Robot Blues (39 page)

The last time she’d
tried to access those files—admittedly by going through a “back door”—the
computer had turned on her, sent a “worm” after her. But then, at that time,
the Navy had been acting under the assumption that Major Darlene Mohini was a
traitor. Now ...

Darlene went to
the computer, sat down. She rested her lingers on the keys. This would be a
typed transmission. Voice wasn’t approved, wouldn’t be recognized. She
wondered, at first, if she could remember her access code, had a momentary
flutter of panic when it didn’t immediately come to mind.

Panic eased. The
code was there, inside her fingertips, if nowhere else. She’d typed that entry
at least once a day, every day, for years. She wasn’t likely to forget—ever.

The Royal Navy
would dearly love to get their hands on her, erase from her mind all the
information on codes, secret bases, classified plans, classified weapons, on
all the other interesting and dangerous material that she carried in her head.
The Navy had some hold over Xris and the others, but they were able to operate
freely. No one was asking her to give herself up in exchange. Xris was smart
enough and savvy enough and suspicious enough not to let the Navy make a monkey
of him, trick him into revealing Darlene’s location.

Darlene was
weighing her options when she had a momentary image of Xris stomping around,
seething with impatience, waiting for word that she had logged on. She grinned,
shook her head. He was the one who had always liked to kick the door down, rush
in, guns blazing. She was the one to stand out in the hall and say, “What if
...”

What if ...

Oh, the hell with
it!

Darlene typed in
the code.

It took the usual
amount of time to get through the passwords, the counter-passwords, the
genuflecting, the performing of the ritual sacrifices necessary in order to
propitiate the Security Gods, gain admittance to the secret temple.

Once there, she
did her business swiftly—got in, got out. Only one file was listed. She
downloaded that file in microseconds, logged off, assuming—probably
correctly—that “Amy” Dixter would get peeved if Darlene made any attempt to
roam around the sacred grounds.

The file was
safely in her computer.

Now intensely
curious, Darlene brought it up.

Xris was on
screen.

She grinned at
him, though she knew he couldn’t see her. He was just a prerecorded image.

“Well, at least
now we can talk like regular people,” he said. “None of that husband/wife crap.
First, I heard about the poisoning from Raoul. I’m sorry it happened, friend. I
hope it won’t happen again, that you’re safe from them. But you and I both know
the Hung. Don’t let down your guard. Not for a minute.”

“I won’t, Xris,”
she promised, though he couldn’t hear her.

He went on. “You
probably thought one of my circuits had come unplugged when I asked you to find
out whatever you could about Professor Lasairion and his robots. The ‘bot Jamil
and I stole is one of them. God knows now I wish I’d never seen the damn thing.
We stole the robot, but it paid us back. It ran off with our Claymore.”

“Good grief!”
Darlene exclaimed.

“Yeah,” Xris said,
as if he had heard her. “It’s a long story. You’ll find it all in here,
including my own personal log. It’ll make for entertaining reading. To put it
briefly: As you probably found out, this ‘bot is a Lane-laying robot.”

“()h, my ...”
Darlene exhaled in a soundless whistle. She thought she guessed what was
coming. “The ‘bot has the Claymore, it’s going out to lay Lanes.”

“The ‘bot has the
Claymore,” Xris was saying. “The damn thing’s out there removing Lanes.”

“Removing!”
Darlene repeated, trying to assimilate this new and unforeseen information.

“It’s taken out
only one Lane so far—a Lane we tried to Jump into. Fortunately, the Lane was
gone before we leaped into it. If not ... if we’d been inside that Lane when
the ‘bot took it out ... well, as Raoul put it, ‘R-r-rip!’ “

“Dear God,”
Darlene murmured.

“We know where the
‘bot is,” Xris continued. “The Navy fired a tick into the Claymore. The problem
is, we can’t catch it, because we don’t dare Jump into a Lane anywhere near it.
The Navy’s sent planes, but they’ve got the same problem we have.”

“Why?” Darlene
said to herself. “Why is the robot taking
out
Lanes? There must be some
reason.”

“Dr. Quong, our
resident robot expert, thinks that the ‘bot must be operating on a
preprogrammed pattern. We know what Lane the ‘bot has taken out. What we need
now is for someone to determine what Lane the ‘bot is
going
to take out
next. The Navy can safely send fighters to intercept it. We need to do this
fast. Next time the robot strikes, it might take out a Lane when there’s a ship
inside.

“I’ve given you
all the data we have on the robot and the Collimated Command Receiver Unit.”

Someone said
something in the background. Darlene thought she recognized Dr. Quong’s voice.

“Oh, yeah,” Xris
said, taking out a twist, “I guess I forgot to tell you that part. A fellow
named Grant has this Collimated Command Receiver Unit. It’s been talking to the
robot.

“As you can see
from the coordinates, the robot is still in the same sector of space we’re in.
It’s still relatively close. We might be able to reach it before it Jumps again
if
we can figure out what Lane it’s going to Jump into. Anticipate its next
move.

“The Navy has its
top people working on this. You used to be one of them and the Lord Admiral
hopes that you’ll look all this over and see what you come up with. Use the
same log-on if you find anything. RFCom-Sec will patch you through to me. Good
luck and take care of yourself.”

Xris’s image
flashed off, to be replaced by a screen full of text—everything Darlene had
never wanted to know about an ancient Lane-laying (and Lane-removing) robot and
Collimated Command Receiver Units.

Darlene leaned her
arms on the table, drew closer to the screen, began to read.

She completed
studying the data the Navy had accumulated on the robots, much of which was
classified. They had found several of the ‘bots, over the years, and had
studied them, in an attempt to try to learn how to lay Lanes. The studies had
not been fruitful. Apparently the robots on their own had not been able to lay
Lanes. The professor had given them instructions, which they had then followed.
It required the Collimated Command Receiver Unit, every time, for a Lane to be
laid.

“That’s it,”
Darlene realized. “The robot sends a message to the professor saying that it
has found an ideal location for a Lane. The professor sends the signal via the
Collimated Command Receiver Unit, which activates the robot’s Lane-laying
programming. It lays the Lane. The professor checks the Lane out, determines if
it meets his criteria for space Lanes—whatever that may be—and then sends a
signal to the robot telling it that the Lane is okay and that it should go on
to the next. But what if the professor didn’t like the location of the Lane? He
would communicate to the robot that the Lane was faulty and that it should be
taken out.

“Let’s see.”
Darlene replayed the situation as she knew it, both from Xris’s log and the
Navy’s files. “The Collimated Command Receiver Unit is stashed away in Grant’s
museum. He leaves it turned on, plugged in, uses it for a high-tech table lamp.
The Navy finds the robot. They can’t recover it, due to the bad relations with
Pan-dor, but they send one of their intelligence people— Captain Strauss—to investigate.
She sneaks onto the downed plane, finds the robot, reports that it doesn’t
work.

“Odd,” Darlene
muttered to herself. “Of course, Strauss didn’t have any sophisticated
equipment, but if Xris caused the robot to turn on just by jostling it with his
shoulder ... mmmmm. Oh, well. Maybe she was interrupted. Security came around
or something.

“Anyway, Strauss
reports back to the Navy that the robot is not in working condition. The Navy
wants it anyway, of course. Meanwhile, the Corasian agent Harsch hears about
the robot. How? Good question. Most likely his contacts in the Navy. He wants
the robot to sell to the Corasians.

“Now, why would he
do that,” Darlene asked herself, “if he knew the robot didn’t work? That wouldn’t
make any sense. But suppose he knew the robot
did
work. Then it would be
highly valuable to the Corasians. Especially if he knew about the existence of
the Collimated Command Receiver Unit. It would be interesting to ask this Grant
fellow if anyone ever offered him a lot of money for his machine or maybe tried
to steal it....

“Anyway, let’s say
Harsch knows that the Collimated Command Receiver Unit exists and that he can
get his hands on it. All he has to do now is find one of the antique robots. He
does and it’s in the ideal place, the ideal time for him to snatch it.

“It
is
in
an ideal place, isn’t it?” Darlene said, now talking to her reflection in the
window. She had fit the corner pieces of the puzzle together, put together the
outer rim. Now she could start on the interior. The complete picture was
staring emerge. “A little too ideal. This was all a trap! The Navy set a trap
for Harsch. Except ii was Xris and Jamil who walked into it. The robot was the
bait. What the Navy didn’t count on was the fact that the Collimated Command
Receiver Unit still existed. Harsch didn’t count on the fact that Grant would
take llie machine and skip town with it....

“No! Wait! What if
Grant is linked in with Harsch? Xris says Grant is a mild-mannered,
intellectual type, but then so was Clark Kent. Maybe Grant’s trying to
double-cross Harsch. Or link up with Harsch.... Bother.

That piece doesn’t
quit fit. Grant told Xris to blow the plane up. He wouldn’t say that if he were
one of the bad guys. Unless Grant knew that Xris knew that Grant knew and he
was trying to throw us off....”

Darlene rubbed her
temples. This was starting to give her a headache.

“Never mind. That’s
not important now. What
is
clear is that apparently no one—maybe not
even Harsch himself—counted on the fact that the unit and the robot would
establish a dialogue, steal a plane, and go around the galaxy taking out space
Lanes!

“I don’t like
this,” Darlene said softly. “It all looks very ugly. And Xris isn’t being told
the whole story. Not by a long shot. There’s something I’m missing somewhere.
But I can’t take time to work on that part of this now. The important thing is
to stop the robot before it kills someone.”

Darlene brought up
the robot’s flight trajectory. Its path seemed random, at first glance, but she
knew perfectly well that it wasn’t. Robots never perform any task randomly.

She punched up a
galactic map. A flashing dot indicated the last known location of the robot.
Red flashing lines indicated the Lane that had been removed. Yellow steadily
glowing lines indicated Lanes in the area that were, as yet, still functioning.
Since the robot had only taken out one Lane, the ‘bot hadn’t established a
pattern. Had it taken out that Lane because it was there? It was close? Or ...

Darlene isolated
the robot’s particular sector of space and zoomed in on that portion. The Navy
had provided her with the coordinates for the space Lanes in that zone. She was
studying these when it occurred to her that something about that sector of
space seemed awfully familiar.

Much too familiar.

Darlene left the
computer, hurried over to the nightstand. Rummaging through the drawer, she
came across an electronic circular, which provided travelers with interesting
information on their cruise, gave instructions for emergency evacuation, told
where to find the life pods, reminded passengers of the serious nature of
rescue drills, and provided a map and coordinates of their sojourn through
space. She compared that map with the map on her screen.

“Damnation!” said
Darlene.

The robot had
entered Lane number Zeta Three Nine Three Omega. That was a short-hop Lane, a
Lane that took planes from the outer portion of the sector to the inner. At
least that’s what it used to do. It wasn’t there to do anything anymore. The
Claymore had come out of the Jump in exactly the same sector of space as the
Adonian cruise ship, the S.S.
Heart’s Desire.

A knock sounded on
her cabin door.

Darlene ignored
it.

The knock was
repeated.

Darlene touched
her commlink. “I’m busy.”

The knock was
repeated again, more insistently.

“I’m not dressed,”
Darlene snapped. She wasn’t planning on opening the door to anyone. “Say
whatever it is you have to say and then leave me alone.”

“Captain’s
compliments, ma’am. We’ll be making the Jump in approximately two hours. I’ve
made a note that you are in your cabin. Please remain within for the durat—”

“Fine, thanks,”
she muttered, absorbed in her calculations.

Idiots. Why couldn’t
they leave her alone when she was working? She frowned at her reflection in the
window and put herself into the mind of the robot.

“I’ve been
programmed to lay Lanes,” she said. “I lay them in a systematic manner. I’m
halfway through my assignment—let’s say—when I’m attacked. Someone is trying to
capture me. I do what the professor has instructed me to do. I run. I don’t get
far—this sector of space is the sector which contains Pan dor—and then either
my plane is shot down or I cause it to crash in order to avoid pursuit. I am
struck on the head, take a long nap.

“I wake up. I’m
fine. Something’s a little wrong with my internal workings, maybe, but nothing
that I can’t self-repair. To me, two minutes have passed, not two thousand
years worth of minutes. I send out my signal, to let the professor know I’m
alive and well, and I receive a signal back. I know, by that signal, that I’m
supposed to get up and go to work. I have probably been programmed to escape
confinement—the good professor being the lovable paranoid that he is. I free
myself from the crate, commandeer the first spaceplane I come across. I also
end up with a human, one Jeffrey Grant, which doesn’t compute,” Darlene
admitted, “but I’ll worry about that later.