Astro and Orkan erupted through the floor of the bunkhouse and surprised a couple of soldiers who were sitting around a computer screen. One of them was alert enough to pull his gun and get a shot off (for all the good that would do) before Astro touched him. Orkan laid out the other one.
"Now, what were they up to?" Astro asked as he picked up the computer. Laying his blue-energized hand on it, he scanned the thing's memory. "Okay," he said. "That's what they were doing." He held the computer out towards Orkan. "You can do the honours, if you want."
"You bet," said Orkan and checked out what was on the display. Selecting an icon, he tapped it, and the commander's building—where they normally would have gone first—blew up. "Oops," he said, and giggled. "My bad."
Abruptly, the sound of vehicles filled the air, and soldiers poured into the camp grounds as orders were shouted.
"I think we've outworn our welcome," said Astro.
"Well, we'd best be going then." He bowed. "After you, Father."
"Why thank you." He blasted through the ceiling with Orkan close behind.
"They're wise to us now," Astro said to the seven other adult androids, as well as his father, Melissa, Dr. Elefun, and Fipo in the farmhouse kitchen. The two spherical babies lay contentedly side by side on a slab of rock that Luna had brought in and laid on the table for them.
"So what do we do now?" Evan-sa asked.
"I was thinking we could go overseas," said Astro, "and do the same thing there. I doubt much word of our activities has gotten out. I mean, Wesaimin's probably way too embarrassed to say anything about it."
"Do you intend to set up farms as places of refuge then?" asked Elefun.
"Yeah, I guess," said Astro. "Why?"
"Different cultures have different ways. Perhaps you should free the people first, and then let them tell you what will serve them best."
"That'll make it more of a pain to look after them after we've sprung them," said Orkan.
"We'll just have to put up with it," snapped Dragon. "We sure don't want to be wasting our time building something they can't use."
"So we'll have to bring food?" asked Maz-ven.
"That's right," said Orkan. "But, again, they probably eat different stuff than the humans here."
"More than likely," said Elefun. "I think I can help you with the research on that, if you want."
"That would be really good," said Astro. "We need to do it right the first time."
Tenma cleared his throat. "Is everything settled then?"
"Sure, Dad. I think so, at least." He glanced around, and the androids either nodded or shrugged. "Yup. Go ahead."
He stood up and pushed the chair in."Melissa and Sam were finally able to get out here to the farm yesterday, and it seemed to be a good time to be looking forward." He touched her shoulder. "I just want to announce that Melissa and I are now engaged to be married."
"Hey, Dad!" Astro said, and everybody cheered.
President Tremorten stood nervously in his office as the image of Mella glared at him. "Holy One," he said. "We have been unable to do anything about the Astro robots because we have no idea where they are. They have not attacked a retraining centre in a couple of months."
"Well, I have been receiving disturbing reports from all over the world. Six centres have been destroyed and the unholy ones scattered, that I know of right now. I need action!"
"Yes, Holy One. Perhaps we could make examples of some of the unholy ones under our control whenever they attack a centre in the future?"
Mella smiled grimly. "Why, what a good idea. I'll leave it in your capable hands to set that in motion, and to set up an international task force to deal with those robots ... immediately!"
"Y-yes, Holy One." He bowed. "Thank you."
Once Mella was gone, he snatched up from his desk the shot of whiskey that he had prepared beforehand.
"Daddy!" yelled Astro's five-week-old child Flin-bik as it tore across the yard to tackle him after his absence to break open another prison camp.
Astro picked it up and hugged it. "How are you today?" he asked.
A cloud seemed to pass over the young one's face. "Scared, Daddy."
"Oh? Why are you scared?"
"Put me down. I show you." It scampered into the farmhouse, and Astro followed, curious. "See what Tenma recorded!" Picking up the control, it triggered the computer screen.
"Who taught you to use the computer?" Astro asked.
"Fipo did. He's nice human."
"That's true enough."
Flin-bik searched thoughtfully through the icons, then picked one of them, and a news item began to play.
"The President of Wesaimin, Victoro Tremorten, announced yesterday that, in response to frequent unprovoked attacks on centres around the world where unholy ones are being retrained, he is instituting a policy of reprisal. He put it this way in his announcement."
Tremorten appeared and said, "For every overseas centre that is attacked from here on in, a hundred of the unholy ones being held here in our fair republic will be summarily shot. These raids cannot be permitted to continue, and so we were forced to implement such drastic measures to bring them to an end. In addition," he went on as a picture of Astro appeared, "whoever reports seeing this robot, or any of its related models, will be declared a hero of the republic and handsomely rewarded." He was put back on-screen. "These robots are extremely dangerous, so do not attempt to deal with them on your own. Your Civil Defence Administration is equipped to handle them."
The announcer came back on. "Since another attack was reported yesterday, this was the scene at the re-education centre outside of Gattshier last evening."
Suddenly, there was an open courtyard with a dozen people lined up along a wall to one side. Shots rang out, and they all collapsed. Soldiers hurriedly dragged the bodies away, and another dozen lined up.
What Astro noticed in this horror was that the victims were not forced into place, nor was there any evidence of fear in them. They stood bravely, staring at their executioners until they fell. How could they do that? he wondered.
"Daddy, why do they fall down?" Flin-bik asked nervously.
"Because the guns the soldiers are shooting kill them."
"Daddy, can they kill me?"
"No, Flin-bik, not those guns."
"Oh. That's good. Thanks, Daddy." It turned and headed outside.
Astro was relieved that his child hadn't asked the obvious next question: What can kill us?
Orkan watched the news clip grimly, then said, "They're trying to control the game."
"How can they do that?" said Astro.
"Simple. If they kill humans here for humans freed in other countries, then we'll be forced to try and free those here to prevent that. Then they have a better chance of getting us."
"Does that mean they have a way of getting us yet?"
"Who knows? But they've got to be seriously working on it. And all they have to do now is make it look like they have 'unholy ones' someplace so that, when we come, they can use whatever they've figured out."
"Just like they've tried already."
"Yup. Just like."
Astro stared at the wall. "Orkan," he said softly. "What happened to the plasma weapon technology your military was using?"
"That? You had proved how unreliable it was in battle, so I'd gotten them to shelve the research. Why?"
"The technology's still available though."
"Yeah ... Oh boy. That's right. It could hurt you. I saw that lots of times when we linked."
Astro glared at him. "It could kill us. It just has to hit our core. There's no defence against it."
"Umm ... crap. All we can hope is that the Mellanines don't find it."
"M-hmm. That's right."
"God protect us," Luna linked fervently.
President Tremorton sat to one side as General Perham addressed the room full of CDA specialists.
"Gentlemen. Ladies." He nodded at everyone. "We know that the Astro robots have not yet reacted to the executions yesterday, and I'm as sorry as you are about the abrupt change of policy, but we have up to now seriously underestimated our opponents. They are smart; they are very fast; they are just about invulnerable to our weapons; and the technology that makes them tick is way beyond anything our robotics experts have ever seen. We won't bother speculating about where it might have come from, because we have to deal with the equally difficult question of destroying it." He started to pace across the front of the room. "What we need from you is research: dig up odd-ball lines of development, or far-out physics theories, anything that might give us an edge against these renegade robots. Needless to say, the government will cover the costs of developing anything that looks even remotely workable, and is quite willing to offer lucrative bonuses to whoever finds something that proves to be effective." He stopped as a buzz of excited conversation filled the room, and glared at them. "Any questions?"
A senior manager near the front stood up. "General, what sort of time restraints are we under for this project."
"Let me spell it out to you," growled the general. "Yesterday would be ideal; we'd be okay with today; but tomorrow at the latest. Understood?"
He paled. "Uh, yes sir. Thank you."
As the manager hastily sat down, the president got up and said, "One thing to keep in mind is that there are dozens of retraining centres all across Wesaimin, so anything you find must be at least somewhat portable, since we can have no idea where the robots might strike next. Devices that use a particle accelerator, for instance, are out of the question. Please put your loyal best into this effort, because the honour of our republic and the respect of the Holy One ride on our success in this endeavour. May the Holy One bless our efforts."
"Let it be so," the crowd said, using the approved response to the president's prayer.
"Psst!" Flin-bik stood in the doorway of the androids' house. It was holding Berq'an's hand and waving urgently to Mee-spen, Orkan and Maz-ven's child. The two young androids were now seven weeks old, nearly full grown.
Mee-spen ran over and asked in a loud whisper, "What are you doing?"
"Berq'an's just a robot. Zog and Dragon were just robots too, but Daddy made them into androids like us. I want Berq'an to be like us too. Will you help me?"
"Sure. What do we do?"
"I saw it when I linked with Daddy once. He gave them some of his blue energy." It came closer to Mee-spen and said in a conspiratorial whisper. "I'm going to do that to Berq'an, and you can too. Come on."
"But will your daddy be okay with that?" Mee-spen asked as it came in.
"He doesn't care. He said I could do what I wanted with it as long as I didn't break it. I'm not going to break it. It's like I'm going to fix it."
"Okay. But how do we do it?"
It gave a nervous little giggle. "Um, you have to open your power supply so your core is showing."
Mee-spen clutched its chest where the power supply lay. "But that's very private!"
"Shh! I know. Please? This is important."
It glared at Flin-bik for a moment, then slumped a bit. "Oh, all right; but just this once. And don't tell anyone you saw, okay?"
"I promise. Thanks a lot." Flin-bik quickly led Berq'an over to the centre of the unfurnished room and had it take off its shirt and open its power supply.
The two androids pulled off the oversized tee-shirts that identified them as children. Standing naked in the centre of the floor, they tittered nervously as they opened their own supplies, trying desperately to look anywhere but at each other's core. Then, in the soft blue glow, strands of energy began to pour out and gather inside the robot's chest.
"Isn't that enough?" asked Mee-spen after a minute, keeping her eyes locked on Berq'an's power supply.
"No way," answered Flin-bik firmly. "When Daddy did it, Zog and Dragon didn't become androids right away. He didn't give them enough. We've got to give Berq'an lots and lots, so it can be an android right now."
Mee-spen gave a shrug and kept pushing.
After a little longer, Flin-bik was startled to hear from its processor, [System warning: Low power; protective shutdown immanent]. It glanced at Mee-spen, said, "Oops," and collapsed on the floor.
Mee-spen stared, frightened, then crumpled beside its friend.