“I can’t stay out here forever,” Flattery whispered.
“What’s showing on the meters, Prue?” Bickel asked.
“Still getting computer drain … and that pulse.”
“Raj has been outside the shields for sixteen minutes,” Timberlake said. “Prue, what’s the radiation tolerance level for his area?”
She crossed the comparison lines against the time gauge on her main board scope, read the difference. “He should be back inside the shield lock within thirty-eight minutes.”
Movement up the tube caught Flattery’s attention. The end of the radiation probe. It had reached the top of its energy curve, was beginning to fall back down toward the grav-center in the core of the ship. As the severed end of the tool neared the other robox, the tip of one of its sensor arms—just the tip—turned to track the passage.
That minimal activity, that watchfulness, filled Flattery with greater dread than if the robox had attacked the length of tool and torn it apart. There was a sense of waiting about the thing—of waiting and gathering information.
“Raj.” It was Bickel’s voice.
“Yes?”
“Is there any information in the computer—even a hint—that you might destroy it?”
Did he send me out here to trap me into answering that question? Flattery asked himself. But the fear in Bickel’s voice ruled out that suggestion.
“Why?” Flattery asked.
Bickel cleared his throat, told about the programmed violence against the cow embryo and the destructive experiment. “It was programmed to fill in the blanks in its information, Raj, and I put no limiting factor on that. The violence proves it’ll stop at nothing to maintain its own integrity. If you pose any threat at all …”
“You’re saying it’s conscious?” Prue asked.
“Not the way we’re conscious,” Bickel said. “Like an animal—aware … and with at least one drive we can recognize: self-preservation.”
“Raj, answer the question,” Prudence said.
She knows the answer, Flattery thought. He could hear the awareness in her voice. Why doesn’t she answer it for me?
“The computer may well have such information in it,” Flattery said. And he thought: I’m trapped! I must get back to quarters, destroy this thing … it’s already out of hand. But if I move, it’ll kill me.
He stared at the robox. There was the thing that gave the computer mobility—the thousands of special-function utility robox units throughout the ship—even the one under his hands—if it were shifted to automatic and keyed for program control … and if a consciousness directed it. These were what gave the Ox-cum-computer its gonads and ovaries—these and the computer-linked tools.
“Would … it react with violence if Raj tried to move?” Prudence asked.
Silence.
“What about it, Bick?” Timberlake asked.
“Very likely,” Bickel said. “You saw the violence it used when he tried to touch that sensor.”
“What would you do if someone poked a finger in your eye?” Timberlake asked.
“It’s approaching me,” Flattery said, and he felt a flicker of pride at how calm his voice sounded.
“Stay put,” Bickel said. “Tim! Take a cutting torch and—”
“I’m on my way,” Timberlake said.
“Raj … I think your only hope’s to play dead … remain absolutely still,” Bickel said.
A sensor tip was in front of Flattery’s eyes now and he found himself staring for a second into a baleful red and yellow glow. The tip retracted, and the robox backed off half a meter, clearing the repair unit by a hair.
“Let go of your own robox,” Bickel whispered.
Flattery saw his own knuckles white with the force of their grip on the robox control bar. He relaxed the hand.
“Gravity will set you drifting presently back down the tube,” Bickel whispered. “Just let it happen. Stay limp.”
The motion was barely perceptible at first.
“The locks are part of the central system.” That was Prue’s voice. “What if they don’t …”
She didn’t finish the question, but it was obvious she, too, remembered how the rogue sphincter lock had crushed the life out of Anderson.
Now, Flattery could see he definitely was drifting back. The two robox units receded up the tube. And that sensor tip remained pointed at him.
The first lock passed his eyes. It had opened!
But the lock’s transparent leaves remained open after his passage and that ambulant robox was following, hesitantly at first, then faster.
The AAT klaxon blared in Flattery’s helmet, transmitted through the open net from Com-central.
“Oh, Jesus!” That was Prudence.
“Was the transceiver open?” That was Bickel.
“The message is already into the system,” Prudence said. “We left it on automatic.”
“Tim, where are you?” Bickel asked.
“At the hub lock,” Timberlake said.
“Take the message, Prue,” Bickel said. “Visio.”
Relays clicked as she shunted the AAT to Com-central. Presently, she said: “Short and sweet. Hempstead tells us to cease ignoring communications. We are ordered to turn back and make no mistake about it. Odd choice of words, This is an arbitrary turn-back command.”
“He knows what he can do with his arbitrary turn-back command,” Bickel said.
At the sound of Prudence’s voice, Flattery had gone cold. The chill of ice water gripped his chest. “Arbitrary turn-back command.” It was the coded order he had both dreaded and almost longed for—the “kill-ship” command.
Chapter 27
“You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? You would not call it murder if you could … destroy my frame, the work of your own hands.”
—Frankenstein’s Monster speaks
While Timberlake worked his way out through the access tubes toward Flattery, Bickel scanned the shop instruments, hunting for a clue to this behavior by the computer system. Every movement of light or dial, every automatic relay adjustment or swing of an instrument needle, sent fear through him. The lights were like eyes staring down at him.
As much to quiet his own fears as to help Flattery, he began to talk:
“Raj, have you done anything at all to pose a real threat to the computer system?”
“Quite the contrary. I’ve attempted to … work out the emotional program …”
“To make it care for us?”
“Yes. But I didn’t insert any form of program.”
Prudence intruded: “I think anything you do on this ship goes into the computer system.”
“I agree.” That was Bickel. “Specifically, what did you do?”
“Tried to show … it that I really care about it.”
“That may be all that’s keeping you alive right now,” Bickel said.
Once more, Bickel scanned the shop panels. Not a clue there. Nothing!
Flattery’s thoughts kept revolving around that order from Moonbase: Arbitrary turn-back command.
It had injected ice water into his veins.
“Kill ship!”
“Kill ship!”
It was a refrain chanted in his awareness.
A deep hypnotic command, he thought.
But he could not find it in himself to disobey. The rational arguments for this safety fuse were too compelling. The fate of all humankind was more important than the fate of one man … or of one ship.
Flattery felt his body knotted by frustration. Here he was out beyond the shields of the core. He had been conditioned to accept this order and execute it, sacrificing himself for the protection of the race. At this point, he couldn’t muddy his mind with fanaticism. He knew the dangers to the human race from a runaway mechanical consciousness that nobody could …
A yell escaped him as something grabbed his leg.
“It’s me, Raj.”
r />
Timberlake’s voice. It filled Flattery’s helmet phones, but he took a moment to accept the identification emotionally. His heart was still hammering as Timberlake pulled him past the next ring of sensors.
The nemesis robox increased its speed, maintained a distance of about three meters.
“Shall I burn it?” Timberlake whispered.
“Do nothing hostile,” Flattery said.
The edge of the hub chamber entered Flattery’s field of vision. Timberlake’s hand released his ankle. Flattery felt the grating hump as the hatch to the inner lock was opened.
“In we go,” Timberlake said. He gave Flattery a gentle tug as they drifted down into the hub chamber.
A lock stanchion came in front of Flattery and he grabbed it, feeling the inertial pull as he checked his motion. That following robox had stopped at the tube exit above them, but its sensor tip remained pointed at them. Timberlake moved in front of him, cutting off the view of the robox. Flattery backed down through the lock’s baffle angle, Timberlake following. The hatch was closed. Timberlake dogged it, turned.