Destination Void

  “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.

  Flattery crossed to the other hatch, breathing easier now that they were behind the shields and with a hatch between them and that robox. He grabbed the hatch dogs, twisted.

  They remained firmly locked.

  He applied more pressure.

  The dogs wouldn’t budge.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Timberlake said. He added his hands to the effort.

  The dogs remained seated as though frozen.

  Flattery and Timberlake looked at each other, their faceplates almost touching. Flattery’s hands felt slippery with perspiration inside his gloves. He could smell the stink of fear within his suit.

  “Go … try the other hatch,” Flattery said.

  Timberlake nodded, kicked back up to the baffle and the hatch they had just dogged. Flattery could see Timberlake’s muscles lift the shoulders of the suit with the effort of trying to reopen the other hatch.

  It was obvious the other hatch also was blocked.

  Timberlake dropped back down beside him, thumbed the command circuit switch beneath his helmet. “John.”

  “John’s temporarily off the circuit,” Prudence said. “You’re out of danger … immediate danger, aren’t you?’

  In short, clipped sentences, Timberlake reported their situation.

  “Trapped?” she asked. “How could you be?”

  “Something’s jammed the hatches,” Flattery said. “Why’s John off the circuit?”

  “Oh …” Pause. “He left his helmet … down there. He just yanked it off, unplugged, grabbed up a bunch of equipment and headed for quarters.”

  “Your sensors! Where do they show him?” Flattery demanded.

  Silence. Then: “In your quarters, Raj. I don’t understand.”

  “What’s this equipment he took?” Timberlake asked.

  “A whole pile of stuff,” she said, “mostly from that bin where you were working, Tim, under the middle of the bench.”

  In my quarters, Flattery thought. Our “organ of analysis” didn’t miss a thing!

  “Tim, your torch,” Flattery said. He pointed to the cutting torch on its tool clip at Timberlake’s waist.

  Timberlake shook his head. “A minute ago you were saying do nothing hostile.”

  “Give me that torch!”

  “No, sir, Raj. You know what’s out there jamming that hatch as well as I do. Another robox unit or two or four or fifty. You had the right idea the first time. Let Bickel—”

  “Don’t you know what Bickel’s doing?” Flattery demanded, not trying to keep the desperation from his voice.

  “Just as well as you do, Raj. I assembled most of that gear in the center bin according to his schematics. It’s a field-effect generator synchronized to a shot-effect generator. There’s an electroencephalographic feedback unit … a man-amplified, he calls it.”

  “White box—black box,” Flattery said. “We’ve got to stop him.”

  “Why?”

  “He’ll wreck the computer.”

  “Not that computer.”

  Bickel has infected him with his cynicism, Flattery thought. “Then he’ll kill himself.”

  “That’s his lookout, but I don’t think he will.”

  “When that shot-effect hits him, his muscles will break every bone in his body! That’s a hideous way to die.”

  “Maybe if he were connected directly to the generator,” Timberlake said. “But he won’t be. He’s going to get the shot-effect through that generator’s field—attenuated, buffered.”

  “Do you know what’s in my quarters?” Flattery asked.

  “A snooping device of some kind,” Timberlake said. “I’ve seen the clues on the meters.”

  “A field sorter,” Flattery said. “It’s tuned to the computer, gated for output. If Bickel takes out those gate circuits …”

  “And he will. Now sit down and be quiet. It’s our only chance.”

  Flattery glared at him. “If Bickel turns that mechanical monster loose it could wipe out the Earth!”

  “Why don’t you try ghost stories for a change?” Timberlake asked.

  “I don’t have time to tell you the whole story. That monster has to be stopped. You’ve got to take my word for it.”

  “You’re nuts,” Timberlake said, but Flattery could see that the idea had touched the life-systems engineer’s deepest inhibitions.

  “You’re an engineer,” Flattery said. “You’re a structuralist. You know Bickel’s reasoning?”

  “What’re you driving at?”

  “He’s arguing from the internal evidence of the human body,” Flattery said, speaking with desperate quickness. “Structure’s vital to the mechanical origins—teeth, jaw muscles, digestive system, and so on. The evidence says humans are descended from carnivores—and he insists a killer instinct is an absolute necessity for a carnivore.”

  “Are you saying a killer instinct is a necessary preliminary to consciousness?”

  “Bickel’s saying that! I’m not.”

  “Why’re you so sure of this?”

  “His actions leave no doubt of it!”

  “Ahhh … you’re making this up.”

  “Give me that torch,” Flattery said.

  “No,” Timberlake shook his head.

  “I’m going to take that torch if I have to kill you to get it,” Flattery said. He inched toward Timberlake.

  “Prue, did you hear this madman?” Timberlake asked, backing one step.

  The command net remained silent.

  “Prue?”

  Flattery drew himself up straight, his own words replaying in his mind. “… if I have to kill you to get it.” He felt suddenly that he had been herded into a completely vulnerable corner.

  Killer instinct? he wondered.

  “Prue!” Timberlake called. Then: “Raj, snap out of it! Prue isn’t answering!”

  Flattery had stepped backward. He felt nausea, extreme chill, a shaking in the calves of his legs and in his shoulders. Half-screened thoughts flitted about on the edge of his awareness.

  I’m avoiding something, he thought. Hiding my awareness from something … that … frightens …

  “What’s wrong with you, Raj?” Timberlake demanded; there was sudden concern in his voice.

  Flattery put out a hand, grasped a stanchion to keep himself from collapsing. He closed his eyes, conjured up the image of the sacred graphic imprinted on his cell in quarters—picturing against his eyelids the field of serenity with its suggestion of holy faces and the dynamics of the overprinting that combined the religious symbols on which men had spent their faith and yearning throughout evolutionary eons.

  They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, Flattery told himself. Lord, let this strength be transformed in the renewal of our minds. Let us share the light.

  The litany hung suspended in his consciousness, focused on the word “mind,” and Flattery’s mental image of the sacred graphic took on
motion. The field of serenity and sacred symbols dissolved into writhing atoms, drew a new pattern like the outline of a great river with its watershed.

  Flattery opened his eyes to find the interior of this metal trap were he stood with Timberlake washed in golden light—glaring, yet soft.

  Timberlake seemed unaware of the light, frozen in some private instant.

  And Flattery found himself caught by the wonder of that revelation—a great river and its watershed.

  All men are parts of the total stream, he thought. We are tributaries—and our minds, are tributaries, and our most private thoughts. Every pattern in the universe contributes to the whole—some gushing like a freshet and some no more than a single touch of dew. All structure is an expression of the same law.

  It was holographic—he saw that. The essential elements of the whole were carried in the smallest part. From the grain of sand you could project the universe. It could very well be the most elemental law of this universe.

  The law was like a pulsing thread that he could experience but not express—simplicity becoming new complexity and again a greater simplicity that fragmented into a greater complexity that produced a greater simplicity …

  He felt it in the touch of the suit’s fabric against his skin, in the awareness of the washed air entering his lungs, in every sensory impression.

  How clean and unique was this shower of molecules upon his person and upon this place he occupied in the dancing pattern!

  “I thank Thee, Lord, for this enlightenment,” he whispered.

  And Flattery held himself in this supraliminal awareness, staring now at Timberlake. Timberlake appeared to him … somehow dead. He moved, but his eyes behind the faceplate were like holes in skull sockets. Each movement was the sticklike articulation of a skeleton.

  Remembering Prudence and Bickel, Flattery felt that they shared this deadness: eyes empty of life. Their breasts moved with breathing, but the labored irregularity of that motion contained the same pattern (differing only in degree) as the breathing of a terminal sickness, the breathing of a dying person preserved beyond his time by artificial means.

  We’re doomed, Flattery thought. Lord, why didst Thou enlighten me only to show me this?