Yanked (David Brin's Out of Time Book 1)

by Nancy Kress

  What they did next was even odder. They began to play football.

  “Talk, Sharon,” the robot said. “Don’t stop talking.”

  Yes, it was football! Was Jason crazy? Here she and Tara were prisoners, the Panurish were preparing to t-port off Jump, nobody had found the communication cube, and Jason’s idea of a plan was to organize a game of football?

  She watched incredulously as Sor organized two teams. Sor, who was usually so sensible and compassionate! He didn’t even glance at Sharon, and neither did any of the others. Yet she knew they could see her clearly. In an effort to get as far from the Panurish ship as possible, she and the robot sat near the electronic barrier.

  “Sixteen, forty-two, eight, hike!” shouted Mant, and snapped the ball to Cam, who started to run with it. People ran after her. Jofrid fell and stayed down, doing something in the groundcover. Deel caught Cam. Another play started. The ball they were using for this game was really large and, judging by the way it flew through the air, heavier than usual. The outside was made of a blanket, tightly wrapped. At the far end of the makeshift field, Sharon saw, were extra balls in case this one got wrecked.

  “Ten, three, hike!” Betta cried in her thin, high little-girl voice. She threw the ball. She was a lousy thrower, so the ball hit the invisible fence about six feet above the ground and was immediately fried. The game stopped while Deel fetched another ball from the supply.

  “Talk more, Sharon,” the Panurish robot said. “Say more words.”

  Sharon was halfway through the plot of Titanic when Billin also threw a bad pass. This one was higher, however, since Billin was older and stronger than Betta. The ball sailed through the air about eight feet above the ground and went over the top of the fence. The robot beside Sharon fired a bolt of fire that fried it.

  “Out of bounds!” someone cried. “Get another ball, Alli!”

  The game resumed. Then Sharon saw Jason walking toward the Panurish ship through the running mass of football players, carrying the petal cup with “medicine” for Tara.

  Nothing unexpected about that―it was time for one of Jason’s four-times-daily visits. But Jason looked subtly different. Sharon tried to see why. Jason walked like a person who was very excited about something but trying not to show it.

  The robot listening to her saw Jason and called to him, “Come in.” Jason walked through the invisible fence and over to Sharon.

  “Hi, Sharon.”

  “Hi,” she said, grateful for the chance to stop talking.

  “Hi, Tara, baby doll.”

  Sharon’s eyes widened. Jason was talking to Tara? Voluntarily? Calling her “baby doll?” What on earth was going on?

  Jason said, “I brought your medicine, Tara-doll. Come over to Uncle Jason and get it.”

  Sharon almost fell over. Tara, who was possibly the world’s friendliest baby―this world’s, certainly―crawled over to Jason’s outstretched hands and let him pick her up. He held her as if he’d never held a baby before, which he probably hadn’t. Then Jason spoke to the robot.

  “How you doin’, metal guy?”

  “Talk, Jason,” the robot said. “Say words.”

  “Say what?”

  Sharon whispered―her voice was nearly . gone by now―”It wants you to tell it stories. It’s recording us, I think, to learn more English.”

  “I don’t know―”

  “Tell it anything!” Sharon said desperately. “I’m all talked out. Tell it about football! Or basketball!”

  “Okay,” Jason said, and actually patted Tara on her back. “I’ll tell it about the last game I played at Franklin High. You see, we were behind three points, and then Wayne does a three-sixty and...”

  Jason talked on and on, the robot facing him instead of Sharon. Could the Panurish learn anything to use against Earth from Jason’s description of something called a “full-court press?”

  “...and then Tyrone dribbles and shoots, and he... Now!”

  Everything happened so fast that Sharon could barely follow it.

  Jason kicked the Panurish robot as hard as he could. At the same time, he sprinted toward the electronic fence, only a few feet away from where they’d been sitting. The robot fell over but almost immediately righted itself and swiveled around to fry something.

  Jason had reached the fence. In a blur, he crouched, pushed off with his feet, and leapt high in the air. And threw Tara.

  “No!” Sharon heard somebody scream and realized it was her. Tara would be killed, fried when she hit the fence, just like the stray footballs...

  But she wasn’t. Jason, so tall and so fit, had jumped in the lighter gravity high enough to dunk Tara over the top of the electronic fence. And there was Sor underneath, ready to catch her in a sort of blanket while Jason screened them both with his body. Then Jason would be fried! But he wasn’t because he was standing absolutely still inside the fence and the Panurish robots only fried things that were moving. The robot darted forward through the suddenly-open gate and started to chase Sor, who was running with Tara wrapped in a blanket. Then the robot stopped. Everybody was running―or at least five or six people were. They all carried blankets the same size as Tara, and they ran past each other and passed the blanket-wrapped bundles back and forth. The bundles were extra footballs, the very big footballs. The robot didn’t know now which one held Tara. It couldn’t tell! Except...

  “It won’t work!” Sharon screamed. She remembered what da Vinci had told her: the Panurish robots could detect body heat. That was what it was doing now—scanning each bundle in turn, swiveling its sensors towards one after the other—only it didn’t move. Why not?

  Finally the robot did move, so fast that it was even more of a blur than Jason had been. It took off after Deel, who was running like the wind toward the Discovery. Sharon felt Jason grab her hand. “Run, Sharon! It left the gate open!”

  She ran, crying, “The robot will fry Tara!”

  “No, it won’t. Run!”

  Jason pulled her along. They ran after the robot, with no hope of catching up. But the robot easily caught Deel, since Deel, carrying Tara, had suddenly stopped. Fear froze Sharon’s heart. Why would Deel stop? Now the robot would kill them both―

  The robot tripped.

  It went down very hard, and the next minute Deel too had dropped to the ground with Tara. Sharon ran, her heart bursting. Some of the others reached the robot first. They were doing something to it, throwing something on it...Sharon couldn’t see. She ran past them to where Deel lay panting on the ground.

  “Tara! Tara! Is she hurt?” Sharon cried.

  The baby poked her head out from under the blanket, laughing and laughing.

  She thought the whole thing was one big game!

  “Run, Sharon,” Jason urged, “back to the Discovery. But stay very, very low, like this. Go!” Sharon grabbed Tara and ran, crouched over. Tara was heavy, but Sharon clutched her like she might never let go. At the Discovery, she ran aside, followed by all the others, who had caught up with her. Deel closed the doors, and everyone collapsed onto the floor of the main chamber, breathless.

  When she could speak, Sharon gasped, “How...how did you do that? What happened?”

  Everyone tried to talk at once. Jason held up his hand, and everybody quieted. Jason said, “We planned it all. Dunk the baby over the fence, once we found out by frying extra footballs exactly how tall the fence was. Then multiple fake-outs so the Panurish robot wouldn’t know who had Tara. It scanned with its body-heat sensors, but...but...” Jason ran out of breath.

  Betta took up the story. “But all the blankets showed body heat!” she crowed, “because they had pigbirds wrapped in them! Pigbirds that Jofrid and Robbie caught!”

  “And then,” Mant said, “the stupid robot had to spend time doing detailed scans, not just heat-sensor, to see which one was Tara. By that time, Deel had run with Tara to Jofrid’s snares―”

  “They were set in the groundcover by a pit!” Billin cried.

  �
�Let me tell!” Mant yelled. “The snares tripped the robot and pulled it into the pit, and we threw brush on it to cover its motion and light sensors, and lots of dirt―”

  “―and that gave us all time to get back here safe!” Deel finished.

  Sharon felt dazed. So much planning! Basketball, football, pigbirds, snares, pits...and it had all worked. Everyone was safe inside the ship, except―

  “Where’s Robbie?” Sharon suddenly asked

  “And da Vinci?”

  “Everybody fell silent. After a minute, Jason said, “They’re safe too. We hope.”

  “Where are they?” Sharon persisted.

  Jason said, “All the Panurish went this time to the t-port to send stuff through while it’s open. Usually one or two stay behind, as you know, but we needed them all to go, so you’d be left with just the robot to guard you. So Robbie’s been running a gambling thing, with da Vinci’s help, by the t-port. It turns out the Panurish like gambling. They all went.”

  Sharon said, bewildered, “A ‘gambling thing?’ What kind of gambling thing?” A horrible thought occurred to her. “You don’t mean... Jason, you’re not letting him make pigbirds fight to the death just to distract the Panurish!”

  “No, no,” Deel said. “Robbie promised he wouldn’t hurt any animals in his gambling game. Whatever it is.”

  And you believed him? Sharon wanted to say. But she didn’t. A second, even more horrible thought had occurred to her.

  “Jason, there are eight Panurish by the t-port, and seven of their robots. When the robot in the pit gets loose and goes to tell them you rescued Tara and me, won’t the Panurish get really mad? What if they take it out on Robbie and da Vinci?”

  Nobody answered, then Jason said quietly, “Yeah, you’re right, and we all thought of that, but Robbie insisted on taking the risk. He said it was to make up for losing Tara to the Panurish in the first place. Frankly, I didn’t know he had it in him.”

  “Neither did I,” Sor said quietly. “I misjudged him.”

  “A brave dude,” Jason said. “And good at getting out of trouble. My bet is he’ll be back hanging with us in no time.”

  Sharon hoped so. Jason had said Robbie was good at getting out of trouble, but it didn’t seem that way to Sharon. It seemed to her that Robbie was mostly good at getting into it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Here they come,” da Vinci said. “Remember, they have never attacked anything or anybody that didn’t look like it was attacking first. Just don’t make any threatening moves.”

  “Nobody got to tell Robbie how to handle a mark, metal guv’nor,” Robbie said. “Robbie’s worked Whitechapel, Covent Garden, and Bartholomew Fair.”

  “Those words are not in my data banks, but I presume they are place names in which you have succeeded in swindling people. But you have never swindled any Panurish before.”

  “People, Panurish, all the same to Robbie,” he said cheerfully. “The Panurish coves are fresh marks, metal guv’nor. Plain as pikestaffs.”

  Da Vinci and Robbie stood beside the t-port, which was of course still jammed. It was late afternoon. In front of Robbie stood a metal table carried from the Discovery. On it rested a collection of objects, some brought from the ship and some fished out of the inner pockets of Robbie’s dirty coat.

  A line of Panurish approached, eight of them marching in strict formation, accompanied by seven robots. Each robot carried another load of equipment stolen from the Discovery. Aliens and robots marched up to the t-port and stopped.

  The eight aliens looked directly at Robbie, standing behind his table.

  “Got ‘em,” Robbie said softly under his breath.

  Da Vinci began to recite the speech Robbie had taught him, with a few additions of his own. “Step right up, ladies and gentlemen and artificial intelligences, for the most exciting gambling games you ever glimmed your daylights on! Far superior to betting on pigbird fights, far superior to faro or rouge-et-noir, far superior to outrunning a supernova shock wave! Far superior to anything you’ve ever experienced! Test your skill! Test your luck! Test the laws of probability! Win prizes what nobody could expect to own in their life!”

  The Panurish didn’t change expression. Or maybe they did, and neither Robbie nor da Vinci could tell because the expressions were so alien. But the Panurish all―every one―took one step away from their robots and one step closer to the table.

  “That’s right, then!” Robbie said. He picked up a deck of cards he’d brought with him from nineteenth-century England and started to flash them around. One-handed shuffles, dazzling snaps. He threw them in the air, where they all fanned out, then he caught the cards neatly in one smooth pile and snapped them loudly. He smiled.

  The Panurish all took another step closer to the table.

  “Good, good, alien guv’nors,” Robbie said. “Now watch this.”

  Deftly he took three cards from the deck: the two of hearts, the two of clubs, and the queen of diamonds. He laid them face-up in a row on the table and pointed to them. Then he turned up the middle one and said, very slowly and clearly, “The Queen!” Next, he turned all three cards face-down and quickly slid them around the tabletop. Faster, faster...until he stopped and the three cards were again in a row, face-down.

  “Now, Master da Vinci,” Robbie said, “which one be Her Majesty the Queen?”

  Da Vinci pretended to hesitate. Finally he picked one of the cards. Robbie turned it over. It was the two of clubs.

  “You lose, Master da Vinci!” Robbie crowed. “Good thing for you we wasn’t betting that time! Care to make a small wager now? Here’s Robbie’s bet.”

  Slowly, so the Panurish would be sure to understand, Robbie took an object out of his pocket. It was his best knife, the small, thin, deadly one with which he’d wounded Jason. All the Panurish took another step closer to the table.

  Robbie said, “What’s your bet, Master da Vinci?”

  Da Vinci pretended to think for a moment. Then he reached toward his belly. A door opened in him that hadn’t been there a moment ago, and he removed a thin, flat sheet of smooth metal and laid it on the table.

  The first Panurish in the line let out a long, low musical note that anyone in the universe would have recognized as surprise.

  Robbie said, “That’s your wager, Master da Vinci? Fine by Robbie.”

  Once more, Robbie held up the queen of diamonds to let everyone see which one it was. He replaced it on the table face-down with the other two and began to slide the three cards around. Faster, faster...until he stopped.

  “Where be Her Majesty the Queen, Master?” Da Vinci hesitated, thought, finally chose. He picked the queen.

  “You won!” Robbie said, pretending to look upset. He pushed both his knife and da Vinci’s data chip toward the robot, who picked them both up off the table. “Try again, guv’nor? Here’s a prize!”

  From the pile of objects at one side of the table, Robbie pulled out a vase made of metal with painted interrupted lines forming a design. It was the vase Sharon had found amid the debris of the Discovery, the one that had reminded her of English class back home. Robbie pushed the vase toward da Vinci. The robot nodded and put his computer chip next to the vase.

  The Panurish ignored the vase, which they could have stolen from the Discovery on their first raid if they had wanted to possess it. Obviously they didn’t, but seven of them eyed the computer chip steadily. The eighth glanced at Robbie’s knife, dangling from da Vinci’s tentacle.

  Robbie and da Vinci played the card shuffle again. Faster, faster... Da Vinci won again.

  Now he had the computer chip, the knife, and the vase.

  One of the Panurish kids said something to the others.

  It was the first time any Panurish had ever spoken in front of a human. Its voice was high, squeaky, and weirdly musical, almost like bad violin-playing. Another Panurish answered. Then it looked like an argument, everybody squeaking at once. Abruptly it stopped, and one Panurish stepped toward the
table.

  The Panurish pointed with its short, skinny arm at the cards. Next, it pointed at the knife da Vinci held. Then it reached into one of its pockets and pulled out a hunk of metal and laid it on the table.

  The hunk of metal didn’t look like anything humans made. It was about six inches long, shaped like a lumpy sweet potato, silver on one end and red on the other. Da Vinci pretended to study it and then nodded. He put Robbie’s knife on the table beside the thing.

  “Bets all placed?” Robbie said. “Then here we go!”

  He showed the queen to da Vinci and the Panurish, placed it face down with the other two cards, and slid them around the table. Faster, faster, faster...

  The Panurish won.

  The alien gave a high, sharp squeak and grabbed up both Robbie’s knife and his own lumpy whatever-it-was. A different Panurish crowded him out of the front row and pointed to the cards. Then all the aliens, their long silence forgotten, were squeaking and producing objects and pointing at what they wanted to gamble for.

  Robbie grinned at da Vinci.

  Half an hour later, the Panurish had won a lot of items: Robbie’s knife, toys from the Discovery, a bracelet of carbon-alloy gems, an antique watch with a picture of King George III on it, a silver flask... But somehow, they couldn’t seem to win the computer chip. All the Panurish watched while da Vinci opened his belly once more and put it back inside.

  The sun touched the horizon.

  The Panurish started chattering to each other. One spoke to their robots, who all this time had been waiting patiently, loaded with stolen equipment. Now the first robot in line lumbered forward and waited in front of the place the t-port had once shimmered.

  The sun went down.

  Robbie and da Vinci both watched very carefully. Robbie didn’t see any of the robots make a movement, but just at sunset, the t-port shimmered open again. Da Vinci gave a tiny nod of his metal head toward the fifth robot in line, making sure that Robbie saw the nod.