Mute (64 page)

Mit says all is well,
Hermine’s thought came.

Thank you.
It was immensely comforting—not merely Mit’s relayed assurance, which was at least slightly suspect while Baby Harlan was with them, but the fact of Hermine’s presence. From the start of this adventure, she had been his most constant companion and useful aide. Perhaps this was what was now inclining him toward the cause of the animals. Once one knew an animal like her, how could one not appreciate animal nature?

I like the way you think,
Hermine thought.

What about bees?
an insect thought came.

ALL animals!
Knot answered. And let himself sleep.

•  •  •

The journey, apart from their unusual mode of embarkation, was routine. There was never any turnabout outside the galactic disk, because CCC was only a few hundred light years distant. Chicken Itza was the main food supplier for the personnel who serviced the Coordination Computer; it had to be conveniently close.

Hermine, her telepathy amplified by the chicken, extended it to the mind of a passenger in the ship. She fed the images to Knot on a continuous basis, so that their minds merged as they had while they fought the rats of the Macho power plant. Thus it was as if Knot looked out of other eyes.

The disk-approach was nothing special; stasis pre-empted it. But the shuttle dropped down onto a small but phenomenal planet whose entire surface was burnished metal. There was no vegetation visible, no mountains, no seas or wilderness. Every thing was artificial, measured, and clean. The externals of the Coordination Computer. The passenger looking was highly impressed; he found it hard to imagine a single computer as big as a full planet. Why, he wore on his wrist a device two centimeters in diameter that gave him the precise time in any of fifty planetary systems, recorded stray notes that might occur to him, monitored his vital signs constantly and gave warning if any declined, and displayed the picture from any of several galactic news broadcasts. If all this could be handled by this small, feather-light chip, how much more could be handled by the similar chips of the Coordination Computer—amounting to planetary mass!

Then the stasis came, and the vision cut off. Hermine’s perception spread about the ship, extending to the minds of the animals aboard. There were flies, roaches and rats here, too, stowaways that man’s ingenuity had not been able to eradicate, and their psi development and species stability were similar to what Knot had encountered on Planet Macho. They could not effectively mutiny on the ship; man had too firm control here. If necessary, in an extreme case, the human crew could evacuate the ship and open the air locks, allowing the cold and vacuum to decontaminate it. Except for protected insect eggs, perhaps. But for generations the vermin had been quietly spreading their breeds and mutations to all the planets the ship orbited, transferring to the shuttles with the passengers and spreading out from the spaceports. They also remained on the shuttles until able to transfer to other diskships, in this way forming a galactic network. It had hitherto been a mindless thing; now, with the enhanced perceptions of psi, it was becoming conscious. Rats were becoming exogamous, preferring to breed with those of other ships; thus there was an imperative for crossing from vessel to vessel. The animal mutiny had been quietly building for many animal generations.

In fact, Knot realized, the mutiny of animals would continue as long as their psi kept advancing—and that would be as long as spaceships roamed the galaxy. The situation was already virtually out of control; how could man eradicate roaches he could not perceive? He had to stop both the mutation of animals and the travel of such mutes about the galaxy—and that could only be effected at this stage by the complete cessation of galactic travel itself. Which would abolish man’s own galactic empire. Thus his only real choice was to come to a reasonable accommodation with the psi animals.

Yes, of course,
Hermine agreed.
That has been obvious for some time.

Then if we recapture CC, we must take action.
But he knew Finesse was not ready for that. She still believed in the old program, and could not perceive the necessity for change.

You must see that you take over CC, not Finesse,
Hermine agreed.
She is wonderful and we love her, but she represents disaster too.

Thus his problem of the microcosm became a matter of galactic import. Knot knew Finesse would not be easily persuaded, and not easily mollified at such time as he countered her will.

Then the shuttle landed. The crates were unloaded, bumped onto another conveyor, and stacked in another refrigerated warehouse. Step I had been completed: the approach to CCC.

All they had to do now was reach a key terminal, tap out the override code, and put CC back on course—assuming they could agree on the course. After eliminating Piebald and getting through the CC psi defenses that had successfully repulsed the attempts of a battery of enemies for decades—until Knot’s own party had enabled the lobos to take over.

First they had to get out of the frozen crates. The teleporting chicken could not move them out; he had to have freedom of motion himself, to flap his wings and crow, in order to make his psi function. This was a liability Knot didn’t like, but a chicken was a chicken, not the smartest or most versatile of creatures. He had to function as he functioned. Hermine, with her telepathy operating even during stasis, was much superior that way.

There lay the answer.
Put a thought in the mind of the warehouse supervisor that our crates should be stored separately,
Knot directed.
Near some noisemaker, if possible.

Hermine reached out—and in due course their crates were moved near the main freezer unit that made the floor vibrate with the effort of its exertions. Under the cover of that noise Knot exerted leverage and burst out of his crate, which had been modified at key spots to permit this.

Good—this was deep in the storage area, with no human personnel in evidence. Knot freed Finesse and Harlan and the animals, and he and Finesse reassembled their crates as well as they could to make them appear untouched.

The CC telepaths are aware of us,
Hermine thought.
They are neutral, so are making no response. They are not even avoiding us, because Piebald is watching them, and will know we are here if they deviate from their normal routine.

That tells us Piebald has not selected a telepath to work with him,
Knot thought.
I suspected he would not, because he doesn’t trust psi. He may wait to select allies until he has a better notion of the challenge.

They held a quick council of war. “Piebald should be here in CCC,” Knot said, keeping his voice low so that the freezer noise would drown it out at any distance. “He knows we’re coning; he just doesn’t know when or how. Hundreds of ships orbit CCC every day, so it’s hard to watch them all.”

“But how many come each day from Chicken Itza?” Finesse asked.

Ouch! They could not afford to assume they had arrived unobserved; the lobos might be biding their time, making sure this was not a feint. “Our best course is to strike before Piebald is prepared. We must locate a priority terminal and use the override code—in the next few minutes, if possible.”

“We went over all this before,” Finesse reminded him. She was right; he was rehashing the matter unnecessarily, in his anxiety. “The main thing we have to beware of are CCC’s psi detectors. The machines aren’t like human psis, but they can give a bleep when psi is close. One bleep out of place, and the lobos will swarm down on it. CC keeps track of every employee.”

This, too, was a rehearsal. They knew they could not walk blithely about the premises; that was why they had brought a teleporter chicken.
Hermine,
Knot thought,
have Mit locate—

Mit says there is master terminal twelve levels down. It is sealed in a locked vault, but we can teleport in.

Is it safe?
This was almost too good to be true, so it could be a trap.

Mit cannot tell, without precognition. There is no person near, and no machine sensor.

That was the penalty for having Baby Harlan along. But without Harlan, they would have been vulnerable to CC’s many precogs before they arrived, and Piebald would surely have used one of them to nail Knot’s party. So he had to operate blind, for now, trusting that this gave him a sufficient advantage over CC. So far this seemed to be working. If, by chance, Piebald selected a precog, he had wasted one choice.

“Let’s gamble,” Knot said. “We can move our whole party in.”

“Let me go first,” Finesse said. “I can stand guard and scare the lobos off, if we trigger an alarm.”

Knot knew there should be no alarm, or Mit would not have reassured them. Finesse just didn’t want to be left behind. But this would give her first try at the terminal—unless he kept Mit with him.
Stay with me,
he thought to Hermine.
You know why.

There was a nudge of agreement from the weasel. Then Knot kissed Finesse and let her go. She carried Harlan; he had the other animals.

This would be the first test. If Piebald was using a telepath, despite indications, he might be waiting for them to separate, so he could tackle them singly. The controller might overcome Finesse, in Knot’s absence, if the controller was indeed one of Piebald’s selected psis. But they both knew this was the kind of risk they took, in this preliminary game of strategy. Each side had to be cautious, for premature action could lead to disaster. Yet failure to take such risks could be just as disastrous. The trick was to take risks and win.

Hermine relayed precise instructions to the chicken—and Finesse popped out of the room.

They are there,
Hermine thought.
No alarm. But Mit is uneasy. He wants his precog ability. He believes something is lurking, but he cannot focus on it.

The roaches are uneasy too,
Knot agreed. The three were fidgeting and turning translucent.
But we know this mission is perilous. The moment we start the override code, CC will advise Piebald and his minions will converge.

The chicken returned, alone. Knot made sure everyone was with him, picked up the other rooster, and stood ready. “Okay, Cocksure,” he murmured.

The wrenching came. He and the animals were in the chamber with Finesse. There was the terminal, as accessible as he could want. “It’s not a fake, a decoy?”

“It’s real,” Finesse said. “Either Piebald didn’t figure on teleportation—this room would be inaccessible to us any other way—or he has some other plot in mind.”

“Bless his presumed oversight.” But Knot noted that the three roaches had now disappeared. They were aware of incipient danger, and that could not be ignored.

Yet they had to try the terminal; otherwise their mission was pointless. If this was a trap, it would have to be sprung. Knot positioned himself before the terminal.
Have Mit give me the code,
as before.

A pause, then:
Mit says he can’t.

Can’t? He did it before.

Another pause.
He says he used precog for part of it before. It isn’t a simple linear code; it has a temporal component. That’s why no clairvoyant ever snuck in and got it before we did; only a clair-precog combination could do that, and by the time any intruders discovered that, CC would capture the clair or precog who tried. Mit is one of the very few who possesses the right combination—and he can’t get that code while Harlan is with us. No wonder he’s upset!

And Piebald must have discovered that very soon after he took over, and realized that if they blocked out precognition, they would not succeed in this. So he could have chosen a precog to help him—by making sure that that precog remained nonfunctional. Piebald needed to take no other steps, with that reassurance. He had ignored Knot’s intrusion because Knot represented no present threat.

Meanwhile, Hermine was explaining the situation to Finesse. “Of course!” she agreed. “A good code is not static; it changes with the times, so only people with contemporary authority can use it. Mit would have to precog the time factor—and now he can’t.”

“But if we move Harlan far enough away to free Mit’s precog, we’ll also be opening ourselves up to Piebald’s precog,” Knot said. “I’m sure that’s the nature of this trap. Precognition is much more dangerous to us than clairvoyance, because Piebald can’t be checking on us continuously. He needs to precog our time and nature of arrival, and trap us then and there. We’ve been continuously covered by Harlan’s psi. If we make even a small opening, they’ll nab us.”

“Of course we can’t separate from Harlan,” she agreed. “It’s bad enough having to bring him here when we promised to protect him from CC. We’ll just have to risk using the old code. After all, it was still current a few days ago, when Piebald used it.”

“But I don’t remember it!”

“Obviously I do,” Finesse said. “Piebald got it from me. Maybe Hermine can derive it from my mind.”

I will try,
Hermine thought. But after a pause she added:
I cannot. I can read only surface thoughts, and this is deep.

“Try enhancement,” Knot suggested urgently, indicating Henny, the amplification hen. They had brought her instead of the original amplification rooster because the latter had been too interested in the psi insects.

Hermine tried it—and this time she was able to read it. Knot began tapping it out as she relayed the code.

An alarm sounded. Suddenly a holograph of Piebald appeared, looking around. “So it is you!” he exclaimed. “You must have chosen a teleport to assist you.”

So the lobo didn’t know about the chickens, yet. Good. Knot continued tapping, hoping to complete the override before the lobo could stop it. Then CC would be neutralized, and it would be just the two sides fighting it out.

“That’s no good,” Piebald said. “I changed the code. Did you suppose I was so stupid as to neglect such a detail, after the trouble I had with you on Chicken Itza? I made sure I would not be vulnerable to that again. The old code only calls my attention to its use; CC notified me instantly.”