O Master Caliban (12 page)

They turned their heads at the sounds of approach. Though their paws were pronounced their features were not coarse; they had narrow noses, their eyes were startling blue. The female was hare-lipped.

“The eye is four meters up aimed around your left shoulder,” Shirvanian said. “You should be half in view.”

“Keep back,” Sven muttered. He had broken into a sweat at sight of the male. “It’s Dahlgren.” In face, feature for feature.

They smelled like an old animal’s lair. The floor of the cage, a meter and a half above the ground, was littered with straw, half-eaten fruits, lumps of dung.

“Not the original. That thing’s not much older than you,” said Esther. “The female’s one too.” Above the disfigured lip her face was one with the male’s. Sven rubbed his nose, its same arch and nostril shapes.

“She’s one what?” Ardagh hissed. “Those are Yahoos! Christ, you’d think they were made to order!”

Mitzi held her own nose and pulled back. Voice muffled, she cried, “Let’s get out of here!”

Sven took a step forward. His shoulder itched, as if the eye had set a hot beam on it. Abased images of Dahlgren: my sister? my brother?

Koz crouched, hands covering his scarred and roughened head, and could not keep his eyes off them. Kneeling, splayed fingers gripping the bars, they stared back.

They were not as squat as prehistoric men had been pictured, but so thick and graceless they seemed ancient in shape. The female cocked her head to look at them like a child or a monkey, her hair got in the eyes of the male, he twitched his head and snarled, she gave a wild crow and he slammed her with his shoulder; she hit him full in the face with the butt of her hand, he yipped and hooked her under the knee with his foot so that she fell on her rump in the mess, he pushed her down on her back, threw himself on top of her and plunged.

Koz yelled at the top of his lungs, grabbed a lump of mud and hurled it at the cage. It hit the male square between the shoulder blades and he pulled out of the female with a howl of rage, blue eyes, beautiful in the savage face, wild with fury. He grabbed stuff from the cage floor and flung it, she jumped up and did the same. Koz ran forward, screaming as mud and dung hit him, and Sven grasped him bodily with all arms and carried him back.

“Stop it! Stop it!”

The boy gave a great jerk and shiver, then went limp in a faint.

They groveled in the underbrush, Mitzi on her belly, vomiting. Ardagh and Joshua hugged themselves and shivered, Esther had jumped to Yigal’s back and had an arm around his neck and a hand calming his flank. Shirvanian was sitting with his hands covering his face. “The spy-eye’s off,” he said between his fingers.

“I bet they enjoyed it,” Ardagh said bitterly.

Sven picked himself off Koz, whom he had flattened. “I hope he’s not hurt.” Both were filthy. “Let’s go. I think we stayed too long, we’ll clean up later.”

But Esther slipped off Yigal and ran toward the cage, ignoring the cries of the others. She leaped to its roof with an arm’s grasp, knelt and pushed her face down at the male’s, stuck her tongue out and wiggled it. As he gaped up at her, she shoved her thumbs into the corners of his mouth, withdrew them before he had time to bite, jumped down and scampered back.

Sven was aghast. “For God’s sake, are you crazy?”

“Got all his wisdom teeth,” she said. “Two or three years older than you. So—who made them?”

“Who cares? We’ve—”

Koz gave another tremendous galvanic jerk. His eyes blinked open, staring black and beady.

“My name is Nikoteles Kosmopoulos,” he said in a clear calm voice. Insects chirred around him and splatters from draining leaves fell on his smudged face and ran down. “I am a dangerous violent person registered in the Triskelian Order under the Protection Act of Galactic Federation.” A cheek muscle twitched and blue triskelions jumped on his skin. “I repeat, I am dangerously violent, I have killed; my conditioning has broken down and I may kill or try to kill again. Do not speak to me, do not touch or try to restrain me in any way; stay away from me, report my whereabouts to the nearest Triskelian Center through the emergency number in your Directory. Again, do not restrain me, stay away, report ...”

Before he was finished, Esther had looped his wrists and ankles with cord and knotted them tightly.

They watched him, half pitying, half repelled. Ardagh sighed. “Nearest Triskelian Center, forty-five million kilometers. I knew he’d blow ...”

Esther hunkered beside him and cupped his face in her hands for a moment. “Poor child.” His eyes were blank, his lips went on mouthing. “Pack him on Yigal. Eight kilometers, and we’d better go back and circle because they’ll be sending—”

Sven stood gaping; his throat had constricted. “Look—” he croaked.

Two small servos, not much bigger than Shirvanian’s bird, crawled out from the scrub beneath the cage. They wigwagged on their small treads like robot toys, but they moved with purpose, extending endless blue-steel arms. Yigal whinnied and backed up, Esther wrapped her own wiry arms around Koz, several times her weight, and plucked him away; the children stood numb.

Sven, all arms out like Vishnu, bared machete in one, moved forward in terrified desperation, wishing for a lightning bolt in each. “Shirvanian! Shir—”

One was reaching for Shirvanian, to kill; another for him, to take. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the child, trembling violently, grab at his box, crack it open with his clumsy hands, spilling things, clutch at something, twist, turn and push; his teeth were chattering.

The ergs hummed, Koz was moaning, “Report my whereabouts to the nearest Trisk ...” The caged creatures gaped and gibbered.

Sven’s erg touched him once with an icy claw, began to buzz, dropped its arms and spun madly like a dying fly. The arms tangled in its treads, sparked and fumed.

Sven dared turn his head. Shirvanian’s erg, grapplers extended, had wheeled abruptly and trundled away. It stopped after a few meters, reached to pick something from a branch, turned again, came back to the boy, dropped the object in his extended palm, and froze ‘in that position as if it were a dog begging.

Shirvanian immediately fell to his knees and began collecting the fallen pieces, wiping them on his sleeve and putting them carefully back in the box. He was crying so hard his whole body jerked with the sobs.

The other erg died hard, twitching as if it were crying too, in parody. The frozen erg stood suppliant, dirty water trickled on its beetle body and down its steel flanks.

Sven found his voice again. “Shirvanian—”

Shirvanian’s tears were falling into the box. He stopped to scrub them off his face with his other sleeve. “Told you I could do it,” his breath shuddered, “told you I’m not useless, I knew I could ...”

“You were right,” said Esther. “But how did you miss them before?”

“They were there all the time, inactivated and shielded. I have to home on a signal, I told you I’m not—”

“For God’s sake, just thank him!” Ardagh snapped. “He doesn’t have to apologize.” She knelt beside him. “I think you got everything now. Come on, before they send out something bigger.”

“What did that erg give you?” Sven asked. Shirvanian turned up a suddenly grinning face.

“The spy-eye. I can find a use for that. These things are too big to carry and too small to ride on.”

“And you risked your life—oh, come on.” He turned his back on the grizzled beings. A last lump of mud glanced off his shoulder. He ignored it.

THE SERVOS
plucked
Dahlgren from his bed, nudged him till he dressed, and brought him to the room with the screen. As he sat down, cursing, the picture came on, a cage among shadows, shadow-creatures in it
.
One pushed against the bars. It had his face.

Dreaming?

A pale hairless head rose from the screen’s lower margin; a strangely curved shoulder, two arms dependent from it. The head turned, presented its profile, but did not glance back.

I TOLD YOU THAT YOU WOULD SEE HIM.

He had not noticed the sliding of the door. Erg-Queen tapped her arms along her flanks in waves of xylophone notes, tinkling, a weird prima donna’s affected laughter.

He was morose, he said nothing. Sven did not have his face but the caged beast did. The caged beast would outlive Sven.

ARE YOU SATISFIED?

“You cloned me,” he said without passion.

NOT I. MY MAKERS.

“Why did they not use my wife’s ova and make something whole, at least?”

THERE WERE ONLY FOUR.

“You know even that.” He sighed.

WE WANTED ANOTHER DAHLGREN. WE DID NOT EXACTLY SUCCEED, YOU SEE.

“My men helped you. Otherwise you could not have done this much.”

YOU COULDN’T KEEP ALL OF THE BEST IN THIS TERRIBLE PLACE. EVEN YOU MUST HAVE KNOWN THAT.

He knew it now.

YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY OF YOUR SON?

“What do you expect me to say? He has grown.”

ALTHOUGH YOUR HEART DOES FIBRILLATE, YOU ARE A GOOD MACHINE, DAHLGREN. I RESPECT THAT.

He looked her up and down, silver, diamond, blued steel. “Don’t expect me to return the compliment.”

On the screen Sven stepped forward but did not turn toward his father; he watched the cage with his arms folded, two behind his back and two over his chest. The screen went blank.

Servos ran in, manipulated dials and toggles with their chicken-claws, produced nothing but sparkles, found tool-kits, took apart and put together the console. Dahlgren and erg-Queen glared at each other, his eyes, her sensors. Flashes appeared on the screen, then scenes of jungle, mountain, lines of huge laboring ergs. No cage. An hour passed. The servos whirled out again and the Queen after them.

WHERE ARE THE THRESHERS? THEY WERE TO PICK UP DAHLGRENSSON AND KILL MACHINEMAKER.

They are not signaling and are completely out of contact.

SEND A SKIMMER TO RETURN THE CLONES AND BRING THE THRESHERS BACK HERE.

After she had gone Dahlgren stood up and faced the open doorway; it beckoned. Erg-Dahlgren filled it and leaned against the frame with his arms folded.

Then it seemed very strange, almost terrifyingly strange to Dahlgren that he had immediately recognized his bestial image in the cage when erg-Dahlgren’s appearance, which he believed must be the truest reproduction possible, did not bother him. He could not even find himself in Sven. Yet he recognized the beast.

“You hate Mod Seven Seven Seven?” erg-Dahlgren asked.

“I don’t hate any men or things,” said Dahlgren. “There are only men and things I despise.”

Erg-Dahlgren smiled. “Your pulse is up.”

“Of course. I have seen my son. I suppose I should be grateful that the promise has been kept.” And the screen had gone blank; perhaps he had been taken and killed. “Why this hurly-burly? What happened here?”

Erg-Dahlgren said indifferently, “I presume a malfunction.”

Dahlgren looked at him more carefully. “Why do you ask if I hate your Mod Seven Etcetera? That does not seem like you.”

“I should laugh, but I am not able. It is like you. I am curious.”
Hate her, she ...

Dahlgren barked with laughter. “Erg-Queen tells me I am a good machine. You claim you are becoming more like me.” Screen blank and busy wheeling about.
Malfunction.
A chance that he is still alive? Take it further then, than moving the fossils on the board. “But I do not think, machine or man, that I should ask such a dangerous question.”

‘Why not?”

“Because you are linked to your mentor.”

“Not always, friend.” Erg-Dahlgren turned his head back and forth, not quite naturally yet. “Not always.”

Then you have autonomy? No, not to that extent. She is busy, and you are learning new ideas. The mice are playing.

Erg-Dahlgren’s head swiveled sideways and then fell forward; his eyes turned empty. He stood still.

Dahlgren watched him a moment and backed away slowly till he butted into the console. He would not for anything have risked touching the other by trying to push through the door. Let him behave so at the Sciences Council and Queen will know how well her piece is moving. If they do not say that is just more of Dahlgren’s eccentricity.

But something peculiar was happening within erg-Dahlgren once more. The words
Why not?
had set up strange resonances among his circuits. The words
hate her, she
rose into his frontal store and looped there. And completed themselves at last:

hate her, she

broke my bird

said Shirvanian.

When he raised his head and saw how Dahlgren was looking at him he knew that his curiosity had been dangerous indeed. He had been going to say that erg-Queen needed him too badly to risk everything by destroying or tampering with him, but
broke my bird
stopped him. He said, “I am sorry, but I do not always operate properly.” Dahlgren was gripping the console edge with bloodless knuckles. “Believe me, you do not need to fear that I will attack you physically. I have both strength and balance, but they are hard to coordinate. I was not made for fighting, and I have no reason to do it. Would you like to go on with the game now?”

“No. I want to go back to bed.”

“Come along, then.”

Erg-Dahlgren would have been incapable of playing chess just then.
Danger danger danger
was looping in his forebrain. He wondered if this awareness was something like fear. Do you hate her?
Hate her, she (danger) broke my bird.
Break me? She would only have to replace components. Take a few days longer. Begin a new game. And she lied to Dahlgren. O
Being,
stupid child! you have opened my mind to what?

Erg-Queen at end of corridor, Dahlgrens stop and stare, she skims closer. What to have in mind?

Help!
cries erg-Dahlgren in silence.

The Middle Game in Chess, Forty-Seventh Revised,
says Being.

“White’s position seems to be admirable and full of promise, but his pawn-chain keeps all lines closed so that his pieces cannot take an effective part in the attack. On the other hand, Black’s pawn formation is in no way weakened, and his inferiority really lies in the absence of defending pieces near the King’s field.”

Erg-Queen stopped before them. SEE THAT HE GOES TO SLEEP AND COME TO ME. She wheeled away like a White Queen on roller skates.

Dahlgren looked at his erg. “Something has gone wrong, I think.”

“It appears so.”

“Better you than me,” said Dahlgren, and turned in to his room.

“It follows therefore that White must by some means force through some of his pieces for the attack in order to decide the issue. Any loss of time, however, would give Black the chance of consolidating his position ...”

* * *

Mod 777 put three or four of her arms around erg-Dahlgren’s shoulder. It was not an affectionate gesture; she was directing his attention.

COME HERE. She pushed a button and a square of the floor descended. In Design were vaults beyond vaults. Metal struts and tendons, flexes, transistors, endless walls of circuit diagrams, revolving vats of plastics, molds of hand, arm, head, hair spinnerets. YOU WERE CONCEIVED AND BORN HERE. YOU WILL DIE AND BE REPLACED HERE. WHAT YOU CHOOSE TO CALL YOUR AUTONOMY BEGINS AND ENDS WITH ME. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

“I understand,” said erg-Dahlgren.

DO NOT USE MY COMPUTER. DO NOT HAVE UNNECESSARY CONVERSATIONS WITH DAHLGREN. AND DO NOT GIVE SO MUCH THOUGHT TO YOUR CHESS GAME. IT IS NOT ALL THAT IMPORTANT. NOW GO BACK AND MONITOR HIM.

When she was alone she called Dispatcher. WHAT OF SKIMMER?

It has returned the clones. It found no sign of the threshers.

THEY WERE UNDER THE CAGE. TELL THAT USELESS THING TO SEARCH THE GROUND.

* * *

But what do I want? Why am I doing this? asked erg-Dahlgren of the darkness that was neither his night nor his day. Why am I doing so much to preserve my being? But then why does any creature wish to stay alive? No one has answered that yet.

* * *

Skimmer 1
74
reporting to Mod 777.

YOU HAVE FOUND THE THRESHERS?

One was destroyed and one deactivated. They emitted no heat, light or signal. That was why I missed them ... Mod 777, are you in contact?

YES. DISPATCHER, ALL PATROLS, SKIMMERS AND THRESHERS WILL NEST. THE SOLTHREES ARE WORKING TOWARD DEPOT 4 AND YOU WILL MAKE WHATEVER ARRANGEMENTS ARE NECESSARY TO KILL ALL OF THEM THERE. DAHLGREN HAS SEEN HIS SON AND THAT IS ENOUGH OF PROMISE-KEEPING.