Scattered Suns (13 page)

Chapter 22—ORLI COVITZ

After she had spent several days alone with Hud Steinman, the smell of smoke and death still clung to her nostrils. Orli wanted to go with him into the wilderness of Corribus and leave the mangled scar of the town far behind.

But Steinman did not intend to head back out until he himself had scavenged through the wreckage for any useful items. Since he was stronger, he could shift beams and sheets of metal that she had been unable to move for herself. “I have no earthly idea what’s going on out there in the Hansa—why the EDF or Klikiss robots would want to wipe out this colony—but there’s no telling when or if anybody’ll come looking for us. We could be the last ones left alive in the whole Spiral Arm!”

“If that’s your attempt to cheer me up, you’re a bit out of practice.”

He unslung his pack and began to stash away tools, a few packets of medicine, some salvageable clothes from an intact storage locker. Though she had already done her own search, Orli fashioned a satchel and gathered up a few more items. They spent two days, being extremely thorough.

Every time Orli closed her eyes to go to sleep, she saw flashes of the terrible attacks, the explosions in the colony town, the obliteration of the communications shack where her father had been working...

Finally, Steinman led her away from the blackened ruins, taking her far out onto the plains, which were covered with a carpet of stiff-bladed grass. Swarms of furry crickets rustled through the brush, forming woven tunnels and warrens.

In the first days after passing through the transportal to Corribus, Orli had caught one of the furry crickets while exploring the prairie. Though not overly intelligent, the spiny-legged critter with a body like a plump rabbit’s seemed to enjoy being held and stroked, and her father had let her keep it. Soon after seeing Orli’s pet, other girls in the colony settlement wanted their own furry crickets.

Now they were all dead—her father, the caged crickets, and the other girls.

Striding ahead through the grasses, Steinman used his long staff to probe ahead of him. With a cry of surprise, he jerked the staff back as a large, flat monster scuttled toward them. Steinman whacked down with his staff, hitting the body core of the crablike predator, which let out a fluting squeal, then dashed away through the grass. Startled furry crickets bounded out of its way.

“Blasted lowriders! They’ll take a bite out of your leg if you’re not careful.”

Orli had only a glimpse of the stalking creature’s spherical body suspended low to the ground on long jointed legs that looked like bent tent poles. She counted five glittering eyes around what she thought of as its face, set above jaws that moved like clockwork gears ready to grasp and tear fresh meat. It was like a nightmarish version of a daddy longlegs.

Steinman continued across the prairie. “A good swift kick’ll convince them you’re not worth the effort.”

“But what if one comes up on you while you’re sleeping?” Here on the open plains, she didn’t see any place other than the ground for shelter.

“Oh, I wouldn’t suggest letting them do that, kid.” His answer didn’t reassure her. “They have to get tired of eating those furry crickets sometime.”

Intermittently, across the endless sea of grass, Orli heard the rustling movement of long legs, then unsettling squeals as lowriders seized the plump rodent-bugs for a meal and ate them on the spot, while other furry crickets bounded away through the concealing grasses.

“My camp’s not too far from here.” He pointed vaguely toward the horizon. With the featureless prairie all around, dotted by tall poletrees like antennas growing straight up toward the sky, Orli didn’t know how he could tell where he was going, but she supposed it didn’t matter.

“Why did you have to go so far away from everybody else?”

He looked at her as if the answer should have been obvious. “Elbow room.”

“Now you’ve got plenty of it.” She could not keep the bitterness out of her voice. Maybe this was what the man had wanted all along, a whole planet to himself. Except now he was saddled with her, too.

As they pushed through a thicket of woven grasses and rodent nests, two fat furry crickets sprang away from them in a panic. Only a meter or two to Orli’s side, the rodent-bugs triggered an explosion of movement and a flurry of long limbs. A lowrider scuttled toward the creatures, catching one in its long bent legs. The furry cricket squealed pitifully as the predator stuffed its catch into the clockwork jaws.

Without thinking, Orli ran toward the lowrider, yelling, “You leave them alone!” She stomped down on the soft, spherical body core, and the lowrider withdrew swiftly. A tangle of long legs, it reeled and hissed, then bolted through the grass after dropping the mangled furry cricket.

“I hope I cracked your head open!” she yelled after it, then bent over the plump rodent.

“Looks to me like you’ve got more than one little girl’s share of spunk,” Steinman said, clearly amused.

The furry cricket was already dead, though still twitching; the lowrider’s mandibles had ripped open its prey’s hide. “Too late,” she said. Then the rush of adrenaline faded away, and she realized what she’d done. A glimpse of the savagely ripped flesh demonstrated just how much damage the lowrider could have done to her. She felt faint.

Steinman picked up the carcass, inspected it, then secured it to his belt, where it dangled against him. He looked like a pioneer or a trapper.

Orli blinked, shook away her reaction, then stood up, looking at the blood on her hands. “What are you going to do with it?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Not much else to eat out here, kid. You have to be awfully hungry before you’ll take your first bite, but unfortunately there’s no choice. One of these days I’ll figure out a decent recipe.”

Under the purplish twilight, Orli sat in the old hermit’s camp and drew her scabbed knees up to her chest. She watched as Steinman puttered around, talking to himself and building their campfire.

“When I first found Corribus, I knew it would be a great settlement world. I just wanted a little peace for myself, but I didn’t begrudge those other people their chance to make a new life here. I never wanted them to be wiped out.” He had been going on like that for more than an hour.

“You certainly talk a lot for a man who wanted to be alone,” Orli muttered. She looked down as the flames grew brighter, consuming the dry grass, tinder, and the soft polewood that Steinman had cut and stacked.

“Nothing wrong with a little conversation.” The older man picked up a rock and tossed it out into the waving grasses. “Git!” She heard the scuttling motion of a long-legged creature crashing away through the underbrush.

When the fire was blazing, Steinman hauled out lumps of meat, the carcasses vaguely recognizable as furry crickets. “Tastes a little rancid, but I’ve eaten dozens of them—it sure beats Hansa mealpax.”

Orli’s stomach felt queasy as she watched him roast the meat, dangling it on a small stick over the flames.

“The flavor improves if I skin them a day ahead of time and stick them out to dry on the poletree thorns. I lose about half of them that way—something keeps snatching the meat—but at least there’s plenty of crickets.”

Even though the thought of eating the cricket still made her uncomfortable, the smell of the cooking food made Orli’s mouth water. “I had a furry cricket for a pet once, but it didn’t survive the massacre.” She didn’t touch the meat.

“Sorry about that, kid.” Steinman didn’t seem to know how else to respond. “If I had other supplies to offer, I would...”

Now she dug into her pockets and removed the flimsy sealed packets of dried mushrooms from Dremen. “These don’t taste very good either, but maybe they’ll balance out the taste.”

Steinman’s eyes widened with delight, and then he frowned. “Where did you get those?”

“My father and I grew them on Dremen, before we came here. I...found them buried under the wreckage of my house.”

He tore open the film, sniffing skeptically. “Never was much of a mushroom eater. Something about the texture of fungus.” He forced a smile. “But, as I was just saying, we can’t be too choosy these days.”

Between the mushrooms and the roast furry cricket, they had the closest thing to a feast Orli could remember in a long time.

After her first few bites, she realized how truly hungry she had become since finding herself alone on Corribus. She took seconds of the meat, tearing it with her hands, chewing and swallowing before she could taste the juices. The mushrooms seemed to absorb the strong-tasting oil in the cricket flesh...

As darkness fell on the fourth night, she stared across the landscape toward the tall spindles of poletrees rising up like the masts of a ghost ship. Flying creatures circled in the dusk.

Before the two of them went to sleep, Orli played her music synthesizer strips for a long time, mournful melodies that wandered as her thoughts and memories did. She let her fingers direct themselves, finding solace in her creation.

At one point she looked up to see Steinman sitting there, his eyes closed. Tears streamed down his face, but he said nothing, and Orli continued to play.

Chapter 23—DD

Even after the robots dragged him away from the massacre of helpless humans on Corribus, DD’s nightmare didn’t end. The little compy did not have the vocabulary or the emotional library to express the extent of his horror.

When the Klikiss robots and the traitorous Soldier compies flew their five stolen EDF battleships away from the smoldering wreckage of what had been a fledgling settlement of ambitious pioneers, Sirix seemed pleased with how well the operation had gone. The black insectile robot focused crimson optical sensors on DD. “Your human creators were not content with infesting uninhabited planets. Since discovering how to use the Klikiss transportal network, they have begun a major colonization program. They swarm like vermin through the transportals to worlds that were formerly inhabited by our progenitors.” Sirix straightened, standing much taller than the Friendly compy. “We will stop them, just as we stopped the Klikiss long ago.”

“Such actions are unnecessary.” DD had made similar protests many times before. “Over the past two centuries humans have demonstrated that they can coexist peacefully with Klikiss robots. Why must you turn against them now?”

“We always intended to turn against them. It is a fundamental aspect of our overall plan. We must eradicate the biological stain and free their program-imprisoned compy creations, such as yourself.”

“You do not understand compies,” DD said.

“Not entirely. But we are attempting to rectify that lack of knowledge.”

Moving on his cluster of fingerlike legs, the robot scuttled toward the door. “It is mandatory that we find a way to release our primitive compy brethren from their bondage.” He commanded DD to follow him. “Thus it is necessary for us to perform numerous experiments to determine the most efficient methodology.”

The robot led DD into a laboratory chamber that had been modified from the EDF Juggernaut’s original sick bay. Elaborate computer equipment and engineering tools had been installed in the chamber. Thick cables snaked out of walls; jointed metal struts and arms rose from the floor, connected to instrument banks alongside trays and workbenches.

Seventeen compies lay strapped to the dissection and experimentation tables. The place looked like a torture chamber. DD had seen such activities before in another Klikiss robot laboratory. But this was far worse.

“What are you doing?”

“We are attempting to understand.”

A variety of compy models—Listeners, Friendlies, Governesses, Workers—lay spread out facedown on dissection tables. Their polymer exoskeletons had been removed, skinplates cut away to expose circuitry, programming units, motive strands, and biopulleys. One of the compies bolted to a vertical metal pole jittered and shuddered in an uncontrollable seizure. Its round optical sensors flashed and blinked, but all the wires beneath its speaker patch had been torn out, so the compy could make no sound, neither question nor scream. Even two of the bulky Soldier-model compies were among the experimental subjects, dissected and analyzed to see how the insidious programming had taken hold.

“We have conscripted various compies from our ships and from raids,” Sirix said. “These are all necessary sacrifices.”

“You intend to free them by terminating them,” DD observed.

“A limited number must pay a price. Once their functions cease, at least they will no longer be bound to the commands of an unwanted master.”

Three Klikiss robots moved from one specimen to another, severing wires and reworking circuit paths in central command modules. In an unconscious reflex, one of the Soldier compies lurched up, using its strength to rip the cables that bound it to the table. It sat disoriented, then fell back as two Klikiss robots converged on it.

“Soldier compies are reliable because fundamental Klikiss programming routines are burned deep into an encrypted partition on their central modules. The voluntary sacrifice of our comrade Jorax, who allowed himself to be dismantled so that human scientists could unwittingly copy our technology, has been a valuable investment. We have isolated a large portion of the restrictive compy programming. Soon we will learn how to deactivate those bonds, so that all compies can be free.” The robot paused for a long moment. “We are doing this for you.”

Unable to respond, DD simply used his optical sensors to record every instant of the awful scene.

Sirix swiveled about. “Follow me to the launching bay. You and I will depart to a new destination.”

DD did not want to go, but then, neither did he want to stay.

Sirix explained, “Most of our warrens are now dug out. Only a few enclaves of hibernating Klikiss robots remain to be reactivated. Now that our numbers are restored, we are nearly prepared for the full-fledged strike.” His telescoping legs made soft thumping noises as he scuttled along the Juggernaut’s deck toward a waiting transport ship. “We have mapped out our human targets and are coordinating our attack. Since Soldier compies are now pervasive throughout the Earth Defense Forces, once our signal is sent out, we can overthrow the human military in a single and sudden coordinated action.”

The compy and the Klikiss robot stood in front of the geometrical, angular robotic ship. Sirix’s eye sensors blazed like the fires of a dragon. “Therefore, DD, you understand why we have accelerated our efforts to deactivate your compy programming. When we achieve our aims and destroy the biologicals, we will free all compies like yourself. Afterward, DD, you will thank us.”

Sirix commanded the Friendly compy to board the ship, then he sealed the hatch and installed his body and his manipulators into the control systems. Within moments, they flew away from the hijacked EDF battle group to revive one of the last caches of frozen Klikiss robots.