Steel dogs

Steel dogs By Ray Aldridge

AANDRED WAITED IN the egress lock, jammed in with the horse and the dogs. In that small place, the air was dense with the stinks of machine oil and ozone and hydraulic fluid. The dogs were excited, and their bodies clashed together, metal against metal, making a thunderous din. “Calm down, puppies,” Aandred said, making his harsh voice soothing. “Droam's a little slower than usual tonight, I know, I know, but soon, soon…” The dogs quieted, waiting with only an occasional wriggle of eagerness, a muffled whimper.

Aandred flipped open the panel set into his forearm, studied the telltales there. All burned a steady green, except for an occasional amber flicker on the one that monitored Umber's olfactory transducer. Not bad enough to make Umber stay behind, he thought. Umber was a sweet puppy, not contentious; she would stay with the pack even if her nose failed her completely.

Droam spoke, using the direct mode. “Ready, Huntsman?” Aandred hated the sound of the castle's voice in his head; it was an intrusion, a reminder that he was Droam's property. Tonight the voice was a shade less unctuous than usual. Aandred imagined a quiver of apprehension in its smooth tones. Good, he thought. Suffer, monster. Be afraid. But all he said was, “Yes.”

Aandred mounted his horse, a hulk beautifully fashioned of black steel. He latched himself into the saddle, snapping down the levers, locking the armored cables into their channels. The dogs surged with excitement, and the horse shied. Aandred reached out, crashed his fist against the back of its head. Sparks flew, but the horse quieted. “Idiot,” Aandred muttered. The horse was the revenant of a supposedly noble animal, but if he rode it every night for another seven hundred years, he would still dislike it. And it would never love him; unlike the dogs, it was either too stupid or too aloof to form such attachments.

Over the sally gate's lintel, the ready light went to amber, then to green. The gate slammed open. The Hunt boiled out into the starlight, the dogs belling, clattering against each other. The sound was deafening for a moment, until the dogs began to string out along the grassy track that led down into the Green Places. Aandred glanced back at Droam; the castle loomed huge and gray against the stars, its thousand twisted towers like spines on an angry hedgehog's back. For a moment, Aandred’s vision grew dim, such was the force of his hatred. He shuddered, wrenched himself straight in the saddle, and gave his attention to the Hunt.

Aandred did not love the horse, but he still loved to ride. His death and revenancy seven hundred years before had narrowed the range of his pleasures, and time had worn away much of what was left, but this was still good. To pound along in the wake of a dozen dogs under the black sky, the cool wind of his passage blowing back the metallic strands of his hair and billowing his great cape, the ground whipping past, the eager sounds of the pack filling his ears… it was still good. He might have laughed, but his laughter was a mad roar, suitable to the Master of the Hunt. It no longer pleased him.

Droam's voice filled his head again. “Down to the windward beach, Aandred. That's where the troll saw them come ashore.”

Aandred touched the pommel of his saddle, and Crimson, the pack leader, veered off onto the trail that led down to the sea. The trail traversed a crumbling bluff, frequently disappearing in washouts. The Hunt leaped the gaps with reckless abandon. Aandred delighted in the risk. Should the horse fail to keep its footing, sharp rocks waited in the surf below; the fall was great enough to burst open even Aandred's metal body. He shouted with pleasure, but then he thought of the dogs, and his pleasure evaporated, replaced by concern. He touched the pommel again, and Crimson slowed, ran more carefully. “Good dog,” Aandred whispered.

When they reached the hard sand at the foot of the cliff, he let the dogs stretch again, and they sent up a fierce baying. The Hunt thundered north on the narrow beach; the red moon rose over the Sea of Islands.

Aandred had almost forgotten his purpose, when Droam spoke again. “Listen — here are your instructions, Aandred,” the castle said. “Kill them all, except for one. Keep one alive, for me to question.”

Aandred frowned. “What weapons will they have?” he asked, thinking of the dogs. He wondered why it had not occurred to him to ask before. I've been dead too long, he thought.

“Nothing for you to be concerned about. No energy weapons, no high explosives. They won't have had time to dig traps, rig deadfalls. A simple job; see that you make no mistakes.”

Aandred ground his chromed teeth together. Droam's arrogance still enraged him, even after all the years. It was a remarkable phenomenon, when he thought how pale most of the other emotions had grown for him. Still, he did Droam's bidding, he muted the belling of the pack, and adjusted the horse so that it ran on muffling cushions of air. The night went silent.

When they reached the place where the prey had come from the sea, the dogs swirled around the base of the cliff like a steel wave. They quickly found the cave where the boat was hidden, and dragged the craft out into the starlight, snapping and tearing. In moments, it was a tangle of splinters. Aandred was a little sorry. In his time as a man, he had been pleasurably acquainted with boats, and this one had seemed a well-made, graceful one.

The dogs caught the scent, raced down the beach to a place where a small waterfall spilled through the branches of a dead juniper. Here the cliff was divided by a gully that reached back into the headland. The dogs swarmed up the narrow defile; with a great bound, the horse carried Aandred after them.

The darkness in the gully was dense, and Aandred lowered his visual range into the infrared. The dogs became churning red swirls in the blackness; their exhaust louvers glowed brightly. He considered his instructions. When they came upon the prey, he must act instantly, or Droam wouldn't get its prisoner. The dogs were enthusiastic; they often broke teeth on the armored flanks of the revenant stags that were their customary prey. Flesh and bone were so soft, in comparison.

They reached the top of the gully and broke out onto an open heath. A quarter mile away loomed the edge of the Dimlorn Woods.

Aandred slowed the dogs again, fed a little more power to the horse. When he had drawn even with Crimson, he glanced aside at the pack leader. Crimson rolled a puzzled eye at him, seemed to be asking a silent question.

“Sorry, puppy,” Aandred whispered. “Just this once.”

Aandred reached the edge of the trees fifty meters ahead of the dogs. He charged along the dim path, and seconds later reached the clearing where the prey was camped. He burst through the briars that hedged the open space, and half a dozen of the Bonepickers turned at the sound. They'd sheltered under a low-hanging black willow, except for the one who stood guard in the middle of the clearing. That one, a tall, thin man, leveled a crossbow at Aandred and fired.

The bolt hit his cheek and sang away into the trees. Aandred roared with pain; the bolt had left no more than a shiny nick in the metal, but the metal was thickly impregnated with pseudonerve endings. He felt as if his cheek had been torn open; he twitched the reins and rode the man down.

When Aandred had passed, the guard was a bloody tatter, tumbling in his wake.

The others still moved slowly: three of them crawling for the conceal-meat of the trees, two of them still sitting stupidly under the willow. Only one had gained her feet, a woman dressed in ragged fringes. Instead of fleeing, she started forward, swinging some sort of club at Aandred. Because she was most convenient, he veered in her direction. The club glanced harmlessly from the shoulder of the horse, and in the next instant, Aandred scooped her up and rode crashing into the black willow. The two slowest Pickers died then, as the horse pranced and stamped, disengaging itself from the tree.

The dogs arrived, still silent, pouring through the clearing. The horse reared in startlement, and Aandred nearly dropped the woman into the pack. Perversely, she squirmed and twisted. His metal hands tightened. She gasped and became very still. “Good,” he whispered, backing the horse away from the willow. “Droam doesn't need you healthy, just alive.”

As he spoke, the dogs found the remaining Pickers, and brief screams came from the darkness under the trees. It was over in a moment, and the dogs came trotting back into the clearing, their muzzles dripping black in the starlight.

The horse danced sideways, its hooves plopping unpleasantly through the guard's remains, and the woman lobbed once, a brief, shocking sound Aandred administered another monitory blow to the back of the horse`s head. “Cursed creature,” he muttered; then he wheeled and rode back out of the Dimlorn Woods, leaving the mess for the trolls to clean up. Long years had passed since their last real manroast. There would be no guests to taste the meat, but the trolls would enjoy the ritual. He supposed they would be grateful.

He would find their gratitude odious. Of all revenants that haunted Castle Droam, the trolls seemed to have sunk the deepest into their ugly souls.

OUT ON the heath, he took the trail that led along the clifftop. The dogs were relaxed now; they cavorted, barked, nipped fully at each other. Aadred enjoyed their pleasure. He reined in for moment, looked out at the fairy pavilion that perched on the craggy seastack a hundred meters offshore. A spidery bridge arced gracefully out to the pavilion. Tiny lights sparkled its length, a pretty sight. The black water that swirled beneath the bridge hid the sea troll, who had seen the Bonepickers land their boat.

The woman lying across his saddlebow stirred He noticed that she had a narrow, muscular waist, under the rags. She still had not spoken a word. He wondered if she were capable of speech. If so, surety she would wish to curse him. He shrugged, cantered on.

She was still silent when the Hunt returned up the long grassy hill below Droam. The gate flew open before they reached it; and the dogs streamed inside. Aandred followed more sedately. His captive chose that moment to renew her struggles. He gave her a snake as he passed within, and she went limp. He felt a distant apprehension; Droam would be severe with him if the woman died before the castle could put her to the question.

Then he had a vivid vision of what she must have felt, approaching the gate — the dark fanged maw of Droam, opening to swallow her forever. He shook his head. Foolishness, he thought. Perhaps I grow decrepit; perhaps I'll wear out someday, after all.

The dogs followed as he carried her up to Droam's audience hall. Droam would have preferred that he leave the dogs in their kennels. He took them partly to prickle Droam, but mostly because the dogs spent far too much time in the kennels. They took such pleasure in being allowed to accompany him. And they were well-behaved; they could not foul the shining corridors, after all, nor would they frighten any guests. No guests had come to Droam in four hundred years.

The dogs might frighten the other revenants who haunted the castle, but Aandred did not care about them.

The woman's body Was rigid, but she kept her eyes shut. “You might as well see” he said. “Why go to your end in darkness?”

Her eyes opened. They were wide and green, wild with hate and grief, and Aandred wished he had not spoken. An unpleasant emotion seeped into him. He came to an abrupt stop, and the dogs pressed against his legs, confused. What was he feeling? The emotion was one he had felt too long ago to identify now. Was this guilt? Pity? Absurd, he thought, and strode on.

On the second landing of the broad staircase that led from the Silver Ballroom to Droam's audience hall, he met Merm the Troll King.

Merm pressed back against the rubyglass wall, watching the dogs with a trace of apprehension. Merm wore a particularly ugly hulk: broad and squat, with skin of warty gray-green plastic, a pointed head, and small, doughy features. His mouth was loose and red, and he peered at Aandred's burden with glittering eyes. “Meat for the fires, eh?” Merm asked.

Aandred felt a vast distaste. He choked back a reply as he passed; what was the point? Merm was as he was.

Merm made as if to follow, but the dogs, sensing their master's animosity, turned and showed bloody teeth to the troll. Merm turned away, but not before Aandred saw the hatred in his face.

We all hate each other, he thought. And why not? We are all hateful creatures here.

At the top of the stairs, three elfish women blocked his way. Their hulks seemed carved from gemstone — translucent, but in some clever manner hiding the machinery within, so that the rich light of the chandeliers glowed through them. They glittered like cold, extravagant jewels, and that was how they saw themselves. Despite this appearance, their crystal skins were soft and warm to touch. He knew this because he had touched each of them more times than he could remember. Droam permitted its devices certain pleasure, as reward for efficient functioning.

“Look!” cried Amethyst, pointing with a slim, elegant finger. “A flesh-woman! Where did you find her? What will you do with her? Does Droam know? You naughty thing.”

“Ooh,” shrieked Citrine. “Be careful, Aandred. Your equipment will rust off, if you're not careful where you put it. After, come to me. I have an oilcan for you — you know where.”

Garnet was the least frivolous of the three. “Disgusting,” she said. She stepped close, pushed the Bonepicker's tangled black hair aside, looked at the white face. “She's not ugly, for a fact. When Droam is done with her, give her to us for a time. Before you give her to the trolls. We'll dress her as a guest; we'll practice our pleasing. It will be amusing — like old times, before Droam became unfashionable.” Her dark, lovely face glowed with a hunger too ancient to ever be satisfied.

Aandred pushed past them without speaking, though the dogs snarled and whined. He heard their laughter, like horrid little silver bells, as he carried the woman through heavy doors of burnished metal, into the audience room.

At the midpoint of the tall, narrow hall, a circular pit glowed — Droam's prime logic nexus. At the far end, intricately colored windows flanked a platform. There the King-Under-the-Hill slouched on its throne under a patina of cobwebs and dust. Of all the hulks in Droam, this one alone carried no revenant personality; this was the voice of Droam. Formerly, Droam would take possession of the hulk each night and go down to the banquet hall to dine with its most important guests. There it would press the flesh, sample the cuisine, make witty conversation, ensure that each guest was luxuriously satisfied, and in general promote the smooth functioning of the castle. But now Droam had no reason to use the hulk, and Aandred was surprised when it stood and stepped down from the platform. In a moment, repellor fields had cleansed it of the detritus of years.

The hulk was built in the shape of an elfish god; it was the most beautiful object in Droam. Its skin was a lambent silver, washed with a haze of gold sparkled with a million tiny lights, as if covered with minute scales It wore stately garments, gray silk and white linen, trimmed with the glossy crimson fur of the spotted seaweasel. Its eyes were magenta coals, and its perfect features were quirked in slight annoyance. “Must you take your animals everywhere?” The voice was sweet and smooth.

“It does no harm.” Aandred hated the defensive sound in his voice. Droam could at its whim punish its possessions with searing pain, more terrible than anything Aandred had felt as a man.

“Perhaps. Still, they distract me, with their fidgeting, their scratching, their snuffling. Take them out, but first give me the Picker. When you've put them out, come back, and we'll get to our business.”

Aandred held out the woman; the glorious hulk took her in careless arms. Her eyes stared from one to the other, huge. Aandred turned away, whistled to the dogs. Outside, he motioned, and they clanked to the floor. “Stay.” he ordered, and pulled the great doors shut.

As he walked back up the hall, he glanced down into the logic nexus. Hot light boiled there, along the tangled web of macromolecules that held Droam's intellect. He wished briefly for a snail burnbomb; immediately suppressed the thought. It did no good to dream.

Arriving at the throne, he looked at the hulk’s beautiful face, and was thankful that his own coarse features were fixed in a permanent mask of mad enthusiasm. Droam would react vindictively, should it ever detect his murderous inclinations.

“Bring the probe,” Droam instructed. The Picker was struggling feebly; Droam took no notice.

Aandred fetched the probe from behind the screen of silver lace. The machine was dusty, but it sprang to life when he opened its master touch-panel. Myriad telltales glowed on the black surface, the visualizer displayed the ready signal, and the restraint chair opened like a skeletal flower to receive the woman. She whimpered, sobbed, but did not plead. He helped Droam clamp her in securely, then stood back.

While Droam fussed with the machine, establishing baselines for its investigations, Aandred remembered. In times past, a guest might attempt to depart the island without settling his bill. If the guest were of no great importance or influence, Droam would order Aandred to bring the guest here, where Droam would use the probe to uncover sufficient of the guest's assets to satisfy his account. Ah, those were the days, when Aandred still maintained the illusion that his revenancy served some meaningful purpose. How foolish of me, he thought blackly. Dead is dead.

The woman's eyes went dreamy; her taut face relaxed. The visualizer bloomed with dark shapes; remembered sensations floated from the empathic emanator, sinking into Aandred's mind.

… a muffled thunder from the edge of the woods, A crashing, then the emergence of a nightmare shape, too terrible to grasp. A monstrous man-shape on a huge black horse… the eyes of the horse: yellow fire. Jebaum fires his crossbow; the monster roars, an ear-hurting sound, and smashes Jebaum to rags. Kill it, kill it, the hateful thing, rage red as blood. An impact, befuddlement, suspension, a sight more terrible yet. Skeletal dog-things, gleaming metal in the night, swarming across the clearing, bounding with a hideous vitality, jaws snapping, eyes burning bright….

Aandred turned away, and Droam made a fretful sound, slapped at the touchboard. “Effective, Huntsman,” Droam said. “But irrelevant, now, to my needs.”

Droam tapped the telltales, and the pattern twinkled, shifted.

… the warm, sweet scent of Mother's breasts. A viewpoint of such golden clarity, such liquid focus, as to be unmistakably that of a very young child. A caress from Mother's hand, a soft murmur, the touch of sunlight on new skin. A crowing laugh….

Droam tried again.

… a summer night, dense with the smell of the sea. Darkness on the beach, small festival fires glowing in the distance. Running over the white dunes with Mondeaux in pursuit. His hands when he caught her, hard from his work with the nets, gentle where they touched her. His breath, spicy with wine and desire. The hammering of her heart when he laid her down on his tattered cloak, the heat that flared when they touched, skin to skin, all down her long length….

Aandred had no heart to hammer, but he felt the pressure of some great unknown emotion, pushing from somewhere, desperate to escape. He shut his eyes, clenched his fists, swayed there for a moment until the mysterious sensation eased. Droam noticed nothing. The beautiful mask was distorted by frustration. “Useless, useless… I'm getting nothing but tangential deep memory. Nothing recent except for her capture; some trauma thwarts me. What's wrong with her?”

Aandred looked at Droam, full of weary astonishment. “What can it be? A mystery! Wait, a notion occurs to me — probably a foolish one — could it have anything to do with the fact that I murdered six of her friends an hour ago?”

Droam gave him a long, cool look. “You indulge your sense of humor dangerously, Huntsman.”

Astonishment drained away, leaving only weariness. “My apologies.”

“But of course you are correct,” Droam said. “She requires time to recover her faculties. I give her into your safekeeping. Cleanse her of vermin; feed and water her; see that no harm befalls her.”

“Where can I keep her? Would it not be better to give her into the care of one of those who are experienced at guesting? Garnet has volunteered.” As soon as he had spoken, Aandred regretted his words, remembering Garnet's face.

But Droam rejected his suggestion. “Keep her in the kennels; surely you have more than one empty run? As to Garnet and the other servitors — I fear they have gone a bit strange over these years of inactivity. When we reopen, I may well be forced to replace them with fresh revenants. Besides, the Picker is a prisoner, not a guest.”

Droam's hulk froze; the light went out of its glorious eyes. Aandred extricated the unconscious woman from the probe's chair. Her head fell back; her arms hung limply; her lips had a bluish cast. Inexplicably, he was filled by a sudden fear that she was dead — sometimes guests would not survive Droam's questioning. He held her closer. Breath wanned his damaged cheek; he detected a pulse at the base of her throat. Reassured, he went out to the waiting dogs.

THE KENNEL consisted of a large common area, with the dogs' individual runs along one long wall, and the door into Aandred's small, bare apartment on the other. The walls were unadorned granite, windowless, but well-lit by ceiling light tubes. At one end stood a broad worktable and a bank of diagnostic equipment.

He brought the woman into his quarters and laid her in the wall niche in which lie slept away his inactive time, then locked the dogs in their runs.

Aandred considered. How to bathe her? No human facilities existed in the castle's crew quarters; Aandred would wash away the dust of his ride under a spray of oil-rich solvent. He almost decided to leave her as she was, but Droam's instructions had been explicit.

Eventually he carried her up to the level where live prostitutes had once been kept, for the use of those guests prohibited by religion or prejudice from copulating with the castle's revenants. The whores were four hundred years gone, but the taps still flowed clean water and nutrient broth.

He set her down on a bed of greasy plastic, stripped away her fringed leathers. The leather was well-tanned and supple, he noticed, not the work of primitives. Still, he pitched it fastidiously down the refuse chute.

When she was naked, he looked at her until his curiosity was satisfied. How long since he had seen a flesh-and-blood woman? He could not remember. She was tall, with small breasts and long, muscular thighs. Her body was imperfect, of course; old silvery scars marked one flank, perhaps the long-healed claw marks of some wild beast. Her pale skin was smooth, though nothing like the silken gloss of the revenant women who staffed the castle. Bruises flowered here and there, where Aandred had gripped her. Her hair… her hair was probably magnificent, though now it was a black tangle that obscured her features. He bent over her, parted her hair, searched for parasites. He was somewhat surprised to find none.

Aandred sponged her down with disinfectant solution, then dried her carefully. Strangely, he did not resent the domestic role into which Droam had thrust him. There was a certain fascination in touching the flesh of a living woman.

When he was done, he prowled around the apartment. Most of the clothing in the closet disintegrated into reeking dust at his touch, except for a coverall woven of sturdier synthetic. He took it. He went to the vanity, opened a drawer. A faint ancient perfume still clung miraculously to the combs and brushes. On an impulse, he picked up a comb, slipped it into a pocket of the coveralls. He looked up; the mirror showed him a mad black face, red glaring eyes, glittering teeth. I'm an ugly one, he thought ruefully.

He carried her back down to the kennel. On the way, she shifted in his arms, and he realized she had awakened, but she kept her eyes shut, hex limbs slack.

He put her in dead Cerulean's run, on the mat of artificial grass: beside her he laid the coverall. Cerulean had been one of his favorites, until the night she had fallen down a well and ruptured vital elements of her personality skein. Her empty hulk still lay on the worktable in the kennel.

Aandred shut the grating, thumbed the lock. He took two stainless pans from a locker and went back up to the apartment. One he filled with water, the other with thick broth.

Back in the kennel, he slid the pans through the grating. “Here,” he said. “Drink, eat. You'll need your strength.”

She lay still, her back to him.

He shrugged. “Do as you like, then. No one will molest you here; you're safe for a time.” He opened his forearm and put the dogs to sleep, so that they would not frighten her. They froze, their bright eyes dimming, and Aandred went into his quarters.

Aandred's internal timer awakened him from that vague dreamless state that served him for sleep. He unplugged the recharge cable and swung himself from the niche; his feet clanged to the floor. Through his door came a squeak of fear — then a metallic rattle.

Aandred went swiftly into the kennel. Merm the Troll King was crouched at the captive's grating, jabbing a long-handled meat fork at her. She was pressed back into the far corner, just out of Merm's reach. Her eyes were blank with terror.

“Here,” said Aandred. “What's this?” Merm dared invade his home? He took a step toward the troll, hands clenching.

Merm's lumpy face was at first full of malicious pleasure, but that emotion rapidly drained away, to be replaced by cringing bravado. “Hello, Huntsman, just amusing myself. Your prisoner is the talk of the castle. I had to see; the kennel door was open, and I took it to mean you were in the mood for company.”

Disgust filled Aandred. “Would I ever describe you as company? Get out, and in the future I'll leave a dog active in the kennel. You'll extract the proper meaning from the situation, should you wander this way again.” Merm rose slowly from the grating, holding his meat fork like a weapon. His small eyes glittered. “Droam wouldn't want you to talk so. I’m a valuable property harm me, and you'll feel Droam's anger.”

Aandred raised a trembling finger, pointed to the exit. Merm’s bravado crumbled, and the troll scuttled away. At the door, Merm cast a bright, poisonous look over his shoulder, a look that included Aandred, the dogs, and the prisoner.

Aandred stepped to the grating, looked in at the prisoner. She had donned the coverall and made use of the comb. Her hair was quite lovely, a thick, silken mane framing the a face of unconventional beauty. Her eyes, fixed unblinkingly on him, were huge with apprehension, but Aandred saw that they would still be large, even in less fearful circumstances. Her cheekbones were a bit too sharp, her chin sturdy, her mouth wide.

Aandred saw that food and water were untouched. “Are you not thirsty? Hungry?”

Her eyes veiled, and she looked away.

“Ah,” said Aandred. “I understand. You fear poison, or drugs. Am I right? Don't concern yourself. The probe is more effective than any drug and when Droam wants you dead, it has a million ways to do the deed.”

He was surprised when she replied; he had almost decided she was a mute. “What of you, iron thing? You're a skillful murderer, as you proved last night. Do you want me dead? How many way do you have to do the deed?” She spoke bitterly, but her voice was low and soft, almost a whisper. Her accent was unfamiliar.

He nearly laughed his terrible laugh, but caught himself in time. For some reason, he didn't want to frighten her. “No. No longer do I lust for anything's blood. Except, perhaps, for Merm's, though he has none to spill.” And of course, Droam's. “Merm is that smelly green heap I just threatened from my kennel, the one who wanted to test you with his fork.”

She shuddered. “Him. I thought you the ugliest thing I'd ever seen, until I saw him. Are there none but gods and demons in this place?”

“God? Oh, I see. You mean Droam's pretty hulk? I assure you, that was no god, only a better-looking puppet than I, carved of richer material.”

She seemed to fall into deep thought, and said no more. After a bit, she lifted the water bowl and drank deeply. Aandred watched her, wondering. She was remarkably self-possessed, considering recent events. Had the human race changed so much, or was she simply an unusual woman?

Aandred activated the dogs, and they rose from their sleeping mats, tails wagging. He fed them their morning pseudofood, a ritual they never tired of. It served no purpose beyond providing them with a pleasurable stimulus. The pseudofood passed through them unchanged, to be reinvested with odor and taste and then fed to them again.

When the dogs had finished their breakfast, he decided to repair Umber's olfactory transducer. He released Umber from her run, and she leaped joyfully about him. The prisoner's face was pale, Aandred shook his head; her apprehension was natural enough. What would it be like, to die tom by the dogs? His own death had been easy: the prick of the injection, torpor, then oblivion.

Aandred moved Cerulean's empty hulk aside, feeling a small, familiar twinge of sorrow. He whistled at Umber, snapped his fingers. She jumped nimbly to the insulated tabletop, waited with her usual good humor. “Good girl,” he said, and stroked her back. She wriggled ecstatically. He opened his forearm and touched a switch. She became a graceful statue, and he applied a screwdriver to the access panel on her brisket.

The transducer was mounted on a swing out card. He eased it out, applied the point of an analyzer to various diagnostic nodes. The malfunction became clear: a loose memory flake. He popped it out, examined the contact edge, reseated it.

When he had buttoned Umber's chassis and restored her to active mode, the telltale on his forearm burned a steady green. Umber bounced off the table, raced around the kennel, barked her mechanical bark. “Better, girl?” asked Aandred.

His captive pressed against the grating, watching. “You speak oddly for a machine,” she said.

“That’s because we're not entirely machines,” he said. “Not entirely.”

“What do you mean?”

He took a stool, sat beside the grating. She drew back slightly, she controlled her fear well. “Once upon a time, we were ail living creatures, alive as you,” he said. “Me, the dogs, even the rats in the dungeons. Even Merm. All once alive, all now dead — except for Droam, who is indeed a machine.”

Aandred moved his stool a little closer to the grating, leaned toward the bars. She didn't move away, though her eyes narrowed. “Shall I explain?” he asked. “If I do, what will you trade for this information?” When he had spoken, he felt a trickle of shame. Why was he trying to frighten her? An ugly old habit, he thought. She would, soon enough, know terror, when Droam gave her to the trolls, and then she would be dead. “Never mind. Just tell me your name — that will be sufficient.”

She stared at him for a long moment. “What harm can it do? My name is Sundee Gareaux.” She lifted her chin, gazed into his face with cold eyes, as if daring him to sneer.

Her courage is pleasing, he thought, and then he said, “Listen.”

He told of the beginning, seven hundred years past. SeedCorp had come to the Sea of Islands and built Droam, an expensive resort for a special kind of guest, those fascinated by certain legends of Old Earth. Droam's bulk covered several hectares; its towers rose three hundred feet above the island's highest hill. The builders endowed Droam with a potent macromolecular intelligence, and then they conceived their grand scheme.

“Oh, it was a wonderful idea,” Aandred muttered. “At first they intended to staff Droam with robots in the shape of the Ancient Folk of Old Earth: elves, trolls, fairies, dwarfs, wizards, and witches. But one of them, the cleverest one… she was supervising the building of the castle when the idea came to her. Robots had one flaw — they were predictable. Why, a guest might come to Droam dozens of times over his lifetime. Would boredom set in, if the staff never changed their behavior, never acted irrationally, never displayed any human flaws or foibles? Of course.”

Sundee Gareaux's face was intent “And so…?”

“And so they decided to purchase revenant personalities to ride the hulks.”

“What does it mean… revenant?”

“Ghosts. We're all ghosts in Droam. The dogs, for example… the ghosts of puppies who died for Droam seven hundred years ago, Put to death — painlessly, I'm sure — and their little souls recorded for the Hunt.”

Revulsion stained her eyes. “That is how you came to be what you are? You were killed to fill the machine?”

“Not exactly.” He chuckled rustily. “Oh, one or two of the human revenants were bargained for that way — dying men and women who sold themselves for money to leave to their families, and for a chance at some sort of continued life. But most of us are executed criminals, our personalities auctioned to defray the costs of our crime”

The revulsion spread to her mouth. “And were you always a murderer, then?”

He sat and looked at her for a time, until she turned away uneasily. Umber whined and nudged his leg, distressed. Finally Aandred answered. “Of course. I was a famous pirate, I laired on Sook, I went forth with my armada and stole worlds, and always, I laughed. Oh, I was a mighty killer in those days; I destroyed thousands and never thought of it again.” He looked away, and red memory blinded him. “But I've had time to think.”

“Of what? Last night you and your creatures killed easily enough.”

He saw that tears trembled in her eyes. “Droam commands me. Should I defy the castle to spare a band of raggedy Bonepickers? I would be ended instantly. Fail-safes, deadman switches are built into all our hulks; after all, Droam couldn't have the tourists terrorized by criminal zombies, should we decide to run amok. Eh?” He spoke sadly. “It's true that I'm dead already. Still, it's the only sort of life I'll ever have, and I'm somewhat reluctant to give it up.”

She spoke in a dreary voice. “I see. So, what happened to the guests?”

He gripped the grating. The mesh buckled under the pressure of his hands. “Fashions changed, oh, about four hundred years ago. Suddenly Droam was passe. The tourists stopped coming, and now we're forgotten. Droam remains convinced that they will come again; I know better. There were other resorts in the Sea of Islands — all dead now. Of course, you know this, you Bonepickers; you survive in the debris of their passing. Droam was always the strongest of them. It may well resist your attacks forever. Such is its intention.”

“Attacks?” She was contemptuous. “We attacked no one. We landed to explore, nothing more. The island has plenty of empty land; why should we not farm it? Every year there are more children, and we must feed them. We wouldn't have injured your precious castle. Why would we bother?”

Aandred laughed at her audacity. “What a notion! Turnip patches in the Vale of Lights, Bonepickers gathering mushrooms in the Dimlorn Woods. Urchins fishing in the River Dark. Droam won’t be amused.”

Her eyes flashed dangerously. “I've told you my name; do you have a name?”

“Droam calls me Huntsman. But I had another name when I was a man.” He paused. “Aandred, I was. A glorious, wicked name once. Now? Meaningless…” His voice had fallen to a wistful whisper.

“I'd almost forgotten it,” he lied.

He released the other dogs from their runs, and they tumbled about the common room in a frenzy of delight. Crimson sniffed at the prisoner's grating, wagged his tail, and trotted away. Aandred saw that her face was white. “Don't be afraid,” he said. “They wouldn't hurt you now, unless you run.”

She seemed unconvinced. “Watch, this is pretty,” he said, opening the storage niche built into his right hip. He brought out their favorite toy, a magical ball containing a tiny mechanical homunculus; he had long ago filched it from one of the tower wizards. He tossed it; it rolled along the floor, flashing blue lights, emitting comical squeaks and puffs of violet smoke. The dogs leaped after it joyfully. Sienna reached it first, brought it back to him proudly, ignoring the jealous nips of the others. He kicked it away again, setting off another manic pursuit.

In half an hour, they were bored, and they settled about Aandred. They seemed fascinated by the prisoner, they watched her intently, eyes bright, segmented silver tongues lolling from their mouths.

Sundee Gareaux watched them in equal fascination. “They have a strange look in their eyes,” she said. “As if they know some secret.”

“Well, they aren't ordinary dogs. They were intelligent puppies when they were flesh, and even a dog can learn many things in seven hundred years.” Perhaps, he thought, more than a man. “I often wonder how much they understand,” he mused, stroking Umber's head, “Still, they are only dogs.”

She was silent for a time, watching the dogs at their play. Then she looked up at him with confused eyes. “They don't seem so terrible now. How very strange, when just last night they killed… Then your dogs were hideous, nightmares.” Her mouth twisted. “Now I see grace, even a sort of beauty.”

“Of course they're beautiful,” he said fiercely. “Of all Droam's creatures they are the finest and cleanest. You shouldn't blame them for your friends' deaths… They do only what they are bred and trained to do. The dogs would chase a ball from the hand of a Picker as readily as they chase it from mine.”

Aandred gave his attention to the dogs for a while. When he next glanced in at the prisoner, she lay on the mat, her hack to him, apparently asleep.

THE DAY passed as a hundred thousand other days had passed. Aandred played with the dogs and thought about his former life, the lovely bad old days. But the memories had worn thin, as if from too much remembering, and he found his thoughts straying to the Picker woman. What had her life been? he wondered. She had been born in a profoundly regressed culture, the descendants of lost guests and escaped slaves, on a backwater world where the starboats no longer called. She could hope for no more than a lifetime of suffering and an early death. She would never know the wonders of the human galaxy; she would never walk the gilded halls of Dilvermoon or the dirty corridors of Beasterheim, would never see a world from space, like a jewel on the richest velvet, would never experience the thousand joyful luxuries that he had taken for granted in his life as a man.

He shook his head. Pointless maundering. Sundee Gareaux no doubt valued her life, such as it was, as much as he valued his own synthetic existence. Or more, he thought darkly, but the notion frightened him, and he pushed it aside. A shame that she must end her life as a troll’s plaything. That thought made him angry. He resolved to break her neck before he gave her to Merm, as Droam would certainly order him to do. He could spare her that horror.

As day passed into evening, the annunciator chimed. Droam's voice sounded from the wall speaker and in his head, a disorienting sensation. “Huntsman. Bring your prisoner to the audience hall.”

Aandred found a jeweled leash in a locker he had not opened in a hundred years. “Come,” he said to Sundee Gareaux. “You must wear this. Droam will expect me to deliver you without difficulties.”

Her eyes were huge, and she hung back. “What if I promise not to run?”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “Were I you, I would promise anything and run at the first opportunity. You may be more agile than I, and though you could never escape the castle, you might evade me for a time. Droam would soothe its impatience with my pain.”

She bowed her head, and he locked the collar around her neck. The dogs jumped against the gratings of their runs and implored him to take them, too. “Be good, puppies,” he said. “You can't go this time. I'll be back soon.”

They walked through the bright corridors of the castle, the leash slack between them. Sundee Gareaux looked about curiously. Few of the castle's staff were abroad so early in the evening, but they passed a party of dwarf janitors armed with mop buckets and sonic brooms, a white-bearded wizard and his youthful assistant, three trolls who stood in a dark doorway and sniggered, a red-haired witch magnificent in the glittering habit of the Dark Mystery. His prisoner studied each passerby closely.

“All dead,” she said in a marveling voice.

“In a sense. They believe themselves to be alive.” To his amazement, he felt slightly defensive.

“I'm bewildered,” she said. “But they don't seem to be enjoying their immortality; they all wear sad, bitter faces.”

“You don't see why?” The long, empty years weighed on him. “I'll explain, so you won't think us the Fortunate Folk.” It could be worse for you, Sundee Gareaux, he thought. Perhaps you'll find your own fate more acceptable if I tell you about us.

“Droam is staffed by a few more than three thousand human revenants. Is there a Picker village that big? No? Does that seem a great many people to you?” He laughed a booming laugh, and she winced. “Oh, it would be, if our halflives lasted no longer than yours. Seventy years, eighty — is that a good span for a Picker? We've been together here in Droam for seven hundred years. Can you imagine? Imagine! And consider who we are. Murderers, rapists, torturers, those who stole things so precious that they were put to death for it. Merm, for example, was a high sheriff. He enslaved young boys and girls with spurious charges, used them brutally, and when they were worn out, he buried their bodies on his prison farm. He swears they found only a fraction of his victims, and they found a thousand! Do you wonder at the evil you see in his face?”

Sundee Gareaux watched him with a mixture of pity and horror, her face white, her lips bloodless.

He continued, pushed by a passion he had thought worn away forever.

“Did you think I exaggerated my crimes? No! And I was a paragon of nobility, compared to many here in Droam: I stole only from the wealthy; I used violence only on the violent; I attacked only those who could defend themselves. I admit I was a quixotic pirate, but I did not wish to think of myself as a monster. Hah!” Had he tear ducts, he might have cried; instead he slammed his fist against the wall. The smooth marble facing shattered explosively, revealing the rough concrete beneath.

She stood at the farthest extent of the leash, hands pressed to her mouth. A chip of marble had nicked her cheek and caused a small trickle of blood.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I've become overexcited. I'll calm myself; don't be afraid.”

“Why don't you run away?” For the first time, her voice carried no undertone of hatred. “Surely there are boats.”

“Oh yes. Fairy boats drift on the River Dark, and the Elf King's funeral galley hangs in slings under his pavilion on the Quiet Shore. You don't understand. Droam knows where each of us is at all times; with a thought, it could terminate me. Or punish me terribly. And of course, we cannot preserve our personalities without Droam; without access to Droam's refresher circuits and energy nodes, we would all fade away. If I left or Droam were destroyed — in five years or ten, I'd be gone.”

“Does it know your thoughts, too?”

“No. We have that much privacy. It can speak directly to our minds; but to reply, we must direct our thoughts into a special mode. This is true only because so many direct linkages would spread Droam's intellect too thin; it might diffuse away into nothing. Though for a fact there's been some migration; some of our darkness has seeped into Droam over the years.” He sighed.

They walked on in silence. When they were nearly to the audience hall, she spoke again. “I still don't understand. Why did they fill their resort with horrors?”

“They aimed for a quality of 'dark glamour'; they succeeded, but that sort of thing went out of vogue…”

In the audience hall, she was silent until they approached the nexus pit. “What is it?” she asked.

“Droam. Its brain, in essence.” He detected a sudden tension in her body, and tightened his grip on the leash. “Restrain yourself, Sundee Gareaux. What you're considering would do no good. Look carefully; see how the force bubble diffracts the light? If you jump over the wall, the bubble will prevent you from falling onto the nexus, unless you now weigh ten times what you weighed when last I carried you. That much mass might, I think, overload the bubble.” He tugged at the leash. “Resides, if you kill Droam, I will die. You wouldn't want that on your conscience.” He meant it as a joke, but her face was full of baffled despair.

Droam's hulk waited beside the probe. “Ah,” it said. “Our guest.”

THE PROBE confirmed Droam's worst fears. Sundee Gareaux's tribe was desperate; they had no choice but to try to occupy the island. Aandred watched the deliberations of several village councils, through Sundee Gareaux's eyes. Each group of grim old men and women came to the same conclusion: settlers would be sent to the island they called Neverland, despite the terrifying legends.

Aandred learned an interesting thing about Sundee Gareaux: she was the leading tribal authority on the decaying synthetic ecologies that infested the Sea of Islands. So she had been chosen to go ashore with the first exploratory party.

…she stood on the beach, holding her husband tight, forcing back tears for his sake. “Don't worry; we'll be fine. No one's been to Neverland for eighty years or more. The monsters have probably all broken down — entropy’s on our side.” She looked down at her son, a sturdy two-year-old with flame-red hair and a truculent expression. “You'll be in more danger than I will, I think. Be careful, and keep a close eye on our own little monster.” She ruffled the fiery hair, picked the child up for a last hug. He clung to her, though ordinarily he would have struggled to escape. His father pulled him gently away, and she waded through the surf to the waiting boat. She waved, until they crossed the reef into blue water and the figures on the beach were lost in the light…

Once again Aandred found himself in the grip of some powerful alien emotion. It was so difficult to identify, without the somatic tags that living humans took for granted. Were he alive, would he feel tears on his cheeks, would he feel a great pressure in his throat, would his chest heave with suppressed sobs? He could not say, but he was almost blind with it, whatever it was. He looked down at Sundee Gareaux's pale, dreaming face, and the pressure of the unknown emotion increased to an unbearable level.

He shuddered. Droam was speaking to him. “…so I’ll leave the organization of the teams to you — this was your area of expertise, not so? We'll take the galley, knock them back one island at a time. We'll kill as many as we can, burn the fields, blow up the reefs, poison the wells. We won’t get them all, of course, but it will be many generations before they breed back enough to be dangerous.”

The situation becomes unreal, Aandred thought. He felt like a shadow; in a tragic farce. “A large undertaking,” he muttered.

“But necessary. Report your progress tomorrow; be ready to sail in three days.”

“What of the woman?” he asked, before he thought.

“Give her to Merm and his crew. Call it incentive, if you like.” Droam went still and spoke no more.

Aandred carried her slowly down through the castle. He tried to think, but he could see no way out. He reached the kennel, shut the portal behind him, laid her on the work table. She was pale, but a pulse beat strongly at the base of her throat. Better if she'd died in the probe, he thought. Do it now, before she wakes; she'll never know. He flexed his hands, cupped them around her fragile skull. Such a shame, to destroy so lovely a vitality.

For a long moment, he could not move. Then he thought of the trolls; and their spits and fires and hooks. His resolve hardened. But before he could do the kindness, her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him. Disconcertingly, there was no confusion in them; it was as if she understood what he meant to do. He snatched his hands away from her.

Minutes passed in charged silence. Finally she struggled to sit up. “What did I say?” she asked in a shaky voice.

“Everything. The truth.”

“What will happen now?”

He looked at her, thankful for the mad mask that served him for a face. He could do her one kindness, at least: he could conceal from her the imminent death of her people. “I don't know,” he answered.

“But nothing good?”

He shrugged, searched for some soft lie. His mind would not respond; in frustration, he thumped his forehead with his fists.

She huddled away, frightened: “What is it, Aandred?” A pounding came from the portal. “Huntsman! Were here to collect our prize!” It was Merm's oily voice. The Troll King thrust open the portal and waddled into the room, followed by two of his subjects.

Merm started to push past Aandred. The troll was bright-eyed with triumph and anticipated pleasure. “What fun, what fun,” Merm said, reaching out for Sundee Gareaux.

Time seemed to stop. Aandred had forever to look into her unbelieving face — the wide green eyes, the pale, taut mouth. The moment ended; he roared and threw Merm away.

The Troll King smashed into the wall, then bounced up quivering, his loose mouth working furiously. “You dare? Droam will punish you. But first we will punish you!” He drew an iron truncheon from his sash, as did his two henchmen.

The dogs pressed against their gratings, snarling. Aandred felt his rage expand, a beautiful, soundless explosion, lighting up all his dark corners. He flipped open his forearm, touched a switch, and the gratings snapped open. The dogs bounded forth, leaped on the astounded trolls. All three died before they could make another sound.

The dogs played with the tatters of plastic, the mangled steel struts, the tangles of wire and hydraulic tubing, making happy dog noises. “You see,” Aandred said. “Such good dogs. So loyal.” He waited, hunched over with dread, for Droam's response.

When it came, he fell among the dogs, writhing. The pain enfolded Aandred with an intensity that drove away all thought. After a timeless period, the pain eased enough for him to hear Droam's words. “Come to the hall, Huntsman. Bring your prisoner, alive; bring your miserable, ruinous beasts.” The pain closed in for a final searing moment, then ceased.

He lay on the floor for a moment, gathering his strength, while the dogs sniffed him anxiously. Then fear drove him to his feet. “I dare not wait, Sundee Gareaux. Droam has summoned me — and you. And the dogs.” A great sadness stole into him, filling the emptiness left by the pain.

He held her leash loosely, led her toward the audience hall. Her face still white with fear, but she walked steadily, head high. “What will it do?” she asked.

“Droam will punish me,” he said. The dogs sensed his mood and stayed close, casting worried looks up at him.

“How? Pain?”

That too, he thought. “It will kill dogs. It knows what I value, it knows how best to hurt me.”

They paused before the tall doors of the audience hall. “What will it do to me?” she asked.

He set his hand on the great silver latch. “I think you must die, Sundee Gareaux. If I have a chance, I'll try to make it easy.”

Her face crumpled, but only for an instant. Then she nodded, and her mouth lifted into a very small smile. He swung back the door, and they went inside.

At the far end, Droam's hulk paced back and forth with quick little steps. “Come,” it roared, and now its voice was not so beautiful. “Come here swiftly. There are things I need to do with these hands.”

Aandred glanced aside. She was shaking, but under control. Admirable, he thought. Admirable.

As they passed the glowing nexus, his hand darted into his hip compartment, came out with the magic ball. He gave himself no time to reconsider, in the same motion, he tossed it over the wall into the nexus. The tiny homunculus inside shrieked piercingly. Aandred shouted, “Fetch!”

Instantly, Droam began to kill him, and he felt his hulk collapse. But before he was quite dead, Droam had transferred its attention to the dogs.

It was too late. One dog stiffened and spasmed in mid-leap, but the rest landed on the force bubble. The bubble collapsed with a flat, snapping implosion, spilling the dogs onto the surface of Droam's intellect. They scrambled after the ball, floundered through the delicate crystalline strands, shattered Droam into a cloud of glittering shards.

Aandred got to his knees, shuddering, his hands clattering against the floor. Droam's hulk had toppled and lay facedown, motionless. Inside the castle an emptiness spread, until it had swept through every niche and corner of that great pile. The first faint screams reached his ears.

A long time later, a red-haired boy of ten led his younger sister along a path through green woods. On a stone bench sat a statue of black metal. The statue's hand rested on the withers of a rusting steel dog; two similar dogs lay corroding at the statue's feet. The statue's face was mad, brutish, with horrible glaring eyes, and the little girl was frightened. “Ugly,” she said.

“No,” the boy said sternly. “Never say that! When we first came to Neverland, he killed a hundred monsters with his dogs and kept the rest away until they wore out. Without him, we'd all be dead.”

“Well, then, why is he out here by himself?”

The boy's face was somber, as if he remembered a sorrow too deep for his years. “He got slower and slower, after the last monsters were gone. One day he came up here with the dogs he still had left. For the rest of that summer, he would wink at me when I came to see him. But in the spring, he'd stopped moving.”

“That's sad.”

“Yes.”

After a while they turned and went back down the hill, toward their lives.