The Deep Dark Well (10 page)

Thirst drove her
first.  The cabinet contained glasses of some kind of hard plastic.  The water
still flowed, and tasted remarkably fresh and refreshing.  She searched for
some source of food, but there was none to be found.

Fatigue tugged at her,
but she thought first of her safety.  The door slid closed with a swish, and
she found that by pushing the bottom button she could disengage the others,
effectively locking the door.  That didn’t mean this room was impregnable, she
knew, but it would have to do.  Her head hit the cushions of the couch and she
fell into an immediate deep sleep.

*    *    *

“Safe limit to gravity
well in twenty-four standard hours, admiral,” called the navigator over his
shoulder.

Fleet Admiral Nagara
Krishnamurta sat his chair on the bridge of the Kingdom of Surya flagship
Danaus
. 
Ahead, on the computer compensated view screen, shown a pattern of eight
stars.  The brightest was the F5 near the center, white hot and glaring bright
even at the distance.  The smallest was near the edge of the display, a brown
dwarf indicated by a superimposed graphic, not even visible from any of its
neighbors. 

The small brown man
swiveled his chair to look at the nav display in the holo tank to his side. 
Navigation crew busily read the particulars of the display.  Bubbles of the
stars’ gravity wells shown in color scaled displays.  The F5 was noticeable by
its size, but was dwarfed by the largest of the bubbles, which extended to
enclose all of the star systems. 
The Hole
.  The center of the old
Empire that had fallen so many thousands of years before. 

“Spatial disturbance on
the edge of the system,” said the naval officer.  “Estimated footprint, two
days.”

“Nation of Humanity?”
asked the admiral.  Their space destroying drives were known to cause such a
signature. 
The fools
, he thought,
to use such dangerous technology
. 
His own squadron employed the much safer Inertia Damping Bubble.  They still
had to deal with the hazards of negative matter, but potential speed was
unlimited.  Of course, they could only accelerate up to a certain velocity in a
half year, and had to decelerate for the other half year of the voyage.  And
entering a gravity well was deadly.

“Most likely sir,”
replied the nav officer, studying his display. 

“Damn,” cursed the
admiral.  “They’ll get there before us.”

His kingdom was
wealthier in terms of resources than the fanatics of the Nation of Humanity. 
But they had still had to expend an enormous amount of those resources to mount
this sortie.

“Would the admiral like
us to risk a close approach?” called the captain over the screen link to the
battle control center.

“No,” said Admiral
Krishnamurta.  “I’d rather have us arrive intact, with all fighting power, than
risk disaster.  I’m sure we can deal with them when we get there.  Hopefully
they won’t have caused too much damage by then.”

“Yes sir,” said the
captain with a scowl.  The admiral knew the captain was a staunch religionist,
a member of the state church.  And he knew as well as the captain what those
fanatics might do to the poor, unsophisticated members of alien races they
might come upon.  The members of the
Nation
were known for their hatred
of aliens, thinking them godless devils.  The Church of Surya knew better.  The
aliens had souls, and must be saved despite themselves.

*    *    *

Pandi was sleeping
soundly, involved in a dream, when the feeling of something standing over her,
watching her, broke into her slumber.  She thought it was part of the dream for
a moment, till her conscious mind broke in and reminded her of where she was. 
Eyes still heavy with fatigue opened, as her ears strained to catch the
slightest sound.  To her dismay she was facing the back of the couch, turned
away from the door.

Something moved, a
heavy step on the carpeted floor.  She heard the rustle of fabric as her small
pack was opened, something rifling through its contents. 
Damn,
she
swore silently.  She would have preferred to know what she was facing before it
knew she was awake.  A heavy hand on her shoulder drove all thoughts but
survival from her mind.

Pandi spun around, her
eyes locking on the figure standing over her as she tensed to spring from the
couch.  The sight of the figure stopped her.  Jet black fabric or skin on a
biped form.  Was it a human?  Or a robot?  It was proportioned like a human,
with two arms, two legs, and a human shaped head.  A flat, silvered visor sat
in place of where the eyes should be.  Two holes were set where the nostrils
should be, without the benefit of the bulge of a nose to hold them.  The
creature had no mouth.

A quick glance revealed
another standing by the door.  They seemed to stare at her with their eyeless
gaze.  One turned to the other, and both assumed an aspect of listening.  That
was her chance, she knew, as she sprung from the couch and ducked low under the
grasping arms of the turning creature. 

The one at the door
seemed ready for her, arms outstretched as it waited to trap her.  She got a
better look at the hands as she looked for an opening.  Three fingers and a
thumb flexing, making ready to grab.  The things seemed to move differently
than any kind of living creature she had ever seen.  A combination of
gracefulness and clumsiness.  If she had to guess she would bet she was dealing
with robots.  And her last encounter with robots had left her with a bad
feeling for the things.

Her legs moved, juking
one way, then spinning around the other, just as if she had been playing
football with the local boys when she was a girl.  The creature bit on the
fake, and she was under a grasping arm and through the door.

Another robot waited
for her, blocking the way down the corridor.  She heard something moving up
behind her.  Assuming it was another robot, she charged the one to her front,
jumping into a flying sidekick, the knife-edge of her foot striking the robot
in the chest before it could react.  Her ankle twisted as her foot hit what
felt like steel reinforced concrete.  As she landed the ankle went out from
under her, and she fell heavily to the floor.  Before she could move the robot
was over her, hands grabbing at her legs.

Pandi kicked hard with
both legs, trying to dislodge the hands that sank into her flesh like vises. 
She tried to roll out of the grip, before another pair of hands grabbed her
shoulders and held her tight.  She fought against her imprisonment like a
scalded wildcat, but the creatures were all stronger than her, and two held her
down, while the other two looked at her in an aspect of listening.  One of the
robots said something, a high-pitched burst of sound.

“I don’t understand,”
she said, squirming in the grasp of her captors.  “Let me go.  You’re hurting
me.”

The robot didn’t reply,
but the hard grip of those who held her slackened.  She still didn’t have a
hope of breaking their restraint, but at least it didn’t feel like her bones
were about to be crushed. 

The remaining robot
squatted beside her and began to explore her clothing with its hands.  Panic
began to grip her.  A hand grabbed the zipper of her suit and slowly pulled it
down.  Visions of some kind of robotic gang rape shot through her mind, as she
fought with all her strength against the grasp of her captors.

“You will not be
harmed,” said the robot still standing over her in a surprisingly human
sounding voice.  It seemed to be the leader, or at least the spokesman of the
machines. 

“Why are you doing this?”
she asked, as the squatting robot continued to pull the zipper down.

“The master wishes to
see you,” answered the robot.   “And we, his loyal servants, must be entirely
sure that you are not a threat to him.”

The zipper down, the
robot opened the few buckles of the suit.  Boots were unzipped and pulled off. 
The robot holding her shoulders shifted his grip to her arms, as the one
assigned to disrobe her pulled the suit up over her arms.   Hands under her
arms pulled her up to her feet, as the robot set at her pedal extremities
pulled the suit from her.

Pandi stood, still held
in place by a single robot, as another began to run its hands over her body,
only covered now by the long john like undergarment.  She felt shame wash over
her, to be subjected to such a clinical examination against her will.  When
they began to pull the zipper down in the back of the undergarment shame turned
again to anger.  The anger turned to resolve as the robot pulled the zippers
down both of the legs, one after the other.  Then it moved back to her arms.

She put her arms in the
air, as if to aid the robot in disrobing her.  The one holding her shoulders
slackened its grip to allow the undergarment to be pulled from her.  That was
what she had been waiting for, a chance.  Her legs dropped out from under her
as she fell straight down into a squat, her shoulders dropping out of the hands
of the robot.  She thrust forward, coming up to her feet and into a sprint, the
undergarment holding her up for a moment until she spun out of it, leaving it
in the grasp of a robot. 

Pandi was off, running
down the corridor as fast as she could pump her adrenaline-strengthened legs. 
Nakedness, and what the robots thought of her nakedness, was the last thing on
her mind.  She would escape first, and worry about clothing herself later.

“Stop,” called all of
the robots in unison behind her.  She glanced over her shoulder as she ran, to
see the robots in a jogging pursuit.  If that was the best they could do they
wouldn’t catch her.  She suspected they had the edge in stamina, but surely she
could get far enough away to hide before they could get to her. 

She hadn’t expected
there to be more of them.  That was the last thing on her mind as she turned a
corner and ran right into another pair.  They were prepared for her, arms
outstretched to cover the corridor.  Pandi tried to stop, to change direction,
but her bare feet slid on the smooth surface of the floor, and she flew into
the open arms of a robot.  Said arms clamped shut around her, and she was
trapped.

“Do not try that
again,” said a robot coming up behind her.

“Or you’ll hurt me?”
she asked, her blood pounding in her head in fury.

“No,” said the robot,
which she thought of now as the spokesman.  “We are ordered to see that no harm
comes to you.  But there are other dangers out there.  Dangers over which we,
and the master, have no control.”

Thoughts of the fractal
robot came to her.  At least these humanoid creatures had been gentle with her
on the whole.  Any bumps or bruises she had could be blamed on her struggle to
fight and escape.

“
He
may not be
so gentle with you.”

“Who?” she asked,
shaking her long hair out of her eyes.  “The master?”  She wished she could
wipe the sweat from her face, but the robot still held her against its hard
body in an unbreakable grip.

“No,” said the
spokesman robot.  “The master’s enemy. 
He
would definitely wish you
harm.”

“And your master
doesn’t?”

“He wishes to meet with
you, as a guest,” said the spokesman robot.  “He means you no harm.”

“Is he a robot?  Like
you?”

“No,” said the robot. 
“
Watcher
is an organic life form like you.”

Pandi felt somewhat
disconcerted looking the robot in the face.  It spoke to her, but it had no
mouth, not even a recognizable speaker.  The silver visor looked at her, an
eyeless stare that showed no emotion.

“Human?”

“More or less,”
answered the robot.  “Superior form, but basically human.”  She wondered if she
was imagining it, or was the robot speaking to her in a more relaxed, less
mechanistic manner.  Like it was learning to imitate her own speech patterns.

“Will you accompany us,
without any further trouble?” asked the robot.

“I guess I have no
choice.  What do I call you?”

The robot looked at her
a moment, as if puzzled by her question.

“What is your name?”

“I have no name as you
understand the concept,” replied the robot.  “What do you wish to call me?”

Only a couple of names
came to mind, both from old sci-fi shows she had seen on late night as a child,
and Pandi didn’t think B9 would quite fit.  Which left…

“I’ll call you Robbie.”

“Very well.  I am to
respond to the name Robbie.  And your, name?”

“Pandora Latham,” she
answered.  “Though most people call me Pandi.  Can I have some clothes, or do
you intend to bring me before this
Watcher
naked.”

“As I said, he means
you no harm.  But we must be sure that you do not mean any harm to him as
well.  And you will be unable to conceal weapons in your present state.”

Not the way I wanted to
meet another human being for the first time
, she thought.  Maybe he had no taboo of
nudity, but she normally only became nude with a select few.  But while in
Rome, as they said.

“I will not give you
any trouble.  Lead the way.”