Toy Wars (29 page)

Diplomat

“What do you think, Sancho,” I asked after I had watched for almost ten
minutes.
Sancho and I kept down behind a small sand dune as not to be spotted by the train full of military units and material speeding along.

We’d felt the train coming through the track
s
themselves, some three days after we discovered them. It prompted us to take cover.

At this distance we were unlikely to be
noticed
even if a unit caught sight of one of us
.
The train seemed endless out on this lonely stretch of track with nothing really visible
on
either horizon
. The train was an
infinite bouncing line.
With no sense of beginning or end the
train
barely seemed
to
be
mov
ing.
The size of the immense train showed a similar number of units to the previous
F
actory I
’d
met.
It seemed it
could
swat Six at any time.

Sometime during this endless parade, one of the helper engines in the middle let out a long
,
low whistle
.

“Do you think we should just walk down and introduce ourselves?” I asked.
I got the response I expected
—
none.
“I didn’t think so.
I guess that leaves following along the track
after this behemoth clears out.
”

It took the opportunity of our pause to play around with our CCTs. I turned off Sancho’s and then my own. I hoped that Sancho
had
bonded enough to me that the
IFF
signal from his CCT wouldn’t be necessary to our continued travels.

T
he CCTs were off on the theory that
as just
another biologic
, any unit would ignore us
.
Not that
units ignored all
biologics
,
but at
any it didn’t assign a potential threat to. It
would give us a fighting chance.

The tracks cleared while I had been tinkering but
it was
another hour before we couldn’t see it in the distance.

“Shall we dance?”

Our travel following the tracks back to their source
marked a sharp delineation
in terrain.
The rails paralleled the mercury level approximately 200 meters away on solid ground and well above the high
mercury
mark.
But solid ground was a bit of a misnomer.
High winds seemed the norm, buffeting across the area, leaving dunes of scarlet sands piled around haphazardly.
The
strong breezes
blew fine particles of earth around, scouring our fur and exposed workings.
Sometimes the wind
compelled us to lean into it to stay upright, even with our gyros a
t
emergency maximum.
Walking in it was difficult enough, but the loose sand at our feet dragged constantly.

Nothing biologic seemed to grow or wander here.
Even the normal barb grasses or tiny
animated life forms I
’d
encountered in abundance avoided this place.
After our first day of travel
I wondered if those biologics were smarter than I was.

E
ven resting
here didn’t follow the norm
.
As our required sunlight pelted us
,
t
he temperature began to rise to
a
level
I’d never
before experienced
.
The light energy also carried a greater power.
By
noon
we were fully recharged, but at the same time beginning to feel the effects of overheating.
With
fluid
s dangerously out of specification, my
pump temperatures
skyrocketed. As ludicrous as it seemed, we
had to get out of the sun.

“Sancho, we need to get shade.
Come around this dune and help me dig.”
I figured we would make our own cave.
T
hat was the plan, but the sand fell down faster than we could dig.
W
e did
well to
dig far enough
to make
a depression that provide
d
protection from the
afternoon rays.
As we settled in, o
ur temperatures began to fall immediately.
Another datum to keep in mind for selection of camping locations.

Conversely, the night in this awful place held its own almost hidden danger.
The ambient temperature fell alarmingly after sundown, causing the air to take on a serious chill.
Only the fact that we moved constantly through the night kept our
fluids thin and non-viscous
. The cold also affected
battery efficiency
. We had to keep moving but we had to do it carefully as not to deplete our batteries too far.

It became a pattern.
Walk
slowly all
night, when the temperatures fell to almost liquid-hardening temperatures
, seek the sun for its bounty in the morning
,
and
burrow like biologics
during the afternoon
.

For many
days and
nights of travel we followed those steel rails, which had an annoying habit of disappearing under the red dunes
for long distances.
We met with no excitement at all
—
not
a single investigation, not a single patrol to avoid.
As far as I could tell, I saw nothing, but a unit might have seen me and ignored me.
How can one tell?
Maybe they all waited in ambush over the next crumbly, nearly collapsing rise
.
I didn’t know and wouldn’t oscillate my circuits worrying about
that
.
I
nstead
,
I worried almost constantly about fluid status. I began to feel some of those long term issues, including the inability of my coolant to moderate my temperature.
It wouldn’t be much longer before I was going to have to do something drastic.

Eight
days
of alternating freezing and baking before one night the train tracks disappeared down into the ocean.
It didn’t make any sense.
I stopped
so suddenly that
Sancho
bumped into me from behind.
How could a train run through the mercury?
It really didn’t make any sense.

Looking carefully ahead on the beach I didn’t see the tracks leave the metal anyplace within the limits of my vision.

“Any ideas, fella?”

Sancho, as usual, had no clue as to what we were doing.
He just loyally followed along without a word.
Sometimes I still had to prod him to get moving in the beginning of the evening.
Conversely
,
there were times he all but dragged me out of our
daytime
hole and down a sand embankment at the start of a new working night.
In spite of his mental limitations
, I had never felt so warm toward my companion.

My mind
worked
overtime to explain the mysteriously vanishing train tracks.
The
single possible explanation
I dreamed up
seemed farfetched.

“Was it Sherlock Holmes who once said
,
‘W
hen you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth
’
?”

I saw several problems with
my theory
, but the only way I could confirm or deny it was to investigate.

“Let’s set up camp, Sancho.”

After our
run
-
in with the basilisk, making camp involved a bit more
than just flopping down anyplace. We scouted about for places with no blind approaches, above high mercury level signs and recently a place we could get out of the sun. However, in th
is
case the site I chose really had no available shade. We relaxed adjacent to where the railroad disappeared into the sea.

“Sancho, I hope you are ready for an all
-
day run. The true test of my theory will come a little after high sun today.
” I couldn’t tell if Sancho
remained awake or not. It mattered little this early in the morning.

The mercury level dropped slowly at first but within
two
hours
the beach gained 3.4 additional meters
, and
2.8 hours after sunup my target revealed itself with just the barest hint of the top of a dome.

“There it is, Sancho. We finally made it!”

Sancho actually stood up to get a better look. Together we
watched as the liquid metal receded from around the structure.
The dome was much flatter than
either of the two
F
actories I’d known
,
being only
5
meters above the ground
. Its radius appeared the same as in my memories
.
                                                               

“What a funny shape. And where are its construction and production facilities?” No
material processing plants, smelting plants, assembly line buildings or anything like them
exposed themselves.

“I don’t know whether to think they are farther out in the sea or aren’t collocated. I think the second is more probable.
Otherwise you’d have to time arrival of raw materials with the shrinkage of the sea. And what would happen if the sea level rose so it never became exposed.”

Such a strange place it inhabited.
We
had, by then, traveled through all types of places
, but the desolation of this b
arren and wind-tossed
place
made my voltage flutter like no other.

By
noon
t
he
sea relinquished its grip on the ground around the
F
actory
,
leaving it
still moist with tiny puddles
.
The shining metal
reflect
ed
the brilliant rays of the sun like tiny stars, each planet-bound
,
to spend
their energies with futility against the ground.

“Is that what I am doing?” I wondered aloud.
“Am I
futil
ely
spending my energies where they can do absolutely no good?”
Time would tell and my companion Sancho would not.
This was that time.
I steeled myself for what I must do.

Just as before with 55474,
the door
was in almost exactly the same location.
My body shook gently.
I didn’t know whether it was in excitement or terror or both, but I realized that if I didn’t go
right
then, I might lose my will.

I think the gritty, thick feeling of my fluids and the voltage fluctuation across my main power bus
told
me that I was very afraid.
They were redundant warnings of danger I had been facing in my mind for hours.
I quivered in more fear at that moment than ever before in my short life.
I
certainly
knew I was more afraid than when I had confronted 55474 in its den.
I no longer had any tricks to get me out of trouble if it showed.
Six couldn’t
save
me
.
Sancho couldn’t pull me out
.
I
alone
would match my wits against
the full
mental powers of a
F
actory
.
If I failed, Six perished.

I don’t know what possessed me, but I stood up, throwing my pack over my shoulder.
I heard myself say, “Sancho, old pal.
This is something I have to do alone.”
I slipped the vine
leash from
around his neck.