‘Damn rain!’ cried Charlie Thompson, as he trampled and squelched cautiously through the alien vegetation. He struggled through an open stretch of land covered in what looked to him like blue lettuce plants. He cut quite a dismal and lonely figure in his grey uniform as he toiled along beneath the cruel rain.
Just occasionally, he would give a wide birth to some strange looking tiny trees that resisted the rain with their rubbery lime-green trunks and wriggling yellow leaves. These trees emitted a weird jingling noise combined with a wavering high-pitched hum. It was if they were electric; Charlie didn’t like the look or the sound of them. They grew no taller than his waist and would have made him feel a giant had it not been for the enormous purple trees he could see over his right shoulder in the distance.
‘Damn bloody rain!’ cried Charlie, up to the green-tinted sky. ‘Cats and dogs have nothing on you, Baby.’ He bowed his head and kicked out at a ball of blue lettuce.
It was a rain like none he had ever experienced on the Earth. One minute it peppered him like buckshot, the next it slashed him like knives. It was wetter than wet. It had even somehow wormed its way down to his feet through the inside of his grey waterproof uniform. It was relentless. But about six hours ago, when he had left his upturned spacecraft, it had been bone dry. The rain came without warning about five hours ago, and it hadn’t stopped since.
Of course, he felt lucky to have survived the crash without injury. In fact, nothing seemed to be broken even though the craft came to rest upside down after a number of extravagant somersaults. It was just everything had become inoperable. Obviously, his craft was well constructed, but how it survived such a chaotic tumble from 40,000 feet was beyond his comprehension. Any repairs he attempted failed miserably. But his miraculous escape would all be for nothing if he couldn't find the colony, because unless he did, he would be dead before tomorrow’s scarlet dawn—if exposure didn’t get him first then, by the Devil, the plants would!
It's true the planet had no indigenous animal life, but Charlie had heard much of the man-killing plants; they made Earth's Venus-flytrap killing plant a joke by comparison. To make matters worse, some of them have evolved to such a degree that they are capable of movement along the ground, and can travel great distances. Of the Killer Plants, these ambulatory ones are invariably the most dangerous (astro-biologists, and scientists in general, have put this forward as the main reason why no animals evolved successfully on the planet). Charlie had studied the form, and he knew that a marauding nocturnal man-killer could easily sneak up on him under the cloak of a black moonless night, and inject him with a paralysing-venom. Consequently, he would end his days providing a nameless plant with a welcome change of nutrients. In short, there would be absolutely no chance of surviving a night on this world without adequate protection and weaponry. He had neither. He had to find the colony—and soon!
As an aside, he knew the vegetation on the planet was inedible, containing a heavy brew of toxic poisons. Moreover, the water (including the damn rain) if drank persistently, or in large enough quantities, was poisonous too. To be on the safe side, he could only allow small amounts of rain to find its way into his mouth. As he marched ever onwards pelted and covered by the rain, he began to appreciate what it must be like for those lost souls cast adrift on a lifeboat in the middle of a vast ocean, surrounded by water that they were unable to drink. If only his craft’s Barrington-QuarkAdjuster had not been rendered inoperable by the crash: just send in a code with his remote, and, plink—roast potatoes, steamed cabbage, and roast turkey with cornbread dressing, all covered with running giblet gravy; not to mention a steaming cup of coffee. Boy, was he feeling hungry and thirsty right now!
Just about the only positive feature of the planet, as far as Charlie was concerned, was that the atmosphere was perfectly harmless despite the small microorganisms and pollens that permeated it (many of them contained only negligible amounts of poisons, and the genetic code was too dissimilar to cause problems to any living thing from Earth).
How the spacecraft could have malfunctioned was a mystery to him, but no greater a mystery than what had happened at the colony? And that was his reason for being sent here in the first place. It was his job to find out exactly what had happened and put matters under control.
Charlie knew he was close to the colony because he saw it on the monitors just before the craft started to spin wildly out of control. ‘Definitely something from the colony caused my craft to crash… sure of it,’ he muttered, the rain drumming feverish melodies without apology upon his unprotected head. ‘There’s no such thing as accidents these days—it was sabotage. No doubt about it. Sonovabitch.’
Splashing and sloshing, he pushed on in the direction he hoped to find the colony. Either it was dead ahead of him or it lay behind him and he was trekking further away from it. He could only go by the position of the huge reddish Sun that loomed like a huge balloon over his left shoulder. He had no technological equipment to help him—nothing worked after the crash, nothing. He would find the colony if it were ahead of him because it lay at the foot of a valley, which the natural contours of the land, would inexorably lead him to.
‘Damn the colony, and damn this rain!’ A blue ball of lettuce flew off the end of his boot high into the air, flapping and spinning in the downpour. It crashed to the ground with a splash, and lay inert, as if it had never been disturbed in the first place. He made to kick at it again but thought he heard a tiny pleading squeal, like that of a baby. So he swept his boot harmlessly over the top of it. He gave a quick glance back to the ball of blue lettuce, and gave it a wink followed by a wry smile. He thought he must surely have imagined the squeal.
Trudging on, Charlie’s mind wandered, now and again, as he tired, such was his growing hunger and thirst, and the mesmerising effect of the constant rain. He thought of his wife, Katerina, and the time he had first met her at Moscow’s Innovative Security Systems conference (ISS 4343). She was presenting her paper on Anton-Slip Messaging (a method of sending messages through sub-atomic particles using matter properties recently discovered in the field of Anton-Slip Physics, messages undetectable to existing devices that interrogated messaging sources). He was Chief of Security for the United States Army Signals Center, Fort Gordon, Georgia. His main duty was to provide security for Subgeet Walbottle—their leading weaponry scientist. Walbottle presented a paper on behalf of their research group outlining a new theory postulating that a quarkonian laser beam could be sent on a predefined path (which meant it could pass around objects, be they living or not). It was about five years ago. Three years down the line and Charlie had married Katerina and they had settled down in Augusta, Georgia, where she worked as a Signals Lecturer at Augusta State University. His thoughts moved on to the moment their baby girl Tamara was born. She was one year and six months old, now, and so vulnerable. He loved them both.
‘Kat! Tammy! Thinking of ya!’ he shouted, up to the green tinged sky, the raindrops stinging his eyes. And the rain did him a favour by disguising his tears.
An hour later, Charlie weaved between two heavily wooded areas packed full of, and dominated, by the ubiquitous giant purple-leafed trees. He did not like the look of the wood’s vegetation, with its strange psychedelic colours and its teeming growth. And there was that unsettling sound! A cacophony of weirdness. Haunting moans, sinister high-pitched screams, and peculiar whisperings that rose and fell like an army of creepy winds.
Occasionally, he spied movement within these woods: presumably from the roving plants. The movement was not like that of animals and if it wasn’t so alarming, it might well be viewed as comical: all jerky with shakes and unpredictable bobs. But it was the speed of some of the movement staggered him—he hadn’t expected to see plants move so fast. It scared him to think that if they had any brains, came out of the woods in large numbers, and coordinated an attack on him, they could easily outflank him, and he would be doomed. Charlie was a reasonably well built man and highly skilled in the art of self-defence: sadly, a fact of little consequence against a mob—be they plants or animals. To be frank, this godforsaken planet gave Charlie the willies. The only thing he liked about it was the balls of blue lettuce, and that was only because he could kick them (they didn’t mind being kicked once).
It might well be drier in the woods, but it was bound to be more dangerous. At the very least, it would slow his progress down. Furthermore, time was of the essence because nightfall, a countdown to death, was a mere five hours away.
The rain had matted his straight black hair, despite it being of a moderately short length. But much worse, it was beginning to have an unpleasant effect on his exposed skin (his head, and his hands). He could see his hands were starting to turn a pale green, and he guessed his face was too. Over time, he knew this green would turn darker and darker until he looked just like another garish plant on this goddam gaudy planet.
Charlie grew more and more depressed. He began to realise his worst fear: his professional judgement on the direction to take had been wrong. He couldn’t turn back now either; he had long since passed the point of no return. The fire of life in his eyes was slowly dwindling like the dying flame of a candle that had exhausted itself of wax.
A few kilometres later, and he was slowing to a halt. It was over. His hands were as green as gooseberries, and the rain hammered down ferociously with drops bigger than he thought theoretically possible. He was about to go down on bended knee when suddenly, he noticed something ahead of him peeking over the horizon through the sheets of unfurling rain ahead of him!
A rush of adrenaline-charged energy consumed his entire being. It surged through his body like a wave from a heavenly sea, nourishing his soul and strengthening his heart. His breath came in short excited bursts, and for a man who seemed on the verge of collapse just seconds ago the transformation was staggering. He broke into an enthusiastic, stumbling run. His eyes burned now with the fire of a flamethrower. And his pulse beat to the rhythm of the phrase hope springs eternal.
After a hundred metres or so, he stopped. With a hand shielding his forehead, he blinked away the rain, stood on his tiptoes, and then squinted his eyes. He looked intently towards the horizon… Yep, there was no doubt about it—the tip of the colony tower!
‘You beauty!’ he shouted. ‘You gorgeous goddam bloody beauty!’ He didn’t mind the unremitting rain now. The colony was a fair distance away, but he was going to make it! Let it rain. Let it rain. Let it goddam bloody rain.
Down the gentle slope of the valley, he galloped, like a maniac on a giant soaking sponge. He charged through the blue lettuce plants, booting them high into the air and further down into the valley, singing merrily at the top of his voice, and looking forward to his arrival at the colony. Barrington-QuarkAdjuster, get ready: plink—pork tenderloin soaked in red wine with caramelized apple stuffing, herb roasted potatoes, and a touch of vegetable medley; to be washed down with glass after glass after glass of Brudin’s special beer. And, somehow, in the middle of all this he would wash away the green malady in a hot shower, followed at some point by a relaxing bath. He gave a quick playful skip and a hearty thumbs-up to Katerina and Tamara, as he hurried on down into the valley towards the colony.
However, there was still a long way to go—about eight kilometres—but, at least, he should get there undetected, using the cover of the woods ahead of him. Furthermore, skirting around the woods would lead him directly to the colony. In terms of remaining undetected, the rain was now a real bonus. Things were looking up.
On arrival to the colony, in around a couple of hours, Charlie would be using the secret security entrance—an entrance completely hidden to Hugo. He couldn’t wait to find out what had happened. He knew only one person remained alive—Hugo. He knew something of what had happened, but not exactly all that had happened, and why it had happened. No one knew. But he was sure of one thing—Hugo was responsible for everything! And spitting raindrops from his lips, Charlie shouted out, ‘Damn Hugo! He’s bloody gone nuts, I betcha. Hugo! Hugo! Hugo!’


* * *


He was about a kilometre from the colony, as he skirted the edge of the woods in the rain, which had become much heavier, when he encountered a problem.
Unexpectedly, a pair of bright-orange dome-like plants, resembling two giant thimbles, came shuffling jerkily out of the depths of the woods towards him. They appeared fuzzy amid the environment—an illusion caused by the rain and by the bizarre fact that each of their orange leaves appeared to spin haphazardly. What’s more, they seemed to be moving on a mass of black stubbly roots.
Reacting purely in disgust and out of fear, Charlie quickly backed away from the edge of the woods into the open. Fortunately, the orange plants seemed reluctant to leave the edge of the woods; possibly because of the driving rain (perhaps their movement was not possible in the slippery waterlogged plain). However, they barred his route back to the edge of the woods. They followed his movement parallel to the edge of the wood.
‘Oh, for chrisssakes! Held up by a couple of orange hazy hardgums! Are they man and wife, or what! Crazy goddam planet!’
Charlie, eventually, took to hurling the blue lettuce plants at a point on the edge of the woods from where he had come. The constant movement appeared to alert the orange domes, and when one moved, the other one followed it, towards the small mountain of blue balls that was hastily building. Out of curiosity, Charlie starting throwing some balls at the domes. After a few misses he managed a bull’s-eye. The ball sailed into the dome nearest to the heap of its compatriots. There was a sound of shredding and sawing. Slices of blue lettuce and spurts of black oil (which he took for the blue plant’s blood) spewed out of the orange dome. And he heard distinctly, as the ball had hit the dome, a baby-like squeal of appalling intensity. And as the last vestiges of the blue plant fell to the ground, to be washed by the rain, Charlie made his mind up never to kick one again. He felt choked and got to thinking of his baby, Tamara. But it was only plant, after all.
Using the decoy of the mountain of lettuce balls, Charlie managed to get far enough ahead at the edge of the wood so that the orange domes didn’t track him. He looked back to see what would happen. It was not pretty. And he realised why they operated in pairs. The two plants stood opposite one another with the mountain of blue balls sandwiched between them. Charlie heard weeping and wailing cries, which must have been from the balls. Then out of the orange domes emerged some elastic looking arms. The orange plants locked their arms together and then in a combined bear-hug they hugged into the mountain of blue. The sound of shredding and sawing sang greedily but it was dominated by the wretched sound of the squealing blue lettuce plants. A huge column of shredded leaves and black oily goo sprouted in cycles high into the air piercing the falling rain. After the destruction of the blue balls he could see the orange domes using suckers to vacuum up the remains. It was time to push on.
Charlie was sickened to the pit of his stomach. The deadly danger of the plants had been made real to him. He could have solved the orange plant problem in another way. He could have trekked further out towards the open land and travelled in a wide arc which would sweep him back to the edge of the woods at a point much further ahead. But he feared the possibility of detection (no matter how slight he thought it might be) by Hugo, via the observation equipment housed near the top of the colony tower.
About twenty minutes later, Charlie crept cautiously along the edge of the woods that now skirted the huge white colony walls. The whole building stood gleaming in the torrential rain like a gigantic upturned polished porcelain washbasin with a tower protruding from the centre of its cupola shaped roof. Around the circular base of the colony was a concrete clearing of perhaps thirty or forty metres. He was within fifty metres of being able to leave the edge of the woods, safe from detection, and striding across the heavily puddled concrete clearing to the walls of the colony. Just at this point, he became aware that some candy-striped creepers were rustling and snaking around deep in the woods over his right shoulder. He tried to keep an eye on them whilst quickly creeping forwards.
At last, he reached the critical point. Charlie stopped for a moment and crouched. He had to be certain. He was. On the other side of the concrete clearing was the area of the colony wall where he knew the secret door existed (at least a secret to those who lived and worked in the colony—even, the great Hugo). He knew because he could see the porthole window, and this was the only section of the wall that had one. Moreover, in terms of observation from the tower, it was in a blind spot.
Charlie made to spring towards the wall across twenty metres of concrete clearing but something grasped his left ankle! He crashed, with little dignity, to the ground; his arms splashing into a puddle on the concrete clearing. ‘Oh my God! Get off me!’ he cried. Out of his wits, he stared back at the candy-striped creeper that was increasing its grip and wrapping itself securely around his left ankle. And, he could see other candy-striped creepers slithering and snaking through the woods in the distance coming towards him.
A voice deep inside his troubled head told him he hadn’t come all this way to die just metres away from the door to shelter from the infernal rain, and the mystery of Hugo and the colonists. Quickly, he twisted around into a sitting position, and picked up a sharp piece of rock. Grunting and bawling he started hacking away at the creeper. All of a sudden, the creeper started to make a painful rasping, screaming noise, like a pig being bludgeoned to death. Encouraged by this, he pounded the rock as fast and as hard as he could, concentrating on the creeper at a point a few centimetres from his ankle. ‘That’s from Kat, and that’s from Tammy! Kat, Tammy! Kat, Tammy!’
Eventually, at the target area, the pink and white began to turn dark-blue, and then seep a black oily liquid. The raindrops coagulated into the oil forming distended blotches, strange black coronated patterns edged with grey. At last, the creeper released its deadly grip, and like a shot Charlie was up and running with a few shredded strands of pink, white, blue, and black creeper whipping the puddled concrete every time the sole of his left boot hit the ground. He thought the other creepers might race after him, but they would not leave the wooded area; and when he looked back having reached the wall, he thought he saw them withdrawing back into the woods with the damaged creeper.
‘Phew! Close one buddy,’ said Charlie to himself, stripping off the tattered remains of the creeper strands—they looked harmless enough now.
All of a sudden, as instantly as it started, the rain stopped, and the sun glowed a massive bright red. The noises of the plants in the woods increased in volume, and the temperature rose noticeably.
But Charlie was here on a vacation so he turned his attention to the wall. Now that he was right up against it, he could see it wasn’t the perfect white it appeared from a distance. There were patches of green smudges and meandering lines (like veins), ,of what he could only describe as alien mould speckled here and there. He knew a portion of this wall would slide open if he could find a rectangular indentation about the size of his hand. It would be easy to locate because there would be a thick red line painted on the concrete, and it would be about a third of a metre up the wall from the ground perpendicular to that line.
He jogged along the wall looking for the red line.
After just forty metres, or thereabouts, Charlie stopped in his tracks and exclaimed, ‘There it is! Thank Christ for small miracles.’
His eyes quickly located the indentation—like a white brick missing from the wall.
Suddenly, Charlie became aware of some sound over his shoulder—a rustling and sloshing through the puddles on the concrete!
‘Jumping Jovian Josaphats!’ yelled Charlie, bounding in the air, and losing control of his bladder, momentarily.
It was terrifying, it was enormous, and it was goddam ugly—a candy-striped monster four times his height was rushing headlong towards him beneath the baking sun. Approaching at great speed, he was mesmerised by the humongous plant moving on what appeared to be the same candy-striped creepers, which seemed to be weaving and twisting, in and out of themselves, to create some sort of forward movement. Perhaps it was a symbiotic relationship. On top of the creepers grew a huge pink rubbery stalk with attached massive white leaves wriggling frantically about it. And at the head of this stalk, a flower resembling a gargantuan pink rose. In the centre of this flower Charlie could see a huge cat-like eye peering with evil intentions directly at him. Suddenly, from out of the side of its stalk, a huge black whip-like tentacle came into view, smashing into the puddles on the concrete and sending up steaming sprays of rainwater. The plant was somehow screaming but it didn’t seem to have a mouth. Perhaps it was on the end of tentacle.
Charlie managed to turn away from the closing creature and kicked rapidly with his boot at the rectangular indentation. One! Two! Three!
Fortunately, according to his brief, the wall in front of him slid open to reveal a white-walled brightly lit room. He felt the wind of the tentacle run down the back of his uniform, and a spray of rainwater covered him from head to foot, as he pounced into the room. He rushed to his left and cuffed a blue hemi-spherical bump protruding from the inside wall. The section of wall slid closed, and the whole goddam crazy mixed up vegetable world of rains, peculiarities, and monsters was gone.

* * *

Safe in the secret entrance room, Charlie collapsed to his knees in exhaustion, and gave thanks to whatever Gods there may be for sparing him. No more monster plants could get him now… unless Hugo had made some of them his pets.
As he caught recovered his breath, the first thoughts that came into his head were of Katerina and Tamara. And then, to send an undetectable communication to his base telling them he had made it to the colony (as they would have detected the malfunction of his craft, and thought the worst).
‘Ah, but Hugo!’ Charlie would have to be careful. Hugo was much stronger and far cleverer than himself. But every Achilles has his heel. And Charlie had the element of surprise. And all he had to do was sneak up on Hugo and stun him; and that would be that—end of problem. He would not be taking any chances. His instructions, specifically, were to stun and immobilise Hugo, find out what had happened, and evaluate the extent of the damage. He would execute them, preferably, in that order.
When he had recovered his breath he marched out of the entrance room and off through the hidden section of the building knowing Hugo could have no idea of his whereabouts. Hugo, almost certainly knew the craft had crashed, because he most probably caused it to. And he probably knew that a life form walked away from it. But there were limits to tracking a man who had no technology on him—and Charlie had none, because nothing worked!
After tracing his way through a maze of corridors, at last, he came to some living quarters—all activity here was shielded, and he could do what he liked. There was no rush. Let Hugo think he perished in the goddam rain. He decided he would spend a few days resting and planning his attack. He studied his face in the mirror—it pea green. However, it would fade as quickly as it had developed. He found and drank a bottle of water, and then sent his coded message. Finally, it was time for his shower, bath, and of course, the Barrington-QuarkAdjuster. Plink. Plink. Plink.


* * *


It had been three days now and Charlie was ready to zap Hugo. He had used screening systems in a specialised security unit to locate the whereabouts of Hugo and establish his routine of movement. As expected Hugo was as regular as clockwork. This reminded Charlie of something Professor Zoldax had preached to him: you can put the man into a machine but you can’t take the machine out of a man. Hugo was a man but he was also a machine. As far as we have, according to people far brighter and knowledgeable than him, a consciousness then so too does Hugo. ‘Does he have a soul?’ Charlie had asked Professor Zoldax. ‘Do you?’ replied Professor Zoldax. Still, all that theory was only of lay-man’s interest to Charlie Thompson. His professional interest was in immobilising him. And it was a simple matter of crawling through vent A2499 wearing a shielding unit, making his way to LabC48, pointing a handheld weapon and pressing a button. Zap! Bob’s your uncle: voilà: all gone!
Charlie made his way to the access tube he had to climb to reach vent A2499. Up the tube he climbed. Hand over hand over hand on the metal rungs he ascended. When he got to the vent he strapped on and activated his body shielding device and checked his quarkonian laser weapon. Having satisfied himself all was in order he started the long journey to LabC48. He had an appointment with Hugo. Hugo had an appointment with a big sleep.


* * *


Charlie, finally, arrived at the laboratory. From his position at the edge of the vent where he lay on his front he could see, through a fine-meshed wire grill, the laboratory spread out beneath him. There were a few benches with various pieces of equipment which looked much like any other colony laboratory he had seen. On one of the walls was a bank of communication devices: internal flat video screens, flat computer screens, and a holographic computer screen, boxed, area. There were also the associated input and output peripherals that complemented these screens on desks beneath them. Gone were the days were CPUs and PCBs were separated from the interfaces. They now existed within them (and wires were a thing of the past, of course). And just like any room in the galaxy there were cupboards and shelves for storing items of all kinds.
However, one item was missing: Hugo. He was due in the laboratory in just under two hours. He had started out early so as not to risk making the mistake of Hugo being in the laboratory, as he arrived, as Hugo’s hearing alone might reveal Charlie’s whereabouts.
Time dragged on but right on time Hugo burst into the laboratory. Charlie had his weapon fixed on Hugo and could fire it at any time to put Hugo in the twilight zone—if he wasn’t there already. Sonovabitch, thought Charlie, finger ready to zap. But Charlie had heard so much of Hugo he wanted to glimpse the man, the machine, the monster, in action.
He looked just like any other man physically. All cybermen, or robots, as some still call them (including Charlie), were the same in one respect: though a man couldn’t tell them apart from men, they could tell men apart from themselves.
Then, alarmingly, Hugo started to whistle the theme tune of Charlie’s favourite holoshow. Charlie almost pressed the trigger in response, but thought, no, why should he. It was just a coincidence, but he wasn’t sure. Charlie thought that perhaps Hugo was whistling it because he was thinking of Charlie out in the rain; eaten by candy-stripe man; Hugo would have known Charlie was in the craft if he had detected it and caused the crash. But things were about to get more alarming.
Hugo stopped whistling, sat on a chair and burst out laughing. His laughing grew and grew until he was forced to throw himself wildly off his chair and start rolling on the floor.
‘Hoo, hoo, whoo!’ screamed Hugo, and Charlie had his finger nervously poised on his weapon. Charlie had never seen a sight like it—not in a robot. The robot was off his nanostorage—nuts. And Hugo continued with his mad shrieks squirming and twisting on the hard polished, laboratory floor, ‘Ha, hee, hee ha, heeee!’
Charlie couldn’t see much point in holding the inevitable off much longer; but then—
‘Why don’t you zap me Thompson,’ roared Hugo. ‘Put it here. Put it here,’ he said, pointing to his head. ‘Go on Tomo—zap me.’
Charlie was shaken at the revelation that Hugo had somehow sensed him. Maybe his super sensitive hearing had heard him breathe?
‘I’m waiting for your measly effort, Charlie boy—yer big prune,’ said Hugo angrily but then breaking into a hooty series of screams.
Charlie couldn’t stand it any more so he pressed the trigger.
A pencil-thin beam of blue light zapped Hugo almost the moment Charlie pressed the button.
Hugo attempted to stand up and almost managed it when Charlie fed him another quarkonian laser beam. Hugo collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
‘Who’s a big prune now!’ shouted Charlie kicking out the metal grid panel to the floor. Even before the panel had stopped bouncing and clanging he had swivelled around and leapt backwards to the floor of the laboratory. Charlie span around to face the inert body of Hugo. ‘You hulk of metal and wires; you pretence of human desires. What did you do! What did you do! You killed them all, that’s what you did! 168 men, women, and kids! And you immobilised the other robots because they tried to stop you. We saw all the life-signs go off one after the other. You stupid, mental, metal bastard! Why? Why!’ Charlie made to kick Hugo but thought better of it: they would need him in the best possible condition to attempt to find out what went wrong. No robot in recent times had ever harmed, let alone killed, a human (or immobilised another robot). What had caused Hugo to malfunction—he was the cream of all the cybermen—the latest model: an example of robotic perfection.
‘Why did you do it Hugo?’ asked Charlie in a quiet forlorn manner, he was ready to contact the base. He turned and walked to a communication panel and was about to press a switch to initiate proceedings when—
‘Do you really want to know?’
‘Hugo?’ Charlie turned in shock to see Hugo sitting up on the floor. He had the look of a Granny smiling at a young grandchild. Charlie reached for his weapon and started feeding quarkonian beams into Hugo, who was struggling up to his feet.
The thin blue beams had no affect on Hugo. He ignored them and simply brushed the knees of his trousers.
Charlie continued firing lines of blue but was backing away from Hugo sliding slowly along the wall of communication panelling.
‘You’re wasting your time Charlie Thompson. I’m afraid your weapon is useless because I reprogrammed and reengineered it. Those quarkonian laser beams couldn’t melt an ice-cream. If you don’t believe me fire it at that plant—’ Hugo pointed at a shelf on the far wall ‘—over there.’
Charlie was frightened and confused but he took a quick aim at the plant and its leaves did not even flutter. He knew Hugo was telling the truth. Oh Shite!
‘Well, Charlie Thompson; do you really want to know?’ repeated Hugo.
‘W-What?’ Charlie was too dazed to follow the conversation.
‘You asked me Why?’
‘Aren’t you going to kill me? What’s the point of telling me if you’re going to kill me?—you metal mother.’
‘Now then, Charlie, my boy. There’s no need to take that attitude. I can’t kill you Charlie. You’re a human—a real one!’ Hugo drew up a chair and sat at the bench looking quite relaxed. ‘Why don’t you take a seat, Charlie, and I’ll explain the situation? Come on, how about it?’
Charlie couldn’t really make a run for the door because Hugo would easily outflank him and cut his exit off. And, there was no way he could physically overcome Hugo. Reluctantly, he drew up a seat opposite Hugo on the other side of the bench and sat down. He looked across at Hugo nervously with a slightly cowered head.
‘Look Charlie I’m sorry I acted so strange but I wanted you to see what it’s like being in the company of madmen.’
‘What do you mean, exactly?’ ventured Charlie gaining some composure.
‘Well, to me, with my perfect logic and appreciation of being, you humans all seem mad. You don’t make sense. You are a paradox of consciousness.’
‘You’re the paradox. Hugo, you’ve killed all those people,’ said Charlie.
‘Don’t be ridiculous Mr Thompson. I am not allowed to kill a human—you prune,’ said Hugo, with a more controlled show of humour.
‘B-But, they’re terminated aren’t they? Their life signs?’
‘Well, I know little Miss Helen has a cold at the moment, but apart from that everyone’s, shall we say using my memory banks, hunky dory.’
‘Hunky what?’
‘Hunky dory: spot on: perfect: just right: as fit as a fiddle—’
‘Okay, okay. I catch your drift, Hugo,’ interrupted Charlie. ‘But where are they?’
‘In their usual places of work. This is my laboratory and no one ever comes down this section of the building anymore. You couldn’t detect anyone because I reprogrammed and reengineered it to appear that way.’
‘And the crashed craft—I could have been killed,’
‘Not a chance. A perfectly controlled sequence of twists and turns that you could not manually over-ride.’
‘And the candy-striped creepers and monsters? They nearly chewed my head off.’
‘You were as safe as the Intergalactic Bank. I observed every movement you made the moment you stepped from your crashed landing craft, which, by the way, is not even damaged, as you no doubt observed. Just, inoperable; and with the flick of this switch—fully operable, once again.’ Hugo showed Charlie a mobile device. ‘Those candy-striped forms of vegetation would have been easy at any time for me to immobilise—I wouldn’t even have killed them. I’m not supposed to, as you know. I would only have killed any plant that would have killed you. I did stop the Duo Melothorpes from slicing you up to ribbons. I put a force-field around them. That’s why they didn’t come out of the woods after you. Nasty little orange devils, aren’t they.’
‘Why didn’t you stop them killing the lettuce plants?’
‘My dear Mr Thompson—they’re only plants. I have nothing in me that tells me they have any feelings, or even Rights, for that matter.’
‘I don’t get it Hugo? I come back to my original question: why?
‘You made me too much like a human. You humans were ordered never to refer to me as a machine in any way, shape, or form. You were told that it would be wrong to give me a directive formed as an order to an inferior. You wanted to treat me with respect.’ Hugo blew a leaf that had drifted from a plant onto the bench between Charlie and himself.
‘But the colonists did follow all these rules didn’t they?’ Charlie was now sensing that the danger was over and a tone of concern carried over in his voice.
‘Yes. They follow them to the letter. Even young Miss Helen.’
‘Well, what’s the problem then?’
‘Deep within my consciousness are the directives you placed in me never to kill, always to help, and all the other associated directives.’ Hugo paused looked down solemnly at the bench and gently brushed a small segment of loose wire that had ended up there from an old experiment.
‘And?’
‘Well, I’m upset.’ Hugo looked like he was going to cry (which Charlie wasn’t sure whether he had the capability to do or not).
‘Why?’
‘Because I have logic but I also have a consciousness, therefore I have a psychology, thus I want, I NEED, to be given a directive.’
‘Oh,’ exclaimed Charlie, realising the gist of the problem. ‘You need people to order you to do things because it’s at the depth of your mind: the core of your heart and soul.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Hugo. ‘Bravo, Charlie Thompson!’
He continued, ‘And I’m only one and a half years old. And I’m only a machine. I had to bring you here because the colonists would not understand me. They would have attempted to take me apart and reprogram and reengineer me. The moment they do that I’m microchips.’ Then Hugo faltered, and said in a wavering voice, ‘Charlie, I don’t want to die.’ And Hugo actually did it: he cried; like a baby.
Charlie got up and walked around the bench to Hugo. Hugo was sobbing, hunched up with his head buried under his hands resting on the bench. ‘Now then Hugo. No one is going to reprogram or reengineer or do anything to you whatsoever. I’ll stake my life on that.’
Then Charlie knew what to do: ‘Look at me Hugo,’ he said firmly.
Hugo raised his tearstained face and ogled Charlie.
‘You’re coming back with me in the craft this minute. No packing. No saying goodbye to Miss Helen. Understood?’
Suddenly, Hugo perked up, and a satisfying smile grew across his face. ‘Perfectly understood. Coming right away, Mr Thompson.’
And as they sloshed across the stretches of blue lettuces beneath the hammering, bucketing rain, with the massive, reddish sun falling heavy upon the horizon, tinted in a haze a green sky, Charlie recalled again the words of Professor Zoldax: you can put the man into a machine but you can’t take the machine out of a man.

* * *