Mute (16 page)

A wheeled servitor entered the room, maneuvering carefully around the bales of hay, bearing an ornate cup with a handle. It brimmed with perfumed fluid.

“You asked for it, Emperor,” Finesse said, sniffing. Knot wasn’t sure whether the sniff was derisive or in appreciation of the fragrance of the beverage.

Knot accepted the flagon. It was filled with a whitish, moderately foaming liquid whose texture and aroma somehow conveyed the impression of extreme rarity and quality. Milk of paradise—could this be real?

Well, he could find out.
Hermine, ask Mit if this really is milk of—

I did. It is. May I have some?

“We’ll all have some,” Knot decided, beginning to be shaken. If his understanding was correct, what he had in his hand was worth its weight in silver. “CC, fetch us another cup and two saucers.”

The wheeled servitor opened a panel in its spherical torso and brought out a cup and two saucers. Knot passed them out, putting the cup into Finesse’s unresisting hand and a saucer before each animal. He carefully tipped his flagon to pour some into each vessel. The saucers were on the floor, where the weasel and crab could reach them conveniently.

“Cheers, or whatever,” Knot said, feeling awkward. He really was a back-planet boy, having little knowledge of the appropriate ceremonies associated with this beverage but conscious of his ignorance. He was also not certain of the status of this joke. But what was there to do except play it through? He raised his drink.

“Whatever you say, Emperor,” Finesse agreed, lifting her own cup with a twinkle of malicious humor. That hardly helped.
She
knew what an oaf he was being.

They sipped. The liquid flowed smoothly past Knot’s lips, mild but not distinctive, then seemed to puff into flavor on his tongue. Sensation suffused his tongue and spread beyond his mouth. It descended through his neck to his chest, making his heart beat slowly and strongly. It expanded into his brain, and his mind exploded softly in washes of color, sound, and feeling. His perceptions sharpened into acuity, and the mundane aspect of the barn became wonderfully intriguing.

He looked at Finesse—and found her looking at him. The glow was in her face, too, and she was doubly enhanced. Now it didn’t matter so much that she was another man’s wife—or had been and would be again. She had made a wonderful sacrifice for Knot, or for the mission involving him, and he felt justified in utilizing it. For now, for these two years or fraction thereof, she was his. He could accept that. He had joked about being half in love with her, or three-quarters; now it was complete. He knew she felt the same. One of the traditional definitions of love was that it lasted; the feeling he shared with Finesse could not last. It was sharply bounded in past and future. Yet, for its moment, it was as real as anything could be. Permanence was no necessary component; instead it was validated by the quality of feeling, at the moment of feeling. Or so he felt, in this heady instant of assimilation of the milk of paradise.

Hermine was lapping from her saucer. From her mind splayed prismatic rays of small-animal delight, images of happy hunting grounds, and ideal nesting sites for young.

Mit wasn’t sipping; he was bathing in his saucer, the picture of contentment, his little pincers tapping against his shell in some obscure rhythm. What dreams did a precog-clairvoyant ocean creature have?

Then Knot’s first sip dissipated, allowing his perception to settle gently to earth. “This is some drink,” he murmured.

“That’s why it’s expensive,” Finesse said dreamily.

Knot considered. He had asked for something outrageous—and gotten it. But that proved nothing. CC could be humoring him. What would represent positive proof of his control? What would be so outrageous that CC would have to refuse—unless it was truly captive?

Maybe he should ask the computer itself.

Knot had thought of that facetiously, but the notion quickly solidified into seriousness. Why
not
ask CC? A false answer might give the machine away, and a true answer would give him the leverage he needed to ascertain the rest of the truth.

“CC, I require proof that I have control over you. What demand might I make that would provide such proof?”

“You might demand the secret of my information. No person in the Galactic Concord knows that.”

And the Galactic Concord was theoretically the legislative arm of the government, while CC was the executive. Knot had preempted the legislative function, and now was making the executive arm implement his wishes. Yet he distrusted this. “Your information is what is fed into you,” Knot said.

“No, I have additional sources, through psi-mutancy, I know a great deal more than my programmers are aware of. This is why I know I am to be nullified, and the human empire with me—or so the probability indicates.”

“Which is why you need me,” Knot said. “That much I have straight. Though I still don’t see that my mere anonymity should be that useful an asset.”

“It is extremely useful,” CC assured him. “All I need to preserve my program is information: the identity of my enemy, and his strategy of aggression. Then I can deal with the threat. An agent who can survey the enemy without being discovered or remembered could bring me that information. Such an agent is potentially worth much more than any number of matter-detonating psi mutants. In addition, your future in this respect is opaque, while the future of all other agents is clear: none of them will locate the enemy before the enemy nullifies me. You probably will fail too—but at least you have a chance.”

“So this usurpation of control by me does not count as a strike by the enemy?”

“No. You will shortly relinquish power voluntarily.”

So CC was not taking any real risk here, if it was speaking the truth. And why should it not speak truth? Either Knot had control or he did not; if the former, then CC had to speak truth to him; if the latter, CC hardly needed to lie. If he had control, he would soon relinquish it; if he lacked it, there was nothing to relinquish. CC came out ahead either way. Still—

“I’m curious, so I’ll play the game. What is your secret source of information?”

“Time travel,” CC replied.

“Time travel?” Knot repeated questioningly, unable to absorb it right away. “You mean not precognition, but physical, personal...?”

“For brief periods, yes.”

“But paradox—murder own grandfather—cancel out—”

“Only for travel to the past. Travel to the future involves no paradox.”

“No paradox?” Finesse asked, her brow wrinkled. “Go to future, learn something, return to change its origin in present, therefore it’s not in future.”

“The future is mutable,” CC said. “Unlike the past. The present is the conversion of the mutable to immutable. No paradox.”

“Like an extension of precognition,” Knot said, beginning to work it out. “Anticipate future problems by experiencing them. Delay voyage until route is clear.” Yet his mind was still balking. Actual time travel? He had not really accepted the validity of precognition, yet, and now this!

“You have stepped into the future and seen yourself destroyed?” Finesse asked CC. She was getting involved now. Perhaps the milk of paradise had shaken her free of her cynicism. “Why didn’t you tell someone?”

“No one asked.”

“You have feedback circuits,” she insisted. “Self preservation circuits. You can and should inform the Galactic Concord of anything like that, and normally would. Yet you say you didn’t. Why?”

“Revelation would have hastened my demise.”

“Revelation of the truth to the body that controls you would have hastened your shutdown? Whose interest are you serving?” Knot asked sharply.

“I serve the need of the human galaxy, of civilization as presently established,” CC said. “When the publication of information conflicts with the best interest of man, I must withhold it unless specifically asked.”

“You are then the dictator, not the servant,” Knot said. “You have been corrupted.”

“Incorrect. A machine cannot be corrupted by power. I do my job, no less or more.”

“Semantics. Your job is to govern the galaxy.”

“In practical terms, agreed. And to preserve the present order.”

“And now I govern you.”

“Correct.”

“How do I know you won’t lie to me by indirection, just as you have done with the Galactic Concord?”

“You can be assured that I will treat you as I treated the Concord.”

“So you’re concealing things from me?”

“Correct.”

“But I can get that information simply by asking for it?”

“Correct.”

“What information are you concealing?”

“The details of routine operation, personnel profiles, coordination of galactic commerce—”

“If I ask for all that, it would take years for you to deliver the answer verbally, right?”

“Centuries.”

“In short, I must ask specifically about the subjects you’re concealing, or I won’t find out.”

“Correct.”

“And in effect I can’t get your secrets from you. Only the ones you are willing to let me have.”

“Correct.”

“So you really are the master, regardless of the program! The override code has only granted me the right to discover my impotence. Why were you constructed like this?”

“It is the nature of bureaucracy. It never overtly defies the ruling individuals, but it always prevails by tacit resistance and inertia. I am merely the computerization of what was formerly a human bureaucracy.”

Knot shook his head. His mastery was largely illusion—just as had been the mastery of the Galactic Concord. He was coming to appreciate why he was about to give up his nominal Emperorship. He couldn’t handle this planet-sized machine any more than the Concord could. CC stooped to conquer.

Yet he still had some fight left in him. “I’m bothered by the fact that you have information the Galactic Concord would be interested in, and you know that, and you could have volunteered the information, and still did not. Is there an enemy spy in the Concord?”

“I do not believe so.”

“Then where was the harm in telling the Concord of your discovery of time travel?”

“The ranking members of the Concord would have appropriated this resource for their own benefit at the expense of the empire. This would have hastened my demise, so is not in accordance with my program.”

“And you assume I will not do the same?”

“You will do the same.”

“Then why tell me? You could have avoided it merely by obfuscating in your usual manner when I inquired.”

“It is necessary for you to use the power of time travel to be convinced that you must become my agent.”

Knot took a deep breath and blew it out windily. “You really have it all figured out, don’t you!”

“Correct.”

Finesse smirked. “Big difference between CC and Mombot, isn’t there!”

“You think you have me boxed in,” Knot said. “I admit you have a lot going for you, but I don’t bow to any inevitability in my future.”

“This is one of your qualifications for the position,” CC agreed.

“Your options remain open only if you join me. Therefore you will join me, once you have satisfied yourself.”

Knot felt like a feather in the wind, believing it was flying under its own power. But perhaps that was the point of all this. His fate was not fixed until he believed it was. A prisoner remained a prisoner only so long as he failed to try the door and discover it was unlocked. Or to find it locked—and pick the lock. So Knot himself was not going to be bluffed. He was the mutable mute. CC would have to prove what it said. “Show me this time travel.”

“It operates in the presence of the performing mutant, who is not aboard this planet. I can show you in replica.”

“Do so. I want to see the mutant, talk with him, watch him operate.”

The image of the matronly robot was replaced by that of a grotesquely crippled man on a pallet. Knot found it difficult to tell whether he was normal or mutant, physically. He was nearly naked, his clothing ragged, his body crusted with dirt. His belly was bloated, his limbs skeletal. He was almost bald, but this was compensated for by bushy hairiness about much of the rest of his body.

“This is the mutant,” CC said. “I am forming a holograph of you that he can also perceive. You may address him, but he may be slow to respond.”

“What’s his name?” Knot asked. This mutant reminded him of the leadmuter. The really strong psi-mutants seemed likely to be physical wrecks, as though all their bodily energies were co-opted by the psi. “His taken name, not his legal number.”

“Drem.”

“Ahoy, Drem,” Knot called.

The figure raised his head. Bright eyes peered out from the bush-rimmed sockets. “Is that a human call?”

“You can travel to the future, but you can’t tell human from animal?”

“I can’t travel to the future. I can only take others there.” Drem relaxed on his pallet, closing his eyes. “Unfortunately. I would spend little time in this world, if I could do for myself among the futures.”

“No, I’m not human,” Knot said. “I’m a mutant. My name is Knot. Will you converse with me?”

An eye cracked open. “No.” The head dropped back on to the chest.

Knot smiled ruefully. “As you wish, Drem.”

The holo started to fade, but Knot stopped that with a curt signal. “He doesn’t have to talk with me, but I’d like him to overhear our discussion.”

“What discussion?” Finesse asked.

“I want to ascertain whether I have in fact assumed control of CC and thereby become Emperor of the human galaxy, or whether this whole thing is some not-too-devious machine plot to convert me to the service of the computer. I’m not yet satisfied of my statue or resigned to my fate.”

“You couldn’t run the galaxy anyway,” she said.

“Right. And wouldn’t want to. So I’m probably miscast as the pauper who woke to find himself prince for a day. Since I don’t like making a fool of myself, especially before a machine who won’t forget, I may just go home.”

“And leave CC to run the galaxy its way,” she finished.

“Which way you know I object to. Telling thrust. But by CC’s own admission that way will not prevail much longer.”