“First button means stay,” Mercury said breathlessly. “Second is wake. Third is walk.”
The fourth and fifth buttons meant turn left and right. The sixth one was harder to interpret: Rusty’s ruff of feathers extended, and he took several stiff-legged steps with a low warble that sounded like a growl. Attack? Rusty was too cute for attack to strike fear in anyone.
The statue—or robot—underground might be a different matter. “I think the statue was a kind of warhorse,” Mercury said. “Something to use in war.”
There were two more buttons. Haze wondered if one of them meant shut down. He couldn’t bear the thought of that. “I think that’s enough.” Excitement built in his chest as he imagined the statue—or ancient robot—below. “Are you thinking what I am? We should show them?”
“Yes! After this!” She kissed Haze hard.
Jud stood outside Site A keeping a lookout over the plain, where the morning sun glinted on a wide shallow river. Silk was inside the Site, monitoring a communication link to the Pastfinders below.
“How is it going?” Mercury asked Silk breathlessly.
“They’ve almost finished the measurements and nondestructive analysis. There’s some water incursion.”
“We need to show them this.” Mercury held up the controller. “I think I fixed it.”
The tall black woman gave her a measuring look. Then Silk waved at the door to the depths. “The bridge is secure and the way is marked and lit. Take flashlights anyway.”
Yesterday Haze remembered a bruising maze of darkness. Today, it seemed a simple matter to follow a string of small lights downward. They found the Pastfinders clustered around the statue, still busy with measuring devices and other analytic tools—with water on the floor. They had applied a layer of insulation to the statue and wrapped it in probably all of the sealing bagging that the Station had left in the storeroom. The protection didn’t look like enough to keep the statue from getting soaked if the water rose high.
Tai looked around. “We were going to send for you and Rusty, to see if Rusty can close the chamber door here,” she said.
“Let’s try something else first.” Mercury’s voice sounded uneven with tension. “I got lucky with the rod when I studied it.”
I got lucky sounded like a thin explanation for the restored silver rod she had in her hand. It was more like serious magic, or some kind of miracle. St. Chance might be a saint with more heft than Haze had assumed.
“Everybody stand back.” Mercury pressed the second button.
Wake. The statue’s blank eyes opened, revealing a glossy dark surface. Its massive head moved back and forth, scattering protective material in all directions. Startled exclamations came from the Pastfinders.
“I think we can make it walk and turn too.” Mercury’s voice shook. “Like up the ramp.”
“Could it have enough power reserves to do that?” Tai sounded calm. It might have been the calm in the eye of the storm of the biggest excitement of her career.
“If it’s got atomics inside, yes,” said Quit, audibly excited. “But it has a lot of legs to get tangled up.”
“They were master roboticists, who could make it work.” Tai said, looking at Rusty. “Everyone out of the way.”
Mercury pressed the third button.
The statue moved one front leg forward. Then the other. Its second rank of legs followed suit. Scattered in the passageway for safety, the Pastfinders watched in amazement.
The robot took slow firm steps as Mercury guided it to the ramp. It handled the slope of the ramp with no apparent difficulty. The Pastfinders hastily scooped up their possessions and followed. Haze got his arms full of material. Tai sent Hopper back up to Site A to get the copter to carry the robot horse to the station. Hopper left at a run.
Tai fell in step with Mercury. The footfalls of the warhorse covered Tai’s words so only Mercury heard her. “How did you do this?” Tai left unstated that it wasn’t a good idea to lie to her.
“My people’s psychalchemy is never under conscious control except in two very rare circumstances.” She had never told an outsider this. But Skance knew she’d better tell it now. “When one of us is dying but lucid it can happen, usually to a man. It can also happen—not for long—when one of us, a woman, is pregnant.”
Under her breath, Tai came out with the longest and most inventive string of amazed curses that Mercury had ever heard anyone utter. Then, getting her breath back, she said, “Congratulations.”
9 Flood
The robot’s eight thick legs moved smoothly. Mikal, walking near Haze, remarked, “This thing’s exterior is hard as stone and if it was moving at an enemy position, those legs would be cover for any detachment behind it. I wonder if the head is a battering ram.”
“War robot?” Haze panted.
“Why not? What it sure isn’t is just a temple statue.”
Haze felt pretty sure of that himself.
The door at the top of the ramp opened again. Haze hadn’t been convinced it would. With the weight of the war robot, though, it opened wider than it had yesterday, accommodatingly. Tai looked toward the station, shading her eyes with a hand. “He’s on the way.”
“Good, because we’re on an island.” Ria pointed down. The recreated river ran strongly now, splitting around the outcrop they were on. The water was supposed to scour sand from the ancient channel, deepening the old course so that a river could flow again after half a million years.
The copter came with a cargo net dangling under it. The Pastfinders hastily fit the net under the war robot after Mercury signaled it to stay.
“One of the other buttons might be shut down or something like that,” Mercury told Tai, raising her voice over the soft oscillation of the copter’s rotors.
“Not yet.” Tai handed the rod back to Mercury.
Hopper deftly lifted the copter off. When it felt the weight of the war robot, the copter ascended more slowly, close to the limit of what it could carry, Haze thought. He wondered how well the copter could manage the additional weight of the big transport crate to get that important cargo to E-Prime.
“Before he comes back for us, why don’t you two tell me what you know about this, and how,” said Tai.
Haze and Mercury explained this morning’s experiments. Rusty demonstrated, as he had this morning, but with more wagging of his tufted tail. Haze had the impression that Rusty was enjoying the attention.
Holding the control rod, Tai gave Rusty a long, thoughtful look. “That war robot is impressive. But I may just be more impressed by Rusty.”
Ria turned toward them. “The river is rising faster.”
Hopper soon came back for them.
The copter was somewhat sluggish just stuffed with Pastfinders; Mercury could only imagine what it had been like for Hopper to fly it to the station carrying the warhorse. Hopper brought them over a plain that was rapidly turning into a wide, foaming river.
The crate stood open, ready to receive its unexpected contents. Hopper, Jud, and Silk had heaved it to the landing pad there before the copter left. At Tai’s nod, Mercury walked the warhorse into the crate. Then, stay. It barely fit in the crate, but that was well and good. With padding, it would be well-protected for its journey to the Museum in Wendis.