Robot Blues (38 page)

“Would you mind if
I talked to the fighters?” Grant asked meekly.

“As long as your
actions do not hinder my actions, I have no authority to stop you.”

Grant reached for
the comm. He had no idea how to tune to the correct frequency, but if the Dirks
could talk to them, he reasoned that he could talk to the Dirks. He hit the
transmission—hands free
button. He
spoke very rapidly.

“This is the
unknown Claymore bomber do you read me over.”

And, while he
listened for a reply, a thought occurred to him. “What are you waiting for now?”
he asked the robot. “Another sort of signal from the professor?”

“Yes. I am
programmed to warp space, to lay space Lanes. According to my records, I have
laid twenty-five Lanes in this sector. I performed this function prior to the
plane crashing. I have transmitted the information on the Lanes to the
professor. I am now awaiting his approval.”

Grant considered
this. He and the robot were cruising slowly through space, awaiting approbation
from a man who had been dead two thousand years.

They weren’t going
to get it.

“What will you do,”
Grant asked hopefully, “if you don’t hear from the professor?”

The robot told
him.

Jeffrey Grant’s
hope drained. He listened in horror. His hand on the controls of the commlink
went limp. The pilot of the lead fighter was responding, but Grant did not
reply.

It would be better
if they did shoot them down.

For the sins of
your fathers you, though guiltless, must suffer.

Horace,
Odes, III,
6:1

The chase after
the robot was very strange.

The Claymore
bomber meandered sluggishly through space. The PRRS lumbered along behind it.
They knew they were nearing the Claymore when Harry reported sighting the two
fighters that had fired the tracking missile, were now keeping an eye on the
errant bomber.

The fighter pilots
reported in. Tess took the call.

The pilots had not
been able to establish contact with the bomber, although they thought someone
on board was trying to do so, but was having difficulty using the equipment.

When the pilot of
the lead fighter replied, either the robot was cutting him off or something had
happened to the person making the attempt to contact them, because the pilot
hadn’t received a response.

“Most likely he’s
frightened. I’ll try talking to him,” Tess said. “You guys back off.” She
added, in an undertone, to Harry, “Get ready to lock onto the Claymore with the
tractor beam.”

Harry nodded. The
fighter planes fell back, almost out of sight, but within call if they were
needed. The PRRS slid forward, into range. Xris was on the bridge, right behind
the copilot’s chair, where Tess sat. Dr. Quong was standing by in the
infirmary, in case Grant was injured. Jamil and Tycho were manning the controls
of the docking bay, ready to bring the Claymore alongside. Raoul and the Little
One were also on the bridge; Xris suggested that perhaps the Little One could
make some sort of telepathic connection with Grant.

Raoul was not
confident.

“I do not believe
they formed a close enough bond prior to the Grant-person’s departure.”

“Mr. Grant, this
is Captain Strauss.” Tess’s voice was calm, soothing. “Do you read me, over?”

No response. Tess
glanced at Harry. “Do you think he can hear me? Or could the robot be cutting
us off?”

Harry considered. “My
guess—he can hear you. And he could respond, if he wanted to. The comm isn’t
tied directly into the ship’s computer. The ‘bot would have to shut it down
independently. Grant sent out a message once and the ‘bot didn’t try to stop
him. He knows how to operate the equipment. He’s clammed up for some reason.”

“Either that or
the ‘bot clonked him over the head,” Xris said grimly.

Harry’s eyes
opened wide. “The robot would never do such a thing, Xris. Not one of the
professor’s robots! They held life sacred.”

“Yeah, but this
one’s got a screw loose. How long until we’re in range?”

“About fifteen
minutes. Sooner, if you can convince Grant to shut down the engines. It’d be
safer, too. Otherwise it’s gonna be one hell of a jolt for them when we lock
on.”

Tess tried again. “We
know that what happened wasn’t your fault, Mr. Grant. We know it was the robot
who stole the Claymore. You’re not in any trouble. We understand that you’re
not in control of the spaceplane, but if you could manage to shut down the
engines—”

“Tell him to give
the robot something to do to keep it busy,” Xris suggested.

Tess nodded. “That’s
a good idea. Mr. Grant. Tell the robot to ... uh ... run a detailed analysis on
all of the Lanes in this sector. While it’s busy doing this, Mr.

Grant, Pilot Luck
will instruct you in the correct procedure for shutting down the engines.”

“No,” came the
unexpected response, “no, I can’t do that.” Grant’s voice quavered. “I think it
would be better if you just went ahead and ... and shot us.”

“Mr. Grant—” Tess
began.

“I’m sorry for all
the trouble I’ve caused,” Grant went on, his voice growing firmer. “The keys to
the museum are in the mailbox. I’ve left my collection to the Aeronautics
Institute on XIO—”

“Mr. Grant!” Tess
was finally able to cut in. “We don’t
want
to shoot you. We have no
reason
to shoot you. Look, I understand that you may not want to risk
interfering with the robot—”

“It’s not that. It’s
what the robot plans to do. It’s going to— Oh, dear! You better hur—”

His voice was cut
off.

The Claymore made
what appeared to be a convulsive leap and then it vanished.

“Damn,” said
Harry, impressed. “I didn’t see that coming! They made the Jump to hyperspace,”
he added, for the edification of those on the bridge.

“No kidding,” Xris
snapped. “Can we catch them?”

“Yes,” Tess said.
Back on the comm, she hailed the fighters. “Did the tick tracking device pick
up on their coordinates?”

Xris was
familiar—all too familiar—with how the tick devices worked. He’d had an
unfortunate experience with one not long ago, in fact. Just before a plane
entered one of the space Lanes, the tick would transmit the coordinates of the
Lane. The pursuer would know exactly where and when the Claymore would emerge
from hyperspace.

“Yes, we have
them, Captain,” reported the fighter pilot. “Feeding them to you now.”

“Can we catch it
on the other side?” Tess asked anxiously.

“No problem.”
Harry was confident. “We wait until the instruments indicate that it’s safe for
us to make the Jump and then we Jump. We use the same Lane, come out the other
end, not far behind them.”

Harry stared at
the nav computer. “All right, they’re in the Lane. This is a real short lane.
They’re in there, all right. They’re ... out. They’re out of the Lane.

“Okay, the
coordinates of the Lane have been fed to the nav, and we’re preparing to make
the Jump.” He was on the comm. “Strap yourselves in! I repeat, strap ... Oh,
shit!”

The words echoed
through the spaceplane.

“What do you mean,
‘Oh, shit’?” Xris demanded. “Look. This is no time to be reading the goddam
instruction manual.”

Harry was flipping
hurriedly through the nav computer manual. “I know. But this damn nav computer
doesn’t show that Lane anymore. The computer’s on the fritz. Must be. I gotta
recalibrate the whole damn thing.”

Tess was fuming. “God!
I knew I should have brought my own pilot. This—”

Xris was on the
comm. “Doc, get up here, right now!”

Harry was reading
aloud from the “If This Goes Wrong” chapter of the manual. Quong entered the
flight deck, followed by Jamil.

“What’s going on?”
Jamil demanded. “Where’s the plane we’re supposed to catch? We lost it on our
instruments.”

Raoul and the
Little One flattened themselves against a bulkhead to make room.

“The plane made
the Jump,” Xris informed them. “We were going to follow it, but the blasted
computer’s gone haywire. Doc, help Harry fix the nav computer.”

Tycho entered the
flight deck. He had to nearly fold in half to squeeze in. The deck was designed
for three, and now seven were jammed into it.

“Son of a bitch,”
said Harry softly, slowly. “There’s nothing wrong with the computer, Xris.”

“Come off it,
Harry. There must be. Doc, take over.”

“Harry is right,
my friend,” Quong announced. “The nav computer is functioning perfectly. It is
the Lane that is gone.”

Tess paled. “What
do you mean . . . the Lane is gone?”

“It’s just gone!”
Harry was starting to sweat. “I swear to God, Xris. It
was
there and now
it’s ... it’s gone! I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he added, his
gaze searching space, as if he could find the missing Lane. “I’ve never heard
of such a thing happening before! It ain’t natural!”

“The Lanes aren’t
natural, you idiot,” Xris returned. “The robot laid them and— By god!”

He and Tess and
Dr. Quong reached the same conclusion at the same time. They stared at each
other, appalled.

“Is that possible?”
Tess asked, awed.

“The robot giveth
and the robot taketh away,” Dr. Quong murmured. “Yes, that is eminently
possible. In fact, I would say that is what has occurred. I suspected something
like this might happen, but I didn’t have enough data.”

“
That’s
why
Grant told us to shoot the plane down,” Xris said. “He knew. The robot told
him. He realized the danger.”

“Knew what?” Harry
asked. “What are you three talking about? You’re always doing this to me—”

“The robot isn’t
laying Lanes,” said Xris. “It’s taking them out.”

Harry blinked,
dazed. “The robot’s taking Lanes
out.
Do you know what that means? If
there was a ship or a plane in one of those Lanes ...”

“R-r-r-rip,” said
Raoul, with a roll of the tongue.

“Excellent!” I
cried.

“Elementary,” said
he.

Sir Alfred Conan Doyle,
The Hound of the Baskervilles

Darlene Mohini sat
in front of her computer, which was on the desk in her small stateroom, staring
out the window directly opposite. She was staring at nothing, really. The black
void, with its pinprick stars, held no interest for her and thus she used it as
an artist uses a canvas, painting her own thoughts, her own musings onto what
was an essentially blank and uninteresting surface. Having lived in that black
void for many years, she had long ago outgrown the wonder and awe felt by the
first-timer space traveler.

Actually, if
Darlene had been paying particularly close attention to one tiny spot in the
dark and star-pocked vista in front of her, she would have seen several of
those bright lights moving, for this sector of space was well-traveled. It was
a major trade route, and it was also popular with the luxury cruise ships that
sailed to the resort world of Moana, a world which was ninety-percent water, a
world in which cities floated both on top of and beneath the surface, a world
of spectacular beauty and amazing aquatic life-forms and some of the best
surfing in the galaxy.

Darlene didn’t see
ships or stars. She was thinking about her “old college prof,” Professor
Lasairion.

The information
she had on the professor was sparse and not very helpful. She knew enough to
guess that the ‘bot Xris had been hired to steal was probably one of the
professor’s Lane-laying robots. Such a find would be very interesting, if you
were an archaeologist or a devotee of space flight history, neither of which
described Xris. Darlene was wondering why he’d asked her to study up on the
subject, when the vidphone buzzed.

Darlene swiveled
in her chair to face the screen.

It was Xris, still
in uniform. “Hi, dear,” she said to him. “I enjoy hearing from you, but twice
in one day? I hope nothing’s wrong. Little Harry didn’t get his head caught in
the banister again, did he?”

Xris smiled—the
smile that was rarely a complete smile, involved one side of his mouth only and
sometimes glimmered in his one natural eye.

“The kids are
fine. We’re all fine, including Professor Lasairion. The reason I called is
that a message just came in for you. From your old job. They said it was
urgent. Amy Dixter wants you to get in touch with her. She’s got some computer
files she wants you to download. She says she’s sorry it’s your vacation and
all, but that you’re the only one who can handle this.”

Amy Dixter . . .
Darlene was momentarily baffled, then she caught on. Or thought she did.

“Amy Dixter? Are
you sure? We had a little disagreement, you know.”

Xris waved away
that consideration with a motion of his hand. “Completely forgotten. Call her
at the old number.”

“I’d love to,
dear,” Darlene returned cautiously. “But the last time I tried to call, the
number had been disconnected.”

“It’s hooked up
again,” Xris said. “Amy Dixter needs to talk to you as soon as possible. You
can get through on the old number. You’ll log on right away, won’t you?”

“Sure. If you’re
certain that the old number works....”

“I’m certain. I
have go now. Love you!” Xris waved at her.

“Love you, too,
dear,” Darlene said.

The transmission
ended.

Darlene sat,
mystified, staring at the vidphone screen, playing both conversations over
again in her mind. The first she’d figured out easily. A new boss, Xris had
said. One who was a royal pain and very demanding. That could only be His
Majesty, translated: Xris and the team were working for the government. But
now—
Amy
Dixter. A. Dixter. Lord Admiral Dixter. The team was working for
the government, specifically the Royal Navy. The old number. That would have to
be her files at RFComSec.