Radmer is a clever swordsman, though, and despite the speed and grace of his attackers, he strikes two of them with the tip of his stick, and they, at least, do fall apart into shrieking, smoking fragments and fibers and dust, briefly alive with light and oil and then collapsing to the dirt in smoking masses.
But there are too many attackers, and Radmer cannot engage them all, much less protect Bruno against them. This becomes apparent only a few moments before it becomes hopeless, so Bruno throws a glue bomb of his own, swings the trenching hook at the head of his nearest attacker, and runs. Another cut stings across his back, and another gleaming metal robot looms in his way.
Although it's rather stronger than a human, it is also lighter; he knocks its sword aside and deals a sharp blow to its head. This has, as far as he can tell, no effect whatsoever, except perhaps to unbalance the thing very slightly. Nevertheless, he strikes again and then takes off running as fast as his ancient body will carry him.
Bruno is regarded as a genius, but alas it doesn't take one to see that he's not going to get away. The remaining attackers have divided their forces democratically, so that three are bearing down on Conrad Mursk and two on Bruno de Towaji, and both teams are more than enough to accomplish the job. This is not at all according to plan, so he throws the second glue bomb, runs some more in jackrabbit zigzags, and then turns, breathing heavily, to stand his ground.
If those black boxes, those brain annexes, are vulnerable to bullets, then perhaps a good bashing can also provide them with an educational reprogramming. Or perhaps not, but even after all this time Bruno is not inclined to die in retreat with a wound in his back when he can instead die bravely, with a wound in his belly. It makes a better end of things, yes?
And this behavior seems to puzzle the robots, or at least to give them pause. They are not afraid of him, but neither can their mission be accomplished optimally if they themselves are killed, so it behooves them to assess every threat. And he has already surprised them twice, which ought to make them cautious. Ought to.
But as he prepares to make his final stand, and die at last, the air is split by a shrill noise—several of them, actually—sounding for all the world like the tin police whistles Bruno still remembers from his youth in Girona, among the Catalan hills of Old Earth. Before it was known as Murdered Earth.
And then there are faint shimmers in the air around him, and strange sourceless shadows whirling on the ground. And the robots are startled, as if reacting to some new threat, and in another moment they're breaking and bursting and dying at Bruno's feet, and Radmer's.
The last of them, before it collapses, puts its arms above its head in a mockery of surrender, and then shoots its fingertips upward on slender, gleaming rods. Radio antennae, clearly: an attempt to report back its status or to call in reinforcements. But the rods are sliced away by some invisible force, and then the shadows on the ground draw nearer and wilder, and the robot falls away in a bursting of bright orange fire, leaving Bruno and Radmer alone in a field of fragments.
But there are shadows all around, like heat ripples on the floor of a desert, and seeing them approach, Bruno collapses in undignified confusion, holding an arm above him. And one of the shadows draws nearer, and then something passes between Bruno and the sun. Only then, in silhouette, can he finally see the source of one shadow: a dim human shape, swathed in stealth fabric and painted with the glowing colors of earth and sky. In broad daylight its power consumption must be considerable. Hence the shadows: the fabric is bright enough to mimic the light waves passing through it from ground and sky, but cannot quite match the intensity of the sun itself.
In another moment the faint shimmers in the air begin, one by one, to flicker and darken and assume human shape. These are ordinary human beings, in very high-quality stealthsuit camouflage. Or rather, very old, very unordinary human beings, like Bruno and Radmer, with frizzy, yellow-white hair and sagging skin and worn, polished nubs for teeth.
A few of them glance incuriously at Bruno, now ruefully picking himself up, but their attention, for the most part, is focused on Radmer. There are five of them altogether, and they surround him with guns and swords raised in a kind of salute. Either that, or this is some bizarre ritual presaging his capture or murder. But no, there's too much smiling for that. Soon, Radmer is thumping these men on the back, whooping and laughing. “I've had closer calls, but not many! My thanks to you, Sidney Lyman. Your arrival is most timely.”
“We hoped it was you, sir,” says Lyman, apparently the leader of these five rescuers. “We saw something coming down out of the sky, which fit with the rumors we'd heard about a weird project going on at Highrock. But these lot”—he kicks at a pile of robot shards—“saw you come down as well, and when our picket sensors found them headed in this direction, I felt the need to call muster and bring at least a small piece of the old unit together. And here I see it was the right decision. Unless you've changed sides, ha!” Then, more seriously: “How you been, sir?”
“How do you think?” Conrad asks, laughing grimly. “For the likes of us, as for the morbid humans, there's no safe place in the world anymore. And that's if you're inclined to hide, which I, alas, am not.”
The other man, Lyman, seems to take this as a rebuke. He says, “The Echo Valley hideout is necessary, and may yet save your skin. I know it saved mine, more than once, and every man here will tell you the same. Even this enemy”—he kicks once again at the heaps of silicon shards—“hasn't seen through the stealth veils yet. Some of us still have children growing up, sir, as crazy as that sounds. We do require some security, if only for them.”
“I'm not angry,” Conrad assures him. “I'm not arguing with you. Believe me, I am very glad to see you at this moment.”
Lyman smiles and hugs his old friend—his old leader, apparently—once again. Then he says, “They told us you'd gone to space, in search of some item of great strategic value. Did you find it?”
“Aye, and nearly lost it.” Radmer nods toward Bruno. “This man is . . . its keeper, I suppose you would say. His life must be defended at all costs, or all of ours may be forfeit. Even in your damned valley.”
Here, Lyman looks critically at Bruno for the first time, and does a sort of double take. “Sir, you look awfully familiar. Have we met?”
Bruno sees no point in concealing his identity, but neither does he feel a need to announce it. He isn't a king anymore, just as Conrad Mursk is not an architect, although his claimed lack of generalship seems rather in doubt at this point. What Bruno says is, “Not to my knowledge, lad, though anything is possible. Or used to be, anyway.”
Lyman seems to find this funny, as do two of his men. “How are we to call you?” he asks when the chuckling has subsided.
Bruno thinks about it for a moment before answering, “Ako'i.” This is the Tongan word for “teacher,” or colloquially a kind of friendly insult—someone smarter than those around him, and therefore poor company. It is a name by which Bruno was addressed off and on for years at Tamra's court, before his own ascendancy to the throne. When they should have been calling him “Declarant.”
And then it is Bruno's turn to ask questions, for he'd noticed as Lyman sheathed his sword—a sort of epee or fencing foil just over a meter in length—that it had a hilt and a wickedly sharp tip, but no middle. Indeed, the tip seems to hover in the air, to dance, to track the rotations and translations of the hilt. It behaves as if attached, and yet Lyman had put his hand right through the thing, right through the empty space between hilt and tip!