O Master Caliban

by Phyllis Gotlieb

  Sven murmured, “Joshua’s got a Triskelian emblem on his rain suit.”

  “Is that so? Mitzi’s got it stamped on the arches of her bootsoles. Want to guess where it’ll turn up next?”

  “I don’t think I do ... Ardagh told me something about the Triskelian Order. Celibate, ceremonial religion? It doesn’t fit.”

  “It could be that’s not all of the truth. There may be more ranks in that order than we know of.”

  “She said there were a lot. I wonder if we can trust them.”

  “We’ll have to, now. We saved their lives, Shirvanian saved ours. But I’m not surprised. There had to be something more than pure chance holding that cranky bunch together.”

  Koz, Mitzi, Shirvanian? Unpleasantness of character wasn’t synonymous with deviancy ... but Ardagh? Joshua? “If they get together and try something—”

  “We’ll know what to expect.”

  “We’ll know we have to expect something—but when?”

  “Oh, I think about the first branch point: when—or if—we get a machine.”

  Sven turned and saw them murmuring among themselves. Plotting? “They look exhausted right now. I wonder if they’d have the strength. You think they’d try to kill us?”

  “No! Koz might break down, but I don’t think it’d enter their minds. They might try to strand us. They’re still childish—they wouldn’t realize what a half-baked idea it was.”

  “Childish or not, there are too many of those ideas floating about here,” said Yigal. “We are depending on a ten-year-old brat with a very strange mind.”

  “Ayeh,” said Esther. “It’s time to start cutting south. Too bad. The bricks are rather pretty here.”

  “Yes,” said Sven. “I can hardly wait to see all the other lovely colors.”

  There were fewer trees, thicker seedlings warping and dying faster. Occasionally some strange growth, a foreign or indigenous mutation, resisted hardily and took hold with a splendid display of vivid metallic leaves and flowers that shrugged off dust and water and clashed in the wind.

  “Ugh, those are repulsive,” said Ardagh. “They look as if the ergs made them.”

  “Maybe they did,” said Sven.

  Even the beetles, low broad things with steely carapaces, seemed machine-made, and the rodent forms had spines and scales, or were perhaps misshapen reptiles, Flying creatures avoided the area. There were no berries, and the bugs would have raveled the most leathery craw. It was hard to deduce what any creature would eat here.

  Shirvanian said, “They’ve probably got a reactor there, but it’s not leaking ... can we rest before we go much farther? I’m still tired, and I want to think.”

  “Put down a groundsheet,” said Esther. “We’ll eat now.”

  Mitzi said, “There haven’t been any machines at all out today.”

  “They stayed home,” said Shirvanian. “Waiting for us. Plenty of them.”

  “And no plans,” said Joshua.

  “Sven’s memory of the factory isn’t a map. Any plan might get picked up by erg-Dahlgren and the Queen’d get it. Even if his memory’s been wiped he’ll still connect with me at odd times. We’ll have to make choices when we’re forced to.”

  An aircar buzzed them, laid a random streak of fire a hundred meters away. They picked themselves up from flattened positions. “There’s one for you,” said Shirvanian. “Clumsy, or trying to make us think it is.” The rain began once more.

  “Whatever it is, we could have been wiped,” said Sven.

  “No, I don’t think they’re sure of catching us all this way ... they think human beings are pretty sneaky—which they are—and it’s simpler to lay a really good ambush.”

  “That makes me feel a lot better,” said Sven. It seemed to him that they had reached some kind of plateau of terror; they ducked and dodged, picked themselves up and went on eating. Where the fear had been there was an ache, a depression linking them, like heavy chains: Yigal hardly spoke, Esther plucked and snapped thorn branches, the children seemed to be breathing hard all the time, the air was heavy with moisture, and Ardagh, suffering either from allergy or a cold, had run out of tissues and was wiping her nose on her sleeves. The all-weather clothing was spotted with mildew, the food was growing mold; they scraped off the mold and ate it.

  * * *

  The factory was in a small valley. Parts of it had been used to grow marsh plants, sections marked off in squares for hydroponic tanks, the flooded bottoms as shallow beds to trace the mutation rates of fry and fingerlings. The ergs had chosen it because it was free of heavy growth; they had only to cut one deep channel at the southernmost point to let all the water out. They kept the growth down by burning and defoliants; the slopes were still faintly marked by plot lines.

  The place was a bowl of night, filled with deep rumbling, lit once in a while by sparks from the huge stacks, emblazoned with rust splotches on the slopes of its metal roofs; nothing resisted the rains of Dahlgren’s World very long. Mists hung over it, thickened by smoke and rising in odd shapes from the heat: winds sliced them and rains whipped them down; they regathered endlessly, blackened or shot with fire.

  The sun hung over one corner of this valley like a smutted lantern; there were four or five slowly revolving spy-eyes mounted on poles around its rim, mainly to regulate traffic coming and going. The ergs did not expect enemies or attacks. There were no fences.

  * * *

  Sven and the others gathered in a small thickly-grown hollow beyond the rim, northwest from the channel, at the base and out of range of one of the spy-eyes.

  “You can’t see anything in that muck,” said Esther.

  Shirvanian unpacked the small receiver he had made to test the erg-bird. The bird had been a showpiece, a seamless creation, but the instruments he made for himself were uncased accretions of wires, transistor chips, helixes and solder knobs, and looked like the viscera of small animals under dissection. “Moderate reactor, running properly. I won’t touch that.”

  “Why not? Why not turn it off? You’ll have to do that at the station.”

  “I don’t see why. There’s other ways of shutting off power besides tampering with protective devices and taking the risk of blowing everything up. I don’t want to start trouble. All I want is a machine.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Can’t see much through the smoke ... there’s two roads spiraling the slopes ... in and out traffic for drones and other big ergs. I think they start from ...” rain and wind shoved at the smog for a moment, pushing it north; it spread again as the gust died ... “yah, that big low building opposite the channel ... probably the hangar ... there’s no chimneys.”

  “The upcoming road branches off toward the tracks,” Sven said.

  “Too slow for us.” A big servo emerged and began to wind around and upward. “Suppose we drove one straight from the hangar through the channel—it’s probably full of rubble and rock chunks—I wonder if we’d ruin the treads?”

  “Not on a transport. They’re versatile, they’ve got auxiliary wheels, runners, balloon tires, legs. They use the treads on the undergrowth.”

  “Transport’s what we need. We can’t travel in a drone or a servo. Where does the channel run to?”

  “South or south by west,” Sven said.

  “We don’t want to go that way,” Mitzi said.

  “We will if it’s the only way.” Shirvanian said to Sven, “Suppose ergs were patrolling all roads, as well as the northern track, by mechanical habit when it wasn’t worthwhile to change them, or to check up on crash landings or meteors they thought were crashes. If we got to the middle road we might find it clean.”

  “It might be faster—but there’s a lot of forest between here and track two.”

  “The growth is thinning, and we’d have a water channel for a while.”

  “And a lot of
ergs chasing us.”

  “Yah.” He moved away a few meters and lay on his belly, watching the mist-blurred factory and its lumbering machines, still clutching the radio.

  Esther saw that his lips were trembling, and whispered to Sven, “He’s scared silly.”

  “So am I.”

  “He’s got more to do.” She flicked another glance. “Should I tell him to empty his bladder and embarrass him, or let him wet his pants and embarrass himself?”

  “I’ll tell him.” He slipped aside to Shirvanian and whispered. The boy slid back into the undergrowth. When he emerged, Sven said, “That servo will be passing below in a little while.”

  “Six minutes.”

  “It’ll pick us up. We’d better move.”

  “Maybe.” He bit his lip, moved a dial. “You recognize that machine?”

  “Yes. It’s in the five hundred range, maybe a five-fifty. Quite old. I haven’t seen any new ones.”

  “No. They just repair and replace here. All their new ideas come from Headquarters and get put into erg-Queen and the Dahlgrens ... and the ship. If they make the big jump they can pick up any new machines they want all over the Galaxy—”

  “The big jump! You’ve never said anything like that before!”

  “Yes I did! I said the Dahlgren would take his place at ... but I never thought—”

  “Is that why they’ve started making androids?”

  Shirvanian swallowed. “I don’t know! You’re ragging me again! Maybe I just got some stupid idea. Taking over other planets—I don’t know!”

  “All right, calm down. I’m not trying to upset you. It’s just—everything keeps growing. What about this servo?”

  “I scrambled a three-two-one at Headquarters. I don’t know whether I should try rattling this one.”

  “It’s a lot bigger.”

  “Three and a half minutes ... okay, let it go.” He pulled back, and Sven followed.

  “What are we doing?” Esther asked.

  “Right now we’re waiting till the next erg comes by, if it’s not bigger.” He held the receiver to his ear. “How many transports like the Argus were there?”

  “About a hundred. They may still use them for hauling ore and parts. I hope so.”

  “What about shielding?” Joshua asked.

  “Anything carrying men would have been shielded,” Sven said. “I don’t know about other machines.”

  Wind gusted, splattering filthy drops from the pit before them, and they huddled under the narrow metallic leaves. Their skin streamed with sweat, had become chafed and rashy in its creases. “Oh God, I used to hate the Midwest,” said Ardagh.

  Shirvanian unpacked from his box the instrument he had used to stop the threshers. “What’s that?” Sven asked.

  “Control for my esp signal. What I turn things off and on with. I’ve made better ones than this. When it works I can amplify and calibrate, bugger up feedback systems.” He crawled up the rim. “There’s another—a five-twenty, real antique but it moves fast. I’ll try with that.”

  “Try what?” said Mitzi.

  “Rattling. Unbalance it. I knocked out the three-two-one without this, but I didn’t half know what I was doing, and I’d better know now.” Sven pulled up beside him. “Stay by the bottom of the pole, but don’t touch it, it may be sensitive.”

  The servo churned along the coarse roadbed, kicking spray that joined with the yellow mist. Ardagh and Joshua coughed and spat the foul stuff. “I’ve played with one of these,” said Shirvanian. “I think ... I know ...”

  “How close will it come?”

  “Twenty-five meters.”

  “It might sense us.”

  “If it does I’ll have to use your transmitter, and then I won’t find out anything.” He slitted his eyes and pulled in his self, watching the turns of the treads on the rough macadam. His head sank inward like a turtle’s and his tongue lapped at one corner of his mouth. With finger and thumb he calipered the knob of his instrument, and the erg slowed. It made a quarter-turn, gritting on the road, swung back just beyond ninety degrees, swung forward again like a pendulum, its arms extended and shook, clattering against one another, and its upper carriage rocked on the chassis. Then it stopped, folded in its arms and went on.

  “That’s rattling,” said Shirvanian. “Next one I’ll really do the work on.”

  “I think you’ll have to do it a bit sooner, sweetheart,” said Esther. “Number one’s coming round behind us.”

  They turned. The five-fifty, a hundred meters back of them, was bulling its way among the trees, crushing the undergrowth. Its sounds had been covered by lashing wind and the clanging from the factory.

  “Look!” Ardagh cried, pointing downward. The other machine had made a smart-right-angled turn and was climbing the slope.

  Shirvanian stood up.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Keep your heads down!” There was a pop, and pieces of spy-eye fell in shivers of metal and glasstex around the pole.

  “We’ve got to get out—”

  “There.” Shirvanian pointed to a copse southward. “Transmitter’s on.”

  They scrambled, Yigal light on his feet over the loose shale between the thickets in spite of his load, the others sliding and grasping. It was not until they had reached the illusory shelter of the growth that they realized Shirvanian was not with them. He was standing on the rim near the pole, head turning to watch one and the other of the machines about to pincer him.

  “That transmitter’s not working!” Sven yelled. They were far too close, twenty meters, fifteen. Shirvanian paid Sven no attention, kept his eyes on one, then the other, lids narrowed, smiling faintly, ineffably smug. He took his eyes off them long enough to turn the knob of his control and stood still with his arms raised slightly from his sides, powerful and a little repulsive, the prodigy in velvet and ruffles about to lift the baton to the giant steps of Beethoven’s Seventh.

  “He’ll get mashed,” Mitzi whispered.

  Ten meters, five, gathering speed toward the rim’s top, and he stepped away.

  The machines crashed horridly head on, and he ran, tripping and stumbling, to where the others were huddled. Echoes were still ringing, the ergs’ grapplers wrenched and twisted in efforts to free themselves, they seemed to be embracing, were in fact wedded.

  “Biggest ones I ever worked on,” said Shirvanian.

  They did not dare call him showoff. His horrifying risks had paid off. Mitzi’s teeth chattered, Joshua’s skin was grayish, Koz’s fists were clenched and pressed together. “We’d better get down to the hangar,” Joshua said.

  “Then they’ll be after us by the hundreds. I want them busy up here. You can go over where the channel breaks through at the western edge.”

  Esther said, “I think we’ll stick together.”

  “I can take care of this by myself.”

  “There’s been a few things you couldn’t take care of by yourself,” Ardagh said grimly.

  Shirvanian shrugged irritably. They kept their eyes on the locked and struggling machines. The flanks were pocked with rust, and water channels ran down them in crazy patterns.

  “You can’t handle many more of those,” said Sven.

  The machines stopped suddenly, their arms flipped and rang on their sides. Shirvanian turned off his power. “They won’t send them. They’ll send repair crews, and I want a lot of them. Listen ...”

  Rain, wind ... rrrackticktick

  A little thing scuttled up the slope, a spiny echidna, it’s limbs were screwdrivers, metal punches, wire clippers, magnetic clamps, pliers.

  “That’s what they’d send after us. They’d pick us to pieces, like those bats we saw in the forest ...”

  ticktick ... racktick! A second and a third trimmer crossed the edge. They swarmed the huge metal bulks like ins
ects.

  “They’d never get those things apart,” said Ardagh.

  “They could,” Sven said. “I’ve seen them.”

  Mitzi whispered, “Isn’t it time to go?”

  “Not for me,” said Shirvanian. Mitzi pushed a couple of knuckles in her mouth and bit. “Go on,” he said.

  “We’ll stay,” said Sven.

  rricktick. Two more. They pried, chiseled, levered.

  “They’ll turn on us,” said Koz. His teeth were clenched.

  “If they got them apart they’d call a drone, and then we’d have them on us,” said Shirvanian. “But they won’t. I want more up here. Keep them busy.”

  tick. Six, seven, a dozen, ants in metal carapaces with savage antennas. Probed, wrenched the stalled ergs. “When I yell Go! run down to the hangar.”

  “We’ll run into more of them below,” Sven said.

  “If this works they won’t be interested in you.” He turned up again, fingered the control delicately.

  The trimmers went on working, not faster, but more forcefully; the mist eddied around them. Occasionally one would waver, with screwdriver or chisel, before plunging it at the wreckage.

  ticktick. Three, four, five. The great ergs were crawling with small ones.

  Shirvanian rotated with thumb and finger. The trimmers stove, wrenched, twisted. Their noise, an armored battle, drowned every other sound. He sat like a boy at the shore watching crabs in mating dance. Turn. The tools became weapons that ravaged the metal bulks.

  Shirvanian licked his lips. And the small things came, like lemmings to the sea. The big servos were almost invisible under their dreadful crew. What could be seen glittered in edges of ripped metal. The trimmers began to attack the layers of their fellows beneath, with sounds to make the teeth ache.

  Koz backed away in a scrabble of hands and heels, the kek-kek-kek of hysteria rising in his throat. Ardagh followed and put her arms around him.

  Sven said, “Shirvanian.”

  The boy did not hear, or did not choose to listen.

  “That’s enough!”