Piers Anthony - Unicorn Point

“And it is time for me to make my move,” Tania said. “This will quickly unravel. If I know my brother, he will not depend on my sense of sibling duty; he’ll send a competent force to arrest me—and you. Pull out your stops, robot; this is the time.”

“Aye, wench,” he agreed. “Follow!”

They ran to the nearest service exit to the takeoff ramp. Bane used his ability to make the door open for him as it would for a machine servitor. Beyond was a chamber in which the service machines were parked: huge forklifts, dozers and ramp cleaners. Bane went to one of the last: a machine taller than a man, with s scalable cockpit, and nozzles and brushes all around. “Climb in!” he told her, as he made the cockpit dome lift open.

“How?” she asked, halting before the monstrous caterpillar tread of the thing. It offered little purchase for a human being. Normally these machines were remote-controlled; the cockpit was there only in case a man should be assigned.

“I’ll boost thee!” He caught her by knee and upper thigh and lifted her up so that she could scramble onto the top of the tread.

“Goose me again, why don’t you,” she muttered as his hand fell away from her thigh. But she made it to the cockpit and climbed in.

Bane followed. He zeroed in on the machine’s control circuitry, and locked off the remote input. Now he alone con trolled it. He studied its mechanisms.

“Get going!” Tania cried, jammed into the tiny cockpit beside him. “They’ll be here any minute!” Bane knew that. But he wanted to be certain of the cleaner’s potential. He had chosen this machine because it most resembled an old-fashioned tank. Properly directed, it could defend itself, and could travel beyond the dome.

A group of androids burst into the chamber. “Here they are!” Tania exclaimed. “They’ve got stunners!”

He had anticipated as much. “Get comfortable,” he said grimly. “It may be a hard ride.”

“I can’t get comfortable here! There’s a gearstick poking my bottom.”

“Lucky gearshift,” he murmured, as the machine lurched out to meet the androids.

One of them fired. The shot was invisible, and was evidently deflected by the metal and plastic framework of the machine, for there was no effect. Still, this luck would not hold; he had to eliminate the menace.

He aimed a nozzle and fired. Foam squirted out to blast the androids. The force of it was formidable; it knocked them off their feet. Bubbles enclosed them, and they gesticulated wildly as they fought for good air to breathe.

“What is that stuff?” Tania asked admiringly.

“Merely light detergent. But methinks it would sting if it got in the eyes.”

Indeed, several androids were rubbing their eyes. None were trying to use their stunners. This group had been effectively defeated.

But more would come, this time better prepared. Not enough time had passed to allow for the ship taking off. “Me thinks we had better give them aught to ponder,” he said, guiding the vehicle to the service entrance.

“Robots!” she cried, pointing.

That was what he had feared. Detergent foam would not stop those!

So he charged them as they passed through the door. They were machines, but they were no match for the mass of the vehicle; they dived aside as he smashed into the door, and broke it in, along with a large segment of wall. Human and android people screamed. Tania grunted as she was bounced against the cockpit dome and back into Bane. Her knees were now jammed against his belly, and she clung to his neck for support. Her hair was in wild disarray, but she was smiling. This was her kind of mayhem!

But already the robots were righting themselves and orienting their weapons. Bane touched a lever, and water blasted out in a circular sheet, horizontally, sweeping them all off their feet again. “Rinse cycle,” he murmured to the top of Tania’s head, which was jammed against his right shoulder. “May short out some of those weapons.”

Then he maneuvered the vehicle around and away from the smashed wall, retreating. “Takeoff!” he said gladly.

“This thing flies?” she demanded, astonished.

“The ship be launched,” he explained. “Now it be safe to pass its ramp. I wanted to interfere not, before.”

“Figures,” she agreed.

Some robots were coming after them. Bane tried his third weapon, the sander. Powdery sand blasted out, and the big brushes extended, whipping it into a dust-storm frenzy, in tended to scour away the worst runway buildup of grime or old paint.

“Those robots won’t like that,” Tania remarked, grinning. But just to be sure, he aimed his foam nozzle and sent out a prolonged rearward jet of liquid detergent. He was rewarded by the sight of robots sliding helplessly back on a spreading wave of bubbles. They had finally been defeated. They passed the main launch ramp. The ships did not take off vertically; they lay at an angle, and were catapulted up before their engines cut in, so as not to befoul the interior of the dome. Incoming ships landed outside, and were then hauled in on flatcars. It was an efficient system, but did not do much to abate the exterior pollution. They passed through the dome wall, which was just a force field that served as a barrier between the clean inner air and the bad outer atmosphere. Here the view was murky; here the dust storms were natural.

“They’ll have aircraft after us,” Tania said. “We can’t dodge those long, or shoot them down with squirts of water.”

“Aye. Now we call for help.”

He set up a radio circuit on a special channel. Blue! Blue! Willst take me in?

Thought thou wouldst ne ‘er ask, the laconic reply came. Then, flying low on the horizon, came a winged craft, bright blue. It looped around them, then slowed and glided down for a landing.

“Don this,” Bane Said, drawing from the back of the cockpit a helmet and breathing tank.

Tania wedged her head into it and made sure the seal was snug about her neck. Then Bane opened the canopy and let the atmosphere in. They clambered out and ran across to the airplane.

In a moment they were inside, and the plane was taking off. It was a remote-controlled unit, made to hold two. “That’s Tania!” Citizen Blue’s voice came. “What of Agape?”

“She be offplanet now,” Bane explained. “Tania and I be defecting to thy side, and Mach likewise in Phaze.”

“What about Nepe?”

Bane had known he could not rescue Nepe the moment Tan caught on to the ploy, but had been distracted by the need to act swiftly and effectively. Now the realization struck with full force. “She be captive o’ the Citizens. She covered for me, to get her mother out.”

Tania turned to him, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. Bane,” she said with genuine regret.

“I think we shall have to negotiate,” Citizen Blue said, as the airplane flew them to the safety of his power.

“Aye,” Bane agreed, depressed.

9 - Forel

Forel cut through the brush, heading for home. He had always been an explorer, and now with his oath-friend Barelmosi gone, he found surcease from his disquiet only by increasingly distant excursions. He claimed that he wanted to find and run down prey, so that he could make his first individual Kill and be eligible for adult status, and that was true, but it was mostly his foolish notion that if he only ranged far enough, he might find and bring back his lost friend. He knew that Barel had been captured by the Adepts, knew there was no chance they would let him go, and knew that if Barel somehow escaped, he would not dare come here, where they would first look for him. Yet Forel ranged, hoping on a level more fundamental than that of reason.

But now he had to return, as he had promised Sirel and Terel, who feared he would get himself killed by a hunting dragon, or by a goblin snare. If he stayed out too long, they would come looking for him, and so put themselves at similar risk. He wanted that not!