But before she could pull the trigger,there was a gunshot from behind her. A slug burned across the side of her neck.Susannah reacted instantly, turning and throwing herself sideways into theaisle. One of the low men who’d run had had a change of heart and come back.Susannah put two bullets into his chest and made him mortally sorry.
She turned, eager for more—yes, thiswas what she wanted, what she had been made for, and she’d always revere Rolandfor showing her—but the others were either dead or fled. The spider raceddown the side of its birthbed on its many legs, leaving thepapier-mâché corpse of its mother behind. It turned its whiteinfant’s head briefly toward her.
You’d do well to let me pass, Blackie,or—
She fired at it, but stumbled over thehawkman’s outstretched hand as she did. The bullet that would have killed theabomination went a little awry, clipping off one of its eight hairy legsinstead. A yellowish-red fluid, more like pus than blood, poured from the placewhere the leg had joined the body. The thing screamed at her in pain andsurprise. The audible portion of that scream was hard to hear over the endlesscycling blat of the robot’s siren, but she heard it in her head loud and clear.
I’ll pay you back for that! My fatherand I, we’ll pay you back! Make you cry for death, so we will!
You ain’t gonna have a chance, sugar,Susannah sent back, trying to project all the confidence she possibly could,not wanting the thing to know what she believed: that Scowther’s automaticmight have been shot dry. She aimed with a deliberation that was unnecessary,and the spider scuttled rapidly away from her, darting first behind theendlessly sirening robot and then through a dark doorway.
All right. Not great, not the best solutionby any means, but she was still alive, and that much was grand.
And the fact that all of sai Sayre’s crewwere dead or run off? That wasn’t bad, either.
Susannah tossed Scowther’s gun aside andselected another, this one a Walther PPK. She took it from the docker’s clutchStraw had been wearing, then rummaged in his pockets, where she found half adozen extra clips. She briefly considered adding the vampire’s electric swordto her armory and decided to leave it where it was. Better the tools you knew thanthose you didn’t.
She tried to get in touch with Jake,couldn’t hear herself think, and turned to the robot. “Hey, big boy! Shutoff that damn sireen, what do you say?”
She had no idea if it would work, but itdid. The silence was immediate and wonderful, with the sensuous texture ofmoiré silk. Silence might be useful. If there was a counterattack, she’dhear them coming. And the dirty truth? She hoped for a counterattack, wantedthem to come, and never mind whether that made sense or not. She had a gun andher blood was up. That was all that mattered.
(Jake! Jake, do you hear me, kiddo? Ifyou hear, answer your big sis!)
Nothing. Not even that rattle of distantgunfire. He was out of t—
Then, a single word—was it aword?
(wimeweh)
More important, was it Jake?
She didn’t know for sure, but she thoughtyes. And the word seemed familiar to her, somehow.
Susannah gathered her concentration,meaning to call louder this time, and then a queer idea came to her, one toostrong to be called intuition. Jake was trying to be quiet. He was… hiding?Maybe getting ready to spring an ambush? The idea sounded crazy, but maybe hisblood was up, too. She didn’t know, but thought he’d either sent her that oneodd word
(wimeweh)
on purpose, or it had slipped out. Eitherway, it might be better to let him roll his own oats for awhile.
“I say, I have been blinded by gunfire!”the robot insisted. Its voice was still loud, but had dropped to a range atleast approaching normal. “I can’t see a bloody thing and I have this incubator—”
“Drop it,” Susannah said.
“But—”
“Drop it, Chumley.”
“I beg pawdon, madam, but my name is Nigelthe Butler and I really can’t—”
Susannah had been hauling herself closerduring this little exchange—you didn’t forget the old means of locomotionjust because you’d been granted a brief vacation with legs, she wasdiscovering—and read both the name and the serial number stamped on therobot’s chrome-steel midsection.
“Nigel DNK 45932, drop that fucking glassbox, say thankya!”
The robot (DOMESTIC was stamped justbelow its serial number) dropped the incubator and then whimpered when itshattered at its steel feet.
Susannah worked her way over to Nigel, andfound she had to conquer a moment’s fear before reaching up and taking onethree-fingered steel hand. She needed to remind herself that this wasn’t Andyfrom Calla Bryn Sturgis, nor could Nigel know about Andy. Thebutler-robot might or might not be sophisticated enough to craverevenge—certainly Andy had been—but you couldn’t crave what youdidn’t know about.
She hoped.
“Nigel, pick me up.”
There was a whine of servomotors as therobot bent.
“No, hon, you have to come forward a littlebit. There’s broken glass where you are.”
“Pawdon, madam, but I’m blind. I believe itwas you who shot my eyes out.”
Oh. That.
“Well,” she said, hoping her tone ofirritation would disguise the fear beneath, “I can’t very well get you new onesif you don’t pick me up, can I? Now get a wiggle on, may it do ya. Time’swasting.”
Nigel stepped forward, crushing brokenglass beneath its feet, and came to the sound of her voice. Susannah controlledthe urge to cringe back, but once the Domestic Robot had set its grip on her,its touch was quite gentle. It lifted her into its arms.
“Now take me to the door.”
“Madam, beg pawdon but there are manydoors in Sixteen. More still beneath the castle.”
Susannah couldn’t help being curious. “Howmany?”
A brief pause. “I should say five hundredand ninety-five are currently operational.” She immediately noticed thatfive-ninety-five added up to nineteen. Added up to chassit.
“Do you mind giving me a carry to the one Icame through before the shooting started?” Susannah pointed toward the far endof the room.
“No, madam, I don’t mind at all, but I’msorry to tell you that it will do you no good,” Nigel said in his plummy voice.“That door, NEW YORK #7/FEDIC, is one-way.” A pause. Relays clicking in thesteel dome of its head. “Also, it burned out after its last use. It has, as youmight say, gone to the clearing at the end of the path.”
“Oh, that’s just wonderful!”Susannah cried, but realized she wasn’t exactly surprised by Nigel’s news. Sheremembered the ragged humming sound she’d heard it making just before Sayre hadpushed her rudely through it, remembered thinking, even in her distress, thatit was a dying thing. And yes, it had died. “Just wonderful!”
“I sense you are distressed, madam.”
“You’re goddamned right I’m distressed! Badenough the damned thing only opened one-way! Now it’s shut down completely!”
“Except for the default,” Nigel agreed.
“Default? What do you mean, default?”
“That would be NEW YORK #9/FEDIC,” Nigeltold her. “At one time there were over thirty one-way NewYork–to–Fedic ports, but I believe #9 is the only one that remains.All commands pertaining to NEW YORK #7/FEDIC will now have defaulted to #9.”
Chassit, she thought… almost prayed.He’s talking about chassit, I think. Oh God, I hope he is.
“Do you mean passwords and such, Nigel?”
“Why, yes, madam.”
“Take me to Door #9.”
“As you wish.”
Nigel began to move rapidly up the aislebetween the hundreds of empty beds, their taut white sheets gleaming under thebrilliant overhead lamps. Susannah’s imagination momentarily populated thisroom with screaming, frightened children, freshly arrived from Calla BrynSturgis, maybe from the neighboring Callas, as well. She saw not just a singlerathead nurse but battalions of them, eager to clamp the helmets over the headsof the kidnapped children and start the process that… that did what? Ruinedthem in some way. Sucked the intelligence out of their heads and knocked theirgrowth-hormones out of whack and ruined them forever. Susannah supposed that atfirst they would be cheered up to hear such a pleasant voice in their heads, avoice welcoming them to the wonderful world of North Central Positronics andthe Sombra Group. Their crying would stop, their eyes fill with hope. Perhaps,they would think the nurses in their white uniforms were good in spite of theirhairy, scary faces and yellow fangs. As good as the voice of the nice lady.