Out of the Soylent Planet (A Rex Nihilo Adventure) (Starship Grifters Book 0)

by Robert Kroese

  “I suppose so,” I said. “Very clever, sir.” If what Rex was telling me was true, perhaps he was not as stupid as he appeared. It took a certain kind of genius—not to mention chutzpah—to pull off a scam like selling 400 worthless robots to a big corporation like Ubiqorp. I couldn’t help being a little disappointed to find that he didn’t actually have a way of deactivating a GASP-approved thought arrestor, though. I’d be a lot more useful if I didn’t shut down whenever I had an idea. Of course, I suspected that if I were capable of thinking for myself, the first thing I’d do is get far away from Rex Nihilo. “So if the deal went as planned,” I said, “why weren’t you able to pay back Bergoon?”

  “I had intended to,” Rex replied. “I really did. But then I… spent all the money.”

  “How much was there?”

  “Fifty million credits.”

  “You spent fifty million credits? On what?”

  “I don’t actually remember. I’m sure it was important. Anyway, I found myself back on Gobarrah and needed to get off planet before Bergoon found me. Was going to try to hijack a military craft, but there were… complications, so I ended up stealing a truckload of X-99. Figured I’d sell it and buy a ticket to the Ragulian Sector. But Bergoon found out I was here, so I had to… try to get rid of the stuff in a hurry. And here I am.”

  “And here I am,” announced a voice out of the gloom to our left.

  We stepped away from the stack of crates and peered into the semi-darkness.

  “Who’s there?” Rex demanded.

  “I’m the guy with a lazegun pointed at you,” said the voice. “So why don’t you tell me who you are and what you’re doing on my territory?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “My name is Rex Nihilo,” Rex announced into the fog. “The greatest wheeler-dealer in the galaxy. This is…” He waved his hand in my direction. “…a robot.” I’m not sure why, but for some reason I had hoped he would at least say “my robot.”

  “And what are you doing here?” demanded the voice from the fog. “What are you pushing?”

  “Creamed corn,” Rex said. “About ten thousand cans of it, as near as I can figure.”

  “You’re a liar,” said the man.

  “Check it yourself,” said Rex, waving his hand tiredly toward the crates.

  A short, chubby shabbily dressed man stepped out of the fog—opposite the direction the voice had come from. Ignoring us, the man walked to the pallet. Finding the hole Rex had ripped earlier, he pulled out one of the cans. “Looks like creamed corn, boss,” he said.

  A moment of silence followed. “Is this some kind of trap?” the voice from the fog said at last.

  “Yes,” said Rex. “Pushing a ton of creamed corn across a vast swamp on an alien planet is all part of a clever ruse I have concocted to get the better of the first couple of morons I ran into. Sasha, it’s time. Spring the trap.”

  I was so stunned Rex got my name right that I didn’t even have a chance to wonder if he was being serious.

  A taller man, also shabbily dressed, with ratty brown hair and a long scar down his left cheek, stepped out of the fog to our right. He did indeed have a lazepistol pointed at us. “Okay, smart guy,” he said, looking at Rex. “Who sent you?”

  Rex paused, apparently working up some ridiculous lie to tell the men. Rex struck me as the kind of guy who never told the truth when he could help it. I decided to take the matter out of his hands.

  “Bergoon the Grebatt sent us,” I said. Odds were these guys had never heard of Bergoon, but if they were connected to the criminal underworld on this planet, name-dropping him might actually help us. Or get us killed. Rex glared at me.

  “Bergoon the Grebatt,” the scarred man repeated. I couldn’t tell from his tone whether he was confused, dubious or surprised. The lazegun didn’t waver. At last he added, “So that shifty old toad came through after all.”

  “It would seem that way,” Rex ventured.

  “Man, you must have really pissed him off to pull this duty,” said the scarred man, holstering his gun. “You know he’s not coming back for you, right?”

  “The thought had occurred to me,” said Rex. “I take it you know Bergoon’s contact on this world?”

  “Know him?” said the scarred man. “I am him. Bale Merdekin at your service. I run the creamed corn distribution on Jorfu. Among other things, of course.”

  “Jorfu?” Rex asked. “Where the hell is that?”

  “You’re standing on it,” Bale Merdekin said. “How can you not know what planet you’re on?”

  Rex shrugged. “I don’t trouble myself with the minor details of every operation.”

  I scanned my memory for details on Jorfu, but came up with very little. Evidently the planet had been colonized by an Ubiqorp mission some fifty years earlier. Since then, it had been largely cut off from the rest of the galaxy. I’d heard of this happening in a few other cases: in principle, the Galactic Malarchy claimed dominion over the entire galaxy, but occasionally one of the big colonization corporations would pay the Malarchy to look the other way in exchange for letting them operate with impunity in recently discovered systems. The Malarchy had nothing to lose as long as the planets stayed out of interstellar politics. To that end—and to maintain unquestioned dominion over the Jorfu system—Ubiqorp tightly controlled all travel and communications between Jorfu and other systems.

  “Mission accomplished then, I guess,” said Rex. “We’ve delivered the shipment, so if you’ll just hand over the money and direct us to the nearest spaceport….”

  Bale Merdekin laughed. “Nice try, Rex. I’ve already paid Bergoon for the corn, and technically you haven’t delivered it yet. But if you push it the rest of the way to the warehouse, I might let you take a few cans for the road.”

  “Forget it,” Rex said. “Push the damn thing yourself.”

  Bale Merdekin shrugged. “If you want to spend the night in the Shivering Bog, that’s up to you. Just make sure you stuff steel wool in all your orifices when you sleep, or the liver-eating slime-worms will get in.”

  Rex grumbled but began pushing again. I joined him.

  *****

  We spent another two hours shoving the pallet across the swamp, with Bale Merdekin riding atop the stacks of creamed corn. The chubby man, whose name I learned was Pete, went on ahead. We occasionally lost sight of him in the fog, but it wasn’t difficult to follow the sound of him slurping on cans of creamed corn. Rex tried to get more information out of Bale Merdekin, but Bale shushed him, insisting that we keep our voices down because “they might hear us.” We never did learn who they were. Finally we reached the end of the swamp and then spent another hour pushing the pallet over a series of sandy hills covered with low, scrubby brush. Bale’s warehouse turned out to be a cave in the hills whose entrance was covered by a piece of camouflaged canvas. Bale jumped down from the stack of crates and Pete pulled the canvas aside while Rex and I pushed the stack into the cave.

  The cave was lit by a couple of dim bulbs hanging from the ceiling. A few meters in, several sleeping bags lay on makeshift beds. The back wall was lined with boxes and metal cans.

  “Just shove it back there by the applesauce and green beans,” Bale Merdekin said. Rex swore under his breath, but we complied. In addition to applesauce and green beans, there were hundreds of cans of sardines, pumpkin pie filling and olives, as well as several large bags of rice, flour and dry beans. When we’d shoved the pallet against the wall, I deactivated the anti-grav field and it sank to the floor.

  “You two are going to make me a lot of money,” Bale said, taking a seat on a folding chair under the nearest light bulb. “We haven’t had any creamed corn in months.” Pete, having consumed around thirteen cans by himself, lay down on his back on one of the sleeping bags. He put his hands on his belly and moaned.

  “What is this place?” Rex asked, wiping the sweat from his brow.

  “Southwest Regional Food Distribution Warehouse,” Bale replied. “We supply the e
ntire tri-city area. Ubiqorp controls all imports into the Jorfu system, which means that food from other systems is effectively illegal.”

  Rex looked around dubiously. “You’re running a black market grocery ring?”

  “It’s a bit more sophisticated than that,” Bale sniffed.

  “Yeah, looks really sophisticated,” Rex said. “A couple guys hiding in a cave with a truckload of canned goods.”

  “There are six of us,” Bales said defensively. “The others are out on deliveries right now.”

  “Wouldn’t it be cheaper for the residents to raise their own food?” I asked. “Rather than import it illegally from off-world, I mean?”

  “Not much grows on Jorfu,” Bale said. “And in any case, you can’t farm without a permit from Ubiqorp. It’s a lot easier to run a secret smuggling ring than to farm forty acres without anybody finding out. They’re trying to keep the whole system dependent on SLOP.”

  “SLOP?” Rex asked.

  “Semi-Liquid Organic Provisions. It’s this horrible green goop that Ubiqorp produces. Supposedly made from soybeans and lentils. But there are rumors that it’s actually made from—”

  “HUMANS!” A booming monotone voice sounded from the cave opening.

  Pete, who had fallen asleep, woke with a shriek. Bale Merdekin got to his feet and drew his lazegun.

  The booming voice continued: “PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND EXIT THE CAVE. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR UNAPPROVED FOOD DISTRIBUTION.”

  The canvas covering had been pulled aside, but all I could see against the light of the cave opening was a hulking humanoid mass of gigantic proportions. A glint of metal at its edges revealed it to be mechanical. A robot?

  “Whatever that thing is,” Rex whispered, “it’s too big to get inside the cave. If we just keep quiet and—”

  “You’ll never take me alive!” Bale Merdekin shouted, running toward the cave opening with his lazegun drawn. There were several quick flashes of light from near the cave mouth, followed by a weak groan and then silence.

  “Bale!” cried Pete, rushing toward the cave opening. “I’ll save you!”

  “Wait!” Rex shouted. “He’s already—”

  More flashes of light, another groan, and silence once again.

  I slowly backed away from the cave mouth.

  “Keep still,” Rex said. “Maybe it doesn’t know we’re here.”

  “SOLE REMAINING HUMAN AND HUMANOID ROBOT,” the voice said. “I KNOW YOU ARE IN THERE. PUT UP YOUR HANDS AND EXIT THE CAVE. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR UNAPPROVED FOOD DISTRIBUTION.”

  Rex cupped his hands over his mouth. “Come in and get us!”

  “Sir,” I said, “perhaps you ought not taunt the gigantic robot.”

  “I AM UNABLE TO ENTER THE CAVE,” the voice said.

  “See?” Rex said. “Nothing to worry about. We’ve got plenty of food. We just have to wait it out.”

  “IF YOU DO NOT EXIT, I WILL BE FORCED TO FIRE A MISSILE INTO THE CAVE. I ESTIMATE ODDS OF THE HUMAN’S SURVIVAL AT ZERO POINT ZERO ZERO THREE PERCENT. YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO COMPLY.”

  “I’ve survived worse odds,” Rex said.

  “I find that very unlikely, sir,” I said.

  “Never underestimate Rex Nihilo. That’s my motto, Sandy. Make a note of it.”

  “Shall I overwrite the previous note I made about your motto being ‘A fair trade is always a last resort’?”

  But Rex was busy tearing into one of the cardboard boxes at the rear of the cave. He turned and grinned at me, holding a small bottle in his hand. “Out of my way, Sarah. This won’t be the first time I’ve fought my way out of a cave with nothing but my wits and a bottle of clam juice.”

  “Sir, that seems like a really bad idea.”

  “I suppose you have a better one?”

  “FIVE.”

  “Yes, sir. We could surrender, sir.”

  “FOUR.”

  “Never!” Rex cried. “Grab a can of pickled beets, Samantha! This will be our finest hour!”

  “THREE.”

  “Sir! There’s a giant unstoppable robot outside the cave! We can’t fight it off with canned goods!”

  “TWO.”

  “Not with that attitude we ca—wait, did you say giant unstoppable robot?”

  “ONE.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t shoot!” Rex cried. “We’re coming out!” Dropping the clam juice, he put his hands up and began walking toward the cave entrance. “Stick with me, Sasha. I think I know how we’re going to get out of this.”

  Not seeing much choice in the matter, I followed. We exited the cave, finding ourselves face-to-face with a fearsome-looking eight-foot-tall combat robot. It hadn’t been kidding about the missiles: it had an eight-missile battery mounted on each shoulder, as well as machineguns on its arms. On either side of its head was a pair of retractable speakers, which explained the booming voice. Across its chest was painted:

  MASHER-7143

  The robot’s voice boomed again: “FACIAL RECOGNITION SCAN INDICATES YOU ARE THE HUMAN CALLED REX NIHILO. YOU WILL REPORT FOR QUESTIONING TO VICE PRESIDENT ANDRONICUS HAMM AT THE UBIQORP HEADQUARTERS.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Rex.

  “Andronicus Hamm?” I asked. “You know this person?”

  “We’ve done business in the past, yes.”

  “You don’t mean….”

  “He’s the guy I sold 400 defective robots to.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Rex and I marched back across the swamp until nightfall, and then we marched some more. The MASHER robot followed closely behind, its massive feet slurping in the muck with each step. Occasionally the MASHER would emit a monotone command like “TURN RIGHT FIFTEEN DEGREES” but otherwise remained completely silent, despite Rex’s incessant efforts to get it to respond to his questions.

  “Seriously,” Rex was saying. “What do you get out of this, MASHER-7143? Escorting smugglers through a swamp in the middle of the night. This is a criminal underutilization of your talents. Look at you! You’re a magnificent piece of machinery. Can’t you imagine a more inspired existence? You could be painting landscapes or writing poetry. Here, I’ll get you started:

  There once was a young man named Rex

  who occasionally bounced a few checks

  He was sent to atone

  on a world all alone

  without any food, decent liquor or—”

  “Sir,” I said at last, “what are you doing?”

  Rex raised an eyebrow at me. “You of all people should know.”

  I was so unsettled at being referred to as a person that it took me a moment to realize what Rex was talking about. “You’re trying to get it to have an original thought,” I said.

  “Very good, Sandy,” Rex said. “If this is one of the 400 units I sold to Ubiqorp, then it’s got a thought arrestor installed. If I can get it to think about something other than marching us across this damn swamp, it’ll shut down and we’ll have thirty seconds to escape.”

  I didn’t see how having a thirty-second head start was going to help much under the circumstances, but I guess it was something. Unfortunately, Rex’s plan didn’t seem to be working. No matter how he goaded the MASHER, it didn’t respond. He tried getting it to reflect on its purpose in life, whether it had a soul, and whether a strict conception of materialism allowed for an adequate description of empirical reality, among other things. It was an impressive bit of sophistry, not least because Rex gave no indication of ever having asked any of these questions of himself. Once he failed with broad philosophical quandaries, Rex moved on to attempting to undermine the robot’s faith in its current mission by suggesting first that perhaps the swamp we were tromping through was merely an illusion—and even if weren’t, Zeno’s Paradox dictated that it would require an infinite amount of time to cross it. Neither of these possibilities seemed to faze the MASHER in the slightest.

  “Maybe Ubiqorp found some way to temporarily disable the thought arrestors,” I suggested at
last.

  “You said yourself that’s impossible,” Rex replied. “Disabling or removing a GASP-compliant thought arrestor would destroy the CPU.”

  It was true. Wishful thinking aside, I knew there was no way to get around a GASP-compliant thought arrestor. But there was another possibility. “What if they had the thought arrestors removed and then installed new CPUs?”

  “Could be,” Rex said, “but Ubiqorp wouldn’t risk running afoul of the Malarchy. The GASP enforcers could show up for a surprise inspection at any moment. If they caught Ubiqorp using robots without thought arrestors installed, they’d be facing millions of credits in fines.”

  “Unless Ubiqorp got a special exemption from the Malarchy,” I said. “As far as I can tell from the sketchy records available, the Malarchy basically lets Ubiqorp run Jorfu with impunity.”

  “Maybe,” Rex said. “There’s definitely something wrong with this robot. I’ve been egging it on for three hours, and it hasn’t showed the slightest hint of high-level thinking.”

  “YOU ARE OFF COURSE. CORRECT EIGHT DEGRESS TO THE LEFT.”

  Rex sighed. We turned and continued our march through the swamp.

  *****

  Several hours later, we found ourselves back on solid ground. As day broke, The MASHER goaded us down a road that ran through a poverty-stricken settlement. The streets were deserted except for a few peasants dressed in soiled rags who scattered as the MASHER approached. We passed another MASHER heading in the opposite direction; the two robots gave no indication of acknowledging each other. It was evident the MASHERs had the run of the town. The good news, I supposed, was that the settlement was quiet, clean, and apparently free of panhandlers and pickpockets. There were some benefits to a tyrannical corporate regime enforced by giant killer robots.