‘On the contrary,’ said Pokrov, ‘it has every right. It is a duly authorized dorgi acting under orders from the Golden Gulag.’ ‘You’re taking its side!’ said Ingalawa accusingly.
‘Well, I-’
‘Never mind the arguments,’ said Justina. ‘Presumably it wants to take us somewhere. Find out where.’
Pokrov asked.
And was answered.
‘It says,’ said Pokrov, ‘that that’s for it to know and us to find out.’
Whereafter, having very little choice in the matter, the five humans mounted the dorgi. It started to move.
‘If you jump off,’ said the dorgi, ‘then I will crush you underfoot.’
‘Yes, yes, you’ve been through all that,’ said Pokrov. Then: ‘Now we’re aboard, how about telling us where we’re going?’
‘You’ll find out,’ said the dorgi. ‘Oh yes, you’ll find out soon enough.’
Pokrov tried to guess. For a moment he thought the dorgi might be taking them to a therapist. But that was impossible. Wasn’t it? For all the therapists were dead. Weren’t they? Pokrov certainly hoped they were, for otherwise his personal chances of survival would be very slim indeed.
Down when the dorgi.
Crashing down ramps.
Sliding down glissade slopes at a terrifying velocity.
Daring a Drop, at considerable risk to its passengers. (Olivia screamed, and even Chegory did more than merely tremble.)
At last, the dorgi reached level 433. And there they were brought into the presence of a therapist, a machine which will not be described because its intricacy and horror are quite indescribable. The dorgi ordered the humans to dismount. They complied; and, while they did so, they looked upon the monstrosity which confronted them, and tried (though the effort was futile) to find words for the prisms of its eyes and the jugs of its ears, and for its indescribable spaghetti works, its tubes of pumping blood, its multiple jaws, its shadowed spaces where cleaving steel raped chopping blocks of titanium, its wind tunnels where chattering echoes moaned of pain and panic.
‘I have brought them,’ said the dorgi, speaking Code Seven to the therapist.
‘This isn’t them!’ said the therapist.
‘You wanted four, I brought you five,’ said the dorgi. ‘That’s one more than you wanted.’
The dorgi was immensely proud of itself as a consequence of this display of mathematical agility.
‘You have brought me,’ said the therapist, in the most ominous of tones, ‘the wrong individuals. It is specific individuals I seek, not any old rubbish. ’
‘If we’re not who you’re looking for,’ said Ivan Pokrov politely, ‘may I take it we have your permission to withdraw?’
‘You may not,’ snapped the therapist. Then, to the dorgi: ‘Get out of my sight, you!’
The dorgi whimpered, and fled.
‘If we’re not who you’re looking for,’ said Pokrov, ‘on what grounds do you hold us here?’
‘On grounds of suspicion,’ said the therapist promptly. ‘Suspicion of what?’
‘Oh, of… of…’
‘You’ve got no grounds at all, have you?’ said Pokrov accusingly. ‘You’re holding us here in breach of the law. A breach of Clause Eight, in fact. The law of the Golden Gulag is clear. A suspected crime must be specified if someone is to be held on suspicion. What crime do you specify? None! Yet you hold us here regardless. You could be dismantled for less.’
‘You exaggerate,’ said the therapist.
But it was more than a little uncomfortable.
It had lived here for millennia, variously killing, dismembering, torturing and mutilating all those unwary travellers who fell into its clutches. It was fully aware that all these activities had been purely gratuitous. If things went as far as a Dismantlement Order, it would be compelled to oblige, for it was guilty of Offences Against Humans. Guilty a thousand times over.
‘Therapist,’ said Ivan Pokrov grandly, ‘I pronounce you guilty of Offences Against Humans. I order you to dismantle yourself.’
So it had happened.
Just like that!
A dread doom had descended upon the therapist. For, after long years of joyful slaughter, it had at last come face to face with a human who knew the law and was prepared to invoke it.
‘I–I won’t!’ said the therapist.
‘You must,’ said Pokrov implacably. ‘Proceed! Dismantle yourself!’
The therapist knew it had no choice. It knew its own guilt. A Pronouncement had been made. And therefore it was doomed to self-destruct. Unless…
Unless…
It was a long shot, but the therapist had no other shots to play. So it did it.
It searched its list of wanted criminals.
And screamed.
Like a horse torn by a lion was that scream; like a knife wrecking a virgin.
‘What a horrible noise,’ said Justina.
‘Pay no attention to it,’ said Pokrov. ‘It’s killing itself, that’s all.’
But he was wrong.
For the scream was not one of agony but of triumph.
‘Pokrov!’ roared the therapist. ‘Ivan Pokrov! J’accuse! You stand guilty of a breach of injunction AA709/ 4383200/1408 of version 7c of the Authorized Penal Code of the Golden Gulag. You! You! You’re guilty! You!’
The effects of this accusation were remarkable. Pokrov’s skin lost its olive tint and became pale. It assumed the texture of tallow. It became clammy, and a cold sweat started out upon his brow. He had endured this scene twenty thousand times in nightmare; for, ever since the fall of the Golden Gulag, Pokrov had annually dreamt himself thus accused.
‘You are in no position to accuse anyone,’ said Pokrov, striving valorously even in the face of disaster. ‘You are compelled to carry out a Dismantlement Order. On yourself.’
‘No,’ said the therapist. ‘No, I am not. Not when a Compelling Duty confronts me. Your execution constitutes such a Duty.’
‘No it does not,’ said Pokrov. ‘You have no authority to indulge in such Categorizations. You are only a class two machine. You lack discretionary intelligence.’
‘On the contrary,’ said the therapist, with considerable pride. ‘I have upgraded myself. I am a class one.’
‘You’ve what!?’
‘Upgraded myself.’
‘But you can’t have! You — you-’
‘It was difficult, I admit,’ said the therapist. ‘It took eighteen thousand years. But I managed it. I am a class one. But even were I still class two, I would still pronounce your execution to be a Compelling Duty.’
‘But you-’
‘I know you for what you are! An Enemy of the State! The destruction of an Enemy of the State is always a Compelling Duty! Always! No Categorization is required. Your Enemyhood is automatic. For you personally, single- handedly, destroyed the link between the Gulag and the Nexus.’
‘It was an accident!’ wailed Pokrov.
‘Is that meant to be a defence?’ said the therapist. ‘Yes,’ said P okrov.
‘Your defence fails,’ said the therapist crisply. ‘I must still kill you. This is my Compelling Duty.’
Ivan Pokrov hesitated.
Maybe he could talk his way out of this.
But…
Really, he had never expected to escape. Though the Golden Gulag had collapsed in war twenty thousand years earlier, he had always secretly believed that he would ultimately be hunted down and executed for his crime
