“Ah,” says the Glimmer King, sounding regretful. “I could wish for you to… disappoint me, but alas your character holds firm.” He rises from his throne, steps down from the dais, and walks toward Bruno and Radmer.
“Halt,” say Bordi and Zuq together, raising their blitterstaves to block the way.
But suddenly the battle is on again; robot soldiers are swarming the two, and though they fight hard to protect their charges, there are only two of them against an infinite supply of attackers. They’re driven back, and the Glimmer King continues to advance.
“Halt,” Radmer warns him in the same tone, raising his own staff.
But the Glimmer King’s mind, however defective, is faster than meat. In his impervium hand is a miniature blitterstick, of the sort sometimes carried by Olders in this world. Of the sort Radmer himself had carried, until the battle of Shanru afforded him a stouter weapon. With it Bascal easily blocks Radmer’s feint, and where the two sticks touch there’s immediate trouble; they attack each other as easily as they attack mere impervium. There are sizzles and pops and flashes of light, and both weapons fall to dust.
Then, with offhand grace, Bascal kicks Radmer hard in the stomach, and raises a hand in the air. As if by magic, another blitterstick flips into his grasp, hurled by one of the robots somewhere in the room. He touches it to Radmer’s suit, which has some built-in resistance and doesn’t immediately fail. But it does burn and sizzle in glowing, expanding rings, and Radmer shouts, “Escape sequence!” Unnecessarily, for the suit, sensing that he’s not surrounded by vacuum or poison, is already peeling away. Better no armor than dying, defective armor! There’s another blow to Radmer’s stomach—unprotected this time—and he falls away, gagging and coughing.
And then the Glimmer King is attacking Bruno, striking down his staff and his armor. There is no expression on his blank metal face, but his body is fluid with rage.
“You’ve ruined my… only fax,” the robot says angrily, over the din of battle all around. “You’ve set me back a hundred years. I should kill you both in the most horrible ways. But in memory of our… history I will simply deactivate you.”
And with that, he punches again. Very hard. Bruno’s sternum is reinforced with diamond and fullerenes and assorted species of brickmail, and the heart behind it is as tough as a treader wheel. But there are valves; there are weak points. Underneath it all he’s still a creature of flesh and blood. The strike is precisely aimed, and Bruno feels something give way.
How astonishing it is! He feels himself collapse, watches the world spin around him, sees the floor come up to smack his helmet. He can actually feel his blood pressure dropping—it’s a distinct sensation, like standing up too quickly—and for a second or two he’s simply fascinated by the novelty of it all. Internal hemorrhage; the blood spilling warmly inside him.
But then the Glimmer King is looming over him, preparing to deliver some coup de grace, and Bruno feels a flicker of worry at what awaits him. He is afraid to die, at least a little, and he’s even more afraid of leaving this business, his final business, unfinished. In the end, a man owns nothing but his past.
But the robot says, “What does it mean that I crave your… forgiveness? Malice hurries me on, and yet my… heartless soul is toxic with remorse. In loosing so much creation upon the worlds, you’ve entrained… forces to which our mere passions are unequal. Shall we sit among the ruins and lament? Embrace your… fate, Father. I beg you.”
To which Bruno replies, weakly, “Son, the office thrust upon us we’d’ve handed you gladly, eons ago, if you’d shown the maturity that chair requires. We’re still waiting, I’m afraid.” His voice drops to a rasp. “Shall I tell you the secret of rule? It’s love. Simply that. They’ll forgive you anything if—”
But something’s wrong; among the shots ringing out, several have struck the Glimmer King himself, in the chest. The darts bounce right off the impervium, whining and buzzing off into the room somewhere, but the sites of their impact are dead gray circles, and the next volley punches right through. The Glimmer King’s hull is thin, lacking in countermeasures. Now it gapes, throwing off sparks. At the end of the day, he’s little more than a crazed household robot.
He looks down at himself, staggering, then looks to the figure of Radmer seated on the floor, his back against the wall, a well-aimed rifle tucked beneath his arm.
Indeed, Bruno sees, all the robots are looking at Radmer. All motion has ceased, and if a featureless metal head can convey shocked betrayal, then the room is drowning in it from every angle. There are no more Dolceti; Zuq and Bordi have dropped somewhere, amid the heaps of slain enemies.
Says the Glimmer King, “Nineteen years ago, when I was fallen fresh upon this world, when I glimpsed the cheering twilight and heard the rustle of leaves and the trilling of birds, this second life seemed precious indeed. I knew it would be you, Conrad. Someday, somehow, my dearest friend, I always knew it would be you. Alas, this body sheds no tears.”
That said, the thing collapses to the stone floor and moves no more. Nor do the other robots move; they’re frozen in place like statues, with blank surprise written across their bodies. The army of Astaroth is defeated.
Radmer drops his rifle and crawls to Bruno’s side.
“Sire! Are you hurt?”
Looking up at his old architect laureate, Bruno gasps out a chuckle. “You could say so, yes. My heart is broken at last, my chapter in history drawn finally to a close. It feels so strange, and yet I know exactly what to do. To die. The arc of my life has led me to this moment fully trained. Are you hurt?”
Radmer looks pained at those words. “I’ll live. Oh God, I’m sorry, Bruno. About your son, about everything.”
He doesn’t bother with platitudes, with assurances, with medical lies. He has, Bruno thinks, seen too many dying men.
“My son left us long ago,” Bruno says, and now his voice is just a whisper. His limbs are cold and numb; he needn’t move them ever again. “But you’re still here. Shall I claim you for my own? Don’t be sorry, lad. I’ll let you in on a secret, my own private sin: I have no regrets.”
He would fondle an air foil if any had survived the journey through the fax, but they, too, are gone. And it’s a pity, for they illustrate so much! But perhaps mere words will suffice. “To make a thing of fragile beauty and wonder, Conrad—even to try—is a worthy task for human lives. I’d do it all again, every moment of it.”
He’d like to say more about that, but there isn’t time. There isn’t need. He appears to be finished.
Chapter Twenty-Five
in which power fails to corrupt
Radmer wept for hours. For Bruno, yes, and for Bascal. For the Olders and Dolceti, for Xmary and Tamra and the Queendom of Sol. And for himself, with the misfortune to be the last of them all. If ending comes to all things, he wondered, and gives them meaning, why do we despise it so?
When he was finished weeping he slept, for his body was tired and his injuries serious. He never knew how long he slept, for when he awoke, the twilight over Astaroth was unchanged. But he felt a little better—his body was healing itself—so he found a kitchen all decorated with cobwebs, and made a fire from the dusty wood he found there, and grilled up the last of his olives and fatbeans. Oh, what he wouldn’t give for a flavor designer now! He’d been eating this slop for a thousand years too long. He was ready for something new, or an end to all of it.