Prostho Plus

by Piers Anthony

  "I shall await thee on Hazard."

  Dillingham felt distinctly uncomfortable. Even his feeble irony was wasted on the metal man, and now—"You caught a faster ship?"

  "I am a faster ship."

  Worse and worse. The long-range problem had become short-range again. He had assumed that "levitation" was similar to the action of a floater, strictly dependent on adequate ambient gas—i.e., air. He had underestimated the robot.

  He was tempted to ask the translator for advice, but realized that he could no longer trust it. Evidently his prior call had enabled the Jann to trace him, and now the robot would overhear anything he said. At worst, it might arrange to feed him false information, leading to the early fulfilment of the oath. He could not even converse with any crewman or other passengers, since translation would be necessary. He was boxed in, and would have to get out of it by himself. As usual.

  But how? The Jann could track him whenever he used a translator or other communicator, and would be laying in wait for the ship at Hazard.

  "With abilities such as yours, how did your kind lose the war?" Dillingham inquired. Since he could not hide from the giant, he might as well talk. There was always the chance that something useful would turn up, that would enable him to circumvent the murder-oath. A straw—but he had little else.

  "I have pondered that very question for some centuries," the Jann admitted. "Unfortunately, we of the mineral kingdom are not original thinkers, so I was unable to come to any certain conclusion."

  Not original thinkers. That figured. A machine typically performed as instructed and had no imagination. But that realization only posed more problems. How could an entire machine culture evolve, without animate intervention? If one of its highest representatives, the Jann, could neither win a war nor comprehend why it had lost, what was the source of its civilization?

  On the other hand, was his own planet dominated by original thinkers? "Were you able to come to any uncertain conclusions?" Dillingham asked.

  "I conjectured that we Jann, being advanced and peaceful, did not properly appreciate the capacity for an inferior species to do mischief. We believed that all robots shared our standards. So when we were attacked—"

  "I had understood that you were the aggressors."

  "No, mortal. We governed the planet, and all other planets in a range of an hundred light-years, as we had for many millenia. We had no need of violence. It was our lesser mechanicals—smaller robots we built as domestics and functionaries—who rebelled. Before we fully appreciated the extent of their dastardy, we were undone."

  That was a different story from the one the contemporary robots told, yet it could be the truth. Winners always disparaged the motives and characters of the losers. The Jann did appear to be a superior species, and it was more likely that the Jann could build lesser robots than that the lesser ones could build Jann. Except—

  "If you built the other robots, who built you?"

  "We evolved, mortal. Natural selection—"

  "Surely you don't, well, breed? How can you evolve the way animals do?"

  "I never understood how the animals perform. No tools, no charts, no preparations. Just a brief physical contact, less even than an exchange of lubrication. Very untechnological. Quite sloppy, in fact, I once watched—"

  "Never mind that. What about your own romantic life?"

  There was a pause. When the Jann spoke again, its voice was subdued. "How well do I remember my Janni, her limbs of shining platinum, her teeth of iridium... and the little one we built together, pride of my nut and screw. My chart and hers, distinct but compatible. We knew the cross between the two designs would generate a superior being, a machine like none before. But then the rebellion erupted, and Janni was melted in an atomic furnace, and our son dismantled for parts for the usurper, whilst I lay helpless in the pit..."

  Dillingham did not know what to say. This Jann, far from being a mindless monster, was as meaningful a personality as any true sentient. Were it not for that oath—

  Static burst from the translator. What now?

  It subsided after a few seconds. "Ah, mortal, why did I not heed thy warning!" the Jann exclaimed.

  "Because your caution-circuit has been bridged out."

  "Vicious circle. The cold of space has fractured that bridge, and in a moment my tooth—"

  More static. Dillingham realized that fate had given him yet another chance. The Jann would be immobilized again, this time in deep space.

  "Farewell, mor—" but static cut off the rest. The cold had completed its work, and the intermittent failure had become permanent.

  Dillingham sat for half an hour in silence, listening to the continuing static. He knew that every minute of it meant a minute of terrible suffering for the Jann. Unless something were done, the robot would drift through space forever, in an agony it hardly deserved.

  Yet his own life was sweet, and he had a promising future. Should he throw it all away... again?

  "Clam chowder!" he said at last. Then he put through a call to the spaceport at Hazard. "A derelict is moving in your direction, and should pass within the range of your landing net in the next few hours. Intercept it and perform the following repair." He went on to describe the tooth-bridging operation. "And locate an appropriate replacement for the affected tooth, if you can, because there is an important circuit involved."

  "It shall be done, Director," the official said. "Where do you want the ship delivered after it has been repaired?"

  "It isn't a ship, exactly. It's a self-propelled robot. Let it go when you're through and charge the service to my University account."

  "Very well, Director." The official signed off.

  Once a fool, always a fool, he thought. He simply could not preserve his own life at the cost of eternal torture for another creature, even an inanimate one. He wanted to live, certainly—but the end did not justify the means. That was hardly an attitude, he thought ruefully, that a creature like Anteater would comprehend. Dillingham hardly comprehended it himself. Probably Anteater would outlive him...

  At any rate, he had a reprieve of a few hours, unless they repaired the Jann before Dillingham reached Hazard himself. He would have to gamble on getting in and out before the pursuit resumed. He still could not use the translator, because he knew the Jann was listening in even though it could not reply or act. Better to swear off such devices entirely, so that at least he would be hidden.

  But he was still bottled in. He could not get off the ship before it landed, and once it did land...

  Then he remembered the lifeboats. How could he call the Jann an unoriginal thinker, when that escape had almost bypassed his own mental circuitry!

  Dillingham drew out some thin paperlike dental illustrations and began to draw on their blank backs. He took some pains, erasing frequently and redrawing. He wound up with several complex configurations.

  He left the compartment silently, using the emergency manual door control. He searched out the Captain's cabin. He used his knuckles to knock on the door, avoiding the electronic signaller. Then he stepped back so as to be out of range of the viewscreen pick-up. He could, however, still see the screen's projected image.

  The screen came on and the Captain's whiskery proboscis showed. There were sounds indicating a question. Since the hall translator had no object to fix on, it had to feed through the Captain's native speech. Translators could perform moderate linguistic miracles, but were not equipped to play guessing games among the several million discreet galactic languages.

  Dillingham did not answer. Any word he said would be relayed straight to the Jann as well as to the Captain.

  After a moment the screen snapped off. False alarm, the Captain had evidently decided. Such things happened on old ships. Then Dillingham went up to tap on the door again.

  After several repeats, the frustrated Captain opened the door personally to investigate the nature of the malfunction. Dillingham poked one of his ornate symbol-signs around the corner.

/>   The officer paused, making no sound. Here was the test: would he understand? He commanded a broken-down vessel and was largely over the hill himself—but that should mean the Captain had had over a century of experience. He must have knocked about the galaxy considerably. Such a creature should know the galactic graphics shorthand.

  The GG shorthand was a system of symbols based on meaning, not phonics. Just as the Chinese written language of Earth could be used by those speaking a number of dissimilar dialects and languages, because each figure stood for a specific concept and not a spoken word—in just this way the galactic shorthand was a universal written language. Any creature of the galaxy who could see at all—and most could—was able to learn to read the symbols. The basic vocabulary was designed to apply even to languages that did not employ verbs, nouns and other familiar parts of speech. (In fact, the majority did not; Dillingham's own family of languages represented an archaic fluke, as far as the galaxy was concerned.)

  But not every individual bothered to master the shorthand. In fact, few other than travelling scholars retained proficiency in it, though every University had a mandatory freshman course in it. Translators and transcoders were ubiquitous, so the written art languished—particularly since there were also translators for written material that were just as efficient as the verbal ones.

  Dillingham was gambling that the Captain had had to poke into so many backward planets that the shorthand would have been a useful and necessary tool. Dillingham was also gambling that his own just-completed freshman course had made him proficient enough to be intelligible. He had been instructed by drugs and suggestion, and really could not be certain how much or how well he knew.

  The Captain angled one eye-stalk around the comer. Below this floating eyeball was a tentacle looped around an old-fashioned short-range blaster—the type of weapon useful for wiping out opposition without puncturing any vital pipes. The charge could burn off Dillingham's clothing and hair and epidermis quickly, and kill him slowly. He stood absolutely still.

  The Captain came around the corner and gestured down the hall. Dillingham marched as directed. No other communication occurred. Had the creature understood?

  They entered a blank cold cubicle. A single neon cast an eerie light on the single locked file-cabinet. This was an ancient ship, to have equipment like this! The Captain drew out a genuine physical metal key and unlocked the cabinet. He withdrew a bundle of cards. His tentacles riffed through them before selecting one. He held it up.

  It was a symbol in the shorthand, neatly printed. It said: JANN.

  The Captain understood! The sharp old codger had already divined Dillingham's problem. He must have made an inquiry at Metallica, being too canny to accept a passenger without knowing exactly why the creature could not afford to wait for a better ship.

  Dillingham's first symbol had been the code for EMERGENCY, modified by a qualifier requesting that no overt acknowledgement be made. It was essentially a wartime symbol, intended for use by a spy in enemy territory when open communication could mean discovery and rapid oblivion. (There must have been interesting chapters in galactic history!) It was quite out of place in an old vessel on a milk-run—but the experienced Captain had put one and one together successfully.

  The rest was easy. The Captain named a figure for putting the fugitive ashore in a lifeboat, and Dillingham agreed though the price seemed high. The Captain then took him to an airlock and installed him in a tiny compartment. The creature saw that he was securely strapped down, then punched a destination without using the translator. So far so good—since no communications equipment had been used the Jann should have no idea what Dillingham was doing.

  But by the same token, Dillingham had no certain notion where the Captain was sending him.

  The airlock closed, sealing him off. There was a rough lurch as the lifeboat detached itself, then a feeling of tremendous weight as its antique chemical rockets blasted. He was on his way.

  Now that it was too late to change his mind it occurred to him that it would have been easy for the Captain to route the lifeboat into nowhere, claiming that it was suicide while collecting the University remittance...

  No! The University would automatically challenge any payment to be made under suspicious circumstances, and the Captain would be well aware of that. Foul play would be far more trouble than it was worth.

  Anyway, the Captain had an honest snout.

  Dillingham did not dare turn on the viewscreen to see where he was going, because the Jann could probably tap into that too. He had to go blind, hoping that he was losing the robot as effectively as he was confusing himself.

  Time passed, and he slept, while the boat sailed on. It was in free-fall now, but he was not: the rotating hull provided partial weight. He dreamed of scintillating living machines with glowing teeth.

  The braking rockets jolted him into uncomfortable awareness. He was almost there. He hoped it was a civilized planet. Otherwise he had merely traded one demise for another.

  It was a cruel landing. When the pressure and furore subsided and he regained consciousness, he struggled into a suit and cranked open the port. He still did not dare to use the powered equipment, for that would have required instruction over the translator. He was prepared to face a blizzard or an inferno or solid water or...

  He was disappointed. This was plainly the landscape of Metallica.

  What had he really expected? Obviously the spaceship had not gone far in the short time he had been aboard. Naturally the lifeboat, being chemically underpowered, had taken much longer to traverse the same distance. Probably most of its thrust had been used merely to reverse the initial inertia. The closest planet had to be the one he had just left, for space was large.

  And where was the Jann now? By this time the repair should have been completed...

  He smiled. The super-robot would be on Hazard, wondering what had become of a certain dentist.

  Dillingham contemplated the countryside. This was not the same section of the planet where he had found the Jann. The vegetation here was more richly metallic, the flower-filaments more brilliant, the green-copper lichen more abundant, the oil streamlet ungritty. There were rust-capped mountains, and a valley serviced by a bubbling diesel-fuel lake. And no sign of civilization.

  In short, an unspoiled wilderness area.

  All very good. The Jann would eventually figure out the truth and come jetting back to Metallica, but would hardly find him here. A planet was too big to search in a hurry. He had scrupulously operated no electronic equipment, so it could not trace him that way.

  Meanwhile, he had merely to avoid starvation.

  Behind him the lifeboat translator crackled into life, though he had not turned it on. "None but I..."

  Dillingham sighed. That was another talent he hadn't known about. The Jann could not only tap into communications, it could operate them remotely. Thus it had established its rapport with the lifeboat translator and would home in on that.

  That simple!

  "How long before you get here?" he inquired with prickly resignation. The robot must have obtained the registry of the lifeboat and learned the frequency of its translator, so that—

  "Seventeen minutes, mortal. Take care that no harm befall thee in the interim, for I would suffer sorely were mine oath abridged."

  "Thine oath be damned!" Dillingham shouted, and immediately wondered whether he could accomplish anything by threatening suicide. Probably not, since the robot would check it out before indulging in other pursuits. Anyway, he'd have to write out a Last Will & Testament specifying what his three wishes were, for the sake of the second oath, and the disposition of the wealth owing from the third oath. Assuming it worked that way. The money could go to a dental research foundation back on Earth, and the three wishes—would Miss Galland appreciate three robotic wishes? It was all too complicated.

  Seventeen minutes, ticking away already. Such a short time to hide himself in this brush, away from the lifeboat. And he'd b
etter dispose of his University transcoder, too. Unless he wanted to stay and face down the Jann...

  Useless: a machine could not be bluffed. On the other hand, if he did succeed in eluding it, what would he gain? A tedious expiration from hunger and thirst?

  Opposing the thing physically was out of the question.

  He was forty-two years old, and had never been the robust type.

  His only real chance was to outsmart it. For all its talents, it did not seem to be particularly bright, or he would never have escaped it this long. It could easily have interfered with the lifeboat's guidance system and made it crash, for example, had it figured out where he was soon enough. Or prevented him from ever boarding the scow to Hazard, by fouling up the spaceport translators. It had missed marvellous opportunities.

  Also, it seemed to feel obliged to answer all questions put to it. That was another machine trait. Probably it was incapable of lying, or of evading the truth, unlike the inferior contemporary robots. That could be its weakness.

  "Why didn't you foul up the spaceport's communications network, to prevent me from leaving Metallica?" he asked. Maybe if he probed enough—

  "That would have interfered with thy freedom of motion."

  "What do you care about that, since you intend to kill me anyway?"

  "The rights of a sentient creature may not be voided, unless directly contrary to a specific Jann oath. So it is recorded, so must it be. Wherever thou art, there will I find thee, and there will I do thee die. Then will I grant thee three wishes, for the second time thou savest me—"

  "And then enrich me forever and ever, for the third time. I know."

  "Then only will the oaths be acquitted, and I free."

  This didn't seem to be getting him anywhere. He already knew the robot was impervious to irony about the feasibility of the remaining boons after the first had been accomplished. Probably there were Jann statutes to cover the situation even if he never mentioned the oaths in his will.

  There were only about ten minutes left. His stomach felt like a sponge full of pepper-sauce, and his brain was not too clear. He was sure that he would rest easier if he simply accepted what was to be, but his innards wouldn't co-operate.