What should she do with it? Why was it given to her? She knew the story of the gods and the brothers was nonsense, transparently so, in fact, but the question still remained . . . why?
Tessa picked up the box, immediately feeling the odd, vaguely entrancing sensation come over her. The very touch of the chest gave her a pleasurable, indescribable, feeling. She wanted to touch the box, as if the attraction she felt for the object were organic.
Looking at the ornate hinges, the unhasped latch, she recalled the warning instructions: that the box never be opened. Obviously this was the key, no pun intended, which would unlock the mystery, and perhaps the box, thought Tessa. Thinking it out, she arrived at the following conclusion: the man who called himself Zeus obviously wanted her to open the box, otherwise there would have been some kind of preventive measure, such as a catch or a lock, to keep it secure—the warning serving only to make the proposition more tempting.
She now knew what she would do.
Chapter Eight
“Then they are not illusions,” said Stoor to the assembled group.
“How can you say that?” asked Varian. “Just because of the box? That could have been planted in the Data Chamber; the rest could still be illusion. . . .”
Raim nodded his head fiercely at this, obviously not wanting to believe that his own experience with Marise could have been real. To have been so close to having his beloved wife back, and failing, was more than he could bear.
Tessa remained silent for a moment. She stood and walked behind their chairs. “I don’t know what to think . . . except that I’m sure I was supposed to open that box.”
Varian nodded. “Oh, no question about that. We’ve already agreed that all of us have been somehow, for still unknown reasons, inserted into these damn . . . fables, or whatever you want to call them. Somebody is testing our reactions for some reason.”
“Somebody,” said Tessa with obvious contempt. “It’s not somebody. . . . It’s the Guardian! It has to be!”
“But why?” asked Varian. “And what do the fables mean?”
“And what about the box?” asked Tessa. “What are we supposed to do with it?”
Stoor laughed. “Well, we’re already doin’ somethin’ with it. . . . We’re not openin’ it!”
“Which may be telling the Guardian, or whoever is staging this thing, exactly what it wants to know,” said Varian.
Raim scribbled on his note pad: I think we should ask Guardian. He passed it about the group and waited upon their reaction.
“He’s right,” said Stoor. “That damned machine’s got all the friggin’ answers. Why should we sit here and fry our brains for nothin’? We could do this for days and never get to the bottom of things.”
“I agree,” said Varian. “I think we should all go and find the . . . robot, or go down to the main level and use the consoles. We don’t have anything to lose.”
“I wonder about that,” said Tessa.
The three men stared at her.
She smiled a nervous smile. “Oh come now, I’m not trying to be dramatic; I’m just getting a little frightened. Think for a moment: Don’t you believe Guardian would tell us what it was doing right away? . . . if it had any intention of doing so?”
Stoor shrugged. “Who knows how a machine thinks?”
Tessa brightened. “All right then, how do we know that Guardian is being run by machines? Suppose there are still men in here someplace?”
“From the First Age!?” Varian shook his head. “Through all this time? I doubt it. They wouldn’t have sat still like this. They would have been out rebuilding, reclaiming the World they lost.”
“Probably,” said Tessa. “I’m only trying to show us how little we know, how little we can be sure of.”
Stoor sucked on his pipe, grimaced because it had gone out, and knocked it upon a dinner plate, dislodging the ashen plug. “Thanks a lot, ma’am!”
“So . . .” said Varian, “we can open the box, ignore the box, or confront the Guardian. . . . What’s it going to be? I say we find Guardian.”
Raim walked to Varian’s side and nodded his head.
“All right with me,” said Stoor.
“I can’t argue with all of you,” said Tessa. “Let’s go find our jailer. . . .”
“That won’t be necessary,” said the familiar voice of the Guardian’s homolog.
Turning in unison, as if choreographed, everyone greeted the robot who looked like a kindly philosopher-gentleman standing at the threshold to the room.
“Good evening, everyone,” it said, walking into the chamber and selecting a chair. Its movements were so natural, so casual, Varian was still amazed that it was a machine and often had to remind himself of that fact. There was something hideous about the homolog, despite its disarming appearance. Nothing should seem so . . . human, thought Varian, when it indeed was not.
“You’ve been listening to us,” said Varian.
“Please excuse me, but it is difficult not to monitor your conversations. . . . The entire Citadel is connected by circuits and . . . well, you are, for all intents and purposes, living inside of me.”
“What do you want?” Stoor refilled his pipe automatically, not taking his steady gaze from the homolog.
“I thought it was you who wanted to see me . . . and so I am here.”
“You have heard everything,” said Tessa. “Can you answer our questions?”
The homolog smiled. “I would sincerely like to provide satisfactory answers, but I don’t know if I can.”
“What’s that mean?” Stoor struck a match on his boot, lighted the pipe, and was engulfed in an acrid, blue cloud.
“It means that there are some things which, were I to explain them at this early stage in the proceedings, you would doubtfully understand or, in the least, you would misinterpret them. I ask you to be patient with me, that is all I can
