The mural was a brightly lit tangle of coloured lines, circles and blocks of p-math, that shifted slightly as he watched.
‘You’ve done well,’ Asman said again. ‘He’s moved along the right equation.’
‘As to that, how do I know? I just keep trying to kill him, just like the others. Do you want me to try on Band?’
‘No, your next point of intervention should be …’ he glanced along the rainbow lines ‘… oh, not till he visits those Creap. We’ve got contingency plans for that. It’s all in the equation, anyway. We’ll be hot on their heels then, if they have heels. The math says so. One more intervention when he gets to Laoth and we’ll be in the Joker universe.’
Ways blinked slowly. ‘Is this information I need to know?’
Asman returned his gaze. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Look,’ said Ways, sitting down, ‘you made me. Not you, precisely, but someone on Laoth or Lunar. They made me. I’m a robot.’
‘That’s not held against you. If we were Creap we’d have simply bred up a Creap with the required characteristics, in some vat. But you can’t wamp up a man, so you …’
‘Okay, but I’m a robot, even if I’m a special one. I’ve got everything from toenails to offensive underarm odours, but that’s all faked. So what does it matter what a robot knows?’
‘You’ve made your point. Now, are you interested?’ Asman was growing impatient.
‘Certainly. Why doesn’t he die when I kill him?’
‘The universe alters.’
Shoot a man from point-blank range, so that your beam dislodges every organic molecule from hair to feet. All the rules postulate an outcome of, say, a monomolecular mist, a few zips and geegaws on the floor, and a faint smell of burning. But there is always the outside chance. The stripper goes imperceptibly out of sync. Or you hallucinated that you pressed the stud, and didn’t. In a shifting universe there is no such thing as a rock-hard certainty, only a local eddy in the stream of total randomness. Just occasionally the coin comes down on its edge, or doesn’t come down at all.
‘Dom Sabalos is likely to discover Jokers World in …’ Asman glanced at the far end of the mural … ‘twenty days, Standard. We can’t stop him. He’s our first failure out of, oh, it must be several thousand now.’
‘Two thousand three hundred and nine,’ said Ways. ‘I killed them.’
‘They all had the right life equations. Any one of them could have made the discovery. His father, for example.’
‘And now it isn’t working,’ said Ways. ‘We’ve found some history we can’t change. And we’re suspected, you know. Look at young Sabalos. All those precautions, on such a harmless world. The Sabaloses are a popular family. After the death of his father they must have felt that he was in danger, too, and not from a Widdershine. I don’t think he was even told about the Jokers until he was out of childhood. Another thing. We are driving him to Jokers World.’
Asman rubbed his hands thoughtfully.
‘We have considered that,’ he said.
‘If we hadn’t made the attempts he’d probably still be on Widdershins. Instead he’s flying around with a robot and a Joker expert – quite a good one, too, from what I’ve heard.’
Asman nodded. ‘Of course, one doesn’t have to travel to discover,’ he said. ‘However, what you say is true. We have been working on a contingency plan. If all else fails we can follow him.’
There was a heavy silence. Ways said quietly: ‘To the dark side of the sun?’
‘If there is no alternative, yes. Wherever it may be. According to our latest equations, that is what we will do.’
‘So you are preparing for it?’
‘Oh yes. Sometimes, robot, I get the horrible feeling that we live in a big ever-repeating circle where we do things because it is predicted that we will do things – all effect and no cause. We’ll go, anyway, and we will go armed.’
Ways looked at the man, and around the long low room. For a moment he considered the possibility of a universe caught in a circle of predict-and-effect, the ultimate closed circuit, and wondered if the inhabitants would realize what they had done.
‘That’s not enough,’ he said. ‘Why isn’t he dying?’
Asman shrugged. ‘Would you believe the Jokers alter the universe just so that he can remain alive? That’s the current favourite. Maybe they want him to discover their world. Maybe – and this one is our prime hypothesis – they are waiting to be discovered. Perhaps this is all necessary to jog him through slightly differing alternate universes into the one where the Jokers exist. That’s an outsider, but worth considering.’
Ways was silent.
‘That gives you something to think about, eh?’
He nodded. Then he pulled aside his cloak and made a few passes over his chest. A partition slid back and he extracted a small cage, hastily soldered together from power wire. Inside, a small rat-like creature, six-legged and pink, gyrated and yowled, spitting at Asman.
‘His pet,’ said Asman.
‘I expect you knew about this,’ said the robot.
‘It’s on the board,’ he admitted. ‘We didn’t bother to go into details. So this is Ig. Strange little thing, isn’t he?’
‘It’s an it,’ said Ways. ‘Ask me to tell you how they breed, and I’ll answer loudly and with gusto. They eat everything, even artificial epidermi as it turns out.’ He held up a finger, bitten to the alloy. ‘I’m the latest expert on them. Widdershine fishers say they’re the souls of drowned men, to which they may bear some resemblance. They’re the third largest air-breathing creature that the planet has produced. Phnobes think they’re lucky, and the fishers say that if one makes a pet of you it means death will never be lethal. It could be they have a rudimentary psychic sense, like dogs or Third Eye dragons. It’s difficult to see why, since they have no natural enemies and they’re something of a planetary totem. The bomb should be planted inside the ribcage, I suggest.’
‘Bomb?’
‘You plan that Dom should be killed after we’ve discovered the position of Jokers World. You didn’t tell me that, by the way. I suggest that this is what you have in mind. This thing sticks to him. I can see it gets back to him.’
Asman covered the cage. ‘As a matter of fact, we have considered something like that. Fine,’ he added, with just a hint of nervousness.
While an underling spirited the cage away he added: ‘You enjoy food?’
‘To some extent the calories are a useful power supplement, as you know.’
So they went to The Dark Side of The Sun, a low mock-phnobic building built on and merging with the sand hills between the Joker Institute and the Minnesota Sea. It was one of many. The Institute had attracted a sizeable town, based on the Joker Industry, a limited amount of tourism and alien visitors. Most of the Earth tourists came to see the aliens and feel cosmospolitan, and the management of the Dark Side tried to cater for this. The walls were decorated with imaginative hologram murals – Creapii sun rafts drifting across Lutyen 789–6, a drosk eight-unit at a funeral feast, grim-faced gardeners fighting a rogue tree on Eggplant, Spooners doing nothing very comprehensible on an unknown ice world.
There were sculptures, too. The phnobic display was unconvincing and probably a fake, although the snow sculpture by an unnamed Tka-peninsular drosk was almost certainly genuine, and so was the … thing, difficult to describe or even to comprehend, that spun slowly around the ceiling, occasionally bumping the walls. The floor covering was an alive and semi-sapient Bowdler, on the payroll, and the serving robots were genuine Laothans. The Dark Side was in fact well patronized by the more adaptable aliens, who appreciated its cooking and prized its uniquely Earth ambience.
A copperplate motto on the menu read: ‘We Serve Anything.’
‘There’s the story about the drosk chieftain who walked in here and demanded her grandmother’s brains on toast,’ began Asman, as they sat down.
‘And they said sorry, we’ve run out of bread,’ said Wa
ys. ‘That story gets around, I last heard it on ‘Nova. I’ll have what you have, if it’s starchy.’
‘We’ll eat Pineal, I think. Fast-Luck Couscous.’
Behind Asman’s head was another mural, and since it was a special one it made the table rather special too, which was why Asman had been shown there with a great deal of ceremony. The Director of the Institute was a big attraction.
The mural depicted a score or so of the more recognizable races grouped in an obviously subordinate position around a throne, on which sat a man. He was human, though attenuated like a Pineal, and wore a harlequin suit and a cap and bells. He was smiling. Behind him was a sun, one hemisphere in shadow and the other appearing from this angle only as a thin crescent.
‘Any special reason why the Joker is human?’ Ways asked. He took a handful from the steaming pot, kneaded it expertly and swallowed it whole.
‘Not really. “Joker” is a purely human translation. If you are going to portray one in representational terms, he’s got to be human or humanoid,’ said Asman. He grinned sidelong at Ways. ‘Do you agree with the rest of the symbology?’
‘The Joker as Lord of Creation? It chimes in with the idea that they gave life a hand in these parts. There’s something about the expression that suggests it wasn’t from altruistic motives. Slave races?’
‘Possibly. Humanity – and I mean real humanity, the sort that ends at Lunar – cannot afford to meet the Jokers whatever they may be. They’ve had at least five million years’ start on us. More important, they had the galaxy to themselves. They didn’t have to learn how to get along. That’s why we run the search. We can’t afford to let them find us first.’
‘You assume they’re still alive, then?’
‘What could have killed them? What sort of gods – or devils – have they become? I think they are hiding. And waiting.’
‘What will happen to me?’ asked Ways quietly. Asman looked startled, then assumed a blank expression just a moment too soon.
‘You want to leave the Institute?’
‘This,’ Ways fingered the gold collar, ‘is the only thing that binds me. Yes, I want to leave. I know how much I cost. That’s the advantage of being a robot, there are no big unanswered questions. I know my worth, I know why I was created. I’ll repay every pico-standard. But you can keep the humanoid trappings. I won’t need them.’
He somersaulted backwards, smashing the chair and landing with his legs folding under him ready for the next leap. It took him across a table and towards a running man, who fell with Ways’ alloy hands gripping his wrists just hard enough to agonize. A small sonic gun bounced on the carpet, which writhed.
The robot’s arm flicked out in a quicksilver motion and a finger stabbed at the man’s neck. He collapsed, neatly and without a sound. Ways bowed an apology to a diner from Whole Erse, who was gazing at his shattered meal, and strode back to Asman’s table.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ said the Director. ‘Assassins are a hazard in my line.’
‘He was too noisy focusing that sonic,’ said Ways. ‘I hope you were given due notice?’
‘Oh yes, three days and a regular United Spies contract. But I didn’t expect anything here, the management have an arrangement. I trust they’ll register a complaint.’
‘Did the contract say who was behind him?’
‘No. It was the old standard Projectile or Energy Discharge form. I think it was one of my … but that’s my problem. Thank you.’
Two Institute security guards walked in tactfully and removed the body. Ways scanned the room. Two minor Board of Earth officials were complaining to the head waiter, but the non-Earth diners had settled down again. Some of them may have thought it was part of the floor show. During the Starveall ceremony on Whole Erse there were dancers who … Ways clamped down on the unwanted information, and glanced at two diners half-hidden by the luxuriant growth of a dormant Eggplant pinpointer-plant, a large, scarred man in plain but well-grown clothes, and an antique serving robot. They hadn’t even looked up during the assassination attempt. They were playing some game with small robots on a chequerboard.
He turned to Asman.
‘I will leave,’ he said. ‘After this last affair is concluded, I will sever my connection with the Institute under the seventeenth sub Law of Robotics. Thank you for the meal. It was most energizing. Good evening.’
When the robot had gone Asman sat back and gazed at the far wall thoughtfully. There was a chiming in his inner ear, followed by a familiar voice. Two familiar voices. Except that they weren’t voices, they circumnavigated the tedious aural processes and arrived fresh at his consciousness.
‘Interesting.’
‘Possibly so, but I suggest you dissassemble him immediately,’ said the second voice.
Asman thought: ‘Mr Chairman, how many are sitting in on this.’
‘Just myself and the Lady Ladkin. This is by no means a formal Board meeting. We watched the proceedings with interest, though without, I fear, unanimity as to conclusion,’ came the first voice.
Asman nodded to the waiter and strolled out into the night, taking a winding, sand-strewn path back to the Institute.
‘Ways will go through with it,’ he thought.
Lady Ladkin’s tone was petulant. ‘Why do we need to bother with this robot? I know a dozen people who have the required combination of loyalty and mayhem.’
‘My Lady, apart from the prediction that a robot such as Ways would be used by us,’ he hurried on quickly before she could interrupt, ‘he has certainly proved himself in similar assassinations. He initiated the Novean Board debacle, for example. My Lord Pan, may I be heard?’
‘Go ahead,’ came the rumbling tone of the Chairman. ‘At present I am attending the première concert of the Third Eye Tactile Orchestra. They lack sparkle.’
‘My Lord, and my Lady, I arranged this evening as you wished, at some risk to myself. The assassin might have succeeded. US were understanding about my request, but I had to sign a waiver, and I dare say they put their best man in. Now, you know we monitor the robot. He hates the Institute, of course, and to some extent he had sympathy for Sabalos—’
‘As indeed I do also,’ said Pan, and this time Asman caught the distant echo of the orchestra. ‘I believe I met him once. His grandmother and myself were once very friendly. Old, she must be now, very old. A fine woman. Ah, we have heard the chimes at twenty-four hundred hours, Master Shallow.’
‘We must consider the boy as an instrument, my Lord,’ thought Asman patiently, picking his way between the dunes. ‘Ways feels sorry for him, but I think I have proved to your satisfaction that in actions he has no choice but to be loyal to us. As he himself said, he is a robot, and even a Class Five can be built with certain imperatives.’
‘That collar …’ began Lady Ladkin.
‘It will activate itself in the unlikely event of Ways taking any but the prescribed course,’ thought Asman soothingly.
She grumbled and was silent.
‘May I go ahead, then?’
There was another echo of music. ‘This is derivative stuff. Oh, yes, go ahead. We are secure in our predictions, aren’t we? I am not altogether happy about booby-trapping his pet – I myself have several cats, of which I am fond – but we must be practical. Proceed. I look forward to receiving your full report.’
Asman was suddenly alone among the dunes.
Dom awoke. For a while he floated, piecing his thoughts together. Then he pushed himself forward with his toe and drifted across the cabin.
Day had come to this side of the Band, although the evening terminator was visibly racing across the planet, and the Band-on-Band was fully visible.
It was a 3,000-mile-wide equatorial strip of land that girdled the fat world like a corset. Even up here Band appeared to revolve so fast for a planet that an imaginative observer half-expected to hear a background hum. It bulged. The Band was a grey-brown strip of mountain, one continuous 25,000-mile range, edged by two ribbons of bl
ue-green grassland. They were bounded by two strips of darker sea, which reached up to the squashed poles and the white ice.
‘It’s explainable in terms of continental drift, high rotation and ancient vulcanism, boss,’ said Isaac, looking up from the autochef. ‘Or didn’t you want to know?’
‘It must be a hell of a place to live on,’ said Dom, ‘what with the sun scooting across the sky and all.’
‘The sundogs like it.’
Dom nodded. It was their world. They had evolved on Eggplant, but 600 years ago had accepted a cash grant and the deeds of Band in exchange for vacant possession. Sundogs were nice, but dangerous to live with in the laying season. So far Dom’s telescopic survey had revealed nothing but herds of sundog pups which could be seen from space as large dots at one end of thousand-mile-long swathes grazed through Band’s ubiquitous sweetgrass.
There were two narrow strips of marshland, and rivers in the mountains. There was one small lake. There was absolutely no sign of any habitation.
Dom had checked on the world. The Creapii-backed Wildlife Preservation Fund ran a small robotic observation station on the planet, as part of a treaty which also forbade unauthorized landings. The Fund headquarters said that there had been suggestions that a being known as Chatogaster was a pre-Sundog inhabitant, although the planet had a meagre selection of vegetation and no animal life at all. No, no signs of sapience had been exhibited by the vegetation. Band had no higher life of its own, which was why the sundogs selected it. Chatogaster was considered to be a sundog legend, or a planetary spirit. No, there had been no recent landings. Very rarely a ship had to put in under the emergency clause, but the robot station was equipped to handle that. Thank you for your enquiry.
The Darkside Of The Sun Page 10