The Deep Dark Well (11 page)

The robot holding her
released his grip, as Robbie turned to walk down the corridor.  The other
robots fell in around her, surrounding her but not touching her.  She followed
the leader of the robots as the group moved down the hall.

*    *    *

She could tell that
this was a different station from the first she had come to.  The murals upon
the wall were of some kind of kangaroo like alien, similar to the body they had
found in the abandoned hulk of the
Hernand
.

“They are called
Husteds,” said one of the robots, following her gaze to the wall.  “They were
known to be loyal friends of mankind, unlike some of the other species.”

Then the train caught
her attention and all else lost importance.  It was beautiful in an exotic kind
of way.  Tube shaped, with rounded ends.  All walls were of a lightly colored
transparent substance that didn’t look like glass or plastic.  More like some
kind of metal.   Comfortable looking chairs covered in shimmering fabric sat
along the inner walls of the car.  Double doors in the center were open. 

The robots led her to
the car, and she looked down before entering.  The car was suspended above the
curved trough that held the lower section, not touching the walls, and not held
up by any visible means. 
Magnetic suspension
, she thought.

“Please,” said Robbie,
gesturing toward a chair.  “Have a seat.”

Pandi sat carefully in
the seat.  The fabric looked like some kind of plastic, and she expected it to
be cold and sticky on her bare skin.  It was anything but.  A silky warmth
spread from the chair to her skin, and she felt like sinking into the seat in
total relaxation.  Almost like an instant massage.

The doors slid silently
shut and the train started moving, accelerating quickly without the feeling of
acceleration.  Some kind of compensation system?  The car moved into the
darkness of the tunnel ahead.  The interior of the car glowed with a warm and comforting
light. 

A few seconds and they
were out in the open again, speeding through a transparent tube suspended from
the ceiling, looking down on what looked like an enormous residential area. 
Gardens occupied the central courtyard, while walls dotted with porches and
doorways stretched to the high ceiling.  Smaller houses were spaced among the
gardens and plazas. 
The area looks so sad
, she thought,
so empty
. 
It was meant to be filled with people.

Then they were through
and into another tunnel.  She looked over at the robots, which were all staring
sightlessly back.  Again she felt uncomfortable in her nakedness, wondering if
robots felt desire for the human form.  The end of the closed tunnel came up. 
As they came out, moving ever faster, a space that made the residential area
seem tiny by comparison came into view.

Pandi no longer thought
of nakedness, or of robots looking at her, as wonders came into view.

Chapter
6

What does the history
of the human race teach us?  If anything it teaches us that the instinct of the
human race, an instinct that goes down as deep as any genetic trait instilled
on the race through billions of years of evolution, is the instinct of
conflict.  The human race thrives on conflict.  Conflict is to us as food and
drink.  All throughout the history of the race, the long climb to the dominance
of a single planet, to the stars, to over lordship of the Galaxy itself, we
have fed on conflict.  Only once in the history of our people, after all the
obvious frontiers had been conquered, did the human race decide to rest on its
laurels.  And then we became the prey of other races also bred to the joy of
conflict.  And then we fell from dominance, to begin again the long climb on
thousands of separate worlds sunk to the depths of barbarism.

Inauguration Speech of
the Autocrat Farraday, 4161 Standard Galactic Year.

She had no way of
judging distances here.  The floor below could have been twenty kilometers, or
a hundred.  The walls?  The walls could have been any distance as well, in the
crystal clear air, or vacuum, of the gargantuan chamber.  Then the walls and
floors were forgotten as her eyes locked on the first of the giant machines
that occupied the room.

An enormous cylinder,
kilometers wide, kilometers tall.  Another beside it, and another, stretching
into seeming infinity from her vantage.  Arcs of energy flashed here and there,
blinding to the eye.  The chamber flashed by, and another came into view,
filled with more of the huge cylinders.  Pandi seemed to feel the energy they
contained.

“These are the Magnetic
Field Generators,” said Robbie, answering her unasked question.  “They are used
to generate the magnetic fields used in energy production on the station.”

“How many?” she asked,
as they flew through that chamber and into another filled with the giant
cylinders.

“One hundred generators
per chamber,” answered the robot, “in arrays twenty five long by four wide. 
Each section is composed of three thousand such chambers, for a total of
300,000 units per section.”

“Per section?  And on
the whole station?”

“There are a total of
3,600,000 magnetic field generators in twelve sections.”

Pandi stared as they
moved through yet another chamber, and another.  Four hundred kilometers per
chamber, and the car was moving through them in less than twenty seconds, still
accelerating.

“What's the purpose of
this system?” she asked.  They were moving too fast now to pick up any of the
details on the cylinder.  The robot didn’t answer for a moment.  If possible it
would have looked proper with an expression of concentration on its face.

“
Watcher
orders
that you are to be told about this station and the energy it generates.”

Light sprung from the
silver visor of the robot as an image formed in the air in front of Pandi. 
Schematics of cylinders such as those she saw going past, in clear detail. 
Even larger than she had thought, the cylinder extended through a floor.  Large
tubes made connections into the cylinder.  Smaller toroids connected to the top
and bottom of the cylinder.  A kilometers long probe extended from the bottom.

“Each generator works
in unison with the others in its section,” said the robot.

The view expanded
outward, showing the chamber with the one hundred generators within.  It
expanded again, to an outside view looking up at the station, an image of the
magnetic probes, arranged in a section of five by five, forming a larger
rectangle of twenty five generator sections.  The view expanded again, to show
the how the rectangles were arranged in rows of four along the length of the
outside of the station.  Out again, to show the thirty sections of fours.

“Three hundred thousand
generators per section,” said the robot.

The view expanded
again, like a camera moving at incredible speed, tilting to bring the station
into a new perspective.  A ring appeared, the station, large circumference and
ribbon thin in this view.  Then she covered her eyes against the glare, as
twelve bright beams of curved light, spaced equidistant around the station,
appeared between the structure and some spot of darkness in the center.

“Electrons flow along
the magnetic field, as the station rotates around the charged black hole in the
center, and the black hole rotates as well in the opposite direction.”

“An electrical field
generator,” said Pandi, staring in wonder at the display.  “This whole huge
construct is just a powerful electrical dynamo.”

“Yes,” answered the
robot.  “Essentially correct.”

“You still use
electricity?  Even with this kind of advanced technology?”

“You seem surprised,”
said the robot.  “You expected some other kind of energy source.  All that
energy consists of is fast moving particles, and electrons are among the
heaviest of fast moving particles.  So what better source of power?”

“How, how big is this
whole station?” she asked.  The view gave her no sense of scale.  It could be
hundreds of thousands of kilometers in circumference for all she could figure.

“The station is fifty
kilometers thick, three thousand kilometers wide, and 9,424,777.96 kilometers
in circumference along the inner edge.”

“But, that would give
this thing a volume of billions of kilometers?” she said, her voice a whisper.

“Approximately 1.4
trillion cubic kilometers.”

Pandi thought about
that for a moment.  1.4 trillion cubic kilometers.  You could put hundreds of
trillions of people in such a space, even accounting for all the machinery she
had seen, and all she could imagine.

The hologram faded as
the robot sat back in its chair, letting her digest what she had been told.

*    *    *

The ride seemed to go
on forever, chamber after chamber flying by in a blur.  Pandi sat in one of the
luxurious seats, it having taken the shape of an acceleration couch, though
there had been absolutely nothing that she would have characterized as
acceleration even during the initial burst of speed that moved the tube train
from a standstill to the blurring speed it had now achieved.  To whatever
destination was planned for her by the robots that surrounded her, and their
mysterious master.

"We will soon
arrive at the master's quarters," said that worthy in his smooth as silk
melodic voice.  She had asked him why they were made not quite human looking,
and had been told by the machine that their masters had not wanted to mistake
robots for living beings, an error that could be made easily enough.

"I wish you'd let
me have some clothes," she said, shivering in her nakedness even in the
moderate temperature of the tube train car, "before we get to this,
master, of yours.  He's a man, didn't you say?"

"He is male,"
answered the robot, "though unlike any other male of his species.  And the
master wishes to be assured you are harmless before he meets with you."

"Like I could do
anything at all to harm the man," she said with a sneer, "with all
you big strong boys and girls around."

“Well,” she said,
trying to relax and enjoy the rest of the ride.  “What the hell is all this
power you’re generating here used for?”

“You wish to learn more
of the station?” said the robot, leaning forward as its visor became a
holographic projector once again.  A different cylinder schematic appeared,
this looking for the entire world like an enormous capacitor. 

“There are four hundred
and eighty thousand of these storage and transmission units.  They store the
energy generated by the magnetic fields.  Stored for use in the wormhole gate
transport system, or for projection by laser or microwave to outlying
installations in this star system.”

The train whizzed
through another of what she had been told were the wormhole room stations like
the one she had come to the station through, just like the hundred or so she
had seen whiz past in the last half hour. 
How many of the damned things are
there on this bitch?
, she thought.

"We are almost
there," said Robbie.  Another station whizzed by in a line of light, and
then they were rocketing on through the sparsely lit round tunnel.  Without
warning the train began to decelerate, noticeable from the increase in time
length between lights.  Pandi gripped the arms of the chair instinctively, even
though her body and mind could detect no change in motion.  Another station
came into view, the lights seeming to decelerate to meet what her senses told
her was a stationary train.  And then they were stopped, or the station
stopped, and the doors to the train car flung open silently.

"This is our point
of departure," said Robbie, standing up and gesturing for Pandi to precede
him from the car, as the other robots moved off the car and went about their
business.  Robbie kept his attention on her, and the woman realized that there
would be no escaping the attention of the ever-vigilant machine.

"You will not be
harmed," said the robot again in reassurance.  "The master assures
you that he merely wishes to visit with you, and to converse about your times,
which are of great interest to him."

"Thanks,"
said Pandi, "but I would feel much more secure if I had something to cover
myself with."

"The master will
be happy to have new clothes furnished for your comfort," said Robbie,
"after you have been cleansed and proven of no harm to his own health."

Pandi looked at the
door that the robot still gestured toward, and then down at her tight, firm
body. 
Still attractive
, she thought, with her small, soft breasts, flat
stomach, thick thatch of red pubic hair. She wondered how anyone could think
she might be a danger, unclothed and weaponless.  What they couldn't tell from
a mere voyeuristic glance was that Pandi was as dangerous with her open hands
as she was with that old pistol she had carried.  Thank daddy and his
insistence on his beautiful little girl being able to take care of herself. 
The moves of Tae Kwon Do were still wired into her body, even if they hadn’t
proven much use against the robots.  But the master was an organic form.