Page 48 of Expedition Westward


  ***

  The truck pulled up in front of a low, glowering building with narrow windows. Even amid the general gloom, it was an outstandingly ugly bit of architecture. Winston looked back at Star. Some of the hopefulness had gone out of her face.

  “Everybody wait here a minute,” Liggett said.

  He exited the vehicle and walked toward the side of the building. Star gripped Winston’s arm.

  “I don’t like this much,” she whispered.

  “It looks like a jail,” Winston said.

  Pantani had overheard the remark.

  “That’s right, robo-man,” he said, “nothing but the best for you.”

  Liggett returned with a dolly cart.

  “Okay, load that canine machine onto this,” he said.

  Winston and Pantani maneuvered the comatose Ripper onto the cart.

  “I can handle him myself now,” Winston said.

  “Are you sure?” Pantani said. “The colonel might be pissed if it gets damaged before he sees it.”

  “I am quite capable,” Winston said. “This wolf is my ... friend. I wish to show him respect.”

  “Suit yourself,” Pantani said.

  They passed through the doorway into a drab, Spartan waiting area. A uniformed guard at the reception desk stood to salute Liggett.

  “Where’s Colonel Reyes?” Liggett said.

  “In the mess hall, sir,” the guard said. “He’s conducting interrogations.”

  “Very well, carry on,” Liggett said.

  He motioned for the others to follow him.

  They walked down a gloomy hallway with steel doors running along both sides. Most of the doors were open, revealing empty cells with cots and human lavatory facilities. Others were closed with eyes peering out the little windows. Some low-level robots bustled around sweeping and polishing the floor. They eyed Winston and Star with dumb curiosity, then went back to their work.

  “I didn’t like the sound of that ‘conducting interrogations’ part,” Winston whispered to Star. “It has a dangerous ring to it.”

  “No more talking, now,” Liggett said.

  They continued to a large dining hall where two men, also in military style jumpsuits, stood guard outside with assault rifles. They saluted Liggett and opened the doors.

  “Stay back there,” Liggett ordered the robots as they entered.

  Winston and Star remained dutifully beside the doors as Liggett and Pantani stood at attention in front of them. The dining tables have been folded away, and a desk occupied one corner of the vast room. A few uncomfortable chairs were arranged before it.

  A large, brush-cut man with an air of authority sat at the desk. Winston estimated his age to be around 40. The man wore a drab green jumpsuit with stars on the shoulders to signify his rank. He was Colonel Reyes, apparently – the man in charge. A gun holstered on his hip reinforced the impression.

  A human female, early 30’s, stood behind and to the side of Reyes. She had close-cropped hair and a rather hard look. Winston gauged her to be not unattractive, but scarcely in Star’s league.

  In addition to these military type individuals, two men in white lab coats occupied the room. One sulked off in a corner, another sat in a chair before Colonel Reyes’ desk ... Dr. Rackenfauz!

  Winston would have recognized the old curmudgeon anywhere – even if there were a million humans around. Only the presence of the stone-faced Liggett deterred him from crying out with joy.

  Star gripped Winston’s arm tightly. “It’s him!”

  Pantani snickered and glanced back at the robots. “Yeah, it’s him, all right.”

  “Quiet down!” Liggett commanded.

  Colonel Reyes was speaking in an authoritative baritone that carried across the room:

  “Of course you can go, Dr. Rackenfauz,” he said, “as soon as you agree to cooperate with us.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Rackenfauz replied in his crackly, high-pitched voice. “The world is already shot to hell, and now you want us to construct killer robots to finish off what’s left?”

  Colonel Reyes leaned forward, eyes flashing, as if to make a sharp retort. Then he seemed to think better of things and spoke in a reasoned tone.

  “As I’ve explained many times before,” he said, “we need combat models strictly to help us maintain order. Surely an educated man like yourself can see the potential for danger out there.”

  Rackenfauz crossed his arms stubbornly and looked away. Reyes glanced toward the female.

  “Professor Rackenfauz, sir,” she said. “We have no intention of ‘finishing off’ anyone. It’s strictly a matter of national security.”

  “What nation?” Rackenfauz shot back. “Before you space invaders showed up, there were scarcely enough people around to hold a pissing contest.”

  “That’s certainly a colorful figure of speech, Professor,” the female said, “but – ”

  “I assure you, there are ways to compel your cooperation,” Reyes interrupted.

  “Like what?” Rackenfauz said. “You can’t build robots with bayonets.”

  A tense silence ensued. Liggett took advantage of the pause to announce their presence.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he said. “We found these two advanced models wandering around the city outskirts.”

  He motioned Winston and Star forward. Reyes turned their way with an annoyed expression on his face. When he caught sight of Star, the expression turned to happy surprise, then back to a businesslike demeanor. The female standing by him looked far less pleased.

  “Very well, Lieutenant,” Colonel Reyes said, “bring them to me.”

  “Leave that flea bag here for now,” Liggett told Winston.

  “Do you mean the mech wolf, sir?” Winston said.

  “Yeah.”

  Winston pushed the dolly cart securely against the wall then followed Liggett toward Colonel Reyes’ desk. Star rushed ahead to embrace Dr. Rackenfauz.

  “Oh, it’s so good to see you again!” she cried.

  “Why, it’s the young lady,” Rackenfauz said. “Imagine that.”

  Winston joined them and clasped Dr. Rackenfauz’s hand. “Greetings, Professor.”

  “Hello, young fellow,” Rackenfauz replied. “As you can see, I’m in somewhat reduced circumstances these days.”

  “Your presence magnifies any circumstances, Professor,” Winston replied diplomatically.

  “There are those who would disagree with that,” Rackenfauz said with a sidelong glance toward the desk.

  Colonel Reyes observed the scenario with icy impatience.

  “Well, now that the reunion’s over, shall we get back to business?” he said.

  The left breast of his uniform sported a large, colorful badge portraying a lunar disk with lightning bolts flashing above it. Stitched beneath this powerful graphic was his rank:

  COMMANDER

  It was written in bold capitals, as if anything less could not communicate his magnificence. The overall effect of the badge was impressive, if rather bombastic. The lesser ranks had to make do with name tags and small, embroidered celestial bodies.

  The colonel was trying to maintain an official face, but his eyes were roving all over Star like a vacuum cleaner on a fine carpet. The female human, MAJOR POOLE according to her nametag, was observing Reyes, and she wasn’t happy.

  “Of course, fire away, Colonel,” Rackenfauz said, “tell me what you want – for the thousandth time.”

  Star paid attention to none of them. Her eyes were fixated on the far corner where the other white-coated man sat looking at her.

  42. Against All Odds

  Star began walking toward the man in the far corner, as if she had been switched in to zombie mode.

  “Star?”

  Winston called after her, but she did not hear him.

  All conversations around her became muted, indistinct, blended in with the low rumble of the mess hall’s ventilation system. She was only aware of the man in the corner?
??s presence, pulling her along like a magnetic field. She seemed to be moving in slow motion with her feet barely touching the floor tiles.

  She halted in front of the man. He looked up at her from his chair with an ironic, amused little smile on his face. He appeared to be mid 30’s, with jet black hair and Asian features. His eyes were almond shaped, like Star’s, and an indescribable air of danger accompanied him – as if he might be capable of far more than his benign exterior would indicate.

  “Y-you’re not,” Star said, “... I mean, a-are you ... you couldn’t be ...”

  Her voice seemed to be coming from kilometers away. Her usual confident self had disappeared, replaced by a quivering entity more akin to a biological jellyfish. The man settled back and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Get it out, Estrella,” he said.

  He spoke in a type of accent she’d never heard before, pronouncing the Ls in her name more like they were Rs.

  “You know my original name,” Star said.

  “Of course,” the man said. “I created you, didn’t I?”

  “Then you must be ...”

  “Dr. Jerry Che,” the man said with a slight bow. “In the flesh.”

  Star felt suddenly weak, as if somebody had cut her power supply in half. She groped her way to the chair beside Dr. Che and sat down hard, nearly tipping it over. Che observed her distress, amusement crinkling his face. He extended a hand to steady her chair.

  “Careful, Estrella,” he said. “You weren’t designed for hard knocks.”

  No objective observer would have said that Dr. Che’s voice was particularly compelling, but for Star, it was filled with raw, irresistible power. It seemed to come from everywhere, filling her mind, dominating her will.

  “I-I can’t believe I found you,” she said in her far away voice, “in this whole gigantic country ...”

  “Actually, I never left the RDC,” Dr. Che said. “Until a couple of days ago when these off-world ‘gentlemen’ picked us up.”

  Star struggled to master her raging emotions. She felt joyous, awestruck, fearful – all rolled into one – and then some other feelings she never knew existed. All she knew was that her latent sexual yearnings, never far from the surface, were uppermost now and swirling like a tornado.

  The whole world appeared to be spinning around her like some gigantic carnival ride. Her chair seemed ready to tip over. Dr. Che placed a steadying hand on its back. Star struggled to find her voice.

  “Then ... you must have used Dr. Rackenfauz’s vaccines,” she managed to say.

  “Yeah, they damn near killed me, too,” Che said. “But I’m all recovered now.”

  He barked a low, sarcastic laugh.

  “I tried to get the others to use the vaccines,” he said. “But when they saw me dragging along half dead from the side effects, they tactfully declined.”

  Winston was standing beside her now; Star had not even noticed his approach.

  “Ahem,” Winston said.

  Star looked up, her mind was in such turmoil that she scarcely recognized the blue robot.

  “Winston?” she said.

  “Yes – what’s wrong, Star?”

  She gestured toward the white-coated man in the chair beside her.

  “This is ...”

  Winston regarded the man with mild curiosity. He must be a mech head, Winston figured, some junior colleague of Dr. Rackenfauz’s. From all appearances, he was of Asian extraction, similar to ...

  No, it can’t be!

  “This is Dr. Jerry Che,” Star said.

  Winston gaped with astonishment, then confusion, then astonishment again. He groped for a chair back to steady himself.

  “You look like you need an overhaul, my friend,” Dr. Che said.

  “I-it’s just that we ... I thought you were dead,” Winston blurted out.

  “Apparently not,” Che said. “At least not the last time I checked.”

  Rackenfauz approached, ignoring the presence of the two robots. The glorious success of Star’s mission apparently held minimal importance for him.

  “They’re turning up the heat, Jerry,” he said. “I think they might start getting rough soon.”

  “They can shove their ‘combat robots,’” Che said.

  “That’s what I keep telling him,” Rackenfauz said, “but he’s not taking ‘no’ for an answer.”

  “Well, screw that ...”

  The conversation continued in hurried whispers. Now that other humans were around, things had sorted themselves into a hierarchical order. The humans extended courtesies and recognition to each other. Robots occupied the lower rungs – entities that could be looked through and talked past, like the human servants of old.

  Colonel Reyes shouted across the room. “Dr. Rackenfauz! I’m not finished with you yet.”

  “Excuse me, Jerry,” Rackenfauz said, “the Master calls.”

  He returned to the hot seat in front of Colonel Reyes’s desk. Che remained where he was. He looked back toward Star.

  “Edgar told me that you might be coming,” he said.

  “Did he say why?” Star asked.

  “No, but I have an idea,” Che said.

  Colonel Reyes shot them an annoyed glance from his desk. Che lowered his voice.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” he said.

  A few minutes passed, during which the exchanges between Dr. Rackenfauz and Colonel Reye ratcheted up. Winston struggled to grasp the new situation but simply could not organize his thoughts. The impossible had happened – Dr. Che was right here beside him, but he still could not accept it as fact.

  He recalled an incident from his former life with little Charles and Dr. Horvath. Charles was frightened of a ‘boogeyman’ hiding in his closet. Winston had assured him that no such thing existed. One night, he flung open the closet door to prove the point. A pile of toys perched on the top shelf had come spilling down into Winston’s arms, startling him badly.

  For a terrible moment he’d thought the boogeyman was really there. He could have sworn that he’d seen a spectral presence darting away. Soon afterwards, Dr. Horvath had an electric light installed in the closet, and Charles kept it burning at night until he forgot all about the monster that once lurked there.

  Is Dr. Che a boon or a boogeyman?

  Winston could not begin to answer that question. He had no answers about anything and no control over the situation. Maybe later he could sort things out ... when his mental numbness had subsided.

  Right now he had a simpler question. He leaned in toward Dr. Che.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he said in a low voice. “You appear to be of Asian descent.”

  “I’m Korean,” Dr. Che replied. “Can’t you tell by my accent? Not that my face isn’t a dead giveaway.”

  “Then why the name first name ‘Jerry?’” Winston asked. “Is your original name too difficult for non Koreans to remember?”

  “That, too.” Dr. Che shrugged. “Actually it’s from the old movie Jerry Maguire. I named myself after the main character.”

  Winston scanned the catalog of video data in his memory banks.

  “I am not familiar with that movie,” he said. “It did not seem to merit inclusion in my video library.”

  “It has a deep spiritual message that appealed to me,” Dr. Che said.

  He stood up and spread his arms wide.

  “Show me the money!” he shouted toward the ceiling.

  An astonished silence gripped the room. Reyes, Poole and the guards glowered at him with acrid disapproval. Che looked back with mock innocence.

  “Sorry folks,” he said, “things get a little tedious around here.”

  “Sit down!” Reyes said sternly. “We’ll get to you later.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Che made a mock salute and resumed his seat.