The huge ellipsoidal ships fell down through the barrage of fire, energy bolts crackling about them, spat by the vast Bolo machines stationed on guard. Here and there, a ship blew apart, decorating the night sky with a glowing fireball; more often, one of the odd craft rocked with a near miss or a minor hit. Some went spiralling down through the night to tear up the fields; others landed more gently. But from each one, a horde of serpentine bodies pouredserpents with arms and hands, limbs that held huge, roaring weapons of doom.
Behind them came their own tanks, hundreds of them. They were small and ineffectual compared to the giant Bolosbut they outnumbered them twenty to one.
The Bolos roared at them, hurling fire, and the smaller tanks diedbut here and there, one chewed through the night to ram into a bolo's treads, and a bomb exploded. The huge machine lurched aside, disabled.
And all across the fields, snakes reared up to fall upon the humans who fought so valiantly with their hand weapons, automatic slugthrowers and energy weapons against the huge hand-held cannon of the Xiala aliens.
But the roaring was coming from all sides of the theater, and the spectacle of the battle was a recording in a vast holotank that surrounded the seats. In the middle of them, twelve-year-old Arlan Connors watched as the Bolos slowly chewed up the spaceships, witnessed the valor of the colonists as they fought against creatures twice their size and twice their number, creatures who could spring suddenly from the soil behind them, creatures whose fanged maws could swallow up a human whole. . . .
But the men and women fought on, undaunted, and their valiant Bolo allies tore the enemy apart, tooth and coil. Slowly, slowly, they pressed the snakes back against their ships, bulldozed them inside, then blew up the vessels.
It had all been forty years before, of course, and this was a holo show, not a recording of the actual event. None of that mattered to young Arlan. When he came out of the movie, he was determined that someday, somehow, he, too, would go to that world of valor and gallantryMilagso.
Arlan stepped off the shuttle, duffel bag heavy on his shoulder, and looked around, feeling lost. On his left, the land stretched away to a belt of trees about a mile distant; on his right, it just stretched away, ~periodbut it was green and soft with plants in geometrical patterns.
In front of him was the terminal building.
Then there was a man in front of him, a little shorter than he, with a close-cropped beard and wide-brimmed hat, broad-shouldered and tanned. "Mr. Arlan Connors?"
"Yes!" Arlan felt a gush of relief at seeing someone who knew his name. He was still young, only twenty, on a leave of absence from college, and badly in need of reassurance.
"I'm Chonodan." The stranger held out a hand. "Chono, for short."
Arlan shook, and was amazed at the massiveness of Chono's clasp. This was a hand that did hard physical labor. The face, though, was almost that of a professorno, a teaching fellow. Not old enough to be a professor, yet.
"Come on alongI'll check you in and show you to your bunkhouse. Any more baggage?"
"No. I heard that personal possessions just get in the way, here."
"You ran into good information." Chono nodded ~approval. "You talk to an old hand?"
"No, just read it in books." The excitement came spilling out. "I've been dreaming about coming to ~Milagso since I was a kid. Can't believe I'm really here!"
"Oh, you're here, well enough." Chono chuckled as he opened the back of a hovercraft. "Hope you don't get sick of it too soonchuck your duffel in there."
Arlan did, puzzled. "Why would I get sick of it?"
"It's hard labor, friend. Everyone, even the President, puts in at least a few hours a day in the fields. We'd starve if we didn't."
"Oh, that!" Arlan grinned. "I'm not afraid of hard work."
Approval glinted in Chono's eye. "Ever done it?"
"Sure. I worked summers in high school, to pay my college tuitionyard work, then construction when I was old enough. It may not have been farming, but it was hard work anyway."
"True. Of course, here it's hot as blazes by midday, and freezing at night. . . ."
"I'm used to the heat," Arlan said, "and cold nights sound great." He looked up at a sudden thought. "I'll bet dreamy volunteers like me just get in the way, don't they?"
"Not a bit," Chono assured him, and held open the door. As Arlan climbed in, he said, "The volunteers are the life-blood of this colony, Arlan. Oh, sure, there's ~always the odd one who's here on dreams alonegrew up watching the holo shows about the noble settlers and their valiant battles, and never thought he was ~actually going to have to be uncomfortable. But most of them are good, hard-working kids who settle in well and spend a year or two sweating alongside us, then go back to Terra or one of the other Central Worlds a lot richer inside than when they came."
He closed the door and went around to the driver's side, leaving Arlan by himself long enough to wonder whether he'd be one of the ones who settled in well, or one of the few who washed out.
Then Chono was climbing in and starting the car. "How about you? Get the fascination for Milagso from watching holo shows?"
"<|>'Fraid so," Arlan confessed. "By the time I got to high school, I'd decided it was kid stuff, that life wasn't really like that out here."
"Right about that!" Chono pushed a lever, and the craft lifted off the ground, then started off toward the spaceport gate. "What made you change your mind?"
"College," Arlan said. "There was enough of the dream left so that I did a term paper on Milagso, and found out that the reasons for being out here are every bit as idealistic as they sounded on the holo shows."
"Odd way to put it," Chono said slowly, "but I couldn't really disagree. What kind of ideals did you have in mind?"
"Protecting the masses of people on the Central Worlds from the Xiala." Arlan grinned. "Who wouldn't want to protect fair maidens from dragons? Of course, I know the Xiala are more like snakes than lizards, and a lot of the people back home don't deserve protectingbut it still gave me a sense of purpose."
Chono nodded, but he wasn't smiling. "Hope you aren't expecting a battle, though, Arlan. The Xiala ~haven't attacked in fifty years, and the odds are that they'll never strike again."
"Only because you're here," Arlan said, "and they know you've beaten them before."
"Sounds like you've picked up the history, right enough."
"Well, I know Milagso began as a military outpost, and General Millston had the vision to make them raise their own crops, so they wouldn't be dependent on shipments from the Central Worlds. After they'd survived a few attacks, some of the soldiers began to think of it as home. They married each other and settled downand got to feeling very possessive about the planet."
"That happens when you've worked hard to turn a wasteland into a farm," Chono said. "You get to feeling that there's something of you in that dirt."
Arlan looked keenly at him, with a sudden hunch. "Were you a volunteer?"
"Still am." Chono grinned. "Married another vol, and homesteaded. We've got two kids so far, and we'll probably stay another decade or so."
Maybe their whole lives, then. Arlan couldn't quite keep the admiration out of his voice. "Even though the Xiala might attack any day?"
"Even though," Chono confirmed. "It's rough, and Sharl has to do without the conveniencesbut there aren't any crowds, and the neighbors are good people."
Arlan couldn't help but think what a world of comparison was embodied in that brief statement, between the struggling back-stabbing life of the overcrowded Central Worlds, and the friendship and shared burdens here. He was probably still romanticizing, though.
Then something caught his eye. He glanced at it, then stared. "Is that a Bolo?"
"Oh, you mean the tractor?" Chono said casually.
"Tractor? That's one of the most powerful military machines ever builtand it's two hundred years old if it's a day!"
"And still working in top form." Chono nodded. "Yes, it's the real thing."
"You use them for tractors?"
"Sure do." Chono pulled over to the side of the road and let the hovercar settle. "It's tough getting modern machinery out herebut the Bolos came with General Millston." He turned to watch the huge ~machine.
"How did you get them to do that?"
Chono shrugged. "It was their own idea."
"Their own?" Arlan turned, frowing. "How about their commanders?"
"All dead." A shadow crossed Chono's face. "Brave men, all of them."
"They died fighting the Xiala? Inside a Bolo?"
"Some didthe snakes decoyed them into getting out to help what they thought were wounded humans. The others?" Chono shrugged. "Old age. These Bolos have been here a long while."
"Couldn't you have trained new commanders for them?"
"We did. The Bolos wouldn't accept themthey say their original mission is still unfulfilled."
"Unfulfilled." Arlan turned to stare at the metal ~giant, frowning. "That really makes it odd that they'd agree to work in the fields."
"I know," Chono sighed. "Ask one of them. He'll tell you it's necessary to fulfill its missionthe development of this colony."
"Something seems wrong about that."
"I knowhelping this colony succeed, isn't a military objective. But we need their helpwe probably couldn't survive with itso we're not about to protest."
"Unless the colony itself is a military objective."
"I suppose we are," Chono said. "As long as there are humans here, the snakes aren'tbut that doesn't seem like enough, somehow."
Arlan stared. It seemed so incongruous, a vast fighting unit, capable of standing off a small army all by itself, equipped with a plow blade and a power take-off. He wondered why this hadn't been in any of his reading. "Couldn't you build tractors?"
Chono shook his head, watching the gigantic ~machine churning away. "Iron-poor planetand you wouldn't believe the cost of importing even just the ore. We couldn't pay it, anywaywe don't produce much of a cash crop."
"Butdoesn't it cost just as much to run them?"
"No. Fissionables, we've got. Besides . . . you never know. . . ."
Arlan swallowed, remembering. The Bolo Corps had made the difference between victory and defeat, life and death on this little world. "You keep them out of honor," he whispered.
"That what you think?" Chono looked at him sharply. "Well, we honor them, yes. But they're working machines, Arlan. They're the life-blood of this colony."
"You meanyou couldn't farm without them?"
"Oh, we'd find a way. We'd be on the verge of starvation, though. Always."
"But they're still armed!"
Chono nodded. "Of course. You can't take the cannons off a Boloeven if it would let you. They're built into the fabric and structure of the machine so thoroughly that you'd have to take it apart piece by pieceand you wouldn't be able to put it back together."
"That's kind of dangerous!"
"Not to us," Chono said quietly. "They know their friends, and they know their enemies. A Bolo won't fire on a human."
He said it with such total certainty that Arlan accepted itfor the moment. He decided he'd have to learn a lot more about Bolos. He watched, frowning. "That's kind of a funny way to pull a plough."
A three-hundred-meter cable stretched behind the Bolo, its far end connected to a plow with twenty shares. The great machine was winding a winch that pulled the plow through the earth and toward them. Directly across the field, another Bolo was reeling out line connected to the back of the gang-plow.
"It's a reversible plow?" Arlan asked.
Chono nodded. "When the plow gets all the way to this side, the far Bolo will start pulling. Primitive, but it works."
It was primitive in more ways than one. A human being sat atop the plow, directing it with some sort of steering apparatus. Clearly, it was an improvisation that had become the accepted way of doing things.
Chono started the hovercar again and sent it on down the road. "Know what Milagso stands for?"
Arlan nodded. "It's short for 'Military Agrarian ~Socialism'the system the Russians used, to colonize Siberia. The soldiers had to farm to keep themselves fed."
"Right. Only, after a while, they were guarding prisoners who did the real work. No criminals get sentenced to come herewe couldn't trust 'em, especially if the Xiala attacked. You have to volunteer for this outfit."
Arlan shivered; somehow, the sight of the great military machines, converted to pulling plows, made the Xiala seem very real, and very closenot just a relic from pioneering days. It was also a sight that summed up the whole nature of the colonya sword beaten into a plowshare, but ready to become a sword again at a moment's notice.
Chono turned in through an automatic gate in a wire fence; it swung closed behind them. The reason was immediately cleara hundred cows and steers, wandering about chewing the dusty grass. In separate fields far off, the bulls grazed by themselves against the sunset.
A few hundred feet inside the fence, a dozen long, low buildings clustered, with young men and women in khaki slacks and shirts wandering about and standing in small groups, chatting with one another. For a moment, Arlan had the crazy thought that he was looking at summer camp again.
The feeling passed as Chono pulled up in front of a bunkhouse on the end. People looked up, and started drifting over.
"This is home, for as long as you want," Chono said, and got out.
Arlan followed, feeling very nervous.
"Hi!" She was long-legged, brunette, and freckled, with a snub nose and a wide mouth. "I'm Rita. Welcome to Milagso!"
Other young men and young women were coming up behind her with grins on their faces, smiling and welcoming. Arlan felt sudden relief from a tension that he hadn't known was there. Slowly, his own smile ~began to grow.
Breakfast was a happy, boisterous time of laughing and boasting about the number of hectares they would plant and plow that dayand ribald joking about who was eyeing whom. The only damper on the hilarity was the rifle slung over Rita's shoulderand the variety of personal arms carried by every other member of the camp, locally born or volunteer.
Michael saw Arlan eyeing his automatic and smiled. "Don't worrywe'll issue you one before you go out to work. You'll probably want to get the folks at home to ship you your own, though."
Michael was Milagso-born; it never occurred to him that people everywhere didn't grow up carrying lasers and slugthrowers.
"Do you really need them?" Arlan asked.
"If we're lucky, no. But you never can tell."
"I thought the Xiala hadn't attacked for fifty years!"
Michael nodded. "Doesn't mean they won't, though. They're still out there, you knowand still attacking Terran planets, when they think they can get away with it."
"Yeah." Arlan frowned. "I've noticed it on the news, now and then."
"Even if they didn't," Michael said, "carrying portable mayhem has become a tradition with usand traditions always have their reasons, Arlan."
Arlan was going to get sick of hearing about the good reasons for traditions, in the next few weeksespecially when he found out that half the reason for farming with Bolos, was because they had become traditional, too.
By the time they climbed aboard the hovertruck, Arlan had managed to convince himself that the Bolos were tame and peacefulbut it was a conviction that wavered as soon as he came in sight of one of the huge machines. "Uhcouldn't we start with some other chore?"
"Scared of the Bolos?" Rita looked up, grinning. "They are kind of intimidating, at first. Took me three days before I was willing to go near them. When I did, I found out they were the best friends I could havegentle as kittens, and strong as earthquakes. But come onit's plowing season, so steering this plow is what you need to learn."
"If you say so," Arlan said dubiously. "After all, their cannons aren't loaded . . . ?"
"Not loaded?" Rita looked up, startled. "Arlan, my friendan unloaded gun is a piece of scrap iron!"
"They are loaded?" Arlan drew back. "That machine, right there, that I'm supposed to work with, could blow up a major city?"
"Could, but it won't," Rita assured him. "Besides, even if you were an enemy and it did fire, you'd never know what hit you."
That, Arlan decided, was rather cold comfortbut he followed Rita toward the gang-plow. Their lieutenant-mayor had known what he was doing, assigning him to Rita for the first day's learninghe'd known Arlan would rather die than chicken out in front of a pretty girl.
"Morning, Miles," Rita called out, waving.
"Good morning, Rita," the huge machine returned. "Did you have a restful evening?"
"Well, not too restful. Who won the chess match?"
"Gloriosus was one game ahead of me by dawn," Miles answered.
"Well, better luck tomorrow night. I'd better get hopping."
"How can two machines play chess with each other?" Arlan whispered.
"In their computers. They can keep track of the moves perfectly, but I don't know if they visualize the board or not."
Arlan marvelled at the thought of engines of mayhem having a peaceful, stuffy game of chess to pass the time. He hoped Miles wasn't a sore loser.
"You can't think of them as machines," Rita ~explained as they climbed up onto the plow. "They're allies, friends. Just remember, each one of them is at least as smart as you, and most of them have just as much personality, even if it is artificial."
"How about if one of them decides he doesn't like me?"
"Can'tit's built into their programming." Rita settled herself on the seat, swung it around to face the far 'tractor,' and laid her hands on the wheel.
"Why not just hitch the plows to them, and let them go out in the field to pull?"
"'Cause they'd pack the earth down to concrete," Rita said flatly. "These tractors are heavy." She looked up over her shoulder. "Okay, Miles! Tell Gloriosus to start pulling, would you?"
"Certainly, Rita," the huge machine boomed.
Arlan noted the courtesy, and decided to be very polite to these "tractors."
The gang plow lurched into motion, and Rita spun the wheel, straightening out. "The tractor will pull, but you have to keep the furrows straight. . . ."
Arlan listened, trying to pay close attentionbut he kept being distracted by the huge machine in front of them, looming closer and closer as they chewed their way across the field. They finished two round trips before he felt ready to try steering by himself.
They went back to the camp for lunch and stayed for an hour's siestaeveryone insisted it was too hot to work. But when things cooled down in late afternoon, back they went for another four hours' laborand this time, Rita said good-bye as they were passing Miles.
"So soon?" Arlan stared, then caught himself and forced a smile. "You're going to trust me to steer straight, all by myself?"
"It's not that tough, once you get the hang of it," Rita laughed, "and from what I saw this morning, you have. Finish the field, bravo. See you back at camp."
And she was on her way, with a smile and a wave. Arlan stared up at the huge Bolo, towering overhead, and swallowed. He wondered if Miles could tell when a man was afraid of him.
Well, if he could, it was doubly important not to let on. Arlan forced a smile, waved cheerily, and called up to the turret, "Evening, Miles!"
"Good evening, Arlan," the huge machine answered, in a calm, deep voice that seemed to be right next to Arlan's ear. It almost made him jump, but he hid the reaction and smiled wider. "Do we just take up where we left off?"
"That is the usual procedure, yes, Arlan. There are no bandits or robbers on Milagso, so we just leave the plows at the end of the row, when it comes time to stop for the night."
No wonder there were no banditsnot with a monster of a Bolo sitting right nearby. Arlan went to climb aboard his plow, thinking desperately of some sort of conversational topic. "Didn't the Xiala try to steal equipment, when they were raiding?"
"Surprisingly, no," Miles answered. At least his voice seemed a few feet away now. "The Xiala were warriors exclusively; they did not seek to dwell here, so they had no reason to steal. They were only concerned with destroying everything in sight."
"Cheery blightersbut at least they were predictable." Arlan only wished that the Bolo wasor that he could be sure of it. "Well, time to plow."
"I shall tell Gloriosus to begin pulling, Arlan. Wave when you are ready."
"Will do." Arlan settled himself on the seat, took hold of the wheel, and waved. The plow jerked into motion, and he was off.
He couldn't escape the feeling that he was at the mercy of the two huge killer machines.
After an hour or so, Arlan began to relax, but when Miles announced that it was quitting time, the volunteer shuddered at the thought of being alone with the giant. To cover his apprehension, he tried to strike up a conversation while he waited for the truck. "You ~remember the Xiala wars, don't you?"
"The data is stored in my memory banks, yes, ~Arlanincluding visual scans, if they are needed. However, I would caution you that the wars may not be over."
Everybody always seemed to be reminding him of that. Well, let them comeArlan was ready for his shot at glory. He shuddered at the thought, but he was ready. "Chances aren't too high that the Xiala will attack again, are they?"
"We thought so before," Gloriosus told him. "There was a twenty-year gap between incursions, and we had begun to think there might be peace. Then the Xiala came boiling up out of the irrigation ditches."
"Out of the ditches?" Arlan looked up sharply. "How did they get there? They had to land, first!"
"So they didbut they had been landing secretly, at night, for a year, planting small groups of commandos."
"A year?" Arlan looked up, startled. "What did they live off of?"
"They brought rations, but they supplemented them with local flora and fauna."
"You mean they stole crops and livestock?"
"No. Xiala tastes have very little in common with those of humankind. They consider our livestock to be vermin, and vice versa."
"So." Arlan turned to gaze out over the countryside. "They just snacked on rats and snakes. Sure, nobody would miss them. Then they attacked, at a pre-arranged signal?"
"They did, in tens of thousands. The hidden bands, who had no landing craft to which they could retreat, attacked the most suddenly, and fought the hardest. They were very difficult to kill."
Arlan nodded. "I can understand that. No chance they might do it again, is there?"
"Nearly none. We are very vigilant, nowat all hours."
"You said, 'nearly."
"That is correct. One must never underestimate the enemy."
"They might always have a new surprise in store." Arlan gazed out over the quiet countryside, imagining detection-proof landing craft, invisible parachutesany number of technological innovations.
He neglected the oldest and simplest way of bringing in living creatures. There was no shame in that, thoughso had everyone else in the colony. The Bolos could be forgiven for not thinking of itthey did not reproduce themselves.
"How long must we wait?" Kaxiax hissed. "Is all our life to be spent in hiding and waiting, like our sires before us?"
"You are young," the lieutenant answered. "I have seen both sire and grandsire die, and we must not shame their memories."
"Let their ghosts fend for themselves!" Kaxiax hissed. "I did not volunteer to end my days on this ancestor-forsaken hole!"
"The worth of your life is in your accomplishments for the species of Xiala," the lieutenant intoned. "If we were to give over and flee, our sires' lives would have been spent to no purpose. But if you, or your offspring, or your offspring's offspring, should smite the Soft Ones and their machines, your ancestors' lives as well as your own would have been filled with purpose, and they would live in glory in the Afterworld."
"If there is an Afterworld." Kaxiax's head swivelled around at a slight sigh of displaced sand. He struck, so fast that he would have been a blur to human eyes. The lizard slid down his craw in a single swallow.
The lieutenant ignored the blasphemy; he remembered when he had said much the same, in the impatience of youth. "Go disassemble and oil your weapon," he said. "We must not forget the rituals, or the gods will withdraw their strength from us. Then go coil with your mate, and gain what comfort you may from this life."
"And raise up more Xiala to waste their lives in waiting, belike," Kaxiax grumbledbut he went.
The lieutenant watched him slither away along the ditch. When he was out of sight, the lieutenant laid his head down on the sand and let himself indulge in a moment's despair. Would the command to attack never come?
Chono relaxed, leaning back in his canvas chair, drink in hand, and watched the sunset. "You seem to be adjusting pretty well, Arlan."
"Thanks," Arlan said. He sipped his own drink, then added, "I'm still a little nervous, though."
"To be expected." Chono nodded. "Bolos can be mighty intimidating working partnersand a full shift on a plow can be kind of lonely. We try to make up for it during lunchtime and dinnertime, though."
"Oh, you succeed admirably!" For a moment, Arlan had a vivid image of last night's party. He was looking forward to singing and dancing again tonightRita wasn't the only pretty girl in the camp. Far from it, in fact.
"So the nerves are only about the Bolos, huh?"
"Yeah." Arlan jolted back to the day he'd just finished. "Chono . . ."
Chono waited, then prodded gently. "Yeah?"
"The Bolos . . . they're so old! Are you sure there isn't any chance that one of them will have a circuit breakdown, and run amok?"
"I wish I could tell you a definite 'no' to that," Chono said grimly. "All I can really say, though, is that it's a low probability. The Bolos were built to lastbuilt for the ages, you might say. We actually did an analysis of probability of systems failure, and it turned out that the chances of a Bolo running amok, are much less than the chances of one of us humans going psychotic."
Arlan just stared at the orange sky for a moment, then nodded slowly. "I suppose we are made out of less durable materials."
"And most of us don't take care of ourselves too well," Chono agreed. "If we're feeling just a little bit out of sorts, we go to work anyway."
Arlan looked up, amused. "Does that mean that the only ones who are really well, are the hypochondriacs?"
"They would be, if they'd go out and get some ~exercise. I suppose maybe a hypochondriac health-and-fitness nut would be in good shape, but I don't know any who manage to combine the twoexcept maybe Bolos."
"The Bolos are hypochondriacs?"
"Well, let's say they have excellent auto-diagnostic programs, and they're much more objective than we are. Besides which, our technicians check over each machine once a month. We maintain them very well."
Arlan nodded. He had found out just how well, when he had met Jodie, and stopped to chat with her in her smithy. The term wasn't all that accurate, of coursemost "smithies" didn't include blast furnaces and computer-controlled machine tools. If Jodie said she was a smith, though, he wasn't about to arguenot when he saw how the iron flattened under her hammer. Not when he saw her in profile, either.
"That's an awful lot of labor for one spare part," he said as he watched her watch the automatic lathe.
Jodie nodded. "But even when you add in the cost of my labor, it's still cheaper than importing it. Space cargo rates are very, very highand the Bolo factory back on Terra charges a liver and ten square inches of skin, for an antique spare like this."
Arlan frowned. "Why so high?"
"Because they have to make them by hand, too. ~After all, they've been out of production for two hundred years." Jodie braked the lathe and began to loosen the clamps. "So we just machine them ourselves, and save all around."
Watching her strong, slender fingers, Arlan wondered if the machinists on Terra could be any better than she wasor even as good. "I can't help thinking that it would be cheaper and quicker to import modern tractorsor even to manufacture your own."
Jodie nodded. "Every volunteer wonders about that at first. I know I did." She laid the finished part under the magnifying glass and began to inspect it. "There's more to it than economics, though, Arlan. This colony owes its existence to the Bolos. It's a debt. We maintain them out of honor. It may be expensive, but if we forget their past and stop doing it, we'll be welching on a debtand we'll be less than ourselves."
Arlan watched her work, thinking that over. Traditions and honor seemed to be very expensive. He wondered if Milagso could afford them.
The next day, he dared to sit on Miles's tread as he waited for the truck to pick him up for lunch. He congratulated himself on beginning to trust the huge machinebut he was also aware that his whole body was taut, ready to leap off to the side at the slightest sign that the Bolo was starting to move. "Isn't it hot for you to wait out here in the sun, Miles?"
"Not at all, Arlan. I was built to tolerate temperatures up to fifteen hundred degrees Kelvin, so a variation of twenty degrees Fahrenheit scarcely registers on my thermosensors."
"Must be handy. But you stay parked by this field all through lunchtime. Don't you get bored?"
"I was first activated a thousand years ago, Arlan. A few hours is scarcely noticeable."
Suddenly, the sunlight seemed to be very cold, and the tread beneath his thighs seemed to prickle. "A . . . thousand years? But . . . I thought your model was only produced three hundred years ago, Miles."
"My body was, Arlan. My computer core, though, goes back considerably farther." Then, completely matter-of-factly, the Bolo told him, "I am Resartus."
All things considered, Arlan was very glad that the truck came along just then.
Chono frowned. "He actually said he was Resartus? You're sure?"
"Clear as I'm telling you now!" Arlan fought to keep a lid on the panic boiling inside him. "Who exactly was Resartus, anyway?"
"Who? More a 'what' than a 'who.' The Resartus was the initial fully-automated Bolo model, the first one that could fight itself. It was a long way from ~being self-aware, but when push came to shove, it didn't really need a human being aboard."
That gave Arlan a chill. "If you think I'm going back to work with a machine that's gone delusional . . ."
"Peace, peace!" Chono held up a hand, but he was frowning off across the fields. "We're not going to ask that until we're sure Miles is wellbut even if he has started thinking he's the original Resartus, he's perfectly safe."
"Perfectly safe!"
Chono nodded. "No matter what identity the computer has accepted, it still has its safeguards. It won't attack a human on its own side, no matter whatand out here, all humans are on its side." Chono rose. "But I think we'll leave that field untilled for now. I have a few friends who are going to want to talk to Milesand spend a little time with the library, too."
The library was accessed through computer, of course, but Miles was accessed in person. Chono's friends were a half-dozen experts in Bolo systems and artificial intelligence. They insisted Arlan come along to double-check what they heard.
"Yes," the Bolo said, "I am Milesbut I am also Resartus."
"How can that be?" asked the senior scientist. He didn't look much like a professor, in khaki shorts and sweat-stained shirtbut he knew what to ask. "The original Resartus wasn't even self-aware."
"That is true, David. But with the enhanced abilities of the Mark XXI's computer, I have gained all the awareness and cogitational capacities of the newer Bolo, while retaining my identity as Resartus."
"How have you come to be housed in this newer unit, then?"
"I was manufactured as Miles," the Bolo answered, "but the essential elements of Resartus were included in my original programming."
"I see." David stroked his beard, frowning. "Do you have any idea how this was done?"
"Not really, David. I was not activated until after the manufacturing process was complete."
Arlan wondered if the Bolo was capable of irony. He decided there was no sarcasm intended; the Bolo was probably giving a straight answer to a straight question.
The truck swayed over a particularly rough bump. Arlan held on and asked, "So it seems to think it's a reincarnation of that first computer-controlled Bolo?"
"We'll have to work with that hypothesis temporarily," David answered.
Arlan shuddered. "What else might it take into its CPU?"
"A good question," David agreed, "and I think we'd better make sure of the answer before we do anything else. You're off the plow for the time being, Arlan. Since you know the case, we're assigning you to the library. Dig up everything you can about the Resartus model, and the government's reaction to it."
Arlan breathed a sigh of relief.
Arlan pored through the stacks, and was amazed at what he found. Yes, the public had been nervous about having a machine that could tear up a city, able to operate without a human aboardbut the government had gone into catfits. They'd insisted on so many restraints, it was amazing that Resartus could still fight itself. When it came to later models, though . . .
"They insisted on having the same restraints built into every later-model Bolo," he told David that evening. He held out the hard copy of the article for him to read. "Turns out that, when the original unit was scrapped, the manufacturers divided Resartus's memory holistically, then reproduced the chips for every Bolo that was manufactured. So each chip had Resartus's complete programming in miniature."
David took the copy and scanned it. "I wonder when they quit doing that."
"Did they?" Arlan shrugged. "I don't know anything about military manufactureand they might still be doing it. The idea was a sort of fail-safeif the Bolo's computer did malfunction to the point at which it might start shooting up its own side, Resartus's ~unquestioning loyalty would take over and keep it safe."
David nodded, then looked up at the other scientists. "Miles has gone non-functional, all right. Maybe the nervous Nellies a thousand years ago, were right."
"Is he dangerous?" Dr. Methuen asked.
"Definitely notthe strategy worked. The chip of Resartus's memory has kicked in as a restraint. Miles won't do anything dangerous to us, as long as Resartus is in charge."
Arlan noticed that they were talking about the Bolo as though it were a person, and repressed a shiver. "Any chance they'll battle it out, and Miles will win?"
A flicker of annoyance crossed David's face, but he masked it quickly. It was as good as a scathing comment, thoughthe greenhorn stood indicted, at least in his own mind.
But David leaned forward, instantly reassuring. "Don't worry about it, ArlanMiles's personality can't reassert itself. In a manner of speaking, Miles has shut down, giving Resartus all his ferocious computational capabilities; in a sense, we now have Resartus, self-aware."
"Just how badly-off is he?" Dr. Roman demanded.
"Milesor perhaps we should just say, 'the confused portion of the artificial mind'has gone dormant. ~Resartus has access to all its memories, but can't be affected by its errors in judgment."
"What caused it?" Dr. Methuen asked.
David shrugged. "Can't say, without going inside for a lookand I'm reluctant to ask Resartus for permission. Probably a chip that went bad."
"Can't we just replace the chip?"
"We'd have to, as a first stepeither that, or tell Resartus to reroute all his signals around the bad chip, isolate it from the rest of the mind."
Dr. Methuen shrugged. "If that's all there is to it, do it!"
"But that's not all there is to it, is it?" Dr. Roman asked.
"No," David agreed. "The problem is that its memories, too, are distributed holistically throughout the 'mind'and so are the attitudes Miles has developed. So we can't just edit out a faulty logic-sequence."
"My Lord!" Dr. Roman stiffened. "We'd have to take out the total 'mind,' or have a potentially psychotic computer on our hands!"
David nodded. "Right. And, of course, we just don't have what it takes to build a new computer-brain."
"So what do we do?" Arlan asked nervously.
"Nothing." David turned to him. "Resartus's personality is so completely a part of the 'mind,' that the Bolo is perfectly safe. It wasn't just a fail-safe that would hold long enough to deactivate the Boloas though anybody could figure out a way to deactivate a Bolo that didn't want it. It was also a program that could hold as long as the unit lasted."
Arlan just stared at him, trying to absorb the idea. "So Miles is permanently asleep, and Resartus has possessed him?"
"No." David stirred restlessly. "It's more complicated than that. All Miles' memories are still there, after all. It's almost as though the Bolo is still Miles, but knows way down deep that he's really Resartus."
"Delusional," Dr. Roman said softly.
Again, that flash of impatience, and David said, "In human terms, yes. But we can't allow ourselves too much teleology in this, Doctor. Miles isn't a person, ~after allhe's a machine."
"A self-aware machine," Dr. Roman qualified, "with more thinking capacity than any of us."
"More computational capacity, yesbut no intuition, and no real initiative. He can only act within a very clear set of parametersand Resartus makes those ~parameters rigid."
"So you suggest we do nothing?" Dr. Methuen asked.
David nodded. "That's my considered opinion." He turned to Arlan. "But you can be assigned to a different field."
"No," Arlan said slowly, "not if you're sure it's safe." He just wished he were.
The next morning, Arlan approached the metal giant with his heart in his throat, hoping the Bolo didn't hold grudges. "Good morning, Miles."
"Good morning, Arlan. Did you have a pleasant evening?"
"Pleasant?" Arlan stiffened, then realized that Miles must have thought he'd been given the evening off. "Oh. Very restful, thanks. How about you?"
"David took your place on the plow, and was most diverting. He kept up a constant stream of conversation."
Arlan could just bet David had. "Sorry I'm not that good a conversationalist."
"Please do not be, Arlan. Such extensive conversation is very pleasant as a change, but it does interfere with my chess game."
Arlan grinned as he climbed up onto the plow. "Thanks, Miles. Anything new?"
"Only that we are about to be attacked within the next few days," Miles said thoughtfully. "A major invasion, in factby Xiala, of course. I have alerted the other Bolos, but you might want to tell the humans."
Arlan sat very still for a few seconds. Then he climbed down off the plow. "Why, yes, thank you, Miles. I think I should do that."
"I shall call the truck back for you," Miles said.
"Now we know what kind of delusions." Arlan clamped down on hysteria. "He's paranoid!"
"Maybe, but we can't afford to take the chance." David pulled the hovercar over to the side of the road and got out. "Miles might have good reasons for his hunch." He slammed the door and walked over to the looming titan. "Good morning, Miles."
"Good morning, David. I infer that Arlan has given you my news?"
Arlan climbed out of the car slowly, holding onto the door as something solid in a world rapidly going fluid.
"Yes, he has," David said, frowning. "I've checked with the sentry-posts, and they haven't received anything particularly alarming from the satellites."
"Nothing alarming by itself," the Bolo agreed, "but when all the data are taken together as a whole, a pattern emerges."
"Like a chess game, eh?" David folded his arms, squinting up at Miles. "What data are you perceiving?"
"Relays from the surveillance satellites. Over the past month, there have been small celestial bodies flying in flattened arcs from one planet to another. Each event is well-separated from the others in both time and space, but over the year, I have discerned a steady englobing pattern that has come closer and closer to Milagso."
"Sneaking up on us? We'll have to check the ~records. But why do you think they'll attack in the next few days?"
"Because last night, there was a ten millisecond burst transmission from the vicinity of the nearer moon. I recorded it, slowed it down, and played it back, but it was gibberish. I am attempting to decipher it even now."
"Let us try, too," David urged, "with the really big computer back at base. Squirt your data to it, would you?"
"Certainly, David. However, the most immediate danger was far closer to home."
"Oh?" David tensed. "What was it?"
"Subterranean disturbances. They are consistent with the signals produced by Xiala tunnel-mining, in their last commando raid."
"They've landed commandos again?" David suddenly sounded very serious indeed.
"I have detected no signs of landing craft," Miles admitted, "nor were any such signals picked up by the satellites. I cannot deduce how the commandos have been planted on Milagso, but all indications are that they are indeed here, and preparing for an attack."
"We'll check into it," David said grimly, "and fast! Thanks, Miles. Thanks a lot!"
"You are welcome, David," the huge machine said.
David strode back to the car. "Hop in!" He slammed the door, started up, and turned the hover car back toward headquarters.
"He's paranoid!" Arlan couldn't hold it in any longer. "He has really flipped out! He's developed delusions of conspiracy!"
"Maybe," David said, his words clipped out, "or maybe he's right. Pick up the hand mike and call Dr. Roman, will you? And tell him everything you just heard."
Arlan stared. "You're taking him seriously?"
David gave a tight nod. "Very seriously, Arlan. Very seriously indeed."
Serious indeed, but not soon enough. As they pulled in through the gate to headquarters, the soil exploded in the surrounding fields from a hundred tunnels, and the hammering and crackling of automatic weapons erupted.
"Down!" David yelled, and slumped below window level as he pulled the car off to the side of the road. Arlan slid down, too, but wrestled his laser rifle around to the ready. The car stopped, and he swung the door open, rolling out and swivelling about, prone, sighting along the barrel and trying to pick out a target.
It was easy. All the humans had hit the dirt, and moving dust-plumes marked the presence of Xiala. Arlan took aim at the base of one such plume, and was about to pull the trigger when a human rolled in between. He cursed and let up pressure on the trigger . . .
Then the man exploded.
Arlan lay stiff, staring in shock.
Then a serpentine body rose up above the body, a minor cannon with a huge clip clasped in the two slender arms that sprouted below the head. Its mouth opened, fangs springing down as it lunged toward a human fighter . . .
Arlan screamed and pulled the trigger.
The snake's head exploded, and the whole length of its body whipped about, fountaining soil and tearing out plants.
Arlan couldn't take the time to stare, or to feel sick. He swung his rifle about, seeking another target, while something inside him gibbered in terror and urged him to run for cover. It was the child who had grown up on romantic tales of war, aghast at the bloodshed and the hammering of the guns.
Behind and above him, David's laser rifle crackled. Then, suddenly, he howled, and his gun went silent.
Arlan went cold inside, picking out a dust column and firing, then seeking another and firing, deliberately, unhurried. Part of him waited in iron resignation for the laser bolt that would burn through him, but part of him was determined to kill as many snakes as he could before it came. Traverse, fire, traverse, fire . . .
Cannon roared, and a Bolo loomed over the battle, its guns depressed, firing over the humans' heads, enfilading the field. Surely it couldn't be Miles. . . .
Suddenly, its huge cannon elevated, higher and higher, till it seemed the Bolo would throw itself over if it fired. Arlan glanced up, and saw a shimmering shape swelling out of the sky. . . .
Then he looked down, and saw fangs and red maw arrowing toward him, a huge-bore rifle-muzzle coming up to center on him. . . .
He shouted and pressed the trigger. A bolt of pure energy crashed into the gaping jaws. The snake screamed, thrashing, and its cannon bellowed again and again, firing widely in its death throes. Arlan slapped his rifle down and shoved his head flat against the dirt.
A roar filled his head. He dared a lookand saw only dust, where the Xiala had been. He glanced back over his shoulder, and saw the barrel of one of the Bolo's port guns aimed in his direction. Even as he watched, though, he saw the gout of energy explode out of the main cannon's muzzle, tearing into the sky, but he couldn't hear the report, because the whole world was roaring.
The looming shimmering shape turned into flame at one edge. It spun about, and another bolt struck it from the opposite side of the field. It whirled around and slammed spinning into the dirt, sticking up at a crazy anglea huge landing craft, its ports popping open, snakes pouring out regardless of their dead, slithering onto the ground . . .
The Bolo's secondary guns roared, and the Xiala turned into a boiling cloud of dust, streaked crimson, with tails lashing out of it here and there. Again and again the Bolo fired, and the whole line of the ship turned into a dust storm. Runnels of blood watered the field.
Here and there, a human gun chatteredbut rarely, very rarely, for there were very few Xiala escaping the wrecked ship, and the commandos were all dead.
"Of course, we don't know for sure how many of them got away." David sat with a steaming cup at his elbow, his arm in a sling and a bandage around his head. "We can only guess how many snakes were aboard each ship, and it's hard counting dead bodies; you can't be sure how many of them were completely blown apart. Some of the ships landed half-buried, and Xiala could have tunnelled out of the below-ground hatches."
"So we may have more Xiala hiding out and busily making new little commandos?" Rita asked.
David nodded. "There may even be some of the current generation still alive to teach them the ropes."
"It's so hard to imagine!" Arlan shook his head. "Intelligent, thinking beings, spending their whole lives in exile, and dooming their offspring and their grandchildren to the same waste of their daysall so that their species can have some commandos to prepare the way for them, if they ever decide to try another invasion!"
"Unthinkable to us," Michael agreed. "To a Xiala, it's worth it."
Arlan shuddered. "At least we know Miles hadn't ~really gone paranoid."
"No," David said slowly. "He seemed to treat the whole problem as a chess gamebut he'd had fifty years of fighting Xiala, to use as data for his deductions."
"Anyway," Arlan said, "I guess that's why the Bolos thought they had to become tractors for a while."
Michael looked up, surprized, and David said slowly, "Of coursenow that you mention it. Camoflage."
"Lulling the Xiala into a false sense of security," ~Michael agreed. "Why should they be afraid of these huge war machines, if they'd been converted into farmers?"
"Does that mean you lose your tractors?" Arlan asked.
"They haven't shown any sign of it," David said. "Seem to be more than ready to get back to work, in fact."
"And they haven't deactivated themselves?"
"No, so they can't be given new commanders," ~Michael confirmed. "I guess their mission isn't over, as far as they're concerned."
"Of course notwe don't know when the snake-commandos may strike again," Rita inferred.
"No," David agreed. "But the next time Miles says they're coming, I think I'll take him at his word."
Arlan shoved his chair back and levered himself up on his crutches.
"Going someplace?" Michael asked.
"To see Miles," Arlan said. "I think I owe him an apology."
His friends exchanged glances; then David pushed himself to his feet. "Wait up; I'll give you a ride. I've got a few words to say to Miles, too."
They came up to the huge Bolo. Its armor was blackened and dented in places, but otherwise it stood as serenely as everalready back on station at the field it had been plowing.
"Hello, Miles," Arlan said as he came up.
"Hello, Arlan," the Bolo returned. "I am glad to see you have survived the battle. I trust your foot is not too badly injured?"
"This?" Arlan glanced down. "Nothing that won't heal itself. How are you, Miles?"
"Nothing that cannot be mended," the Bolo ~returned, "and not much of that. This generation of Xiala have weakened sorely; their great-grandsires did far more damage."
"Let's hear it for decadence," David said fervently.
"Uh, Miles . . ." Arlan said. "I'm, uh, sorry I didn't heed your warning right away. . . ."
David nodded emphatically. "Me, too. I should have just taken you at your word, and sent out the alarm. We should have known Resartus wouldn't make a logical mistake."
"Resartus is gone," Miles informed them.
Both men stood very still.
Then David said, very carefully, "Are you fully ~operational again, Miles?"
"I am," Miles assured them. "As soon as I woke to full function, I ran my recent memories through a ~diagnostic program. They confirmed that I had run so many invasion scenarios that I had created a loop that became so ingrained, I could not view any data without a bias toward interpreting it as an invasion."
"So when the Xiala actually did invade," David said slowly, "the loop had fulfilled its function, and closed itself off."
"Essentially, David, yes."
"Will you be able to avoid the urge to run invasion scenarios again?" David asked.
"My companion Bolos are agreed on a means that should prove efficacious."
"What kind of means?" Arlan asked.
"A variety of gaming. In addition to our bouts of chess, we will take turns creating invasion scenarios."
"And you'll all know it's a game! Great!" Arlan's eyes lit with enthusiasm. "Can I join?"
David eyed him with a sigh, then smiled. Arlan was fitting in, after all.
The larger moon was up, and Arlan went strolling away from the campfire, hand in hand with Jodie. "You were right," he said. "Traditions do have reasons behind them."
She looked up at him, amused. "Was it worth it, lugging that laser rifle around every day? After all, you only really needed it for half an hour."
"It was worth it," Arlan affirmed. "I'm converted."
"Still nervous about the Bolos?"
Arlan shook his head. "That's another tradition that somehow makes an awful lot of sense now. Mind you, I still think their minds can malfunction and go out of order, though maybe not as easily as ours can. . . ."
"At least they won't be saddled by poor upbringing," Jodie said.
"That is the advantage to de-bugged programming," Arlan admitted. "But brooding seems to do just as much damage for artificial intelligences as it does for the real thing."
Jodie shrugged. "So what if Miles went paranoid for a little while? He was curable."
"Yes," Arlan agreed. "All it took was a conspiracy and an invasion."
"Well," Jodie said, "that did bring his delusions into line with reality. So you think the Bolos are worth the labor to maintain them?"
"Oh, you bet I do! In fact, I just might go back to Terra to study artificial intelligence, so I can be of some real worth here."
Jodie stopped and turned to face him, looking up at him in the moonlight. "You are already," she said. "And anything you really need to know, you can learn right here."
Suddenly, Arlan understood why Chono had decided to stay.