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computer plexus has become a true galactic brain. The annihilation of matter
gives them literally limitless energy, which they devote to human good."
Smiling benignly, he waited for a murmur to subside.
"Though I understand your apprehensions, I have seen these new humanoids. I've
seen their universe, where many trillion human beings live their lives in
perfect happiness and ideal peace, supported in bounteous abundance by
trillions of willing machines "
Keth was on his feet, seeking a way out of the jam in the gallery, but the
ringing words caught him again:
" surprises waiting for us. Many of us were elderly when we boarded the
Fortune. Some of us infirm or ill. You'll observe that the humanoids have
healed us. Understanding the human mechanism far better than we ever did, they
tend it with skills never known to human medicine "
Overwhelmed, Keth escaped from the chamber.
21
Prime Directive "To serve and obey and guard men from harm." This law of the
humanoids, built into their central plexus and zealously defended from change,
was meant to make them the unfaUing servants and the ultimate saviors of
mankind.
Keth stumbled out into the corridor, feeling battered. The Na-varch's story
was starkly incredible to him, but most of the Bridgemen had swallowed it
whole. The old war against the humanoids had seemed a forlorn cause before.
Now, clearly, it was lost.
With no actual purpose left, he wandered through the mobs in the capital
tunnels and rotundas, listening for what he could learn. Here and there he
came upon others who had seen the humanoid universe, each set apart by that
glow of joyous vigor.
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" if you had heard what they promised me!"
A lean, dynamic man with a Vorn Voyager's badge and a Bridgeman's cap was
evangelizing a knot of gaping listeners.
"As a young man, I'd wanted to become an artist. Without hope, really. Kai has
never had much use for art, because the struggle for survival has never left
us anything to spare. My own dreams denied, I did what I had to. I suppose
people have envied the status I was able to gain in the ship and the fleet,
but to me it was always dull drudgery. Now the humanoids have released me for
the career I always longed for."
He glimpsed others, all radiant with that bewildering bliss, marching out with
groups of excited converts to carry the news to the media, to ship departments
and fleet offices, to cities and villages all across Kai, and even to the
Zone. At one crowded corner, Commodore Zoor was on a news holo, announcing the
advent of the new humanoids. Despite the fat, even he looked fitter, his puffy
features grown somehow commanding.
" total happiness!" Still hesitant and high, his nasal voice had acquired a
new fluency and power. "The humanoids ask for nothing. They bring us
everything. Friends, you'll learn to love them "
Keth pushed out of the crowd and drifted blankly on, lost in thoughts of
Chelni Vorn. Had she, too, come back transformed into an evangelist for the
humanoids? Her image aching in his memory, he wanted to call Vara Vorn to ask
if she was there. Half angry at himself for the impulse, he shrugged it off.
She was doubtless now part of Zelyk's total happiness.
It struck him that he must report to Cyra and his father. He found a holo
booth and dialed their borrowed villa. For a long time there was no answer.
Cyra came on at last, looking ravaged and deathly.
"Keth, don't!" Her hushed voice was desperate. "You'll give us away."
"I'm at a public booth-"
"They're smarter than you are."
"What have they done to the Navarch and "
"Euphoride, maybe."
"What can we-"
"Try to hide. Wait for a chance."
"Can I-"
"Get rid of your compass, where they won't find it."
"I want to help-"
"What can you do?" Her whisper rasped with savage scorn. "They'll be
everywhere. They know everything. They can do anything."
"Tell my father-"
"Get off the line now! Don't call again. We won't be here."
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Her haggard image winked out.
Stumbling away from the booth, he tried to understand. They must be as utterly
stunned as he was. When the humanoids came swarming down from space, Bridgeman
Greel's reluctant aid would surely end; he might even turn them in. There was
nothing left for them to do, certainly nothing he could do for them.
Yet he felt a bitter need for his father's sternly silent courage and her own
warm wisdom. He had lost them, just when he was coming to know them. To prove
his love, he could do no more than avoid them. The unfairness of it rankled.
With no goal left, he plodded on, more and more bewildered by the hysterical
elation of the crowds in the tunnels. Excited shipmen stood clotted around the
news holos, shouting down occasional skeptics about the ultimate goodness of
the humanoids. Mobs were sacking a market, tossing quota cards and tokens into
the gutters. At one riotous bar drinks were on the house, because everything
would soon be free. At a shipyard gate, however, a fleet executive was begging
workers to stay long enough to ready spacedecks for the tachyonic transports.
Bleakly, he wished he were back on Malili, still with Bosun Brong, planning a
plunge into the jungle to search for a brain-tree and for Nera Nyin. He lost
himself in a longing dream of her. In that last sleepy sentence, when he bent
to kiss her goodbye, she had begged him to come back to her.
If only he could. . . .
It was late when he got back to his own shabby tunnel, now nearly deserted.
Cyra's terse warning had left him afraid of a trap, but he had to do something
about the tachyon compass. Breathless, gripping the tiny weapon she had made
him, he pushed inside. The dingy room was empty, the holo flashing. He punched
for the message.
"Keth, darling!" It was Chelni. Her hair looked darker and sleeker and longer,
her eager eyes brighter. Aglow with that radiant joy the humanoids somehow
ignited, she had never seemed so lovely. "I must see you, dear. Come to me at
Vara Vorn. Hurry, won't you?"
He replayed it twice, uncertain what to make of such an unreserved invitation.
In all their lifetime of friendship, she had never quite forgotten that he was
not a Vorn, had never seemed so freely unrestrained, never so eager to see
him.
His heart was suddenly thumping. Though he had already heard far too much
about the mechanical enchantments of the humanoid universe, her burnished
beauty had seized his emotions. The weariness of the long day forgotten, he
pried a ventilator grill off the wall and pushed the compass up the duct and
out of sight. The grill replaced, he changed his shirt and rode the tube to
Meteor Gap.
The great winter gates of Vara Vorn stood open wide, as if to welcome him.
Outside the medallioned summer gates, he paused again. A breath of
apprehension brushed him, but he drew his shoulders straight and touched the
bell.
"Darling!"
Chelni herself came darting out through the tall silver doors, looking taller
than he recalled her, her firm chin not quite so stubborn, her eager face more
vivid. In a sheer scarlet lounging robe, more daring than she had ever worn,
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her figure seemed finer, her ripe breasts higher.
He stood breathless, caught by her new allure.
"Keth! Darling!" She caught both his hands with hers. "Come on hi!"
She pulled him against her, opening lips lifted to his. Sheer astonishment
held him rigid until she turned, laughing lightly at his hesitation, to pull
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