"A complete description of what happened when you gated from the control chamber to this trap. And anything that might be relevant."
Ore told how he had checked out the immense room and its hundreds of controls. His task had been considerably speeded up by questioning robots One and Two. Then he had found out how to open several gates. He had done so cautiously and before activating them himself he had ordered the robots to do so. Thus, if they were trapped, they would be the victims.
One gate apparently had access to the gates enclosed in various boulders scattered over the planet below. Urthona must have had some means of identifying these. He would have been hoping that, while roaming the planet with the others, he would recognize one. Then, with a simple codeword or two, he would have transported himself to the palace. But Urthona hadn't had any luck.
Ore identified three gates to other worlds. One was to Jadawin's, one to Earth I, and one to dead Urizen's. There were other gates, but Ore hadn't wanted to activate them. He didn't want to push his luck. So far, he hadn't set off any traps. Besides, the gate to Earth I was the one he wanted.
Having made sure that his escape routes were open, Ore had then had the robots, One and Two, seal the control room.
"So you had our torments all fixed up ahead of time?" Anana said.
"Why not?" Ore said. "Wouldn't you have done the same to me?"
"At one time I would have. Actually, you did us a favor by letting us loose so we could savor the terrors of the fall. But you didn't mean to, I'm sure."
"He did himself a favor, too," Kickaha said.
Ore had then activated the gate to Earth I. He had stepped through the hole between the universes, fully expecting to emerge in a cave. He could see through its entrance a valley and a wooded mountain range beyond. He thought that it was possibly the same cave through which Kickaha and Anana had gone in southern California.
But Urthona had set up a simulacrum to lull the unwary. To strengthen its impression, Urthona had also programmed the robots in case a crafty Lord wanted to use the gate. At least, Red Ore supposed he had done so. Ore had ordered the robot called Six to walk through first. Six had done so, had traveled through the cave, stepped outside, looked around, then had returned through the gate.
Satisfied, Ore had ordered the robots, One and Two, to seal up the control room door with impervium flux. Then he had stepped through.
"Apparently," Ore said, "that wily shagg (a sort of polecat) had counted on the robot being used as a sacrifice. So he had arranged it that the robot would not be affected."
"Urthona always was a sneaky one," Anana said. "But he had depended on his technological defenses too long. Thrown on his own resources, he was not the man he should have been."
She paused, then added, "Just like you, uncle."
"I haven't done so badly," he said, his face red.
Kickaha and Anana burst out laughing.
"No," she said. "Of course not. Just look where you are."
Ore had been whisked away when he was only a few feet from leaving the cave or what he thought was a cave. The next second he was standing in the cube.
Kickaha drew Anana to a corner of the room to confer quietly. "Somehow, that mysterious Englishman discovered a gateway to another universe in the wall at the end of the corridor," he said. "Maybe he had found Urthona's codebook. Anyway, where one can go through, others can. And the Horn can get us through. But we can't get to the Horn.
"Now, what's to prevent us from getting Ore to blow the notes for us? Then we can make a recording of it and use it to open the gate."
Anana shook her head. "It doesn't work that way. It's been tried before, it's so obvious. But there's something in the machinery in the Horn that adds an element missing in recordings."
"I was afraid of that," he said. "But I had to ask. Look, Anana. Urthona must have planted gates all over this place. We've probably passed dozens without knowing it because they are inside the walls. Logically, many if not most of them will be quick emergency routes from one place in this building to another. So Urthona could outsmart anyone who was close on his heels.
"But there have to be a few which would gate him to another world. Only to be used in cases of direst emergency. One of them is the gate at the end of the corridor next door. I think ..."
"Not necessarily," Anana said. "For all we know, it leads to the control room or some other place in the palace."
"No. In that case, the sensors would have shown Ore that the Englishman was in the palace."
"No. Urthona might have set up places without sensors where he could hide if an enemy had possession of the control room."
"I'm the Number One trickster, but sometimes I think you sneaky Lords put me to shame. Okay. Just a minute. Let me ask Ore a question." He went to the cube. The Lord, looking very suspicious, said, "What are you two up to now?"
"Nothing that won't help you," Kickaha said, grinning. "We just don't want you to get a chance to get the drop on us. Tell me. Did the sensor displays in the control room indicate that there were hidden auxiliary sensor systems?"
"Why would you want to know?"
"Damn it!" Kickaha said. "You're wasting our time. Remember, I have to spring you if only to get the Horn."
Hesitantly, Ore said. "Yes, there are hidden auxiliary systems. It took me some time to find them. Actually, I wasn't looking for them. I discovered them while I was looking for something else. I checked them out and noted that they were in rooms not covered by the main system. But since nobody was using them, I assumed that no one was in them. It was inconceivable that anyone in a room where they were wouldn't be trying to find out where I was."
"I hope your memory's good. Where are they?"
"My memory is superb," Ore said stiffly. "I am not one of you sub-beings."
Kickaha grimaced. The Lords had the most sensitive and gangrenous egos he'd ever encountered. A good thing for him, though. He'd never have survived his conflicts with them if they hadn't always used part of their minds to feed their own egos. They were never really capable of one hundred percent mental concentration.
Well, he, Kickaha, had a big ego, too. But a healthy one.
The Lord remembered only a few of the locations of the auxiliary sensor systems. He couldn't be blamed for that since there were so many. But he was able to give Kickaha directions to three of them. He also gave him some instructions on how to operate them.
Just to make sure he hadn't been neglecting another source of information, Kickaha asked robots One and Two about the sensors. They were aware of only that in the control room. Urthona had not trusted them with any more data than he thought necessary for his comfort and protection.
Kickaha thought that if he had been master of this palace, he would have installed a safety measure in the robots. When asked certain questions, they would have refused to answer them. Or pretended that they didn't know.
Which, now that he thought about it, might be just what was happening. But they'd given him data that Urthona might not want his enemies to have. So possibly, they were not lying.
He took One with him, leaving Anana to keep an eye on her uncle. It wasn't likely that he'd be going any place or doing anything worth noticing. But you never knew.
The hidden system console was in a room behind a wall in a much larger room on the tenth floor. Lacking the codeword to gate through, he and One tore part of the wall down. He turned on the console and, with One's aid, checked out the entire building. It was done swiftly, the glowing diagrams of the rooms flashing by too swiftly on the screen for Kickaha to see anything but a blur. But a computer in One's body sorted them out.