Pawan rolled up his shirtsleeve and for the first time, I could see the map tattooed on his forearm. The pirates surrounded him like dung-beetles over a fresh heap of cow dung. He looked at me and said, “Captain Dash drew it himself a few days before his death. He gave me a gold coin for the pain of making the tattoo and made me promise to always wear full-sleeve shirts.”
Shotgun Satish added, “Captain Dash never trusted any one of us.”
For good reason.
“And you,” Natwar turned to me, “You need to keep our journey through the jungle and the cave safe. What your father gave to that damned captain is your responsibility now. If you fail, you know what will happen to your father.” He showed me the satellite phone bulging in his pocket. “I just need to send one voice command.”
“Don’t do anything to Dad,” I said. “Please. I’ll do what I can, I promise.”
“Good,” Natwar said. “Now Satish, you and Rahul will be at the front of the line. The kids will be at the middle and Vipin and I’ll cover the rear. Let’s move, guys. The treasure of Captain Dash is waiting for us.”
“Yay!” Vipin and Satish yelled together. Rahul only smiled. He was not very fond of speaking, I had noticed.
Just then, there was a little tremor in the ground. Earthquake? Or something else? Satish and Rahul started walking toward the forest anyway, as if they didn’t feel it. Pawan mouthed at me, “Let’s go.”
I sighed. My dad had created some monsters and let them roam free in the forest. Now it was my job to stop them. Somehow.
Past: Dad’s Story
They unpacked the robot and activated it. The red lights in its eye-sockets sparked with life. “Do you remember him, creator?” Vipin asked.
“I remember every mistake of my life, Vipin,” Dad said. “With much regret.”
“The personal bodyguard you once made for Dash will be your jailor now,” Natwar clarified. “If your daughter disobeys us, she’ll be killed, you know that. But she must know that if she takes some reckless step like fleeing from us, I only need to give the jailor a voice command over the sat phone and her father’s head will be separated from his body.”
The jailor robot stood like a statue. I looked at Dad’s face and knew at once that Natwar was not bluffing. The robot could really do what he just told us.
“Why do you want to take her?” Dad asked, though I sensed that he already knew the answer.
The three pirates laughed. Natwar said, “Don’t you know why, old buddy? The beautiful things Captain Dash made you release in the forest, they smell humans. They know yours and Dash’s smells as the only friendly ones. Dash is already dead and you are a legless and useless man. But your daughter will serve the purpose. Those things will smell you in her and thus we can go safely to the cave. If possible, we can also kill those things with a little help from her.”
“What if they can’t smell Dad in me?” I asked suddenly.
“Then I promise we’ll give your dead body a fine burial,” Vipin said, showing his uneven teeth. “At least what’ll be left of it.”
Dad said, “Just do me a little favour, Natwar.”
Natwar said, “A favour? From me? Just ask for it, dear scientist.”
“I need some time with my daughter. Alone.”
The three pirates looked at each other and I could see them decide that it was a harmless enough request. Natwar said, “Well, your wish is granted, old friend. We’re leaving for now. One hour, max. The jailor will be here to keep an eye on both of you, of course.”
Dad nodded. The three of them left while the jailor’s red eyes stared at us from its lidless sockets. As soon as they went out of sight, the expression on Dad’s face changed. He straightened his body and said in an urgent tone of voice, “Listen carefully, Sima. We don’t have much time.”
I listened with rapt attention as Dad began his story:
In your life, you meet a lot of people. Some of them are good, some are bad, and some are very, very bad. Captain Dash belonged to this last group.
He was a scientist – at least that’s how I knew him at first. He was a biochemist preoccupied with the search for an element that could prolong a man’s life indefinitely. He wanted to find the mythical elixir of life and he believed that he would one day be able to make it.
When I first heard that idea from him, I dismissed it as the ravings of a crazy man.
As a scientist, my own field was robotics. I had a theory that I could make a robot more human-like by extracting memories from a living person and uploading them into the brain of the robot. But my research needed a lot of funding, and nobody was willing to invest so much money in a project so fantastic in nature. One of the leading scientists in my field even called my project “visionary, but impossible.”
Imagine my state of mind. I was married to your mother, she was pregnant and my dream project was just dismissed by the Einstein of Robotics. I didn’t have enough money to support my family. I was in such a mess.
Just then my old friend appeared almost out of the blue. One day he came to my door and asked, “Remember me, Alok?”
I could, not by his face, which had changed quite a lot in the past few years since I had seen him last, but by the golden dagger-locket that dangled above the second button-hole of his shirt. I invited him in. I didn’t know then that I was inviting the devil himself to my house.
He knew all about my financial condition. He said that he had himself faced the same problem but he had overcome it. He proposed a high paying job to me. My head started spinning when he told me the amount. “What would I have to do?” I asked.
“You’re good at handling artificial-intelligence, aren’t you?” he said. “I just want to use your talent in that field. You need to build me a few machines according to my specifications.”
I at once agreed.
“There’s another condition,” he said.
“What?”
“Both of you need to come with me to the island where you’ll activate the things I want you to make.”
At first I disagreed, but I had no other way to convince him. I asked Ratna and she, too, agreed, because the money Dash was willing to pay was so big that we could never have earned it in our lifetime.
Dash said, “Take your time, Alok. I need to make preparations myself for the journey. I’m paying you in advance to make things easy for you. I will need at least two years to become fully prepared.”
“Prepared for what?” I asked.
He smiled mysteriously and said, “To complete my own research work.”
The money he gave us solved every problem we were in. He gave me detailed instructions of what kind of robots he wanted. It turned out that he wanted two ferocious machine-beasts that would kill anything that come into their territory. I started building those beasts and ended up with a wolf and a tiger; both of these could smell humans and they would kill anybody except Dash or me. They recognized the smell of our blood as the only friendly ones. Dash also made me write a manual for transferring intelligence into a robot in writing with charts and diagrams.
After that, Dash took me and Ratna in his ship, and only then we realised that we were in the middle of a crew of modern day pirates. And I was helpless in the hands of the villain who used me to build dangerous murderous weapons. Once he became angry with a crew member and just threw him to the wolf on the ship. Then he enjoyed his screams from outside the closed doors. Later we recovered the bloody corpse of the man and caged the beast again.
I knew that I had made the mistake of my life by making a deal with this devil.
He also instructed me to build another robot—the one that Natwar and others referred to as ‘the monster.’ It was by far the most dangerous and most sophisticated thing I had ever built. It was placed inside the Cave of Treasure.
That afternoon he ordered Ratna to go with him to the island. I was locked into a room while the pirates enjoyed my shouts. Captain Dash came back to the ship after almost three hours and Ratna was n
ot with him when he came to my room. I asked him where the hell my wife was and he just said, “Dead.”
I pushed past him and jumped in a boat and rowed madly to the island.
“Don’t go,” the captain shouted from behind, but I was in no mood to listen to him. The wolf and the tiger did nothing to me as I ran past them. In front of the sealed entrance of the Cave of Treasures, I found her lying dead, her body as cold as ice, but without a mark from a single wound. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
You know, Sima, I still think that it was a punishment from God for my greed. I buried her there, crying. I thought of killing myself, but then I remembered your face and I came back to the ship.
The pirates surrounded me and started beating me. Captain Dash laughed and said, “You disobeyed a direct order, Alok, and rowed away me. Break his legs, boys.”
And those bloody pirates started beating me with yells of joy. I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I couldn’t feel my legs.
I’m glad that the villain is gone for good. I know that now I’ve no other alternative to letting you go with them, but this is my final advice to you, my girl: NEVER trust anyone on that ship. Remember what your father paid for believing one who came as a friend.
Present: Wild Metal
We saw the wolf first.
Or perhaps it saw us first.
It was waiting for us behind a tree. The forest was dense enough to prevent us from going in a straight line to the hill where a dead pirate’s treasure waited for us. I could see the excitement in the men’s faces. I was feeling a little excited, too, although I’d never admit it to Pawan, who seemed to think that gold was the most intoxicating thing in the whole world.
Rahul cut the creepers and little branches with the ruthless swiftness of his sword. We moved forward, treading upon the freshly-cut vegetation and leaving a plant-scented trail of destruction behind.
Bloody pirates! Leaving a trail of destruction wherever they went!
Suddenly, Rahul stopped.
“Captain! I think I saw one of them,” said Shotgun Satish.
Before Natwar could reply, the beast came out in the open. I couldn’t take my eyes off my Dad’s creation—so dangerous and so beautiful!
Sunlight dazzled on its silver skin, while its red eyes glared at us, trying to find a weak spot in the group. “Go ahead, girl,” Vipin ordered.
“Yes, go ahead,” Natwar echoed.
Pawan said, “Don’t worry, it’ll smell your father in you, and think that the whole group is friendly.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat and felt my heart beating faster than usual. The beast stared at me as I slowly walked towards it. It sniffed the air and started retreating. The red glare in its eyes softened.
“Now, Rahul!” Natwar roared from behind me.
Rahul jumped upon the beast and in a flash severed its head from its metallic body. “One gone!” Vipin exclaimed.
I didn’t know why tears came to my eyes. I knew that it was not a living animal, but still my whole being wanted to protest against this barbarism. But I could see the bloodlust in their eyes and controlled myself.
“Good job, mate!” Satish patted Rahul’s shoulder.
I looked at Pawan to see his expression and found him gazing at the map on his arm with a stony face, as if he was totally unaware of what just happened. Sometimes I really didn’t understand him.
We walked as Pawan directed the way. The forest seemed to be getting a bit thinner as we progressed.
“The tiger’s behind us,” Vipin shouted.
But thanks to the timely warning, the men were ready. The animal was just as clever as the real Royal Bengal tiger; I never heard it coming. No rustle of paws on leaves, no sound of footsteps, nothing. We could only see its metallic body jumping like a flash of silver lightning under the bright sunlight, missing Natwar by an inch or two as he ducked just in time. It stood firmly on the ground, eyeing us, waiting for our next move.
Intelligent machine! What did you do, Dad?
Something fell from Natwar’s pocket, and I quickly hid it.
Rahul again came bravely forward to face this beast, but this time the machine won. As soon as he jumped with his sword, the tiger promptly moved and hit him on the neck with one powerful paw.
The swordsman fell on the ground and never moved again.
Vipin only said, “Good. One less share for the treasure.”
“It’s your turn, girl,” Natwar said. “Rahul should have waited.”
I moved forward. Although I just saw what it did to Rahul, I was not afraid this time. The animal hesitated as it saw me approach. As I came near it, it sniffed the air, just like the wolf had, and started retreating. “Kill it!” Natwar ordered.
Shotgun Satish and Vipin both fired their weapons. The bright tiger collapsed on the dark green forest floor.
Vipin said, “Look, girl, both of your father’s creations are done for.”
“Great achievement!” I muttered under my breath.
“The monster is still in that cave,” Natwar reminded.
Pawan said, “We’re not very far from it. Look.”
We could see the hill from this part of the forest where the trees were thinner. Before us was a grassland from which the hill was just a short walk away. I had secretly named it Mother’s Home, and the hope of finding some trace of her there made me want to walk faster.
“At last!” Natwar heaved a sigh of relief. “Captain Dash! Your treasure will be mine!”
“Ours!” Vipin reminded him.
“Yes, ours!” Natwar quickly corrected himself.
Present: Mother’s Home
“Nobody’s going inside the cave except you two,” Natwar said.
Pawan and I looked at each other. We were standing in front of the hill, a mound of brownish rock, but here and there were patches of moss that made it look like an alien panther.
We knew that the pirates wouldn’t risk their lives, but still when they told us to go, I realised that the last moment of my life had come. I’ll miss you, Dad.
Pawan, on the other hand, looked excited. “Why so tense, Sima? We’re going to find the treasure of Captain Dash, can you imagine?”
“We’re doing it, you fool!” I said. “We don’t need to imagine it. It’s not just the monster; this cave is booby-trapped with explosives. How are we going to survive that?”
“Leave that to me. Captain Dash told me everything,” he laughed as if this was the greatest joke he made in his entire life.
Vipin aimed his AK-47 at us. “Now get going, kids.”
We started climbing the hill. Pawan said, “Take that right; we need to move to the other side of the hill to find the entrance.”
I climbed according to his instructions. It was not very steep, so the climbing was not very exhausting. We took the right turn and the three pirates vanished from our sight.
Inside this hill the monster we all fear is waiting for us. It was harder to climb after I thought about that.
“Come here, Sima,” Pawan called. “I think I’ve got it.” A giant boulder blocked the end of the path. We had to push it aside with all the strength we could manage and even then, it moved only enough to let us in. The inside of the cave seemed to be pitch dark at first.
“Wait a minute,” Pawan whispered.
We waited until our pupils adjusted to the darkness inside. After a few minutes, we realised that it was not completely dark and could see that the walls of the cave were rough. The tunnel we were in led to a broader space inside. The monster wasn’t visible yet but I prepared myself for anything.
The cave shook with another earthquake. “Come on,” I said, regaining my balance. We had to get this over with.
Pawan followed me closely as we walked over the uneven stones of the tunnel. The large open space inside had several low mounds on its floor. On one of which rested…
Six great iron chests! Captain Dash’s treasure!
“That’s it!” Pawan shouted.
�
��Shush!” I warned him. “Have you lost it? Do you want to invite the monster or what?”
Pawan grabbed my hand and went to stand in the middle of the cave where the boxes had waited for the touch of human beings for years. “Come on, girl! Let’s have a look at the gold!”
The inside of the cave was silent except for our voices. Where the hell is the guardian monster of this treasure? But instead I asked a different question. “Where are the explosive booby traps, Pawan?” I asked.
Pawan stiffened. “Those were just stories to prevent people from searching for the treasure. Captain Dash was a great liar, you know.”
I know.
“And what about the guardian monster? Is that a legend, too?”
Pawan smiled. “No. That’s very real. In fact, you’re standing on it. Now, I have to kill you, Sima. And all others, too.”
Suddenly it seemed like time had stopped; my head started spinning as the eyes of the thin boy in front of me glowed with an almost unearthly wickedness. “Wake up, Princess!” Pawan’s voice-command echoed from the cave walls.
Then the stones shook under my feet and from under one mound, the monster stood up. It was not very tall, perhaps only six feet, but it had talons like an eagle. Its whole body was made of a white metal, and its eyes were flashing red, just like the tiger and the wolf. It was a robot built to kill. Its long, extremely powerful metallic arms, I thought, could strangle even a horse. The tiger and the wolf would have seemed tame before this monstrosity.
Oh Dad! What’ve you done?
Pawan opened one of the chests and fished out a handful of gold coins. “My gold! After so many years!” He kissed the coins and let them cascade back to the chest.
The monster robot advanced upon me, but Pawan called from behind. “Wait, Princess.”
The walking death halted. I stared at him and said, “Who are you?”
“I am,” Pawan bowed, “the one and only Captain Dash.”
Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space) Page 16