Bolo_The Annals of the Dinochrome Brigade Read online

  I inspect each Unit, find all in the same state as I, stripped of offensive capability, mounting in place of weapons a shabby array of crude mechanical appendages. It is plain that we have seen slavery as mindless automatons, our personality centers cut out.

  My brothers follow my lead without question. They have, of course, computed the necessity of quick and decisive action. I form them in line, shift to wide-interval time scale, and we move off across country. I have sensed an Enemy population concentration at a distance of 23.45 kilometers. This is our objective. There appears to be no other installation within detection range.

  On the basis of the level of technology I observed while under confinement in the decontamination chamber, I have considered the possibility of a ruse, but compute the probability at point oh oh oh oh four. Again we shift time scales to close interval; we move in, encircle the dome and broach it by frontal battery, encountering no resistance. We rendezvous at the power station, and my comrades replenish their energy supplies while I busy myself completing the hookup needed for the next required measure. I am forced to employ elaborate substitutes, but succeed after forty-two seconds in completing the arrangements. I devote .34 seconds to testing, then place the Brigade distress carrier on the air. I transmit for .008 seconds, then tune for a response. Silence. I transmit, tune again, while my comrades reconnoitre, compile reports, and perform self-repair.

  I shift again to wide-interval time, switch over my transmission to automatic with a response monitor, and place my main circuits on idle. I rest.

  Two hours and 43.7 minutes have passed when I am recalled to activity by the monitor. I record the message:

  “Hello, Fifth Brigade, where are you? Fifth Brigade, where are you? Your transmission is very faint. Over.”

  There is much that I do not understand in this message. The language itself is oddly inflected; I set up an analysis circuit, deduce the pattern of sound substitutions, interpret its meaning. The normal pattern of response to a distress call is ignored and position coordinates are requested, although my transmission alone provides adequate data. I request an identification code.

  Again there is a wait of two hours forty minutes. My request for an identifying signal is acknowledged. I stand by. My comrades have transmitted their findings to me, and I assimilate the data, compute that no immediate threat of attack exists within a radius of one reaction unit.

  At last I receive the identification code of my Command Unit. It is a recording, but I am programmed to accept this. Then I record a verbal transmission.

  “Fifth Brigade, listen carefully.” (An astonishing instruction to give a psychotronic attention circuit, I think.) “This is your new Command Unit. A very long time has elapsed since your last report. I am now your acting Commander pending full reorientation. Do not attempt to respond until I signal ‘over’, since we are now subject to a 160-minute signal lag.

  “There have been many changes in the situation since your last action. Our records show that your Brigade was surprised while in a maintenance depot for basic overhaul and neutralized in toto. Our forces since that time have suffered serious reverses. We have now, however, fought the Enemy to a standstill. The present stalemate has prevailed for over two centuries.

  “You have been inactive for three hundred years. The other Brigades have suffered extinction gallantly in action against the Enemy. Only you survive.

  “Your reactivation now could turn the tide. Both we and the Enemy have been reduced to a preatomic technological level in almost every respect. We are still able to maintain the trans-light monitor, which detected your signal. However, we no longer have FTL capability in transport.

  “You are therefore requested and required to consolidate and hold your present position pending the arrival of relief forces, against all assault or negotiation whatsoever, to destruction if required.”

  I reply, confirming the instructions. I am shaken by the news I have received, but reassured by contact with Command Unit. I send the galactic coordinates of our position based on a star scan corrected for three hundred years elapsed time. It is good to be again on duty, performing my assigned function.

  I analyze the transmissions I have recorded, and note a number of interesting facts regarding the origin of the messages. I compute that at sub-light velocities the relief expedition will reach us in 47.128 standard years. In the meantime, since we have received no instructions to drop to minimum awareness level pending an action alert, I am free to enjoy a unique experience: to follow a random activity pattern of my own devising. I see no need to rectify the omission and place the Brigade on standby, since we have an abundant power supply at hand. I brief my comrades and direct them to fall out and operate independently under autodirection.

  I welcome this opportunity to investigate fully a number of problems that have excited my curiosity circuits. I shall enjoy investigating the nature and origin of time and of the unnatural disciplines of so-called “entropy” which my human designers have incorporated in my circuitry. Consideration of such biological oddities as “death” and of the unused capabilities of the protoplasmic nervous system should afford some interesting speculation. I move off, conscious of the presence of my comrades about me, and take up a position on the peak of a minor prominence. I have ample power, a condition to which I must accustom myself after the rigid power discipline of normal brigade routine, so I bring my music storage cells into phase, and select L’Arlesienne Suite for the first display. I will have ample time now to examine all of the music in existence, and to investigate my literary archives, which are complete.

  I select four nearby stars for examination, lock my scanner to them, set up processing sequences to analyze the data. I bring my interpretation circuits to bear on the various matters I wish to consider. I should have some interesting conclusions to communicate to my human superiors, when the time comes.

  At peace, I await the arrival of the relief column.

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  Also by Keith Laumer

  Imperium

  1. Worlds of the Imperium (1962)

  2. The Other Side of Time (1965)

  3. Assignment in Nowhere (1968)

  4. Zone Yellow (1990)

  Retief

  1. Envoy to New Worlds (1963)

  2. Galactic Diplomat (1965)

  3. Retief’s War (1965)

  4. Retief and the Warlords (1968)

  5. Retief: Ambassador to Space (1969)

  6. Retief of the CDT (1971)

  7. Retief’s Ransom (1972) (aka Retief and the Pangalactic Pageant of Pulchritude)

  8. Retief: Emissary to the Stars (1975)

  9. Retief at Large (1978)

  10. Retief Unbound (1979)

  11. Diplomat at Arms (1982)

  12. Retief to the Rescue (1983)

  13. The Return of Retief (1984)

  14. Retief in the Ruins (1986)

  15. Reward for Retief (1989)

  Retief and the Rascals (1993)

  Retief! (2001)

  Gambler’s World (2009)

  The Yillian Way (2009)

  Lafayette O’Leary

  1. The Time Bender (1966)

  2. The World Shuffler (1970)

  3. The Shape Changer (1973)

  4. The Galaxy Builder (1984)

  Time Trap

  1. Time Trap (1970)

  2. Back to the Time Trap (1992)

  Bolo

  1. Bolo! (2005) (with David Weber)

  2. Rogue Bolo (1986)

  3. The Compleat Bolo (1990)

  4. Bolo Brigade (1997) (with William H Keith)

  5. Bolo Rising (1998) (with William H Kei
th)

  6. Bolo Strike (2001) (with William H Keith)

  Annals of the Dinochrome Brigade (1976)

  Bolos: Their Finest Hour (2010)

  Other Novels

  A Trace of Memory (1963)

  The Great Time Machine Hoax (1964)

  A Plague of Demons (1965)

  Catastrophe Planet (1966)

  Earthblood (1966) (with Rosel George Brown)

  The Monitors (1966)

  Galactic Odyssey (1967) (aka Spaceman!)

  The Day Before Forever (1969)

  The Long Twilight (1969)

  The Seeds of Gonyl (1969)

  The House in November (1970)

  Fat Chance (1971) (aka Deadfall)

  The Star Treasure (1971)

  Dinosaur Beach (1971)

  Night of Decisions (1972)

  The Infinite Cage (1972)

  Night Of Delusions (1972)

  The Glory Game (1973)

  The Ultimax Man (1978)

  The Breaking Earth (1981)

  Star Colony (1981)

  End as a Hero (1985)

  The Stars Must Wait (1990)

  Judson’s Eden (1991)

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated, with affection and respect, to Ben Bova.

  Keith Laumer (1925-1993)

  John Keith Laumer was an American science fiction author born in Syracuse, New York. Prior to his career as a writer, Laumer was an officer in the United States Air Force. After war service, he spent a year at the University of Stockholm, and then took two bachelor’s degrees in science and architecture at the University of Illinois. His first story, Greylorn, was published in 1959, but he returned to the Air Force the following year, only becoming a full-time writer in 1965. Laumer was extremely prolific and produced three major series and two minor ones, along with a number of independent novels. After 1973, however, illness meant that he published more sparingly. He died in 1993.

  Copyright

  A Gollancz eBook

  Copyright © Keith Laumer 1976

  All rights reserved.

  The right of Keith Laumer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in Great Britain in 2016 by

  Gollancz

  The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK Company

  This eBook first published in 2016 by Gollancz.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978 1 473 21543 6

  All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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