“He’d have to be crazy to play with us like that,” Burton said.
“Well?”
“It’s nuts, but it’d only take a minute,” Frigate said. “What do we have to lose? Besides, Alice may be rather quiet, but she does have a keen insight into individual psychology.”
“Thank you,” Alice said. “I wasn’t very good at reading people’s characters when I came to the Riverworld, but I had to develop that talent to survive.”
They went into the room where the android was sleeping. Burton awoke it gently and gave it a cup of coffee. Then he slowly and carefully told the android what it must do. Once more, it stood in front of the screen on the wall, and it said, “I tsab u.”
The screen flashed the characters of the Ethical alphabet.
“That means ‘ready,’ ” Burton said.
The android then told the Computer that it was transferring prime control to Burton. But the Computer refused to do that.
“Now what?” Frigate muttered.
Burton called the android to him and told him to go into the corridor with him. Though he did not know if that precaution was necessary, he could not afford to take chances. Having instructed the android what to say, he watched from the doorway as it relayed his commands. And the Computer obeyed.
They cheered and hugged each other, and Li Po did a little dance.
The android had ordered that all persons in the records, except for certain ones, whose names and record numbers it gave, be resurrected in The Valley. Henceforth, the process of resurrection would continue until the project was closed down.
The android also said that it wanted its, that is, Loga’s, security measures canceled. Immediately, the Computer replied that it had done so. And it displayed diagrams showing where Loga had hidden his body-records.
“Very good,” Burton said, smiling. “If we have to deal with the Computer through the android, so be it. I can endure that.”
It took them an hour to collect the thirty-nine records cached in rooms at different levels.
“I’d be completely confident now that Loga can’t be resurrected without our knowledge,” Burton said, “if he wasn’t so canny. What if he hid some records without telling the Computer where they were?”
“In that case,” Frigate said, “he couldn’t be resurrected because the Computer would not be connected to it and so could not carry out the operation.”
“He might have put the record in a converter unconnected to the Computer except for the power source. An auxiliary computer could have performed the process.”
“Then we’ll tell the Computer to notify us of any power demands that are unusual. Loga’s orders to the Computer to suppress the indications resulting from his use of the power have been nulled.”
“We’ll have to risk it. We can’t just not act because of the very slight chance that Loga might get loose.”
The others agreed with Burton that they could start repopulating the tower. They would do this, though, after the three private worlds had been cleaned up. They unanimously supported his suggestion that the Valleydwellers be told the truth, in fact, the whole story from the beginning.
“The Ethicals thought it necessary to spread half-truths through the Church of the Second Chance because of their belief in the strength of the religious impulse. But I believe that the whole truth, palatable or not, should be given. We’ll resurrect some people in the tower, let them live here for a while, then transport them to The Valley in the aircraft. We’ll give them photographs and powerpack-operated film projectors. That should convince the skeptics. The truth will spread very slowly because of the enormous population and the length of The Valley, but it will get to all eventually. Of course, some will refuse to believe. That’ll be their misfortune.”
Loga was placed in the cryogenics chamber.
Li Po resurrected his companions; Alice, Monteith Maglenna and several others, including her sisters Edith and Rhoda; Frigate, Sophie Lefkowitz and twenty others; Burton, Loghu the blonde ancient-Tokharian, Cyrano de Bergerac, Joe Miller the titanthrop, Kazz the Neanderthal, Tom Turpin, Jean Marcelin, Baron de Marbot, and many others whom Loga had recruited in his war against the Ethicals.
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