Retief at Large (28 page)
"Gentlemen,
your cell. A trifle cramped, perhaps, but well protected from excessive wind
and rain, eh?"
Retief and Magnan stepped inside.
The two soldiers forced the heavy sliding door shut.
In
the total darkness, a dim spot of light glowed on one wall. Retief reached out
and pressed a thumb against it.
With
a grinding of ancient gears, a groaning of antique cables, the elevator started
down.
Magnan
emitted a shrill cry and attempted to climb the wall "Retief! What's
happening?"
"No,
no, Mr. Magnan," Retief said, "Your line is, 'Ah, just as I planned.'
That's the way reputations for forethought are built."
"Shilth
was quite right about the claustrophobia," Magnan said in a choked voice.
"I feel that the walls are going to close in on me!"
"Just
close your eyes and pretend you're at a Tuesday morning staff meeting. The
relief when you find yourself here should carry you through anything short of
utter catastrophe."
With
a shudder and a clank, the car came to a halt.
"N-now
what?" Magnan said in a small voice. Retief felt over the door, found the
stub of a lever. He gripped it and pulled. Reluctantly, the door slid aside on
a large, column-filled room faintly lit by strips of dimly glowing material
still adhering to the ceiling and walls, which were adorned with murals
depicting grotesque figures engaged in obscure rites.
"Tomb
paintings," Magnan said in a hushed voice. "We're in the catacombs.
The place is probably full of bones—not that I actually believe in the curses
of dead kings or anything."
"The
curses of live Ambassadors are far more potent, I suspect," Retief said,
leading the way across the room and into one of the many passages debouching
from the chamber. Here more cabalistic scenes were etched in still-bright
colors against the ancient walls. Cryptic legends in an unknown script were
blazoned across many of them.
"They're
probably quotations from the local version of the Book of the Dead,"
Magnan hazarded, his eye caught by a vividly pigmented representation of a
large alien being making what seemed to be a threatening gesture at a second
alien from whose ears wisps of mist coiled.
"This
one, for example," he said, "no doubt shows us the God of the
Underworld judging a soul and finding it wanting."
"Either
that, or it's a NO SMOKING sign," Retief agreed.
The
passage turned, branched. The left branch dead-ended at an ominous-looking sump
half filled with a glistening black fluid.
"The
sacrificial well," Magnan said with a shudder. "I daresay the
bottom—goodness knows how far down
that
is—is covered with the
remains of youths and maidens offered to the gods."
Retief
sniffed. "It smells like drained crankcase oil."
They
skirted the pit, came into a wide room crowded with massive, complex shapes of
corroded metal, ranked in rows in the deep gloom.
"And
these are the alien idols," Magnan whispered. "Gad, they have a look
of the most frightful ferocity about them."
"That
one," Retief indicated a tall, many-armed monster looming before him,
"bears a remarkable resemblance to a hay-baler."
"Mind
your tongue, Retief!" Magnan said sharply. "It's not that I imagine
they can hear us, of course, but why tempt fate?"
There
was a sharp
click!,
a whirring and clattering, a stir of massive
forms all across the gloomy chamber. Magnan yipped and leaped back as a
construct the size of a fork-lift stirred into motion, turned, creaking, and
surveyed him with a pair of what were indisputably glowing amber eyes.
"We're
surrounded," Magnan chirped faintly. "And they told us the planet was
uninhabited!"
"It
is," Retief said, as more giant shapes moved forward, accompanied by the
squeak of unlubricated metal.
"Then
what are these?" Magnan came back sharply. "Oversized spooks?"
"Close,
but no kewpie doll," Retief said. "This is the city garage, and these
are maintenance robots."
"R-r-robots?"
"Our
coming in must have triggered them to come to alert status." They moved
along the row of giant machines, each equipped with a variety of limbs, organs,
and sensors.
"Then
... then they're probably waiting for us to give them orders," Magnan said
with returning confidence. "Retief! Don't you see what this means? We can
tell them to jump in the lift and ride up and scare the nether garments off
that sticky little Shilth and his army—or we could have done," he added,
"if they understood Terran."
"Terran
understood,"
a scratch bass voice rasped from a point just opposite
Magnan's ear. He leaped and whirled, banging a shin smartly.
"Retief!
They understand us! We're saved! Good lord, when I first planned our escape via
the lift, I never dreamed we'd have such a stroke of luck!"
"Now
you're getting the idea," Retief said admiringly. "But why not just
add that extra touch of
savoir-faire
by pretending you'd deduced the
whole thing, robots and all, from a cryptic squiggle on the contact party's
scopegram?"
"Don't
be crude, Retief," Magnan said loftily. "I fully intend to share the
credit for the coup. In my report I'll mention that you pushed the lift button
with no more than a hint from me."
"Maybe
you'd better not write up that report just yet," Retief said, as a robot
directly before them shifted position with a dry squeal of rusty bearing to
squarely block their advance. Others closed in on either side; they turned to
find retreat similarly cut off.
"My,
see how eager they are, Retief," Magnan said in a comfortable tone.
"There, there, just stand aside like a good, er, fellow," he
addressed the machine before him.
It
failed to move. Frowning, Magnan started around it, was cut off by a smaller
automaton—this one no bigger than a commercial sausage grinder, and adorned
with a similar set of blades visible inside a gaping metallic maw.
"Well!
I see they're in need of re-programming," Magnan said sharply. "it's
all very well to fawn a little, but—"
"I'm
not sure they're fawning," Retief said.
"Then
what in the world are they doing?"
"Terran
are surrounded,"
a voice like broken glass stated from behind the
encircled diplomats.
"We
are judging Terran,"
an unoiled tenor stated from the rear rank.
"And
finding you wanting."
"Frightful
oversized robots will jump on your smoking remains,"
chimed in a third voice,
reminiscent of a file on steel.
"We
are eager for crude contact,"
Broken Glass agreed.
"They
have a curious mode of expressing themselves," Magnan said nervously.
"I seem to detect an almost ominous note in their singular choice of
words."
"I
think they're picking up their vocabulary from us," Retief said.
"Retief—if
it wasn't so silly, I'd think that one intended us bodily harm," Magnan
said in a tone of forced jocularity, as a ponderous assemblage of sharp edges
came forward, rumbling.
"We
intend you bodily harm,"
File-on-Steel said.
"But—but
you can't attack
us,"
Magnan protested. "You're just machines!
We're alive! We're your rightful masters!"
"Masters
are better than robots,"
Broken Glass stated.
"You are not
better than us. You are not masters. We will certainly harm you."
"You
will not escape,"
a
red-eyed monster added.
"Retief,
I suspect we've made a blunder," Magnan said in a wavering tone. "We
were better off at the tender mercies of the Groaci!"
"What's
it all about, boys?" Retief called over the gathering creak and clank as
the machines closed in.
"This
planet is not your world. We are programmed to give no mercies to you
fellow."
"Just a minute," Magnan
protested. "We're just harmless diplomats. Can't we all be friends or
something?"
"Who
gave you your order?" Retief asked.
"Our
masters,"
replied a voice like a sand-filled gearbox.
"That
was a long time ago," Retief said. "Matters have changed
somewhat."
"Yes,
indeed," Magnan chimed in. "You see, now that your old masters are
all dead, we're taking over their duties."
"Our
duties are to see you dead,"
Red-eye boomed, raising a pair of yard-long
cleavers.
"Help!"
Magnan yelped.
"We
wouldn't want to stand in the way of duty," Retief said, watching the
poised cutting edges, "but suppose we turned out to be your masters after
all? I'm sure you wouldn't want to make the mistake of slicing up your
legitimate owners."
"You
see, we took over where they left off," Magnan said hastily. "We're,
ah, looking after all their affairs for them, carrying out their wishes as we
understand them, tidying up—"
"There
is no mistake, Terran. You are not our masters."
"You said masters are better
than robots," Retief reminded the machine. "If we can prove our
superiority, will you concede the point?"
Silence
fell, broken only by the whir and hum of robotic metabolisms.
"If
you could so prove, we will certainly concede your status as our masters,"
Sand-in-the-gears said at last.
"Gracious,
I should think so! Magnan jerked his rumpled lapel into line. "For a
moment, Retief I confess I was beginning to feel just the teeniest bit
apprehensive."
"You
have one minute to prove your superiority,"
Broken Glass said flatly.
"Well,
I should think it was obvious," Magnan sniffed. "Just look at
us."
"Indeed,
we've done so. We find you little, silly, crude, tender, apprehensive and
harmless."
"You mean—?"
"It
means we'll have to do something even more impressive than standing around
radiating righteous indignation, Mr. Magnan."
"Well,
for heaven's sake," Magnan sniffed. "I never thought I'd see the day
when I had to prove the obvious ascendancy of a diplomat over a donkey
engine."
