“Detection. Unknown individual. Identify yourself.”
“Who are you?” I asked, looking around for an operator, but I was alone. It was my steel chariot that was speaking to me.
“I am Model Ninety-one surface debrider and masculator. Give identity.”
“Why?” I asked angrily, having never enjoyed conversations with machines.
“Give identity,” was all it would say.
“My name is none of your business,” I said sulkilyâthen regretted the words the instant I had spoken them.
“State work experience with this Model Ninety-one, Noneofyourbusiness.”
“I will give the orders. Now hear this ⦔
“State work experience with this Model Ninety-one, Noneofyourbusiness.”
There was no way to win this argument. “None.”
“Orientation instructions begin.”
They did, and they went on for far too long in far too stupid detail, geared to the thought processes of a retarded two-year-old. I listened just long enough to find out how the thing operated, then looked around for some way out of this dilemma. Knowing that it was not going to be easy.
“ ⦠now power is on, Noneofyourbusiness. Work begins.”
It surely did. There were levers by each knee, along with the two pedals, controlled direction and speed. A single, knobbed control moved the hydraulically powered arm that projected forward from right below the cab. This was first pressed against the rock surface and the trigger pulled. Fragments of rock blasted out in all directionsâincluding towards the cab, which explained the thickness and scars on the forward-facing window. When enough rock had been broken free I touched the glowing red button that signaled for the bucketbil. This trundled over on its two rows of heavy wheels and backed into position
below. I worked the controls for the loading arms which stuck out just below my face.
The first time I dumped a load I I waved to the driver of the bucketbil. His grim expression never changed, but he was considerate enough to raise a thick middle finger to me. I loaded and he left.
Light was fading from the sky. Night approached and work would cease for the day. A nice thought, but not a very accurate one. Worklights came on above, the headlights of my Model 91 illuminated the falling snowflakes and the rock face: the work continued.
An indeterminate, but long, time later there was a warbling sound from the cab's loudspeaker and the machine's power was switched off. I saw the driver of the nearest stopped Model 91 climbing wearily down from his machine. I did the same, and just as wearily. There was another heavily dressed man waiting on the ground, who climbed up the machine as soon as I got down: He said nothing to meânor did I have anything to say to him in return. I shuffled after the other shuffling man. Through a door in the canyon wall. Into a large and warm hall filled with men and redolent with the strong pong of B.O. My new home.
It was worse than any army camp or work camp that I had ever been in. There was an overlay of despair that could not be avoided. These men were condemned and bereft of any spark of will. Or hope.
The only note of interest came after I had found an empty bunk to dump my heavy outer clothing, then followed the others to the eating tables. I was looking at the appalling food on my battered tray when a large hand seized my shoulder painfully.
“I eat your kreno,” said the overweight and obnoxious individual who was attached to the hand. Another hand of the same size reached for the purple steaming lump on my tray. I lowered the tray to the table, waited until the kreno was well-clutchedâthen grabbed the wrist.
This was the only decent thing that had happened to me since I had left for Heaven this morning. Or a week ago. Or something.
Since he was very big, obviously obnoxious and undoubtedly strong, I played no fancy games. As his thick head went by I cracked him across the bridge of the nose with the side of my hand. He squealed in pain so I generously gave him peace by punching his neck in the right place with stiffened fingertips. He kept on going to the floor and did not move. I picked up my tray and took the kreno from his limp fingers. Looked around at the other diners.
“Any of you lot want to try for my kreno?” I asked.
The few who had bothered to look up from their food quickly lowered their eyes. The man at my feet began to snore. The only other sound was the slurp and crunch of masticating food.
“It's really nice to meet you guys,” I said to the tops of heads. Sat down and ate hungrily.
Forcing myself not to think about where I was and what I was going to do.
Or what the unforeseeable future might be like.
A GREAT NUMBER OF STRENUOUS days passed, not to say nights, in endless, brainless toil. The food was disgusting but kept the body's furnace stoked. My kreno-clutching friend, whose name I had soon discovered was Lasche, was the barrack's bully. He stayed out of my way, though he glared at me from behind the pair of black-and-blue eyes I had given him, then found other, more vulnerable men to pick on.
The routine could not have been simplerâor more mind-destroyingly boring. There were two shifts, one worked while the other slept, and there were no days off. The day started when the lights came on and Buboe appeared to stir the laggards along with his bioclast. As we filed out of the barracks the other shift stumbled in. It was the hot-bed system with one worker getting out of bed just before the other one crawled into it. Since the rough blankets were never changed or cleaned this made for an unusual miasma in the sleeping quarters. That was the way the day began; it ended when the lights went out.
In between working and sleeping, sleeping and working, we ate the repulsive meals that had been prepared in the robot kitchen. There was very little talking among the inmates, undoubtedly because there was absolutely nothing to talk about.
The only change in this routine was when I operated a bucketbil rather than a Model 91. This was even more distasteful and boring since it involved only driving away with a full load, dumping it and coming back empty.
I had a spurt of interest when I went to dump my first load, trundling along in the wake of another filled machine. Our destination proved to be nothing more exciting than a giant metal hopper set into the ground. There was no indication at all where the crushed rock was going. Or why. Was there a cave or a conveyor underground? I didn't think so. I had come to this planet courtesy of Slakey's universe machine. The chances were that crushed rock was going somewhere the same way. I thought about this for a bit, but soon forgot to think about it under the pressure of work and fatigue.
It must have been the fatigue that put me off guard. I had concerned myself with Lasche for the first few days as his shiners turned from black to green and other interesting colors. He seemed to have forgotten about me as well.
But he hadn't. I was wiping up the cold remains of the evening meal when I noticed the expression on the face of the man across the table from me. He was looking up over my shoulder and I saw his eyes widen. It was reflex that made me jump asideâand just blind luck that my skull wasn't crushed. The rock that Lasche was wielding struck my shoulder a numbing blow, knocking me off the bench. I roared with pain and rolled aside, stumbled to my feet and stood dizzily with my back to the wall. I made a fist with my left hand, but my right arm was numb and powerless. I shuffled along the wall until I had a clear space before me. Lasche followed me, lifting the rock menacingly.
“Now you're gonna be dead,” he said. I felt no desire to join in the conversation. I watched his beady and nasty little eyes, waiting for him to attack.
He didâbut fell forward as the man at the table behind him stuck out his foot and tripped him. I made the most of it, bringing my knee up to meet his face as he went down. He screamed
hoarsely and dropped the rock. I grabbed it up with my good hand, ready to slam it into his skull.
“If you kill him, or maim him so he can't work, Buboe will kill you,” the man said. He of the tripping toe. I dropped the rock and satisfied myself with a quick kick in the thug's ribs and a punch in his neural ganglion that would keep him quiet for some time.
“Thanks,” I said. “I owe you one.”
He was thin and wiry, with black hair and even blacker grease on his hands. I kneaded my sore right arm with my hand as it tingled back to life.
“My name is Berkk,” he said.
“Jim.”
“Can you operate an arcwelder?”
“I'm an expert.”
“I thought you might be. I have been watching you since you came here. You know how to take care of yourself. Let's go see Buboe.”
Our brutal keeper had a room of his own, absolute luxury in this place. And a heating coil as well. When we found him he was stirring an unappealing orange mass in a battered pot. But it smelled all right and would surely be better than the slop we were fed.
“What you want?” He scowled at us. Probably found the effort to speak coherently a tiring one.
“I need help putting that Model Ninety-one back together. The one that fell off the rockface.”
“Why help?”
“Because I say so, that's why. It's a two man job. Jim here can work a welder.”
He stopped stirring and looked at us suspiciously, his bulging red eyes moving from Berkk's face to mine. It took some time; obviously coherent thought was as alien to him as articulate speech. In the end he grunted and went back to stirring his meal. Berkk turned to leave and I followed him out.
“Would you care to translate?” I asked.
“You'll work with me in the repair shop for awhile.”
“All that from a grunt?”
“Sure. If he had said no that would have ended it.”
“I want to thank you ⦔
“Don't. It's heavy and dirty work. Let's go.”
He lifted a grease-stained finger to rub his noseâand it touched his pursed lips for a second.
He wanted silence, he got silence. There was more here than met the eyeâand I felt the first spurt of hope since I had arrived in this terrible place.
We went down the corridor beyond Buboe's lair to a large, locked door. Berkk obviously didn't have the key, because he sat down with his back to the wall. I joined him and we waited some time in silence until Buboe finally appeared, still chewing some last gristly bit of his meal. He unlocked the door, let us in sealed it again behind us.
“Let's get started,” Berkk said. “I hope you meant it about the arcwelder.”
“I can work that and every kind of machine tool, repair printed circuits, anything. If it's broken I can fix it.”
“We'll find out.”
The wrecked Model 91 had its side stove in, in addition to a broken axle. I cut out the crumpled area while Berkk levered a steel plate onto a dolly and rolled it over. We used a chain hoist to lift it. Without any robots to help it was hard work.
“We can talk here,” he said as he hammered the plate into position. “I've been watching you. You don't act as stupid as the muscular morons here.”
“Nor do you.”
He smiled wryly. “Would you believe itâI volunteered. Everyone else here got drunk or hit in the head or something. Then woke up in this place. Not me, no. I answered an ad in the net for an experienced machinist. Incredible salary. Looked really great. I went to this lab, met a Professor Slakey. Blackoutâand I woke up here.”
“Where is here?”
“I haven't the slightest idea. Do you know?”
“Some. I know Slakey and I know that you can get here from Heaven. No, don't look at me like that, let me explain. I was thrown into a room and ended up in a different one. In a different universe I am sure. The same thing must have happened to you when you came here.”
While we repaired the machine I filled him in on Slakey's operations. It all must have sounded really far out, but he had no choice other than to believe it. When the repairs were done we took a break and he produced a jar filled with a very ominous-looking liquid.
“I got some raw krenoj from the kitchen, I go there to keep the machines running. Took scrapings from some of the vegetables and managed to isolate a decent strain of yeast. Fermented the krenoj, terrible! Alcoholic all right but undrinkable. But, some plastic tubingâ”
“The worm! Heat source, evaporated, cooled and condensed, distilled and now waiting our attention.” I swirled the liquid happily in the flask.
“Be warned. There's alcohol in there all right. But the tasteâ”
“Let me be the judge,” I said rashly. Raised and drank, lowered the flask and retched dryly. “I think ⦔ I gasped, and my voice was so harsh my words were almost indistinguishable. “I think that thatâis the foulest thing I have ever drunk inâa lifetime of drinking foul beverages.”
“Thank you. Now if you will pass it over.”
It did not get any better with more drinking. But at least the ethyl alcohol began to take effect, which possibly made the entire exercise worthwhile.
“I can put some of the pieces together,” he said, then wiped his finger across the coating on his teeth that the drink had deposited. “We had a guy here once, very briefly, with a big mouth. Said that he had helped repair the rollers in a pulverizing mill someplace. He thought that they were grinding up our rock.”
“Did he say why?”
“Noâand he was gone next day. He talked too much.
That's why we have to be careful. I don't know who or what is listeningâ”
“I know who. Slakey in one of his manifestations. He has this rock dug out here, then it is sent somewhere. Then it is ground up, then sent to the women who sort it and take something out of it.”
“What?”
“I don't know whatâexcept that it is terribly expensive. In money and in human lives.”
“I'm sure of it. And we won't find the answer here. I want out of this place and I need help.”
What music to my ears! I seized his hand and pummeled him on the back with joy. “You have a plan?” .
“An idea. I don't think we can get out the way we came in. Through that barred room.” I nodded agreement.
“That is undoubtedly a dimensional doorway operated by Slakey himself. But what other way is there to go? I have looked carefully and could not see any way to climb out of this valley. And even if we didâwhere would we go? This might be a barren planet at the end of the universe.”
“I agree completely. Which leaves only the other way. Think for yourselfâ”
“Of course. The broken rock goes into the pit. We go with it and are crushed to death, right?”
“Wrong. I have been working on this for a long, long time. But I needed someone to help meâ”
“I'm your man,” I said. Slightly blurrily.
“Back to work,” he said, climbing swayingly to his feet. “Gotta finish repairs first.”
Work had a sobering effect and no more was said that day. An electric bell summoned Buboe who opened the large locked door that opened to the outside. I shivered and stamped my feet while Berkk drove the Model 91 out and parked it there. The door was sealed again and Buboe unlocked the other door that led us back to our quarters. And searched us ruthlessly before letting us out.
There was a backlog of repairs needed on the machines and we had plenty to do. Slowly. I would be back as a driver as soon as the job was complete. And Berkk never spoke again about his plan. I did not want to ask, figuring that it was his idea and he would know when the time was right. Life was work and sleep, work and sleepâwith loathsome meals ingested briefly between. Berkk remained silent until the day when we were finishing the job of replacing a wheel on a bucketbil. We lay side by side beneath the thing, one holding, one hammering.
“This is the last repair you are going to do,” he said. “Buboe says he is shorthanded and wants you back on the digging. I've been putting this off but we can't put it off anymore. You ready to go?” he asked. I did not ask where.
“Yes. When?”
“Now.” He turned to look at me and I saw that his face was suddenly grim. “Have you ever killed a man?” he asked.
“Why? Is it important?”
“Very. If we are to go, then Buboe will have to be disarmed, maybe killed. I'm not much of a fighterâ”
“I am. I'll take care of him. And hopefully not kill him. Then what?”
“Then these. We must get them into this bucketbil and out of here without being seen.”
He kicked a tarpaulin aside, let the worklight play over them for an instant, then covered them again.
They were two frames made of rebar. They were shaped like coffins and were the same size as coffins. The finger-thick lengths of reinforcing bar were closely placed and crossed at right angles, then had been welded into place to form the cages. One side of each cage was hinged so it could be opened. Open this and crawl in. Close and turn the latch. Thenâwhat he planned was obvious.
“Is this the only way?” I asked.
“Do you know of another?”
“It's suicide.”
“It's certain death here if we don't try.”
“We go into the hopper with the crushed rock, then through toâsomewhere.”
I took a deep breath, then let it out in a long, slow sigh.
“Let's do it,” I finally said. “The quicker the better because I don't want to have time to think about it, or estimate our chances to get out alive instead of being pulverized.”