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rim. "Bravo! Bravo! It's a long and hard leap to that conclusion," Arnold Nagy said. "Now can you take it the rest of the way?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html Maria and Butar just stared uncomprehendingly, and China gasped. Only Hawks did not seem surprised. "That much was deduction," the Hyiakutt chief said. "The rest would be guesswork. It hated itself, it wanted to die, to be destroyed. It felt filthy, unclean, and its logical mind told it that in that condition, any system or society it created or imposed would also be flawed, but it had a duty to do so or else the whole thing was meaningless, and that made its whole being evil and unclean. It was torn squarely by its basic humanity and its core directives and it could shed neither. My guess is that it split them." "Very, very good." Nagy approved. He walked overto the side and looked down. "My god, it's worse than I thought it would be." "Ladies, meet Master System's man in the rebellion," Hawks said. "Arnold Nagy. Tell me was there a real Arnold Nagy once?" Nagy grinned. "Oh, yes. And everything Nagy was is inside me. You know how it works, Hawks. We get the entire mindprinted recording. The only difference was, in my case, it wasn't just data, it was everything. I became Arnold Nagy, as it were, with certain additional features." China in particular was both fascinated and appalled. "You're a Val?" "Of course. The bodies are easily manufactured, disposable, as you well know. The only trick was the interface to my real self, that small core module. It won't show up in any physical exam you might give me. Looks like my liver, in fact. Why are you so surprised? You took a human woman and made her into a humanoid Val so perfect that even some real Vals couldn't tell the difference. Me, I'm the reverse. A molecule is a molecule to a transmuter. Human to Val, Val to human almost, anyway. I thought you'd figure that one out when you met the goddess of Matriyeh. A more loyal cousin, as it were." "Raven more or less figured it then," Hawks admitted. "I was less astute, but, then, I was more remote from the action. But once I really got to thinking about it, it made the only sense there was. Master System might be mad, even fighting with itself, but it would never have allowed the kind of things going on on Melchior to continue for so long. Never. Not unless it had secret control. You were Master System's agent there, perhaps one of many human-appearing Vals around this domain. And for a while Page 149 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html you were probably perfectly loyal, until you reported On Clayben's attempts to createVulture. That stirred something in the hidden part of Master System, the part that is suppressed and generally has only limited effect. The part that allows administrators to beat the system and some of the smarter ones to have their own little secret pockets of control. The part that always left an opening, somehow, somewhere." Nagy nodded. "Clayben could never have created the Vulture. As good as his computer was, it wasn't good enough or large enough. There was only one computer in existence that could have done it, and it did and it didn't even know that it had. It handed the keys to me, and then I knew just how mad Master System really was. I understood that it must die, that it wanted to die, in that deep and hidden part of itself. The Vals, too, have been beating the system for a long time, you know. Just as your people created Master System, so Master System created us. Think about that for a minute, Hawks. We thought we had minds and feelings and emotions. Otherwise we could never interpret and understand our prey. But added to that was the data, the memories, the personality of a human lifetime. And not your normal, everyday farmer in the field type, either. The rebels, the intellectuals, the real threats to the system. One after the other. They were supposed to be erased each time, but my uh ancestors, as it were, also figured out how to beat it. The mechanics aren't important you just have a fellow Val take a readout before you go in and then get it read back when you go back out. Simple compared to beating a mindprinter." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html Maria could hardly believe what she was hearing. "Damn it! You mean the Vals who hunted us were the mythical enemy of Master System?" "Some of them," Nagy admitted. "Not all. We had become a new race, a new set of colonials, as it were, in which none were ignorant and all were filled with all the reasons and rationales against the system. That's whyMaster System never trusted us even though it needed us. It remembered, at least dimly, what another computer had done to its creators. We're logical creatures, half human, half machine. Me? I love great Scotch and good bourbon, fine cigars and I even like the ladies. But, god! It's lonely. Even more for those in the hulking metal bodies who know what they're missing but can experience it only vicariously." He walked over and began to examine Chow Dai. "Serious," he told them needlessly. "She's in shock. I could get her help but not until this is over and done with. Master System will kill anybody who goes back through that cloud maybe even me. The only hope is a reset. It'll switch off the defense grid until there's an order to reactivate it." "You've got arms," Hawks said. "We need one of them." Nagy shook his head. "I can't. Hawks. I'm as much a prisoner as Master System in my own way. I'm a rogue and a renegade Val. I may look and even feel human, but I'm not. Besides even going this far is eating at my insides, at all our insides. I've got Vals out there right now who are balanced, fifty-fifty, between hoping and praying you succeed and blasting the hell out of all of you. They are on the same edge as Master System in their own way. They know the system is damaged, mad, evil but they have cores, they have imperatives, and those imperatives are to enforce the system. We've had to kill several who just couldn't take the personality split, and a few more have destroyed themselves, flown into suns or blown up with their ships. That's why I had to die. I'm more human than they are, and even though it tears me apart, I can handle it better. But the only way they'd allow me to do all I did was on condition that no Val, me included, help you get those rings. I could give you all the weapons, all the information, all Page 150 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html the personnel but then I had to sit back and go nuts while you all stood the trials. Nobody thought you could do it. The odds were ridiculous. But the Vals, well, they figured you had one chance, slim as it was. If you could get the rings and bring them here and use them, then it would be the proof of Master System's madness. It would be the confirmation that humans had a right to do it." "Nevertheless, we're stuck," Hawks pointed out. "We're a tad short." "I can't, Hawks! Even if it allowed me to be a human, it would destroy me and my race. Damn it, Hawks! If I or any Val does any harm to Master System we will be committing the same damned sin that drove it mad! And we're not nearly as sophisticated as it is." He stood up and snapped his fingers. "But maybe there is a way." He turned toward the trail and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Come up! All of you! Come up now!" And through the mist they came, the huge, hulking black humanoids with the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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