It was time for another briefing.
CHAPTER 12
The computer trunk, featureless as before, floated into the kitchen, seemed to register his presence with some invisible bank of sensors. ?You are accompanied by someone else,? it said. ?Identify them, please.?
?My wife,? Salsbury said, stretching things a bit.
The computer was silent a moment, adjusting to the information that was certain to require more than a little shifting of data. ?You are not permitted?? it began.
?Whatever authority you had over me is gone,? Salsbury told it.
On the surface of the trunk, two squares began to glow yellow. ?Place your hands here for your next series of orders,? the computer said.
?I repeat,? Salsbury said, ?that whatever authority you had over me is gone.?
?On the glowing plates,? the computer said.
?If you expect to have authority over me, even the littlest bit of authority, you will have to tell me enough about this thing to keep me alive. As it is, I've killed three robot men and one robot dog sent by those lizard-things, though I have no idea what in the hell-?
?Lizard-things? But you must be wrong. The vacii invasion is not to begin for several days yet. Put your hands on the glowing-?
?Go to hell! You can come look at the parts of the robots if you want. You can stay until one-thirty in the morning when the portal opens in the wall and more of them come through. Or maybe the lizards will come themselves this time.?
There was another pause. The plates on the trunk surface ceased to glow. ?You are telling the truth,? it said, as if it had lie-detecting devices wired into it.
?Damn straight. And I've just decided that this isn't worth sticking around for. I can't trust you'll tell me everything. I think the wise thing for us to do is get out of here now, fast, move somewhere else where I can paint and-?
?That would be unwise.? The computer's voice was a monotone and had already begun to sound hollow and boring.
?You think? Why??
?Because,? the 810-40.04 said, ?if you don't continue the plan and defeat the vacii, they'll pour into this continuum, overwhelm it and establish one of their cultural experiments. In six months, they'll rule this world.?
?Six months? An alien invasion? That's insanity!?
?You've seen them in the wall,? Lynda reminded him.
He shook his head in agreement. ?Let's get this over with, then. Brief me.?
?Put your hands on the glowing-?
?No,? he said matter-of-factly. ?I will not let you delve into my mind and fill me up with orders I don't even know you've given me. Brief me verbally.?
?It would be impossible to control you as before. You have become too human in time since the last stage of the operation. Your psyche has been allowed to recover from its hypno-training.?
?Verbal,? he said.
?You must carry the first briefing,? it said. ?My data banks must include the present situation.?
He told it all that had happened since he had left it in the cave to go purchase the Jacobi house. When he was done, he said, ?Now maybe you can tell me why you wouldn't respond when I came to you to find out about the lizard-things and the robots.?
?You must realize that an 810-40.04 has a contained power source and that I can only operate in the time allotted by the plan. Otherwise I risk draining my reserves, which could be disastrous. Without computer briefing, you might fail. The plan might fail. We mis-estimated the time of the first vacii attacks. Seriously mis-estimated. Otherwise, you would not have had to face the robots unarmed.?
?Who am I working for?? he asked, not bothering to comment on the first answer, afraid that the well of information would dry up if he didn't fill his buckets quickly.
?The oppressed people of the vacii experimental society of Earth Number 4576.?
Salsbury waited for more. When there wasn't any? more, he said, ?What is that supposed to mean? Where are these oppressed people??
?Two-hundred-and-eighty-five years in the future,? the 810-40.04 said.
They sat still, hardly breathing. Vic cleared his throat. ?And what? Is? Well, is that where I came from? From 2255 A.D.??
?Yes.?
?But why doesn't he remember that future?? Lynda asked, leaning over the table toward the trunk as if it were a person.
?Because he never lived it,? the computer said.
?Wait,? Salsbury interrupted. ?I'm not tracking clearly. When
?Never,? the computer said. ?You're an android.?
He looked at Lynda; she at him. She took his hand, which was the sign he needed to maintain his confidence. He spoke to the 810-40.04 again. ?I'm not made of wires and tubes. I bleed real blood.?
?Android, not robot,? the computer said. You were a product of the Artificial Wombs, grown from a chemically simulated egg and a chemically simulated sperm, each with carefully engineered genes. From all appearances, you are a natural born man. You think, feel, and react like a man, like Victor Salsbury who was chosen because data about him had survived the centuries; his work gained renown after his death. You have, it is agreed, a soul like any man, for you are in all ways human except for those differences built into you. They are three. One: in a crisis, you react with more speed than a man should, for your mental process are stimulated by danger and you can tap them with the fluency of some wild animals. Two: you have an ability to produce and use an adrenalin-like substance which is secreted by a mechanism buried in your liver. This has the single drawback of making you highly susceptible to alcoholic beverages, but this cannot be helped. Three: you have great recuperative powers far beyond the normal. Otherwise, you are a man.?
?If this cause is so important,? Victor said, ?why not send one of those oppressed people back? He would be more fanatical. You would be more certain of his cooperation, though he would not have my recuperative powers or reactions.?
?That is reason enough,? the machine said. ?But, also, a man cannot travel so far into the past, unfortunately.?
?Why not??
?As he travels backwards, a man grows younger. If he begins his journey as a fifty year old, travels twenty years into the past, he is then thirty. No man can, therefore, return further into the past than his birth date. Since, in our future, the average age under the vacii is only eighty-two, we have no chance of finding a real man old enough to come back to this period and still be an adult when he arrives.?
?But why didn't I react like a man?? Vic asked. He suspected why. The suspicion lingered in the back of his mind, frightening yet tantalizing.
The computer continued in a level tone. ?The artificial atmosphere of the mechanical wombs can help us achieve many things. The flow of time can be compressed or stretched. In your case, we made the interior of the womb capsule an accelerated time pocket. It took two years to create you, but you were carefully aged 310 years in that time. When you came back into the past in the normal time-flow reversal, you ended up in 1970 as a twenty- five-year-old man.?
Salsbury could think of nothing to say, nothing to ask. He could only look at his body, his hands, and think about how old he was? how really really old.
Lynda thought of something. ?If we stop these? these vacii and can live a normal life, will Vic live to be 310??
The computer seemed to take a moment for reflection. ?He will be a fixture of the present, will not wink out of
