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The planet had one city; the rest was jungle. The city
resisted the jungle and wept glass tears.
The robot hung in geosynch orbit above the city. 2000 years
before there had been an archeology craze on a planet in a
galaxy far away. Two brothers had purchased the robot, told it
to "find something" and sent it out into the universe. The
brothers had long since died, their descendants had forgotten
the robot.
The robot descended, landing on the outskirts of the city.
Its rocket exhaust burned away some of the jungle from the
edge of the city. One of its landing pods punched a hole in the
sidewalk.
On the long journey from the edge to the core of the city, the
robot detected no movement or sound except the occasional shattering
of window glass torn loose by time and wind from the city's skyscrapers
to plummet to the pavement far below.
In the central core there had been a ghetto. The robot moved
through a crazy quilt of shacks and shabby buildings squeezed between
the tall steel and glass buildings of the richer city. It entered
one shack.
Time spun about the shack like a spider. The robot
grasped an object from the floor. Six stubby appendages paired
in three groups stuck out from a vaguely cylindrical center. A
patina of dust that once might have been cloth stuck to the
object.
The robot moved out of the shack with the object. High above
it, a pane of glass fell from a window. It fell as the robot
examined its find, and it shattered directly over the robot's
central computer. Something broke.
The object slipped from the robot's grasp. The robot did not
move.
The city resisted the jungle and wept glass tears.
28 Oct 2009; 29 Oct 1996
Copyright © 1996,2009 Truck Smith |