The World of Tiers, Volume 2

by Philip José Farmer

  Red Orc paused, then said, “My sons could be the operators if it were not for one insurmountable factor. I may as well tell you what it is since I don’t care to be disintegrated, and it is the factor that makes it impossible to use the memory-stripping on me. Not even I can cancel it. If I am the person whose memory is to be stripped, the machine will blow up. It will know that I am the subject because it can detect my age. The clones are much younger than I. Therefore, the machine will be triggered when it reads the age difference.”

  “How can that be?” Kickaha said. “Your body cells are replaced every seven years. It won’t be any older, within a seven-year limit, than your clones’ bodies.”

  “True. But the machine will scan my memory before it starts the stripping process. That will determine that I am indeed the original person, because my clones have shorter memories. There is nothing that I can do about that. I cannot remove that circuit without causing the machine to explode. That is a command that, now that I’ve installed it, cannot be canceled.”

  Red Orc stood up. “I’m tired of this. Gate me back to my cell.”

  Kickaha also rose from his chair. “You’re leaving when I’m having so much fun?”

  Red Orc was now standing inside the circle on the floor, waiting to be transmitted to his cell. He called out, “Take my advice, Kickaha! Watch Khruuz! Do not trust him!”

  As Kickaha left the room, he admitted to himself that he was stymied. The situation was a Mexican standoff. Red Orc was suicidally stubborn. Though he’d been offered a deal far better than he deserved, he’d rather die than lose his memory and, thus, his precious identity.

  Kickaha went to the control room, a huge chamber with a very deep carpet on which were various mathematical formulae. The Khringdiz was sitting on a chair before a panel with many displays and controls. He wheeled his seat around and looked up at Kickaha. “It seems that you must either kill him or imprison him until he dies.”

  “Keeping him locked up is a bad idea. Sometime during the thousands of years he may yet live, he’d find a way to escape. I hate to think of him on the loose again.”

  “My advice is to end his misery.”

  “Misery?”

  “Yes. Sometimes, so I’ve been told, he is quite calm, at one with himself because he feels superior to all other humans. Then, he is even kind to people. He believes that he is truly a god. But this feeling only lasts a certain time. He tortures himself because he cannot make himself peaceful and serene. He cannot get people to love him, though this feeling largely comes from the unconscious, and he is not aware of it. By love, I don’t mean sexual love—that is, lust. During the thousands of years he has lived, he has not found a way to be at peace with himself or with others. He was driven to madness by others because he drove them to hate him.

  “Now, he is given the opportunity to erase that madness, to start over again. But, despite his misery and suffering, he loves his madness. He cannot give it up. He thinks of himself as a very strong person, which he is in many respects. Yet, he is also what he despises most, a weakling.”

  Kickaha laughed loudly, then said, “Thank you, Dr. Freud!”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. But, though nonhuman, you certainly seem to know much about the human psyche.”

  “I’m convinced that there is not a significant basic degree of difference between any two sapient species or among the members of the same species.”

  “You may be right. Anyway, I gave Red Orc a most generous offer, considering what he’s done. He isn’t going to accept it. That’s that.”

  Khruuz rolled his huge eyes upward. Kickaha did not know what that meant. Disgust? Wonder at the craziness of human beings?

  The Khringdiz said, “Red Orc was trying to make you suspicious of me when he told you to watch me. I hope that you dismissed his warning for what it is, a lie.”

  “Oh, sure. I know what he’s doing,” Kickaha said. “He’s always in there pitching.”

  Damn Red Orc! he thought. He’s brought up from the deep of my mind what’s been lurking down there. I knew it was there—I’m never entirely without suspicion—but I just had no valid reason at all to suspect Khruuz of evil intentions. I don’t have any now. I should rid my mind of Red Orc’s warning—though, come to think of it, Manathu Vorcyon did say that I might trust the Khringdiz too much. But she admitted that she didn’t have any basis for her remark. Except that you shouldn’t trust anybody unless they’d been through the fires with you and maybe not even then.

  Usually, I breathe in suspicion with the air. But Khruuz had such impressive credentials for hating the Lords. I don’t doubt that he has. But who else does he hate? All humans? Could he be as crazed as Red Orc but have much better control at concealing his feelings? I certainly can’t accuse Khruuz. No basis for doing that.

  But it’s possible he’s up to something I won’t like at all. How do I determine what he really thinks and feels? I could lock him up, keep him out of the way. But I need him badly, and I’d be unfair and unjust if I imprisoned him without good reason.

  Ah! Idea! Ask him to submit to a lie detector! No. He might be able to fool the machine or any truth drugs through mental techniques. If Red Orc can do that, Khruuz probably can do it. Anyway, his metabolism and neural reactions probably differ from those of humans. The machine or the drugs wouldn’t work as they do with us. If I ask him to volunteer, I’ll mightily offend him. I just can’t do that. Or should I do it anyway?

  He looked at the Khringdiz and wondered what was going on in that grasshopper head.

  Khruuz said, “Do you plan to execute Red Orc soon?”

  “I haven’t made up my mind. He should be killed. But I hate doing it—that’s my weakness—and I’d have to do it personally, press the button to flood his cell with gas or whatever. I won’t delegate it to someone else. That’s a coward’s way.”

  “I do not see that it is,” Khruuz said. “Do you yourself kill the animal that others serve you on the table?”

  “I usually kill my own meat. But you have a point. Not much of one, though. Red Orc is not an animal despite what many say about him. And despite the fact that he intended to kill me and then eat me as if I were an animal.”

  “I hope you soon resolve your dilemma,” the Khringdiz said. “Meanwhile, I have been thinking that I should return to my world and stay there for a while.”

  Red Orc’s warning was a hand plucking at his mind as if it were made of harp strings. The music—discord, rather—was high notes of suspicion. Damn Red Orc again! But he said calmly, “Why?”

  “As you know, I’ve been trying to get through Red Orc’s access codes here to enter various sections of the computer. His data banks may have the information we need to make another memory-uncoiling machine and to operate it. If so, we can strip him of his memory to any age we select, and thus avoid the unpleasantness of executing him. But there’s another far more compelling reason. He may be lying when he says that he has not stored that part of Anana’s memory that he took from her. It may be in the bank. If it is, we can give her memory back to her.”

  Kickaha was so excited that all thoughts of doubt about the Khringdiz scattered like a flock of birds under gunfire. After all, what evidence did he have that Khruuz was plotting something sinister? Not a bit. The Khringdiz had been invaluable in the conflict with Red Orc. Moreover, he was a likable person despite his monstrous features.

  “Do you really think so?” he said.

  “It is possible. We cannot afford to ignore anything no matter how difficult it may be to obtain it. It is well worth the time and the effort.”

  “I could kiss you!” Kickaha cried.

  “You may do so if it pleases you.”

  “I should have said I feel like kissing you,” Kickaha said. “I was speaking emotionally, not literally.”

  “But I need to go to my planet,” the Khringdiz said. “I have an enormous amount of data stored there, data inherited from my ancestors and data stolen or taken from t
he Thoan. There is much there of which I am not aware. It’s possible that I might not only find the means there to crack Red Orc’s codes, but find data on building memory-uncoiling machines. Who knows?

  “Also, our friend, Eric Clifton, must be very lonely. I will transmit him to here so that he will have human companionship.”

  “Oh, man!” Kickaha said.

  “What?” Khruuz said.

  “Nothing.”

  “I’ve noticed that, when you humans say ‘nothing’ in the context of your conversation, you mean ‘something.’”

  “Very observant of you,” Kickaha said. “But, in this case, I was struck by a completely irrelevant thought. Something I’d forgotten to do, that’s all.”

  His suspicions of the Khringdiz had been like a bag of garbage he’d thrown from the beach into the ocean. It had drifted off, almost out of sight, and then a tidal wave had picked the bag up and hurled it back against him, knocking him off his feet.

  He said, “That’s damned decent of you, considering Clifton’s feelings. But I’d rather he stayed with you for a while.”

  “Why?”

  Kickaha was taken aback. Mentally, he stuttered. But a second later, he said, “Clifton can’t help you with anything technological, I think. But he can be helpful in other matters. As for companionship, you need that, too. And Clifton likes you. Also, I’m sure there are things you could tell him, enlighten him. He’s intelligent and eager to learn.”

  Weak, weak! he thought. But it’s the best I could come up with. I hope what I said doesn’t make Khruuz suspect that I suspect him.

  “Very well,” Khruuz said. “He stays. I like Clifton, and he does provide companionship. But he must want to be with his own kind, and I offered to send him here because of that.”

  He paused, then said, “I thank you for considering my feelings of loneliness.”

  “You’re welcome,” Kickaha said. The Khringdiz certainly did not behave as if he wished to get Clifton out of the way. If Khruuz was up to no good—but why should he be?—he could easily kill Clifton, who would not be on his guard.

  “I would like to return immediately so that I may get started quickly on the research,” the Khringdiz said. “I’m eager to grapple with the problem.”

  He punched a button on the control panel and rose from the chair. Suddenly, the room seemed to crackle with emotional static. Khruuz was smiling, but that did not make his face seem less sinister. It looked that way no matter what his expression. The tendril on the end of his tongue was writhing; his stance was subtly changed. Like a lion who’s been drowsing but has just smelled a strange lion, Kickaha thought. He’s ready to defend his territory. Ready to charge the intruder.

  But the Khringdiz spoke calmly. “You are making much from nothing. I sense that you have unaccountably become hostile. I cannot as yet easily read subtle human expressions or understand certain inflections of voice. But it seems to me that you—what should I say?—have become suspicious of me. Am I wrong?”

  “You’re right,” Kickaha said as he withdrew his beamer from its holster and pointed it at Khruuz. “I may be completely wrong to doubt your intentions. If I am, I’ll apologize. Later, that is. But the stakes are too high for me to take a chance with you. For now, you’ll be locked up until I determine if I’m right or wrong. I’ll explain later.”

  He waved the beamer. “You know where the gates to the special cells are. I’ll be right behind you. Don’t try anything. If you do, I’ll know you’re guilty.”

  “Of what?” Khruuz said.

  “Get going.”

  They walked toward the door. Khruuz, instead of making a beeline toward it, veered a few feet to the left. Kickaha said, loudly, “Stop!”

  The Khringdiz took two more steps, halted, and began to turn. Kickaha had his finger on the trigger. He had advanced the power dial on the side of the beamer to a setting for a more powerful stun charge. Khruuz, he calculated, would have more resistance to the normal charge than most human beings.

  Khruuz was saying something in his native language while he turned around to face Kickaha. Then, he was gone.

  For several seconds, Kickaha was too surprised to react. When he recovered, he smacked his forehead. “Code word! That’s what he was saying! For God’s sake! He’d set it up! Slick! They don’t fool me often, but …!”

  The Khringdiz had formed a gate inside a loop of the symbol for eternity, the figure eight, one of the designs on the carpet. Standing in the area of the gate, he had uttered the code word, and was now, most probably, in the underground fortress in his planet.

  Clifton was doomed. Khruuz would kill him at once.

  Kickaha strode to the control panel and called for an all-stations attention. Then he ordered Wemathol and Ashatelon to report to the nearest screen. A minute later, both their faces were in the panel screens. He told them what had happened. Both looked alarmed. Wemathol, distinguishable from his brother by his green headband, said, “What do you think he’s planning to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Kickaha said. “Listen! He may pop back through the gate or another gate at any moment. Can either of you set up a one-way exit gate covering the floor of this room? That’ll stop him if he tries to re-enter.”

  Wemathol said, “We both know how to do that.”

  “Then get up here on the run, and do it!”

  Ashatelon, wearing a crimson headband and crimson boots, was the first to appear. Several seconds later, his brother entered the room. Ashatelon, breathing hard, said, “The Khringdiz could have set up gates anywhere in the palace.”

  “I know that, but we can’t cover the floors in every room! Can we?”

  “Yes, but it would take time. If we did that, then the gates we use now would be closed. You could not transport food to my father, for instance. Not that I would mind if he starved to death.”

  “Besides,” Wemathol said, “Khruuz could have set up gates in the walls. Or even in the ceilings.”

  “Just cover the floor of this room,” Kickaha said. “Get to work, you two.”

  They seated themselves before control panels. Kickaha called the captain of the guards and told him some of the situation. “Put your men on a twenty-four-hour roving patrol. Work in three shifts. If the Khringdiz shows, shoot him.”

  He doubted that Khruuz would come back soon. He suspected that the scaly man would be returning to Zazel’s World or trying to do so. Khruuz wanted the data for the creation-destruction engine as fiercely as Red Orc desired it. Or so it seemed reasonable to assume. Just why, Kickaha did not know. But he would not put it past the Khringdiz to use it to destroy all but one universe.

  Doing that would make him the most solitary of all sentient beings. Unless he had means for cloning himself and changing some of the duplicates into females. He might even have the data in his files for altering the genes of the clones. That would make a genetically varied people.

  No use speculating. Get done at once what needs to be done.

  He used a recorder to send a message to Manathu Vorcyon and had it taken by a runner to the gate that channeled to her world. She might come up with an idea for invading Khruuz’s World. Kickaha did not like sitting around waiting for the Khringdiz to attack. Attack as soon as possible was his motto. By the time that the messager reported that the recorder had been placed in the gate, the clones had finished setting up the one-way exit gate over the control-room floor.

  Wemathol said, “It does not interfere with the operation of the controls, however.”

  When Kickaha was convinced that there was nothing more to do, for the moment, anyway, he went to Anana’s suite of rooms. The entrance to this was a door with a huge monitor screen on it. He called to her. The screen became alive. He saw her walking back and forth just beyond the door. A caged tigress, he thought, and even more beautiful. She hates me and would kill me if she could. That was a thought to choke his mind. Whoever would have thought that his beloved would one day tear him to bloody rags of flesh if she had the oppor
tunity?

  He asked for permission to enter. She stopped pacing and whirled around, her face twisted with anger.

  “Why do you keep up this charade of politeness and of caring for me? You’re the master here! You can do anything you wish to do!”

  “True,” he said. “But I would never harm you. However, I can’t trust you—as yet. I’ll be gone for a while. I don’t have time to explain the situation to you, and it wouldn’t change your mind about me, anyway. I’m putting you in a special suite for your own safety and for mine. Someday, maybe, you’ll understand why I’m doing this. That’s all.”

  He had intended to enter her suite and talk face to face with her. But he had changed his mind. He went to another screen section on the wall and called Wemathol and Ashatelon.

  “New plan,” he said. “Here’s what you must do at once. Gate Anana into Cell Suite Three. Pick four trusted women servants to gate food and water and other necessary supplies to her and Red Orc while we’re gone. Send all but fifty guards off on a paid vacation. Those left—and they must be the most trusted men you know—will continue the twenty-four-hour patrol. After that’s done, close up the palace, bar all gates, lock all lower-story windows. I give you two hours and thirty minutes to do the job. Then report to me. Be ready to go to Zazel’s World.”

  The clones started to protest that there was not enough time to carry out his orders. He said, “Do it!” and turned the screen off. Ten minutes later, he had sent another message to Manathu Vorcyon. This brought her up to date on the situation. Then he verified that Anana had been transmitted to the escapeproof suite. At the time he had set for them, Wemathol and Ashatelon appeared on their one-man airboats.

  Kickaha said, “Let’s go.” He lifted the Horn to his lips.

  20

  They had expected a world made alive again by Dingsteth. But it was as dead as when they had left it. However, it was not quite as it had been during their previous visit. And it looked as if someone had blasted through a section of a wall. The new hole led to a very large cave containing live plants and animals and an area with chairs, tables, dishes, cutlery, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Dingsteth must have lived here, though there were no signs of struggle.