"You still want to go after those two crooks?" Birdie did not have much hope after that speech, but he tried. "Kallik, they deserted you and J'merlia and left you to die on Quake. They ran away from you here, when you were still stuck in the Lotus field with no idea when or how you'd get out. They don't care what happens to you. You don't owe them anything."
"But they are the
Masters
! Our true and wonderful and only masters." Kallik turned to Graves. "Revered Councilor, please grant us permission to accompany you. We will obey any orders that you choose to give us. Let Commissioner Kelly go home—but please do not send us with him to Opal. Let us remain with you and seek the masters."
Hearing her, and looking at J'merlia and E. C. Tally, Birdie had his own moment of truth. They were all suggesting that he should try to fly—
alone
—through that blizzard of murderous Phages. Without Kallik to help as navigator, his survival chances were close to zero. And then if by some fluke he did not make it, he would have to fly all the way to Opal facing the bitter fact of his own lack of courage.
What a choice: a fool, or a coward. And the coward had a near-certain chance of being killed as he tried to fly away from Glister. Birdie might be safer here.
He sighed. "I was just joking. I'd rather find out what happened to the others. Lead on, Councilor. We're all in this together."
"Wonderful. I am glad you will stay. You are a great asset." Graves gave him an admiring smile.
Birdie cringed. If there was one thing worse than being a coward, it was being mistaken for a hero.
Kallik's lonely wandering through the interior of Glister before the others arrived was paying off. As she moved the Hymenopt had mapped out in her head a rough plan of many of the chambers and corridors. She already knew that the lower levels were high-gee environments, unsuitable for human or Cecropian habitation. And she was also fairly sure that there was no way they could reach the surface, other than the one she had created with the field inhibitor. To reach that, Nenda and Atvar H'sial would have to pass again through the chamber with the Lotus field. Since they had not done so, they must still be somewhere in the lower levels of Glister's interior.
Julius Graves led the way, followed by the two aliens. Tally was next, still holding the reel of neural cable that Birdie had rewound. There might be no more Lotus fields in the interior—Kallik knew of none—but it was best to take precautions.
Birdie came last. The rear was no safer than anywhere else, but he wanted to be alone to think. He was still brooding over his decision to stay on Glister. He had blown it. It had occurred to him, too late, that he ought at least to have gone back to the surface and taken a
look
at what was going on there. For all he knew, the Phages had wandered away to seek other targets. He might have had a clear ride home. And even if they had not gone, he could have come back here and been no worse off than he was now.
They had been descending steadily, through a succession of corridors, sliding ramps, and chambers of all shapes and sizes. At this point Birdie was not sure he could find his own way back, but that did not matter too much because E. C. Tally would have every turn and twist recorded in his inorganic data banks.
Birdie bumped suddenly into the back of the embodied computer. Graves, in front of the others, had paused, and Birdie had not been paying attention.
The councilor turned. "Something is ahead." His deep, hollow voice was reduced to a hoarse whisper. "There are peculiar sounds. You wait here. J'merlia and I will proceed. We will return in five minutes or less. If we do not, Commissioner Kelly will be in charge of all subsequent actions."
He was gone before Birdie could object.
All subsequent actions.
He was being promoted from peon to president, with no idea what he ought to do. "How do I know when five minutes is up?" he asked E. C. Tally.
"I will keep you informed. My internal clock is accurate to the femtosecond." Tally held up one grimy finger. "Since Councilor Graves's final words to you it is exactly . . . forty-six seconds. Forty-seven. forty-eight. Forty-nine. Fifty."
"Stop that, E.C. I can't think when you keep on counting."
"Indeed? How strange. I have no such trouble. I offer condolences for your restriction to serial processing."
"Talking like that is just as bad. Keep quiet. Just tell me when it's every minute."
"Very well, Commissioner. But one minute has already passed."
"So tell me when it's two." Birdie turned to Kallik. "You have better ears than we do. Did you hear any sounds from in front of us?"
Kallik paused to reflect. "Sounds, yes," she said at last. "But nothing remotely human. Wheezing, and groaning. Like a venting Dowser."
"Now come on, Kallik. There can't possibly be a Dowser here—it would fill up the whole planetoid. Were there any
words
?"
"Possibly. Not in a language that I am able to comprehend. But J'merlia is a far better linguist than I am, perhaps you should ask him."
"He's not here—he's with Graves."
"When he returns."
"But if he returns, I won't need—"
"Two minutes," Tally said loudly. "May I speak?"
"My God, E.C., what now? I told you to keep quiet. Oh, go on then, spit it out."
"I am concerned by our immediate environment. As you may know, the functioning of my brain requires shielding from electromagnetic fields. As a result, the protective membranes contain sensitive field monitors. The corridor in which we are standing contains evidence of field inhibitors, and that evidence becomes stronger the farther that we go."
"So what? Don't you think we have more important things to worry about?"
"No. Assuming that the field inhibitors are functional, and that the interior structure of Glister relies upon the same methods as the surface for its stability, we would experience a significant change in environment were the field inhibitors to be turned on. As they could be, at any time."
"Change of environment. What do you mean, a change of environment?"
"In simple terms, we would fall through the floor. After that, I cannot say. I have no information as to what lies below. But let me observe that the outer parts of Glister average fifty meters between successive interior layers. A fifty-meter drop in this high a gravity field would render everyone of our party inoperative, with the possible exception of Kallik."
"Gawdy!" Birdie stepped sharply backward and stared down at his feet. "A fifty-meter fall? We'd all be mushed."
Before he could say more there was a patter of multiple feet in the tunnel ahead of them. J'merlia came scuttling back.
"It is all right," he said excitedly. "Councilor Graves says that it is safe to move forward to join him. He is in conversation with a being who dwells within Glister. It can converse in human speech—and it knows the present whereabouts of Atvar H'sial and Louis Nenda! It means us no harm, and we are in no danger. Please follow me."
"Now hold on a minute. And you, too, Kallik." Birdie grabbed the short fur on the back of the Hymenopt, restraining her—though if she had decided to go, nothing he or any human could have done would have stopped her. "You can tell us we're safe, J'merlia, but that's not what E.C. says—according to him, the tunnel floor could dissolve underneath us, any time. We'd all fall through and be killed. The farther we go the worse it gets. Can't whoever it is wait just a bit, while we check if we're safe?"
"I do not know." J'merlia stood thinking for a moment, his narrow head cocked to one side.
"I suppose it can," he said at last. "After all, it's been waiting for six million years. Maybe a few minutes more won't matter too much."
CHAPTER 18From the internal files of the embodied computer E. Crimson Tally: A note for the permanent and public record, concerning new anomalies of human behavior.
A recent experience leads me to suspect that the information banks employed in the briefing of embodied computers are so flawed in their representation of human reactions that their data are not merely useless but positively pernicious.
My observation is prompted by this recent experience:
After the removal and reinsertion of my brain, it was not clear to me that I would be able to perform at my previous level. Although my brain itself of course functioned as well as ever, the body's condition was obviously physically degraded. Moreover, I believed that my interface was impaired, although I knew that I was not the best judge of that.
Tests would easily have confirmed or denied the hypothesis of reduced function. However, without any procedures for performance evaluation, the humans of the group have treated me with noticeably
increased
respect following the event of brain removal and subsequent violent interruption of the interface.
Logic suggests only one explanation. Namely, the presence of a bloodied bandage around my head, which to any rational being warns of reduced function, has been taken instead as an
elevator
of status. Physical damage in humans demands increased respect. The more battered my skull, the greater the deference with which I am treated!
One wonders to what extremes this might be carried. If the top of my head were missing permanently, would all my actions be increasingly venerated?
Probably.
And if I were to be destroyed completely?
This matter demands introspection.
Birdie had worked twenty-six and a half years—which felt like forever—for the government of Opal. Based on that, he had often said that humans were the most ornery, crackpot, cuss-headed critters in the universe.
But he would not say it anymore. There were others, he had just decided, who had humans beat for madness, from here to Doomsday.
They had been standing at the end of the tunnel, over a horrible sheer drop into nothing. And there was Julius Graves, with that big bald head of his, leaning out over the edge looking at a thing like a big silver teapot, with a flower for a spout, floating on nothing. And Julius, or maybe it was Steven, was
talking
to it, as if it were his long-lost brother.
"I do not follow your meaning, The-One-Who-Waits," he said. "This is our first visit. We have never been here before."
And the teapot had talked back!
Not at first, though. First it made a noise that sounded to Birdie like a set of bagpipes that needed pumping up. Then it wheezed. Then it screeched like a steam blower. Then it said, imitating Graves's accent, "Not you, the individuals. That was not my meaning. You, the
species
."
Which seemed to make no more sense to Graves than it did to Birdie, because the councilor had wrinkled up his bulging bald head and said, "Our
species
has been here before?"
There was another groan, like the sound made by a dying dowser—Kallik had been right about that. Then: "The necessary members of your species came here. We had more than were needed. One would have been sufficient. But three humans came, including the one with the special additions."
At that Kallik gave a screech right in Birdie's ear, louder than anything the teapot-creature had produced. "Additions!" she said. "Augmentation. That must mean the master Nenda. He was here, and he is still alive."
The-One-Who-Waits must have understood her, because it went on, "One with augmentation, yes, alive, and there was also a necessary one of the
other
form, the great blind one with the secret speech. She, too, was passed along."
And that set J'merlia off, as bad as Kallik. "Oh, Atvar H'sial," he said, grabbing Birdie's arm and moaning the Cecropian name like a hymn. "Oh, Atvar H'sial. Alive. Commissioner Kelly, is that not wonderful news?"
Birdie chose not to answer. It seemed to him that the survival of any bug was no big deal, and especially one that had used J'merlia as a slave. But he was learning fast. Lo'tfians and Hymenopts had their own weird rules of what was important.
J'merlia's wails had not put The-One-Who-Waits off its stride for a minute. The teapot spout opened a bit more at the end, and the body quivered a little bit. Then it said, "So sufficient was already passed along. The three species are here. Your further presence is unnecessary. We will set in motion a safe passage for all of you to your homeworlds."
It seemed a bit early to start doing handstands and breaking out the liquor, but those words were still the best thing that Birdie had heard since they left Opal. Safe passage to their homeworlds—they were all going home! If The-One-Who-Waits had not been hanging five steps away in the middle of nothing, Birdie would have been tempted to hang around its neck and kiss it.
But then came the worst bit, the thing that Birdie could not believe. J'merlia and Kallik stepped forward and set up a wailing and a chittering and a whistling enough to deafen. "No, no, that cannot be. We must follow the masters. You must pass us along also. We cannot return without the masters."
That had finally seemed to put The-One-Who-Waits off a bit. It made a horrible throat, stomach, and bowel-clearing noise. "Is it your wish to be passed along also? Is that the meaning of your words?"
Birdie decided that sitting around waiting for six million years must leave one none too bright. But Kallik and J'merlia did not seem to agree. "It is, it is," they piped up. "Pass us along, it is our fondest desire. Pass us along."
"Such an action is possible," The-One-Who-Waits admitted. "It presents no difficulties, although the transit time cannot of course be exactly predicted. But for the others, the three humans, a safe passage to your homeworlds . . ."
This was it! "Yes!" Birdie said. "To our home—"
"No," Julius Graves said before Birdie could get out another word. "Not me. That would be totally inappropriate. My task is not complete. I must determine what happened to Professor Lang and Captain Rebka. And I must seek to arrest Louis Nenda and Atvar H'sial and return them to the Alliance for justice. Pass me along also, if you would be so kind."