Part 34 (2/2)

He did, until the device reached its ultimate limit. The interior of the pseudopersonality was like no other artifact that Michel had ever examined. The smaller the scale on which he looked at it, the finer and more perfect its structure appeared.

”These are imitation personalities, kid, most of them modeled on historical individuals. Imitation minds, of a sort. They were invented to be used in historical simulations, and in desperation the powers who run things have tried to make 'em work in s.p.a.ce combat. Instead of the subconscious minds of living brains.

There are parts of our minds that live outside of time, you know.”

”I've heard that. I don't know if it's-”

”It's true. It's what gives us the edge, sometimes, over the enemy. One of the things that does.”

Michel was not listening very carefully. He was awed by what he saw-not by the thing's capabilities so much as by its workmans.h.i.+p, which impressed him even more than Lancelot's. He murmured something.

”They work in fractal dimensions when they make these, Michel. Know what that means?”

Michel shrugged. He didn't expect to comprehend the specialized words that adult technologists used among themselves. ”Something very small, I guess.”

”It's roughly like this: A line has one dimension, a point has none. Fractal involves something in between.”

Michel raised his eyes from the viewer, prodded the pseudopersonality's case with one finger where it partially projected from the console. ”And this can replace a human operator in Lancelot?”

”Not very well, as I say, or we wouldn't be here. Anyway, you better believe they wouldn't put this particular pseudo in.”

”Why not?”

”It has to do with who the real Red Baron was. Someone they wouldn't want to trust with Lancelot. Like me.” Frank's speakers emitted a series of rising squeals that Michel understood as sardonically formalized laughter. ”But h.e.l.l, even I can outdo these in Lancelot. Which is the point I wanted to make when I brought you here. You and I are alive, and this stuff is hardware. Some people around here who talk a lot of philosophical c.r.a.p have trouble with that distinction.” Contempt had grown in Frank's voice. ”If these things, the finest machines we can make, could do my job better than I can, Tupelov wouldn't have dragged you all the way here from Alpine, and we wouldn't be taking you out to the proving grounds in a couple more days. We're human beings. We're the bosses when it comes to any partners.h.i.+p with machines. And also we're gonna win the war. If anyone should ask you.”

”Frank? Two more questions?”

”Shoot.”

”Who's really going to be using Lancelot in combat?”

A five-second hesitation. ”Someone who can use it really well.”

Michel nodded slowly; it was an answer he had, really, already known. And it was something that he was going to have to think about. ”Second question. Where are the proving grounds?”

”Christ, they don't tell you anything. The moons and the rings of Ura.n.u.s make up the one we're going to use. It takes about six hours to get out there from here.”

SEVEN.

Even before Elly Temesvar was fully awake, her body and mind had at some level recognized the subtle differences between natural gravity at the Earth's surface and artificial gravity set at a level of not quite one standard G. She had been dreaming of mountains, and a log building with a peaked roof . . .

So when her eyes opened it was with more curiosity than surprise that she discovered herself to be lying on her back on a berth in a small cabin. Her surroundings did not much resemble the interior of any service s.h.i.+p that she had ever ridden in, being decorated in an ornate and obviously civilian style, and her curiosity increased.

In the next moment, memory returned with a rush. An immediate attempt to jump to her feet got her nowhere at all; something was holding her almost motionless. Straining her neck somewhat, she could just manage to raise her head enough to look down at her body. Over her gray Temple garments ran some kind of webbing, laced to the frame of the berth at many points. Her mind, seeking frantically for rea.s.surance, could come up with nothing better than the feeble suggestion that the bonds might be meant only as an emergency restraint against strong acceleration. But in that case there ought to be some way for the occupant to loose the bindings, and she could discover none. She could move little more than her fingertips.

. . . As she now recalled the scene, she had simply taken them for tourists. Tourists were coming and going in the Temple at all hours, frequently, and there had seemed to be no reason for her to inspect this small group closely. Elly closed her eyes now, trying to remember. Two women and a man, the man white-haired she thought, following Deacon Mabuchi across the nave, approaching the place where Elly sat talking with her visitor. Now she could summon up a vague recollection of something rather small but evidently heavy, carried swinging in the man's left hand. The group had proceeded casually right up to where she sat with Lombok, and then . . . then it had been too late. Now she remembered seeing Lombok go down, just before she had blacked out herself. So it would seem that Lombok had not been a willing partner in her kidnapping, or whatever this might be.

Across the tiny cabin, almost within arm's reach had she been able to reach out an arm, there was another berth. But it was unoccupied, folded back to make part of the bulkhead.

A moment later, a door near Elly's head slid open. A tall, white-haired man in silvery civilian clothing looked in at her calmly from a narrow corridor outside. ”Are you at all hurt?” he asked, sounding mildly concerned, and also very much in control.

At second glance, Elly judged that her visitor's hair was not age-white but only extremely blond, as if he were a natural albino who had elected to have repigmentation treatment limited to his eyes, which were a very pale blue, and his skin, of an untanned Caucasian pallor. He was waiting for an answer.

Elly moved her fingers, about all that she could do in the way of testing. ”I don't think so,” she answered, trying to sound calm.

”We had to act abruptly. We could not take the risks of argument.” It was not an apology, only an explanation. ”But I hope to be able to release you soon, Ms. Temesvar.”

”What keeps you from releasing me now? And who are you?”

”You can call me Stal. It means 'steel,' in an old language, and I rather like it.” He spoke as if his likes and dislikes were important things indeed. Elly realized that to his helpless prisoner they might well prove to be important.

Stal continued: ”You really are among friends aboard this s.h.i.+p.” The words seemed meant as rea.s.surance, but his set features did not soften at all as he spoke. He glanced out into the corridor behind him now, and made a small beckoning motion with his head. A moment later he pressed himself back against the bulkhead, making room in the narrow doorway for a figure familiar to Elly, that of a stocky man of middle height, with Oriental features and black hair. This was Deacon Mabuchi, like Elly still wearing Temple gray, a soft smock above work trousers and plain boots.

The Deacon stood beside her berth, his round face glowing down at her with some triumph she could not comprehend. He murmured gently, ”Sister Temesvar-”

”Deacon, explain to me-”

The Deacon mildly overrode her protest. ”All now aboard this s.h.i.+p, Sister Temesvar, are in fact our fellow Heralds of the Savior, though they do not yet admit it, even to themselves. The fact is that the Savior has come, and these folk, unlike our own t.i.tular leaders in the Temple, have recognized It.”

Elly didn't know what to say. For her, allegiance to the Temple faith had been only the path of least resistance, acceptable as truth because every other belief or mental att.i.tude seemed to have been blocked, made practically impossible by what she had witnessed and experienced at the Core.

Mabuchi's own faith was obviously something quite different. While Stal stood back, watching the two of them as imperturbably as before, the Deacon's eyes shone down exultantly, possessively, at Elly.

”And you, Sister Temesvar, you are the most fortunate of women. Today, the only glory that can matter has become yours. It is through you that the Savior has taken final form for us. Through you life and death alike will be no more. Through you the Earth and all that has grown from Earth will attain final peace.”

There was a silence in the small cabin. Three people, each one looking from one face to the other of the remaining two, expectantly. Each one, thought Elly, with a purpose at right angles to the other two, so none of them really understood another.

Her own purpose right now was simply to get free. ”All this has some connection with my child, doesn't it?” she demanded sharply. Getting free meant arguing with these men, and arguing would seem to require knowing what they wanted and expected. And Lombok had been digging for information on the subject of her offspring. Something had come up. . . .

”Child no longer,” intoned Mabuchi. The words that began pouring from him now sounded like a quotation from some secret ritual that Elly had never heard before: ”Flesh of man and woman no longer, though still in a fleshly garment robed . . .”

Stal chimed in: ”Lord of force and metal, Lord free of life and death alike . . .” It was impossible to tell if his harsh voice held mockery or struggled to restrain true feeling. Watching Stal, Elly was suddenly struck with the idea that the man looked the way he did because of a deliberate attempt to cultivate a metallic appearance. This idea in turn suggested something else to her, something that made her abruptly begin to feel faint. Stop that, she ordered herself.

And made herself interrupt the chanting men: ”Where are you taking me, and why?”

Mabuchi deferred to Stal, and it was the white-haired man who answered: ”We are taking you to meet the ent.i.ty who was your son, Ms. Temesvar. That means going out to the new military proving grounds, out in the Uranian system.”

That was an answer that explained nothing, that in fact seemed to make no sense at all. ”Why should he be there?” Before leaving the service Elly had heard of the new proving grounds, but she had no idea of what might be going on there now.

”He is there because the badlife seek to use him.” The epithet was frightening enough to bring on a new surge of faintness, all the more frightening because it slipped from Stal's lips with such unselfconscious ease. At the moment Elly could not remember ever hearing anyone use the word in real life before. It was a word from fiction, from the stage, on which the actors who played goodlife tended to emphasize it, striving for maximum shock effect.

Mabuchi too was moved, though for another reason. ”The Savior should not be called 'he,' ” he protested to his colleague.

”I beg your pardon,” the tall man responded stiffly. ”But to this woman, the Savior is still her child. And we must try to attune ourselves to her psychology- Ms. Temesvar, the badlife have grasped at least the fact that your offspring is unusual, and they mean to use him as part of a weapons system. Have you ever heard the code nameLancelot?”

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