Great Sky River (30 page)

“Co-opted?” Shibo asked.

“My circuits overridden. New imperatives written directly into my substrate.”

Killeen said, “They took the Citadel?” and watched the machine carefully. He knew of no machines controlled by men, ever.
Certainly Family Bishop had none at the time of the Calamity.

“Oh, no. No. In those ages the mechs were a small band. They avoided humanity’s Citadels, their festivals for breeding, all.
They captured me when I was… was… was… was…”

The mech’s audio rasped as it went into a circular-command loop. Something it yearned to say was blocked by a deeper prohibition.

“Stop!” Killeen ordered. He was beginning to believe the machine. His Arthur Aspect piped in:

We termed them “manmechs,” in my day. The Expedition had an entire complement of intelligent machines, after all, and kept
them in good running order. Otherwise, how could the first generation have been kindled? Humanmade robots united the sperm
and ova brought from Earth. They tended the young, grew the first food—

So they did! Doubly evil, then, the manmechs’ own perverse and traitorous act, to form alliance with those who pillaged the
Chandeliers and now hound us in every cranny. This is an enemy of all mankind, this thing that insults us with its bark and
woman’s soft tones. Kill it! That is the only
—

The mech civilizations captured this manmech. You cannot attribute evil to it if it had no choice! The mechs transformed some
of its functions, but apparently never extracted its fundamental human-command overrides.

Killeen asked, “How come they didn’t just tear it up, mine it for materials?”

It knows us. They kept this foul betrayer because it can deceive us yet again! That is why I
command
you to destroy it
.
Now! Yet—

Probably it satisfies some arcane function in mech society. Or its survival from the early days may be mere chance. I advise
against any sudden action such as the frothing nonsense Nialdi advances.

You risk
all
if you suffer the traitor to
—

Killeen cut off the Nialdi Aspect. He had no time for that now. Nialdi and Arthur kept sputtering and sparring with each other.
He let them run as tiny mouse-voices in the back of his mind, to bleed off their tensions, but otherwise ignored them.

The machine coughed, barked angrily three times, and came back to normal. “I… am sorry. I cannot reveal that information without
a key word command.”

“How’d the mechs get you?” Hatchet asked.

“There was nothing I could do. I went with the mech civilization and lost my place at the foot of beloved humanity.” These
words were darkly plaintive, half from broken memories and half a plea for understanding.

The cluster of humans looked at one another, confused. “You figure it tells true?” Cermo-the-Slow asked Hatchet.

“Could be.”

“Damn strange, you ask me,” Cermo said flatly, shaking his head.

“Mechs’ve never tried this before,” Shibo said. “Not like a mech trick, this. I trust it.”

Killeen said, “Yeasay. Mechs just try kill us, not confuse us.”

The Kings and Rooks spoke, guardedly agreeing. The ancient manmech’s acoustic sensors swiveled eagerly to
ward each speaker in turn, small polymer cups tilting around its oblong body.

Hatchet’s yellow upper teeth chewed at his lip, his triangular face for once giving away his uncertainty. He reached up and
unconsciously fingered his knobby chin, squeezing it slightly, as if to press firmness into the rest of his face. “Okay. So
what? We’re ’bout done here. Let’s

go.”

The machine barked nervously, a high animated yelp. Then the womanly voice murmured, “But no! You cannot leave me here, sir.
I am yours. Humanity’s.”

Hatchet looked uncomfortable. “Say now, I…”

“But you must.” The woman’s voice gained an edge of seductive softness. “I have been loyal to you these long times. And I
must deliver my message to the Citadel Pawn.”

“Citadel Pawn’s destroyed,” Killeen said. “We are all the Citadel Families that remain.”

“No! Gone? But then well I… well I… well I…” “Shut up!” Hatchet said irritably. “Come on, let’s get movin’.” He walked away.

“No, I must follow. You are my—”

“Yeasay, follow,” Shibo said gently. “But
quiet.”

There were only a few more items on the Crafter’s list. The party carried these out to the grate-door. The Crafter was approaching
as they shouldered the last pieces onto the pile. Suddenly the grate-door began rising.

“Get to it!” Hatchet called.

At his signal the team began to quickly carry the items out and load them into a side pouch which the Crafter popped open.
Killeen and Shibo and Cermo joined in the hurried scramble. Only moments before they had been joking at the curious machine.
Now there was a taut
watchfulness as they finished the job, fully exposed to the slanting pale light of Denixrise.

Killeen and Shibo carried Toby out as the last pieces went into the pouch. They got him safely onto a ledge halfway up the
Crafter body. They were all getting tired and it was hard to get Toby up the incline. Bud broke into Killeen’s attention:

1. Crafter says climb up.
   
2. We go to another factory.
   

Killeen relayed this blank-faced to Hatchet, who asked, “How come?”

“The Crafter says he has something for us.” This was a flat lie, since Bud said:

1. Crafter wants Toby’s help.
   

Impossible,
Killeen thought. 1. You will see, Crafter says.

Killeen said, “Can the Crafter release this manmech? Says it can’t leave this factory ’plex.”

Bud said nothing for a long moment. Then:

1. Crafter has freed manmech.
   
2. Favor to you.
   
3. It says, remember, it wants Toby’s help.
   

“We’ll see,” Killeen said guardedly.

The manmech began to crawl up a side ramp of the Crafter. Bud said hurriedly:

1. Crafter won’t carry manmech.
   

“Why not?”

1. Manmech is now free mech.
   
2. Can trigger detectors.
   
3. Make it stay off.
   

“I want it with us.”

1. Crafter will kill then.
   

“No, just a—”

Killeen heard the Crafter transmit a seething burst of static, which sent the manmech reeling.

1. That was warning.
   

The manmech cried, “Humans! Do not leave me!”

Tight-lipped, Killeen called, “No choice. You’re free now. Good luck!”

As they lumbered away from the cubic factory the grate-door came ratcheting down. Looking back at it, Killeen felt a washed-out
sense of relief. They had come through the dark tunnels and survived.

He was saddened to see the dog-woman manmech come clattering after them. He would’ve liked to ask that strange combination
about its ancient life. A living entity was far more gripping than the desiccated little lectures the Aspects gave him. He
was trying to learn more from his Aspects, but they lacked the manmech’s poignant, humble truth.

He shook his head. His father had told him once that
the smartest people were those who, once they saw they had no choices left, forgot the matter. He had never mastered that
art. He shut off his comm, so he would not have to hear the manmech’s fading, plaintive yelps and forlorn baying.

The Crafter accelerated away. Its antennae swerved and buzzed with anxious energy.

He lay back to rest. Toby moaned nearby. The boy’s nerveweave was beginning to fray and fret. Killeen levered his bad arm
under his son’s neck to provide some pillow. He closed his eyes. Sleep crowded in on him. He set himself against it. He had
to think. To prepare for the real reason he had come here.

At first he thought it was a mountain. Then he saw its myriad worked edges and the smooth oblique inclines. It was a complex
so large it seemed to be the landscape, dwarfing hills nearby.

The Renegade Crafter drove toward the towering network at top speed. They crossed an open plain that was seamless and hard.
Other mechs shot along cross-paths. The silence was eerie. Some mechs swelled, humming, and then shrank without seeming to
be moving at all. Killeen could not follow the fast, undaunted traffic. It was like the swarms of birds he had seen around
the Metropolis, but each moving in unalterable straight lines.

The Crafter did not slow at all. Its antennae sent pops and buzzes in all directions. A wedge-backed hauler bore down on them.
It passed so close Killeen could see parts-index markings on its hull tabs. The backwash slapped them a hard
crack!
A black circle opened at the base of the mountain. Killeen glanced upward and saw ornate slate walls. An orange detonation
unfurled halfway up the mountain face. Before he could see what caused it the tunnel swallowed them.

Even then the Renegade did not slow. They hurtled through unremitting black. A warm wind brushed them.

Killeen lay still, feeling the hum of the Crafter’s momentum, waiting. He listened to Hatchet talking to some of the others
on a hush-circuit. Hatchet gave orders for when they stopped, his muted mutter laced with anxiety. Everything depended on
surprise.

They slowed.

Coasted in complete dark.

Slammed to a halt.

The team clambered down. Killeen didn’t move but he felt Shibo nearby.

Abruptly, red light flooded them from above. They were in a huge vault. Blocky containers nearly filled the volume, stacked
in an elaborate rising weave of interlocking helices. Killeen could see no mechs.

He and Shibo carried Toby off the Crafter. He could not see how the team neutralized two small mechs but he heard the quick
scratching electromagnetic fight.

“Hustle!” Hatchet called to them. They scattered among oblong canisters. Something like glass snapped under Killeen’s boots.
Toby grunted and stifled a groan. Killeen did not look back to see what the Renegade was doing.

They reached a small knothole hatch. Already most of the team was through it. A fried mech stood smoldering nearby. Killeen
carried Toby through on the carrysling with Shibo ahead, her pistol out.

Beyond was a simple square zone. Bluewhite mechs sped across it. They paid no attention to the small human band that emerged
from a sheer, unmarked wall. More storage facilities, Killeen guessed. A distant booming came down from the ceiling.

—Tough part comin’ up,— Hatchet sent.

The team ran toward a small arch. Plainly it was an entrance gate. Elaborate signifier emblems studded both sides. Killeen
knew some recognition-code inputs from the days when he had scavenged with his father. He peered at the polished polycopper
casings with embedded, snaking lines. These engraved silvery circuits were new to him.

Hatchet punched some instructions into the signifier circuits. There were hexagonal insert points embossed on the ceramo-metal
wall. Killeen had never seen anyone make use of them.

Hatchet did not even pause. He pulled small cylinders from his flap pockets and stuck them slowly into the holes. He turned
each one until it clicked. Through his efficiency, nervousness glittered, like sky seen through speckled clouds. The team
watched him with drawn faces.

The portal’s square polymer gate slid aside. No one made a move through the arch.

“This’s far as it goes,” Hatchet said, standing back. “Now…”

Silence. Edgy glances. Killeen suddenly knew that this was where the Kings had suffered their two deaths.

Hatchet said, “We need the boy.”

“How?” Killeen said, his throat narrow and dry.

“He’s got to crawl through that. Then null out the circuits on the other side.”

“He can’t. No legs, remember?”

“That’s the trick,” Hatchet said. “He’s the only one can do it.”

“Have somebody else crawl.”

“You don’t get it. Your boy, he’s got no Aspects. So he’s missing lots circuitry, the inset boards, all that. This gate senses
that stuff.”

“This is what the Crafter meant?” Killeen asked, stalling.

“Sure. He saw it right away.” Hatchet’s eyes danced, alight with possibility. “We’ve never been able to get through here.
The ’quipment to fix up Toby, it’s beyond this gate. The kid, he’s got less circuitry. The mechs’ve set this gate so it’ll
catch even humans. We got practically no insets, compared with a mech—but this gate sees just a scrap.”

“It killed your people.”

“Yeasay. See, it’s not just that your boy’s got no Aspects,” Hatchet said. Now his face was concerned, reasonable. He spread
both hands in a can’t-you-see? gesture. “The Renny, he figures with your boy’s legs out, there’s even less nerve-linked stuff
for the gate pickups.”

“You…” Killeen eyed the rest of the team. He would dearly love to ruin Hatchet right here, kick his balls to sour mush. But
that wouldn’t save Toby.

Sly and chilly the words came from the Cap’n of the Kings. “Want me to make it an order?”

“You don’t know it’ll work.”

“Renny figures it will. That’s why it asked about the boy back at the landing strip, right?”

Killeen nodded.

“Crafter’s not risking
its
precious circuits,” Shibo said dryly. But she saw the situation. She would back up Killeen but the decision was his. In the
end nobody can carry another’s weight.

Killeen saw that Hatchet had deliberately not told him any of this until now, when there was no time left to dispute it. “Even
if the Crafter’s right, Toby can’t get through there.”

Shibo started to agree. Hatchet held up his hand, his mouth set firmly. “Got arms, right? He can pull himself through.”

Killeen stood rigid, unable to think of anything. He had to ward this off. But he had no time to develop reasoning, no argument
against a Cap’n who had steered this whole raid toward this moment.

Killeen reminded himself that Hatchet had been on many raids, knew things, had done things for the Crafter. Called the Renegade
“he,” like it was human.