O Master Caliban

by Phyllis Gotlieb

  Sven did not look about him. Watched erg-Queen, half a head taller than he, rolling on silent casters and

  (stumbling through darkened hallways, lifted on Yigal, Esther behind arm-wrapping for comfort, it hurt there in his arm-fold now, Dahlgren with hand on Yigal’s head, pausing before the silver figure—not erg-Queen, but some predecessor—in the archway of orange light)

  pausing before Shirvanian.

  (YOU WILL COME BACK, DAHLGREN and passing in darkness, ergs before and after, until the clashing and screaming faded, but they did not, they went on silently in the black pit of his memory for nine of his years)

  AND THIS IS MACHINEMAKER.

  Shirvanian was yellow-white, shaking, retching. The physical presence of erg-Queen was more than he could bear.

  WHERE IS MOD DAHLGREN, MACHINEMAKER?

  Shirvanian clapped his hands to his face.

  WAS IT YOU WHO COMMUNICATED WITH MOD DAHLGREN AS HE SAID, OR SOMEONE ELSE? WAS IT YOU WHO SENT MY MACHINES OUT OF CONTROL?

  With two of her claws erg-Queen reached forward and dragged down his hands; the servo shifted its coil to his ankle.

  TELL ME, MACHINEMAKER! She jerked at his hands. Esther screamed with rage, pulled back on the tentacle clasping her wrist; when she could not get free she jumped on top of the servo and stamped up and down with both feet. The limb whipped her in an arc to the floor with its whole length, and if she had not landed on all fours like a spring she would have been smashed.

  STOP THESE STUPID ACTS! YOU CHOSE TO COME HERE AND YOU ARE HERE.

  “Esther, enough,” Sven said. His body was shaking with anger and his mind was clear.

  NOW ...

  Shirvanian was gasping, eyes shut tight.

  “Stop bullying him,” said Sven. “You’ll make him sick and you won’t learn anything at all.” It seemed foolish saying this in the face of death.

  WHAT IS HIS NAME?

  “Shirvanian,”

  SHIRVANIAN, TELL ME WHETHER YOU HAVE THIS ESP AND IF SO—WHAT? THERE IS A GROUND CREW OUT OF CONTROL ON THE AIRFIELD ...

  A low crump reverberated far back from where they had come.

  ... AND YOUR TRANSPORT HAS EXPLODED. The free arms lifted from her body.

  Mitzi yelled, “What did you think we were gonna do, give it to you for a present?” The tentacle jerked and she fell to the floor, swearing.

  Sven forced his eyes from the lifted claws. “How many machines have you lost now, Mod Seven Seven Seven?”

  YOU KNOW WHAT I AM CALLED, DO YOU? DAHLGRENSSON, IT IS REALLY TOO BAD THAT YOU CAME BACK. With one hand she picked Shirvanian up in a grasp of his ragged clothing; he hung like a battered doll. SHIRVANIAN, WHETHER OR NOT YOU HAVE ALL THE POWERS ASCRIBED TO YOU IT APPEARS THAT YOU KNOW SOMETHING. YOU WILL TELL ME WHERE MOD DAHLGREN IS AND I MAY ALLOW YOU TO LIVE WHEN I HAVE KILLED ALL THESE OTHERS.

  Shirvanian sniveled, “I don’t believe you.”

  Erg-Queen shook him, his clothes tore so that he slipped down a little in her grip, wailing.

  “Let him go!” Esther leaped, a claw sent her sprawling.

  “You go ahead!” Mitzi screeched. “Go ahead and tell, you dirty little bugger! You always wanted to see us dead! Think you’ll get anything when we’re—”

  “Shut up! Shut up, you goddam—” Ardagh lunged and swiped her a backhand blow on the face.

  The erg jerked them apart. Mitzi sobbed and went on at the top of her voice, “slimy fink, all he ever wanted because he never gave a—” the coil slid under her armpit, over her mouth, and cut her off.

  Ardagh clenched her fists and hissed, “Oh, don’t push it, for God’s sake please don’t you push it!”

  “You got yours in!” Mitzi snarled and rubbed her reddened cheek against her shoulder.

  Erg-Queen kept her burning attention focused on Shirvanian: MACHINEMAKER, I MADE YOU A BARGAIN AND—

  “I hate you!” Shirvanian shrieked. “I hate you and you’re a liar and I don’t want your dirty bargains!” With the hand nearest Sven he crossed his fingers for half a second.

  Still holding him suspended in one hand, erg-Queen grasped his arms with two others and raised a fourth to his eyes. He screamed horribly and fainted.

  Esther leaped once more and this time the coil wrapped her whole body round; she gasped and retched.

  Sven was shaking. Finding the bond had slackened on his wrist he folded one pair of arms to the front and one to the back to keep his body still and said quietly, “I also know where Mod Dahlgren is.”

  Erg-Queen lowered her arm and let Shirvanian fall. He lay in a heap. Esther got her breath back and chattered with fury, the girls huddled on the floor, sobbing.

  DO YOU, DAHLGRENSSON? I WAS WAITING FOR YOU TO SAY SO. THESE OTHERS SEEM TO HAVE GONE MAD. TELL ME.

  “I can’t speak properly with all this noise.”

  MOVE THE OTHERS BACK TO THE WALL, erg-Queen said. THEY ARE USELESS AT THE MOMENT. One erg plucked Shirvanian and bore him and Esther away. The other pulled back Mitzi and Ardagh. YOUR FATHER WAS ALSO A GOOD MAN TO TALK TO, IN HIS WAY. NOW I WONDER IF YOU WILL WANT TO BARGAIN WITH ME.

  “What bargain are you offering?”

  THIS. She raised a claw. MACHINEMAKER HAS A GREAT DEAL OF INFORMATION I WANT. The erg wrenched Sven’s front arms down and bound the hands to his sides. YOU HAVE ONLY ONE THING TO TELL ME. The limb turned red body outward till the fire reached its claw. THIS IS YOUR BARGAIN. Sven jerked back convulsively, was stopped by the erg, the red-hot claw moved lightly down his front from neck to waist, the charred clothing parted and a pink singe mark flared on his breast. YOU WILL DIE MORE EASILY.

  Ardagh went wild. “You filthy things!” On hands and knees like a beast, mane of hair tossing savagely about her head, “Both of you, you’re filthy things! You machine thing can’t do anything but kill, and Sven Dahlgren, you brought us here to die and I hope she burns the—” The tip of the erg’s tentacle pushed into her mouth and she gagged.

  LOCK THEM INTO THE CLOSET IN CORRIDOR WEST UNTIL THEY SHUT UP, said erg-Queen.

  Shirvanian stirred, rolled his eyes in horror, and struggled feebly with the machine. “Mama! I want Mama!” he wailed.

  The ergs bundled them down the shadowy corridor, a door slid to with a thump, and one erg came back, leaving the other on watch.

  THIS CANNOT GO ON MUCH LONGER, DAHLGRENSSON, said erg-Queen. THOSE ARE CHILDREN, AND CHILDREN PLAY AT BEING HEROIC, BUT YOU AND I WILL NOT.

  Sven’s eyes were full of tears. The burn hurt a little; the tears were for the children, dirty, weary, beaten down, and forced to play games more complex than erg-Queen could conceive of. For Esther and Dahlgren and the ones who had died. All of the ones who had died. She would not recognize his tears, and he did not wish that she should. Her sensors did not blink, no dust could fall in them and hurt. The heat arm had dulled almost to its normal color. “Perhaps one day you will kill and hurt for pleasure,” he said. “That will be your next step upward.”

  I DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE SAYING, DAHLGRENSSON. YOU HAVE A HABIT OF PLAYING FOR TIME, LIKE YOUR FATHER. MY SHIP WILL LIFT OFF IN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AND I WANT MOD DAHLGREN ON IT. WHERE IS HE?

  He watched the arm turning red again, and the ergs tightened his hands to his sides. His breath came out with a shudder. “In Clothier’s storeroom,” he said. “Wrapped up in a bolt of cloth.”

  * * *

  Joshua scrambled on Clothier’s table and said, “Get Mod Dahlgren.” The machine’s signal buzzed faintly. Perhaps Shirvanian had damped it.

  Now he’s crossing his fingers to let the others know I’ve found Clothier ... if he’s alive, if he’s got fingers to cross. Ugh.

  But the machine was running; Shirvanian must still be functioning.

  Clothier skimmed the corridor, hugging the wall and its shadow. Joshua had another horrid thought; he opened the neck of his suit
and felt for the control, afraid it had been broken in the fight with the erg. It seemed whole. His mind was whirling.

  “Why don’t you lie down and rest for a moment, Joshua?” Clothier asked.

  Joshua was too tense to rest, but he was also fearful and ignorant of ergs. He stretched out uneasily on the long dark surface.

  The creature whispered, “What is your favorite color?”

  “Huh? Oh ... anything but space-gray.” God protect me from crazy machines.

  “You have a beautiful skin tone, Joshua. You should wear deep warm colors. Ochre-red, antique gold ... what do you think of burnt orange?”

  The dull ceiling ran above his head, the dim lights slipped by, flick, flick, hypnotically. “I never thought of it.”

  “Silk,” said Clothier.

  Joshua pulled up on one elbow. “Silk!”

  “Lie down, be calm. Genuine wasp with eighteen percent dharworm! Heavy raw slubbed burnt-orange silk from Maljhugu!” Thin steel feelers ran over his ankles and up to his crotch, he thought the thing was about to make love to him, yelped and kicked; two more metal bands whipped over his wrists to his armpits; now he was caught and would be dished up on a platter to erg-Queen! He wrenched ferociously.

  “Stay still, Joshua, and let me measure you.”

  He said through his teeth, “I have no time to be measured or admired or sewn up in slubbed silk! Get me Mod Dahlgren and do it now!”

  “We are here,” said Clothier. It turned into the storeroom where the marvelous fabrics were shelved ceiling-high.

  And stopped halfway through the door. The signal died, the measuring limbs slackened and dropped to the floor.

  “Oh my God! Clothier!” Joshua knelt on the black surface and battered it with his fists. “Shirvanian!” Unconscious or dead. The receiver started up a piercing whine. Ergs were coming. Joshua jumped off Clothier, ran to its back end and pushed. Sweat sprang off him, the heavy machine wheeled slowly into the room, he pulled the door to, leaned on it a moment, panting, scanned along the shelves, the hundreds and hundreds of shelves, for that odd-shaped bolt of dark blue. The light was dim, the luminous materials flickered with wild pale flames, he scored his head with his nails in a fury of haste.

  “Whatever are you doing, Joshua?”

  He whirled. Clothier was standing by the door with the awkward blue bolt in its arms. The ergs in the corridor passed, and when they were gone he heard Clothier’s faint hum once more. Oh, Shirvanian!

  “You went off for a minute. What happened?”

  “I don’t know. What shall I do now?”

  “Take the cloth off him.”

  The machine complied with a few lightning twirls.

  “Put him on your table.” Joshua looked down on the simulacrum, lying in stillness, long-bodied, gray-blond in hair and beard. Hard demanding face—more so in life, I bet, and that’s what I’m supposed to find for Sven. Okay, Shirvanian, start yelling for Mama, I’ve got him. “Drop that stuff on the floor any which way.”

  Clothier was folding the material. “But Joshua, that’s not ti—”

  “Drop it. Pick off a few of his hairs and sprinkle them on it as if they’d rubbed off.”

  “Taklon never pulls—”

  “Hurry and drop his hair on it, Clothier!” Now she’ll believe Sven—and probably start looking for me! “Good. Now take me to Transformer Room One and go to Stores.”

  He climbed on beside erg-Dahlgren. Clothier opened the door and swung out into the corridor. “I want you to take fresh power cells, two days’ worth, for Mod Dahlgren, yourself, three medtechs and six trimmers. I don’t know what those kinds look like or where they are. Do you?”

  “Yes, Joshua. I have been told.”

  “Fine.”

  “But they may be quite a burden for me with yourself and Mod Dahlgren, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “I’ll unburden you. I’m getting off at the transformer.”

  “A three-two-five is stationed there at the door.”

  Joshua had picked up the signal: his heart raced. “Guarding?”

  “No. Recharging.”

  He could see nothing around the curve of the hallway. “Turn back then. Hurry!”

  “I have been told to leave you at the transformer without waste of time.” Smoothly, serenely, Clothier picked up speed.

  “Clothier!”

  “Be calm.”

  Joshua got up on his knees, rivet gun in hand, erg signal shrilling in his ears. Clothier skimmed the curve, and the servo by the door to the transformer room plucked the socket from the connection in its body without any haste, let it reel back into the wall, turned and drove for Clothier, all limbs out.

  “Hold on now, Joshua.”

  Clothier braked, made a U-turn, went into reverse at full speed while Joshua flattened himself with an arm holding down erg-Dahlgren. It backed alongside the servo, ducking the grazing limbs by a few centimeters with its low height, squealed to a stop, withdrew its heat sealer and poised it for an instant like a cobra before driving it red-hot into the erg’s sensor plexus.

  The servo’s treads slewed, its arms clanged to the floor, its motor died.

  “A clumsy thing like that is no match for a good sewing machine.”

  “Clothier,” Joshua swallowed, “I’m glad you’re with us.” He disembarked. “Now I’ll leave you to the other one, who will tell you what to do. While you’re in Stores collect as many other power cells as you can and put them in the recycler or waste disposal.”

  “I cannot do that, Joshua.” The voice was very gentle. “I can destroy only what is useless to everyone or dangerous to my existence.”

  “I see.” Joshua pulled the control from his chest and stuck it on the table, under erg-Dahlgren’s hand. “Goodbye, then, and thank you.”

  “You are welcome, Joshua. Remember, burnt orange!”

  * * *

  Joshua found the button that opened the door to Transformer Room 1, zipped down and pulled a length of sticky plastic from his body. He threaded it swiftly through the tubing, found his longest fuse and lit it.

  Outside he fired the blowtorch, opened three or four of the half-dozen sockets in the wall beside the door and aimed enough of a jet at each to melt the plastic so that it could not be pulled out. He jammed the torch in his pocket, ran past the stalled erg, heading counterclockwise to Transformer Room 4.

  * * *

  “What’re you looking at me so funny for?” Shirvanian asked. His teeth were chattering. “Were you afraid I’d let her kill you so I could stay alive?”

  “No, I thought you’d ask her to have us tortured first,” said Mitzi. “You sure laid it on thick with all that blubbering and howling. You didn’t have to wet your pants.”

  “That’s what you think.” He looked down. “Didn’t even know I’d done it. I’m glad I fainted before I died from being so scared.”

  “I hope the air lasts.” Esther was perched on a shelf, among batteries. There was no room for her on the floor where the others were squeezed together. The one dim light in the ceiling, like every other in the place, had its own peculiarly unpleasant quality. “Why have you got your fingers in your ears, Ardagh? Hey, Ardagh!” She reached down and pulled at the fair hair.

  “I’m afraid she’s hurting Sven,” Ardagh whispered.

  “She hasn’t touched him again,” said Shirvanian. “Yet. He’s told her where the Dahlgren was ... she’s ordered the nearest servo to go to Clothier’s storeroom—ow, it’s recharging by the door to the transformer Joshua’s heading for!—and—and Clothier just skewered it! Now she’ll send everything out! Joshua, you better run like hell!”

  “Is he all right?”

  “I dunno. He’s left Clothier.”

  “She never checked to find if any of us was missing.”

  “She never checked with us
—but she knew somebody got killed along the way. Why should she care? Human beings don’t get counted around here. Now shut up, I’m going to work.”

  * * *

  Beneath the Pit floor Clothier skimmed a corridor too narrow for the larger ergs; it did not expect difficulty with the trimmers which serviced the Pit machinery. It stopped in a dark alcove leading to the machine room, bared erg-Dahlgren’s shoulder, withdrew the cells, whipped off the cloth and replaced them. The plastic heart quivered and squeezed the artificial blood, the air sacs swelled in a thoracic cavity filled more with brains than bowels, the lines of EEG and EKG zipped and twittered behind the camera eyes. Erg-Dahlgren sat up.

  “Are you in good order, Mod Dahlgren?” Clothier asked.

  After an instant’s orientation, erg-Dahlgren answered, “I am, thank you, Clothier. And yourself?” He put his arm in his sleeve and fastened the clothing.

  “The same. Please pick up that article on my table, turn back the tape and move the dial clockwise by three millimeters. Tape down the dial, place the article in your pocket, follow this corridor eastward and up the ramp to second level and deliver it to the person who has requested it of you.”

  “I will be discovered, Clothier.”

  “You will be shielded, Mod Dahlgren.”

  Mod Dahlgren!

  Yes, Shirvanian.

  I’m glad you’re okay. We’re locked in a closet on West corridor off the main vault. One servo guarding, I’ve got hold of it, when it opens the door give me the control, then go to erg-Queen and do whatever she asks. She’ll be happy to see you.

  I cannot say the same, but I will do what you want.

  ERG-QUEEN, taking input from all her latitudes, said, THE SERVO SENT TO RECOVER MOD DAHLGREN IS DISABLED, MOD DAHLGREN IS MISSING FROM CLOTHIER’S STOREROOM, THERE IS A TWENTY-FIVE METER LENGTH OF CLOTH ON THE FLOOR WITH A FORTY-CENTIMETER SQUARE CUT OUT FROM IT AND SEVERAL OF MOD DAHLGREN’S HAIRS ADHERING TO IT. OUTSIDE THE STOREROOM WE FOUND A PIECE OF THE SAME CLOTH WITH SOLDER FRAGMENTS ON IT.