Lost in Transmission

Chapter twenty-six. In which the footsoldiers of an army are confronted

The “base” of this Aden Plateau, Bruno muses, is more properly an inflection point, where the concave-down shape of the bluff itself gives way to the wrinkled but generally concave-up terrain of the basin beneath. The city of Timoch is still visible in the distance, through the tree line running along the bluff's base, but he sees that if they travel much farther, those towers will disappear behind forests and ridges, not reappearing until the two men are much closer.

Not that they will get any closer. Not that they will have that opportunity.

“Is there a road?” he asks his old architect, Conrad Mursk, whose name, like his face, has worn down over time. Like the moon itself, yes, it has been crushed to half its normal width, made denser and more gravid. Radmer, indeed. A strange—yet strangely appropriate—abbreviation.

“Aye, there is a road,” Radmer agrees. “But we'll have to cut several miles to the north to reach it. And the enemy patrol, I'm afraid, is directly in our path. I tried to skirt around them, but—”

“But I am too slow for you,” Bruno finishes. “My apologies, Architect. Or should I say ‘General'?”

Radmer shakes his head. “I've been neither thing for many centuries, Sire. These days I'm a . . . a hobo, I guess you'd say. Though I don't like the sound of the word, particularly when applied to myself.”

Bruno, who has never had much patience with self-effacement, says, “I'm confident you are much more than that, sir, and I do not require you to pretend otherwise.”

He hefts his only weapon: an iron bar with a T-handle at one end and a slight, pointed curve at the other which Radmer has identified as a “trenching hook.” Radmer himself carries a small pistol and a satchel of “glue bombs,” plus a kind of stubby blitterstaff with a lightly weighted pommel and a basket handle. Bruno asks, “How long before this battle commences? I cannot see our enemies, and do not know how fast they move.”

“Soon,” Radmer says, eyeing his old monarch appraisingly. “I will protect you as best I can. If we're separated, it's imperative that you make your way to Timoch. I cannot emphasize this point enough. There is information in your skull—at least I pray there is—on which the fate of this world depends.”

“So you've said, yes. May I have one of those weapons, then?”

Bruno can see the wheels of Radmer's mind turning. He conceives of Bruno as a fragile thing, a wrung-out old man. Which is absurd, since they were both ruggedized by the same fax filters, back when such things existed, and have been worn down by an identical span of years. Here is a man who's spent—clearly!—decades upon decades of his life at war. Perhaps not all at once, and not against such enemies as these. But he trusts himself, trusts his instincts and movements, whereas this hoary old King Bruno is, at best, an unknown element upon the field.

“I invented the blitterstaff,” Bruno says in his own defense, “in the heat of a battle as fierce as the one we now face. At my back was Cheng Shiao of the Royal Constabulary, with a pistol and a sword and an abject refusal to die. And we won the day, sir. Just the two of us.”

“And you captured Marlon Sykes' fortress and saved the sun from destruction, yes,” Radmer says. “Every schoolchild knows that, even today. I do not mean to offend you, Sire. My aim is to maximize the chance of getting you, in one piece, to the place where you're needed. How deep are your pockets?”

“Monetarily?” Bruno asks, bewildered for a moment.

“Literally,” Radmer says impatiently. “How much can they hold?”

Bruno turns them out for inspection, and seeing them, Radmer nods.

“I will give you two of the glue bombs. They adhere very well indeed to impervium skins, and they peel right off of human ones. Beware your clothing, though, and the metal of the trenching hook, and the stones and branches upon the ground. If you get into trouble, throw the bombs at their feet—at their feet, mind you!—and run like hell. Don't worry about me, or anything else except your own escape. Are we clear on this point?”

“Very clear,” Bruno confirms, slapping the shaft of his hook. “But out of curiosity, sir, don't you think I could run more quickly without this hunk of iron?”

“Oh, definitely. But a man in danger needs something stout in his hands. It will make you brave, though I hope not stupid, and with any luck that will keep you alive. You can always drop it later if you need to.”

“Ah,” Bruno says, satisfied with that explanation. Those who have lived a long time accumulate this sort of folk wisdom as surely as a hiking sock accumulates burrs.

And then, before another word can be spoken, a pair of gleaming metal forms break through the tree line and come at the two men, moving with that ancient fluid grace and speed which no citizen of the Queendom could ever forget. Robots. Household servants, actually, but no less formidable for that. And now that they're close, Bruno can see that they've been modified, their heads drilled open and some sort of black, auxiliary circuit box affixed to one side.

To override the Asimov protocols? Certainly, it should be very difficult to get robots such as these—wherever they've come from—to raise a hand in anger. And yet, these two are carrying swords, and dancing forward with grimly mechanical intent. Behind them, another two robots burst through the trees, and then three more, and then another eight. Within moments, Bruno and Conrad are surrounded, and the younger man is shouting, “Behind me, Sire! Get behind me!”

For the moment, Bruno does as he's told, although he knows enough of battle to realize that Radmer's best intentions are little more than hot air once the uncertainties of the action begin to unfold. He stays loose. He is not afraid of dying, has in fact tried at various times to extinguish this mortal coil of his. But in the peaceful tropics of Varna that proved nearly impossible, and having resigned himself now to helping a planet full of people he has never met, he feels rather strongly that he should live a while longer. Too, he is burning with curiosity at this turn of events, and wants very much to find out what will happen next.

This, at least, is the pleasure of a long life: the very large number of unexpected things which can happen to you before it's done.

Bruno watches as Radmer fires three carefully aimed shots, each one striking the black box on the side of a robot's head, bursting it, causing the owners to clatter to the ground like puppets with their power switched off. Which is, of course, exactly what they are. But the remaining attackers cover ground very quickly, so Radmer holsters his weapon and hurls a glue bomb at the feet of another two.

It bursts with a comical farting sound, and Radmer's aim is either very lucky or very sure, because filaments of yellow-brown glue spring up between the two robots' legs, joining them to each other and to the ground and the rocks, so that in spite of their grace the robots trip and fall on their faces. They still grip their swords, though, and the joints of their arms can bend and swivel every which way, so when Radmer grabs Bruno by the ruff of his leather jacket and tows him forward, there is a bit of leaping and sword dancing involved. In fact, one of the blades strikes Bruno on the back of the thigh, gashing the skin there, a fact which he will not realize until later.

Had they been fighting humans, taking down five of them would've left an opening large enough to escape through, assuming they ran for safety with all their might. But the robots are too quick, and the two men too grossly outnumbered. The broken circle of attackers smears out into a horseshoe, and then a closed ellipse, and the two of them are caught again.

“Royal Override!” Bruno shouts at them, summoning his most kingly tone. “Stand down and await instructions!”

It's a desperate and probably futile gambit, but if these ancient machines are of Queendom manufacture, mightn't they heed their old king? The Royal Overrides are woven deeply into their being, far more so than even the Asimov protocols.

And indeed, they pause at his voice, slowing their forward rush, lowering their weapons slightly. Considering this new data, yes, sifting the input through what remains of their ancient programming. For a moment, Bruno thinks perhaps this disastrous war might be brought to a swift conclusion after all. They listened! They heeded!

But no, alas, even before the echoes have died they are shaking off their moment of indecision and advancing once more with murderous intent.

“What do they want?” Bruno cannot help asking.

“To kill us,” Conrad answers simply. “To loot our bodies and steal any metal they can find.”

As he speaks, he draws out two more glue bombs and uses them to immobilize another trio of robots. But then the robots are upon them, and the battle is hand to hand, and Radmer is pulling out that stubby little blitterstaff of his, whose basket hilt appears, to Bruno's eye, to have been hammered from ordinary metal. So, he judges, were the swords of the robot army, which clang like bells when Radmer parries them.

The business end of the blitterstaff flickers with colors and patterns, with blurring lights too quick for the eye to see. It is a short rod of wellstone shifting between various highly reactive states, noxious chemicals and fields and software all churning together in a deadly, unpredictable mess. Where the swords touch it, they spark and smoke, bend and twist, but do not come apart the way wellmetal would. The steel, being ordinary and nonprogrammable, is blit-proof. Whether this is a sign of a very enlightened attacker or a very crude one, Bruno cannot say, and at this particular moment it hardly matters.

Radmer is a clever swordsman, though, and despite the speed and grace of his attackers, he strikes two of them with the tip of his stick, and they, at least, do fall apart into shrieking, smoking fragments and fibers and dust, briefly alive with light and oil and then collapsing to the dirt in smoking masses.

But there are too many attackers, and Radmer cannot engage them all, much less protect Bruno against them. This becomes apparent only a few moments before it becomes hopeless, so Bruno throws a glue bomb of his own, swings the trenching hook at the head of his nearest attacker, and runs. Another cut stings across his back, and another gleaming metal robot looms in his way.

Although it's rather stronger than a human, it is also lighter; he knocks its sword aside and deals a sharp blow to its head. This has, as far as he can tell, no effect whatsoever, except perhaps to unbalance the thing very slightly. Nevertheless, he strikes again and then takes off running as fast as his ancient body will carry him.

Bruno is regarded as a genius, but alas it doesn't take one to see that he's not going to get away. The remaining attackers have divided their forces democratically, so that three are bearing down on Conrad Mursk and two on Bruno de Towaji, and both teams are more than enough to accomplish the job. This is not at all according to plan, so he throws the second glue bomb, runs some more in jackrabbit zigzags, and then turns, breathing heavily, to stand his ground.

If those black boxes, those brain annexes, are vulnerable to bullets, then perhaps a good bashing can also provide them with an educational reprogramming. Or perhaps not, but even after all this time Bruno is not inclined to die in retreat with a wound in his back when he can instead die bravely, with a wound in his belly. It makes a better end of things, yes?

And this behavior seems to puzzle the robots, or at least to give them pause. They are not afraid of him, but neither can their mission be accomplished optimally if they themselves are killed, so it behooves them to assess every threat. And he has already surprised them twice, which ought to make them cautious. Ought to.

But as he prepares to make his final stand, and die at last, the air is split by a shrill noise—several of them, actually—sounding for all the world like the tin police whistles Bruno still remembers from his youth in Girona, among the Catalan hills of Old Earth. Before it was known as Murdered Earth.

And then there are faint shimmers in the air around him, and strange sourceless shadows whirling on the ground. And the robots are startled, as if reacting to some new threat, and in another moment they're breaking and bursting and dying at Bruno's feet, and Radmer's.

The last of them, before it collapses, puts its arms above its head in a mockery of surrender, and then shoots its fingertips upward on slender, gleaming rods. Radio antennae, clearly: an attempt to report back its status or to call in reinforcements. But the rods are sliced away by some invisible force, and then the shadows on the ground draw nearer and wilder, and the robot falls away in a bursting of bright orange fire, leaving Bruno and Radmer alone in a field of fragments.

But there are shadows all around, like heat ripples on the floor of a desert, and seeing them approach, Bruno collapses in undignified confusion, holding an arm above him. And one of the shadows draws nearer, and then something passes between Bruno and the sun. Only then, in silhouette, can he finally see the source of one shadow: a dim human shape, swathed in stealth fabric and painted with the glowing colors of earth and sky. In broad daylight its power consumption must be considerable. Hence the shadows: the fabric is bright enough to mimic the light waves passing through it from ground and sky, but cannot quite match the intensity of the sun itself.

In another moment the faint shimmers in the air begin, one by one, to flicker and darken and assume human shape. These are ordinary human beings, in very high-quality stealthsuit camouflage. Or rather, very old, very unordinary human beings, like Bruno and Radmer, with frizzy, yellow-white hair and sagging skin and worn, polished nubs for teeth.

A few of them glance incuriously at Bruno, now ruefully picking himself up, but their attention, for the most part, is focused on Radmer. There are five of them altogether, and they surround him with guns and swords raised in a kind of salute. Either that, or this is some bizarre ritual presaging his capture or murder. But no, there's too much smiling for that. Soon, Radmer is thumping these men on the back, whooping and laughing. “I've had closer calls, but not many! My thanks to you, Sidney Lyman. Your arrival is most timely.”

“We hoped it was you, sir,” says Lyman, apparently the leader of these five rescuers. “We saw something coming down out of the sky, which fit with the rumors we'd heard about a weird project going on at Highrock. But these lot”—he kicks at a pile of robot shards—“saw you come down as well, and when our picket sensors found them headed in this direction, I felt the need to call muster and bring at least a small piece of the old unit together. And here I see it was the right decision. Unless you've changed sides, ha!” Then, more seriously: “How you been, sir?”

“How do you think?” Conrad asks, laughing grimly. “For the likes of us, as for the morbid humans, there's no safe place in the world anymore. And that's if you're inclined to hide, which I, alas, am not.”

The other man, Lyman, seems to take this as a rebuke. He says, “The Echo Valley hideout is necessary, and may yet save your skin. I know it saved mine, more than once, and every man here will tell you the same. Even this enemy”—he kicks once again at the heaps of silicon shards—“hasn't seen through the stealth veils yet. Some of us still have children growing up, sir, as crazy as that sounds. We do require some security, if only for them.”

“I'm not angry,” Conrad assures him. “I'm not arguing with you. Believe me, I am very glad to see you at this moment.”

Lyman smiles and hugs his old friend—his old leader, apparently—once again. Then he says, “They told us you'd gone to space, in search of some item of great strategic value. Did you find it?”

“Aye, and nearly lost it.” Radmer nods toward Bruno. “This man is . . . its keeper, I suppose you would say. His life must be defended at all costs, or all of ours may be forfeit. Even in your damned valley.”

Here, Lyman looks critically at Bruno for the first time, and does a sort of double take. “Sir, you look awfully familiar. Have we met?”

Bruno sees no point in concealing his identity, but neither does he feel a need to announce it. He isn't a king anymore, just as Conrad Mursk is not an architect, although his claimed lack of generalship seems rather in doubt at this point. What Bruno says is, “Not to my knowledge, lad, though anything is possible. Or used to be, anyway.”

Lyman seems to find this funny, as do two of his men. “How are we to call you?” he asks when the chuckling has subsided.

Bruno thinks about it for a moment before answering, “Ako'i.” This is the Tongan word for “teacher,” or colloquially a kind of friendly insult—someone smarter than those around him, and therefore poor company. It is a name by which Bruno was addressed off and on for years at Tamra's court, before his own ascendancy to the throne. When they should have been calling him “Declarant.”

And then it is Bruno's turn to ask questions, for he'd noticed as Lyman sheathed his sword—a sort of epee or fencing foil just over a meter in length—that it had a hilt and a wickedly sharp tip, but no middle. Indeed, the tip seems to hover in the air, to dance, to track the rotations and translations of the hilt. It behaves as if attached, and yet Lyman had put his hand right through the thing, right through the empty space between hilt and tip!

“That sword,” Bruno says. “Small gods, I've seen nothing like it in . . . in . . .” He doesn't know how long.

Seeing his face, Lyman pulls the sword once more from its slim leather scabbard, and passes a hand again through the empty space that is its blade. “This, Ako'i, is one of the old air foils. A stabbing weapon, real difficult to parry.”

“Indeed!” Bruno exclaims. “An interesting use of the technology. There are others like it, then?”

“A few,” Lyman says with a shrug. “Here and there. We hang onto them, of course, for their monetary value if nothing else. Whole kingdoms have traded hands in exchange for one. But it's a dueler's dream, almost a guaranteed kill. And more importantlike, it's a fine weapon to baffle these mirror-plated scullery maids. They've yet to work out any defense. Just jab, jab, jab 'em in the box, in the eyes, in the joints, and down they go. Almost as good as a blitterstaff. Would you like to hold it?”

“Later, if you please,” Radmer interjects. “I must get this man to Timoch as soon as possible.”

Lyman turns back to him, looking puzzled and disappointed. “You're not coming with us? We could be under the veils in three hours. Nell has a pot of stew cooking and everything.”

The ghost of a smile flickers across Radmer's face and then vanishes. “That sounds wonderful, Lyman. Really. But my mission is more urgent than you seem to imagine. In fact, to the extent that I still command any loyalty, I'll request that you and your men accompany us as far as the city gates.”

“Really! As far as that?” Lyman asks, cynically amused. “And when they skin us alive as bandits, what would you give us in return? We have, if you recall, just saved your life.”

At that Radmer really does smile, looking for once like the Conrad Mursk that Bruno remembers. “My friend, you may have saved more than that. History will be the judge, not I, but I suspect you've just saved the world.”

And so he has, in a manner of speaking, though it will bring as much sorrow as joy. But that, alas, is another tale altogether.