“If you can hear me, walk directly south.” As he didn’t respond and no movement toward the shore happened, I knew the liquid kept the sound dampened as well.
We had chosen to sleep on an almost imperceptible slope near the ocean. A tiny rise in the level made a huge difference as to where the shoreline was. My black and white memories called it a tidal flat. It took until almost high sun the next day to get Sancho’s aural receptors below tide level and give him instructions.
During that miserable day, I realized that the sea must have a cyclic phase to it, being much smaller during the day when it is hotter and the air can hold more vapor, and then growing during the night when the air gives up that vapor. It might also have something to do with the moons, but the reason didn’t matter. I lost my knife, about half of my reserve batteries and a few of my precious repair tools. I also lost about three days—one bobbing around like a cork and the other two waiting for Sancho’s batteries to recharge.
It gave me plenty of time to ponder my failure. I knew I had to do better, not just for my little command but for Six as well. I couldn’t afford another such lapse. It might be fatal. We slept well away from the liquid from that time on.
Despite the great volcano and cloud show all night and all day for our pleasure, our quest soon became almost as monotonous as the travel on open fields of barb grass. At least I had a companion to help ease the boredom.
I used up time acting out plays, reading aloud books and poetry, or even playing music that could be reproduced by my voice. It was enjoyable to me. Sancho never complained except when I tried to augment the music with my own singing. He would drop to the ground and press his huge purple ears against his head with his paws, waving frantically with his trunk. Even friendship must have its limits, I surmised.
I refrained from singing.
Between acts of plays, chapters of books, chamber music, or even listening to the hypnotic sound of the metallic breakers against the often rocky shore, I studied the huge conic island in the center of the ocean which belched forth the spiral of contaminated mercury vapor into the air. The volcano vaporized nearby mercury and flung it up into the air where most of it condensed from the supersaturated atmosphere and fell out as rain. From the proliferation of dead on the beaches, I could only assume that the volcano had come into existence relatively recently and changed the local ecology drastically. It probably wasn’t doing the environs of the entire planet a great deal of good either, changing weather patterns and decreasing the temperature worldwide.
“You think it looks like rain?” I asked my traveling companion one early evening. Over the last week, one of the arms of the cloud vortex leisurely swung our direction. While I was not, in theory, worried about the rain, I would never again be nonchalant about a storm.
“Maybe it won’t rain today, but I do have to say I’m worried about the lack of light, Sancho. Those clouds have blocked out 12 percent of my daily charge. I thought once we crested the mountain range our power issues were over. Apparently not. If that cloud cover continues, we’ll have to decrease our travel time.”
“Fert.”
I spun around to look at my traveling companion. At first I thought I had heard some other sound, but playing it back across my processor’s inputs, my binaural placed Sancho’s vocalization with incredible accuracy. I didn’t know what he meant but it heartened me. “Incredible! Glad to hear you, my friend. Speak up any time.”
In appreciation, I performed Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano De Bergerac in its original French rhyming couplets with as much panache as I could muster. How better to understand something than in its original form. I danced through the sword fights and even managed to hold the line against the Spanish all as we continued to walk along the shore. I also managed to die in my beloved Roxanne’s arms, while playing both parts.
My friend gave no applause, no cheers, in fact no indication he’d even heard me. There once was an award given by Humans to exceptional performers. I wondered if my performance, given while still moving, might have warranted a Tony in spite of my companion’s lack of input. Maybe at least honorable mention for having stage-managed the effort en situ.
After another sleep, I realized my concerns about sunlight had not been paranoia.
“I don’t know about you, my friend, but my batteries are beginning to lose charge. What would you say to dropping our travel time to eight hours?...As I thought…a capital idea.”
We did have a choice. We could have traveled two days in three or we could opt to only travel eight of the twelve hours available to us each night. I chose the latter. I never really wanted to stay in one place any longer than necessary. Too many things could jump out at you when you least expected it. I brushed my paw against my lower leg, remembering that even biologics that seem harmless could be as dangerous as a loaded gun pointed at your head.
Even slowed as we were, it wasn’t the worst. Huge cloudbanks continued to break free from the main mass and spin out to torture the weather of other regions. The vapor would eventually fall out in other places as rain as soon as the concentration was high enough, or the air got cold enough. Because of the heat of this planet, the clouds drifted for great distances, blotting out the sun as they traveled. It made for nights where Sancho and I couldn’t travel at all for the daylight charge hadn’t sufficed.
During the third such night we sat as I discussed our progress. Boredom during these times provided our most significant problem. But tonight wouldn’t be one of those.
“I think we have another three weeks or so before we will be close to the next Factory. It’ll probably take another—”
The granddad of all basilisks, 12 meters long and nearly 3 high at the shoulder, wriggled over a dune 20 meters away with a quickness that belied its bulk.
“Ferweet!” Sancho trumpeted as he bolted. I didn’t have Sancho’s ignorance. I knew I couldn’t outrun this beast. Unfortunately, I didn’t process the correct action until it was too late.
The basilisk lunged forward. It bit sand as I rolled to one side. One of its claws gouged a furrow in my fur but didn’t penetrate. My M16 now lay 3 meters on the other side of the creature.
The reptile turned toward me and pounced again. Still lying down, I had only one choice. I rolled the other direction, even farther away from my weapon. At 20 meters, with the fastest biologic I’d ever seen in between, the assault weapon might as well have been at the bottom of the ocean.
I didn’t recover from my roll in time to react fully to the next attack. Instead of ending up in the creature’s maw, it butted me in the chest with its horn, tossing me 5 meters. Several acceleration sensors sent priority interrupts. Ignoring any potential damage I’d taken, I took the advantage by scrambling to my feet.
The basilisk turned rapidly again and charged. This time I would act rather than react. Time dilated now so that every millisecond seemed weeks long.
I could watch the flow of its muscles in the wriggling gait it used so effectively. Not a single spec of sand or dirt marred the aged skin except around its drooling muzzle. Shark-like rectangular teeth framed its open maw, an opening large enough to fit several teddies.
As its hot breath closed enough to ruffle my fur, I vaulted straight up. The lizard’s forward momentum carried me over its horn, my crotch clearing the shining peak with only 6 centimeters’ clearance. The massive force of the creature’s jaws closed on air. Landing on the reptile’s back in a crouch, I could feel the coarse skin under my pads. Without pausing I bolted down its length.
Unhappy with its loss of prey, the lizard thrashed first one way and then the other. I fought to maintain my balance. At the end of its torso I leaped. The creature rolled onto its back at just the same moment. My left foot twisted badly beneath me as it landed on the ground.
No time to worry about minor damage. I turned off all my safeties and ran at emergency speed.
The basilisk rolled back onto its six legs and turned around within a cloud of crimson dust. Like lighting it
shot out at me. In spite of its speed, my processor assured me I’d reach my weapon fifty-six milliseconds before the basilisk could reach me. Scant margins didn’t stop my overheating hydraulics from trying to pump faster.
I executed a running scoop of the assault rifle. I didn’t bother wasting any of my 5.56-millimeter ammunition on it by even flipping off the safety.
As the saw-like teeth closed in on me, I bounced up enough to put my feet on the creature’s snout and pushed. This sent me flying through the air, just in front of the bear-trap mouth. Fumbling just a moment for the switch, I turned on the untested shock-prod. As I landed, I let the creature’s own movement shove the entire thing, my arms and shoulders included, down its own gullet.
The creature executed one bone-crushing body convulsion as it slid to a halt. With my arms still well inside, I stopped as well, envisioning my arms being snapped off. The mouth never closed, at least not in an organized sheering motion. Then in several seconds of highly animated spasms, the basilisk threw itself about, flailing first to one side and then the other with no coordination before it finally came to a complete rest.
As my processor slowed down and time came to its correct speed, I withdrew my limbs. I inspected them in disbelief as they remained intact. Tremors ran through all of my hydraulics. It took several seconds to bring them under control enough to stand. As I did, a puff of earth shook from my bright red–coated fur. I made a half-hearted attempt to dust myself off.
With a good deal of righteous indignation I tore the beast’s barrel-thick horn from its corpse. I envisioned a chest plate like that Don Quixote wore in the illustrations by de Cervantes in his original works, but how I would carry such a burden I couldn’t process.
Stabbing the body with my knife or even bludgeoning it with the butt of my M16 and the body reformed, even after its death. I felt that nothing short of a grenade in the gullet would stop the beast and I had my doubts about that. Maybe its mercury-based chemistry allowed it to take on some of the silver metal’s properties? I already had a very effective method to dispose of it, so there was no reason to worry. I’m not a scientist. The body began to decompose and dissolve even as I watched.
It seemed such a waste.
Searcher
Most of my injuries were low priority, not even worth spending processing power on. In the fight with this basilisk I’d once again lost a small amount of motive power. My ankle, while sustaining only minor damage, would slow my travel speed by 8 percent. Time was not on my side as I had a Factory to find and my errant squire to chase. All of this before I could even hope to go to the aid of my fair Dulcenia…I mean Six.
While Sancho’s departure probably had been the wise thing for him to do, it left me in a lurch. I couldn’t abandon my friend, but I couldn’t exactly waste time on him either. All of this would be more than useless if I arrived too late to help Six.
Putting it off never got anything done. I dropped the basilisk horn on the grayed out portion of the sand where the body had once laid. With a quiet prayer to the Humans, I set off after my charge.
It pleased me that once again, through dumb luck, Sancho’s path of flight took him only 8 degrees off my current planned course.
“I’ll tear his batteries out, one by one,” I muttered under my breath after three days of following his obvious tracks. “I’m already 16.2 kilometers off course and I still haven’t found him.”
“I’m going to deactivate him. Humans strike me down if I won’t. Maybe after I short out his main bus bar.”
As much as I cursed him, I couldn’t leave him to his fate. I created him and I was responsible. Every night I’d put up a local area net and try to capture him by a command. Night after night it failed.
A week later I cursed him even more as I traveled into the foothills. His tracks became harder to follow on the broken stone ground. At one point the imprints stopped entirely over a solid granite slab 156.3 meters across. It took three hours on the other side to pick up his trail again. Had his course deviated significantly over the rock, I’d have never found it.
I feared a rainstorm. The pounding of mercury on the soil would wash away all sign of his movements. Again, dumb luck seemed to serve us as eight more frustrating days later my LAN caught his IFF beacon.
“I’m coming for you, Sancho. Better protect your deactivation switch!” The track took me to the base of a 706-meter cliff sheered ominously over a vertical rock. In the dark shadow of that structure, Sancho leaned against the rock, motionless.
“You stupid ghit! You need sunlight, not the protection of some rocks. Get out here now.”
Sancho remained still.
“We don’t have time for this. Come here!”
Sancho didn’t respond.
With some trepidation, I moved under the ponderous weight of the stone. One eye watched above me and the other watched Sancho’s catatonic form. From the outside he didn’t look any the worse for wear.
“You better be deactivated, you pathetic pachyderm, or you will be!” Even as I neared I couldn’t hear his hydraulic pump. This worried me. If he fully lost all power, his sump would have stopped processing fluid and he would have nothing more than a brain case full of black goo.
Recklessly, I rushed in the rest of the way and tore open his access panel. While at dangerously low levels, his batteries still kept his sump and processor active.
I took one of the spare batteries out of my backpack and made an emergency swap with one of his. They weren’t the same physical size, but I knew the voltages were compatible. It would give him enough power until I could get him charged. He looked silly with the black battery dangling out of one ear, but function vastly outweighed form in this case.
It took me the rest of the night to drag his heavy carcass out of the cave. I think I overstressed every one of my joints hauling him over the rocks and sand. I got him clear of the overhang just as the morning sun began to warm the crimson sands. I collapsed right next to my patient. It had been a close thing, I knew. Had it taken even another few hours for me to find him, or if I hadn’t been carrying spare batteries, Sancho might not have survived.
I was glad, and somehow warmed, that I had found him in time. I was beginning to realize just how much I cared for the addled critter. And while he never got any more intelligent, nor did he ever talk, he became symbiotic. I trusted his footing, when there was any doubt, more than my own. But why he took refuge under an overhang, I hadn’t a clue. I would have to make it clear that he was only to sleep in the sun.
That night Sancho acted normal again. He sat up pointing toward our objective, now a full 61 kilometers from where we should be had there been no detour.
“Not tonight, Sancho. We need to charge you up. Your design will hold about three days’ worth of charge.”
Sancho flopped back to the ground.
“OK. There are a couple of rules we need to discuss.
“First, no matter what, you should stop in the sun. We don’t have a net concentrator we can suck power from.
“Second, if we ever get separated again, travel no more than one day before you stop. Stay stopped for at least one week. If I don’t show up, come looking for me. If you can’t find me within a week, you are on your own.”
I never knew if Sancho actually understood the things I told him. At least I said it. If he didn’t follow the instructions, I knew I could leave him as damaged property.
Sancho proved over the next few weeks that even without olfactory senses he could almost smell a basilisk—we avoided four of the aggressive predators. I don’t know whether we’d stumbled upon a breeding ground of the creatures or they were just thick on the ground. In three of the cases Sancho just pulled me bodily to the ground, effectively hiding behind a dune. Only catching a glimpse of the creature in the distance as Sancho released me let me know what we had been up against.
At the fourth basilisk incident, Sancho trumpeted a warning. We were able to scramble up on top of a rock spire, which forced the creat
ure to us. A quick jab with my basilisk prod finished it off. We barely broke stride.
We surmounted physical challenges aplenty—like the time we negotiated another river, me being drug along the surface by Sancho’s walking steadily along the bottom, or the cliff I climbed while I lifted Sancho with a block and tackle, or an even more powerful rainstorm than the last where we sat huddled under a convenient slab of slate lying on top of a large boulder giving us shelter.
All of these and more could be surmounted with a bit of elephant power or something called elbow grease, which didn’t process as grease wasn’t used in the elbow joint. But then that brought up another problem—my lube needed changing.
The one little spit and dribble I’d got from that Nurse Nan about ten lifetimes ago was long gone, and I worried over the state of all my fluids. Only joint lubricant, of all my solutions, maintained a satisfactory rating. I’d shut off the critical interrupts and alarms long ago. I could only imagine the cumulative damage. So desperate was I that I wondered about rending some of the local fauna over a fire to collect their fats. If pressed, I might try it but I didn’t relish the thought. We kept moving. Maybe we would get lucky.
On the 205th day since the inception of my journey, the day commemorating the second anniversary of my activation, Sancho stumbled over a train track half buried in the sand.
“So, are we there yet?”
Diplomat
“What do you think, Sancho,” I asked after I had watched for almost ten minutes. Sancho and I kept down behind a small sand dune as not to be spotted by the train full of military units and material speeding along.
We’d felt the train coming through the tracks themselves, some three days after we discovered them. It prompted us to take cover.
At this distance we were unlikely to be noticed even if a unit caught sight of one of us. The train seemed endless out on this lonely stretch of track with nothing really visible on either horizon. The train was an infinite bouncing line. With no sense of beginning or end the train barely seemed to be moving. The size of the immense train showed a similar number of units to the previous Factory I’d met. It seemed it could swat Six at any time.
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