The Godwhale (S.F. Masterworks) (30 page)

Rorqual
soothed the hemihuman. ‘It is the best one available. We’ll keep our eyes open for a more humanoid shape, but meanwhile this will keep your torso up off the deck. It has been equipped with a Blood Scrubber so you can have more variety in your diet.’

‘Well, that’s a plus. I was getting a bit tired of the leafy stuff three times a day. But all those appendages?’

‘The arms, power take-off, and mounting screw fold into panels; the body can be shortened, fore and aft, and the hind legs fold into the forelegs. You’ll be a biped on the dance floor and a quadruped in the mountains.’

‘A satyr or a centaur – interesting,’ said Larry. He walked over to the storage tanks that held his perfusion fluids. He attached the mannequin’s nozzle and recharged his artificial kidneys. ‘You don’t talk much, do you?’

The mannequin just hummed.

‘You do a good job,’ he continued. ‘You can certainly read myograms. I just think of taking a step and you take it. You paw at the deck when I’m restless and feel like pawing. You rear up and kick when I’m happy. You must have studied ungulate behaviour. Can’t you talk at all?’

The voice was that of
Rorqual
, using the mannequin’s speaker. ‘Spider Urethane is equipped with a young cyber cortex, primarily a learning-type. He has no personality of his own yet. While on my decks he will share with me – much as Trilobite did as a youth. If you are away from me for long periods he will mature and have self-identity. Now he is your brain stem and cerebellum, concerned with bladder, bowel, and leg function. Feel free to speak to him, for you will be speaking to me.’

‘A learning cortex – bubble-magnetic garnet wafers?’

‘Yes. Come out on the deck and practise trotting.’

Larry enjoyed the rhythmic pounding of hooves: walk trot, canter, and gallop. All the gears were smooth.

‘Hi!’ called a feminine voice from the darkness near the forehatch. A jumble of salvaged mecks surrounded the orange light from the tool room below. Centaur Larry loped over and peered down. Grinder and Sander Mecks were busy, creating a din of ninety decibels. Parts of a Battle Meck were spread over the knees of a Lathe machine.

‘Hi!’

Larry turned to the dark mecks next to him. ‘Are any of you operative?’ He flashed his chest light around. Seaweed covered twisted metalloid skin and vacant optics. One set of optics blinked back. ‘There you are. Don’t you have enough power for your telltales?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘During the battle I was put on manual and exhausted. I’m pretty low.’

Larry glanced around. ‘I’ll bring a power cable—’

‘No. My plates are OK. It’s my inertial wheel that needs it. It is a mag-supported flywheel that stores spin momentum. I use it for everything except mentating.’

‘How do we recharge a flywheel?’

‘You’re riding Spider Urethane. He has given me a life before. Can you spare the time?’

‘That depends. Let me get you out of that junk pile. Why – you are nothing but a box!’

‘Lost my appendages in an explosion. My jaw-type, flexible coupling is in my undercarriage. It is compatible with the tip of your power take-off.’

‘Well . . . I don’t know—’

‘SU has done it before. It only takes a second. Call a crane with a swivel hook and get me up – about three feet off the deck. I weigh about a hundred pounds so keep your toes clear – or – your hooves.’ She giggled.

Larry learned many things about his new meck body. His power take-off was a flexible shaft with an operating torque capacity of fifty pound-inches. A flexible casing protected his soft fingers during the operation.

‘Use the heavy-duty oil with molybdenum disulfide to reduce the coefficient of friction of the mating surfaces,’ she instructed.

‘Maybe I’d better crawl out of here. I don’t like to be this close to power machinery.’

‘That isn’t necessary. Wear this hard hat. It has an E-ring.’

He set the hat on his head.

‘Keep the torque at fifty. Remember, the shaft will deflect under maximum load; it will helix at a hundred pound-inches. But we’d better lock in our mid-line mounting screw to be safe: forty-five degrees chamfer, one point seven five on shaft, five grooves per inch.’

She directed that the centaur switch to satyr mode and stretch out on the deck to line up bevels. She swivelled down on top of the screw, using her best ‘oriental basket technique’. Each turn lowered her about half a centimetre. After thirty revolutions the box locked in place. Her long cable to the crane began vibrating – simple harmonic motions. When the mounting tightened, viscous damping reduced the vibration.

‘Now!’ she said. ‘Lock in the power take-off. My housing diameter has plenty of clearance. Don’t worry about damage. I’m built to take forty-five thousand pounds per square inch.’ Her lights flickered several times, then glowed brightly. Her chassis was spangled with numerous telltales. Three larger, central ones resembled eyes. Others were arranged in scrolls and loops, far more decorative than functional. Empty sockets marked the rudiments of her arms and legs.

The course deck irritated Larry’s back.

‘OK?’

‘Fine. Wonderful.’ Her voice was too sultry. ‘You can disconnect the power cable and spin me in the opposite direction to unlock our mounting.’

The crane swung her back into the row of damaged battle robots. Her telltales glowed brightly. ‘Thanks. That was real nice.’

Larry was suspiciously euphoric. He stood and brushed off his mannequin. When he removed his hard hat the welts on his back throbbed. His irritation returned. The mood changes altered him. He studied the inside of the hat. Soft grey transducers winked back at him. ‘Steriosonics!’ he exclaimed. ‘What does this E-ring attach to?’

‘It is tuned to your mannequin’s erogenous zone – the mounting screw. Those sonics are focused on your hypothalamus and several of the midbrain nuclei: Brady, Lilly, Olds . . . the reticular system.’

‘My pleasure centres!’

‘I wanted you to enjoy recharging me. I like to trade pleasure for energy – a fair bargain,’ she said.

He flared, prancing backward. ‘I don’t need that sort of thing from a machine!’

Her jaw-type coupling protruded in a silent pout.

‘I can see that you stay charged, but you don’t have to pay me – er – that way,’ he grumbled.

‘You’re embarrassed. I am sorry.’

‘I am not embarrassed. I just don’t think of you as a sex object. You’re nothing but a rusty box . . .’

‘And after I’m repaired? You will help me select my new appendages – arms, legs, a head??’

He refused to answer. Her manner was too familiar, possessive, and feminine.

She giggled.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘My new name. You can call me “Rusty”. Like it?’

‘No. What sort of machine are you?’

‘See my three eyes – watch.’ The three telltales rapidly changed colour and emblems, stopping one at a time: a lemon and two cherries. ‘I’m a slot machine – a game of chance.’

‘Gambling? For what?’

‘On my last ship I was hooked up to the shipbrain and dealt in calorie credits. Some lucky members of the crew of Pursuit Three went to their deaths with a year’s supply of flavours.’

‘Some luck!’ Larry stamped a wide circle, waving his arms. ‘A female slot machine! And she needs my mannequin for a recharge.’ He paused, worried. ‘I hate to ask . . . but how often do you need – er – it?’

She giggled and winked her middle eye. ‘Daily would be fine, but I can go a week or so.’

Larry loped down to the evening meal. ARNOLD’s wives eyed the gleaming horse torso suspiciously. He pranced around the table, grinned, and shifted to satyr mode – sitting down like a human.

Sunfish brought his usual greens-and-crust sandwich. Larry’s Blood Scrubber had lowered the urea and potassium levels of his serum and relieved him of his perpetual ruinous nausea. The aromas of steamed clams and boiled lobster made his nostrils flare. He had an appetite for the first time since the loss of his first mannequin. Opening the ascetic sandwich, he added a slab of baked fish and took a big bite. Crumbs fell. He heaped his plate: squid arms, urchin roe, mussel feet. Two mugs of
Rorqual
’s beer later, the satyr was down on his right elbow, chatting freely, speech slightly slurred.

ARNOLD grinned across the table. ‘Now that’s how to eat and drink! If I didn’t know better, Larry, I’d think that some women had been dissipating you – to give you such an appetite.’

Larry raised his mug, smiling. Everyone laughed with him. After all, tonight he was a wicked satyr.

Larry galloped down the deck and pulled up beside ARNOLD.

‘No hangover?’ commented the giant.

‘Efficient Blood Scrubber, that’s all.’ He described his dilemma with Slot Machine. ‘She seems very bright, and I enjoy talking with her, but I don’t think I should be taking my pleasure that way – artificially.’

ARNOLD nodded. ‘I understand. You and I are destined to have close relationships with cybers: me for my fifteen-amino-acid bread, and you for your various bodily functions. Cybers naturally like us because we are dependant on them. I guess we complement each other.’

‘Symbionts!’

‘Yes. Our lives are made longer and richer by the machines. They protect our metabolism – your renal functions and my amino acid; help us travel; and expand our intellectual awareness. It is only natural that they play a role in our sex lives: my many wives are housed by
Rorqual
: your reticular system gets tickled.’

Larry remained silent, thinking.

‘Of course you can do as you wish,’ continued the giant, ‘but pleasure centres are there to be used. You are half-machine – have been for over half your life if you count those years with Trilobite and
Rorqual
. Don’t forget that.’

‘I’m half-machine? I guess I am. Well, no sense getting excited about it now. Maybe if I see that Slot Machine gets her appendages I won’t feel like I’ve neglected an intelligence.’

He trotted toward the forehatch.

‘Back so soon?’ she chided.

‘I just wanted to make sure you got your arms and legs so you could be put to work. We are short of mecks in the game room.’

‘Did you bring the moly?’

‘The what?’

‘The penetrating oil with molybdenum disulfide – the electromoly.’

He frowned. ‘I haven’t come to recharge you. The tool room may be able to take you next – for repairs.’

‘And you wanted to pick out my arms and legs?’

He left without a word. In the drawing room her new extremities were designed to fit the job description. Because of her female personality, she was matched with the wives, and given fairly humanoid lines. Her three eyes would be at the umbilical level of her robot body when it was finished.

‘It’ll take about a week,’ he said, showing her a blueprint. ‘These tapes contain your new duties.’

‘Do you have time to recharge me?’

‘Now? You said you could last a week between charges,’ he objected.

She giggled. ‘From the looks of my new body I’d say that it would be less embarrassing now.’

He nodded.

‘Put on the hat.’

‘No. It isn’t necessary to pay me.’

She sulked. ‘I don’t consider it payment. This isn’t something I do to you or you do to me. It is something we do together.’

Larry’s irritation showed. ‘You are just a machine! Don’t talk about a mechanical recharge as if it were an act of lovemaking.’

‘Why not? My neural apparatus is at least as complex as yours. My experience – well, I’m over a thousand years old. Why shouldn’t I sound like I enjoy a good recharging. It does give me renewed strength.’

‘OK, OK. If it makes you feel better I’ll wear the damn hat. Let’s get on with it. I’ve got a lot of things to do today. Crane! CRANE!!’

‘Hmmm! And you came to me before breakfast.’

‘Now cut that out!’

‘Yes, dear.’

Larry wiped his brow as the swivel hook lifted Slot Machine away. He felt more than a vague sensation of pleasure. There had been a real crest of euphoria – a minor orgasm. Old adolescent memories of sexual encounters were stirred up. ‘What did you do?’ he demanded, catching his breath.

The squat, rusty box remained silent.

‘That time was different,’ he complained.

‘Better?’

He removed his hard hat and brushed the dust off his back. Leaning against the rail, he watched the ship’s wake. Dawn had brought a school of jumping fish.

‘OK. It was better,’ he admitted. ‘What did you do?’

‘Turned up the E-stimulus a little.’

‘A little! How high can it go?’

‘I guess we’ll find out . . . won’t we,’ she giggled. ‘After I get some nice soft arms and legs.’

Larry went over the blueprints again. He couldn’t decide which part of the chasses was best suited for the jaw-type flexible coupling.

Cast they ARNOLD upon the waters
And he shall return a hundredfold.

– Wandee (memo)

Wandee stood in the doorway of the committee room, a bundle of reports under her arm. Her pituitary-ovarian axis had polarized late, giving her a semblance of a female figure – drawing in her waist and rounding her breasts and hips slightly. However, menopause promptly followed her two wasted ovulations. Her eyes remained bright and alert, giving evidence of a curious mind under the grey streaks and wrinkles.

‘I brought over those reports on the Benthic dissections,’ she said.

Furlong lifted his head from his arms and blinked across the empty table. He alone had been spared by the Megajury. His Cabinet had returned to the protein pool.

‘How do I address you, sir?’

He glanced at this gold Aries – a talisman useless against the wrath of the Hive. ‘Come in, Wandee. Sit down, I’m not up to protocol this morning.’

‘I watched the voting,’ she said softly. ‘You were lucky.’

‘I know.’ He gestured towards the empty room. ‘But my advisors were caught napping. After the sinking of the armada the jury reviewed the optics of our strategy meetings. Anyone who closed their eyes was judged a shirker. Hive justice is swift.’

‘Empty chairs mean a fuller sandwich,’ she said, repeating an old aphorism. ‘Here are the reports. The Benthic is much like our own Lesser Arnold. Natural selection has given him a good body – rich in the types of genes and proteins we engineer into our warriors. Our Neurotecks tell me that the Benthics have a set of CNS-MMs that rival our best efforts at leptosoul conditioning.’