“Analyzing.” It took the Factory minutes. I was beginning to wonder if I had somehow damaged its mind. When it did return, its verdict was, “Such a force would control the surface within three standard years, at least thirty years in advance of my own best case projections.”
“Would that be acceptable, Factory?”
“If control as you defined it was maintained, it would be acceptable.”
“I could promise that in lieu of my own Factory’s direct communication.”
“It would agree with your unilateral decision?” The fact that the Factory had actually asked a question instead of a dictum nearly floored me. It must be interested.
“I think I can guarantee it. Six, my Factory, is reasonable in decisions concerning me. I can give you my oath that I will make this happen.”
“That is sufficient, unit.”
“Please call me Don Quixote, or just Don.”
“But your designation is Teddy S12-1 or Teddy 1499.”
“I understand that, but I have gone beyond my initial programming and believe I am entitled to choose my own designation.”
“Very well, Don Quixote.”
“Back to the subject at hand. I’m so certain that Six will agree that I am going to give you something to begin improving your own fighting force. It should also be able to shorten the three years of fighting you mentioned.
“If you were to build units like myself, we would establish a fighting force that would sweep over this land like a heavy rainstorm, flattening everything in our path.” This was a no-lose situation. If Six would agree to this deal, we would be more ready than ever, having upgraded all this Factory’s units. If Six would not agree, it wouldn’t last anyway.
“I will examine you, unit. Come and be probed.” More orders. This Factory’s probe proved to be no different from anything I’d not experience by my own Factory. Immediately afterward it moved to insert a needle into my brain sump. I pushed the needle away with my hand, breaking it off at the base.
“Whoa, wait a moment.”
“You requested that I produce more of your kind. Your own records show that only by removing fluid from your sump, and replacing it in kind, can more of the same units be created.”
“It would be nice to be asked before you go digging around inside my brain case. You are being rude.”
“Null words, ‘nice’ and ‘rude.’ Do you consent or not?”
I lost this battle, but decided the war had been won.
“I consent.” A new needle came down. It took only a few moments of dizziness before the process was over.
“For the time being, I will order my units to cease hostilities with those of 55466. You must now return to your Factory and get it to communicate with me. Contact me on the 3Theta7 channel. As my receivers are covered at night, this contact must be made during the day.”
“Yes. What Factory number are you?”
“Factory 55469 is my designation.”
“And may I have two boons from you, 55469?”
“If they are practical.”
“I would like two CCTs that I can attune to you. This would facilitate my exit from your sphere of control.”
“You shall have it.”
“I am in desperate need of fluid replacements. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t squeak.”
Envoy
After an hour getting my fluids flushed and refilled, Factory 55469, or just Nine, gave me detailed maps of the areas it had scouted. It projected detailed loci of where the additional Factories might be located.
“These calculations are exceptional,” I offered.
“Good data ensures correct calculations,” Nine rumbled.
“I’ll say. You missed my Six’s location by only 2 kilometers and 55474 you tagged within 3 kilometers, as far as my locator can say.”
“I cannot replace your locator in the time you have allocated,” Nine lamented.
“I know, we’ve been through this. It doesn’t help me at all if I arrive too late to save Six.”
“Affirmative.”
While the maps Nine provided might not have any other immediate use, they would aid in any campaign we might make against a Factory that might not be convinced of cooperation. Mentally, such war plans already formed in my head. We would offer each Factory the opportunity to join our cause when shown reason and our massed forces. Any who would not listen would have to be destroyed—razed to the ground. All or nothing.
Nine installed one of its CCTs within me in an operation that took a mere three minutes, four seconds. I immediately started listening to the traffic Nine sent over its WAN. I switched back and forth several times—from massive data overload to silence.
“I would like to get my companion examined by your repair subroutines.”
“Companion?”
“Yes, I have an elephant unit, designation Sancho, which I’ve provided with my level of sentience. We’ve been long out of touch of refurbishment facilities.”
“Agreed.”
“I’ll go get him.”
For the first time in my near-term memory, my joints didn’t grind and my hydraulics didn’t look like tar as I went back out into the bright red light. Sancho stood where I’d left him, his pink coat more red with the constant dust.
“C’mon Sancho,” I said, motioning as I approached. “I’ve convinced Nine to everything we wanted and more. Right now I want you checked over before we take off again.”
Sancho didn’t move.
“Oh, now is not the time to be stubborn when we are so close.”
Sancho didn’t move.
“Come on, you persnickety pachyderm,” I said, this time getting behind him and pushing. Not only did Sancho not move forward but he actively fought against me.
“Ferweet!”
His trumpet pulled me up short. Sancho didn’t sound off without a good reason. I took another examination of the situation.
“There isn’t any problem. See? No basilisks. No units riding down on us. There isn’t even any ground cover for me to fall through.”
I tried pushing him one more time. Sancho pushed me back 3 meters.
“Well, all right you piece of refuse, stay busted up.” Turning back to return to Nine, Sancho’s concerns slapped me in the face, physically as well as figuratively. While still well in the day, the sea level had risen to where it threatened Nine’s audience chamber opening.
“Nine,” I said over a hastily started LAN, “the sea level is up. I don’t know if I can get back out if I go in.”
“Affirmative. Units have reported two sigma higher than expected rainfall in the mountains over the last two days. Likely this will cause a significant rise in sea levels.”
“Well, in that case I’m not going to risk it. Sancho’s systems haven’t been abused as badly as mine so I’m going to move forward with my mission.”
“Affirmative. Train to rendezvous with you in thirty-six minutes.”
“Thank you, Nine. OK, Sancho, let’s head back the way we came. This is going to be easy compared to the last trip.”
We traveled up the train tracks. I, for one, had a lighter heart. Six now had the ally it needed, if we could get the news in time. I could protect my home. Home—a word that evoked a sensation nearly as painful as that of a gunshot wound. Every part of me longed to return. I needed to once more be in the company of Six, to feel its comforting network surround me, to relax my mantle of independence. My pessimism of Six’s state and ability to defend itself was high, but I was bringing salvation.
Home. I wanted to go back. I needed to go back. My adventures had been interesting, but I wanted nothing more than to return and quit giving orders. Put bluntly, I no longer wanted to control. Let Six make the hard decisions.
I had often wished intelligence and feelings didn’t reside within me. I wished that I could be the same as my brother teddies. Sentience is sometimes a curse to those who really try to live up to it. The human Thomas Gray said it best, “Where ignoran
ce is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.”
Nine’s estimate on his train was off by two minutes.
“Toot!” a trio of engines pulled backward, bearing the better part of a battalion of troops. Four of them, a Teddy Bear, a Tommy Tank, a Jeffrey Giraffe, and a Nurse Nan dismounted. The quartet immediately traveled back the way Sancho and I had come. Experimental subjects, I thought.
“Two to board?” I asked the engine.
“Toot, toot.”
Nine arranged a train to the end of his line. That would be two easy days of rest that would save significant time. After dropped we would have another two weeks of humping overland to get home. While optimistic in that one part of my mission succeeded, I feared the worst for Six. I grant that one less enemy harried it, but having seen the might of the other Factories, I worried that having come so far, I might be too late.
“C’mon, Sancho, climb on,” I said, strapping myself down. He edged back two paces.
“This is our ride. If you don’t get on it’ll take weeks of tromping.”
Sancho stepped backward even further, but I noticed he didn’t trumpet in warning. My concerns about Six be trifled with. I unbuckled and climbed off.
“What is wrong?” I asked as I moved up next to him. “We have to go.” Another two steps back. I didn’t have time to wait. I wasn’t going to let my upstart companion potentially be the death of my Factory.
I quickly opened Sancho’s access panel and deactivated his motive power, making sure the power remained active to his brain. While I no longer thought that Sancho would ever be my intellectual equal, nor did I believe he would ever speak, I believed his thoughts, whatever they might be, were his to keep, so I took that extra precaution.
Opening a LAN I confidently ordered, “I want a new detail designated ‘Loaders,’ formed of chasers from even-numbered teddy and Nurse Nan squads. Loaders to obtain two replacement rail lengths off the spares car.”
“Affirmative,” echoed the response from the net. I watched as units dismounted and gathered at a rather bulky car toward the rear of the train. Working together, sixteen units easily lifted each of the steel beams.
“Eight units take each end of each rail. I want both rails directly under this uni…I mean fauna, one just in back of the front legs and one just in front of the back legs.
“Now, center each rail on the mass. Good! All units lift on the count of three. One, two, three.”
Despite my friend’s mass, thirty-two units didn’t strain more than half capacity to lift Sancho.
“Load the fauna onto the flatbed consist forty-six.” The procession looked like an English monarch carried in a sedan chair. “Lay him down on his side.”
Half the detail used the rails to tip Sancho over and the others caught his weight. I didn’t need to tell them to strap him down. Four of the Nurse Nans did this automatically as the teddies and the remaining Nans combined to return the rails to their place.
“Excellent. Re-embark soonest.” I took the opportunity to climb aboard as well. One more obstacle overcome. Fortunately, I’d had the resources at hand to deal with a balky pachyderm.
“Loading detail called off when loaded and strapped in.” It took two minutes to receive thirty-two confirmations.
“Locomotives, if you would please get us started.”
“Tooooooot!” came four different horns combining into one chord.
Within just hours I learned the answer to the question of Nine’s industrial complex. Nine maintained a distributed facility system that straddled the train line at different locations, unlike the centralized affairs of Six and 55474.
The arrangement offered several advantages in that an attack on any portion wouldn’t completely disrupt production. Certain areas could be specialized for one type of unit or one task set that would increase its overall output of that one type without having to change out dies or molds. It also meant that there were no bottlenecks in any physical area, as Six sometimes experienced when an entire trainload of raw materials showed up at once.
The disadvantages seemed equally clear. Guarding each area took nearly the resources of one large plant, multiplying the defense costs. It took time to gather together units from each of the plants. There also could be very little sharing of raw materials so one could run out of a key ingredient, shutting down production, that another could have in abundance.
I stored away facts. I never knew when things like this would become important.
For over two days I was nothing but a passenger. I enjoyed this form of travel as opposed to forging every meter. Distances flew by at a rate 18.6 times faster than Sancho and I could have done ourselves. My best known method for this form of travel involved shutting down for PMs. I opened a LAN.
“Don to Loco 556: Any fauna activity in the neighborhood?”
“Yes.”
One day I’d learn just how literal units could be. “Describe, please.”
“Sixteen bug bunnies, 13,453 flies, 300—”
“Stop,” I barked, once against stymied by minutia. “Is there any indication of a fauna attack in the next forty-eight hours?”
“Negative.”
“Great. If anything at all out of normal mission parameters occurs, contact me over Nine’s normal net with the action code Tango-Romeo-Golf.” I set the interrupt in my processor.
“Affirmative.”
I shut down so my body could perform preventative maintenance long overdue.
Sleep held me until the squeal of the brakes.
The train, now only two cars long, stopped easily at an end-of-line marker. Beyond, stretching to the horizon in either direction, a forest of golden foliage blotted out the sky in an abundance of shining, boat-shaped leaves, each a meter long. The main stems rose from the ground over a meter in diameter in a smooth white color. The train tracks vanished into the cream and citrine woods within meters of entering.
“Why is the end-of-line marker here? Why don’t you continue?” I asked the engine as I dismounted.
“Tracks beyond this point are not maintained,” it responded over the LAN I’d not closed. “They have proved to be untenable. End of line was moved to here two standard months ago as the 7-kilometer extension was deemed too dangerous and costly to hold.” I quickly consulted my memory of the map Nine provided. This particular forest imposed a wall hundreds of kilometers wide but only a few kilometers across. It would cost several days to circumvent or just hours to walk through.
“Too dangerous in what way?”
“I do not have that information.”
“Wonderful,” I remarked absently. “Don Quixote calling Nine,” I bellowed raucously over the net.
“Nine,” came the rusty-edged voice.
“What dangers are in the forest at coordinate R10 by 145?”
“Multiple fauna attacks.”
“What form do they take?”
“Attacks come at tremendous speed and units do not respond after an attack. No other information available.”
“Thanks for nothing,” I said. I was getting this sarcasm thing down to a science. Granted, only Sancho could understand it right now but it did make me feel better. “Don out.”
I dismounted and turned back to my friend. As I released the tie-downs that held him to the flat car, I thought about the situation. I ran several simulations on Six’s survival. My statistical universe of resource data was unfortunately small. I put together several curves and scenarios. At one extreme these showed Six already overrun and yet at the other extreme Six could remain viable for another three years.
“Locomotive, I wish you to deactivate for exactly one hour. When you reactivate you may return to WAN control.”
“Affirmative. Deactivating.”
“Locomotive?” No response.
The answer was obvious. Once more we needed to cast our lives into the breach for Six. I didn’t see that I had a choice. Time pressed on us again. Going around the deadly weald could take an additional week. Computations stated i
t might not have the time. Even more, forewarned I couldn’t imagine a fauna that could take both Sancho and I.
My mind made up, I reactivated my friend. Simultaneously, I transferred my command pathways through Six’s CCT. “Wake up, my friend.”
Sancho looked around carefully. He stood just like on a new morning waking. He climbed off the train and resumed his normal place, a few paces behind me.
“Ready to go into danger again, friend? We need to be very careful because of a reported fauna in this area.” I downloaded the pertinent data Nine provided.
I looked at the easy escape available by train. Then I walked boldly but stupidly forward into my world’s excuse for a forest with my M16 at the ready in my arms and my friend at my side.
The yellow canopy blocked out most light except the area cleared for the rail line. I needed no other variables in this experiment so I resolved to follow this lighted path. Sancho and I crept forward at less than half our normal rate through the gloom, the muzzle of my weapon training back and forth almost at random.
Out of sight of the train engine, I could almost feel Sancho relax. I wish I could say the same about me. My bus voltage fluctuated wildly. That did spawn an interesting process. Were Sancho’s feelings because he had been too long alone with me or had he been truly nervous about our allies?
“So are you bothered by units in general, or are we making a mistake trusting this Factory?” As usual Sancho said not a single word, but he did look at me. The look comforted me enough that my voltages started to sag. It helped me push on, with Sancho at my side—comrades in arms and in life.
“I must be picking up bad habits, Sancho,” I offered fifteen minutes later. “I’m jumping at shadows.” I stopped my unnecessary weapon movements, but continued at a slower pace.
“Splat,” came a sharp sound to my right. I jumped left. My M16 unleashed a trio of random shots to the right. Sancho oriented in that direction as well, crouched at the haunches, ready to fire off his main weapon at need.
Crouching, I prepared as best I could for the unseen attack. Just then the cupped leaf to my right unfurled, pouring its content of liquid mercury out. It struck the ground with a ringing splat. Several moments later I heard another, and then another.
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