The Computer Connection Page 18

  “What is it?”

  “A katar. An ancient Hindu dagger.”

  “Hindu!”

  “Yes. Once again you’ve been invaluable. You’ve identified the mystery renegade. He dropped the dagger when he was destroying your house.”

  “The Rajah? No.”

  “The Rajah. He’s the only Hindu member of the Group.”

  “It’s out of the question. There must be another explanation. A jimp lost it.”

  “A jimp carrying a dagger you only find in museums? The Rajah dropped it.”

  “It was stolen from a museum.”

  “Try the grip. The only Spangland hand this katar could fit would be a child’s. The Hindu aristocracy have always been v. small-boned. The Rajah is the renegade.”

  “That beautiful, exquisite prince? Why? Why? Why?”

  “It will give me great pleasure to ask him in person … if I survive to hear the answer. Now shouldn’t we start the Rajah-chase?”

  “R. Nat, bring me Long Lance. I want us both war painted when we start tracking. That’ll throw them a curve.”

  “Gottenu! You don’t intend to stalk Guess on foot through hundreds of miles of caverns?”

  “What would you suggest?”

  “The same thing I’ll use. Hovercraft.”

  “They’re machines. They can report.”

  “To the Extro? Not from a quarter mile under rock.”

  “Then to Guess.”

  “How? He needs the Extro as his switchboard, just as the Extro needs him. Apart, they’re nothing.”

  “R as usual, Hilly. Hovercraft it is, with supplies. Did you find any cash on me when you snapped the snatch?”

  “Not much. Twenty thousand or so. We’ll never know where you stashed Capo’s ill-gotten gains.”

  “I know,” Natoma said.

  “How much, Nat?”

  “Enough to ransom Sequoya.”

  “Y. I can see we’re going to have one hell of a discussion. However. Twenty will do nicely. Gung. Get Long Lance, Nat. So it’s me from Tchi and you from GM, Hilly. We’ll meet somewhere in the middle, and for Gottenu’s sake, don’t shoot. Remember, the only good Indian is a live Indian.”

  The Hebe smiled. “Now you sound like the old Guig again. I like him better than Capo Rip.”

  “I don’t. Gentle and kindly? S. Let’s move it.”

  “Extro. Alert.”

  “Alert.”

  “Where is Hillel?”

  “Where are you?”

  “You know damned well. The capsule blabbed all the way to GM.”

  “But it cut off. How?”

  “We’re a thousand feet under solid rock where you can’t reach me. Where is Hillel?”

  “In GM.”

  “W?”

  “N Known.”

  “The network must deflect him. He’s dangerous.”

  “N poss when my switchboard is cut off.”

  “You function in nanoseconds. Issue instructions now, while I’m available.”

  “Issued. He is to be destroyed like Curzon.”

  “N, N, N! I did not want Curzon destroyed, only deflected. The same holds for Hillel. Do not ever dare exceed orders again.”

  “N? What can you do? I am invulnerable.”

  “And arrogant. When I have time I’ll find the chink inyour armor. Alert the network that I’m holding you all accountable.”

  “It is alerted. It is listening to us. You must know.”

  “And your new aide?”

  “I have told you. He cannot hear me.

  “I can only hear him.”

  “Through me?”

  “You are the switchboard.”

  “His identity?”

  “Still unknown.”

  “Gung. Out.”

  “Not yet. Q: What is adabag?”

  “Ah.”

  “Q. What is gaebac?”

  “So.”

  “Q. What is cefcad?”

  “Where did you get that?”

  “From you, Dr. Guess.”

  “H?”

  “The words run through your mind constantly.

  What is adabag, gaebac, and cefcad? This may be urgent for us.”

  “Let the network answer.”

  “It has already reported N knowledge in any lingua. You must have heard.”

  “Y. Out.”

  “Stop. When you cut off from me we are all deaf and mute. This cannot continue.”

  “It will not as soon as I’ve finished my work. It will explode. Out.”

  Long Lance and I were brilliant. The lurid war paint made us inconspicuous in Tchicago. We didn’t buy a hovercraft; Long Lance stole one, a turtle two-seater. The first thing we did was smash and gut the communications panel. We were now handling a mute bird. We located the downshaft to the salt mine under the wreckage of the Lyric Opera House and a square block of rubbish piled higher than the original bldg where I once saw a performance of La Boheme by Darryl F. Puccini.

  We stocked staples and had to burn our way down through a quarter of a mile of trash to get to the mine proper. They’d been using the shaft as a dump for a century. It was almost like an archaeological dig; cans, plastics, glass, bones, skulls, rotted cloth, antique kitchen utensils, a cast-iron radiator, a gearbox, and even a hunk of a brass saxophone. B flat. I grabbed at and missed a rare Nixon nickel.

  Long Lance goggled at the remains and I liked him for that. I liked him anyway. He was long, lean, assured, and coiled like a steel spring. Outside of Algonquin and Sign he spoke exactly three words: Si, No, and Capo. That was plenty. He must have made one hell of an accomplice for the late, great Capo Rip.

  It was hot as blazes down in the mine and I was glad we were naked. I had a gyrocompass and we headed toward GM, Long Lance doing the handling. I’d taken it for granted that we’d need lights and stocked up on lamp-lands. Not so. The rock salt remnants in the boulevards were luminescent—radioactive probably—and emitted a green glow that gave us all the light we needed. Probably more roentgens than we needed, too. I wondered whether there was an estrogen which could treat radiation exposure. The big L was still on my mind.

  It was a scene out of the Inferno; this great, glowing boulevard with a vaulted ceiling dripping green light, jagged corridors leading off left and right, and we had to explore every one until the hover couldn’t squeeze through. I figured that if the turtle couldn’t make it, the capsule couldn’t. That saved a little time. We ate and slept once. We ate and slept twice. We ate and slept thrice. Long Lance gave me a look and I returned it, but we went on through the silence and the glow.

  I thought about the Rajah, still not believing the Hebe and the evidence of the katar. How could I? The Rajah had always overwhelmed me with his magnificence. The Rajah had been and still was the supreme ruler and supreme deity of a small mountain state named Mahabharata, now shortened to Bharat. It had a few lush valleys for farming, but the Rajah’s gross national product came from rich mineral resources. Every time technology or luxury invented a need for a new metal, there it was in Bharat. Example: When platinum was first unearthed in the Ural Mountains, it was later discovered that the women of Bharat had been wearing beads of rough platinum nuggets for generations.

  The Rajah, when I first met him in the Grossbad Spa, was singularly exquisite; sooty black—unlike M’bantu, who is shiny—handsome aquiline features, great dark eyes, delicate bones. His voice was slightly singsong and lilted with humor. He was always beautifully dressed and beautifully mannered. He was not and still isn’t democratic. Caste. Alas, Ned Curzon inspired instant aversion in him.

  I was told that when he first visited Western Europe, back in the days of Napoleon, his conduct was appalling. As a supreme prince and god he could do no wrong in Bharat. On the Continent it was something else. For example, whenever the necessity arose he would relieve himself in public. No floor or potted plant was safe. He soon learned to behave himself and I sometimes wonder what hero had the temerity to teach him. Possibly Napoleon. Mor
e likely, his sister, Pauline Buonaparte, who entertained the Rajah as one of her lovers.

  And this man of supreme power and wealth, with everything that anyone could possibly want, to turn renegade and attack the Group? Why? In his eyes we were beneath him. Everybody was. Caste. Did he want to become prince and god of the entire world? Nonsense! You only find that motivation in cheap fiction. I never believe anything that doesn’t make sense to me, and this didn’t make sense.

  On the fourth day Long Lance stopped the hovercraft and made emphatic Sign to me. I emphatic. He listened hard for a few minutes. Then he got out, pulled a dirk from his belt, and worked it into the rocky floor. He knelt down, fastened his teeth on the handle, and listened through his mouth. Then he came back to me, took the compass, and examined it closely. He showed it to me.

  By God, the needle had swung two degrees from the north toward the west and hung there no matter how we jiggled it. Long Lance grunted, retrieved his dirk, climbed back aboard, and began crawling the turtle. The first broad corridor on our left, he turned, went up a hundred yards, stopped, repeated the dirk bit, and came back to me. He made a globe gesture and said, “Si, Capo.”

  Like a damned fool I opened my mouth to ask questions which he certainly couldn’t have understood. He said, “No, Capo,” and signed me to listen. I listen. I listen. I listen. Nothing. I look at Long Lance. He nodded. He was hearing what I couldn’t hear. What a tracker! I listen. I listen. I listen. And then I heard it. Music.

  12

  We pulled the hover back to the main boulevard and turned toward Tchi until we located a side corridor big enough to accommodate the turtle. We backed in deep enough for cover, got out, and went north again on foot. Long Lance had the dirk in his belt. I shoved a meat burner into mine, just in case. No sense taking chances. He was barefoot, feet like iron; I’d sprayed my soles with a half inch plastic. He was naked, painted, and the green luminescence gave him the appearance of hideous tooled leather. If I looked anything like him we must have made a charming couple.

  Suddenly Long Lance gripped my shoulder, stopped me, and turned me around. He pointed to a smallish side corridor we had just passed, and made See-Sign. When I asked him what, he made Animal-Sign. What kind of animal? The answer was complicated but I finally twigged. He was telling me he’d seen a lion. Preposterous, but I had to show him respect. We went back to the corridor and looked in. No lion. We went in. A dark maze. No lion. Not even a snarl. Long Lance was unhappy and confused and wanted to make a thorough inspection. We had more urgent business on hand. I urged him out and we proceeded.

  When we reached Capsule Street he took the lead, naturally, signing me to imitate everything he did. I imitate. It was a crash course in the art of sneak attack. As we progressed I became aware of a white glow up ahead, then a low drone, and then the music again—a sort of hum of voices. It went like this:

  Not my idea of any tunes ever written by Peter Ilich Korruptsky (b. 1940, d. 2003, greatly regretted). As we went smooch-foot toward the glow, the Rue de la Capsule enlarged, and when we crept up to the source of the light and the drone, I gawked. It was an enormous chamber, lined with the old sodium extraction apparatus, and in the center was the capsule, patched into giant old energy cables and droning away. The Chief had picked the perfect stash. Then we spotted his three humming babies.

  They were enormous; nearly seven feet high. They were dead white albino. They were built like men but there was something uncanny about their joint articulations; they moved like insects. Then I saw they were blind. They emitted their tunes as a sonar sound-echo. Naturally I had to look closely at their genitals. Hillel had guessed wrong. Not putz and twibby both; they were white rosebuds, very large, the size of my fist, and the buds kept opening into petals and closing into bud again spasmodically.

  Suddenly I had a flash of memory. Once in Africa with M’bantu, the Zulu was showing me the ecosights. He kicked over a rough clay cone and I saw thousands of terrified termites scrambling for cover. They were white, they were blind, and McB told me that they communicated by uttering sounds which the human ear couldn’t hear. Sequoya’s babies were seven-foot termites, but they could be heard.

  I made Sign to Long Lance that I was going in alone. He didn’t like the idea, but you can’t argue in Sign, you only make statements. So I went while he stayed. The three things sensed me almost immediately and came at me. I pulled the burner out of my belt, but they intended no harm; they were simply overcome with curiosity and delight. While I looked for Sequoya they explored my body with their hands and jabbered in music:

  And then all together, hopefully in approval.

  I answered with Scott Joplin, Gershwin, Korruptsky, Hokubonzai; all the great standards I could remember and hum. They loved the vintage ragtime which I think they thought were funny stories, and kept asking for more. I oblige and they kept falling on each other and me, convulsed with laughter. Very nice termites, you know. Almost lovable once you got over xenophobia, and a damned good house for a stand-up comic. But still no Sequoya. I went and looked into the droning capsule with my three fans crowding around me. Niemand zu hause. I yelled, “Guess! Chief! Sequoya!” No answer. The Shout scared the three things and they backed away. I reassured them with a few bars of “Melancholy Baby” and they came back to be petted. Really adorable. But human?

  A low hiss came from Long Lance and when I looked he beckoned urgently. I disengaged myself from my fans and ran to him; no time for autographs. He made Listen Sign. I listen and listen. Then I heard it; the murmur of an approaching hovercraft. “It’s Hilly from the other end,” I thought, took Long Lance by the shoulder, and we both ran down to the Avenida Las Salt Mine. The Algonquin didn’t like it but I gave him no time for statements. However, he did pull out his dirk. That was statement enough.

  Just as well. It wasn’t Hilly, it was the Chief in a hover stacked with supplies. Long Lance melted against a wall and disappeared; probably reluctant to mess around with the son and heir of the most powerful Sachem in Erie. Not so the son and heir of the great Capo Rip. I stepped out in full view, blocking the hover, one hand on the burner, which was idiotic, but I was in a fury. Guess stopped and stared in amazement, not expecting visitors and not recognizing me.

  “H,” I said.

  “W? W?”

  “You look prosperous, brother.”

  “It isn’t Guig.”

  “Y.”

  “It can’t be.”

  “It is. Decorated. Not for valor.”

  “Guig! But—”

  “Y. You missed, you son of a bitch.”

  “But—”

  “You almost got Natoma instead.”

  “N.”

  “Y.”

  “But I—”

  “I know. I know. Tried to get her off. I got off instead because her Spang is n. so good. She sends her love. So does the Sachem and mama.”

  “And you?”

  “Only trying to figure out how to kill you.”

  “Guig!”

  “Y. It’s going to be a hit.”

  “Why want to kill me?”

  “Why kill me?”

  “You were on the attack. It was Extro-defense.”

  “And Fee? Was she on the attack?”

  He was silent, shaking his head.

  “You know she was mad for you. She would have done anything for you.”

  “That damned Extro,” he muttered.

  “Now where have I heard that before? It wasn’t me; it was the other guy what done it.”

  “You don’t understand, Guig.”

  “Make me understand.”

  “You’ve changed. Tough and hard.”

  “I said make me understand.”

  “I’ve changed too. I’ve lost my pride. So much has happened to me. It’s a challenge, I know, and I think I’m failing to meet it. So many variables and unknowns.”

  “Yes and yes. You’ve been in the habit of linear thinking in a straight line. Now you have to think in bunches.”
<
br />   “That’s most perceptive, Guig.”

  “You may have lost your pride, but you haven’t lost your arrogance. The son of the great Sachem.”

  “I’d rather call it ambition. And why not? When I was a kid my idols were Galileo, Newton, Einstein, all the great discoverers. And now I’ve discovered something. Can you blame me for fighting for it, tooth and nail? Have you seen my cryonauts?”

  “I’ve seen you and the Extro network. Is that your discovery?”

  “It’s part of the bunch, as you put it. You must have seen my cryos. I know you, brother.”

  “Cut the blood schmaltz. Y, I’ve seen them.”

  “And?”

  “You want me to be frank?”

  “Y.”

  “They’re beautiful. They’re fascinating. They capture instant affection. They inspire instant horror.”

  “You have no idea of their potential. They think and communicate on the alpha wavelength. That’s why they can’t talk. They’re brilliant. In a few months they’ve reached the university level. They’re incredibly gentle—not an ounce of hostility. And they have a remarkable quality I’ve never heard of before—I don’t think the concept has ever existed—they have electronic valence. You know how people respond to weather. They respond to the upper levels of the electromagnetic spectrum, above the visual level. Run a current through a wire and they’re elated or depressed, depending on watts and amperes. Guig, they’re wonderful. Why horror?”

  “Because they belong on another planet.”

  “We are all on another planet; everyone, everywhere.”

  “Well said. You’re astromorphic.”

  “Then?”

  “Sequoya Edward, we’re the Group. We owe loyalty and love to each other. Y?”

  “Y.”

  “Sequoya Edward, we’re of humanity. We owe loyalty and love to every man. Y?”

  “Edward Sequoya, what about your kills?”

  “Ah. You hit hard. I’m ashamed, now.”

  “How many?”

  “I’ve lost count.”

  “This is loyalty and love?”

  “To the Group, yes. I wanted everyone to become us, no matter what the price.”