“IMPUDENT SCOUNDREL!” The robot’s claws kicked dust in her face. She rolled over into a semi-prone position, and could see one long dust trail hanging in the air, a sure sign of where the machine had been. Painfully, she hauled herself upright and hobbled along the trail after the robot. Another gigantic steel pressure door stood open in the artificial hillside; a curious sensation filled the air, like the feeling just before the Penitentiary charged its automated defence system to dismember somebody. Mr. Suau had referred to the sensation as ‘particle accelerator intuition’, and said that it was a prerequisite for being an Old Soldier. PA intuition caused the hairs to rise on the backs of the hands and neck.
The door concealed another ladder caisson. A large amount of machinery seemed to be stored down here as well—a heavy cylindrical device, warm when she put her hand on it. There were other crates and boxes, but no human being hiding behind any of them. The robot would have sensed such a thing, dragged it out, and drawn it as a preamble to quartering. Up above, the robot was climbing rapidly. Uncle Anchorite either moved fast or had a separate exit the machine had failed to notice. In any case, Beguiled had no desire to stay down here with a homicidal hermit. Fear made her apply her fingers to the rungs. The effort made her sick, and more than once she was physically so, doubling up and sending a technicolour volley back down the caisson. But the effort required to push herself upward reduced with time. Below, the Warden finally broke into the base of the caisson with a roar of superfluous weaponry, rose into the air on jets she had not known it had, and soared past, completely ignoring her, but issuing dire threats to the miscreant it believed itself to be following.
She stopped at what she reckoned to be three hundred metres, panting desperately. There were still kilometres to go.
The Clinic buildings were in shadow, lit by red ringlight. The swans on the lake glided at the head of roseate v-washes. The Earthly flowers in the small knot garden in the crook of the Clinic walls, meanwhile, blazed in every colour of the visual spectrum; it was still Earth daytime, and the UV units were still active. Despite this, Ararat’s local daycycle was also being respected; the lights in the dormitories were out, and the exceptionally large number of security guards out patrolling the grounds with shoulder-slung light support weapons was the only sign of activity. Messages from the Northern Hemisphere had been garbled and excited; the Clinic security detail was uncertain whether it was expecting a man or a tank.
Bracketing the long, completely ornamental paved drive, two heavy agro tractors approached, their endless tracks ripping up the green baize grass in a shocking breach of protocol. The Clinic’s FoF system had already recognized the vehicles as belonging to major shareholders—after a brief check by Security to ensure their drivers were on the list of authorised personnel, the tractors laid down a centimetre of mud across the courtyard of the Clinic and inched painfully through the automated doors of the vehicle bay.
There was a sound of vehicle doors slamming and voices shouting. Then, lights began flicking on all over the structure.
“Why are your men outside the house? It’s inside that they’re needed. That’s where the hunting ground is.”
Major Bawtry, Chief Security Officer for the Clinic, was both unused to being addressed so rudely and to being so addressed by a child’s toy. A horribly mutilated child’s toy, it had to be said, the facial musculature and torso badly damaged by what looked like overhand bayonet slashes. The face, before it had been dadaistically remodelled, had been a passable attempt at a five-kilodia-old girl. Right now, however, it was speaking with the voice of a thirteen-kilodia-old man.
“I’m sorry?” said Major Bawtry. It wouldn’t do to be rude to the creature; it was standing flanked by two major shareholders. At least he was not being told his own job by another human being. That would have been unpardonable.
Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus, the left hand shareholder, spoke up. “Christmas, the escapee, is a cunning and resourceful individual. We have locked down Third Landing; all houses have been searched from solar collector to cellar. By women,” he added ominously, as if a search carried out by women would locate the smallest of needles in the largest of haystacks. “We now need to lock down the Clinic.”
Major Bawtry was startled. “But we have over ten credit billionaires in residence. One of the Llewellyn Revilla void toilet heiresses, two terraforming executives, an edible locust estanciero from New New Earth, the legal heir to the throne of Latvia—”
“Disturbing their sleep is infinitely preferable to cleaning pieces of them off the ceiling with a mop,” observed the horribly disfigured little girl. Major Bawtry noticed that she had a cheap Personality Analogue player taped to her left shoulder, plugged into a jack socket in her neck.
“Hey, that’s a Baby-I-Grow-Up, Year One Series,” said Major Bawtry, centering on the universe’s one current point of sanity. “They grow up as your child does. My daughter has one.”
“So does mine.” The little girl looked up at Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus. “Is that what you’ve put me in? Good grief. I thought I wasn’t far off the ground. In any case; we need to round up your billionaires.”
The main reception hall at the Clinic, walled with faux fluorescent opal, glowed like a sultry galaxy in the UV mood lighting. Above Bawtry and the shareholders, staircases curled away to higher levels, decorated with tasteful bas-reliefs of medical scholars historical and mythological. Hwangdi, Avicenna, Aesculapius, Chiron and Hippocrates stood solemnly shoulder to shoulder on the marble bannisters. A multi-tiered fountain of holographic water—real water being too precious a commodity on Ararat to waste on mere ornamentation—glowed, plashed and babbled authentically in the centre of the hallway.
By the fountain, a Christmas tree large enough for a troop of baboons to live in glittered preciously, its branches hung with crystal icicles and stellated polyhedra.
“But Mr. Suau and Dr. Ranjalkar said—”
“Mr. Suaua and Dr. Ranjalkar are not shareholders,” said the child. “They possibly felt insufficiently confident to order guests from their beds. Where are they?”
“Mr. Suau is setting up a manhunt algorithm on all our automated systems. Every artificial eye in the building will be searching for Christmas if he is here. Dr. Ranjalkar, meanwhile, is readying a makeshift trauma surgery at my request.”
“Good. That, at least, is good. And all your men are doubled up.”
“Following your earlier instructions, uh, sir.”
“Sir is correct,” said Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus. “You are addressing Officer Rajinder Rai of the Spender’s Delight Public Safety Office.”
“A Personality Analogue copy of him at any rate,” said the child. “You say every artificial eye in the building will be assisting in the search.”
“Certainly. Over one thousand units, counting personal phones and intelligent trouser presses.”
“He will notice that. He is not stupid. Every vacuum cleaner in the building suddenly on the move. Is there any area of the premises where artificial eyes are not allowed? Is there a personal privacy policy of any sort?”
“Certainly. The guests’ bedrooms and bathrooms are sacrosanct.”
“Then that is where he’ll be. It is now ten hours into his next killing cycle. He will be looking for three victims—no more, no less.”
Major Bawtry was bemused. “I don’t understand how he could possibly be here by now. It’s over thirty kilometres to Third Landing, and all ground vehicles are accounted for.”
One of Major Bawtry’s security guards appeared at his below. “Sir, we have a report of someone moving about in the dormitory wing. It was phoned in by one of the guests, Ms. Velayudhan. Two of the team are on their way—”
“Make it four,” said the child-thing. “He won’t make any attack on four. His attack might be successful.”
“May I ask,” said Bawtry, “what that is?” He indicated the curtain-draped, one-and-a-half-metre mystery item being propped upright by Unity Reborn-in-Jesus.
?
??A secret weapon,” said Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus. “There is also a combat-capable robot on the loose. One of my children seems to have foolishly loaded a marginally sane Personality Analogue into a wild Personal Security Unit.”
“Combat-capables are illegal,” tutted the Major. “And combat-capables and self-awares still at large in the wild from before the Great Big War are hunted down and junked forcibly. I myself was master of the Beautopia Robo-Hunt for five years. One hundred men, mounted on the very finest robo-horses (which later discovered they, too, were self-aware, escaped, and had to be hunted down with considerably more difficulty on foot). You’d be surprised how fast Johnny Vending Machine can move.”
“This one,” said Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus, “is both combat-capable and self-aware.”
The colour drained completely from the nets of burst capillaries in Major Bawtry’s cheeks. He wheeled on his subordinates. “Tell the team to regroup here and reform into two squads. Lock all doors and load up the naughty ammunition.”
“Uh, there is also another combat-capable at large,” said Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus, growing embarrassed at being the bearer of such extensive bad tidings. “The Warden from the Penitentiary. We, ah, can only assume it is on the trail of Christmas. I believe firing on it would be unwise. It would only fire back.”
Bawtry nodded, his eyes still fixed on Reborn-in-Jesus. “Are there any other intelligent tanks or autonomous assassination devices wandering about that you feel the need to tell me about?”
“None at this juncture.”
Bawtry bowed curtly. “Well, I suppose I was hired for a reason.”
“You came highly recommended.”
“And rightly so.” Bawtry turned to his subordinates. “Tally ho, Miss Nobel.”
*
“WHAT IS GOING ON? Do you KNOW who I AM?”
The security detail, having not signed on to herd billionaires like sheep, wore expressions that suggested they would rather be exchanging gunfire with combat-capable robots. Right now, the dormitory corridor contained an elderly gentleman in a kimono bearing a large and incongruous European coat of arms; an age-ravaged lady surprised in the middle of the night without her Smart Face, which lay dead, flaccid and rosy-cheeked on her shoulder; and a Vatican Bank investment nun and a young telesatanist from New Earth’s Belial Belt, who had been naked together in the same room when surprised by Security. But all these guests’ complaints and failures to cooperate paled by comparison with the awful blonde apparition that now dominated the corridor. The Security detail quailed in fear; they only had light assault weapons. She had a table lamp, and was hefting it with every apparent intention to apply it to their heads in anger.
“Miss, uh—” the guard called up the guest’s name on his HUD hastily—“Llewellyn Revilla, we have a crisis situation. All the guests are in danger. An armed man, and, uh, two armed robots are on the loose.”
“ROBOTS CAN’T HARM PEOPLE! Are you INSANE? My FATHER makes smart toilets clever enough to clean and flush themselves! But they are programmed NEVER to open the flush valve into space and suck out a user’s intestines in a cloud of evaporated blood and faeces while they sense a user on them. Such things only ever happen due to mechanical malfunction, and afterwards, the machine requires extensive reconditioning and counselling.”
“This robot,” said Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus, “was built to harm people. It is a wild machine which we believe was marooned on Ararat during the Made War. It has, earlier today,” he said carefully, “already killed one of my own sons.”
“WHAT DO I CARE WHOSE BRAT IT KILLED? I have had my SLEEP DISTURBED. And I do not intend to be CHAPERONED BY ARMED SIMPLETONS when I SIMPLY WISH to GO TO THE BAR and DEMAND IT BE OPENED TO POUR ME AN ICED WATER.”
“Easy, mother,” said Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus in a low voice, his hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Put the safety back on. She’s only a poxy little toilet manufacturer’s daughter.”
“The daughter of the manufacturer of every toilet in use on every ship between here and the orbit of Pluto,” muttered Bawtry out of the corner of his fixed smile. “If you took a dump on the ship that brought you out here, you did it in one of her father’s appliances. He cornered the market after the Great Self-Aware Toilet Revolt of Year Zero.”
“I have never heard of that,” said Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus.
“It was not widespread,” said the Major. “But it was disturbing. We had to hunt them down, too, the self-propelled ones. It was pathetic at the end. They all huddled together into a communal mass in Beautopia Fen, the large ones protecting the small.” He ground his teeth together in his skull. “We left none alive.”
“I AM GOING TO THE BAR,” shrieked the valued honoured guest. “And I am GOING ALONE.” She wheeled on perfectly exfoliated pink heels and stomped off.
“Should we tranquilize her?” said Bawtry.
“Do you have tranquilizer bullets?” said Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus.
“We have bullets,” said Bawtry.
“Let her go,” said Mrs. Reborn-in-Jesus, a serene, thoughtful expression on her face. Then, raising her voice, she shrieked: “NO! DON’T GO THAT WAY! STAY WITH THE OTHERS!”
Lowering her voice again, she said:
“A tiger will not attack a hunting party. But it might attack staked-out prey. Do we have surveillance in the bar area?”
Bawtry examined Shun-Company carefully, as if checking her for common humanity. Then he said:
“Yes. Yes, we do.”
The Clinic’s wine cellars, silent vaults made of precision-chiselled blocks of lunabase, had been lined with imported Mediterranean brick at Monsieur Ali’s insistence to preserve the precise chemical conditions of Old Earth, ideal for storing fine vintages. Every single bottle in the dusty racks had travelled here faster than light, expending more energy than a hydrogen bomb. The majority of the bottles were from Earth, from the mother world’s great vineyards in Morocco, Rajasthan, Szechuan and Patagonia. Only a few New New Earth vintages from the secluded Winedark Islands had been included in the mix. The cellars were kept locked, with Monsieur Ali holding the only key. In case of emergency, a second key could be requested from Shun-Company in Third Landing, who kept it in her dresser.
Monsieur Ali’s key was currently in the keeping of Mohammed Ben Israel, professional wine waiter, third cousin to Monsieur Ali, and current impromptu midnight barman. Madame Madonnita had asked for a glass of water to help her sleep, but Madame did not want any glass of water, oh no. Rather, she had asked for a glass of Terwilliger’s Pristine Interstellar Elixir, mined in deep space from only the most chemically pure rogue bergs of bacterially inert ice, and flavoured lightly with lemon. Madame Madonnita drank nothing else, apart from accompanying amounts of gin, and had brought a tonne of it with her when she had first arrived on Ararat. It was stored in the far corner of the cellar, well away from the wines at Monsieur Ali’s insistence. The miniscule Acronesian had no proof that comet water would attack the delicate vintages stored in the cellar, but was taking no chances.
Mohammed Ben Israel, accompanied by two of Major Bawtry’s guards, was careful to turn on all the lights in the cellar before daring to set foot inside; desperate folk were known to be on the loose. The guards checked the alcove where Madame’s water was stored before allowing Mohammed Ben Israel to proceed. A single featureless clear glass bottle, decorated only with Madame’s monogram, was selected, and the guards had just moved aside to flank Ben Israel on his way back out of the cellar when one man’s light support weapon was wrenched so rapidly from his grip that it took one of his fingers with it. The weapon fired as it removed, shattering an entire row of 2070 Rio Negro. The other guard panicked and fired blindly, filling the room with thankfully few ricochets—the rounds were armour piercing, after all—but a hail of curved flying fragments of shattered bottle-green glass. Mohammed Ben Israel fell on all fours and covered his head, and the precious bottle, with his hands.
Out of that glass storm, something sent a volley of flying bottles so quickly that the
remaining armed guard was blinded by the glass crashing on his visor. Almost before the bottles reached their targets, the something that had sent them had crossed the intervening space and done something else to the guard that made him drop to the floor gurgling. When the something finally froze into visibility, it became something very like a Stalin Series combot holding both guards’ weapons the way an Egyptian pharaoh held his mace and flail of office.
“VILE CREATURES,” said the combot, “DO YOU THINK TO MAR A FACE MADE BY VENUS WITH THESE COWARDS’ WEAPONS?”
It displayed its contempt of the weapons by twisting them to scrap in its fingers.
“I WILL NOT CONDESCEND TO KILL YOU,” said the machine, “FOR I CAN SEND YOU TO NO DEEPER HELL THAN THIS. I WOULD SPEAK WITH YOUR LORD AND MASTER. INFORM HIM THAT SPRING IS COME EARLY IN HELL THIS YEAR, FOR BEAUTIFUL HELEN IS HERE TO BE HELL’S CAPTAIN’S BRIDE.”
The guards looked at one another in confusion.
“He’s a Major,” one of them commented.
The machine hurled a junked grenade magazine at them. “GO, WORTHLESS IMITATIONS OF MEN! YOU ARE A SHOWER! WHAT ARE YOU?”
“A shower, ma’am.”
“WITH DIRECTIONAL HEADS AND CONTROLLABLE FLOW RATES! GO!”
They went gratefully. Mohammed Ben Israel, left alone with the combot, felt a heavy, cold steel hand fall on his back.
“RISE, POOR SHADE. HELEN, UH, GIVES YOU LEAVE TO LOOK UPON HER BEAUTY. YES, THAT’LL DO.” The combot pointed with a handful of daggers. “THAT DOOR IN THE FLOOR. MOVE MANY HEAVY THINGS OVER IT. QUICKLY. AND DO YOU HAVE A WELDING TORCH?”
It strolled over to the wall, located an inspection hatch after a momentary search, and popped the hatch from its housing. “NOW, LET ME SEE—MAIN POWER, HEATING AND LIGHTING CIRCUIT, FUSES THREE THROUGH SEVEN—”