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ten or twenty.
Still, once the initial shock has worn off the Olders and Dolceti are on the
offensive again, pressing forward with blitterstaves, with wirebombs and laser
light. The new robots aren tthat tough, and they wither and crumple under the
attack. Which is, in its own way, a bad thing for the human side, because it
saves the robots the trouble of moving out of the way when they re out of
ammunition. Those bayonets are cute, but against two centimeters of live
wellcloth they re of little use. Bullets are the real danger here, and the
hail of them continues. By the time the men are out in the corridor and
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striking for a stairwell up ahead, their suits are already showing signs of
wear.
The darts must have some poison upon them as well, for on the stairs
themselves, Bruno watches one penetrate Sidney Lyman s armor. Lyman flinches
and gasps and then crumples to his knees, and is grabbed and hoisted and
carried up and away by strong robot hands. There are enemies both behind them
and in front, and at the top of the stairs it s Nick Valdi who yelps and
collapses and tumbles backward into certain doom. And then in another hallway
it s Natan s turn, and his end is uglier than the others, for it involves a
spray of bright arterial blood on the inside of his helmet dome. Bruno watches
it all through his rearview mirrors, and mourns.
But next they re at the entrance to the throne room and fighting their way
inside, dodging and slapping a storm of projectiles. Bruno even swats one
aside himself, feeling the buzz of its approach and reacting without thought.
And then they re in. Glass windows look out on a set of low hills,
illuminated by evening twilight, and if this truly is the south pole, locked
in permanent shadow, then it s always evening here. Or else Bruno hardly dares
to think it it s always morning. Each moment beginning the world afresh.
The throne itself is a predictably gaudy affair of golden arms and lion s
feet and a great sunburst disc spreading out behind. But there s no Glimmer
King in it, just another robot. Or is it?
Amid the broken bodies of a dozen determined attackers, Brian Romset, the
last of Lyman s Olders, goes down in a mess of his own guts and hacked-off
limbs. But Bruno scarcely notices; his eyes are on that throne. On the robot
on that throne. The robot which has no iron box welded to the side of its
head, but rather a crown of gold soldered round its brow. The robot whose
scratched, worn, battered hull bespeaks long years of wear and tear, and
something more, for ordinary robots never show that kind of damage pattern.
Indeed, it s the clear fingerprint of an emancipated bot, left to find its
own way in the world. And there is something chillingly familiar about this
one, about the tilt of its head and the lazy dangle of its arms. Bruno s worst
fear his prime suspicion has proven out.
Hugo! he cries to the figure on the throne. Stop this, I beseech you.
Royal Override: stand down and await instructions!
And just like that, the defending robots are frozen in their tracks. Zuq
takes the opportunity to smash another one down with a blow to its exposed
armpit, but he sees Bruno s glare, and does nothing further. Which is good,
because Bruno knows full well that his overrides have no power over this
seated creature. He has merely intrigued it.
Hugo, he says, stepping toward the throne in a daze of sorrow.
But with its blank, mouthless face the robot answers, Why do you . . . call
us that, Father? Do you not recognize us?
Bruno pauses, while hope and fear war within him. Bascal?
Don t be a fool, says Radmer beside him. What is this thing? Where is the
King of Barnard, who has written so much villainy across our landscape?
The robot s laughter is cool, unfriendly, more than a little unhinged. Its
face is turned exactly toward Bruno, ignoring Radmer, ignoring everything.
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You needn t act so . . . shocked, Father. Our condition my condition did not
arise by accident. Or had you . . . forgotten?
Indeed, Bruno had not. That lapse of judgment a desecration of all that human
beings hold dear is woven deeply through the tatters of his conscience.
Pouring a copy of his tyrant son into theonly copy of his pet robot!
Thisis the King of Barnard, Bruno says, amazed at the weight of his sin now
that it confronts him face-to-face. Poor Lune, to suffer so greatly for his
mistakes! Parts of him, anyway.
He d known it was a bad idea even at the time, but he was very curious to see
what would happen. And he d missed his Poet Prince, yes, the last link to his
old life. He d longed to speak with that boy again, if only for an hour, a
minute, aword . Memories can be edited! There was some etiological and
mnemonic and engrammatic surgery involved, far more elegant than a simple cut
and meld. The approach was sound and carefully if hastily reasoned.
But Bruno was no surgeon, and the road to hell is paved with careful plans.
The effort had been furtive because it would find no support if revealed. He
had no friends or relations left; he worked alone, in secret, as far from the
ashes of civilization asBoat Gods fuel supply could safely carry him. Which
wasn t far. And the result had been more horrific than even a pessimist would
predict; he d shut the monster down barely five minutes into the experiment.
You have proved yourself unworthy of even my . . . disdain, it had told
him, with halting but vehement passion. Beware, for I m incapable of fear.
It had said other things, too, of a vile and personal nature. And the worst of
it was that itsounded exactly like Bascal. Itmoved exactly like Hugo. It was
the perfect synthesis of the two, and the conversation had begun well enough,
with prancing bows and twirls and snippets of spontaneous verse. Ah, to
exist! To have a . . . form to which the soul might cling! A clever . . .
thing, and sorely missed.
But that exuberance was not to last, for the creature had made demands.
Lightly at first, and then angrily, and then with threats of force. Had it
realized its peril it might have kept up the illusion awhile longer, and so
escaped into the world, into the ruined solar system, into the universe at
large. But the experiment was structured so that keeping his creation alive
required a conscious act of will on Bruno s part. In his first stab of real
fear, that concentration had wavered and the delicate quantum waveforms had
collapsed. The monster had died. Bruno had buried it in secret, and never
breathed a word about it to any living person. Iridium Days, indeed.
In the wake of this final failure, he d powered up his grappleship one of the
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