On the Planet of Robot Slaves

by Harry Harrison

  He had on the other nights, but tonight no one cared. The gloom in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife. In fact Bill had to cut a bit of it away to enable him to see the others.

  "We can tell jokes," he said brightly. "Or ask riddles. What is black, sits in a tree and is deadly?"

  "A crow with a machine-gun," Meta sneered. "That one was old when the universe was young. I can sing..."

  She was drowned out by cries of protest that died to mutters and then to silence. It was going to be one of those nights. So there was a stir of interest when Cy spoke up, for he was ever the silent one, speaking only when spoken to, usually snarling an answer.

  "Listen. I wasn't always. Like this. Different. Not as you see now. I led a different life. Two different lives. How it began I have never revealed before. How it ended was tragedy. For I became. Something different. Not proud of it. But it happened. I was a...voodooman." His face twisted obscenely as they gasped. "Yeah. I was. I can tell you of this. If you want."

  "Yes, tell us," they cried out and grew close to listen to —

  CY BERPUNK'S TALE

  Life for Cy had the taste of a dead cigar butt.

  It should. He chewed one. Spit it out. Drained the dregs of alkpee from the chipped plastic mug. Dropped it. Crushed it under his spiked heel.

  Day of judgment.

  Decision.

  Outside he blinked in the nacreous light of the yellow-orange sun. Shards of styrofoam from the injection works filled the air, turning it into a regurgitant moire pattern.

  Time...

  The crapkicker lolled obscenely against the insanely cracked patterns of the show window. His skintight bloodsuit sanguinely dripping scarlet shadows over frenchletters and powderdildos in the window. He did not look up when Cy came near. But knew he was there. The jewel encrusted squid, pendant from one nostril, quivered in anticipation.

  "You got?" he grunted laconically.

  "Got. You got?"

  "Got. Give."

  "Good."

  The kreditkard, still warm from Cy's body, changed hands. The crapkicker sneered laconically.

  "Reads ten-thousand bukniks. Deal was nine-thousand. Trying cheat me?"

  "Keep the change. Give."

  He gave.

  The RAMchip, disguised as a peanut, slithered from hand to hand disquietingly. Cy stuffed it cruelly between his lips. Ate it.

  "Good."

  Gone. Cy was alone. The toothputer accessed the RAMchip. Light and sound rode the starving night. He jumped aside, the vengeful robocab missed. Was swallowed by the strobeshot darkness. No pedestrian was safe in the Spunkk. In the dark alley Cy sought safety behind the overfilled garbage can that compressed under the fatigue of days, discard printout and workweary compchips, derelict discards of onrushing technology, obscenely melding.

  Cy ran the RAMchip again.

  This was it. Longhidden formula dug screaming from secure RAMbanks. His.

  She lay prone on the fukfome bed when he entered. Locked and sealed the door behind him. Stared at her corpsewhite flesh.

  "You should get out in the sun more."

  No response. Polkadot paint circled her eyes. Blackleather bra and panties, richly adorned with nylon lace, revealed more than concealed her figure. Not good. Too flatchested. No ass.

  "Is this room secure?"

  "I unplugged the phone."

  "Here." He spat the RAMchip into his palm.

  "I don't want your lousy secondhand peanut."

  Anger flamed an unseen torch behind his eyes. "Dummy. It's the formula."

  The computer switched on when he kicked it. An ancient IBM PC, gutted and restuffed with macro Z-80's. Now it had more compergs than a Cray. The RAMchip plugged into the specially peanut-shaped orifice. The screen burst to repulsive life, indecipherable symbols hurtled across it.

  "That's it."

  "It's indecipherable."

  "Not if you have been trained. That is a three, that a seven."

  She eyebulged at his arcane knowledge. Turned away, rejected. Popped a pentagon-shaped pill. A Tibetan copy of an illegal Icelandic aspirin. It hit as obscene symbols raced across the screen. The laser printer hummed grotesquely as it regurgitated a printout.

  "Here."

  "I can't."

  "You will. Get everything on the list." He laughed insanely at the smell of aspirin on her breath.

  "Drugs. Illegal. Banned." Her fingers trembled with vibratory despair as she read. "Alcohol, distilled water, glycerin..."

  "Go. Or you're dead." The muzzle of the .50 caliber machine gun poked its obscene muzzle from his coatcuff. She went.

  Cy BerPunk was twenty-one when he marketed the formula. Long lost, forgotten, moldering in the rateaten files of the Amsterdam News. Now reborn, remarketed, aimed unerringly at the crapkicker market. The newest. The coolest.

  Pubic Hair Straightener to go with the latest all-nude craze. Once seen, must be had. And Cy controlled the supply. The bukniks piled up and he watched the zeroes multiply. Until one day...

  "Enough!" he exulted unpleasantly.

  Now they would let him in. Had to. Their bankaccount reader checked his balance even as he approached the front entrance of Power House. Many times had he beat feeble knuckles against the chromesteel entrance concealed behind the hologram of a chromesteel entrance. If they read his balance right — he was in. If not — he risked breaking his nose. No danger was too great. His pace never changed.

  He stepped through into the lobby. The receptionist wore a holomask that concealed her face. A pig's head stared back at him. A gold ring in her nose, lips redlipsticked.

  "Yes," she grunted.

  "AppleCore needs me."

  Her smile was cold as liquid helium. "AppleCore needs your money. Voodooman training is not cheap."

  "I can pay."

  "See Chandu. Room one thousand and nine. Last lift on left."

  The door closed and the floor smashed up against his feet. Then against his face as the acceleration flattened him. A thousand stories is a long way to go. When the door slid open sinuously he crawled out. Climbed wearily to his feet. Sucked on a octagonular jellybean filled with caffeine. It tasted repulsive. But he could go on now.

  Crashed open the door. Saw the encrusted gleam of chrome machinery, the small man who was their master.

  "Shut door. Draft," Chandu ordered as imperiously as the last emperor. His prosthetic left hand whined latinly. It was of Italian manufacture originally designed to open spaghetti pots. He used it to pick his nose obscenely.

  "You think you got it in you? Become voodooman. A keyboard killer?"

  "I know. Don't think. I cut my first tooth chewing a computer mouse."

  "Hard do."

  "You can do?"

  "Nobody can do what Chandu can do. I teach."

  The prosthetic slurped with a sound like sucking spaghetti when he pointed to the leering console that almost filled the room.

  "80386 CPU. 2 meg RAM. Math coprocessor. Pixel dedicated VDU."

  "Forget the basics." He caressed the VDU obscenely. "This is mine. My VDU. I will be a voodooman. Slap the dermatrodes to my skull. Hook me into the circuit."

  "To skull? What you smoke? Surging currents from VDU surge your brain to fried mush. Need body to absorb surges. Far from brain. This is suppositrod."

  "Suppositrod!" his senses reeled. "You are not going to fix it to my temples? You are going to stick it up my ass?"

  "You got it in one."

  Now he knew why there was a hole in the seat of the console chair.

  But his physical body was forgotten as the current surged succinctly. He was one with the VDU, a voodooman. His senses hurtling through the bowels of the computer. All black, all white.

  "Can't you afford color?"

  "No believe propaganda," the disembodied voice whispered into the core of his being. "Just for holo ads in subways. Get suckers sign up. All black and white. Needs less RAM."

  Cold whiteness of ice, hot redness of red slid fr
om his memory and crashed into empty oblivion. Something loomed from the darkness, came closer, towering out of sight. A skyscraper-size filing cabinet. Made of wood. Covered with cobwebs.

  "What gives?" he screamed into the blackshot darkness.

  "Gives a filing cabinet. No better way represent computer functions. What you expect? Infinite blue space? Grid of pale blue neon? Color-coded spheres? Bullshit. Holofilm crap for kiddies. How can chemical speed operating human mind follow computer one-hundred thirty million operations a second? Can't. So program written follow what is happening. That program generate this image for slow human brain to follow. Is file cabinet. Open. More file cabinet inside. Open drawer. Find program, card. Go to subprogram. All boring."

  "All boring as buffalo chips!" His errant soul roared arrogantly into the susurrating darkness. There was no reply. Chandu had fallen asleep.

  Cy learned. It took every buknik he had. And more. He wanted to be a keyboard killer. More than he wanted sex, drink, pot. Wanted it so bad he could taste it. It tasted lousy. He still didn't mind.

  But more money was needed. And only one place to get that. In the Spunkk. The subcity below the city. A world aside. Never entered by authority who did not want to wade in the sewer that was the only entrance. Cy waded. Kicked free of the last curl of encoilingly oleaginous water and strode into El Mingatorio. Yellow light the color of a baby's bad dream washed over the clientele. Which was a good idea since most were pretty repulsive. Cy shouldered them aside and slammed his fist on the microscarred plastic of the bar.

  "Ouch!" he said. There was broken glass there.

  "We're all out of Ouch," the bartender sneered through the sneer permanently painted on his lips. With indeliblepaint. "The usual?"

  Cy nodded. Distractedly. He had forgotten what his usual was. The obscenely fat bloated walrus of a man draped across the bar to his left was drinking something that smoked of vile greenness. Not that.

  The crapkicker on his right, every obscene spike of purple hair tipped with a tiny condom, was gagging over a glass of smoking purpleness. Not that either.

  A glass cracked down before him. Chipping the plastic. "Yours." There was no pity on the barman's lips when he spoke. "Ginger ale."

  Cy's sneer matched his as he raised it to his mouth. Drank deep. Felt the rush of revulsion. "You gave me diet ginger ale?"

  The only answer an obscene laugh like a dying soul that slipped away into the darkness.

  In the Spunkk everything was for sale. Cy sold it. Doing anything for the bukniks he needed. Sold his blood. Washed windows. Babysat a two-headed baby. Nothing was too repulsive, too repugnant. He had to. He would be a voodooman.

  The day he graduated they came for him.

  He could not escape. The windows unbreakable. The door did not stop them.

  They broke it down.

  "We have you," the first one said, the streetlights through the Venetian blinds shining on his face like an obscene polar projection.

  "No!"

  Was that his voice? Who else's could it be?

  "Take it."

  The paper was slammed into his reluctant hand, like a poisonous papyrus rattlesnake, rustling like its rattle.

  There was no escape. He was drafted.

  "I was drafted. I ended up here. A voodooman with no VDU. Wasting my life, my talent. Wiring up circuit boards."

  His tears of self-pity dripped unheard onto the sands of the desert. There was only silence as Cy's voice trickled away. The story was done. Not that his audience noticed this since they were all zonked with fatigue, lulled by his voice, all now sound asleep. Not that he noticed this either since he had been popping pills steadily while he talked and was stoned out of his mind. As the last words fluttered down from his lips he fell over into the sand and began snoring.

  Nor was he the only one rendering arias of nocturnal harmony. Zizzing and sawing echoed in the still night air for it had been a long and hard day. Yet, hark!, there was also more than snoring here, more of a rumbling and muttering. Something black loomed over the top of the dune, its bulk blocking out the stars. It moved forward, hesitated — then pounced. A sudden cry of pain was quickly silenced. The blackness moved away, the rumbling vanished.

  Something had disturbed Bill. He opened his eyes, sat up and looked around. Nothing. He lay down and pulled the blanket over his head to drown out the snoring and was asleep again in an instant.

  CHAPTER 7

  "On your feet!" admiral Praktis shouted, running about and kicking the sleeping forms. Goaded by boot and voice, one by one they raised reluctant heads and blinked at the orange globe of the rising sun.

  "Gone. Meta is gone, missing, kidnapped, stolen."

  Which was true. They gaped down at the scooped out hollow in the sand right on the spot where she had been sleeping — then goggle-eyed at the tracks that led away from this spot out into the trackless desert.

  "Eaten alive by some hideous monster!" Bill wailed, nervously tearing ruts in the sand with his sharp chicken nails. Praktis looked at him with disgust.

  "If it was a monster, Third Lieutenant, it had a driving license. Because if I am not mistaken, and I am not, those are tractor tread prints. Not feet, claws, tentacles or whatever."

  "Sure are," Wurber agreed, Adam's apple bobbing with excitement. "Tractor treads right enough. They're a lot like the old JCB I drove on the farm. Say — do you think there might be a farm near here..."

  "Shut up, you moron, or I'll kill you," Praktis hinted. "Something got Meta while she slept. We've got to go after her."

  "Why?" Captain Bly grumbled. "She's long dead by now. Not our business."

  "Third Lieutenant, draw your weapon. Shoot anyone who disobeys my commands. We will follow the tracks. Load up." He glared at Captain Bly whose complaints muttered away into silence. "Good. Now if you will glance at the compass you will see that the tracks go roughly in the direction we are following. So take everything and let's move out. And quickly."

  They moved. Sharing out the contents of Meta's pack and loading up. Bill, his blaster still drawn, took point and led the way.

  The sun rose in the sky but they did not stop. They were stumbling with fatigue before Bill called a halt and they dropped in their tracks.

  "Five minutes — no longer." Moans of exhaustion were his only answer. Dimly in the distance there was the rumble of an explosion.

  "You all heard that," Bill said grimly, climbing to his feet. "Let's move on."

  When they had trudged their way to the top of yet one more sand dune they could see the column of black smoke ahead. Bill waved them down and dropped his pack onto the sand.

  "Keep your weapons ready — and your eyes open. If I am not back in five minutes..." He opened his jaw, then shut it again, not knowing what came next.

  "Look," Praktis said, "just get out there and find out what has happened. If we don't hear from you we'll take it from there."

  There was steely resolve in Bill's stride as he marched into battle, down the dune and up the next one. He peered cautiously over the top before he went on. When the smoke was close, just beyond the next dune, he dropped and crawled to the top and with infinite caution peered over it.

  "About time you got here," Meta said as soon as his head came into view. "Got some water?"

  "Are you all right?" He kept his blaster ready as he crawled forward, looking at the burning metal wreck.

  "No thanks to your lot. Let me be kidnapped right out from under your noses."

  "What happened? What is that thing?"

  "How should I know? What I do know is that I was sound asleep and next thing I'm awake and covered with sand and being tossed about. I sat up and must have hit my head because I was knocked out for a while. I came to, it was black, I could hear an engine and I knew we were moving. I still had my blaster so I shot my way out. Now — the water?"

  "With the others." He fired three quick blasts on his blaster. "They'll hear that. Did you kill the driver of the thing?"

  "There w
asn't one — that was the first thing I looked for. It's a robot or remotely controlled or something. Some sort of machine on treads with that big scoop on the front. It must have scooped me up and trundled off while you all slept so very soundly."

  "I'm sorry — but I didn't hear anything..."

  There was a sharp clang from the other side of the burning hulk, followed by the sound of an engine.

  "There's more of them — get down!" he shouted, setting an example by dropping and burrowing into the sand.

  "I'll get the mothers before they get me!" Meta frothed angrily, running forward, blaster ready. Bill reluctantly followed her, hurrying only when he heard the sound of her weapon.

  She stood, legs spread wide, blowing smoke from the pitted muzzle of her blaster. "Missed," she said with disgust. "It got away."

  Bill looked at the tracks that led up the dune ahead and vanished over the top. They were tiny treads, less than a yard wide, just one set of them. He blinked with confusion. "It went up that way? Then — how did it get down here?"

  "It was here all the time, inside this other one," Meta said, pointing at the hinged flap that now gaped open in the side of the wreck. "It came out of here and trundled away and you know, it wasn't a robot driver or anything. It looked just like this wreck, only much smaller."

  "We have a mystery here," Praktis said, strolling down the dune as he slipped his blaster back into its holster. "I heard that last — now tell me what happened before."

  "Only after some water," Meta said, then coughed. "This has been dry work."

  When she had glugged a cupful and repeated her story to everyone's satisfaction they examined the smoldering wreck, kicked its metal sides and admired the massive treads on its tracks. Peeked into the scooplike container where she had been imprisoned. And came away knowing little or nothing.

  "You, Cy," Praktis ordered. "You're the technological junky around here. Give this thing a going over while I plant dinner. We'll save some for you."

  They were finishing their meal, licking greasy fingers then rubbing them in the sand, when Cy joined them, grabbing up his portion of meat.