“Quong, calm Raoul down. See if he’s got something in his purse that will tranquilize him—”
“Drugs!” Raoul’s voice was shrill. “Are you mad? My body is a temple.”
Xris continued, ignored the outburst. “We’ve found a way off this ship. Harsch flew here in a Scimitar. We’ll use it to escape. Tess knows the way. We’ll follow her.”
They stared at him; all of them, staring at him.
“I know the way,” Tess said, her voice strained. “I think we can make it.”
No one spoke. No one moved.
“I’m going with Tess,” Xris said. “The rest of you can come with us or you can stay here. It’s that simple.”
Harry helped Jamil to his feet.
Jamil draped one arm over Harry’s broad shoulders, pulled himself upright. He tried putting his injured left leg to the deck, grimaced and grunted.
“This way.” Tess held the nuke lamp, led them deeper into the darkness of the docking bay.
Harry and Jamil both glanced at Xris as they passed him.
“Tycho had it easy,” Jamil muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
Xris didn’t answer.
Quong and the Little One—his fedora had been crushed, but he appeared otherwise uninjured—were attempting to get Raoul up and moving and not having much success. “My head aches. My feet hurt. I’m sleepy. I don’t want to go anywhere.”
“Tell him he’s in a shopping mall,” Xris said.
“Shopping?” Raoul perked up. “But what happened to the lights?”
That brought him to his feet and following after Quong. The Little One trailed along behind, shaking his battered hat and wringing his small hands.
Xris stood alone in the darkness next to Tycho. He knelt beside the body, which was rapidly cooling, fast disappearing from Xris’s infrared sight. Xris lifted the limp, dead hand.
He tried to talk, paused, cleared his throat, started over. “I’m sorry, my friend. I’m sorry.”
He let the unresponsive hand fall. Standing up, Xris went after the others.
Chapter 43
On fatal terrain you must do battle.
Sun-tzu, The Art of War
Xris found them gathered around a large metal plate set into the deck. Tess located a control panel on the wall, opened it, tapped the controls. The metal plate shivered and then, with a screech and a whoosh of air, began to rise up out of the deck.
“By the Maker!” Quong breathed. “Pneumatic! A pneumatic lift!”
Corasians, with their wheeled, plastisteel bodies, weren’t capable of climbing ladders. The docking bay was probably filled with these lifts, which carried the robots to the catwalks far above the deck.
“There’s an access door up above,” Tess explained. “It leads to the docking bay on the third level, which is where Harsch landed his spaceplane.” She brought the lift to a shuddering halt. “Hop on.”
“Ladies lingerie, please,” Raoul said politely, stepping daintily onto the lift. He had a brief struggle with the dampener, which was heavy and awkward. He managed to adjust it and was heard to mutter, “I can’t think why I chose this style handbag.”
Quong lifted the Little One to join his friend. Harry assisted Jamil onto the lift, stood beside him. There was room for one more.
“I’ll operate the controls,” Tess said. “You get on, Xris.”
“I’ll wait here with you,” he answered.
“Look, Xris, I can understand why you don’t trust me—”
“We got company coming.” He interrupted her, then switched on the light on his weapons arm, shone it onto the control panel. “I have one missile left. Give the nuke lamp to Quong, I’ve got light. Start this thing up.”
Tess said nothing more, started the lift moving. It took its own sweet time and made a horrendous noise in the process. The people standing on it shook and shuddered from the vibrations.
Xris shifted his gaze to the corridor outside the docking bay. The red glow was again growing bright.
The lift came to a halt, must have been designed to do so automatically when it reached the right level. Xris, peering upward, could see Quong hustling everyone off the lift and onto one of the catwalks. He flashed the light.
“All clear!” came the shout.
“Good,” Xris said over the comm. “Keep quiet. If Raoul peeps, slug him.”
Tess hit the controls and the lift, with a screech, started back down.
She glanced over her shoulder. “They’re getting closer.”
“Yeah.” Xris said, chewing on the remnants of the twist. “Tycho’ll stop them for a time. They like to feed whenever they get the chance. And they don’t figure we’re going anywhere.” He spit the wad on the deck. “One question. Where’s the robot?”
Tess’s face, in the harsh glare of the nuke lamp, was dead white. Her eyes were moist, glistened. She gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t know. I told Grant to hide, showed him a place.... He must have hidden the robot, too. I didn’t mean for him— I never supposed— the robot was so heavy ...”
“Bottom line: The Corasians don’t have it.”
“No. And it would be better if they did. You see, Xris, before I left the plane I—”
“Skip the confession,” Xris said. “I’m not a priest.”
Tess managed a half smile, shook her head.
The lift was nearly level with them now. As the lift came flush with the floor, it ground to a halt, paused for a moment, then began to rise. Tess and Xris climbed onto it. The lift lurched upward, moving in fits and starts. The platform jounced and creaked.
“This is one of the few times I could wish that the Corasians had made a few more technological advances.” Xris looked over the edge of the lift, saw the red glow had come to a halt, was clustered around something in the doorway. The smell of burning flesh was strong, pungent.
Tess gave a little gasp, covered her mouth and nose with her hand.
“Don’t look,” Xris said, and put his arm around her.
She closed her eyes, sagged against him. “I’m sorry. I should be used to this. I’ve seen it before.”
“So have I,” Xris said. “And it doesn’t get any easier.”
He tried to follow his own advice, tried to look away, but he couldn’t. He watched the red globs swarm over Tycho until the rim of the platform blocked them from his view.
The lift reached the catwalk. Quong was there to help them off. “They got Tycho.”
“I know. Hand me that dampener.”
Taking the rifle from Quong, Xris leaned over the catwalk and fired a blast at the lift’s controls. The panel blew off. That lift wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
Xris glanced around. “Where is everyone?”
“Jamil and Harry went to check out the access door. It’s at the end of the catwalk to your left. I sent Raoul with them. He’s looking for a different handbag, one to match his shoes.”
Xris took out another twist. “The Little One?”
“Keeping Raoul from falling off the catwalk.”
Xris nodded. Tess went ahead, to join Harry and Jamil at the door. Xris and Quong followed, gathering up Raoul on the way.
“I can’t find the handbags,” he complained.
“Of course not,” Xris said. “You’re in men’s wear.”
Raoul shuddered. “Three-piece polyester suits. How ghastly.”
The red glow below them was intensifying. A laser blast burst on the catwalk beneath their feet. Xris and Quong increased their speed, hustling Raoul along at a rapid pace. The Little One trotted along behind.
“Let’s open the door, gentlemen,” Xris said briskly, coming to a halt at the end of the catwalk. “It’s going to be getting warm in here.”
Another blast—this time closer. The Corasians were improving their aim.
“Right,” Harry said. “We wanted to wait for everyone to arrive, in case there was an escort waiting.”
“Can’t hear anything,” reported Jamil, standing on one leg, proppe
d up against the bulkhead, gun ready. “But that doesn’t mean much. This door must be at least fifteen centimeters thick. By the way, these dampener rifles need to be recharged after about fifty rounds. So don’t waste your ammo.”
Xris held up his weapons hand. “I’ve got one missile left. Open the door and stand back.”
Tess hit the controls. The door rumbled open slowly.
No red glow. Xris cautiously peered out.
Darkness. He looked, saw nothing; listened, heard nothing. All very strange. The Corasians down below must be in contact with their fellow blobs, must have told them their dinner was walking out the back.
Quong remarked, “I have prayed to the Maker. Perhaps this is the response.”
Xris motioned for Tess to join him. “Where’s the plane from here?”
“The corridor runs in front of us for about twenty meters, then another branches off to the right. The plane’s in the docking bay at the end, about another thirty meters.” She looked around, uneasy. “This is weird. Where are they?”
“Angels took care of ‘em, according to Doc. Watch out for locusts and falling frogs.”
“Huh?” Tess stared at him.
Xris turned back to the group. “I’ll take point. Tess, you’re with me. Harry, you and Jamil come after. Little One, you’re in charge of Raoul.”
The Little One nodded. Xris wasn’t certain if the empath was reacting to his words of his thoughts, supposed it didn’t matter. The Little One reached out a small hand, grabbed hold of Raoul’s hand, and clung tightly.
“We’re looking for accessories,” Raoul said in a low voice.
“Quong, you bring up the rear. Keep your eyes and ears open,” Xris counseled, added grimly, “This is all much too easy.”
They made their way down the corridor. Xris switched on his light. Tess had retrieved her nuke lamp, flashed it continually along the bulkheads and the deck in front of them. Harry and Jamil came behind, Jamil hobbling, stifling his groans every time the foot of his injured leg touched the deck.
Tugged along by his small friend, Raoul complained that this was a very strange shopping mall and wondered in a loud voice that set everyone’s teeth on edge why nobody would turn on the lights. Quong brought up the rear, dampener ready.
They reached the intersection of the corridor, halted, flattened themselves against the walls. Xris peered around the corner.
More darkness, thick, impenetrable, blessed.
He and Tess aimed the beams of the nuke lights down the corridor, and there was the docking bay, its doors wide open.
Xris shook his head. “This stinks.”
“You are a man of little faith, my friend,” Quong said over his shoulder. The Doc was guarding the rear, facing back the way they’d come. “Take the gift the Maker gives you. Proceed forward with confidence.”
Xris proceeded forward, though not with much confidence. His augmented hearing was picking up strange sounds. He tried to place them. Hums, whirs, and occasionally a creak or a squeal.
“You hear anything?” he asked Tess.
She shook her head. “No. Nothing. You?”
“Yeah. If I closed my eyes, I’d swear that we were surroun—”
Xris knew. He saw—or didn’t see—the trap into which they were blithely walking.
“Shields! Opaque shields!” he shouted. “Get back!” He raised his arm, aimed the missile—
The laser blast caught him in the left shoulder, spun him around, slammed him to the deck.
Tess dropped the nuke lamp, crouched down beside him. Raising her lasgun, she returned fire. “Doc!” she yelled.
Laser blasts burst in the corridor. Sparks showered down around them.
“Ah,” said Raoul, enchanted. “The toy department.”
The Little One dragged his friend down to the deck.
Harry and Jamil found cover in doorways, were both firing. Quong ran forward, knelt down beside Xris. “Pick up that lamp,” he ordered Tess. “Shine it here, on his shoulder.”
“You gotta work on those prayers, Doc!” Xris grunted, as Quong’s fingers poked and prodded.
“It was your crack about frogs that did it.” Quong peeled off Xris’s smoldering uniform. Harry and Jamil were keeping up covering fire. “You were hit in the steel-reinforced part of you, my friend. That is very good news.”
“Very bad news,” Xris said bitterly, sitting up, with Tess’s help. He pointed to his cybernetic arm, at the weapons hand, which hung at his side, dead weight, useless. “What am I supposed to do? Throw the damn missile at them?”
Laser light streaked past them, exploded on the panel above their heads. Tess flung her arms around Xris, shielding him. Quong stood up, heedless of his own safety, poured murderous fire in the general direction of the shot. He continued firing until his gun went dead. He threw it away, crouched back down.
Jamil and Harry were concentrating their fire in the same place. A pop and a clatter and a small flash of light came from the end of the corridor.
“I think we got one,” Harry reported.
A laser blast nearly took off his head.
“Or maybe not.” Harry ducked back into the doorway.
Xris looked at Tess, who was lying on top of him. “You just can’t keep your hands off me, can you?” he asked.
Tess sat up, shoved her hair out of her face, tried to look as if she’d done nothing special.
“It’s your fatal charm.” She glanced down the corridor. “Speaking of fatal, their aim is rotten today. We should all be dead about now.”
“The shields that keep us from seeing them are probably also keeping them from seeing us,” Quong maintained. “Disrupting their sensors. You see, my prayers may have been answered, after all.”
He was back down beside Xris, inspecting the damage. “Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about the arm. The connections between the arm and your brain have been fried.”
“But the weapons hand itself is okay?” Tess asked.
“It appears to be, yes.”
“Can the missile be fired manually?”
“If Doc takes my hand off,” said Xris.
“Detach the hand,” she said crisply, “and show me how it works.”
Quong looked questioningly at Xris, who nodded.
“Go ahead, Doc.” He managed a smile. “I’d give my left arm to get rid of these bastards.”
“I count two of them, Xris!” Jamil yelled. “One to the left of the door and one to the right. My gun’s run out of juice.” He threw the useless dampener to the deck.
“Mine, too,” Harry reported. “I’m switching to the beam rifle.”
Quong took hold of Xris’s arm, gave it a twist. The limb came off. Tess took hold of it.
“I can’t see!” she complained. “Where’s the firing mechanism?”
“You can feel it here, inside the wrist, a small bump.”
“I think so.” She sounded dubious.
“Don’t push on it!” Quong cautioned. “Until you are ready.”
Tess nodded. She aimed the arm like a rifle and fired, hit the Corasian on the right. Its opaque shield cracked open. The red glow lit up its companion.
Harry concentrated fire from the beam rifle on their new target. One hit split open the Corasian’s side, a second burst blew the hole wide open. The fiery ooze began to crawl out.
Tess shouted at him, “Don’t shoot laser energy at the blob! They feed off it! I don’t have any more missiles!”
Raoul and the Little One lay on the deck in the middle of the corridor. Raoul kept lifting his head; the Little One kept shoving it back down. Xris, looking back at them, recalled the dampener on Raoul’s back.
“Harry!” Xris shouted, and aimed the nuke lamp that direction.
Harry saw the dampener. He made a flying leap, did a belly flop practically on top of Raoul, who shrieked in alarm and hid his face in his hands.
Harry yanked the weapon from Raoul’s arm, nearly dislocating the Adonian’s shoulder. Flippin
g over on his back, Harry fired. The weapon’s projectile embedded in the center of the glowing mass, exploded. The glow began to fade.
Xris aimed the nuke lamp down the corridor, could find no sign of Corasians.
Raoul’s voice broke the stillness. “You beast! Give me back my handbag!”
“What handbag?” Harry was baffled.
“This!” Raoul tried to wrest the dampener from Harry’s hand.
Harry stopped him. “Let me keep it awhile. Okay? I’ll give it back. I promise. And why don’t you let me go first.”
Raoul sniffed. “Keep it, then. I never could find anything in it anyway.”
Harry walked ahead, dampener at the ready. The rest followed; Quong helped Jamil. Tess and Xris brought up the rear.
“What about your arm?” she said.
It lay on the deck. There was something pathetic about it. Xris was reminded of the robot with the sad eyes. We give this metal life. Are we the ones who endow it with spirit, as well? Or do we truly understand the definition of “life”?
“Leave it!” he ordered her, as she bent to pick it up. “The Doc’ll make me a new one.”
They followed the others. The corridor opened up onto a large hangar deck. And there, inside—a long-range Scimitar.
“Harry, give me the dampener,” Xris instructed. “You go get this thing fired up. Tess, you guard the door.”
The long-range Scimitar—shaped like the blade for which it was named—was a fighter spaceplane, smaller than the PRRS and much faster.
Harry climbed the ladder leading to the top, opened the hatch. He disappeared inside.
Xris scanned the area for the telltale glow of Corasians. Above him, at the far end of the hanger, he could see faint light.
Xris turned. “Hurry up! They’re coming!”
Jamil, hopping on one foot, leaning on Quong, entered the hanger. He looked up at the ladder leading to the Scimitar’s hatch and grunted.
“Sorry,” said Xris, “but it’s the only way.”
“Yeah, I know.” Jamil paused a moment, drew in a breath, then began to climb.
Quong was right behind him, helping and offering encouragement. “That is correct. Balance the weight on the uninjured leg. I am here behind you. Don’t worry about slipping. Don’t think of the pain. Tuck it away in a small recess in your mind.”
Robot Blues Page 38