single thumbs-up was suffi?cient to signal the all clear—and Commander Schell began to run as the shuttle wobbled off the ground.
Hotkey ran along below the aircraft as it began to move, but couldn’t possibly keep up, and was soon snatched off his feet as the ship began to climb. The rating struggled to loosen the noose, but that was impossible, so there was little more that Hotkey could do than kick his legs as he was borne away to the east. The movement stopped moments later, and the body became little more than a dangling dot that was soon lost to sight. There was nothing Commander Schell could do at that point but stop running and place his hands on his knees as Tragg brought a microphone up to his mouth. His voice boomed over the robotic PA system. “Pee in your pants if you have to. . . . But keep working. That will be all.”
Commandant Mutuu, who had witnessed the entire episode via one of his pole-mounted security cams, nodded approvingly and ordered an attendant to pour even more hot sand into his daily bath. Jericho might be primitive by imperial standards, but there was no reason to suffer. The day wore on.
8.
True excellence is to plan secretly, to move surreptitiously, to foil the enemy’s intentions and balk his schemes. . . .
The Art of War
PLANET JERICHO, THE RAMANTHIAN EMPIRE
As the orange-red disk slipped below the western horizon, and the already-long shadows cast by the buildings spread out to encompass the entire camp, the night creatures began a discordant symphony of screams, hoots, and grunts. And it was then, on the cusp between day and night, that the spy ball fi?red his repellers and emerged from his hiding place. Thanks to the cloaking technology built into his body, Oliver Batkin was fairly confi?dent he could escape electronic detection. But that wouldn’t render him invisible to the Ramanthian guards, or to the security cameras perched atop tall poles.
The moment Batkin crossed the fence, the cyborg dropped down so he was only a foot off the ground as he made his way toward the Ramanthian headquarters building. A journey that required the spy ball to hide in the shadows until the way was clear, speed across open ground, and then hide again. Each time Batkin did so, he expected to hear a shout, followed by the staccato rattle of gunfi?re, and a general alarm. But his movements went undetected, and the spy eventually found himself next to the building in which Commandant Mutuu lived and worked—an accomplishment that wouldn’t mean much unless he could get inside. Guards were stationed to either side of the front door, so that point of entry was blocked, as were the heavily barred windows. So Batkin fi?red his repellers, rose until he was even with the eaves, and followed the slanted roof upwards. Eventually the spy encountered a second pitched roof, which stood two feet above the fi?rst and sat atop its own supports. The vertical surfaces on both sides were covered with metal mesh intended to keep pests out while allowing hot humid air to escape from the rooms below. But it was also a way in, or soon would be, as Batkin extended a small torch and cut a hole in the mesh. The opening was way too small to admit his rotund form. But that didn’t matter because the cyborg had no need to enter personally. A small port irised open on the side of the agent’s body, and a tiny sphere darted out into the humid air and bobbed up and down as an evening breeze tugged at it. Having taken control of the spy-eye, Batkin sent the device through the newly created hole into the structure beyond. Then, thanks to onboard sensors, the cyborg could
“see” what the tiny robot saw and “hear” what it heard as the remote sank into the gloom below. Since the bugs were too cheap, or too lazy, to build something better, the interior walls rose only partway to the ceiling. That allowed Batkin’s proxy to cruise the darkness while peering down into a succession of boxy spaces.
Batkin saw what looked like a shadowy offi?ce, and a throne room, followed by a space that caused his nonexistent heart to jump. Because there, bathed in the light from a single glow cone, was a scale model of the space elevator!
Complete with an orbital counterweight that dangled from a piece of string.
After checking to ensure that the conference area was empty, Batkin sent the spy-eye down for a closer look and recorded everything the robot saw. Then, just as he was about to withdraw the proxy, additional lights came on as a pair of guards entered the room. There was just barely enough time to hide the spy-eye inside the miniature forerunner temple before the Ramanthian troopers sat down at the table and began to consume their dinners. Batkin cursed his luck but settled in to wait, knowing the bugs would leave the room when they were fi?nished. And about thirty minutes later they did so. But not before making some rather derogatory remarks about the food, the sergeant of the guard’s ancestry, and life in the army. Thus freed, Batkin was able to propel the proxy out of the miniature temple, take a quick peek at Commandant Mutuu’s private quarters, and retrieve the remote from inside the building. At that point it was tempting to ignore objective two, retreat to the jungle, and upload what information he had. And it made sense to do so since the data on the space elevator would be of considerable interest to Madame X regardless of any rescue attempt. But having already risked so much to enter the compound, the spy was loath to leave without taking a crack at Tragg. The problem was that as the cyborg closed with the overseer, it was increasingly likely that one of the mercenary’s robots would “see” through the electronic cloak that surrounded him and alert the renegade to his presence. Then, even if he managed to escape, the spy would still be in trouble because the Ramanthians would launch a full-scale search.
In the end it was a piece of good luck that helped Batkin reach a fi?nal decision. Klaxons began to sound as a shuttle roared overhead, and the pilot declared some sort of onboard emergency. That caused all eyes, including those that belonged to the guards, to swivel toward the adjoining airfi?eld.
And it was then, as the shuttle settled into a nest of fl?ashing lights, that the spy fl?ew a zigzag course over to the prefab structure that housed Tragg and his robotic servants. A Sheen robot stood guard outside the hut but didn’t look up as Batkin passed over its head and came to rest on the crest of the peaked roof. The rather precarious perch required the cyborg to extend four stabilizers in order to keep his roly-poly body from rolling down the slope and off the edge below. The positioning was good, but not good enough, since the overseer’s structure lacked the overroof the admin building had. So, being unable to penetrate the prefab from above, Batkin sent the proxy down the far side of the roof to attempt a ground-level entry.
The minibot was too small to carry cloaking technology, but it was also too small to generate a signifi?cant heat signature. That meant the robotic sentry experienced little more than a gentle buzzing sensation as its sensors were momentarily activated. The signal disappeared a couple of seconds later, however, which left the Sheen machine to conclude that the alert had been generated by a jungle rat, or a system anomaly. There was a persistent electronic overburden, however, as if something lay within detection range but wasn’t registering the way it should. So, consistent with its programming, the robot triggered a routine systems check.
