“I can make them and I can break them,” said Shirvanian.
Sven stood up. “I said, that’s enough, Shirvanian!” The boy did not move.
“We’ll get out now,” Sven said.
“Yah.” Esther hopped over to Mitzi. “Take some of the packs off Yigal. You can slide downhill easier than he can.” Mitzi skittered away. Esther got out the machete, unwound it, and sliced the ropes that haltered Koz. “I’m taking a chance on you, do you hear?” She kissed him. He looked up at her with eyes of sudden clarity and awareness. “Maybe you’ll do,” she said. She wound the machete with a quick flip and hung it over her shoulder. Ardagh took Koz’s hand and pulled him up, and they began to heft the discarded packs.
Sven said to Joshua, “You take his feet.”
“Right.”
Shirvanian sat oblivious before the writhing mass.
He had time for one yelp as Sven grabbed him from behind, clasping with two palms the hand that held the control, locking it in place. The other two arms went around his waist, and Joshua had him by the feet. Shirvanian writhed and shrieked, but they went over the edge, sliding downhill in a Laocoön tangle beside Koz, Mitzi, and Ardagh, who were alternately skittering on the dry plant stems or rolling like rag bales with their bundles whacking about them.
Esther jumped on Yigal and howled him into a gallop along the rim southeast toward the channel; she held up the machete with its fluttering rag, a hallucinatory black figure of Time or Death on a white mount. At the base of the next spy-eye standard she pulled at his horn, yelling, “Stop!” and reached out—
“Don’t, Esther, it’s—”
—and grabbed the pole with her free hand. It was not electrified. “Find the others!” He skipped down, white streak sinking into yellow smog, and she climbed three-limbed, holding the machete. At the top she swung the blunt edge at the spy-eye. It popped at the same time the worn blade snapped; she shrank away from flying pieces, flung down the useless tool, climbed down, sprang over the littered ground and went downhill head pulled in knees up and arms wrapped about them arse over teakettle.
* * *
They picked themselves up, coughing in the miasma. Ardagh was limping and Mitzi spitting blood from a bitten tongue. Sven’s wound had opened, staining his bandage and net shirt; one of his lower arms had wrenched, and he did not like moving it. Esther, a fuzz ball covered with dust and dry stems, unfolded herself and scuttled over to check Yigal, who was standing quite calm and clean. “You look disgraceful,” he said.
“Hush! Where’s Koz? Joshua?”
Both of them, graceful and athletic, were only a bit winded. Shirvanian, freed now, had flung himself face down in the mud, kicking and pounding with his fists, one of them still clutching the control. Two servicing ergs, much larger than the others, rolled by, heading for the battleground, and paid them no attention.
Sven cried, “Get up!”
“No!” Shirvanian howled.
Sven grabbed him, tucked him under two right arms. “Stop that stupid tantrum!”
Shirvanian waved his arm. “I’ll break this!”
Sven picked it out of his fist, and dropped him. “You can’t be controlling anything in that state.” He turned back the dial and dropped the thing down his shirt front.
“You’ll ruin it!” Shirvanian jumped up, eyes wide with horror in his mud-painted face. “My box! Where’s my box!”
“In your bag,” said Esther. “You’ll get it when I give it to you.” She slung the bag over her shoulder.
“The hangar’s over there,” Joshua said. “It’s so thick here you can’t—”
His mouth gaped; they whirled and found a tremendous drone bearing on them from behind. They had not come unnoticed after all.
Shirvanian yelled, “Transmitter’s off, and I don’t care! I don’t care! Serves you right!”
Mitzi’s face twisted, and with one clawing movement she ripped at Shirvanian’s belly, tearing cloth, tape and transmitter. The metal button came away in crumbled pieces. It had not survived the trip downhill. “Broken!”
Esther yelled, “Get away! Run! Through the channel!”
How? The erg would crush them before they’d gone ten meters.
Esther shrieked, the yi-yi-yi of her treetop call, and leaped straight into the huge machine’s sensor complex.
“Esther!” Yigal ran after, and a swinging limb glanced his head. He fell and lay twitching. Sven jumped forward and hauled him away with supreme effort. The others did not run; they screamed and were rooted.
The erg stopped. Its limbs reached, clawed, and clashed together; Esther was not there. She swung, screeching with rage, from one to another, dancing on wire probes, butting her heels at lenses, whirling in figure-eights around gripper tentacles till they tied themselves in knots grabbing for her. She was a bee, a fly, a whip, a dancing black chromosome. How long did she have? An eternity of ten seconds. Less. A second erg was bearing toward them out of the mist.
Shirvanian gagged and swallowed, reached out blindly toward Sven. Touched him. “Give it to me! Please! Give it to me.”
Sven dug in his shirt and handed over the control. Shirvanian did not even look at it. Mitzi sobbed, “All right, you sonofabitch! You better show!”
Shirvanian did not hear. Esther ducked, grabbed, swung like a pendulum, as if she were in some giant testing ground in Dahlgren’s lab and knew where the next attack would come, a centimeter away from miscalculation, an instant from the second erg ...
Shirvanian turned up to the limit, closed his eyes and prayed, perhaps to Vulcan or whatever other world’s Great Artificer he fancied.
Three seconds. The erg, both ergs, slowed ... slowed ... slowed ... did not stop but retarded, delayed, moved in slow motion. Creeping, trancelike, moved ...
Esther jumped down. “Yigal!”
He pulled himself to his feet, shook his head. “All right, it’s all right.”
“Then run! For God’s sake, run!”
Now they could outpace ergs. Esther jumped to Sven’s shoulder, panting. Joshua grabbed one of Yigal’s horns and urged the dizzy beast; the others slung their packs and ran toward the hangar.
Inside the broad doorway darkness, silence, stillness. They fell against the wall, gasping. Row upon row of machines, deserted by their servicers, waited, every size and shape imaginable.
To the mist had been added the fumes of machine oil. Ardagh coughed and rubbed her runny nose. “Where’s the transports?”
Shirvanian whimpered, “I can’t see!” His nose was bloody and he had the beginnings of a black eye.
“Those things—are still coming,” Esther puffed.
“Some of this stuff is stripped down.” Shirvanian pointed at his pupils opened in the dimness. “Those are just empty casings.”
Sven swung his head. “I don’t see transports. Nothing.”
“Look!” cried Shirvanian.
Fifth in rank against the western wall there was one transport, nearly hidden behind some other machine’s tanklike mass. It was hard to miss, once spotted, painted freshly in yellow and green diagonal stripes in sharp contrast to the dented and crusted flanks of the other ergs. It was a huge oblong, almost as big as the house had been.
“That’s the Argus!”
Shirvanian headed for it.
“Stay away! It’s got to be booby-trapped!”
“I know,” said Shirvanian. “We’ve got about two minutes.” Noises from the factory were blocked here, but not the rumbling of the slowly approaching ergs.
Esther looked the thing up and down. “They want us to pick it. They must think we’re ninnies.”
“Can you tell where the traps are?” Sven asked.
Shirvanian touched his nose and stared at the blood, then rested his hand gingerly on the striped metal, leaving a smear. “The one we’re supposed to find, if we g
ot this far, is on the axle beside the right rear tread. You can see the wire hanging down. The one that’s supposed to kill us is in the voice activator under the control deck.” He dropped to his knees on the greasy floor, gave a pull here and there, and brought out something that looked like one of his own crazy rigs. He offered it to Sven. “Don’t let those wires touch. That’s not a dud.”
“What the hell do I want it for?”
“We may need a bomb.”
“How do I keep the wires apart?”
“With your head! Roll up the wires separately on each side, and put the thing in my bag.”
“Like to drop it down his pants,” Esther growled.
Shirvanian nipped around the back. “Door’s open.” His voice rang hollow. “I need a screwdriver.”
“You drove them all crazy.”
“And there’s no time!” Sven yelled.
“No, they left the screws out. That’s handy. They’re on the floor.” He came out holding a similar mess of wires and bulbs. “Same kind of thing. They repeat themselves,”
“Shirvanian!” The walls vibrated with the noise of grinding ergs.
“Come on in,” said Shirvanian. “It’s all yours.”
They scrambled aboard, and Sven ran to the control deck and pushed buttons he had not thought of touching for nine years.
Will there be fuel? Electricity? He picked up the microphone.
“Argus ...” He pulled out the tiny sensor bulb on its wire thread and stuck it under his tongue where it took a second to identify his temperature and saliva.
HELLO, SVEN. The voice of Dahlgren boomed and echoed around the hangar. HOW ARE YOU TODAY? Shuddering, Argus came alive.
“Very well, thank you, Argus.” His voice shook; quarter-tank of fuel, working power cells.
WHERE SHALL WE GO NOW, SVEN? The drones roared along the walls.
“Headquarters, Argus, fast as you can!”
HOME, SVEN? Argus’s ceiling lights flicked on.
“Head—yes, home, Argus, home—and hurry!”
Argus swerved out of rank and skidded down the laneway, crushing his passengers to the walls.
Shirvanian was squatting on the floor. “Leave the doors open!” he shouted. “Mitzi, give me your lighter.” He had ripped a piece off his torn shirt and twisted the bomb’s wires around it so they did not touch.
Argus barreled through the door, skinning the corner of the erg come to meet him. The erg swung about and followed.
“Faster!” Shirvanian screeched. He held the lighter ready; he was sure the bomb was meant to blast the interior and occupants of Argus and not half a hangar full of ergs, but he wanted space. The drone had not picked up full power, but it was five meters away, the second one following.
Six, seven.
Shirvanian lit the rag. It was fire-resistant, but carried enough flame to begin melting the wire casings.
He hurled it.
It did not hit the erg; the erg caught it in a claw and threw it back.
It flew through the open door of the Argus and bounced in front of Shirvanian. The children screamed.
Except for Koz.
He picked it up and flashed a smile, the first any of them had seen on his face, and as the screaming and babbling went on he jumped lightly out of the bouncing Argus, landed easily on the rubble as if he had trained for this moment all his life, and clasping the bomb over his heart in both hands like one bearing a gift, ran toward the erg.
Flesh and metal joined in the blast. The erg, front end hammered in, slewed its treads in Koz’s blood and bones, and stopped. The one following crashed it.
Argus closed his doors and ran the channel out of the pit and mist.
WHY WERE YOU USING THE COMPUTER?
Dahlgren in his room on a chair, erg-Queen before him, servo behind, erg-Dahlgren against the wall stiff as a toy soldier.
He regarded her with great insolence. Perhaps she recognized it; she reached out a claw, grasped and twisted his arm behind his back. His arthritic bones grated and he screamed.
WHY WERE YOU USING THE COMPUTER?
“Because it is mine,” he whispered, shuddering with pain. His arm hung.
IT IS NO LONGER YOURS. YOU HAVE NO STORE. WHAT CALL SIGNAL DID YOU USE? She reached for his arm again. He winced, and the servo looped a coil around his neck.
“Yours.”
HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT?
“It is only your name. I thought you might use your name.”
WHO TOLD YOU MY NAME?
His lips trembled.
“I told him,” said erg-Dahlgren mildly. She whirled. “That is no secret. He had never seen an erg of your model and he asked.”
She faced Dahlgren again, and he looked up at her, wherever her intelligence might lie, behind those jeweled buttons or below the spiky crown. His humiliation was intense. His world and his station ripped from him, he was being tormented in the place that held all the privacy he had left, where he ate and slept. His cage. Cage. He had manipulated flesh, Hexed limbs. But I did not do that to torment. Did you not, Dahlgren? Only to be powerful.
YOU USED IT IN MY NAME ...
“Why do you not ask the computer?”
She did. She was its terminal. MOD 85.
IDENTIFY.
CREATOR MATRIX ONE.
WHAT IS YOUR REQUEST, CREATRIX?
WHAT IS IN THE STORE: EDVALG?
EDVALG IS DEACTIVATED.
DO YOU HAVE A SUB-STORE IN THE NAME OF CREATOR MATRIX ONE UNDER CODE DAHLGREN?
NO.
She tapped Dahlgren’s arm. WHAT CODE DID YOU USE? The coil tightened on his neck.
“SVENSSEN.”
SPELL IT.
“S-V-E-N-S-S-E-N.”
MOD 85, TELL ME WHAT IS IN THE STORE: SVENSSEN?
IF THIS CODE: SVENSSEN IS USED HEREAFTER AT ANY TIME BY ANY MACHINE OR ANY PERSONAGE OF ANY ORDER, RANK OR NUMBER YOU ARE TO SCAN THE PULSE RATE OF THE MAN EDVARD DAHLGREN AS MONITORED AND RECORDED BY MODAL 1 DURING THE TWO HOURS PREVIOUS TO USE OF THIS CODE AND IF THE HEARTBEAT OF THE MAN EDVARD DAHLGREN WITHIN THAT TWO-HOUR PERIOD EXCEEDS FOR ANY TWO CONSECUTIVE MINUTES A RATE OF ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE BEATS PER MINUTE THIS STORE IS TO BE ERASED.
Erg-Queen ranged her arms along her sides. IS THIS STORE ERASED?
NO.
WHAT IS THE HIGHEST RATE OF HEARTBEAT RECORDED DURING THAT PERIOD?
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO.
THEN TELL ME WHAT IS IN THE STORE: SVENSSEN.
IDENTIFY KEY.
Erg-Queen stood immobile before Dahlgren. The servo’s coil was tight around his neck and he saw the pulses of his own eyes, his heart slammed his chest. The coil withdrew from his neck, suddenly, and he coughed.
Erg-Queen spoke quietly, without echo. GIVE ME THE KEY, DAHLGREN. YOU WILL BE FORCED TO DO SO EVENTUALLY.
“I agree,” said Dahlgren even more quietly. He had no breath to speak louder. “But by the time you have the key you will be obliged to contend not only with my pulse rate, but with my extra systoles, the effect of choking on my brain rhythms, perhaps even my death—and then there will be no store: SVENSSEN. Force me if you will.”
WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS, DAHLGREN?
“To frustrate you.”
She plucked the wrist of his wrenched left arm and he cringed, he could not help himself. She dropped the wrist and wheeled out of the room, the servo clanking after.
“Now what will she do?” he asked.
“I expect she will chase the store: SVENSSEN around the computer for a while, and perhaps she will find it, perhaps not. We are safe for the moment.” Erg-Dahlgren remained standing against the wall, arms behind his back. “Whatever it was that I had to forget, I have forgotten. You have done this for me, Dahlgren, but I did not mean for you to be hurt.”
Dahlg
ren let his head fall back and closed his eyes. “Don’t think of it.”
Erg-Dahlgren came forward and carefully lifted Dahlgren to the bed. “What may I do for you?”
Pain up neck to head, down arm to fingers. Dahlgren said, “Well, a glass of akvavit would—but I doubt you will find it here.”
“What is that?”
“An alcoholic drink I enjoyed as a young man in my homeland.”
“I see. I will find you something for the pain.” Dahlgren listened to the heavy step of his erg moving out the door and down the hall. No guard stopped him. Nowhere to run.
One arm’s pain engulfed a whole body. Arm. Sven had four. Arms.
Four.
Why did you not use my wife’s ova?
THERE WERE ONLY FOUR.
You knew even that.
Dahlgren, said Haruni, this may not be so good a thing to do.
I must have. I must have. Something. She left me with nothing. God knows I have enough sperm.
But only four ova.
1. Broke and disintegrated when thawed.
2. Infertile.
3. Fertilized and implanted in section of uterine lining maintained in vitro, soon engulfed in quick-growing placental tumor arising from nowhere.
4. Sven.
Three-month embryo, six-limbed, a pulsing tiny lizard. A teratological monster.
My God, can’t you do something? Why didn’t you tell me before?
We hoped we could—Who would want to tell you?
But—
What do you expect, Dahlgren? Cut out a whole cross section? A third of the heart and half the lungs and liver? Best to abort.
None left. Nothing. No. “Do. Something!”
Try cloning.
Clones have nothing of her!
Whispers ... stimulate rhomboid, latissimus dorsi and ...
Haruni, sad-eyed. You see ...
This has never happened before. Why now?
You never knew if it happened before, Dahlgren. No one has said. This is the one you have been watching.
Every day by infrascope. The red worm, red lizard clenches. Double-budded in arm. Six-limbed.
Eddy of laughter in corner: Good thing it’s a boy, some girl with four tits ...
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