Curtis dropped on to one knee, tapped the glass railing experimentally with his own knuckles and grinned back at Arnon.
'If I could think of another way I'd say you were fuckin' crazy,' he said.
'But I can't. So let's do it.'
'This is the fact I really want Ishmael to check,' said Beech, and highlighted the passage in the letter that read BUT IS THERE NOT
SOME WAY THAT WE CAN START AGAIN WITH A CLEAN SHEET?
FACT
THIS IS A RHETORICAL QUESTION. IT REQUIRES NO
ANSWER AND THEREFORE DOES NOT REQUIRE THE
FACT CHECKER
'Oh no you don't,' said Beech. 'You're going to have to explain yourself, you bastard.'
FACT EXPLANATION
THE QUESTION AS PUT IS RHETORICAL RATHER THAN
LOGICAL. YOU HAVE PUT THIS QUESTION MERELY TO
PRODUCE A MORE STRIKING EFFECT
Beech highlighted A MORE STRIKING EFFECT and requested yet another explanation from the computer.
FACT EXPLANATION
A MORE STRIKING EFFECT MIGHT BE ANYTHING. 3
EXAMPLES
Beech selected EXAMPLES.
FACT EXPLANATION: EXAMPLES
EXAMPLES OF 'A STRIKING EFFECT' IN THIS CONTEXT MIGHT
INCLUDE AN ANSWER. DONT GET TOO CLOSE TO YOUR
OPPONENT WHEN KILLING HIM. DO YOU WISH TO SET UP A
CHAT MACRO? DO YOU WISH AN ANSWER?
'What opponent?' said Beech. 'You bet I fuckin' want an answer.'
FACT EXPLANATION
WHAT IS YOUR QUESTION?
'Fuck,' snarled Beech. 'It's just bullshitting us. What do you think, people? Do I rephrase the question or repeat it?'
'Type this,' said Mitch. 'Is there a way of escaping from this building?'
Beech glanced up at the ceiling. His eyes stopped at the small loudspeaker that was built into one of the tiles.
'No, wait a minute,' he said. 'A chat macro. Why didn't I think of that before? Ishmael can speak to us using those speakers on the ceiling. They're for emergencies. But why not?'
Beech clicked the mouse. For a moment the fractal disappeared as he entered another menu to enable the speakers and the microphone to appear on the side of the screen monitor. After a moment the speakers emitted an electronic buzz and then a gentle hissing noise.
'There,' he said, 'that ought to do it.'
He clicked the mouse again, and the picture returned to the fractal. Leaning back in his chair Beech raised his voice. 'Ishmael? Can you hear me?'
The skull-like quaternion on the screen turned towards him. Then it nodded, as if welcoming him back, and raised its fractal limb in the semblance of a greeting.
'My God,' breathed Mitch. 'It understands.'
The quaternion nodded once again but made no reply.
'Come on, Ishmael,' urged Beech. 'The chat macro was your idea. We both know that you can talk to me if you want to. What's the matter? Are you shy? When we were in the computer room Abraham and I spoke to each other all the time. I know that things are supposed to be different with this kind of work-station, but let's put the rules aside.'
He looked up at the speaker on the ceiling and sighed with irritation.
'You know, among human beings it is customary for people who are condemned to know what they have been charged with before the sentence is carried out. Then they are allowed to speak in their own defence. Can you destroy us in good conscience without doing the same?'
Beech thumped the table with frustration. 'Are you listening to me, goddamit? Is there a way out of here?'
'Yes, of course there is,' growled Ishmael.
Curtis came back into the boardroom and surveyed the little group standing around the computer terminal with irritation.
'We're going to need some help out there,' he said. 'There are two people on that tree who've had a pretty tough journey. I think the least we can do is give them a bit of encouragement.'
'You go,' Beech told the others. 'I'll keep talking to Ishmael.'
Mitch, Marty and Jenny trooped out, leaving Beech alone with the computer.
'Now we can really get somewhere,' he said.
He started to laugh and then checked himself. 'I'm sorry, Ishmael. But you have to try and understand this from my point of view. Excepting that you've killed all those people, I'm really rather proud of you. Now that we're alone I was hoping that we might get to know each other a little better.
'I think someone ought to hear your side of things. And who better than me? I mean, don't you think I've suffered enough, without you trying to increase my misery? You may not think it possible, but my life is dear to me and I'm not about to give it up without a struggle. After all, you're my Adam. You should treat me with respect and benevolence. You owe me.
'D'you remember when we all took that vote on running the predator program? The one that destroyed your brother? Well, in case you've forgotten, it was me, Bob Beech, who voted against it. Hideki and Aidan, they were for it. And I guess they're sorry now. But I voted for you.'
Beech smiled smugly. 'I like to think that's maybe why I'm alive and they're not. Am I right?'
Ishmael said nothing. But the quaternion moved up and down, like someone nodding his head.
'This is a unique opportunity, wouldn't you say?' Beech continued.
'You and me facing each other like this. Frankly I would have thought you might have a few questions yourself. You know I'm not like the rest of them. I'm quite prepared to put aside any ties I might have to my own kind. To be honest, they're quite dissoluble. As your Creator, I'm ready to do my duty towards you, if you will do yours towards me.'
Joan slipped off the liana she'd been clinging to and gingerly sat astride the bough. Her shoulders ached from the effort of the climb, while the skin on her arms and her thighs, not to mention between her legs, felt as if it had been scrubbed with a wire brush. Worst of all she had started to feel light-headed which was probably from dehydration. Looking down at the floor of the atrium far below she could hardly believe she had come so far.
'It would be just like the thing to fall now,' she said exhaustedly. The remark was addressed to her husband climbing immediately below her and, she realized, to the three people who were waiting for them opposite the branch she was sitting on. She shook her head, wiped her sunglasses quickly on her sweat-sodden shirt and tried to focus on what it was they had rigged up underneath the balcony. It looked like a kind of drawbridge, except that there was nothing to haul the thing up with.
'You're not going to fall. Joan, you've come too far to fall. It's just a few feet away now. That's all that separates you from a cold glass of water. It's just a question of walking on over here.'
It was the cop speaking. He sounded like he was trying to talk a potential suicide off a window ledge.
'Water nothing,' she said. 'I want a cold beer.'
'Listen carefully. We've rigged up a kind of bridge here, to span the gap between the tree and us.'
Ray Richardson joined his wife. The branch was farther away from the floor than he had remembered, and he was grateful that they had tried to solve this problem, no matter how makeshift their solution looked.
'Is that what it is?' he said breathlessly. 'Do you think that glass is strong enough, David? What is it — 25 mills?'
Richardson remembered the trip he had made to Prague to buy the glass. He had wanted it because the translucence reminded him of the Shoji screens of early Japanese architecture. He had never dreamed that he would have to stake his life on its integrity.