Robot Empire: Dawn Exodus: A Science Fiction Adventure Read online

  Arla decided to put him out of his misery. She took a final look up at the sky which was now fully dark. As always, the lights had disappeared, though she suspected they were still there. It was as if some sort of invisible barrier had been extended between the two hemispheres.

  “Will you carry me, Deejay?”

  The flicker went from the robot’s eyes and she felt momentarily guilty that she’d stressed him. But, after all, he wasn’t human, so he didn’t have feelings. “Certainly mistress,” Deejay said and, bending down, he slid his arms under her with infinite care and lifted her to his chest. He turned with a grace that was only marred by the slight squeaking of his axis joint and carried her down the mountain.

  “Where have you been?” roared her father when she appeared at the door, half asleep in the arms of R.DJ.

  “You know where she’s been, Jabe, she’s been up on the mountain where she has no right goin’.” A woman wearing a poisoned expression shuffled in from the kitchen door, waving a wooden spoon as if dispensing justice.

  Fully awake now, Arla stepped down from the robot’s arms and walked into the room. She ignored the woman and turned to her father with her arms open. She embraced him and, after a moment, he relaxed, all anger gone.

  “Sorry, father, I wanted one last look before the choosing.”

  Jabe patted her back and they separated. “You know I worry when you go alone, there are many hazards on the path up the mountain and you’ve only just returned before curfew.”

  She smiled at him. His anger had been a cloak for his fear, as always. “I didn’t mean for you to worry. I knew R.DJ would come after me.”

  “I suppose you’ll be wanting something to eat, though it’s past dining hour,” said the sour-faced woman.

  Arla turned to her. “Yes please...” she said. Then after a moment, she added the word she knew her father wanted to hear. “...mother.” The woman was nothing of the sort, but she’d been assigned to the family when Jabe’s wife had died as he was of good stock and still fertile. Her half-brother lay asleep in the room he shared with Arla. The room that had been hers.

  It was hard to say whether there was any affection between the two of them. Companionship, perhaps, but her stepmother, whose name was Becca, didn’t possess a personality it was easy to like. If, indeed, she could be said to possess a personality at all. Becca had come into the family believing she would be able to take charge, based, no doubt, on Jabe’s placid nature and reputation for being a good, honest, man. But she’d found, soon enough, that, while Jabe was all those things, he was also as solid as wrought iron and just as easy to bend. Though he spoke rarely, everyone knew that what he said he meant, whether in the privacy of his own home or in the world at large.

  Jabe sat next to Arla at the large wooden table in the kitchen of the timber farmhouse. In the orange glow of the oil lamps hung above the mantelpiece and in front of the window, he regarded his daughter as she tucked greedily into the stew that had been deposited carelessly under her nose by Becca.

  “What did you see? Was it good viewing tonight?” he asked, eagerly.

  Becca slammed a goblet onto the table beside him and began filling it from a bottle. “You ain’t got no right askin’ her that, Jabe Farmer. She shouldn’t ‘ave been up there and that’s a fact. That there is a holy place and the likes of her ain’t to see it, not else she gets chosen tomorrow. Though fat chance of that.”

  “Still your tongue,” Jabe said in a voice of calm command. “Do you forget that it was me who showed her where it was? That it was alonger me that she saw the other side for the first time?”

  “Now just you stop right there, husband. You shouldn’t ‘ave done it then and she shouldn’t be doing it now. That mountain has filled you with strange notions and it’s done you no good at all.”

  “You don’t have to listen to us talk, wife. Make yourself comfortable in the front room and we’ll be out presently.” Jabe smiled at Arla as Becca huffed out, chuntering to herself as she went.

  “It was awesome, pa,” Arla said as soon as her stepmother had disappeared. “I saw more fires than ever, it looked as though the whole of the far side was alight!”

  Jabe smiled. “I wish I could have come with you. I’ll slip away some time and take another look, just to convince myself it’s still there.”

  Arla leaned in and laid her hand on her father’s arm. “So, what do you think causes the lights? You’ve never said. When you showed me the first time, you told me you didn’t know and so wouldn’t guess. But I know you won’t have stopped thinking about it.”

  “True enough. I said less than I believed at the time because it’d be called blasphemy by some. The dogma says that up there is where purgatory lies and the little lights you see are souls burning in torment.”

  This sort of talk made Arla uncomfortable. Her father was an unconventional man who kept his own council, but if Becca got wind of his wild theories then as sure as rocks are rocks, she’d inform on her husband. Jabe would be excommunicated or imprisoned. They might even inflict one of the old punishments on him. Arla shuddered - but she had to know.

  “But you don’t believe the dogma, do you dad?” she whispered.

  Jabe shook his head. “No. Seems to me that what we see when we look up beyond the sky in those few minutes after dusk, is pretty much exactly what anyone looking back at us would see. Now, it might be some weird reflection off the atmosphere, but I don’t think so. It looks too real to me and the lights don’t appear in the right places. Sometimes there are fires lit over there but not on our side. No, it seems to me that the circling sea doesn’t lead to purgatory, and neither does it mark the edge of the world. It’s just what separates us from whoever is dancing round those lights.”

  “Yes, that’s what I think too, though it seems impossible.”

  “Impossible? No, but it goes against everything we’re taught from childhood,” Jabe said, speaking in low, but urgent, tones. “Everyone knows the world was made by God when she ploughed a furrow out of the primordial rocks and planted her garden there. We call it the valley and all people live within its bounds. God poured waters at each side of the valley and they soar up, forming a magical wall that keeps out the demons of the night. We know that wall of water exists because we can see it from the valley. We know that if we took a boat from the valley’s lip, we could sail that ocean, but that if we did, we would pass into purgatory where the sinful souls wait.

  But what if that’s all a lie? Not the geography: we can see that our world is shaped like a tube with our own eyes. No, I mean, what if all the explanations are lies? What if, on the other side of this tube, there’s another valley just like ours where they’re fed the same dogma and banned from looking at us, let alone finding us?”

  Arla withdrew her hands and leaned back. “Why are you telling me this dad? Why now?”

  “Because the ceremony is tomorrow and you might be chosen.”

  “Me! Chosen to be a priest? You’re crazy!”

  Smiling, Jabe took her hand. “No, love. It’s true that when I was a lad we knew who was for the priesthood before the ceremony even took place. It was the devout ones, the ones who would learn their scripture and repeat it. The ones who lived the life of an acolyte before they even became one.”

  “Yes, that’s what I heard. And at the last ceremony, five years ago, didn’t they take Navendu, Petra and Nix? They were the most pious little shits I ever met.”

  “Watch your language,” snapped Jabe, “you’re not an adult yet. But yes, they took those three. And they also took Andriea and Jak, the two brightest kids I’ve ever met. Excepting you, of course.” He gave a rueful smile.

  Arla stood up and stepped away from the table. She began absentmindedly fiddling with the ornaments there, selecting the Ring of God for particular attention. “You’re right, pa. And don’t think I hadn’t noticed who they chose last time, I just imagined it was something random or maybe that Andriea and Jak were more devout than I thought. But
I can’t be a priest! That would mean leaving you and everyone I know.”

  From the table, Jabe looked at her standing with her back to him. He felt a lump in his throat - was it pride or sadness? Or both? “No, you wouldn’t come back to live here, but you might visit if you want, there’s nothing in the Coda that says you can’t.”

  “But no-one ever does,” said Arla, turning round and meeting her father’s gaze. “Something happens to them that means they lose all their memories of their childhood and home, or maybe they’re changed so they no longer care.”

  “That’s true, my darling Arla, but they weren’t you. If you’re chosen tomorrow, I have faith that you’ll do the right thing by your family and that I’ll see you again.”

  Arla didn’t speak, but she moved back to the table and fell into her father’s arms. She’d never heard him speak of faith before, at least not as a good thing. He was a man who trusted in things he could see, touch and understand. Faith was for the desperate, he’d said.

  They held each other until she fell asleep. The next day, the priests came and she was chosen.

  The Training

  DATE: First Contact minus 2 years

  Arla stood beside Brother Elias as he performed the rite of joining. As a novice, she wasn’t permitted to take an active part in the ceremony, still less to use the holy instruments, but she was, nevertheless, treated with reverence by the common folk gathered around them.

  She didn’t like Elias, though she’d been told it was a sin to judge others. He was a rigid, arrogant cleric of around 50 years, rumoured to have reduced every novice he’d ever been assigned to tears. His tactics hadn’t worked on her, they’d done no more than induce a deep loathing that she did her best to hide. She wasn’t sure she was entirely successful.

  The whole settlement was here. Cluster 551 was an agrichemical facility which meant, in essence, that it made fertiliser out of crap. It also stunk and so Arla used all the meditative skills she’d learned over the past three years to block out the overwhelming stench of cattle and human dung. The people gathered around the ceremony stone didn’t seem to notice, though. Three families had babies ready for the joining and Elias had spent the past ten minutes lecturing them in the required way. They had renounced the devil and all her minions and vowed to protect their children from the forces of evil.

  Arla gazed up at the sky as she considered what evil actually was. After three years at priest school, she’d come to the conclusion that evil meant anything new or different, anything outside the dogma. Of course there was murder, jealousy and theft, everyone knew about them, but it seemed to her that the priesthood cared more about deviation from the word and laws of the Goddess than anything she would recognise as being truly evil.

  She sighed as she tried to see through the blue sky to the people she knew to be beyond. She hadn’t forgotten that last night on top of the mountain, or her father’s words. But neither had she been to see him. At first, they’d been banned from visiting their family. Something to do with adjusting to the fact that, as priests, everyone was their family and no-one was. After the end of her second year, the ban had been lifted but still she hadn’t gone to visit home. For some reason, she felt as though to do so would be to invite scrutiny of him, and her, and the last thing she wanted was for the brotherhood to take an interest in her unconventional father.

  Elias was now using the Naming Wand. She had to concede that he was a consummate showman. He’d made the relatively simple process of entering the child’s identity details into the wand seem to be some sort of mystic ceremony. Which was, of course, the entire point. She’d noticed this about her training. Much of it was reinforcing the students’ knowledge of the dogma, of course, but, more than anything else, she’d been taught how to carry out each of the major ceremonies and how to use the holy instruments properly. She’d been a little disappointed when she’d first been handed a Naming Wand as she’d imagined it would feel holy in some way. But it was just a rod of metal with a row of buttons on the back and she’d then spent several months learning how to use it properly.

  “And so I welcome thee, Narsi Petrovic Technician, to God’s community in this her sacred valley.”

  Arla watched as Elias brought the wand down and pressed it to the space between the baby’s shoulder blades as it was held, naked, in the arms of its mother. The wand erupted into a dazzling sequence of colours and holy music played, almost entirely covering up the child’s squeals as Elias pressed the hidden button that ended the ceremony. As a novice, Arla wasn’t yet permitted to know what exactly the button did, beyond, that is, the standard dogma that it made the child a spiritual link in the chain that bound the people of the whole world together. But whatever the true purpose of the wand, it hurt the child, even if only for a few moments. It left a pinprick mark on the child’s back which they bore for the rest of their lives, as she bore hers.

  The other two children were brought forward, formally named, and had the wand applied to them with the same combination of colour, music and screaming. Parents beamed and cringed in equal measure, the gathered community clapped their approval. And Arla watched it all with a sort of detached interest that she found worrying. She’d been an acolyte for two years and yet she felt no more a priest than she had when she was chosen. Oh, she had learned the rituals she’d been taught and could recite the key canticles, she’d listened to the lessons of the tutor priest and even witnessed the lesser miracles. She had seen, with her own eyes, how a farmer who was so sick she could barely walk was cured by a single application of a holy instrument as well as countless other demonstrations of the power she would obtain when she graduated. And yet she felt nothing.

  She woke from her reverie when Elias tugged on the sleeve of her cassock. Of course, the ceremony was over and the people were waiting for the priests to leave. She mumbled an apology and followed Elias out of the chapel, out onto a sunlit lawn and into the village hall. His pace was so slow that Arla had to hold herself back from overtaking him, but the reason soon became clear as, along the far wall of the little hall, the local leaders awaited them. Arla suppressed a chuckle as the little fat man, who turned out to be the plant governor, and the thin old woman, attempted to appear composed as they fought to find their breath. She imagined, in her mind’s eye, the old girl and the fat man running out of the chapel’s side door and into the hall’s back door while the priests were dawdling. Traditions really were stupid sometimes.

  An hour later, Arla found herself cornered by the man she’d originally found so amusing but now couldn’t escape. His name was Feng Li and he clearly took great pride in the efficient running of the plant. He’d been obviously upset to be talking to the novice rather than the priest, but he’d warmed up under her polite and interested questioning. Well, pretending to be interested was, of course, essential when training to be a priest.

  Her rescue came along with an overwhelming stench as Feng’s gaze focused on a point about her left shoulder. “What are you doing here R.SH?”

  Arla spun round to find herself looking up at a robot of humanoid form except for the addition of a second set of arms that sprung from its torso.

  “I am sorry, master Feng, but there has been an accident. Technician Shi Tu has fallen into a supply vat.”

  “By the mother!” Feng cried, “Where is she now?”

  “I retrieved her, master Feng, but she is not breathing. I fear she has ingested the supply fluid.”

  Elias had been attracted to the commotion as a fly to manure. Feng turned to him. “You must help!” he said.

  After a moment, Elias said: “Novice Arla will help. She has been trained in the proper ceremonies.”

  Panic flooded Arla’s stomach. What did he mean? Why wasn’t he going to treat the woman, he who usually wanted as much attention as possible. She allowed herself to be guided out of the hall’s back door and out onto the concrete pavement behind. This was an industrial sector so, away from the chapel with its grass lawn, it was an unattrac
tive huddle of metal and concrete buildings around a large plant. She found herself looking down at a figure prone and unmoving. It was completely soaked with liquid excrement - so that was the supply fluid the robot mentioned and this was why Elias was so keen to take a back seat.

  “Please help!” said one of the men gathered around the body. She seemed to be the only one here with a sense of smell, but she swallowed it, and the vomit that was rising into her gullet, and knelt down beside the body.

  “Get me a bucket of water!” she shouted. Within moments it appeared hanging from the arm of the robot. “Tip it over her.”

  “I cannot, mistress. That would cause harm to mistress Shi.”

  Arla jumped to her feet. “Give it to me,” she said, snatching the bucket from the robot. She emptied its contents over the woman and stepped back as a pool of diluted slurry spread across the pavement. She’d hoped this might shock the woman, but it had no effect other than to clean off some of the sludge. The men and women gathered around her began babbling - some shouting, some crying.

  What should she do? Calm. In amongst all this noise, she had to find peace. Now, search. The woman’s lungs were clearly blocked. What was the correct ritual? It couldn’t involve a holy instrument because Elias only had the Naming Wand with him and it would be blasphemous to use that for the wrong purpose. No. Think. Think.

  Arla knelt down beside the woman’s body and, holding back the wave of nausea, rolled her onto her front, then, straddling her back she pushed hard down on the woman’s rib cage. Once, twice, three times. A river of brown sludge erupted from Shi’s throat and Arla flipped her onto her back again.She ripped a piece of fabric from her cassock and used it to wipe Shi’s face before drawing in a deep breath and blowing into her mouth. She watched as Shi’s lungs inflated, then pulled away as her chest compressed again. She did it again. The third time, panic, as well as bile, was flooding her body. Her head was swimming, but she drew in a final breath and blew into Shi’s mouth. Her chest rose and she gave a tremendous heave and coughed up another batch of sludge.