"The nine-headed dragon!" Tai-Peng shouted. His face was flushed; he'd been drinking wine throughout the meal.
"I'll use one of the electronic computers in this room to set up a system," Loga said. "But it won't, I believe, be able to beat its own logic. A computer can calculate much faster than a human, if it has all the proper data. But it doesn't have an imagination. It's not creative. Still, its data might contain something I've overlooked. And it can be set to make combinations in a very short time which it would take me years to write out. Also, it does have some degree of extrapolation."
After going to his apartment, he went to the control room and seated himself in the chair in the center of the revolving platform. In a very short time, he called to the others.
"I couldn't resist asking the big computer how many wathans are now in the shaft."
"How many?" Nur said.
Loga looked at the screen again.
"Eighteen billion and twenty-eight. No. Add three more."
"Over half the people in The Valley," Frigate said. "Yes. Add two more now."
Loga turned the display off.
"For every hour that passes, more people die, more wathans are caught. When the computer dies..."
His voice trailed off.
The Ethical had to have great courage, endurance, determination, and quick wits to do all that he'd done. But his guilt was too crushing for even him.
"Maybe," Turpin said, "you should throw in the towel. I mean... kill the computer now! That way, you won't lose any more, and you can continue the project."
"No!" Loga said, showing fire for the first time since they'd known him. "No! That would be monstrous! I have to save all of them! All!"
"Yes, and maybe you'll end up losing millions. Or maybe everybody on this planet."
"No! I can't!"
"Well," Turpin said, "I can't think of anything that'll help. This is all too deep for me."
He left for the nearby lounge to play on its piano.
"He's disgusted with me," Loga said. "But he doesn't know the loathing I feel for myself."
"Recriminations will do no good!" Tai-Peng said, waving a bottle in his hand. "But Tom may be right! I think I'll go to the lounge and enjoy myself, too! My head aches with thinking!"
"That isn't what's making it hurt," Alice said gently.
Tai-Peng just grinned and kissed her quickly on the cheek as he passed her.
Nur reminded the Ethical that he hadn't removed the bombs in the cabinets in the other control room.
"I'll just lock the door," Loga said. "Now for the logic-versus-logic program. Even if it will be a waste of time."
Those remaining went off to the language laboratory. The Ethical had given them instructions for the use of the equipment which would teach them to speak and read Gardenworldish or Ghuurrkh. There were also Esperanto-Ghuurrkhian grammars and dictionaries available.
Alice clutched Burton's arm.
"It is horrible, isn't it?" she said, her large dark eyes looking into his. "All those souls lost, and they had a chance for immortality! It's too horrible to think about!"
"Then don't think about it," Burton said. "Anyway, even the lost ones will be immortal. They just won't know it, that's all."
She shuddered and said, "Yes. But we could be among them. Do you think you're Going On? I'd like to believe that I am, but you practically have to be a saint to Go On!"
"Nobody has ever accused me of being a saint unless it was my wife," Burton said, grinning. "And she knew better."
Alice wasn't fooled. She knew that he was as desperate as she.
Two days passed. Loga ran out the results on the console screen while the others watched. When the display was ended, he shook his head.
"No use."
They conferred again and again and came up with many plans, but these were all dismissed because of flaws in logic or insurmountable facts.
The fourth day after they'd come to the tower, Frigate leaped smiling into the room.
"Hey, we're pretty dumb! The answer is right under our noses! Why don't you send robots in to insert the module?"
Loga sighed.
"I'd thought of that. It was one of the first things to occur to me. But even though the robots are made of charruzz (the gray metal), the computer's beamers will slice through them."
Frigate looked disappointed and a little foolish.
"Yes... but... if you send enough in, they'd knock out the beamers!"
"None of the robots have the functional structure to shoot beamers."
"Well, couldn't you convert them? And then program them?"
"It would take me ten days. If I'd started when I first got here, I couldn't have altered one in time."
He paused, then said dolefully, "I just checked on the time left before the computer dies. Five days!"
Even though they'd been expecting such an announcement, they were shocked.
Tom Turpin said, "At least we won't have that to worry about. The souls'll be gone, and there's nothing to do about it. But you can give those that're still alive a lot more time."
Loga turned some dials and punched a button. Ghuurrkhian numbers glowed on the screen. The others were advanced enough by now to be able to read them.
"Eighteen billion, one hundred and two," Aphra said.
"I should kill the computer right now," Loga said. "I've waited too long as it is. For all I know, my mother's soul was collected today."
"Wait!" Frigate said. "I've got an idea! You said you'd reopened your private resurrection chambers when you got here. Can they be fixed up so that we could be resurrected in them, too?"
"Why, yes. They could be. The resurrector catchers operate on a slightly different frequency from that of the computer. I had my wathan and Tringu's tuned to it. I could do the same for you. But why?"
Frigate started to explain, but Loga, Burton, and Nur comprehended at the same time what he meant to say.
They would go down in force, leaving several behind to do the necessary supervision. They would storm the room, and, though they might be killed over and over, they still could put out all the beamers of the computer.
"How'd you happen to think of that, Pete?" Tom Turpin said.
"I'm a science-fiction writer. I should've thought of it when I found out what the situation was."
"I should've thought of it, too," Loga said. "But we're all under great emotional pressure."
"You can duplicate these?" Burton said, holding up the pistollike sphere-ended weapon.
"As many as we'll need."
Within two minutes, the entire group was armed with the beamers. The Ethical then had his machine print out diagrams of the route to the valve room from the control room and from his private resurrectors. They studied the diagrams, identifying each corridor and chamber with the corresponding screen displays.
"There are video cameras on every wall in that area, including the valve room. Here's a picture of it from the files."
They studied the reproductions issued by the machine until they knew the room by heart. Then Loga commanded that a module be duplicated in the e-m cabinet, and he gave them the simple instructions for pulling out the old module and inserting the new.
Unfortunately, the Ethical was unable to get diagrams showing where the computer's defenses were located.
"That information must be in the computer's memory banks."
Nur said, "Why don't you ask the computer for it?"
Loga looked surprised, then laughed softly.
A moment later he had information, though it wasn't what he'd asked for. The computer refused to divulge where its weapons were.
"Well, it was worth a try."
They got into their chairs and followed the Ethical to a lift shaft. They descended in it far faster than they'd dared operate their chairs until then. When they'd gone a mile, he stopped and then went into a bay and from there into a corridor. After a few minutes Burton, who had an excellent sense of direction, realized that they were heading for the general area of the secret room at the base of the tower. At their speed, they quickly arrived at it.