The Mind Pool (26 page)

He was there, sitting in a habitation bubble and staring at the stars (or at nothing). He knew Phoebe was present, she was sure of it, but ne did not turn his head at her approach.

“Captain Ridley. Are you busy?” (An idiot question; he didn’t know what
busy
was any more.) “I need help. Will you come and help me?”

He had been the guard who above all others had seemed to respond at the dinner. He had even said a few words to her. But now he did not move and he did not reply.

Phoebe, angry at her own stupidity in even asking, went back into the habitation lock; and found that Ridley was following her.

It was a beginning. He scarcely said a word, but he could and did follow directions. Within a few days he had taken over the routine of temperature checking within the bubble as his own, and he shook his head vehemently when she tried to help. It was Ridley who, near the end of one of Phoebe’s long work sessions, left the bubble and then thirty minutes later was back.

“No more for today,” said Phoebe. He shook his head, took her arm, and tugged it. He had never done that before.

“What’s wrong, Ridley?”

His mismatched eyes rolled. She knew that one of them was a replacement. The original, like his lower jaw, had been the casualty of a violent space explosion and decompression. “Brargas.”

“Brachis?”

Ridley nodded. He watched impassively as Phoebe turned off all inputs to the sealed nitrogen balloon that held the brain of the Morgan Construct, closed her suit, and followed him back to the main Dump control area. She was oddly gratified when she entered and saw the image of Luther Brachis on the communication display.

“Thank you, Captain Ridley.” And to Brachis, smugly, as he stared at the other man, “My assistant, Blaine Ridley. Are you all right?” She noticed that Brachis was not wearing his uniform, and one arm was bare and bandaged.

“Sure, I’m fine. Little incident in a restaurant.”

“In a restaurant! I’ve heard of bad service, Commander, but this is ridiculous.”

Apparently it was again not a day for joking, for Brachis went on as though he had not heard her, “I’ve been downed for a few days, and I finally had time to do some thinking. I know what’s been going on with M-26A.”

“You’re ahead of me. I’ve been getting nothing sensible. Either the Construct’s brain wasn’t working right before its body was destroyed on Cobweb Station, or the blow-up there was too much for it. It’s certainly crazy now.”

“It may seem crazy, but it’s quite logical. Do you have the complete record of your interactions with M-26A?”

“Not right here in front of me. But I have them all.”

“Then I want you to check them, every one, and see if the pattern that I noticed always holds. It’s quite simple. If you ask a question, you always get the same useless response:
More information must be provided before that question can be answered.
But if you
give
a piece of information, and
then
ask a question, you get a real answer—it can be what you just fed in, or something different. But it’s just
one
answer. If you want information—even if it’s no more than a repeat of an answer that you just received—you have to provide a piece of information. One question, one answer. No exceptions.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Neither did I. But it works for every case. You can go back and try it, feed in anything you like, then ask any question you like. I don’t know if you’ll get the answers you want, but I’ll bet you get
something.
Hold on now!”

Phoebe was moving away from the camera, obviously itching to get back to test the idea that Brachis had been proposing.

“What else?”

“Assume that I’m right, and we have a way of genuine communication with M-26A. I want to know if it will let us build up a credit account. If we give it a hundred pieces of information one after another, will it then answer a hundred of our questions? If so, I want to feed it general background data about all the other members of the Stellar Group. Home worlds, history, physiology, psychology.”

“That will be a huge job.”

“I know. But M-26A is our only access point to Morgan Construct thinking processes and possible actions, and all the other Stellar Group species are going to be involved in the search. If the answers to my questions are to be useful, M-26A needs an adequate data base.”

“I’ll do my best. But I’m busy as hell. If you’re looking for quick results—”

Phoebe Willard paused. Ridley had moved forward, to stand by her side. He was clutching at her arm. He stared at Luther Brachis, and the lop-sided jaw began moving.

“Brargas. Comder Brargas. Data. Data in to M-M—. I will—I want to—” His eye rolled, and he made a supreme effort. “I want to
help.
”

Chapter 20

Mondrian awoke in a fetid, red-lit gloom to the sound of a low and ominous humming. He tensed as a tall figure loomed high overhead. As he recognized it, he slowly relaxed.

He knew where he was. He had been dreaming again; ghastly, terrifying dreams, but just what he had come to expect. The figure hovering over him was Skrynol, and the nightmare visions had been carefully designed and planted under Fropper supervision. Even the noise had a simple explanation. Skrynol was
singing.

The Pipe-Rilla bent over Mondrian’s sweat-soaked body, peered at him with huge compound eyes, and hummed a three-toned phrase. The lights in the chamber promptly increased.

“For your benefit,” said Skrynol. She chittered strangely in Pipe-Rilla speech. “I did it so that you can admire my rare beauty.”

Mondrian took a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped sweat from his forehead and bare chest. He had stripped to the waist at the beginning of the session, not for Skrynol’s benefit but his own. She was not fully comfortable at a temperature below human blood heat, and in the last few meetings the chamber had been made hotter and hotter.

“You seem in exuberant mood,” he said. “Can I assume that we have made progress?”

“Oh, yes, indeed.” The Pipe-Rilla bobbed her head back and forward in the gesture of assent she had learned from Mondrian. “Excellent progress. Excellent-excellent progress.”

“Enough to sing about?”

“Ahhh.” Skrynol raised her forelimbs and placed them on top of her head. “You embarrass me. A word is in order on my singing. Because we were doing so well, I extended the length of our session somewhat to pinpoint one result. As a result I took more of your blood than usual.”

“How much more?”

“Some more. Rather a lot, actually. But do not worry, I gave you replacement fluids. Mm-mm . . .” She bent over him, an enormous and deformed praying mantis inspecting its victim. There was a flutter of olfactory cilia, and a whisding sigh. “Mm-mm. Esro Mondrian, it is well that we Pipe-Rillas can so control our emotions and our actions. I had been warned before I came to Earth that human blood was a powerful stimulant and intoxicant to our metabolism—but no one could ever describe this feeling of
exhilaration
!”

She reached down with one soft flipper and drew it lovingly along Mondrian’s neck and naked chest. As she did so, long flexible needles peeped involuntarily out of their sheaths on each side of her third tarsal segment. They glistened orange in the bright white light. Fully extended, they would reach their hollow length more than nine feet in any direction. The official propaganda on the Pipe-Rillas described the aliens as “peaceable sap-sucking beings despite their formidable mandibles.”

Esro Mondrian stared uneasily at the needles.
Sap-sucking?
Perhaps—but only if the word could apply to the body juices of plants
and
animals.

The urge to flinch away from her touch was strong. He resisted it and sat upright on the velvet couch. “I know how you must feel. Some humans also experience exhilaration from blood. Myself, I draw excitement from other sources. Can we talk about the session now? Are you controlled enough to tell me what you have found?”

“Of course.” Skrynol, swaying like a sailing rig in a high sea, somehow reared her jointed body up another six feet. “We do not yet have a solution for your difficulties, but I think I can fairly say that at last we have
defined
the problem. I will begin with a question. You are Chief of Boundary Survey Security. Tell me, if you will, how you came to that position.”

“Through the usual route.” Mondrian was puzzled. “After I first left Earth I studied the other civilizations in the Stellar Group, and then took a job in commercial liaison with them. After that it was just a matter of hard work and steady promotion.”

“That is the way it may appear to you. But your physical response when certain subjects are mentioned makes one fact obvious: the rise to your present position was less circumstantial than you believe. You were
driven
to seek it. As I told you in our first meeting, your nightmares are no more than analogies. But we are past that level. Now we must ask, analogies for what?”

Skrynol turned to a marker screen that sat behind her, and drew a circle in the middle with her left forelimb. She placed a small dot in the center and drew a set of radii to connect it with the circumference. “It is time for a little lecture from me. This is you”—she tapped the central dot—“sitting in the middle of a safe region. Like most members of your species you are dominated by self-concern, and so you see yourself at the center of the universe.” She pointed to the radiating spokes. “You also dream of a web. And indeed, you sit in the middle of such a web—a web of
information,
provided to you through the Mattin Links from everything within the Perimeter. In your dreams there is a dark region. And sure enough, in your working world there is also a dark region. It is
everything that lies beyond the Perimeter.
More than that, it is terrifying to you. Maybe you can control everything within the known sphere of space—but how can you possibly control what is
outside
it? How can you even know
what is there
?”

Skrynol tapped the screen. “In your dreams the safe lighted region is always shrinking, the dark and dangerous zone always comes closer. And in the real world, the Perimeter
grows,
since through the probes and the Mattin Links new parts of space are steadily made more accessible.
They
are accessible to
you—and you are accessible to them.
That is the problem. You do not
know
what may lie beyond today’s Perimeter, but you know you are afraid of it. The safe region is not really shrinking. It only seems to be so, because the
unsafe
region steadily becomes larger. New space is added all the time.

“So how can you minimize the danger? It is simple. You seek the position which gives you maximum control over the Perimeter. That is the position of Chief of Boundary Survey Security. You cannot banish the dangers, because they are caused by a force beyond your control: the Solar Group’s expansionist policy. But at least you will learn of any danger as early as possible, and be in a position to combat it. You had
no choice
except to seek the position of Chief of Boundary Security. And you will do anything to protect the Perimeter.
Anything at all.
”

Mondrian froze, his exhaustion forgotten. The Pipe-Rilla had discovered his secret—knew why he needed the Morgan Construct.

But the Pipe-Rilla was leaning forward, until her broad, heart-shaped face was less than a foot from Mondrian’s. “I pity you, Esro Mondrian,” she went on. “Although I cannot share your fears, I know that your nightmare is
real.
You are afraid of the rest of the Universe, everything that lies beyond the Perimeter.” The dark, lid-less eyes stared into his. “Do you understand my analysis, and accept it?”

Mondrian’s nod was no more than a tiny tightening of neck muscles. “I accept it. But I do not know where it leads. Are you telling me that the nightmares must continue as long as I hold my present position?”

“Not at all. You accept, but you do not understand. You sought your present position in an attempt to control the situation, and so banish your nightmares. But those nightmares are not the
result
of your position, or of the existence of the Perimeter. They stem from a much deeper cause—deeper within Esro Mondrian.”

“What is that cause?”

Skrynol shook her head. “That, I do not know. Not yet. But I do know that it lies deep-buried, far back in your childhood. Still I cannot reach it. I need help. That is why you must do something more.”

“Name it.” Mondrian’s face was pale and dull-eyed, but he was relaxing again.

“You must stay here. Travel the Earth. This planet was the scene of your earliest and most hidden experiences. You may not recognize the original source of your fears, even when you encounter it; but
I
will know it, through your unconscious responses. And
then,
at last, I will be able to help you.”

“I can’t do what you ask. I am too busy to spend more time on Earth.”

“You must. Until you do so, your problem will not be solved. Think upon this.” Skrynol swayed up, away from Mondrian. “That is the end of the session for today. I can see your weariness and your distress. Put on your shirt, and I will lead you back.”

Mondrian sighed, and shook his head. “Not yet. We have one more item of business.”

“You are exhausted. For your own sake, make it brief.”

“I cannot promise that.” Mondrian reached into his jacket pocket and took out a black wafer the size of his thumbnail. “This is a summary of human expansion plans. It provides only a broad outline. Before you receive more, I must hear through official channels that full control of the Travancore operation will belong to the Anabasis. That control must not be subject to interference from our ambassador, or from anyone else. I also want it agreed that the Anabasis will be allowed to quarantine the planet Travancore while the escaped Morgan Construct is being hunted.”

Skrynol reached out and took the wafer delicately from his hand. She bobbed her head from side to side, examining the small black square. “I will try to do as you ask. Already I am doing as much as I can.”