He thought about the fuss his lost gun had caused in Teyzha and decided he wanted something small enough to conceal, which let out most of the rifles, shotguns, and automatic weapons.

  It occurred to him he might take more than one, but he quickly rejected the idea; it would be too much weight to too little purpose. He did want at least one loud and frightening weapon that wouldn't go dead in half a dozen uses as a snark would—but only one such weapon.

  Finally he settled on a machine-pistol, light and compact; it did not have the range or impact of the heavy automatic he had taken to Awlmei, and was not as easily hidden, but the rapid fire might be useful. A good-sized knife and a dozen clips of ammunition for the machine-pistol completed his armament

  Rope had any number of uses, so he took a coil of nylon line. He was unsure about money and food, and cleared out the ship's store of gold coins and all the food he could carry.

  When he felt that he had everything he needed, including a few extra garments and a stout pair of boots, he made his way back to the airlock, leaving the lockers standing open. He knew of no way that the ship's power could be restored without electricity and doubted there was enough generated power on the entire planet to restart the fusion drive, so the ship was useless to him; he intended to abandon it permanently, and he knew that locker doors wouldn't stop anyone who was determined to loot the vessel

  Airlock doors might be a bit more daunting, however, and he might someday want to replenish his supplies, so he did crank shut the inner door of the airlock.

  He paused before taking the next step. Outside the ship somewhere were the wizards of Awlmei. They might well be waiting for him, to execute him for Kurao's murder. He wouldn't blame them if they were; however, he intended to survive. He hadn't killed Kurao, the damn computer had.

  He wished he could open the door with a weapon in hand, but it wasn't possible; he needed one hand to hold the flashlight and the other to work the lock. He would have to rely on his superhuman speed to avoid any traps that might have been set.

  He worked the door's mechanism, and it slid aside; he paused and peered out.

  It was very nearly as dark outside as it was in the ship; dawn was still a couple of hours away. What little starlight there might be was completely blocked by the camouflage cover. In short, he couldn't see a thing.

  He stepped out onto the ship's wing and cranked the airlock shut, working by the light of the flashlight. Once the door was securely closed, he kept the light in one hand and drew the machine-pistol with the other. He felt slightly safer now that he was armed again.

  He stood where he was for a moment, listening; he heard nothing except the wind in the grass. Perhaps the wizards had gone. Perhaps they had not been responsible for the ship's failure; the computer might actually have gone mad and killed itself, as it had admitted wanting to.

  He shone the light on the camouflage cover, then stopped and turned it downward again; that was stupid. It revealed his position without doing him any good. He knew where the opening in the plastic was and didn't need the flashlight to find it. He climbed off the wing and made his way cautiously up the slope of the gully and out into the open night beyond the plastic.

  The wizards were waiting for him at the gully's rim, standing motionless in the darkness, their robes blowing slightly in the night wind.

  He came out of the plastic, took three steps toward them, then stopped, face to face. There was a moment of silence as each sized up the other.

  Slant turned off the flashlight, and let his eyes adjust to the dim starlight. The wizards still said nothing.

  At last, Slant broke the silence, saying, "I hope one of you saw Ahnao safely home."

  "The girl is safe, and none of your concern." It was the tallest of the seven who spoke, a man about his own age; Slant was mildly surprised that Furinar did not serve as spokesman.

  "Was it you who shut down the drive?"

  "We stopped the machines, yes. Now get out of here."

  "What?"

  "Get out of here."

  "I don't understand."

  "We are banishing you from Awlmei."

  "Why? It was the computer that killed Kurao; you've killed the computer, and justice is done. I mean you no harm." Slant was honestly surprised; he had expected either a trial and attempt at execution or a friendly reception as a freed slave.

  "You are a dangerous, evil person, and although you may not have killed our comrade of your own free will, you are nonetheless not welcome in Awlmei. Return here, and we will kill you. Is that clear?"

  "Completely clear." He could hardly blame them for such an attitude. "Step aside, then, and I'll go."

  To his surprise, the wizards did just that, stepping back from the edge of the gully and allowing him to scramble up onto the flat plain. He looked about; the wizards were again motionless and silent.

  It took very little thought to decide where to go, with Awlmei forbidden to him; he would head east, into the hills. Every other direction led only to open prairie, so far as he could tell. He had one final question. "What are you going to do with my ship?"

  "Nothing. It is as tainted with the evil of the Bad Times as you are, and will lie where it is until it rusts."

  That was fine with him; it meant that he might be able to sneak back and replenish his supplies should the need arise. He said nothing further, but instead walked off eastward into the darkness.

  A few moments later he glanced back; the wizards were no longer standing by the gully, but after a moment's searching he spotted them well on their way back to Awlmei. He could return to his ship now, if he chose, but there was no reason to; instead he turned back toward the hills and continued walking.

  He had not yet decided what to do with himself. He had, in fact, not given it any thought yet, being far more concerned with his immediate survival

  He knew now what his release code was, but he dismissed quickly the thought of using it; on a planet as backward as this, he might well need every bit of his combat training, even though such other abilities as piloting were now useless. Should he ever settle down somewhere into a peaceful and stable life, he might reconsider. He wondered whether the release from his conditioning would have any effect on his accelerated reflexes and added strength; those, after all, were the result of the restructuring of his body rather than his mind.

  The only way he could find out would be to use his release code, and that experiment seemed a little too final; one thing he was quite sure of was that it would be irreversible.

  He found himself wanting to ask the computer's advice, to inquire what course of action it recommended, to use its vast stores of information; it was very strange not being able to. Without meaning
to, he found himself phrasing his thoughts for the computer to understand, wording questions that went unanswered. It was the first time in fourteen years that he had been out of touch with the machine for more than an hour, and the unbroken mental silence grew gradually more oppressive with every passing minute.

  He had never liked the computer; he had often hated it and feared it. He was discovering now that he had also come to depend upon it much more than he liked to admit.

  As he walked on across the plain and the dawn soared up out of the hills ahead of him, he found himself thinking about nothing else except his ship, the computer, and his release code. That was not good. Those things were past—or at least, two were past, the third not to be used. He had left the ship and the computer was dead; he needed something else to think about.

  That brought up the question of what he was to do with himself. He was not in the habit of planning for the future—that had always been left up to the computer's interpretation of their orders rather than his own discretion. It took a concerted effort to consider it for himself rather than to wait for the computer to present him with options he might choose from.

  There was obviously no point in continuing with his mission of investigating wizards—but what else was he to do?

  Survival was his first priority, of course, and it began to sink in that he no longer had the ship's armaments to protect him, the hydroponic banks to feed him, the hull to shelter him. He would have to fend entirely for himself, without an emergency reserve.

  He could forage in the forests that covered the hills, but that wouldn't be much of a life, if it was even possible. The forests he had seen couldn't support a man at anything above subsistence level, if that.

  He could take to theft, living off whatever he could steal from unguarded farms or shops; that was what he had been taught to do. That was for short-term use, however, and as he thought it over he realized it would be a very poor way to live for an extended period, moral questions aside. He would be on this planet forever, for the rest of his life; he was not leaving. This was not a mission, to be finished up and left behind; this was his life.

  It was a new concept, and not a particularly appealing one. He had never before had to plan for the long term. Even in his civilian identity, those many years ago, he hadn't planned for the long term; he had attended school because it was expected, joined the military for lack of a better course of action, never worrying about what came afterward in any but the vaguest terms. He had thought that he'd serve his term and then see what happened.

  Now, abruptly, his military service was at long last done.

  If he was no longer in military service, then he was a civilian again, despite his retention of his military training and cyborg nature. What did civilians do?

  Long ago, he had planned on a career in art; he had never taken the trouble to decide what sort of a career. Could he now pursue that?

  Somehow, he doubted that he could; this planet did not appear to be a place where an art historian would have much of a life.

  Was he actually stuck on this planet? The taped message from the command had said help would be sent. He felt a moment of foolish optimism before telling himself that no help would come. That message had been recorded more than three hundred years ago, by a government destroyed shortly thereafter; the only way it might conceivably bring aid would be if it reached a military unit somewhere that, as he himself had been, was still fighting a lost war, sailing through the stars and the centuries at near-light speeds. Even if there were such ships out there—and it was possible there were—the odds were that they were nowhere near him. If one were cruising even the nearest star system to this, his cry for help would take more than three years to be picked up, and no ship could reach him in less than another four—and that only if it were a fast ship already headed in approximately the right direction.

  He knew that no other ships had been detectable within this system when he landed; if there was help out there, it would be years before it reached him. He might die of old age before a ship could arrive from just a few stars away.

  Could he get off this planet himself?

  There was no way he could build a starship, that was very obvious. The only other possibilities were repairing his own or finding another left from before the war.

  The possibility of finding an intact ship more than three hundred years old was even slimmer than that of help reaching him.

  Could he repair his ship?

  Although he had at first dismissed the idea, it might be possible; the ship was intact, except for the complete loss of power, so far as he knew. If he could pour enough electricity into the lasers to restart the fusion reaction, he'd be back exactly where he was before the wizards shut it down.

  Even on a planet as primitive as this, it should be possible to generate electricity. It might take years, but it could be done. With the starship serviceable, his options would be greatly increased.

  There were problems, however. The wizards of Awlmei weren't likely to let him hook a generator up to his ship. He would have to deal with them somehow.

  There was also the matter of the computer. If he restarted the drive, it would come back on line and insist on his continuing the mission. He didn't want that. He could use the release code—but then he couldn't fly the ship. He was quite sure that an ordinary human being was incapable of piloting the thing.

  Could he start the drive without reviving the computer?

  No, it was hooked directly into the drive, as it was essential for controlling the fusion reaction. Besides, even a fully operational cyborg couldn't pilot the ship without the computer. The tape had said an emergency landing was possible without it; it might be, but he doubted it, and was sure that nothing else could be done.

  What he had to do, therefore, was to find some way of removing the computer's hold on him without using his release code, and then restart the drive.

  He'd been trying for years to remove the computer's hold on him, of course; there was a crucial difference this time, however, in that he was currently free. He could do as he pleased.

  If he were to have the override mechanism and the thermite removed from his head, then the computer would be unable to harm him; he could use the ship as he pleased. That, then, was the thing to do.

  The wizards of Teyzha had said they could free him of his demon; perhaps he should take them up on their offer now that he could. He thought they would understand that the computer had destroyed their city, and that he had done his best to warn them; if any had survived the attack, they could remove the bomb and override. He would be glad to do whatever he could in exchange, perhaps make up in some small part for the damage he had done them.

  By midmorning, he had decided that he would definitely head for Teyzha. He thought his supply of money and food would be adequate for most of the trip; he would have to manage as best he could, perhaps hunt or find odd jobs along the way. He did not know the exact distance, of course; he told himself he might be grossly underestimating the length of the journey.

  He had all the time in the world, though. He was into the first low hills now, and paused atop a rise to look back at his ship.

  He couldn't see it; he could not even be sure that he was looking toward the right gully. He shrugged and turned east again.

  Under the green plastic camouflage, something whirred softly. A service robot, its batteries finally sufficiently charged by draining the last trickle of electricity from the others, rolled out of its storage compartment and set about its programmed task.

  Chapter Thirteen

  IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON WHEN SLANT HAPPENED ACROSS A road. It ran east by southeast, which was very nearly his own direction, so he followed it. It could scarcely be worse than cross-country, he told himself. His feet were beginning to hurt; he'd done a lot of walking yesterday, from the ship to Awlmei and back, and had been walking since well before dawn on his present course, without any sleep in between. His body was equipped with regulating mechanisms,
run off microminiature batteries or his own body heat or heartbeat, so that the lack of sleep did not need to bother him unless it extended beyond about a hundred hours—a limit he had no intention of reaching—and his endurance was in general fairly remarkable, but the wear and tear on his feet was still painful. They were unaccustomed to heavy boots and rough walking after years of a passive existence surrounded by chameleon fur carpet and metal decks. He was grateful that the local gravity wasn't any heavier than it was.

  The plain had been left behind long ago, and he was once again in a forest; this one was not pine but a mix of deciduous trees, oak, maple, aspen, alder, and others he couldn't identify. The leaves had not yet begun to turn, and the south side of the road was therefore shady while the north was in full sunlight; it had been the line of bright light penetrating the leaf cover that he first recognized as being a road.

  The highway had once been paved; occasional patches of something smooth, hard, and black still showed here and there. The rest of the surface was hard-packed dirt. He was glad it wasn't gravel, or anything else that might chew up the soles of his boots, and hoped that it wouldn't be too muddy in the event of rain.

  Besides saving wear and tear on boots and feet, there was another obvious advantage to following a road; roads led somewhere. This one, he was sure, led to some sort of human habitation; it was not overgrown, which meant it was still in use. If he found people, he would be able to replenish his supplies, one way or another, and perhaps acquire transportation other than his feet. It was even possible he might obtain directions for reaching Teyzha; so far he was dependent entirely upon his memory of the map of the continent the computer had shown him, which told him only that the city lay somewhere far to the east.

  He did not reach whatever the road led to that day, nor did he encounter anyone along the way. At sunset he stopped, ate a small meal, washed it down with water from a brook that ran parallel to the highway for a few kilometers, and found himself a soft place to lie, just out of sight of the road, on a pile of old leaves. That was enough of a camp; the weather was still warm, and he needed no fire. After having stayed awake and active the entire preceding night, it was no trouble at all for him to go to sleep while the western sky was still light.