Beyond the Starport Adventure (Bullet Book 1)

by Richard Fairbairn

  Silverman was about to answer, but Quinn was talking again.

  “Alan Gillespie,” Quinn said, “Was my best friend at the time, I think. I must have been ten years old – or perhaps eleven. Alan’s father ran his own building company and he had a few class four’s lying around his yard in pieces. It was a little bit of a cheat, really, but we did use parts from three of the old robots.”

  The day was coming, or was already here. The sky was still dark, but the dark fog was somehow brighter. Silverman used his sunglasses and confirmed, as he suspected, that the sun was indeed directly above him. He didn’t if this meant the sun would get hotter. He knew that the length of time the alien world took to perform one full rotation would determine how many hours were in the day.

  There was another scream. There had been many, all in the distance. Strange noises that drifted occasionally through the dusty dark air carried by the wind. At first Silverman had feared that the sound belonged to some unknown alien animal. He didn’t know what was worse.

  They regarded the robot together. Quinn was still telling his story. Matt Silverman was almost listening, but as Quinn spoke he realised that the old man was reminiscing and not sharing anything of very much use. He wondered if Quinn was tired or something medical was happening to the old man. He hoped not and, with the last thought, found himself watching Quinn quite closely. He smiled very slightly without knowing that he was doing so.

  “So you guys would have won the prize, I guess,” Matt said, joining in, “For the best robot,” He added, almost as if Quinn was not listening to his own story and needed reminding of what he was talking about.

  “Bloody Heck no!” Quinn grinned, “The blasted thing didn’t work at all! We spent hours putting together the ugliest ornamental robot you’d ever seen. To make matters worse we all got belted by Mr Farside. He was one hundred percent certain that we’d just wheeled along one of Guppy’s dad’s labourbots “

  There was another scream, but this time the sound was different.

  “That’s an engine,” Quinn said.

  “Yes,” Silverman looked up to the sky, scanning the void with his sunglasses on multi spectrum mode, “It’s a ship of some kind.”

  His sunglasses had belonged to his father. They were a treasured possession. Silverman used them now to scan the approaching ship. He did not know what he was looking for. The sunglasses were of little help without their wireless access to the subscriber network. They marked the outline of the ship but the identification hourglass simply kept spinning round and round as they tried to find the network.

  “It’s going away,” The robot said suddenly, its voice high pitched and without any inflection.

  Silverman withdrew his hand, or tried to. The thin metal arm on the right side of the metallic monster moved swiftly. Five shiny, delicately articulated fingers grasped his wrist painfully.

  “Jesus Christ!” Silverman shouted. He pulled his arm away and Cass Linn leaned towards him with the force of his exertion. But her right hand held fast to his wrist. “What the fuck!”

  Cass Linn’s oval dome of a head appeared from where it had been hidden behind her bulky torso. It made a whining, grinding sound as it turned on its dome of a neck to face Matt Silverman.

  “Father is going away!” Cass Linn said. This time her voice was louder and buzzed with distortion, “The ship is going away.”

  Silverman’s left hand pulled at the cold, metal fingers that held his wrist painfully tight. The oval shaped head had a camera lens mounted on a thin track that went all the way round the scorched glassy exterior. This was Cass Linn’s eye and it regarded Matt Silverman’s acne scarred face curiously.

  “Let me go! Command override – let me go! Emergency command override – let me go!”

  Silverman felt the fingers around his wrist loosen. The dome head tilted upwards. Quinn, who was about to smash it with a rock, stopped in his track.

  “You can’t give me instructions,” Cass Linn said. The fingers released Silverman’s wrist. Her left arm had raised and her spidery fingers were spread out, reaching for the rock in Quinn’s hand. Quinn stepped back a half pace, but he held the rock out for the robot to take.

  “What are you?” Quinn asked quietly.

  Cass dropped the rock. It was too heavy for her fingers to hold.

  “I’m Cass Linn.”

  Silverman rubbed his wrist. He’d stepped three metres away from the strange robot, but now he came forward again. There was something about the voice that made him reach out his hand again. He felt insane to do so.

  “Cass Linn,” Silverman repeated. “Are you a machine? You are a machine, aren’t you? I mean, you aren’t alive? There isn’t someone inside you?”

  There were sparks from inside Cass Linn’s head. Something was shorting out there and would soon burn out altogether. Soon she would not be able to move her neck at all. To do so now was a strain.

  “I’m Cass Linn,” The single eye stared coldly at the two earth men, “I am a machine.”

  Silverman turned towards Quinn. Quinn was holding onto the metal hand that had dropped the rock he’d been about to strike Cass Linn with. He held it almost as if it was a living thing and he turned it over, examining it carefully.

  “This hand is fantastic,” Quinn remarked, “So delicate.”

  Cass Linn’s eye screeched around to look at Quinn. Her damaged eye – fused at the back of her head –stared continuously at the hard brown rock that she was leaning against. She wished that she could switch it off. It was distracting.

  She tried to tilt her head back towards the sky, to look for her father in the unnamed spacecraft he’d been building. But her neck motors were almost completely gone now and all she could do was stare endlessly into the middle of Quinn’s face.

  “Your face reminds me of my father’s,” Cass said to Quinn.

  The two men didn’t say a word, but something passed between them. Quinn let go of the metal hand – gently – and it started to drift slowly back to the side of Cass Linn’s round cylinder body.

  “This might look like a bashed up trash can, but… but inside this shell there’s a very sophisticated machine.”

  Silverman touched Cass’s cracked dome head. The burned plastic there was cool to the touch. Just beneath the now motionless eye there was a patch of exposed circuitry that had somehow survived Cass’s ordeal. The circuits were the last remnants of Cass Linn’s head’s touch sensors.

  Silverman could not realise the new energy that his fingertips sent into Cass Linn’s confused and tortured mind. The tiny electrical impulses danced in her mind, a tingling pleasure that she had never known before. Her hands reached towards him. He stepped back in fear and surprise. She left her hands extended, fingers open as they reached for him.

  “I…” her voice was quiet and soft, almost human, “I want to go home.”

  Jann Linn had been dead for twenty minutes. Oss Linn did not know this. The sensors that would have allowed her to hear his last breath were not working properly, like many things on board the ship. She had an eye inside the control room. She could see that Jann Linn was sitting motionless in the centre seat, his eyes open and staring at the hazy screen that showed the rugged, dusty ground below.

  “Still no sign of Cass Linn,” Oss reported quietly.

  He ignored her, again. She’d said the same thing eighteen times now, and for the past ten times her voice had been as loud as she could make it. He still continued to ignore her.

  But he’d always preferred Cass. Cass was the favourite. She had clear memories of this that dated back over a decade. She was the special girl. There was another ten minutes of silence. There were few events. Oss maintained the ship’s altitude. The emergency cooling system activated again. She cooled the overheating engine and the signal stopped. Dust and debris clouded the ground below. Was Cass there, hoping to be found? Had she been destroyed?

  Oss Linn had a clear view of Jann’s old, haggard face. He looked so tired, so pained. She wo
uld remind him to rest once he stopped staring at the screen.

  “Father?” Oss spoke softly, at half volume.

  There was silence only on the unnamed ship’s unfinished control room. Jann Linn was not answering. Oss was sure that he was too preoccupied in finding his favourite machine. Oss remembered occasions when Jann Linn had ignored her when she’d spoken.

  Then Cass Linn was found. Amidst the swirling dust storm at the base of the mountain, Oss Linn recognised the boxy figure and the ugly, long waving arms. The ship’s sensors had locked onto her fifteen seconds ago but Oss wasn’t connected to that part of the ship’s systems. So many things unfinished, she thought. She wondered, absently, why father hadn’t alerted her. Cass Linn was, after all, his special favourite.

  Silverman and Quinn had seen the ship approach again. The robot “Cass Linn” had been silent for fifteen minutes. The screams and shouts from the devastated city had grown closer, louder. Quinn had been certain that he could make out a few shouted words, but Matt was not so sure. But the voices were getting closer for sure.

  The smoke had cleared a little. The outline of the city could be seen – or what was left of it – as both men craned their necks to watch the ship arrive. There were skyscrapers – or what was left of them – towering into the sky like giant torn metal fingers. The remnants of the great city were just becoming visible through the dust and smoke when the ageing freighter loomed overhead.

  “I don’t know about this,” Matt Silverman said.

  Quinn nudged the younger man’s shoulder. Silverman looked across and realised that Quinn was smiling.

  “Oh I don’t know,” He said, “Its turned out to be a pretty fair day, after all.”

  Silverman was about to comment that he didn’t know whether Quinn was joking or not. Then Cass Linn spoke again, suddenly and without warning. Her voice was soft and sounded just like that of a frightened young girl.

  “My power system is damaged,” She said, “I’m sorry if I keep switching off.”

  Silverman was startled, but recovered in a half breath.

  “It’s… it’s alright,” Silverman said.

  The spaceship was coming closer. Silverman could make out the landing skids – two at the front and two at the back.

  “So your father is looking for you?” Quinn asked, “He’s in this vehicle above us now?”

  “Yes,” Cass Linn did not hesitate in answering. Her voice had improved. During her unwanted shutdown the circuits that controlled her speech had regenerated. The regeneration technology was something she had been nervous to share with her father. Sometimes she felt that he did not like her… progress. He wanted her to remain unchanging, but she couldn’t do that.

  “My father was a journalist, I think,” Quinn looked confused, then he laughed strangely and so loudly that Matt was startled, “Damned if I can remember such things at times, but I’m certain he was a writer and that he wrote for… one of the big papers.”

  Jim was shouting now. Matt was trying to tune him out. It was difficult. The robot was speaking again. Its voice buzzed only very slightly and seemed to have acquired a feminine aspect.

  “Jim, let me hear the…” Matt touched the exposed circuit again. New and almost painful impulses overloaded Cass’s mind at his touch, “…what did you say your name was?”

  “Cass Linn,” The robot’s voice was loud and the volume had make it lose the feminine quality Silverman had detected, “My name is Cass Linn. Ten years ago I believe my name was Jammil Processor bank. I’m not…”

  He could not hear the robot’s vice anymore and Quinn was still talking about his father or someone else he had known. Quinn was shouting at the top of his voice and laughing for some reason.

  The spaceship was landing. The sound it made was horrendous, like massive thick slices of steel being rubbed together by giant hands. Silverman looked to the grey hulk as its skids settled into the rocks and dirt of the mountainside. They made a screeching sound all their own, but the tortured metal groaning continued for a few moments after the vessel had stopped moving.

  “He used to invite me into his office for a cigarette and a coffee – almost every day. I’d have the worst job keeping track of what he was telling me. Long, rambling stories that would occasionally contradict things he’d said days before or even minutes earlier.”

  Silverman’s mouth was agape. He was looking right into Quinn’s eyes and shaking his head slowly.

  “Jim, a spaceship just landed right behind you. Didn’t you hear it?”

  “Of course I heard that. I was just having the devil of a job keeping track of my thoughts. What was all that noise about anyway? How is the shuttle?”

  Matt pressed his forehead with the palms of his hands, squeezing them together.

  “What?” Quinn was frowning. “Shall we go and see who’s come to visit?”

  Oss Linn did not know what to do. She had contradicting instructions for such a situation. Cass Linn was to be found and rescued, but nobody was to know of her existence. So the ship stayed still at the bottom of Jann Linn mountain for thirty seconds. Then Cass Linn’s voice came into her sister’s mind.

  “Oss, you can let us in,” Cass said calmly.

  Oss could not feel relief. But her mind stopped working as hard as it had been working. The two competing ideas stopped bouncing off each other and she listened to her sister’s voice.

  “It isn’t safe,” Oss replied, “There are strangers outside the ship.”

  “They aren’t strangers,” Cass replied, “I’d like you to open the door now.”

  “Alright,” Oss released the door hatch and it started to swing down, “Why didn’t you reply before now?”

  Cass had not realised that the wireless communication unit her father had installed for her had suddenly began working again. Her automatic repair system had worked its magic a second time, constructing new circuits to replace the burned out ones and bridging cracked and severed joints.

  “I’ll explain later,” Cass said softly, “I need to see father.”

  The ship’s door was opened fully now. The ungainly robot staggered towards it. Matt Silverman and Jim Quinn followed behind the five foot machine, keeping their distance in case it fell backwards onto them.

  “My father will know what to do,” It said, again the voice sounding feminine and soft to strike a bizarre contrast to the staggering, stumbling monstrosity that worked its way over the rough stones towards the bright blue interior of the ship.

  “Your father?” Matt said, “Did it just say its father?”

  Quinn shrugged, even though he was behind Matt and out of sight.

  “Stranger things have been known to happen. Perhaps we’ve landed in the middle of a race of… living machines. Maybe her father is in there, a great monstrosity of a metal thing.”

  They’d reached the door. The robot had difficulty negotiating the step.

  “We’re going to go on board?” Matt asked.

  Cass still was unable to get over the lip of the door hatch. It was only about four inches high, but it had dropped down on a boulder that was about a foot high. Cass’s metal legs were short, stumpy things that belonged to a thirty five year old walk-lifter that belonged on a smooth factory floor.

  “I’m having some difficulty,” she said.

  For a flashing moment it occurred to Matt Silverman that this machine was somehow different to other robots he had interacted with. It certainly lacked the elegance of the infogals that he’d seen wandering around the Glasgow Science centre. The robots there, from a distance at least, were indistinguishable from real people, But as you got within a few metres you could see that the skin and hair belonged to a machine. And once you spoke to one of them the illusion of any sentience disappeared rapidly. He thought about what Quinn had said. He wondered what a world of living machines might be like. The robot that so pathetically struggled to step into the spacecraft looked so crude and makeshift. Like it had been hammered together from parts of other discarded
robots and machines. Yet, the way that this machine spoke was unlike any machine he had encountered before. Also, its actions in trying to negotiate the step seemed almost… human.

  “Let me help,” Silverman stepped forward to grasp the strange machine’s arm. The outer covering of Cass’s arm was an almost transparent coating, like some kind of very thin plastic. When Silverman touched it he realised that it was a cool and flexible transparent metal. His hand would almost fit round it, so he gripped the arm with hesitance at first and then tightly when the robot’s eye squeaked into place to examine him.

  “Thank you,” It said, “My legs don’t seem to be working as well as they should.”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” Quinn said with a crazy chirpiness as he took the robot’s other arm, “It happens to us all at times.”

  They helped the robot up the step. Cass Linn was heavy, but lighter than Silverman imagined. But the robot was cold to the touch and the strange metal surface was clammy and sticky. Matt realised that the top surface of the arm covering had been incinerated. There was some exposed circuitry near the exposed elbow joint and on the back of the metal hand. Just a small patch. It looked like there had once been more, but this was all that remained. Quinn seemed livelier. His eyes had the bright spark back, even though his face and shoulders was still covered in a thin dark sheen of blood. The old grey eyes had their mischief back and the confusion Matt had seen there was gone. He felt a wave of relief go through his body, like Quinn had somehow returned from some place he’d visited deep inside himself.

  They moved surprisingly quick to get inside the ship. The distant screams gave Silverman and Quinn extra strength. Inside the ship, the smell was the first thing Silverman noticed. It was the clear and unmistakable stench of human excrement, strong and sickening to the extent that Matt almost emptied his stomach on the floor. He managed to fight the impulse. Then, as his eyes adjusted to the new bright blue light inside the small craft, the things he saw took the thought of vomiting out of his mind. The inside of the ship at first seemed to be one big compartment, but Matt quickly realised that there were several closed doorways that presumably led off to different rooms within the ship. But the room he was standing in now was definitely the largest chamber within the small ship. To Matt’s right there was a single chair that seemed moulded to the floor and made of the same dull blue grey hard rubber material as the interior hull of the ship. There was a big screen – almost the same size as the wall it was mounted on and at least three metres from corner to corner. The screen showed digital interference – a result of its not being connected or configured correctly. Someone was slouched in the chair, motionless and dead. Silverman knew this had to be the source of the smell. The robot was wobbling towards the front of the room as Quinn moved ahead of it. Quinn was stopped by the machine’s right arm which raised like a barricade to prevent him passing.