Standing up, Sabre approached the nearest pole, which gleamed silver. He ran his fingers down its mirror-smooth surface. It hummed softly, and he slid his hand slowly around it. A sheet of blue light shot from the pole nearest it in a wall of brilliance, and he snatched his hand away, receiving a tingling jolt in his fingers that made him retreat, rubbing his hand. His fingers were reddened and singed.
The cyber's information scrolled in his mind, and he read it. The blue light was super-charged plasma, instantly lethal if it hit a large portion of a human body, and considerably damaging to him. He might survive two strikes. The pole beside him had absorbed the plasma and now hummed more loudly, and he surmised that it was not discharged unless it struck a target, then some would be lost. The power circulated amongst the poles, moving to intercept any attempt to cross the barrier. That could mean that the power was finite, and the ship could not recharge the array unless it somehow drew them back into itself. How had they been deployed if the ship had no crew?
Sabre walked along the line of poles, noting the piles of bones between some of them. They appeared to be the skeletons of the quadruped beasts, which must have wandered between the deadly posts while grazing, or had been drawn to the ship by curiosity. He stopped beside a pole and pushed on it to test its strength, finding it solid. Gazing at the ship again, he wondered if he would be able to enter it if he could get inside the array. Lasers were not ideal for burning through metal, however, and he only had five power packs, besides which, a ship's hull was always incredibly tough. If it was a ship, which remained debateable. If it was not, he was wasting his time.
A distant thudding made him glance around. A glint of metal marked the approach of the war bot, which his triggering the pole had evidently summoned. It moved with remarkable speed, its gait rocking, but it lacked the arm swing of a human, a legacy of a time when men had walked on all fours. Sabre watched it approach, certain that he could outrun it if necessary. It slowed several metres away, as if it did not want to frighten him, and stopped as soon as he took a step back, about two metres away, which was the limit of his comfort zone when faced with a four-metre tall metal monstrosity.
A hooting came from behind and above him, and he turned as two of the flying creatures landed several metres away. They looked like large grey birds with round, snouted faces and binocular orange eyes. Sagging sacks of wrinkled skin hung from their short throats, and their tail feathers brushed the ground as they stalked closer on thin, stilt-like legs tipped with cloven hooves. Their wings hung loosely at their sides, and clawed hands sprouted from the wrist joint. They studied him with intelligent eyes, glancing past him at the war bot.
Sabre whipped around as an ear-piercing screeching came from the bot, plugging his ears. The sound lasted only a few seconds, then alien data scrolled through his mind again. He lowered his hands and shook his ringing head, glaring at the bot. The cyber sorted through the new data, finding it as unintelligible as that which it had received from the ovoid. The bot stood immobile, as if waiting for a response. Sabre considered asking the cyber to send the same machine code greeting to it that it had sent to the ovoid, but that seemed pointless since the ovoid had not responded well to it.
The bot made a sibilant hissing with whispery variations that could have been alien words. Sabre cocked his head, sorting through the thousands of alien tongues stored in his brain, but did not find a match. The grey birds cooed. The bot spoke in a deep, distorted voice, the alien words hard to discern. It had not finished its sentence when Sabre recognised it, and his brow wrinkled in a puzzled frown.
"Charil?" Sabre wondered how it knew an ancient language spoken by rather unintelligent reptilian aliens found on the distant desert planet Trilith Two, which had been explored and discarded as useless. Charil was hard for a human to speak, due to the odd sounds the reptiles used as words.
"I'm a friend," Sabre said in Charil, his words a little mispronounced, but understandable. The hardest sounds to make were the whirring noises that Dromalins made through their gill slits. Sabre repeated the sentence in the most common human tongue, which he and Tassin used. The bot's head swivelled towards the ship, then turned to him again.
"Are you human, or machine?" it asked in perfect Anglo.
"Both. Is your companion a ship?"
"She is Asys. I am Pog."
Sabre's brows rose at its use of the first person when referring to itself. "Is she hurt?"
"Tired."
"How long has she been here?"
"One thousand three hundred and seventy-five revolutions of this planet around its suns. How did you get here?"
"My ship blew up. Can she leave this planet?"
"No. She is not strong enough, and this system is inside a spacial distortion. The only way out is the way we all came in, but it is impossible to navigate."
Sabre glanced at the ship. "Why is she weak?"
"There's no food for her here."
"What does she eat?"
"Aprilan crystals."
"Are you and she the only ones on this planet?"
"Yes. Are you alone?"
"No. Where are you from?"
The bot turned its head towards the ship again, undoubtedly receiving information from it, but on a frequency the cyber was unable to find, for the moment. "I was born here," Pog said, "but Asys comes from far away. She is my mother. She was searching for a mate when she was captured."
"What is she?"
"There is no word for her species in your tongue."
"How do you know my tongue?"
"Asys has studied many species. But you are different from others of your kind. You are more like us."
Sabre nodded. "Will she speak to me?"
"She has no voice, and you cannot speak her tongue."
"Will she teach me?"
"If you have sufficient processing capacity." A beam of red light shot from the war bot's head and swept over Sabre, accompanied by a deep vibrating hum. The cyber reacted instantly, flared electric blue and emitted an infrasound jamming signal, which was used to prevent remote access to its systems. The red beam vanished, and the bot rocked back.
Sabre grimaced and rubbed his ears, frowning. "Don't try to scan me."
"You have surprisingly sophisticated defences. Asys is impressed."
"Good. Why did you choose to attempt verbal communication in Charil, when you knew I was human?"
"What you call Charil was inherited by the lizards from the Vramians, an advanced species. They are similar in form to humans, but use cybernetic enhancements like yours. Before that I tried Trellian, a species of android that became autonomous from their Andrazi creators, and also bear a similar form. Asys did not know that humans were so advanced."
Sabre nodded. "Well, they weren't, a thousand years ago. Perhaps we can help each other. I want to leave this planet, and Asys needs aprilan crystals. Are you equipped with ground scanners?"
"No, but Asys is. There are no aprilan crystals in this solar system."
"Could she consume something similar?"
"Yes, but if you wish her to carry you, she cannot."
Sabre glanced at the slumbering ship. "If she wants to leave this place, she'll need to make it possible."
"You have something she could consume?"
"Perhaps. She's dying, isn't she?"
"Yes."
"Will she be willing to help me in return for her life?"
The bot turned its head towards the ovoid, then faced him again. "Even if she had food, it is impossible to escape this anomaly. She tried many times before she became too weak."
"Perhaps she can with my help."
"How could you help a creature who has navigated space for five thousand years?"
"That remains to be seen, but we'll never know if we don't try."
The bot turned its head towards the forest where the pods were anchored. "She has no need to make bargains with you. The source of energy must be in the two machines you came in."
"Without my hel
p, she'll remain trapped here."
"She does not think you can help her to escape, but the energy will extend her life."
"I think I can, but she'll have to take me and my companions with her."
"Unacceptable. That would require changing her form."
Sabre's brows rose. "She can do that?"
"Yes. But she would find it uncomfortable sustaining biological beings within her body."
"It would only be for a short time. Just take us to the nearest planet inhabited by humans."
The bot was silent for several seconds. "She refuses. The imposition is too great."
"So she's just going to sit there until she runs out of power?" Sabre stepped closer to the ovoid, sensing his chance to make a bargain with the ship slipping away. "I know how to escape this system. I know how we got in here."
"How?"
"I'd have to be pretty stupid to tell you that, wouldn't I?"
"Or you could be bluffing."
"I could be, but I'm not. Is she going to throw away the chance to escape?"
Pog was silent for several seconds again. "Asys could not find the way out, therefore she does not consider you capable of finding it. She has searched the entire system, and sensed nothing."
"No, she wouldn't sense it unless she entered it."
"Asys does not believe you. She instructs me to bring her the energy you speak of."
"I won't allow you to take it."
"You are an insignificant organic being. Your cybernetic enhancements and metallic inner structure are insufficient to prevent me from taking the energy. Asys does not wish me to harm you."
Sabre shook his head and turned to the ship. "You really want me to prove that I can defend the pods' power crystals? Your bot has no weapons. It won't succeed. If I destroy it, you won't be able to communicate with me, and any chance of gaining the energy you require or escaping this place will be gone."
"Asys asks that you give her the energy crystals," Pog said.
"If she agrees to transport my friends and me to an inhabited planet."
"No."
Sabre faced Pog again. "She has no weapons. She needs power for that. That's why you don't have any either. Is the last of her power in the defensive array? Why does she need it, with only these primitive creatures around?" He nodded at the bird-like aliens.
"When she became unable to fly, she erected the defences for any eventuality."
Sabre sighed. "I don't want to fight you, Pog. It's stupid and pointless. Persuade Asys to agree to my bargain."
"She is far older and wiser than I."
"Then I guess there's nothing more to say. Unless she agrees, we'll all die on this planet."
"Tell her where you think the exit to this anomaly is, and, if you prove to be correct, she offers to send aid from your kind once she's free."
Sabre shook his head. "That won't work. The time-space twist that brought us here doesn't stay in the same place. It doesn't even exist continuously on the outside. No one will find it."
"Then I must bring her the energy crystals from your craft. She hungers."
Pog turned and clumped away towards the forest where the pods were anchored. Sabre drew one of his lasers and glanced at the ship. It remained unmoved by his threat, and he aimed at the war bot's head and fired. The beam struck the join between head and torso in a shower of sparks, and molten metal sprayed. Pog swung around and raised its curved arms, its pincers opening. Sabre fired again as it started towards him. The bolt hit the joint once more, leaving a molten hole in the edge of the head, but only a glowing spot on the rim of the torso. The ground trembled as Pog lumbered towards him, and the grey aliens gave booming hoots, spreading their wings.
Sabre drew his second laser and fired them together. Several bolts hit Pog's head in quick succession, each one leaving a glowing hole in the war bot's plating. As the bot reached him, its long arms swinging, Sabre skipped aside, ducked under one arm and fired at its head again. Pog turned with unnerving speed, its steel-clawed feet digging into the ground. It lashed out with an arm, the pincer whipping over Sabre's head as he ducked and fired again. Sparks flew, and wisps of smoke emerged from the holes.
****
Tassin gripped Tarl's arm when the distant war bot attacked Sabre, her heart pounding. He grunted, holding a strange instrument to his eyes.
"This isn't good."
"Can he really beat that thing?"
"Oh yeah, war bots are far too slow to take on a cyber, but he's not at full strength, and they don't get tired."
Tassin tore her eyes from the battle to glance up at him with a frown. "What does that thing do?"
"They're called binoculars. They magnify distant objects."
"I want to see."
"In a minute."
Tassin stared across the valley, her breath catching. Sabre eluded the war bot with ease, making it rip up the ground in its attempts to reach him, its steel arms coming too close for her liking. Several grey birds floated overhead and landed not far from the battling pair, hooting. Tarl turned and handed her the instrument, showing her how to look through it, and she recoiled as the combatants leapt closer inside the device. Streaks of molten metal dribbled from the bot's head, and sparks and smoke streamed from the holes. Sabre fired at it again and again, most of his shots hitting its head, a few striking its torso. Lowering the binoculars, she started down the slope.
"I'm going closer."
Tarl hurried after her. "Yeah, good idea."
A movement caught her eye, and she glanced sideways. A group of four-legged beasts emerged from the forest and stood gazing at the battle with large, limpid eyes set in long-snouted heads, their small pointed ears swivelling. Black tiger stripes patterned their plump brown bodies, and cloven hooves tipped their slender legs. Some had dapples of white on their backs and legs, others had russet spots and golden manes and tails. They nickered softly, as if talking to each other, their eyes bright with interest and intelligence. Several glanced at her and Tarl, their demeanour calm and friendly.
As Tassin drew closer to the battle, she relaxed somewhat. Clearly Sabre easily outmanoeuvred the lumbering bot, which could not stop and turn as quickly as the cyber, due to its mass. When they were about ten metres away, Tarl stopped and put a hand on her arm.
"This is close enough."
The bot staggered as yet another laser bolt struck its head. It slowed, then stopped. Sabre lowered his weapons and glanced at the ovoid. The bot also faced the ovoid before turning to Sabre again.
"You are indeed a worthy opponent, man-machine. My mother wishes to make the bargain with you now."
"Good. I'll bring her the energy, and she must lower the defensive array and make provision for me and my companions."
"She will comply."
"Then we have a deal." Sabre holstered his lasers and swung away, shooting Tassin and Tarl a frown.
Tarl stepped forward. "Wait. How do we know we can trust -?"
"Shut up," Sabre said.
"No, it could just -"
"I said shut up, Tarl."
"But..."
Sabre strode up to him, drew a laser and pointed it at him. "What did I just say?"
Tarl spread his hands. "Hey, there's no need -"
"Yeah there is, if you don't shut up right now."
"Okay, okay."
Sabre put away the laser and headed for the forest, Tarl and Tassin hurrying after him. The group of grey birds kept pace with them, several metres away, and Tassin studied them. When they were halfway to the forest, Sabre slowed, allowing Tarl and Tassin to catch up.
He glanced back at the distant ovoid. "That was bloody stupid, Tarl."
"What the hell do you mean?"
"That's an alien life form. A living ship, if you like. She's probably never encountered the concept of deceit before, but you were about to give her a good education. Machines learn really fast, and I'm sure she's no exception."
"You trust it?"
Sabre nodded. "Yeah, I do. If s
he was planning to double-cross us, she would have agreed to the deal straight away, not tried to take the power crystals by force. Once you'd contaminated her mind with your doubts, I wouldn't, and then we'd be dead."
"How do you know it's not capable of deceit?"
"I just told you."
Tarl said, "That doesn't prove anything except that it thought its bot could take you out, and maybe it thought that was an easier option."
"Even you don't know as much about machines as I do. I've been forced to live with one all my life. Granted, it's primitive compared to that ship, but I'm certain the basic principles apply. Humans evolved through struggle and strife, survival of the fittest, competing against each other in wars and against the forces of nature. We evolved deceit, and some animals did too, but a machine that evolved like that one did would not."
"How do you know how they evolved?"
Sabre shook his head. "I have no idea, but they feed on aprilan crystals, one of the commonest elements found in star systems. They couldn't have had competition in deep space, where they must have evolved. She's not equipped to live on a planet. She's afraid just being here, and I'm surprised she chose to land instead of staying out in space."
"Then why do you think it did?"
The cyber shrugged. "Who knows? Loneliness, perhaps. Even these beasts are company of a sort. Or fear of falling into one of the suns when she ran out of power. A peaceful end is always preferable."
"It's dying?"
"Yeah."
"So you're going to give it the pods' power crystals."
The Cyber Chronicles 06: Warrior Breed Page 5
