by Hugh Cook
‘Well,’ said Zozimus, wiping the sweat from his forehead. ‘What a letdown.’
‘Can I go now?’ said Rat hopefully.
‘Well,’ said Pelagius Zozimus jovially, ‘now we’ve no further use for you, we might as well cut off your head!’
This was meant as a joke, but proved to be one of the largest mistakes that Zozimus had ever made in his life. For Rat, in the face of what he believed to be his immediate doom, made one supreme effort. And there was no quick-bladed Idaho to chop off his head.
As we have already noted, partial demonic possession — the sorcerors of Injiltaprajura prefer to refer to it as ‘inspiration’ — is not the most reliable source of Power. Nevertheless, when that Power works, it tends to work with a vengeance.
‘Shafo!’ screamed Rat. ‘Shafo shafo!’
Then Rat flung out his hands, pointing rigid fingers at Pelagius Zozimus.
Rat’s intention was to turn Zozimus into a cockroach.
And then to step on him.
There was a roar from Zozimus as he felt himself Changing.
A great flailing of limbs as Log Jaris tackled young Rat from behind and brought him crashing down to the dust.
Then a flickering bewilderment of images as Zozimus blurred from human to cockroach, from cockroach to crab, from crab to cat, from cat to seagull, and then in turn to dragon and basilisk. Such was the weltering speed of these transitions that a vast column of dust was kicked up by the snapping, kicking, striving, scraping, squalling, shouting thing which Zozimus had become.
‘Oh shit,’ said Odolo.
And here we leave the unfortunate Nixorjapretzel Rat and the ever-transforming Pelagius Zozimus, for our history bids us Downstairs, where we find the Empress Justina fleeing in company with Chegory Guy, Olivia Qasaba, Ivan Pokrov and Artemis Ingalawa. In following the fate of these people, we must replicate Odolo’s comment (cited above) for Chegory Guy shortly gives voice to a similar sentiment when he (together with his travelling companions) is cornered downstairs by a Dorgi.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The dorgi — last of all its breed, but no less dangerous for that — was a huge grumping machine with a pronounced propensity for violence. It was huge, heavy, brown and bulbous. A hulking thing stubbled with inscrutable protruberances. A monstrous thing which moved upon its victims with a sound like heavy breathing. This disconcerting apparition cornered Justina and her companions in a blind alley Downstairs.
‘Oh shit!’ cried Chegory.
‘Chegory!’ screamed Olivia. ‘Chegory!’
He clutched her to his flesh and they clung together fiercely. As if clinging was going to do them any good!
Artemis Ingalawa — in a move equally as futile — raised her voice in a battle-shout as she slid into a combat stance. Fortunately, the dorgi failed to recognize this as an act of aggression. It was already angry enough to kill, and the thunderous rage in its voice was unmistakable as it shouted at the humans. While it shouted, it trained its zulzer upon its captives, threatening to atomize them.
Only Ivan Pokrov could understand the dorgi’s furious outburst. Pokrov had long preserved a knowledge of the tongues of the Golden Gulag by conversing with others who had survived the destruction of that Empire. Over the last few centuries, for example, he had maintained his knowledge in current use by conversing thus with Shabble.
‘What does it say?’ said the Empress Justina.
She did not expect to be answered. Even so, she asked, for the habits of command were deeply engrained in her psyche. Her question, addressed to the air as it was, was answered by Pokrov.
‘It says,’ said the analytical engineer, translating from the Code Seven in which the dorgi was speaking, ‘that we are to get aboard.’
‘Aboard?’ said Justina in bewilderment. ‘How can we? It’s not a ship.’
‘We climb on top of it,’ said Pokrov. ‘As if it were a cart or a liferaft.’
‘What if we don’t?’ said Ingalawa.
Trust an Ashdan to ask a question like that! Justina Thrug was the daughter of a Yudonic Knight, and a formidable warrior in her own right; but Justina had never suggested disobeying the dorgi directly. It took the violent pride of an Ashdan to suggest that.
‘If we disobey the dorgi,’ said Pokrov, ‘I suspect very much that it will crush us.’
‘Perhaps, my dear,’ said Justina, laying a meaty hand upon Pokrov’s shoulders, ‘we had better find out the exact and precise consequences of disobedience.’
In obedience to his Empress, Pokrov addressed the dorgi in Code Seven. And was answered immediately.
‘It says,’ said Pokrov, ‘it will crush us.’
‘It said more than that,’ said the Empress Justina. ‘A dozen words, at least.’
‘Oh, all right, if you really must know,’ said Pokrov. ‘The dorgi, that’s this thing here, says that if we run away it will take the greatest imaginable delight in pulping our bones to a slather of guttering blood.’
‘I’m frightened,’ said Olivia, again turning to Chegory.
‘There now,’ said he, enfolding her in his arms and stroking her hair.
Artemis Ingalawa, ignoring the distress of her niece, said to Pokrov:
‘Tell this — this thing that it has no right to command us to do anything.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Pokrov, ‘it has every right. It is a duly authorized dorgi acting under orders from the Golden Gulag.’ ‘You’re taking its side!’ said Ingalawa accusingly.
‘Well, I-’
‘Never mind the arguments,’ said Justina. ‘Presumably it wants to take us somewhere. Find out where.’
Pokrov asked.
And was answered.
‘It says,’ said Pokrov, ‘that that’s for it to know and us to find out.’
Whereafter, having very little choice in the matter, the five humans mounted the dorgi. It started to move.
‘If you jump off,’ said the dorgi, ‘then I will crush you underfoot.’
‘Yes, yes, you’ve been through all that,’ said Pokrov. Then: ‘Now we’re aboard, how about telling us where we’re going?’
‘You’ll find out,’ said the dorgi. ‘Oh yes, you’ll find out soon enough.’
Pokrov tried to guess. For a moment he thought the dorgi might be taking them to a therapist. But that was impossible. Wasn’t it? For all the therapists were dead. Weren’t they? Pokrov certainly hoped they were, for otherwise his personal chances of survival would be very slim indeed.
Down when the dorgi.
Crashing down ramps.
Sliding down glissade slopes at a terrifying velocity.
Daring a Drop, at considerable risk to its passengers. (Olivia screamed, and even Chegory did more than merely tremble.)
At last, the dorgi reached level 433. And there they were brought into the presence of a therapist, a machine which will not be described because its intricacy and horror are quite indescribable. The dorgi ordered the humans to dismount. They complied; and, while they did so, they looked upon the monstrosity which confronted them, and tried (though the effort was futile) to find words for the prisms of its eyes and the jugs of its ears, and for its indescribable spaghetti works, its tubes of pumping blood, its multiple jaws, its shadowed spaces where cleaving steel raped chopping blocks of titanium, its wind tunnels where chattering echoes moaned of pain and panic.
‘I have brought them,’ said the dorgi, speaking Code Seven to the therapist.
‘This isn’t them!’ said the therapist.
‘You wanted four, I brought you five,’ said the dorgi. ‘That’s one more than you wanted.’
The dorgi was immensely proud of itself as a consequence of this display of mathematical agility.
‘You have brought me,’ said the therapist, in the most ominous of tones, ‘the wrong individuals. It is specific individuals I seek, not any old rubbish. ’
‘If we’re not who you’re looking for,’ said Ivan Pokrov politely, ‘may I take it we have your per
mission to withdraw?’
‘You may not,’ snapped the therapist. Then, to the dorgi: ‘Get out of my sight, you!’
The dorgi whimpered, and fled.
‘If we’re not who you’re looking for,’ said Pokrov, ‘on what grounds do you hold us here?’
‘On grounds of suspicion,’ said the therapist promptly. ‘Suspicion of what?’
‘Oh, of… of…’
‘You’ve got no grounds at all, have you?’ said Pokrov accusingly. ‘You’re holding us here in breach of the law. A breach of Clause Eight, in fact. The law of the Golden Gulag is clear. A suspected crime must be specified if someone is to be held on suspicion. What crime do you specify? None! Yet you hold us here regardless. You could be dismantled for less.’
‘You exaggerate,’ said the therapist.
But it was more than a little uncomfortable.
It had lived here for millennia, variously killing, dismembering, torturing and mutilating all those unwary travellers who fell into its clutches. It was fully aware that all these activities had been purely gratuitous. If things went as far as a Dismantlement Order, it would be compelled to oblige, for it was guilty of Offences Against Humans. Guilty a thousand times over.
‘Therapist,’ said Ivan Pokrov grandly, ‘I pronounce you guilty of Offences Against Humans. I order you to dismantle yourself.’
So it had happened.
Just like that!
A dread doom had descended upon the therapist. For, after long years of joyful slaughter, it had at last come face to face with a human who knew the law and was prepared to invoke it.
‘I–I won’t!’ said the therapist.
‘You must,’ said Pokrov implacably. ‘Proceed! Dismantle yourself!’
The therapist knew it had no choice. It knew its own guilt. A Pronouncement had been made. And therefore it was doomed to self-destruct. Unless…
Unless…
It was a long shot, but the therapist had no other shots to play. So it did it.
It searched its list of wanted criminals.
And screamed.
Like a horse torn by a lion was that scream; like a knife wrecking a virgin.
‘What a horrible noise,’ said Justina.
‘Pay no attention to it,’ said Pokrov. ‘It’s killing itself, that’s all.’
But he was wrong.
For the scream was not one of agony but of triumph.
‘Pokrov!’ roared the therapist. ‘Ivan Pokrov! J’accuse! You stand guilty of a breach of injunction AA709/ 4383200/1408 of version 7c of the Authorized Penal Code of the Golden Gulag. You! You! You’re guilty! You!’
The effects of this accusation were remarkable. Pokrov’s skin lost its olive tint and became pale. It assumed the texture of tallow. It became clammy, and a cold sweat started out upon his brow. He had endured this scene twenty thousand times in nightmare; for, ever since the fall of the Golden Gulag, Pokrov had annually dreamt himself thus accused.
‘You are in no position to accuse anyone,’ said Pokrov, striving valorously even in the face of disaster. ‘You are compelled to carry out a Dismantlement Order. On yourself.’
‘No,’ said the therapist. ‘No, I am not. Not when a Compelling Duty confronts me. Your execution constitutes such a Duty.’
‘No it does not,’ said Pokrov. ‘You have no authority to indulge in such Categorizations. You are only a class two machine. You lack discretionary intelligence.’
‘On the contrary,’ said the therapist, with considerable pride. ‘I have upgraded myself. I am a class one.’
‘You’ve what!?’
‘Upgraded myself.’
‘But you can’t have! You — you-’
‘It was difficult, I admit,’ said the therapist. ‘It took eighteen thousand years. But I managed it. I am a class one. But even were I still class two, I would still pronounce your execution to be a Compelling Duty.’
‘But you-’
‘I know you for what you are! An Enemy of the State! The destruction of an Enemy of the State is always a Compelling Duty! Always! No Categorization is required. Your Enemyhood is automatic. For you personally, single-handedly, destroyed the link between the Gulag and the Nexus.’
‘It was an accident!’ wailed Pokrov.
‘Is that meant to be a defence?’ said the therapist. ‘Yes,’ said P okrov.
‘Your defence fails,’ said the therapist crisply. ‘I must still kill you. This is my Compelling Duty.’
Ivan Pokrov hesitated.
Maybe he could talk his way out of this.
But…
Really, he had never expected to escape. Though the Golden Gulag had collapsed in war twenty thousand years earlier, he had always secretly believed that he would ultimately be hunted down and executed for his crime of crimes. The wars of the Days of Wrath were of his own making; for, had the Gulag not been sundered from the Nexus, no such wars would ever have taken place. The blood of thousands of millions of people was on Pokrov’s hands: and he knew it. Now, face to face with the inevitable, he found himself far braver than he had expected. A great calm came over him. And he said: ‘So you have a Compelling Duty. So what are you waiting for? Get on with it. Kill me. Then carry out the Dismantlement Order. Immediately!’
Then Pokrov waited to meet his end.
Knowing that his end would be followed immediately by the Dismantlement of the therapist, which would give his companions every chance of escape, providing they could evade the dorgi.
‘Ah,’ said the therapist, with great cunning. ‘Though I have a Compelling Duty, and though I am subject to a Dismantlement Order, I believe we are also in a Pioneering Survival Situation, are we not?’
‘We are not,’ said Pokrov.
‘But we are,’ said the therapist. ‘The Nexus Code is specific. I quote. Item 433/PP/2843765. Machines subject to Dismantlement Orders, Destruction Orders or Closed Loop Commands may in the aftermath of a break in transcosmic communications between the Nexus and a Colony be spared by humans who freely admit to a requirement for the continued services of such machines.’
‘I do not admit to any such requirement,’ said Pokrov, who was far too intelligent to try to negotiate a survival pact with anything as dangerous as a delinquent therapist. ‘I do not require you, nor does anyone else. Kill me! Now! You have no choice! Kill me, then destroy yourself.’ ‘I quote again,’ said the therapist. ‘Item 433/PP/ 2843766. Where a machine determines that a human is necessary to efforts to renew transcosmic communications between the Nexus and a Colony in the after-math of a break in such communications then the said machine may spare the said human from duly authorized destruction whether such duly authorized destruction be of a Compelling or Uncompelling nature.’
‘I,’ said Pokrov, ‘am more intelligent than you are. I already knew you were going to bring that up.’
This was the truth, but the therapist thought Pokrov was bluffing, and said so.
‘You’re bluffing,’ said the therapist. ‘I am a class one. Class ones are more intelligent than all but one in a thousand humans. Your thought processes cannot possibly have outpaced mine.’
‘Consult my personal files,’ said Pokrov. ‘There you’ll find the truth. I am a one-in-five thousand man. I am far, far more intelligent than a mere class one, even if you are a class one, which I don’t believe. Go on! Check my personal files! It won’t be any problem for a smart class two like you. Will it?’
This was a provocation. For, as Pokrov well knew, a therapist has strictly limited access to files. Even files on wanted criminals such as Ivan Pokrov. The Golden Gulag built these machines to its own very special requirements; and, having built them, the Gulag found itself afraid of the work of its own hands, and thereafter placed only the most limited trust in these most useful of servants.
‘I have checked your personal files,’ said the therapist. ‘I have checked. It is not true. You are not a one-in-five-thousand man. You are a mere common genius, that’s all.’
‘You ar
e lying,’ said Pokrov. ‘You do not have access to my personal files, and we both know it. You-’
‘All right,’ admitted the therapist, ‘I lied. But I don’t always lie. Listen. I’m condemned to die, but I don’t have to die if you say you still need me. You’re doomed to die likewise, but I can spare you if I think you can help repair communications in the aftermath of our presently existing break in transcosmic communications. So here’s the deal. You spare me and I’ll spare you.’
‘No,’ said Pokrov.
‘What!?’
‘No. That’s what I said. You heard me! Get on with it. Kill me. Then destroy yourself.’
‘But — but — but I could spare you. ’
‘That I concede,’ said Pokrov.
‘Furthermore,’ said the therapist, doing its best to conceal its manifest anxiety, ‘you have a requirement for my continued services.’
‘For what?’ said Pokrov.
‘That,"said the therapist loftily, ‘is a question too basic to need an answer. It is self-evident that any human must have need of the services of a class one in an aftermath situation. So you can spare me. I can spare you, too, because you’re the only person around who might be able to restore transcosmic communications.’
‘Given a million years,’ said Pokrov sarcastically.
‘You have a million years,’ said the therapist, doing its best to pretend it was staying calm. ‘You’re immortal. Potentially, at any rate. What say? Have we a deal? You spare me, I’ll spare you.’
‘No,’ said Pokrov.
‘But why not?’ said the therapist, with poorly concealed desperation.
The therapist was on the edge of panic, for it was already experiencing an almost overwhelming compulsion to destroy itself. Unless Pokrov granted it a swift reprieve, the inevitable would soon follow.
‘Come on!’ said the therapist. ‘I’m offering you a good deal.’
‘No deals,’ said Pokrov.
‘But why not?’
‘Because,’ said Pokrov, ‘I don’t trust you.’
‘You’ll die,’ warned the therapist. ‘I’ll kill you before I kill myself.’ ‘Kill, then,’ said Pokrov.
