by Paul Stewart
The three of them are standing at the edge of the pen, looking at something. Dek’s comforting Lina, whose face is crumpled up, distraught.
I enlarge the view.
There’s a row of steel chairs over by the far wall. An old man has been secured to the nearest one, his wrists and ankles secured by steel rings. He’s got a shiny helmet on his head, and from the bushy white beard I recognize him at once.
It’s Gaffer Jed. Lina’s grandfather. A kind old man. Friendly. Harmless. Always telling stories to the kids of the Inpost – including me, when I was younger. The Half-Lifes had the facts, but it was Gaffer Jed who made the past come alive, with his stories of blue Earth skies and billowing clouds of white water vapour, and forests of mighty plants called trees; stories told to him by his gaffer, and his gaffer before him, all the way back to the Launch Times . . .
The killer zoid beside him is holding a laser saw and a probe.
I look away. There’s a pain in my chest, as if I’ve been punched. I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to help them.
But where are they?
The scanner identifies the place as being in a zoid-only zone. Sector 17. I didn’t even know there was a Sector 17.
But I’m going to have to find it.
Suddenly my earpiece starts bleeping again. I curse out loud. Looking down from the edge of the roof I see the heat-sig of a single zoid approaching. Pale yellow.
Moments later it comes into view.
I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s squat and round. It has stubby legs and two extendable arms that have pincers at the ends. And a face. Two glowing eyes; a mouth that’s set in a kind of half-smile.
This was considered reassuring back when the Biosphere was run by robots who worked for humans. So this must be an ancient robot.
As I watch, a portal opens in the building below me and the ancient robot waddles inside. The portal slides shut with a hiss. Leaving Caliph with the glimmermouth, I magnetize my boot-hubs and body armour and climb down from the roof.
The portal has a rudimentary movement sensor. No security. Whatever’s inside can’t be worth protecting. The portal slides open again.
I take out my cutter and step into the darkness inside.
Ahead of me, the robot pauses. Its head swivels, its eyes flash. A low hum comes from its smiling mouth – but before it can say a word I press my scanner to the side of its head and zap its control centre with a pulse of energy. I’m guessing a robot this simple has no deflectors.
Sure enough, it slumps forward. If only zoids were this easy to deal with.
I open up its head. The motherboard’s much simpler than the ones I usually come across when I’m scavenging. It’s got a small memory – just enough to enable it to perform simple tasks. Locating the interface unit, I reconfigure it with my own personal identification data. Old tech. It’ll respond to my commands now. Or should do. I close the head. Step back. Reboot it with my scanner.
There’s a crackle and a buzz, and the robot pulls itself upright. The lights flash and seem to focus on me. The smiling mouth speaks. ‘Greetings, crew-member York. My name is Ralph. How may I serve you?’
The voice is calm, soft, reassuring. These ancient robots were programmed not to harm humans, nor, by inaction, to allow a human to come to harm.
‘Ralph?’
‘Robotic Assist-Level Personal Help, sir. How may I serve you?’
I look around. ‘Well, Ralph, you can start by telling me what this place is.’
‘This is the Central Robot Hub, sir,’ it says, and raises one arm. A line of light panels comes on in the ceiling at the far side of the building. ‘You are most welcome to inspect, crew-member York, sir.’
I smile to myself. No one’s ever been this polite to me before.
Now I can see better, the place looks even bigger than it did from the outside. There are racks of shelves lining the wall opposite. Most of them are empty, though some are subdivided into stacks of stock-lockers, each one embossed with a glowing light that details its contents.
Gradient Sockets 54/i. Terminal Drives c14–c21. Helix Springs . . .
I aim my scanner at one of the lockers. It’s labelled Input Processors – Delta-Mode/iv and slides open to reveal a mass of silver components I can’t identify. Inside the next locker – marked Tube De-Blockers: Max Str – is something I do recognize.
Gunkballs.
I take a dozen of them and put them in my backcan. Then a dozen more. Ralph makes no move to stop me.
Behind me, more of the overhead panels come on. I turn to see the entire hangar bathed in light – and an army of inert robots standing in rows, their shadows pooled around their feet.
I must have gasped with surprise because Ralph says, ‘I did not catch that, sir.’
I shake my head. ‘A lot of zoids . . . I mean, robots here,’ I mutter.
‘The Robot Hub houses three hundred and sixty complete refits, sir. Twelve models. Thirty units per model—’
‘Show me.’
Ralph waddles to the end of the line. I step forward and inspect the troops. A dumpy blank-faced robot stands before us. It has a barrel-shaped body and hover-jets instead of legs. Behind it, a line of identical-looking robots stretches far back into the distance.
‘This is a refuse-robot, sir,’ Ralph announces. It moves to the next column, its legs swivelling round, but head remaining forward. ‘This is a domestic-robot, sir.’ It moves again. ‘This is a leisure-robot . . .’
I’m intrigued by these ancient robots. I guess they must have been in storage when the others changed into zoids.
I move down one of the lines, then cut through the ranks at an angle. I check my recon-sight. There’s Ralph, and me, and the pulsing heat-sigs of Caliph and the glimmermouth up on the roof above, but no sign of any zoids.
‘This is a gardener-robot,’ Ralph is saying.
I pause. It’s short and angular, and there’s an amiable blankness to its face. It has three legs and two arms, all five limbs extendable. One arm has a hose attachment for watering. The pliers-like hand is holding laser-shears, which I take.
‘If you require an energy source to recharge any tools, sir, I can take you to—’
I pull the trigger. The laser-shears hiss and dazzle.
‘They seem fine,’ I say, and holster them. I pat my stomach. ‘What I do require, Ralph, is a food source.’
‘A food source. Of course, sir.’
Ralph bustles through a couple more rows before coming to a halt in front of the most human-looking robots I’ve ever seen. They’ve got arms and legs, and hands and feet, all of them jointed. They’ve got heads shaped like human heads, with ears and noses and mouths. And eyes that look like real eyes.
It’s incredible! Nothing in Bronx’s cybernetic workshop comes close.
There are only three of these humanoid robots, not thirty. Ralph activates them, and they bleep and nod into action.
‘Butler-robot at your service,’ one of them says.
‘At your service, crew-member York, sir,’ Ralph corrects it.
‘Butler-robot at your service, crew-member York, sir. What is your desire?’
‘My desire is for a slap-up meal,’ I tell it. I’m enjoying this.
‘And will sir be dining alone?’
I look around me. Shrug. ‘Looks like it.’
‘Dinner for one,’ the butler-robot announces.
All three butler-robots burst into feverish activity. They scurry and flap. They come and go. A tray transforms itself into a chair; a second into a table. Eating implements are placed at precise angles around an ancient plate, bowl and visiglass beaker.
One of the butler-robots pulls the chair back. ‘If you’d care to sit down, sir.’
I do so. I can’t help grinning. If this is how it was, then humans certainly lived the good life back in the Launch Times . . .
A second butler unrolls a square of cloth and tucks it in at my front. A third appears with a visiglass container;
a fourth with a silver tray with a domed lid.
I prepare myself for a feast. It’ll be the first proper meal I’ve had since the Inpost was ransacked. My stomach gurgles.
‘Would sir care to taste the wine?’
I nod. The container is tipped up, but nothing pours into the beaker. I look at the butler-robot. It looks back at me with amiable anticipation on its face. I nod again. It tips the bottle further, as though filling the glass to the top.
But there’s nothing there.
The robot with the silver tray steps forward. ‘Be careful, sir, it could be hot,’ it says, as it lifts the domed lid and holds out the tray.
It is as empty as the visiglass container.
The robots are going through the motions. There obviously hasn’t been food or drink to serve for hundreds of years.
I push my chair back and climb to my feet.
‘I trust you enjoyed your meal, sir,’ says Ralph, and if it hears me snort this time, it does not respond. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with at this time, sir?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I need to get to Sector 17.’
‘Sector 17,’ Ralph repeats. There is a brief pause. ‘I can navigate you to that exact position, sir. If that is your desire.’
‘It is,’ I tell it. Though even the thought of the place fills me with horror.
As we emerge from the hangar, the sound of chattering breaks into my thoughts, and Caliph comes bounding towards me. His nose is twitching and his tail’s all bushed up.
High above us, wheeling around in slow circles, is a great flock of glimmermouths. The air is full of booming hooting calls. Gliding past the glowing domes, they’re sucking up the sparkling clouds of flux-glitter through those long snouts of theirs.
Only one glimmermouth is not airborne. My glimmermouth.
It’s still perched up at the top of the hangar where I left it, looking back and forward between the flock and me. Then our gazes lock. Its small red eyes narrow.
It glides down to land at my side. I reach out and stroke its neck. It stares up at the other glimmermouths again, and I recognize the yearning in its eyes. Then it turns to me, its head cocked.
‘Thank you,’ I say simply, swallowing away the lump in my throat. I gesture upward with my arms. ‘Now go. Go!’
The glimmermouth stares at me a moment longer, then abruptly turns away. It trots forward, awkwardly, its wings raised and keeling from side to side. There’s a slap-slap sound as it flaps down hard. It launches itself from the ground, soars high and joins the rest of the flock.
I turn to Ralph. ‘Sector 17.’
‘Sector 17, sir,’ says the robot. ‘Please follow me.’
We set off.
At first Caliph is uncertain of the robot. Suspicious. Anxious. He keeps running at it, screeching angrily, then backing away, teeth bared. Ralph ignores him. I guess it’s not programmed to respond.
In the end, Caliph calms down – or rather, tires himself out. He scrambles up my back and falls asleep on my shoulder.
We press on, heading diagonally across the sprawling expanse of brightly lit domes and snaking power cables. Soon we’re leaving glimmermouths behind us. I glance back, but cannot recognize the one I rescued.
I turn back. Up ahead is the strangest-looking collection of buildings I’ve ever seen. Dozens of rounded, irregular-shaped cabins are locked together to form a great nubbed mass that is raised up above the ground on thick silver pillars. The effect is like the billowing clouds that hover over the convection lakes. Above, there are high walkways connecting clusters of cabins, and balconies jutting from each rounded window. Below, in the shadows cast by the buildings, are pools and benches and tiled areas . . .
And all of it, the whole lot, has been smashed half to bits.
The auto-shutters at the window openings are broken. Great chunks of metal hang in twists. Entire sections of wall are missing, exposing sleepcribs and workstations and flexi-chairs and lights and vapour showers and all the other stuff that makes for somewhere decent to live – the entire place abandoned long ago.
I’m not surprised. The Rebellion. To find out more, I’ll need to talk to a Half-Life. Whatever its past, though, this place is creepy, and I’m about to follow Ralph onto Section 17, wherever that might be, when something catches my eye.
It’s a light up on the second floor. Darting from side to side. A torch.
Everything tells me to ignore it. To turn my back and get out of there as quickly as I can.
But I don’t. I can’t. Zoids don’t need light. Humans need light.
‘Wait for me here,’ I tell Ralph, and begin to climb a walkway that spirals up and around one of the vast silver pillars.
The sides of the pillar are pockmarked with bullet holes. The walkway is cratered. As I reach the top, I glance into the nearest cabins. There is charred furniture, broken equipment, dangling wiring. There are also more personal details.
A half-smashed pictograph of a smiling couple.
Some kind of toy critter with blue fur and a long neck.
A cracked bev-mug with a red heart – also cracked – on its side . . .
I’m filled with a terrible sadness for these people who, centuries earlier, died. Or ran away. My ancestors. Who were they? What happened to them? And what hopes and dreams were dashed when the zoids turned against them?
I hear a grating noise. It’s coming from just up ahead. I pick up a heat-sig and see the beam of light darting around a cabin to my right.
I’ve masked my own heat-sig, but I must have made a noise.
‘Who’s there?’
The voice sounds human. A man’s voice. I think. I pull the laser-shears from my holster, just in case. I hide in the shadows, remain silent, wait for the person – if it is a person – to reveal himself.
I don’t want to give myself away. Not till I’m sure. A man appears in the doorway of the cabin. He shines the torch back along the walkway, casting himself into silhouette.
‘I’m human, and I’m guessing you are too. Don’t worry. There’s no killer zoids here.’
I step forward. The light blinds me for a moment, then points down at the floor. I peer into the gloom.
The man before me is tall and heavy-set. He has broad shoulders, a thick neck, big hands – one gripping the torch, the other some kind of pulser, which is aimed at me. He nods at the laser-shears in my own hand.
‘Looking to do a bit of pruning, eh?’
I shrug.
‘Put them away, son,’ he says, holstering his own pulser. He’s got thick salt-and-pepper hair. Moustache and beard. His eyes are blue and piercing. He steps forward, hand outstretched from the sleeve of his flakcoat. ‘Greetwell, stranger. The name’s Dale.’
His hand is calloused. It swallows mine up, the grip strong and handshake vigorous.
‘York,’ I tell him.
‘York,’ he repeats. He nods down at Ralph, who’s standing at the base of the pillar where I left him. ‘A PH 27L. Haven’t seen one of them in a while.’
Behind him I catch sight of movement, and a second human appears at his shoulder. A girl. Dale introduces her without turning.
‘Belle,’ he says. ‘Say hello to York, Belle.’
The girl looks at me. Her face is heart-shaped, her eyes are green. Her hair, which is dark and cut into a fringed bob, swishes to and fro as she nods and smiles and greets me.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, York,’ she says.
‘So, whereabouts are you from?’ Dale asks. He releases my hand and steps back. Looks me up and down. ‘And what brings you here?’
I frown, unwilling to reveal too much. I hope Ralph won’t give anything away either. Until I can tweak his programming though, it’s going to depend on what he’s asked directly.
‘I’m from Quadrant 4 – the tube-forest, we call it . . . I’m looking for some friends I haven’t seen in a while,’ I say carefully, then add, ‘I saw your light.’
Dale nods. ‘This dead haven’s a good
source of spare parts,’ he says.
He turns, then beckons, and I follow him into the cabin. I see the stuff he’s amassed piled together on the floor. A couple of alternator switches. A screen he’s unscrewed from the wall. Some light units that look like xenons. A vapour-shower nozzle, a heat sensor and a small pack that might or might not be a metadata processing module.
‘If you’d care to join us, we were about to head back to the Clan-Safe,’ Dale announces.
The Clan-Safe. I guess this is his word for Inpost.
He chuckles. ‘You look as if you could do with a good meal.’
He’s right. I’m hungry. Especially having had my hopes raised by the butler-robots back at the hub. Thing is, should I trust him?
‘Or,’ Dale adds, rummaging in his backcan, ‘you can share some of my supplies. I’ve got some dried synth-meat here. Some tack . . .’
He’s a human like me. Humans stick together, fight the zoids. And I feel guilty for being suspicious of him. I look at Belle, who’s nodding and smiling.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘A meal back at the Clan-Safe sounds wonderful.’
‘Excellent,’ says Dale, fixing me with those piercing blue eyes of his.
‘But I can’t stay long,’ I add.
Dale shrugs. ‘Stay as long as you like,’ he says.
We pass two more dead havens – once living quarters for a long-vanished human crew, now misshapen hulks of crumpled metal and cracked visiglass perched on twisted pillars. A past destroyed.
I find it difficult to look. Turn away.
We make a curious group, the five of us. Big, burly Dale, who’s striding ahead despite the heavy backcan. Me, keeping pace, but half a stride behind, with Caliph, asleep and floppy, draped around my neck. Ralph and the girl called Belle follow us.
Neither of them speak. Dale, on the other hand, does not stop.