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6

 

Holborn was working on the third generation of Type 4 cultures when a carrier entered his laboratory. His back was to the door, yet he recognized that stolid footstep pattern and heard the faint hiss of hydraulic levers that lifted and propelled the carrier’s legs. The sound never failed to inject a burst of fear into him.

Holborn straightened from his microscope and turned around too quickly, knocking off a petri dish as he did so. The glass shattered upon the floor. Fortunately that particular dish was empty. He had intended it to hold cell smears from the next mutation. Had he broken any of the three other dishes, the whole laboratory would have been contaminated with a deadly viral strain in seconds.

The carrier stopped and bent its head slightly to scan the breakage.

“I’ll have it cleaned up in a few minutes,” said Holborn. “As soon as I finish with this experiment.”

The carrier made no reply, and Holborn wiped his face with an unsteady hand. He knew it was unwise to betray this much nervousness to his masters because they might suspect him of duplicity, but the carriers always made him nervous even when they were empty-handed and serving merely as messengers, as this one was. A simple reason for this little neurosis of his might be that a carrier had trod upon his foot, breaking it, the day he first came to the City.

He had limped ever since, but deep in his heart he knew nothing was that simple. No, his fear was cold and black, growing daily, spreading from deep inside him like a cancer.

The Visci were frightening enough in and of themselves, but they were seldom seen in their true state. And although perhaps a million Visci lived within the City, they were small and shut away in their containers. That left the thousands of robots who maintained the City, manned the ships, operated the time gate, toiled in the laboratories, and served as the arms, legs, eyes, and voice of the Visci.

Holborn was no stranger to sophisticated machinery, certainly, but to have robots as the only visible population left the City an eerie, silent place that wore on his nerves. At first there had been a staff of fourteen coworkers for him to oversee. Most of them had been Therakans and Salukans, captured and brought here under duress. In the past six years all but two of them had died from various causes: overwork, improper nutrition, executions for attempted escape or sabotage. Holborn remained because he was too much a coward to try anything subversive. The fact that he was consumed with trying to solve the problem of the plague both shamed and fascinated him. He hated it here, but he did not really want to leave. He could no longer imagine living anywhere else.

Still, he remained afraid. He might not solve the puzzle quickly enough. He might fail. And his masters did not tolerate failure. Yet if he did not fail, if he found the answer and saved them from the plague that eroded their numbers so mercilessly, what remained for him to do? This had become his life’s work. If he saved them, they would go from the City, and might they not leave him here alone with the machines?

Swallowing hard, Holborn faced the glowing lamps that approximated eyes on the carrier and resisted the need to wipe his sweating palms upon his lab smock.

“Yes?” he said sharply. “You are interrupting my work. I have only seconds in which to observe the next mutation—”

“All experiments are being recorded,” said the carrier in a toneless, synthesized voice. “Presence requested in observation area.”

Experience had taught him it was pointless to argue or try to delay answering a summons. Holborn nodded jerkily. “I will come.”

The carrier turned its sleek metal head to scan the overhead lights. “Too bright by twenty watts. Wasteful. I will adjust.”

The lights dimmed to a bleary gloom that made the digitalized readouts of the lab equipment glow. Holborn frowned and just managed to hold back a protest. He missed the bright sun of his home world, and he was currently suffering from an irrational aversion to the power-conserving gloom that shrouded most of the City. The robots had their own lamps, so the dim light offered them no difficulties, but each time he left the comforting confines of his laboratory he felt as though he was leaving the only safe area in the City.

Absurd. He must stop assigning living motivations to the robots. This carrier was not luring him out into the avenue in order to murder him. It was escorting him to his summons because he tended to get lost if allowed to wander about the City on his own. Nothing more sinister than that.

Nevertheless, he glanced in appeal at the hunched back of Mevil, toiling over delicate DNA carving.

“Mevil?” he said.

The biotech engineer had not paused when the overhead lights dimmed. He did not look up now. “What?”

“I—” Holborn frowned. What was there to say? Neither Mevil nor Righa liked him. They were not of his species; they had nothing in common with him other than the work itself. “I’ll be back soon,” he said lamely.

As he passed through the doorway into the avenue of black floor, black walls, black ceiling, all fashioned of metal so strong a cutting diamond could not scratch it and a megaton focused plasma blast could not dent it, a shiver caught him right between his shoulder blades.

The carrier followed him. The lab door locked. Holborn paused, breathing a shade too fast, and the carrier stepped past him to lead the way. Its head casing housed a computer that could process rapidly yet lacked the capacity for independent thought. Its body was ovoid, sleek with a metallic sheen that reflected light. Powerful arms and legs pumped in a stolid, rocking rhythm. They had no casing to disguise the levers and pulleys that operated them.

Holborn followed, listening to the thump and hum of well-lubricated machinery. I will become one, he thought. If I stay here long enough I will mutate just as the cultures are mutating. My processes will be slower, of course, but it will happen. That’s where all these robots came from: living tissue ossified into metal.

But even as that last thought occurred to him, he shoved it worriedly away. Delusions, fanciful thoughts, madness.

Shaking hands, a tremor about the heart, burning sensation along his temples, difficulty in focusing on distant objects, irrational phobias: all of that spelled overwork. Possibly it even warned of an imminent collapse. He should stop driving himself so hard. But there was nothing to do here but work or sleep. And his masters wanted a solution so very badly to what was killing them.

It would have taken a day to walk across the City. Instead the carrier came to an intersection of avenues and halted on the scarlet grid square set into the floor. Sighing, trying to master the urge to turn and scuttle into the nearest hiding place, Holborn stepped onto the grid and forced himself to stand still while the carrier grasped his arms with fingers of cold black steel. The carrier spoke in binary, and there came the nauseating sense of displacement that marked teleportation. Holborn shut his eyes quickly.

Seconds later Holborn’s arms were released. He opened his eyes and found himself in the observation area.

The carrier pointed. “Go that way.”

Its task accomplished, it shut down until its control should have other commands for it. Holborn turned away and started walking in the direction indicated. The observation area was vast, as all areas in the City were. He stayed near the wall, well away from the windows overlooking the hanger.

Spaceships of all makes and sizes were berthed here like exhibits mounted in a case. Their pale hulls gleamed softly against the darkness. Once he would have gazed out, eager to see the new additions to the collection. He would have counted them, wondered about the crews, made mental notations of their names and registry numbers, compared the various technologies. That habit had faded from him.

He trudged along, barely glancing out at them, until his crippled foot ached from the unaccustomed exercise. The carrier could have teleported him closer, he thought grouchily. Twice he passed immobile carriers, eerie sentinels frozen in place until they should be needed. Each time he had to force himself not to break into a run. He kept imagining that they were watching him, pretending to be immobile, waiting for him to go past them so that they could strike at his unprotected back. Sleek, black, faceless except for their lamps, biped ambulatory, taller than he—were they humming to life?

Despising himself, he glanced fearfully over his shoulder. They remained shut down. He was safe. He was also going quietly mad. Should he tell his masters? Ask for medical assistance, therapy, rest? Or should he go on with his work? He was close to a breakthrough. If only his mind didn’t burn so much with fatigue, he might come more quickly to the answer.

And if he did find it, his masters would leave him here. He would die alone and purposeless among the machines.

Breaking out in a cold sweat, Holborn paused a moment and rubbed his face. Perhaps the solution had been staring him in the face for several work cycles and he was subconsciously blocking it.

He thought he should return to his laboratory and go over all his notes once again. Coming here was a waste of time. How would he explain to the Visci that he had the answer all this time yet could not see it because of fatigue? They would think he’d withheld it just to let more of them die.

Twisting his hands, he hurried back the way he’d come, forgetting that he’d been summoned. Then a muffled sound caught his attention.

He glanced to his left, and through the window he saw the hangar doors opening. A shuttlecraft was being towed inside. Holborn shook his head. He couldn’t be distracted now. He mustn’t linger here. He had work to do. He had such a headache. It was this dim light. He couldn’t see properly, but when he got back to the laboratory he would have those lights readjusted. And he felt weak suddenly, unable to go on walking, as though all the energy fled his limbs and left him boneless.

Sinking to his knees, he feared he had been gassed for his disobedience. Then he realized it was only hunger. Bending over, he clutched his middle and began to weep, making small mewling sounds that embarrassed him.

Am I crazy, he wondered, kneeling before the vast window while the craft came gliding closer, gleaming a pearly gray against the blackness of space, a nimbus of sheer blue glowing off her outlines from the magnetic field. She was a stubby vessel, too small for deep space going. Earth made, by the look of her.

She came into her berth, looking as though she would penetrate the window and run upon him, crushing him against the bulkhead. But she stopped precisely where she was meant to. Mechanical clamping arms extended to fasten her in place. Her running lights were dead.

Wiping his eyes and face, Holborn wondered if the same could be said about her crew. How much more genetic stock did the Visci need to examine?

He pushed the doubt away. He never questioned the actions or the motives of his masters. It was safest that way.

A nearby teleportation grid shimmered, and nine fighters materialized with their firing arms crossed and their lamps glowing scarlet in the gloom. Metallic giants, they marched along the corridor toward Holborn, who scuttled nastily out of their way.

He knew they would go directly through the airlock and remove the crew from the newly captured shuttlecraft. The crew would then be dispersed to various labs and labeled according to genetic codes. If they offered no different pattern or if their DNA proved resistant to retro-virus 90, they would be terminated. The others would have tissue samples extracted from them and would be kept in a holding pen for as long as samples were needed.

Samples for my work, thought Holborn. He got to his feet and moved reluctantly to the window, drawn almost against his will yet curious to see who had been captured this time. He knew that if he saw their faces he would have nightmares during his next sleep cycle. He always did, and for that reason he usually stayed away from the observation area. The tissue samples and genetic codes were brought to him and he worked with them, finding less torment to his conscience in that anonymity.

The fighters seemed to be inside the shuttle longer than usual. Holborn pressed his face against the icy surface of the glass. He thought he saw movement atop the shuttle and frowned, squinting in an effort to see better. But nothing moved now and he decided he must have been imagining it.

“Holborn.”

The voice came out of nowhere and made him jump. He turned, his pulse hammering in his throat, and saw an ovoid monitor of black metal hovering perhaps ten centimeters above his head. Its cam lens descended to eye level to peer at him. Holborn nibbled on his lips, feeling his mouth dry out. He remembered now that he was supposed to report to someone.

“Follow.”

The monitor swiveled so that its lens remained fixed upon him as it turned about and floated away, its arrti-grav unit humming with a gravelly, irregular motor rhythm. Holborn followed meekly. He didn’t mind the eyes so much. That wasn’t consistent of him, for the eyes could watch his actions much more closely than the carriers whose primary function was to transport the Visci about, but who said madness had to be consistent?

The corridor curved about the end of this docking pod with perhaps sixty or more pods stretching out past it. The monitor floated up out of the way, and Holborn found himself facing a triad of carriers. Each held a small container emblazoned with brightly colored crests marking the families and lineages of the Visci within. Holborn recognized the crest on the center container. No actual name had ever been given to him, for the Visci had other means of identification among themselves, but since being touched by the mind of that particular master, Holborn had always thought of it as Maon.

Maon had great curiosity and more vigor than most of its kind. When Holborn first came to the City, Maon sent for him often to ask questions about humans and their world of origin. Twice, when Holborn’s line of research had failed, Maon had interceded to save him from termination. Holborn wanted very much to repay Maon by finding an antidote to the plague.

He swallowed, conscious of being late, of having erred, of having perhaps offended. Those closed containers had a sinister air about them, although had one of them opened he would have gone blank with terror. He had seen Maon only once, but the memory was forever burned upon his mind. To have it enter him through the nostrils, choking him, smothering him, curling upward through his nasal passages into his brain, pressing the neural centers that controlled him until he was nothing but a puppet, possessed, horrified, dying of asphyxiation and fear, was an experience he never wanted to go through again. It had lasted perhaps seconds, but it seemed an eternity.

“Holborn.”

He flinched. The voice was mechanical, belonging to one of the carriers that would speak for its master.

“Observe the shuttlecraft. This is an Earth-made ship?”

Holborn faced the window, where he could observe the shuttle from a new angle. Beside him a squat, dome-shaped robot with ropelike appendages of flexible cable operated a console with elaborate data displays.

“Holborn.”

Holborn flinched again, cursing his wandering concentration. “Yes, it is of Earth configuration. Why do the readings not show clear life signs? Is the crew dead?”

“Unknown. The internal scanning tells us they are wearing closed environment containers. What species is like us? What species must exist in sterile conditions? Explain?”

“I can’t. I—I mean, they may be in space suits for other reasons. Was the ship damaged during capture? Was its atmosphere lost?”

The communications robot snaked another appendage to a linkup. “Yes, atmosphere was lost. Just as we cannot control proper adhesion of our molecules without environment of certain weight and pressure, humans are also limited to specific atmospheric conditions.”

It was not a question. Maon frequently thought aloud. Holborn shifted restlessly, wondering why he had been brought here.

“Unlike all other captured vessels, this one attempted to enter the gate. We do not understand this behavior. Explain it.”

Holborn blinked a moment. “Obviously they were searching for the others.”

“Others?”

“The captured ships.”

“Specifics: equipment recovery?”

“No,” said Holborn sharply. “People recovery. Humans value life over machinery.”

“Peculiar. The units are armed. Five units are within the craft. Two units are outside. Explain.”

Seven men, thought Holborn with an almost hysterical urge to laugh. “It’s a rescue mission,” he said. “Humans will fight to recover people. They want back all the humans you’ve captured.”

“This is not possible.”

“No, but they don’t understand that. All they know is that their ships have been disappearing in this sector.” Holborn saw movement on top of the shuttle and stepped closer to the window. “They must not be allowed to exchange fire with your fighters. No damage until I’ve collected my samples.”

“Agreed.” Maon’s carrier stepped closer to the window. “Gas the units inside the shuttle. Leave the two units outside the shuttle unrestrained. We will observe their actions.”

Binary commands flashed forth. Holborn continued to watch, forgetting his experiments waiting for him back in the lab. The ones who struggled were the most pathetic. After all, the Visci could not be beaten. The sooner his own species accepted fate, the more of them would survive. They would learn how to serve their new masters. They would adapt. He had.

Yet his palms felt moist, and his heart was beating faster. He touched the ice-cold glass, making little mists of condensation spread out around his fingertips. Fight the machines, he thought. Beat them.

Right now, however, Kelly lay pressed flat upon the top of the shuttle, his feet hooked to keep him from floating off in the zero gravity of the hangar. His half-baked plan to lead his squad in an assault had fallen apart the moment he saw the phalanx of nine black robots. Each was about three meters tall and a meter wide, possessing powerful batteries and chargers for guts. Their arms ended in muzzles, and they were undoubtedly armored. His squad was tough and game for just about anything, but exchanging fire with warbots was tantamount to quick suicide.

He frowned behind his face plate, trying to find another option.

“Stand by,” he tapped on the pulse code.

But the warbots did not immediately enter the shuttle. An ambulatory canister rolled into sight. A metal hose snaked out from its side and hooked onto the air supply feeder.

Alarmed, Kelly nearly shot to his knees. Beside him, 41 clamped a warning hand on his arm. Kelly flattened himself again, feeling sweat trickle along his hairline. They’d be safe enough in the suits.

He tapped information to Caesar. One of the robots worked to break the security code on the airlock. But as the hatch opened, an explosion burst in the midst of the warbots with an intense, eye-searing fireball. Pieces of metal flew in all directions, and the concussion rocked the shuttle slightly.

Kelly and 41 rose to their knees and opened fire on the three remaining warbots that had been toppled but not destroyed by Caesar’s little greeting. Kelly’s shot scored harmlessly off the central casing of his target. He raised his aim and hit the scarlet lamps in the thing’s head. It exploded, and Kelly grinned in satisfaction. He nudged his helmet comm with his chin to activate it, since there was no point in trying to hide now.

“Aim for their eyes, 41.”

“No good,” said 41 with a grunt. He threw himself flat to dodge a return bolt of energy that shattered the top hull fin. Metal fragments pelted Kelly, and a sudden drop in internal pressure told him that his suit had been penetrated.

“I’m losing air!”

41 rolled to him, grabbed him by the arm, and threw open the top hatch. Another bolt of energy slagged the hatch into a fused lump. Kelly fired back, taking the head off another bot, only to stare in dismay as it rose to its feet and continued to fire. The only difference was that its aim was more erratic.

“Damn!” said Kelly, ducking again. He scrambled through the hatch headfirst, cursing the tight fit and beginning to cough for air.

The inner hatch was shut. Kelly stamped the control with his heel. It opened beneath him and he dropped into the shuttle with 41 landing on top of him.

The impact stunned him and drove from his lungs what little air remained. He tried to sit up, wheezing frantically. 41 yanked open his face plate, but the only air in the shuttle was the scant trickle coming in from the open airlock. That wasn’t enough. Kelly’s lungs labored, heaving so hard his nostrils seemed to collapse. Little black spots danced in his vision, blurring the sight of 41 bending over him. His arms flailed as his whole body fought suffocation. But there was no air, no ...

Something closed over his nose and mouth. Sweet, cold air rushed into his lungs. He clung to the emergency mask, sucking in the air with a frenzy he could not control. 41 gave him a pat and moved away. Kelly heard the scream of shooting still going on around the main hatch. He tried to sit up, but Beaulieu took 41’s place beside him, holding him where he was. She handed him a small tank with a hose and nostril clamp. It was gear designed for low-oxygen conditions.

“Put this on,” she said over the comm. “I hope it works.”

“We blew them to bits, but the damned things won’t die!” shouted Caesar over the comm. “Doc, get over here! Phila’s—”

Beaulieu scrambled away. Kelly sat up, keeping to the scant cover provided by the seats. Drawing off his helmet, he fitted the nostril clamp into place. For a moment the sensation of suffocating returned, but he fought it off. He didn’t have enough air, but he could stay alive on this for a short time.

Grasping his pistol, he crawled around the base of the seats and scrambled to the wall where his squad was taking cover. Two headless bots stood shoulder to shoulder, firing all four arms in blasts of energy that had the hatch rim dripping metal. One side of the hatch was on fire that kept sputtering with fitful pops.

Not enough air for it either, thought Kelly. He felt as though he might pass out.

A hand patted his knee. The person he was crammed against twisted to face him, and he saw Serula’s face through the plate of her helmet. “You all right?” she mouthed.

He lifted his thumb. Without his helmet, he had no comm to use. She smiled at him through her face plate, then flung herself past 41 to squeeze off several rounds before retreating.

On Kelly’s other side, Beaulieu bent over Phila, who looked small and crumpled upon the floor. Her suit looked intact. Kelly wondered what she’d been hit with.

In any case, they had to do something and fast. They were outgunned all the way around and trapped here like bugs in a bottle.

Do something.

He glanced out quickly and noted that the bots seemed fused in the same firing position. Maybe they had deliberately locked themselves into place, or maybe something had shorted. Any risk was worth sitting here until the air tanks and ammo charges ran dry.

On his stomach Kelly squirmed down the wall, flinching as an energy bolt ricocheted about the interior of the shuttle, striking the seats inches from Beaulieu and knocking charred stuffing everywhere. Kelly went up the rungs and back through the emergency hatch, wheezing for air, his head aching from lack of sufficient oxygen.

Topside, he poked his head out very, very cautiously until he could just glimpse the bots, still firing. The energy bolts filling the shuttle weren’t scoring any direct hits, but the interior temperature was climbing. The squad couldn’t endure the heat residues forever.

Kelly rested himself for a few seconds despite the urgency gripping him. When his vision cleared, he rested the butt of his pistol upon the scarred hull and aimed with extreme care. The bot closest to him swung its right firing arm in his direction. Kelly squeezed off a shot, and the firing arm shattered right at the joint.

Elation swelled in his throat, but he forced himself to concentrate. When another firing arm swung in his direction, Kelly shattered it as well. That left one armed bot, and following Kelly’s lead, someone inside the shuttle began shooting at its firing arms. They got one, and Kelly took care of the other.

Quiet drifted over them. Feeling weary, Kelly dropped down the rung ladder. The squad was dancing around, slapping hands and shoulders. Kelly waved his arms and gestured for them to move.

41 scooped Phila’s slight body effortlessly over one shoulder. With Kelly in the lead, they ducked out of the shuttle and hurried warily past the two standing, but disarmed bots, their boots crunching on the shattered pieces of the others.

A blast of Caesar’s weapon upon the controls opened the door leading from the hangar. They stepped inside a world of black. Ceilings, walls, floor, all were black metal. Scant illumination was provided.

But there was air. Kelly took great delicious gulps of it, not caring that it smelled faintly of molded apples, ozone, and lubricant. He glanced over his shoulder at Beaulieu. She opened her face plate, and he said, “Is this air safe, or does it have gas?”

“Safe,” she said.

He unhooked his nostril clamp, and the others opened their face plates.

“Well, we’re in,” said Kelly, not sure that was a good thing. “We can’t just stand here and wait for the next batch of reinforcements. We need to clear this corridor, then we’ve got to locate the crews of those—”

“Whoa, boss,” said Caesar, pointing down the corridor. “Here comes trouble.”

They turned, and Kelly saw another phalanx of warbots coming. Metal feet rang upon metal floor in perfect cadence. His heart sank. Last time was mostly luck. This time they were bunched up in this corridor with nowhere to go and not nine warbots coming at them, but twelve.

“Surrender,” said a synthesized voice. “Put down all weapons.”

“Then what?” muttered Caesar. “They blow us away without any resistance? To hell with this.”

Kelly looked at the squad’s faces and saw the same thing: anger, resentment, and a gritty determination to resist. He looked at the approaching warbots and saw their firing arms locking into position.

“Right,” he said. “To hell with it.”

And he opened fire.