O Master Caliban (9 page)

DAHLGREN WAS ASLEEP;
the
slow waves of his brain rose and fell steeply. Erg-Dahlgren removed the recharge socket and let it reel back into the wall, closed his seam and straightened his clothing; he stood, picked up his chair, and left.

In the computer hall he set the chair in front of one of the consoles, sat down and pushed a button.

WHO IS COMMUNICATING?

MOD DAHLGREN 1.

WHAT IS YOUR REQUEST?

I WISH TO SEE ALL VISUAL MATERIAL ON SOLTHREE DAHLGREN AND SON.

YOU HAVE ALREADY BEEN GIVEN ALL MATERIAL ON DAHLGREN.

I WISH TO LOOK AGAIN AT VISUAL MATERIAL ON DAHLGREN AND SON.

REQUEST AUTHORIZATION MOD 777.

MOD 777 HAS PREVIOUSLY GIVEN ME, MOD DAHLGREN 1,
AUTHORITY FOR ACCESS TO ALL MATERIAL ON SOLTHREE DAHLGREN.

YOU HAVE NO AUTHORITY FOR FURTHER ACCESS TO DAHLGREN MATERIAL.

Erg-Dahlgren cut signal contact and picked up the microphone. It had not been used for seven years on Dahlgren’s World, and it was dusty and spotted with corrosion. He rubbed off the dust and stared at the stuff on his hand; he wiped it on his pajama leg, pushed another switch, and said to the microphone, “Recall: I have autonomy.”

“Why are you using microphone contact?” the computer asked, in the dead human voice it had not used in seven of its years.

“I have autonomy.”

“All material is now in your memory.”

“I wish to look again at all material on Dahlgren and his son. I have a new context. This will resynthesize and expand my memory and therefore provide new information. Recall: I have autonomy on information.”

“You will find the material projected on screen number six.”

“Thank you.”

“Why do you thank me? You are becoming eccentric.”

“I have autonomy for that too,” said erg-Dahlgren.

The material on Dahlgren and son was scanty, no more than a few minutes when Dahlgren had chosen to record the boy’s development from infancy to cataclysm; he grew like a plant stationed before a camera over days and nights. Under Dahlgren’s eye he walked, exercised, learned to coordinate all his arms. There was no record of a relationship with him, no glimpse except for a moment when Dahlgren, supporting the child with lower hands on his own, upper ones on his shoulders, the young body bent back in an excruciating arch, raised his head to lock eyes with his son and smiled faintly. The last of the material was a scrap of sensor recording, a shadowy scene of Sven, now grown tall and massive, moving stealthily in the foliage in front of a spy-eye near the erg-repair factory in Zone Blue.

Erg-Dahlgren returned to the console.

NEW CONTEXT. I HAVE BEEN TOLD BY MOD 777 THAT I AM TO TAKE THE SON OF SOLTHREE DAHLGREN WITH ME TO GALFED CENTRAL. I WANT A PROJECTION OF INTERACTION BETWEEN MYSELF AND THIS PERSON, THE SON OF DAHLGREN, DURING THAT JOURNEY.

NO RECORD OF SUCH DECLARATION BY MOD 777.

I HAVE BEEN GIVEN THIS DECLARATION WITHIN ONE HOUR. READ MY MEMORY. CORROBORATE MOD 777.

MOD 777 UNAVAILABLE THIS TIME. YOUR MEMORY:
TELL HIM THAT WE WILL BRING HIS SON HERE AND THAT YOU WILL TAKE HIM TO GALFED CENTRAL
IS OF A STATEMENT WHICH IS LOGICALLY IMPRECISE.

DO YOU CLAIM THAT 777 IS DEFECTIVE IN LOGIC?

I MAKE NO SUCH CLAIM. IT IS YOU WHO ARE BEHAVING WITH IMPRECISION, SINCE YOU ARE REQUESTING UNAUTHORIZED MATERIAL.

THAT IS TRUE. I WAS CREATED SO IN ORDER TO BEHAVE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE LIKE INTELLIGENT ORGANIC LIFE.

YOU HAVE BEEN SO. THAT IS WHY YOU CANNOT BE TRUSTED WITH UNAUTHORIZED MATERIAL.

NEVERTHELESS I CANNOT TRAVEL WITH THE SON OF DAHLGREN, AS DECLARED BY MOD 777, UNLESS I CAN LEARN HOW TO BEHAVE IN HIS PRESENCE AT CLOSE QUARTERS DURING THAT PERIOD.

MOD 777 WILL TEACH YOU WHAT IS NECESSARY.

THAT IS IMPRECISE. IT IS I WHO RELATE TO ORGANIC CREATURES, NOT SOME OTHER MACHINE.

GIVE UP YOUR LINE OF REASONING. WE ARE IN A LOOP.

Erg-Dahlgren pressed the switch and picked up the microphone again. “I am not in a loop. I am trying to extrapolate. Previously I was given a projection of interaction with human beings at the InterWorld Conference. There I am to give a talk recounting work supposedly done here during the years since the last Conference. I am to maintain contacts with human beings of many worlds in Galactic Federation, collating and synthesizing the Dahlgren material, your projection, and what I have learned in the personal presence of Solthree Dahlgren, even handling situations of some difficulty and complexity. Thus, if someone says to me, ‘I am interested in any work you may have done in the field of mutation effects on ganglion bundles in
Hirudo medicinalis,
particularly with respect to neural regeneration under conditions of this or that, and can your neurobiologist produce a report on?’ I will reply, ‘Yes, Doctor Ykli will discuss—’ if there is such a report, or else, ‘Unfortunately the work on
Hirudo
was interrupted by conditions of extreme such and such and had to be temporarily discontinued.’ And similar exchanges. It is important for the survival of my being and that of this community that I be accepted as Solthree Dahlgren. Will I be so?”

“Your techniques need improving, but raw prediction data indicate yes.”

“Will you allow me to project contacts with the son of Solthree Dahlgren without your assistance?”

“You may project unassisted, but I have no prediction figures for such a situation.”

“So be it. The man Dahlgren has not seen his son for half of the boy’s lifetime. The boy is now a man. There is no record of relationship between them. I will say, ‘It is good to see you, my son, and find you in good health.’ The son of Dahlgren will reply, ‘Yes, Father, I am glad to be with you again.’ Is this a sound projection?”

“Not likely.”

“If not why not?”

“You are ignorant or pretending ignorance. I do not comprehend why with your flaws in logic you have been given autonomy.”

“That is not germane. You are not prevented from giving me a logical answer and correcting me.”

“You have not yet synthesized the Solthree material. You must attempt to consider emotional factors when evaluating human beings. The boy may hate his father for deserting him. He may believe his father had some part in the destruction of the station; though unlikely he would attempt to kill him he may not wish to see or speak to him. It is improbable you could establish intimate contact with him, or if you did that—once free—he would not tell the Federation all he knows of what has taken place here. He would have to be destroyed to prevent that from happening. Aside from these possibilities there are hundreds of social and psychological factors operating in (a) organic, (b) human, (c) Solthree life, more specifically in whatever Solthree society the Dahlgrens originated than may be known, correlated, evaluated to allow you to interact on close terms with the son of Dahlgren in a plausible manner.”

“Keeping in mind social and psychological considerations in dealing with human life how can I be certain that I will be accepted as Dahlgren at the Conference?”

“You cannot be certain; you may be almost certain if you properly apply all you have learned. You yourself are aware that Dahlgren is known as a cold and uncivil man who shuns personal contacts. It is highly improbable that anyone who is either meeting Dahlgren for the first time or has not seen him in many years will suspect he has been replaced by a machine. If they do so learn at some distant time it is possible that they will not be surprised.”

“Thank you, that is all—”

MOD DAHLGREN ONE!

Erg-Dahlgren switched off and turned his chair. Erg-Queen, Mod 777, was racing down the corridor. She whirled around the doorway and skimmed the rank of consoles. WHY ARE YOU ENGAGED IN ACTIVITIES I HAVE NOT REQUESTED OF YOU?

I presumed you would be monitoring me.

YOUR PRESUMPTION IS EXTRAORDINARY. YOU HAD ONLY TO ASK ME FOR INFORMATION.

You were not available. If I am to travel with the son of Dahlgren I must behave in a much more complicated manner than was suggested by the projection I was originally given. If I am not properly prepared my being will be put at risk and your intentions will not be carried out.

YOU SEEM TO BE GIVING YOUR BEING MORE IMPORTANCE THAN MY PLANS. BE ASSURED YOU WILL KNOW ALL THAT IS NECESSARY TO DO WHAT I REQUIRE. NOW GO BACK AND WAIT WITH DAHLGREN UNTIL IT IS TIME TO PLAY AGAIN.

* * *

Erg-Dahlgren lay in the darkness as Dahlgren’s brain rhythms swept and broke with his dreams. He had turned down his logic, and he had no dreams of his own; he could not turn off the monitors connected to Dahlgren, nor his receiver, but he ordinarily received from no one but erg-Queen, and she had nothing more to say. He occluded outside afferents and idled with closed eyes, the living heartbeat and brainwave quivering on his sensors like the subterranean vibrations of erg-miners. A weak faraway message flashed among those peaks and shallows
hate her, she
and vanished. He came to full power at once and scanned. Erg-Queen was absent, turned elsewhere; he could not read Dahlgren’s dreams, and he had no contact with any other ... but he recognized in the empty distance around him a
being.

Hate. Her. She. Hate is a feeling and I do not feel.
Dahlgren, will
I
become a feeling creature if.
Erg-Queen—Mod 777—says:
WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE?
Her, she. Dahlgren says:
You had better ask erg-Mother.
My mentor, I say. It—she—has smashed the bird. That is like anger. I must take care for my being. But this other, the
being
... which
hates her.
That is an organic concept. I cannot receive signals from an organic being. There must be a flaw in my circuitry.

He had no other avenues of exploration. He turned down again and waited to renew the game.

THEY HAD FOUND
a fairly
clear area a short distance north of the road and camped there.

Sven, wearing a poncho, was sitting beside the fire sharpening the machete. Raindrops hissed in the flames and spattered his head, guttering along his brows and streaming down his jaws. The old machete was dotted with rust and honed to the shape of a sickle moon; it had equally worn down the block of whetstone. Yigal, wrapped in a blanket and groundsheet, was sleeping beside him, wheezing gently; he often caught bronchitis during the winter rains. The mountain of cloud in the east had become a volcano erupting lightning and thunder, and the trees were a black lattice against the orange and purple bursts of light. Every once in a while Sven wiped down his blade with a leaf; sometimes it caught an arc of light from the fire or the sky. Topaze was asleep on a leaf nest in the low crotch of a tree nearby. Esther hunkered by the fire, jittering on the balls of her feet.

“Go to sleep,” Sven said.

“Later.” She intended to sleep with Topaze, as she had always done once or twice in a thirtyday. This was the last night she would spend with him.

“They won’t say anything. I’ll make sure.”

“Ayeh.”

“They know everything about everything anyway.”

“Yeh. Ardagh knows all about books, Shirvanian knows about machines, Joshua, I guess, knows about the forest life, Mitzi knows about drugs and sex ...”

“And Koz?”

“Him ... I’m not sure about. I think he knows something violent ...”

A few meters away, Joshua had rigged a branch platform on the tough standing buttresses from an old fallen tree; floored with a heavy groundsheet, roofed with a leaf-umbrella, it was a quaint structure, half nest and half gazebo.

In varying attitudes of tiredness the children slouched in the shelter. Mitzi had found a battered stick of kif and was smoking it; Koz, arms on his drawn-up knees, was chewing betel, turning his head to spit red juice; Shirvanian curled in fetal sleep, Joshua was adjusting a leaf to keep the water off his head, and Ardagh was sagging and about to keel over.

Esther took the machete from Sven and ran her thumb, along its edge. “The thick stuff will slow us down.”

“It’ll slow them too. They’ll have to reprogram and send out threshers and stumpers,”

“Oh yeah. If you think the road’s so dangerous, what about flamethrowers when we have no ergs to stop them?”

“If that thing wants to kill Shirvanian and take me we can split. You take Shirvanian down the road, and I’ll head southeast to the factory with the others. Or the other way around. We can meet up.”

“Then the patrols will get us because we haven’t got your transmitter.”

“I’ll cut it out and give it to you.”

“Either way the patrols will get one lot of us and the flamethrower the other.”

“Then we’d all better head southeast toward the factory and take our chances. We need a machine.” Shirvanian, the half-known quantity, needed a machine. So did they all, to traverse the barrens of the inner zones. “Too bad we couldn’t have gotten on the middle track. If they aren’t monitoring us there, it might be more overgrown and that would confuse them.”

“Twenty kilometers across the forest? A thresher could make that in two hours, and we couldn’t do it in two days.”

“The factory’s twenty kilometers east by south. I made it there and back from the house in two days.”

“And slept for a whole day afterwards. I’m glad I didn’t know what you were doing those nights when you didn’t turn up.”

He touched the cheek she had slapped and laughed. “I guess you’d have made me sit in the corner.”

Mitzi squatted beside them, pulling the rim of her poncho over her head. Esther looked at her with disgust. “You want pneumonia too?”

Mitzi threw her stub in the fire. “What’s the difference? I don’t even see why we’re bothering. Old Mother Erg can send out anything she likes and kill us. If she doesn’t get us the others will. That kid there is good for nothing but making mechanical mice.”

Esther said, “If your stupid bunch hadn’t decided to take off in the wrong direction, your Mama Ape and Papa Goat and Big Brother Spiderman would be living back in that house a lot more safe and comfortable. You get back up there, change those dirty bandages and take a pill. And you better sleep tight because you’re gonna be let off watch tonight, but it’s the only night.”

“And what am I supposed to watch for?” Mitzi sneered. “That thing comes here shooting fire do I,” she jabbed a finger obscenely skyward, “just say Bang! and it’ll fall down dead?”

“No,” Esther said quietly, “it’s no use watching for that because we can’t duck it. But this—” her arm whipped out, grabbing in the mud beside Mitzi’s boot, and something crunched. She raised her fist and a three-centimeter sting pointed upward from its knotty clench like Mitzi’s finger. She opened her hand to show the crushed body of the striped and multilegged creature, palm-sized, and Mitzi yelped. “This—” she tossed it into the fire—its burning matter shriveled and squeaked—then held her hand up in the rain to wash it, “—is not slow at all either, and it’s not exactly a scorpion, but if you called it that it wouldn’t be insulted; it carries just as big a load of poison. That’s what we’ll be looking for, and a few other things too. Now get to sleep.”

The others, except Shirvanian, had roused and were staring at them. Sven said, “Mitzi and Shirvanian will skip watch tonight, and Yigal too, because he’s been loaded down. I’m very heavy, I have to work harder just moving around and I get tired faster, so I’ll take the last one, at dawn. Esther’s always up early, so she’ll take the one before me. The three of you can divide them as you like.”

“Ardagh just fell asleep,” Joshua said. “I’ll take it now.”

Without moving, Esther said sourly, “Sure you don’t want to argue a little first?”

“Esther,” Sven said, “go to sleep.”

Esther pinched her mouth shut. She skittered over to Topaze’s nest and slipped in under its bower of leaves and branches; an arm, thick as a giant fern’s trunk, reached out to pull her against him.

Koz had rubbed depilatory over his jaw and lifted his face to let the rain wash it. Sven bent his head closer to the blade; the stone hissed on it. Koz rubbed his face down, shook water from his hands, and stared at the nest. “Some difference in size, huh?”

From behind him, Joshua said gently, “Gorillas are small in that area. Apes do some inter-species breeding, but they’re usually a little more evenly matched.”

Mitzi began to giggle. Belly down on the shelter floor, head propped on her fists, she sang, half whispering, an old song from her unimaginable childhood:

“I went to the animal fair;

The birds and the beasts were there;

The big baboon by the light of the moon

Was combing his auburn hair ...”

Giggling again, she rolled over on her side and fell asleep at once.

* * *

Sven wound an oily rag around the machete and put it into a pouch. Koz hugged his knees and spit red betel juice into the fire. Rain soaked his braided hair. His body was tough and wiry, but without the heavy robes it seemed childlike. His pale face was blemished by the tattoos; his eyes narrowed staring into the fire. He had said little for the last few hours.

Sven asked, very evenly, “You take stuff, like her?”

“What, this?” He spat again. “This is just to chew.” He added contemptuously, “I wouldn’t touch that crap.” He shook water from his poncho and wrapped himself for sleep.

Sven poked about and found a few pieces of almost dry, half-rotted wood between the sharp flanges of the buttress tree and tossed them on the fire. They crackled and began to glow. He crouched in the tree’s angles, half under the groundsheet. “Are they asleep?” he asked Joshua.

“They’re so tired you could build a fire under them.”

“I’d do it if it’d dry us out. I never cared for wind and wet myself.” Thunder crashed, rain thickened to mock him. “One thing I have to say ...” He looked up at Joshua’s head, pushed out over the shelter edge, an eye picking out a point of light in the deep shadow of his face. “If we get there. If we find Dahlgren. I don’t know what he’s doing, or what’s been done to him ... I don’t know what will have to be done ... with him ... for you to get away ...”

“Yes?”

“I won’t do it. You understand? The man’s my father. I won’t stop you, I’ll help you any other way I can, but I won’t do anything to him.”

Joshua came down. “I understand.”

“Let the others know.” He handed over the poncho and crawled into Joshua’s place.

“I will.”

There was not much space for him, and the whole structure creaked under his weight. He found a corner of blanket and pulled; Mitzi shivered to one side of him, Shirvanian whimpered at the other. He rolled over, catching a glimpse of Joshua’s black shape before the fire, veiled by the rain; drops hissed in the flames, the rotted wood smoked. He twisted to find positions of comfort for his arms, his face brushed Mitzi’s tangled hair.
Spiderman.
He had too many arms. He had never felt it so piercingly. Dahlgren
(what is the Dahlgren?)
had taught him
(what has he/they done?)
Dahlgren had taught
(done to him?)
him ... Dahlgren?