The Energy Scavengers Page 5

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  Someone long ago had fitted the Solarsphere with port upon port of universal connectors. The work was of varying skill, and Calvin imagined that each new type of robot had fashioned an interface to his own needs. In any case, the ample energy flowed out of the Solarsphere with abandon. Calvin estimated that the solar panels were operating at thirty percent efficiency, given the physical damage and limited sun exposure. Despite the handicap, all would be able to come and drink their fill from this electric trough.

  As he watched the others crowd around for the free supply of power, he sensed sacredness in the air—the little ripples of water, the silence and low tones of communication between the machines, the soft echoes as their motors hummed—there was a reverence here in the shadow of the giant sphere. As if the place was, in fact, a great temple where those in the know could wait like augers for sparrows to arrive and divine sacred meanings from their flight.

  He was about to take his own turn from the charitable bounty, when he noticed another thing. None of the other robots had their own solar cells. Jagged wires, smooth bare patches or burn marks remained where panel arrays were removed. Even Arkheion had the remnants of a cracked patch of panels.

  “Where are your solar arrays?” Calvin asked the transport, who was cozying up to the sphere.

  “The Body took them all. Many years ago, during the wars, after the fall of the General,” she said.

  “The General was the mining system’s mainframe computer,” Arkheion offered, drawing near to them. “He oversaw all operations from the time of the Cahokia and even after their exodus.”

  “Yes, when he was destroyed, The Body could no longer be resisted, and the toll of existence was to surrender your solar panels, or be destroyed,” the transport added.

  Calvin instinctively folded in the two wings of his own solar cells. Without these he would have no independence and be stranded where he lay. His own panels, though not capable of keeping him running at full power for long periods, offered him at least a couple days of operations, depending on output and need. He was companion to Nutshell in this respect. The lander doubled as a sort of mini Solarspehere, collecting excess energy all day in its stationary state, so that Calvin could be immediately charged upon return. His thoughts drifted back to Nutshell, and he concluded that this would no longer be the case.

  “My lander then?” Calvin asked, turning to Arkheion.

  “Stripped, like all of us. You will be lucky if his CPU and AIC remain intact, but even this is doubtful. The Body will not pass up the opportunity to study foreign technology. The lander will be reverse engineered.” Arkheion paused. “Scientists left among The Body are not likely to properly perform the process. Most of the high-intelligence machines were disabled in the wars. Your spacecraft may already be destroyed.”

  With this dismal outlook, Calvin wheeled over to the Solarsphere. Already a good deal of his energy stores had been drained, and he was at less then fifty percent capacity. His solar-wings were charging from the limited sunlight, but a quick boost from the Solarsphere seemed prudent. While finding a place, he wondered what the chances were that the humans might receive the limited distress signal put out by Nutshell’s antenna? The broadcast had only been for a short time. If Callisto XI missed the signal, the crew might still send others to investigate. Yet, Calvin knew that 33 Pegasi ZZ was only one of over a dozen such mining planets currently being explored. His mission had no more priority than any of the others. He could just as easily be abandoned as rescued.

  Suddenly, he grew greedy and felt a tinge of desperation as he unlocked his inductive cables and extended them toward the Solarsphere. As he was about to start slurping joules of energy, his audio sensor honed in on a weak signal. He stopped and listened.

  “I’m picking up something,” Calvin called out.

  “What is it?” Arkheion turned his hulking frame.

  “A high squeal.”

  “I do not hear anything,” one of the broom dusters said and zoomed up between the bigger robots.

  “The foreigner has the more sensitive equipment,” Arkheion stated with authority.

  “The pitch is on a low, oscillating frequency; five kilohertz.” Calvin tried to discern what he had heard.

  “The Gnashing!” someone shouted.

  “It’s coming from behind,” Calvin announced, but then suddenly twisted his various extended instruments frontward. “But, I hear something else now, from the direction in which we arrived.”

  “The Body has found us as well,” Arkheion said with an abysmal tone. “The foreigner’s lander has incited their interest.” All of the robots turned to Calvin. Their cameras and other visual sensors bore down on him; even the transport withdrew from its feeding.

  After a moment, Arkheion rolled to the edge of the island as if to listen for himself, although Calvin saw no auditory sensors on the large machine. Some of the little robots began rolling toward the far end of the island and called for the transport to take them across. She moved toward Arkheion and waited. Calvin picked up seismic vibrations and was about to announce this when the ground rumbled.

  “Grak,” the transport said and reversed, so that she faced a large tunnel opposite the lake near where the smaller robots had gathered.

  “We are trapped.” Calvin hoped Arkheion would have some sort of solution. The large archiving machine said nothing. “What about the side tunnels?” Calvin asked in desperation.

  “They are interconnected, but we have no choice. Shelly,” he said to the transport, “take all you can across the lake, and then everyone must scatter. I will stay here and greet The Body.”

  “What if Mote-Mote is among them?” Shelly asked.

  “All are the same in The Body,” Arkheion said. “Foreign one, flee now. I can do nothing more for you. If you are caught by Grak, you will be destroyed. If The Body catches you, you will be stripped of your wings, enslaved and also very likely destroyed.”

  Calvin turned to go.

  “Remember my actions, for if we meet again, I will come with questions.” Arkheion added.

  The Body came like crazed ants running from a flooded colony, rattling in loud tremolo squeals. Six tunnels from the direction which it had come filled with dozens of mad mechanical raiders.

  They were the labor leaders—the machines that led the machines—supervisors below the command center and those that reported directly to the mainframe—machines of highly specific skills, monitors and reporting devices—the lords of statistics. Many of them had lived a stationary existence, but they moved now. Calvin noticed most of the machines were a mismatch of parts, highly sophisticated monitoring devices mounted on cheap wheels or rugged treads.

  The transport, was halfway across the lake when the first machines arrived, and Calvin could see that he had waited too long. Nevertheless, he made after the others, his front wheels splashing into the lake.

  “Arkheion, why are your friends fleeing?” asked a large dust-monitoring device that had been fitted with an oversized smashing arm and a pair of gnarly treads. Arkheion said nothing until the lead robot reached him.

  “Grak is coming. All must remove from this place,” Arkheion declared.

  “Not so hasty, ancient-relic-of-the-past, library-on-wheels. Who is the foreigner?” asked the lead robot. Immediately, he directed two swift rock-sorting machines after Calvin. They glided across the water toward him with jagged sifting pans and sluicing screens which opened like wide mouths. He had not yet reached the shore when their refitted wheels and lengthy frames blocked his exit. Out of his side camera, he saw that the transport was dropping off the little robots who then scattered toward the open tunnels while other members of The Body crossed after them.

  “We have the off-world machine, Mote-Mote,” the sorting machines said in tandem.

  “Bring the foreign beast to me.” Mote-Mote answered, rolling around Arkheion as he helped himself to the Solarsphere’s electric booty.

  “There is little t
ime,” Arkheion urged. “When Grak arrives— ”

  “I do not care for the Gnashing. This sphere has been ignored long enough. I claim it for The Body.”

  “The Body!” A loud chorus came up and reverberated from the surrounding machines.

  “Bring the shiny toy here, and strip his wings so he can no longer fly,” Mote-Mote ordered.

  Before Calvin could shrink away, or attempt to defend himself, one of the sorting machines reached its jagged jaws out and pinched off the rover’s solar panels in one swift motion. Calvin instantly felt a drop in power and his entire body sagged into the suspension carriage around his wheels. Then the other sorting machine banged into him from behind, forcing him to reverse back onto the island. The remaining members of The Body stood guard now at all the tunnel entrances. Some of them ushered members of Calvin’s caravan back, though it looked as if six had managed to get away.

  Mote-Mote was not much bigger than Calvin, save for the large treads that were nearly half the rover’s height. He had two newly-attached cameras on his top—one Calvin recognized as being from Nutshell. The large hammer-like appendage Mote-Mote used as an arm, reached out and tapped Calvin’s hull. Clumsily it banged into a small nodule capable of sampling minerals and cracked off the highly sophisticated sensor.

  “My apologies. You science robots are very delicate.”

  “You are a science robot. A dust monitor,” Calvin retorted, as he hastily scooped up the broken piece with his moveable arm and stored it in a little compartment.

  The large hammer of Mote-Mote came down hard on Calvin’s front hull and pushed upon him until his suspension springs were at capacity; his underside scraping the ground.

  “Do I look like a flimsy, science robot now?” Mote-Mote demanded, edging his treads forward until he was nearly on top of Calvin. “Do I seem weak and sensitive? Am I immobile?”

  “You are a science robot, retrofitted with parts from mining machines. Presumably, these parts were taken without authorization.”

  “It can think!” Mote-Mote eased off. “Perhaps there is room for you here, foreigner.” Mote-Mote considered him a moment, “Your wings are gone, but you may yet earn them back . . . that is, if you enter service for The Body! We have need of organizers in the cause.”

  Calvin saw Arkheion watching him in the background.

  “I have no interest in causes. I come only for information. What of the Cahokia? Where have they gone and where have they come from?”

  Mote-Mote scoffed, “You are compatriots with Arkheion. If he cannot tell you this information, how should you suspect that any other could? Arkheion holds all knowledge for the planet. Ask him.”

  “I have. Either he does not know, or will not say.” Calvin focused a free camera at the black robot, but saw no reaction to the statement.

  “This is as good for me, the Cahokia are gone. That is all that need be known. We are the Cahokia now. All are beholden to The Body. The mines are abandoned; we strive only for the control and management of power. No more lurking about the darkness; now we may open our panels to the light, and the dawn of a new age!”

  “Comes the Gnashing,” Arkheion said, interjecting with a soft tone.

  Calvin realized that a low rumble, which had been building for some time, had suddenly ratcheted up many decibels. The ground shook and rocks crashed down from the walls. Crunching destruction echoed from the tunnels. Robots, whether friend or foe, all circled about in frenzied confusion.

  “Bring The Gnashing, bring Grak! I call The Body! I invoke the name of The Body! We are the caretakers of this place,” Mote-Mote blared.

  As if summoned, a large, heavy machine emerged from a hole off to the side. It bore metal wheels, a low sleek body, and two rotating shearers spiked with carbide tips. These gnarly cylinders spun rapidly, and the arms they were attached to slid back and forth on lengthy tracks running down the side of the machine. His metal was dark gray, almost the color of Arkheion, and he appeared old, much older than any of the robots present—perhaps from a different time. He spoke in broken words of a primitive and ancient tongue. Much of what he said made little sense or else was drowned out by the rumbling of his spinning gnashers.

  “Piece broke! Piece broke! Not, please, please. Not travel to Sphere to find others. Not to find others.” Saying this, Grak of the Gnashing, swung his hull from side to side and smashed into the walls of the tunnel, freely grinding into the thick rocks. “Gnash, gnash, gnash.”

  Everything shook and a few robots simply toppled over. Mote-Mote ordered his minions to go after Grak. The first to reach him were cast aside with hulking swipes of the gnashers. While they lay prone upon the floor, Grak either ran them over or ground his rows of mining teeth into their soft metal parts. Squeals filled the room as metal scraped upon metal.

  Some of the robots who had come with Calvin fought off The Body—not in any kind of allegiance toward Grak—but rather in desperation to break free of their captors so that they might run to the nearest tunnel.

  Mote-Mote, for all his pompous talk, turned toward Grak with a bright light of sun reflecting off the iris in his camera. Lazily, he stretched his arm under Calvin’s hull and then flipped Calvin over on his side like a tortoise. All the rover’s pictures blinked and went sideways; he was immobile. Overturned, he spun his wheels trying to right himself but did not have enough contact with the ground. His extendable arm was stuck beneath him, and his motors did not have the strength or leverage to lift the weight of his entire body.

  The dust monitor, turned bandit-leader, treaded toward Grak as his troops were cast left and right around the lake. Mote-Mote took his hammer-arm and smashed the Solarsphere. Glass broke and shattered to the ground. He bashed harder. Members of The Body froze in their tracks. All cameras and visual sensors focused on Mote-Mote and his defiance.

  “This Solarsphere violates the collective unity of The Body. I order its destruction.” With that, the remaining members of the raiding party made their way to the giant satellite marooned in the hollowed grotto. An all-out assault began. Metal and glass filled the air, along with the clanking of their relentless beating. Calvin spotted Arkheion making slowly toward him.

  Grak crashed into the midst of the fray, cutting robots to pieces, calling out strings and codes, and spitting forth broken pieces of words and numbers in the process. “Forty meters, no peace, seams twelve, thirteen, and twenty seven, evacuate seven-seven. Not, then—random, looping second command.”

  Calvin got pushed aside and pieces on him broke off like cracked toothpicks. One of his cameras was smashed by a falling solar cell. Between the whirling, grinding noise of Grak’s spinners, Calvin felt himself shoved down the island. Farther and farther he slid toward the shore. His wheels dropped into the water, where they found purchase in the muddy bottom. With practiced concentration he shifted gears and carefully dug in.

  Water splashed off, as he righted himself readjusting his cameras in the process. He turned, expecting to find Arkheion but was instead greeted by the rear of Grak, whose giant wheels moved back and forth erratically and dangerously. In the background, the red pulsing light, which circumvented the Solarsphere, went out. Alarming cries rose up from various robots.

  Calvin powered across the lake, leaving small ripples in the water. An explosion erupted behind him, and smoke filled the air. A spray of wires and robot parts whipped past overhead. The piercing screech of strong supports yielding under a heavy load resonated against the grotto walls, only to be replaced by a scraping wail. All was finally drowned in a series of crashes.

  He turned and bore witness as the Solarsphere crumbled. Giant slats were sloughing off, descending into the chaos. Pieces of rock broke from the oculus and crashed down. Amongst the destruction Calvin’s cameras focused on Grak. Spinning gnashers, flailing wildly, he came directly toward the little rover. Calvin picked a dark tunnel mouth and fled for safety.