Barrington Bayley - The Rod of Light

Suddenly a peremptory loudspeaker voice broke into the stupefied silence that had fallen over the robot army. ‘CONSTRUCTS! THIS IS ONE OF THE HUMAN MASTERS SPEAKING. YOUR ORDERS ARE TO LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS AND STAND WHERE YOU ARE WITHOUT MOVING. THE MASTERS WILL COME AMONG YOU TO DIRECT YOU. NOW—DISARM!’

With dismay Jasperodus realized that the Borgors’ first tactic was to prey on a robot’s basic weakness. A restless, alarmed motion rustled through the throng. Weapons clattered to the ground. ‘It is useless!’ wailed a robot. ‘Best to flee!’

His voice would have been heeded, had not the threatened route been prevented by the prompt action of the Bellum marshals. Crackling blue rays zipped aslant the scene from the beamers mounted atop their flat heads, striking down those who panicked and tried to run. A mood of utter terror took hold of the army, terror of the marshals as much as of the Borgors. At the same time the artillery was ordered into action. With a woosh the twenty missiles carried by the truck Jasperodus rode on went soaring in a drove towards the camp. They were joined by catapult-hurled ball-bombs, glowing heat beams whose shafts hummed overhead, and a dozen droves of similar rockets.

‘ADVANCE!’ the Bellums bellowed, drowning out the loudspeaker voice. ‘CHARGE!’

The explosions that tore into the Borgors were a once-only volley. With a deafening barrage of stentorious exhortations the marshals herded their now unwilling troops before them, sending them running headlong into the attack, pushing, stumbling, falling, sometimes dropping and losing their weapons.

And then Jasperodus spotted something that instantly told him the day was lost. Four land-crawlers drew up, facing the charging army broadside. Their sides fell away. Big drum-shaped projectors stood revealed, swivel-mounted like searchlights, and from them there shot out crackling blue beams that cut wide swathes through the pell-mell robots.

Flinging himself from the rocket truck, Jasperodus huddled behind a broad tyre. It was the weapon he had feared the Borgors might have developed, but had refrained from saying so to his colleagues on the defence committee.

Beam weapons were of two types: those that emitted intense microwave, infra-red or visible light—essentially blasters or burners of coherent energy—and those emitting an electric beam that obliterated nervous activity, both artificial and biologic. In robots the latter produced instant brain death. It was slightly less effective against humans, needing to be on target for as much as half a second. This was the type Bellums carried on their craniums, as much to maintain morale in their subordinates as for offence.

To produce a broad-beam version was, at one time, an unsolved technical problem. Now the Borgors had it, and therefore were perfectly confident of the outcome of their crusade against robotkind. Wherever the beams touched, pathways of inert metal bodies appeared. It was as if something heavy had rolled through an iron wheatfield, flattening everything as it went. The onrushing charge did not stop. The robots were firing as they ran, shooting wildly and hitting their own as often as not, and a few even got through to the enemy but were cut down as soon as they reached the Borgor ranks.

In front of Jasperodus a pile of bodies helped shield him from the crackling blue beams which roved back and forth, passing sometimes within inches of his brain. After a while the tumult subsided, and he no longer heard the deadly crackling. Slowly, he raised his head a little.

Scattered individuals and occasional forlorn groups were all that remained of the robot army, and these stood as if dazed. The projectors had been switched off, but the big armoured figures were now moving through the scene of metal carnage, carrying huge hammers with which they were clubbing any constructs still moving or showing signs of being operative. Seeing this, the robots the beams had missed began frantically scrambling or crawling over the bodies of their fellows in foredoomed efforts to escape.

Resting his head again, Jasperodus lay still. Could he have planned the attack better, he wondered? Should he have taken more interest in the defence of the township?

To think that a one-time marshal of the Imperial Forces had been party to such a fiasco!

A practical point occurred to him. Human-owned robots of special value were occasionally given secret command languages known only to their masters. Such languages were of necessity simple—usually consisting of a form of back-slang or a coded syllable added to key words—but free robots might be well-advised to adopt their own secret language, one too complicated for human beings to learn. In that way they might guard themselves against the sort of interference he had witnessed today.

It would, too, be one more step towards detaching the construct mind from human civilisation, so necessary if robotic culture was to survive….

The noise of smashing came nearer. He could hear the treading metal feet of the big armoured warriors. He could think of only one way to save himself. Unlike most robots he had the faculty of deep sleep, a faculty given him because of his human consciousness.

He switched himself off.

Stainless steel shutters clicked back. Blank at first, construct eyes began to glow.

Once again the hour was shortly after dawn, Jasperodus having set his brain’s waking timer at twenty-four hours. He lay unmoving for several minutes, doggedly staring at the ballooning truck tyre in front of him and aware that any movement on his part could be fatal.

The singing of birds was the only sound he could hear. Very, very slowly, he lifted his head a few inches. Cautiously, he sat up.

Then he clambered to his feet amid the junkyard of the defeated robot army. Circuits fused by rampaging beams, innards crushed and strewn by Borgor hammers, three thousand constructs lay jumbled together on the ground, with all their equipment. The Borgor camp had departed, leaving behind only those vehicles and machinery wrecked in the short battle. It was certain that the robot township Jasperodus had left two days before was either now being or had already been annihilated, and its previously fleeing refugees were being hunted down.

He picked up a portable beamer and thumbed the stud. Nothing happened; the weapon was broken.

He threw it down. He had nearly extricated himself from the shambles when he was, for a moment, alarmed to see a slim robot, light grey in colour, walking from the east in measured strides towards him. Jasperodus telescoped his vision and was surprised to recognise the long-faced construct with amber eyes who earlier had tried to persuade him to join the Gargan Work. The other robot stopped as Jasperodus made for him.

He looked past Jasperodus at the battlefield. ‘Extraordinary,’ he murmured. ‘Are there any more survivors?’

‘I sincerely doubt it,’ Jasperodus said, glancing ill-humouredly behind him.

‘I admit I had not expected our defeat to be so absolute.’

‘The Borgors used a new weapon against us,’ Jasperodus told him. ‘But what are you doing here? I thought you had gone to Gargan.’

‘Yes, that is where I am going.’ The construct turned his amber eyes directly to him. ‘The truth is I have not yet abandoned hope of taking you with me, Jasperodus. It occurred to me that after the battle you might be more amenable to my suggestion, assuming you survived. So I followed the attack force at a politic distance, then lay down in the grass to follow events as best I could.’ Sadly he shook his head. ‘What desolation! It will be otherwise once the Gargan Work is successful.’

‘You saw the Borgors leave, then? Which way did they go?’

‘They set off towards the township three hours ago. A squadron of their aircraft has also been in action.’