Vigilant lop-3

by James Alan Gardner

  The carcass rolled limply, deadweight. Its legs splayed outward as Ramos flopped it over on its back. "Definitely deceased," Daunt murmured, looking down at the shanshan’s chest. From muzzle to belly, the animal’s flesh had been eaten away by…

  By…

  Not insects or bacteria. I was close enough to smell a tangy bite in the air, wafting up from the shanshan’s wounds. The odor was ugly familiar: cruel, vinegary acid, harking back to Pump Station 3.

  The shanshan had wandered in here… and got shot gooey dead.

  "Run!" I yelled.

  But of course it was too late.

  They came out of the side tunnel: one android after another, old, young, male, female, too many to count. Jelly guns galore. Tic had carried the torch-wand with him to the shanshan, so Paulette didn’t have enough light to see them coming. At the last second, she must have picked up their footsteps, tiptoe-soft, sneaking in for ambush. She bellowed something, a warning, a battle cry, the same instant I was screaming, "Run!" Then she fired her whole magazine of poppers into the onrushing pack.

  Thunder. Rocket blasts lit the whole tunnel, flame venting out the exhaust ports of Paulette’s shoulder launcher.

  Four missiles. More than four androids.

  Boom, the sound of impact. Crackle, the zap of lightning shorting out robot circuits. Then cough-cough-cough-cough-cough, a flurry of jelly guns unloading on the nearest target.

  Paulette staggered back from the impact — acid wads slapping against her body armor, splotching over her chest, arms, helmet. Her armor bloomed with smoke, every acid drop keen to burn its way through the plastic shell and blister the woman inside.

  "Get out!" Daunt yelled at her… but in the split second Paulette had before the robots were on top of her, she charged toward us rather than heading back to the mine entrance.

  So. All five of us were blocked in, with an army of gun-toting androids between us and the exit.

  Jolly.

  Daunt fired his four robot-poppers up the tunnel. The bang of their ignition damn near deafened me… that plus the echoes crashing off the rock walls, pummeling like fists on my eardrums. Fe leejedd, I thought witlessly; I hear the thunder. Then the poppers struck and four more androids went down, legs and arms jerking in short-circuit spasms.

  Not good enough. I counted four robots still on their feet, black silhouettes outside the shine of Tic’s torch.

  Paulette raced toward us, wrapped in peels of acid smoke; and as she ran, she slapped a button on the wrist of her armor. Inside my head, I felt like someone had just shouted, "Mayday, Mayday!" though I hadn’t heard the actual words. An emergency alert to Protection Central. I decided to add my own: Xe, if you have any tricks up your sleeve, now would be a precious good time to trot them out.

  Nothing. Then Ramos was pulling my arm, shouting words my buggy-whipped ears couldn’t hear. I got the message anyway: retreat down the tunnel.

  Where else? Except that if this mine was like the ones near Sallysweet River, we’d soon run out of retreating room: the top level always dead-ended at a pithead. Once upon a time, such pitheads may have held elevators to transport miners down to lower levels, and ore back up. But after three thousand years, the elevator sure as deviltry wouldn’t be working… which meant we’d just have the elevator shaft. A sheer drop into the depths.

  Still… better a nice clean fall than chug-a-lugging acid.

  Run, run, run: us, then the robots in pursuit. We all sprinted full speed, except Tic, who launched himself into a downward glide that matched our pace. To keep his hands free, he’d jammed the torch-wand under the straps of his tote pack. The light reflecting off his scaly chest had a glowery gray-blue cast to it… but Tic was far from collapsing with the jitters. As he flew, he shouted back over his shoulder at the androids. "Stop, you’re burning us! Stop, you’re freezing us! Stop, you’re drowning us!"

  "What the hell are you raving about?" Daunt snapped.

  Ramos and I didn’t try to explain. "Stop, you’re smothering us!" Tic hollered at the robots. "Stop, you’re strangling us! Stop, you’re squeezing too hard!"

  "Stop," Paulette said, "we’ve hit a dead end." The pithead. Tic’s torch showed a blank wall in front of us, broken by a black hole opening downward. Above the hole hung a few rusty twists of metal, all that was left of the elevator mechanism.

  "The sides are sheer rock," Daunt said, looking into the shaft. "Straight down."

  "The robots are going to fire again," Paulette shouted from behind us. I glanced over my shoulder in time to see her spin to face the shots and spread her arms wide. Trying to protect us from the acid barrage by blocking it with her body.

  Daunt shouted, "No!" Then four blobs of goo splashed simultaneously against Paulette’s ravaged armor, scattering sticky beads all over her body. Dozens of droplets found their way through holes in the armor, holes burned by the previous round of shots. Paulette sucked in her breath, then screamed, "Shit! Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!"

  "Don’t say that!" Ramos bellowed. Shoving past Tic, she yelled furiously at the robots, "Stop, you’re stabbing us. Stop, you’re making us bleed!" Festina: doing the only thing left. "Grab my waist," Tic barked at me. "I can parachute you down to the next level."

  "And run out on everyone else?"

  "Save yourself, damn it!" Ramos called over her shoulder.

  "Yes, go! Now!" That came from Daunt; he’d thrown himself forward the moment Paulette was hit, and now stood between her and the androids. The androids had stopped their advance, all four of them standing across the tunnel like a wall, giving their jelly guns another few seconds to pressurize. They seemed in no hurry; they had us all in range.

  "Faye!" Tic said. "Grab me! There’s no time left."

  But there was.

  Flickering into existence from nowhere, a tube of light appeared in the tunnel. Purple. Blue. Green. One end of the tube opened wide, straight in front of me. The rest of it stretched back up the shaft, floating weightless in the air, over the heads of the androids and on into the distance. In some spots, the tube narrowed to the breadth of my arm; in others, it widened to fill the whole tunnel, its diameter fluctuating from moment to moment, shimmering peacock tinsel.

  Tic gasped in surprise. "Xe?"

  "No, it’s a Sperm-tail," Ramos told him. "Escape route."

  Before I could react, she slammed me hard across the shoulders and knocked me into the tube.

  I’d shot through transport tubes before, but never in the unprotected flesh. To ride Bonaventure’s up-sleeve, you always got put into stasis: sit down in a transport capsule, wait for the stasis field to ‹bink› on, and next thing you know, an attendant says, "Welcome to North Orbital Terminus." No jolt, no bump, no sensation of passage.

  But this time, I wasn’t in stasis.

  Forward — I flew helpless-forward through the tube. When it compressed, I compressed. When it expanded, I did too. Bones didn’t crunch, even as I squeezed through tight spots a centimeter across or ballooned out fat several meters wide… but I felt it all, felt my body pulled like plasticine, twisted-kneaded-sculpted to match the peacock tube’s shape. The forces working me were blandly impersonal, crushing me, then rolling me out pastry-style; yet beyond all that wrenching and wringing I got the feel of a tangible sentience. Something that knew me. Something that felt queer-familiar.

  Who? What?

  But no time to mull over questions. Suddenly I was spat clear out of the tube, onto a scratchy heap of carpet moss — one of those thin beds that grew along the edges of the tunnel. As soon as I rolled to my feet I could see the surface only a few paces in front of me. Gray daylight seeped down from the outside world, mixing with the purple, blue, green glow of the peacock tube that stretched back into the mine…

  "Waaaaah!" Tic cried, spurting out of the tube. His gliders were half-spread; he shot forward through the air, nearly flying straight out of the tunnel before he managed to stop himself. As he landed, he sputtered a ripping-blue dictionary of Oolom words I’
d never heard before — vocabulary that somehow didn’t come up when I’d learned the language in junior school.

  I’d have to ask him what the words meant. Always eager to learn, our Faye.

  Paulette squirted next from the tube, landing bang near my heels. Before I could help her, she forced herself to her feet; but then she got the wobbles and had to catch her balance against the tunnel wall. "Stay back!" she croaked as I stepped toward her. "You’ll get burned."

  Smoke still streamed off her. The armor had so many wet gummy patches smeared across its surface, there couldn’t be any place safe to touch her. I reached out anyway, but she jerked away, and growled, "Don’t be witless. I can walk."

  She stumbled forward, heading outside. I called to Tic, "See that she gets to the skimmer. I’ll wait for…"

  Festina barreled out of the tube. Before she even touched the floor, she had tucked into somersault position; she rolled silvery-smooth with the impact of landing and was on her feet in a split second, fists up in a boxer’s guard position.

  "Gone through Sperm-tubes before?" I asked.

  "Too many times," she said. "Now move. I’ll wait for Daunt."

  I didn’t budge. If Daunt needed one person to help him, he might need two.

  He came through three seconds later, armor smoking with acid. The androids must have got off another round of jelly shots before he escaped. Where he landed, the carpet moss began to smolder; but he pushed himself up, and said, "I’m all right. Let’s go."

  I turned for one last look at the peacock tube. It was gone, vanished, who knows where. But from far down the tunnel came the slam, slam, slam of android feet running full tilt toward us. "Move!" Ramos shouted, giving my shoulder a shove. But I had figured that out for myself.

  When we’d walked in from the skimmer, it had seemed like a short trip. Running back was a whole lot farther.

  Paulette did her best, but she couldn’t move near as fast as the rest of us. Now and then, stabs of pain made her groan — trying to race in that burning armor must have brought skin into contact with spots where the acid had eaten through. We could tell she was in blazing agony, no matter how she fought to hide it. She staggered forward, doing no better than a slow jog while the rest of us on foot kept pace with her.

  Tic circled overhead keeping pace too, but Daunt ordered him to bolt full speed for the skimmer. "Get it open, get the engine running. That’s what we need." I could see Tic wanting to argue; but someone had to get the skimmer ready, and he could zip ahead faster than us Homo saps. Proctors don’t waste time fighting the necessary — he trimmed his gliders for maximum speed and shot forward toward the lakeshore.

  Muffled thumps sounded behind us; the androids had reached the surface and were thudding across the carpet moss. "Damn," I muttered. I’d hoped the robots might be programmed not to come out into daylight — that the bad guys, whoever they were, worried about the robots being seen. Apparently not. The androids’ highest priority was eliminating us witnesses.

  "Leave me," Paulette gasped, teeth clenched against the pain. "Ridiculous everyone dying."

  "No one’s going to die," Daunt told her. But he was speaking for the sake of form: the skimmer was too far away, the androids too close. We weren’t going to make it.

  Xe, Xe, Xe, I thought desperately. Peacock, whatever you are, we need you again.

  No response.

  Looking around for a weapon or something to use as a shield, I noticed Ramos wasn’t with us anymore. She’d stopped back a ways and was fiddling with something in her hands.

  "What are you doing?" I yelled.

  She didn’t answer, still concentrating on whatever she was holding. The second she finished with it, she wheeled back toward us, running. "Hope it’s still in range," was all she said as she caught up with us.

  Paulette stumbled on. The rest of us kept right at her back, ready to stand as a barrier between her and the androids.

  The androids: getting nearer. Two in front, two farther behind. The front pair pulling within jelly-gun range. Raising their pistols…

  Roaring out of the sky, a sleek black missile speared down at the two robots like holy vengeance. One of Festina’s probes. She must have signaled it to forget about its search pattern and come save our butts. I could feel the probe’s triumphant glee a split second before it hit; then I was thrown off my feet by the earthquake impact of the missile ramming home, smashing the androids to metal confetti against the rocky ground.

  Debris flew in all directions: robot guts, missile guts, a fierce hail of wreckage spraying around the forest. Chunks of shrapnel sliced into bluebarrel trunks, spilling out spring sap. The trees between us and the crash site blocked most of the flying shards… but still I could hear fragments whizz near my head as I hugged the dirt and prayed.

  "Up, up, up!" Daunt yelled. "They aren’t all gone yet."

  Two androids were still left, the ones who’d been running farther behind. They’d got knocked down by the missile strike, but hadn’t been close enough to ground zero to take damage. Now they were clambering up again, getting their bearings.

  "What about the other two probes?" I asked Ramos.

  "Far away. Never get here in time." She stood up, bold-angry-fierce, and planted herself between Paulette and the last two robots. "Stop," she shouted, "you’re hurting us. Stop, you’re cutting us. Stop, you’re making us choke."

  "That’s so stupid!" Daunt snapped as the androids started to sprint toward us.

  "It’s all we’ve got left," Ramos replied, still facing the robots head on. "Stop, you’re poisoning us. Stop, you’re electrocuting us."

  "Stop, you’re corroding us," Paulette said weakly.

  "Stop, you’re shooting us," Daunt yelled angrily.

  "Stop, you’re hanging us," Ramos called. "Stop, you’re crucifying us. Stop, you’re beheading us."

  "Stop," I shouted, "you’re making us allergic!"

  Whump.

  Still life. Sudden silence.

  No thundering android footsteps. Just our own panting. The soft drip of tree sap trickling out of gouged bluebar-rels.

  The robots stood frozen on the carpet moss.

  "You’re making us allergic?" Ramos repeated in disbelief.

  "It just popped into my head," I mumbled.

  It just popped into my head.

  "They’ve stopped," Paulette whispered. "They’ve bloody well stopped. Holy Mother of God."

  "The bad guys missed a safeguard," Ramos breathed. "And no wonder. Who would ever… well yes, it stands to reason androids would be programmed to avoid people who were allergic. And the bad guys never thought to override that. But… holy shit." She laid her hand on my shoulder. "Faye. You’re brilliant."

  "Thanks," I said, feeling the shakes sneaking over me. I just wished I could be sure the inspiration was mine.

  Fifteen minutes later, the first police reinforcements arrived — Sallysweet River’s two constables. One was a boy wet-ink fresh from the academy, while the other was a woman pressing hard against retirement, if not a titch over the line. I’d seen them the night before as Cheticamp briefly touched base with them… but these two weren’t the types for playing detective or ScrambleTac. They were bull-big village cops, well suited for breaking up bar fights and scaring the bejeezus out of teenage shoplifters, but not digging into planetwide conspiracies. Still, when a fellow officer radioed out a mayday, the Sallysweet River constabulary came running top speed, no questions asked.

  By the time they arrived, we’d unlatched the ScrambleTacs from their armor. Daunt had got off lucky — a single round of shots. Paulette had taken two volleys: one that Swiss-cheesed her body shell and a second that splashed through the holes. She had dozens of vicious-bad burns, arms, legs, stomach, even one on her cheek.

  Ramos gritted her teeth at the sight of that one.

  We sponged down Paulette’s wounds with snowmelt, trying to ignore the hiss of steam whenever we touched water to acid. All of us had trained in first aid, but Tic to
ok charge of the treatment — the world-soul had linked him to a burn specialist down south, and now he was talking us through what we had to do. Soon after the Sallysweet River contingent landed, Paulette was stable enough to transport. We packed her and Daunt into the police skimmer, then dispatched the baby-boy cop to drive like a demon to the nearest hospital.

  The retirement-age cop stayed behind to "protect" us. Mostly that meant she glared suspiciously at the motionless robots and occasionally muttered, "We should yank those guns out of their hands."

  She never actually tried it; we would have stopped her if she had. Let sleeping androids lie.

  JUNIOR ATTACHE

  When Cheticamp arrived, he brought a whole platoon of ScrambleTacs… and they all wanted to blast the two frozen androids with robot-poppers. "Must you?" Tic asked. "They’re no threat now. And a violent electric jolt will frazzle their memory. Possibly useful evidence."

  Cheticamp grouched about safety first, protection of his officers, blah-blah… but he agreed to hold off till cybernetics experts could arrive to try a "sanitary" shutdown. The experts were already on the way — Tic had beeped them while we waited for the cops to show. (Naturally, Tic knew all the top boffins in the Civilian Protection Office; or at least he knew the top boffins as of seventy years ago, which was when he’d last had dealings with that particular branch of the government. Amazingly, a few of them were still alive… and tickled three shades of pink to be called into the field again.)

  The boffins were headquartered (or perhaps nursing-homed) in Comfort Bight, halfway around the world… but sleeve travel got them to Bonaventure up-down-done, and from there it was only forty-five minutes to our position. Under the watchful eyes of the ScrambleTacs — dour as Judgment, robot-poppers trained and ready — the tottery old experts deactivated the androids with nary a whiff of excitement.

  "No self-destructs on these," Cheticamp observed.

  "No," I agreed. "And the androids down the mine didn’t blow up either. Odds are, the killer never expected these ones to be found."