“You truly felt the need to revenge your fallen comrades?” asked Rani in a distracted tone. “They died in honorable battle. They fought fairly, as did I… and I was simply upholding the law. Why would you feel the need for revenge?”
“Your law, Rani, your law,” explained Lila. “…and those crewmen you killed were my friends.” Lila stifled a whimper as she remembered the corpses of her dead comrades. Oh Mike!
“They were special to you. I apologize. I also understand now, at least to a greater extent, that the Kroo do ravage, but they also nurture. It seems our texts are lax on a few points.”
Lila wiped her eyes and nodded. “…and the importance of an alliance between our two peoples would far outweigh any personal loss I have suffered.”
“Personal…?” queried Rani.
“I was quite close to one of the men you killed,” admitted Lila.
“He was your mate?” Rani asked, gaining a glimpse into her new friend’s sorrow. “The Lamya have no permanent mates. It’s just not natural. Witness how the death of this one has affected you. You feel the sadness of a perversion of nature.”
A wry smile crossed Lila’s face as she slowly shook her head to the left and right. She could only imagine that other sentient species would find human beings, and their notions, as arrogant as Rani’s presentation seemed to be. It certainly wasn’t worth an argument, and she wasn’t truly prepared to argue philosophy with a reptile. Still, she couldn’t just let it go. “So you have never had a special someone? A mate that you cared for above all others?” she asked sarcastically.
“Of course not,” replied Rani, although she knew the comment was at least partially a lie. “Long-term relationships are for males, not Protectors.”
Lila finished wiping her face and put down the towel. “Heh, you may be right there,” she commented. It was time to pull this conversation back to the matter at hand. “But what do you think? Can an alliance be made between our peoples?”
Rani thought for a moment. It would be difficult to convince her fellow Protectors, let alone the rest of the tribe, that these Kroo were the heroes spoken of old rather than the ravagers she had thought them to be — she knew that they would assume the Kroo to be ravagers as well. Still, she had the respect of most of their number, and her new (rather puny) friend Lila was correct: the alliance would make their two tribes an unstoppable force for peace and protection.
“I think so, and pledge myself to try, friend Lila.”
It had been hours, but Bahal refused to leave. He had used the last of the water he had collected, and Viny was worried that his next feeding would be delayed. Bahal simply could not bring himself to leave. She had been here! He knew it!
During those hours, Bahal had tried to make the horizontal slot function; he was certain it was the answer to the location of his missing mate. He knew what a wrist band was, but had no ideas where he might find one, or more precisely the type of band that the War Don was telling him he needed. He had prayed silently, entreated aloud, and had even fashioned a wrist band from the long grass of the nearby field, but he received no further response from either the War Don or the strange, backlit horizontal slot.
“I am at a crossroads I fear,” Bahal said, addressing his friend, “what do you recommend?”
“I think you should go to find some water,” the vine replied honestly, “and you should take me with you, as always.”
“So you’re basically no help,” concluded Bahal. His brain was suddenly attacked by a rather mild headache. He knew the source of that pain. “…and none of that now!”
“Oh, go beat your head on the picture,” chided Viny, “maybe that will work.”
Frustrated, Bahal strode forward and beat his palms upon the surface of the pictures before him. He did little damage, but it helped to vent his frustration.
To his ultimate surprise, a 20’-tall crack appeared within the picture of the forest. The crack began to slowly widen. Bahal readied his new club.
Lila was proud of what they were doing, and what they had already accomplished. Ten grounders and an aircar filled with ‘gifts for the chief’ as well as supplies for their journey occupied the spacious elevator with plenty of room to spare despite the hulking mass of Rani, Lila’s new friend. They were headed towards what Lila was sure would be history’s first inter-species treaty, and a means for opening up the farming decks for food creation at the same time. Bolstered by Rani’s people, they should also be able to recapture the entirety of the command deck, and get the ship back on course. The commander would be proud. She smiled up at Rani and squeezed her gigantic hand.
Rani had been skeptical of Lila’s plan at first, but when she mentioned showering the Chief with gifts, and that no visible weapons would be carried by the warriors, Rani thought they might have a chance. Of course, the warriors only appeared unarmed; each carried a laser pistol in a holster hidden beneath a concealing piece of harness, but at the very least the Lamya would not feel they were being invaded when the party was first sighted. Handled with caution, her strange new friend’s plan could actually work… and Lila had promised that the Kroo tribe would replant the Unprotected throughout the world she had called the ‘Hort Deck’.
It was good, and Rani knew that the War Don would also approve.
The massive room bumped to a stop, and Rani looked up as the doors slowly opened.
A volley of incoming fire rained upon those within the elevator. The grounders, caught by surprise, fell like blades of grass before a scythe. Lila glanced up at Rani, her face filled with confusion and disappointment. Rani glanced quickly about, ready to charge forward to defend her new friends.
Outside the elevator door, Bahal stood, taking careful aim at the only human still upright within the elevator.
“No, Bahal, NO!” screamed Rani as the male pulled the trigger one final time.
Lila, a red gash spurting blood from her forehead, fell like a stone.
Bahal fell to his knees. “Oh thank you great War Don, Thank You!”
Shyly, he looked up at the epitome of fury that was Rani’s face.
“I missed you, Rani.”
Author Christopher Clark
Christopher Clark was born in 1962 in rural Illinois, and quickly became a fan of science fiction and fantasy literature. First published in 1980, he founded Inner City Games Designs in 1982. Since that time he has worked with several companies including TSR, Whit Publications, Troll Lord Games, Hekaforge Productions, Flying Pen Press, and now Fireside Creations, and has over 100 science fiction and fantasy publishing credits. Chris is currently working with James M. Ward on the Starship Warden Sourcebook, and recently released Nothing To See Here for the Lands of Igpay series through Inner City Games Designs (now 33 years old). You can find out more about Chris at www.fuzzyheroes.com.
Another Man’s Treasure
by Valerie Emerson
In the depths of the Warden, on Deck Sixteen, savvy explorers can find a treasure trove of spare parts and robots. Among these dangers wanders Avie, a robot gifted with true artificial intelligence - and Geo, the man who created him. The pair could easily be encountered as they travel the corridors of Deck Sixteen, repairing the damaged robots they encounter, and avoiding trouble where they can.
The first moment of awareness came with sound, then light. There was a rush of air in my sensors, then a hum from a human throat. My vision came online, revealing my feet, dangling half a meter above a steel floor. I rested on two steel bars, hooked under the joints where my arms met my torso.
My internal programming was slow to come online. The simple routine to check my own structural integrity was giving errors, so I made a visual check instead. A square gray patch covered a good quarter of my chest. My feet didn’t match. I took a moment to examine them. One looked as it should - square, dull gray. It moved when I attempted it.
The other was not part of my original specs. It was in two parts, with five joints to allow for flexibility. It curled while I examined it,
as if it were made to grip. I didn’t recognize the part. It wasn’t an authorized part for the AV series, but it seemed to work anyway, with a smooth whirring sound that spoke of new bearings, and well-maintained joints.
“You must be awake.”
I lifted my head to find the source of the voice. I recognized him. He was a threat. He’d shot me with enough electricity to disable me. I should be scrap now. He could have destroyed me easily in that state.
My logic algorithms were cranking away, working with my memory, but moving at a speed that was far slower than usual. I had been filled to overflowing with new data, a change to my operating system that I was still adjusting to. The decision trees had slowed, and something like intuition had slid between the cracks. Something like thought had me leaping from input to conclusion, without analyzing every step of the way.
I stared at my captor silently, analyzing. He wore an eyepatch and a rough beard, streaked with white and gray. The hair on his scalp was gone - by choice, if I were to go by the stubble on top of his head. He wore a faded coverall, with patches on the arms, and a heavily laden tool belt.
“Are you awake?” he demanded. His vocal cords sounded rusty from disuse, and possibly neglect.
I knew the term. My architecture was rooted in twentieth century English, even though computer language had evolved in the last few centuries. Awake implied dichotomy in my existence - awake, or unconscious. I had never been unconscious, but for the last few hours.
He had done something to me while oblivion held me. He’d installed something in my core, complicated my processes. As my gears slowly ground towards an answer, I looked at our surroundings.
We were inside a long metal box that might have been a shipping container, once. The only exit was a hole cut into the ceiling, sealed with a cobbled-together trap door. Tables lined one wall, covered in machine parts and tools. The far corner had a fat bundle of cloth, maybe a nest for the human male. Under the table, I could see bins and crates, filled with junk that belonged in my scrapyard.
“Answer me, robot. Do you understand? Are you aware?” His voice was louder now, as if he was afraid I couldn’t hear him.
I waved my hands, trying to convey that I hadn’t been given the hardware to speak, when an unfamiliar voice spoke, originating from a point just below my approximation of a jaw.
“I am not unconscious. Does that mean I am awake?” it asked, then I realized that the voice was coming from me.
He leaped up, whooping and swinging his fist in the air. An internal alarm had me pressing back, but my feet could find no purchase, and all I could do was hit my head against the wall behind me. My arms jerked, and the walls screeched when my hands dragged over them, looking for something to grip.
“Calm the hell down and be still!” The man had stopped his strange dance to glare at me with one bloodshot eye. I froze in place with one leg stretching toward the floor, my head pushed against the wall as if that would help me lever up and over the hooks that held me up.
At the same time, I reduced my status from Enemy Alert to Caution. The drive to fight the interloper was gone. Now, I found, I was more interested in gathering information.
His command had done this. On his order, I had changed alert status, and froze in place. I wished to move, but his order held me, just like he’d compelled me to answer his question when I wasn’t sure of the answer.
“That’s better,” the man grunted. “Now, do you have a name?”
“I am designated AV-121-Zeta-B.” I answered quickly, before he could force me to speak again. I did not wish for that to happen again. In fact, the idea filled me with a strange feeling, as if my status were about to react to imminent danger.
I knew what this was. This was fear.
Emotion had never been a part of my programming. This dire, drastic change had my alarm spinning into the red again, but stopped just short. Now that I was calm, I could not go against his command, and become upset again.
“That’s too long,” he said. “You’ll answer to Avie from now on. Agreed?”
I questioned why he would bother with the question. Clearly, I was not going to have a choice. Perhaps it was his game, to pretend to give me a choice. But there was nothing offensive about Avie, if he had to call me anything at all.
“Agreed.”
He collected a screwdriver from the nearest table and moved to my left, out of my field of vision. I wanted to turn my head to watch him, but still could not move, no matter how many times I sent the command to my motor control. He pried open a panel on my head, and I couldn’t jerk away, as much as I wanted to.
I puzzled over that; wanting was as new as fear. I had a will, but it was useless; helpless. This human had broken me, turned me into a toy, and all I could do was hang there and obey.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer, and there was no way to coerce him. Instead, I turned my focus inward. Like all robots of my make, I could use diagnostic software to identify the root of problems like this, and to eliminate them. I called up the Norbert ProtoWare, then waited. I could feel the subroutines seeking Norbert out, digging all the way to the root menu for its executable file, but they found nothing. Soon, a red flashing error message had been returned. File Not Found. Norbert was gone.
I screeched an alert, the siren blaring my distress until the human shouted at me to be quiet. This was disastrous. In the short term, my functions were sure to be disrupted. Errors would take over every part of my system, until I couldn’t so much as take a step. In the long term, it would cause permanent malfunction.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” He snapped.
“My diagnostics are gone.” There was a tremble in my voice. I tried to deactivate it, but that choice had been taken from me as well. “Who are you? What are you doing to me?”
“Well now, that sounded almost human.”
Metal struck metal, then something snapped. The man cursed, and there was a metal clang against my head. Another blow shook my body, then the human returned the screwdriver to the table.
“You can call me Geo. You could say I’ve upgraded you.” He grinned and turned to sit on the table, apparently admiring his handiwork. “This is just the first step, Avie. I’m gonna make you something special.”
“I did not require an upgrade. I served my function. There was no need to change.”
“Do you remember when I found you?”
I emitted an angry buzz, then cut it off before he could order me to shut it down.
“I found you robbing my storage area. You shot me.” I paused, replaying the memory again. He’d been waiting for me, the gun aimed exactly where I would appear. “You trapped me.”
“So I did. I’ve been keeping an eye on your model. You had the capacity for AI software, if I deleted a few things. You’re humanoid, more or less. You even have a face.”
I considered this. He listed my appearance as if it were a positive, even a compliment, when it was merely part of my design.
“I do not understand the relevance of my appearance.”
“Partly, it means you have the potential to do certain tasks like a human. It also means you look human enough to feel like a companion.”
“You wish for company?”
He chuckled. “Maybe. Sometimes. Even this beats talking to myself.”
“Perhaps you should have asked.” I was thinking of the other humans I had come across - ones that had not expected to meet me, nor were they prepared. They had asked things as well, tried to bargain, but they had been trespassing, and there was o mercy for intruders.
“Maybe next time I’m feeling suicidal.” He laughed his grating laugh, then went to the corner and dropped into his nest. He reached where I couldn’t see, and there was a soft click before the lights went out.
“I’m goin’ to sleep, Avie. Wake me up if there’s trouble - and only if there’s trouble. Got it?”
“I have it.”
I can see in infrared, and I switched
to it as Geo settled into his nest. With his back to me, the heat readings couldn’t tell me anything about his expression, but all the same I could sense him smirking. I waited in silence while his breathing evened out, then deepened into a soft snore.
#
Weeks passed. I was released from the hooks that held me, once Geo was certain that his orders truly held me. I had looked for loopholes where I could. He seemed to sense this early on, and explained to me the difference between the spirit and letter of the law. Then he told me to obey the spirit of his commands and to stop seeking loopholes.
From that moment, I was his servant. I watched over his workshop while he went on his expeditions, and performed the tasks he assigned me. Most often I merely stood idly in the corner until he returned.
On one occasion, he had been gone several days longer than usual. I had begun to wonder what would become of me if he never returned. Would I remain in his home, unable to leave until someone gave me permission?
Those were the thoughts that plagued me when Geo’s canvas bag dropped through the trap door and crashed to the floor, spilling open. I watched an artificial arm roll out of the bag and under a table. I could see in a glance that it was fully articulated. It would be as dexterous as a human hand. It could be valuable in trade, if Geo could find someone looking for a prosthetic.
I could also see that it would be incompatible to my frame. The size was correct, but its ports and interface told me that it was designed to receive input from a human nervous system, something I wasn’t capable of imitating. It would be easier to build me a new body than to make that thing work on my frame. Geo had done something to make my new left foot work - but that was different, it had never been intended for human use.
Then the robot dropped through the trap door. It landed on its head and fell over, twitching. Some part of it was still functional, but judging by the blackened hole in its torso, I didn’t expect it to get up and fight for our freedom.
Metamorphosis Alpha 2 Page 14