The Assassination of Billy Jeeling

by Brian Herbert

  Beginning at the lowest latitude of his assignment, he circled horizontally, gradually rising higher and higher on the huge, dark gray hull as he completed each trip around and spiraled upward. He was looking closely at the hull as he did this, and had instruments on the bottom of his aircraft scanning everything and transmitting images back to security headquarters. It was repetitive and tedious work, and he was tired today, so that he had to remind himself repeatedly to stay awake.

  ~~~

  Inside the pinnacle chamber, Billy Jeeling had only been able to come up with one plan that had any likelihood of success, and it was not anything he really wanted to do. In addition to the certainty of his own death with that option, there were also other serious problems that might result, too many things that could go wrong with Skyship.

  He had dedicated most of his life to this atmospheric machine, to making certain the marvel of geoengineering technology functioned properly in its mining and air-restoration duties—as much as he could, that is, with the limited knowledge in his possession. Now, with the revelation that information from Tobek would be doled out to him in periodic audiovisual recordings, he felt an obligation to find out what the old inventor had to say, what important information he’d intended to impart. But that assumed nothing more went wrong with the timing of the releases.

  But if Billy destroyed the space devils in the way he had in mind, and he died, it would imperil the critical flow of recorded information from Tobek. Maybe the inventor had set up contingency arrangements to get around this problem, but Billy could not be certain of that.

  If only he could come up with another way of rendering the creatures harmless, perhaps without killing them. He appreciated what they had done for him, defending and protecting him, and he didn’t want to be ungrateful.

  Still, they were extremely dangerous.

  ~~~

  At security headquarters, Devv Jeeling was coordinating the search for his father. Despite the revelation that he was himself a robot, he still loved Billy—not quite the same as before, but his feelings remained strong. He hoped desperately that nothing had happened to him.

  Devv had decided to transmit images of the search in the secret tunnels to the populace of the airborne city, because they were all worried about Billy, wondering where he had gone and why.

  Everyone wanted to help the Master of Skyship—the people and the eclectic assemblage of sentient robots. Images of the search appeared on screens all over the onboard city, showing what the searchers had learned so far about the secret maze of tunnels and chambers hidden inside the hull. The images were being projected without commentary, because Devv didn’t want it to be like a detached news report. This was personal for everyone on the vessel, each in their own way, as they sought information about the welfare of this most special of all men. Billy Jeeling was not only a great environmental leader; he was beloved by all who knew him—and especially by those who had gotten to know him well.

  The maze in the outer skin of Skyship was like quicksand, constantly shifting to keep the searchers from figuring it out. In a separate computer system (not transmitted to the populace) Devv’s officers were trying to map the hidden system of passageways—but this was proving to be impossible. They were discussing a strategy of keeping the tunnels and chambers open in an effort to thwart the defensive system that opened and closed sections and changed them, but so far no could figure out how to do it.

  Now Devv stared at a different set of screens, showing the results of constant air analyses that were being taken inside the tunnels—trace DNA evidence that was being scooped up and evaluated, showing that Billy Jeeling had passed through them, and recently. But bound for where? No one knew.

  Skyship was the largest structure ever built, and the interior of the hull was proving to be a huge challenge to explore, in and of itself.

  ~~~

  Just as darkness was setting in, Yürgen Zayeddi’s small humbaby flew over the uppermost surfaces of Skyship. In just a few more minutes, he would be finished. He had powerful lights on underneath the tiny vessel, so that he and the observers who were monitoring his transmissions could see the hull as clearly as possible.

  Ahead, he saw a glint of silver coming from the pinnacle of the hull—or thought he did for just a blink of time, because when he looked again, there was nothing. He flew over that spot, illuminating it brightly, hovering above it, and magnified the images.

  On a VR screen he saw what he thought were slight abnormalities at the very top of the great vessel. Very thin, barely perceptible lines were visible on the hull—four lines that were squared off, almost as if they outlined an opening to something beyond them, on the inside of Skyship.

  After transmitting the images to headquarters, he told them about the silver flash he thought he saw, and how it seemed to have vanished.

  ~~~

  Billy had almost forgotten to close his overhead window into space. With his own surveillance system, independent of the one Devv was using, he should have been paying closer attention.

  At the very last possible moment, Billy had switched on images of the outside of Skyship, and saw the tiny humbaby approaching.

  He’d taken quick action, but had the pilot seen anything?

  ~~~

  In the headquarters control room, Devv Jeeling obtained advice from his engineers, and issued a new command: “Set up a second search area on the outside of the hull, at the top. We’ll need a custom airlock attached to the pinnacle, large enough for a team to get inside, with specialized tools. I want to see if anything interesting is inside that pinnacle—so we’re going to punch through and see what’s on the other side.”

  Ten minutes later, Devv received a report from his engineers. They would begin fabrication of the airlock at a facility inside Skyship, a unit like the earlier one that had been built to prevent pressurization problems.

  The engineers estimated that it would take at least forty-eight hours to get the equipment operational, saying this airlock would be more difficult to prepare and install than the earlier one, because it was on the outside of the hull.

  “That’s too long,” Devv said. “I want it ready sooner. I wanted it ten minutes ago. Put everyone on this, and work in around-the-clock teams.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Beauty can be found even in tragedy.

  —One of the ancient philosophies

  At the end of a long, mentally exhausting day, Billy fell asleep inside the pinnacle chamber. A half cup of water sat in the holder on his chair, with an unopened food packet beside it.

  Sitting there, with his head lolling to one side, he had a strange dream in which he was a religious leader who went to a remote place, seeking spiritual truth. It was comparable to the legends of a great man sitting under a sacred bodhi tree or by a holy river to obtain enlightenment, or going alone to a remote cave for this purpose, or into the desert.

  Except in Billy’s case, he had retreated to a hidden chamber on Skyship, a place that was remote from the rest of the vessel. In the dream he received a message from God in the Heavens, and emerged to tell his followers he had experienced a revelation, and more would follow. He had received a series of commandments from the deity, he said, and now he was carrying the first portion of the holy message. He said this made him a prophet, and that he would begin dictating God’s words into a sacred book.

  And in the dream Billy Jeeling began to assemble that religious text, page by page, for three days, until he completed what God had told him so far. At the end of the third day he wrote in ornate script that he would be forced to sacrifice his life before the rest of the revelations could be received, and he could not attempt to finish the book, or there would be great danger. He stared long and hard at the words, feeling numb, realizing the inevitability of his death, and how little time he had remaining.

  The partially-completed holy book exploded into sentence and word fragments that floated in the air and then faded from view. He found himself awake, looking at the i
nterior of the pinnacle chamber. The instrument panel stood directly in front of him, with its small yellow touch pad. He didn’t look at the pad, but knew exactly where it was, within easy reach, only a moment away.

  Instead, he touched a control on his belt to activate a view of Lainey’s apartment, then shifted the image from room to room, looking for her. Normally he didn’t like to intrude on her privacy, even if she was only a robot, so he’d rarely done it in the past—except when he needed to study her functions as a sentient machine. It was the same with Devv and with the few other functioning machines that were similar to these two.

  Billy saw Lainey sitting on the edge of her bed, crying softly, her face buried in her hands. A framed black-and-white photograph sat on the bed beside her, one of her favorite images of Billy. It was a heroic pose in the central park, with the camera angle looking upward at him, and the buildings of the airborne city rising behind him.

  His heart went out to her, because in his own way he loved her a great deal, despite the way she had a habit of clinging too closely, not wanting to be away from him. On a daily basis, when he was trying to accomplish his important work, this trait had been an irritation to him. But now, watching her deep sadness—her deep simulated sadness, but real for her nonetheless—he found her personality defect endearing, and only a minor flaw.

  Billy loved Lainey almost as much as he had loved the real woman whom she so resembled, Reanne Jeeling. He had lost Reanne tragically, and Lainey had been the closest substitute he could come up with, the best of the sentient machines he had put into service on Skyship, a fabulous creation in all ways. He was especially proud of her, despite her minor imperfections, and proud of Devv, too. Both of them had served him well, with unflagging devotion.

  And they would continue to serve him in the future, because they would help to manage his legacy after he was gone, along with other key robots and support personnel on board Skyship. He paused. Actually, they would all continue to serve Skyship, and planet AmEarth. The great atmospheric-restoration ship, with all of the automatic functions that had been designed by Tobek, and the robots that had been primarily designed by Billy, was in effect a perpetual motion machine that would continue to operate into the far-future. Tobek had told him several times that the vessel had redundancies on top of redundancies, and that he’d designed every possible safeguard into it.

  Branson Tobek had tried to account for every possible eventuality, and he’d gone a long way toward accomplishing that—until his plans and dreams were almost derailed when the strange silver creatures appeared and killed him. It was something he had not contemplated, something that could not be planned for, because he had not previously known they even existed.

  Tobek had attempted to get rid of them, but had gone about it the wrong way, and they’d killed him before he could get them. Now Billy had an advantage, because he’d been studying the community of alien creatures, and was very close to getting rid of them forever. He hoped this was the case.

  But even if he eliminated them, that didn’t mean something else unforeseen might not show up in the future. Yet Billy had a feeling—a very strong feeling—that Skyship would survive for a long, long time, with all of its systems intact and continuing to operate.

  On the screen, he saw Lainey don a pair of golden ballet slippers, and begin to dance on a section of floor. She performed a pas seul exercise in which she pirouetted, glissaded, and made jeté jumps. She smiled softly as she danced her solo routine.

  Billy remembered his beloved Reanne performing these same exercises, and telling him what they were. He used to enjoy watching her, and took great care later in imparting the same skills to Lainey. It was almost as if the sentient robot knew he was observing her now, and was doing this just for him. Certainly she was thinking of him, because she stopped dancing and looked sadly at his picture.

  Then, carefully, she set the photograph on the table beside her bed where she always kept it. She removed her dancing slippers, climbed back into bed, and turned off the light.

  Billy thought for a moment of his faux-son, Devv, but didn’t want to remote view him, even though he cared deeply for him. He didn’t have time for any more sentiment now, not with what he had to do. Billy’s mind, so filled with emotion, went suddenly blank, because he knew he was about to die, and this was the last time he would ever see Lainey. And he realized that his enemies, who had attempted to assassinate his character, and to kidnap him for a mock trial and public execution, had finally succeeded in killing him after all. The evil deed had taken a circuitous route, not the one they had intended, but their aggressive acts had caused the space devils to merge into Billy’s body to defend him and Skyship against the military attacks and sabotages. So, it was all linked. His opponents had wanted him dead in one way or another, and he was about to fall victim.

  His fingers darted for the yellow pressure pad, and he activated it.

  He heard a noise of high-pitched engines, and felt a strong thrust upward, as the emergency escape capsule at the heart of the chamber surged out of the top of Skyship, heading for space—one of numerous similar capsules Tobek had placed around the vessel. There had been no opportunity for Billy to leave a message for anyone, telling what he knew about the operation of the great sky machine, because that would have alerted the space devils, and they would have killed him, as they’d done earlier to his mentor.

  He smiled to himself. Devv and others knew about the genetic sample packets Billy kept, and his own personal journals contained details about how to use human imprints in the Lazarus-series robots, and how the rest of their workings could be constructed. Billy’s genetic material was contained in one of those packets, so he could be regenerated in an imprinted-robotic form, with some or all of the memories of the original. This resurrection would not answer all of the questions about the operation of Skyship, but he had also made journal entries about the possibility of retrieving the genetic material of Branson Tobek from the sealed laboratory complex where his body remained, and how this material could be used to build a new robotic version of the great inventor. Now that the space devils were being dealt with, it would be safe for others to enter the laboratory complex.

  Billy knew for a fact that there was such a thing as genetic memory—life memories contained within cellular material. He had proven this with his own experiments, after analyzing what it was in cells that caused the phenomenon of instinct in animals—the ability of an offspring to perform the same tasks its parents had done, without parental instruction. The nest building of birds, the dam construction of beavers, and much more that was done instinctually, by many species. It was all tied to information inside the cells, and Billy had managed to unlock many of these important, fascinating secrets, and put them to work in his most special of all robots. He had used this technique to generate some of the authentic memories of Reanne Jeeling in Lainey Forster, such as the memories of her dancing as a child in front of her family.

  Conceivably then, a Lazarus-series android of Branson Tobek could contain all the secrets the inventor had kept from the world, and from Billy. It was an exciting idea, because such a robot could solve many or all of the mysteries of Skyship. How did the great geoengineering machine keep going automatically for so long, what were the ingredients in the gas mixture that restored the atmosphere, and what were the secrets of magnaviewers, that could see so much detail over long distances? All of this information could be locked inside the memory-laden cells of Branson Tobek. Finding that trove of data would be like reaching into a long-lost treasure chest—and Billy had done all he could to make it possible.

  Now, inside his own body, the alien creatures of light had been galvanized into action by the take-off of the capsule, and their collective frenzy made him feel icy cold. They were trying to gain control and get him to return them to their Skyship haven, realizing now what he was doing. He felt their collective, desperate will, as it battered against him from the inside of his mind, trying to get him to touch another c
ontrol that would return the escape capsule to the vicinity of the mother ship, for rescue by onboard equipment and personnel. His shining, metallic eyes stared at the proper control, but just looking at it—even by such powerful creatures—did not activate it.

  Suddenly his entire body flashed the brightest silver, filling the interior of the capsule with brilliant light. A freezing, screaming wind blew through the inside of his body.

  And in space Billy made the last decision of his life, the only thing he could do. Moving his hand ever so slowly, because the extreme cold had stiffened his muscles, he managed to touch another pressure pad on the instrument panel.

  The capsule detonated and burst open in a blinding flash of silver—more bright when seen from AmEarth than a sun going nova. In an instant, Billy Jeeling existed no more, except in the memories of billions of people—and in the synthesized thoughts and emotions of the robots he had designed and built with such loving care.

  CHAPTER 42

  Where has Billy Jeeling gone?

  No one knows, but there are disturbing indications.

  —Confidential security report, Skyship

  In the second-floor parlor of the Imperial Palace, Renaldo Yhatt stood at a window, gazing into the night sky. It was the same window where he’d been a week ago, when the strange silver beam threatened him. Two palace guards stood just inside the doorway, and the entire AmEarth military force was on high alert. The recent events were most unsettling, and everyone worried about another attack from what was being called “the Silver Death.”