He was actually whistling as they crossed the next line. A moment later he took her arm and pointed. “Look,” he said.
A new kind of robot was approaching from within the square. It was about the size of a man. The skin gleamed golden. Iridescence was lovely over the great batlike wings that helped the springing to its two long hoofed and spurred legs. The body was a horizontal barrel, a balancing tail behind, a neck and head rearing in front. With its goggling optical and erect audio sensors, its muzzle that perhaps held the computer, its mane of erect antennae, that head looked eerily equine. From its forepart, swivel-mounted, thrust a lance.
“We could almost call it a rockinghorsefly, couldn’t we?” Flandry said. “As for the bread-and-butterfly—” His classical reference was lost on the girl.
She screamed afresh when the robot wheeled and came toward them in huge leaps. The lance was aimed to kill.
Chapter IX
Djana was the target. She stood paralyzed. “Run!” Flandry bawled. He sped to intercept. The gun flamed in his grasp. Sparks showered where the beam struck.
Djana bolted. The robot swerved and bounded after her. It paid no attention to Flandry. And his shooting had no effect he could see.
Must be armored against energy beams—unlike the things we’ve met hitherto—He thumbed the power stud to full intensity. Fire cascaded blinding off the metal shape. Heedless, it bore down on his unarmed companion.
“Dodge toward me!” Flandry cried.
She heard and obeyed. The lance struck her from behind. It did not penetrate the air tank, as it would have the thinner cuirass of the spacesuit. The blow knocked her sprawling. She rolled over, scrambled up and fled on. Wings beat. The machine was hopping around to get at her from the front.
It passed by Flandry. He leaped. His arms locked around the neck of the horsehead. He threw a leg over the body. The wings boomed behind him where he rode.
And still the thing did not fight him, still it chased Djana. But Flandry’s mass slowed it, made it stumble. Twisting about, he fired into the right wing. Sheet metal and a rib gave way. Crippled, the robot went to the ground. It threshed and bucked. Somehow Flandry hung on. Battered, half stunned, he kept his blaster snout within centimeters of the head and the trigger held back. His faceplate darkened itself against furious radiance. Heat struck at him like teeth.
Abruptly came quiet. He had pierced through to an essential part and slain the killer.
He sprawled across it, gasping the oven-hot air into his mouth, aware of undergarments, sodden with sweat, and muscles, athrob with bruises, dimly aware that he had better arise. Not until Djana returned to him did he feel able to.
A draught of water and stimpill shoved through his chowlock restored a measure of strength. He looked at the machine he had destroyed and thought vaguely that it was quite handsome. Like a dreamworld knight…Almost of themselves his arm lifted in salute and his voice murmured. “Ahoy, ahoy, check.”
“What?” Djana asked, equally faintly.
“Nothing.” Flandry willed the aches out of his consciousness and the shakes out of his body. “Let’s get going.”
“Y-y-yes.” She was suffering worse from reaction than him. Her features seemed completely drained. She started off with mechanical strides, back toward the mountain.
“Wait a tick!” Flandry grabbed her shoulder. “Where’re you bound?”
“Away,” she said without tone. “Before something else comes after us.”
“To sit in the sealtent—or at best, the boat—and wait for death? No, thanks.” Flandry turned her about. She was too numbed to resist. “Here, swallow a booster of your own.”
He had lost all but a rag of hope himself. The centrum was at the far side of the pattern, some ten kilometers hence. If robots were programed actually to attack humans, this close to where the great computer had been—We’ll explore a wee bit further, regardless. Why not?
A machine appeared. At first it was a glint on the horizon, metal reflecting Mimirlight. Traveling fast across the plain, it gained shape within minutes. Headed straight this way. And big! Flandry cursed. Half dragging Djana, he made for a house-sized piece of meteoritic stone. From its top, defense might be possible.
The robot went past.
Djana sobbed her thanks. After a second, Flandry recovered from the shock of his latest deliverance. He stood where he was, holding the girl against him, and watched. The machine wasn’t meant for combat. It was not much more than a self-operating flatbed truck with a pair of lifting arms.
It loaded the fallen lancer aboard and returned whence it came.
“For repairs,” Flandry breathed. “No wonder we don’t find stray parts in this neighborhood.”
Djana shuddered in his arms.
His words went slowly on, shaping the thoughts they uttered: “Two classes of killer robot, then. One is free-ranging, fights indiscriminately, comes here to get fixed if it can make the trip, and doubtless returns to the wilderness for more hunting. While it’s here, it keeps the peace.
“The other kind stays here, does fight here—though it doesn’t interfere with the first kind or the maintenance machines—and is carefully salvaged when it comes to grief.”
He shook his head in bewilderment. “I don’t know if that’s encouraging or not.” Gazing down at Djana: “How do you feel?”
The drug he had forced on her was taking hold. It was not magical; it couldn’t marshal resources which were no longer there. But for a time he and she would be alert, cool-headed, strong, quick-reacting. And we’d better complete our business before the metabolic bill is presented, Flandry recalled.
Her lips, twitched in a woebegone smile. “I guess I’ll do,” she said. “Are you certain we should continue?”
“No. However, we will.”
The next two squares they crossed were empty. One to their left was occupied. The humans kept a taut watch on that robot as they went past, but it did not stir. It was a tread-mounted cylinder, taller and broader than a man, its two arms ending in giant mauls, its head—the top of it, anyway, where there were what must be sensors—crowned with merlons like the battlements of some ancient tower. The sight jogged at Flandry’s memory. An idea stirred in him but vanished before he could seize it. It could wait; readiness for another assault could not.
Djana startled him: “Nicky, does each of them stay inside its own square?”
“And defend that particular bit of territory against intruders?” Flandry’s mind sprang. He smacked fist into palm. “By Jumbo, I think you’re right! It could be a scheme for guarding the centrum…against really dangerous gizmos that don’t behave themselves on this plain…a weird scheme, but then, everything on Wayland is weird.—Yes. The types of, uh, wild robot we’ve seen, and the ambulance and such, they’re recognized as harmless and left alone. We don’t fit into that program, so we’re fair game.”
“Not all the squares are occupied,” she said dubiously.
He shrugged. “Maybe a lot of sentries are under repair at present.” Excitement waxed in him. “The important point is, we can get across. Either directly across the lines, or over to a boundary and then around the whole layout. We simply avoid sections where any machine is. Making sure none are lurking behind a rock or whatever, of course.” He hugged her. “Sweetheart, I do believe we’re going to make it!”
The same eagerness kindled in her. They stepped briskly forth.
A figure that came into view, two kilometers ahead, as they passed the hillock which had concealed it, drew a cry from her. “Nicky, a man!” He jolted to a stop and raised his binoculars in unsteady hands. The object was indeed creepily similar to a large spacesuited human. But there were differences of detail, and it stood as death-still as the tower thing, and it was armed with sword and shield. Rather, its arms terminated in those pieces of war gear. Flandry lowered the glasses.