Of Man And Manta - Ox Part 50

"Watch out!" Veg cried. "One of the machines is after us!"

"I am an emissary of Machine Prime," the unit said. "As you will recall, we made an agreement for the exchange of enclaves between our frames."

"That's true," Tamme said, but her body was tense. She no longer carried the frame homer: evidence of her bad faith.

"You will note that I address you in your own dialect rather than the one we worked out in our prior interview."

"I noted," she said tightly.

"Peace is being established between the alternates. We are in touch with your home-frame and are making contact with others. There will be no exchange of enclaves."

"Meaning?" She was trying to a.s.sess the best method of disabling the machine.

"We never intended conquest despite your suspicions. We wished only rapport, a stronger base against what we deemed to be a common enemy. You misjudged our motive, and we misjudged the patterns. Such misconceptions are being resolved. If you will accompany me now, you will be satisfied."

Veg shook his head. "I have this strange feeling we should believe it. A machine never tried to talk to me before. It sure knew where to find us, and it didn't attack."

Tamme shook her head. "I don't trust it. We know how vicious these machines can be."

"I must convey you to catal Huyuk," the unit said. "You have merely to remain in your places."

"A machine can move us across alternates?" Tamme asked.

"A machine always has," Veg reminded her. Uncertain of the situation, she made no overt resistance. The unit moved them. They phased smoothly from forest to city without the intercession of Blizzard.

Aquilon saw the machine and opened her mouth in a soundless scream. Cal looked up from a partly dismantled machine. "Is this an answer to our message?" he inquired guardedly.

"You may call it such, Dr. Potter," the unit said. Then Cal saw Veg and Tamme. He relaxed. "h.e.l.lo," he said, raising his hand in greeting. "It must be all right. The machines are our friends -- I think."

Tamme glanced from him to Aquilon. "And are we friends, too?"

"You've changed," Aquilon said, looking closely at her.

"I have gone normal."

"We are all friends now," the unit said. "I will convey you to catal Huyuk ancient, where -- "

"catal Huyuk!" Cal and Aquilon exclaimed together.

"Amplification," the unit said. "This frame is catal Huyuk modern. Our destination is catal Huyuk ancient."

"This is catal Huyuk?" Cal asked. "Ten thousand years later?"

"Time becomes irrelevant. We shall return you to your own frames after the decision-a.s.sembly or to any you prefer."

Tamme and Aquilon were grim lipped; the men were more relaxed. What kind of decision was contemplated by the machine?

"catal Huyuk," Cal repeated, shaking his head. "The splendor of early man, forgotten..."

The two mantas settled, watching the unit. The surrealist city faded out, and the ancient catal Huyuk faded in.

A pattern-ent.i.ty and the white-robed alternate Aquilon were waiting in the shrine-room. The two Aquilons were startled by each other, turning their eyes away. Tamme appraised the almost prisonlike closure of the room warily, judging whether the machine and pattern could be destroyed and an escape effected without the loss of Veg.

"We are all friends," the unit repeated. "We are gathered here for the denouement so that we may resolve prior confusions and dispose the protagonists suitably."

The a.s.sembled ent.i.ties looked around: five human beings, two mantas, and the pattern. No one spoke. Sparkles from the pattern radiated out, pa.s.sing through the physical creatures without effect.

"In a certain frame," the unit said, as though oblivious to the tension that now gripped even the men, "Calvin Potter died. His cessation was witnessed by his close friend and potential lover, Deborah Hunt. It had a profound effect on her -- so strong that the trauma extended across a number of related frames."

"My nightmare!" the informal Aquilon whispered.

The white-robed Aquilon glanced at her. "So you felt it, too..."

"This is a common effect," the unit explained. "It accounts for many of the instances of human deja vu, precognition, spectral manifestation -- "

Cal nodded, comprehending. "We call it supernatural because the natural laws of our single frame do not account for psychic phenomena. But if they are merely reflections of actual occurrences in adjacent frames..."

"This man," the unit said, indicating Cal, "crossed over to the frame of that woman -- " it indicated the priestess Aquilon -- "and impregnated her. He returned to his frame and dismissed the matter as a fantasy. She bore his child and cared for it with the aid of her friend Veg and the four mantas and the family of sapient birds."

Informal Aquilon stared at robed Aquilon. "You said you had a baby -- "

"Yes..."

Informal Aquilon turned to Cal. "And you were the father?"

He spread his hands. "It appears so."

"This is another occasional effect," the unit said. "When there is a sudden, overwhelming need in one frame, and the capacity to alleviate it in a nearby one, spontaneous crossover can occur. In this case it was facilitated by the presence of an aperture projector left by an exploratory party from a farther-removed frame. Their agents were of the VI series -- "

"We haven't reached VI yet," Tamme said. "TE is the latest -- "

"That frame is ahead of yours," the unit explained. "Vibro and Videl projected in, left their spare projector in a secluded location in case of emergency, and went to study the reptilian enclave. They were misfortunate, being caught in a severe tremor, injured, and consumed by predatory fauna before they could reach that reserve projector. So it remained where it was, on that frame, until used by Mr. Potter."

Veg sat down on the edge of the raised level. "This is mighty interesting," he said. "But why were we picked up by the sparkles, and who left all those other projectors around? Can't all have been survey parties gobbled by dinosaurs -- not in Fognose, or Blizzard, or -- "

"The other projectors were left by people like you," the unit said. "You and the TA agent projected to another frame, leaving your instrument behind. The same thing happened on the other frames. Because each was a frame-site selected by the pattern-ent.i.ties for temporary storage of experimental subjects -- "

"White rats," Tamme interjected. She had not relaxed. " -- they were in phase with each other. Instead of opening on random frames and locations, each projected to the immediate site of another storage area. This kept the subjects contained -- which was one reason the patterns arranged it that way. The aggregate formed patterns -- again no coincidence, as this is inherent in any endeavor of the pattern-ent.i.ties."

"It figures," Veg said. "So there was no way off that Mobius loop."

"That system has been dismantled," the unit said.

"But what about all the other people?" Veg demanded.

"They are being interviewed by other units."

"You mean the machines have taken over all alternity?"