Bill 2 - on the Planet of Robot Slaves (13 page)

“Me too!”

Jonkarta stepped back as they reached for the ham, half drawing his sword. “Just a moment longer, ah beg of you. The oath first. Place your right hand over your heart — you do have hearts? Good. And repeat after me. Ah swear by Great Embollizm, ruler of the sun and the stars, overseer of Barthroom, protector of the red men, enemy of the green men, sure death on the white apes, giver of gifts, protector of all, that ah will be loyal to Jonkarta of Barthroom, and all who serve under him, will obey all orders and shower at least once a week.”

They repeated, choking on the saliva that filled their mouths as they smelled the succulent thoat flesh, then eagerly grabbed the chunks he hacked off with his sword.

“Mighty fine vittles, is it not? Smoked it myself. And while you munch I'll tell you what we must do. It seems that Princess Dejah Vue, whom ah am passionately in love with, was returning from the air plant, where all the air on this planet is made, when her party was attacked by a marauding war party of cruel green men led by the cruelest of all. Tars Tookus. Her companions were all butchered horribly, her riding thoat was killed — you just ate part of it, ah didn't want it to go to waste — and she was abducted by Tars Tookus and his repellent horde.”

“Were you there?” Bill asks miffedly.

“No. To mah everlastin' regret ah arrived on the scene too late — or none of those fiends would have survived. I read all that transpired in their tracks in the trackless moss for ah am a mighty hunter and tracker. No other could find a trail in the moss. I alone, trained by Apache warriors...”

“Could we save the ego-trip until later?” Meta implored.

“You are correct, Ma'am, ah do apologize. Where was I?”

“Tracking the green girl-grabbers across the trackless wastes.”

“Yes, of course. I could not attack their encampment singlehandly, so I was returning to the city of Methane for reinforcements when ah heard your voices. By enlisting your aid I will save many days march and we can take them by surprise.”

Meta swallowed the last morsel and wiped her hands on the tall grass. “Got anything to wash that down with?”

“Of a certainty, Ma'am.” He handed her his leathern drinking bottle and she glugged deeply. “That is kvetch, made from fermented thoat's milk.”

“Tastes like it too,” she yekked, spitting out lumps of it. “How many of these greenies do we have to fight?”

“One, two, more. Ah'm not so good at mah numbers. Just killing.”

“One or two, OK,” Bill said, gagging on the kvetch. “We can handle that. If it is going to be a big number, like more, we are going to need help. You better enlist our friend back there, Mark I Fighting Devil.”

“That is rightly an ugly and dangerous critter, that is why ah did not approach. Is it your metal slave?”

“Hardly. But it will obey orders. Wait here and I'll bring it back.”

The dragon, which had polished off all the broken branches and was contentedly puffing green smoke, was now working on the hanging vines; a length of one hung like spaghetti from its mouth. It waved a languid paw at Bill and pulled down another vine.

Fighting Devil was not enjoying its stay quite as well. It sat on a dry rock with its legs tucked up under it.

“Got some work for you,” Bill said, but it never moved.

“Is it dead?” Bill asked the dragon.

“Not quite. Got its power shut down to save its batteries.”

“That's great. How do I get to talk to it then?”

“Seems pretty obvious. Use the phone.”

Bill walked around the rock and saw that there was a metal box on its back with strange and cabalistic characters stamped on it.

“Is this it? Looks like AT&T.”

“You got it in one.”

Bill broke his last remaining nail prying the box open. He took out the handset and spoke into it.

“Hello — anyone home?” It crackled and rustled in his ear.

“This is a recorded message. The Fighting Devil is powered down right now. If you would like to leave a message it will get back to you as soon as possible...”

“Show some life, will you. We got work to do.” But the response was only silence. Bill cursed and put the phone back on the hook, slammed the box shut. Then he saw that the open lid had concealed a red button labeled FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY.

“That's more like it,” he said and pressed hard.

The results were quite dramatic. The Fighting Devil's legs punched down hard and shot the creature high into the air. As it fell sheets of raw energy crackled lambently, shells burst in the surrounding forest, while a siren hooted insanely.

Bill dived behind the dragon as bullets clanged off its metal hide.

“I tried to warn you,” the dragon said. “But you were so impetuous.”

“What's the emergency?” Fighting Devil shouted, spinning its optics in all directions.

“There's no emergency,” Bill said, hesitantly leaving cover. “I wanted to talk to you...”

“That's what the phone is for. It is a violation to press the emergency button if there is no...”

“Will you please shut up and listen! We've got a little job to do.”

“Since when? All I have to do is sit on my can for a couple of weeks while the dragon regenerates its wing. How is it going?”

Fighting Devil extended a pickup towards the dragon who pointed with a claw at a metal bulge on its side. “Going great.”

Bill was getting angry. “Listen here, Fighting Devil, it's time to live up to your name. We got more to do than sit around and watch the dragon's wing grow. There's a war going on out there.”

“You're welcome to it. Powering down now. All systems gone. Ten...nine...”

“Hold it! You were ordered to take orders from me!”

“No way, squishy one. I was ordered by the great Zots to rescue the other squishy and bring you both back alive. That's the limit of my responsibility. Night-night...”

“No! Hold it right there. You've got to bring us back, right? And we have to wait here for two weeks. But if Meta and I don't eat we'll die. Now we have made a deal for food in exchange for a little bit of fighting. But we need your help, get that? So you have to come with us.”

“Impeccable chain of logic I would say,” the dragon said. “I'll be here when you get back.”

You could hear the wheels spinning as Mark I tried to think of a way out of this one. There was no escape. Lights came on and motors hummed as it switched back to full power.

“Well,” it said, with philosophic resignation. “It's better for a Fighting Devil to fight than to estivate — so let's get on with the job. Where's the war?”

Jonkarta was very suspicious of Bill's companion. He stood behind Meta, sword in one hand, his weapon in the other.

“Don't come any closer, hear!” he ordered. “This here rifle fires radium bullets that will go right through your tin friend.”

Meta shied away from him. “Are you crazy or something? Radium? You must glow in the dark — and have the life expectancy of a gerbil!”

“Ah admit that the new radium bullets do glow in the dark — and explode in the dark as well. So beware! The old ones, fired at night, did not explode until the sun's rays struck them next day. But no more. Can you trust that creature?”

“It obeys orders — and that's enough. Now put that gun down. And stay as far away from us as possible.”

“If this metal critter is to join the cause it must take an oath of allegiance...”

“Never!” Fighting Devil boomed out in a brazen voice. “Loyalty cannot be subdivided and I have sworn an oath in oil to golden Zots, my liege lord. But I will follow and I will obey instructions in order to keep my ward, this squishy one here, alive — so you are going to have to settle for that, bud.”

“Ah'm not sure...”

“Well I am,” Bill said, tired of the entire stupid argument. “And this thing is not human in any case, it's just a machine...”

“I am not just a machine'!” Fighting Devil grated.

“Hold it there!” Meta shouted, but no one was listening. “There's one way to settle this,” she muttered, raised her weapon and shot all three of them.

The shouting ended at once. Bill and Jonkarta instantly fell to the ground, dragged down by the three gravities projected by the gun. Even Fighting Devil ground its gears helplessly. Meta sat on a fallen log and hummed to herself as she wove a circlet of wild flowers. As the charge wore off they began to stir and moan. She patted the flowers into place on her head, stood and stretched.

“Now that the argument is over — can we maybe get this war over with as well?”

“We march,” Jonkarta ordered, pouting slightly at being put down by a mere woman. “You will find their encampment just one day's journey from here, at the edge of the long-dead city of Mercaptan. We will take up our positions in darkness. The battle will be joined at dawn.”

“You're the boss,” Meta said. “Lead on. And could I have another slug of that fermented thoat's milk, just for the road.”

Jonkarta knew every path and trail in the jungle and on the mossy plain and went silently on little cat's feet. (He had killed the little cat and skinned it and used its feet to make soles for his moccasins. An old Barthroomian custom that brings good luck. But not to the cat.) Unknown dangers lurked here, but as soon as they made themselves known they were blasted by Fighting Devil who was now enjoying itself. Very quickly fragments of giant python, wolverine-possum, as well as bits of the hideous latke-eater, littered the ground. Jonkarta was more relaxed now, seeing that the newcomers really were fighting on his side.

“Ah must say, you really are a fighting devil,” he said.

“Eponymous, that's me,” it agreed and shots rang out as it blew away a charging nenitesk.

Because their explosive passage expedited their journey through the forest they reached the edge of the great mossy wastes just as the sun was setting behind the distant edge of the plateau.

“They are there,” Jonkarta said, pointing grimly, which is not easy to do. “You can make out the dark forms of their tents, the even darker forms of the grazing thoats...”

“Speaking of thoats,” Meta interjected, “I'll have a bit more of that ham.”

“You think more of your stomach than you do of mah darling Dejah Vue!”

“Right now, yes, Red. Eat first, fight later.”

Since Fighting Devil needed no sleep it took the first watch that night. Then the second and the third, and woke them just before dawn.

“What's your plan, Jonkarta?” Bill asked after they had broken their fast with the last of the ham and snuck out behind the trees to make peepee.

“There is but one plan — fight and win!”

“Brilliant.” Fighting Devil was not impressed. “But if you want some advice on fighting from an experienced Fighting Devil you ought to organize things a little bit better than that. How many of them are there?”

“Countless hordes!”

“You wouldn't like to be a little more precise?”

“Don't bother,” Bill said. “I've danced this one before. This lad counts one, two, more.”

“Ah'm a better shot than you are paleface,” Jonkarta sulked. “Ah don't need to count — just fight!”

“You'll fight, you'll fight,” Fighting Devil bemoaned, fed up with all soft, wet aliens. “Let's make this simple. What do you say I walk in there and blow everyone away?”

“You will kill mah darling princess!”

“OK, we modify the plan. You sneak in now under cover of darkness and find where she is. Then when I arrive at dawn you point to her tent and I blow everything else away.”

“But how do I find her in the darkness?”

“Use your nose,” Meta said, fed up with the bickering. “If she doesn't stink you can smell her out among the smellies.”

“Stink! Were you not female you would be dead. My darling has the aroma of sweet roses, delicate dafs, all the fair flowers...”

“Terrific. Sniff out this bouquet of beauty and let trigger-happy know which tent she is in. Can we now get this war on the road?”

“Ah will now seek out my darling. Silence is the word so ah dare not take Ol' Betsy here, mah trusty radium rifle. Ah leave it in yore care, Ma'am...”

“No way! Hang it from a tree and it will be here when you get back.”

Jonkarta had no choice. He secured the weapon high in a ginja tree, then silent as a wraith slipped out into the desert.

Fighting Devil hummed to itself as the sky lightened in the west — the planet of Usa rotated backward — as it reloaded all its weapons and charged up the ray projectors. Bill stretched out to get a quick thirty winks, it had been a long night, but Meta had better ideas. She crept under the shrouding shrub that concealed him, settled beside him on the soft moss and the night was filled with the music of zippers being unzipped. And being rezipped when they saw an infrared detector protruding from the shrub.

Meta grabbed for it but it slipped away. “If vegetative reproduction is your bag,” she shouted, “how come this big interest in heterosexuality?”

“Maybe I feel frustrated. Sun's up. The lark's on the wing, the thoat on the thand. Here I go!”

The camp was already astir, and it astirred even more at the sight of Fighting Devil trundling towards them. A horde of ravenous, verminous, carious green martians poured out of the tents roaring evil oaths and firing at their metal attacker. Fighting Devil raised its guns and aimed them, but held its fire.

“Soft red squishy one — where are you?”

“Here,” Jonkarta said, raising his head out of a ditch — and ducking again when radium bullets began to whistle by. “Kill as you will — but spare the tent with the mark of the beast on it.”

“I'm afraid that I'm not familiar with the term.”

Jonkarta quickly traced 666 in the sand. “It looks like that.”

“Gotcha.” Fighting Devil aimed its electronic telescope, ignoring the bullets clanging on its hide, and swept the line of tents. “I've found it — and here I go!”

It was very dramatic. The grotesque green men never stood a chance before the maelstrom of fire and bullets. Stormed at by shot and shell, they all exploded well. Gobbets of green flesh flew in all directions and thudded into the sand among the debris of broken tents, fur rugs, silken drapes, gold bangles, contraceptives, pistols and swords, portapotties — all the things that made life in the harsh desert possible. Meta and Bill, hand in hand, came to watch the noisy demonstration of invincible firepower. Within instants the proud camp was a smoking ruin — from which a single tent projected. It was unharmed, although it was well spattered with green blood.