ceiling. He could see stars up there. Not stars on a viewing screen: real stars. He could see the edge of the inner hull, semicircular bites taken from the painted metal. He could see the outer hull, twisting and warping as it struggled to repair itself, and he could hear the rush of cabin air as it exploded from the ship. His left leg jarred with pain and Robert was suddenly there, clinging to him with his remaining arm, legs gripping the sofa with robot strength, so great they had torn right through the leather to tangle in the framework beneath. Robert’s other arm, his detached arm, bashed and banged and tumbled end over end through the gap above, and Herb saw it sailing out into the bright, hot space beyond. His eyes were hurting, his lungs bursting, and yet the howl and the tug of the outrushing air was diminishing. The outer hull seemed to flap and flow over itself, the inner hull did the same. The ship changed its direction and Herb was flung against the wall near the kitchen area. He gasped with pain.
Robert sat on the floor by the sofa, his legs bent at a strange angle. Herb’s ears were singing with pain. Robert’s mouth was moving as if he was speaking. Herb heard the calm, measured tones fading up as if Robert was approaching from a great distance.
“…jumped again and again. They’re getting better at predicting where we’re going. Finding us much faster than I thought they could. Not much material left on the outer hull, barely enough to…”
His voice faded out again and Herb shook his head. The view from the screens changed again and again. For just a moment, Herb saw a glimpse of a silver dart, its sharp end flickering: it was firing at them.
Robert’s voice faded back in. “…where’s the VNM, Herb, the one I gave you?”
“I don’t know. I must have dropped it. Maybe it blew out of the gap in the hull.”
“…No. It’s programmed not to leave your presence. Look for it.”
Herb didn’t want to move. Even after the pink pill, the agony from his left side was almost too much to bear. He didn’t want to have to move across the room in search of the silver machine. Then he saw it. It
“I can see it,” said Herb dully.
“Get it.”
He reached out and took it, gasping with the pain. “…Got it.”
“Nearly there,” said Robert. “One more stop and then we’re there. Do you think you can make it?”
Herb winced. “Yes.”
“Good. Okay, we’re about to jump…”
The ship wobbled a little, sending further thick, sick waves of throbbing pain through Herb. He looked around the interior of his once beautiful ship, at the broken ornaments, the thick weal of the badly healed scar in the ceiling, the cracked and warped parquetry of the floor, at the torn and leaking remains of the two white sofas, and finally, at Robert. The once immaculately dressed robot now sat in a torn suit, his shirt and jacket covered with a spreading bluish grey stain, one arm missing and his legs in a twisted heap beneath him.
For the last time, they reinserted into normal space, close to a planet’s surface. Above them, in the night sky, the biggest fleet of spaceships Herb had ever seen filled the viewing fields, stretching from horizon to horizon, stacked up into seeming infinity. The ship was falling fast, down toward the strangely warped city that reached, grasping, at them through the lower screens. Herb shivered at the grotesque, tangled forest of skyscrapers that sought to engulf them. It looked strangely familiar, then he remembered: the files that Robert had shown him, back when they had hovered over Herb’s badly converted planet. Looking now around the wreck of his ship, feeling the pain in his left side, that time now seemed like paradise.
“No…” said Robert. “Too soon…”
“What is? What’s too soon?”
“The Enemy ships. They’re here already. They must have a tracking device on this ship…Of course, that’s it: those VNMs must have done more than dissolve our engine…But where is it? I can’t see it…”
“Never mind that,” said Herb. “Jump, jump again.”
“No point, they’ll just follow us again. We need to find it first. But where is it?”
The ship shuddered, and a strange note filled the air, half warning signal, half death song. There was an edge of finality to it, and Herb suddenly knew that the ship would not be leaving this planet.
“What’s that…?” he asked, his voice faltering.
Robert didn’t answer. His face had gone completely blank. Herb knew that was a bad sign. Robert was having to concentrate entirely on something else.
Slowly at first, the twisted towers of the Necropolis began to move toward them. Herb felt a strange feeling in his stomach. He was now in free-fall; the gravity generators had finally given up. If the ship were to be hit now, there would be no dampening effect. He would be rattled around like a pea in a bottle.
Robert snapped out of his trance.
“That’s it, Herb. I can just about land this ship, but nothing else.”
Herb picked up the silver machine. “Shall I press the button?” he asked, his voice shaking. Nonetheless, he suddenly felt very brave.
“No point. We’re in the wrong place.”
Herb felt despair settle upon him. So that was it.
“So we’ve failed. I don’t understand. I really thought you knew what you were doing.”
Robert smiled. The care lifted from his face, and he was his old self again: the original, irritating, cocksure, supremely arrogant man who had stepped through the secret trapdoor all that time ago.
“We haven’t failed,” he said. “I’m sorry, Herb, but you’ve been tricked.”
Herb said nothing. He was beyond surprise.
Robert grinned. “You’re not the real Herb. You’re just another personality construct, living in the processors of the ship. The real Herb got on that other copy of your ship just after it was replicated, back above your misconverted planet.”
“You’re lying. This is just another one of your tricks. I’m in so much pain.”
“That’s just part of the simulation.”
“Then it’s cruel.”
“I know. But necessary. I had to distract the Enemy AI. It had to believe you were really on this ship. It had to detect human thinking and reactions.”
“Why?”
“So that it wouldn’t see the real you approaching until it was too late.”
“So what will the real me do?”
Robert grinned. The pain in Herb’s side suddenly vanished, and he was standing upright in the middle of the ship, a perfectly healthy young man again. Then he was standing in a room halfway up one of the towers of the Necropolis. Robert was standing next to him. A whole Robert Johnston, both arms intact, dressed in an immaculate navy blue suit, a matching hat tilted on his head.
They both gazed through the wide picture windows at the tattered wreck of Herb’s spaceship as it plunged to the ground before them. It landed with a jarring thud that both flattened and split it at the same time. It bounced once and skidded to a halt. No explosion. There was nothing on board that would burn. It simply lay, squashed and lifeless, against the side of the building.
“What was that?” asked Herb. “Something tumbled from the ship just before it hit the ground.”
“The Ouroboros VNMs we took from that planet a few jumps back. This place is a mess. It could do with starting again.”
Herb looked up at the twisted towers, the trailing strands of deformed buildings.
“You’re not kidding,” he muttered. “And what about us? What do we do now?”
Robert smiled, but it was a pleasant smile. A friendly smile. Herb found himself warming to it.
“Well,” said Robert. “You like VNMs, Herb. I thought maybe you’d appreciate the opportunity to do something positive. I thought that maybe we could help the transformation along. Would you like that?”
“Do I have any choice?” Herb said, almost out of habit, then he paused. Whether he was the real Herb or not, he’d realized something back on the ship. Something he needed to think about.
His life so far had been a complete waste. Maybe it was time to try acting in a different fashion.
Maybe here would be the perfect place to begin thinking about it. And why not think about it while doing something for someone else for a change?
“Actually, maybe I will help.” Herb began to smile, too. “I think I would like that.”
