Robot Blues (17 page)

Xris loped through
the desert, slogging over the shining Pandoran sand that had now—after the
rain—turned into mud. A particularly clinging, sticky mud that caked on his
boots and made running difficult.

He kept to the
desert until the cop cars and the lights of the bar and the sound of shouting
and swearing were behind him. The city proper was off to his left. The lights
of the construction site shone ahead of him. The base lights were to his right.
This part of the road was deserted since it went essentially nowhere. The
pavement ended in ruts left by the heavy dirt-moving equipment.

More mud, and
puddles of water. Xris had to stop every half a kilometer to clean the gunk off
his boots, which had become so caked with the gooey gray muck that they were
slowing him down.

Lightning flared.
Thunder crashed. The next storm in line chose this moment to dump on him. Rain
slashed down in torrents, typical of desert storms. He was soaked to the skin
in seconds. This did nothing to improve his spirits, which were as dark,
gloomy, and thunderous as the weather.

He hoped Tess had
escaped the police. He felt rotten enough about using her as it was. If she was
caught in a raid, ended up in a Pandoran prison cell, she’d probably be a
private in the morning. He tried to sell himself on the fact that she would
have gone to Jake’s with her roommates anyway, but he wasn’t buying it. If
anything happened to her, it would be his fault.

And there was
tomorrow to look forward to.

He’d say good-bye
to her. They’d exchange a few wisecracks. He’d promise to vidphone—a promise
that he would never keep. He couldn’t tell her the truth. She’d assume then
that he had only been using her to get off base and she’d assume right. When
you peeled back the layers, the ugly truth was there, like the ugly mechanics
in his arm. All the fleshfoam and plastiskin in the galaxy couldn’t hide it.
Far better to cut the arm off clean, never see her again. He might spare her
some pain. She’d be left with the memory of a few laughs, a few kisses, a
pleasant evening.

At least, Xris
hoped, that was how Tess felt about their time together. As to
his
feelings, he continued to pummel himself mentally all the way along the road.
This blasted job. It had come wrapped in brown paper, looked so plain and simple
on the outside, and when he started to cut the tape, it had blown up in his
face. For a single plastic credit, he’d call the job off, return Sakuta’s
money, let the Pandorans keep the antique robot. It was theirs, by rights.

Unfortunately,
Xris couldn’t do that now. He had his orders. And someone had Jamil.

He stopped
running, bent down once again to clean the mud off his boots and—now that he
was alone—to equip himself for the job ahead.

Xris detached his
fleshfoam hand, replaced it with his working hand. His fingers were now tools:
drill, cutting torch, screwdriver. The hand that had appeared ordinary had
suddenly become something monstrous. Tess wouldn’t be so eager to jump into his
arms if this steel hand was attached.

Sure, he could
always take off that working hand, replace it with the fleshfoam hand, replace
the steel with Captain Kergonan.

But he wasn’t
Captain Kergonan.

This hand would
always be steel, cold, without life, designed to do a job.

That was all it
was good for.

All he was good
for.

Xris began to run
again.

This living hand,
now warm and capable

Of earnest
grasping, would, if it were cold

And in the icy
silence of the tomb,

So haunt thy days
and chill thy dreaming nights . . .

John Keats, “This Living Hand”

Xris jogged along
the road until he reached the rusty barbed-wire and wooden plank barricade that
had been erected to protect the construction site. A security light illuminated
the gate, probably for the benefit of the night watchman. Xris saw no hut,
however, no lights behind the gate. The guard was probably inside the area,
closer to the heavy equipment, the building materials. Xris glanced behind. He
could still see, off in the distance, the flashing lights of the police cars.
He could hear the wail of sirens.

Xris leaned down,
picked up a good-sized rock, and heaved it at the light. He missed. He tried
another. The third time, glass shattered. The light went out.

Crude, but
effective. Anyone discovering the broken bulb would probably put it down to
vandals. Now that every movement was no longer in the spotlight, he walked over
to the gate, studied the padlock. It was a cheap hardware store lock with a
dial on the front. With his mechanical hand, he gave it a healthy yank. The
lock popped open. He entered the construction site, paused to look and listen.
The workers were still in the digging stages; no one had started building
anything yet, though the metal forms into which they’d pour the concrete for
the foundation were stacked in long rows. He could now see, some distance away,
a small shed with a light in it, and figured he’d found the night watchman.
Would the watchman be making routine inspections of the site? Doubtful,
considering the rain, but Xris was prepared for that eventuality. He had a
tranquilizer dart positioned in the projectile firing digit of his tool hand.
He checked to make certain all his systems were functioning properly, then set
off at a lope for the crash site.

It only took him
about five minutes of running to reach it. He saw no one on the way and trusted
that no one had seen him. The rain continued to pour down; his clothes were
soaked, the night air was chill. He’d slipped and fallen once, done no damage.

Arriving at the
crash site, Xris stopped to catch his breath, clean the mud from his tool hand,
and inspect the downed spaceplane.

The force field
had one advantage: It lit the place bright as day.

The old spaceplane
was only partially dug out. The Pandorans had found enough to determine what
the plane was and then had called a halt to the project, fearful—according to
Sakuta—of contamination. The spaceplane had apparently plunged nose-first into
the ground, probably long before anyone had come to colonize this planet. Since
then, the shifting desert sands had washed over it, buried it, obliterated all
trace of its existence.

Xris studied what
he could see of the plane. Sakuta had provided him with old photographs and vid
footage of this particular type of craft, known as a Pelican light utility
plane, which had been mainly used for long-haul, light cargo loads. It had also
proved excellent for unmanned exploratory missions.

According to
Sakuta, in the early days of human space colonization, robots like the one Xris
was supposed to retrieve had been sent out to various sectors of the galaxy to
do mapping and surveying, searching for planets that would be suitable for
human habitation.

Crashes were
relatively commonplace; the robot-controlled planes would venture too near a
system, get caught in its gravitational pull, and, being unable to break free,
would be pulled down to the surface. The shielding on the old planes was highly
inadequate. Most failed to survive the entry through the atmosphere and burned
up, which was why finding one in such well-preserved condition was extremely
rare.

Xris surveyed the
angle of entry into the ground, assessed the amount of damage to the portion of
the spaceplane that he could see, and calculated that the crash had been a
controlled one. Whoever had piloted this craft had stayed with it all the way,
must have used every bit of ingenuity and skill possible to land this plane and
keep it in one piece. This didn’t exactly fit in with Sakuta’s description of
these robots as plodding, noncreative space-traveling dummies who did what they
were told, but no more. Such a ‘bot would have accepted the inevitable, plunged
to its death without a struggle. Whoever piloted this plane had fought hard to
survive—almost as if it had been human.

Xris considered
the point as being of mild interest, but nothing more. There were various
explanations— perhaps a human
had
been aboard, for one reason or
another. Maybe the Pandorans had discovered skeletal remains. That might be why
they thought the plane could be contaminated. Not logical—if there had been any
germs or viruses on that plane, they would have all died centuries ago. But
then any government that would go to the expense of building a wall to shield a
shopping mall from off-worlders didn’t score high marks on logic.

Xris glanced over
the spaceplane—what he could see of it that wasn’t buried in the gray dirt. The
fuselage stuck out of the ground at a shallow angle, with the tail and
thrusters pointing at the sky. The wings were gone, probably sheered off in the
crash. The nose was mostly buried, as was the forward cargo area. The only
access was through the top emergency hatch. No windows were visible. He couldn’t
get a look inside.

According to
Sakuta’s colleague, the hatch controls were not working. The hatch itself had
been discovered partially opened; it had probably sprung open during the
crash-landing. The Pandoran government had ordered the hatch sealed shut, in
order to keep any stray viruses from sneaking out into the atmosphere. The seal
was a standard restraining bolt; shouldn’t present any problems. Xris’s main
concern was getting past the force field. He walked over to inspect the machine
being used to project the field.

The device was one
of the latest designs for portable force field projection. The field it
generated not only repelled physical objects, but redirected energy that it
encountered. The machine itself was made of tempered durasteel, was
smooth-sided, no controls on the outside, except for one and that was an alarm.
Touch that box and the whole planet would know he was here.

Xris was, for the
moment, confounded. He studied the force field device and it occurred to him
that it must be sucking down one hell of a lot of electricity.

Xris walked around
to the other side of the device, found what he was looking for, shook his head.
He could use his tool hand, but why bother? Keep the impression of vandals. A
pile of steel bars stood to one side, ready to be used for reinforcing rods in
concrete. Xris picked up one, balanced it on its end, and directed its fall—
straight onto the portable generator. The top of the generator caved in, sparks
flew, and then all went dark.

So much for the
force field, which
might
have kept out a troop of Cub Scouts.

“Once I finish
this job, I think I’ll offer the Pandorans my services,” Xris muttered. “Someone
needs to teach them a few things about security.”

He walked
unimpeded over to the hatch, inspected the restraining bolt. A flick of his
wrist and the bolt came off in his hand. Xris paused again to listen, look
around. The rain was letting up; the night watchman might decide to make his
rounds. Xris heard nothing, saw nothing. Switching on a hand-held nuke lamp, he
crawled inside the downed plane.

The storm had
passed. The lightning and thunder had moved on, rumbled far away in the
distance, and could not be heard inside the spaceplane. A light rain fell.
Drops splatted against the plane’s hull, but that was the only sound and Xris
couldn’t even hear that as he moved deeper into the plane’s interior, searching
for the robot. The silence was thick and old, dry and oppressive.

Xris flashed the
light around the dusty and cobwebbed control panels, with their ancient and
archaic instruments. The leather on the seats for pilot and copilot was
cracked, split. Bits of stuffing mixed with rodent dung lay scattered all over
the deck. No robot here. And why seats for pilots? If this ship was
robot-controlled, seats shouldn’t be necessary.

Xris gave a mental
shrug. Sakuta would probably spend years researching that one. The cyborg
flashed the light to the other side of the plane, played it over more
instruments, metal storage containers, dangling ropes of electrical wire, the
smashed front viewscreen. Parts of the control panel were blackened, covered
with soot.

Xris crossed the
deck, bent down over the damaged panels, rubbed off the dust to take a closer
look. He smiled at the crudeness of the instruments—kids’ toys were using more
sophisticated hardware these days. That wasn’t what he found interesting.
Damage like this might have been done on entry. But it was far more consistent
with damage done in battle.

Xris wished Harry
were here. An expert pilot, Harry would have recognized the signs, been able to
confirm Xris’s suspicions. Too bad most of the spaceplane was buried under half
a hill. Xris would have been interested to see if he could find evidence of
damaged shields, carbon scoring along the sides, all of which would go to prove
his theory.

This plane hadn’t
been sucked into the atmosphere. This plane had been deliberately shot down.

Why? Why shoot
down a harmless mapping and surveying, robot-controlled spacecraft? And who had
fired on it? If he remembered clearly his Earth history, this had been a period
of peace.

“ ‘Curioser and
curiouser,’ as Raoul would say,” Xris said aloud, and it was good to hear a
living voice. The silence and the dust and his speculations were all starting
to act on his nerves. Despite the fact that he couldn’t see any bodies, he felt
as if he were violating the sanctity of a tomb.

Which was
nonsense. No skeletons in flight suits sat in the pilots’ chairs. No one had died
in this crash. It was a robot-controlled craft, remember? Xris left the control
panel, continued his search for the robot.

No sign of it. He
was heading deeper into the plane’s interior, back into what would be the cargo
portion of the spaceplane, when his weight and movement caused the unstable
craft to shift, settle. The door to one of the metal storage compartments came
unlatched, swung slowly open.