00070

Albert Zoeniga blinked his eyes. He always kept the lights dim here in Kelli O’Mally’s beachside food stand so as not to let others know that someone was inside the locked building since Kelli's Stand had been closed for the past few days. Eventually, someone would investigate why no one operated this stand lately, but for now, Albert called it home. His home, where a robot visited him just now.

Albert Zoeniga cleared his throat, assessing the situation. "Uh, I don't know who you are, X-9, or whatever you said is your name. Why come here? Who sent you to fetch me?"

"Nobody." X-9 rethought that and amended his statement. "Maybe God did, according to what you preach. Either way, I need your help."

"A robot... needs my help? Why? And why aren't you in the recycle pile? You look a mess! What happened to you?"

"I was in the explosion in which you were nearly also caught, but a wall and door between the flashpoint and me provided some small measure of protection from the full force of the blast. Obviously, not very well."

"Oh... you were there??"

"Yes, Mr. Zoeniga. Please accompany me, and I shall show you rather than merely tell you why I need your help."

Albert Zoeniga considered the robot's plea. "Well, why not? What if whatever it is you want to show me, is the reason I have not yet ended up in the ore mines? I must still have a job to do outside the mines. Okay, lead on, I suppose.”

Albert Zoeniga locked up the food stand, and X-9 led him away from the beach. The robot said, "It is not far for a robot, but I do not know if it is far for a human. However, I think you look in well enough shape, so that it should be little problem for you."

"Well, I do keep in shape," said Albert Zoeniga.

The walk took three quarters of an hour. During the travel, X-9 demonstrated skill in staying unnoticed by any passersby. He had developed it into an art form. The robot kept to the shadows and the least-lit places. With the onset of evening, the city's network of alleyways provided ample concealment.

X-9 took Albert towards the city outskirts in the direction of the rocketport. But as they neared the rocketport, suddenly X-9 veered, now heading in the direction of the farms on the periphery of Sparkle City.

Finally, X-9 halted at the edge of Abyss Gorge, near the bridge from which Albert Zoeniga had rescued Security Agent Osmo Martin before. The two moons and the lights from the nearby rocketport made much of the details of the gorge and bridge visible. No traffic crossed the bridge at the moment, and very seldom pedestrians passed this way. And, in fact,  nobody had yet cleaned up that spill of goo.

"Okay, so do we go over the bridge to the farms, X-9?" asked Albert Zoeniga.

"Not quite."

"I hope you aren't going to tell me we must climb down into the gorge itself!"

X-9 replied, "It is not as hard as it seems. I can spot the secure handholds to grab onto, and the safe footholds to step on during our descent. If you are uneasy or afraid, you can hang onto my shoulders, and I will carry you down."

Albert Zoeniga observed once more the poor mechanical state of the robot. "No, thanks."

So X-9 began the climb down the steep wall of the deep chasm. Albert followed him very carefully, trying to not look too far down, only down far enough to see what rocks and ledges the robot utilized during his climb. As the two continued descending, Albert Zoeniga remarked, "X-9, you said it was not very difficult. You're a liar."

X-9 did not go all the way to the bottom of the gorge where the narrow creek flowed. Instead, he held onto a skinny rock shelf and swung himself from there downward and into a cave under the ledge.

"Oh, boy..." muttered Albert Zoeniga, right behind X-9. He, too, tried the same maneuver. When he swung himself inward, into the cave, his feet barely touched the floor of the cavern, and his hands began to slip. Uh oh- Albert found himself toppling backward, ready to fall the rest of the way to the bottom, until X-9's hand reached out and grabbed his wrist and yanked him from danger and into the dark opening.

The robot picked up a flashlight from off a boulder inside the cave upon which he had other sundry supplies sitting. "During her youth, Miss Sheila Bright played in this area. She showed me this cave. She made me promise not to tell her Uncle the Governor- even though robots have no such thing as robot promises- that she played in here, for fear her Uncle might forbid it, because, she said, he might view it as too dangerous for a young girl to be climbing down the way we just went. Miss Bright loved to explore this planet, back then. Gov. Bright ordered me to accompany her during her playtime, as her robot guardian. I wonder, since I allowed her to come down here, if I

perhaps failed as a good guardian..."

Albert Zoeniga tried to relax after that unnerving climb. "Yeah, X-9, I think you were a bit too lenient with your charge. But why did you bring me down here?"

X-9 guided him to a mound of rocks further back in the cave, and to the other side of the rocks, where lay a sleeping figure wrapped in blankets. "I need a human I can trust. I have had very little training in medical matters.”

“Huh- and yet you left Sheila climb around on that cliff when she was a kid?! Amazing. What if Sheila had fallen?"

Albert Zoeniga leaned over to peer at the face poking out of the blanket. Some small blisters here and there, a reddened face, like it had been scorched. A woman's face. Her hair fell from inside the blanket into view, and some of the locks bore signs of being singed recently. She appeared to be sleeping, and very deeply at that, for not even their noisy arrival had awakened her.

Albert Zoeniga grinned, suddenly recognizing who it was. A smile of happiness and surprise covered his face. "It's Mrs. McCleer- Sister Nina! She's alive! -How, though? And she looks in rough shape, if I can judge by her face alone. X-9, what happened? How did she get here?? She was in that blast-! I- I can scarcely believe what I am seeing!!!"

"Which is why I reasoned it to be best if you came here and actually witnessed it with your own eyes, instead of merely my telling you, because then you might not even come see, dismissing me as a crazy slagged robot.”

Albert Zoeniga nodded. "I probably would have! But, tell me the story-"

"Okay. I had overheard plans being made at the Governor's House to raid the old miners' quarters, and I came to warn Mrs. McCleer. I got there just ahead of the Security Agents. I climbed in the miners' building through a high window in the back, a window in a store room, even as Mrs. McCleer had come to that same store room for a wedding cake- I saw your name on it. She didn't have time to hear my warning and escape the raid before Security Leader Clyden and his forces arrived. Once I heard the tear gas missiles being launched, I knew, assuming there were still some samples of various grades of fuel ore lying about, that it was only a matter of moments before an accident must surely happen. Immediately, I flattened Mrs. McCleer against the floor and the outer wall with my robot body, shielding her from the inevitable. She protested and demanded to be let go, calling me a crazy robot, and asking what was I doing- and then there was that great flash."

Albert Zoeniga listened, absorbing the story. "You protected her with your own body. No wonder you look a mess. Then how did Mrs. McCleer get from there to here?”

“The blast knocked her out. In the confusion, with people everywhere- fire fighters, dismayed Security Agents, onlookers coming to see what just happened- I easily crawled out of the burning debris, dragging Mrs. McCleer, and I carried her away under the cover of smoke. She had been bruised and scorched, but I had saved her from the worst of it. Since then, she slips in and out of consciousness, and when she does wake, she is confused. I think it is a fever. I brought her to this cave because I did not want her to be arrested. During those spells when Mrs. McCleer wakes, I can get her to eat and drink a little. I tried to nurse her back to health. From time to time I come back into the city to borrow what supplies I think I might need to help her recover. When I came into town to borrow more supplies, I heard you speaking on the street corner. I had heard about you from street chatter, and also I had seen your name on the cake. I reasoned you and Mrs. McCleer must be friends, so perhaps you would help Mrs. McCleer. I guess I am not made very well to be either a child's nanny or a nurse on my own.”

Albert Zoeniga said, "X-9, we must get her to a hospital-"

"-and then she will be imprisoned,” the robot said. “That is why I sought a human I can trust. If we can get her fever to come down, I think she will be okay after that. Maybe she doesn't have to go to the hospital for help- and to jail."

"Mmm, I don't know, X-9." Albert Zoeniga tried to decide what was best for Mrs. McCleer. "Jane did teach me some things when we volunteered at the Sparkle City Hospital, and even back on Earth, when she had done some volunteering, she had told me some of the stuff they taught her..." Albert checked over the unconscious woman. "There's no guarantee she would get proper care at the hospital, anyway, since they are always short-staffed. And I think moving her and carrying her back up the cliff is dangerous. Maybe she will do just as well if she stays here and we tend to her, for now, like you say, anyway. If we can get down her fever, like you said-"

X-9 said, "Yes, Mr. Zoeniga. But- well, I truly don't want to jeopardize her life, either. If you think it is wiser to take her to the hospital..."

"She seems stable. If she takes a bad turn, or even if she doesn't improve under our care, then we will take her to the hospital.”

“Okay, that sounds good to me," said X-9.

"I still can't believe she's alive..." A touch of excitement was in his voice when Albert Zoeniga next asked, hopefully, "X-9, did anybody else make it out of there alive?"

X-9, in his robot matter-of-fact bluntness, replied, "None of which I am aware. Realistically, how could anybody at all have survived that explosion?"

Albert Zoeniga sighed deeply. "I guess you are right. And yet, Mrs. McCleer survived... Hmmm...”

(c) drk 2012