by Adam Carter
“The dragon’s prowling,” Hart whispered, although if shouting his name had not brought the beast straight to them, he could not see how talking normally would do them any harm. He had not seen anything of the beast since the claws raked down the wall and as his mind began to clear he decided she must be correct. The dragon had demolished the house and was now searching the rubble for them. If they could remain quiet, they might be able to get away. But get away to where? There was nowhere to run to and the world was too small to run for long. Thankfully, the storm appeared to have died down a little, although that might work against them since it would increase visibility for the dragon.
Dragon.
“Dragons don’t exist,” he whispered. “I have no idea what that thing is, but it can’t possibly be a dragon.”
“Of course it exists.”
“I know it exists, I’m just saying it’s not a dragon.”
“Gordon, I don’t care what you want to call it. That thing’s trying to kill us.”
He heard something large and heavy moving just beyond the rubble before them. They were not entirely closed in, but there was enough debris between them and their foe for the monster not to have seen them. He had yet to get a good look at the creature, but he was certain that once he did, he would see it for what it truly was. Whatever that might be, it certainly could not be a dragon.
“We need a plan,” Hart said.
“We can rope it, mount it and fly it around.”
“We need a serious plan.”
“I can distract it, lead it from the cabin. It might not realise there are two of us here, and if I’m running, it will probably choose to chase me even if it does know you’re here.”
“Gordon, you’re not sacrificing yourself for me.”
“Then you think of a plan.”
A massive, scaled foot crashed through the remains of the stove to their right. The stone was crushed to powder, the wok bent so badly out of shape it was practically flattened. The foot rose and fell again close by. Hawthorn could see very little of the actual leg, for the darkness outside was absolute. The dragon’s large and bulbous body was drawn along the ground after it, and they both crouched in hiding, staring with wide eyes until the thing was gone.
“It’s just going to keep circling the cabin until it finds us,” Hawthorn said.
“What do we have left from when we crashed?”
“Nothing.” Upon crashing, their craft had exploded in the most violent way Hawthorn had ever seen. Most of the debris had been blasted into space, for the atmosphere on Valetudo was thin, although still somehow supported life. What had remained of the craft had been re-formed into the radio and the markers Arowana was staking into the ground. They had not constructed any weapons from the wreckage, for there had been no need.
“Then we keep hiding,” Hart said. “It’ll get fed up, eventually.”
With a chilling roar, the dragon’s rage exploded from its lungs. In the darkness, Hawthorn saw its great body swing, so that its tail and entire rear section slammed into what remained standing of the cabin’s walls. Hawthorn gave a cry and shoved Hart as hard as he could. He watched her fall, strike the ground and roll just as a mass of wood and stone crashed down around her. Hawthorn felt something strike his legs and he fell, his face smacking into the ground. He tried to rise on well-muscled arms, but debris struck his back and forced him back down.
It was all over in an instant and Hart was scrabbling back towards him. Hawthorn’s throat was dry, grit stung his tongue and he blinked away the pain in his eyes. Hart grabbed him by the arm and tried to haul him from the rubble but he shouted for her to stop when agony surged through him. Face down on the ground as he was, Hawthorn struggled to see over his shoulder, but was pinned by too much weight for Hart to ever get him out.
The dragon roared again, impotently for not having found either of them yet.
“Gordon,” Hart said, terror to her eyes. “Gordon, tell me what to do.”
“Run.”
“Run?”
“Leave me, just go.”
She released his arm. “I can’t just …”
The dragon bellowed again. Hawthorn angled his head as best he could to see through the gaps in the debris, larger now the cabin was all but flattened. He could see the large form of the beast moving around although still could not make out many of the details. He was certain he could see dark scales, but an instant later the thing was gone.
“Beth,” he said, looking back towards her, “you have to … Oh, you’ve gone.”
Hart was already half-running, half-stumbling as she made her escape. He was glad she was increasing the chance of her survival but would have preferred to have had to talk her into it a little.
“This,” he grumbled as he placed both palms on the ground and readied himself, “is why I don’t like women.”
Accepting he was as good as dead anyway, he felt he may as well break his back trying to dislodge the rubble. Thankfully, with his face on the ground, he was able to get a decent angle for leverage. It would be like doing the hardest push-up of his life, with an elephant on his back. Gritting his teeth, he counted to three and pushed down with all his might. The strain on his back was immense, he could feel shards of wood pierce his legs, but he did not give up.
Then he collapsed in failure. His body was covered with sweat, or possibly it was still raining, and his breathing came hard. His heart was beating like mad and he forced himself to concentrate. If the dragon found him while he was trapped, he would die. He needed to be free, needed to keep moving, and the only way to do that was to get the debris off his back and legs.
Bracing himself for one final effort, he placed his palms once more upon the ground and pushed. His arms quivered, his body asked him what the hell he was playing at, but his fear urged him on.
He felt a piece of the debris fall from his back, followed by another as great chunks now sluiced from him. Then, when he knew his pained arms could take no more, he threw himself to the side as the rest of the debris crashed down around him.
Kicking off the last few pieces of wood, Hawthorn got to his feet. His legs were unsteady but he could not afford to linger. There was a monster out there and Hart would be in trouble.
Not to mention Arowana.
Stumbling out into the cool night air, Hawthorn looked around for any sign of Hart. The fires he had seen earlier were all but burned out by this point and the only light he had to see by was reflected from the gases of Jupiter. It was odd to think that it was night where he was, but that for Arowana it would be daylight. She was less than an hour’s walk from him, but she would be fixing markers on the other side of the world. For both of them, though, Jupiter was a constant, for there was never any getting away from seeing the gas giant.
He saw Hart then. She was sitting on the rocky ground, staring up with panicked eyes. Rounding the last remnants of the ruined cabin, Hawthorn started off towards her, and stopped.
Before him towered something as colossal as Jupiter. It stood ten times his own height, with a huge body ribbed with fat or muscle, he could not be sure. Two massive thighs ended in those wicked claws he had earlier seen tear through the wall, while from the front end of its body smaller arms ended in similar claws. The tail was thick and powerful, while the neck stretched giraffe-like, although much thicker. The head resting atop the neck was oval and formed mainly of snout, ending in a sharp bird-like beak. Its eyes were large and black, while frill-like ears rested either side of the skull. From its shoulders there sprouted two incredible wings, unfolding as it stalked Hart, while down its back there ran a series of spines.
Hawthorn stared in shock: there was a dragon before him.
Hart screamed as the dragon approached her. It knew there was nowhere left for her to run and took its time. Snapping out of his shock, Hawthorn searched for a weapon, but all he could find were pieces of the broken cabin. Tearing a piece of stone from the wreckage, he hurled it with all his might but it did not come
close to striking the beast. Grabbing a length of wood, he charged, yelling loudly as he battered its legs with the stick.
The dragon regarded him sourly and shoved him away with its foot. The impact sent Hawthorn tumbling and he landed with his face on the floor again.
“Gordon, do something.”
“I’m trying,” he said, getting back up. “Beth, stay calm.”
“I am calm, just do something!”
She did not sound very calm, but Hawthorn did not like to argue with women because they always managed to turn the argument back on him and insist they were right; or they would sulk about it until he apologised.
Unfortunately, there was precious little he could do, so he snatched up a handful of stones to gain him time in which to think of something. Hurling them one after the other, he struck the dragon with each shot, for he could hardly miss the thing with pebbles, although still could think of nothing to do.
With a howl of rage, the dragon turned from Hart and started towards him. Backing off in fright, Hawthorn realised he did not need a plan after all because he had already annoyed the beast enough.
“Beth, get out of here,” he yelled as he turned and ran. The dragon hissed as it came after him, which meant it was making a whole range of noises. As he ran, he decided it could do whatever the hell it liked because it was a mythical beast and could not possibly exist in the real world.
A jet of flame shot past his head, narrowly missing him, reinforcing his belief that the thing was a dragon and therefore could not exist. Somehow, he did not favour the strategy of stopping to tell the dragon that.
He ran around the cabin, for moving into the open land would have been suicide. Behind him, the dragon crashed through the debris, heedless of anything in its path. It snapped at him with its great beak and Hawthorn threw his hands over his head and leaped over a split barrel, the last dredges of drinkable water spilling across the ground. He scrabbled over the floor, found he was in what was left of the walk-in cupboard, and hurled weeds and dried animal meat at the beast. The dragon seemed no fonder of rat meat than the rest of them.
His frantic fingers found the signalling device and he hurled that, too. Its sheer weight meant it did not get far, but the dragon followed its flight with its great black eyes. Ignoring Hawthorn entirely, it shambled towards the device and prodded it with its beak. Hawthorn could not say what interest a dragon would have in such a device, but it had been a weird enough night that he was not going to question it. While its attention was diverted, he dived behind some rubble and ran at a crouch back to Hart.
She was still sitting on the ground when he found her, eyes wide with shock.
“Time to go,” he said.
“Gordon, that’s a …”
“Trust me, I know.” He glanced back to see the dragon was still toying with the signalling device. Perhaps it was the static sound it was giving off, maybe it was the dial, or perhaps dragons were sensitive to radio signals. The reason did not matter, just that the dragon was concentrating on it and not them.
“Beth, come on.”
She went to say something else but Hawthorn did not much care what it might have been. Throwing her over his shoulders, he carried her like a sack of rice and ran from the scene. She did not weigh much, for years of abuse coupled with three months of malnutrition were hardly going to make her obese.
After running for but a few minutes, Hawthorn heard the bellow of the dragon to indicate it had noticed their escape. He did not stop running. He had no idea where he was going, but if he stopped, they would both be killed.
He was just glad Arowana was away from all the danger.
CHAPTER SIX
Her throat was dry and every breath hurt. As Arowana lay with her back to the interior wall of the metal pod, she contemplated all the different ways she could kill a robot, if it could be said that robots were alive. She did not know how long she had spent in the pod, for her conversation with the robot was something of a distant memory. She had fled, but the robot proved faster and overtook her in moments. It had cut her down expertly and taken her back to the pod, where it had bound her arms above her head by use of some sort of manacles moulded directly into the wall. She did not recall much of her time after this, but she was tired, in agony and filled with hatred.
The robot regarded her dispassionately. Thus far it had been clinical in its application of pain, bending her limbs without shattering bones, its entire approach being experimental rather than cruel. It was as though the robot honestly did not understand humans and was using her as a means to discover their limits.
“How are you?” Borissa asked. “Are you well?”
“How do you think I am?”
“I sense a certain amount of hostility in you, Iris. All I have done so far is test the flexibility of your body. Humans have internal bones and external flesh. Antonym: arthropods. Examples: crabs, lobsters, ants.”
“I take it you get your jollies stepping on ants. Bet you get through entire colonies with those whoppers.”
“A reference to my large feet. Observation: humans focus intensely upon physical appearance. Question: why?”
“I’m not getting into this debate with you.”
“My feet offend you. I shall change them.” The robot activated the wall control which slid out the bench Arowana had sat on earlier. It proceeded to remove its big flat feet and replace them with smaller metal feet which appeared from another section of the wall. It was like watching someone sitting down to change their shoes.
It made Arowana wonder how many sections the pod actually had.
“There,” Borissa said. “My feet are smaller. I am now more aesthetically pleasing to you. Do you like me more?”
“I’d like you if you stopped straining my limbs just to hear my bones crack.”
“Then it is not merely aesthetics. Are you in love?”
“Why?”
“Because I do not understand it. Lust is based on aesthetics, while love is not. Yet can love begin without lust?”
Arowana laughed, although the sound was hollow. “You expect me to explain love to a robot?”
“Please.”
“No.”
“I did say please.”
“And I said no. Run that through your processors. When a woman says no, you need to back off.”
“You are not a woman.”
“Oh for the love of … Not all women have names that end with an A.”
“Interesting. Would you like some water?”
“You have water?”
Another panel opened and Borissa produced a few bottles of water and some packets of food. Arowana could not see what the food was, but she was not hungry. She would not say no to the water, though, and Borissa opened one of the bottles and held it closet to Arowana’s lips so she could drink. The water was cool, which was not what she had expected, although Arowana was not about to show gratitude.
Borissa sat back on the bench and gazed at Arowana with that single red eye. She could almost see the robot thinking, and she wished she knew where the thing had come from.
It occurred to her she could simply ask.
“Who built you?” Arowana asked.
“My maker.”
“What moon are you from?”
“The moon where my maker built me.”
“Fine. Don’t tell me.” Arowana paused. “Has anyone ever told you that crazed killer robots don’t exist?”
“Explain.”
“Crazed killer robots. CKRs for short. They’re cryptids, like Bigfoot.”
“Again with the insults about my former feet.”
“Point is, robots are, as you say, slaves which take commands. They’re not aware, they’re just programmed. They perform basic functions like turning on the lights when someone walks into the room.”
“Sensors can accomplish this task just as easily.”
“Robots have been around since the twentieth century,” Arowana said. “There were a lot of bad films where they g
ained sentience and tried to take over the world, replace all organic life with machine rule. But that was fiction. People still build robots, but all they do is perform simple tasks. They take readings from inhospitable locations, that sort of thing.”
“Yet here I am.”
“Yes. Talking because you’re programmed to talk, walking because you’re programmed to walk. Who programmed you to torture me?”
“I have not tortured you. I have tested the limits of your limbs.”
“Do you understand pain?”
“Yes.” A pause. “In theory.”
“I don’t know why I’m bothering. Something’s affected your programming, sand in your rotors or something. I don’t know how that could happen, there have never been any instances of that ever happening before. Nothing confirmed, anyway. Golem doesn’t count.”
“Golem?”
It had been something Arowana had come across while working through the history of robots. During their conversation, she had been accessing her database for any indication that Borissa could exist, but there was nothing confirmed. She dismissed Golem out of hand, for it had been far too many years ago to be related. Still, it planted doubt in her mind, and doubt was not a good thing in her situation.
She wondered what Hawthorn would have made of Borissa, for he had always claimed crazed killer robots existed somewhere, and here she was chatting to one.
She must have said something aloud, for Borissa said, “Hawthorn?”
“No one. Forget him.”
“Accessing Hawthorn. Found. A plant. Real name: crataegus. Part of the family rosaceae, commonly known as rose. Question: why would a plant be interested in me? Do you know sentient plants?”
“Hawthorn’s not a plant.”
“A human, then. No A at the end, so a man. Your man? Observation: I asked whether you were in love and you evaded the question. I asked whether Hawthorn is a man and again you evade the question. Conclusion: you are in love with a man named Hawthorn.”