Dean Koontz
Star Quest
PART ONE
“THE QUEST”
I
Jumbo ten was pulling out of the ranks.
“J-10, LOCK ON YOUR TIER: SWING TO ZERO STRESS. FALL IN, J-10!”
Jumbo Ten swung farther out of the advancing line, whirled and looked to the rear. He had been in the second wave moving toward the battle-scarred plain below. The third was crushing the very stones as it roared down the hill, an irresistible force, ten thousand tons of alloyed steel careening madly on to meet with the immovable object of the enemy front.
“J-10, ARE YOU DAMAGED? CHECK YOUR SYSTEMS AND MAKE REPORT SOONEST!”
He had to get away. For the moment, they thought he was simply malfunctioning. Before the truth seeped through their thick skulls, he would have to act. At most, he had only seconds to reach some level area and cant back, bringing his rockets into proper position. Escape was essential, for he had suddenly realized he was not a machine.
“J-10, REPORT!”
The tumult below made the plain a bad bet. Laser cannon erupted like acid-stomached giants, belching forth corrosive froth that even the alloy hulls could not withstand for any appreciable length of time. Forty Jumbos were clashing already — twenty on each side — and a hundred and twenty would be lobbing shells and exchanging beams within minutes. A compressed gas bomb sloughed into the earth a thousand feet ahead, exploded, tilting the Jumbos of the third wave, toppling three onto their backs where they lay spinning tread like helpless turtles. That opened a gap in the ranks. If he could move through the breach before the Generals realized he was not just damaged, he could make the top of the ridge and cant on the level brink for a blast-off.
He could feel the remote control fingers of the Generals probing his circuits to discover why he was not reporting.
But he knew who he was! And what he wasn't. He wasn't a machine. He wasn't a Jumbo, one of those all- purpose, highly sophisticated weapons systems. He was a man. They had taken away his body and left him only his brain — but that was still a human brain, an individual.
“RENEGADE! JUMBO TEN IS RENEGADE!” the probing officer shouted.
So, the seconds had dwindled into nothingness. He shifted his huge bulk into high gear, his atomic-powered engines roaring with only a fraction of the power they could deliver. Five hundred tons of alloyed steal whined and choked, surging suddenly forward and up.
“THIRD TIER CLOSE ON JUMBO TEN. CLOSE AND OBSTRUCT!”
He swiveled his cannon about in a hundred and eighty degree arc, fanning the third tier with his heaviest beam.
There was a movement to his left. Jumbo 34 came out of the fog. The red gem eyes of the radar swiveled about, locked on him and began glowing even brighter. A laser cannon came up. Jumbo Ten threw up a shield, struck out with an energy net and overheated J-34 until little wires melted inside the cannon, leaving it without a trigger mechanism. It would take J-34 some time to re-machine the needed parts from the twisted, useless ones and replace them. He rolled quickly on.
At the top of the ridge, he came out of his own smoke cover, bucked over the lip, crashing onto flat ground. Below, the panorama of combat was impressive indeed. Giant organic brain directed fighting robos tore at each other with a vengeance. Instead of blood, there was molten metal and shattered transistors. The Setessins had attacked the Romaghin home planet, landing with their Jumbos in the Hellfire Desert. Over the last eighteen hours, they had pushed into the plains, but they would not go any farther. Already, the tide of battle was changing.
But, he reminded himself, he didn't care any longer. He wasn't a fighting machine in the Great Cause of the Romaghin worlds. He was a man. A man from the village of the Giant Trees who had been shanghaied and deprived of his body. And of his love.
He canted the huge machine with its hydraulic blasting legs, extended the glistening, polished tubes of the rockets, and shut down all other systems but the radar-negative shield that would protect him against Romaghin missiles when he reached the upper strata of the atmosphere.
Three Jumbos lifted over the edge of the ridge, whirring, swung their head blocks one way, then the other, searching for him. There was a shrill whistle of recognition from one of them just as he flipped the rockets to full thrust and burned the hill away in takeoff.
Past the missile danger zone, he deactivated the shield and slammed everything into the rockets. He wanted out fast. Very fast. His mind was suddenly overwhelmed with the events of the recent past and with his present position. He was a man without a body. The power of that swept at him like a great dark wave. Reluctantly, he allowed the wave to swallow him. He dreamed:
Once upon a fateful time, there was a village beneath trees whose leaves were as large as a man, dull red, hiding clusters of luscious yellow fruits that were globular and semi-transparent, misty and sweet and cool. To the left of this village, the clump of trees ended at the edge of a broad grassland that stretched almost out of sight to the foothills of the fabulous purple mountains (which were, naturally, worshiped) where the forests took over. Beyond the mountains were more mountains. Then more forests. Then additional plains. It was a primitive world. But that is not to say an unhappy one. To the right of the village was a beach which dropped gently to a crystal blue ocean. That great mirror of water sank toward the horizon and sparkled every evening with the oranges and pinks, the greens and blues of the sunset.
Once upon a fateful time, there were people living in this village. They ate of the fruit of the red-leafed tree and of the fishes of the ocean. Now and then, a great god-ship would come from the skies and leave them other and stranger foods. This ship had odd words painted on its side: Science League Ship No. 454/For The Preservation Of Primitive Cultures. That was the only intrusion by the outside world into this Eden, and it was accepted by the simple people of the village as a manifestation of the God of Heavens and nothing else. These people were dark with straight, black hair and eyes like ebony chips that glowed with an inner light Nature had given them. Their skins were bronze, their bodies perfect. The men were muscular and agile, the women gentle and graceful.
Then came the screaming dragons from the sky, violating the halcyon world.
Moaning, spitting flame…
Scorching the plains, blackening the beaches, smashing the trees…
And bringing the men, the pale, chubby, worm-complexioned men in the strange breeches and the ruffled, starched shirts with plumed helmets and jeweled chin straps.
And guns…
Flames…
Pain…
Roaring as of gods in death throes…
And when the dragons, coughing, sped away, there was an empty village behind.
