“The guards-” Yulin objected.
“Will know only that the ship is gone,” Trelig completed. “They also know that without the codes the second ship would be blasted by the orbiting sentries. Hell, they won’t remember who’s who or how many there are, you know that. The girl’s been more or less sealed off, and the guard-what’s one guard? Could have been killed down here. Getting the idea now?”
“You mean impersonate the ones who got away?” Yulin gasped.
Trelig’s expression looked impatient, impatient at this elementary step.
“Look,” he said. “We need a way to gain their confidence. Take them off guard. We need a way to get to those visitors as friends, convince them it’s us against the guards, get their help in taking the ship. We must get that ship away until they’ve died out here. We can’t do it alone.”
Yulin nodded. “I see,” he said, but he didn’t like it. He looked over at Gil Zinder. The older man was slumped, a vacant expression. He looked tired and defeated.
“What about him?” Ben Yulin asked, gesturing.
“He has to go with us,” Trelig answered quickly. “He knows how to operate Obie, and Obie will do anything for him. To leave him here would be like jumping into the pit out there.”
Yulin nodded, his mind already considering several things, all unpleasant. For one thing, he didn’t like the idea of going through the thing himself. Sending others through, that was fine-a tremendous feeling of godlike power. But himself-to become someone, something else. Trelig’s plan worried him, worried him as much as having to bring it about using his own special circuitry, revealing to Zinder-and to Trelig-his own mastery of the machine.
He looked again at Trelig. The councillor had a curious half-smile on his face and still held the pistol in his hand. He’d seen similar expressions on his boss when administering sponge to new victims and when ordering nasty executions.
“You want to go first?” he suggested hopefully.
That evil grin spread wider. “No, I don’t think so,” the syndicate boss replied acidly. “You can do it, then?”
Yulin nodded dully, still grasping at straws. He did not want to surrender to permanent second-class Status.
“Then we’ll do it this way,” the big man continued. “First, you will try to find out the identity of the guard. If Obie can keep track of people, he should know who it was. Then one of us becomes the guard-minus the sponge addiction, make sure of that!-and one becomes Nikki Zinder and the third becomes Mavra Chang. All preprogrammed in noninterruptable sequence, of course.” He shrugged disarmingly. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, you understand. It’s just that you get on top by doing the unthinkable and you stay on top by thinking the unthinkable.”
Yulin sighed, surrendering. The better part of valor and all that, he decided.
“Who do you want to be?” he asked.
“We have to think this through, and time’s pressing,” Trelig replied. “The old man, there-well, we’ll need some sort of mind-bind, of course. Make him his own flesh and blood. Behavior patterns will also have to be programmed in,” he reminded the younger scientist. “We don’t want any slip-ups. We will not just have to look like these people, but walk like them, talk like them, almost think like them, while remaining ourselves inside. The odds are the guard’s one of the supervisors, and they’re all sexual foul-ups. I’m hermaphroditic, so that shouldn’t pose a problem. That makes you Mavra Chang.”
“I’d rather not be a woman,” Yulin protested weakly.
“You won’t mind when you’ve been through the disk,” Trelig retorted. “Now, let’s get the instructions letter-perfect, so everything’s right and we get nothing funny added or subtracted by the machine. And-when you’re doing it, Ben, you will show me how.”
Yulin started to protest, then decided there was no point to it. He turned on the console.
“Obie? Do you have the identity of the guard who escaped with Mavra Chang?” he asked.
“It was Renard,” replied the computer. “I have no reading for him and he did not leave Topside for here. A few died Topside, though, so a slight chance exists that it was not.”
“It has to be,” Trelig decided. “He was one of the girl’s guards. Everything fits. I’ll take a chance on it.”
Ben Yulin nodded. “I don’t think it’d be a good idea .if the Doc, here, knows the access,” he pointed out.
Trelig agreed, turned, and shot a short stun beam at the helpless Zinder, who collapsed in a heap. “Five minutes,” Trelig warned his associate. “No more.”
Ben Yulin nodded, then turned back to the console. He didn’t like doing what he was about to do, and in front of the one man who could later use it against him, but a double cross at this point had too many risks to be worth it.
“Obie?” he called.
“Yes, Ben?” the computer responded.
He punched some buttons on his keyboard, acutely aware of Antor Trelig’s steady gaze at the combinations.
“Unnumbered transaction,” he told the machine. “File in aux storage under my key only.”
“What?” The computer seemed slightly startled, then, as access to the sealed-off sections became open to him, Obie realized what was going on.
“How many times have you used this, Ben?” Obie asked, marveling as always at the discovery of a part of himself he’d not known was there.
“Not often,” Yulin responded casually. “Now, Obie, I want you to listen carefully. You will carry out my instructions to the letter, neither adding nor subtracting anything on your own. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Ben,” Obie replied resignedly.
Yulin paused a moment to choose his words, conscious of the dangers in giving Obie an opening, and also of Trelig’s ready pistol. There were tiny beads of sweat on his forehead.
“Three transactions, in sequence, which must be completed before any additional instructions may be given you,” he said cautiously. “One, Dr. Gilgam Zinder, outward form to be that of the last coding of Nikki Zinder minus the sponge presence. Memory will remain Gil Zinder’s, with all attendant knowledge and skills, but subject will be unable to transmit this fact or information except on instruction from Antor Trelig or myself. Otherwise, subject will possess all behavior patterns of the frame of reference, including walk, emotive reactions, and speech, and all other characteristics to render subject indistinguishable from the frame of reference. Subject will further be unable to convey by any means the true identities of Antor Trelig or myself. Clear?”
“I understand, Ben,” Obie replied.
Yulin nodded, certain he had completed that step correctly. “Two. Subject Antor Trelig. Subject is to be physically fitted to the last coding of the guard Renard, minus the sponge addiction. Subject will be provided with all behavior modes of the frame of reference, including walk, emotive reactions, speech, and all other characteristics to render subject indistinguishable from the frame of reference. However, memory will remain Antor Trelig’s, with all attendant knowledge and skills, able to call upon his true self at any point.” Yulin suddenly looked around at Trelig and asked, “All right so far?” Trelig nodded cautiously.
“Three,” Yulin continued. “Subject Abu Ben Yulin. Subject is to be fitted physically to the last coding of Mavra Chang. Subject will be provided with all behavior modes of the frame of reference, including walk, emotive reactions, speech, and all other characteristics to render subject indistinguishable from the frame of reference. However, memory will remain Abu Ben Yulin’s, with all attendant knowledge and skills, able to call upon his true self at any point. Clear?”
“Yes, Ben,” Obie responded. “Clear and locked in.”
Yulin, still nervous about undergoing the process himself, added, “And, Obie, for all three transactions, subjects are to be acclimated so that they feel physiologically and psychologically comfortable with the new bodies and external behavior patterns. Understand?”
“Yes, Ben. I understand you don’t like to be a woman,” Obie responded acidly. Yulin scowled but let the remark go. He turned to Trelig. “Okay, take the doc down,” he said.
“First, tell the machine that the transactions are locked in,” Trelig responded softly. Yulin grinned sheepishly and shrugged. There was no doubt whatsoever as to how Antor Trelig had attained and kept his position of power.
“Lock on all transactions now,” he told Obie. “Locked and running,” Obie responded. “Go ahead with the run.”
Satisfied now that Yulin could do nothing to override the instructions, Trelig gestured with the pistol and took Gil Zinder downstairs.
The transformation didn’t take long. Yulin watched as first Gil Zinder dissolved in blue sparkles and reformed as an absolute duplicate of Nikki Zinder. The older scientist could do nothing, and so stood and watched as Trelig nervously mounted the disk, and threw his pistol hesitantly to Ben Yulin. Yulin thought, as Trelig dissolved and a few seconds later started reforming as the guard, how easy it would be to shoot Trelig. Zinder seemed to catch the younger man’s thoughts, and said, in Nikki’s adolescent tones, “No, Ben! You can’t! He’s the only one who knows how to get us off the planet!”
Yulin sighed, realizing the truth of that statement and accepting it grudgingly. He had to assume that the robot sentinels had also been transported, or else the nonspongies Topside would have taken off in the ship by now.
Yulin almost chuckled at Trelig’s new appearance. Male sex organs on a very female-looking body. Trelig stepped off, nodded in satisfaction, and took the pistol from Yulin’s hand. Ben had the uncomfortable idea suddenly that there was nothing to stop Trelig from shooting him, but he was helpless. Nervous both from anticipation of the process and from the sudden eerie feeling of impending death, he stepped up on the disk, watched the little arm swing out over him, and felt a warm, tingling glow course through his body. The lab, the watchers, seemed to flicker out, then flicker back in again. He knew that there had probably been several seconds between the flickers, but the sensation was not unpleasant.
The two watchers waited as an exact duplicate of Mavra Chang materialized where Ben Yulin had been. The new, tiny figure looked at Trelig’s pistol a little anxiously, then saw that it was held casually, sighed, and stepped off the platform, which seemed much higher than it had getting on.
“Incredible!” Trelig breathed. “You even move like her-feminine, catlike, almost.”
Yulin nodded. “Now let’s go see about those guards,” he suggested in Mavra’s rich, exotic and slightly accented voice.
The guards had died in a brief moment of extreme agony, that much was clear from the expressions on their faces.
“Remember not to touch them or that packet!” Yulin cautioned. Trelig nodded as he gingerly reached out, took a pistol by the barrel from the holster of one, examined it, wiped it off on the clothing of another, and handed it to Yulin, who just nodded. Next they found the portacom, with its working linkage to Topside. It was on Standby and there was nothing but a hiss coming through it.
Yulin looked at Trelig. “Ready?” he asked.
The councillor, who now looked like one of his guards, nodded and picked it up, switched it to Receive.
There was still nothing for a minute or two, then a small voice came at them.
“Underside! Come in! What’s happening down there?” came a tinny, nasal voice that belonged to one of the guards. Trelig sighed, and said softly to Yulin, “Well, may as well find out now if the bluff works.” Punching the Send button, he said: “This is Renard. I was bringing the prisoners Mavra Chang and Nikki Zinder down for Trelig when all this chaos broke out. They got them-all of them, but the cost was heavy. Me and my prisoners are the only ones left down here, and the old scientist also got it. They lied about the sponge.”
There was silence for quite some time, and for a moment Trelig thought they hadn’t bought the story, but then the Topside voice came back with a tired and defeated tone. “All right, then. But if Chang and the girl are down there, who took off in that ship? Marta said-”
Trelig thought fast. “There were some New Harmony crew on that thing, remember. I guess they panicked and ran out on the boss.”
There was no other logical explanation, so they accepted it.
“Okay,” came the reply. “Come on up and bring your prisoners with you. We have to get together and think this out.” That wasn’t said with any enthusiasm; without sponge, they knew what was about to happen.
“Acknowledge and out,” Trelig said, and switched to Standby. “I guess this calls for some cheering,” he said to his partner.
Yulin still looked concerned. “This is only the start of it,” he reminded the other. “We still have to get up there and somehow take over that ship.” He had a sudden thought. “Is there enough food and water on that ship for a long stay?”
Trelig nodded. “Oh, yes. We’ll probably kill some time taking a close look at that weird planet out there. When the spongies are gone, we can make a deal by radio with the surviving representatives.”
And then what? Yulin wondered, considering their luck so far.
“Let’s make sure Obie’s safe from prying while we’re away,” Trelig suggested, and they returned to the internal control room.
Yulin punched the codes. “Obie?”
“Yes, Ben?”
“First off, as soon as we are in the car to Topside you will file all transactions under my personal key. Understand?”
“Yes, Ben.”
Trelig thought a moment. “Then how will we get back in? He’ll only recognize us as Renard and Mavra Chang. And if Chang’s survived, that will open Obie to her if she manages to get back here. We don’t know if they might not have some sort of spacecraft on that world out there.”
Yulin thought a minute, realizing that Trelig had seen a nasty trap. The odds were against Chang surviving-he didn’t worry about Nikki Zinder or Renard the sponge would kill them anyway-but they had come so far now on long shots that the breaks would have to go the other way once in a while.
“How about a code word or sequence?” he suggested to the syndicate boss. “Then one of us would have to be here, no matter what form.”
Trelig nodded. He didn’t bother to ask why not both of them; he would not like to have to need Yulin in a pinch, and they weren’t out of the woods yet. “But what code?” he asked.
Yulin smiled. “I think I know one. But what about Zinder? We don’t want anyone else to know.”
Trelig nodded, then set the pistol again for short stun. He looked at the duplicate of Nikki Zinder, who responded, pleadingly, “Not again!” Trelig fired, and the girl who was something else collapsed in a heap.
“The same five minutes,” Antor Trelig cautioned. “Get moving!”
Yulin nodded, then turned back to the board. Both he and Gil Zinder had been fairly tall men, and the control boards were set for that. Now he was a much smaller individual, and had to almost lean over on the control board from the chair to reach some of the controls.
“Obie?”
“Yes, Ben?”
“This is on open-file storage, not keyed,” he told the computer. “At the same time as you file the previous transactions, you will energize into the Defend mode. All systems will be locked and frozen, and you will kill anyone attempting to gain entry to this area from the point of the center of the bridge. Can you hear audibles from the center of the bridge?”
Obie considered a second. “Yes, Ben. You might have to yell.”
Yulin accepted this. “All right, then, you will remain in Defend until someone comes to the center of the bridge with his arms raised high over his head, palms out. I will shoot a small mark on the bridge as we leave. At that mark, this individual must say, ‘There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.’ Got that?”
Trelig chuckled. “Old habits are hard to break, eh?” But it pleased him-easy to remember, but nobody was ever likely to say that one and include the appropriate gestures, unless they knew.
“I understand, Ben.”
He switched off, and they waited for Zinder to come around. It took about six minutes, these things varying with the individual. Zinder was tingling, as though his whole body were asleep, but the effect wore off quickly enough.
“Let’s go,” Yulin said, and they walked out across the bridge. About halfway, Yulin set his pistol to Full and shot at the restraining wall over the pit. It was a hard, tough material, but the shot gouged a nasty scar that was visible, yet would be mistaken by others as perhaps a remainder of the gun battle.
They walked on, got into the car, and settled back. Trelig pressed the stud, the door closed, and the car started Topside.
Inside Obie, as this happened, circuits opened and closed, energy danced, and Obie went into the defense mode, but he could not remember how to break it That disturbed him. The last thing he remembered was Yulin at the control panel and the guards dying of the poisoned sponge.
It was an impossible mystery. He returned quickly to his primary job of trying to disengage himself from the great Well World computer, or, failing that, to create some sort of partnership with it.
It would be long, tough work.
TELIAGIN, SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE, THE WELL WORLD
Mavra Chang had been dozing in spite of herself. When tension wears off, it produces a kind of worn-out lethargy that is almost impossible to shake. Suddenly, however, she came awake with a start and looked around, bleary-eyed. She understood what had happened and cursed herself for it, but she was mostly concerned now with what had brought her to consciousness.
Nikki and Renard were still asleep, sprawled out on the grass, and appeared to be the better for it. Nervously, she looked around, eyes, ears, nose straining for the disturbance.
There was a warm breeze blowing fleecy white clouds across a blue sky, and she could hear the rustle of treetops in the wind and the chatter of strange birds and insects. Out across the meadow, came the distant sounds of animals in great agitation. She knew the signs; something was coming, something that the ordinary dwellers of the forest considered a danger or an intruder or both. She turned to the sleeping pair, shook Renard gently. At first he didn’t stir, then, as she shook him harder, he moaned and said, “Huh? What?”
“Wake up!” she hissed. “Company coming!”
They both woke Nikki, an even harder task than with Renard, and Mavra thought about what to do.
“We have to get away from here,” she told them. “Now! I’d like to see who or what we’re facing before they find us.”
They stood up and followed her back into the woods a ways.
“If anybody knows what the module out there is, they’ll be looking for us,” she told them. “Still, I want to see what we’re up against. Stay here and stay hidden in the undergrowth. I’m going to sneak back for a quick look.”
“Be careful,” Renard cautioned, needlessly but with real concern in his voice.
She nodded, appreciating the concern, and crept back to the clearing. Whoever or whatever was approaching was big-she could tell that. It was almost as if the ground was trembling slightly, and the clatter among the wildlife was intense.