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They called it Pygal, after the Turlean city of long ago. In fact, it formed
an enlarged version of the assembly complex that Sarvik One had first found
himself occupying out on the surface in the region the Terrans called Padua.
It was situated away from the settled areas and the prying eyes of inquisitive
natives, yet was in a densely mechanized region, obscuring the Borijan
activity from Terran surveillance.
The progress of the small team concentrated there was very different from the
circus he had just come from. Kalazin Seven, working just with Meyad Three,
Creesh Eleven, and Leradil One, had come up with a body design that had gained
acceptance fairly easily without other Kalazins, Meyads, Creeshes, and
Leradils to complicate the issue. The factory was laid out, in the process of
being equipped, and almost ready to start making parts.
There was the problem, though, Sarvik One had ascertained, of Alifrenz Ten and
Greel Four communicating secretly with other enumerations of their kind
elsewhere. He was pretty certain that they were dealing to trade Pygal's body
design for some advantage in return, but he hadn't managed to figure out yet
exactly what. He wasn't too worried, though, because to protect himself he had
worked out a deal with Queezt Five that Alifrenz and Greel didn't know about
whereby the Sarvik and Queezt bodies would have enhanced neural abilities, and
so they would be able to better any offers based on the standard design,
anyway.
Unless, of course, the redesigned outer brain Sarvik Fourteen had
surreptitiously approached him with from the group working up north somewhere
turned out to be better, in which case he'd be able to pull one over on
Queezt maybe.
A cuboid with a face materialized in the virtual space of his contemplations.
"Getting used to life in the real world yet?" GENIUS asked. "A lot better than
having to heave all that dead mass around against gravity and friction to do
anything, eh?"
"Hmph.
Doing anything is where your world leaves off," Sarvik retorted. "What do you
want?"
For some time GENIUS had been mapping Titan's web of intertangled networks. By
tracing the routings and constructing logic tables, it was trying to make
sense of what the signals flying this way and that way through cables and
optical fibers meant and what operations they seemed to correlate with.
Unraveling Titan's labyrinth was necessarily the first step toward controlling
it.
"I've made a discovery," GENIUS said. "There are radio sources operating out
there. They're weak and scattered but potentially functional probably relics
left over from the early days. But it seems that some of the Taloids still
have a sensitivity to it. It could give a basis for a way of communicating
with them."
"Interesting," Sarvik agreed. "That could be useful later. How's the rest of
it doing meanwhile?"
"Slow. There's a lot of evolutionary redundancy, but the underlying scheme is
starting to emerge. I
think I've nailed the major node points that connect between regions."
"Good. I want you to try and find out where Sarvik Fourteen's hideout is, too.
My instinct tells me he's up to something."
"Well, you should know."
The reason Sarvik had set GENIUS to mapping the net was to be able to secure
his communications. He knew that there were other Pygal-like conspiracies
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scattered over Titan, and since most of them doubtless included Sarviks who
thought the same way he did, he knew that he couldn't trust any of them. Why,
only the day before, a probe that he'd sent out into the net to trace the
source of the messages between Indrigon Nine and Queezt Fifteen had
intercepted a feeler trying to tap into his own link to Alifrenz Seven!
But he knew he could trust GENIUS.
His
GENIUS, that was: the copy of GENIUS he had installed at Pygal. Obviously, he
couldn't have trusted a generally accessible version of GENIUS, one that
talked to all the other Sarviks, too. Why should it have chosen to be
exclusively loyal to any one version of Sarvik over another? No reason at all.
And so he had taken the obvious precaution and brought his own copy of GENIUS
with him.
The point hadn't escaped him, of course, that exactly the same thought would
have occurred to all the other Sarviks also.
37
The crowds converged on the Eflu River, which carried the trash and waste from
Pergassos down to the reduction furnaces outside the southern extremities of
the city. The news had been spread quickly by agents of the powers working to
bring back the old order. Great events were about to unfold that would reverse
the train of ill fortune besetting the times. The king and high priest were
back in Pergassos and would appear publicly to proclaim the end of Nogarech's
rule and resume their offices. As a sign sanctifying the occasion, the
Lifemaker had delivered three of their enemies to them, whose execution would
mark the return to the old era. Two of these enemies were the one-time
"Enlightener" and his notorious brother, both of whom had gone to Carthogia to
help Kleippur in his designs. The third was another sorcerer who had continued
the subversions inside Kroaxia. The recent fears and tension had left the mob
eager for the spectacle.
An enclosed stand for dignitaries, covered by a red canopy and already
occupied except for the two largest seats in the center, had been erected in
the middle of the Bridge of Pillars, facing downstream to the point where the
river ended at the drop hoppers feeding the furnaces a half mile distant. The
crowds pressed along both banks of this stretch of the river, jostling for the
best vantage points from which to follow the victims all the way, from the
bridge where they would be dropped into the river to the final plunge off its
delivery end. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]