Hidden Empire (82 page)

M
argaret grabbed his wrist. With DD hurrying to follow, they ran down the stone corridors, deeper into the abandoned cliff
city. From outside, they heard the hum of mechanical wings, like a swarm of giant locusts, as the Klikiss robots rose into
the air and flew toward them. Louis could think of no way to block off the black machines.

Louis recalled the configuration of the empty city, trying to figure out the best place to hide, a chamber in which they could
seal themselves. His mind raced over the layout of tunnels and passages, remembered where they narrowed.

Louis’s face lit with forced hope. He pretended to be optimistic for Margaret’s sake. “Back to the stone-window chamber! The
corridor outside is fairly small. Maybe we can find enough material to make a barricade.” He doubted the Klikiss robots would
be deterred by any barrier they could construct.

Following the lights that DD had strung, they ran through twists and turns, finally arriving at the large stone room where
Louis had spent so much time.

The hall held some rubble, as well as the resinous plaster debris DD had scraped from the last hastily written hieroglyphics.
Louis worked with his bare hands, piling iron bars and rubble across the threshold, trying to build up a barrier. The hulking
black robots would smash through it in seconds.

Outside, they heard the thump and skitter as Sirix, Ilkot, and Dekyk landed inside the overhang. The robots began to make
their way through the corridors of the abandoned city, moving with a ponderous heaviness, their machine bodies cumbersome
but relentless.

“Damn, I wish the Klikiss used
doors.”
Margaret looked in dismay at the open hall, the passage leading toward the stone-window chamber. The power source still hummed
in the portal-wall machinery, though neither Louis nor his wife understood yet how the device functioned.

DD dutifully added to the meager blockade using boxes of supplies, small pieces of equipment. Louis shook his head in disbelief
at their pathetic effort. The Friendly compy looked back at them. “Is there anything else I can do, Louis? I would be glad
to assist in any way you deem appropriate.”

Louis frowned. “Well, I don’t suppose you have any defensive programming? Can we change you into a combat robot?”

“Perhaps if there were a programming module on hand,” DD said. “However, I am not certain how effective I could be, since
I have no built-in weapons or armor.”

“Not to mention the fact that you’re about a third the size of a Klikiss robot.”

Margaret looked over her shoulder. “You can’t harm humans, is that correct, DD?”

“I cannot harm humans, Margaret.”

“And I presume a necessary corollary is that you cannot allow humans to come to harm?”

“I will do everything in my power to prevent that, Margaret.” Louis looked sadly at the silvery compy, knowing he was about
to give DD a suicide order. “Then you’ve got to stand against the Klikiss robots, DD. Stay in the corridor and prevent them
from reaching us.” He swallowed hard. “Delay them… however you can.”

DD accepted his orders bravely and stood in the center of the narrow, rock-walled passageway. The silver-skinned compy looked
laughably weak compared with the enormous Klikiss robots. Louis thought of a heroic little guard dog barking furiously at
a brutal intruder.

Margaret grabbed her husband’s arm and pulled him deeper into the chamber. “Louis, I need you. We’ve got only a few minutes
to figure out this transportation system.” He was amazed she would suggest such an option. She saw that his doubt reflected
her own, but she said, “It’s the only nonzero chance we have, old man.”

“All right.” He hurried over to the machinery. “This is why I wanted a career in xeno-archaeology, to see strange new places.
Usually, though, I have some inkling of where I’m going.”

The energy pack was at full power, connected to the still-functioning alien systems. The exotic engines throbbed. The embedded
circuit lines in the rock walls carried the necessary power to the flat trapezoid that held only an opaque stone surface.

Margaret hurried to the symbol tiles that framed the smooth trapezoidal plane. She thought out loud as she ran her fingers
along the tiles, tracing the individual symbols. “If each one of these indicates the coordinate of a Klikiss world, then perhaps
we can travel to Llaro or Corribus. Did we leave any equipment there, transmitters or supplies?”

Louis shrugged in dismay. “You’re the organized one, dear. I never keep track of details like that.” Outside in the corridor
he heard the Klikiss robots approaching, treading heavily on clusters of fingerlike legs. Louis saw DD standing all alone,
pitifully small as he blocked the way against the three ominous machines.

At the portal wall, Margaret looked at the coordinate tiles. “According to the records on the other Klikiss worlds, some of
the tiles were destroyed, especially the ones containing these particular symbols.” She pointed to a convoluted glyph high
on the frame. “Were the robots trying to hide something to prevent travel somewhere?”

“Well, they missed this one,” Louis said. “Until now.”

In the tunnel, DD took a step forward and held up his metal arms. Sirix paused, surprised at the boldness of the Friendly
compy. “I cannot allow you to harm my masters,” DD said. “Please go away.”

In response, Ilkot lurched forward. With four segmented insectlike forelimbs, he grabbed the small compy and lifted him bodily
out of the way. DD struggled uselessly. A bright red fire blazed in the ruby-crystalline eye in the center of Ilkot’s black
head. He looked ready to destroy DD by ripping his body core into small components.

Sirix interrupted, though. “Do not harm the compy. He has no choice. He does not understand his own bondage.”

The three Klikiss robots buzzed and hummed as if in argument, and then Ilkot turned. Gently, but with firm command, he carried
DD away, taking the struggling compy prisoner. DD’s protests and struggles grew fainter as the black beetlelike machine moved
back toward the cave overhang.

Within seconds, Sirix and Dekyk had knocked aside the insignificant makeshift barricade and lumbered into the stone-window
chamber.

Margaret did not turn around, though she must have heard the struggle in the corridor. She stared with her hands on her hips
as if demanding an explanation from the portal wall. “Come on! There must be some way to open this window.”

Finally, she stood on her tiptoes, stretched out her arm, and pushed hard against the tile containing a symbol that had been
routinely obliterated in the other Klikiss ruins.

The portal wall hummed and crackled. The gray stone plane shimmered. “Louis! Something just happened!”

The two black Klikiss robots strode forward, their clawlike arms extended and clacking. With sick revulsion Louis saw the
splatters of scarlet on their metal appendages.
Arcas’s blood
.

Rushing to their tools strewn against the wall, he grabbed a pickax resting on one of the stone shelves. They had used the
tool to chop through crumbling walls and clear away debris. Louis hefted it. The pickax was heavy in his arms, but the handle
felt strong. He brandished it, knowing the weapon would do little good against these powerful machines.

Meanwhile, Margaret stared as the stone trapezoid crackled and fuzzed with static. Then the smooth rock faded away, suddenly
replaced with another scene—an opening that gave her a view of a different place entirely, a new world.

“Louis!” she shouted.

The Klikiss robots converged toward the two archaeologists, their articulated arms extended. Louis swung the pickax from side
to side. He looked over his shoulder at his wife, took a brief but significant gaze, like a snapshot in his memory. He memorized
the determined face he had loved for so long, the inner beauty and the weathered features that had made her more attractive
to him than any other woman he had ever met. “Go!” he shouted. “Just go!”

Margaret hesitated. “I’m not leaving you!”

“Well then, I’m coming right after you.” The pickax slammed into Sirix’s black body core with a loud clang, and the impact
sent a jolt through Louis’s arms, hurting his shoulders. The point of the digging tool left only a small scratch on the black
carapace.

The Klikiss robot rocked back in surprise, then reached out with a segmented insectlike forelimb. Louis dodged, yanking the
tool away and hefting it over his shoulder.

“Now, Louis!” Margaret called. Then, without hesitation, she stepped into the image that had been only flat stone moments
before. The portal wall crackled—and Margaret vanished.

Elated to see that his wife had escaped, Louis hurled the pickax at the advancing Klikiss robot. It clattered against the
dark casing. Sirix knocked it aside with his bloodstained limbs, and the pickax crashed to the floor.

Turning, Louis raced toward the trapezoidal portal wall where the window looked out upon a sanctuary. Another planet… somewhere
foreign and far away.

But in front of his eyes, the stone window shimmered, then solidified again, sealing itself into a blank and impenetrable
rock barrier.

Louis skidded to a halt, his heart sinking, despair etched across his face. “No,” he moaned. He had not seen which tablet
Margaret had pushed, didn’t know what she had done to activate the system.

Sirix and Dekyk closed in on him now. Having seen Margaret escape, they would not give him the same opportunity. Deadly weapon
arms extended from hidden openings in the robots’ bodies, claws clacking.

Louis was cornered against the stone wall, trapped. He raised his hands in useless surrender, using his old lecturing voice.
“Sirix, why are you doing this? We mean you no harm. We were just trying to help. We wanted to find the answers for you.”

“We did not want the answers,” Sirix said. Louis, leaning against the cold and all-too-solid stone wall, did not understand.
“But you said you had lost all your memories, that you didn’t know what happened long ago.”

“We did not lose our memories,” Sirix said. The Klikiss robots fell upon the doomed archaeologist, their weapon-arms extended.
“We
lied
.”

TIMELINE

Ca.

1940s
   Ildirans discover Klikiss robots on Hyrillka ice moons.

2100
   
Peary, Balboa, Marco Polo
—first generation ships depart from Earth.

2103
   
Burton, Caillié
depart.

2104
   
Amundsen
departs.

2106
   
Clark, Vichy
depart.

2109
   
Stroganov
departs.

2110
   
Abel-Wexler
departs.

2113
   
Kanaka
departs, last generation ship.

2196
   
Kanaka
leaves colony at Meyer rubble belt; becomes Rendezvous.

2221
    King Ben crowned on Earth.

2230
    Mage-Imperator Yura’h ascends.

2244
    Ildirans encounter
Caillié;
Theroc established as colony.

2245
    Ildirans come to Earth, search for other generation ships.

2247
   
Kanaka
found, settlers taken to Iawa.

2249
    Compy OX returns to Earth.

Thara Wen (fourteen years old) becomes first to take the green.

2250
    Roamers begin skymining operations on Daym and elsewhere.

2254
    Dobro experiments begin.

First Klikiss ruins (Llaro) reported by Madeleine Robinson.

Theroc officially declares its independence from the Hansa.

King Ben poisoned; King George crowned.

2274
   King Christopher crowned.

2307
    King Jack crowned.

2323
   King Bartholomew crowned.

2337
    Mage-Imperator Yura’h dies; Cyroc’h ascends.

2373
    Uthair and Lia Theron become Father and Mother of Theroc.

2381
   King Frederick crowned.

2390
    Margaret and Louis Colicos married.

2397
    Ross Tamblyn born.

2400
    Idriss and Alexa married.

2402
   Reynald Theron born.

Jess Tamblyn born.

2403
   Beneto Theron born; Uthair and Lia Theron retire.

2406
    Sarein Theron born.

2408
   Nira Khali born.

2411
   Tasia Tamblyn born.

2413
   Raymond Aguerra born.

2415
    Estarra Theron born.

2427
   Oncier ignited with Klikiss Torch.

THE GREAT KINGS OF THE
TERRAN HANSEATIC LEAGUE

CHAIRMEN OF THE TERRAN HANSEATIC LEAGUE

Christian Geller (2200-2215)

Roseanna Burke (2215-2223)

William Danforth Pape (2223-2243)

Malcolm Stannis (2243-2253)

Francine Meyer (2253-2270)

Adam Cho (2270-2291)

Bertram Goswell (2291-2298)

Regan Chalmers (2298-2299)

Sandra Abel-Wexler (2299-2315)

Clare Faso (2315-2338)

Miguel Byron (2338-2347)

Tam Charles Wicinsky (2347-2359)