The Stars {Linkingrad}

[Radekal]

Centauris strode into the dimly-lit room, stamping the hardwood floor with mud, and stopped abruptly at the square table. Water dripped from his fanciful magenta hat down to the rigid shoulders with a quiet metallic tapping. Tap, tiptap, tap-tap, tap. Samgren had been writing, as he often did, in silence, and now put his pen away slowly and looked up from the parchment at the soaked figure of the master of technologies.

"Get a towel old chap, or you'll rust" he smiled, as he often did, a smile in equal parts warm and measured. The raindrops were sliding slowly down molded, interlocking plating, snaking along heavily insulated cabling, over rubbery joints, and off the soil-speckled boots of the techdroid, to the floor. Here, they were re-uniting with others of their kin and forming an enlarging puddle, which glistened happily in the table lamp's light.

"I do not rust" came the monotone reply, "the Zotaxians-"

Samgren put his hand up.
"Yes, yes, I know, it was an attempt at a joke, my friend. Please do not take offence. I expect you have a report to make? You hardly come by just to talk about the weather, and since you've kindly brought the weather in with you, it would hardly make for an intellectually stimulating discussion anyway."

A quiet whirring sound seemed to emanate from Centauris' head for a few seconds, then stopped. His digital visor was impassive, as always.

"I bring a report of supreme importance concerning energy resource management" he said, finally.

"Let me guess" said Samgren. "Solar collectors' output is down..." he glanced out the window "ninety-seven percent, and although windmills are up by..." he looked at the garish bicorn hat, cocked at an unnatural angle on top of the cyber's head, "forty-eight percent, that still means an overall loss of energy delivery-"

"The Automatons have located a Source. It has been successfully extracted and delivered to the development site."

Samgren stared at the techdroid, stunned. He was not often stunned. The composed smile gave way to shock.

"Are you... sure? I mean, where was it? Wha... have you tested the power output? Is it really what we've been looking for?"

"It was located far in the Downlands. The power level is over nine thousand. This is more than sufficient for our purposes. I will start work on the integration process as soon as is practicable."

"The Downlands? How did you get the Automatons that far? Operations on foot would never have the range-" A thought seemed to slap him across the face. "Wait, did you use the airship? You must have sent them on the airship!"

"Yes. In order to increase the odds of successful outcome, I deemed this the only viable solution. The yield of items of interest from Upland sites has been diminishing in recent weeks and is now minimal, likely meaning we have extracted almost all that we can."

"So you recruited Aerheart and risked the confidentiality of the operation? Does she know what was found?"

"She does not know about the Source. I informed her only that we were locating any parts which may be useful in technology development. She has been depositing the Automatons off at agreed locations, returning to the Shelf, participating in non-classified simple logistics in the intervening hours, and then collecting them at the end of daytime operations. The Automatons concealed the component during extraction, as programmed."

"Even so, it's too much of a risk-" Samgren caught himself and paused, mid-sentence. He took a deep breath, collected all his emotions, and put them back in their neat rows again. His expression returned to its usual composure.

"All right. Does Mr Pinion know?"

"Mr Pinion has not been informed. Would you like me to relay the information to him?"

"No. Tell Fenrir and the Shogun, and tell them we are to meet here tomorrow morning at eight o'clock, sharp. Do not tell anybody else. Only we are to know of this. If word gets out that we've got a Source, we would open ourselves up to pre-emptive attack from anywhere in the universe. They need to think we're still using conventional power sources for the programme. At least until we are ready." The gentle smile slowly returned to, and settled on, Samgren's freckled visage. "I'm sorry for my outburst, old friend. This really is excellent news."

"Agreed." Centauris turned away sharply, and strode back out into the downpour.

Samgren sat, deep in thought, half-listening to the hiss of billions of tiny liquid bullets bombarding Linkingrad. He looked down to the floor, to the multitude little gems of rainwater scattered by the techdroid's enthusiastic marching. In the golden light cast by the lamp, they gleamed like the stars. The stars, he thought. He let his smile grow just a little wider, and got up to get the mop.