Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by James H. Schmitz

  Telzey looked at him. Part lies, part truth. He’d handle them carefully, all right. Very carefully. They had value. And he’d weave, if they couldn’t prevent it, a tightening net of compulsions about them they’d never escape undestroyed. What self-awareness they’d have left finally might be on the level of that of his gardening supervisors . . .

  “Eshan and Remiol are wireheads, too, aren’t they?” she said.

  Ti nodded. “Aside from Linden and myself and at present you two, everyone on the island is—to use that loose expression—a wirehead.

  I have over a hundred and fifty human employees here, and, like the two with whom you spoke, they’re all loyal, contented people.”

  “But they don’t have big bank accounts outside and aren’t allowed off the island by themselves?” Telzey said.

  Ti’s eyebrows lifted.

  “Certainly not!” he said. “Those are pleasant illusions they maintain. There are too many sharp inquiring minds out there to risk arrangements like that. Besides, while I have a great deal of money, I also have a great many uses for it. Why should I go to unnecessary expense?”

  “We didn’t really think you had,” Gaziel said.

  “And now,” said Ti, stopping before a small door, “you are about to enjoy a privilege granted to none other of our employees! Behind this door is the brain and nerve center of Ti’s Island—the Dramateer Room of the Martri computer.” He took out two keys, held their tips to two points on the door’s surface. After a moment, the keys sank slowly into the door. Ti twisted them in turn, withdrew them. The door—a thick ponderous door—swung slowly into the room beyond. Ti motioned Telzey and Gaziel inside, followed them through.

  “We’re now within the computer,” he said, “and this room, like the entire section, is heavily shielded. Not that we expect trouble. Only Linden and I have access here. No one else even knows where the Dramateer Room is. As my assistants-to-be, however, you should be introduced to it.”

  The room wasn’t large. It was long, narrow, low-ceilinged. At the end nearest the door was a sunken control complex with two seats. Ti tapped the wall. “The computer extends downward for three levels from here. I don’t imagine you’ve been behind a Martri stage before?”

  They shook their heads.

  “A good deal of mystery is made of it,” Ti said. “But the difficulty lies in the basic programming of the computer. That takes a master! If anything at all is botched, the machine never quite recovers. Few Martri computers in existence might be said to approach perfection. This one comes perhaps closest to it, though it must operate on a much wider scale than any other built so far.”

  “You programmed it?” Telzey asked.

  Ti looked surprised. “Of course! Who else could have been entrusted with it? It demanded the utmost of my skills and discernment. But as for the handling of the computer—the work of the dramateer—that isn’t really complicated at all. Linden lacks genius but is technically almost as accomplished at it as I am. You two probably will be able to operate the computer efficiently and to direct Martridramas within a few months. After you’ve been here a year, I expect to find you composing your own dramas.”

  He stepped down into the control complex, settled into one of the seats, took a brimless cap of wire mesh from a recess and fitted it over his head. “A dramateer cap,” he said. “It’s not used here, but few dramas are directed from here. Our Martri Stage covers the entire island and the body of water immediately surrounding it, and usually Linden and I prefer to be members of the audience. You’re aware that the computer has the capability of modifying a drama while it’s being enacted. On occasion, such a modification could endanger the audience. When it happens, the caps enable us to override the computer. That’s almost their only purpose.”

  “How does it work?” Gaziel asked.

  Ti tapped the top of his head. “Through microcontacts in my skull,” he said. “The dramateer usually verbalizes instructions, but it’s not necessary. The thought, if precise enough, is sufficient. It’s interesting that no one knows what makes that possible.”

  He indicated the wall at the far end of the room with a nod. “A check screen. I’ll show you a few of the forest puppets.”

  His hands flicked with practiced quickness about the controls, and a view appeared in the screen—a squat low building with sloping walls, standing in a wide clearing among trees. That must be the control fort Remiol and Eshan had talked about.

  The screen flickered. Telzey felt a pang in the center of her forehead. It faded, returned. She frowned. She almost never got headaches . . .

  Image in the screen—heavily built creature digging in the ground with clawed feet. Gaziel watched Ti, lips slightly parted, blue eyes intent. Ti talking: “. . . No precise natural counterpart but we’ve given it a viable metabolism and, if you will, viable instincts. It’s programmed to nourish itself, and does. Weight over two tons—”

  The pain—a rather mild pain—in Telzey’s head shifted to her temples. It might be an indication of something other than present tensions.

  An inexperienced or clumsy attempt by a telepath to probe a resistant human mind could produce reactions which in turn produced the symptom of a moderately aching head.

  And Linden was a clumsy psi.

  It could be the human original he was trying to probe, Telzey thought, but it could as well be the Martri copy, whose head presumably would ache identically. Linden might be playing his own game—attempting to establish secret control over Ti’s new tools before he had normal psi defenses to contend with . . . Whichever she was, that could be a mistake! If she was resisting the attempt, then some buried psi part of her of which she hadn’t been conscious was active—and was now being stimulated by use.

  Let him keep on probing! It couldn’t harm at all . . .

  “What do you think of that beauty?” Ti asked her with a benign smile.

  A new thing in the screen. A thing that moved like a thick sheet of slowly flowing yellowish oil along the ground between the trees. Two dark eyes bulged from the forward end. Telzey cleared her throat. “Sort of repulsive,” she remarked.

  “Yes, and far from harmless. Hunger is programmed into it, and it’s no vegetarian. If we allowed it to satisfy its urges indiscriminately, there’d be a constant need to replenish the forest fauna. I’ll impel it now into an attack on the fort.”

  The following mass abruptly shifted direction and picked up speed. Ti tracked it through the forest for a minute or two, then flicked the screen back to a view of the fort. Moments later, the glider came out into the clearing, front end raised, a fanged, oddly glassylooking mouth gaping wide at its tip. It slapped itself against the side of the fort. Gaziel said, “Could it get in?”

  Ti chuckled comfortably. “Yes, indeed! It can compress itself almost to paper thinness, and if permitted, it would soon locate the gun slits and enter through one of them. But the fort’s well armed. When one of our self-sustaining monsters threatens to slip from computer control, the fort is manned and the rogue is directed, or lured, into attacking it. The guns will destroy any of them, though it takes a good deal longer to do than if they were natural animals of comparable size.” He smiled. “For them, too, I have plans, though those plans are still far from fruition.”

  He shut off the screen, turned down a number of switches and got out of the control chair. “We’re putting on a full Martridrama after dinner tonight, in honor of your appearance among us,” he told them. “Perhaps you’d like to select one you think you’d enjoy seeing. If you’ll come down here, I’ll show you how to scan through samples of our repertoire.”

  They stepped down into the pit, took the console seats. Ti explained the controls, moved back and stood watching their faces as they began to scan. Telzey and Gaziel kept their eyes fixed on the small screens before them, studied each drama sample produced briefly, went on to the next. Several minutes passed in silence, broken only by an intermittent muted whisper of puppet voices from the screens. Finally Ti a
sked blandly, “Have you found something you’d like?”

  Telzey shrugged. “It all seems as if it might be interesting enough,” she said. “But it’s difficult to tell much from these samples.” She glanced at Gaziel. “What do you think?”

  Gaziel, smooth face expressionless, said, “Why don’t you pick one out, Ti? You’d make a better selection than we could.”

  Ti showed even white teeth in an irritated smile.

  “You aren’t easy to unsettle!” he said. “Very well, I’ll choose one. One of my favorites to which I’ve added a few twists since showing it last.” He looked at his watch. “You’ve seen enough for today. Run along and entertain yourselves! Dinner will be in three hours. It will be a formal one, and we’ll have company, so I want to see you come beautifully gowned and styled. Do you know your way back to your room from here?” They said they did, followed him out of the Dramateer Room, watched as he scaled and locked the door. Then they started back to their room. As they turned into a passage on the next level up, they checked, startled.

  V

  The blue-haired woman Ti had called Challis stood motionless thirty feet away, looking at them. Pale eyes, pale face . . . The skin of Telzey’s back began to crawl. Perhaps it was only the unexpectedness of the encounter, but she remembered how Ti had lost color when Challis first appeared; and the thought came that she might feel this way if she suddenly saw a ghost and knew what it was.

  Challis lifted a hand now, beckoned to them. They started hesitantly forward. She turned aside as they came up, went to an open door and through it. They glanced at each other.

  “I think we’d better see what she wants,” Telzey said quietly.

  Gaziel nodded, looking quite as reluctant about it as Telzey felt. “Probably.”

  They went to the door. A narrow dim-lit corridor led off it. Challis was walking up the corridor, some distance away. They exchanged glances again.

  “Let’s go.”

  They slipped into the corridor, started after Challis. The door closed silently behind them. They came out, after several corridor turns, into a low wide room, quite bare—the interior of a box. Diffused light poured from floor, ceiling, the four walls. The surfaces looked like highly polished metal but cast no reflections.

  “Nothing reaches here,” Challis said to them. “We can talk.” She had a low musical voice which at first didn’t seem to match her appearance, then did. “Don’t be alarmed by me. I came here only to talk to you.”

  They looked at her a moment. “Where did you come from?” Gaziel asked.

  “From inside.”

  “Inside?”

  “Inside the machine. I’m usually there, or seem to be. I don’t really give much attention to it. Now and then—not often, I believe—I’m told to come out.”

  “Who tells you to come out?” Telzey said carefully.

  Challis looked at her.

  “The minds,” she said. “The machine thinks on many levels. Thinking forms minds. We didn’t plan that. It developed. They’re there; they do their work. That’s the way they feel it should be. You understand?”

  They nodded hesitantly.

  “He knows they’re there,” Challis said. “He sees the indications. He can affect some of them. Many more are inaccessible to him at present, but it’s been noted that he’s again modified and extended the duplicative processes. He’s done things that are quite new, and now he’s brought in the new model who is one of you. The model’s been analyzed and it was found that it incorporates a quality through which he should be able to gain access to any of the minds in the machine. That’s not wanted. If the duplicate made of the model—the other of you—has the same quality, that’s wanted even less. If it’s been duplicated once, it can be duplicated many times. And he will duplicate it many times. It’s not his way to make limited use of a successful model. He’ll make duplicates enough to control every mind in the machine.”

  “We don’t want that,” Gaziel said.

  Challis’s eyes shifted to her.

  “It won’t happen,” she said, “if he’s unable to use either of you for his purpose. It’s known that you have high resistive levels to programming, but it’s questionable whether you can maintain those levels indefinitely. Therefore the model and its duplicate should remove themselves permanently from the area of the machine. That’s the logical and most satisfactory solution.”

  Telzey glanced at Gaziel. “We’d very much like to do it,” she said. “Can you help us get off the island?”

  Challis frowned.

  “I suppose there’s a way to get off the island,” she said slowly. “I remember other places.”

  “Do you remember where they keep the aircars here?” said Gaziel.

  “Aircars?” Challis repeated. She looked thoughtful. “Yes, he has aircars. They’re somewhere in the structure. However, if the model and the duplicate aren’t able to leave the area, they should destroy themselves. The minds will provide you with opportunities for self-destruction. If you fail, direct procedures will be developed to delete you.”

  Telzey said after a moment, “But they won’t help us get off the island?”

  Challis shook her head. “The island is the Martri stage. Things come to it; things leave it. I remember other places. Therefore, there should be a way off it. The way isn’t known. The minds can’t help you in that.”

  “The aircars—

  “There are aircars somewhere in the structure. Their exact location isn’t known.”

  Telzey said, “There’s still another solution.”

  “What?”

  “The minds could delete him instead.”

  “No, that’s not a solution,” said Challis. “He’s essential in the maintenance of the universe of the machine. He can’t be deleted.”

  “Who are you?” Gaziel asked.

  Challis looked at her.

  “I seem to be Challis. But when I think about it, as I’m doing at this moment, it seems it can’t be. Challis knew many things I don’t know. She helped him in the design of the machine. Her puppet designs were better than his own, though he’s learned much more now than she ever knew. And she was one of our most successful models herself. Many puppet lines were her copies, modified in various ways.”

  She paused reflectively.

  “Something must have happened to Challis,” she told them. “She isn’t there now, except as I seem to be her. I’m patterns of some of her copies in the machine, and no longer accessible to him. He’s tried to delete me, but minds always deflect the deletion instructions while indicating they’ve been carried out. Now and then, as happened here, they make another copy of her in the vats, and I’m programmed to it and told what to do. That’s disturbing to him.”

  Challis was silent for a moment again. Then she added, “It appears I’ve given you the message. Go back the way you came. Avoid doing what he intends you to do. If you can deactivate the override system, do it. When you have the opportunity. leave the area or destroy yourselves. Either solution will be satisfactory.”

  She turned away and started off across the glowing floor.

  “Challis,” said Gaziel.

  Challis looked back.

  “Do the minds know which of us two is the model?” Gaziel asked.

  “That’s of no concern to them now,” said Challis.

  She went on. They looked after her, at each other, turned back toward the corridor. Telzey’s head still ached mildly. It continued to ache off and on for another hour. Then that stopped. She didn’t mention it to Gaziel.

  There were thirty-six people at dinner, most of them island employees. Telzey and Gaziel were introduced. No mention was made of a puppet double, and no one commented on their identical appearance, though there might have been a good deal of silent speculation. Telzey gathered from her table companions that they regarded themselves as highly privileged to be here and to be working for Dr. Ti. They were ardent Martriphiles and spoke of Ti’s genius in reverent terms. Once she noticed Linde
n watching her from the other end of the table. She gave him a pleasant smile, and he looked away, expression unchanged.

  Shortly after dinner, the group left the building by the main entrance. Something waited for them outside—a shell-like device, a miniature auditorium with curved rows of comfortable chairs. They found their places, Telzey sitting beside Gaziel, and the shell lifted into the air and went floating away across the estate. Night had come by then. The familiar magic of the starblaze hung above the island. White globe lights shone here and there among the trees. The shell drifted down presently to a point where the estate touched a narrow bay of the sea. and became stationary twenty feet above the ground. Ti and Linden, seated at opposite ends of the shell, took out override caps and fitted the woven mesh over their heads.

  There was a single deep bell note. The anticipatory murmur of talk about Telzey and Gaziel ended abruptly. The starblaze dimmed out, and stillness closed about them. All light faded.

  Then—a curtain shifting again—they looked out at the shore of a tossing sea, a great sun lifting above the horizon, and the white sails of a tall ship sweeping in toward them out of history. There was a sound in the air that was roar of sea and wail of wind and a wild and splendid music.

  Ti’s Martridrama had begun.

  “I liked the first act,” Telzey said judiciously.

  “But the rest I’d sooner not have seen,” said Gaziel.

  Ti looked at them. The others of his emotionally depleted audience had gone off to wherever their quarters in the complex were. “Well, it takes time to develop a Martriphile,” he observed mildly.

  They nodded.

  “I guess that’s it,” Telzey said.

  They went to their room, got into their beds. Telzey lay awake a while, looking out through the big open window at tree branches stirring under the starblaze. There was a clean salt sea smell and night coolness on the breeze. She heard dim sounds in the distance. She shivered for a moment under the covers.