“You seemed simpler then.” He went to the chessboard, moved 25. Queen to Q3. “There she stands, back of the Pawn, looking over his shoulder.”
Dahlgren shrugged, got up and moved his Queen to N3. “I cannot confront her.”
“And you want me to do that.” 26. Q-K2. “You see, on the board it is easy to make the Queen take a step back.”
P-B6. “There is a Pawn under the noses of the enemy that cannot be taken.”
Erg-Dahlgren said with something of dryness for the first time, “If you are talking about either me—or that other Pawn ... you do not know whom you are dealing with.”
“You know,” said Dahlgren quietly. “I would try it myself if she would take me for you.”
“That would be interesting.”
“This way one of us might be able to get out and see what is going on. If you can demonstrate your loyalty to her—”
“She may be less likely to tamper with my being. I understand. But she will be able to tell if I am lying.”
“Then tell no lies. But don’t give information that has not been asked for.” He did not speak of erg-Dahlgren’s connection, the being Shirvanian, for the same reason that he had wiped his memory: not to halter him with too much to hide.
“Whatever I say I will seem to be betraying you,” erg-Dahlgren said. “I will be betraying you.”
“That will be hard on your conception of yourself, but tactically it is much better. The more you become like the idea of Dahlgren in Mod Seven Seven Seven’s mind the safer you will be. You must be arrogant and incisive if that is to your advantage ... or if necessary, even crawl and cringe ... it is not pretty, but it is Dahlgren on record. That is what I saw—” He swallowed. “Do you think I learned nothing of myself during those years I spent among the bones of my friends and workers?”
Erg-Dahlgren picked up the clothing he had just taken off. “She may not be willing to communicate with me.”
“You are the crux of her plan. I am certain you will be safer with her.”
Erg-Dahlgren, dressed, sat down. He bowed his head. After a minute, he raised it. “She agrees to have me speak to her. A servo will come for me.” He stared at the chessboard. “I am afraid, Dahlgren. Am I clever enough to represent you?”
“If it is necessary to save anything at all out of this, anything at all—you must really take my place. On Earth and in the heavens.”
Bolts clicked and the door slid open. Erg-Dahlgren did not pay attention for a moment. He raised his hand slowly over the board and with 27. Q-B4 put Black in check. Dahlgren shifted King to R1 and took him out. “It can be done,” he said.
The servo was waiting. Erg-Dahlgren, about to go out into the darkness, paused in the doorway and half turned. He said in a low voice, “Your son is alive ... but Yigal has died.”
* * *
Transport 933 has disappeared, said Skimmer 175.
IT HAS SWITCHED IDENTITY TO 983, erg-Queen said.
Does destruct order now apply to 983?
Erg-Dahlgren appeared in the doorway.
THAT WILL BLOCK TRACK 2 WITH WRECKAGE. MAINTAIN FLY-OVER AT INTERVALS OF THREE HOURS. I WANT 178 ON SURVEILLANCE ABOVE CLOUD LEVEL.
Erg-Queen, connected to everything, did not need more than a broom closet’s space for her physical being, and her headquarters was only slightly larger. One wall was lined with screens connected to spyeyes.
She pushed a button that changed one screen to a map on which three tracks radiated toward the focal maze of Station Headquarters. Nearly halfway along track 2 a small red light flickered among vari-colored dots of erg positions. I’LL KNOCK THEM OFF THE TRACK AND BURN THEM OR LET THEM CRAWL A LITTLE LONGER?
“That is your prerogative,” erg-Dahlgren said.
I’M GLAD YOU AGREE. SEVEN YEARS AGO WE MADE A PROMISE TO DAHLGREN AND DID NOT INTERFERE WITH HIS SON. THAT IS WHAT MEN CALL HONOR. NOW DAHLGREN’S SON IS APPROACHING IN FULL SIGHT WITH I SUPPOSE SOME MAD HOPE IN MIND. I DO NOT KNOW WHAT HE WILL TRY TO DO AND I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT HE KNOWS WHAT OR WHY.
“Dahlgren’s son did not make any promises.”
Erg-Queen tapped all her arms at once along her sides. They rang. Erg-Dahlgren did not like this, but since he had no glandular system he did not flinch.
NEITHER DID I MAKE ANY TO YOU. WHY DID YOU ASK TO COME HERE? YOU COULD HAVE COMMUNICATED WITH ME FROM YOUR ROOM.
“You can do many things at once, but I cannot observe Dahlgren and speak with you as well.”
THEN WHY? PERHAPS YOU WISH TO SAY THAT YOU HAVE LEARNED ENOUGH OF CHESS TO PLAY DAHLGREN.
“I have learned enough of chess to play as well as Dahlgren. I believe that I can play Dahlgren as well.”
IT WAS BEGINNING TO SEEM TO ME THAT YOU WERE PLAYING WITH DAHLGREN RATHER THAN AGAINST HIM.
“I have played with Dahlgren. I do not wish to play with you.”
HOW YOU HAVE CHANGED, MOD DAHLGREN. PERHAPS YOU ARE PLAYING FOR YOURSELF.
“That would be impossible for me even if I wanted to do it. You control my power sources.”
AND YOUR FORM AND YOUR FUNCTIONS.
“As you have demonstrated.”
AND YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY UNWILLING TO BE TERMINATED.
“Certainly. But you are not likely to do that, when my works depend on ten thousand circuitry charts allowing combinations in the billions. You will not put me together again in a hurry, Mod Seven Seven Seven.”
OR—
“Or modify me easily without damage. You wanted a Dahlgren, and Mod Dahlgren is what you got.” And perhaps a little too much of him. Erg-Dahlgren added quickly, in a calmer voice, “I have not come to show you defiance, but to demonstrate that I am Dahlgren to all intents and for your purposes, and as I was made to do what you wish I am fully willing to do it.”
THAT IS VERY HELPFUL, MOD DAHLGREN. IT IS PLEASING TO KNOW THAT YOU HAVE NO AIMS THAT ARE INIMICAL TO MINE. Erg-Dahlgren waited for the crunch ... AND GRATIFYING TO KNOW THAT I WILL NOT HAVE TO SCRAP YOU IN FAVOR OF SENDING OUT DAHLGREN HIMSELF UNDER DRUGS AND HYPNOSIS, AS I HAVE BEEN CONSIDERING, SINCE YOU WILL CERTAINLY BE MORE CONVINCING THAN HE WOULD AFTER THE EXTREME TREATMENT THAT WOULD BE NECESSARY TO RESHAPE HIM.
“I doubt he would last long.”
HE HAS ALREADY DEMONSTRATED THAT HE IS A MAN WHO LASTS. A PACEMAKER AND A FEW OTHER DEVICES CAN TEND TO THE REST.
“You are suggesting, Mod Seven Seven Seven, that you do not trust me after all.”
Yet he knew that she did, at bottom, and was waiting for something else. A look into the vulnerable, his identity to which she had no access and which he termed his self. He did not know how to show it to her, or if he did how he could bring himself to do it. If necessary even crawl and cringe, says Dahlgren. All well and good, but he had no tears, he did not know how to whine.
She said nothing, waited for something, her arms rang down her sides in waves of deepening notes.
Erg-Dahlgren bowed his head.
Why don’t you tell her about me? said the being out of the void.
Erg-Dahlgren froze. Who—
You know, said the communicator. The one with Sven Dahlgren.
What Dahlgren wiped from my memory ...
Yes! Hurry up! She can’t read me, but you’ll turn into a scrap heap if you just stand there like an idiot!
But I may endanger—
Go on!
Erg-Dahlgren had no time to discuss questions of ethics with himself or anyone else.
IF I AM TO TRUST YOU, WHAT—
He straightened and said deliberately, “There is a being in the company of Dahlgren’s son who can communicate with me. Directly.”
The tapping stopped. NOT BY RADIO?
“No. Through my store.”
A TELEPATHIC HUMAN? ANIMAL?
“Human, I believe.”
COMMUNICATING WITH A MA
CHINE?
“It would seem so.”
WHO IS THIS BEING? IS IT THE ONE WHO WORKS WITH MACHINES?
“I don’t know.”
WHAT HAS IT TOLD YOU?
“Very little. It was as frightened to be in communication with me as I was startled to discover it.”
TELL ME WHAT IT SAID SPECIFICALLY.
Being gave explicit directions and erg-Dahlgren hesitated only a half-second. “It hates you.”
WHAT A SURPRISE. CAN YOU GIVE ME ANY PROOF OF THIS CONNECTION?
“Not directly ... it gave me a kind of proof by allowing me to observe that it sent a machine here into malfunction, a three-two-one, I believe, in the tread-repair chamber.”
SHOP, called erg-Queen, REPORT ON 321 RENEGADE IN TREAD REPAIR 30 HOURS PREVIOUS.
Cause unknown, Shop said. No malfunction on diagnostic except original tread breakage. Do you wish to see this machine?
NO. THAT IS ALL. She considered. IF THIS IS AS IT APPEARS AND AS YOU SAY IT IS LIKELY THAT CHILD WHO MAKES TOYS OF MACHINES.
“Perhaps, or maybe two of them are working together, one who knows and one who acts.”
HOWEVER IT WORKS IT WOULD MAKE A SUPER DIAGNOSTICIAN. CAN YOU COMMUNICATE WITH IT AT WILL?
“No. Usually we reach each other by hazard.”
TOO BAD.
For a moment erg-Dahlgren considered himself as a heap of parts, or at best stretched out on the construction table with servos winding this and soldering that. “But then, I have never tried.”
TRY THEN, MOD DAHLGREN. WHY DID YOU NOT TELL ME OF THIS BEFORE?
“I thought there was a flaw in my circuitry, and I was afraid,” erg-Dahlgren said with perfect truth.
But she had no more questions. GO BACK TO YOUR ROOM, MOD DAHLGREN. I WILL THINK ABOUT THIS.
* * *
Design, at erg-Queen’s request, riffled at a millisecond apiece the ten thousand wall-sized circuit diagrams that mapped erg-Dahlgren, and knocked off the two or three thousand relating to physical function.
HOW CAN THE OTHERS BE TESTED TO ISOLATE A RECEPTOR AREA?
By establishing steady contact and trying millions of switching combinations.
THERE IS NO TIME.
And there are no short cuts, Mod 777.
* * *
Erg-Dahlgren, in the dark corridor, sent thanks into the void but asked no questions. He had exhausted his human resources and did not want any more tests. All he wanted was to tell Dahlgren what had been done and let him decide whether it was help or hindrance.
The door was open, the room was dark. He did not have to turn the light on to recognize by the lack of body heat that Dahlgren was not there. The heartbeat leaped on his monitors, the brainwaves spiked; the man was gone.
TO EITHER side of the orange brick road the land buckled, and sometimes its granite spine broke the surface, blackened by rain and paled by wind. Mist and cloud were thinner, though the sun still dropped bloody in the west. Most of the plant life had gone underground in writhing trunks, looping up every once in a while into the poisoned air to flower in a spray of dark red or blue-black spikes that seemed a shriek of steel. There were no greens. The animals were humps of multilayered scales driven by scrabbling claws, or else huge black metallic centipedes of incredible speed. The track was much repaired and wound occasionally to bypass gullies; when it could not it was supported by retaining walls of granite blocks.
Sven did not urge Argus, because he wanted to avoid the road-menders in Zone Yellow. He was alone for the moment, and he did not think much because he was afraid. He hoped to leave the track halfway along White, draw a wide arc around the station complex and stop past the eastern border of the shielded zone, the point of the exclamation mark, where, if he were lucky, there would be cover in a low-radiation area, and he could plan what to do next.
Progress was slow across the broken land, but there was plenty of time now; the great obstacle aside from threat of attack was the sparseness of his memory. He had blotted out many events from terror, but he had also paid little attention to his surroundings because he was a child. Even Esther had not known much of the underground maze or the cultivated tract.
Ardagh came in. Her shoulders were slumped, she said nothing.
“She still the same?”
“Yeah. Was she ever like this before?”
“When we first came. It took her, oh, I guess some days to get out. I was in shock too. Yigal ... Yigal was sensible, he pushed us around with his nose, pestered us ... don’t you get that way.”
“I won’t.” She bit down on I won’t have time. “I’d better see if Mitzi’s back from the land of the living dead.”
* * *
Shirvanian opened his eyes and ran the ball of his thumb across his teeth. He was feeling a bit queasy.
“I didn’t know you sucked your thumb, Shirvanian,” Ardagh said.
Shirvanian took his thumb out of his mouth and stared at it. It was red and wrinkled. “I’ve reverted to infancy.”
“Infantilism. Don’t let Mitzi catch you.”
“Why not? She’s got a thumb of her own.” He jumped off the bunk and headed for the control room.
Ardagh leaned against the wall and watched Mitzi.
Mitzi opened her eyes, yawned, grimaced, and sat up slowly. She swung her head around her neck as though there were a lead ball rolling in her skull; glanced up at the light, blinked and shuddered. She looked dully at Ardagh and said, “What’ve you got the shakes for?”
Ardagh lifted her quivering hands and frowned at them in surprise. “I was holding on to Esther all day. She’s the one that’s shaking.”
“What for?”
“Yigal’s dead. She’s in some kind of depressive state.”
Mitzi grunted and got to her feet by pulling at the rim of the upper bunk. She lurched out of the cabin and down to the back chamber where Esther was still sitting blank-eyed.
She squatted, and with a sudden jolt from Argus, sat down hard and made a face. The light was sick. She squinted at Esther, a dark shadow trembling in a corner.
Esther’s lids narrowed slightly, masking the yellow pinpoints reflecting off the corneas.
Mitzi asked, “You in a trough?”
“Yeh.” A mere croak.
The sound made Mitzi clear her own throat. She turned her head aside a little and raised her fingers to her lips as though she were speaking to herself or to the air. “You’ve got to put yourself crosswise to it and bull your way through the wave head first.”
Esther parted her dry lips. “I know. I’ve been there.”
“You’re lucky.” Mitzi flattened her palms on the rumbling floor and pushed herself up. “I never got through to the other side.”
Esther nodded, perhaps a centimeter. “Well, maybe ...”
* * *
Ardagh was sprawled on the bunk with her feet hanging over the side; Mitzi flung in with her ragdoll gait and grabbed a shelf for balance. “She’ll be coming out of that pretty soon.”
Ardagh sat up, bit her tongue, and said, “Thanks.”
Mitzi shrugged and Ardagh unclenched her fist. “I’ll go see if I can get her to eat.”
* * *
“The cover’s blown,” said Shirvanian.
Sven folded his arms front and back, rode Argus’s floor like a surfboard. “I didn’t think it would last. How’d you find out?”
“Opened a line to the Dahlgren. He didn’t know much, but erg-Queen knows plenty. We won’t get burned on the road because it’d make a mess, but there’s nothing to stop them from shoving us off.”
Sven grunted. “Will they do it?”
“Not yet. I had him tell her about my psi and she’s waiting to decide if it’s worth anything to her.”
Sven said harshly, “Why don’t you sell yourself to her? You might get o
ff.”
“Your father made the Dahlgren do that, to save himself. The erg didn’t want to. He likes your father, I dunno why.”
Sven’s helpless laughter dissipated his usual hostile impulse toward Shirvanian. “How long do you think she’ll take to evaluate her treasure trove?”
Shirvanian took a lick of his thumb and wiped it in his armpit. “I’ll try to find out, if my thumb holds up.”
Sven glanced at him. His face was so pale he looked like some child wasting away in an old tearjerker. The sight of him, his fear, gave Sven a fearful lump in his own belly. “Sucking your thumb? What for?”
“Distraction. Keep my mind off other things while I’m exploring. I hate it, actually.”
“You ought to have some worry beads. Dahlgren gave Esther a string once to keep her from grooming him.”
“Huh. Do you know anything about something called the pit?”
“The Pit? Oh ... yes, it was a kind of nursery or hothouse ... a simulated forest environment where they kept lab animals after they came in or before they let them outside. I spent time there myself, and so did Esther and Yigal. Why?”
“I caught something about it from erg-Queen, I don’t know in what connection. Was it underground?”
“Yes, right in the center. Design, Surgery, and all the other things were around it.”
“Looks like you remember more than you thought.”
“Mostly more than I want. I think we could have supper now.”
“Not me, I haven’t time.” Shirvanian’s eyes looked big again, glancing off into corners of nothingness. “And I’m afraid I might get sick.”
YIGAL WAS DEAD. Dahlgren sat down and allowed grief to lash him like bloody surf. He found himself, head propped in hands, staring at White’s side of the chess table. The obvious move, B-N3, would stop Black’s advancing pawns. He fingered his fallen pieces, bishops, pawn, knight. If he had had a choice of pieces to represent Yigal it would have been White Knight, most gracious gentleman, perhaps old Charles Lutwidge himself. But Yigal had been only a white goat, a marvelous sport of nature, whom Dahlgren had not tampered with but simply loved.
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