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Chapter 9
The timing had to be just right. Too early or too late would be just as disastrous. When the wall loomed up above the jet and I could see the joints between the blocks I figured it was about right and I hit the eject button.
Bam! The sequence was almost too fast to follow—but it worked. A transparent shutter snapped down over my face, the still tilted up canopy blew away with a crack of explosives, and the seat slammed up so hard against me that it felt like my spine had shortened to half its length. Almost in slow motion I sailed up and out of the jet and, for a hideously long second, saw the raw stone of the wall directly in front of me. Then I was over with only the dark sky ahead.
At the highest point in my arc there was another sharp crack at my back and I looked up to see the white column of the parachute swirling up above me. I was falling and the roofs of some buildings looked very close below.
The chute opened with a rustling snap, the seat pushed up against me and, a moment after this jarring deceleration, the wall of a building was rushing past and the seat hit the ground and rolled over. The chute settled slowly down and draped me in its enveloping folds.
I am chagrined to report that I did nothing at all at that moment. Events had moved even faster than I had pla
A man and a woman had stopped on the opposite side of the street and were goggling in my direction. No one else was in sight. The only sign of activity seemed to be coming from the other side of the great black wall that loomed behind me. Flames lit the sky and smoke roiled and I could hear the loud popping of burning ammunition. Lovely.
"Testing new equipment," I called out to the spectators and turned and trotted out of sight around the corner. In a dark doorway I stripped off the flying suit and dropped the helmet on top of it. Unidentified and free I strolled away towards the Robotnik. Brilliantly conceived, Jim, I told myself and gave myself a little pat on the shoulder.
At the same moment I realized that now that I was out of the base I would have to find a way to get back in before dawn, but I pushed this depressing revelation out of sight. First things first. I had to dispose of the real Vaska Hulja in order to take over his identity.
He was stirring when I came in, thrashing about in the bed and rocking his head back and forth. The hypnotic trance was wearing thin and he was fighting against it. Not that the robot cleaner was helping. It had dusted and cleaned the room and was now trying to make the bed with Vaska in it. I booted the thing in its COME BACK LATER button and ordered di
What was I to do with my companion here, happily shoveling food into his gaping gob? His existence was a constant threat to my existence; there was room enough for only one Vaska Hulja in the scheme of things. Kill him? That would be easy enough. Dismember him in the bathtub and feed the parts and gallons of blood into an easily constructed arc furnace until I was left with a handful of dust. It was tempting, he had certainly killed enough people in his short and vicious lifetime to call this justice. But not tempting enough. Cold-blooded killing is just not my thing. I've killed in self-defense, I'll not deny that, but I still maintain an exaggerated respect for life in all forms. Now that we know that the only thing on the other side of the sky is more sky, the idea of an afterlife has finally been slid into the history books alongside the rest of the quaint and forgotten religions. With heaven and hell gone we are faced with the necessity of making a heaven or hell right here. What with societies and metatechnology and allied disciplines we have come a long way, and life on the civilized worlds is better than it ever was during the black days of superstition. But with the improving of here and now comes the stark realization that here and now is all we have. Each of us has only this one brief experience with the bright light of consciousness in that endless dark night of eternity and must make the most of it. Doing this means we must respect the existence of everyone else and the most criminal act imaginable is the terminating of one of these conscious existences. The Cliaandians did not think this way, which was why I intensely enjoyed dropping gravel in their gearboxes, but I still did. Which meant that I couldn't take the easy way out of reducing gravy-stained Vaska to his component molecules. If I did this I would be no better than they and I would be getting into the old game of the ends justifying the means and starting on that downward track. I sighed, sipped, and the diagrams I had been visualizing for an arc furnace faded and vanished.
Well what then? I could chain him in a cave with an automatic food dispenser if I had a cave and so forth. Out. Given time and hard work I could alter his appearance and plant false memories that would last at least six months and get him into a prison or a work gang or a mental home or such. Except I did not have the time for anything this complex. I had until morning—or less—unless I wanted to abandon all the work I had already done in creating the false Vaska and having him accepted. They were probably getting involved in roll calls right now so I really should be thinking about ways of getting back into Glupost rather than worrying about my swinish companion. I noticed his stomach begi
"May I give you a good cleaning?" it whispered in a sexy contralto voice. I told it what it could do, but it wasn't equipped to take this kind of instruction and only clicked and whirred until I ordered it to go to work. I watched it gloomily as it hustled about and made the bed—and the first spark of an idea began to glimmer in the darkness.
Vaska had stayed in the Robotnik for an entire day without any trouble. How long would it be possible to hold him here? Theoretically forever if enough money were deposited to the room's account. But he could not be kept subjugated by hypnosis for more than a day or two if I were not there to reinforce the suggestion. Or could he…? I would have to find the control center of the hotel before I could make any final decisions. But this could be the right idea.
I left Vaska watching an historical space opera on TV, with the suggestion that this was the finest entertainment he had ever witnessed, which might possibly be the truth. Loaded with instruments and tools I went on the prowl. There would be a serviceway for the robots behind the rooms, but it was undoubtedly small, dark and dusty. That was a last resort. As mechanized as this hotel was, human beings had built it and could repair it if they had to. A quick prowl of the lower hallways near the entrance uncovered a concealed door with a disguised keyhole. It was flush with the wall and outlined with paneling, designed to be unobtrusive to maintain the fiction that the Robotnik was a hundred percent robot run. I spent more time with my instrumentation, making sure there were no bugs on the door, than I did opening it. The lock was a joke. There was no one in sight when I slipped through the door and closed it behind me.
I felt like a roach inside a radio. Electronic components hung, projected and bulged out on all sides; cables and wires looped and sagged in a profusion of electric spaghetti. Rolls of tape clicked and whirred on the computers, relays opened and closed, and gear trains chattered. It was a very busy place. I worked my way through it examining the labels and stepping over the little hutches where off duty robots rested, until I found what might be called a control center. There was even a chair here before a console, that was designed for the human form, and I dropped into it. And set to work. I had been mulling my new plan over while tripping through this mechanical jungle and now knew what had to be done.
First, the electronic bugs in Vaska's room. I did not want him observed or listened to. The bugging circuits were easy enough to find and there was even a monitor screen that could be co
Vaska could neither be seen nor heard now. The room and associated pleasures had to be paid for, but before I left I would deposit enough money (all stolen) to last a year if needs be.
A way to keep him in the room for that length of time was now needed and I—with my usual fertile imagination and basically nasty nature—had already devised that scheme. A small tape recorder was wired into the speaker circuit for the room, a timer attached, and the whole device concealed in the maze of other circuits and components. I programmed the tape, set the timer and started it up. Then rushed back to the room to watch my creation begin its job.
Vaska still had his eyes glued to the TV screen, panting with passion as mighty spaceships locked in frenzied destruction. Blaster ca