“It is true that these evil Horch and their machines are also extremely powerful. I do not think they will prevail against the Beloved Leaders, though. When the Eschaton comes, I believe it is the Beloved Leaders who will rule. Rule all of us. For eternity. And oh, Agent Dannerman, I have failed them, and so I am very, very frightened of what that eternity will be.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
That was the end of Dopey’s conversation. He put his head under his plume again and kept it there. I thought I heard him sobbing for a few moments, but then he was quiet.
I fell asleep then, too, not because I wanted to but because I couldn’t help it. When the green-glass machine woke me up Dopey was still in his corner, making the faint, muffled snickering sound that did him for snoring, and an idea was forming in my mind.
I didn’t have much time to think it out, because Greenie was already snaking one branch of its twiglets under my right arm to get me up, then hustling me back to the interrogation room. But on the way I remembered doctrine.
Basic Bureau tradecraft said that if you couldn’t get your interrogators to give you the information you wanted, perhaps you could at least lead the questioning in such a way that even the questions were informative. In practice sessions, back in my training days, it had seemed like something that might work. I’d never tried it in the field, but it was worth a shot. It was something to do, when the only alternative was simply to give up.
It seemed that the machines had heard all they wanted to hear about the Scuzzhawks. Now the topic of the day was sex. What did sexual intercourse feel like? If it was pleasurable, why did some human beings deprive themselves of it? How often had I had sexual intercourse, and under what circumstances, and with what persons, and why? Why was sexual intercourse with another person preferable to masturbation? What forms of sexual experience other than direct stimulation existed, and what did I mean by “fetishism” and “masochism”? How was it possible that some of my conspecifics could achieve sexual gratification just by inflicting pain on others?
I did what I could. I answered every question, and tacked on a little question to each answer. Masturbation: didn’t the Horch masturbate? Hugging and kissing: I supposed the Horch had their equivalents. And didn’t some Horch get a charge out of hurting other Horch? Without exception, none of my questions got an answer. Mostly they were ignored. Sometimes Greenie cautioned me to stick to straight responses. Twice it gestured toward the porcelain box that held the helmet, which was enough.
And the questioning went on and on. When it stopped at last it was only long enough for me to relieve myself and cram down a few bites of food, and then it started again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I don’t know how long the interrogation sessions went on. I tried to keep count of them, but there wasn’t much point to that. The number didn’t tell me much, because I had no good measure of how many hours each lasted, or how long I was allowed to sleep when I did. I didn’t know, either, whether it really mattered for me to keep on sounding the walls, trying to peer past the doors when they were opened, even, once, deliberately falling against one of the Christmas trees to see how they felt. (They didn’t feel like anything I had expected. No needle stabs, no feeling of chill glass spikes against my skin; the thing caught me and cradled me as though in an instantly created form-fitting basket of its twigs and set me back on my feet, and I had learned nothing at all.)
I wished for Dopey’s presence so I could ask him more questions. That didn’t happen often. We seemed to be on different schedules; once when Green-glass woke me up I caught a glimpse of him, sound asleep. But when I was allowed back in the biological-needs room he was gone.
And the questions didn’t stop. Sports: how were players selected for football teams, and why would any sentient being risk life and limb in so violent an activity? Currency: What determined how many Japanese yen were given for one American dollar? What caused “inflation”? Why did humans play board games? How was “ownership” of land areas determined? What was the role of the stock market?
And I was reaching the ragged edge of fatigue.
I wasn’t getting very far with trying to slip questions in, either. I was pretty sure that the robots were very familiar with that little stratagem, and I thought I knew why: they had dealt with Dan Dannermans before, and they knew our tricks.
Then I thought I saw an opening.
The questioning turned to religion. What was the nature of the religious experience? What evidence did the priests and preachers have for the existence of a “God” or a “Heaven”? Or, for that matter, of a “Hell,” or some other form of postlife reward or punishment for transgressions?
And all of a sudden, I saw what I had been waiting for. I had something to tell them that I was pretty sure would dislodge some data for me. “Excuse me,” I wheedled, the very model of a prisoner beaten down past the point of resistance, trying to curry favor with his captors, “but if you permit, I can tell you a story from my personal experience that might illuminate some of these questions for you.”
Green-glass paused, its needles stirring in silence, apparently thinking that over. Then it spoke.
“Do so,” it said.
What I wanted to tell the machine about was a memory of my grandmother, from when I was six or seven years old. That was when my parents began to make me spend a few weeks each summer at Uncle Cubby’s place on the Jersey shore.
Uncle Chubby was J. Cuthbert Dannerman, the one with the money. I didn’t specially want to be spending summers in his house. Uncle Cubby wanted it, because he liked having kids around now and then, possessing none of his own. And my father, who hadn’t done nearly as well with his career as his older brother, wanted me to be there, too, because he was well aware that when Uncle Chubby died there would be a considerable estate for someone to inherit.
Well, that part didn’t work out for me, for one reason or another, but those summers in New Jersey turned out not to be so bad. After I had cried myself to sleep for a week or so I began to enjoy myself. My cousin Pat came along most summers, for the same reasons. Unfortunately she was a girl, but at least she was someone to play with, and after a while her gender turned out to be an asset. That was when we discovered some interesting new games, like I’ll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours.
The bad part of the summers was that Grandmother Dannerman was there, too.
Grandmother Dannerman was a dying old woman, but she was taking her time about it. She was bedridden, feeble and incontinent. There was always a faint smell of old-lady pee in her bedroom, although the big windows that looked down to the river were generally open wide. After her fifth or sixth major operation she had got religion, and she wanted me and Pat to have it, too. She explained that when she died she was going to go to Heaven, because she had been a good Christian woman. She fully intended to see us there with her, so once a day, after our naps and before we were allowed to go swim in the river, she taught us Bible stories in her tiny, wheezy voice.