by D Miller
'Do not resist them,' said the old bot. 'I am sure they will not hurt you.'
Roberto and Omo knelt on either side of Robbie. 'He's right,' said Roberto, 'don't try to stop them.' Roberto had stopped crying, his face was streaked with dirt and tears.
'Keep still dude,' said Omo taking Robbie's hand. 'I'm right here. It's going to be OK. I promise.' The old bot stood a little way away, with the three dancers, who had put their beaks together as if crossing swords and were shivering them with their eyes closed. The other creatures closed in, forming a large circle around Robbie, Omo and Roberto. The circle moved round as the creatures shuffled to the side. When it stopped the two creatures nearest to Robbie shuffled forward, they gently poked at Robbie's crotch, stomach and chest with their beaks, then poked at his face, and scraped their beaks against his cheeks. Robbie found their actions comforting, he relaxed. Roberto moved out of the way, as the creatures pressed forward. One of them was rubbing its beak against Robbie's cheek with its eyes closed, sliding its beak forward, so that its head was coming nearer and nearer to Robbie's. Robbie shut his eyes, he heard a snap, and a voice that seemed to be partly in his head and partly outside it said, 'Come on then, I'll kill you all.'
Suddenly Robbie was in intense pain, the side of his head was being torn off. He opened his mouth to scream, but all that came out was a breathy, 'Ah ah ah.' There was an intense light hitting his right eye, from the side, from where his skull used to be.
He opened his eyes and looked for Omo but he couldn't see, someone was gripping his left hand strongly, 'Dude it's OK,' he heard. The light winked out, Robbie could see again, the creatures had moved away from them, and were now chasing something about the clearing, as if they were playing a ball game. The pain was gone and nothing was stroking Robbie's face. He put his free hand up to his head, his skull was intact. He looked at Omo, then at Roberto. 'Has it gone?' he said.
'Dude it's gone.'
'It's really gone,' said Roberto.
Omo and Roberto helped him up and they joined the old man in watching the creatures. At first Robbie could not make out the thing that they were chasing but then he saw it running towards him and screaming; he could not tell if the scream was real or in his head. It was large, bigger than Roberto's creature, and a darker grey. All of its limbs were intact, it had eight legs, and a further two shorter limbs on either side of its open mouth. Its face had been stuck straight onto its body, with no intervening head. The body looked a little like a brain. Its legs extended from the body with white stringy material, that looked almost plastic, shading into more organic looking clear grey shot through with red lines including a thicker one down the middle, and becoming completely red at the pointed tip. Something flashed down, and the thing's forward process ended, one of its legs had been severed and it collapsed, before rearing up again, and limping forward, its mad red eyes fixed on Robbie. Again there was a flash, and the thing had lost another leg, this one severed near to, but not at, the body, so that a stump leaking thick yellow liquid remained. This time it fell and rocked back on its set of four good legs, pawing at the air with the remaining two legs and the stump on its other side. The creatures fell on it and then stepped back, what was left on the ground between them was just the body.
Robbie could still hear screaming, he held on to Omo. 'It's still alive,' he said.
One of the creatures pushed the brain/body with its beak and it rolled a little way, coming to rest near another who pushed it to a third, soon they were all playing, jostling each other for position.
'Oh God I can hear it,' said Robbie, 'it's so angry, it just wants to kill them all.'
Omo put an arm around Robbie. 'What are they doing?' said Omo. 'Why are they playing with it?' He looked at the old bot.
'I think they have intelligence,' said the old man, 'but not like us. I have no idea what they are, or where they have come from. Do you Roberto?'
'They must be something to do with the odd signals I've been picking up,' said Roberto, 'that's all I know.'
'Er yeah dude, them, and what about that?' Omo indicated the sky by lifting his head and looking up, both Roberto and the old bot copied him.
Robbie felt consumed with the thing's fury as the creatures continued with their game, while the old man and Roberto stared up open mouthed at the eye and Omo hugged him with one arm, helping him to stay on his feet. Then one of the birds stabbed the creature with its beak, right through its middle, and the rest joined in, stabbing at it, jostling each other to get near it, breaking the thing into chunks of grey and red which they ate with every sign of pleasure.
'I can't feel it anymore,' said Robbie.
'Oh dude,' said Omo.
'Oh God I hope they're really dead,' said Roberto.
Robbie looked at Roberto and then at Omo, he was unable to speak the idea that was buzzing around the front of his brain, knocking itself against his skull.
Robbie, Omo, Roberto and the old man sat in the clearing, watching the creatures as they shuffled to and fro, their posture redolent of significant and important events being arranged. At least to Robbie they seemed very pleased with themselves.
Roberto had again denied all knowledge of the eye in the sky and the strange birds. He had asked the old man why he had gone to the forest.
'I was listening to my radio, but my programme faded away, but before it did I heard this new voice, in a language I have never heard before. I could not find any of my normal channels, except once I thought I heard some music, like military marching band, but I could not tune in to it and it faded away. Then I thought I heard something knocking at my door,' said the old man, 'but when I went outside no one was there, and all I could see was the mist. There has never been such a thick mist before. I went back inside and tried to call Rex, but I could not connect. After a while it seemed to me that the voice on the radio was saying the odd word that I could understand, and in particular I thought I heard "forest" more than once. Eventually I decided to take the hint. It took me a while to get to the forest, and then I was lost for a while – in the mist every bit of the forest looked the same to me. Then the mist started to lift and I could see the path to the clearing. When I arrived in the clearing they were waiting. They were collecting stones, they all turned to me, and they put their wings out and dipped their heads, it seemed to me that they were greeting me. I had the impression they were intelligent and wanted to communicate, then Roberto arrived, with that creature emerging from his ear and, you saw what happened after that.'
Between them Omo, Robbie and Roberto told the old man about Robbie's madness, the flight from the refinery, the confrontation with boyboy and the trip in the stolen craft to the mine.
'I am very sorry to hear about your troubles,' the old man said to Robbie. 'But I am glad that the game's afoot. After all these years.'
'There's to be a planning meeting for the strike soon, Dex wants you there of course,' said Roberto. The old man nodded. He looked up once more at the eye, it looked back.
'Roberto, you said there were anomalous signals, when did they start?' said the old man.
'I can't be sure. But there were none up to the point we disconnected you and escaped from the refinery. It was after we got set up again in the mine that I noticed them.'
'So the signals started either during your escape through the refinery tunnel network, or immediately after. And Robbie thinks there is some intelligence at work in the tunnel network?'
'I'm sure of it,' said Robbie, 'and I think it is friendly, like the eye in the sky.'
'Perhaps it is the eye in the sky,' said the old man. They all looked up. The eye looked back.
One of the creatures approached the old bot, and fixed its almost crossed eyes on him, then it turned its head and pointed behind itself with its beak. The other creatures had retreated to the edge of the clearing, leaving something in the middle. Robbie, Omo and Roberto got up, then they helped the old bot up and went to have a look. The creatures had built piles of stones and arranged them
in a line. The old man counted the number of stones going from left to right, '17, 13, 11, 7, 5, 3 and 2. Prime numbers. They have intelligence. I thought so.'
'But look,' said Robbie. 'There is a single stone at the end. So it reads 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17. But we don't define one to be prime.'
'I would be surprised if they do,' said the old man.
The creatures were crouched around the edge of the clearing, balanced on their folded wings, watching them intently.
Robbie looked at the old bot. 'Perhaps we should remove the single stone to show that we understand,' said Robbie.
'That would make sense. And I think we should also add nineteen.'
'Dude let me.' Omo moved forward, bent and picked up the single stone, he moved it to the other end of the row of stones, next the heap containing seventeen, then looked around and seeing a further pile of stones where the birds huddled near to the clearing's edge, he retrieved eighteen more stones and added them so that the row of stones read 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19. A shiver went through the animals, they rocked forward on their folded wings, then back, they turned to each other and opened their beaks, bobbing their heads up and down. The one who had come forward to call their attention to the piles of stones was hopping around slightly in front of the others, turning from the creatures to Robbie and his friends and back again.
Robbie laughed. 'I'll bet that one is saying to the others "see I knew they had intelligence"'.
'No dude,' said Omo, 'what he's saying is "see I knew they were clever as well as good looking."'
'Now it is our turn,' said the old man. Under his direction Roberto rearranged the piles of numbers so that they now counted 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13. He put the left over stones back on the pile near to the edge of the clearing.
The bird that had first called their attention to the stones came forward. He inspected the stones then cawed at his companions. Some of them picked up stones from the pile of spare stones and started to make another pile of stones, until the numbers read 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21. The first bird looked along the piles of stones, then he shuffled along to the beginning and put his clawed foot next to the first single stone, in a line with the other piles and at about the same distance from the first stone as it was from the next. He looked at the old bot, and opened his beak.
'I know what he's saying,' said the old man, 'the Fibonacci sequence is 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 and so on. He's calling our attention to the zero in the first place.'
'Can we give that dude a name?'
'How about Ramanujan?' said the old man. 'A famous number theorist.'
'Hello Rama,' said Omo.
'Look at Rama's feet,' said the old man. 'Two of them with five claws on each one. That could mean that they count in base ten. I want to see if they recognise some universal constants.'
He asked Roberto to find a stick and draw a large circle on the ground. Outside of the circle he asked him to place three stones, and inside the circle one stone next to the three but separated by the circle's circumference, then a pile of four stones next to the one, then one stone next to that, then a pile of five, then others of nine, two, six, and finally five again.
'The first nine digits of pi in base ten: 3.14159265,' said the old man. He asked Roberto to start another line of numbers, this one a pile of two, followed by a small circle scratched in the earth, followed by seven, one, eight, two, and another eight. Robbie found himself watching Roberto, just because with his beauty and graceful movements he was nice to watch. In fact he drew Omo's eye too, although Robbie wondered if Omo realised this. Finished, Roberto stood back with the others, and the one they called Ramanujan shuffled over. He looked at the piles of stones, he ran his beak along the circle. He shuffled round in front of the stones, facing back to his friends, and touched his beak to every pile. 'Dude, I don't think Rama is happy,' said Omo. The creature shuffled back to his friends and they huddled, stretching their wings around each other, they seemed to be conferring, at one point Ramanujan, who had his back to Robbie and his friends, turned around, and might even have been giving them a displeased look.
'Dude I seriously don't think they're happy,' said Omo. 'What's the story with those numbers?'
'They are the first few digits of pi and e, two important irrational numbers in mathematics,' said the old man. 'Any civilisation that has developed any mathematics beyond addition, subtraction, multiplication and division must know of them.'
'Perhaps they're Pythagoreans,' said Robbie. 'Pythagorus is a human mathematician from about a million years ago,' he said to Omo and Roberto.
('Approximately three and a half thousand years ago,' murmured the old bot.)
'He is supposed to have killed one of his followers for suggesting that there were such things as irrational numbers,' said Robbie.
'Perhaps we should leave,' said Roberto.
'What's an irrational number?' said Omo. 'Is that a number that thinks that if it never walks on a crack nothing bad can ever happen to it?'
The old man gave Omo a severe look. 'I am not sure now is the right time to be flippant,' he said. Robbie pursed his lips and looked down, he wanted to laugh really badly. Omo put his arm around him and pulled him close, he kissed his temple. Robbie ducked his head to Omo's chest where the old man could not see him smiling.
'I really think we should leave,' said Roberto. At that moment a noise like the cawing of a thousand crows broke out among the creatures, they turned and ran at the piles of stones, stabbing them with their beaks and kicking them with their feet.
'I agree we should leave,' said the old man. The four of them turned and walked as fast as possible, which was as fast as the old man could walk, which was not fast at all. Robbie estimated that they were perhaps halfway out of the forest when they heard the cawing getting louder.
Roberto reacted first. 'You two take the old bot back to his house, go to the sand pit in the basement and stay there until I signal you. I'm going back to see if I can clean up the program and get rid of them. Ephemeral,' he said, and was gone.
Robbie and Omo between them picked up the old man, he put his arms around their shoulders, they linked arms behind his back and they each put their other arm under his knees, then they ran with the old man sitting between them. They were halfway to the house when they realised the creatures were above them, circling them, with one after another taking it in turns to dive at them and scratch their beaks through their hair. They zigged and zagged as much as they could to throw this off, scrambling their way up the steps and putting the old man down to negotiate the door. Once it was slammed behind them something heavy hit the door, which reverberated in its frame.
'This way,' said the old man, leading them to the basement and the sand pit. The old man urged them into the pit, telling them it was the only safe place when Rex was changing the program. Robbie sat in the sand pit, smiling at Omo, letting sand trickle through his fingers and hearing thuds against the windows and doors upstairs.
'Still think they're friendly?' said Omo.
'I didn't say they were friendly, I said the eye in the sky was,' said Robbie. 'What I'm thinking now is how clever are they if they can't work a door knob?'
'In fairness,' said the old man, 'it is a round door knob, and those feet and that beak are not ideal tools for opening it with.' The thuds upstairs grew more frequent, and louder, then the world went dark, in the distance Robbie thought he could see himself in the mine office, the world grew light again and he was back in the sand pit. 'I believe Rex has pressed restart,' said the old man.
Robbie was back in the mine, Omo paced impatiently up and down the office, while Rex was checking his communications with the old bot were secure and open. Jane had left to find Darren and Dex, who had not responded to messages or attempts to connect. Robbie leaned back against the wall. He felt stronger, he was sure he was stronger; an unspoken hope vibrated between Omo and himself. Finally the door opened and Jane came in with Darren and Dex.
'Oh dude thank God,' said Omo to
Darren. 'You have to examine Robbie again, I think he's better, he's stronger, something happened in the forest, there were these creatures and–'
'Dude slow down. First I'll look at Robbie, then you can tell me the whole story, OK?'
Rex started to howl. He fell down from his perch and hit the floor like a dead weight. He lay still whimpering, then he began to paw at his ear. He raised his head off the floor and howled again. Darren was opening his bag, he found what he wanted then knelt down by Rex who snapped at him as his hand approached his ear. Jane knelt too and gently held Rex by his snout, closing his mouth and pressing his head into the floor. She looked at Darren, 'Go ahead,' she said. Dex and Omo stood back, Dex put an arm around Omo.
Darren stroked the fur away from Rex's ear, which was pulsing, visibly, then he shone his head torch into it. He probed inside Rex's ear with what he had taken from his bag, then he said something to Dex who passed him something shiny which he carefully inserted into Rex's ear; holding the two instruments he started to pull. Robbie could see he was pulling strongly, then something gave and Darren fell backwards. 'Where did it go?' he said.
Robbie could have told him, if he could speak. The thing had hit the wall near Robbie, then it had slid down, and lay in a puddle of red. After a microsecond or two it shivered, then pulled itself up, and began dragging itself towards Robbie. Up close it had some resemblance to the thing in the forest, but was more metallic looking, with its organic material enclosed in a black shell, that was now falling off it in patches. Robbie looked at it, then he was looking at himself, then he was looking at Rex while Jane stroked his fur, then he was looking at the thing dragging itself towards him with one of his eyes, while the other eye dangled down his cheek, giving him a superlative view of his chest.