Prostho Plus

by Piers Anthony

  "Now step out promptly as I call your names. Aardvark!"

  A creature vaguely resembling its Earthly namesake emerged from its cramped compartment and shambled forward.

  "Too slow!" the translator barked. A troll aimed a rod. A beam of energy stabbed out. A patch of fur on Aardvark's rump burst into flame, and the odour of scorched flesh drifted back. He broke into a gallop.

  Judy had not quite believed the pessimism of the prisoners as they travelled, though she had talked with several. She had been naďve. This was horrible!

  "Bugbear!"

  A beetle the size of a bear lumbered hastily out, as well it might: a touch of the laser would puncture its thin shell and send its juices spewing.

  "Cricketleg!" The next jumped down. Judy wondered how the rollcall came to be alphabetical in English, since the translator assigned names purely by convenience of description. This was merely another mystery of galactic technology.

  "Dogface!" He yelped as the beam singed his tail.

  "Earthgirl!"

  Judy froze. It couldn't be! She was only here to—

  A troll tramped down the aisle, poking his beamer ahead aggressively. He braced his three knobbly legs, reached out with a hairy arm, and grasped her hair in one hank. He yanked.

  "No!" she cried, her eyes pulled round by the tension on her hair. "I'm only visiting! I'm not a prisoner!"

  The troll hauled her up until she stood on tiptoes to ease the pain. "Visiting! Hee, hee, hee!" He aimed the beamer at her face.

  "Trach!" she screamed. "Trach of Trachos! I'm here to see him!"

  "A malingerer," the troll said with satisfaction. "I shall make an example. First I shall vaporize her squat snout." He flicked one of his four thumbs over a setting on the beamer and pressed the business end against her nose.

  "One moment, troll," the translator said. Such instruments were versatile, serving as telephones and radios as well as language transposers. "I believe I heard my name."

  The triped hesitated, grimacing. "Who are you, butting into private entertainment?"

  "Trach, naturally. Be so kind as to deliver that creature to me, undamaged."

  "I don't know no Trach!"

  "Oh? Here is my identification." A phonetic blob sounded.

  "Hm," the troll said, disgruntled. "That Trach. Well, send her on to the branding station when you're through with her."

  Shoved roughly out, Judy pinned up her hurting hair temporarily and followed the translator's instructions to reach Trach's office. "Turn right, prisoner," the unit outside the ship snapped. She turned right; the other miserable aliens turned left, headed for the dismal rigours of processing. She felt guilty.

  The spaceport, despite its choking atmosphere, was enclosed. She could make out the blowing dust beyond the grimy window panels, showing that it was actually worse outside. She heard the shriek of ore-bearing vehicles and saw a line of bedraggled workers headed for the arid entrance to a mine.

  "Up the stairs, malingerer," the next unit said. She climbed flight after flight of cruelly steep rough stone steps. A panel on a landing gave her a view of a Ra graveyard: bones and clothing and shells and assorted other durable elements of assorted creatures. There was no attempt at burial.

  "Third chamber down, weakling." She found the place and touched the door-signal.

  "Enter," a differently-toned, more pleasant translator said from within. She was tempted to point out that it had forgotten the customary expletive.

  She edged the bleak metal door open. The chamber was empty. She heard water running and saw fog near the ceiling. Someone was having a shower!

  "I'll be right out," the pleasantly modulated voice said from the direction of the shower. It sounded real—as though spoken in English rather than translated. Unlikely, of course; she had encountered no one from Earth since answering that fateful ad.

  The water noise stopped. Trach whistled cheerily as he dried himself in the other room. In a moment she heard his feet on the floor as he dressed. He sounded heavy. "You're Miss Galland of Earth," he called. "The muck-a-muck of Gleep notified me."

  "You're not using a translator!" she exclaimed.

  "I never bother," he admitted, still out of her sight. "Now where is my jacket? Can't entertain a lady undressed, ha-ha."

  "Dr. Dillingham—is he here?"

  "I'm afraid not. He left Electrolus for the University. He's undertaking administrative training now. I'm sorry to inform you that you made your trip here for nothing." His solid footsteps approached.

  "Oh, no, I'm glad he's not here! I mean—"

  Then she saw Trach. A literal, twelve-foot dinosaur.

  "My dear, you look good enough to eat," he said, smiling. He had two thousand teeth.

  She was not the fainting type. She fainted.

  CHAPTER SIX

  "An administrator," Oyster said, "has to be prepared to tackle problems that are beyond the capabilities of his subordinates."

  "Of course," Dr. Dillingham agreed, but he didn't quite like the way the bivalved director said it. This was his first day back from his initial quartermester at the University of Administration, and though his Certificate of Potential Administration was in good order he hardly felt qualified for the job he faced. Of course this was only an interim experience-term, after which he would return for more advanced administrative training—but he had a nasty suspicion that Oyster wasn't going to let him off lightly.

  "We've had a call from Metallica, one of the Robotoid planets," the Director said. Dillingham wondered what the real terms were for planets and species, but of course he would never know. Probably "man" was rendered in the other galactic languages as "hairy grub"... "The natives have an awkward situation, and our field representative bounced it on up to us. I'm not sure it's strictly a prosthodontic matter, but we'd best take a look."

  Dillingham relaxed. For a moment he had been afraid that he was about to be sent out alone. But of course Oyster would have him watch a few missions before trusting him to uphold the University's reputation by diagnosing a field problem himself. Every move a Director made was galactic news, Minor news, to be sure—but a blunder would rapidly rebound.

  "I have reserved accommodation for three," Oyster said briskly. His large shell gave his voice an authoritative reverberation the translator dutifully emulated. "It will be a forty-eight hour excursion, so have your appointments rescheduled accordingly."

  "Passage for three? Dillingham had no appointments yet, as Oyster well knew.

  "My secretary will accompany us, naturally. Miss Tarantula." The translator meant well, but the name gave him a start. "She's very efficient. Grasps the struggling essence immediately and sucks the blood right out of it, so to speak."

  Just so.

  A University limousine carried them past the student picket line and whisked them the three light-minutes to the transport terminal. Dillingham wondered what the students had on their collective mind. He had observed one of their demonstrations on his way in, but had not had the opportunity to inquire further.

  Miss Tarantula was there ahead of them with the reservations. Her eight spiked spiderlegs bustled Oyster and Man busily into the elevator entering the galactic liner. She also carried suitcase and equipment.

  "Please give Dr. Dillingham a synopsis of the problem," Oyster said once they were ensconced in their travelling compartment. The ubiquitous translator was built into the wall, and the acoustics were such that the Director seemed to be talking English. "While I snooze." With that he pulled in his arms and legs and closed his shell.

  "Certainly." Miss Tarantula was busily stringing threads across her section, fashioning a shimmering web. She did not interrupt this chore as she spoke. "Metallica is one of the more backward Robotoid worlds, having been devastated some millennia ago in the course of the fabled Jann uprising. Archaeological excavations are currently in progress in an effort to uncover Jann artifacts and reconstruct the mundane elements of their unique civilization. It was thought that all the Jann had
been destroyed, but now they have discovered one in the subterranean wreckage."

  "It's skeleton, you mean," Dillingham interrupted.

  "No, Director. A complete robot."

  Oops. He had forgotten that they were dealing with a robotoid culture. Metal and ceramics instead of flesh and bones. "Must be pretty well rusted or corroded, though."

  "Jann don't corrode. They're super-robots, invulnerable to normal forces and virtually immortal. This one happened to be incapacitated by—"

  "You mean it's alive? After thousands of years?"

  "As alive as a robot ever is, Director." She had completed her web and was now settled in it for the journey, her body completely suspended. It seemed to be an effective acceleration harness, though a liner of this type required no such precautions. "But this one can't function because it has a toothache. The natives don't dare approach it, but the excavation can't continue until it is removed. So they notified the University."

  Dillingham whistled inwardly. That must be a phenomenal toothache, to freeze an immortal, invulnerable super-robot for over a thousand years. He was glad Oyster was handling this one; it would be educational to witness.

  But what, he wondered, would they do with the Jann after its toothache had been cured? And what did a robot want with teeth? The ones he had met, dentists though they might be, had no proper mouths and did not eat.

  Metallica was backward. Its spaceport resembled a junkyard, with corroding hulks at its fringe. A single dilapidated tower guided the liner in, and there was no landing net to clasp it invisibly in deep space and set it down with gentle precision. Their welcome, however, was warm enough.

  "Director!" a small green robot said through a rickety mobile transcoder it trundled behind. "We've been sleepless awaiting your gracious arrival."

  Miss Tarantula emitted a hiss reminiscent of a matron's sniff. "Robots never sleep anyway."

  "We haven't eaten a thing, we were so eager for your Lordship to come."

  "Robots don't eat, either," she pointed out.

  The green robot turned about, lifted one metal foot, and delivered a clanging kick to the pedestal of the transcoder. There was a pained screech and a series of metallic burps. Then: "We have watched no television in two days."

  "That's more like it," Miss Tarantula said, permitting herself to be mollified. "A robot who loses its appetite for television is becoming almost sentient, and that's a sure sign of distress. Better have the spools updated on that contraption before someone has a misunderstanding."

  With a secretary like that, Dillingham realized, an administrator could hardly err. He was glad that the three of them carried University three-language transcoders for private dialogue. There was a subtle distinction in principle between the small transcoders and the large translators; he didn't understand the technical part, but knew that the 'coder differed from the 'lator as a motorcycle differed from a jet plane. But the 'coders were portable and self-contained and cheap, so remained in common use on backward planets. Insert the proper spools and hold an adequate conversation. Usually.

  "What seems to be the difficulty?" Oyster inquired in an offshell manner. Dillingham was reminded of one of the die-turns of effective administration: Never ask a question of a client without first knowing most of the answer.

  The little robot began volubly defining the problem. Dillingham's attention wandered, for Miss Tarantula's summary had been far more succinct. How, he wondered, did robots reproduce? Were there male and female mechanicals, and did they marry? Were there procreative taboos, metal pornography, broken iron hearts?

  "Director," Miss Tarantula said on their private link-up.

  Oyster angled his transcoder intake—he wore the device inside his huge shell—unobtrusively at her, not interrupting the green robot's narrative. Dillingham did likewise.

  "There is a priority call from the University." She had a trans-star receiver somewhere on her complicated person. "A wildcat student demonstration has infiltrated your wing. They're raiding the files—"

  Oyster's eye-stalks turned bright green. "Boiling oceans!" he swore.

  The robot broke off. "Did you say "gritty oil", Director?" The vibration of its headpiece showed it was upset.

  "Take over, Director!" Oyster snapped at Dillingham. "I'm summoning an emergency ship back. My files!" And he ran across the landing field towards the communications station as rapidly as his spindly legs would carry him. Miss Tarantula followed.

  "Did he say "gritty oil"?" the green robot demanded insistently. There was a faint odour of burning insulation about it. "He may be a Very Important Sentient, but language like that—"

  "Of course not," Dillingham said quickly. "He would never stoop to such uncouthness. It must be a scratch on the transcoder spool." But he suspected that the transcoder had correctly rendered the expletive. His own unit had not been programmed for gutter talk; otherwise his own ears might be burning. Oyster had certainly been furious.

  "Oh," the robot said, disgruntled. "Well, as I was saying—er, you are going to solve the problem, even if he renigs?"

  "Naturally." Dillingham hoped the quiver in his voice sounded like confidence. "The Director did not renig; he merely left the matter in my hands. The University always honours its commitments." But privately he preferred the robot's term. He should have known he'd find himself in over his ears without a facemask. Somehow it always happened that way. "I suppose I'd better see the patient now."

  Frantically eager—who claimed robots had no emotions!—the official conducted him to the site of the excavations. They rode in an antique floater past high mounds of broken rock. There were plants in this world, but the few he saw had a metallic look. Hardly a place for a human being to reside, though the air was breathable and the temperature and gravity comfortable.

  The vehicle stopped, settling to the ground with a flatulent sigh. "I dare go no further," the green robot said, and indeed his headpiece was rattling in a fear-feedback. "The Jann is in the next pit. Signal when you're finished, and I will pick you up again. If it's safe."

  As Dillingham stepped down with his bag of equipment, the robot spun the cart around, goosed the motor, and floated swiftly back the way they had come—taking the transcoder and signal with it.

  Stranded again! What kind of robot could it be, that even other robots feared so greatly? And if it were that dangerous, why hadn't they simply destroyed it? Oh—it was reputed to be invulnerable.

  He walked to the pit and peered down.

  A tremendous robot lay there, half buried in rubble. Judging from the proportion exposed, it had to be twelve feet long entire. Its armour was polished to a glass-like finish despite the centuries of weathering and abrasion. It was an awesome sight, and the mighty torso seemed to pulse with power. A cruel, thin keening smote his ears, and he knew it at once for the robotic note of pain. He had not learned much about robots, but he was sensitive to distress in anything, flesh, metal or other. Yes, this creature was alive—and suffering. That was all he really needed to know.

  The head section was roughly cubical and two feet on a side. A drawer in the region that would have been the face of a man was partially out, half-full of sand, and within this something glowed. Robots did not ordinarily have mouths, but some models did have orifices for the intromission and processing of assorted substances. The gears that ground down hard samples could be considered as teeth.

  Now that he was in the physical presence of the patient, the information in one of the University cram-courses began to come to the surface. He was, he realized, familiar with the basic procedures for repairing such equipment. But the specific type he found here was particularly awkward, and if he operated on it he risked making some serious mistake. This was a most sophisticated robot, and it had been listed as extinct.

  But if its innards followed the principles of contemporary robots, its "teeth" might serve a double purpose: They would have an extremely hard exterior surface for manual crushing action, together with intricate internal ci
rcuitry for communications and processing of data. As with the Electrolytes. That meant that a malfunction in a tooth could distort far more than the mechanical operation of the mouth. A short-circuit could interfere with the functions of the brain itself...

  Dillingham vacuumed out the sand and studied the configuration. One tooth glowed hotly. The pain-hum seemed to emanate from it. A quick check with his precise University instruments verified the short-circuit.

  "All right, Jann—I believe I have diagnosed the condition," he said, speaking rhetorically while he set up the necessary paraphernalia. He doubted that the giant robot could hear or comprehend anything in its present state. "Unfortunately, I am not equipped to operate on the unit itself, and I don't have a replacement. I'll have to relieve the pain by bridging around the tooth—in essence, shorting out the short. This is crude, and will render the tooth inoperative, but unless it is a critical unit the rest of your system should be able to function. You'll have to seek help at a thoroughly equipped robotoid clinic to have that tooth replaced, however, and I wouldn't delay if I were you. My jury-rig won't be any too stable, and you don't want a relapse."

  Yet it would have been simple for a native dentist to bridge the tooth. Why hadn't that been done? What were they so afraid of, to allow an ancient cousin to suffer unnecessarily like this? Surely a single Jann, the only survivor of its kind, could not imperil a planet, even if it should have a mind to. And if it were that dangerous, the fact that a University dentist had repaired it would not dispose it any more kindly towards the errant locals.

  Too bad he hadn't had a chance to review the history of the Jann uprising. Maybe some of these annoying inconsistencies would have been explained. But with Oyster running off so suddenly... well, this creature was in pain and needed help.

  He was ready. He applied the bridge and soldered the terminals. The job itself was nothing; the skill had been required for the electronic preparations, the verification of tolerances, the location of circuits. It would have been a mistake to remove the tooth, for it was in series with the others so that the extraction could have been fatal for the patient. And many robots, his cram-course said, were programmed to self-destruct when killed. They were living bombs.