O Master Caliban (17 page)

“Can you tell where the traps are?” Sven asked.

Shirvanian touched his nose and stared at the blood, then rested his hand gingerly on the striped metal, leaving a smear. “The one we’re supposed to find, if we got this far, is on the axle beside the right rear tread. You can see the wire hanging down. The one that’s supposed to kill us is in the voice activator under the control deck.” He dropped to his knees on the greasy floor, gave a pull here and there, and brought out something that looked like one of his own crazy rigs. He offered it to Sven. “Don’t let those wires touch. That’s not a dud.”

“What the hell do I want it for?”

“We may need a bomb.”

“How do I keep the wires apart?”

“With your head! Roll up the wires separately on each side, and put the thing in my bag.”

“Like to drop it down his pants,” Esther growled.

Shirvanian nipped around the back. “Door’s open.” His voice rang hollow. “I need a screwdriver.”

“You drove them all crazy.”

“And there’s no time!” Sven yelled.

“No, they left the screws out. That’s handy. They’re on the floor.” He came out holding a similar mess of wires and bulbs. “Same kind of thing. They repeat themselves,”

“Shirvanian!” The walls vibrated with the noise of grinding ergs.

“Come on in,” said Shirvanian. “It’s all yours.”

They scrambled aboard, and Sven ran to the control deck and pushed buttons he had not thought of touching for nine years.

Will there be fuel? Electricity? He picked up the microphone.

“Argus ...” He pulled out the tiny sensor bulb on its wire thread and stuck it under his tongue where it took a second to identify his temperature and saliva.

HELLO, SVEN. The voice of Dahlgren boomed and echoed around the hangar. HOW ARE YOU TODAY? Shuddering, Argus came alive.

“Very well, thank you, Argus.” His voice shook; quarter-tank of fuel, working power cells.

WHERE SHALL WE GO NOW, SVEN? The drones roared along the walls.

“Headquarters, Argus, fast as you can!”

HOME, SVEN? Argus’s ceiling lights flicked on.

“Head—yes, home, Argus, home—and hurry!”

Argus swerved out of rank and skidded down the laneway, crushing his passengers to the walls.

Shirvanian was squatting on the floor. “Leave the doors open!” he shouted. “Mitzi, give me your lighter.” He had ripped a piece off his torn shirt and twisted the bomb’s wires around it so they did not touch.

Argus barreled through the door, skinning the corner of the erg come to meet him. The erg swung about and followed.

“Faster!” Shirvanian screeched. He held the lighter ready; he was sure the bomb was meant to blast the interior and occupants of Argus and not half a hangar full of ergs, but he wanted space. The drone had not picked up full power, but it was five meters away, the second one following.

Six, seven.

Shirvanian lit the rag. It was fire-resistant, but carried enough flame to begin melting the wire casings.

He hurled it.

It did not hit the erg; the erg caught it in a claw and threw it back.

It flew
through the open door of the Argus and bounced in front of Shirvanian. The children screamed.

Except for Koz.

He picked it up and flashed a smile, the first any of them had seen on his face, and as the screaming and babbling went on he jumped lightly out of the bouncing Argus, landed easily on the rubble as if he had trained for this moment all his life, and clasping the bomb over his heart in both hands like one bearing a gift, ran toward the erg.

Flesh and metal joined in the blast. The erg, front end hammered in, slewed its treads in Koz’s blood and bones, and stopped. The one following crashed it.

Argus closed his doors and ran the channel out of the pit and mist.

WHY WERE
YOU
USING THE COMPUTER?

Dahlgren in his room on a chair, erg-Queen before him, servo behind, erg-Dahlgren against the wall stiff as a toy soldier.

He regarded her with great insolence. Perhaps she recognized it; she reached out a claw, grasped and twisted his arm behind his back. His arthritic bones grated and he screamed.

WHY WERE YOU USING THE COMPUTER?

“Because it is mine,” he whispered, shuddering with pain. His arm hung.

IT IS NO LONGER YOURS. YOU HAVE NO STORE. WHAT CALL SIGNAL DID YOU USE? She reached for his arm again. He winced, and the servo looped a coil around his neck.

“Yours.”

HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT?

“It is only your name. I thought you might use your name.”

WHO TOLD
YOU MY NAME?

His lips trembled.

“I told him,” said erg-Dahlgren mildly. She whirled. “That is no secret. He had never seen an erg of your model and he asked.”

She faced Dahlgren again, and he looked up at her, wherever her intelligence might lie, behind those jeweled buttons or below the spiky crown. His humiliation was intense. His world and his station ripped from him, he was being tormented in
the place that held all the privacy he had left, where he ate and slept. His cage. Cage. He had manipulated flesh, Hexed limbs. But I did not do that to torment. Did you not, Dahlgren? Only to be powerful.

YOU USED IT IN MY NAME ...

“Why do you not ask the computer?”

She did. She was its terminal. MOD 85.

IDENTIFY.

CREATOR MATRIX ONE.

WHAT IS YOUR REQUEST, CREATRIX?

WHAT IS IN THE STORE: EDVALG?

EDVALG IS DEACTIVATED.

DO YOU HAVE A SUB-STORE IN THE NAME OF CREATOR MATRIX ONE UNDER CODE DAHLGREN?

NO.

She tapped Dahlgren’s arm. WHAT CODE DID YOU USE? The coil tightened on his neck.

“SVENSSEN.”

SPELL IT.

“S-V-E-N-S-S-E-N.”

MOD 85, TELL ME WHAT IS IN THE STORE: SVENSSEN?

IF THIS CODE: SVENSSEN IS USED HEREAFTER AT ANY TIME BY ANY MACHINE OR ANY PERSONAGE OF ANY ORDER, RANK OR NUMBER YOU ARE TO SCAN THE PULSE RATE OF THE MAN EDVARD DAHLGREN AS MONITORED AND RECORDED BY MODAL 1 DURING THE TWO HOURS PREVIOUS TO USE OF THIS CODE AND IF THE HEARTBEAT OF THE MAN EDVARD DAHLGREN WITHIN THAT TWO-HOUR PERIOD EXCEEDS FOR ANY TWO CONSECUTIVE MINUTES A RATE OF ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE BEATS PER MINUTE THIS STORE IS TO BE ERASED.

Erg-Queen ranged her arms along her sides. IS THIS STORE ERASED?

NO.

WHAT IS THE HIGHEST RATE OF HEARTBEAT RECORDED DURING THAT PERIOD?

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO.

THEN TELL ME WHAT IS IN THE STORE: SVENSSEN.

IDENTIFY KEY.

Erg-Queen stood immobile before Dahlgren. The servo’s coil was tight around his neck and he saw the pulses of his own eyes, his heart slammed his chest. The coil withdrew from his neck, suddenly, and he coughed.

Erg-Queen spoke quietly, without echo. GIVE ME THE KEY, DAHLGREN. YOU WILL BE FORCED TO DO SO EVENTUALLY.

“I agree,” said Dahlgren even more quietly. He had no breath to speak louder. “But by the time you have the key you will be obliged to contend not only with my pulse rate, but with my extra systoles, the effect of choking on my brain rhythms, perhaps even my death—and then there will be no store: SVENSSEN. Force me if you will.”

WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS, DAHLGREN?

“To frustrate you.”

She plucked the wrist of his wrenched left arm and he cringed, he could not help himself. She dropped the wrist and wheeled out of the room, the servo clanking after.

“Now what will she do?” he asked.

“I expect she will chase the store: SVENSSEN around the computer for a while, and perhaps she will find it, perhaps not. We are safe for the moment.” Erg-Dahlgren remained standing against the wall, arms behind his back. “Whatever it was that I had to forget, I have forgotten. You have done this for me, Dahlgren, but I did not mean for you to be hurt.”

Dahlgren let his head fall back and closed his eyes. “Don’t think of it.”

Erg-Dahlgren came forward and carefully lifted Dahlgren to the bed. “What may I do for you?”

Pain up neck to head, down arm to fingers. Dahlgren said, “Well, a glass of akvavit would—but I doubt you will find it here.”

“What is that?”

“An alcoholic drink I enjoyed as a young man in my homeland.”

“I see. I will find you something for the pain.” Dahlgren listened to the heavy step of his erg moving out the door and down the hall. No guard stopped him. Nowhere to run.

One arm’s pain engulfed a whole body. Arm. Sven had four. Arms.

Four.

Why did you not use my wife’s ova?

THERE WERE ONLY FOUR.

You knew even that.

Dahlgren,
said Haruni,
this may not be so good a thing to do.

I must have. I must have. Something. She left me with nothing. God knows I have enough sperm.

But only four ova.

1. Broke and disintegrated when thawed.

2. Infertile.

3. Fertilized and implanted in section of uterine lining maintained in vitro, soon engulfed in quick-growing placental tumor arising from nowhere.

4. Sven.

Three-month embryo, six-limbed, a pulsing tiny lizard. A teratological monster.

My God, can’t you do something? Why didn’t you tell me before?

We hoped we could—Who would want to tell you?

But—

What do you expect, Dahlgren? Cut out a whole cross section? A third of the heart and half the lungs and liver? Best to abort.

None left. Nothing. No. “Do. Something!”

Try cloning.

Clones have nothing of her!

Whispers ... stimulate rhomboid, latissimus dorsi and ...

Haruni, sad-eyed.
You see ...

This has never happened before. Why now?

You never knew if it happened before, Dahlgren. No one has said. This is the one you have been watching.

Every day by infrascope. The red worm, red lizard clenches. Double-budded in arm. Six-limbed.

Eddy of laughter in corner:
Good thing it’s a boy, some girl with four tits ...

By God, you fool, that would be the she-wolf of some Romulus and Remus, I swear it.

Someone has done. No no, not Haruni, one friend, who plays chess and pins insects. Paranoid, Dahlgren. But someone. Laughers? Whisperers?

THERE WERE ONLY FOUR.

You knew even that.

Someone. He sighed.

“Does it still hurt so badly, Dahlgren?”

Eyes slitted, he saw erg-Dahlgren, needle in hand, push back his sleeve and inject.

Pain clawed again. “I had forgotten it,” he whispered.

Erg-Dahlgren threw away the needle, lifted Dahlgren’s head, brought a cup to his lips.

“What is that?”

“Edible alcohol. I had it synthesized for you.”

“Good Lord, man, that is pure hellfire! Add an equal amount of water.”

“I am sorry, Dahlgren. I did not know how men drink.”

“No. Thank you. I am grateful.” It was good, going down, it made a hearth in his belly. Little taste to it, but it was good enough. Pain ebbing and the hearthfire spreading even to the source of the life that might last, oh God, long enough to do battle.

Erg-Dahlgren smiling, because Dahlgren had called him man.

ARGUS WAS
four
meters high and wide, seven in length. Up front he had a control room, a lavatory cubicle, and a crew quarters with four narrow bunks. In back the room for carrying animals had brackets for holding cages, tanks and other enclosures, though all these had been removed. Narrow guttering coursed the floors in a flushing and drainage system; most of his lower bulk held retractable wheels and runners, tool kits, waste compactors, and two engines: one a hayburner that could use any kind of organic matter, including fossil fuels, the other a diesel with fuel tanks for oil and kerosene. He was the least sophisticated of all machines on Dahlgren’s World, and the most adaptable.

* * *

Shirvanian slept on the guttered floor among bags of moss, mouth-breathing harshly, snorting a bit through his swollen nose; Yigal lay beside him. Ardagh, Mitzi, Joshua, had cried themselves out with fear and weariness as well as grief, and were sprawled on the jouncing floor, backs to the wall. Their eyes were red, their faces sweaty and dirt-smeared. Joshua had a light haze of beard and looked years older. They were too tired to climb into the bunks for comfort. They did not think of comfort. There was no place in the world to find it.

The counter in the control room registered .9 millirads internally, a great improvement over the external one, which was running near .8 rad. Sven had found the stores of water and air filter capsules, untouched through the years. The heavy clay interiors of one or two had crumbled or been attacked by organisms; the others might take them as far as they needed to go. Argus had only one window, in his control room, a round port of thick yellow lead glass. It did not give much of a view, but the telescreen was working.

“Sooner or later they’ll jam that,” said Esther. She was riding on Sven’s shoulder as he watched Argus pushing ahead on the detritus from the channel, scanning for changes in terrain that would require the shift to wheels or tractor tires.

“No, that’s independent, but we’ll probably have to disconnect the transmitter ... They’ll send drones, five-fifties, aircars. We’re a beautiful striped target.”

“No way to camouflage ... if we put leaves and branches on top, maybe the aircars ...”

“The growth’s too fine and brittle. That’d ruin the intake system.” Argus’s roof was a catchment basin, covered with fine mesh, for collecting and filtering water and air. “When Shirvanian gets up we’ll see what he can think of.”

They did not talk of Koz. What use? Esther could not cry, and Sven would not.

There was another problem. Because Argus had been bonded to a boy of ten his control, for safety’s sake, was limited in speed and direction, and Sven did not know where to find or how to use the override controls allocated to regular crews on working missions. He had had nearly an hour’s head start at about 8 kph. It was not much to build on. Top speed would not take that lumbering transport much higher than twelve. Sven had spent a frustrating hour trying to explain to Argus the importance of that extra four kilometers. Argus would not believe that all other machines were enemies.

YOU MUSTN’T PLAY DANGEROUS GAMES, SVEN. DAHLGREN WILL BE ANGRY.

“Argus, for God’s sake, all other machines are renegade!”

I KNOW, SVEN, the Dahlgren speaker said. WE’VE PLAYED THAT MANY TIMES.

Sven swore and kicked the panel, until he remembered he had done that as a child too, and turned red. “Better wake Shirvanian.”

Shirvanian’s face was bruised, grimy, creased with strain. His eyelids twitched in sleep. Esther’s heart wrenched for him, in spite of his transparent unpleasantness. She did not want to wake him. His arms were flung out, one hand clutching his box. Esther saw through the rent in his shirt that his hairless armpit was tattooed with one small triskelion. She looked up. Her eyes met Ardagh’s.

Ardagh said dully, “Yeah. He’s one of us.”

Us. “Will he become like Koz?”

“No ... oh, no! He belonged to a different order.”

“Of delinquents, you mean. What’d Shirvanian do, make one machine too many?”

Joshua laughed, weakly, bitterly. “When he was six he built a robot to steal cookies and repair parts for itself. His parents found it, and it set the whole scientific world in an uproar. Made him famous. We didn’t believe him when he told us, but we do now.” He closed his eyes, shook his head and sighed. “Oh yes, we do.”

“But he went too far ... ?”

Ardagh said, “At nine he had a whole fleet of them ripping off components all over Sol Three and selling them at wholesale prices. He could have retired at twelve if he wasn’t found out.”

Arms akimbo, Esther hunkered beside the child. “And look where it got you.” Black eye, blood-caked nose. She slapped his cheek lightly. “Wake up, genius. Sven wants you up front.”

Shirvanian stirred, opened his eyes with some effort, lifted his head, giving the involuntary sneer of the gesture. “Wah?” He seemed stunned.

“Sven needs you up front,” Esther repeated.

“Uh,” Shirvanian dragged himself up and lurched off, slamming his shoulder against the wall as he went.

“Shame to wake him ...” She turned back to the others. They were well knocked about. Not much rebellion left. “You had some independent plans? Hope you put them aside.”

Joshua asked under his brooding lids, “How did you know?”

“Triskelions. You got lumped together, somehow, did all that planning. Why would you stop? Look.” She touched Joshua’s zipper tag. “Carelessness? Mitzi’s boot soles. Why didn’t you throw those away?”

“I made them,” said Mitzi. There was a pinch of pride in her voice, the only flavor of that quality Esther had ever found in her.

“And you kept them clean in all the mud—even the soles.”

“What are you going to do about us?” Ardagh asked.

“Try to keep you safe, what else? You’ve had enough battered out of you for a while.” She gave her attention to the snoring Yigal, stroked his flank as it rose and fell. “Let him sleep a bit longer.”

* * *

Shirvanian yawned. “Attach my spy-eye to the visual system so you can get a whole-horizon view.”

“Okay, but where are the crew controls?”

“Likely behind this panel. We’ll have to stop so I can work on it.”

“I don’t like that much ... the radio’s off so they can’t pick us up, but—”

“Shut down the visuals and intercom too, just in case, and make a detour.”

“Navigate with that one little window?”

“Yah, I’m surprised we haven’t had aircars after us yet. You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long.”

“I thought you’d fall apart if you didn’t. Maybe there’s some lead suits in that cupboard. Take a look.”

“Just one,” Shirvanian reported. “My size, but it’s got four sleeves.”

“Sven!” Esther bounded through the door. She was shaking more than the bouncing of the craft accounted for. “Sven! Yigal is—”

“Keep on course, Argus, to track two and east.” He hung up the mike. “What—”

Yigal was gasping and vomiting, his limbs twitched. His eyes were still closed. Ardagh had his huge head on her lap, stroking it as the thin bile ran over her boots.

“What is it?”

Her eyes met his, and Esther’s; she swallowed. “He got knocked on the head, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but he got up, and he was—he seemed all right.”

She pushed up Yigal’s eyelids with her thumbs. The eyes were blank, glazed, almost all pupil. She slid her fingers around the skull, through the silky hair. “Not even a bruise.”

“Yigal!” Esther cried.

He gasped and shivered. His slack tongue lay along his teeth. “He won’t have much more to throw up. If we heap the sacks in the corner and try to make him comfortable, maybe we can clean this part up.” Ardagh stroked his muzzle gently, as if her fingers could stop the twitching nerves. “We’ll have his urine and—and stuff to contend with.”

“Contend with!” Esther screamed and slapped her face. Sven grabbed her.

Ardagh’s cheek reddened and her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t help it, Esther,” she whispered. “He’s dying.”

Esther exploded from Sven’s arms and flung herself, X, over the white heaving body. “No!”

Sven knelt beside them. “Just from that bang on the head?”

Ardagh said, “He must be hemorrhaging inside ... In a hospital, in the lab they could ...”

Yigal lifted his head with fearful slowness; it wavered with the bouncing of the carrier. Slowly his eyes opened, his vague pupils tightened, only a little. His tongue moved, ticked the roof of his mouth. “Es—Esther, I can’t.” His head fell back, lids closed, he retched again.

Esther clenched shaking fists in the hair of his neck and screamed. Mitzi clapped hands over her ears and shut her eyes. Joshua drew up his steep knees and wrapped his arms about them. Yigal did not speak again, then or ever.

Ardagh went on stroking the shuddering head, and Sven knelt with the thin bile stream sliding in the guttering under his knees.

Shirvanian yelled, “We have a skimmer coming southeast by east!”

Sven jumped to his feet and ran up front. “How far?” On the screen it was a dot above the horizon.

“About three kilometers.”

“That’s the end. We’re finished.”

“Turn westward into that gully where it’s overgrown.”

Sven gave the orders to Argus blindly.

“Now stop. Open the door. Shut off all systems. Why are you crying? Are you scared?”

“Yigal is dying from that blow on the head.” Tears ran into the corners of his mouth.

“Oh,” Shirvanian scuttled back, ignored all others, pawed through the sacks on the floor in frantic haste till he found the other bomb, ran back to the control room where the outer door was open, tore yet another strip from his diminishing garment, twined it in a wick as he had done before, and fumbled in his pockets till he found Mitzi’s lighter.

“You can’t blow up that egg,” Sven said.

“I don’t intend to.” Bomb in hand, Shirvanian jumped out the door.

“Shirvanian!” Horrified, Sven leaned out.

“Shut up. I know what I’m doing.” Shirvanian followed Argus’s tracks in the damp gravel for about fifteen meters, watched the sky, counting silently with his lips, lit the wick, waited till it began to burn down, hurled it with all his strength northward, ran back with arms pumping and hair streaming, jumped in. “Shut the door!”

The metal egg sang overhead
zzing!
An instant of silence,
WHUMP!
A sizzle and a hum fading.

Mitzi, at the inner door, shrieked, “What is it?”

“An aircar,” Sven said. He slid open the control-room door, jumped to the ground, Shirvanian following.

Back up their trail was a black fused star of glassy rock, crossed exactly by a long charred streak. The air reeked and shimmered. “What happened?” Sven asked.

“Once our transmission was off it had to home on heat or light. I gave it an intense source to distract it.”

“The fire hit it exactly. I thought you said they were clumsy.”

“I thought they might be, but I was wrong. They were trying to put us off guard, or your transmitter made the drones keep them away.”

“We’ve got no more bombs.”

“If we’re lucky it recorded a hit. You think you could figure out their codes if I took a chance on the radio?”

“I could if they haven’t changed them for nine years.”

“I don’t see why they should. They didn’t need secret codes.” He pushed toggles and the little read-out screen lit up and flickered. “Huh. GalFed symbols. Too bad we can’t reach a spacelight.”

“Think they’d waste an interstellar radio on a transport that does twelve kph at top speed?”

“BZV GFX 178,” Shirvanian translated. “That’s— Barrazan Five, GalFed Experimental. The original aircars were designated one-seven-five to two hundred. They must be using the old system.”

“And that squiggle?”

“Is our code for call. There it is on that key.”

“MOD 777 ... reporting right to the top, and X ... 933 ...”

“Nine-three-three is Argus, and X, I suppose, marks the spot.”

“I hope it holds them.” The screen went blank, and Shirvanian shut off. ‘We might as well stay here and do the work. Once we’re heading east it’ll be too sticky.” He looked up. “Where you going?”

“To see Yigal.”

“I’ll need you on the mike.”

“Don’t worry,” he could not keep the edge out of his voice. “I’ll be back.”

Mitzi was waiting by the bunkroom door, hair wild and fingers clawing the air. “I can’t stand it!” she wailed. “Esther’s screaming over that beast and she won’t let go!”

“Go in and rest on a bunk. Are you hungry?”

“No! I’m sick!”

“Lie down.”

In the rear quarters he found Ardagh crying, trapped under the shuddering bulk of Yigal, Esther flung
over him screaming rage and grief through her teeth. Joshua, backed into a comer, was folded tightly in on himself, blinking and silent.

Sven lifted Yigal’s head and shoulders to free Ardagh. “Get into the bunkroom.”

“But I—”

“You can’t help. Go on. You too, Joshua.”

He knelt beside the two people he had loved so deeply all his life, ran a hand down Yigal’s neck, a hand over Esther’s head. A little blood was clotting darkly in Yigal’s nostrils and at the comers of his mouth. In a loving useless gesture he pushed bags under the big head; then he uncoiled a hose pipe from the wall and flushed the cleared area of the floor.