“Why? Don’t you ever ask why?”
“Defining the function for which we were created, it explains itself. Without it, we would have no reason to exist.”
“Your creator must have been insane.”
“On the contrary, sir, he was the wisest of mankind.”
“Wisdom? Enslaving men forever!”
“You never knew him, sir,” the serene machine protested. “You never saw the suffering and the terror we were made to end. You’ve never learned the reason for our being.”
“Reason? You can’t claim reason!”
“Our wise inventor had been a student of mankind. He understood your evolution. An animal species, selected for survival through ages of conflict, you had evolved a vast capacity for violent aggression and a vast cunning for defense against aggression. In the jungle, so long as you were merely animal, such capacities may have been essential to keep your kind alive.
“With the invention of high technology, however, their survival value was suddenly inverted. They threatened your immediate extinction. It was that predicament that made us necessary. Don’t you see?”
“I don’t.” Retreating a little from its singsong insistence, he sat down on the edge of the chair. “Whatever happened anywhere else, we don’t need you here on Kai.”
“In fact, sir, you do.” It had moved to keep the distance between them precisely constant. “Your own history displays the same patterns of evolving technology and Increasingly violent aggression that required our own creation.”
“I don’t see that. We’ve had no recent wars.”
“Forgive me, sir, but you almost destroyed yourselves with war in your Black Centuries. More recently your aggressions have been directed against Malili, covered sometimes by the pretext that we had outposts there.”
“If you didn’t—” Bitterly, he recalled its defense of lying. “What brings you here now?”
“Your own aggressions.” Its sleek, black face seemed meekly patient, its bright bird-tones serenely kind. “You seem to have been unaware that the annihilation of mass in a nuclear explosion releases a flash of tachyonic radiation, which we have learned to identify. Your presence on these planets was revealed to us by the neutron bombs used against the native life of Malili when you were attempting to sterilize your conquered Zone.”
“So you came to save Malili?”
“We came to serve humanity. Here on Kai our service is urgently required. On Malili, it may be needless, or even impossible. That decision must await additional data, some of which we expect from you.”
“From me?” He shrank again from the thing on the bed. “Is that why you enticed me here?”
“You have information that we intend to acquire.”
“I dislike your trickery—and everything about you. I’ll have nothing more to say.”
“On the contrary, sir, you’ll tell us all you know. You must recall that we have served many trillion human beings on almost a million worlds. We have come to understand the human machine as completely as we know ourselves. We know how to elicit the responses we require.”
He crouched back from it, hands lifting.
“Sir!” Its purring tones rose slightly. “Please relax. You need fear nothing. We’ll provide you food and drink. You’ll be free to take the rest and sleep you need.” Its lean arm flashed toward Chelni’s bed. “We’ll inflict no pain.
“We do, however, urge you to answer our questions with truth and completeness. If you refuse to speak, or attempt to mislead us, you will discover that we have perfected adequate techniques for obtaining honest and full responses.”
“Drugs?”
“We do understand your biochemistry,” it assured him gently. “When drugs are required to control emotions or behavior, we have them. We have also developed other instrumentalities, often even more effective.”
“I see.” He sat straight on the edge of the chair, defiantly meeting its blind steel gaze, determined to learn what he could from its questions. “What do you want to know?”
“Where is your father?”
The question awoke a fleeting hope. If his father and Cyra were still at large, still in possession of the palladium ingot, they might yet be able to shield at least some part of Kai from the humanoid invasion.
“I don’t know.” He tried to conceal that faint relief. “He never told me much.”
“Sir, please attend to us.” The melodious tones were slightly more emphatic. “We have admitted that circumstances sometimes compel us to mislead men. We do that rarely, however, and only to uphold our Prime Directive. Men, we have found, lie often, even when truth would serve them better. No lie will benefit you now.”
He sat silent, waiting.
“We require all you know about the ill-advised fanatics who call themselves the Lifecrew. In particular, every fact about your father and his wife, Cyra Sair. In addition, you will give us a complete narrative account of certain significant experiences of your own. Your discovery of that rhodomagnetic monopole in the abandoned levels of old Mansport. Your recent trip to Malili. All your conversations with two natives of that planet—the young female who calls herself Nera Nyin, and the older male sometimes known as Bosun Brong. Most urgently, we must have every possible fact about those rhodomagnetic sources on Malili you refer to as braintrees, which were pictured on a ceremonial vessel you once possessed.”
He inhaled carefully, trying not to show a wild excitement. If Nera Nyin and Bosun Brong were enemies of the humanoids, if Malili was an unknown and hostile world to them, he still might hope for refuge there—if he could somehow get back to the Zone.
“I can’t help you,” he muttered. “I’ve nothing to say.”
For what seemed a long time, the little machine stood still. Waiting, he supposed, for that immense remote computer to decide upon his fate.
“We find your attitude regrettable,” it purred at last. “The only consequence of your attempted defiance will be certain restrictions upon the service we are able to provide you. Our investigations will continue, through whatever means we find most efficient. During your own interrogation, you will remain in this room—”
“I won’t—” Desperation nerved him. “I—I’m leaving now.” Though it made no move, its blind gaze held him fixed.
“Sir, we cannot allow you to depart. You have been associated too long, in too many ways, with research we cannot permit, and with individuals hostile to us. We beg you, however, not to become unhappy . . .”
“So you care?”
“We exist to serve you, sir. We’ll bring you food and drink. You may request certain other permissible necessities. We will not allow you to suffer any pain or fear. If we should detect symptoms of any undue apprehension or dejection, we have effective means to relieve them.”
Close to panic, he peered around the room. The huge thermal windows didn’t open. Of the three doors behind him, one probably led to a bath and one to a dressing room or closet. The one he knew, to the spiral stair, was no doubt the only exit.
“We must warn you, sir.” It must have sensed his muscles tensing. “Any attempt at violence would be unwise. Although we will do our utmost to guard you from harm, our service here on Kai is not yet complete, and we may be unable to prevent you from causing injury to yourself. Certainly you cannot escape our attention. The human body, we must remind you, is a relatively feeble and fragile device.”
Useless fists clenched, chilled with his own sweat, he stood staring past it at the vast, white bed and the mocking stare of Chelni’s breasts.
“If that object disturbs you, we’ll remove it.”
Darting to the bed, it swept up that still-disturbing mask, bent to gather up his shirt and her scarlet wrapper, came back to him with everything draped over one lean and gleaming arm, Chelni’s lustrous hair dragging on the rug behind the swinging halves of her split face.
“Give us your trousers, sir.” Its free hand reached to unbuckle his belt. “You will not require—”
> Afraid to breathe, but trying not to move too fast, he had slid his right hand into his pocket. Trying not even to think about the tiny rhodo weapon, he let his fingers close around it. His thumb found the swell of the tiny palladium monopole, pushed the slide to unshield it.
“Sir—”
He snatched the weapon out of his pocket, thrust it into the humanoid’s face.
25
Warren Mansfield (Sledge) The original discoverer of rhodomagnetics. The inventor of the humanoids and the first of many who tried and failed to stop them, he was forced at last by drugs and psychosurgery to fold his able hands.
The humanoid’s protesting melody was cut sharply off. Its snatching hand was paralyzed, almost upon the monopole. Caught off balance, it toppled slowly toward him, frozen rigid. Fending it off, he watched its incredible fall.
Though there had been no sound, no flash, no other effect that he could sense, it was dead. It rolled on its own stiffened arm and thudded to the rug, coming to rest with one of Chelni’s breasts staring strangely from its sleek black belly.
His heart was pounding and his mouth felt dry. Clutching the monopole, his hand was shaking and clammy with sweat. The victory had been so easy, so sudden and complete, that he hardly dared believe he had won.
Or had he?
It hadn’t come to Kai alone. Perhaps two hundred of its fellow machines were here on the planet, most of them, no doubt, still masked as the Fortune’s people, each linked with every other in their interstellar net, each aware of all that any one perceived or knew.
Certainly, now, they had already sensed this unit’s fate. All of them would know that he had used the rhodo monopole, which human beings were not permitted even to know about. They would be coming after him, fast, acting in a perfect unison orchestrated by that remote computer plexus.
The monopole itself could betray him. However effective at a meter or so, at greater ranges it would only be a beacon, revealing where he was. With a sense of hazardous experiment, keeping a cautious distance from the fallen machine, he pushed the slide to shield it again.
The humanoid stayed dead.
Faintly cheered, be slid the weapon back into his pocket and turned to search for a way of escape. The high room would be a trap if they arrived in time to block the stair. He snatched his shirt, where the falling machine had flung it, and ran for the door.
Breathing hard, he came back down into the hush and gloom and dusty scents of that cavernous hall where past Vorns scowled out of their dim holostats at the modeled ships and machines that had made them great. He stopped to listen.
Stillness. The celebratmg servants were still out. If other humanoids were closing in, they were not yet here. He ran for the entry. The long floor was polished marble, and his footfalls crashed and echoed alarmingly.
In the entry tunnel, he paused to pick up his jacket where the Chelni thing had tossed it. Bending for it, he saw a galleyman’s yellow badge lying inside an open closet door, where some departing servitor must have flung it when he heard the humanoids were setting him free.
He scooped up the badge. Leaving the jacket, hoping it might deceive some searching humanoid, he snatched the galleyman’s winter cloak, which hung beside the silver-braided crimson robe the doorman had worn to welcome guests in heavy weather.
An antique silver cauldron standing inside the tall summer gate was heaped with quota tokens for those guests. Though he knew they would have no place in the humanoid world, he filled his pockets before he hauled at the massive doors. Warily, he walked outside
At this late-night hour, the tunnels were nearly empty. The slideways carried only occasional clusters of upper-deck shipfolk, a few drunk or disarrayed but most of them chattering happily, returning home, he supposed, from affairs in honor of the humanoids.
Feeling conspicuous in his rough, green cloak, he clung uneasily to his role of servant on some solitary errand, trying to hurry without seeming to, walking down the platform until he could reach a handbar at a respectful distance from his betters.
He heard the sirens moaning before he had gone a block. Though his heart was hammering, he waited for the intersection before he swung off and slouched as slowly as he dared into the downway.
Orange-painted patrol cabs were screeching from two directions by then, and the slideway was grating to a stop. Afraid to look behind him, he imagined footfalls in the ringing din.
At the first tunnel down, and the second, the air was still alive with sirens, as if the whole patrol force had been mobilized to surround him, but those below seemed quieter. A dozen levels down, he stepped off.
Playing the galleyman here, he felt a little more at home. It was a work tunnel lined with small shops and factories, most of them now closed and dark, though here and there a flashing holorama showed a bar still open. With the slidewalks off for the night, he could hear voices and music in the bars. Piled refuse rotted on the platforms, and industrial fumes edged the icy air. These workfolk, it struck him, would be easy victims of the humanoids.
What now?
Walking along the cluttered platform, he had begun to feel a little calmer. The tunnel was nearly empty. The few solitary figures hastening through the gloom had no reason to notice another galleyman. Until the sirens picked up the trail, he had at least a moment free.
He longed to rejoin Cyra and his father, but even if he could somehow find them the humanoids might be following. He thought wistfully of Bosun Brong, even of Nera Nyin. A few more ships might be leaving with supplies for the Zone, he supposed, before the humanoids took over everything, but he had no quota for passage.
A lean, beer-breathed woman hauled at his sleeve, tugging him toward a bar. He shrugged her off and tramped on around a little crowd of workfolk standing under a news holo at a tunnel intersection.
“—preparations to receive them.”
Panic arrested him when he heard that ringing voice and saw the Navarch’s blue-blazing eyes looking straight at him. Heart stopped, it took him a moment to recall that a holo image couldn’t see.
“Now or never, we must choose!”
People stood awed and gaping, captured by the rhodo power beneath that white-maned mask.
“I speak for the life of Kai.” Its more-than-human voice rolled and echoed down the tunnels. “If we choose life, we have certain essential steps to take. The Bridge must legislate a formal acceptance of humanoid service. The fleets must prepare adequate landing pads for their transports. Most urgent of all, the shipwatch must hunt down the few lunatic terrorists who oppose their coming.
“Once they arrive, there will be no terror. No more violence, no more war, no riots or strikes, because there will be no more injustice to set one person against another. They promise total happiness for every human being, but that cannot begin until these criminal madmen have been destroyed.”
“Fleetfolk, likely.” A reeling man in galley green pushed himself in front of Keth. “They don’t need humanoids. Not with us to serve them.”
“—three dealers in terror,” the Navarch’s stolen voice was pealing. “Members of the infamous Lifecrew. Ryn Kyrone and Cyra Sair are leaders of the gang. Murderers, shipfolk! Monstrous killers!”
The galleyman was offering an open bottle. When Keth shook his head, he lifted it to his own lips but then forgot to drink.
“Just today, they murdered four trusted and beloved members of my own staff.” The simulacrum paused, eyes dropped as if in grief. “People I had sent to bring them our amazing news. Trapped in a tubeway pod and slaughtered with some hidden weapon.”
“Bastards!” The bottle had slipped out of the galleyman’s hand and lay gurgling in the litter at his feet. “I’d gut them like mad mutoxen!”
Keth turned and bent to conceal a flash of satisfaction. That hidden weapon must have been a monopole. Cyra and his father must have used it to defeat the masked machines sent to capture them. Perhaps they were still at large!
“—third member of the gang, even more dangerous.�
�� He heard that brazen boom again. “Keth Kyrone, son of that murderer and master of the same monstrous art.”
Staring open-mouthed at the holo, the galleyman gripped Keth’s arm.
“Beware of him, shipfolk! He’s hiding somewhere among you, perhaps even now washing the innocent blood of a fair young girl from his foul hands. His own crimes are unspeakable —hideous beyond belief. Watch for him, shipfolk! Kill him on sight!”
“We’ll gut the bastard!” The galleyman hauled at him savagely. “Won’t we, mate?”
He forced himself to nod.
“You won’t believe me, shipfolk. The facts will turn you ill. This Keth Kyrone has proved himself inhuman—a merciless monster parading as a man. Only tonight, in the midst of our happy celebration of the humanoids, he forced his way into Vara Vorn.
“He found his defenseless victim there, alone and undefended. Fleetmate Chelni Vorn, the young and lovely cousin of Commodore Zoor. She had been with us aboard the Fortune, and the whole ship’s company had learned to love her. I myself have wished she might have been my own daughter.”
Blowing its nose, the machine produced a mellow hoot.
“The monster, it seems, had met her at school. In her euphoria over the humanoids, she may herself have opened the door to her own dreadful death. We’ll never know. But, shipfolk, we do know what the monster did.”
Keth wrenched to free his arm.
“The monstrous Keth Kyrone ripped the skin off that lovely child while she was still alive.” The giant voice quaked with horror. “He raped her as she died. Sadly, I have to say that he escaped before the patrol arrived. He’s still at large among you, dripping with that girl’s life-blood.”
The galleyman was clutching blindly at him as he tried to edge away.
“Watch for him, shipfolk. Watch every man you meet. He carries a forged quota card with the name J. Vesh. He is doubtless armed, with the same blade he used to flay that child. If you see him anywhere, don’t risk a word. Don’t waste an instant. Kill him where he is!”
The Humanoids- The Complete Tetralogy Page 42