Bill 2 - on the Planet of Robot Slaves (7 page)

The sun rose in the sky but they did not stop. They were stumbling with fatigue before Bill called a halt and they dropped in their tracks.

“Five minutes — no longer.” Moans of exhaustion were his only answer. Dimly in the distance there was the rumble of an explosion.

“You all heard that,” Bill said grimly, climbing to his feet. “Let's move on.”

When they had trudged their way to the top of yet one more sand dune they could see the column of black smoke ahead. Bill waved them down and dropped his pack onto the sand.

“Keep your weapons ready — and your eyes open. If I am not back in five minutes...” He opened his jaw, then shut it again, not knowing what came next.

“Look,” Praktis said, “just get out there and find out what has happened. If we don't hear from you we'll take it from there.”

There was steely resolve in Bill's stride as he marched into battle, down the dune and up the next one. He peered cautiously over the top before he went on. When the smoke was close, just beyond the next dune, he dropped and crawled to the top and with infinite caution peered over it.

“About time you got here,” Meta said as soon as his head came into view. “Got some water?”

“Are you all right?” He kept his blaster ready as he crawled forward, looking at the burning metal wreck.

“No thanks to your lot. Let me be kidnapped right out from under your noses.”

“What happened? What is that thing?”

“How should I know? What I do know is that I was sound asleep and next thing I'm awake and covered with sand and being tossed about. I sat up and must have hit my head because I was knocked out for a while. I came to, it was black, I could hear an engine and I knew we were moving. I still had my blaster so I shot my way out. Now — the water?”

“With the others.” He fired three quick blasts on his blaster. “They'll hear that. Did you kill the driver of the thing?”

“There wasn't one — that was the first thing I looked for. It's a robot or remotely controlled or something. Some sort of machine on treads with that big scoop on the front. It must have scooped me up and trundled off while you all slept so very soundly.”

“I'm sorry — but I didn't hear anything...”

There was a sharp clang from the other side of the burning hulk, followed by the sound of an engine.

“There's more of them — get down!” he shouted, setting an example by dropping and burrowing into the sand.

“I'll get the mothers before they get me!” Meta frothed angrily, running forward, blaster ready. Bill reluctantly followed her, hurrying only when he heard the sound of her weapon.

She stood, legs spread wide, blowing smoke from the pitted muzzle of her blaster. “Missed,” she said with disgust. “It got away.”

Bill looked at the tracks that led up the dune ahead and vanished over the top. They were tiny treads, less than a yard wide, just one set of them. He blinked with confusion. “It went up that way? Then — how did it get down here?”

“It was here all the time, inside this other one,” Meta said, pointing at the hinged flap that now gaped open in the side of the wreck. “It came out of here and trundled away and you know, it wasn't a robot driver or anything. It looked just like this wreck, only much smaller.”

“We have a mystery here,” Praktis said, strolling down the dune as he slipped his blaster back into its holster. “I heard that last — now tell me what happened before.”

“Only after some water,” Meta said, then coughed. “This has been dry work.”

When she had glugged a cupful and repeated her story to everyone's satisfaction they examined the smoldering wreck, kicked its metal sides and admired the massive treads on its tracks. Peeked into the scooplike container where she had been imprisoned. And came away knowing little or nothing.

“You, Cy,” Praktis ordered. “You're the technological junky around here. Give this thing a going over while I plant dinner. We'll save some for you.”

They were finishing their meal, licking greasy fingers then rubbing them in the sand, when Cy joined them, grabbing up his portion of meat.

“Grerry prenstrating,” he said around a mouthful.

“Swallow first, talk later,” Praktis ordered.

“Very interesting. This machine appears to have been cast in one piece. No welds or rivets or things like that. And it's completely self-contained. Lots of what looks like circuitry and memory in that bulge up front. Inputs from radar and sonar and what might be an infrared detector. No weapons or anything like armaments. As far as I can tell it just trundles around and loads up the container where Meta got trapped. The drive, that's the interesting part. Solar powered, collectors on top, I think I found big batteries. Then what might be a hydraulic pump and maybe hydraulic lines...”

“What's all this might-be and maybe stuff? I thought you were the technology whizkid?”

“I am. But I'm not going to do much whizzing until I get a diamond saw. Instead of hydraulic pipes there seem to be tunnels in the solid metal for the fluid. Not cost effective at all and I never saw anything like it before. And that's not the only thing different...”

“Spare me the technological breakdown,” Praktis grunted. “This little mystery will keep. We have to make tracks after those other tracks of the one that got away. It is also heading in the same direction that we have to go, toward the lights. It may be carrying a message, telling them about us —”

“Telling who?” Bill asked.

“I don't know who or what or which or anything more than anyone else here! All I know is that the faster we move the better chance we have of keeping moving. I would like to find them, or it or whatever, before they find us. So let's get cracking.”

For once Praktis got no arguments. He checked the tracks with the compass as they walked, but after a while he put it away. They were going in the right direction. It was a long and hot day yet Praktis did not order a halt until it was almost dark. He scowled at the tracks that vanished into the darkness and Bill came up and scowled with him.

“Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” Bill asked.

“Only if you are thinking that the thing we are following does not have to stop to rest and is scuttling on ahead.”

“That was just what I was thinking.”

“You better post lookouts tonight. We don't want anyone else getting scooped away in the dark.”

They took turns standing guard, not that it was really needed. The sound of engines coming their way was easy enough to hear. They were well dug into the sand on top of their dune, blasters at the ready, while the roar of engines became deafening. From all sides.

“We're surrounded!” Wurber bleated, then yiked when someone kicked him.

But nothing more happened. The engines rumbled louder, then idled down to a background hum. None came close. After a while Bill's curiosity got the better of him and he crawled out for a reconnoiter. There was enough light from the stars for him to make out the dark forms waiting below.

“We're surrounded,” he reported upon his return. “Lots of big machines. I couldn't make out details. But they are on all sides, track to track. Should we try and get by them?”

“Why?” Praktis asked with grim reality. “They know that we are here and they have us well outnumbered. If we try to mix it up in the dark we don't know what will happen. Let's sweat it out until daylight.”

“That way we can at least see who is wiping us out,” Captain Bly sneered as he popped a pill. “I'm opting out. Maybe I'll wake up dead, but at least I won't know it.”

No one argued with him. Those who could sleep, slept. Bill tried hard but with complete lack of success. In the end he sat on top of the dune and stared out at their invisible pursuers. Meta joined him and put a friendly arm around his shoulders.

“You are lonely, worried, scared and frightened. I can tell,” she said.

“That's not too hard to figure out. What about you?”

“Not me. I'm too tough for that kind of thing. Give us a kiss and forgot all the naughty monsters out there.”

“How can you even consider sex at a time like this!” Bill whinnied, shying away from her warm embrace. “We may be dead in a few hours, for all we know.”

“What better reason to forget your troubles, dearie. Or don't you like girls?” Her scowl burned through the darkness.

“I like girls, I really do. Just not now. Look!” There was a feeling of relief in his voice as he ejaculated. “Isn't the sky getting light? I better go wake the others.”

“The others are all awake,” a voice said from the darkness. “And we were really enjoying the dialogue.”

“You're a pack of voyeuristic bastards!” Meta shouted and fired wildly into the darkness with her blaster. But they had dived for cover and no one was hurt. She muttered to herself darkly as the sky lightened, then turned her angry attention to the waiting machines. “I'll get the first one that comes close, right between the eyes. I don't know about you male weakling chauv pigs, but this girl is not going to knuckle under. I'll take as many of them with me as I can!”

“Could we kindly be reasonable about this,” Praktis said, from the protection of his foxhole. “Just put the gun down until we see what develops. There will be plenty of time for a shoot-out later if that is the way it breaks.”

There was a distant hum and they all looked up as a machine appeared in the sky above. An ornithopter, flapping and fluttering. When it flapped too close Meta sprang to her feet and shot at it. Pieces blew off its tail and it banked sharply and flitted away.

“Oh, well done,” Praktis muttered, but not so loud that the angry engine mate first class could hear him. “I would have liked to have kept this thing peaceful.”

An engine rumbled to life on the other side of the dune. Meta spun about and got off one shot before Praktis grabbed her.

“Help me!” he shouted. “Before she gets us all killed.”

This appeal to cowardice worked and all of the brave men piled on and helped to disarm her. Pretending not to hear what she was calling them. When they had her gun they moved away and tried to look peaceful and friendly and not worried as the wheeled vehicle ground up the dune towards them. It came close — then turned sideways and stopped. They stepped back as there was a grind of metal — but it was only the doors opening. When nothing else happened, Bill, feeling that his masculinity had somehow been maligned by Meta's superiority, stepped forward to prove that good old macho still wasn't dead. He stopped and looked inside. Turned and reported.

“There's no driver but there are seats inside. Six of them. Just the same number as people we got here.”

“A brilliant observation,” Praktis said, standing on tiptoe to look into the vehicle. “Anyone for rideys?”

“Do we have a choice?” Bill asked.

“None that I can see.” He glanced over his shoulder at the circle of immense vehicles that surrounded them.

“Go for broke,” Bill said as he threw his pack inside and climbed after it. “In any case the water is almost gone.”

They followed him with great reluctance and suspicion. When they were all seated the doors slammed shut, the engine raced and their pilotless vehicle roared down the hill. A great tank-treaded machine rumbled aside and they shot through the opening and out into the desert. The churning treads threw up a great cloud of dust through which, halfseen, the other machines turned and followed after them.

“This wreck sure has rotten suspension,” Meta said, bouncing about on the metal seat as they hurtled across a rutted ravine.

“But, golly, it sure beats walking!” Bill smarmed, trying to worm his way back into her good favor. Her only response was a lip-curled snarl.

“There's something there, straight ahead,” Cy announced, holding onto Wurber's shoulder to steady himself as he stood and squinted into the slipstream. “Can't see what it is — except it looks plenty big.”

From a little speck, no bigger than a bird turd, the distant object grew as they trundled towards it. Grew until it was big as a man's hand, grew bigger still until they could pick out details, inexplicable details at first. That remained just as inexplicable as they drew close. As they came over a ridge and trundled down into the valley beyond they could see that the jumble of towers, shapes, structures and such junk, was surrounded by a high wall. The sand here was cut and marked by treadmarks and ruts that crossed and tangled — yet all converged on the same spot — where the wall swelled out into an impressive bulge.

Their vehicle still trundled forward, but the other machines slowed and stopped and remained behind, disappearing from sight in the dust clouds that blew around them. Their transport of delight did not slow as it hurtled towards the wall — which split open at the last moment. They whizzed through the opening and into pitch darkness as the outer wall closed behind them.

“I hope that this thing can see in the dark,” Praktis muttered to himself.

Then light appeared ahead and their car slowed, zoomed out into the sunshine and stopped.

“So what's the big deal?” Meta asked. “More sand, a solid wall, and the same sky. For this we could have stayed in the desert...”

She broke off as the car doors creaked and snapped open.

“I think they are trying to tell us something!” Wurber said. They got up warily, not that they had much of a choice, and climbed down to the ground. Except for Bill who had even less choice.

“Say, guys, I got a problem. This thing has grabbed me by the ankles.”

He stood and pulled, but the metal bands held him fast. And even as he did this, before anyone could turn to help him, the car doors slammed shut. Bill called out hoarsely as the vehicle started forward, knocking him back into the seat. An opening appeared in the wall ahead and they shot into it. The angry shouts of his companions were cut off as it sealed again.

“I'm not sure that I like this,” Bill whimpered into the darkness as they rolled on. Through a door and into a sunlit chamber. The restraints slipped free as soon as the car had stopped and the doors opened yet again. Looking around dubiously, he climbed out.

The sun filtered through transparent panels high above, lighting up the complex machines and strange devices that covered the walls. It was all very mysterious but, before he could examine it, a small and bulbous machine on squeaking treads rumbled towards him and stopped. A metal arm with a black knob on the end shot out towards him, would have hit him in the face if he had not ducked. He slipped his blaster from its holster, ready to blow the thing away if it tried to bash him again. But the knob only rotated to face him and remained about a foot from his head. It vibrated a little and made a rasping sound, emitted a high-pitched tone, then spoke in a deep voice.