Turing Test

by Chris Beckett

  The Immortal Warrior was incarcerated a hundred feet down in the solid rock. The only access to him were these stairs cut through the grim black basalt and sealed by a series of eight iron doors, the seventh of which the governor was now unlocking.

  Cold arc lights illuminated the descending steps beyond the door. I followed the governor through. Behind us came my sergeant, Tobias, and three of the garrison soldiers.

  “Well, I assume there is no breathable air in there,” I observed, “if it is ten years since it was last opened.”

  “Indeed, your Holiness. But the strange thing – the uncanny thing really – is that he springs to life at once when we disturb him. His nervous system has completely shut down, yet he responds instantaneously to a change in the outside world!”

  I shrugged. “I suppose there is very little about Half-and-Half that can be explained,” I said, “his origins, his shape-shifting, his apparently magical powers…”

  In times past, pieces of the Immortal Warrior had even been cut off and examined by science: a finger, a hand, a leg. But as soon as they are separated from him, his tissues disintegrate completely, only to reappear later, re-formed in some mysterious way, inexplicably re-united to Half-and-Half himself.

  “A complete mystery, your Holiness,” the governor agreed, opening the last of the eight doors. “Of course, he himself is full of fanciful explanations if you give him half a chance.”

  “I have no intention of doing so,” I said coolly.

  But I was not quite as calm as I appeared. As the door of his cell came into view, I confess I experienced a moment of pure childish dread at the prospect of facing this being who could be burnt in furnaces, torn into a hundred pieces, and still not be destroyed.

  “He is not invincible,” I reminded myself, “even if he is immortal. He can be chained. He can be held. He can make mistakes...”

  He could certainly make mistakes. Or otherwise he would never have allowed himself to fall back into the hands of the Old Emperor, after he had betrayed him so treacherously to the Hippolytanians at the Battle of the Mill.

  *

  The light sprang on as the enormous door swung open.

  Laden with chains, the prisoner of Gendlegap squatted in the corner of a tiny metal-lined cell that looked and smelled like an empty water-tank. His head was between his knees. He was as angular and motionless as a dead spider.

  Half-and-Half the magical warrior, Half-and-Half the traitor: for several generations, every child in the Empire had been told the story of his exploits and his disgrace. But how many expected ever to stand there in that cell, faced with the mysterious Warrior himself?

  He was quite small, dark-haired, swarthy. I had seen pictures of him of course and should not have been surprised. And yet somehow it was hard to believe that this ordinary-looking prisoner, with the rough skin of a middle-aged bricklayer or peasant, could have been the same one who over a century ago struck terror into the barbarian armies with his shape-shifting illusions.

  Just barely perceptibly, Half-and-Half moved. He was alert, he was listening, though his head was weighed down by the heavy iron collar round his neck.

  I cleared my throat. I felt suddenly ridiculous stooping there next to the governor in that tiny tank-like space.

  “Prisoner Half-and-Half,” I began, “His Imperial Majesty has asked me to convey to you this message. In exchange for your assistance in his current wars, he would be willing to grant you, temporarily, your freedom. Depending on your conduct during the period of these wars, His Majesty would also be willing to contemplate in due course granting you a full pardon for the crimes committed by you in the service of His great-grandfather.”

  There was a long silence. Then very suddenly Half-and-Half sat up and looked straight at us. His eyes were very bright, full of energy and cunning and wit, and on his lips there was a faint teasing smile.

  Well, I am a soldier of the Pristine Guard. I have looked death in the face many times. But it was a struggle now – why not admit it? – to keep myself from lowering my gaze.

  “Speak, damn you!” I thought, “Speak!”

  At last he nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said, and his voice was quite ordinary and human. “Yes, I will speak with the Emperor.”

  “You will agree to his terms?”

  “I will speak to him.”

  “But we need to discuss the terms of your service before we can...”

  The prisoner made a small gesture of impatience, with a right hand laden with heavy rings of black iron. “I said I would speak to the Emperor.”

  *

  As the helicopter lifted, Half-and-Half twisted his chained body to look back at the rock where he had languished for so long. Then he turned to me with that clever, mischievous smile.

  “Well, that was no picnic, I can tell you! No air, no food, no space...”

  The sea-lashed platform of the North Fortress passed by beneath us.

  “I mean,” said Half-and-Half, “you’re a vigorous-looking young man. Never mind food or drink. Imagine going for a whole century without sex!”

  I informed him – rather stiffly – that the Pristine Guard was a celibate order.

  “Celibate eh?” he said. “Well, well. So virgin soldiers are back in vogue again are they? Still, there’s certainly something in the idea, I must admit. The virgin soldiers always were the most ruthless fighters. They long for release all the time, I suppose!”

  I declined to reply to this nonsense. Half-and-Half was clearly a master of establishing the upper hand. I was determined to prove to him that he had met his match.

  But my silence did little to discourage him. He laughed and continued his train of thought.

  “In fact,” he said, “I’ve heard it said that death is the ultimate orgasm, though I’m afraid I just have to struggle by with the ordinary kind.”

  Again I didn’t respond. And we sat for some time in silence.

  But over the coast of Anachromia, as we looked down on the thousands upon thousands of grey sea-lions that covered the beaches, the Immortal Warrior chuckled.

  “So the Emperor thinks he can make use of me, does he? Doesn’t he know how I got my name? I’m Half-and-Half! Whoever I serve, whoever I have dealings with, I do them just as much harm as I do good and just as much good as harm.”

  “I think His Majesty is sufficiently confident in his own authority,” I said, dryly, “to believe that he can channel your capabilities in the right direction.”

  (After all, His Majesty’s armies made use of all kinds of technologies and weapons which could be used against us just as effectively as they could be used in our defence. The trick was to ensure you were in control.)

  “Well,” said Half-and-Half, “I wish I had a penny for every time someone managed to convince themselves that they could ‘channel me in the right direction’!”

  He made a small exasperated gesture. “It can’t be done! Why can’t these kings and emperors get that through their heads? I’m the love-child of an angel and a demon, I’m light and darkness in exactly equal proportions. Don’t they tell the story any more? There was an illicit union between good and evil at the beginning of time – and I was the result. I’m immortal, I’m full of hybrid vigour, but I’m a moral zero. It’s just not negotiable, it’s a law of the universe like the speed of light. You can imprison me or make me General-Supreme, in the end it’ll make no odds. You might just as well let me sit on the sea-shore and count shells.”

  The Immortal Warrior snorted, giving a glance down at the bare Anachromian Ridge as it fell behind us. In the rocks down there, so I’d heard, were remnants of cities so old that they’d fossilised, become part of the bones of the Earth itself. Yet, if the stories about him were true, Half-and-Half had existed even then, sometimes disappearing for years or even centuries, but always reappearing in some new guise.

  Now his chains clinked.

  “Not that I’m complaining,” he said. “If your Emperor has managed to persuade himself he ca
n use me, that’s fine with me. I have no desire to spend another hundred years under that damned rock.”

  “Things have changed since you were last at large,” I said. “This is a scientific age. No one will take seriously all this talk of demons and angels.”

  His merry, mocking eyes turned back to my face. “It was a scientific age when they locked me up,” he said, “but they still believed in Eninomesis.”

  “That has not changed,” I said, quietly and firmly.

  “You still believe in the prophet Enino and how he descended to the ultimate Core in a wheel of light?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  He smiled.

  “But that’s different,” I added.

  “Is it? Oh, I see.”

  In spite of his chains he gave a dismissive shrug and looked away.

  But he didn’t remain silent for long. “Did you know I was with Enino for a while?” he asked. “He was another one who thought he could reform me. A vain man, he was. Do you know how I remember him best? In front of the mirror with a pair of tweezers! He had this incredibly vigorous growth of nostril hair, and...”

  “Silence!” I interrupted him. “Show respect to the Holy Prophet or I will have you gagged.”

  “Fair enough,” said Half-and-Half with his shrug and his mocking smile, looking back out of the window.

  “I am the son of an angel and a demon,” he repeated very quietly to himself, rather as a child will mutter defiantly when it has been told off. “The Norse knew me as Loki. The Chinese called me the Monkey King. One way or another, though, I seem to keep on getting buried under mountains.”

  He looked round at me slyly. “The American Indians, they knew me very well. They weren’t preoccupied with Progress like you urban people are, so they found me less of a problem. They gave me lots of different names...”

  I drew in breath. “I really do not wish to hear the names that extinct or imaginary races are supposed to have called you. I merely repeat: this is a scientific age.”

  He looked at me. “A scientific age eh?”

  His eyes were bright and fierce under his dark brows. “But my immortality is a fact, isn’t it?” he said. “I’ve just lived for a hundred years without food or air or drink. How does your science explain that?”

  “Well...” I began, and found myself stumbling. “Well, there are plenty of theories... To do with parachemistry at the subatomic level. To do with non-local forces... Apparently there are spores in space which display a similar ability to reconstruct, and to…”

  “Yes, yes,” said Half-and-Half impatiently, “but do you actually understand any of this?”

  “Well, it’s not an area in which I really – um – have any specialist knowledge,” I began, “but...”

  Half-and-Half laughed. “No, I thought not!” he said.

  He settled back in his seat, winking at me jovially, as if I’d just failed to pull off an ingenious joke at his expense.

  *

  We were crossing the Ontibian Alps when he spoke again.

  “I suppose you’re furious with me for selling out to the Hippolytanians all those years ago?” he asked. “I’ve noticed your type never forgives that sort of thing.”

  I remained silent and looked away.

  He nodded. “I thought so. A fine young, tight young virgin soldier like you!”

  “Thousands died as a result of your treachery,” I said quietly.

  “So they say. The Battle of the Mill was lost without me and thousands of Imperial soldiers died who might otherwise have lived.”

  He shrugged, clinking. “Of course if it had been thousands of Hippolytanians who had died, you’d have called me a hero. But I saved Hippolytanian lives.”

  The Immortal Warrior made a small, contemptuous gesture. “You’re all such babies aren’t you? I’ve been around since the beginning of time. I’ve seen nations come and go, I’ve seen religions and political systems come and go that were supposed to be the answer to everything. I’ve seen whole continents come and go. How could you possibly expect it to mean anything to me when you draw one of those stupid lines across a map and say it’s good to kill the people on one side of it and bad to kill the people on the other? Listen, I’m a mercenary. I fight in my own interests. And the Hippolytanians offered me a better deal.”

  He looked at me, his fierce, angry eyes mocking my own suppressed rage.

  “And what do you fight for, Cardinal-Major Illucian?” he asked me.

  I said nothing.

  “I’ll tell you,” he said. “You fight so that everyone will tell you what a good boy you are for holding all your shit tight up inside you, and only ever crapping it out in the special receptacle that daddy provides.”

  I wasn’t going to rise to this. I indicated to Sergeant Tobias that he should take my place, then went forward to stand by the pilot.

  We were crossing the Southern Marches. Far off in the hazy distance the green hills of our beloved homeland were already coming into view.

  *

  “So this is the famous Half-and-Half!” exclaimed the Emperor, as I led the chained prisoner into the throne-room.

  His Serene Majesty sat on a high throne like a stage, surrounded by protective force fields that bathed him in a pearly pinkish light. I knelt and prostrated myself, but the Immortal Warrior merely nodded at the planet’s supreme potentate as you might nod at some tradesman in the street.

  “The Cardinal-Major has no doubt told you our proposal,” the Emperor said, letting this insolence pass without comment, “and I understand that His Excellency the Minister of Peace-through-War has also now met you and outlined our position. So what is your reply? Will you promise to serve me for the duration of the war in return for your freedom? Or do you prefer to return to your cell on Gendlegap?”

  The Immortal Warrior ran his tongue over his lower lip.

  “No one would stay on Gendlegap out of choice,” he said. “So naturally I promise to serve you to the best of my ability. I’ve already explained to Illucian here about why I’m known as Half-and-Half. But I would imagine that you’ve convinced yourself that you’ll be able to...”

  His Majesty laughed comfortably. “Oh I have no illusions about your loyalties, Half-and-Half, no illusions at all. But I think we can do business. I think – ” (and here the words came out so glibly that I felt like calling out some kind of warning) “ – I think, one way or another, we’ll be able to channel you in the right direction.”

  Half-and-Half laughed. “That’s what they all say...” he began, but here I interrupted him.

  “You are in the presence of His Majesty the Emperor, Half-and-Half!” I hissed.

  He looked at me and back at the Emperor. “I know I am in the presence of the Emperor,” said the prisoner of Gendlegap, without lowering his voice. “And he is in the presence of the warrior Half-and-Half, who helped his great-great-grandfather murder old Nanophea and so usurp the throne...”

  “Silence!” I ordered.

  But his Majesty merely observed, quite mildly; that he did not want Half-and-Half to talk about the past, mythical or otherwise, while in his service.

  “Is that understood?” he enquired. “I want that to be part of our deal.”

  “Perfectly,” said Half-and-Half, with an ironic snapping of his heels to attention, which set his chains clanking loudly. “That’s always been part of the deal. I must not disturb the rosy mists of the past!”

  His Majesty smiled slyly at him, as if they had shared a private joke. Then he gave a signal to one of his guards, who went to a side door and ushered in the grey, aquiline figure of the Minister of Peace-through-War, accompanied by an aide carrying a small box.

  “Half-and-Half,” said the Emperor, “you are an impudent man, and you obviously think you can outsmart us all. But things have changed since you last walked the Earth, things have moved on. We understand, perhaps better than ever before, how your strange body works.”

  I think His Majesty expected Half-and
-Half to look impressed, or even alarmed that his secret was finally out. But the Immortal Warrior said nothing, merely smiled his faint sceptical smile, just as he had done with me when I had attempted to advance those fashionable theories about para-chemistry and non-local forces.

  “Yes, we have new tools at our disposal now,” said the Minister of Peace-through-War. “Bullets can smash tissue and fire can smash molecules. Nuclear fission can even smash atoms. But now, for the first time, we have a means to destroy even sub-atomic particles, reducing them to pure energy.”

  His Serene Majesty nodded. “Yes, Half-and-Half, and I don’t think even your strange flesh could reconstruct itself after such total annihilation.”

  The prisoner of Gendlegap said nothing.

  The Emperor gestured to the Minister’s aide, who opened the box he carried and removed from it a heavy metal bracelet.

  “We have been using these subatomic bombs on the battlefield for several years now,” said the Minister, “and we have acquired some skill in miniaturization. This bracelet is in fact such a weapon.”

  The Emperor smiled. “You can be held, we know, Half-and-Half,” he said, “you cannot escape from secure bonds. We’re going to fix this bracelet to you. If you tamper with it, it will destroy you. If you disobey me, I will destroy you, for I personally hold a control device for this thing. And if you harm me, the Minister here will destroy you, for he also holds the key to your instant annihilation. This is how I will ensure your loyalty. Is that understood?”

  Half-and-Half nodded, still faintly smiling. The Emperor made a gesture to the Minister, who nodded to his aide. The aide fastened the bracelet onto the prisoner’s upper arm.

  “Very well then,” said His Majesty. “Remove his chains if you please, Cardinal-Major!”

  My guards came forward to release the locks in Half-and-Half’s collar and manacles. The chains fell away to the floor and the Immortal Warrior stood there, unfettered for the first time since before my grandfather was born. Tentatively he felt his wrists, his ankles, his neck. He smiled. He touched the heavy bracelet that had just been fastened round his arm.