“Huh. Maybe it really is dead.”
A low growl behind her was followed by three short, sharp barks.
“You’re a bad girl,” was the message.
Kalima turned toward her nursemaid. “I’m not a little girl anymore, Sufi. I’m thirteen and I know exactly what I’m doing.”
Sufi’s short tail wagged once. That message was clear, too: Humor her.
“Huh. I’m going closer to the Bolo.”
Sufi barked once, warningly; then tried to interpose her body between Kalima and the defeated engine of war.
“Forget it, Sufi. I’m going to get a good look at it. The Pig isn’t going to get away with calling me a chicken.”
Sufi’s ears pricked, then her jaws opened in a canine laugh.
Kalima stalked away, conscious of her own wounded dignity. The closer she drew to the dead Bolo, however, the slower her footsteps shuffled. Old bomb craters pitted the ground, overlapping one another until the footing was so rough she stumbled at every other stride.
“Must have been some battle, huh, Sufi?”
She tried to picture it and decided not even her vivid imagination could do justice to what must have taken place here. The Bolo’s long, chilly shadow stretched over her head and left her shivering at the foot of its enormous treads. Each tread was ten feet from edge to edge. She had to tilt her head to look up at the war hull. The whole surface was uneven, where special armor—her Dad had called it “ablative”—had blown off in layers under Enemy fire.
Each little section of special armor was six-sided; the combined effect of interlocking pieces reminded her of the honeycombs built by the colony’s bees. Most of the honeycomb-shaped armor was gone. Forlorn scales and patches remained. In places the layers ran at least four deep. Most of the Bolo’s exterior was naked flintsteel, its iodine hue having long since lost any vestige of polish. Kalima wondered how many layers of armor had been blown away, even in the patches where it remained four layers deep?
She tilted her head back farther, trying to see up the imposing prow.
“There’s a designation up there,” Kalima muttered. “I’m going to see if I can find it.”
The dog whined sharply when she put her foot on the nearest rung and started to climb. Kalima paused, waiting to see if the Bolo would respond; but it just sat there, rusting away under the late autumn sun. She climbed higher. The designation ought to be right about . . .
There. Mark XX Model B, Tremendous, Unit Six Seven Zero GWN, Dinochrome Brigade Three. “Wow. Look at those battle decorations!”
Despite the rust and the battle scars, she counted six, each from a different world.
“Poor old Bolo.” She climbed higher, up to the turret. The war machine was twice as long as it was high, jammed so solidly into the gates, it didn’t look like anything, not even a nuclear blast, would ever budge it loose. “Mr. Hickson told us the Navy didn’t even bother burning your Action/Command center. The Deng did it for them, two hundred years ago. It’s kind of sad, I think, hunting out the members of the Dinochrome Brigade, just to wipe out their brains. It’s not a very nice way to treat a combat veteran.” She stroked the pitted hull. “Maybe,” she sighed, outlining a long, jagged scar with her fingertip, “maybe it is better you got killed in battle.”
Kalima glanced over the top of the mighty war machine’s turret, into the compound itself. Every building inside had been smashed open, burnt out, obliterated. Not even skeletons remained of the hapless colonists who had died here.
“It’s too bad you were a gonner, Unit Six Seven Zero. I’ll bet this was a nice place before the Deng came.”
On the ground, Sufi emitted a shrill yelp, then barked frantically to get her attention. At first, Kalima wasn’t sure what had agitated her genetically enhanced nursemaid. Then she felt the tremor. Earthquake? Her eyes widened and she grabbed for the nearest rung to scramble down before the wall on either side of the Bolo collapsed.
A metallic screech, like bending rebar, half deafened her. She stared around wildly for the source—
The Hellbore guns were moving.
They tracked jerkily, halted, then moved another two inches. Somewhere in the depths of the critically wounded Bolo, an engine groaned and wheezed. The sound died away, leaving Kalima shaking atop the uppermost rung.
“It isn’t dead! It isn’t dead at all and I’m stuck up here . . .”
If she tried to jump down, the Bolo might trigger anti-personnel charges. What if she couldn’t get down, ever? No one would even be able to rescue her, get close enough . . .
Then she heard a sound that made her hair stand on end.
The Bolo was talking. . . .
—5—
I become aware of sunlight and the sound of machinery close to me: over the nearest ridge, no farther than the next valley. The Enemy has returned!
Then a human voice enters my awareness. My Commander is gone, has been dead for many, many years. Has a new Commander sought me out at last? The voice nears; then I feel a human hand on my war hull. My forward sensor is still functional. It is a human, a small human, with another creature that I should know but do not. My data banks are too damaged to recall the information once stored in that memory cell.
The small human climbs nearer to my turret. I will not open myself to it. I await the private code, which my long-lost Commander has told me to wait for. It seems unlikely to me, even in my battered, power-weakened state, that a new Commander can know my private code after such a long passage of years. I search through what remains of my memory cells and recall the voice of my beloved Commander, lost to me through my own failure and the weight of unknown years.
“Unit Six Seven Zero GWN, everyone’s taken to calling you Gawain. I think that’s a fine name, don’t you?”
“Agreed. Gawain was a noble warrior, worthy of a place in the Dinochrome Brigade.”
My Commander’s rich laugh fills my sensors. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say someone programmed a sense of humor into your Introspection Complex. I’ll tell you what, though, Gawain. We’ve got to work out a private code between us, to ensure proper transfer of command. How about something that rhymes with my name. Any ideas?”
I consider the challenge. “Donner. This name rhymes with honor, gonner . . .”
“Hey, Gonner. I like that. It’s even close to your designation, but not close enough to be obvious. Donner’s Gonner, ’cause when we hit ’em, they’re gonners! How’s that sound?”
“I will file the code word Gonner as my Commander’s private security access code.”
“Hah, you don’t fool me. You like it just fine . . .”
The small human climbing on my hull speaks again. “. . . you were a gonner, Unit Six Seven Zero . . .”
Deep inside my command center, sparks flutter. I come to attention. My Hellbore guns move with extreme slowness. It takes 9.7 seconds to lift the guns seven inches. More sparks dance across broken connections.
“Unit Six Seven Zero GWN of the Line, reporting for duty.”
This is what my Action/Command center begins to say. My sensors pick up the sound of my own voice, which crackles and sputters, “Gonner, gonner, gonner, gonner . . .”
I shift attention for 0.027 seconds in an attempt to locate the difficulty. My power level is critically low. I am operating on emergency backup batteries. My fission unit is completely cold. If I continue to communicate or attempt movement without a recharge during the next three days, I will cease to exist. My internal diagnostic becomes baffled by a haphazard tangle of broken circuitry and smashed crystalline retrieval centers located to the lower left of my command center.
I can think coherently. But I cannot speak coherently.
The shame of failure to my Brigade and to my new Commander deepens. I attempt again, this time to communicate the need for power. The statement, “Unit Six Seven Zero GWN of the Line, reporting. I request immediate recharge of all energy systems” comes through my speakers as “Sunlight. Sunlight. Sunlight.”
The small human who has come to take command reaches the ground. My Commander has given up on me. There is little to be gained by further effort, for my emergency power reserves are failing. Oblivion will come a little sooner. I allow the Hellbore guns to drop and rotate them away from my departing Commander. It is the only salute of which I am still capable. It is not enough. My Commander leaves.
— 6 —
The screeching sound of moving gun barrels sent Kalima sprawling into the nearest crater. She flung arms around her head, moving instinctively; but the Bolo didn’t fire. Sufi pressed against her, whining softly in the back of her throat.