Homesite. Part 3

"The king knew, but the son did not yet know what he truly knew until his father lay dead before him. We discover by going through it."

"Goodbye, Tom," Phar said then, and fleetingly clasped my arm with his free one.

And like the warrior son, caught by the momentum of events, by the force of things said and done, the relentless pressure of following through, thrown out of the way of controlled choice now, I found myself standing on the curb outside the Sea Folly, feeling cheated and trapped, with the great crowd surging on slowly but surely towards the Square. I stood blinking in the morning light which danced off the whitewashed walls, then followed the great throng, bewildered still, unresolved and unprepared. Then I heard cries and saw the crowd dispersing up ahead. There were armed warriors at the end of the street, sealing off the openings into the Square behind Lud, Phar and Phaya. Kurdaitcha. I heard their commands, saw them through the townsfolk rushing back my way.

As the crowds thinned out, I saw the robed Ab'Os clearly, saw the heavy weapons, the portables and Bok lasers they had set up, the laser batons they carried. It had taken only fifteen minutes for word to get around, for the Kurdaitcha to act.

I walked towards the beginning of the Square, trying to see if the robot had reached the little park at its centre. Two robed Kurdaitcha stood near the corner, members of the Chitalice tribe. They saw me, muttered some words, then one came over to me, his laser baton activated.

"You were with the robot!" the man said, his baton raised.

"No," I said, as calmly as I could. "I was with the man and his child. There is a difference. They were with the robot. I honoured a claim of friendship."

"You are Tom Rynosseros?" the Kurdaitcha said.

"Yes."

"Why were you with the robot?"

"I told you. I was not with the robot."

The other Kurdaitcha came up then.

"You support the mankins?" he asked. "You were with them."

"Are you scanning me?" I asked in turn.

"Yes," the first Kurdaitcha said, showing me his monitor unit.

"I do not support the mankins. I oppose AI!"

"It reads clear," the first Ab'O said, consulting the display.

The second Kurdaitcha made a doubtful sound. "Very well. But leave here. Go home!"

"What about the man and the child?"

"He is with the robot and forfeit. The child is not. She will be safe."

"I am champion for the man," I said quickly.

The eyes of the Kurdaitcha narrowed with suspicion.

"Why?" one said.

"A dear friend who acted against advice," I told them. "I will stand for him."

"But not for the robot?"

"No. Not for the robot."

"We will parole him to you if we can save him."

"The man?"

"Of course, the man! Move on!"

I did not go to the Emporium; there was not enough time. I went into the Sea Folly and joined the crowd around the wall screen which showed the scene in the Square: Phar and Phaya walking hand in hand with Lud towards the small ragged forest at its centre-a copse of dusty neglected trees, made suddenly glorious by the sunlight streaming down between two adjacent buildings.

"It's only a matter of time," the broadcast commentator was saying. "The Kurdaitcha have set up powerful Bok lasers at the ends of the streets. It will be an energy death. They say they have instructions to spare the forest, if possible, and the Stone, but we can't help but feel they have other orders in the matter: to let the robot reach the Stone, and destroy it there before it can make invocation. They will have an excuse to be rid of the Soul Stone and the Park donated by Antique Futures, a perfect opportunity and a way of forestalling similar incidents in future. But wait! The Kurdaitcha are moving in!" On the screen, we saw the robed figures striding purposefully to block the trio's path. There were voices, firm commands, squeals from little Phaya as an Ab'O seized her and lifted her easily off the road, soft m.u.f.fled protests from Phar, who was dragged off by two warriors. Lud did not stop to help them. He moved as fast as he could towards the golden glade ahead. When four Kurdaitcha tried to swing the mankin aside, Lud did not attempt to engage them, he simply continued on his way, stiff-legged, comical, as if blundering through their line. Desperately trying to reach the Stone, I knew. The warriors raised their batons, received a command, and moved back to their companions at the mounted portables.

I stared at the screen, not knowing what I wanted to happen, but not this, not these heroics, this waste.

Waste! I recoiled from the term I had provided. Waste. Loss. And more.

I thought of the chattering machines in the darkness of the Madhouse, watching dreams, reading madness. They had watched me, contemplated my thoughts and images, invading the only life I had, reducing me to behaviour patterns, to data and schematics. And And what what else? else? I wondered. I wondered.

"Very still now," the commentator said. "There is a countdown. But wait! The robot is stopping. We have tapped into its oriete, courtesy of the Kurdaitcha scan facility set up here, and moire trace shows the mankin has recognised that a forest has replaced the old park and the Stone. It probably did not know that. It is waiting.

"No!" I cried. "No!", realising how Lud saw that forest. As life. Life! Life to be savoured, cherished, saved. Life to be worshipped for all the things Lud feared he might not be. Lud could not go into the forest. He would cause its death too. Lud was remembering the Bati Gardens.

"The lasers are waiting," the voice on the screen continued. "Countdown is 30 and falling. Moire trace shows a net of green. The robot is watching sunlight on leaves. It seems to be examining that; we register all sorts of percept functions engaged, some impaired, the scanning crew tells us. This mankin is in poor shape. I don't believe it knew the trees were living things. It is doing a life scan. It will not enter the glade!"

"Of course it won't!" I cried.

I ran to the door, but there was no time. The commentator's voice stopped me.

"The lasers are powering up for a strike!"-the whine was clearly audible in the background-"The countdown is at 18. The robot is turning. There are tracers all over the thing, indicating strike points. But it will not go into the forest! For all its much-vaunted intelligence, the aspirations these high-mankins were meant to have to be human-like, it will not go to the Soul Stone, if that's even what it intended."

I was standing before the screen, tears rolling from my eyes. "Of course he won't, you idiot! Of course he won't!" He He won't, I heard myself say. He! won't, I heard myself say. He!

"Countdown is at 10. The lasers are ready. The mankin is just standing there. Wait! Wait! It is moving. The robot is running away from the trees!" There was a tearing sound of laser fire.

"Lud!"

It was a lost day for me. But that evening I went back to Phar's, though, of course, the shop was shut and locked.

The old Ab'O was with the Kurdaitcha, probably little Phaya as well.

Lud had left Phar and Phaya to my care, had left me the part of this that I could carry out.

I seized on that thought as I stood before the locked door. There was something I could still do, and I was turning to be about it when I saw a tall robed figure in the lane, moving towards me out of the shadows. Ab'O, I noted by his manner. And read more. Kurdaitcha.

"Tom Rynosseros?" the Ab'O said, drawing nearer, and I saw it was Prohannis. "You were with the mankin today."

"For a time, yes. Where is the old man and the child?"

"The child is safe."

"Where is the old man?"

"Phar is dead. He was forfeit."

"I spoke for him!" I cried in despair. "I told the a.s.sa.s.sins!"

"He transgressed too far."

"He walked his mankin." My voice broke on the words. "He walked with his old friend, that's all!"

"No," the Kurdaitcha said. "He did more."

"What, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d? What did he do?"

"He had the head of another mankin. He hid it where it could watch the first mankin's destruction. We detected it on scan. It was treason!" I grabbed the Ab'O by the front of his robe, but he pulled free, and brought something out from under his djellaba.

"Is that it? What did it see? Life-flow?"

"This is not the head," the Ab'O said, but gently, not scorning me for thinking he would bring such a thing here. "This is from the shop. It is the old man's final wish, something he wanted you to have." I took the parcel in numb hands.

"What did it see?" I called, as the Ab'O turned away. "What did the head see?"

But the Kurdaitcha did not stop. He moved down Socket Lane towards the sea.

I stood at the door of Phar's Emporium, clutching the parcel, and called after him: "What did it see?", cried it again and again into the night until the words no longer mattered. This story was originally published in Rynosseros.