The Road to Damascus (bolo)

by John Ringo

  “Hello, Simon,” she said with a warm smile. “I must say, you look ruddy awful.”

  He tried to smile and winced. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Then her smile faded. “The doctors tell me you’ll be here a while. Was it really sabotage?”

  “I don’t know. Sonny thinks so. So does Dr. Zarek.”

  “The surgeon who asked for permission to emigrate?”

  “Yes.”

  Sheila frowned. “What’s going on, Simon? On Jefferson?”

  “Got half a day you can spare?”

  One coppery eyebrow rose. “That bad?”

  “Worse.”

  She dragged up a chair. “I’ve nothing better to do.”

  It took Simon the better part of the afternoon to tell her everything, particularly since she stopped him time and again, clarifying points and asking for more information. When he finally finished, she sat motionless for several moments, eyes narrowed against whatever thoughts were occurring to her. When she finally roused herself from reverie, she gave Simon a long, measuring look.

  “I’m thinking we must get you back on your feet, the sooner the better. They may have won the first battle, but that nasty little war’s far from over. You need to be in condition to fight it.”

  Simon couldn’t help the bitter, exhausted sound in his voice. “There’s not a lot a cripple can do about it.”

  “Certainly not if you limit yourself with a label that stupid.” She leaned forward in her chair and rested one hand on his arm, gently avoiding the tubes that had been taped down. “If you want to look forward to anything other than misery, you’ll need to change that way of thinking, the faster the better. You’re a fine officer—”

  “Retired,” he bit out.

  “—and fine officers go on being soldiers, even after they retire. Your body’s been smashed up a bit, but there’s nothing wrong here.” She tapped his head. “And it’s what’s up here that makes you a fine officer. Whether or not you see an actual battlefield again is irrelevant, because you know how to think like a battlefield commander. You even know how to think like a Bolo Mark XX and there aren’t many officers in the entire Brigade who can make that claim, let alone dirty politicians who’ve taken temporary control of a backwater planet while nobody’s looking. While they think nobody’s looking. That’s an edge, Simon, maybe enough to turn the tables on the people who’ve done this,” she gestured toward his body, immobilized and festooned with medical equipment.

  He met and held her gaze for a moment. That moment stretched into two and then three. At length, he nodded, able to move his head only a fraction of a centimeter, but determined to move it, nonetheless. “All right,” he said quietly. “Do your worst. And I’ll give it my best.”

  She gave him a brilliant smile. “That’s what I want to hear. Now then, tell me about Jefferson’s military capabilities…”

  IV

  I return to depot, covered with misery and cables I cannot remove, to find an unauthorized person standing in the maintenance bay. I bring antipersonnel gun mounts to bear, but do not fire. A single, clearly unarmed human offers no appreciable threat to me or my mission and I have contributed to the crushing deaths of too many unarmed humans, today, to relish the thought of adding another. I halt just shy of the entrance and study the individual who is staring, openmouthed, at my warhull and guns.

  I address him in stern tones. “You are trespassing in a restricted military zone. Give me your personal identity code and state your reason for being here.”

  The man inside my maintenance bay is a short and stocky individual with protruberant musculature on arms and legs. He sports an intricate facial nano-tatt, whose subepidural pattern shifts colors with a kaleidoscopic opalescence as its owner blinks several times. The intruder says, “I’m Phil Fabrizio. They told me to come out here. Jeezus H. Crap, you’re fuckin’ huge! They never said nuthin’ about how huge you was. You’re like as big as a fuckin’ city.”

  I find little useful information in this narrative. I try again. “Why are you in a restricted military zone?”

  He blinks again, apparently mesmerized by the sway of dangling traffic signals and power lines festooning my forward turret. “You musta’ took out half the traffic lights in Madison.”

  “State your purpose in trespassing or I will fire.”

  I lock and load gun systems. I suspect that Phil Fabrizio does not comprehend either the danger he is in or the extraordinary patience I am striving to show an unauthorized intruder.

  “Huh? Oh. OH! Hey, shit, machine, don’t shoot me, I’m your mechanic!”

  “I have not been notified of any personnel assignments relating to my maintenance status.”

  “Huh?”

  I realize I am speaking to the product of fifteen years of POPPA-run public education. I rephrase. “Nobody told me to expect a mechanic. I will request confirmation before shooting you.”

  Phil Fabrizio blinks again. “Nobody told you I was comin’? Well, don’t that just goddamn figure? Musta’ been too busy tryin’ to turn the power back on in town, t’remember to tell you I was comin’ today.”

  I am intrigued, despite the gravity of the situation, that anyone would focus on the power grid in Madison rather than the serious risk of being shot, should confirmation of proper authorization fail to materialize. Is his intelligence too limited to comprehend his danger or does he show the same careless oblivion regarding his personal survival in other areas of his life? The answer might be interesting, if I am allowed to let him survive long enough to complete the investigation into his behavioral linguistics.

  I send a request for VSR to Gifre Zeloc, who refuses to accept my transmission. Given the scope of the disaster still unfolding in Madison, I am not particularly surprised by this. I reroute the request to Sar Gremian, who accepts my call.

  “What do you want, machine?”

  “An unauthorized intruder has entered my maintenance depot. He claims to be my new mechanic. I require proper authorization permitting him access to my depot. Without proper authorization, I will carry out my original programming and shoot him as a hostile intruder.”

  “Wait.”

  I am placed on “hold” status. Twenty eternal seconds drag past. Thirty. Forty-five. Human concepts of time are inevitably different from mine. I could have planned and executed major portions of this star system’s defense from an invading armada in the time I have been left on “hold.” Does Sar Gremian hold grudges against artificial intelligences as well as humans? When Phil Fabrizio ambles closer to my treads, head tipped back in a slack-jawed perusal of my prow, I track the movement with anti-personnel chain guns and remind him — sharply — to halt.

  “If you move again, I will shoot you.”

  “Huh? Oh. Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

  The nano-tattoo covering the right-hand portion of his face has shifted shape and color, perhaps in response to emotional biochemical markers read by the nanotech implants beneath his skin. The shifting color and pattern remind me of video-recordings in my natural science database, under the category of tactical camouflage systems encountered in nature. The Terran octopus is one of seventeen known species in human space that use shape and color shifting to disguise its presence from predators and prey.

  I do not understand human notions of aesthetics that include decorating their skins with nanotech tattoos that produce a similar effect to that of camouflaged aquatic predators. Nano-tattoo technology serves no useful camouflage function in any war scenario involving civilians that I can imagine. Do humans enjoy wearing something like a nanotech octopus on their faces? I hesitate to speculate on the means by which a poorly educated Jeffersonian mechanic acquired the money to pay for expensive off-world technology that serves no logical function.

  Sar Gremian reestablishes contact. “Philip Fabrizio is your new maintenance engineer.” He transmits a visual image of the man standing two point one meters from my left tread. The nano-tattoo octopus is a different configuration an
d color in the official ID photo. I scan facial features, fingerprint files, and ID code, run a comparison with those of the man who states he is Phil Fabrizio and conclude that the individual in my maintenance bay is who he says he is. I request further VSR on Mr. Fabrizio’s qualifications as a psychotronic engineer, having encountered conversational difficulties leading to inescapable conclusions about the intelligence of the man who is now authorized to tinker with my brain and warhull.

  “Mr. Fabrizio is an honors graduate of the Tayari Trade School’s mechanical engineering program. He took the school’s highest honors and is the most qualified technician on Jefferson.”

  This statement is patently inaccurate. Kafari Khrustinova is a fully certified psychotronic engineer and is familiar with my systems, as well. I check the bona fides of the Tayari Trade School’s mechanical engineering program and discover a curriculum that would not qualify as a challenging primary school course of study. It is heavy on POPPA social engineering theory and exceedingly thin on applied mechanical systems. If I were human, I would not trust a graduate of this program to tinker with the family’s groundcar. I am considerably more complex than any groundcar on Jefferson. I lodge a formal protest.

  “The curriculum Phil Fabrizio has received high honors for studying does not qualify him as a psychotronic-systems maintenance technician, let alone a systems engineer. Neither Mr. Fabrizio nor any other graduate of the Tayari Trade School is sufficiently trained to perform even the most basic of systems tests on a Bolo Mark XX. Assigning him as my maintenance engineer is a dangerous and irresponsible action, placing my systems and the public safety at serious risk.”

  “Phil Fabrizio is the only qualified mechanic on Jefferson who will ever be allowed to come near you with a crescent wrench. Do you understand that, machine?”

  I do. Only too clearly. Phil Fabrizio is considered politically “safe” by those making the decisions governing Jefferson’s immediate and long-range future. Sar Gremian has found a politically “legitimate” means by which to take vengeance for the public humiliation I subjected him to, regarding his threatening actions against my Commander. Simon was correct in his assessment. Sar Gremian holds grudges. Even against machines of war. This discovery adds to the burden of unhappiness this day has wrought in my personality gestalt center.

  “Understood,” I relay acquiescence to this decision.

  “Good. Enjoy your new mechanic.”

  The bitter humor in the set of Sar Gremian’s lips and the contraction of musculature around his eyes conveys very accurately the emotional satisfaction he has derived from this conversation. He abruptly terminates the transmission. I am left to cope with a mechanic who appears to perfectly embody the concept of “grease monkey.” His training is on a par with what a Terran simian could be expected to master.

  “You have been properly authorized to enter this maintenance facility and provide my maintenance needs.”

  “Huh?”

  This appears to be Phil Fabrizio’s favorite word. I rephrase. “The president’s chief advisor said you could be here. I won’t shoot you.”

  “Oh.” He brightens considerably. His facial octopus writhes like tortured seaweed and blinks in irridescent pinks. “Hey, that’s fuckin’ great! The president’s chief advisor? He said I could be here? Wow! They just told me at the job-corps office t’ come out here, today. I never thought the president’s chief advisor would know about that!” His octopus turns a cherubic shade of blue. “Say, you need anythin’? I could maybe change your oil or somethin’?”

  I begin to taste despair. “It would be helpful if you removed the broken traffic signals and power cables from my warhull and turrets. If I need to enter combat, they are likely to foul some of my smaller gun systems.”

  Phil peers dubiously upwards. “How’m I gonna get all the way up there?”

  “Do you know how to climb a ladder?”

  “Well, yeah, but I ain’t got a fuckin’ ladder that tall.”

  Sarcasm is clearly wasted on my new “engineer.” I explain, as patiently as I can, and am admittedly less than successful. “There are ladders built into my fenders and warhull. You will need to climb up them. There are railings and handholds that will allow you to climb across my turrets, prow, and stern. If you are reasonably careful, you will not fall off and crack your skull open on the plascrete floor. I would suggest bringing with you a set of heavy cable cutters, so you won’t have to climb down, find them, and climb back up again. You might find this tiring.”

  Phil blinks up at me, then pulls his face into a scowl. His octopus solidifies into a squat, blockish maroon blob obscuring half his face while simultaneously — through some arcane alchemy of facial expression interacting with the nano-tattoo — conveys bullish obstinacy. “I ain’t gonna get tired climbing up a couple a goddamn ladders. Lemme find some cable cutters. You got any idea where I can lay hands on somethin’ like that? They never sent me no equipment, they just shoved me in a aircab and said t’ come out here. You gonna shoot me if I go rummagin’ around in the tool bins?” He is craning his neck around to study the immense wall space of my maintenance depot’s interior. “Where are the fuckin’ tool bins? The trade school shop never had nothin’ like this stuff.” He jerks his nano-tattooed head toward the high-tech equipment racks and ammunition storage bays lining the walls.

  I console myself with the thought that he is, at least, not particularly afraid of me. Unsure that I should find consolation in this fact, I guide him step by baby step through the process of locating cable cutters and guiding him to the access ladders on my near fender. Despite his boasts, my new mechanic is huffing badly before he has climbed halfway up my warhull.

  “Remind me,” he says, breathing heavily, “t’ stop smokin’ fryweed.”

  I am unfamiliar with this combustible and suspect I should be alarmed that someone who enjoys it now possesses the security clearance necessary to tinker with my internal circuitry. It takes Phil three hours of clambering, swearing, snipping, and jerking on snarled cables to free me from my macabre netting. By the time he has completed the chore, his natural skin is as red and blotchy as the crimson nano-tattoo on his face, which has taken on the appearance of a mottled egg recently fried in ketchup.

  He manages to complete the task, tossing the debris to the floor where the traffic fixtures shatter — creating a secondary mess that he will have to clean up — and eventually descends to the floor again without falling or breaking any major bones. I suspect this is one of the most sterling achievements of his life. I fear that I face a very unpleasant future and can see no way in which to materially improve the situation.

  Phil rearranges sweat on his face with an arm that is equally soaked and says, “Whew, that’s one pile o’ shit I cleaned off you. Where’m I supposed to put it, now I got it off?”

  I answer truthfully. “I have no idea.”

  Oddly enough, he brightens, beaming up at my forward turret. “Hey, that’s great news! Must be a couple hundred, at least, in the salvage price them cables and connections and stuff would bring on the tech market. I gotta borrow my sister’s truck or somethin’ to haul ’em off, t’morrow. Got a couple a guys oughta give me a good deal on ’em. Maybe even enough t’get the nano-tatt for the other side of my face!”

  I decide against pointing out that selling the power cables and traffic signals qualifies as theft of government property. I seriously doubt it would make the slightest difference to his plans. At the very least, I suspect Phil Fabrizio will rarely be boring. It is even possible that his scrounging habits may one day be useful. This is little enough to hope for, but in a resource-poor situation that has all the hallmarks of worsening substantially during the next few years, one takes what hope one can, wherever one finds it, and does one’s best.

  That is what Bolos are programmed to do.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I

  Kafari massaged the crick in her neck muscles, concentrating on the lines of code she was scanning. She was lo
oking for the glitch that had caused a replacement module in the Ziva Two cargo controller to assign the inbound Star of Mali docking fees eighteen times the correct rate.

  That glitch had sent the Star’s captain into an apoplectic fit. Freighters were required to pay the estimated docking and restocking fees in advance, with any difference credited back upon departure. She’d spent a quarter of an hour just soothing the irate woman’s seriously frazzled temper, while the Star was inbound on a cross-system transit from the jump-point. Freighter captains were learning that technical service on Ziva Two — or anywhere else on Jefferson — was generally not up to snuff. In some cases, it was downright life-and-livelihood threatening.

  That disastrous state of affairs was due to POPPA’s replacement of critical station personnel with crews more ideologically acceptable. Jobs on Ziva Two were handed out like ripe plums, these days, as a reward to loyal supporters of the cause. POPPA’s upper echelon hadn’t shown the slightest concern that the men and women they were rewarding were incompetent.

  What they did very well, however, was scan cargo for contraband, levy staggering fines, and skim right off the top, helping themselves to substantial portions of the fines collected and appropriating “contraband” passing through the station in both directions. More than one irate captain had threatened to drop the Jefferson route, entirely. Scuttlebutt held that POPPA had paid some pretty hefty “incentive fees” to keep the freighters running.

  Kafari had finally said, “Look, my cousin Stefano Soteris is one of your crewmen. Ask Stefano what it means when Kafari Khrustinova gives her personal word of honor that this error will be fixed.”

  “I’ll do that,” Captain Aditi said in a voice as cold as interstellar vacuum.

  Eight minutes later, a vastly calmer captain called again, with a look in her eyes that made Kafari wonder just what Cousin Stefano had been saying. “Mrs. Khrustinova, you have my apology, ma’am. I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”