Robot Blues (42 page)

“Yes, sir,”
Darlene said, composed.

“I’m placing you
under house arrest until the authorities arrive. You’ll be under
twenty-four-hour guard, locked in a cabin
without
windows”—his tone was
dire— “and allowed to communicate with no one, not with any member of the crew
or passengers.”

“Yes, sir. Thank
you, sir,” Darlene said, then realized—as the man’s eyebrows shot up to the
brim of his hat that this probably wasn’t the appropriate thing to say. “Listen,
Captain, I understand perfectly. You’ve been in contact with the Royal Navy, of
course. You know that this operation is a matter of the highest-level security.
I promise to be fully cooperative.”

The captain opened
his mouth, shut it again. He shook his head in disgust, turned on his heel. “Watch
her,” he said to the steward. “And don’t let her get her hands on any sharp
objects.”

“Captain,” Darlene
said, raising her voice as he marched out the door, “check that Lane. The Lane
the ship was going to use to make Jump. See if it’s still there.”

The captain made
an obscene gesture with his hand, consigning Darlene to Adonian perdition. The
door slid shut. A large female steward—not of Adonian breeding plunked herself
down in a chair opposite Darlene and eyed her suspiciously, obviously
considering her capable of ripping out the bulkheads with her bare hands.

Darlene sat in a
chair at an empty desk and stared at the bulkhead. When she caught herself
staring fixedly at the bare wall—looking for cracks—she forced herself to pick
up one the vidmags which they had brought her. They had taken away her
computer.

Fifteen minutes
later, the door opened. Two members of the crew stood outside. They were,
Darlene noted, armed with lasguns. The two stood aside to permit the captain to
enter. He walked into the room, came straight up to Darlene, stopped. He
thought he was going to say something, for his mouth opened. His mouth closed.
He stared at her in baffled, fuming, helpless silence.

Darlene looked up
briefly from her vidmag and smiled. She very slightly shrugged her shoulders.

The captain walked
out.

Darlene threw the
mag back to the desk. She lay down on the bed, kicked off her shoes, stretched,
and yawned. For the first time since she’d started her so-called vacation she
felt relaxed, comfortable.

The Royal Navy was
most certainly on the way. They would rescue the wounded ship, escort it to the
nearest port, see to it that everyone debarked safely. The Navy would also
hustle Darlene off this vessel, take her someplace safe and secure. They’d ask
her a million questions, of course, but Darlene had answered a million
questions in her line of work and knew how to handle herself.

They could never
prove she’d deliberately cracked her own window. Where her room had been was
now a gaping hole; where the corridor leading to her room had been was now a
gaping hole. They couldn’t prove she did. And she wasn’t going to deny that she
had cracked it. People on board had been badly scared, but no one had been
hurt. And that would
not
have been the case if the ship had made the
Jump into a Lane that was no longer there.

Darlene wiggled
her toes, yawned again. Maybe she’d watch a vid. She hadn’t seen one in years
and there were a few out she’d heard were really good. Or perhaps she’d read a
book. She hadn’t done that in years, either.

The Hung assassin
wouldn’t try again. Not while she was being watched and guarded twenty-four
hours, Standard Military Time. No, for the moment she was safe.

She’d have to deal
with the Hung sometime soon. But she wouldn’t do it alone. She had friends now,
she and Xris and Mag Force 7. The Hung had better watch out.

Darlene grinned,
giggled, and started to laugh. The female steward was reaching for something,
probably a hypo, to administer a sedative. Darlene didn’t care. She could see,
in her memory, the computer’s final calculation, the Lane flashing, the next
Lane the robot was scheduled to take out. And projected over that, the Lane
into which the cruise ship was scheduled to make the Jump.

The Hung assassin
would never know it. He had actually saved her life.

We are star stuff
. . .

Carl Sagan,
Cosmos

“The robot was
preparing to take out still another Lane. It had taken out two now, so far. It
Jumped into the lanes, then removed them. When Grant asked why, the robot’s
response left Grant sweating and shaking.

“I laid many Lanes
in this sector. The professor has undoubtedly decided that there are too many.
I have transmitted the data on the Lanes I laid to the professor. I have not
received a response. That means I am to continue taking the Lanes out.”

Grant attempted to
reason with the robot, to explain that what it was doing was wrong, but it was
like attempting to reason with a small child. Not that Grant had ever been around
many small children, but he had heard his fellow employees talk and he knew
that logic and two-year-olds did not mix. Or rather, that two-year-olds had
their own particular kind of logic—a simple logic, a refined logic, a distilled
logic. A type of logic based on their own view of the world, which was, of
necessity, short in stature, confined by immediate surroundings, and centered
entirely on themselves.

Add to this
toddlerlike perspective of the world an almost certainly damaged logic board
and that was the robot. All very frustrating.

“Isn’t it
possible,” Grant argued, “that the professor could be dead?”

The robot was
complacent. “That is just what the professor told us his enemies would say, in
order to trick us into compliance.”

“But there are
ships and planes in those Lanes you’re proposing to remove!” Grant pleaded.

“That is
impossible,” stated the robot. “The Lanes were just laid. The professor has
estimated that frequent space travel utilizing the Lanes will not occur for
another thousand years.”

“What do you think
we’re doing here? All those people on Pandor? Ask the plane’s computer, if you
don’t believe me,” Grant cried. “Look in its memory banks! You’ll find the
date, the time, information on the current political situation, information
about all the other inhabited planets.”

“Nonessential,”
the robot returned. “Such information was interfering with the computer’s
ability to follow my orders. I dumped all such irrelevant material from its
memory.”

And, at that
point, Grant gave up.

He considered
sabotaging the spaceplane, but he had no idea how to go about it. The Claymore
appeared practically indestructible. He had just about given up on this course
of action when a voice hailed him from the comm.

“Claymore bomber
One-Oh-Seven-Niner, come in. I say again, Claymore bomber One-Oh-Seven-Niner,
do you read me?”

Grant cast a
sidelong, nervous glance at the robot. It listened, but it paid no attention.
The blue light flashed, which indicated that it was taking note of the words,
storing them in its translation program. But it was not taking any interest in
what was being said.

The robot was
making surveys, performing calculations, reconfiguring the spaceplane’s
computer programming to function more efficiently for the robot’s needs. To
take out Lanes more quickly, accurately. As Grant watched, the robot disabled
the Claymore’s rear guns.

Grant sighed and
moved over to the comm. The voice was repeating its call.

“Claymore bomber
One Oh Seven Niner, come in.

Claymore bomber
One Oh Seven Niner, do you read me?”

“This is Claymore
bomber One Oh Seven Niner,” Grant replied. “Yes, I read you. Who are you?”

“My name’s Harry.”

The voice was
hearty and friendly and cheerful. Jeffrey Grant warmed to it. He would have
been run through the terminator before he said anything uncomplimentary about a
woman, but he found Captain Strauss, while undeniably an attractive person, a
bit too intimidating, cold-blooded. She struck him as dangerous.

“I’m the pilot of
the PRRS,” Harry was saying. “That’s short for Pilot Rescue and Recovery Ship.
How’re you doing, Mr. Grant? What’s going on?”

“I ... I told you
... I mean I told someone ... to shoot this plane down.” Grant was irritated. “You
didn’t do so and the robot took out two Lanes. Now it’s planning on taking out
another one. You know that, don’t you? You know that the robot removed two
space Lanes? Was ... was a ship in any of them? Do you know?”

“Nothing certain,
Mr. Grant.” Harry was cautious. “Let’s just put it this was: It would be really
nice ... I mean
really nice
”—he emphasized that—”if the robot didn’t
take out another Lane. We’re in a heavily traveled sector, if you take my
meaning.”

“Yes, I do,” Grant
said ominously. “And that’s why I told you to shoot this plane down.”

“Naw, we don’t
want to shoot nobody down,” Harry said. “I take it that since you’re talking to
me like this, the robot isn’t monitoring communications?”

“Yes, it is,”
Grant said. “I mean, it’s taking note of our words, but it’s not assimilating
them. It’s not devoting its energies to understanding us. Why should it? After
all, it’s in control. It’s doing exactly what it’s been programmed to do. I
think it would try to stop me only if I tried to stop it. From carrying out its
programming, I mean.”

“Yeah, sure.”
Harry paused to consider this. “Well, just in case, I’m going to explain to you
what a PRRS does, Mr. Grant.”

“I know—”

“Let me explain,
Mr. Grant,” Harry repeated. “We have a tractor beam that is capable of locking
onto a life pod, should it become necessary for the pilot to eject.”

“Yes, Mr. Harry, I
know all that, you see—” Grant was cut off again.

“What you may not
know,” Harry said in an emphatic voice, “is that when a bomber is heavily
damaged and the pilot cannot or will not eject, then it becomes the copilot’s
job to eject both of them. Did you know that, Mr. Grant?”

Grant paused. “Actually,
no, I didn’t know that. I’ve only been in a single-person simulator. Do you
mean that the copilot can eject the pilot? Are you, in fact, saying—”

“No need to repeat
ourselves, Mr. Grant. We both understand each other. Now, don’t you think that
you’d feel better if you were wearing your vacuum suit with your helmet
fastened and your oxygen attached and on portable power?”

Grant hesitated.
He was very nervous. “I don’t ... I’m not ... Suppose? .. .What if ...”

Harry remained
calm. “Mr. Grant, you’ll find a vac suit in the closet at the back of the
flight deck. Put it on and then contact me. Harry out.”

Grant started to
get up from the copilot’s chair. The robot turned its sad-eyed gaze on him.

Feeling horribly
guilty, Grant sank back down.

But this was the
way, the only way.

“The odds of you
surviving this mission are so small they don’t even bear mentioning,” said the
commanding officer. “Go forth and do your duty. And know that you will be
forever honored.”

“Yes, sir,” Grant
murmured, hearing the words of his squadron commander in his head. Tentatively,
he stood back up. “Uh, do you mind if I put on something more, that is, more,
urn, comfortable?”

The robot did not
reply. It had swiveled back to complete its calculations.

Grant hurried to
the rear of the cabin. “Quickly, there, Captain. Mustn’t show fear with the
lads about.

Smooth and
professional, that’s it. Look good for the lads.”

He was finding it
somewhat difficult to enter his pleasant fantasy. He really was in a Claymore
bomber, preparing to eject into deep space, preparing to risk his own life to
save countless lives. His dream-world rather paled in comparison. His dream did
have one element that the real world did not have, and that was Grant’s calm,
cool steel nerves. He decided to stay in his fantasy world.

Grant knew all
about pressure suits from his days as a shuttlecraft pilot. Bolting on the
helmet, he next strapped on the power and air pack. The familiar actions were
calming. His hands shook very little. He plugged in the hoses and cords,
switched the unit from external power to self-contained. He felt sick, as if
his stomach were going to surge up out of his throat and make a mess on the
deck. But his squadron commander wouldn’t approve.

“Buck up, there.
Captain! You’ve got a job to do. Let’s get hopping!”

Grant returned to
the bridge, settled back into the copilot’s seat. He flipped the communications
panel to hands-free again.

“Mr. Harry, are
you still out there?”

“Hey, there, Mr.
Grant. How’re you doing? Are you all dressed up and ready to go?”

“I’m ready, Mr.
Harry,” Grant said miserably. “Now what do I do?”

“Let’s say . . .
what would a copilot do in a real emergency?”

“Yes, that’s what
I meant.” Grant started to sweat. The robot had turned to gaze at him again. He
gave it a strained smile through the helmet.

“Like I was saying
before”—Harry’s voice was reassuring—”the copilot’s duty is to eject himself
and the pilot. To do that, he and the pilot must be securely strapped into
their chairs. You securely strapped in, Mr. Grant?”

There was a pause
as Grant strapped himself in. “Uh, pardon me, Mr. Harry, but what does the
copilot do if the pilot ... um ... refuses to cooperate?”

“Would the pilot
be somewhere over the pilot’s seat?”

“Yes, sir, he—rather,
it
—is hovering there.” Grant started to tremble.

“No problem.”
Harry continued to be reassuring. “All you do is reach between your legs under
the seat and pull the yellow handle. Do you see it, Mr. Grant, the yellow—”

“I see it,” Grant
announced, peering down between his legs. He grasped the handle and gave it a
tug, wondering, at the same time, what it did.