“Grandfather, we have to signal the coast.” Alice said. “So they can come and rescue us.”
“That’s the spirit, granddaughter.” The old man said. “Our side never sleeps. I remember it like yesterday, how we went up the hill in Manchuria, with General Gurko in the lead on his white horse….”
And the old man was lost in useless remembrances of events about which in truth he could have remembered nothing at all, since he had only come out of the factory the week before.
“Grandfather, do you have a light?”
“A what?”
“Fire. A lighter. A lamp…”
“There’s iron and flint on me somewhere…” The old man rooted around in the pockets of his grey jacket, but he found nothing.
“I must have dropped it.”
Two robots appeared on the stony path. Each of them was carrying an enormous rock.
“These fortifications they are erecting. Who are they defending against?” The old man asked. “Is it that the Turks are on the move again?”
“No. It’s the people who live along the coast they fear.”
“And that might be…”
“What?”
“I’ve forgotten, girl from hither and yon. My mind wanders, it’s old age or the stroke.” The old man said sadly. “We have to be on our guard, despite the lack of time. Aha! I remember: we can do it, we can light a fire to make a smoke signal.”
“But you don’t have any way to make a fire.”
“What we cannot do, we cannot do.” The old man agreed.,
Alice and the old man walked slowly along the shore. From where they stood it was evident the robots had done an enormous amount of work on the island. Shallow trenches provided with breastworks ran right down to the water line. In one spot a log, coarsely cut to imitate an old fashioned artillery piece, stuck out a little bit higher. The log brought the old man to a condition of tumultuous rapture.
“Look at it, look!” He muttered. “Flintlocks, long range mortars! We’d dash aside from one of these, and not a single heathen for miles around! Weapons to the front! Case shot to the right! Case shot to the left!”
“They’re just made out of wood, Grandfather.” Alice laughed. “It’s to deceive their enemies. “Those can’t shoot at anyone.”
“That is true.” The grandfather-film robot agreed. “So they want to deceive? Who?”
“You, grandfather. And perhaps other people as well.”
“So it’s me they want to deceive, is it? Me? Why, I would have seen through it in a minute! They could never have hidden anything from me, girl from hither and yon!”
They sat down on an enormous, flat rock.
“Such beauty….” The old man suddenly sighed.
Alice was somewhat surprised that the old man could think about the natural beauty of the spot a this moment, but he was right.
From the shore beyond the silver water the Crimean mountains lifted like a toothy wall. They sky overhead went from green to lilac the sun dropped behind the hills, but not all that far and it reached the few, tattered rags of clouds with its rays.
The first lights had appeared as golden points beneath the toothy summits and at the edge of the water, but there was no way to tell which of those lights was the film company’s camp. A moment later Alice saw a pod of dolphins moving through the water not far from the island.
“Hey, dolphins!” Alice shouted. “Tell my friends they kidnaped us!”
“Stop shouting, or you will go into the water!” A voice came from behind her. Alice turned and saw the rusty robot standing behind them.
“Now I will show them!” It said.
The robot went away and came back in a few minutes with a strange instrument in its hand. The instrument resembled an old fashioned bow. The robot placed a thick, home made arrow on the wire bow-string and fired. The bow was roughly made and improperly balanced and therefore the arrow flew to one side, well away from the dolphins.
Then the robot corrected for his weapon’s imprecision and shot not at the dolphins, but to the other side. On this occasion the crossbow bolt splashed heavily into the water not ten meters from the dolphin pod. The dolphins, evidently, understood that their enemies were on the island, and immediately vanished into the sea as though they had never been. The robot proudly patted his bow with his metal hand and said:
“Even with this primitive weapon we can vanquish any enemy. What matters is not the weapon, but the Leader!”
“And who is your leader?” Alice asked.
“A miserable slave such as you hasn’t even the right to pronounce his name.”
“I’m no one’s slave. There aren’t any slaves any more.” Alice said. She had already taken ancient history and knew about slaves.
“There will be.” The robot said; he placed another arrow on the bow string and shot it into the sea in the direction of the half sunken boat that had run aground on the rocky shore.
“How did you shoot at that boat?” Alice asked. “How did you get to be so strange?
“We sailed here on it.” The robot said. “On that boat, at which I have now shot my straight arrow, in order to demonstrate for you the irresistability of my rage.”
“You speak very well.” Alice said.
“I am the detachment’s commander, the corporal. The others are limited. They know only a hundred words. I know a whole thousand.”
From the ruins came a racket, as though someone were beating a metal sheet with a stick.
“Evening roll call.” The robot shouldered his bow, and turned with a horrible squeaking noise, and started to trudge up the land. “Maybe we can dive and swim to the shore.” Alice thought aloud.
“Don’t even think of it.” The old man said. “I will not let thee. You would put your young life in danger in the watery abyss.”
Alice realized that there really was no way the old man robot could let her try it. Robots were directed to help people in the moment of danger and would rather die than subject a human being to danger. And even if this was a film robot, the Laws of Robotics would have been installed in its electronic brain as well.
“Then let’s go look at their roll call. At least then we’ll know how many of them there are.”
The sun had totally vanished; the water had become bluish grey, and the first large southern stars had begun to appear in the sky. Very high, among the stars, Alice made out the contrail of a passenger liner. They have to be looking for us, Alice thought. But how can they even guess that we’re on this island.
In the square formed by the ruins stood a line of nine metal robots. Three of them held bows in thier hands, while the rest carried thick iron rods. The robots were black against the background of the deep blue sky and were so motionless they appeared to be statues erected and left here many years ago.
“Even space between you, boys.” The robot on the end said. “Tenn-Hutt!” The command was utterly wasted; the robots stood so stiffly that they stood perfectly to attention always.
The robot who had given the command started to drum on his own chest with his metal hands, and the drum beat resounded forth across the quiet evening sea.
A door made out of steel sheet on the smuggler’s hut was pushed to one side and another metal robot came out into the square, scarcely moving his feet. It was taller than the others and there was a rusty helmet on his head, and his chest was decorated with crudely cut crosses. Alice realized that this was the chief robot.
The general opened its mouth slowly several times but no sounds emerged other than the rusty creaking. Finally, it angled its head upward, something clicked and an unexpectedly thin and squeaky voice emerged from its enormous chest.
“Hello, Boys!” It said.
“Hello, Chief!” The robots chorused.