by Simon Haynes
Hal was not impressed. "When you said flyer, I imagined tinted windows, airconditioning and cup holders. That's just a wind-up chair!"
"It has a good range."
"Only if we take turns to pedal," muttered Hal. "Come on, let's push it outside. It'll be good for a laugh, whatever happens."
Clunk put the briefcase in the foot well, and together they wheeled the copter out of the hangar. Once it was clear, Clunk sat in the driver's seat and examined the controls, which consisted of a button, a twist-grip joystick and a pair of pedals. "Looks pretty straightforward," he said. "Stand back or you'll get a head cut."
"You mean a hair cut," said Hal, backing away.
"I know what I meant." As soon as Hal was out of range Clunk pressed the starter, and the blades began to turn. They hissed through the air, kicking up dust until the machine half-vanished in a swirling cloud. The hissing became a steady whap-whap-whap, and the machine shot out of the dust cloud, heading straight up. After a few gentle manoeuvres, Clunk decreased the power and set the machine back on the ground.
Hal moved closer, but Clunk waved him away. "Fetch some rope. We might need it."
Hal found a coil in the hangar and took it back to the copter. He stowed it away, sat in the passenger seat and looked around for a strap or a seatbelt. There was nothing but a chipped metal bar to hang on to.
"Ready?" asked Clunk.
Hal nodded, and the craft rose into the air. The downdraft hit him like a waterfall, and it took all his strength to keep his arms on the bar. Suddenly the copter veered, pressing him into the hard plastic seat, and when he looked past Clunk he could see straight down to the ground. Then they straightened up and gathered speed, gaining height as they passed over weed-choked fields. Ahead, the forest stretched as far as the eye could see.
"How far?" shouted Hal.
Clunk gestured at the horizon. "All the way to the coast."
*
They'd been flying over the forest for thirty minutes, crawling across the vast expanse of trees. The only visible break was a river, winding silver ribbon. When the river was directly beneath them, Hal saw pale sky reflected off the rippled surface. Then it was gone, replaced once again by trees.
"Why is this next site so dangerous?" asked Hal, raising his voice against the beat of the blades.
"The backup is stored on Banga no Ilik."
"What's that?"
"It's a monument to a legendary ruler. He sired over thirty litters with his seventeen wives."
"I'm surprised he had time for ruling." Despite further questioning, Hal couldn't get another word out of the robot so he passed the time pretending to bomb trees. He'd pick one out ahead, then count to thirty as they approached it. If it was directly underneath when he reached zero, it was a hit. Two seconds either side was a near miss, and anything else was a complete failure. Twenty-nine complete failures later he looked up just in time to see the edge of the world approaching. The trees stopped at a cliff so sheer it could have been guillotined into existence. Hal felt his bits and pieces tightening as they flew towards the edge, and at that moment he saw the towering column of rock thrusting from the ocean fifty metres from the shore. The column rose up and up, the rounded tip a handful of metres below the level of the cliff.
"There it is," said Clunk. "Umrata Banga no Ilik. Roughly translated, Ilik's organ."
"I can see where all those litters came from." Hal's gaze travelled up the column of rock. "Can you land on it?"
"I don't know yet. Hold on." Clunk angled the flight stick, taking the copter over the edge of the cliff and across the void to the column. They hovered above it while Clunk peered down at the crumbling stone. "Negative."
"So what do we do?"
Clunk indicated the rope. "I'll hover in the copter while you lower yourself down onto the column."
"Forget it," said Hal flatly. "I'll hover, you lower yourself onto the damn thing."
"But Mr Spacejock, you can't fly!"
"I'm a pilot, aren't I?"
"Not for this kind of machinery."
Hal looked down. At the base of the column, gigantic waves smashed into a jumbled pile of rock, throwing spray high into the air. "Clunk, if I fall off that column I'm screwed. If you fall I can have you fixed."
The robot looked at him doubtfully. "I suppose I could give you a lesson or two."
"Good," said Hal. "It can't be that hard, and it'll look good on my Spacer's Guild application form."
"You've got bigger things than membership forms to worry about." Clunk wheeled the copter round and set it down on the cliff top, then turned to address his pupil. "You must keep the craft level when you're near the ground or you'll destroy the rotor. Do you understand?"
Hal nodded.
"Push the pedals to rotate left and right. Twist the grip clockwise to increase power, anti-clockwise to decrease power, and use the stick to tilt the rotor."
"Push stick, tilt rotor. Got it."
"When you increase power for take-off, you must apply left pedal at the same time. Otherwise the blade will stay in one place and the copter will screw itself into the ground."
"Push pedal or the copter is screwed. Okay."
"When you want to land, you must hover first. Decrease power gradually until the craft begins to descend, use the pedals to keep your heading, and just before you touch down the air trapped between the ground and the rotor will create a cushion. When that happens, you cut the power completely and allow the copter to settle by itself. Is all that clear?"
"Easy," said Hal. "Hop out, it's my turn."
Clunk released the stick and stood up. "Remember, everything in moderation. Small, gradual movements. Don't jerk the stick around or you'll have the craft all over the place."
Hal sat in the pilot's chair and reached for the starter, while Clunk ducked under the rotor and hurried around to the spare seat. He fished out the coil of rope and tied a loose end to the tubular frame. While he did so, the rotor began to turn.
"When we're clear of the cliff, I want you to fly some distance from the column and practice hovering."
"Anything you say." Hal glanced up at the blurred rotor and twisted the throttle.
"Left pedal!" cried Clunk, as the copter began to slew around.
Hal stomped on it and the copter lurched.
Clunk held on tight. "Are you sure about this, Mr Spacejock?"
"You had a go. It's my turn." Hal opened the throttle and they rose unsteadily into the air, drifting sideways and turning anti-clockwise at the same time. He tried pressing one pedal, then quickly pressed the other as a gentle turn became a spin. Just as he thought he'd controlled it, the copter began to spin in the opposite direction, faster and faster until sky and ground were just a blur. He heard Clunk cry out, but was too busy mashing the pedals and yanking the stick to all points of the compass to take in any instructions.
Somehow, by pressing and pulling everything in reach, he managed to get the copter level. He looked round to give Clunk a comforting wink, then stared in astonishment.
The co-pilot's seat was empty.
*
"Clunk?" Hal rose in his chair and tried to see over the far side, but all he could see was the knot around the frame. A quick glance over his own side showed the copter was rocketing into the sky. Then he looked down and spotted Clunk hanging to the very end of the rope, just above the ocean. His face was tilted up, and his mouth was forming words at high speed. "Hang on!" shouted Hal, somewhat unnecessarily.
Clunk took one hand off the rope to gesture at him.
"Unscrew the throttle to descend," muttered Hal, remembering fragments from his all-too-brief lesson. He twisted the grip to the left and the copter immediately turned right. He pushed the left-hand pedal to the stops, and the craft lurched round and spun the opposite way. Once he managed to correct the spin, he looked down to see how the altitude was doing and quickly realised all upward motion had ceased. In fact, the copter was now plummeting seaward. Far below, with the salty water co
ming up to meet him, Clunk was frantically climbing the rope.
"Screw the throttle to go up," said Hal, twisting the grip firmly. This time he remembered to push the pedal, and the copter rose like a moon rocket. Clunk lost his grip on the rope and slid all the way to the end, where he just managed to save himself by wrapping three loops around his forearm.
Hal looked up in surprise as a shadow fell across the controls. He was halfway up the column, rising like an express lift and drifting ever closer to the rocky face.
"How do you tilt?" Hal looked down at the stick, then back at the column, which was close enough to make out small plants growing in the cracks. He shoved the stick to his left, and for good measure pushed both pedals and twisted the throttle at the same time. The copter jerked up, spinning in mid-air, then headed straight for the cliff face. Hal pulled back until the copter was high enough to clear, then remembered Clunk hanging from the rope far below. When he looked down he saw the robot's expression as it hurtled towards the wall of stone: eyes wide, mouth open, jaw dropped.
With a casual flick of the wrist Hal turned the copter back towards the column, while a twist of the throttle brought it high enough to clear the tip. As he reached the cracked, rocky surface he eased the stick back to hover, and then he noticed movement to his right. Glancing round he saw Clunk's arm reaching into the copter for a handhold. A moment later, the robot's head appeared, followed by the other arm.
"What d'you come back up for?" demanded Hal. "We're hovering over the damn thing!"
Clunk opened his mouth and delivered a long and varied string of curses. He'd spent several minutes collating the list from the sealed section of his vocabulary, and the results were impressive.
"Finished?" asked Hal, as the robot tailed off.
Clunk glared at him. "For now," he said, loosening his grip and sliding down the rope.
Hal saw him land on the tip of the column, trailing several metres of cord. "Steady," he murmured. He saw Clunk stagger in the downdraft, and he backed the copter away a little.
Beneath him, Clunk was on his hands and knees, exploring the narrow tip of the column with his hands. He stopped near a patch of sand and began to dig, burrowing down like a dog after a rabbit, throwing up gouts of dirt in his haste. The digging stopped and Clunk worked at something buried in the sand. Then he stood up and waved at the copter.
Hal pushed the stick forward, lining up the rope so that it would drag across the top of the column. As he approached, he saw Clunk stagger. Then he stared in amazement - the towering shaft of rock was falling away from him, into the sea.
Chapter 28
The copter dived towards the ocean with the cord streaming out behind, blades hissing as it tore through the air. The cord passed within a metre of the column, and Clunk threw himself headlong to grab hold of it. Once he was safe Hal pulled the nose up to avoid sticking the flying machine in the ocean floor.
They were still clawing for height when the column fell into the sea, throwing water high into the air. Hal brought the machine to a hover as Clunk clambered in, a slim metal box gripped between his lips. He flopped into the passenger seat and gestured at the cliffs. "Land!" he shouted over the whap-whap-whap of the rotor.
Hal headed for the strip of green atop the crumbling cliff face, where he set the machine down with a bump. "That thing's been sticking out of the sea for thousands of years, and then we turn up and boom, it's gone. What happened?"
"It was rigged to collapse," said Clunk. "I suspected as much, but I thought I'd have time to collect the backup before the destruct was triggered."
"Is that it?" Hal looked at the small box doubtfully. "It looks like a sandwich tin."
"Slide across," said Clunk, leaping down from the copter. "We'll fly back to the palace and I'll see what I can get out of it."
*
The copter settled in the palace courtyard and Clunk hurried towards the cool interior. On the way, he worked the box open and withdrew a small glass cube. "I'm going to plug this chip into one of the computers. Given time I'll be able to generate an index and find the information we need."
Hal's stomach growled. "How much time?"
"Depends on the speed of the hardware." Clunk led the way to the computing room, where he slotted the chip into a reader and began to type. After a few moments, the chip lit up and a hollow rectangle appeared on the screen. "This will show the indexing progress," said Clunk.
"It's not doing anything."
"Wait."
They did. Five minutes later, the box was still blank.
Hal cleared his throat. "This isn't one of those progress bars which does nothing for twenty minutes, then fills up in the blink of an eye?"
Clunk shook his head, his face grave. "This could take a very long time, Mr Spacejock. There's a huge amount of information on the chip and the hardware may not be up to the task."
"So you need a more powerful machine?"
"Evidently."
"Can't you read the chip yourself?"
"I'm afraid not. My onboard storage is limited, and even with additional memory I'd be no faster than these computers."
Hal snapped his fingers. "Wait here!"
*
Hal burst into the courtyard, running at full tilt. The copter was where they left it, the rotor swinging slowly in the breeze, and he ducked his head and reached into the foot well where his fingers closed on the briefcase. Then he ran back to the computer room.
"One high-powered computer," he said, holding the briefcase out.
Clunk smiled. "I wondered what you were up to." He took the case, laid it on the bench and opened it. Immediately, a short length of red cable flopped out, the end a mass of torn wires.
"What happened to that?" asked Hal.
"It was damaged when I rescued it from the groundcar," said Clunk. "I'm sure Sonya will understand."
There was a clattering whirr as the briefcase powered on. "Hey, where am I?"
"You don't want to know," said Hal. "We need your help to get back to Sonya."
"What do you want me to do?" asked the briefcase. "I'm very powerful, you know."
"I'm sure you are. Now listen, we've got a huge amount of data and Clunk here is trying to generate an index so we can find the information we need to get home. With me so far?"
"Of course. How will I access the data?"
Clunk took up a spare reader. "Can you scan for the correct frequency?"
"Already obtained," said the briefcase. There was a click as the cooling fans switched to high speed, blasting dust off the computers nearby. "Where's the data?"
Clunk took the backup chip and plugged it into Bobby's reader. A second or two later, it lit up. "I want you to index everything. Save all references to teleporters in a separate file."
A rectangle appeared on the briefcase's screen, and almost immediately filled with solid green. "What shall I do with the file?"
"Wait a minute," said Hal. "Have you done it already?"
"Of course," said the briefcase. "And the file?"
"Give me access," said Clunk. He put one hand on the briefcase and the screen flashed through page after page of diagrams, star maps, text and mathematical tables.
"That's a very old protocol you have there," said the briefcase. "Have you considered an upgrade?"
Clunk ignored him. "I've narrowed it down to two possible addresses," he said to Hal. "One of them must be Canessa."
"And the other?"
"It could be anywhere. The database contains information on gravity, atmospheric composition and the construction diagrams of the buildings. Both are identical to my own measurements from Canessa."
"Isn't there any way to tell?"
"No. It's a coin toss." Clunk closed the briefcase, ignoring its squawk of protest. "We'd better take as much of this equipment as we can."
"What about the keypad? And a power source?"
"We'll stop at the pillbox for those. Then it's back to the teleporter."
*
Re
x gripped the control stick with one hand and tightened his safety harness with the other. The tiny craft shook as it dropped into the planet's upper atmosphere, and there was a sheen of sweat on Rex's forehead. It was several years since his last planetfall and that had been on Ullimo, where ground control had landed the ship automatically. Here, he'd have to do it himself.
A buzzer sounded, and he scanned the instruments. The hull temperature warning was yellow, and he fired the attitude jets to slow the rate of descent. Beneath him, the planetary surface was stretched out like a living, full-colour map. He'd already selected his landing spot, and the ship's computer was showing one more loop of the planet before final approach.
Twenty minutes later the shaking ceased. Rex was on the far side of the planet from the touchdown area and the ground below was as dark as deep space, with only a sliver of light showing near the horizon. The cabin was chilly, and thin air whistled over the cockpit as the ship tore through the sky.
The sun appeared five minutes from touchdown, flooding the ship with warm yellow light, immediately raising the temperature by five or six degrees.
Rex looked out. The land below was heavily forested, with undulations where the trees rose up and over small hills. To his right there were two clearings side by side, and in the middle of the nearest was his target - a white freighter with a pointed nose and a swept-back tail. The Volante.
Rex glanced at the second clearing, and did a double-take as he saw the stone pillars in the middle. What the hell were they doing there?
The ship's computer chimed and a heads-up display appeared on the windshield. The landing area was marked with a small red box, the hover point with a blue circle. As Rex approached the circle his computer displayed the required speed, altitude and attitude alongside it. By matching all three, he was able to bring the ship to a halt above the smaller clearing, and a minute later he felt a gentle bump as the landing legs made contact.
The canopy hissed as the seals parted, whining loudly as it rose out of the way. Rex loosened his straps and swung his legs over the side, scrambling to the ground as the canopy reversed direction. It sealed with a thump, and Rex flipped open a panel and entered a code. With the vessel secured, he hurried over to examine the stone structures in the middle of the clearing.