The clockwork traitor, p.14
The Clockwork Traitor, page 14
The trio of invaders took cover behind the solid metal bannister of the ramp and waited for the attack on them to begin. It did not take long. Seemingly dozens of robots appeared in various doorway entrances to this chamber, all firing up at the intruders. Luise cautioned her companions not to waste their fire; the charge packs in their own blasters were getting low. They could only afford to fire when they had a sure shot.
Luise noticed out of the corner of her eye that Jeanne's shots were becoming more and more erratic as the eeriness of the room took its toll on her, and finally the young animal trainer stopped firing completely and curled up into a whimpering ball. Luise regretted having to take someone so young and inexperienced along on a mission like this, but her special talents had been deemed necessary to help them get through the outer gate.
Inside Jeanne's jumpsuit, Luise could see a stirring motion, indicating that Bur-Bur the ticklemouse was awake and restless. The subsonics were probably affecting him just as badly as they were hitting his mistress. Luise felt a twinge of pity for the helpless creature-then shut that feeling off abruptly as an idea occurred to her. Telling Claude to keep up the covering fire for all of them, she knelt down beside Jeanne and spoke rapidly.
"Can you still control Bur-Bur?" she asked.
It took a second for the question to sink into Jeanne's consciousness. The younger girl looked up and said, "I... I don't know. I think so, if it's nothing too complicated. Why?
Luise reached into her pocket and pulled out the little transmitter. "He has more chance of getting past the guards and out of here than we do. We can strap this around his waist like we did with the tirascaline canister, and as soon as he runs outside the gate it should start transmitting. Can you get him to do that?"
Jeanne nodded. "Oui. All his natural instincts are telling him to run now, anyway. I would only have to make sure he runs in the proper direction."
So saying, the animal trainer reached inside the front of her jumpsuit and took out her little pet. The animal was clearly skittish, and Jeanne had to take several seconds looking it straight in the eyes and cooing to it gently while blasterfire was raging all around them-to calm it down. Luise noted with Relief that this effort was good therapy for Jeanne, too; with some definite goal in mind, she was snapping out of the panic that had so recently enveloped her.
Taking the bleeper now from Luise, Jeanne attached it to the saddle that was around Bur-Bur's middle. She spoke to the ticklemouse in low tones and in pseudowords that Louise couldn't begin to understand. It was fascinating to watch, even though they were in so much danger at the moment. Jeanne was able to put aside reality to reach down to the creature's level; she actually seemed to become a ticklemouse herself as she communicated her desires to Bur-Bur.
Finally she straightened up again. "He's ready," she said. "But there's so much shooting going on in here right now, I don't know if he'll even be able to get out of the room."
From over at the edge of the ramp, Claude spoke up. "Hand him to me," he said. "I'll take care of it." Obediently, Jeanne handed the still nervous pet to her comrade, who took it and tucked it gently inside his own jumpsuit. Then, with a simple "Cover me," he leaped, literally, into action.
Taking off from a crouched position, he used his powerful legs-born to a gravity three times as strong as this to propel him upward over the banister into the air. With one arm outstretched, he reached for and grabbed the support strut of one of the multitudinous mobiles that were hanging throughout the room. Pushing off against that, he began a downward curve toward the door that led to the front of the castle. As he descended, his body twisted and spun so rapidly that it presented a very bad target to the defenders.
While he was in the air, Luise followed his last orders. The robot guards were not expecting a move like this, and momentarily were at a loss for what to do. When they finally decided to take aim, they concentrated solely on Claude and forgot all about the other two intruders. As they stepped out of their doorways to get a better shot at the acrobat, beams from Luise's and Jeanne's blasters cut them down, decimating their ranks. Most of the robots retreated in confusion.
Claude hit the floor with his knees bent under him. Like two enormous springs, they absorbed most of the jolt of the impact, and he rolled forward in a somersault to take care of the rest of his momentum. He started to run toward the door, firing off his blaster at the robots who stood in his way. For an instant it looked as though he might make it out, but then a blaster beam from across the room hit him squarely in the back. With a scream of pain, he fell over forward onto the polished metal floor.
Luise and Jeanne watched the death of their relative with horror. They had all known there was a chance they'd be killed on this mission, but this brought that possibility into hideous reality. At first, they were afraid that the blaster bolt might have gone straight through his body and killed Bur-Bur too; but then they saw the little brown. furred creature climbing out of the front of Claude's jumpsuit, apparently none the worse for the incident. It stood up on its hind legs for one second, gauging direction with difficulty, then dashed off at top speed out the correct door and into the hallway beyond. "Now let's just hope he finds his way out in time." Luise said grimly.
"If anyone can find their way out, it's a ticklemouse," Jeanne told her. "Besides, the robots won't be looking for anything that size, so they wouldn't even try to stop him. They'll be too busy shooting at us."
The robots in the doorways were increasing their numbers by the minute. As the word got around the castle that the last two invaders were trapped in the Chamber of Angles, reinforcements kept arriving. For every machine the two women incapacitated, another two seemed to take its place.
Slowly, playing for time now, the SOTE agents backed up the ramp. They gave no thought to getting out of the castle now; all their hopes in that direction were riding on the back of a frightened ticklemouse. All they were trying to do at the moment was stay alive until Duke Etienne and the forces of SOTE could come to their rescue.
The door through which they had originally come opened up and another robot appeared behind them. Jeanne sensed it and shouted a warning, giving Luise the opportunity to whirl and fire in this new direction. Her beam struck true and blasted a hole in the robot-but not before a bolt from the other's gun grazed the side of her right calf. The leg gave, out under her and she stumbled. Were it not for Jeanne's quick action, she would have fallen to the ground with pain, but the Circus's animal trainer managed to swoop in and lend her shoulder as support. Luise leaned on her gratefully.
"I think we'd better go back out here," Jeanne said, leading Luise toward the open door at the top of the ramp. "I think there was only that one robot up there-though more will be coming soon."
As they had hoped, the upper corridor was still clear. The robots behind them were now racing up the ramp after them as Luise and Jeanne staggered across the hall back into the security room. The dead bodies of Duke Fyodor and Dr. Rustin were lying where they'd fallen, still untouched. Jeanne closed the room's door behind them as they entered and slipped the bolt shut.
"That won't keep them out," Luise gasped through her pain. "They'll blast away at it until they knock it in, then they'll be coming for us. We'd better try getting back into the dumbwaiter-we might have some chance there."
But before they could carry through on that action, they felt the entire castle shake from the force of an explosion. There was more noise and confusion out in the hall, and suddenly there were no robots trying to get in at them. They had all gone off to guard against a new menace.
"I think," Luise said, tired and hurt, "the rest of our troops have finally landed."
That was, indeed, the case. Immediately upon hearing the signal of Luise's bleeper-now outside the castle walls -Duke Etienne d'Alembert had mobilized his troops. The waiting period had been abnormally long, and he'd been beginning to fear the worst. Now the time had come for action, and a d'Alembert never passed up such an opportunity.
The Duke had used his authority to order a small army of personnel and equipment from the local branch of SOTE. Now, at his command, they all swung into action. First came the copters, five of them, each one armed with lasers and carrying a small bomb. In one synchronized swoop, they dived at the front entrance to Rimskor Castle and cracked open the gate with their simultaneously timed blasts.
Before the castle's beleaguered defenders could turn around and face the menace from this new direction, an army of fighting SOTE operatives came charging down the road toward the now opened gateway. The heavy-duty blasters that had been mounted over the doorway were dead, and the guards inside were either dead or too stunned to activate the minefield along the road bed. The Duke's legions went through the ranks of the defenders almost as if the latter weren't there. In desperation, the robot guards radioed up to the security control room for instructions, hoping to get some coordination of their efforts. But they received no answer; the only two people alive inside that control room could not work the console, and would not have helped the defenders even if they could.
Without any strategy or coordinated effort, the outnumbered robots of the late Duke Fyodor put up hardly any fight worthy of that name. Within fifteen minutes after Duke Etienne gave the order for his troops to move in, the guards surrendered to his superior forces.
As the Circus manager strode triumphantly through the corridors, he came across the body of his third-nephew Claude. He let tears fall unabashedly from his eyes at the loss of so good a man.
Luise and Jeanne appeared on the ramp above him, also looking down at Claude's charred corpse. "He died a good death," Luise said hoarsely. "If any death can be described as good. If it weren't for him, none of us would be alive now-and the information we have would be totally lost."
They walked down the ramp to him, with Luise leaning heavily on Jeanne's shoulder. As they reached the bottom, they both embraced him passionately, letting all the accumulated tension drain out of them. Etienne held onto them as long as they needed him, and then the three of them set out in search of Rick.
They found the wrestler still unconscious from a stungun beam and lying on a table in one of the secondary dining rooms. He probably would be all right once the initial stun wore off.
As they walked back outside, Luise briefed Etienne on what they had learned from Duke Fyodor and his physician. The head of the d'Alembert clan swore furiously under his breath when he learned that they had been aiming at the wrong goal all this time, and he was just as frustrated as Luise at not having learned more details about the other robots that were apparently on the loose throughout the Galaxy. This was a threat that had never before been suspected, and one that the Head should be apprised of immediately.
The Duke left Rimskor at once to return to the Circus, but Jeanne and Luise stayed behind for a while. As Luise watched, Jeanne went outside the castle and stood in the middle of the now darkened roadway. The young animal trainer remained rigidly motionless in the chilly night air for five minutes, then began trilling softly in an almost birdlike call. She continued on for another ten minutes, then suddenly knelt and picked something up. As she returned to Luise's side, the leader of the assault team could see that she held Bur-Bur cuddled securely in both hands. The ticklemouse's nose was twitching actively; it had come through the campaign with nary a scratch.
The instant he returned to his office at the Circus, Duke Etienne sat down at his desk and composed two coded messages. One of them was quite long, explaining in detail everything that had taken place during their operations on Kolokov and warning of the possibility of other humanoid robots elsewhere in the Empire; that message would be beamed to the Head on a Class Nine Priority basis-information vital to the continued security of the Galaxy.
The second message was shorter. It said, in effect, "Stop looking for time bombs and start looking for robots." It, too, was given a Class Nine priority and was sent out at once to the planet Ansegria.
When that message was received, its high-priority rating -the highest ever received on that particular world-got it delivered immediately to the planetary chief. But that worthy did not read it; the particular coding on it told him that the contents were not meant for his eyes and instructed him to forward it, instead, to Crown Princess Edna herself, staying with the Baron and Baroness of Cambria.
The chief delivered the message personally to Rockhold Castle. The Princess greeted him properly, though her manner was somewhat aloof; things had not been going well, and her nerves were near the fraying point. She took the message from him and dismissed him with her deepest thanks. Then, when she was sure she was alone, she summoned Jules and Yvette to her rooms. Together, they would read this important message aloud-and perhaps it would unravel some of the mystery that had overtaken the Progress.
Chapter 12
A Traitor Unmasked
"A robot!" Yvette exclaimed. "No wonder all our investigations were looking so pointless-we were going after the wrong thing. We could have been chasing time bombs from here to Doomsday while, unbeknownst to us, a machine would have been waltzing off with Edna."
The Crown Princess shuddered. "Whichever one it is must be awfully convincing," she said. "They all look like real people to me."
"Borov was, at least," Yvette said grimly. "He proved that the hard way."
"This explains a lot of mysterious things," Jules put in, pacing about the room. "It explains the fight we had in the corridor-that kick to the chest I gave him should have killed an ordinary man. And his reflexes were as quick as ours because they were mechanical and computer-assisted. And he acted as though he could see in the dark because he probably could; I know if I were making a robot traitor, I'd build a few extra features like that into it."
"Like superstrength?" Yvette gave him a wan smile. "Exactly. That machine must be incredibly strong. That's how it uprooted the tree and clobbered poor Borov with it Borov must have come upon it unexpectedly and learned its secret; it had to kill him to protect its identity" "But which one of our little friends is it?' Yvette mused. "Luise wasn't able to find that out for us, unfortunately." "So we have to use our own brains," her brother said, pacing some more. "Choyen Liu looks to me like the most logical choice. There's always something cold and emotionless about him, like a machine. He didn't sunburn like the rest of us did after that first day at the beach. And remember how good he was with that rifle on the hunt bringing down a panna-cat like that with one shot is a pretty incredible feat."
"But remember how he calmed the dorvats when they were panicking?" Yvette countered. "I don't think a robot would be able to get so attuned to animals. And Liu wasn't the only one who didn't burn-the sun left Paul Symond untouched as well."
Crown Princess Edna felt left out of this brainstorming session as she watched the two superagents tossing their ideas back and forth. Clearing her throat, she dared to interrupt with an idea of her own. "Why don't you simply X-ray everybody and find out, instead of playing detective games?"
The two d'Alemberts stared at her. Jules stopped his pacing and smacked his forehead with his palm. "Mon Dieul I must have left my brains back on DesPlaines. Edna, you are a genius, and you'll make the best Empress we've ever had." He grabbed her by both shoulders and delivered a passionate kiss to her imperial lips.
Edna was startled, but not complaining at all. When Jules had finished she blinked a little and said, "Thank you, but I'm not sure I deserve the praise. It was a simple, perfectly obvious move."
"It sometimes takes a genius to see the obvious and the simple," Yvette said solemnly. "We could both have played Sherlock Holmes all day without getting anywhere. Hm. X-raying isn't quite the answer; the machinery needed is too bulky and our robot may get suspicious as to why we need it. He knows that sort of thing would give him away in a second. He's already scared because events aren't going according to his plan; if he gets any more anxious, he may do something unpredictable. We have to avoid that."
"We've still got our own bomb detectors," Jules pointed out. "They're so small that nobody yet has noticed us using them. They should be able to detect whether a person is flesh and bone or gear and cog. We just never thought to use them on people before."
"True," Yvette nodded. "We could do that this after noon. But we'd better plan ahead. What'll we do when we find out who it is?"
The question was harder to answer than it sounded. This robot had already proved itself to be capable and resourceful. It was not above using murder to cover its tracks, and it was already dedicated to a treasonous cause. Once its identity was revealed, it would stop at nothing to cause as much damage as it could. It had only ceased its fight with them in the corridor because it was afraid its identity might be discovered if it lingered there much longer; once that threat was no longer valid, the two agents knew just how hard a time they would have overcoming it.
"One thing is certain," Jules said. "Edna had better be far away from here when it happens."
"Absolutely," his sister agreed. "She's been sticking around so far because we had to allay our traitor's suspicions. Now that we know what his game is, there's no sense puting her in further danger. Edna, you talk to the Baron and find some way of getting out of here without anyone noticing you're gone. If anything comes up, you'll be officially sick and resting in your room."
Edna smiled at her two bodyguards. "Normally I might resent having to take orders instead of give them," she said, "but I know you two too well. Anything you say "Good," Jules said. "Now, to plan the trap itself." Most of the candidates were assembled in the day room of Rockhold Castle, much as they had been on the day Jules had arrived. Jules mingled among them, and Jacques Roumenier stood guard beside the outer door. Though his stance appeared casual, his right hand just happened to be resting only a centimeter or so from the handle of his blaster, which he could draw and fire in the meagerest fraction of a second. Jules and Yvette had decided to use blasters if needed, since a stunner would be of no use whatsoever against a robot.
