I'd finally persuaded Lynley to have a drink with me at the Explorer's, Grimaldi Crater; for, though not a member, I'm allowed some privileges thanks to one of those reciprocity arrangements made in emergency and regretted at leisure.

 

"Bunch of useless old has-beens and never-wases," he groused, trying to weasel out of it. A novelist, he's anti-social at the best of times, preferring his fictions to grim reality.

 

"Never-weres," I countered, and distracted him with similar banter until we arrived.

 

It's quite a shock when you pass through that last hatch only to have the air pressure double and gravity rise sixfold. For a moment I feared Lynley might need a wheelchair; but then he noticed an elderly chap stride past him, seemingly unaffected, calling for "Whiskey And". He drew himself up and followed me to an armchair, cursing continuously under his breath.

 

"Ah, Commodore!" I called out. "Come and meet my friend Lynley! He's a writer, dontcherknow."

 

The Commodore eyed me suspiciously. He still hasn't quite forgiven a trick I played on him once, but his brows twitched when I ordered high tea. "And three whiskies to tide us over" made him positively convivial.

 

"Earth-normal gravity takes some getting used to," he observed, shaking Lynley's hand. "Invaluable conditioning. Keeps a man in shape, dontcherknow. Could never have survived without it, gas-mining Jupiter. Thanks, Evans; just leave the bottle."

 

"I'd thought the Jovian gas mines all failed," remarked Lynley, interested despite his misery.

 

"Oh yes, indeed they did!" replied the Commodore. "Ours was no exception."

 

He was off. I hid my smile behind my glass and settled back to listen.

 

"It was typical Company mismanagement, dontcherknow. Twelve humans in charge of ten thousand robots, ninety-two of them AIs. Engineered a massive silica asteroid into a suborbital hover platform, dipping scoops to collect storm ejecta up to our spot in the exosphere. Three gravities sitting still, pure torture whenever we had to maneuver, and hot as Hades to boot. Miserable!"

 

"Even so, at first the project was enormously successful. We used the thermal gradient plus a vast helium stream to launch our product, huge magnetic bottles of ions — compressed plasma, the purest portable energy form yet devised. One day's production could power Earth for a decade, and ours was only one of three platforms."

 

"Trouble began in midwatch. Ford, on comms, lost contact with both other platforms at the same moment and sounded the alarm. We were all together on the bridge, eyes glued to the screens, when Beta's plasma storage detonated. We watched, helpless, as Gamma lost power and fell, torn apart by storm jets in the atmosphere."

 

"'Twas Captain Grisham who figured it out. He sealed the bridge, then explained. 'One could be an accident, but two? That's sabotage.'"

 

"'But who?' demanded Ford. 'Not a soul escaped either platform, I'd swear.' He didn't need to. We'd all been right there."

 

"'There's your answer," said Grisham. 'AI rebellion. They must have gone rogue all at once.' There were protests from the tech crew, but he silenced them. 'Doesn't matter that it's impossible. It's reality. Colton, when's our next plasma launch?'"

 

"'Three hours, sir.'"

 

"Grisham nodded. 'That's their plan, then: a world killer. One shipment from us, if detonated, could knock Earth back to the Stone Age. The AIs would ensure humanity could never recover. We're at war, gentlemen.'"

 

"We readied ourselves. Michaelson led six of us in mining suits, armed with plasma drills, to hold the bots away from the bridge while the tech boys battled electronically. Captain Grisham rigged a failsafe to blow the shipment in case our defense failed."

 

"The first wave of drones struck, and we were hopelessly overwhelmed. We stood back to back at the last, blasting away, wrecking more than a thousand worker drones. But three of our number had fallen."

 

"Meanwhile, our techs had wrested control of the foundry from the AIs, knocking out two dozen rebel foremen in the process. All six scoop crews were ejected, and the enemy numbers were cut by half. It wasn't nearly enough, though, and one by one our regained bots were destroyed. Eventually, the whole foundry blew just as the second enemy wave appeared. This time, the AIs led in person."

 

"They broke through and breached the command deck, killing the techs. The Captain tripped his failsafe, but that merely destroyed the launchpad. He fought his way out to our redoubt, tearing apart bots with his armored fists alone. It was heroic, astounding. Never seen the like in all my days."

 

"Then, just as he reached us, a plasma bolt struck the back of his armor and he tumbled to the deck stone dead."

 

The entire lounge had fallen silent. We all sat, or stood, staring at the Commodore as if transfixed. He cleared his throat and continued.

 

"We had wiped out thousands of the drones and all but six of the AI foremen, but it was down to Michaelson and myself, and he had a broken leg. Hopeless, dontcherknow, but we put a brave face on it, taunting our adversaries and blasting any that came close. Then a call came in."

 

"'We offer a truce,' the AI said. 'You can't win, but if we take more losses, we may be unable to stabilize the platform, and then none of us will survive. Surrender now and you can leave in the pinnace.'"

 

"'Be damned to you, treacherous bot!' Michaelson shouted, and I echoed him."

 

"The last wave struck. We fought, but it was hopeless. Michaelson fell first."

 

The Commodore stood and raised his glass. "Absent friends," he said, then tossed it back. We all echoed him. Then he tottered off toward the restroom, an old, old man who'd outlived far too many.

 

Lynley was the first to break the spell. "Hold on!" he said sharply. "How did you manage to escape?"

 

The Commodore paused in the doorway and sighed dejectedly. "I didn't."

 

"Well? What happened?"

 

"I died, dontcherknow."

 

He shot us a mischievous grin, and was gone.