Did you see her, Duncan? A small dark girl.
Forget her, Trace. You know how these girls are, how they all are…
Not this one, Duncan. Did you see her?
Forget her, Trace! You’re army! You’re army! You’re army you’re army you’re army you’re armyarmyarmy…
He bathed in the cold, running water among the blue and violet flowers, and his hands found her and were delighted by her cool, firm flesh, and the cold water and cool flesh drained away the poison and fever and made him well again.
Duncan, didn’t you really even see her? Small and dark…
Forget her, Trace. Forget her…
Trace smiled softly, his eyes ceased their restless movements, the twitching in his legs stopped, and the pulse that had beaten wildly in his throat subsided. His right hand dangled over the side of the bed, glistening with water that already was drying. His left hand slowly relaxed its grip on a plastic water bag whose sides were stuck together, an air bubble captured in the bottom of it. As his hand relaxed, the sides came unstuck, and with a whisper too low to rouse him, the air bubble escaped and the bag lay flattened, finished. A trail of drying, naked footsteps led from the storage unit to the seat-bed.
He dreamed again, but this time the dreams were gentle and without pain, Lar and their meetings, strangely innocent, the nameless happiness of being near her.
Are you going to take me to one of the rooms?
Do you want to go with me?
What difference does that make? I know the rules. The Fleet must be obeyed, first law to learn for a captive people.
Please, Lar, don’t do that.
Why not, Captain? It is true. You are one of the new gods, didn’t they tell you? Your slightest wish is our command. My body, my house, my food, my mother… What is your pleasure, Captain?
Nothing, Lar. To be near you, if you want it too, no more than that.
Do you mean it?
Yes.
Then let us swim. Let us play and be the children that we were a long time ago, before your silver and black ships came from the sky and we knew the taste of war and conquest. Forget who you are, Captain Tracy; be a child with me…Forget your wounds and your wars without end…
And I’ll forget my dead brothers, and our burned cities, and the wars yet to come when you too may die… when you face your equals in battle…
Her eyes blazed with passion and she clamped a slim hand over her lips quickly, and dived into the water.
The drooping, gentle flowers, sifted sunlight touching the water turning silver ripples to gold, playing on waving plants anchored on the river’s bed, darting birds of fairy tale plumage… The girl whose words were like poetry, whose voice was a song, whose body was sculptured flesh…
A rapid drum tattoo sounded and he was in parade formation, rigidly at attention, in full uniform heavy with medals and ribbons, gleaming in the hot bright light of Venus. An execution. The drums beat for an execution, crying rapidly over and over, kill the traitor, kill the traitor, kill the traitor… eyes were turning towards him, cold eyes, black eyes, uniforms glazed white hot, ringing him in, and the drums beat out, kill the traitor… He was against the fence, a military execution, his execution. He opened his mouth to tell them it was a mistake, and he couldn’t remember how to say the words. The drum burst in louder staccato, and with a cry Trace awakened.
He sat up, completely awake in an instant. The radiation detector! He adjusted the light and read the screen that showed a blip of light on the farthest concentric line, moving inward so slowly that it was painful to watch. Four miles, and coming his way.
He checked the hatch and raised the seat-bed to operating position, and then there was nothing else to do except wait for it to get closer. It was still very dark outside. He had slept less than seven hours. How had it found him so quickly this time? Why hadn’t it gone out on the sands after him?
It’s a logic machine, Trace. Whatever you can reason out, so can it. Don’t forget that, or you’re lost. Use your humanness on it, your instincts, your intuition, anything that isn’t a part of logical planning. You can’t beat it at its game.
Yeah, Duncan, I tried that, twice now. The first time it didn’t see me take out over the desert, but this time it did. I was sure to let it see which way I was going. It didn’t follow me, Duncan.
Logic machine, Trace. Simple logic machine.
Trace shook his head impatiently, willing the whispering voice away. The blip was not coming straight at him; it was heading south. It was zigzagging, searching for him among the mammoth rock formations. He expelled a long sigh when the beeping voice of the detector abruptly stopped. It had passed out of range.
It would be back, all he had gained was a matter of extra minutes. He touched his lips; they were cracked and sore, and for the first time he became aware of a curious distant ringing in his ears, and a burning in his eyes. He rummaged in the medical supplies and came up with anti-fever capsules. As his hand groped for the water bags, he rose up sharply. There were only two of them left, one partially emptied. He remembered the dream, swimming in cold, fresh water, and his gaze swung around to the seat-bed where he saw the bag, inert and empty. He cursed harshly, picked up the bag, and threw it against the wall of the dinghy. He had crushed one of the capsules, and he flung the granular medicine from him also, swallowing the other one dry. The screen continued blank, the system silent, and he made a scant breakfast on prepared emergency rations, squeeze tubes of concentrated foods that tasted pasty and disgusting. He paid little attention to which of them he grabbed from the dwindling stock. Food wouldn’t be a problem. It would be abundant long after he was dead from thirst.
He refused the thought. Death came in space, in battle, with a tearing pain that killed before the brain received the pain signal. Or it came when a faulty pressure suit exploded, or when a ship’s pile flared without warning. Death had many approaches, but it would not catch him alone on a planet where no other man walked.
His audio system picked up the first sigh of the wind, a long soft rustle of noise that was like a silken cloth stirring. Dawn. In forty minutes he would have to move whether or not the killer robot again entered the circle of his screen. His jaw was tight. Where could he go this time? He had run out of mountains to hide in, and behind him the ground was crisscrossed with “hot” rocks that would throw his radiation detection system way the hell out. He had led the thing six hundred miles, and, as obedient as a dog, it had followed every step of the trail, never slowing down or faltering or making a mistake. He gnawed on a knuckle and stared at his screen, the wind noises now steady in his ears, and he visualised the backbone of the mountain range with its jutting rocks and pocked ground. Six hundred miles long, and he could move only one hundred miles more before the fuel was gone, before he would be using the fuel he needed to return to his orbiting ship. He had to wait six days before he returned to his ship. The killer robot might kill him on the ground, but the lack of reserve oxygen would kill him in space. If only he had been able to hide…