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It was over. The Babclock Rock Candy Mine was safe, the production of the grisly green matter halted. The elephants were destroyed, their unholy cargo mercifully dead. Their remains were being gathered, piled up, and burned. Colonel Walter was thankful that most of his army lacked the understanding of the tragedy of that bonfire, and that none of them could smell it. He would have preferred not to smell it himself.
He felt no joy in his victory. Many of his robots had been destroyed. The only comfort was that though he felt a certain almost fatherly attachment to each creation, his first four (and undeniable favorites) were still running. The members of The Steam Man Band… Rabbit, The Spine, The Jon, and Hatchworth… were still alive, in a manner of speaking. Hatchworth wasn’t actually in the band, but he, like the other three, was an early creation, not made initially for war, and The Jon had taken to calling him "Little Brother."
The Spine was still busy, directing the others in clean-up and disposal work. Walter had been inclined toward just pulling up stakes and going home, but The Spine had insisted that they needed to clean up, that they as robots could do in a few hours what it would take Babclock, the owner of the rock candy mine, weeks to accomplish. The Spine had fixed his creator with a look of wide-eyed surprise at the suggestion that they leave. Hadn't they come to help?
Walter, with a strange feeling of pride, had nodded, and The Spine had set eagerly to work. Rabbit started to follow him onto the battlefield and was ordered to return to the Colonel. What with having one malfunctioning arm and a lot of minor damage throughout his chassis, he was in no shape to help.
He didn’t have to be told twice. He returned to the base camp and sank, creaking, down to the ground next to Walter, who was sitting with his back against the now inert giraffe, powered down with its legs folded beneath it. They sat, side by side, in exhausted silence.
“Well,” Walter said at last, stirring his aching limbs. “I guess we’d better see how badly you were damaged.”
Rabbit obligingly scooted away from the giraffe to give his creator room to work. Walter examined the parts with the worst damage, a breathed a satisfied sigh. It was all surface except for the dormant arm.
“We’re in luck, Rabbit. None of this is really serious. I have the parts for the bigger repairs stored in Delilah's cargo bay. I can do some of the work on the passage back to the States, and do the rest at home.”
“Home?” asked Rabbit, looking up at him.
“Yes. Walter Manor.”
Rabbit’s optics opened wide and his jaw shifted strangely... it was trembling. “We’re g-g-g-goin’ home?” he croaked.
“Sounds like you damaged your vocal assembly. You did scream a lot out there…” He shuddered as he recalled Rabbit’s cries. It had seemed as though he was afraid. Well, more than that. He’d said he didn’t want to die. Walter couldn’t make sense of it.
What was more, he recalled with a start, Rabbit, in his terror, had called him “Pappy.”
He looked at Rabbit and gasped. Oil was trickling from his optics.
"That's not right..." he murmured, wringing his hands.
“Can we g-go home now, Pappy?” the robot said brokenly, his voice pleading, like a child's.
“Rabbit…” There was no denying it any longer. Rabbit was crying. Walter stared in astonishment at his eldest creation.
“I wa-wa-wanna go home…” sobbed Rabbit, pulling his knees up to his chest and burying his face in the crook of his good arm.
Walter found himself gripped by a feeling deeper than his scientific curiosity, an urge that had been tugging at him from the day Rabbit had spoken his first word. He’d not been able to put his finger on what it meant until now.
He hesitated a moment, wondering if he'd lost his mind with the strain of three solid days of combat, before saying softly, “Son… The… your... your brother is almost done with the cleanup. When he and the others are finished, then we can go home. Alright?”
Rabbit looked up and nodded. “Alright, Pappy…” he said meekly.
He hadn’t imagined it, then. Rabbit had somehow come to regard him as a father. It made sense, when he thought it through. He had been proud of his achievements in building these robots. He’d always assumed that his paternal impulses were creative pride, in fact, and their behaviors were no more than programming.
But he hadn’t gotten around to programming what Rabbit was doing now. The copper robot, in weary obedience to his Pappy, was sitting, patiently singing softly to himself as he watched his brothers complete their work. He rocked back and forth as he did, oil continuing to trickle down his cheek plates.
Walter, stirred by the pitiful display, scooted closer and put his arm hesitantly around Rabbit. The robot looked up at him suddenly. A heartbeat passed as they looked at each other. Then Rabbit leaned over and buried his face in Walter’s shoulder.
“I was scared, Pappy,” he mumbled, clutching at the man's jacket with his good hand.
Walter’s heart jerked sideways, and his eyes stung. “I know, son. I… I’m so sorry…”
“It’s okay, Pappy! We sto-sto-stopped the monsters.”
“We did, didn’t we? You fought like a lion, Rabbit. You did very well.”
Rabbit looked up, optics wide. “I d-did well!”
Walter chuckled. “You did. You made me proud.”
Rabbit giggled like a child, which he was, really. He buried his face shyly in his Pappy’s shoulder once more. Walter smiled. This felt right… this was how it was meant to feel. His sons. His children.
He looked at the rest of them as they cleaned up the last bits of debris. His eyes fixed on his second creation. If Rabbit saw him this way, he pondered, then suppose...
The Spine stood on a low bluff, tall against the rose-gold skies of dawn, his whole stance suggesting pride in his work. He turned as Walter watched, saw the two of them huddled together, and looked away quickly.
Walter’s new-found paternal instinct was speaking to him again, and he listened. There was something in The Spine's reaction that suggested another unexpected feeling... one common among brothers. He called to The Spine.
“What is it, sir?” the titanium robot asked as he approached.
Walter hesitated, trying to decide how to proceed. The Spine looked from one of them to the other, frowning as he waited.
Walter gently disengaged from Rabbit with an affectionate pat on the shoulder. He stood, facing The Spine. He wasn't like Rabbit, he mused. This one was different; mature, more adult, though still young, still naive, still surprisingly childlike at times. Still…
Walter smiled. “Well done, son. You’ve made me very proud.”
The Spine’s eyebrows clicked upward in surprise. His mouth opened and shut twice before sound came out.
“Sir…” he breathed. He turned away suddenly, as if looking at the work out on the field.
So stoic! But Walter had seen, before The Spine had managed to turn away, a timid smile and a shining bead of oil in each eye.
Walter didn't know whether The Spine shared his brother's affectionate nature, somewhere deep down, but something had awoken in the scientist that needed to be let out. He stepped forward and embraced his second creation. His second son.
“Sir!” gasped The Spine, raising his arms uneasily, distressed. A moment later, though, he lowered them, carefully, around Walter. He closed his optics and rested his head on the man's shoulder, as though suddenly very weary.
“Thank you... Father...” he murmured, hesitating over the last word, as though unsure it was appropriate.
“I d-d-did well!” Rabbit crowed. The Spine opened one eye and frowned down at him.
As soon as Walter released The Spine, Rabbit was up and lunging into his brother's arms.
“It's over, The Spine! We stopped the monsters! We did well, The Spine!”
“Rabbit! Mind your arm!” cried The Spine, squirming.
Walter smiled sadly. What had he missed all these months, with his head buried in his science? Had he been so busy trying to forget what he had lost, that he had failed to see what he had gained? Could he have made these discoveries in a more peaceful setting? But maybe, he thought, it had taken the terrors of battle to bring them out.
Halfway across the battlefield, there was a cry. He looked up in alarm.
“Me, too!” cried The Jon again, pelting toward them as steam trailed behind him. He tackled Rabbit and The Spine and clung to them. Rabbit tried to hug both with one arm unsuccessfully. The Spine shifted Rabbit over to The Jon and tried to wriggle free, but found himself pinned as Hatchworth, who had come up slowly and quietly from the other side, wrapped both arms around the three of them.
"My big brothers..." he intoned, butting them affectionately with his blunt head. The Spine looked despairingly at Walter, who smiled broadly back at him. His second son hesitated, then broke into a surprisingly similar grin and hugged his brothers contentedly, resting his head on top of Rabbit's, who was nearest.
"Pappy!" sang Rabbit from the huddle. "I like hugs!"
"Me, too, Pappy!" cried The Jon.
"Pappy?" murmured The Spine, frowning. "Rabbit, shouldn't we call him..."
"Pappy!" The Jon cut in gleefully.
"Pappy..." droned Hatchworth. "My pappy..."
"I wanna hug Pappy!" The Jon announced.
Well, well... thought Colonel Walter, as they all separated and descended upon him, I couldn't care less about the future of rock candy. But some good has come out of it all.
And to his relief, they all knew how to hold back when hugging humans.