On the Planet of Robot Slaves Page 3

  "We're in orbit," Captain Bly said "What's our course?"

  "It's coming, man, coming..." Cy muttered, stabbing buttons and adjusting switches. He sneered at the VDU which was filled with sparkling confetti, then tapped it with a long and dirty fingernail. The image cleared and the trace was clear.

  "Time needed. Working it out now. This little old 80286 CPU has got a math coprocessor so it should rustle through the computations like crazy..."

  "Shut up," Praktis snarled as he looked around the cabin. Wurber was just starting down the ladder. "You, stop!" he commanded.

  "Ahh gotta go to the toilet," he whimpered.

  "Your business after my business — and my business is a cold beer. Fetch."

  "Got it!" Cy crowed. "Course is right ascension seventy-one degrees, six minutes and seventeen seconds, declination twelve degrees exactly. Hack."

  The gyros whined as the garbage tug turned to her new course. Lights flickered and changed on the console under the skilled, if trembling, fingers of her commander.

  "Don't unbelt yet," he warned. "The FTL drive, so recently installed, is an experimental model. And this flight is the first experiment."

  "Return to base!" Praktis screamed. "I want out!"

  "Too late!" Captain Bly chortled in reply, stabbing a button. "Too late by far. We're all in this together — and I have nothing to lose — since I've already lost everything, everything..."

  Quick tears of self-indulgence blinded him. But not so much that he didn't see Praktis creep forward to grab him. A blaster sprang into his hand, its gaping muzzle pitted and scarred. "Sit," he commanded. "And enjoy. Up until now Faster Than Light travel has been by Bloater drive. Now, for the first time ever — that I know about — we will be trying out the Spritzer drive. It was installed by that creepo Admiral Lubyanka. Told me that if I would try it out he would clear my name of all shame. Too late! I told him. I live with shame and will die with shame if I must. Now — here we go!"

  One grimy thumb stabbed the large red button and a gasp ran through the ship as they felt themselves squeezed in an implacable grip. "That's the...first part. A black hole has been opened in space in front of the ship. Now we are...being squeezed down...so we can be squirted through the hole at...FTL speed. That's why it is named the Spritzer drive. We are being pumped under light pressure and spritzed through spa-a-a-ce..."

  It was a thoroughly disgusting and uncomfortable way to travel, Bill decided, and yearned for the old Bloater drive. But at least they lived through it, and that was something. When they had become unsqueezed and space outside had returned to normal, Cy turned to his tracker and fiddled with the controls.

  "Bang on, baby. The track is still there, stronger and clearer even. And it heads towards that planet you see over there. The one with the concentric rings, an oblate moon and a black spot at the north pole. Do you see it?"

  "Hard to miss," Praktis sniffed, "since it is the only planet around. So chart its position and let's get the hell out of here before we are noticed."

  "That comes under the heading of famous last words," Captain Bly blubbered, gaping at the viewscreen which was filled with flying dragons.

  "Hit the Spritzer drive and let's get spritzing!" Praktis screamed. But even as the words left his lips it was too late. Well before the soundwaves reached Captain Bly's ears it was too late. Lightning bolts of ravening energy poured from the dragons' mouths and engulfed the ship.

  All the fuses blew, all the lights went out. And they were falling.

  "Getting mighty close to that planet," Bill observed, then drew back before the barrage of curses. "Temper, temper," he said. "Does anyone know how we can get out of this one?"

  "Pray," Cy said, rolling his eyes heavenward, or in any direction, which was the same thing. "Pray for salvation and succor."

  Captain Bly sneered at that. "You are the only sucker here if you think that is going to help us. We've got one chance and one chance only. Our fuel is gone, our batteries drained..."

  "Then we are dead!" Praktis wailed and tore out handfuls of hair.

  "Not quite yet. I said we had a chance. The forward hold is filled with garbage and is ready for ejection. This is done by a giant spring that has been coiled up by the compression of the garbage when it was packed aboard. At the very last instant before we crash I will eject the garbage. By the Newtonian Principle that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction our speed will be neutralized and we will come to rest."

  "A garbage drive," Bill moaned. "Is this the end? What a way to die..."

  But his complaint went unheard for they were already in the planet's atmosphere and the molecules of air pummeled the spacer cruelly. They smashed into the outer skin, heated it into incandescence while the garbage spacer still hurtled downwards. Through thicker and thicker air, through wispy high clouds, towards the ground below that rushed towards them at a terrible pace.

  "Fire the garbage!" Praktis pleaded, but to no avail. Captain Bly stood firm. The others added their cries to his, begged and sobbed, but the thick, grubby finger did not descend.

  Closer and ever closer they fell, until they could see individual grains of sand on the ground below —

  In the final nanosecond of the last microsecond the finger stabbed down.

  Ka-chunk! went the coiled spring, releasing its nascent energy in a single mighty spasm.

  Ka-flopf! went the garbage, hurtling outward to crash into the planet just below.

  Ker-splat! went the space tug as it settled gently into the mound of old newspapers, fish cans, grapefruit rinds, broken light bulbs, beheaded rats, dead tea bags and shredded files.

  "Not bad if I say so myself," Captain Bly chortled. "Not bad at all. This is really one for the record books."

  The cabin echoed with the click of safety belts being unlocked, the thud of hesitant boots upon the rusty deck.

  "Gravity feels good," Bill opined. "A little light, but good..."

  "Shut up!" Praktis snapped. "I have one question and one question only for you, Cy. Did you..." his voice broke and he restored it with a quick cough. "Did you get off the planet's position?"

  "I tried to, Admiral. But the power cut off before I could get out a signal."

  "Then do it now! There must be some juice left in the batteries. Try it!"

  Cy punched in the commands, then thumbed the activator button. The screen glowed — then went black and all the lights went out. Wurber shrieked with fear at the sudden darkness, sobbed with relief when the feeble glow of the emergency bulb oozed out.

  "It worked!" Praktis chortled. "Worked! The signal went out!"

  "Sure did, Admiral. At that strength it must have gone up about five feet at least."

  "Then we are marooned..." Bill intoned feebly. "Lost in space. On an enemy planet. Surrounded by flying dragons. Millions of parsecs from home. In a dead spaceship sitting on a mound of garbage."

  "You got it buddy-boy," Cy nodded. "That's just about the size of it."

  CHAPTER 4

  "Here is your beer, sir. Can I go potty now?" Wurber gurgled, holding out the once-warm bottle, now blood-hot from his heated grip.

  Praktis snarled an inarticulate reply as he grabbed the bottle and half-drained it in a single glug. Captain Bly groped through the pockets of his crumpled uniform until he found the butt of an H-joint which he lit. Bill sniffed his exhaust fumes appreciatively but decided against asking for a drag. Instead he went to look out of the viewport at this newfound planet, but all he could see was garbage.

  Praktis grimaced as he drained the warm beer from the bottle, then whistled wetly. When Bill looked around he flipped the bottle to him.

  "Put this outside with the rest of the rubbish, chicken-foot. And while you are out there sort of have a look-see and let me know what it looks like."

  "Are you requesting me to make a reconnaissance and report back?"

  "Yes, if that's what you want to call it in your rotten Trooperese. I'm a doctor first and an admiral by accident. So j
ust get on with it."

  The dim glow of the emergency light did not penetrate down the ladderway. Bill clicked his heels together to turn on his toe-torch, then climbed down the rungs in the light of his glowing boot. Since there was no power the spacelock would not open when he thumbed the switch. He turned the sticky manual wheel and groaned with the effort. When the inner door had opened about a foot he squeezed through the gap and into the chamber of the lock. A bright beam of sunlight shone through the armorglass window in the outer door. He pressed his eye to it, curious and eager for a glimpse of this alien world. All he saw was garbage.

  "Great," he muttered and reached for the wheel beside. Then stopped.

  What was lurking beyond the outer door? What alien terrors had the future in store for him? What sort of atmosphere was out there — if there was any atmosphere at all? If he opened the lock he might be dead in an instant. Yet it had to be done sooner or later. There was not much of a future doing nothing, staying locked up in this crumpled garbage can along with its obnoxious captain and the quack admiral.

  "Do it, Bill, do it," he muttered to himself. "You only die once."

  Sighing unhappily, he turned the wheel.

  And stopped when the door cracked open and began to hiss loudly.

  But it was only the pressure equalizing, he realized, heart thudding like a triphammer in sudden panic. Wiping the beads of sweat from his brow, he leaned over and sniffed at the draft of air that blew into his face. It was hot and dry — and smelled more than a little of garbage — but he was still alive. After that, feeling very proud of himself and forgetting his animal panic, he kept turning until the door opened wide. Sunlight lanced in brightly and there was a brittle crackling sound. He leaned out to look — turned and went quickly back into the bowels of the ship. Praktis looked down the ladderwell at him as he ran by.

  "Where are you going?"

  "To get my barracks bag."

  "Why? What's outside?"

  "Desert. Just a lot of garbage and sand and nothing else in sight. No dragons, no nothing."

  Praktis blinked rapidly. "Then just why the hell are you getting your barracks bag, Trooper?"

  "I'm getting out of here. The garbage is on fire."

  Praktis's scream of pain and shouted commands followed Bill when, equipped with barracks bag, he bailed out through the open door. He did not stop nor even bother to look back. The lesson with the greatest value that he had learned during his years in the troopers was a simple one: cover your ass. He only stopped when he was clear of the tug, threw down his bag and, breathing heavily, sat on a sand dune. Nodding appreciatively, he watched the evacuation of the tug with great interest.

  Pained screams and a great deal of shouting and pounding came from the open lock. In a few moments a box of supplies thudded into the sand, to be followed closely by more containers and crates. Since his own survival was at stake he went to help, dragging them clear and going back for more. The flames crackled and grew close. He pulled one more crate to safety then shouted into the ship.

  "Anyone getting out better do it now or never." Then jumped aside as the rats deserted the burning ship. After them came the crew, coughing and scrambling for safety away from the flames.

  Praktis was first, of course, since the commander always leads from the front. Particularly during a retreat. Cy was next, staggering under the weight of some electronic junk, followed closely by Wurber and Captain Bly. Followed by a stranger. Not only a stranger, Bill realized, but a strangerette. A female person with stripes on her arms.

  "Who...who...you?" Bill asked. She looked him up and down with scorn.

  "Knock off the owl imitation, bowbhead, and say ma'am when speaking to a superior officer. Report. Name, rank and condition."

  "Yes, sir — ma'am. Trooper Bill, ma'am, draftee, hungover, tired."

  "You look it. I'm Engine Mate First Class Tarsil. Put my suitcase with the rest of the stuff."

  "As you command, Engine Mate First Class Tarsil."

  "Since we are shipmates you can call me by my first name. Meta." She reached out and squeezed his arm. "You got good biceps, Bill."

  Bill smiled ingratiatingly as he grabbed up her suitcase. It was always best to keep on the good side of the noncoms. Especially female noncoms. Though, really, he didn't think she was his type. He liked big girls, but not those a head taller than him. And her biceps, he pouted with inferiority, were really much bigger than his.

  "Bill," a familiar and loathed voice called out. "Stop fraternizing and claw your way up here."

  Bill joined Admiral Praktis on the summit of the sand dune, looking out at the golden majesty of the setting sun. Which was really the only thing worth looking at since other than the sun, and the empty sky with one small cloud that vanished while they watched, there wasn't anything else.

  "Sand, and an awful lot of it," Praktis said with an expression of deep gloom.

  "That's what deserts are like, sir," Bill said brightly. Praktis turned a withering glare and scornful sneer upon him.

  "When I want that kind of bright Pollyanna bowb I will ask for it. Do you realize the kind of hole that we are in? There is myself and there is you, which is not saying very much. And what else? That dim recruit who was probably a dim civilian yesterday, the captain who is already stoned out of his mind, an electronic technician with no electronics — and that overweight oversexed crewmember who is going to cause trouble, bet on that. We got some food, some water — and little else. I have the intensely gloomy sensation that we are for the chopping block."

  "I have a suggestion, sir?"

  "You do? Great! Speak quickly."

  "Since you are in command and there is a war on — I want a battlefield commission."

  "You want what?"

  "A commission as a third lieutenant. I am an experienced trooper with plenty of service-related know-how — in addition to which I am the only one here with these qualifications. You will need my combat-hardened skills and professional knowledge..."

  "Which I will not get unless you have some rank. All right bowb, not that it makes any difference. Kneel Recruit Bill. Rise Third Lieutenant Bill."

  "Oh, thank you, sir. That makes all the difference," Bill simpered. Praktis curled his lip with disgust while Bill dug the tarnished golden pips of a third lieutenant from his pocket and proudly pinned them to his epaulets.

  "It is said that every real soldier with guts or talent, or both, marches with a marshal's baton in his pack. My goal is simpler..."

  "Shut up. Take your mind off of your pathetic military ambitions and apply whatever intelligence you have, the existence of which I am growing doubtful about, to the problem at hand. What do we do?"

  His ambition fired by his newfound rank, Bill hurled himself in to the role with enthusiasm.

  "Sir! We will begin by taking inventory of our supplies, which will be guarded at all times and rationed equally among all. When this has been done we will prepare sleeping accommodations for the night, since, as you can see, the sun is setting. Then I will draw up a guard's roster for the night, have a shortarm inspection, prepare battle plans..."

  "Stop!" Praktis called out hoarsely, eyes bulging at the military monster that he had created. "Let's just get our heads together and simply figure out what we have to do next, Lieutenant. Just that much, or it is instantly back to recruit rank with you."

  Bill accepted the decision with all the bad grace he could muster up, kicking his clawed heel into the sand and scowling darkly. His military career in command had been brief. He trailed after Praktis as they went back down the dune to join the others.

  "Give me your attention," Praktis called out. "All of you that is except Captain Bly who has stoned himself unconscious on that cheap drek he smokes. You, trooper, what's your name?"

  "Wurber, your highness."

  "Yes, Wurber, great to have you aboard. Now go through Captain Bly's pockets and get all the dope he has and bring it to me. When he surfaces he will probably have more stashed, but a
t least we can start with this. Now listen, the rest of you, we kinda got a problem..."

  "You ain't just blowing it out your barracks bag buster," Meta said.

  "Yes, well, thank you miss..."

  "Miss my butt, buster. There are laws against that male chauvinist pig stuff. I am Engine Mate First Class Meta Tarsil."

  "Yes, Engine Mate First Class, I fully understand your attitude. But might I also point out that we are far from civilization and all its laws. We are stranded on this unknown alien planet and we will have to work together. So let us abandon our little egos for a bit and try and find a way out of this mess. Are there any suggestions?"

  "Yes," Cy said. "We pull a zingo and get out of here. This planet has a magnetic pole."

  "So what?"

  "So I got a compass. So we can walk in a straight line and not in circles. In the morning we load up whatever food and water that we can carry and split. It's either that or stay here until the natives find us. Whatever you say, Admiral. You're in charge."

  The sun set at that moment and stygian darkness descended. Bill turned on his toe-torch and in its feeble illumination they settled down with their problems for the night. The stars appeared, unknown constellations in an unknown sky. It was a time that cried out for strong nerves. Or strong drink. Bill settled for the latter, craftily opened his barracks bag and stuck his head inside and drank from his hidden bottle until he passed out.

  CHAPTER 5

  The rising sun washed its warm rays over Bill's sleeping, bristly face. He grunted and opened one eye. Instantly regretted it and slammed it shut with a hideous grating sound as the light punched a hot icepick into his drink-sodden brain. Taking more care this time he rolled over away from the sun, opened his eyes the tiniest slit, then peeked through his fingers. The huddled forms of his shipmates, wrapped like him in GI blankets from the torched tug, still lay in silent sleep. All except for Admiral Praktis who, driven by duty or insomnia, or a full bladder, stood upon the highest dune staring into the distance. Bill smacked his lips and tried to spit out some of the fur that covered his tongue, did not succeed, climbed to his feet and, ever a sucker for curiosity, climbed the dune himself.