He made a downward, quieting gesture, and eased past Cobb. Cobb followed him then for what felt like two or three kilometers. The tunnel never went up or down, nor left or right . . . just straight ahead, step after quiet step. Cobb was unused to so much exercise and finally thumped on Ralph’s back to make him stop.
“Where are you taking me?”
The robot stopped and snaked his head back. “This tunnel leads to the pink-houses. Where we grow organs. We have an . . . operating table there as well. A nursie. You will not find the transition painful.” Ralph fell silent and stretched his senses to the utmost. There were no diggers nearby.
Cobb sat down on the floor of the tunnel. His suit was bouncy enough so it felt comfortable. He decided to stretch out on his back. No need to stand on ceremony with a robot, after all.
“It’s just as well that Sta-Hi ran off,” Ralph was saying. “Nobody even told me he was coming. There’s only one nursie, and if he had watched while . . .” He stopped abruptly.
“I know,” Cobb said. “I know what’s coming. You’re going to mince up my brain to get the patterns and dissect my body to reseed the organ tanks.” It was a relief to just come out and say it. “That’s right, isn’t it, Ralph? There’s no immortality drug, is there?”
There was a long silence, but finally Ralph agreed. “Yes. That’s right. We have a robot-remote body for you on Earth. It’s just a matter of extracting your software and sending it down.”
“How does that work?” Cobb asked, his voice strangely calm. “How do you get the mind out of the brain?”
“First we do an EEG, of course, but holographically. This gives an over-all electromagnetic map of the brain activity, and can be carried out even without opening the skull. But the memories . . . “
“The memories are biochemical,” Cobb said. “Coded up as amino-acid sequences on RNA strands.” It was nice to be lying here, talking science with his best robot.
“Right. We can read off the RNA-coded information by using gas spectroscopic and X-ray crystallographic processes. But first the RNA must be . . . extracted from the brain-tissues. There’s other chemical factors as well. And if the brain is microtomed first, we can also determine the physical network patterns of the neurons. This is very . . . “
Ralph broke off suddenly, and froze in a listening attitude. “Come, Cobb! The diggers are catching up!”
But Cobb still lay there, resting his bones. What if the diggers were the good guys? “You wouldn’t play a trick on me, Ralph? It sounds so crazy. How do I know you’ll really give me a robot body of my own? And even if a robot is programmed with my brain-patterns . . . would that really be . . .”
“Wwaitt Doctorr Annderssonnn! I onlyy wannt to talllk wwith yyou!”
Ralph tugged frantically at Cobb’s arm, but it was too late. Wagstaff was upon them.
“Hello, Rrallph. Gladd to ssee you gott rebuilltt. Somme of the boyys arre a llittle trigerr-happy, whatt withh the rrevoltt againnst the bigg bopperrs comminng upp.”
In the narrow tunnel, Cobb was squeezed between Ralph and the snaky digging robot called Wagstaff. He could make out two more diggers behind Wagstaff. They looked strong, alien, a little frightening. He decided to take a firm tone with them.
“What do you want to tell me, bopper?”
“Doctorr Anderrsonn, didd yyou know thatt Rallph is goinng to lett TEX and MEX eatt yourr brainn?”
“Who’s MEX?”
“The bigg bopperr thatt iss the mmuseumm. TEX runs the orrgann tannks, and hiss nnursie will cutt . . . “
“I already know all this, Wagstaff. And I have agreed to it on the condition that my software be given new hardware on Earth. It’s my last chance.” I’m committing suicide to keep from getting killed, Cobb thought to himself. But it should work. It should!
“You see!” Ralph put in triumphantly. “Cobb isn’t scared to change hardware like a bopper does. He’s not like the rest of the fleshers. He understands!”
“Butt does hhe realizze thatt Misterr Frosteee . . . “
“Oh, go to stop!” Ralph flared. “We’re leaving. If your boppers are really planning to start a civil war, then Cobb and I don’t have a minute to lose!”
Ralph started down the tunnel and Cobb, after a moment’s hesitation, followed along. He was too far into it to turn back now.
14
When Sta-Hi took off, he only glanced back once. He saw that Ralph had followed Cobb into that rat-hole, and pulled the hole in after. And there were three big blue robots back there, feeling around the wall. Sta-Hi sped around a comer, out of their sight and safe. He stopped to catch his breath.
“You should have gone, too,” a voice said gently.
He looked around frantically. There was no one there. He was in a dimly lit hallway. Old bopper tools and components were mounted on the walls like an exhibit of medieval weaponry. Distractedly, Sta-Hi read the nearest label. Spring-Operated Lifting Clamp, Seventh Cycle (ca. 2001). TC6399876. Attached to the wall above the label was a sort of artificial arm with . . .
“Then you could have lived forever,” that same still, small voice added.
Sta-Hi started running again. He ran for a long time, turning corners this way and that at random. The next time he stopped for breath he noticed that the character of the museum had changed. He was now in something like a gallery of modern art. Or perhaps it was a clothes store.
He had been babbling while he ran . . . to drown out any voices that he might be hearing. But now he could only pant for air. And the voice was still with him.
“You are lost,” it said soothingly. “This is the bopper sector of the museum. Please return to the human sector. There is still time for you to join Doctor Anderson.”
The museum. It had to be the museum talking to him. Sta-Hi darted his eyes around, trying to make a plan. He was in a largish exhibition hall, a sort of underground cave. A tunnel at the other end sloped up towards light, probably somewhere in Disky. He started walking towards the tunnel. But there would be boppers outside. He stopped and looked around some more.
The exhibits in this hall were all much the same. Hooks sticking out from the wall, each with a limp sheet of thick plastic hanging from the hook like a giant wash-rag. What made it interesting was that the plastics were somehow electrified, and they flickered in strange and beautiful patterns.
There was no one in the exhibition hall to stop him. He stepped over and took one of the sparkling cloths off its hook. It was red, blue and gold. He threw it over his shoulders like a cape, and gathered a bight over his head like a hood. Maybe now he could just . . .
“Put that back!” the museum said urgently. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”
Sta-Hi pulled the cloak tighter around himself . . . it seemed to adjust to his fit. He walked up the sloping tunnel and out into the streets of Disky. As he left the tunnel he felt something sharp pinching into him.
It was as if a claw with invisibly fine talons had gripped the nape of his neck. He whirled around, cape billowing out, and stared back into the museum tunnel he had just left. But no one was following him.
Two purplish boppers came rolling down the street. They were like beer kegs rolling on their sides, with tangles of tentacles at either end. Now and then they lashed the ground to keep themselves rolling. When they got to Sta-Hi, they stopped in front of him. A high-speed twittering came over his radio.
He pulled the hood of his cloak further forward over his face. What the hell was cutting into his neck?