Bill 2 - on the Planet of Robot Slaves (17 page)

“We would starve to death since there isn't any food,” Meta said with great practicality.

“And you would go through life with a great big yellow chicken foot at the end of your ankle,” Cy observed with sadistic intent.

“That doesn't bother me,” Bill said stretching his leg out in front of him and arching his toes. “It's not that bad once you get used to it.”

“And great for scratching up worms!”

“Shut up, Cy,” Meta said, “this is a serious conversation. There are some things that we must consider. If we desert now, our mission will have failed and this secret Chinger planetary base will never be discovered.”

“So what?” Bill observed with impeccable logic. “What difference will it make? No one is ever going to win this war — or lose it. It is just going to go on forever. I have nothing against deserting and scratching out a precarious living with my chicken foot. But can we get away with it? There is plenty of food on the plateau. Maybe we can flap over there. We could trade with them. Send them junked machines so they won't have to shoot them down anymore.”

“One thing that you are forgetting,” Meta remembered. “We will be trapped here for the rest of our lives. No bright lights of the cities, theatre and posh restaurants afterward...”

“No foul wind off the bay replete with smells of decay and industrial waste blowing through the filthy streets of the Spunkk!” Cy chimed in with nostalgic longing. “No communal shoot-ups, orgies, juice-joints, reefers, rasters, suppositrods, rooster-boosters...”

“You're both mad,” Bill huffed. “When was the last time you enjoyed any of those civilized pleasures? We are in the military and in it for life. We could make our home here, turn our backs on the mundane world, build log cabins, raise our children...”

“Knock off the male chauv crap! You are going to have me cooking and cleaning and wearing an apron next. No way! Since I am the only female person around here, and since I see that you want to enslave me in domesticity — I vote out. Sex for fun, that's my motto, and I got a lot to spare.”

To prove her point she threw Bill to the ground, seized him in her tight embrace and gave him a soul kiss that raised his body temperature by seven degrees.

“May I take notes?” Fighting Devil said emerging from the tunnel. “To go with all my other notes about this bunch of commie traitors. I have carefully noted your talking about desertion, which I will report to your CO who will have you shot, or worse, for even considering it.”

“Would you rat on your buddies?” Bill asked.

“Of course! I'm not called Fighting Devil for nothing, you know. The gods of war are my gods! Endless war stretches into the endless future and I marched forward into it triumphantly!”

It extruded its loudspeaker and began to play a hideous marching tune, stamped and strode around the ledge crying out war cries as it went.

“We have to get rid of this fruitcake before we talk about deserting again,” Bill whispered.

“Bang on,” Cy whispered back, then jumped to his feet and shouted, “You are so right, repellently warlike Fighting Devil! Your impeccable, logical arguments have convinced me. Reenlist! Fight on! Death to Chingers!”

“Death to Chingers!” Bill and Meta echoed and they all followed Fighting Devil around and around in a triumphant march until they dropped down exhausted.

“Weak fleshies,” Fighting Devil exulted. “But at least you will fight now and there will be no more sniveling talk of desertion. We will march together into the future, into the sunset of eternal war. Sieg heil!”

It turned to face the sunset, arms and other appendages raised in salute, sieging and heiling away like mad. Bill noticed that its toes were projecting over the edge. He tapped his companions on the shoulder, pointed and they nodded instant agreement. They all leaped to their feet, arms raised in victorious salute, marched forward with military precision to join Fighting Devil.

Then pushed it over the edge.

After a while the splintering and crashing sounds died away in the valley below.

“Scratch one Fighting Devil,” Bill mused.

“Who will miss him?” Meta said as she started to undress. “Time for a sunlit orgy, guys.”

“On a full stomach?” Bill complained.

“On the hard rock! No way,” Cy whined.

She sighed and rezipped. “Not only is romance dead but so are your libidos. I got to find myself a live one.”

“I'm thirsty,” Bill observed.

“The message is clear, numbnuts,” she said disgustedly. “Back we go.”

When they reentered the central hall the meeting was just ending. There were rusty cheers and creaking salutes at the conclusion. Happy rattled forward and welcomed them effusively.

“Dear soft, unmetallic companions, the vote has been taken. We offer you refuge — and we will make plans at once to open a squishy section of the PLDP. We are filled with elation at the thought. Our simple movement will now spread to the stars. We will carry the word to all the planets — speak, convert and convince. Entire armies will desert at our behest, great fleets will grow silent and dark as their crews rally to our noble cause. The bright future begins. Peace in our time! In our metallic hands we hold the future! The end to all war...”

It broke off the inspiring speech as the creaking door creaked open and a squad of machines with red metal crosses welded to their chests stamped in. They staggered under the weight of a stretcher that bore the badly crunched form of a Fighting Devil. But this devil would fight no more. It looked like it had come through the wars. Its right leg had been torn off and replaced with one of its cannons. Most of its weaponry was broken or missing and it wore dark glasses over its crunched optics.

“Another victim of the endless wars,” Happy observed. “How tragic. Welcome to the PLDP, no longer fighting Fighting Devil. Your travails are at an end and you have found safe harbor at last. Is there anything you would like to say in greeting?”

The fractured Fighting Devil lifted one trembling arm and pointed a bent and broken finger at the humans present.

“J'accuse!” it grated.

“I thought it looked a little familiar,” Bill mused, then continued brightly. “Why say, if that isn't our old friend Fighting Devil itself. Had a little trouble? No, don't talk about it, we'll all feel too depressed. Just let me be the first to welcome you to the ranks of the PLDP and a long and happy retirement.”

“Let me be second. Welcome,” Meta smiled.

“Third. Welcome...”

“You did it!” Fighting Devil screeched mechanically, then dropped back onto the stretcher. “Cut down in my youth. Pushed off the cliff by squishies. What an ignoble end to a Fighting Devil in its prime. To end my days here, among all these wrecks. A wreck myself...It is too awful to contemplate. If I had a working weapon left I would blow myself away. No, not yet! Justice must be done first. They did it! The soft-ploppies who stand guiltily before you. They pushed me off the cliff and must be made to pay for their crime. Shoot them down! Kill them while I laugh, ha-ha, at their deserved fate...”

It dribbled oil incontinently as Happy, no longer happy, turned to face his human guests.

“Has this poor creature's brain been addled by falling a mile down the mountain — or is there any truth in what it says?”

“Traumatic hallucinations,” Cy observed. “It tripped, started to fall. We tried to save it, but could not. The end of a Fighting Devil is always a tragedy. We should pity it...”

“I have...recordings sealed in armor. I can prove what...you did.”

Cy's unctuous smile was replaced by a snarl that cut his face like a knife slash in a corpse's belly. “Are you going to believe this battered metal bastard — or us?”

“It — if it has proof,” Happy decided. “Put up or shut up, recently crunched Fighting Devil.”

“How's about...that!” It rasped exultantly as a projector with a cracked lens clattered out of its right hip. The image projected on the wall was jumpy and out of focus. But it was clear enough to see that the humans had pushed it off the cliff. Then the projector vibrated violently and fell to the floor. But the damage had been done. All eyes — that were able to operate — were on the humans.

Bill rushed to their defense. “Make it tell you why we did it. We had good reason — it was going to turn us in, have us tried and shot for desertion. We acted merely in self-defense. The kind of preemptive strike that the military is always jawing about. What else could we have done?”

“Many things. But what is done is done,” Happy said. “You are guilty as charged.”

“Shoot them!” Fighting Devil grated obscenely.

The humans fell back before the advancing metallic hordes, sweeping the room with the eyes of a trapped animal. (This was very hard on the trapped animal.) But there was no escape. Closer they came and closer, rusty claws reached out, bent mandibles clattered for justice. They were back to the wall now, the first vengeful metal hands closed on them. One zipped down Bill's fly...

“Stop!” Happy shouted with lungs of steel. “Back, back I say. Two wrongs do not make a right. Aren't you all forgetting the name of our organization? PLDP. And what does that stand for?”

The massed voices of the machines boomed out.

“Planetary League of Deserters and Pacifists.”

“And what is our anthem?”

“They who fight and get away, will not fight another day!”

“Second chorus.”

“We will turn the other cheek, fight no more though our oil leak!”

“That's how the file files,” Happy said gloomily. “As much as we would like to rend you asunder, separate cog from wheel, nut from bolt, we cannot. Our philosophy forbids it. You will be turned out of this sanctuary, returned to the military from whence you fled, which should be punishment enough.”

“Would you guys take a harmless recording back for my dear commander Zots?” Fighting Devil asked insincerely.

They all gave him the finger, knowing full well what recording he would send.

“Go!” Happy ordered. “You are banned, purged, rejected. Leave and take our bad wishes with you.”

“Could we take our blasters, too?” Cy suggested.

Gears grated angrily deep within Happy's gut. “You try my patience sorely. If I don't see your cans out of here in the next ten seconds I am going to reconsider my decision.”

“That was a close one,” Bill said as they climbed back up the tunnel to freedom.

“Quiet!” Cy cozened. “Not a word about this to the ornithopter. Tell him that Fighting Devil decided to stay here, or some other big lie. We are lost if he suspects.”

The ornithopter spat out a mouthful of rusty metal that it was chewing on and turned an eye in their direction.

“Just got a radio message from Fighting Devil. Says to turn you in when we get back for knocking him off.”

“We cannot lie about it, although we would like to,” Meta said. “Going to rat on us?”

“Hell, no. I don't like this war any more than you do. They got my sister and most of my relatives. We stick to our story. We all say how great the others did their job, then ask for a furlough.”

“What about Fighting Devil?” Bill asked.

“That intrepid, loyal, Fighting Devil!” the ornithopter said, eyes spinning passionately in their sockets. “Though the vile Barthroomians attacked in their thousands, millions, it still fought on. Fighting until the very last volt in its batteries was discharged to enable us to escape. Giving up its own life that we might be saved.”

“You don't fly very well,” Meta said admiringly, “but you are one great fiction writer.”

“Why thank you. I have sold a few things, but only to the little magazines. And I would fly a hell of a lot better if I had a propeller — flapping wings consume too much energy to provide lift. Having said that — let's flap off before anything else happens. I've got a date with an ornithopterette with nest-eggs in mind.”

They suffered the rattling ride in silence. Not really wanting to go back, but seeing no alternative. The ornithopter, refreshed by rest and repast, made good time of it. Soon the metal city hauled itself over the horizon, which is hard to do, and they soared down among the soaring towers. The admiral and Wurber came out as they were clambering weakly to the platform.

“About time you got back,” Praktis welcomed them graciously. “I want you to file complete reports and have them on my desk before 0700. Then I need a volunteer.” He snarled as they all shuffled backwards, stopping only with their backs to the wall. In more ways than one.

“Cowards! And you don't even know what it is yet.”

“Nothing good — or you wouldn't have thought of it,” Cy said, speaking for all of them.

“Smartass. I need a volunteer to penetrate the enemy's stronghold, to then find the Chinger spaceship. Then to enter it and use the FTL communicator to send a message to the Space Navy to rescue us.”

“Is that all?” Meta asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She wiped it off her chin.

“Yes, that's all. And someone had better think of a way to do it fast. Wurber and I ate the last melonsteak yesterday. So prepare to starve — or leave. My research is done so I have no reason to stay. In fact I look forward to returning to the luxuries and comforts of military life.”

“Only for officers,” Cy growled.

“Of course! Now — let's have some suggestions!”

The silence that followed was broken by a voice they had not heard in a long time. “I know how it can be done.”

It was Captain Bly. Red-eyed, trembling — but sober and unstoned.

“Since when are you offering help,” Praktis said with dark suspicion.

“Since I ran out of dope. I need a new supply.”

“Now that I believe. What's your plan?”

“Simple. We kill them all. Every metal traitor, every Chinger. Boom. Dead.”

“That's simple, all right,” Praktis sneered. “About as simple and stupid an idea I have ever heard.”

“Go ahead and sneer! I have been sneered at for years. Yes, and laughed at too. Derided and rejected, and I have even had nightpots emptied on my head. Ohh, if only I hadn't had the dog in bed too...”

“Captain, your plan, what is it?”

Meta's voice penetrated the fog of his whining and self-indulgent pity so that he blinked and looked about.