Something went snick.
Lights began to glow in the robot’s interior. It started to hum.
Xris cursed Sakuta long and bitterly. The professor had assured Xris that the robot would not be in working condition. Its systems must have failed long ago, corroded over time. It was just Xris’s luck on this blasted job that the closet had kept the robot in a hermetically sealed environment, the low humidity of the desert had prevented the ‘bot from rusting.
Xris glared at the thing, wondered if he should try to shut it down, though he had no idea how it worked, or let it be and hope like hell it wasn’t equipped with bells, whistles, wouldn’t start singing “God Save the King.”
For the moment, the robot was quiet, except for that low hum. Its systems were warming up, apparently, for its interior lights, which Xris could see reflected off the metal arms, were growing brighter. And, of course, its manic designer had put lights in the eyeballs. The eyes began to shine with a luminescent luster, rather like a girl attending her first prom.
The ‘bot’s arms twitched.
Xris listened to the footsteps of the night watchman crunch through the wet sand. The man was walking around the crash site’s perimeter. The rain would have washed away any tracks Xris had made. He tormented himself by wondering if he’d left the hatch open, when he knew perfectly well that he’d shut it.
The footsteps came to a sudden halt.
Xris swore silently. He knew what was coming.
“Central, Mike again.” The voice was tense. “The restraining bolt’s been removed. Send someone out right away. Hell, don’t worry about me. I ain’t bein’ paid enough to be a hero. Mike out.”
Xris heard the footsteps, heard the screech of the hatch being tentatively lifted. Light stabbed inside.
“Hey! Anyone in there?” the watchman called nervously, adding in firmer tones, “I got a gun.”
“Mrp,” said the robot. The humming sound was replaced by the distinctive whoosh of air jets.
“Hey! Halt! Stop!” Xris hissed at the ‘bot, hoping it would respond to verbal commands.
Apparently it didn’t. Either that or it didn’t understand the language.
The robot clanged and clattered its metal body parts against the side of the metal closet. One of its arms shoved on the closet door, opened it. Eyes glowing, the robot rose into the air, started to float out the door.
Xris made a grab for one of the reticulated arms with his vice-grip hand, intending to hang on to it, keep the ‘bot inside the closet.
The arm detached, came off in his grasp. Remaining nineteen arms dangling beneath it, the ‘bot drifted across the deck of the spaceplane, heading for the hatch. Xris stood clutching the robot’s arm, felt an absolute fool.
“Come on out,” the watchman was saying. His voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “I got a big gun.”
And he probably had his shaky finger on the trigger. Xris had no idea how to stop the ‘bot, but at least he might stop this blaster-happy watchdog from turning the robot into scrap metal. Xris activated the sleep dart in his metal hand and chased after the robot.
As he exited the closet, the metal door banged against the bulkhead. He stumbled over wires and crates that he couldn’t see in the dark, his feet thudded against the metal deck plating. With his crashing and the robot’s whooshing, they were making enough noise for an army—a thought that must have occurred to the watchman.
“Come out with your hands up! You hear? I got a gun!” The watchman’s voice shook.
The robot, humanlike eyes glowing, arms wiggling, floated out the hatch.
Xris heard a gasp, a high-pitched shriek, then the sound of feet scrabbling in wet sand.
He reached the hatchway in time to see the watchman disappearing into the darkness. Remembering his own feelings on encountering the robot with the strange eyes in this tomblike spaceplane, Xris felt a certain sympathy for the man.
Xris could have felled him with the sleep dart easily, but decided against it. If the watchman didn’t report back, this was the first place security would come searching for him. As it was, security would find Mike running through the desert as if ghouls were after him. They’d have to stop to listen to his ghost story first. And that might take them a while.
“Minx-not,” said the robot, gazing after the watchman with its unblinking eyes. It sounded extremely puzzled.
Xris took a moment to determine his next move. He had a lot of things to do and very little time in which to do them. He had to get the robot away from the crash site, safely stowed in its crate, and the crate back on the base, and he had to do all of that in—he figured—the next ten minutes.
The ‘bot shifted its gaze back to him, was looking at him expectantly. Green lights flashed on its head. The pupils of the human eyes opened wide, as if absorbing him. A tiny beep sounded in Xris’s ear—a warning that he was being scanned. Xris held still, hoped the robot wasn’t going to take long in its investigation.
It didn’t. The light shut off, the eyes returned to normal. It had learned something about him, apparently. Xris reciprocated. He studied the ‘bot.
Considering how much the thing weighed, the fact that it was up and moving was a distinct advantage. If he could persuade it to accompany him, his problems would he solved. He wondered what the ‘bot was thinking, if anything. It appeared to be extremely intelligent, but that may have just been the impression given by the humanlike eyes. Xris was about to reach out his hand, to see if he could give the robot a gentle shove in the right direction, when it spoke again.
Its voice was a recording of a human voice, but there was no doubt it was a machine speaking; the words lacked all inflection or emotion. It rattled off what may have been three sentences, since it paused at certain intervals, then it fell silent. The human eyes were solemn, grave, and, again, expectant. It appeared to be waiting for him to do or say something in return.
Which was going to be difficult. He hadn’t understood a single word. His translator was able to translate a few hundred thousand languages, but not, apparently, this one.
“Sorry,” Xris said shortly. “I don’t understand. Now here’s what we’re going to do.”
He raised his hands to indicate he meant no harm. Moving slowly, as if approaching a fearful child, he extended one hand, his flesh-and-blood hand, and kept talking. If he couldn’t understand the ‘bot, it wouldn’t be able to understand him, but it might pick up from his tone that he wasn’t threatening.
“Don’t be frightened. I got a job to do. You and I—” Xris stopped talking.
The blue light had begun flashing again on the robot’s head. The light stopped when he stopped talking and he halted all motion. He waited tensely a moment, but he didn’t dare wait long.
“We’re just going to take a little walk.”
The blue light began to flash again. Xris experimented, watched the light. Sure enough, the light’s flashes were pulsing in time to his voice. When he quit talking, the light quit flashing. It was probably recording his voice. He’d have to remember that. He had a few choice comments to leave with it, remarks the ‘bot could relay to Professor Sakuta. Xris again extended his hand toward the robot.
The ‘bot extended one of its hands to him.
Xris gingerly touched the metal hand, which had two jointed “fingers” and a “thumb” and had undoubtedly been designed to perform tasks a human hand could perform. Xris gave the hand a gentle tug, hoped like hell it wouldn’t come off.
“Follow me,” he said experimentally, watching the light, which pulsed three times, for the three syllables. “This way.”
The ‘bot’s hand did not come off this time. Xris gave the ‘bot a gentle tug, motioned with his other hand that they were going outside the hatch, indicated that they were leaving the spaceplane.
The robot obeyed, floated silently after Xris. It even switched on a beam of bright light to illuminate the way. Xris had his doubts about the light, which could probably be seen on Pandor’s moon, but he
had no idea how to shut it off and no way to command the ‘bot to do so. He increased his speed. The ‘bot kept up with him.
They reached the fence. Xris could hear the sounds of some sort of heavy-duty vehicle approaching, but it was heading for the crash site and he was a good two kilometers away from the site by then. From this position, he could see the back end of the maintenance building. He fumbled for the crate’s remote, switched it on, waited tensely.
At first, nothing happened. He was just thinking up some truly unique and imaginative swear words—words he intended to make certain the robot recorded—when he saw the crate float out from around the corner of the maintenance building, drift slowly down the alley toward the fence.
The thing had only one speed, and that was glacial. Nothing he could do to hurry it. Xris kept one eye on the ‘bot, kept his ears tuned. He heard voices now. They sounded excited. They were too far away for his translator to pick up, and so he had no idea what they were saying. He could guess, however. He mentally urged the crate to move faster.
At last the crate reached the fence. Xris touched another button on the remote. The crate’s jets fired. It soared up and over the barbed wire effortlessly, settled down on the ground right in front of him. He opened the lid.
This was going to be the tricky part—getting the ‘bot inside the crate.
The robot was regarding the crate with interest and, by the green light flashing on its head, Xris guessed it was scanning the crate as it had scanned him.
“Inside,” said Xris, pointing to the crate. “You go— inside.”
The voices were coming closer, within range of the translator. He had deliberately left tracks for them to follow. They had spotted the indentations of his boots and had figured out quickly enough that they weren’t dealing with some sort of space ghost.
“Go. Inside,” Xris repeated, more urgently.
The robot completed its scan. It drew its nineteen arms into its interior, flew over to the crate, and nestled down into it.
“Grnx,” it said, and then all its lights blinked out.
The robot had shut itself down.
“Sleep tight.” Xris breathed easy for the first time since he’d entered that tomblike spaceplane. He placed the robot’s missing arm gently next to it and shut the lid of the crate. He even took time to make sure all the instruments were reading correctly. After all the trouble he’d gone through to get this ‘bot, he didn’t want anything happening to it during transit. Everything checked out.
Using the remote, Xris sent the crate back up and over the fence. It drifted effortlessly to the ground. He ordered it back to the maintenance shed, told it to shut down.
The voices were headed his direction, following his tracks. Keeping near the fence line, staying well clear of the road he’d taken into the construction site, Xris returned to the main road, loped back in the direction of the town. He took care to keep his tracks visible, stepping in muddy patches, crashing through undergrowth.
He soon outdistanced the voices, but they were hot on his trail. When he reached the outskirts of town, he stopped, cleaned the mud off his boots, and after that took care to leave no trail at all. He circled back around to Jake’s Bar.
He’d left security a nice puzzle to solve. He hoped security would read it this way.
The night watchman catches a thief looting the spaceplane. He scares the thief away. The thief flees across the desert, only to run smack into the fence which surrounds the Army base. The thief spends a few panicked moments trying to figure out how to climb the fence, gives it up, and follows the fence line back into town. This scenario should draw suspicion away from the Army base.
Of course, the charade might be completely useless, given the fact that whoever had snatched Jamil knew about them, the robot, everything. But Xris figured he should at least make the effort. He took a few moments to detach his tool hand, replace it with the “pretty” hand.
Captain Kergonan returned and began to wonder just how the hell he was going to get back on base.
Xris turned his steps that direction.
The rain continued to fall. He reached the main road, decided to take it, not risk getting himself lost in the unfamiliar territory. He hadn’t been on the road long when car lights beamed in the distance. They were coming from the base, not from the town. He could hide in the ditch....
The hell with it. Jail would be dry. And warm.
Xris stopped, waved his arms.
The hoverjeep pulled over. An MP climbed out.
Xris put on his best contrite, shamefaced air. “Good to see you fellows,” he said.
A nuke lamp flashed in his eyes.
“Captain Kergonan?”
“Yeah, that’s me. You must be wondering—”
“Excuse me. Captain. We were ordered out to search for you. Captain Strauss told us that your colonel had sent you off base. You probably don’t know this, sir,” the MP continued, keeping a straight face, “but there was some trouble at one of the local taverns tonight.
Captain Strauss was worried that you might have accidentally become involved. Maybe ended up in a Pan-dor jail.”
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I did happen to be in the vicinity. In all the confusion, I guess I got turned around. I’ve been roaming around this damn desert half the night.”
“Yes, sir,” said the MP. “If you’ll climb into the car, sir, we’ll take you back to base.”
Xris climbed in, settled down in the seat. Tess again. He’d have to send her something. A present. He had no idea what she might like, but Raoul would know. He’d get Raoul to pick out something nice....
It was after midnight when Xris arrived back on base. The MPs drove him to his quarters, gave him a brief scolding on letting someone know when he left base, let him go. He headed for his quarters, just in case anyone was watching, then—halfway there—he took a detour.
Arriving at the maintenance shed to check on the ‘bot, Xris felt like a parent going to a child’s bedroom to check on its slumbers. After some searching in the dark, he discovered the crate nestled between a hoverjeep with a banged-up fender and a light truck with a recoil-less launcher on the fritz. He opened the crate. There was the ‘bot.
Xris debated briefly hauling the ‘bot’s crate back to his room. The sound of measured footfalls decided him against it. He could not have explained to anyone’s satisfaction what he was doing taking his crate for a walk at this time of night. Patting the ‘bot solicitously on the head, Xris shut the crate, returned to the transient officers’ quarters.
His clothes were soaked. He was cold clear through to his bones. He had aches in muscles he hadn’t even thought were real muscles. He was dead tired—a reaction to spending half the night living off adrenaline. He would have given six robots in six fancy crates to be able to go to his room, lie down and relax. Unfortunately, he still had more work to do.
He went to Jamil’s room, packed up Jamil’s gear, and hauled it back to his own room, Xris still had to get ready for that damn speech tomorrow.
He luxuriated in a hot shower. Lying down on his bed, a twist in his mouth. Xris took out Jamil’s electronic notepad, brought up the file on “Foreign Object Damage to Spaceplane Engines,” and began to read. Within five minutes, Xris was asleep.
Chapter 15
Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Line 198
Nightfall on Adonia. This was the evening that was to see the vanquishing of the enemy—Raj Vu. Raoul’s party commenced precisely at 1800 hours. That is to say the party began then. The guests did not start to arrive— nor were they expected—much before 2200 hours. Most would show up after midnight and more than a few would appear the next day, somewhere around the dinner hour. Adonians take a very relaxed view of time.
Raoul was up early, however, as are all generals on the day of the big battle. He crawled out of bed around noon, applied a cucumber mask to alleviate the effects of the str
ess of the last few days on his complexion, soaked in a seaweed bath to boost his metabolism, and confided to Darlene that he’d taken only the mildest of artificial stimulants, in order to keep his thinking clear.
He spent the rest of the afternoon shampooing and styling his hair, applying his makeup, took two hours to decide what to wear—this crucial decision had been preying on his mind for days—and finally, at about 1800, appeared clad in a black unitard trimmed with black sequins, accompanied by a white and black feather cape, sequined black high heels, and an armload of red ruby bracelets.
“I’m dressing down, my dear,” Raoul said to Darlene. “It’s impolite for the host to outshine his guests.”
Darlene, in a simple silk suit devoid of decoration, hoped she could stay awake for the guests to arrive. The Little One kept to his room, partly in order to spare Raoul’s nerves and partly to avoid being trampled by the armies on the side of good.
Off-worlders often expressed sympathy for those on Adonia who were forced to work for a living, those who were the props and mainstays of the decadent lifestyle of the other Adonians. What off-worlders failed to realize was that most Adonians work for a living; it just doesn’t show.
Work takes second place to pleasure. Office hours do not exist. If there is ever anything on Adonia that has to adhere to a schedule, has to be done on time—the taking off and landing of spaceplanes, for example—the Adonians hire off-worlders to see to it.
The caterer was actually early, but she compensated for this marvel by bringing the wrong food. This occasioned a fight in the kitchen, which ended with Raoul pink-cheeked and overheated but victorious, a cherry torte on the floor, and the caterer made to deliver the layer cake made with nine different flavors of chocolate as she’d been ordered.
“I can’t believe she thought I wouldn’t know the difference!” Raoul sniffed.
The two bartenders arrived on time, which proceeding made Raoul suspicious, but they assured him it wasn’t intentional. The bartenders were extremely handsome young men, tanned and muscular and highly Ornamental. Raoul tasted the champagne—just to make certain it had not been replicated. Finding the bubbles genuine, he forgave the bartenders and, after an exchange of kisses all around, showed them where to set up the bars—one in the atrium amid the orchids and one by the side of the swimming pool.
Robot Blues Page 14
