The Immortality Option Part 10

This development was not always advantageous. Factory Fifty, for instance, was consumed by its own offspring, who began dismantling it at its output end as soon as they came off the line and then proceeded to deliver the pieces back to the input end. It slowed to a halt and became plunder for foraging groups from Thirty-six and Fifty-three. The most successful factory-robot organisms protected themselves by producing aggressive armies of "antibody" defenders, which recognized their own factory and its "kind" and left them alone, but attacked any "foreign" models that ventured too close. This gradually became the dominant form of community, usually a.s.sociated with a distinct territory that its members cooperated in protecting.

The normal Borijan remote manufacturing setup included planetwide communications coverage for coordinating its various operations. In t.i.tan's case, however, no satellites had been put up, and facilities operating on the surface were showing defects of every kind. However, the Borijan engineers had provided a backup method for program and data interchange between the factories and their outside robots in the form of direct physical interconnection. It was much slower than radio, of course, since it required the robots to go physically to the factories for reprogramming and reporting, but in self-sustaining operations of that magnitude far from home, some such protection of the investment was essential. Factory Seventy-three, constructed with no radio capability at all, was started up by programs physically transported from Sixty-six. None of its robots ever used anything but the backup mode, and the descendant factories it sp.a.w.ned continued the tradition. But that very fact meant that foraging parties were able to roam farther afield, beyond line-of-sight links, and in the process enlarged their catchment areas dramatically.

So the "defect" turned out to be not so much of a defect, after all. Furthermore, continuing selective pressures tended to improve the autonomy of the robots that operated in this fas.h.i.+on. Relying only on their comparatively small local processors, they applied simple solutions to the problems they encountered; but their closely coupled mode of interacting with their surroundings meant that the solutions were applied fast: they evolved efficient "reflexes." The traditional models, by contrast, tied to their larger but remote central computers, could apply more sophisticated methods, but as often as not they applied them too late to derive any benefit. Autonomous operation thus conferred a behavioral superiority that a.s.serted itself as the norm, while use of radio declined in importance and became rare.

The periodic urge that robots felt to communicate genetic half subfiles back to their factories had long become universal-ancestors not sharing it had left no descendants. Their response to the demise of radio was to evolve a compulsion to journey at intervals back to the places whence they had come- their "sp.a.w.ning grounds." This in turn posed new challenges to the evolutionary process.

The main problem was that an individual could deliver only half its genome to the factory, with a high risk of its being deleted if the Supervisor encountered overload conditions before another robot of the same basic type arrived with a matching half. The successful response was a new mode of genetic recombination, which, coincidentally, also provided the answer to an "information crisis" that was restricting the pool of genetic variation available for further selection and improvement.

Some mutant forms of robot found that they could save themselves the trouble of long journeysback to factories by satisfying the half-subfile-outputting urge locally with anything that possessed the right electrical connections and compatible internal software, which usually meant another robot of the same basic kind. However, although the robots' memories were getting larger, so were their operating programs, with the result that an acceptor didn't have enough free s.p.a.ce to hold an entire genetic subfile.

Therefore, the donor's half was accommodated by overwriting nonessential code, which did incur the inconvenience of leaving the "female" with some impairment of agility and defensive ability-but that was only temporary, since full faculties would be restored when the genetic package was delivered to the factory.

But in return for these complications came the immense benefit that the subfiles delivered to the factories would be complete, ready to be pa.s.sed instantly to the schedulers, free from the risk of being deleted by overworked Supervisors.

The information crisis that this progression beyond as.e.xual reproduction also solved was a result of inbreeding. The various Supervisors had only the gene pools of their respective tribes available to work with, which made recombination difficult because of the rules imposed by the Borijan programmers. But the robots mixing genes out on the surface knew nothing and cared less about programmers' rules and proceeded to bring half subfiles together haphazardly in ways that the rules didn't permit and the Supervisors could never have conceived of. Most of the combinations that resulted from these experiments were nonviable, but the few that were viable radiated outward functionally in every direction to launch a whole qualitatively distinct, explosive new phase of the evolutionary process.

The demands of the two s.e.xual roles reinforced minor initial differences and brought about a gradual polarization of behavioral traits. Since a "pregnant" female suffered some loss of self-sufficiency for the duration, her chances of success were improved considerably if her mate happened to be of a disposition to stay around and help out for a while, perhaps accompanying her on her journey and protecting their joint genetic investment. Selection tended, therefore, to favor this kind of male and, by the same token, those females who mated with them preferentially. Hence, a female tendency emerged of being "choosy," and in response the males evolved various repertoires of rituals, displays, and demonstrations to improve their eligibility.

The process unfolding on the surface of t.i.tan had thus come to exhibit genetic variability and recombination, compet.i.tion, selection, and adaptation-all the essentials for continuing evolution. The form of life-for it was, wasn't it?-was admittedly strange from the terrestrial viewpoint, with the individuals that it included sharing common external reproductive, digestive, and immune systems instead of separate internal ones . . . and, of course, there was no complicated carbon chemistry figuring in the scheme of things. But then, what was there, apart from chauvinism, to say that it shouldn't have been so?

And over all that time some copies of the coded configurations that preserved the essence of the twelve Borijan personae from the distant past were pa.s.sed down through the generations, millennium after millennium, never to be expressed in any functioning or physical form.

A million years pa.s.sed. Then, one day, a robot craft from a civilization born of a different life-form appeared over t.i.tan's canopy of rust-red cloud. The pictures and data returned by the probes that it sent down revealed a world stranger than anything its builders had ever seen before. Shortly afterward, astronomically speaking, theOrion followed, bringing with it descendants of the line of semi-intelligent apes of long ago to investigate.

III.

The Computer That Discovered The Supernatural22 It was one of those rare times when Zambendorf seemed close to losing his self-control. His face glowed pink, his eyes blazed, and his beard bristled as he stood in Weinerbaum's office at Genoa Base, holding out the piece of paper that had brought him marching in a few minutes earlier. "It's due here in just over a week!" he stormed. "What are they trying to achieve by this? It will negate everything my people have been doing for the last five months. What kind of a way is that to treat the investment?"

Actually, Zambendorf was fully in control; his bl.u.s.ter was calculated for effect. The paper was a NASO message form with a directive that had come in from GSEC a couple of hours earlier, ordering Zambendorf and his team to be moved up to thes.h.i.+rasagi upon its arrival at t.i.tan and to remain there until it returned to Earth. It gave as a reason the concern that the GSEC board felt for their safety in view of the "deteriorating local situation."

"You and I both know that this is rubbish, Werner," Zambendorf fumed. "The media back there have been exaggerating the dangers for months. GSEC knows it, too-G.o.d, they're behind most of it.

And we both know why, don't we? It's a pretext to turn t.i.tan into an industrial colony. I messed up their plans last time, and they want me out of the way. Which means they haven't given up. They're going to try it again."

Privately, Zambendorf didn't hold out much hope for a lot of sympathy from Weinerbaum's direction. But this latest development portended ominous decisions ahead regarding the Taloids, and Zambendorf was willing to sound out any possibility.

Weinerbaum, standing by the end of the hinge-down plastic shelf that was the best the cubbyhole could offer for a desk, raised his brows in a feigned show of puzzlement. "Well, naturally I understand your feelings." He shrugged and showed his palms. "But surely you don't imagine that I can concern myself in a matter that rests purely between yourself and your princ.i.p.als. As you say, it's their investment. If they choose not to run with it longer, then that's their prerogative, I suppose." His expression stopped a shade short of mocking. "Maybe they just weren't getting the results they expected."

Behind his veneer of studied coolness Weinerbaum seemed to be enjoying the situation. His disdain toward Zambendorf had not slackened over the months, but lately he had been less hostile and more tolerant in expressing it. It could have been, of course, that after almost five months on t.i.tan the simple fact of sharing the quality of being human had come to outweigh everything else. But Zambendorf had detected a general lightening in Weinerbaum's whole outlook and manner, a s.h.i.+ne in his eye and a springiness in his step, betraying an inner excitement that perhaps made the irritation of having Zambendorf around no longer important. Natural curiosity made Zambendorf want to know why.

Apart from giving Weinerbaum an opportunity to exercise his sn.o.bbishness, this line wasn't going to accomplish anything, Zambendorf decided. He raised a hand to acknowledge that Weinerbaum didn't owe him anything, then sighed and made a pretense of laboring for a few seconds to calm himself down.

"Look," he said finally, speaking now in a more restrained voice heavy with candor. "I know that as far as you're concerned, we're at opposite poles when it comes to honesty and intellectual integrity. But really, the differences between us are a lot more superficial than you think."

"Oh, really? Do tell me why." Weinerbaum folded his arms and propped himself back against the shelf, at the same time nodding his head to indicate a fold-down seat on the bulkhead wall by the door- more because two big men could not have remained standing in the confined s.p.a.ce without taking on an aspect of the absurd than from expectations of learning anything. Zambendorf sat down.

"Because at the bottom of it all we both share a conviction that reason and rationality afford the only worthwhile basis for systems of human belief," Zambendorf said. "But we come from different directions in expressing it. Your way, science, is direct and overt: demonstrable, repeatable experiments leading to falsifiable predictions which can be tested."

"How interesting. Do go on." Weinerbaum's tone seemed to ask why that had never occurred tohim before.

Zambendorf refused to be fazed. "But some people-maybe most of them-will cling to wishful thinking in the face of every adverse fact, impervious to any appeal to reason. Try to argue with them and you'll be arguing until the end of time." Zambendorf made a brief throwing-away motion. "So I simply allow their own credulousness to draw them on into greater contradictions until it requires an acceptance of the fantastic that cannot be sustained. And then, maybe, they learn something."

"Aha!" Weinerbaum pounced. "So you're admitting at last that it's all a load of hok.u.m, are you?"

Zambendorf steered him off with a wave. "Oh, the situation that we're really talking about is too important to get involved in any of that. Whatever differences we may have are eclipsed by the common concern that we have for Arthur and the future of his regime here in Genoa. My interest, whether you believe it or not, is to preserve the ideals of freedom and individualism that it stands for. Yours is to prevent the reinstating of Henry, which would be a first step toward seeing your scientific work subordinated to the setting up of a manufacturing colony."

Weinerbaum's expression had lost some of its disdain while Zambendorf was speaking. He looked across now intently, as if the whole subject had suddenly taken on a new perspective in his mind.

Zambendorf went on. "So in this we're really on the same side. We both want the same outcome. But how can I contribute to making it happen if I'm confined to thes.h.i.+rasagi and then sent back to Earth?"

There was a pause while Weinerbaum continued staring thoughtfully. Finally he conceded, "Very well, supposing I take your point. What do you think I would be in a position to do about it?"

Zambendorf went through the motions of considering the question, as if he hadn't had the answer clear in his head before he had entered the room. "NASO is still the controlling authority here," he said finally. "It might carry some weight if you were to appeal this decision of GSEC's to them."

"Oh? And on what grounds might I do that?" Weinerbaum asked.

Zambendorf shrugged. Might as well go for broke, he thought. "Well, you could always say that the work of myself and the team is an essential aid to the scientific enterprise," he suggested.

Weinerbaum balked visibly. But to Zambendorf's inner surprise, he didn't promptly end the discussion right there. "I'll give the matter some consideration," he replied instead-coolly and with a manifest lack of enthusiasm, but the door had not been slammed.

The conversation left Zambendorf with the impression that more was going on than was obvious to the eye. The result was to make him more curious than ever.

The situation grew stranger the following day, when Weinerbaum held a closed conference with his inner group of senior scientists, then went to Harold Mackeson, the NASO base commander, and lodged a protest of exactly the kind Zambendorf had facetiously suggested. Consternation followed.

Clarissa Eidstadt seized the opportunity to book a slot in the outgoing communications beam to Earth and get an item headed t.i.tan scientists plead zambendorf case through to her publicity agency for general release.

Mackeson referred back to NASO headquarters in Was.h.i.+ngton for guidance and received a positive response. Since taking full charge of the t.i.tan operation, NASO's directors had enjoyed greater freedom of action and a boost in prestige. They knew the true situation on t.i.tan and recognized GSEC's maneuverings for what they were. Zambendorf's joining of forces with Ma.s.sey to thwart GSEC's previous scheme had marked him in NASO's eyes as being on "their" side then, however bizarre the alliance looked on the face of it. If GSEC considered it in its interest now to have Zambendorf out of the way, then, whatever GSEC's reasons, NASO was agin' it. Accordingly, NASO put out a statement saying that Zambendorf's help to Arthur's regime had been invaluable, and it was vital that this be continued for the benefit of other Taloid nations.

Colonel Short, the local military commander, on the other hand, whose loyalty was to others in Was.h.i.+ngton with political links to the GSEC-led consortium, echoed the GSEC line by saying that he could no longer be responsible for the safety of unnecessarily involved civilians.Zambendorf, for his part, was happy to leave those kinds of politics to the politicians, self-styled and professional. He was more intrigued by the reason behind Weinerbaum's action, which had been so totally out of character. Certainly Zambendorf was under no illusion that Weinerbaum had been motivated by any great sentiments of charity. And another part of it all that struck Zambendorf as significant was the way the scientists who were closest to Zambendorf's group-such as Dave Crookes, the communications specialist, and Graham Spearman, the biologist-had been excluded from the discussions that had preceded Weinerbaum's approach to Mackeson. It had the feel about it that they were considered security risk, too free in their talking and too familiar with the wrong people to be trusted.

Trusted with what? Zambendorf asked himself. It all added up to a conviction in his mind that something big was going on that Weinerbaum was covering up and that he didn't want GSEC poking its nose into. Precipitating the fuss over Zambendorf had been his way of diverting their attention.

It simply wasn't in Zambendorf's nature to pa.s.s up something like that. His whole life had been a pursuit of perfecting the art of finding out what he wasn't supposed to know. And besides, things had been getting too tame on t.i.tan for too long. It was time, he decided, to mobilize the team.

23.

The trail wound down a hillside past groves of spring formers, die casters, and rotary grinders in an out-of-the-way valley on the edge of the forests in southern Kroaxia. Below, the machinery stood taller around clumps of transfer presses and drop forges lining the banks of the river conveying its burden northward toward the princ.i.p.al city, Perga.s.sos.

Clad in heavy, hooded cloaks and woodsmen's boots, and pacing their step with staffs of duralumin tubing, Thirg and Brongyd made their way downward from the rise they had crossed, while Rex ran ahead, rooting and sniffing in the undergrowth of discarded parts and metal tailings. The Taloids carried packs slung across their backs and walked with the strong, st.u.r.dy stride that came from many brights spent living among outdoor people and trekking over mountain pa.s.ses.

Much had happened since their escape, with a group of other captives, from the village of Quahal during the clash between the Lumian dragon fighters and the Redeeming Avengers. The countryside was alive with spies, Avengers, and other proselytizers of the Lifemaker's True Faith, all playing on the people's recent insecurities in order to denounce the heresies of Kleippur in Carthogia and calling for a return to the older values. Unsure what kind of reception to expect in any place they were not known and with armed Avengers out looking for them to get even for what had happened at Quahal, the fugitives had split up into ones and twos and gone into hiding or tried making their way by different routes to safety. Thirg and Brongyd had lain low for many brights, avoiding the towns, staying on the move, and all the time laying false trails of rumor to throw off their pursuers. Finally they had judged it safe enough to come out of the hills to try crossing Kroaxia and the northern desert to enter Carthogia.

"Ah, I think I see it now." Thirg stopped to study the way ahead. "Yes, this looks familiar." He pointed at a sluggish collection of roller conveyors and chutes sending oddments down toward the river and almost obscured by the wire tangles of a mostly defunct cable-spinning line. "He used to live by that brook. There should be a clearing just past the wall beyond it there. It used to be the side of a motor pit that existed here long ago."

"Let's hope he's still there," Brongyd said. "My feet could use a plate, Thirg. And I can feel dust in the joints that a cool Michelube would do wonders for."

Ahead of them, Rex stiffened suddenly and looked up, coolant vanes bristling and collector horns p.r.i.c.ked. At the same instant a din of short alarm-siren wails and cutter gnas.h.i.+ngs broke out behind the thicket of lattice works ahead. Thirg called for Rex to stay back. It stood, snorting methane vapors, while the two robs hurried to catch up. Then another mecanine bounded into view and stopped a short distance away, facing them along the trail. It was large and fierce-looking, with a blackcarbon-impregnated face ferrous red around the imagers, heavy turretlike shoulders, and a solidly riveted chest. Its alarm siren fell to a series of warning hoots, which Rex returned as a growl of cavity-amplified cooling-fan whirrings.

Then a rob's voice called out from farther back. " 'Old it, Duke. Down, boy." He came into sight, older than Brongyd would have guessed from the voice, but hardy-looking and vigorous. He wore a laminated foil jerkin with loose breeches gathered into wire-braided boots and was holding a Kroaxian army-issue spring-steel crossbow, c.o.c.ked and leveled. " 'Oo be ye?" he demanded, his voice gruff and suspicious. "There's nowt for strangers t' be busyin' theirsel's over in these parts. 'Oo are yers, an' what does yer want?"

Thirg waited a moment for recognition to register, but the other's features remained harsh and unyielding. Finally Thirg grinned and shook his head sadly. "Well, that's a strange welcome to be giving to an old friend, Mordran, Master-of-the-Duke-That-Warns. Surely Thirg can't have changed that much. Or has too much imbibing of uranium-salt brews clouded your memory?"

Mordran stared disbelievingly, and then his coolant flap dropped suddenly. "By the Lifemaker's image! Surely not! . . . Tell me it isn't Thirg, the Asker!"

"I'll tell you so by all means if it pleases you, but I can't see how it's supposed to help," Thirg replied. "If true, then you know nothing that you didn't know already. If false, then the purpose of my being here could hardly be served, could it?"

The weather-scoured facial scales s.h.i.+fted to the nearest the craggy features could manage to a smile of delight. Mordran lowered the bow, unc.o.c.ked the trigger, and came forward. "Hee-hee-hee!

There was only ever one person 'oo could 'ave come up wi' an answer like that. Thirg, by all the . . ." He left the sentence unfinished as he grasped Thirg's hand and pumped it as if he were trying to wrench it off at the shoulder. "I 'eard ye'd upped an' awayed to Carthogia. Got yerself mixed up in them goin's-on o'

Kleippur's was what they told me. And the best place fer 'im, too, I said. Never thought we'd see you back 'ere again. Never in a thousand brights."

"It just shows never to bet on certainties," Thirg said. "Mordran, this is a very good friend of mine, Brongyd, also an inquirer, one who studies the mysteries of life and the natural machine world. Brongyd is from Uchal but is returning with me now to Carthogia." They shook hands, Brongyd warily, Mordran making a visible effort to be more genteel. Thirg went on. "Mordran's an old soldier, Brongyd, formerly a sergeant with one of the Kroaxian foot pike regiments. One of the times when I upset Frennelech's priests, he got me out of trouble by dropping certain records into a furnace."

"Aye, an' that were the least I could do, an' all," Mordran told Brongyd as he turned and began walking back with them. "Afore that, there were a time when I was wi' this troop that got ambushed by brigands way out in t' 'ills this side o' Meracasine. Right to-do, it were an' all. More'n twenty of our lads got t' chop that bright, they did. They left me fer gone, too. Underneath some welding trees I were-an arm 'alf-off, a leg 'alf-off, an' me 'ead switched all off, hee-hee. But it were Thirg 'ere that found me an'

dragged me back to this 'ouse up there that 'e lived in, all away from everyone-"

"Actually, it was Rex," Thirg put in as they walked.

"Aye!" Mordran pointed ahead at Thirg's mecanine, now trotting a length behind Duke, who kept glancing back, not prepared yet to take its eyes away for more than a second. "That were 'im. That mec.

If 'e 'adn't found me when 'e did, I wouldn't be 'ere talkin' to the two 'o yers now."

"Yula's well, I hope," Thirg said as they rounded a bend in the path and came within sight of Mordran's house.

"Oh, never better. Ye'll be missin' 'er this bright, though. She's away visitin'."

"Oh, that's a shame," Thirg said. "Where has she gone?"

"Ye remember Serriel, the one that's always talkin' an' never says nothin'?"

"The worob who lives across the river? The one with all the children. Yes, of course. How could I forget?"

"Well, she's just back from t' factory with another now. Eight, that makes it. Anyroad, Yula's offover there to 'elp out, an' probably the two of 'em 'aven't stopped talkin' since she got there. Ee, it's good to see thee back, Thirg. Let's get ye both plated up an' charged, an' ye can tell me all about what's been 'appenin' t' ye all these brights. It'll be a good story, too, I'll be bound. I've never 'eard of such carryin's-on as what folk 'ave been tellin'. King and 'igh priest both out on their ear. Aliens made out of 'ot sticky stuff comin' down out of t' sky. Makes ye wonder where it's all goin' ter end, don't it?"

The house was modest in size but neatly trimmed and of a healthy color, with the folds cut back at the roof ends and center walls, where mature growths often acquired a tired, saggy look. There was a garden of plating salt depositors, coolant and solvent stills, and bearing bush presses, along with a fenced paddock at the rear, in which a mixed herd of rare-metals concentrators were grazing on a pile of sc.r.a.p.

Mordran led them past a flower bed in which micro laser heads were cheerfully sculpting fractal forms from copper and beryllium offcuts and into the kitchen. It was cluttered but clean, with well-stocked shelves of parts and vases of wild forest cogs and cableforms to brighten the place.

Thirg and Brongyd sat down gratefully in front of the waterplace, while Mordran set two rechargers and began preparing solvent and plating solutions. "An' 'ow's things wi' that brother o' yours, Thirg?" he inquired.

"Groork?"

"Aye, Groork, the 'Earer." The Lumians Thirg had talked to said that the "voices" hearers thought came from the sky and certain holy places were a remnant of a lost sense that the early ancestors of the robeings had possessed. Allegedly it was the same ability that enabled the Lumians to talk to each other over vast distances and even to send pictures. " 'Enlightener,' or some such, 'e were callin' 'isself,"

Mordran went on. "When everyone was goin' daft over this new alien religion that tells everyone ter be friends wi' likes o' Carthogians, when they still can't keep thesselves from 'alf killin' their own neighbors down t' street. Nearly got 'isself t' chop, didn't 'e, that Groork? When they chucked 'im off t' cliff. Then 'e was away to Carthogia, too, last I 'eard. Is 'e doin' all right?"

Thirg sat forward and rubbed his hands together in the warm glow from the flickering fountain of liquid ice in the waterplace. "Yes, he's out of all that business now and a diligent student of the new sciences at Kleippur's academy," he said.

"An' what about you two?" Mordran asked, directing the question at Brongyd to invite him more into the conversation. "This is a strange route to be takin' if ye were supposed to be goin' back with 'im to Carthogia from Uchal."

"The Avengers have been looking for us, so we've been keeping out of sight for a while," Brongyd replied. "I'm sure you know the way things are."

"Aye," Mordran replied darkly.

"We're enemies of the True Faith that they're trying to bring back," Thirg said. "Carthogian inquirers. That says enough."

"An' none of it'll make any difference in the long run," Mordran declared. "They're causin' people a lot of grief an' trouble for nowt. n.o.body can put the clock back. Now that them Lumians are 'ere, things can't go back ter bein' the way they used ter be. It's the likes o' Frennelech an' them priests that's be'ind it all. They don't know anythin' that's worth sump sludge, if you want my opinion. Fairy tales and mumbo jumbo, the lot of it. It's the inquirers-the likes o' you two-who'll change the world. An' the priests know it, too. That's why they've always tried to keep you down. But they can't win. So what 'ave ye been doin' that's upset 'em this time, Thirg?"

"I was visiting Brongyd when the Avengers came to Uchal," Thirg replied. "We were taken captive with some others and paraded through more villages where the same things happened. Their leader was called Varlech. His way of intimidating the villagers was to execute the headrob and his family in front of them. They carried the body of a dead Lumian with them in a cart to prove that the Lumians are not G.o.ds."

"I know of Varlech," Mordran said. "Real nasty piece o' work. The Lumians went after 'im because o' that dead body that 'e were luggin' around, an' the fool thought 'e could take 'em on. Got 'isself blownter smithereens, 'e did, along wi' most o' t' lunatics that 'e 'ad with 'im. Only trouble were, a few o' t'

villagers got chopped, too. A bad business, that. Place called Quahal, it 'appened in. They're some right fighters from what I've 'eard, these Lumians, when they get mad. I don't reckon I'd want ter tangle wi'

'em."

Brongyd sent Thirg a questioning look. Thirg shrugged and nodded. "We know," Brongyd said, looking back at Mordran. "We were there. That was where we escaped from."

Mordran's imager shades widened in surprise as he came around the table carrying funnels, cans, a bottle, and two cords. "What! You two were there, at Quahal? Ee, I've got t' 'ear this! Come on, then, an' tell me the story." He raked ice flakes and slush aside to get a flow going in the waterplace, then pulled up a chair and sat down.

Thirg and Brongyd took turns relating the events at Quahal while Mordran listened intently, puffing evaporated gasoline fumes from a pipe. They ended with an account of their retreat into the hills and the time they'd spent staying on the move and out of sight. Finally they got around to the question of what they planned to do next.

"I think we've shaken them off now," Thirg said. "Our thought was to go into Perga.s.sos and seek Nogarech's aid in getting back to Carthogia." Nogarech, Kroaxia's new ruler following the expulsion of Eskenderom, was trying to introduce a more liberal system based on Kleippur's model, and it had seemed a reasonable proposition. Mordran, however, was less sanguine about it.

"Things are unsettled all over Kroaxia," he told them. "T' priests 'aven't gone away. They're out there still, preachin' on about the Lifemaker an' scarin' folk wi' tales of 'ow they'll melt in t' furnace if they don't think the way they're told. An' a lot o' folks are startin' ter listen. I mean, it's the way they were brought up, in't it? Then there's been stories about Eskenderom an' all 'is old cronies 'avin' secret meetin's wi' Lumians across in Serethgin, which gives some the idea that 'e might be comin' back. So they're lookin' for ways o' stayin' on 'is right side, just in case. I'd say that right now Nogarech's situation is touch an' go." Mordran shook his head. " 'Tain't a time to go marchin' yersel's into t' middle o'

Perga.s.sos, saying what a great lad Kleippur is an' lookin' for a ride back to Carthogia."

Thirg and Brongyd exchanged worried looks. "What would you suggest, then?" Thirg asked Mordran.

Mordran puffed at his pipe and thought for a while. Finally he said, "What I'd do is dress up to look more like farmers and go into Perga.s.sos quiet an' easy. I'll take yer there on a road that not many know, where ye won't attract notice. Then, once ye're there, ye can find someone who'll get y' in to see Nogarech on the side, like, without too many knowin'. Them that wants ter see the old ways back again 'ave got spies around 'im everywhere, an' this way 'e might be better able t' 'elp. Anyroad, that's what I reckon. It'd be no problem fer me. I've time to kill afore Yula gets back, in any case. We've a couple o'

lads 'ere who can take care of t' 'ouse an' t' animals. What d'yer think?"