by Nancy Kress
That was the Panurish robot that gave the invisible signal, whatever it was, to jam and unjam the t-port. A different robot put in a load, a Panurish stepped in with it, and the whole thing vanished. A minute later, the Panurish kid reappeared. He rushed back to the gaming table. A different Panurish kid accompanied the next load, then rushed back.
“All right, ladies and gentlemen!” Robbie said loudly. “One more chance to win! Them what is badly dipped can get their own back again, and them what is winning can do even better! The biggest game of the day! Anybody want to make a wager? Here be mine!”
And Robbie pointed to da Vinci.
“That’s right, Metal Master Panurishes! Robbie’s wagering this here metal man for one of yours on a single turn of the card. Who’s sporting cove enough to take the bet? You? You?”
The Panurish all broke into violent squeaking. They shoved up against one another, waving their furry arms. Clearly, they disagreed about betting one of their robots against da Vinci. So far, they had paid up on all their bets, although Robbie didn’t believe they’d let him keep a Panurish robot. It might finally force them to cheat on the bet. Why not? He was cheating. He kept an extra card in his sleeve so he could make the game come out any way he wanted. He was so fast with his hand movements that no eyes, human or Panurish, could detect his substitutions. Sometimes he let the Panurish win, and sometimes he prevented their winning. It was all part of his and da Vinci’s plan.
By now, Jason should have gotten Sharon, Tara, and all the other human kids back into the Discovery.
The third Panurish robot loaded its stolen equipment into the t-port. It waited. Finally, with obvious reluctance, a Panurish kid tore himself away from the argument and jumped into the t-port to accompany the load of stuff. As soon as he could, he rushed back to the table. The fourth robot unloaded its equipment into the t-port.
“Wager or not?” Robbie said. “I bet da Vinci against one of yours?”
More squeaking. No Panurish kid got into the t-port with the fourth robot. Clearly they didn’t want to miss any of the gambling. Finally, the Panurish leader turned around and squeaked something at the robot in the t-port. It vanished with its load...and without any Panurish kid accompanying it.
The Panurish leader pushed forward one of his own robots to stand next to da Vinci and gestured toward the cards.
Robbie showed the queen. He placed her back on the table face-down and slid the cards around. Faster and faster...
The fourth Panurish robot reappeared and stepped out of the t-port. The fifth robot, the one that controlled the t-port’s jamming and unjamming, stepped in with its load.
Faster and faster and faster... “Choose!” Robbie cried. “Where be Her Majesty the Queen?”
The Panurish leader seized one of the cards and turned it over. It was the two of clubs.
All the Panurish started yelling in shrill, earsplitting squeaks. The robot Robbie supposedly had won moved away from him. The fifth robot and its load of stolen goods disappeared through the t-port. And da Vinci, moving suddenly at blinding speed, picked up the heavy metal gaming table and threw it at the t-port.
Immediately the nearest Panurish robot sent out a beam that fried da Vinci. He crumpled into powder right there on the purple groundcover.
Robbie stood very still, making no threatening moves. Making no moves of any kind at all.
The table da Vinci had thrown had landed half in and half out of the t-port. The t-port shimmered as if it were trying to bring back the fifth robot, stopped shimmering because the table was there, shimmered again, stopped. It looked like a broken Christmas tree light, blinking feebly, unable to come fully on while the huge table was in the way.
The Panurish squeaked frantically. A different robot rushed forward to pull the table out of the way. The moment it touched the table, however, the robot fried and crumbled into powder.
The Panurish acted panicked. They ran around in circles, squeaking. Then they all ran back toward their own ship, followed by their robots.
In five minutes, they were out of sight over the closest of the low hills, and Robbie was alone.
Very slowly, he walked toward the t-port. He waited. In a few more minutes, the shimmer disappeared. The t-port was closed until the next evening.
Next, he went over to the pile of powder and small, twisted metal fragments that had been da Vinci. Robbie spoke to the powder.
“You was right, metal guv’nor. They can’t fry nothing what sits in that magic door, even partway in. And you was right about the big thing, too. Those Panurishes was cowards. ‘Any man who panics is halfway lost already,’ you said, and you had the right of it. Robbie admits you had the right of it.”
It was dark now, except for two of the smallest moons. The air was growing colder. Robbie sat down on the grass next to what was left of da Vinci.
“Robbie hopes, metal guv’nor, that you was right about the rest of it, too. You said you ain’t dead. Sure looks dead to Robbie, you do. But I got your soul safe, just like you told me.” From his pocket, he drew out the computer chip that had been in da Vinci’s belly.
To Robbie it didn’t look like much, just a flat bit of metal. Not even sharp enough to cut anything. You couldn’t get two shillings for it in London. But the metal man had said his soul was on it. Robbie didn’t see how that could be, but maybe it was so. Maybe the other coves would know, them what came from this place. That gentry cove Sor, or Deel, or even Jason, what was supposed to be the master here. Best wait and see.
He put the microchip inside the painted vase. Then, in the growing darkness, beside his shattered robot friend, Robbie sat and waited for Jason and the others.
Chapter Eighteen
Cautiously, Jason opened the main door of the Discovery a crack. He peered out. No Panurish, no Panurish robots. Of course, they could be hiding, just waiting for humans to emerge before they fried them. Next, Jason stuck his arm out the door. Nothing happened. Then he stuck his head out, followed by the rest of his body.
“Be careful,” Billin said from behind him. Yeah, right. Like there was any way to do this carefully.
Jason squeezed his body through the crack in the door and stood outside.
It was a lovely night, warmer than any so far on Jump. The lemony smell was stronger, too. Only two moons were up, but they were both full. When Jason’s eyes had fully adjusted, he could see pretty well. He moved away from the ship. Nothing fried him.
“Okay, come on,” he said. Billin, Sor, and Annit slipped out after him. He nodded, and the four started toward the t-port site. Sor held his laser light but didn’t turn it on.
Let Robbie be okay, Jason thought as his long legs hurried along. Just let that thieving little twerp be okay, whether or not da Vinci had accomplished anything about the t-port. Robbie had already succeeded in his main mission; he’d kept all eight Panurish occupied and distracted long enough for the Yanks and the Discovery kids to steal Tara back. Just let Robbie be okay...
“Come on!” Billin said in a loud whisper. “Run!”
“Billin, wait!” Jason said sharply. “I go first!” If something had happened to Robbie, something awful, Jason wanted to see it before Billin did. Billin was only ten. If whatever awaited them at the t-port was too gruesome, Jason would order the boy back to the ship.
But the scene at the t-port wasn’t gruesome, because there was no scene. No Robbie, no da Vinci, only a table half-in, half-out of where the t-port had been. It looked weird, one part of the metal table lying on the ground, looking normal if upended, and the other part connected it to but looking sort of shimmery, outlined, like it wasn’t really here but it wasn’t really there either—a ghost half-table.
“What the…” Jason began. The four looked at each other.
Slowly they walked closer. Billin, who had the best hearing, suddenly said, “What was that?”
“I didn’t hear anything,” Annit said.
Jason shivered. The empty darkness, the table stuck halfway into the
t-port.
“Listen again!” Billin cried, and this time Jason heard it, too—a voice that sounded like it was trying to both whisper and shout at the same time.
“Are…you…ghosts?”
“Robbie!” Jason cried joyfully. “You’re here! No, we’re not ghosts, it’s really us! Come out!”
“Show…Robbie…you’re…not…spirits!”
“He’s scared,” Annit said. Her voice was compassionate. “In his time of history, everybody believed in ghosts and spirits. He thinks the Panurish might have killed us all.”
“Well, all right, I’m cool with that,” Jason said. “Only how do we prove to him we’re not ghosts?”
“I don’t know,” Deel said. “Sor?”
“I don’t know.”
The four non-ghosts stared at each other. Then Billin called, “Robbie! Watch this!”
He jumped as high as he could, as if he were making a jump shot, and whacked Jason on his left shoulder coming down.
“Ow!” Jason cried.
“See?” Billin called. “He’s solid! Ghosts don’t play basketball either!”
“Couldn’t you find some other way to convince him?” Jason demanded, rubbing his shoulder. But apparently it worked. After a minute, they could make out Robbie coming toward them from his hiding place in a clump of bushes. He walked warily, holding an object in one hand, and as soon as Jason could see his face in the moonlight, Jason knew something was wrong.
Annit said, “Robbie, where’s da Vinci?”
“Dead,” Robbie said.
Dead? How could a robot be dead? Jason wondered. Sor could just turn him back on. Unless...
Robbie said, “The Panurish, they burned the metal guv’nor to ashes 'n dust. A knowing one, he was. May his soul rest in peace.”
“Amen,” Jason said without thinking. Robbie added, “Only Robbie got his soul here. Metal guv’nor said so. How can that be, Sor?”
It was the first time since their fight that Robbie had addressed Sor directly, but that wasn’t as astonishing as Sor’s response. His handsome face lit up, and he said, “Let’s see!”
“See a soul?” Jason blurted because the whole thing was getting too weird. Both Robbie and Sor ignored him. Robbie raised the thing in his hand, which Jason now saw was a vase from the Discovery, and turned it upside down. A flat metal rectangle fell out, and Sor whooped with joy.
“You got it! You got the identity chip!”
And then Sor, who as far as Jason knew hated Robbie’s guts, picked up the small thief and danced around with him. And Robbie, who as far as Jason knew had tried to kill Sor, let himself be picked up and danced around with.
“Okay, okay, stop,” he said. “Sor, put him down. Robbie, you make your report. Everything, from the top.”
Annit said, “Shouldn’t we go back to the ship? For safety?”
“Never should do it,” Robbie said. “The Panurish, they might come back, and then we’d be all to pieces. We got to guard the table.”
“The table?” Jason asked, wondering if whatever had happened to Robbie had scrambled his brain. “Why would we guard a table?”
“No, don’t touch it!” Robbie screamed at Billin, who had curiously approached the table. “It’ll toast you wif brimstone, it will!”
Billin jumped backward. Jason looked from him to the table, at Robbie, and back to the table. Why didn’t he ever know what was going on?
“Okay, Robbie,” he said, “we’ll guard the table, and nobody’ll touch it. Right now, everybody else shut up, and you make your report. Annit and Sor, you stand guard, one facing east and the other west, but close enough to listen. Everybody cool with that?”
Everybody was. Robbie licked his lips a few times. He was obviously still shaken by whatever had happened. Jason was suddenly very curious to know what could shake Robbie.
“We start, the metal guv’nor and Robbie,” he said, “by dragging this here table from the Discovery. For the swindle. We put the cards on it. But before that, before Panurish even flock to the deep doings, the metal guv’nor does something to the table. Fixes it up right and proper, he does, for later. ‘But you can touch it now, Robbie,’ he says. ‘Just run your gambling games.’
“And I do. The Panurish, they think they’re up to all the tricks, but they ain’t. They never seen the extra cards in Robbie’s sleeve. I gammon ‘em all; let them win when I want, and make them lose when I want. ‘Cause what they want is this thing here. Soon’s they see it, they want it.”
“Of course they do,” Sor says. “It’s the main identity and library chip for one of our most advanced robots. You heard da Vinci say how much simpler their ‘bots are than ours. They’d learn a lot more about us from that than from listening to Sharon talk. Or from any of the electronics they stole from us because those are all at least six years obsolete.”
Jason said, “If they wanted the chip so bad, why didn’t they just take it? There were eight of them, plus seven robots, and just two of you.”
“Can’t do that, guv’nor,” Robbie said, looking shocked. “Vowels can’t be whiddled! Any other kind o’ debt, yes, nothing in that, but not vowels!”
Sor said dryly, “He means that the Panurish will steal anything they can get their hands on, but they never welsh on gambling debts. Da Vinci explained it to me. The Panurish culture, like Robbie’s, apparently bets heavily, and honesty in paying gambling debts is what holds the culture together. Otherwise, it would collapse into everybody fighting everybody else. It’s bred into the Panurish not to cheat at games of chance, and they programmed their ‘bots to be like them.”
“Saw it for meself at the first pigbird fight,” Robbie said, but this topic made Sor look upset, so he dropped it. “Them metalmen, they still owe me a robot I won from ‘em. They’ll pay it sometime. Meanwhile, our metal guv’nor, he rigged the gaming table. Then he bet his soul―”
Robbie held up the identity chip. “And I knew never to lose it. I just tantalized ‘em with it, like. Finally, them Panurish wanted it so bad they was drooling, so we made ‘em a last grand bet. I bet the metal guv’nor.”
“You bet da Vinci?” Billin asked. “But he’s a sentient AI!”
“The metal guv’nor told Robbie to bet him,” Robbie said unhappily. “Like he told Robbie about the Panurish metalmen. Watch, he said. We need to know which one puts the shining magic door in the basket.”
“What?” Jason asked.
Sor translated again. “I think he means that one of the robots sent the signal that jammed and unjammed the t-port machinery, and da Vinci figured out by electronic scanning which one it was. So then what, Robbie?”
The small kid looked tired. He said, “Robbie bet the metal guv’nor, and Robbie won. We timed it to an inch, we did. The Panurish metalman took his load through the shining door and vanished, he did. Metal guv’nor grabbed the table and threw it, he did, into the shining door, and the Panurish robot fried him. Just like he said they would. He knew, the metal guv’nor did, what the lay would be. Panurish panic. They’re cow-hearted, every last one of ‘em!”
As he listened, Jason had a sudden insight. Robbie was upset big time because of da Vinci’s death. He clutched the vase with da Vinci’s identity chip inside as if he’d never let go. The ragged runty thief had loved da Vinci. Jason hadn’t thought Robbie could love anybody.
“Go on, Robbie,” Sor said gently.
“Panurish run around squealing like the pigs they be. One o’ their metalmen grabs the table to pull it out o’ the shining door, but the metal guv’nor rigged it. The throw did it. The table smashes into something, and it turns dangerous.”
“Impact-activated weapon system,” Sor said. “So, when one of the Panurish robots tried to pull the table out of the t-port, the table electrocuted it?”
“Right you are,” Robbie said. “Then everybody panics more. Squealing and running all the way back to their ship. But the metal guv’nor’s still dead.”
Jason drew a breath. He couldn’t get ove
r how brave this skinny, uneducated little thief was. Robbie didn’t understand any of what da Vinci had arranged, not the t-port unjamming or the impact-activated lasers, or even that they all stood on another planet. Robbie thought it was all spirits and ghosts and magic doors, yet he had still saved them all. Jason felt enormous respect for him.
Sor said gently, “But Robbie, da Vinci isn’t really dead.”
“Saw him fried with me own daylights!” Robbie cried.
“Yes, I know. But you have his essential identity in that vase. It can be installed in another robot body.”
Robbie shook his head. Clearly he thought Sor was crazy. In his world, dead was dead. At least for people, and to Robbie, da Vinci had been a person, not a machine.
I think so, too, Jason thought. Da Vinci had been a lot more like a person than like an iMac. Jason hoped Sor was right, and the computer nerds of 2336 could recreate da Vinci. But right now, there were more pressing matters.
“Robbie, are you sure da Vinci said the t-port is unjammed? Why can’t we see it?” Jason asked.
Sor said, “It will be working normally as soon as we remove the table. Normal working means it only comes on for ten minutes at sunset, remember? Until then, the Panurish can’t open the t-port, no matter how much energy they expend, because it’s jammed on this side. It’s a safeguard built into the system, so nobody t-ports into a port that already has an object in it. Your molecules would get all mixed up with theirs.”
That didn’t sound good. Jason tried to think it through. “Okay, so right at sunset, we pull the table out. Whoa, how are we going to do that? We’ll get zapped!”
“I don’t know,” Sor admitted.
“Annit? Billin?”
They shook their heads. Jason said, “Okay, we got about twenty-three hours to figure that out. Let’s say we get the table out. Then the t-port is open, and everybody goes through it. Only, don’t we end up at Panurish? That’s where the aliens were going when they took our stuff through it.”
“No,” Sor said. “I can fix that. Remember when Dr. Cee and da Vinci both told you that this sort of limited-time t-port is different from most t-ports? It’s only open a short time every day, and also it’s flexible. It responds to the coordinator field on the first person through. I have the switching device on me.”