The Lavalite World

by Philip José Farmer

  "Now, what's to prevent us from getting Orc to blow the notes for us? Then we can make a recording of it and use it to open the gate."

  Anana shook her head. "It doesn't work that way. It's been tried before, it's so obvious. But there's something in the machinery in the Horn that adds an element missing in recordings."

  "I was afraid of that," he said. "But I had to ask. Look, Anana. Urthona must have planted gates all over this place. We've probably passed dozens without knowing it because they are inside the walls. Logically, many if not most of them will be quick emergency routes from one place in this building to another. So Urthona could outsmart anyone who was close on his heels.

  "But there have to be a few which would gate him to another world. Only to be used in cases of direst emergency. One of them is the gate at the end of the corridor next door. I think..."

  "Not necessarily," Anana said. "For all we know, it leads to the control room or some other place in the palace."

  "No. In that case, the sensors would have shown Orc that the Englishman was in the palace."

  "No. Urthona might have set up places without sensors where he could hide if an enemy had possession of the control room."

  "I'm the Number One trickster, but sometimes I think you sneaky Lords put me to shame. Okay. Just a minute. Let me ask Orc a question." He went to the cube. The Lord, looking very suspicious, said, "What are you two up to now?"

  "Nothing that won't help you," Kickaha said, grinning. "We just don't want you to get a chance to get the drop on us. Tell me. Did the sensor displays in the control room indicate that there were hidden auxiliary sensor systems?"

  "Why would you want to know?"

  "Damn it!" Kickaha said. "You're wasting our time. Remember, I have to spring you if only to get the Horn."

  Hesitantly, Orc said. "Yes, there are hidden auxiliary systems. It took me some time to find them. Actually, I wasn't looking for them. I discovered them while I was looking for something else. I checked them out and noted that they were in rooms not covered by the main system. But since nobody was using them, I assumed that no one was in them. It was inconceivable that anyone in a room where they were wouldn't be trying to find out where I was."

  "I hope your memory's good. Where are they?"

  "My memory is superb," Orc said stiffly. "I am not one of you sub-beings."

  Kickaha grimaced. The Lords had the most sensitive and gangrenous egos he'd ever encountered. A good thing for him, though. He'd never have survived his conflicts with them if they hadn't always used part of their minds to feed their own egos. They were never really capable of one hundred percent mental concentration.

  Well, he, Kickaha, had a big ego, too. But a healthy one.

  The Lord remembered only a few of the locations of the auxiliary sensor systems. He couldn't be blamed for that since there were so many. But he was able to give Kickaha directions to three of them. He also gave him some instructions on how to operate them.

  Just to make sure he hadn't been neglecting another source of information, Kickaha asked robots One and Two about the sensors. They were aware of only that in the control room. Urthona had not trusted them with any more data than he thought necessary for his comfort and protection.

  Kickaha thought that if he had been master of this palace, he would have installed a safety measure in the robots. When asked certain questions, they would have refused to answer them. Or pretended that they didn't know.

  Which, now that he thought about it, might be just what was happening. But they'd given him data that Urthona might not want his enemies to have. So possibly, they were not lying.

  He took One with him, leaving Anana to keep an eye on her uncle. It wasn't likely that he'd be going any place or doing anything worth noticing. But you never knew.

  The hidden system console was in a room behind a wall in a much larger room on the tenth floor. Lacking the codeword to gate through, he and One tore part of the wall down. He turned on the console and, with One's aid, checked out the entire building. It was done swiftly, the glowing diagrams of the rooms flashing by too swiftly on the screen for Kickaha to see anything but a blur. But a computer in One's body sorted them out.

  When the operation was complete, One said, "There are one hundred and ten chambers which the sensors do not monitor."

  Kickaha groaned and said. "You mean we'd have to get into all of them to make sure no living being is in one of them?"

  "That is one method."

  "What's the other?"

  "This system can monitor the control chamber. It's controlled by that switch there." One pointed. "That also enables the operator to hook into the control-room sensories. These can be used to look into the one hundred and ten chambers. The man named Orc did not know that. The switch is not on the panel in the control room however. It is under the panel and labeled as an energy generator control. Only the master knew about it."

  "Then how did you come to know about it?"

  "I learned about it while I was scanning the displays here."

  "Then why didn't you tell me?"

  "You didn't ask me."

  Kickaha repressed another groan. The robots were so smart yet so dumb.

  "Connect this system with the control room's."

  "Yes, master."

  One strode ponderously to the control board and turned a switch marked, in Lord letters: HEAT. Heat for what? Obviously, it was so designated to make any unauthorized operator ignore it. Immediately, lights began pulsing here and there, a switch turned by itself, and one of the large video screens above the panel came to life.

  Kickaha looked into the room from a unit apparently high on the wall and pointing downward. It was directed toward the central chair in a row of five or six before the wide panel. In this sat a man with his back to Kickaha.

  For a second he thought that it must be the Englishman who had helped Orc. But this man was bigger than the one described by Orc, and his hair was not brown but yellow.

  He was looking at a video screen just above him. It showed Kickaha and the robot behind him, looking at the man.

  The operator rose with a howl of fury, spun out of his chair, and shook his fist at the unit receiving his image.

  He was Urthona.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The lord was clad only in a ragged skin bound around his waist. A longitudinal depression, the scan from the axe wound, ran down the center of his chest. His hair fell over his shoulders to his nipples. His skin was smeared with the oily dirt of his world, and a bump on his forehead indicated a hard contact with some harder object. Moreover, his nose had been broken.

  Kickaha was shocked for a few seconds, then he went into action. He ran toward the switch to turn it off. Urthona's voice screamed through the video. "One! Kill him! Kill him!"

  "Kill who, master?" One said calmly.

  "You blithering metal idiot! That man! Kickaha!"

  Kickaha turned the switch and whirled. The robot was advancing on him, its arms out, fingers half-clenched.

  Kickaha drew his knife. Shockingly, Urthona's voice came out of the robot's unmoving lips. "I see you, you leblabbiy! I'm going to kill you!"

  For a second Kickaha didn't know what was happening. Then illumination came. Urthona had switched on a transceiver inside the robot's body and was speaking through it. Probably, he was also watching his victim-to-be through One's eyes.

  That had one advantage for Kickaha. As long as Urthona was watching the conflict from the control room, he wasn't gating here.

  Kickaha leaped toward the robot, stopped, jumped back, slashed with his knife with no purpose but to test the speed of One's reaction. The robot made no attempt to parry with his arm or grab the knife, however. He continued walking toward Kickaha.

  Kickaha leaped past One and his blade flickered in and out. Score one. The point had broken the shield painted to look like a human eyeball. But had it destroyed the video sensor behind it?

  No time to find out. He came in again, this time on
the left side. The robot was still turning when the knife shattered the other eyeball.

  By now Kickaha knew that One wasn't quick enough for him. It undoubtedly was far stronger, but here swiftness was the key to victory. He ran around behind One and stopped. The robot continued on its path. It had to be blinded, which meant that Urthona would know this and would at once take some other action.

  He looked around quickly. There were stretches of bare wall which could conceal a gate. But wouldn't Urthona place the gate where he could step out hidden from the sight of anyone in the room? Such as, for instance, the space behind the control console. It wasn't against the wall.

  He ran to it and stepped behind it. Seconds, a minute, passed. Was Urthona delaying because he wanted to get a weapon first? If so, he would have to go to a hidden cache, since Orc had jettisoned every weapon he could locate.

  Or was the staying in the control room, where he was safe? From there he could order all the robots in the palace and there were several score or more, to converge on this room.

  Or had he gated to a room nearby and now was creeping up on his enemy? If so, he would make sure he had a beamer in his hand.

  There was a thump as the robot blindly blundered into the wall. At least, Kickaha supposed that was the noise. He didn't want to stick his head out to see.

  His only warning was a shimmering, a circle of wavy light taller than a tall man, on the wall to his right. Abruptly, it became a round hole in the wall. Urthona stepped through it, but Kickaha was upon him, hurling him back, desperate to get both of them in the control room before the gate closed.

  They fell out onto the floor, Kickaha on top of the Lord, fingers locked on the wrist of the hand that held a beamer. The other laid the edge of the knife against the jugular vein. Urthona's eyes were glazed, the back of his head having thumped against the floor.

  Kickaha twisted the wrist; the beamer clattered on the tile floor. He rolled away, grabbed the weapon, and was up on his feet.

  Snarling, shaking, Urthona started to get up. He sank down as Kickaha ordered him to stay put.

  The robot, Number Six, started towards them. Kickaha quickly ordered Urthona to command Six to take no action. The Lord did so, and the robot retreated to a wall.

  Grinning, Kickaha said, "I never thought the day'd come when I'd be glad to see you. But I am. You're the cat's paw that pulled the chestnuts out of the fire for me. Me and Anana."

  Urthona looked as if he just couldn't believe that this was happening to him. No wonder. After all he'd endured and the good luck he'd had to find a boulder with a gate in it. For all he knew, his enemies were stranded on his world or more probably dead. He was king of the palace again.

  It must have been a shock when he found the door to the control room welded shut. Somebody had gotten in after all. Possibly a Lord of another world who'd managed to gate in, though that wasn't likely. He must have figured that somehow Orc or Anana and Kickaha had gotten in. But they couldn't get into the control room, where the center of power was. The first thing he had probably done though, was to cancel the decaying orbit of his palace. After setting it in a safe path, he would have started checking the sensory system. The regular one, first. No doubt one of the flashing red lights on the central console indicated that someone was in a trap. He'd checked that and discovered that Orc was in the cube.

  But he must also have seen Anana. Had he ordered the robot Two to kill her?

  He asked Urthona. The Lord shook his head as if he was trying to throw his troubles out.

  "No," he said slowly. "I saw her there, but she wasn't doing anything to endanger me for the moment. I started then to check out the auxiliary sensories just to make sure no one else was aboard. I hadn't gotten to the room in which you were yet. You connected with the control room... and... damn you! If only I'd gotten here a few minutes earlier."

  "It's all in the timing," Kickaha said, smiling. "Now let us get on with it. You're probably thinking I'm going to kill you or perhaps stick you in that wheeled cage and let you starve to death. It's not a bad idea, but I prefer contemplating the theory to putting it into practice.

  "I promised Orc I'd let him go if he cooperated. He hasn't done a thing to help, but I can't hold that against him. He hasn't had a chance.

  "Now, if you cooperate, too, Urthona, I'll let you live and I won't torture you. I need to get Orc, your beloved brother, out of that trap so I can get my hands on the Horn. But first, let's check that your story is true. God help you if it isn't."

  He stood behind the Lord just far enough away so that if he tried to turn and snatch at the beamer he'd be out of reach. The weapon was set on low-stun. Urthona worked the controls, and the concealed TV of the auxiliary system looked into the room with the cube. Orc was still in his prison; Anana and Two were standing by the hole in the wall.

  Kickaha called her name. She looked up with a soft cry. He told her not to be frightened, and he outlined what had happened.

  "So things are looking good again," he said. "Orc, your brother is going to gate you into the control room. First, though, put the beamer down on the table. Don't try anything. We'll be watching you. Keep hold of the Horn. That's it. Now go to the corner where you appeared in the cube when you were gated through. Okay. Stand still. Don't move or you'll lose a foot or something."

  Urthona reached for a button. Kickaha said, "Hold it. I'm not through. Anana, you know where I went. Go up there and stand by the wall behind the control console there. Then step through the gate when it appears. Oh, you'll meet a blind robot, poor old One. I'll order it to stand still so it won't bother you."

  Urthona walked stiffly to a console at one end of the enormous room. His hands were tightly clenched; his jaw was clamped; he was quivering.

  "You should be jumping with joy," Kickaha said. "You're going to live. You'll get another chance at the three of us some day."

  "You don't expect me to believe that?"

  "Why not? Did I ever do anything you anticipated?"

  He directed the Lord to show him the unmarked controls which would bring Orc back. Urthona stepped back to allow Kickaha to operate. The redhead, however, said, "You do it."

  It was possible that the controls, moved in the manner shown, would send a high voltage through him.

  Urthona shrugged. He flipped a toggle switch, pressed a button, and stepped away from the console. To the left, the bare wall shimmered for a few seconds. A hemisphere of swirling colors bulged out from it, and then it collapsed. Red Orc stood with his back almost touching the wall.

  Kickaha said, "Put the Horn down and push it with your foot toward me."

  The Lord obeyed. Kickaha, keeping an eye on both of them, bent down and picked up the Horn.

  "Ha! Mine again!"

  Five minutes later, Anana stepped out of the same gate through which Kickaha and Urthona had fallen.

  Her uncles looked as if this was the end of the last act. They fully expected to be slain on the spot. At one time, Kickaha would have been angered because neither had the least notion that he deserved to be executed. There was no use getting upset, however. He had learned long ago not to be disturbed by the self-righteous and the psychopath, if there was any difference between the two.

  "Before we part," he said. "I'd like to clear up a few things, if possible. Urthona, do you know anything about an Englishman, supposedly born in the eighteenth century? Red Orc found him living in this place when he entered."

  Urthona looked surprised. "Someone else got into here?"

  "That tells me how much you know. Well, maybe I'll run across him some other time. Urthona, your niece has explained something about the energy converter that powers this floating fairy castle. She told me that any converter can be set to overload, but an automatic regulator will cut it back to override that. Unless you remove the regulator. I want you to fix the overload to reach its peak in fifteen minutes. You'll cut the regulator out of the line."

  Urthona paled. "Why? You... you mean to blow me up?"

>   "No. You'll be long gone from here when it blows. I intend to destroy your palace. You'll never be able to use it again."

  Urthona didn't ask what would happen if he refused. Under the keen eye of Anana, he set the controls. A large red light began flashing on a console. A display flashed, in Lord letters, OVERLOAD. A whistle shrilled.

  Even Anana looked uneasy. Kickaha smiled, though he was as nervous as anybody.

  "Okay. Now open the gates to Earth and to Jadawin's world."

  He had carefully noted the control which could put the overload regulator back into the line if Urthona tried any tricks.

  "I know you can't help being treacherous and sneaky, Urthona," Kickaha said. "But repress your natural viciousness. Refrain from pulling a fast one. My beamer's set on cutting. I'll slice you at the first false move."

  Urthona did not reply.

  On the towering blank wall two circular shimmerings appeared. They cleared away. One showed the inside to a cave, the same one through which Kickaha and Anana had entered southern California. The other revealed the slope of a wooded valley, a broad green river at the foot. And, far away, smoke rising from the chimneys of a tiny village and a stone castle on a rocky bluff above it. The sky was a bright green.

  Kickaha looked pleased.

  "That looks like Dracheland. The third level, Abharhploonta. Either of you ever been there?"

  "I've made some forays into Jadawin's world," Urthona said. I planned someday to... to..."

  "Take over from Jadawin? Forget it. Now, Urthona, activate a gate that'll take you to the surface of your planet."

  Urthona gasped and said, "But you said... ! Surely... ? You're not going to abandon me here?"

  "Why not? You made this world. You can live in it the rest of your life. Which will probably be short and undoubtedly will be miserable. As the Terrestrials say, let the punishment fit the crime."

  "That isn't right!" Urthona said. "You are letting Orc go back to Earth. It isn't what I'd call a first-rate world, but compared to this, it's a paradise."

  "Look who's talking about right. You're not going to beg, are you? You, a lord among the Lords?"