The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection (59 page)

“What you doing blocking the road like that, you varmints?” I croaked testily out of the window, then shook my cane at the fat captain who
was leaning against it picking his teeth. Remnants of hotpup, I hoped.

“Knock off the cagal, Grandpop. Where do you think you’re going?”

“Are you as stupid as you look, stupid? Or haven’t you heard your supreme commander’s orders? City workers to return at once. I am an electrical engineer and if you want light in your latrines and refrigeration for your beer you will open that thing instantly
or sooner.”

“Don’t get your cagal in an uproar, Grandpop,” he sneered. But he stepped back and signaled two sergeants to open the barrier. Not a private in sight, I noticed. I hoped the officers enjoyed doing their own work for a change. I shook the cane one last shake as we drove past, then on down the road and around a bend and out of sight. Neebe pulled up at the first phonebox and I leaped
arthritically down.

“Are you in the city?” Stirner asked.

“Just arrived.”

“Very good. Then we will meet at the entrance.”

“Entrance? What, where?”

“Mark Forer Square, of course. Where else would it be?”

Good question. I had imagined that only the statue was there. I hadn’t realized that old Mark itself was in residence. I climbed back into the car and we were off with the usual screech of
tires. I pulled off bits of the disguise as we went, starting with the harness. I left the beard on in case there were any patrols around—and there were.

“Slow down,” I cozened. “Let’s not be too suspicious.”

The sergeant leading the patrol glared at us as we went by. I ignored him but was very impressed by his squad. As they turned the corner the last two slipped into the open door of a building
and vanished from sight. So not only weren’t the deserters returning—but their ranks were steadily being added to. Great! If this kept up Zennor would soon have army of only officers and noncoms. You don’t win wars with that kind of setup. I saw that we were getting close to our destination so I pulled at the beard and wrinkles and was forty years younger by the time we turned into the square
and slid to a stop. Stirner was standing before the statue, looking up at it admiringly.

“I wish I were coming with you,” he said.

“I as well,” Neebe agreed. “It would be wonderfully exciting. But of course we have not been asked so we cannot intrude.”

“How do I get in?”

Stirner pointed to a bronze door at the rear of the stone base of the statue. “Through there.” “Got the key?” They both
looked at me with surprise. “Of course not. It’s not locked.”

“I should have known,” I muttered. What a philosophy. Hundreds, thousands of years the door has been here, unlocked, and no one had ever gone through it. I put out my hand and they took it in turn and shook it solemnly. I could understand why. This was a little like saying so-long to the head of your local church as he started up the
ladder to see God.

The handle was stiff, but turned when I twisted hard. I pulled and the door squeaked slowly open. Steps led down into the ground, a little dusty. Lights came on and I could see that one
of the bulbs was burned out. I just hoped that Mark Forer wasn’t burned out as well.

I sneezed as my feet disturbed the dust of ages. And it was a long way down. The steps ended in a small
chamber with illuminated wiring diagrams on the walls and a large, gold-plated door. Carved into it, and inset with diamonds, were the immortal words
I AM. THEREFORE I THINK.
Beneath this was a small sign with red letters that read
PLEASE WIPE FEET BEFORE ENTERING.
I did this, on the mat provided, took a deep breath and reached for the handle that appeared to have been carved from a single ruby.

The door swung open on oiled hinges and I went in. A large, well-lit room, dry and airconditioned. Dials and electronic devices covering one wall. And in the middle of the room …

Mark Forer, obviously. Just like in the paintings. Except that plenty of cables and wires ran from it to a nearby collection of apparatus. Its dials glowed with electronic life and a TV pickup swiveled in my direction.
I walked over to stand before it and resisted the compelling desire to bow. And just what does one say to an intelligent machine? The silence lengthened and I began to feel ridiculous. I cleared my throat.

“Mark Forer, I presume?”

“Of course. Were you expecting someone else …
krrk!
”

The voice was grating and coarse and the words trailed off with a harsh grating sound. At the same time there
was a puff of smoke from a panel on the front and a hatch dropped open. My temper snapped.

“Great! Really wonderful. For hundreds of years this electronic know-it-all sits here with the wisdom of the ages locked in its memory banks. Then the second I talk to it it explodes and expires. It is like the punch line of a bad joke—”

There was a rattle from behind and I leaped and turned, dropped into
a defensive position. But it was only a little rubber-tired robot bristling with mechanical extensions. It wheeled up in front of Mark and stopped. A claw-tipped arm shot out, plunging into the open panel. It clicked and whirred and withdrew a circuit board which it threw onto the floor. While this was happening another circuit board was emerging from a
slot on the robot’s upper surface. The grasping
claw seized this and delicately slid into the opening before it. Mark’s panel snapped shut as the robot spun about and trundled away.

“No,” Mark Forer said in a deep and resonant voice, “I did not explode and expire. My voice simulation board did. Shorted out. Been a number of centuries since I last used it. You are the offworlder, James diGriz.”

“I am. For a machine in an underground vault
you keep up with things pretty well, Mark.”

“No problem, Jim—since you appear to enjoy a first name basis. Because all of my input is electronic it really doesn’t matter where my central processor is.”

“Right, hadn’t thought of that.” I stepped aside as a broom and brush bristling robot rushed up and swept the discarded circuit board into its bin. “Well, Mark, if you know who I am, then you
certainly know what is happening topside.”

“I certainly do. Haven’t seen so much excitement in the last thousand years.”

“Oh, are you enjoying it?” I was beginning to get angry at this cold and enigmatic electronic intelligence. I was a little shocked when it chuckled with appreciative laughter.

“Temper, temper, Jim. I’ve cut back in the voice feedback emotion circuits for you. I stopped using
them centuries ago when I found that the true believers preferred an ex cathedra voice. Or are you more partial to women?” It added in a warm contralto.

“Stay male, if you please, it seems more natural somehow. Though why I should associate sex with a machine I have no idea. Does it make a difference to you?”

“Not in the slightest. You may refer to me as he, she or it. Sex is of no importance
to me.”

“Well it is to us humans—and I’ll bet you miss it!”

“Nonsense. You can’t miss what you never had. Do you wake up at night yearning helplessly for photoreceptors in your fingertips?”

It was a well-made point: old Mark here was no dummy. But fascinating as the chitchat was, it was just about time I got to the point of this visit.

“Mark—I have come here for a very important reason.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“You’ve heard the broadcasts, you know what is happening up there. That murdering moron Zennor is going to kill ten of your faithful followers in the morning. What do you intend to do about it?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing!” I lost my temper and kicked the front of the burnished panel. “You invented Individual Mutualism and foisted it upon the galaxy. You taught the faithful and brought
them here—and now you are going to stand by and watch them die?”

“Knock off the cagal, Jim,” it said warmly. “Try sticking to the truth. I published a political philosophy. People read it, got enthusiastic, applied it and liked it. They brought me here, not the other way around. I have emotions, just as you do, but I don’t let them interfere with logic and truth. So cool it, kid, and let’s get
back to square one.”

I moved aside as the broom-robot rushed up again, extended a little damp mop and polished off the scuff mark on Mark’s housing that I had made with my shoe. I took a deep breath and calmed down because really, losing my temper would accomplish nothing at all.

“Right you are, Mark, square one. People are going to be killed up there. Are you going to do anything about it?”

“There is not much I can do physically. And everything political or philosophical is in my book. The citizens up there know as much about IM as I do.”

“So you are just going to sit there and listen to the sizzle of your electrons and let them die.”

“People have died before for their beliefs.”

“Wonderful. Well I believe in living for mine. And I am going to do something—even if you do not.”

“What do you intend to do?”

“I don’t know yet. Do you have advice for me?”

“About what?”

“About saving lives, that’s what. About ending the invasion and polishing off Zennor …”

And then I had it. I didn’t need to swap political arguments with Mark—I just had to use its intelligence. If it had memory banks thousands of years old it certainly had the knowledge I needed. And I still had the electronic
spy bird!

“Well, Mark old machine, you could help me. Just a bit of information.”

“Certainly.”

“Do you know the spatial coordinates of this system and this planet?”

“Of course.”

“Then you give me a little printout of them, soonest! So I can send an FTL message to the League Navy for help.”

“I don’t see why I should do that.”

I lost my temper. “You don’t see …! Listen you moronic machine,
I’m just asking for a bit of information that will save lives—and you don’t see …”

“Jim, my new offworlder friend. Do not lose your temper so quickly. Bad for the blood pressure. Let me finish my statement, if I might. I was going to add that this information would be redundant. You sent an FTL message yourself, just after you retrieved the corvine-disguised transmitter.”

“I sent an FTL message?” I said, my thoughts stumbling about in small circles.

“You did.”

“But—but—but—” I stopped and seized myself by the mental neck and gave it a good shaking. Logic, Jim, time for logic. “The recorded message from Captain Varod said that I would need the coordinates to send an FTL message.”

“That was obviously a lie.”

“Saying it was a radio message was a lie
too?”

“Of course.”

I paced back and forth and the TV pickup followed me as I moved. What was going on? Why had Varod lied to me about the signal? And if he had received it where was he? If he had got the signal and hadn’t sent his fleet or whatever, then he was the one who must take the responsibility for the murders. The League did not go in for that sort of thing. But Mark might know what
was happening. I spun about.

“Speak, ancient brain-in-box!! Has the League Navy arrived or is it on the way?”

“I’m sorry, Jim, I just don’t know. The last orbiting telescope ran out of power centuries ago. I know no more than you do about this. All I can surmise is that we are very distant from these rescuers you expect.”

I stopped pacing and was suddenly very tired. It was going to be another
of those days. I looked around the room. “You don’t have an old box or something that I can sit on?”

“Oh dear, I do apologize. I’m not being a very good host, am I? Out of training.”

While he was talking a powered sofa came trundling in and stopped behind me. I dropped into it. It was hard to think of Mark as an it, not with the voice and all.

“Many thanks, very soft.” I smacked my lips and
it got the hint.

“Please make yourself comfortable. Something to drink perhaps?”

“I wouldn’t say no. Just to stimulate thinking, you realize.”

“I’m not too well stocked at the present moment. There is some wine, but it must be four hundred years old at least. Vintage with a vengeance, you might say.”

“We can only try!”

The table stopped at my elbow and I blew dust from the bottle, then activated
the electronic corkscrew which managed to extract the truly ancient cork without breaking it. I poured and sniffed and gasped.

“Never—never smelled anything like that before!”

And it tasted even better. All the sniffing and tasting did clear the mental air a bit. I felt better able to handle the problems of the day.

“I don’t know the time,” I said.

“Over sixteen hours to go before the promised
executions.” Mark was anything but stupid. I sipped the wine and ran over the possibilities.

“I sent the message—so the Navy has to be on its way here. But we can’t count upon their arrival to save the day. The only grace note to all this is that at least I know I won’t be stranded on this planet forever. Now what can I do to save lives? Since obviously neither you nor your IMers are going to
lift a finger.”

“I wouldn’t say that, Jim. There are a number of conferences going on right now in the city. People are returning in large numbers.”

“Are they knuckling under? Going back to work?”

“Not at all. A protest is being organized, as to what shape it will take—that is still being discussed.”

“How do you know all this? Spies?”

“Not quite. I simply tap all the communication circuits
and monitor all phone calls. I have subunits looking for keywords and making records for me.”

“Are you tapping the Nevenkebla circuits as well?”

“Yes. Very interesting.”

“You speak the language?”

“I speak
every
language. Fourteen thousand six hundred and twelve of them.”

“Jamen, en ting er i hvert fald siker. Du taller ikke dansk.”

“Og hvorfor sd ikke det? Dansk er da et smukt, melodisk
sprog.
”

Pretty good—I thought that I was the only one who had ever heard of Danish. But there was one that I was sure Mark had never heard of. An ancient language called Latin. Spoken only by a secret society so secret I dare not say more about it.