“What about Mohs. Was there another human being with us when we entered, and what happened to him?”
The hall was silent - a guilty silence if ever there was one.
Lando realized suddenly that relations between mechanical intelligences weren't all that different from those between organic ones.
“Well?”
More silence.
Lando looked at Vuffi Raa. “That thing mistook you for a maintenance bug, and hummed up your memory trying to 'repair' you. That's why you don't remember Mohs. Now it feels ashamed.”
Vuffi Raa looked at Lando. “I certainly hope so, Master, I certainly hope so. What are we going to do, once we reach the Harp?”
“Shhhh! The walls have ears. We're going to use it in whatever manner was intended - rather, take it to somebody who knows how to and let him do it.”
“You mean the governor?”
“That fat ape? No, I mean Gepta. He's the one who really says when we get to leave this lousy system.”
They shuffled onward, trying, occasionally, to get the hall's attention again. Since it obviously hadn't gone away, it must have been ignoring them. Finally they reached the base of the raised platform on which the Mindharp stood. It wasn't as bad as Lando had predicted: the ceiling was much lower - Vuffi Raa was now his old familiar size again - and the room felt smaller, but it was still huge and awe-imposing. As was the altar.
A dozen meters high, it was cut from a single perfectly transparent slab of what appeared to be life-crystal. It was hexagonal in cross section, with corners one could practically cut himself on. Otherwise, it was smooth and featureless. It would be a long, difficult climb.
Lando sat down to consider the problem. His survival kit included no rope, suction cups, antigravs. Its designers had anticipated he would be among others - fellow soldiers - and had shared out supplies in a package that was sold originally to an entire squad. They had not anticipated that survival would necessitate committing a burglary.
“Any ideas, Vuffi Raa?”
“No, Master. If I were small again-”
“You never were small, remember? We argued about that and you won.”
“Oh, that's right. You argued so persuasively that I forgot for a moment.”
“Vuffi Raa, I think that's the first nice thing you've ever said to me.”
“You're welcome, Master.”
“Don't call me Master.” He thought some more, then: “Hey, Hall?”
“MAY I BE OF ASSISTANCE?”
“I hope so. How come you didn't answer us back there?”
“I'M SORRY, I WAS THINKING ABOUT SOMETHING. MAY I HELP YOU NOW?”
“Sure. Does this pylon sink into the floor or anything?”
“NO, I'M AFRAID THAT IT DOES NOT.”
“You don't happen to have a ladder handy, do you?”
“NO, SIR, I AM NOT SO EQUIPPED.”
Lando mused for a long time. Despite his long sleep, he was tired and hungry - jacket rations aren't everything their manufacturers claim for them. In fact, they aren't anything their manufacturers claim, except that they'll keep you alive.
“Say! Can you make me big again?”
“CONGRATULATIONS, SIR, YOU HAVE PASSED THE TEST. YES, I CAN ENLARGE YOUR SIZE. DO YOU WISH ME TO BEGIN NOW?”
“Can you make me normal again, afterward? The size I am now - provided that's the size I started out before we entered the pyramid?”
“IMMEDIATELY UPON YOUR REQUEST, SIR.”
He looked at Vuffi Raa. “Well, here we go again.”
“‘We,' Master?”
“Now don't start that! Okay, Hall, let's do it!”
This time it was perceptible. Lando watched the room and everything in it shrink around him, Vuffi Raa grew smaller, the altar shorter. It only took a few moments. “How the devil does this work, anyway, Hall? I thought it was supposed to be impossible - cube-square relationships and my bones not supporting my weight above a certain size and everything. That's why I figured Vuffi Raa had shrunk - plenty of problems there, but fewer, I think.”
“OH, NO PROBLEMS AT, ALL, SIR,” the Hall began. Lando noticed that its voice wasn't disturbed at all by the change in scales. Good engineers, those Sharu. “WHAT ARE YOU, NO OFFENSE, SIR, BUT ORGANIZED INFORMATION? WHAT DOES IT MATTER HOW DENSELY THAT INFORMATION IS COMPRESSED? AN OLD-FASHIONED BOOK MAY BE PRINTED UPON THICK PAPER, WITH THE LINES DOUBLE-SPACED. STILL, IT IS THE SAME INFORMATION, IS IT NOT?”
“You trying to tell me I've been sort of spread-out, like? I'm not sure I like that thought. Well, here we are. Vuffi Raa? That's all right, you don't have to talk back. Just help me with this thing once I get it down - it's going to be big.”
At present, the Mindharp rested on the flat upper surface of the pylon. It was a precise replica of the Key, except for size, and, in his present condition, it felt the same to Lando as the Key had. He reached down to take it, it came away without resistance. He started to put it in his pocket.
“Master... don't... do... that.”
“Right! It'd mess up my jacket a bit when I shrank back down, wouldn't it? Okay, Hall, let's lower me back where I belong.”
Silence.
“Hall? Hey, you're supposed to shrink me again! Get with it!”
There was no reply.
“Look, Hall, if you don't listen, I'm going to take this obscene artifact and—”
“OH, I'M VERY SORRY, SIR. WOOL-GATHERING AGAIN. I HAVE AN INCREASING TENDENCY TO THAT, AS THE MILLENNIA ROLL ON. I TAKE IT YOU WISH TO BE REDUCED AGAIN.”
“You take it right.”
With that, Lando began to shrink once more, the Mindharp growing perceptibly in his hands as he did so. He stooped gently, set it on the floor beside Vuffi Raa, straightened, and folded his arms over his chest. The Mindharp was an armful when Lando had been restored to his natural size. Perhaps a meter in its greatest extent, it was even more visually distressing than the tiny model he had played with in the beginning.
“Vuffi Raa, take one end of this. Hall, how do we get out of here?”
“BEHIND THE PILLAR, SIR, AND GOOD LUCK.”
“Well, good luck to you, too. Maybe someday they'll hold concerts here.”
“I CERTAINLY HOPE NOT, SIR. I RATHER LIKE THE PEACE AND QUIET.”
Behind the pylon was a wall. Embedded in the wall was a Key. Perhaps it was the same Key, Lando thought - this building seemed to like little jokes like that. The question was, how did you use it? It protruded somehow from the wall. He let one hand go from the Mindharp, reached out to touch its smaller counterpart.
There was a flash! and a hole began opening in the wall, like the iris of an ancient camera. Lando and Vuffi Raa stepped through.
Into the busy daytime streets of Teguta Lusat.
XIX
“OFFICER,” VUFFI RAA demanded, summoning the first constabulary cop he saw on the street. The robot pointed a tentacle at Lando. “Arrest this man immediately. Orders of the governor.”
Lando stopped, stunned. They hadn't taken three steps away from the side of the Sharu ruin they'd emerged from. He looked back - the aperture they'd walked through was gone. He held the Mindharp to his chest, walked back a step, another, until his back was against the wall.
“Why, you little-”
“That'll be enough of that,” the cop ordered. “I can't arrest a man on the word of a machine. I'll have to check it out with H.Q.” He touched the side of his helmet, communed momentarily with the radio inside it, then waved off with one hand the small crowd that was beginning to gather. Lando took a small, quiet step sideways. No one seemed to notice.
He took another, and another. Only a few more steps to a corner where he just might be able to- “Officer!” Vuffi Raa shouted. “He's trying to get away!”
“Thanks a lot, you atom-powered fink!”
The policeman drew his blaster, held it steady on Lando's chest.
“Well - first time I've ever heard of a droid with a security clearance like that, but - hold still, you
! We'll have some transportation in a minute, then we'll all take a nice little ride.”
The governor's office looked much the same as it had before, even to the absence of Rokur Gepta the Sorcerer of Tund. With the Mindharp lying across the crystalline desk, Lando wondered why the wizard wasn't present to claim the prize he'd sought so avidly.
He didn't wonder very long.
“Good afternoon,” Duttes Mer said, entering from the right and easing himself into his chair. “I see you have the object. Very good. You could tell me one little thing, though, if you would be so kind.”
Lando was standing between two of Teguta Lusat's finest once again. This time Vuffi Raa was present, standing beside the governor's desk. “Anything you want to know,” Lando said, trying hard for cheerfulness and not quite making it.
“EXACTLY WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN THESE LAST FOUR MONTHS?” The governor calmed himself down, straightened his neckcloth, blinked.
“Four months?” Lando asked, reeling from one astonishing development after - so that was it! The time differential. What had seemed like a couple of days to him had actually been sixty times that long. “Governor, you wouldn't believe me if I told you. Ask your treacherous friend, here. He'll tell you, unless he's a congenital liar.”
“Don't be too hard on the droid, Captain. He did what he was programmed to do: play the Emissary's part so that the natives would help you find the Harp. Also, to report to me the instant the Harp was in your possession. It would seem I've had a stroke of luck in that respect, however. How is it that you flew to Rafa V and returned here without being picked up on planetary defense sensors? We really have a nice, modern system, you know.”
“You tell him, Vuffi Raa, since you're such a blabbermouth anyway.”
“Sir,” the robot said, “the Sharu appear to have some method of matter transport. I'm not certain when the transition occurred, and I am told that you lost track of my telemetry the instant we entered the pyramid on Rafa V. The shift could have been any time afterward, from the inside wall of the pyramid to the aperture through which we stepped into the street here in Teguta Lusat.”
The governor patted his stumpy fingers together. “Well, well. A technological bonus, if we can unravel its secret. In the meantime, as I said, a stroke of unexpected luck. You see, Captain, my, er, colleague is orbiting Rafa V this very minute, waiting for your emergence there.
“Haw, haw. I am here. And I have the Mindharp. It would appear that I am something of a lucky gambler, too, wouldn't you say?”
Lando shrugged indifferently. This wasn't going to turn out good, no matter what he did, and there wasn't any point in giving the fat slob any satisfaction.
“Come now, Captain, consider: Rokur Gepta hired an anthropologist – a real one, mind you, with genuine credentials - to investigate the system. The poor fellow thought he was working for me, which gave us the opportunity to appropriate his paycheck from Imperial funds, and yielded Gepta the enjoyment of misdirection he seems to treasure so much for its own sake.
“Meanwhile, we set a little trap. In return for the offer of a new job, once his investigations here were finished, the anthropologist went to Oseon 2795 in search of, well, shall we say a suitably gullible individual to do our work for us.”
Interested despite himself, and aware that Mer's desire for, what, approval? might show him a way out of the mess, Lando asked, “You didn't you just hire yourself another sucker - or let your tame scientist get the Mindharp for you? Why me, and why maneuver me into it, rather than simply coming out and-”
The governor laughed. “You know the legends. It had to be a wandering adventurer from the stars, a stranger to the Toka, someone they hadn't seen snooping around, recording their chants and so forth. And the truth. Why, Captain, if you known the truth about the Mindharp, you would be about to assume absolute power over the minds of everyone in the system, rather than myself. That is another mistake my esteemed colleague made. Thus we looked for a freighter captain down on his luck - and on Oseon 2795 everybody's down on his luck - in a place where we had the, er, cooperation of local law-enforcement personnel. We let you think you'd won the robot, and put you in a position where you had to flee-”
“Oh?” the gambler asked beneath raised eyebrows. “Well, suppose I'd fled to the Dela System, as I'd intended, or simply-”
“There was the 'treasure' as an inducement, plus the fact that you had a valuable asset to claim in the droid, here. And, of course, if you hadn't come, our Ottdefa Osuno Whett would simply have found a new prospect. You were our first-I'm rather proud of the Ottdefa.”
Lando shook his head resignedly. “I get it. That's why Vuffi Raa was left here: if you'd missed your chance with me, and I'd had him in my possession in the Oseon, you would have lost a valuable 'bot, whereas any poor jerk who took your bait-”
“Precisely. I'm gratified that you appreciate the subtlety of the scheme. That will be all. Officers, take him away.”
Lando didn't even have time to protest. The police hauled him from the office, along the corridor, and down a flight of stairs to a waiting hovercruiser. They whisked through the streets to the edge of town, where they entered a force-fence around a series of corrugated-plastic buildings.
“Give him the usual processing,” one of the anonymous visored officers told a fat man in a dirty tunic. “You'll have the paperwork in the morning.”
“Very well,” the fat man beamed. He was short and greasy looking, but the neuro-whip in one hand and the military blaster in the other added something to his personality. The cruiser roared away.
“Welcome to the penal colony of Rafa IV.” The fat man grinned.
Midnight.
Listening to the chanting of the Toka, Lando lay on a steel-slatted cot in a barred cell. Offworld prisoners occupied cells on one side of the corridor; the Toka shared an unlocked kennel-like affair on the other side. Lando was unusual in that the other three bunks in his own cell were unoccupied. He figured that the governor didn't want him talking to anyone until he was ‘processed’! -whatever that meant.
To say he found the native chanting annoying would have been a calamitous understatement. It was unpleasant enough in itself, but it further served to remind him of Mohs - the little man who wasn't there. If he had been. The question bothered the gambler almost as much as his present predicament did.
More, perhaps, because he'd been in jail before. Less, perhaps, because he'd never faced a sentence in the life-orchards. And, unlike the other freshly arrived convicts in the cells around him, he knew what that meant, had had a taste of one’s mind's being sucked away by the trees from which the crystals were harvested.
And his memories of Mohs were clear; the chanting across the hallway was in no way inconsistent with them. The language was distressingly familiar. He could almost imagine he understood it. Not for the first time, he reasoned that it was a corrupted version of some tongue spoken in a place he'd been once. If only he could remember...
XX
“ALL RIGHT RISE AND SHINE!”
The fat man had friends, at least five of them, also armed with blasters and whips. They paced up and down in front of the barred cells, shouting to wake up the offworld prisoners. The Toka were already gone, sometime in the night.
Lando groaned, turned over. Before they'd placed him in the cell, they'd taken his clothes, replacing them with rough-woven pajamas of unbleached cloth. Now he was being ordered to remove even that minimal dress.
He quickly found out why. Two of the guards placed their weapons to one side, manhandled a huge fire hose into place before the cells, and turned it on. Lando was dashed to the back of the cell, where he fetched up against the rough plaster wall and slid to the floor, shielding his eyes against the blast of water.
The stream passed on to the next cell. He rose stiffly, put his shirt back on - he hadn't time to undress all the way before the water hit him - and wondered what came next.
He didn't have to wait long.
“All right,
prisoners,” the fat man shouted, “we will open the cells in a moment, and you will step outside, stand at attention, until told otherwise. Then you will turn left-face and march, single file and silently, into the waiting bus. Step out of line, utter so much as a single word, and you are dead where you stand.”
Luckily, Lando didn't have a snappy come-back ready anyway.
The door slid open with a clank. He stepped out and stood stiffly, shivering in the early morning breeze. He had his first look at the compound, and, having looked around, decided he didn't want to make a habit of it. Boxed into the corner between two plastic Sharu buildings hundreds of meters tall and unscalable, the yard was fenced on the other two sides. Bare earth, a handful of small one-story cell blocks, and an administration building. Home sweet home for the rest of his life.
Like hell, Lando swore to himself. He would be free. He had debts to settle.
The command was given. He turned left smartly, walked behind half a dozen other prisoners to the bus, an old one, driven by another convict. Its skirts were stained and tattered. It would be a rough ride this morning. The ground began to shake. Across the compound, the earth billowed up like waves on the ocean, heaved at the cellblocks, smashing them to bits, ripped the administration building apart, toppled the hoverbus. The man inside it screamed.
Several convicts ran to help the trapped driver. They were shouted at by the guards. One of the uniformed men opened fire, sending a prisoner up in flames that were mirrored by those which suddenly burst from a leaking fuel line in a building on the far side of the yard.
Lando stood where he was, then decided to fall down, since the quake threatened to do it to him anyway, and there was less chance of getting shot. Suddenly, a figure in the town-cop uniform, mirrored helmet visor and all, staggered up to the warden or whatever he was.
Lando could hear him over the rumble, roar, and screaming.
“That man is to be turned over for further interrogation!”
Star Wars - The Adventures of Lando Calrissian Trilogy Page 15
