Part 6 (1/2)

”Are you going to answer my question?” the voice said suddenly.

”Yes, Brant said. ”I advise you to turn yourself in. The Astrid proves your point-and also proves that your research was a blind alley. There's no point in your proceeding to make more Astrids; you're aware yourself that you're incapable of improving on the model now.”

”That's contrary to what I have recorded,” the voice said. ”My ultimate purpose as a man was to build machines like this. I can't accept your answer: it conflicts with my primary directive. Please follow the lights to your quarters.”

”What are you going to do with me?”

”Take you to the base.”

”What for?” Brant said.

”As a stock of parts,” said the voice. ”Please follow the lights, or I'll have to use force.”

Brant followed the lights. As he entered the cabin to which they led him, a disheveled figure arose from one of the two cots. He started back in alarm. The figure chuckled wryly and displayed a frayed bit of gold braid on its sleeve.

”I'm not as terrifying as I look,” he said. ”Lt. Powell of the UN scout Iapetus, at your service.”

”I'm Brant Kittinger, Planetary Inst.i.tute astrophysicist. You're just the faintest bit battered, all right. Did you tangle with Bennett?”

”Is that his name?” The UN patrolman nodded glumly. ”Yes. There's some whoppers of guns mounted on this old tub. I challenged it, and it cut my s.h.i.+p to pieces before I could lift a hand. I barely got into my suit in time-and I'm beginning to wish I hadn't.”

”I don't blame you. You know what he plans to use us for, I judge.”

”Yes,” the pilot said. ”He seems to take pleasure in bragging about his achievements-G.o.d knows they're, amazing enough, if even half of what he says is true.”

”It's all true,” Brant said. ”He's essentially a machine, you know, and as such I doubt that he can lie.”

Powell looked startled. ”That makes it worse. I've been trying to figure a way out-”

Brant raised one hand sharply, and with the other he patted his pockets in search of a pencil. ”If you've found anything, write it down, don't talk about it. I think he can hear us. Is that so, Bennett?”

”Yes,” said the voice in the air. Powell jumped. ”My hearing extends throughout the s.h.i.+p.”

There was silence again. Powell, grim as death, scribbled on a tattered UN trip ticket.

Doesn't matter. Can't think of a thing.

Where's the main computer? Brant wrote. There's where personality residues must lie.

Down below. Not a chance without blaster. Must be eight inches of steel around it. Control nerves the same.

They sat hopelessly on the lower cot. Brant chewed on the pencil. ”How far is his home base from here?” he asked at length.

”Where's here?”

”In the orbit of the new planet.”

Powell whistled. ”In that case, his base can't be more than three days away. I came on board from just off t.i.tan, and he hasn't touched his base since, so his fuel won't last much longer. I know this type of s.h.i.+p well enough. And from what I've seen of the drivers, they haven't been altered.”

”Umm,” Brant said. ”That checks. If Bennett in person never got around to altering the drive, this ersatz Bennett we have here will never get around to it, either.” He found it easier to ignore the listening presence while talking; to monitor his speech constantly with Bennett in mind was too hard on the nerves. ”That gives us three days to get out, then. Or less.”

For at least twenty minutes Brant said nothing more, while the UN pilot squirmed and watched his face hope-fully. Finally the astronomer picked up the piece of paper again.

Can you pilot this s.h.i.+p? he wrote.

The pilot nodded and scribbled: Why?

Without replying, Brant lay back on the bunk, swiveled himself around so that his head was toward the center of the cabin, doubled up his knees, and let fly with both feet. They crashed hard against the hull, the magnetic studs in his shoes leaving bright scars on the metal. The impact sent him sailing like an ungainly fish across the cabin.

”What was that for?” Powell and the voice in the air asked simultaneously. Their captor's tone was faintly curious, but not alarmed.

Brant had his answer already prepared. ”It's part of a question I want to ask,” he said. He brought up against the far wall and struggled to get his feet back to the deck. ”Can you tell me what I did then, Bennett?”

”Why, not specifically. As I told you, I can't see inside the s.h.i.+p. But I get a tactual jar from the nerves of the controls, the lights, the floors, the ventilation system, and so on, and also a ringing sound from the audios. These things tell me that you either stamped on the floor or pounded on the wall. From the intensity of the impressions, I compute that you stamped.”

”You hear and you feel, eh?”

”That's correct,” the voice said. ”Also I can pick up your body heat from the receptors in the s.h.i.+p's temperature control system-a form of seeing, but without any definition.”

Very quietly, Brant retrieved the worn trip ticket and wrote on it: Follow me.

He went out into the corridor and started down it toward the control room, Powell at his heels. The living s.h.i.+p remained silent only for a moment.

”Return to your cabin,” the voice said.

Brant walked a little faster. How would Bennett's vicious brainchild enforce his orders?

”I said, go back to the cabin,” the voice said. Its tone was now loud and harsh, and without a trace of feeling; for the first time, Brant was able to tell that it came from a voder, rather than from a tape-vocabulary of Bennett's own voice. Brant gritted his teeth and marched forward.

”I don't want to have to spoil you,” the voice said. ”For the last time-”

An instant later Brant received a powerful blow in the small of his back. It felled him like a tree, and sent him skimming along the corridor deck like a flat stone. A bare fraction of a second later there was a hiss and a flash, and the air was abruptly hot and choking with the sharp odor of ozone.

”Close,” Powell's voice said calmly. ”Some of these rivet-heads in the walls evidently are high-tension electrodes. Lucky I saw the nimbus collecting on that one. Crawl, and make it snappy.”

Crawling in a gravity-free corridor was a good deal more difficult to manage than walking. Determinedly, Brant squirmed into the control room, calling into play every trick he had ever learned in s.p.a.ce to stick to the floor. He could hear Powell wriggling along behind him.

”He doesn't know what I'm up to,” Brant said aloud. ”Do you, Bennett?”

”No,” the voice in the air said. ”But I know of nothing you can do that's dangerous while you're lying on your belly. When you get up, I'll destroy you, Brant.”

”Hmmm,” Brant said. He adjusted his gla.s.ses, which he had nearly lost during his brief, skipping carom along the deck. The voice had summarized the situation with deadly precision. He pulled the now nearly pulped trip ticket out of his s.h.i.+rt pocket, wrote on it, and shoved it across the deck to Powell.

How can we reach the autopilot? Got to smash it.