Гарри Гаррисон: Bill, the Galactic Hero's Happy Holiday

“I thought they were bigger,” he said.

“Big, small, green, too many arms, doesn’t matter. They are the enemy and shall be destroyed.”

“Hear, hear. I say, what is that unusual weapon the guard is holding?”

“A new invention. Shackle-ray projector. Sends out rings of energy that enwrap the victim with unbreakable bonds of paralyzing radiation.”

“Sounds wizard. Might I see it?”

Even before permission was given Bill took hold of the gun, reversed it, looked down the muzzle. Reversed it again and shot the guard and the General. They fell screaming and writhing into unconsciousness, wrapped in purple flame. Bill looked through the bars at the Chinger and spoke.

“Grtzz?”

“Zimtz! And I’m might glad to see you, vulgar human bearer of succor and sent by my hive-mate Bgr. You can now unharumph.”

At this command Bill’s imposed personality vanished and his teeth began chattering with fear. “We’re good as dead! Deep in the enemy stronghold!”

“Shut up,” Mgr kindly suggested as he seized his chains and snapped them easily. “You won’t see a bowby human doing this. Or this,” he added as he bent the cell bars into loops and stepped out into the passageway. “Did you see any robots around?”

“Why?”

“Just answer and don’t try to think with your limited capacity. Robots — remember? Metal men with wheels and glass eyes.”

“Yes, I think, maybe. A janitor robot down the hall.”

“Perfect.”

The Chinger jumped over the unconscious General and went to the control panel beside the closed portal.

“Harumph,” he said as he pushed the button and the door opened a crack. Bill stamped forward and spoke through the crack.

“I say, guards, step in here for a moment.”

As the door opened wider he seized up the ray gun and added some more numb bodies to the growing pile. Mgr stayed well out of sight as he said “Unharumph.”

Bill vibrated and moaned with fear again.

“Knock that off or I’ll leave you here for certain death and dismemberment. Do what I say and you stand a chance of getting out of here in one piece or more. Get that robot in here.”

Bill moaned but went. The Chinger was his only chance.

The robot was mopping the hall but stopped when he called to it.

“You, robot, come here.”

“Me robot already here,” it grated with metallic stupidity.

“You-robot — put’em down mop. Roll to big human chief.”

“Me-robot — do what big chief tell it.”

Clanking and muttering mechanically it rolled through the door and stopped when the Chinger jumped onto its shoulder and opened the access plate in its head.

“Klinkle!” it said as Mgr tore out handfuls of wire and machinery and threw them to the floor. When he had made enough room he climbed inside and slammed the plate closed behind him.

“Let’s roll!” the revitalized robot said. “And you better Harumph again since you are pretty useless in the quivering coward persona. Say it!”

“Harumph!”

Bill quavered — then took a brace. “Shall we proceed, dear nest-mate of mine? I assume you have a plan of escape.”

“Indeed I do,” the robot grated as it grabbed up its mop. “You lead the way and I’ll roll behind you. We have to go up thirty stories to the top level. I spotted some aerial transport there when they carried me by.”

The guard at the next portal widened his eyes as Bill approached. “You do know that you are being followed by a janitorbot?”

“Am I? I thought I heard a rattling.”

As Bill spoke the robot rolled past him — and crashed his mop down on the guard’s head. “Time for you to change persona,” the Chingerbot said as it stripped off the guard’s uniform. Bill nodded agreement and peeled down. Swift seconds later guard and robot rolled on. They had just reached the hellevator shaft when the alarm clanged over their heads.

“They’ve caught on!” Bill shouted.

“Up the Chingers!” the robot bellowed and tore open the hellevator doors. The moving ladders inside were bright red. Metal hand and human hand grabbed out as one and they were quickly whisked upward. At the top of the shaft the door opened and the soldiers outside fired their guns all at the same time.

“It’s a good thing Chinger and electronic reflexes are faster than your sluggish human ones,” Mgr said, slamming the doors shut an instant before the guns ravened. The metal doors glowed hot. “Let’s try the floor below.”

It was a race against time, a desperate bid for survival. Every man’s hand was turned against them — women’s as well they discovered when a gun-wielding WAAC singed their bums as they raced by.

Words cannot reveal the terrors they faced that day. The close encounters of a fourth kind, the skin of their teeth well flayed, the cliff-hangers well hung. It was only minutes but it seemed like hours before they stumbled through one last door and into the rain outside. Singed, scalded, bent and more than a little mutilated, Bill patted the sparks from his trousers while the robot raised its one remaining arm to open the plate in its head. It clanged limply to the ground as the Chinger jumped free.

“Unharumph,” Mgr said. “And, if possible, let us not do that again. Now, if you can stop clattering your teeth together in that disgusting manner, you can look about and tell me where we are.”

“In the rain….”

“Brilliant. The entire human race to pick from and Bgr sends me one with the intellect of a brain-dead mouse. Listen, stupid, you are human and I, as is obvious, am not. So look about and let me know where we are.”

“I’ve never been here before.”

“I know that. But bulge your eyes, make a guess. All I know about humans is what I read in reports. I may be head of the CIA, Chinger Intelligence Assessment, but I have never been on a human planet before. What’s that?”

“The town garbage dump. So you’re pretty high up, huh?”

“Nobody higher. I run the war and have been doing a damn fine job of it. And if you try to tell anybody who I am you’ll be dead before the first word leaves your lips.

“What is garbage?”

“Things people throw out.”

“Good. Let’s take a look.”

They skulked rapidly through the rain, from one place of concealment to the other. Finally hiding behind a heap of broken cogwheels as a rumbling sound grew louder, coming towards them.

“Peek out and look,” Mgr ordered. “What is it?”

“A garbage truck. What else did you expect to find in a garbage dump?”

“How many humans in it?”

“None. It’s a robot garbage truck.”

“You have just made my day, simple human. Let’s climb aboard.”

Sodden and weary they climbed up the cab and slammed the door shut behind them.

“No humans allowed,” the robot driver grated out.

“Against law, me no like, krrkkk-‘ It krrkked its last as Mgr tore its head off and pushed it aside.

“Drive,” he said to Bill. “That is I assume you can operate this vehicle?”

“A truck’s a truck,” Bill said sanguinely, kicking it into gear, revving the engine — and plowing backwards into a mountain of garbage. “Though sometimes, ha-ha, it takes a second or two to work out the controls.”

“Well take a second or four and try not to do that again. We Chingers have most delicate senses of smell.”

Bill fiddled with the controls and finally got them working. Put the thing into forward and rumbled out of the garbage dump. The rain was letting up and they could see the fortress behind them, green fields off to the side. Mgr peeked out of a hole he had punched in the door.

“That way-towards the jungle.”

“Those are farms.”

“Spare me the linguistic lesson and head for the hills. I want to be as far away from the troops as we can get before calling for help.”