Prostho Plus (19 page)

Seventeen minutes, ticking away already. Such a short time to hide himself in this brush, away from the lifeboat. And he'd better dispose of his University transcoder, too. Unless he wanted to stay and face down the Jann...

Useless: a machine could not be bluffed. On the other hand, if he did succeed in eluding it, what would he gain? A tedious expiration from hunger and thirst?

Opposing the thing physically was out of the question.

He was forty-two years old, and had never been the robust type.

His only real chance was to outsmart it. For all its talents, it did not seem to be particularly bright, or he would never have escaped it this long. It could easily have interfered with the lifeboat's guidance system and made it crash, for example, had it figured out where he was soon enough. Or prevented him from ever boarding the scow to Hazard, by fouling up the spaceport translators. It had missed marvellous opportunities.

Also, it seemed to feel obliged to answer all questions put to it. That was another machine trait. Probably it was incapable of lying, or of evading the truth, unlike the inferior contemporary robots. That could be its weakness.

"Why didn't you foul up the spaceport's communications network, to prevent me from leaving Metallica?" he asked. Maybe if he probed enough—

"That would have interfered with thy freedom of motion."

"What do you care about that, since you intend to kill me anyway?"

"The rights of a sentient creature may not be voided, unless directly contrary to a specific Jann oath. So it is recorded, so must it be. Wherever thou art, there will I find thee, and there will I do thee die. Then will I grant thee three wishes, for the second time thou savest me—"

"And then enrich me forever and ever, for the third time. I know."

"Then only will the oaths be acquitted, and I free."

This didn't seem to be getting him anywhere. He already knew the robot was impervious to irony about the feasibility of the remaining boons after the first had been accomplished. Probably there were Jann statutes to cover the situation even if he never mentioned the oaths in his will.

There were only about ten minutes left. His stomach felt like a sponge full of pepper-sauce, and his brain was not too clear. He was sure that he would rest easier if he simply accepted what was to be, but his innards wouldn't co-operate.

"How can I stop you from killing me?" he blurted.

"I may not tell thee that, mortal, for it would violate the letter of mine oath."

"So there is a way!"

"I refuse to answer, on the grounds that it might tend to compromise mine oath, or lead in some devious way to—"

"Oh shut up!" Why had he bothered to try? Even the Jann's archaic affectations were irritating; he was sure the machine was not consistent in this speech.

But there was a way
! The Jann had tried to evade the issue, but had bungled it. If only he could figure out the loophole, or trick the machine into telling him. Perhaps it
wanted
to tell him, but was prevented by its metallic code of ethics.

He needed time to think. He had barely five minutes left, but if he managed to hide, he might have a couple of days before the end. Maybe growing hunger would sharpen his imagination.

The lifeboat had a supply of water. Dillingham drank until he bulged, looked for a container to carry some with him, and finally set off frustrated. No time! The brush was thick, out beyond the section the rockets had blasted clear. A number of flower filaments gave off heat, which was another break. The Jann would have a tough time picking him out by body-warmth.

He heard a peculiar swish in the direction of the lifeboat and couldn't resist looking back. Sure enough, the Jann was coming down, resplendent in the sunlight. It was vertical, descending feet-first, like a shining god. No jets were visible.

To think that this thing had been built by loving mechanical parents before true civilization ever evolved on Earth! And it was still far ahead of anything Earth science knew. Yet it was determined to kill the man who had saved it three times...

He broke from his reverie and moved on, carefully but quickly. He hoped the Jann was not equipped to sniff out his trail, like a bloodhound.

Evidently it wasn't, for he could hear it casting about in the wrong direction. He had been smart to divest himself of his last communications item. Then the Jann appeared in the sky again, swinging around a pinkish beam of light.

Dillingham ducked behind a humming iron tree until the way was clear. A beam that was visible in broad daylight was probably well worth avoiding.

A noise snapped his attention to the ground. There was an animal: a robot-beast. Its scales were burnished copper, its teeth stainless steel, its eyes white-hot filaments. He hardly had time to marvel that it should so strongly resemble an Earthly carnivore, before it sprang.

He dodged instinctively and caught hold of an aluminium sapling to pull himself away. The creature ground gears with a hungry roar and spun about as it touched ground, but its momentum prevented it from leaping again immediately. It had little wheels where foot-pads would have been on a living predator, and shock absorbers in the ankles.

What possible use would it have for his alien flesh! But he dived for a larger trunk and scrambled up its knobby bark as the beast came at him. Now he regretted imbibing all that water! He was weak and heavy, and he sloshed inside. But the thing chasing him was, after all, an animal, and probably attacked anything that invaded its hunting-ground—even though a single bite of Dillingham should foul its gears and rust its tongue.

The jaws snapped just beneath him and a jet of hot air scorched his posterior. The animal's air-cooling, probably—but it was reminiscent of eager breath. He climbed another two feet—then stiffened.

Wire tendrils were dropping on him from the tree's tinsel foliage. They coiled like corkscrews, and a slickness glistened on their points. Acid, surely...

Below, the animal opened its jaws. Dillingham could see right down its throat. The effect was that of a sausage-grinder.

He was trapped. The first tree-wire touched his head, and he smelled burning hair and felt a sharp pain as though a magnifying glass were focused on that spot. He jerked away—towards the grinning beast.

"Help!" he cried, not caring how inane it sounded or how useless it was.

And the Jann came.

In seconds it whistled through the brush and landed beside the tree. A lance of fire from its chest melted the face of the predator. Ear-splitting sonics from its head caused the tree's wires to retreat hastily. "None but I shall do thee die!" the Jann bellowed.

It reached for Dillingham. He closed his eyes, knowing the end had come. Metal pincers closed on his body, lifted. For a moment he dangled; then he felt the ground under his feet.

Dillingham stumbled as the robot let go. "I wish you'd get it over with," he said, now oddly calm.

"First must I grant thee one token boon, before I do thee die. Thou must needs make thy request within fifteen seconds, according to Jannish custom." It began ticking, one tick per second, as though it were a metronome. Or a bomb.

Fifteen seconds to come up with that loophole, when he hadn't been able to do it in the past day! Ten seconds, and the Jann was aiming its chest-nozzle at him. Five, and his mind was numb...

"A postponement!" he cried, half facetiously.

"Granted," the Jann said. "How long?"

Ah, foolishness. "Fifty years!"

He waited for the derisive bolt of heat, but it didn't come. "Granted, mortal."

Dillingham stared. "You mean—you'll wait?"

It almost seemed that the metal face was smiling. The mouth was open, at any rate, and the gleaming new tooth was visible. Apparently the Hazard spaceshop had stocked the item, restoring the caution-circuit. "Originally I contemplated a shorter period, but I perceived that this would be an injustice. Thou art not the fortune-hunter I expected, nor yet the fool I suspected. And we Jann are not unmindful of honest courtesies rendered."

Dillingham was abruptly reminded of Oyster, whose mode of operation had a certain similarity to this. He hoped he never encountered another such personality. "So you modified the spirit of the oath slightly," he suggested, "if not the letter."

"Our oaths are always subject to interpretation," the Jann agreed. "I could not tell thee, but I delayed for a time, that thou shouldst realize it for thyself. None but I shall do thee die: no animal, no entity, no microbe, no act of nature. But it shall be a kind demise, and it shall come in exactly fifty years, as thou requesteth. I shall always be near thee, to see that mine oath is honoured."

So the Jann had become a bodyguard, perhaps the most competent in all the galaxy, preserving him from all perils until he was ninety-two. Just a tiny shift in interpretation, and the oath had swung from negative to positive.

"That tooth—did it contain your compassion-circuit, too?" he asked, suddenly catching on.

"Even so, mortal."

"Well come on, Jann," Dillingham cried, remembering something. "We have a student strike to deal with, back at the University. Oyster will kill me if I don't manage to relieve the siege before all his files are gone!"

"Now here is the problem of your contract," Trach said. "Gleep transferred it to Ra, so—"

Judy was almost convinced that Trach was not the monster he appeared. He had not, after all, eaten her when he had the opportunity, and certainly he was the essence of politeness. He claimed to be a vegetarian reptile, and if he were not fattening her up for a later feast...

"Does that mean it wasn't a mistake? The trolls—my being on the—?"

"They don't make mistakes of that nature," he said reassuringly. "You are on their list."

"To die in the radium mines?" Maybe it would be preferable to be eaten by a dinosaur! "How could the muck-a-muck do such a terrible thing? I trusted him to help me!"

"Merely good business practice. Nothing personal. He wouldn't be muck-a-muck if he wasted Gleep's credit status. Fifty pounds of frumpstiggle—"

"He told me a hundred!" she said indignantly.

"That was to improve your self-image. It was his impression that you were overly dependent on Dr. Dillingham and lacked confidence in your own dental abilities."

"But I'm not a dentist! I can't do prosthodontic—"

"Pretty sharp judge of character, that muck-a-muck. You do lack confidence."

"Oh, shut up!"

"At any rate, he
did
help you. He notified me, knowing that I would arrange something. That's my business, after all—arranging things for mutual profit and my own. Unfortunately—"

"You don't have fifty pounds of frumpstiggle?"

"As a matter of fact, I have considerably more, thanks to a generous settlement on Dr. Dillingham and a successful mission at Electrolus. But—"

"But—?"

"But the trolls of Ra are very fussy about allowing any entity to depart. Once they hold a contract—"

"They won't let go," she finished grimly.

"Not readily. Others in the galaxy have some very ugly suspicions about Ra. If too many prospective miners were to be released, those suspicions would be amply confirmed. Then it would be almost impossible for Ra to buy up contracts, at any price, and there could be galactic lawsuits for Ra's violation of contractee rights. There might even be an AUP quarantine for industrial malpractice, and that would finish Ra."

"AUP?"

"Association of University Presidents. Very potent."

"I see. So I have to take up pick and shovel?"

"Oh, no. They are very efficient here. You would work in your speciality, caring for the miners' teeth. Better dentures allow them to consume cruder staples, and that is more economical, you see."

"I see again. I don't approve the motive, though."

"Appreciation of Ra motives is an acquired taste. In certain respects, there is more need here for medical and dental assistants than for full MDs or DDSs, because only short-term measures are economical. The radiation, you know. And you would still be exposed to that."

She nodded. Had she really thought her prospects back on Earth bad?

"I have not relinquished the problem, Miss Galland. I merely wish you to comprehend its magnitude. Naturally we'll find a way to remove you from Ra."

"I comprehend the magnitude. What do I have to do, to escape?"

"You have to obtain a sponsor who is able to influence the troll hierarchy. I can arrange temporary reprieve, but my influence is limited. I'm only a diplomat. If I push my luck—"

"The mines for you too," she said. "Will you teach the prisoners diplomacy as they perish from radiation?"

"I doubt it would come to that, but there could be awkwardness. However, I'll see what I can do. I have had experience at a number of influential courts."

Judy smiled appreciatively, but she had little hope.

Trach had been unduly modest about his resources. Within six hours there was an urgent call from the Monarch of Lepidop: he wanted an experienced dental assistant and he wanted this particular one. Since his subjects were resistive to radium poisoning, a task force of his navy traditionally transported Ra's annual output of ten pounds pure to the galactic markets.

He had, in short, influence.

The troll hierarchy swallowed its gall and hastily made a gift of Judy's contract to the Monarch, compliments of the honourable reputation of Ra. To make it quite clear where she had come from, they decided to brand her first. Of course, if she were willing to swear never to reveal what she had seen planetside, even this small formality might be dispensed with...

Judy contemplated the sizzling branding iron, thought about the difficulty she would have sitting down thereafter, and saw her courage go up in steam. She agreed not to talk.

Then the troll released her hair and she fell to the floor.

Trach took her to Lepidop himself. This was a favour she appreciated less than she might have, for his ship was a frightening rattletrap. But she suspected that this was Trach's way of saving his own reptilian hide, for the trolls of Ra surely were aware of his part in Lepidop's demand, and would not delay unduly in attempting to resettle the score. Nice world, Ra.