Savage Tales

waved goodbye but the glass was tinted so I don't think they saw me, and then the force field was released, and the preprogrammed shuttle began to fly into endless space.
    The robotic voice within said, "Shuttle will self-destruct in thirty seconds."
    "Computer, this is Captain Boner. I order you to override your self-destruct mechanism."
    "I cannot do that."
    "Please."
    "I cannot do that."
    "Computer, I order you! I am a human and you are a machine! You must follow my orders! Human life is precious. You are not allowed to take human life."
    "Self-destruct in ten seconds."
    "Don't ignore me!"
    "Five seconds."
    And just before it reached zero, I swear, really, that I heard it laugh.
    No one ever liked me.

LAN DMINES

    Roderick and I had arrived by a twin-prop plane the night before, barely got sleep at a hotel that agreed to put us up for free, but the bed had been filled with maggots and even when they cleared them out I was uncomfortable.
    We got out to the fields after paying two motorcyclists to cart us. We got all the gear on the back, and when we got to the fields I lectured Roderick about proper use of the metal detectors and how to walk so he'd never step somewhere we hadn't swept. I'd drilled him on it enough back in London and had confidence in him.
    We'd been at it for nearly an hour without any success, when I came across one of them. I called Roderick over and had him sweep the area himself, finding it successfully. I then showed him how to pinpoint its exact location, and we got digging in the dirt coming in from the side and underneath. Took nearly half an hour because I wanted to show him how to do it proper, and I think he got it. We found the fuse release and then it was safe. Judging by its age I think it was safe anyway. It looked pretty feeble.
    Then we split up and went to different ends of the field again and I told him we'd work till lunch and to have him call me if he came across anything.
    It was like that for a while. Quiet and boring if you didn't have your mind on your work. The biggest hurdle in this business is allowing yourself to go on automatic and then – click – you're gone. Why the boy wanted in on this line of work I never could figure. Couldn't explain it to myself either. But there we were.
    Roderick saw them first. A group of ten or so of the local boys playing some infernal game, running about and pushing each other and ignoring the signs the village had posted on the field. Idiots. Kids.
    I don't know why Roderick did it. I guess it's the same reason that brought him down to this continent and into this line of work. But he knew better.
    Roderick called across the field to the boys and of course they didn't understand him and pushed on into the field. Roderick yelled again and tried to wave them back. They laughed at the strangely clad boy and his odd tool that he waved over the ground. They laughed and pushed each other and whistled and sang.
    Roderick started running. Running! I could see myself telling him a million times, you never run. Never, ever. And he ran anyway. He knew and he must've known I'd give him an earful and even tell his parents when we got back to London. But there he was, an image I still see, him, running across that field to that troupe of African boys.
    And then he was no more.
    The group of boys flinched with the sound and explosion of dirt that geysered from the earth. Roderick vanished and a stain was all that was left in his wake.
    I can't even remember what I thought, what I did. I don't want to think about it now.
    The boys had stopped, frozen, frightened. They looked at me, then ran away, back to the village.
    Some of the villagers helped me search the area for any clothes or body parts that we might bury and give a proper funeral, but it was pointless. Gone was gone. Like he'd never been. They consoled me as best they could in their limited English, and yet I almost detected – or perhaps it was the stress and paranoia of a placid situation turned suddenly hostile – a smug forbearance on their parts that wanted to say that Roderick and I were outsiders who had reaped what we had sown.
    We were outsiders, and one of us would never return. The wrong one.
    I left the next day and was back in London the next week. I hedged but finally got in a cab and gave the address and let the world take me to the last place I wanted to go. Every step I took up the stairs to that house was a savage weight, a burden.
    I knocked lightly and waited only a