given up any hope of reclaiming his physical body, had already exited the corpse before it hit the fl?oor. Logos couldn’t speak without being worn, so it was left to Tepho to provide an epitaph for the recently vacated body.
“Some things were just never meant to be,” the administrator commented, as two heavily armed robots entered the room. “There’s some garbage on the fl?oor,” Tepho added.
“Remove it.”
The interior of Surface Ramp-47 was like a scene from hell as Rebo and Norr fought to make their way back up to the surface. Because, as the clock continued to tick, and groups of heavily burdened tomb raiders emerged from the city of Kahoun, the on-again, off-again carnage continued. Insults were exchanged, the wounded lay in moaning heaps, hard-eyed overseers cracked their whips, a disabled metal man screeched pitifully, a woman accidentally shot one of her companions in the leg, metal grated on duracrete as an enterprising tomb raider towed his loot up the ramp on a solar panel, and the air crackled with a cacophony of radio traffi?c as those on the surface issued dozens of confl?icting orders. Thanks to the fact that they were relatively unencumbered, the twosome made good time at fi?rst. But then, as they neared the top of the ramp, the situation changed as incoming extraction teams ran into outgoing extraction teams and created a very contentious traffi?c jam. And it was then, while caught in the backwash of all the confusion, that Rebo spotted the blue-clad combat variant and a face he had never expected to see again. “Look!” the runner said, as he elbowed Norr. “It’s Phan! Wearing Techno Society blue!”
The sensitive looked, saw that Rebo was correct, and watched as the assassin sent a brace of heavies in to clear the traffi?c jam. “We’d better pull back,” the variant advised, “or they’ll spot us for sure.”
The runner regretted allowing Phan to live, knew he would bring all sorts of hell down on them if he were to shoot the scheming bitch, and allowed Norr to pull him back. “So, what are we going to do?” Rebo wanted to know.
“We can’t stay in here forever, and they’ll spot us if we try to leave.”
“True,” the sensitive agreed thoughtfully, “so let’s change the way we look. See those bodies over there? The ones in green? Let’s strip them.”
In any other circumstance the sight of a man and a woman stripping dead bodies of their clothing would have been the subject of comment if not outrage, but there, within the amoral free-for-all of Ramp-47, the act was little more than a grisly sideshow.
It took a concerted effort to remove the tops and pull the simple garments up over their heads, but eventually the task got done. And though less than enthusiastic about the bullet holes in his newly acquired jerkin and the large bloodstain on the back of it, Rebo was thankful that the garment had a hood. And, judging from the extent to which Norr’s cowl hid her face, the runner fi?gured that his would function the same way.
Then, as if to validate the effectiveness of the disguises, a man dressed in Menkur green yelled at them from farther down the ramp. “Hey, you two! Give us a hand with this thing!” Rebo, who was eager to blend in, hurried to comply. Norr followed. The “thing” that the man referred to turned out to be one of the Techno Society’s metal men, which King Menkur’s technologists wanted to study up close so they could create their own army of robotic servants. That was the sort of thing Sogol intended.
The android, which had been tied hand and foot, was still very much “alive,” and hung suspended below a pair of long poles. But the weight was too much for just two men, which was why the man in green was happy to recruit two ostensible allies, even if they were strangers to him. “Grab a handle!” the tomb raider ordered cheerfully. “And keep your weapons handy. . . . The blues won’t like this—so we may have to shoot our way out.”
Rebo swore. Now, rather than slip past the technos unnoticed, they were almost certain to be challenged! But it was too late to choose another course of action, so the off-worlders took hold of the poles, and hoisted them onto their shoulders. Shaz was the fi?rst to notice Menkur’s tomb raiders and the burden that the foursome carried as they pushed up toward the top of the ramp, but no sooner had he dispatched a squad of metal men to deal with the android nappers, than a trio of green-clad wings attacked from above. And it was then, while the combat variant and the assassin were busy defending themselves, that Rebo fi?red the Sokov. The fi?rst projectile exploded against the lead robot’s chest and blew a palm-sized hole through the metal man’s torso. A second machine went off-line as a result of its wounds—and two additional androids were destroyed as more darts hit home. Then the litter bearers were free of the crowd and out in the desert. A wall of green-clad warriors opened to enfold them, and Shaz was left to fume, still ignorant of the true gravity of his loss. Because not only had a robot been spirited away, the sensitive named Norr had slipped past him as well, along with the AI originally called Logos 1.2. That meant two AIs were on the loose. The question, and a rather important one at that, was which Logos would arrive on Socket fi?rst.
ELEVEN
The Planet Haafa
—The ascended master Teon,
Clusters of lights could be seen in the desert as groups of exhausted tomb raiders gathered around campfi?res to brag about the artifacts they had brought up from the city of the dead, wager bonuses they had yet to receive, and mourn those who had lost their lives to fl?ying machines or enemy tomb raiders.
Such was the case in Tepho’s encampment as well, except that unlike the other kings, the technologist was making preparations to leave Haafa. Not forever, but long enough to lay claim to Socket and establish a new system of star gates. Which was why Tepho’s staff was busy carrying supplies out to a long line of waiting wagons.
Having just returned from the desert, both the combat variant and the assassin were tired, sunburned, and dirty. But given the potential importance of the news they had to impart, the twosome requested an audience with Tepho and were shown into his tent. Sections of the canvas wall had been tied back to let the night breezes blow through. The administrator’s raptor was being disassembled for transshipment, and Tepho frowned as a technician jerked on a handful of wires. “Be careful!” the technologist said petulantly.
“That wiring harness is worth more than you are!”
“It’s almost impossible to fi?nd good help these days,”
Tepho grumbled as he turned to Shaz. “But such is my burden. So, what brought you here? We won’t be ready
