Far Frontiers Part 20

"YES.".

"Are you certain you can do so without destroying more of the installation?"

Pause.

"Why," Alastar goads, "did you not protect the installation when I was off-line in stasis?"

"YOU STILL EXISTED""But I was ineffective. Your inaction led to damage to the installation."

"NO MA1TER. YOU WERE IN EXISThNCE. MY PROThCTIVE FUNCTION DOES NOT COME ON-LINE UNTIL YOU NO LONGER EXIST.".

Alastar feels, despite her frozen limbs, the rifle being wrenched out of her hands. She experiences a certain degree of abstract surprise as from the periphery of her restricted vision she glimpses Lillianara running toward the enforcer. The woman shouts: "Alastar, where is it vulnerable? Tell me or it will destroy you and you will be unable to fulfill your role!"

Various programming imperatives bounce off of each other. Alastar finds herself unable to speak either through tight-beam or by mouth. Her eyes are slow to track, but they follow Lillianara as she runs across the broken ground toward the enforcer.

The enforcer's missiles oscillate in their tubes as its own progranlnung comes into internal conflict. Unlike Alastar, it has not kept its limited neural nets flexible; it has done nothing but watch Alastar and occasionally scan the surface during the millennia since their creators had abandoned them. It has not even questioned the bombardment that shattered the installation nor that Alastar had been damaged by a member of the allied races in advance of that very bombardment. It has not been flexible enough to wonder if damage to Alas-tar const.i.tuted a threat to the installation.

So now it finds it difficult to switch tracks as the ragged human pounds across the broken ground toward it, a power rifle in her gloved hand.

Lillianara runs. Her fingers fumble for the trigger. She plays the beam of coppery light across the enforcer's sh.e.l.l. The more vulnerable of its sensory antennae are sheared off. The less vulnerable retreat, reducing the scope of the enforcer's vision.

Alastar hears a frustrated whine along the tightbeam.RESTARTING SYSThMS CHECK. AIMING AREA OF EFFECT WEAPONS.

DECONTAMINATION. PEST CONTROL.".

"Lillianara! Get away from it!" the android calls. Simultaneously, she sends to the enforcer.

"Countermand decontamination and pest control procedures. Damage to the installation will result."

The enforcer balks. "DAMAGE TO ThIS UNIT HAS BEEN DONE. PEST CONTROL INDICATED BY BASE PROGRAM.".

"My duty is to protect the installation. If you damage the installation, I will be free to act against you.

Alastar can sense the enforcer's programming seeking a way around these conflicting imperatives. She knows it will find one. Their creators were not stupid; moreover, computer minds work far faster than organic a.n.a.logs. Lillianara is no longer within the android's limited range of perception. Alastar hopes that she has reached relative safety.

The muddle of discussion from the enforcer's internal programming is fading. A single purpose is coming to the fore.

"YOU ARE A THREAT TO THE INSTALLATION. YOU ARE A THREAT TO ME. IF.

I REMOVE YOU, I MAY PROTECT THE INSTALLATION.".

As the enforcer's claws lift, Alastar resigns herself to dissolution. The missiles click into fmng position. The enforcer states calmly, all conflict dismissed: "FIRING FROM DUAL PORTS. PREPARING TO RETARGET ON INTRUDER."A brilliant light sears the android's optics. A thunderclap forces her audio sensors into emergency shut-down. Puzzlement fills her brain. She never should have heard the thunder.

Lillianara lowers the rifle from its awkward support against her shoulder. Heat washes over her as the enforcer robot explodes. The rock on which she is perched s.h.i.+vers, but stays in place. She realizes with a certain philosophical detachment that not only is she bleeding from dozens of small shrapnel cuts but she is also completely deaf.

When she finishes blinking the spots from her eyes, Lillianara sees that the enforcer has been reduced to a smoldering heap of burning metal. Alastar stands staring into the flames. When she moves to s.h.i.+ft a piece of carved rock out of the reach of the fire, it is with her customary ease and grace. Lillianara wonders how long until the android comes hunting for her.

By the time the enforcer is merely burning embers, dawn is touching the sky. Lillianara's hearing is returmng to normal as well. For many hours, she hasn't dared move from her perch on the rock. Grat.i.tude might not be a factor in the android's calculations. Lillianara still has the rifle, but she wonders if her own life is precious enough for her to destroy what she has so recently tried to save.

Eventually, the needs of her body force her to crawl down from the rock. Leaning on the rifle for support, Lillianara limps toward the cache. When she moves, Alastar turns: "You are out of repair stasis?"

Lillianara laughs dryly. "I never was in repair stasis. Actually, I'm in pretty bad shape."

Alastar appears to consider. "You are leaking. You stopped doing so for a time."

"The blood froze on my skin. I'm afraid that moving opened the cuts again."

"Your energy levels are low."

"I'm starving. I'd probably have frozen, but the flames from our friend there kept mewarm."

"Friend?"

"Humor. Irony." Lillianara sighs. "I meant the enforcer."

"Do you mind if I get something to eat?"

"No."

Lillianara staggers a few more steps. Once inside the cache, she sucks down a tube of concentrate. Refreshed, she calls out to the android.

"Alastar, is there any way we can disarm your imperative to kill me?"

"I have been considering that as the stars turned. You preserved me from the enforcer. I presume your motives were self-interested."

"Well, you did seem inclined to talk. The tank didn't."

'Tank?"

"Old-style armored war machine."

"Oh. I thought you might think it looked like a crab."

"It did, didn't it?" Lillianara laughs. "So, do you plan to kill me?"

"I would prefer," Alastar admits, "not to. I am weary of being alone here. However, as long as I remain in the installation, the imperative will be repeatedly triggered."

"Can you leave the city? I mean, it isn't much of a city any longer and the civilization that created it... If you've scanned the archaeological reports on the things the treasure hunters brought back from here...

"Yes. I long ago deduced that the creator race are no more. Moreover, recent evidence suggests that the alliance eventually broke down and that the installation was destroyed by those who created it."

"It doesn't seem right that you should be left to guard something they destroyed."

"Fair doesn't really enter into my programming."

Lillianara sighs. Alastar continues: "But data from the enforcer's final burst transmission suggest that the damage that put me into stasis was inflicted by one of the allied races.

"Oh?"

"And therefore I could argue that they themselves felt my task was ended, that I was no longer needed to guard this place.""I like that train of thought."

"Moreover, it has occurred to me that if I were to accept that the new residents of the planet were heirs to what remains of the installation, then I could accept new programming from them. Lillianara, my understanding is that your civilization has the concept of personal property."

"That's what got me into so much trouble," Lillianara agrees.

"Who owns this mountain?"

"No one, I guess. The government, maybe, by default. It's difficult to say."

"We should check. I suggest that I accept that Vorbottan Mountain and all it holds are your personal property-you as a representative for the human race. You then would no longer be in financial difficulty, and I would no longer be under an imperative to kill you.~~ "I like that." Lilhianara admits, "but what if no one else does?"

'Then I inform them that it will be my duty to return to my original imperative and destroy all traces of the human race on this planet."

"Severe."

"Yes, but I can make a convincing demonstration."

Lillianara glances over at the smoldering enforcer, up at the odd storm clouds that mask the mountain's crest.

"I bet you can."

Alastar is rather pleased with how everything tuins out. Not only does she have interesting companions.h.i.+p, but Lillianara-once she learns that Alastar can look as human as the next person courtesy of nanotechnology-encourages her to get out and see something of the world.

Apparently, Alastar's collection of human skulls had not been in the best taste. She wonders why, given some of the things humans keep in their museums.

Moreover, Lillianara's long life makes her an ideal additional guardian for the secrets of the ancient, alien installation. Already she is talking about cleaning out some of the tunnels below and bringing archaeologists in to study what she finds.

Alastar feels vaguely uncomfortable when she considers that she hasn't told Lillianara everything about her new property, but would the woman have agreed to remain if she knew thatthe installation had been created to store military equipment, that the enforcer was not least among the weapons hidden beneath the rubble?

ANGEL ON THE 0UTWARD SIDE.

by Robin Wayne Bailey

Robin Wayne Bailey is the author of a dozen novels, including the Brothers of the Dragon senes, Shadow-dance, and the new Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser novel Swords Against the Shadowland. His short fiction has appeared in numerous science fiction and fantasy an- thologies and magazines. An avid book collector and old-time radio enthusiast, he lives in Kansas City, Mis-souri.

Ryder North leaned quietly against an old wall near the mouth of a narrow alley that ran between a pair of warehouses. Now and then, he turned his gaze from the tavern door down thestreet toward the planet Dom's night sky where a softly s.h.i.+mmering ribbon of stars hung visible beyond the dark rooftops.

It was easy to let his attention wander. The waterfront was too quiet tonight. No crowds, no drunken revelers, no fights in the street. Only the eternal lap-slap of the surf against the pilings, the barely perceptible creak of the boards under his feet, the salted breeze whispering by his ear. These made beguiling music, and he listened, and watched the stars, and felt strangely homesick.

Forcing a grin, he rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin, and chided himself. No one knew better than he-Ryder North was a man without a home.

Footsteps.

North slipped deeper into the shadows. A solitary figure glided past the alley mouth; a cloak and hood concealed his ident.i.ty. North crept closer to the street to mark how the stranger peered both left and right before pausing at the entrance to the tavern. A brief clamor of music and laughter as a gloved hand opened the door, then the street fell silent again.

North drew a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his leather flight jacket. A match flared briefly, then died. He leaned against the wall again with the red-glowing stick between his lips.

He tapped on the crystal of his wrist.w.a.tch. The local time appeared dimly blue, then faded.

A moment later, a voice whispered over the transceiver in his left ear. "The curtain's going up; it's showtime."

North stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette. Checking the laser pistol strapped in plain sight on his left hip, he crossed to the tavern's entrance and went inside.

The noise a.s.sailed him. Altairan rock music boomed from speaker-chips in every corner.

A handful of drunken ocean-miners cl.u.s.tered around a tiny stage where they hooted raucously at some half-starved excuse for a stripper; customers of various ethnic types and planetary species huddled over small tables; a group of rough-looking humans lounged nervously around an ancient pool table, their eyes watchful, suspicious. Everyone talked loudly to make themselves heard over the music.

The place stank, and the filthy floor felt tacky beneath North's boot soles. He shouldered his way to a long, steel-topped bar where a few solos like himself leaned with their backs to the crowd.He'd seen such dives on a hundred different planets. This place offered one singular attraction, however-a spectacular view that offset its shabbiness. The east wall was a solid sheet of armor-gla.s.s. Beyond it, Dom's two effulgent moons lit up the heaving surface of Obsidian Bay and made stark silhouettes of the scores of small barrier islands beyond. For a moment he thought it a holographic trick. The dark vista was real, though, and testament to Dom's strange beauty.

Still, he hadn't come for the view. Remembering his purpose, he set a glower on his face, leaned one elbow on the bar, and crooked a finger. A dour bar-tender responded. A moment later, with drink in hand, North turned again to survey the crowd.

In a shadowed corner, the caped man sat alone, his hood pushed back to reveal a shock of white hair over a smooth brow. A gray-eyed gaze raked nervously over the crowd, finally settling on North. Giving the slightest of nods, he put both hands on the table. A small black box rested between them.

North picked up his drink. Before he took a step away from the bar, however, someone thrust a pistol against his spine. A harsh whisper sounded in his ear.

"Colonel Ryder North." The pistol jabbed him; the speaker leaned closer to sneer. "One million galactic goldars for your capture. Dead or alive."

North turned his head slowly. Careful to keep his hands away from his gun, he noted the muzzled, wolfish features of the bounty hunter: a Tauran mutant specially bred for combat in the Orion Wars. His kind had more than earned their War Hound nickname.

"Doggie slip his collar?" North asked over the rim of his gla.s.s, his tone mocking. He sipped his drink with a calm he didn't feel.

Again the gun barrel stabbed against his spine. "The collar will be yours, deserter. A very tight one placed around your neck just before your Redden Domain judges drop you through a trapdoor!"

The Redden Domain again. It might have been Middengard or the Champakkan Theocracy, or a half-dozen other stellar federations after his weary hide. North had no time for this. His gaze s.h.i.+fted to the white-haired human with the black box. The man was watching North and the War Hound, nervously a.s.sessing the situation. He half-rose from his chair.

A familiar voice sounded over the transceiver in North's ear. "Ally, ally, all fall down."

North took the warning and dropped to the floor. A bottle whistled over his head, striking the War Hound in the face. The mutant let out a roar of surprise and pain; his clawed fingertightened on the trigger of a charge pistol. The blast seared over the heads of customers, striking the armor-gla.s.s wall, which flared in a brilliant rainbow of color as it harmlessly absorbed and dispersed the blast.

North kicked backward with all his strength, aiming his heel at the War Hound's knee.

Like kicking a brick wall, he discovered. He directed a second kick at the creature's groin. Again the War Hound roared, with anger this time, as well as pain.

"Stay down!' said the voice over his transceiver.

North crawled rapidly under a table and unholstered his own laser pistol as pandemonium erupted. "Crazy mutant freak!" someone yelled, prelude to a chorus of curses and angry shouts.

An energy bolt lanced past the War Hound's shoulder, missing. The War Hound returned fire.

Tables flew. Customers scrambled for cover or escape. Not everyone ran, though. The stripper leaped off the stage. Wiping sweat from her face with one hand, she seized a gun from a cringing miner's holster, sighted, and fired, missing her target and taking out the bartender instead. The War Hound dived for cover, then came up shooting.

Beams of deadly radiance, explosive charge blasts, and lethal projectiles crisscrossed the room. The air sizzled and smoked; the smell of ozone rose, then other smells of charred wood, burned steel, scorched flesh. North kept his head down.