Robot Blues (50 page)

Quong took the
nuke lamp from Xris’s hand, played the beam over Tycho’s body, shook his head. “There
is nothing I can do, Xris. Our friend never knew what hit him. The blast caught
him from behind, as you can see.”

No, Xris couldn’t.
There wasn’t enough of Tycho left to tell his front from his back.

“Thanks, Doc. Do
what you can for Jamil. And where the devil’s Harry?”

“Here, Xris,” came
Harry’s aggrieved voice.

“You hurt?”

“I got hit in the
ass. It feels like I’m on fire back there!”

“Just as long as
it doesn’t interrupt your mental processes.”

“No, Xris,” Harry
returned. “I said I got hit in the ass.”

“That’s what I
meant. Doc, how’s Jamil? Can he walk?”

“The calf muscle
is torn. He has lost a lot of blood, will be in considerable pain, and he will
need assistance. If I had my med kit—”

“If you had your
med kit, we’d be on the PRRS and Tycho wouldn’t be dead and we wouldn’t be
trapped like rats on this motherfu—” Xris stopped, sucked in a deep breath.
Reaching into his pocket for a twist, he noticed his hand was shaking. He
pulled himself together, thrust the twist into his mouth. “Sorry, folks. Jamil,
you see anything?”

“Red light.
Getting brighter.”

“They’ve figured
out we’re still alive and kicking.

Most of us,
anyway. Harry, you help Jamil. Get him up and mobile.”

“Who are you
people?” That was Raoul, irritable. “Why have you brought me to this awful
place? And why don’t any of you know who I am?”

“Quong, calm Raoul
down. See if he’s got something in his purse that will tranquilize him—”

“Drugs!” Raoul’s
voice was shrill. “Are you mad? My body is a temple.”

Xris continued,
ignored the outburst. “We’ve found a way off this ship. Harsch flew here in a
Scimitar. We’ll use it to escape. Tess knows the way. We’ll follow her.”

They stared at
him; all of them, staring at him.

“I know the way,”
Tess said, her voice strained. “I think we can make it.”

No one spoke. No one
moved.

“I’m going with
Tess,” Xris said. “The rest of you can come with us or you can stay here. It’s
that simple.”

Harry helped Jamil
to his feet.

Jamil draped one
arm over Harry’s broad shoulders, pulled himself upright. He tried putting his
injured left leg to the deck, grimaced and grunted.

“This way.” Tess
held the nuke lamp, led them deeper into the darkness of the docking bay.

Harry and Jamil
both glanced at Xris as they passed him.

“Tycho had it
easy,” Jamil muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

Xris didn’t
answer.

Quong and the
Little One—his fedora had been crushed, but he appeared otherwise
uninjured—were attempting to get Raoul up and moving and not having much
success. “My head aches. My feet hurt. I’m sleepy. I don’t want to go anywhere.”

“Tell him he’s in
a shopping mall,” Xris said.

“Shopping?” Raoul
perked up. “But what happened to the lights?”

That brought him
to his feet and following after Quong. The Little One trailed along behind,
shaking his battered hat and wringing his small hands.

Xris stood alone
in the darkness next to Tycho. He knelt beside the body, which was rapidly
cooling, fast disappearing from Xris’s infrared sight. Xris lifted the limp,
dead hand.

He tried to talk,
paused, cleared his throat, started over. “I’m sorry, my friend. I’m sorry.”

He let the
unresponsive hand fall. Standing up, Xris went after the others.

On fatal terrain
you must do battle.

Sun-tzu,
The
Art of War

Xris found them
gathered around a large metal plate set into the deck. Tess located a control
panel on the wall, opened it, tapped the controls. The metal plate shivered and
then, with a screech and a whoosh of air, began to rise up out of the deck.

“By the Maker!”
Quong breathed. “Pneumatic! A pneumatic lift!”

Corasians, with their
wheeled, plastisteel bodies, weren’t capable of climbing ladders. The docking
bay was probably filled with these lifts, which carried the robots to the
catwalks far above the deck.

“There’s an access
door up above,” Tess explained. “It leads to the docking bay on the third
level, which is where Harsch landed his spaceplane.” She brought the lift to a
shuddering halt. “Hop on.”

“Ladies lingerie,
please,” Raoul said politely, stepping daintily onto the lift. He had a brief
struggle with the dampener, which was heavy and awkward. He managed to adjust
it and was heard to mutter, “I can’t think why I chose this style handbag.”

Quong lifted the
Little One to join his friend. Harry assisted Jamil onto the lift, stood beside
him. There was room for one more.

“I’ll operate the
controls,” Tess said. “You get on, Xris.”

“I’ll wait here
with you,” he answered.

“Look, Xris, I can
understand why you don’t trust me—”

“We got company
coming.” He interrupted her, then switched on the light on his weapons arm,
shone it onto the control panel. “I have one missile left. Give the nuke lamp
to Quong, I’ve got light. Start this thing up.”

Tess said nothing
more, started the lift moving. It took its own sweet time and made a horrendous
noise in the process. The people standing on it shook and shuddered from the
vibrations.

Xris shifted his
gaze to the corridor outside the docking bay. The red glow was again growing
bright.

The lift came to a
halt, must have been designed to do so automatically when it reached the right
level. Xris, peering upward, could see Quong hustling everyone off the lift and
onto one of the catwalks. He flashed the light.

“All clear!” came
the shout.

“Good,” Xris said
over the comm. “Keep quiet. If Raoul peeps, slug him.”

Tess hit the
controls and the lift, with a screech, started back down.

She glanced over
her shoulder. “They’re getting closer.”

“Yeah.” Xris said,
chewing on the remnants of the twist. “Tycho’ll stop them for a time. They like
to feed whenever they get the chance. And they don’t figure we’re going
anywhere.” He spit the wad on the deck. “One question. Where’s the robot?”

Tess’s face, in
the harsh glare of the nuke lamp, was dead white. Her eyes were moist,
glistened. She gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t know. I told Grant to hide,
showed him a place.... He must have hidden the robot, too. I didn’t mean for
him— I never supposed— the robot was so heavy ...”

“Bottom line: The
Corasians don’t have it.”

“No. And it would
be better if they did. You see, Xris, before I left the plane I—”

“Skip the confession,”
Xris said. “I’m not a priest.”

Tess managed a
half smile, shook her head.

The lift was
nearly level with them now. As the lift came flush with the floor, it ground to
a halt, paused for a moment, then began to rise. Tess and Xris climbed onto it.
The lift lurched upward, moving in fits and starts. The platform jounced and
creaked.

“This is one of
the few times I could wish that the Corasians had made a few more technological
advances.” Xris looked over the edge of the lift, saw the red glow had come to
a halt, was clustered around something in the doorway. The smell of burning
flesh was strong, pungent.

Tess gave a little
gasp, covered her mouth and nose with her hand.

“Don’t look,” Xris
said, and put his arm around her.

She closed her
eyes, sagged against him. “I’m sorry. I should be used to this. I’ve seen it
before.”

“So have I,” Xris
said. “And it doesn’t get any easier.”

He tried to follow
his own advice, tried to look away, but he couldn’t. He watched the red globs
swarm over Tycho until the rim of the platform blocked them from his view.

The lift reached
the catwalk. Quong was there to help them off. “They got Tycho.”

“I know. Hand me
that dampener.”

Taking the rifle
from Quong, Xris leaned over the catwalk and fired a blast at the lift’s controls.
The panel blew off. That lift wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

Xris glanced
around. “Where is everyone?”

“Jamil and Harry
went to check out the access door. It’s at the end of the catwalk to your left.
I sent Raoul with them. He’s looking for a different handbag, one to match his
shoes.”

Xris took out
another twist. “The Little One?”

“Keeping Raoul
from falling off the catwalk.”

Xris nodded. Tess
went ahead, to join Harry and Jamil at the door. Xris and Quong followed,
gathering up Raoul on the way.

“I can’t find the
handbags,” he complained.

“Of course not,”
Xris said. “You’re in men’s wear.”

Raoul shuddered. “Three-piece
polyester suits. How ghastly.”

The red glow below
them was intensifying. A laser blast burst on the catwalk beneath their feet.
Xris and Quong increased their speed, hustling Raoul along at a rapid pace. The
Little One trotted along behind.

“Let’s open the
door, gentlemen,” Xris said briskly, coming to a halt at the end of the
catwalk. “It’s going to be getting warm in here.”

Another blast—this
time closer. The Corasians were improving their aim.

“Right,” Harry
said. “We wanted to wait for everyone to arrive, in case there was an escort
waiting.”

“Can’t hear
anything,” reported Jamil, standing on one leg, propped up against the
bulkhead, gun ready. “But that doesn’t mean much. This door must be at least
fifteen centimeters thick. By the way, these dampener rifles need to be
recharged after about fifty rounds. So don’t waste your ammo.”

Xris held up his
weapons hand. “I’ve got one missile left. Open the door and stand back.”

Tess hit the
controls. The door rumbled open slowly.

No red glow. Xris
cautiously peered out.

Darkness. He
looked, saw nothing; listened, heard nothing. All very strange. The Corasians
down below must be in contact with their fellow blobs, must have told them
their dinner was walking out the back.

Quong remarked, “I
have prayed to the Maker. Perhaps this is the response.”

Xris motioned for
Tess to join him. “Where’s the plane from here?”

“The corridor runs
in front of us for about twenty meters, then another branches off to the right.
The plane’s in the docking bay at the end, about another thirty meters.” She
looked around, uneasy. “This is weird. Where are they?”

“Angels took care
of ‘em, according to Doc. Watch out for locusts and falling frogs.”

“Huh?” Tess stared
at him.

Xris turned back
to the group. “I’ll take point. Tess, you’re with me. Harry, you and Jamil come
after. Little One, you’re in charge of Raoul.”

The Little One
nodded. Xris wasn’t certain if the empath was reacting to his words of his
thoughts, supposed it didn’t matter. The Little One reached out a small hand,
grabbed hold of Raoul’s hand, and clung tightly.

“We’re looking for
accessories,” Raoul said in a low voice.

“Quong, you bring
up the rear. Keep your eyes and ears open,” Xris counseled, added grimly, “This
is all much too easy.”

They made their
way down the corridor. Xris switched on his light. Tess had retrieved her nuke
lamp, flashed it continually along the bulkheads and the deck in front of them.
Harry and Jamil came behind, Jamil hobbling, stifling his groans every time the
foot of his injured leg touched the deck.

Tugged along by
his small friend, Raoul complained that this was a very strange shopping mall
and wondered in a loud voice that set everyone’s teeth on edge why nobody would
turn on the lights. Quong brought up the rear, dampener ready.

They reached the
intersection of the corridor, halted, flattened themselves against the walls.
Xris peered around the corner.

More darkness,
thick, impenetrable, blessed.

He and Tess aimed
the beams of the nuke lights down the corridor, and there was the docking bay,
its doors wide open.

Xris shook his
head. “This stinks.”

“You are a man of
little faith, my friend,” Quong said over his shoulder. The Doc was guarding
the rear, facing back the way they’d come. “Take the gift the Maker gives you.
Proceed forward with confidence.”

Xris proceeded
forward, though not with much confidence. His augmented hearing was picking up
strange sounds. He tried to place them. Hums, whirs, and occasionally a creak
or a squeal.

“You hear
anything?” he asked Tess.

She shook her
head. “No. Nothing. You?”

“Yeah. If I closed
my eyes, I’d swear that we were surroun—”

Xris knew. He
saw—or didn’t see—the trap into which they were blithely walking.

“Shields! Opaque
shields!” he shouted. “Get back!” He raised his arm, aimed the missile—

The laser blast
caught him in the left shoulder, spun him around, slammed him to the deck.

Tess dropped the
nuke lamp, crouched down beside him. Raising her lasgun, she returned fire. “Doc!”
she yelled.

Laser blasts burst
in the corridor. Sparks showered down around them.

“Ah,” said Raoul,
enchanted. “The toy department.”

The Little One
dragged his friend down to the deck.

Harry and Jamil
found cover in doorways, were both firing. Quong ran forward, knelt down beside
Xris. “Pick up that lamp,” he ordered Tess. “Shine it here, on his shoulder.”

“You gotta work on
those prayers, Doc!” Xris grunted, as Quong’s fingers poked and prodded.

“It was your crack
about frogs that did it.” Quong peeled off Xris’s smoldering uniform. Harry and
Jamil were keeping up covering fire. “You were hit in the steel-reinforced part
of you, my friend. That is very good news.”

“Very bad news,”
Xris said bitterly, sitting up, with Tess’s help. He pointed to his cybernetic
arm, at the weapons hand, which hung at his side, dead weight, useless. “What
am I supposed to do? Throw the damn missile at them?”