“It’s a Dredel Led!” I yelled. How was it that Delovoa didn’t see the insanity of owning this? Did he somehow grow up with different folk stories as a child?
“No, it’s not. Why would Dredel Led write Colmarian letters on the front of one of their people?” he asked, indicating the ZR3.
Delovoa had his arms crossed, his hip cocked. He spoke to me like I was being irrational even though in the very same room sat the shattered pieces of a Dredel Led which had casually taken so many lives.
“You jerk, this could have been the reason why those other two came. They might have been looking for it.”
“It’s been sitting down here gathering dust for years.”
“It could have taken them that long to get here. You don’t know. It might have radioed for help.” I was starting to doubt how intelligent Delovoa really was.
“If it was operational, it would have killed me long ago. I’ve taken every kind of saw, torch, beam, and hammer to it I could. I could never get it open.”
“You’ve been sitting down here banging on it?”
“I did, but that was a while ago.” He moved over and peeked into its front eye-thing. “I was going to access it from here. If I could extend my torch, I might be able to slice out some parts. But I never got around to it.”
Delovoa was clearly insane. I was in a room with two Dredel Led and I was apparently the only one concerned.
“What,” I started, trying to keep myself calm, “are you going to do with it?”
“Nothing.”
“The military is going to want to see it!” I screamed.
“It’s not a Dredel Led, Hank. They’re not going to care.”
“Not going to care? So you think they’re going to walk down here, take a look at this broken one, notice that one standing there, and not ask you anything? Do you really believe that?”
“No. I’m not going to show them. I’ll hide it.”
“You’re not going to hide it,” I said forcefully.
“It’s just an antique. It’s like your pistol. There’s all kinds of stuff like this around. It’s not evil. It’s just scrap.”
“Then you don’t mind losing it.”
“No. I paid a lot for it. It’s not going to attack anyone. Watch.” He took a small hammer from a table and began beating on the Dredel Led all over. It made me extremely nervous.
“Quit it. You don’t know what that thing is or what it can do.”
“It was probably some heavy mover of some kind. It doesn’t have hands, so I figure its forearms went into sockets and it pushed or pulled or carried something.”
“That’s silly. Why not use a tractor instead?”
“No Dredel Led is going to write on itself,” he repeated.
“So you feel safe just because it says ‘ZR3’?”
“Yes.”
The voice was languid. Almost sleepy. It was deep. Slow. And it came from the mountainous white Dredel Led standing against the wall.
CHAPTER 19
Delovoa and I stood in front of his statue of a robot for an hour, scared witless. But the Dredel Led didn’t move. We finally got up the courage to try and ask it questions, but it didn’t answer. The only sign that it wasn’t carved from inert metal was that when someone said “ZR3,” it would answer.
At the very least, it didn’t sound menacing. It didn’t answer with attitude. Each time it seemed as if it was being roused from a deep sleep.
Another hour of that and we decided there was nothing we could do. Well, I decided that. Delovoa wanted me to stay, but I’d had my fill of robots already. If every tool he owned had failed to scratch the thing, what was I supposed to do?
So I left for home and went to sleep.
I woke up and briefly everything was fine. Then the sleepiness wore off and I realized the sheer number of ways that I could die. My cube of delfiblinium could blow a hole in our space station; Delovoa’s Dredel Led could come to life and smash us all; the Navy could blast us from space; angry gang members could choke me to death; Jyonal could get a headache and melt all our faces by accident.
I never used to think about dying. Never. Not once in a century. Other than the occasional, “I wonder when I’ll croak.” Now the possibilities were so varied I could hardly keep track of them.
I used the bathroom and did my morning rituals. I then crossed into my living room for some breakfast when I noticed Garm was sitting on my couch. She was working on her tele.
“Hey Garm. What are you doing here?” I asked. I figured she had heard about Ddewn or ZR3 and was probably going to shoot me again.
“Just letting you get some sleep,” she said, not looking up.