This kind does pack a gun!
Reflexively, he returned a shot. Less powerful, his beam bounced off the
alloy hide. The robot moved on it. He could hear the roar of its motor.
A direct hit at closer quarters would pierce his suit and body. He fired
again and prepared to flee.
If I can divert that tin bastard–It did not occur to Flandry that his
action might get him accused of gallantry. He started off in a different
direction from the girl’s. Longer-legged, he had a feebly better chance
than she of keeping ahead of death, reaching a natural barricade and
making a stand …
Tensed with the expectation of lightning, the hope that his air unit
would give protection and not be ruined, he had almost reached the next
line when he realized there had been no fire. He braked and turned to
stare behind.
The robot must have halted right after the exchange. Its top swung back
and forth, as if in search. Surely it must sense him.
It started off after Djana.
Flandry spat an oath and pounded back to help. She had a good head
start, but the machine was faster, and if it had crossed one line,
wouldn’t it cross another? Flandry’s boots slammed upon stone.
Oxygen-starved, his brain cast forth giddiness and patches of black. His
intercepting course brought him nearer. He shot. The bolt went wild. He
bounded yet more swiftly. Again he shot. This time he hit.
The robot slowed, veered as if to meet this antagonist who could be
dangerous, faced away once more and resumed its pursuit of Djana.
Flandry held down his trigger and hosed it with flame. The girl crossed
the boundary. The robot stopped dead.
But–but–gibbered in Flandry’s skull.
The robot stirred, lifted, and swung toward him. It moved hesitantly,
wobbling a trifle, not as if damaged–it couldn’t have been–but as if
… puzzled?
I shouldn’t be toting a blaster, Flandry thought in the turmoil. With my
shape, I’m supposed to carry sword and shield.
The truth crashed into him.
He took no time to examine it. He knew simply that he must get into the
same square as Djana. An anthropoid with blade and scute in place of
hands could not crawl very well. Flandry went on all fours. He scuttled
backward. The lean tall figure rocked after him, but no faster. Its
limited computer–an artificial brain moronic and monomaniacal–could
reach no decision as to what he was and what to do about him.
He crossed the line. The robot settled to the ground.
Flandry rose and tottered toward Djana. She had collapsed several meters
away. He joined her. Murk spun down upon him.
It lifted in minutes, after his air unit purified the atmosphere in his
suit and his stimulated cells drank the oxygen. He sat up. The machine
that had chased them was retreating to the middle of the adjacent
square, another gleam against the dark plain, under the dark sky. He
looked at his blaster’s charge indicator. It stood near zero. He could
reload it from the powerpack he carried, but his life-support units
needed the energy worse. Maybe.
Djana was rousing too. She half raised herself, fell across his lap, and
wept. “It’s no use, Nicky. We can’t make it. We’ll be murdered. And if
we do get by, what’ll we find? A thing that builds killing engines.
Let’s go back. We can go back the way we came. Can’t we? And have a
little, little while alive together–”
He consoled her until the chill and hardness of the rock on which he sat
got through to him. Then, stiffly, he rose and assisted her to her feet.
His voice sounded remote and strange in his ears. “Ordinarily I’d agree
with you, dear. But I think I see what the arrangement is. The way the
bishop behaved. Didn’t you notice?”
“B-b-bishop?”
“Consider. Like the knight, I’m sure, the bishop attacks when the square
he’s on is invaded. I daresay the result of a move on this board depends
on the outcome of the battle that follows it. Now a bishop can only
proceed offensively along a diagonal. And the pieces are only programed