O Master Caliban (14 page)

She pulled at his clothes, ripped down the line of her magnetic snaps, found places and uses for all of his hands, took his mouth with her own. The rain held back for them. She carried him like a wave of the sea. Simple. He broke into sweat at the last shudder and glanced up at a movement near the fire.

Ardagh had risen on one elbow and was looking at him. Immediately she lay back and pulled the cover over her head.

He turned to Mitzi. Her eyes were closed, her mouth quirked. “First time I ever made it with a real freak,” she whispered.

He pulled away. “You mean you haven’t tried Shirvanian?”

She giggled, rolled into her poncho, and slept.

He stayed on his knees, watching her. Thorns scratched his arms. His hand groped blindly and snapped off a thorn branch, brought it in front of his eyes. He had a hideous impulse to rake it down his groin. The thought gave him a different shiver and he flung
it away and put his twisted clothes in order. He had hours to watch. What was he to think and do?

Only in dreams had he believed he would have sexual experience. He had had an experience. He looked at it straight, and at Mitzi, folded in sleep with her poison mouth curled in peculiar pleasure. Remembering that he had believed his father controlled the robots, he looked carefully to avoid the fear and revulsion that might curdle in him later and embitter his spirit.

At length he picked her up and dumped her in his place under the shelter. And laughed. He wouldn’t have to be afraid of dying without it.

Toward the end of that long watch, Ardagh, who was next in line, got up without looking at or speaking to Sven, and poked up the fire to boil water. She hunkered before it, watching the bubbles gathering in the bottom of the translucent boiling-bag.

Sven shouldered through the mist and sat down beside her; she did not turn her head. He picked up the end of her heavy braid and brushed her cheek with it. “Ardagh ...”

She twitched away. “You want more? Go jerk yourself off!”

“Ardagh, don’t speak to me like that. I did nothing to hurt you. Or her.”

“Oh, her! She’s everything-proof. You, you just fell in.”

He grinned. “That’s right.”

She shrugged irritably. “Men.”

“And I got paid off with her thorny tongue, too. That make you feel better?”

“Why should it? I’m just jealous. Not vindictive.”

“You sure?”

Her mouth pulled into the slightest of smiles. “No, I’m not sure. Not here.” Her eyes swung an arc around the steaming pit of the world. “You want some tea?” She took a tube from her pack and squirted it into the bag, turning the water first pale and then deep amber.

“I’ve never drunk much, I’m not sure I like it, but ... will it keep me awake?”

“With stale water and synthetic concentrate you won’t want to drink enough to keep awake.” She poked the collapsible mug to size. “Here.”

He accepted half a mugful and drank, because he needed her, not sexually yet, but for loyalty to the day ahead, the day of the ergs. “I wonder how much news got out about your being missing. Your parents must be worried.”

“I guess they would be.” She drank and watched the steam wisping past the plug in the bag’s spout. “I’ve been so tired, scared, and busy I’ve hardly thought about it.”

“Goodnight, then. It’s been quiet so far.”

“Oh yeah.” Low roll of thunder to the east, wind, endless animal noises, Yigal snoring like a buzz saw, Mitzi blubbering and ...

The cut near his armpit pulled and throbbed. He could not comfort her or ask for comfort. She had been the most joyful of them all.

And she had not worried about her parents either. None of them had.

* * *

Shirvanian woke last, by special dispensation, when they were half through breakfast. The first thing he said was,
“The Middle Game in Chess
isn’t enough.”

“For what?” Esther asked.

“Blocking erg-Queen from catching what the Dahlgren knows about us. He’s got to have his memory wiped or dismantled and stored somewhere else. Otherwise there’ll be more traps at that factory than we can handle.”

“There hasn’t been any sign of a drone or skimmer for a long while,” Sven said.

“They’ve been tracking, they knew where to set up a spy-eye, so It’s obvious they know we’re heading for the factory.”

“Then Mod Dahlgren can’t tell them anything new.”

“Only because
we
don’t know.”

“Can’t you shield?”

“Not when I’m scared,” said Shirvanian.

The sun popped over the horizon like a bubble, the leaves stirred toward it and the mists writhed. It would be a hot day.

“How can you wipe his memory?”

“I can’t do it, he’s probably got millions of microcircuits in him. He’ll have to do it himself.”

“That’s crazy.”

Shirvanian shrugged. “If you say so. He could do it with the computer, but he’s been asking it questions and erg-Queen told him to stay away. And he wouldn’t wipe completely anyway. That memory’s his individual part—what makes him, he’d say alive.
My being.
That’s what he calls it. He’s still got to use the computer to store. He needs access—and a code. Did you use the computer?”

“Me? I was,” Sven smiled, “ten years old. What would I use a computer for?”

“If you did you’d have a store and a private code. Did Dahlgren have one?”

“Of course.”

“You don’t know his code, though.”

“Of course not! If I did I wouldn’t trust an erg with it.”

Shirvanian wrapped his box in plastic film and packed it. His eyes were far away. “I killed a machine yesterday. I’d kill erg-Queen, but I wouldn’t kill Mod Dahlgren more than I would a human being or an animal. He’s too good. Dahlgren and erg-Queen are both his enemies, and I’m the nearest thing to a friend he’s got ... I like machines more than human beings—”

“I’ve noticed.”

Shirvanian went on musing. “But I am a human being ... and if he went back to erg-Queen I’d be forced ... but I think he’s gone too far. I think he’s stuck with the human race.”

“Don’t forget you are too.”

“I’ve said so. We can’t do anything from here, and I wouldn’t risk bringing the ergs down on us. All I can do is give him a hint. He can’t keep using
The Middle Game in Chess
forever.”

* * *

Koz prayed, put away his idol, and helped Esther load Yigal. The girls stamped down embers from the fire. Sven and Joshua brushed earth and rubble into the latrine pit: Joshua had an ineradicable compulsion to keep the forest neat. “Maybe we won’t have rain for a while,” he said, glancing at the corpulent sun.

Thunder rose in the west. Joshua called defiance to it in an unknown language and went to fetch his rainskin. As he was shrugging into it Sven noticed that the pull on the slide fastening was a small bronze triskelion.

IF P-N4
had
been risky for Dahlgren, his erg did not seem willing to follow up. With
13.
B-N3 he backed away; Dahlgren played N-R4 to chase the Bishop and lay the ground for Pawn advance. Erg-Queen had left them alone, likely to prepare more deadly advances.

Erg-Dahlgren said suddenly, “Your son is alive.”

“I don’t suppose he will be so for long.”

“She is planning to kill them all.”

Dahlgren stared at the set. If he flung
the pieces at the wall they would probably bounce.

“Do not hate me, Dahlgren. Mod Seven Seven Seven is planning to replace me, and I think you would care for Mod Dahlgren Two even less.”

“Why does she want to replace you?” Dahlgren asked indifferently. One machine or another meant death.

“Even she thinks I am becoming too
human.”

Dahlgren smiled icily. “Twilight man. You cannot eat, sleep, breathe, secrete, excrete, copulate. Your hair does not grow, you cannot spit, shiver or weep. And you are too human for ergs.”

“I have discovered, Dahlgren, that I can feel. I wish to maintain my being, and the threat to it induces what I call fear, I find I have wishes and wants. I want to live, and also I want to know. There are things that I do not want, and one is for you to ridicule my small claims.”

Dahlgren said in a quiet voice, “Believe me, I take you seriously. You are certainly less arrogant than I, and that may make you even more human.”

“Perhaps you are claiming more arrogance than you have right now.”

“At any rate, it appears that we share pride and fear.”

Erg-Dahlgren cocked his head in the odd gesture that made him seem to be listening, and moved
14.
P-KR3, taking the pressure off his Bishop and applying it to Dahlgren’s. “As a theoretical question, what would you be willing to barter for even a small factor of aid or safety to the boy, the ape, the goat, and the five children?”

Dahlgren’s heart went at it again, and the air around him seemed to go very thin. He pushed words out, “In a day or two I will begin to rot and you to be reconditioned. I think neither of us has any counters to trade,”

“Please try to be calm or it will be much sooner. Mod Seven Seven Seven will be here in a few minutes.”

Dahlgren took the White Knight with his threatened Bishop. He whispered, “What could I possibly have to give?”

“Your sign-on to the computer.”

“There’s nothing there for you to use—only a few fragments of notes ... I wiped most of it out before—before everything else was wiped out.”

“I don’t want to take anything out, Dahlgren. I want to put something in.”

“Information? Something to hide from—”

“One of those children has psi—a mechano-sensitive. He has no other talent except for machines.”

“How do you know?”

“We linked up by chance and are in communication. We cannot help it. I don’t know how to shield and he is a frightened child without much experience at it. I can block by looping on another subject, but not for long, because she is suspicious.”

“She made you to obey her,” said Dahlgren. “If you do that I don’t think you will be destroyed.”

“Now you are testing me. It is you who are taking risks.”

“I must do that.”

“Probably I was made too well. I have found she is not to be trusted, and I don’t wish to be broken at her whim.” The lucite casters hummed at the end of the corridor.

“If she knew about this—this sensitivity—she would know everything they might do to try to defend themselves, and—”

“They would have no chance at all,” erg-Dahlgren said.

Erg-Queen swept into the room. WHY SO MUCH COGITATION ON CHESS? WHY SO MUCH DELIBERATE SPEED? YOU ARE NOT PLAYING AN INTERPLANETARY GAME. EVEN THE SAINTED ZNOSKO-BOROVSKY WOULD AGREE THAT THERE IS ULTIMATELY AN ENTRY INTO THE END GAME. She extended a steel claw over erg-Dahlgren’s shoulder to grasp White Queen and
15.
take Dahlgren’s Bishop. She placed the mitered trilobite in front of Dahlgren at the table’s edge.

“That is true,” said erg-Dahlgren mildly. “Still it should be ‘deliberate and at the free will of the player who has the advantage ...’ ”

He locked eyes with Dahlgren, who pulled his Knight back to N2.

MAKE SURE THAT YOU KEEP IT, said erg-Queen, and vanished.

“ ‘Not merely a fortuitous happening or a disagreeable surprise,’ ” erg-Dahlgren finished. He folded his hands and waited for Dahlgren’s decision.

* * *

The molds had stopped spreading over the walls once the dehumidifiers were working again, but though the ergs had washed everything down there were still brown stains around the cracks where strange bits of underground life had seeped in. Dahlgren stared at the cracks. There were no windows, and the light in his room was always yellow and sick.

“You have no proof,” he said.

Erg-Dahlgren, sitting on the other bed, said, “I cannot reach him at will long enough to gather information in an organized manner—and if I could it would be too dangerous, I can tell you this: the being is named Shirvanian, he is a Solthree child aged ten years—”

“That
is a dangerous being to be playing around with.”

“He has the ability, and the others must trust him. He has saved them from death at least once. Mod Seven Seven Seven sent out a mechanical bird—a deformed shape to warn them from trying to reach you—”

Dahlgren looked up. “And that—”

“He restructured it and sent it back. You saw it, and how she broke it. Shirvanian’s anger opened his communication to me. I
hate her, she broke my bird.
I don’t quite understand why it happened, but I still don’t know men very well.”

“You asked me if I hated her.”

“I was asking myself as well. The answer told me how dangerous it was.”

Dahlgren’s brow crinkled. “And you want to use the computer—”

“To store my knowledge of Shirvanian,”

“To wipe your memory? And then you would be my old enemy.”

“No. I would still have a distrust of Mod Seven Seven Seven and a determination not to be destroyed. My memory is too complicated to be wiped completely, and I think I am capable of storing that much so she could not reach it. Of course she distrusts me already. I have some connection with the computer, but only for chess information and some data about you, I have no private store, and I have not been allowed anything else. Your store would operate for me in a way analogous to your unconscious; you could put a protect on the information, and if you wished you might restore my access with a code word.”

“You trust
me
with all this?”

“I have trusted you
too
far for the last hour. If I broke my loop on
The Middle Game in Chess
I would be a heap of components in ten minutes.”

Then why not let him? But erg-Queen would find out all he knows first, and perhaps link up with that child in the forest—if it is the truth and not some game in a nightmare. A game at least more interesting than the one on the board.

Erg-Dahlgren said, “I know you do not trust me any more than she does.”

“I trust you a great deal more than I do her,” said Dahlgren. “I’ll tell you, it is not simply a case of giving you my code. My store has probably been inactivated by now. You are only allowed on the machine to ask questions about chess—”

“And about you, but she has told me to stay away from it. And my only other connection with the machine is that it stores the information I receive from your electrochemical system.”

“Probably she has told the machine not to answer any more of your questions. You have no access so you cannot store. I cannot use my code—”

“But, Dahlgren—”

“Do you know Mod Seven Seven Seven’s call signal?”

“No.”

“Then there are two problems. To find her call signal and reach the machine. Are there life sensors attached to the computer?”

“No. There was no need.”

“Then it will not know the difference between her and me, if I reach it, and if I have her signal.”

“Dahlgren, that is very bold.”

“A bold thought is different from a bold act. What is your identification on the computer?”

“Most of the time just my appellation, Mod Dahlgren One. Occasionally it requests a further key, which is MODAL 1.”

“Is the Shirvanian child truly intelligent?”

“He thinks of himself as a genius, whatever that may be.”

“Ask the genius to pick up erg-Queen’s call signal. If he knew she broke the bird he must have some connection with her.”

“He is so terrified of her he may become very unstable if he is obliged to contact her. And she may pick him up.”

“That is your problem, and his. I know how to use a computer, but I don’t know how to tamper with one.”

“If that is the only way—”

“It is. But you must approach your Shirvanian very gently, because you will need to ask him how to create a diversion.”

“I am not sure that I can reach him.”

“Mod Dahlgren, I believe that with your urgency, you will.”

* * *

As he took the first step on the blue brick road Shirvanian screamed “No!” and fainted.

“Shirvanian!” Esther and Ardagh were beside him, grabbing him under the arms. “The bakri, he must have relapsed!” He fought them, swinging his head from side to side.

“No, he’s still cool.”

Shirvanian ground between his teeth, “It’s her name! Her name! Leave me alone! I’ll do—” His eyes opened. He looked at Esther and Ardagh. “I hate them all! I wish—I wish I’d never—”

“What? What is it?”

“I wish I’d never touched that bird.”

* * *

“He said, ‘It’s her name.’ That’s all.”

“Her name ...”

“If I go near him again I’ll make him ill.”

“Mod Seven Seven Seven?”

“I suppose
so.”

“That sounds
too
good to be true.”

“That is what he said, her name, and I don’t dare contact him again or I will do him some injury.”

Dahlgren sighed. “But we still need a diver—”

Thunder rolled in a distant area. Treads shrieked, metal clanged. “What’s—”

“One moment.” Erg-Dahlgren left the room and came back in a few moments. “A servo has gone out of control, a three-two-one.”

“That’s a fair size.”

“Yes, it’s making a lot of noise and confusion.”

“Did he do that?”

“It has never happened here before.” He opened the door; Dahlgren waited beside him. A hum approached them.

“White will sometimes make a series of exchanges in order to bring about the end game,” said Dahlgren.

“True,” said erg-Dahlgren.

Two or three small servos, the size and shape of pug dogs, clustered around them. They clicked and tutted. They were used for chassis repair, and their fine multiple arms terminated in tiny screwdrivers, socket wrenches, soldering irons and pliers.
Where are you going?

To play chess.

Do not do that. That is dangerous. A three-two-one is out of order in the tread-repair chamber. Stay away.

Certainly.

“I presume they say we are naughty,” said Dahlgren. “And I suppose they will tell Mother.”

“Hurry!”

The door, to the computer hall was open. Erg-Dahlgren half-closed it and turned on the dim light over the main console. “It is too bad we need light. The door is never closed here.”

“Too bad we’re not somewhere else altogether.” Dahlgren stood before the console he had not approached for nine years. He breathed deeply and pushed a button.

WHO IS COMMUNICATING?

EDVALG.

THAT IS NOT AN IDENTIFICATION. THE STORE DESIGNATED EDVALG HAS BEEN INACTIVATED. IDENTIFY YOURSELF PROPERLY.

“Now you know my code doesn’t work any longer,” said Dahlgren.

“Don’t play, Dahlgren! We will have them on us very soon!”

COMMUNICATOR: MOD SEVEN SEVEN SEVEN.

THAT IS NOT AN AUTHORIZATION CODE. IDENTIFY.

Dahlgren’s heart clenched and he coughed. “How do you like that?”

“He said, her name. Try the numerals.”

COMMUNICATOR: MOD 777.

THAT IS NOT AN AUTH—

Dahlgren slammed off. “Now what?”

“I don’t know what, he said her name, there must be some, it—”

“For the Lord’s sake, don’t malfunction! It’s bad for my heart.” He spent a minute, considering. “Are you sure that Mod Seven Seven Seven is her name?”

“It is what she is called.”

“But she cannot be the seven hundred and seventy-seventh model of her type if the ergs made her on the specs of one or two scaled-down exemplars my techs designed.”

“I see what you mean. She is called Seven Seven Seven because, not including the big drones operating outside, she is at the head of over seven hundred servos: skimmers, thresh—”

“You wanted to hurry!”

“That’s her cognomen. Her nomen, or genus, is Creator Matrix One.”

“Ha.” COMMUNICATOR: CREATOR MATRIX 1.

WHAT IS YOUR REQUEST?

Dahlgren let out his breath. “Now you get out of here. Order a good meal for me, and take your time.”