Back | Next
Contents

Chapter 27

The whimpering Gardiner was led away by two of his subordinates. Presumably whoever passed for a doctor in this town would be able to assuage the pain, although not to do anything to save the man's eyesight. But that was the least of Grimes' worries. His main concern was for Seiko, for Shirl and Darleen and for himself. He reproached himself for not having carried to the beach, in addition to the recorder, a portable transceiver so that, at all times, he would have been in communication with his ship.

But he had never dreamed that Coffin would go to the extremes to which he already had gone— and to what extremes was he yet to go? And you, Grimes, of all people, he told himself, should have learned by this time that allegedly civilized people are capable of anything, no matter how barbarous.

Coffin was speaking. "There is no doubt that the woman is a witch. Not only has she survived her ordeal uninjured but she has severely injured my chief law enforcer. She must pay the penalty." He paused judicially, turned his head to stare at Grimes, Shirl and Darleen. "It was my intention to order that the acid test be applied to the other three accused. Unfortunately no further supply of acid is readily available. So I shall, therefore, temper justice with mercy. Grimes, Kelly and Byrne will be given the opportunity to confess and to recant. Should they do so, their ends will be swift and merciful. Should they not do so, they shall be executed in the same manner as their mistress. They will be permitted to watch her sufferings and, hopefully, such spectacle will be a stimulus to their consciences.

"Bring the faggots!"

Men and women brought bundles of sticks. (These must, thought Grimes, have been prepared well in advance.) They piled them around the stake to which Seiko was chained, concealing the lower half of her body. A law enforcer poured some fluid—flammable oil, it was—over the faggots. He struck a long match, applied the flame all around the base of the pile.

With a loud whoosh the oil ignited and there was an uprush of smoky fire. Seiko's hair—but it's only a wig, thought Grimes—flared and crackled. Then the initial fury of the burning oil subsided but the faggots had caught, were snapping in the heat, emitting sparks, sending their flames curling up around Seiko's body. Although the cloth of her coveralls was flame resistant it was beginning to char and to powder. A sigh, a horribly obscene sound, went up from the mob as one perfect breast was exposed.

Suddenly, audible even over the crackling of the fire, the murmurs of the crowd, there was a startlingly loud click! Seiko, who had been sagging in her bonds, stood erect. Her wrists, which had been tied behind her back, were already free, the flames having burned away the rope. But even if this had not been the case it would not have mattered. The strength that she now exerted to snap the chains would have been more than enough to break mere vegetable fiber. As she stood there, ridding herself of the last of her bonds, the crumbling remnants of her clothing fell from around her smoke-smudged body. She was like, thought Grimes, Aphrodite rising from the sea—a sea of fire. And he, even at this moment, had to repress a giggle. A Venus without arms, a Venus de Milo, he might accept—but a bald-headed one was altogether too much. (Her body paint had survived the fire although her wig had not.) Even so, she was beautiful—and not only because her escape from the pyre had brought a renewal of hope.

Men were shouting, women and children were screaming, but none dare approach this vengeful she-devil. Coffin was bellowing, "Seize her! Seize her! Strike her down!"

"Good on yer, Seiko!" yelled Darleen. "Show the bastards!"

There was a meter of broken chain in Seiko's right hand. She threw it. It wrapped itself around Coffin's neck, all but decapitating him. His two clerks squealed in terror, dived under the table, from the surface of which the pastor's blood dripped down upon them. Seiko stepped out of the fire, flames and sparks splashing about her feet. Two law enforcers, braver or more stupid than their fellows, ran at her with heavy clubs upraised. She countered their assault with the savate technique that she must have learned from Shirl and Darleen; her long right leg flashed out while she pivoted on her left heel; first one man and then the other (although there was almost no interval between the two blows) was the recipient of a crippling kick to the groin. In horror Grimes noted that the trousers of each unfortunate were smouldering where the kicks had landed. Seiko's feet must be almost redhot. (But it was her feet for which he felt concern, not the genitals of the law enforcers.)

He felt the heat emanating from her body as she approached him, as her hands reached out for his chains. But she was careful not to touch him.

She said, "Do not worry about me, John. I am heat resistant. I feel no pain, as you know it. And it was the heat of the fire that released my master switch . . . "

She left him to his own devices, went to free the two New Alicians.

Grimes looked around, fearing fresh attack. But the light of the oil lanterns on their posts revealed a waterfront empty save for himself and his women, the body of Coffin sprawled over the table and the two still-living (but for how long?) bodies of the law enforcers. The pair of clerks had made their escape unnoticed.

"Well," said Grimes with deliberate matter-of-factness, "that seems to be it. We've had our incident. Let's get back to the ship. Come, Shirl. Come, Darleen. And you, Seiko, can guard our rear."

"I am staying," said the robot.

"Seiko, I order you to come with us."

"John, your father was my original owner. He ordered me to protect you when necessary."

"Then protect me as I walk back to the spaceport."

She said, "We could be attacked." With a long forefinger she touched her navel. "I have learned my vulnerability in a scrimmage. A club, a flung stone, even a heavy fist and I can be jolted into near-immobility. There is only one way to ensure your safety. Those people . . . " she gestured toward the town, " . . . must be taught a lesson."

But it was not toward the houses she ran but to the slipway, up which the schooners were hauled for the scraping and caulking of the underwater portions of their hulls. It was toward the slipway that she ran, and down the slipway. When her body entered the black water there was an uprising of steam.

Then she was gone from sight.

 

"Crazy robot!" grumbled Grimes. "Being cooked must have affected her brain . . . "

"She knows what she is doing, John," said Darleen loyally.

"Does she? I wish that I did." He could sense that from darkened windows he was being watched. He wondered how long it would be before the New Salemites, seeing that the most dangerous witch had plunged into the sea, would come pouring out of their houses to exact vengeance for the death of their pastor and the injuries inflicted upon his law enforcers. He said, "I think that we should be getting out of here."

Shirl said, "But we can't leave Seiko . . . "

"I know," said Grimes. "But . . ."

"Do you hear her?" Shirl asked Darleen.

"Yes." Then, to Grimes, "Do not worry so, John. Everything will be all right."

From whose viewpoint? he wondered.

Then up the shipway she strode. The sea had washed the grime of smoke and fire from her pale body. Up the slipway she strode—and behind her, a living tide, surged the silkies. As she passed Grimes on her way inshore she made a gesture that was more formal salute than cheery wave. And the silkies grunted—in greeting or talking among themselves? But Shirl and Darleen replied in kind.

The robot and her army reached the sea frontage of the town. There was shouting and screaming, the splintering crashes as doors were burst in, as wooden walls succumbed to the onslaught of tons of angry flesh and blood. Fires started in a dozen places—the result of overturned lamps or lit by intent? Grimes did not know but suspected that Seiko was exacting retaliation in kind for what she had undergone. Fires started, and spread.

"This has gone too far," said Grimes.

"It has not gone far enough," Shirl told him. "The silkies said to us that she had told them that they were not to kill. To destroy only, but not to kill. That's the trouble with robots. They have this built-in, altogether absurd directive that human beings are never to be harmed by them."

"Wherever did you get that idea?" asked Grimes.

"While we were waiting for you on Earth we did quite a lot of reading. There were some books, classics, by an old writer called Asimov."

"Then what about him?" Grimes gestured toward the pastor's body. "Wasn't he harmed? Fatally, at that."

"Yes, John," said Darleen patiently. "But he was going to harm you, and Seiko was doing her best to protect you."

The town was ablaze now, the roaring of the flames drowning out all other noises coming from that direction. Satisfied with the havoc that they had wrought, the silkies were returning to the sea. There was light enough for Grimes to see that some were wounded, with great patches of fur burned from their bodies. Others bled from long and deep gashes. But their musical grunting sounded like a chant of victory.

Seiko brought up the rear. Again her body was smoke-blackened. She approached Grimes and bowed formally. "Captain-san, it is over. We spared the church and a large hall adjacent, and the people are huddled in these buildings, praying."

"How many killed?" demanded Grimes.

"Nobody by intent, although two or three may have died accidentally. But we let them seek refuge in their houses of worship and I refrained from applying the torch to these."

"You did well," said Grimes at last. "All right. The sooner we're back on board the ship the better."

"I am sorry, John," Seiko told him. "I cannot accompany you."

"That's an order, damn it!"

"Which I cannot accept. I was built to serve, John, as well you know. But you do not really need me. They . . . " she gestured toward the sea, to the silky heads, their eyes gleaming with reflected firelight, that were turned inland, looking at the humans and the robot. "They need me, much more than you do."

"She is right," said Shirl and Darleen as one.

Above the roar of the burning town, beating down from the sky, was the arrhythmic clatter of a small craft's inertial drive. One of Sister Sue's lifeboats made a heavy landing not far from where Grimes was still trying to argue with the women. From it jumped Steerforth and Calamity Cassie, each with a laser pistol in hand.

"You're all right, Captain?" demanded the chief officer. "We saw the flames and thought that we'd better take action."

"You did right," said Grimes. "And now you can get us back to where we belong."

"Good-bye, Harald," said Seiko. "Good-bye, Cassie. Tell the others good-bye for me."

She was, Grimes noticed, holding her right hand protectively over her navel.

"We can't leave you here, Seiko," objected Steerforth.

"She can look after herself," said Grimes harshly. "And, in any case, it'll be days yet before Sister Sue is capable of lifting off. If—no, when—you change your mind, Seiko, you'll know where to find us."

The boat, with Steerforth at the controls, clattered upward. The chief officer made a circuit of the seaport area before setting course for the spaceport. New fires had broken out; alongside their jetties the schooners were ablaze.

She was thorough, was Seiko, thought Grimes. Very thorough. It would be a long time before, if ever, there was another silky hunt on New Salem.

All that next day he was expecting her to come walking back up the ramp, into the ship. And the day after, and the day after that . . .

Back | Next
Framed