That galled me. The Lokhars—no! I didn’t want to dwell on them right now. I had too much to do.
I strode angrily to the waiting air-car. It rested where the android had landed us: between two almond orchards. Every bare branch was a testament to bio-terminator effectiveness. The brittle leaves lay like a dead carpet, the last of their kind. How long until the almond trees crashed upon the dying soil? How long until every trace of them vanished?
I shook my head, heading for the entrance.
Air-car was a misnomer. It was the size of dump truck and must have carried a fusion power plant inside. The pilot sat up top ten feet from the ground under a clear canopy.
The android stared down at me. I pointed at the entrance. He kept staring as if he held a grudge. Did one of them care if another had died by my hand? The androids had always seemed emotionless: bio-zombies made in the image of men. Did this one remember I’d killed an abusive DI?
Isaac Asimov, the author of I, Robot, had created the three laws of robotics. The key was that no robot could harm men. Clearly, the androids had never heard of that rule.
The pilot continued to stare down at me.
My hand dropped to my side, but I didn’t carry a gun. I wished then I’d worn the bio-suit. I would have jumped and clawed my way up to him and smashed through the canopy and ask him what his problem was.
I glanced around for a rock, and decided a length of broken branch would have to do. Weighing it in my hand, I heaved and watched it twirl before striking the canopy.
The android didn’t flinch, but he turned his head and it appeared as if his arm moved.
The door before me slid open.
I climbed in, heard it swish shut and endured the cleansing agents washing over me. First shedding the spacesuit, I climbed naked up a ladder and into the main salon. The pilot sat up front. He turned and regarded me.
I don’t know. I suppose by the way he’d been acting that I expected him to hold a gun. He didn’t. I wanted to ask him why he’d taken his sweet time to open the door. I decided that before I began an interrogation I’d don my bio-suit.
I moved to the cylinder and pressed the button. Nothing happened.
“I have locked it,” the android said in his cold voice.
Something uneasy settled in my stomach. That something hardened into a knot of resolve. I was going to have to kill another android. I didn’t know why, but my gut said to get ready. I straightened, turned and moved toward him.
“Remain where you are,” he said.
“Open my locker. I’m not going to ride around in the nude.”
“You will sit or I will subdue you,” the android said.
“Did they give you a shocker?”
The android turned in his swivel chair toward his controls. I moved, using every neuro-fiber planted in me. He wore living plastic bio-skin and had machine-like reflexes. His hand slid toward a red button. I beat him by the barest fraction, grabbed his elbow and yanked so his fingers hit the panel but no controls.
The first thing I discovered after that was that this android was stronger than the DI. Maybe he was a different model. He swiveled again, toward me, and with a meaty smack, he pile-drove a fist against my gut. It hurt, and would have ruptured a regular man’s stomach. The steroid sixty-five had changed me. Living in double Earth gravity for weeks had strengthened every muscle I owned. I endured, grunted and slammed an elbow against his face, knocking him off the chair.
“You plot against the Jelk,” he said.
“Fancy that,” I said. I wanted to double-up and groan. My gut ached. This android could punch. If I could help it, I wouldn’t let him put his hands on me again.
“I have recorded everything you said in the freighters,” he bragged in his cold voice, “and I will play it to our master on our return.”
“You’re a tricky one, eh?” I said. “No. Let me tell you something. You haven’t recorded anything. You’re guessing, bluffing.”
From on the floor, he slid away from me, creating a track in the dust there. He stood, with the pilot’s chair between us. “You are a rogue and for the good of all you must be destroyed.”
I decided to play an idea. “Why do you want to be a slave to Claath? Join me. Become free and think for yourself.”
He tilted his head, and for the first time, I witnessed emotions in his shark-like plastic eyes.
“We are not slaves but we are the true men,” he said, “without the flaws of you Earthbeasts. We serve the Jelk in the promise of further advancements.”
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“Advancements,” he said, “greater modifications bringing about greater perfection.”
“You’re kidding, right? You toady to the Jelk in hope of upgrades and because of that you think you’re a true man?”
“You are a plague,” the android said. “You will bring harm to the Jelk, which will possibly bring harm to us because Shah Claath might come to distrust those in your likeness.”
“You think I’m trouble, is that it?”
“You have destroyed androids. You plot against our benefactor and creator.”
“Oh boy,” I said. “Claath has done a number on you.”
“Return to your seat. We will head to space so I can make my report.”
“How did you do it?” I asked. “You must have planted a bug in my spacesuit? No. You must have put a bug in my hair or something.”
The android tilted his head. “Bug?”
“A micro-recording device,” I said.
“Yes: a bug. I recorded your conversations and learned of your plan.”
“Why did Claath tell you to do that?” I asked.
“We protect the Jelk. We take the pains. He is our benefactor and creator. Return to your seat. I will not ask you again.”
“That’s right,” I said. “You won’t.”
I lunged over the pilot’s seat, and we fought a bitter battle there in the cockpit. He was strong. I was quicker, deadlier and carried the weight of humanity on my shoulders. I lost skin and came close to losing my right eye. Those plastic fingers could stab like iron rods. It took dragging my entire body over the chair and using my legs in a wrestling hold I’d learned from watching cage fighting. This was like some of the worst fights in prison. I grunted, gasped for air and used my forehead like a battering ram. A broken nose didn’t stop him, though. Finally, while losing more skin and sweating like a pig, I managed to work behind the android and used a full nelson. Bit by bit, I drove his head forward until his chin touched his chest. I bunched my muscles, roared and became dizzy from the exertion.
“You should have sided with us,” I whispered in his ear.
“You… are beasts,” he whispered. “Claath is a creator.”
That’s what I needed to hear. Rage added fuel to my tired limbs. I pushed, broke his neck and found that he yet lived.
The next few minutes weren’t pretty. I’m not proud of them. I learned things about androids that made me wonder. Did this android live as I lived, as people lived, or was he a robot which in the end was no different from a toaster? I guess I’m asking if he had a soul. If he did…my deeds crossed the line. If not…I’m exonerated even though I felt guilty.
I could have taken the easy road, shrugged and said an android had no soul. Probably, that would have been better for my conscience. I couldn’t do that, though. I wasn’t a genocidal Lokhar. I was a man.
I made the android talk, at least in a sense. I found out enough to realize that no one else knew what he did. I discovered his computer file of incriminating evidence—deleting it—and I learned the beginning procedures of flying this dumpster-sized air-car. Afterward, I killed him or shut him down. Take your pick of which you believe.
To him, I was the devil, and I guess from his point of view he was right. Damn, I hadn’t wanted complications of the soul. But there they were: black stains to haunt me.
I felt shaky as I staggered to my place in the salon. I had a problem: a dead
android on my hands. I knew what Claath had told me. I wasn’t supposed to destroy any more of his property. Otherwise, I was a dead man. Okay. I had to think of something, a way to cover myself.
Sitting there, staring out a window, watching the purple clouds race over a dead almond orchard, I realized what I needed to do.
With a grunt, I stood. If I was going to do this, I had to get started right away.
***
I visited several more freighters before staging a flying accident. Would Claath have statistics for his android pilots? Would he automatically suspect me of troublemaking?
I couldn’t see any way around this. So, I planted verbal seeds in a few more freighter leaders and searched for the worst weather patterns. I found them in the former Northwest Territories of Canada. They were hurricane level storms.
Before setting up the accident, I studied everything I could about the air-car, its computers and the info stored in them that might help me later. I searched for clues, for space knowledge and an edge over the Jelk. I read as fast as I could, not really thinking about what I saw. I’d mull over the stuff later.
Finally, as time ticked on, I decided I had to act. I didn’t know how long Claath had given the android to chauffer me around the Earth.
I had to make this look real or I’d die. I donned my living armor, helmet and breather and flew into an orange-colored storm. Howling winds buffeted the air-car. I’d strapped the android in his chair, readied the auto-pilot and staggered to the couches in the back of the salon.
I’d barely buckled in when the air-car went up. I didn’t have long to wait and the vehicle abruptly plowed down toward the Earth. Through the canopy I saw the ground rushing near. We had to be going over one-fifty, maybe one-seventy-five.
I clenched my teeth, braced my body and then everything becoming crashing, crunching metal. I slammed against the restraints and lost conciseness. I don’t know how long I was out.
When I came to, wind howled around me. I groaned and it hurt my chest to breathe, with a stab of pain each time in my heart. Slowly, with nearly frozen fingers, I unbuckled. Everywhere around me were shards of canopy and razor edges of broken, twisted, metallic air-car. If I hadn’t worn the bio-battlesuit, I’d never have made it. Despite my best efforts, metal pressed or cut against me, but the living armor held.
I wondered as I worked free of the wreckage, if powered armor would have lasted the crash. I think the living armor could take greater punishment because it had more flexibility. Finally, after oozing through a jagged, shard-cutting tunnel of metal, I flopped onto snow and crawled away from the strangely buzzing craft. I think one of my legs was broken. It hurt badly enough.
I crawled and crawled before looking back. That was a good wreck. Maybe I should have checked the android first, but I wasn’t in any shape to have tried. Besides, I didn’t know if the air-car’s fusion core had ruptured. I could take some radiation, but wasn’t sure how much would kill my armor and me.
I crawled to a field of bare, porous rocks, what must have been lava ages ago. Farther away was a large pine forest minus any evergreen needles. Those had fallen, all of them, making it a bald evergreen forest. I’d never seen one of those.
Seven weeks ago all this had been alive. Now it was dead or dying the final death.
I shook my head and waited. Would android rescuers come? Would Saurians drop down? Maybe whoever watched the black boxes aboard the air-cars figured we’d both died in the crash and good riddance to the troublesome Earther. I hadn’t worried about setting up a rescue beacon because I figured that would be an automatic thing. Yet what did I really know about the aliens and how they operated?
I told myself that the Jelk was in charge. Claath and his kind thought of profits. It wasn’t profitable to let a mercenary just die. Hmm, what about the fuel costs? That was the cynical, nasty side of my brain thinking. What did it cost in fuel to bring an air-car or a lander down here? Maybe to come searching for me would cost more fuel that Claath figured I was worth.
They weren’t pleasant thoughts. And I disliked having to rely on the Jelk for rescue. Maybe my thinking seems ungrateful to some of you reading my memoir. After all, Claath had sent down a few freighters for the last humans. So one could argue humanity owed him. I would point out that it had been Claath’s plan to use hundreds of millions of Earthers that had sent the Lokhars here in the first place. I realize Claath hadn’t attacked our planet, but hadn’t he been the germ of our catastrophe? Besides, I doubted Claath had planned to quietly hire hundreds of millions of mercenaries, but to capture and subdue the same number of Earthers. One way or another, the Jelk Corporation had helped screw mankind.
I endured among the rocks, growing faint, and finally my leg began to ache like a son of a bitch.
“I thought you were supposed to give me something for the pain,” I told the bio-suit.
Maybe the crash had injured the living armor. Maybe the bio-terminator was killing the suit.
I tried to find a more comfortable position. It didn’t happen. I was one giant bruise and ache. The wind picked up and I listened to it shriek for hours: the sounds of a dying world.
How long would my air supply last?
The androids were freaks, but I suppose I could see their point of view. That this one had called Claath his creator troubled me. Did that make the androids religious?
I chuckled. Claath was their god, and he didn’t really care one way or another for his creations, other than to profit by them. I wouldn’t want that kind of god looking out for me.
Angling my head, I shifted my gaze upward. I laughed, and even to my ears it sounded crazy. High up there in the atmosphere I saw a bright orange thruster glow. The rescue team cometh, rah, rah, rah.
I might have passed out then. I don’t remember too well. Next time I looked, the orange glow had become a slender rocket. The flames licked against snow and thunder boomed through me.
This seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place why.
The shaking ground caused me to raise my chin off my chest. I opened my eyes. I’d passed out again. Like on an old 50’s sci-fi magazine cover, the rocket fins touched down and sometime later, a ladder extended to the ground. I’d never seen this model of spacecraft before.
Time crawled until I saw three suited figures climb down the ladder. These three had tails—Saurians, lizards. They bore weapons.
I would have climbed to my feet, but I couldn’t. My muscles had frozen. I watched them circle the wreck. They pointed their weapons at it. Finally, they stopped and seemed to confer.
I tried to get up. Pain lanced through me. I groaned, and my eyelids fluttered. Unconsciousness threatened. Despite a horrible, throbbing headache, I strove to remain awake and barely won the fight.
“Over here,” I whispered. “I’m over here.”
The comm-equipment in the helmet didn’t work anymore. They didn’t hear me.
In despair, I watched the lizards turn back for their rocket.
“Wait,” I whispered. “Here, here.”
I lacked weapons, I had no radio and I wondered vaguely if my dream of freeing mankind would perish with me. Dmitri the Cossack had the right heart and he was tough, but he lacked the cunning. Rollo might have guessed my plans, but I doubted he would see them through.
“Oh boy,” I muttered. Would the android have prayed to Claath’s for aid, or was that beyond the cultured-grown plastic man? I don’t know. I did pray, though, although not to Claath.
“Give me strength, please, God. I have to do this. We’re on the brink of extinction.”
Gritting my teeth, I tried again. An even fiercer headache exploded into existence, a nova bomb starting behind my eyes and radiating backward. Vomit stirred in the back of my throat. Slowly, I dragged an arm across my chest. I closed my eyes to help lessen the headache, but that only caused fiery splotches to appear before my eyelids. I drew a ragged breath and worked forward. Blood bounded in my head, or that’s what it felt like. I mustered everything th
en, gripped a stone I’d spotted earlier and pushed against the rock I sat against. I worked up to my feet, opened my eyes to stare at the departing lizards and heaved the stone.
The bio-suit must have woken up a last time. I’m not sure if it had a will to live or not. Did trees? The thing amplified the little strength I had, and that stone sailed.
I wouldn’t have been able to gather the strength to throw another projectile. Despite the howling wind, despite the distance, that stone clipped the rearmost Saurian.
The lizard turned. He must have seen me. I toppled into the snow and lay still, expended and spent.
Time had no meaning afterward, just my breathing and near sobbing. I dearly wanted to live. I had to defeat Claath, to shove his thumb off us. I had Lokhars to payback, but most of all, I had a human race to save from destruction.
I found myself staring at a three-toed boot standing in snow. The lizards—I think they circled me.
I tried to move my head, but I couldn’t. Everything I’d had, I’d used. Did they know who I was?
Saurian hands, claws, talons, whatever, reached down and hauled me upright. I found myself staring into lizard eyes.
“That’s right,” I muttered. “I’m alive, you bastard.”
I don’t think it heard me. I’m certain it hated me. I passed out, so I’m not sure what happened exactly. The next thing I experienced was the grinding acceleration of liftoff.
I was on my way back into space and maybe to a confrontation with Claath about a wrecked air-car and a dead as nails android. So be it, at least for the moment I was alive.
-12-
My left thigh was broken, along with several ribs and a badly bruised neck. Without the bio-suit I’m sure I would have died in the air-car “accident.”
I was placed a healing tank. It reminded me of the story of Achilles, the Greek hero of the Trojan War. When he’d been a baby, his mother had dipped him into the river of Death, the river Styx. The dip in Death had made him invulnerable from harm. The only trouble was that his mom had gripped him by the heel. It meant his one heel had never gotten the Styx treatment. Paris the archer—the Trojan who’d jetted off with Helen and thereby started the ten-year feud—shot Achilles with an arrow toward the end of the war. One of the gods aiding the Trojans guided the arrow to the heel—the Achilles heel. Blood poisoning must have set in afterward. The point of the tale, I guess, was that Achilles’ mom should have switched heels and made all of him invulnerable.
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