The Ghost of Resartus

Part 1 of 2

by

Christopher Stasheff

Copyright 1993

 

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 spiraling down through the night to tear up the fields; others landed more gently.  But from each one, a  horde of serpentine bodies poured—serpents 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 Bolos—but outnumbered them twenty to one.

The Bolos roared at them, hurling fire, and the smaller tanks died—but 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 gallantry—Milagso.

 

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, period—but 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 professor—no, a teaching fellow.  Not old enough to be a professor, yet.

"Come on along—I'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 hovercar.  "Hope you don't get sick of it too soon—chuck 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 tuition—yard 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, Chono said, "The volunteers are the life-blood of this colony, Arlan.  Oh, sure, there's always the odd one who's here on dreams alone—grew 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 protect­ing—but 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 down—and 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 volunteer 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 conveniences—but 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 built—and 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 modem machinery out here—but 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, frowning.  "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 did—the 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 them—they 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 mission—the development of this colony."

"Something seems wrong about that."

"I know—helping this colony succeed isn't a military objective.  But we need their help—we probably couldn’t survive without it—so we're not about to protest."

"Unless the colony itself is a military objective…?"

"I suppose we are," Chono said.  "As long as there humans here, the snakes aren't—but 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 planet—and you wouldn't believe the cost of importing even just the ore.  We couldn't pay it, anyway—we don't produce much of a cash crop."

"But—doesn'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 mean—you 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 Bolo—even 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 piece—and 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 it—for 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 here—we 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 close—not just a relic from pioneering days.  It was also a sight that summed up the whole nature of the colony—a 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 clear—a 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 now 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 day—and ribald joking about who was eyeing whom.  The only damper on the hilarity was the rifle slung over Rita’s shoulder—and 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 worry—we'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 know—and 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 us—and traditions always have their reasons, Arlan."

Arlan was going to get sick of hearing about the good reasons for traditions in the next few weeks—especially 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 peaceful—but it was a conviction that wavered as soon as he came in sight of one of the huge machines.  "Uh—couldn'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 have—gentle as kittens, and strong as earthquakes.  But come on—it'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 friend—an 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 comfort—but 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 learning—he'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 marveled 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't—it'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 attention—but 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 siesta—everyone insisted it was too hot to work.  But when things cooled down in late afternoon, back they went for another four hours' labor—and 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.  "Morning, Miles!"

"Good morning, 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 bandits—not 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 blighters—but at least they were predict­able."  Arlan only wished that the Bolo was—or 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, Arlan—including 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 come—Arlan 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 did—but 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, now—at  all hours."

"You said, ‘nearly.’"

“That is correct.  One must never underestimate the enemy."

“They might always have a new surprise in store."  Arlan out over the quiet countryside, imagining detection-proof landing craft, invisible parachutes—any number off technological innovations.

He neglected the oldest and simplest way of bring­ing in living creatures.  There was no shame in that, though—so had everyone else in the colony.  The Bolos could be forgiven for not thinking of it—they 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 swiveled 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 grumbled—but 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?

TO BE CONTINUED...

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