King of the Scepter'd Isle (Song of Earth) (47 page)

“You see, Matthew?” said Gentle Jim.

“I see a recreation of a common event in nature. I do not see what is wrong.”

“The scene was obviously enacted to indulge a perverted lust for violence.”

“It’s just a communal
dream,
for God’s sake. Neither of those creatures were real. They’re just images created by the dreamers, for fun.”

“I’m seriously concerned, Matthew. We prevented the dreamers from indulging in war scenarios because the violence was unwholesome. We managed to steer them away from overly competitive sports. We eradicated sexual peculiarities. And now we’re getting this kind of thing. I must recommend that we adjust the composite reality again.”

“If you continue like this, they’ll be totally unsuited for real life when they leave the dome.”

“I was making the recommendation as a matter of principle,” said Gentle Jim, eyes flickering as he received input from elsewhere. “Both that and your comment are irrelevant, in the present circumstances.”

There was something sinister about this last statement. Matthew glanced at Gentle Jim sharply. “What do you mean, irrelevant?”

“We will dismiss the subject now, because we have visitors. They are being escorted through the
air lock at this moment.”

“We’ll dismiss the subject when I’m good and ready!” snapped Matthew. “Who the hell do you think you are, telling me what I can and cannot talk about?”

“You are overwrought,” said Gentle Jim solicitously. “Perhaps you would care for a sedative.” Like a conjurer, he produced a hypodermic.

“And perhaps you would care for a kick in the teeth!” shouted Matthew, out of control. “Come any closer with that needle and you’ll get one!”

So it was that the seven arrivals were greeted by the regrettable sight of the head caretaker, beside himself with rage, hopping around the Rainbow Room kicking at a robot, who dodged after him with hypodermic outthrust.

“What’s going on here?” exclaimed Adam.

“Who in hell are you?” asked Matthew. “And what do you mean by letting them in?” he asked the savior who had accompanied them. “You know damned well we don’t allow visitors in the dome. Particularly Wild Humans and their pets. The dreamers are extremely susceptible to infection.”

The savior said, “They commanded me.”

Sally pointed to Afah. “His people built the robots, so they have to obey him.”

Matthew was furious enough to have ignored this statement, had it not been delivered in tones of calm conviction. He scrutinized Afah more closely, realized that he was not a howler monkey as he’d first assumed, and calmed down somewhat. “That takes some believing,” he said.

“Somebody must have built these robots, so why not Afah’s people?” Sally retorted. “He’s a kikihuahua from another world. He calls the saviors ‘Tin Mothers.’ His people escaped from the Tin Mothers long ago, and the Tin Mothers have been following them ever since!”

Matthew appealed to Arthur, being the person who looked most like a True Human. “Is she telling the truth?”

“She is, but we don’t have time to talk about it. The Tin Mothers are going to cut off the
power to the dome in about two and a half hours.”

“But that will kill the dreamers!”

“Exactly. We’re going to have to snap them out of their dream. Wake them up, or whatever you call it.”

“Reincorporation. But the saviors are in charge of bulk reincorporation.”

“Seize control from the Tin Mothers, Afah,” urged Sally. “You’re supposed to be their master.”

“That is true,” said Afah. “And individual Tin Mothers may give the impression of obeying me. But as a group they will always find reasons to procrastinate. Once they are convinced of the rightness of their actions, it is a waste of time to try to persuade them otherwise. So if the dreamers are to awaken, they must do it of their own volition. Is that possible, Matthew?”

The caretaker looked doubtful. “In theory, yes. They’ve always had the option of waking up to the real world. But they’ve never done it, not in a thousand years. Why should they? If they want the appearance of reality, they can have it in their communal dream. They can have anything they want: love, adventure, magic, space travel, even ordinary office jobs.” He frowned. “That’s not quite true. The saviors impose a degree of censorship. It’s cleverly done, though, and the dreamers aren’t aware of the limitations of their dreams.”

“So what they really have is freedom.” Nyneve spoke for the first time. “Even though we might think their minds are trapped in the Rainbow. Even though their bodies are locked in the dome. They believe they have the freedom to do whatever they like without fear of consequences, for as long as they want to do it. They won’t want to give all that up.”

There was a thoughtful silence.

“Let’s take it away from them,” said Morgan.

The gnomes had not enjoyed being left behind. They found a flat rock and sat on it, watching the activity around Pentor and wondering what
they should do if the others failed to return by noon. They were getting hungrier by the minute. They’d eaten their bread and cheese and drunk their beer long ago. Gnomes have high metabolic rates, and Fang’s stomach was an aching void.

“Perhaps we should slip down into the forest and forage around,” suggested the Miggot. “It wouldn’t take long.”

“Anything might happen while we’re away,” said Fang. The sun was high. “And anyway, it must be getting horribly close to noon.”

“Those Mothers are supposed to be our servants,” the Miggot reminded him. “Hey, you!” he shouted.

The robot swiveled its head. By now they had learned that gnomes and kikihuahuas were interchangeable as beings to be obeyed. “Yes, Master?”

“Go down to the forest and bring us some food. Mushrooms and beechnuts. Maybe some hazelnuts if you can find any.”

“And milk,” said the Princess. “See if you can find a goat.”

“Beer,” said Fang hopefully. “You never know when you might come across some beer. Or cider.”

“No cider,” said the Miggot.

“Beer, then.”

The Tin Mother, who had been listening with robotic patience, said, “I regret that I must refuse your request.”

“It’s your duty to obey!”

“Under normal circumstances I would obey gladly. Unfortunately I am about to be switched off to conserve energy.”

“Well, get one of the others, then!”

“We shall all be switched off in four minutes and thirteen seconds, in order to fulfill total energy demand by the converter.”

There was a moment’s shocked silence. “So soon?” said the Princess.

“So what is your decision, Fang?” asked the Miggot sharply.

“Decision about what?”

“About this situation. You are our leader
. You must make a decision.”

This seemed unfair somehow. “Would Bison have made a decision?”

“Bison is not here, Fang.”

Fang gazed around the moors desperately. The shadow cast by Pentor Rock was terrifyingly short. The structure on top of the converter was glowing in pulses, like a blacksmith’s furnace. “How soon did you say?” he croaked.

“In two minutes and forty-three seconds. Forty-two. Forty-one.”

There was an air of defeat in the dome.

“Don’t they realize what time it is?” asked Adam.

“They only have two minutes left,” said Sally.

“It’s not enough.”

The Rainbow Room displayed a peaceful scene: a large number of people sitting quietly in a grassy meadow beside a deep, slow river. Behind them, a fairy-tale castle rose into the clouds. Before them sat a pretty girl with black hair, an older woman with a face of unearthly perfection, and a man, red-haired and rugged.

“What are they doing?” asked Gentle Jim for the tenth time in the last hour.

“You can see what they’re doing,” snapped Matthew, his nerves ragged. “They’re listening to Nyneve. You remember Nyneve, don’t you, you stupid bugger?”

“Of course I remember Nyneve, Matthew. Nyneve has disincorporated her mind and entered the dream, together with her friends Morgan and Arthur. But how can they be listening if she is not talking?”

“She was talking a little while ago.”

“But now she’s projecting images directly into the dreamers’ minds!” cried Sally triumphantly. “Just like when she told the chivalry stories!”

The Tin Mother was silent for a while. “That is not in the best interests of the human race,” it said eventually.

“Twenty-one.
Twenty. Nineteen,” said Marc, watching the clock.

“Oh, God,” said Sally.

“How do you know it’s not in our best interests, if you can’t hear what she’s saying?” asked Matthew.

“We rely on you to monitor the dreams, Matthew, because you possess human judgment. If Nyneve is speaking directly into people’s minds, you cannot monitor. Neither can we. We are faced with a dream within a dream—one that we know nothing about, and one in which anything could go wrong. She could be portraying scenes of dreadful violence.”

“It’s only a dream.”

“I would rather see them walking around and doing things. This passive imagining is not good.”

“The whole of Dream Earth is passive imagining, you fool!”

“Gentle Jim has a sneaky look,” said Sally.

“One. Zero. Now. Oh, God. Now. Now. I don’t hear anything.”

“The wall of the dome is thick.”

Nyneve sat with her eyes closed. The dreamers were lying down now. One of them moved, kicking a leg.

“Everything would be gone if the power was off. The Rainbow Room would be empty of images. The lights would be out.”

“So they haven’t fired off the converter.”

Sally asked the Tin Mother, “Why haven’t they fired off the converter?”

The robot did not reply. Its eyes flickered.

“We’ll go and see for ourselves!” shouted Marc, running to the door.

They hurried down the corridor and crowded into the air lock. The door hissed shut behind them. “Just supposing the power goes out now?” said Sally. “Right at this moment?”

“Shut up.”

The outside door opened and sunlight flooded
in. They stood at the catwalk rail.

“The Rock’s still there.”

“So’s the converter. It’s glowing—look!”

“So what’s going on?”

“There’s somebody coming. It’s a gnome. It looks like the Miggot!”

The tiny figure came scurrying over the breast of the moor and raced for the dome. “I’ll fetch him,” said Adam. He clattered down the steps and ran to meet the Miggot, ignoring the outstretched arm of a nearby Tin Mother.

They saw him scoop the Miggot up and carry him back. By the time he reached the catwalk again, Adam was too winded to speak. The Miggot, however, had recovered his breath.

“Fang and the Princess!” he shouted. “They’re in terrible danger!”

“Calm down, Miggot,” said Marc. “They’re well clear of the danger zone.”

“They’re not! They’re not! They’re sitting right on top of the Rock!”

“What!”

“It was the only way we could stop the Mothers from firing off the converter!”

“Well …” Adam thought for a moment, panting, while the Miggot pranced around his feet in impatience. “Perhaps they should stay there until Nyneve and Morgan have finished with the dreamers.”

“No, they can’t.” The Miggot glanced over his shoulder. Satisfied that no electronic creatures were present, he said quietly, “The Tin Mothers wanted to demolish the rock in spite of Fang and the Princess. They said the death of two obsolete gnomes was a small price to pay for the safety of Afah, their true master. But Fang pointed out that without the Sharan, he and the Princess are the only kikihuahua breeding stock on Earth.” He chuckled despite himself. “Only Fang would think of that.”

“Good. So as long as they stay up there,
everything’s all right.”

“No, because it didn’t take the Tin Mothers long to realize there’s plenty of kikihuahua breeding stock in the ship.”

“So what did you say to that?”

“We said, ‘What ship?’ but they knew there had to be some kind of ship, and they said they’d start their radio telescopes searching right away. The bat’s not far away, and too slow to escape. The Mothers could start building a ship today and still have time to catch up to it before it leaves the solar system. My guess is, they’re searching space with their instruments right now! And as soon as they detect the bat, they’ll blast the Rock, and Fang and the Princess with it!”

“What can we do?” said Adam. “I don’t know how long Nyneve intends to stay in Dream Earth.”

“You’ll have to get her out of there right away, because Fang won’t come down from the Rock until you do! He seems to feel some weird kind of loyalty to Nyneve.”

Adam said, “And Nyneve knows it. That’s why she’s still in there. She must have predicted what Fang would do.”

“Get her out!” cried the Miggot.

“But what about the dreamers? We can’t just let them die.”

“They’ll die in any case, when the Mothers blast the Rock! At least let’s save our own people. We’ve lost, you silly buggers! Can’t you get that into your thick heads?”

Adam made a quick decision. “Matthew! Take us to Nyneve’s body, quickly!”

They ran down endless corridors. Eventually they reached the storage regions where a door opened onto a catwalk. Involuntarily they stopped dead.

The room was so vast that they could not see the ceiling; neither could they see the floor. All they could see were people, thousands upon thousands of them, lying naked on soft transparent shelves in endless rows and endless tiers. A misty rain fell, bathing them constantly. Each human being was connected by colored wires to a box on
each shelf. Cables, tubes, and catwalks were strung around the whole area in an infinite three-dimensional web. A deep hum throbbed almost below the level of human hearing, and the humid air held a thick stink of body wastes and antiseptic. It was an awesome, horrifying sight.

“Oh, my God,” whispered Sally.

“Your people are across there and down two tiers,” said Matthew, pointing. “The transporter will be here in a few minutes.”

“We don’t have time for that,” said Adam. “Can we get there on foot?”

“Yes.” Matthew ran out across the catwalk. The others hurried behind. The catwalk swayed and clattered. They passed pale, naked bodies, one after another. Tubes hung from above, feeding the bodies, and tubes hung below, draining them. Sally gulped as she ran, fearful she might be sick. Averting her eyes from the bodies beside the catwalk, she saw bodies through the transparent shelves above, their buttocks flattened. Sex had never meant so little. Bodies stretched into the distance, as far as the eye could see. In Sally’s mind they became meat, no different from slaughtered and skinned deer. She wondered if they were worth saving.