O Master Caliban

by Phyllis Gotlieb

  “No thank you,” said Dahlgren. “I don’t care to play with your pieces.”

  THEN BEGIN.

  “I will take white,” said erg-Dahlgren. “I don’t think you will mind my advantage, since I have just learned the game and you know it very well.”

  “I haven’t played in a long time,” Dahlgren said, “but I seem to have no choice,” He sat down at Black and stared at the pieces bemusedly. Cowrie to Coral 4. Ah well, it was an interesting way to die.

  Erg-Dahlgren took his place at White. There was a look on his face that was very human, and perhaps very much machine: the look of the young contender, the new invention, about to supersede the old. The young Morphy, Alekhine, Capablanca, Fischer, Piutto, Haruni, all must have looked so, for the first time, at one game.

  The tall silver erg rolled silently behind him and backed against the wall, her five sets of arms lying downward along the curve of her body.

  Erg-Dahlgren raised his right hand and quietly pushed Pawn, past bone and ivory, to King 4.

  SVEN ASKED, “When is Dahlgren giving his report to the Council?”

  “Thirty-one days Standard.” Ardagh drew down her brows. “That’s—I think—thirty-eight Solthree. I dunno about local time.”

  “Twenty-eight or nine,” Sven said. “That’s why so many worlds agreed to work on this place, because its day was so close to Standard,”

  “And here to GalFed Central takes how long?” Esther asked.

  “Twelve to fifteen Standard,” said Joshua.

  Esther scratched her chin. “Well, Sven, are we going?”

  He began to shiver and tensed to control himself. “Yes. We’re not safe here.”

  “Then we have about twelve days local to reach Headquarters.”

  Koz jigged his heel on the floor. “What are we going to do?”

  “Plan.” Sven was watching Shirvanian.

  The boy, silent, was sitting cross-legged on the floor, metal bits and pieces spread out on the skin side of an old rabbit-fur quilt to keep them from falling between the bricks. His fat grubby hands were not graceful, but they slapped parts together perfectly on the true. At the moment the bird was lying disjointed as if a butcher had been at it.

  “Has that got a receiver?” Sven asked.

  “No, a transmitter ... I think I need a radio, I guess I’d better make one.” He reached for his box, and an odd look spread over his face.

  Esther said, “Just a minute.” She quietly removed him from his work and led him to the outhouse.

  When he was settled again Sven said, “Come outside. Esther, you know the layout.”

  It was calm for the moment, the mist had retreated, the soil was drying out. Esther squatted on the hard patch of earth by the door, and they gathered around her in an arc except for Mitzi, who hunkered against the streaked wall, eyes closed and face turned to the orange sun, smoking and letting the ash fall where it would. “Talk,” she said. “Just a lot of talk.”

  With a sharp stick Esther drew a large triangle, apex pointing eastward, base half the length of its perpendicular. “Open radiated tract,” she said. “You are here.” Northwestern tip of base, she placed a stone. Beyond the apex she drew a circle like a dot at the end of an exclamation point. “Crops for men and animals at ground level, shielded with walls and low-energy force-fields; underground, the labs. And here,” between the two areas she drew five dots, “the reactors. I think there were five. Dahlgren’s World.”

  “How do you know so much?” Koz asked.

  “Ha. Everybody knows how curious a monkey can be. Not everybody knows how smart ... look here.” She bisected the triangle from apex to base and bisected the halves, touched the three lines lightly. “These are brick roads, service alleys for the ergs. Remember they have jogs where they cut through the earthworks at the zone boundaries so the polluted air doesn’t rush right through. Now,” across the triangle, starting from apex, she drew meridians, north to south, “one: white; two: yellow; three: orange; four: red; five: blue; and last,” she touched the remaining sector that included the stone, “green, which you remember was originally non-rad. And I hope you’ve been taking your anti-rad.”

  “What route are we taking?” Joshua asked.

  “The brick road,” she touched the top line, “the one you crossed last night.”

  “What?” Koz yelled. “You’re crazy! The ergs and the radiation—”

  Esther said, “I don’t worry about ergs because I travel in trees, but the forest is too slow going for you. I’m not scared of radiation because I doubt I’ll be fertile much longer, or that I’ll ever meet a male gibbon I want to look in the face every day for the rest of my life. I’d go alone if I knew what was up ahead and how to handle it, but I’m not that strong or smart. The ergs that come out around here will avoid the transmitter; we’ll see what Shirvanian can do about the others. Topaze will come with us till it gets too hot for him; when he turns back we’ll stop and think.”

  Ardagh asked, “How did they distinguish the zones besides building earthworks?”

  “By using different-colored bricks on the roads, as you can see from our floor.”

  Shirvanian said from inside, as his hands turned and fitted almost of their own will, “Then you must have had men coming out on inspection in shielded vehicles, because the ergs wouldn’t need colors.”

  “That’s the kind of thing I hope we’ll find,” Esther said.

  “They’d have aircars too,” said Joshua. “Jungle grows in layers from ground to treetop, they’d want to observe that, and the colors would be survey markings.”

  “Even they’d need shielding,” said Shirvanian.

  “They had them, I’ve been in them,” Sven said. “The ergs cut them up long ago. Their aircars fly higher, and they don’t look like ours.”

  Koz tossed a pebble at a butterfly. “Why the hell do we have to stay inside the triangle? There’s much less radiation outside, I bet.”

  Esther said, “Swamps, sulfur pits, stinking lakes, sandstorms, places where colonists tried to settle and the second growth’s so thick a worm couldn’t crawl through ... and we may have to, yet.”

  “Yah, do or die,” said Mitzi, slurring off.

  “Oh, wake up and think!” Ardagh cried. “You’re so mad to get off here!”

  “I don’t care any more,” said Mitzi.

  “We’ll make great time dragging her,” Koz said.

  “Time,” said Esther. “We need a timetable. Sven?”

  Sven was watching Shirvanian: if Dahlgren sent that thing here then Dahlgren’s gone mad, and if we try to reach the ship it’s not only the ergs we’ll have to get past ...

  “Sven ...” Esther wanted him to answer.

  Do or die, says Mitzi. “If we have twelve days, with margin, we have to make fifteen kilometers a day. That leaves two to get ready.”

  Shirvanian came to the door with the clawed feet in one hand, like a branch of metal thorns, and the malevolent red-eyed head in the other. “How many Solthree hours in your day?”

  “Just under thirty. Why?”

  “To see if I had enough time.” He clashed the pieces together gently.

  “For what?”

  “To fix this. I told you.” He added for the benefit of morons, “To make a proper bird of it.”

  “And for what purpose?” Esther found equal patience when she chose.

  Shirvanian sat on his heels and rested chin on fists so that the metal head stuck out of one ear and the legs out of the other. “Do you want to let the ergs know you’re not scared?”

  “We’re scared,” said Ardagh.

  “Yah. It was sent for a scare. I could just leave it smashed up ... only I like things fixed.”

  “So?”

  “Or I could have it running in circles with a signal to make the ergs chase it because they didn’t kn
ow what it was—”

  “We might get in their way,” said Joshua.

  “Or I could send it back. You see,” he tapped the pieces together again, in a peculiarly unpleasant sound, “it had a direction finder, to reach this point, and a life sensor that homes on Solthree body chemistry, to come to us. It hasn’t got a receiver that would pick up anything else here, but ... it works on an erg signal. Not the kind of erg we saw last night, and not a servo. Not an ordinary class, or a model of a class. I’ve been around a lot of ergs, not as big as these, but I know. This was sent here by one particular erg, something new and big, and,” his eyes narrowed in a passion that would have been lust in an adult, “it sure is an erg I’d like to see ...”

  “I hope I’m not around when you do,” said Esther.

  “Well ... if you’re not too scared I’ll send it back along that beam. It might give something or somebody an unpleasant surprise.”

  They looked at space, all those strange children, and at Sven. Dahlgren’s inheritor. He said in a low voice, “Send it back. We won’t have many surprises for them.”

  “Okay.” Shirvanian tossed his glittering giblets in the air, caught them, and went to work. “Twenty kph ought to be enough.”

  “Is that thing going to fly?” Esther asked.

  “No, but it sure will run fast.”

  “When will you be done?”

  “Around midnight.” Gathering a wreath of baleful looks, he amended, “If it disturbs you I’ll finish in the morning.”

  At that moment Mitzi quietly heeled over sideways and slumped to the ground.

  Ardagh jumped up and pulled at her. “Mitzi—”

  Esther hopped to her side. “That stuff she smokes—”

  “It wouldn’t do this.”

  Koz opened his mouth; Joshua put a hand on his arm. “Don’t say it. We have to stop that.”

  “I think she’s got a fever,” Ardagh said.

  Esther put her forehead to Mitzi’s cheek. “Ayeh.” She pushed away collar and hair. “Bakri mold. First thing everybody gets here.” There was a coin-sized spot on Mitzi’s neck, an outer ring of white crust, red inside and centered with green. “You got antibiotics?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give her what you take for dysentery. Sven, you get the alcohol. I’ll boil a knife.”

  Ardagh cried, “What are you going to do with a knife?”

  “Slit her gizzard.” Esther laughed. “Scrape it off, girl, what did you think? It’s like impetigo, only it goes with fever and diarrhea.”

  “Now when are we going to get out of here?” Koz said.

  “In two days,” Sven said. “According to plan.”

  DAHLGREN, BLACK, played P-K4. As the imprisoned shell touched the square of bone he saw that he was the flesh toy of metal giants. He pushed the chair back. “Kill me now,” he said, “I will not play your game.”

  The erg-Queen advanced one meter. YOUR SON IS STILL ALIVE, ALONG WITH OTHER ANIMALS.

  Dahlgren fixed his eyes on her. They had no rays to burn with.

  A SMALL CRUISER HAS CRASHED IN THE NORTHWEST SECTION, the erg went on. YOUR SON SAVED THE PASSENGERS AND THEY WILL LIKELY TRY TO COME HERE AND TAKE THE SHIP. OF COURSE THE SHIP IS NOW ONE OF OUR ERGS AND THEY WILL DIE SOONER OR LATER. PERHAPS SOONER. CONTINUE PLAYING.

  As if she had not spoken, erg-Dahlgren said, “You wish to go on?” Dahlgren was shaking. “Your pulse has greatly increased.”

  He could feel the arterial swellings in neck and forehead, see them in his eyes. “Perhaps I need a pacemaker.” He smiled sourly. “Go ahead.”

  2. N-KB3; N-QB3.

  “You usually smile in that way, I think,” said erg-Dahlgren, trying on the half-agonized rictus. “Your humor is what is called dry.”

  “I suppose it could be called that.”

  3. N-QB3; N-KB3.

  The birdsbeak Knights stood foursquare in the field, their tips pointed delicately upward like nose-cones.

  Erg-Dahlgren said, “You see what an amateur I am. I have read that Four Knights is a sound opening, and I have not the time to try many with a human opponent. I will have time later.”

  4. He played Bishop to Knight 5. Dahlgren echoed.

  5. Erg-Dahlgren castled. So did Dahlgren.

  “The sides are mirror images,” said erg-Dahlgren. “Very apt. Your heartbeat is slowing, but your face is flushed. Why?”

  “I am angry.”

  “For what reason? You have been as good as dead for seven years. Before, you were sick and broken. Now you have been brought back to health, you know that your son is alive, and you are playing chess.” 6. He moved Pawn to Queen 3. “Why are you angry now?”

  P-Q3. “When you know that, you will be Dahlgren.”

  MITZI CAME OUT of it, sore here and there, touch and touch stinging, tickle of coarse hair, giant black tarantula over brushing her wet and cold, waking among fraks and harpies in some scag- jig- or mackhouse in the Twelveworlds of GalFed Central, opened her mouth to scream.

  “All these needle marks,” Esther said. “She got some kind of sickness?”

  Koz laughed. “Just drugs.”

  Mitzi got her eyes open and saw Esther’s, black liquid globes reflecting each a square of pinkish light. No horror there now, just old granny from the backworlds.

  “You still feel sick?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You have a fungus infection with fever and chills. It’ll be better tomorrow. It’ll have to be, because we’re moving out next morning.” She scratched under her chin. “You got a lot of drugs with you?”

  Mitzi’s tongue was thick. “Most some joker stole in the spaceport. Nothing left now but the kif ... why, you got some?”

  “Ah-ah.” Esther ran her tongue round her mouth, pausing for a moment at the orange splotch, a fallen drop, at the corner of her lip. “Some tricksters from the Declivity, a long while back, were growing a patch of stuff off in a corner, gave me the leaves to chew ... it was very nice, but I fell out of a tree and broke my arm in two places.”

  “I bet Dahlgren liked that.”

  “He expelled them for trying to turn me into a clown.”

  “Huh.” Mitzi tried to sit up, found her head wasn’t screwed on right, and fell back.

  “Saved their lives. All the others got killed.”

  Esther patted the hot forehead with a wet cloth. “How things turn out, yah, you and me, we’re here. Stay down for a while. You’ll need the strength.”

  * * *

  Sven butchered half the rabbits, hung them to smoke, and freed the rest among the cabbages except for a couple kept for tomorrow’s meals. Esther crocheted wallets of netting to be slung over Yigal’s back. Water was a problem. In relatively unpolluted places it could be extracted from plants or drawn from eastward-running streams; a transport might have filters in good condition, but some would have to be carried in clay jugs.

  The children sorted their belongings. “Keep all drugs and medicines,” Sven said. “Light clothes that cover your arms and legs, ponchos. You don’t need warm things because the temperature in the forest holds steady. Maybe a couple of blankets in case we camp in a clearing.”

  Koz’s idol was, of course, a must. “You carry it,” said Esther, “but dump that heavy stuff you’re wearing. Mother Shrinigasa will forgive you when you get back.”

  “If,” said Koz.

  “See if those boiling bags have sprung a leak, we’ll need them for cooking. Check the alcohol.”

  “How do you get that?” Mitzi asked.

  “Ferment it from fruit.”

  “Can you drink it?”

  “If you don’t mind getting sick. Put that stuff away now, Shirvanian, it’s time to sleep.”

  In the morning the cock crowed. The metal cock. Shirvanian had gotten up at dawn to finish the work; it screeched a
nd flapped among Sven’s arms as he was exercising, still showing some affinity for human life. Sven righted himself and watched.

  The bird was crested and plumed as an imperial eagle; Shirvanian had used the extra neck to lengthen the gimpy leg, set the misplaced wing where it belonged, added an animal’s cry. It still had a slightly mutated look, for Shirvanian, hating waste, had set the two superfluous eyes above the others so that they formed two pairs, like Sven’s arms. Still, it did not look malevolent, but like the novel toy of a Renaissance king.

  Shirvanian leaned on the doorway, rapt in self-admiration. Sven said, “That’d be really something for a kid to play with.”

  “The beak’s a metal cutter. The claws are magnetic, and it’s erg-shielded. If it hits a vulnerable spot it can do damage.”

  Sven blinked at Boy Genius.

  “You didn’t think I was doing all that for fun, did you?”

  Sven backed away, and the beautiful metal bird went on crowing in the glinting sunlight, scratched savagely in the hard earth.

  Everyone admired it, at a distance and with respect. Koz brought out his idol and prayed for a successful journey. Then Shirvanian sent it. There was no launching ceremony. It ran in perfect balance, flapping and screeching, disappeared among the blotchy greens. Shirvanian sighed. Chances were, it would never be admired again.

  “Did you shield against erg heat and light sensors?” Sven asked.

  “No. That just makes things more interesting.”

  Half an hour later, they stopped in the midst of their preparations at the sound of ergs clashing and grinding, noise half muffled in the forest depths. Except Shirvanian, busy packing cabbage sprouts and ferns for Yigal. “Ergs out hunting ...”

  Ringing crunch, shriek of backing treads—

  “Banged into each other, and didn’t catch it either,” Shirvanian sniggered.

  ERG-DAHLGREN PINNED Black’s Knight with 7. B-N5.

  Dahlgren echoed the threat and stared at the ancient trilobites with their fork-tailed miters. The sides of the board stood as mirrors.