Kiln People Part 23

In fact, I was kind of surprised to learn that Pal had a weakness for that stuff. A book club, my ceramic a.s.s! He was up to something.

"Come," one of our guards said, answering some hidden signal. "You're wanted now."

"And it's such an honor to be wanted," Pal quipped, always ready with a feel-good remark. Dropping the plaque, he scampered to my shoulder and I strode through the now-open door of the conference room.

A solemn Kaolin-golem awaited us. "Sit," he commanded. I plopped into the chair he indicated -- more plush than anything needed by my inexpensive tush. "I am very busy," the magnate's duplicate enounced. "I'll give you ten minutes to explain yourselves. Be exact."

No threats or inducements. No warnings not to lie. Sophisticated neural-net programs would be listening, almost certainly. Although such systems aren't intelligent (in any strict sense of the word), it takes concentration and luck to fool them. Albert had the skill, and I suppose that means I do, too. But sitting there, I lacked the inclination to try.

Anyway, the truth was entertaining enough. Pallie barged right in.

"I guess you could say it started on Monday, when two two different groups of fanatics came to me, complaining that my friend here" -- a ferret-paw waved at me -- "was hara.s.sing them with late night visits ... " different groups of fanatics came to me, complaining that my friend here" -- a ferret-paw waved at me -- "was hara.s.sing them with late night visits ... "

He proceeded to jabber the whole story, including our suspicion that someone was contriving to frame the hapless fanatics -- Lum and Gadarene -- along with realAlbert, setting them all up to take the blame for this evening's sabotage at UK.

I couldn't fault Palloid's decision to cooperate and tell everything. The sooner investigators were steered onto the right track, the better -- one way to clear Albert's name, for whatever good that would do him. (I noticed that the little ferret artfully avoided naming his own rig. realPal was safe, for now.) And yet, my clay brain roiled with misgivings. Kaolin himself wasn't above suspicion. Sure, I couldn't imagine why a trillionaire might sabotage his own company. But all sorts of twisty conspiracies can look plausible after a day like the one I just had. Wasn't it right here, at Kaolin Manor, that Tuesday's gray number one mysteriously vanished? Anyway, Kaolin was one of the few who possessed the means -- both technical and financial -- to pull off something so ornate and diabolical.

Foremost in my mind was this: Why aren't any cops present? This questioning should be handled by professionals. Why aren't any cops present? This questioning should be handled by professionals.

It implied that Kaolin had something to hide. Even at risk of thwarting the law.

He could be in real trouble for this, I thought, I thought, if even a single real person was harmed by tonight's attack. True, the only people I saw getting damaged at UK were dittos if even a single real person was harmed by tonight's attack. True, the only people I saw getting damaged at UK were dittos ... The thought hung there, unfinished and unsatisfying. ... The thought hung there, unfinished and unsatisfying.

"Well, well," our platinum host said after Pal's ferret-dit finished its amazing recital about late night visitors, religious fanatics, civil rights nuts, and secret tunnels. The Vic shook his head. "That's quite a tale."

"Thanks!" Palloid panted, wagging his rearmost appendage at the compliment. I almost hit him.

"I would normally find your story preposterous, of course. A tissue of blatant fantasies and obvious distractions." He paused. "On the other hand, it corresponds with additional information I received, a short time ago."

He motioned for the messenger, who had been standing patiently in a corner, to come forward. The yellow golem used disposable gloves to reach into his box and remove a tiny cylinder -- the smallest and simplest kind of unpowered audio archive -- slipping it into a playback unit on Kaolin's conference table. The sound that emerged wasn't one that our grandparents would have called a voice voice -- more like an undulating murmur of grunted clicks and half-tones. That turned into a warbling whine as the messenger dialed the playback unit to higher speed. And yet, I knew this language well. Every word came across perfectly clear. -- more like an undulating murmur of grunted clicks and half-tones. That turned into a warbling whine as the messenger dialed the playback unit to higher speed. And yet, I knew this language well. Every word came across perfectly clear.

I always hate getting up off the warming tray, grabbing paper garments from a rack ... knowing I'm the copy-for-a-day ...

Ugh. What got me in this mood? Maybe Ritu's news about her father. A reminder that real death still lurks for all.

... Some days you're a gra.s.shopper. Some the ant.

Recognition went beyond hearing familiar rhythms and phrases. No, the very thoughts themselves struck me with a haunting sense of repet.i.tion. The person who had subvocalized this record began his parody of life just minutes before I started mine. Each of us commenced existence Tuesday morning thinking along similar lines, though I wasn't equipped with a gray's fancy features. Made of coa.r.s.er stuff, I I rapidly diverged across some strange boundary and soon realized I was a frankie. The first one Albert Morris ever made. rapidly diverged across some strange boundary and soon realized I was a frankie. The first one Albert Morris ever made.

The fellow who recorded this diary was evidently more conventional. Another loyal Albert gray. Dedicated. A real pro. Clever enough to pierce the schemes of your regular, garden-variety evildoer.

But also predictable enough so that some truly devious mind could lay a fiendish trap.

... I'm in Studio Neo, pa.s.sing cla.s.sy establishments, offering services no one imagined before kiln tech appeared ...

Wait a sec.

It's the phone ... Pal ... Nell decides to pa.s.s the call on to my real self, but I listen in. He wants me to come over ...

"See?" the little ferret-golem on my shoulder jeered. "I tried tried to warn you, Albert!" to warn you, Albert!"

"I keep telling you, I'm not Albert. I'm not Albert." I grated.

We were both caught up in nervous irritation, listening to the super-rapid playback describe a fateful rendezvous.

Maestra's executive a.s.sistant ... She beckons me away from Wammaker's.

"Our meeting concerns sensitive topics ... "

We listened raptly as the "clients" -- one claiming to be the maestra herself -- explained their need for an untraceable investigator to nose around UK in a surrept.i.tious yet legal manner, seeking clues to sequestered technologies. Just the sort of thing to tease Albert's vanity and curiosity! I found it especially artful how each of his new employers made certain to act irritating or unpleasant in different ways. Knowing my archetype, he'd overcompensate, not letting dislike influence his decision. He'd persevere. Suffer the insufferable out of sheer obstinacy. (Call it "professionalism.") They were playing him like a fish.

Soon after came his adventure in the Rainbow Lounge, barely surviving a coincidental coincidental encounter with some golem-gladiators. An encounter that left him needing urgent repairs -- conveniently provided by the drones of Queen Irene's hive. The gray's present-tense recitation made you want to stand and shout at the warbling voice, demanding that he encounter with some golem-gladiators. An encounter that left him needing urgent repairs -- conveniently provided by the drones of Queen Irene's hive. The gray's present-tense recitation made you want to stand and shout at the warbling voice, demanding that he wake up wake up and notice how he was being used! and notice how he was being used!

Well, in hindsight it's easy to recognize a diabolical trick. (Would I I have seen it under the same circ.u.mstances?) have seen it under the same circ.u.mstances?) But all sides made mistakes. The enemy -- whoever pulled this convoluted caper -- failed to notice gray Albert's hidden realtime recorder, tucked amid the nest of high-density soulfibers in his larynx. Not even when they had him laid out, unconscious, using the pretext of "repairs" to install a vicious prion bomb. No doubt they checked for more sophisticated communication and tracking devices, but the tiny archiver used no power source, just tiny throat-flexings to scratch audio at minuscule bit rates. An old-fas.h.i.+oned but virtually undetectable record-keeping system ... which is why Albert always installed it in his grays.

No wonder Kaolin's messenger took such precautions against touching the tiny spool! Though disinfected, it had been recovered from a yucky, prion-poisoned slurry on the UK factory floor -- the merged remnants of a hapless forklift and a doomed private ditective. The archive might still hold a few catalytic molecules lethal to beings like us, who lack true immune systems.

Still, it was one useful clue, sparkling amid the melted remains. Vital evidence. Perhaps enough to vindicate my late maker.

So why was Kaolin playing it back for us us -- for Palloid and me -- instead of the police? -- for Palloid and me -- instead of the police?

The high-pitched account soon took us to the best part of the gray's day -- skillfully evading the Omnipresent Urban Eye, fooling the legion of public and private cameras covering nearly every angle of the modern civic landscape. He'd have enjoyed that. But then, having obscured his path, he entered Universal Kilns.

Two items spit forth, a visitor's badge and a map ... I head for the down escalator ... dropping into a huge anthill beneath the corporate domes, looking for signs that Kaolin is illegally withholding scientific breakthroughs ...

All right, suppose UK solved how to transmit the Standing Wave across distances greater than a meter. Will there be clues a layman might recognize? ... Might UK executives already "beam" themselves all over the planet?

Palloid and I shared a glance. "Wow," the little golem muttered.

Could that that be the breakthrough? Remote dittoing would shake up a way of life we've at last started getting used to, after all these rocky years. be the breakthrough? Remote dittoing would shake up a way of life we've at last started getting used to, after all these rocky years.

We both turned to stare at ditKaolin. His reaction gave nothing away, but what about the first time he heard those words, just minutes ago? Did that platinum complexion flush with anger and dismay?

A vibration below ... giant machines mix organic clay, threading it with fibers tuned to vibrate rhythms of a plucked soul ... molding dolls that walk and talk ... and we take it all for granted ...

d.a.m.n. Something's bugging me. Think ... how could Universal Kilns conceal anything huge and ground-breaking?

Yes, evil thrives on secrecy. It's what drives Albert on. Expose villainy. Find truth. But is that what I'm doing now?

"Finally," I muttered, as the gray started asking the right questions. In fairness, he did did express doubts earlier. But that made the transcription even more frustrating, listening as he forged ahead, despite all misgivings. express doubts earlier. But that made the transcription even more frustrating, listening as he forged ahead, despite all misgivings.

Maybe the gray was defective, like me -- a poor-quality copy made by an exhausted original. Not Albert at his best. On the other hand, he had been manipulated by experts. Maybe we never had a chance.

Some kind of gnat dodges a swat, darting toward my face. I use a surge-energy burst to grab ... crumpling it in my hand.

The mini-Pal dug his claws into my pseudoflesh.

"Dammit, Albert. I spent good money on them tiny drones." He glared those ferret eyes, as if the gray's obstinacy were somehow my fault. I might have reacted, sweeping him off my shoulder. But the recording was approaching its deadly climax.

It makes sense ... They'd maximize damage by delaying ignition ... either with a timer or by setting it to go off when I pa.s.s a second security scan ...

"Stop!" I cry -- From that point, the recitation turned into a rapid, jerky groan, much harder to make out, like words grunted by a hurried runner, or someone trying to concentrate on a desperate task.

Trying to save a lot more than his own measly life.

I spy a version of myself bearing a weasel-golem ... Looks like today's green found something better to do than clean toilets. Good for you, Green ...

That made me feel a bit ashamed, for sardonic things I thought about this gray. Could I have tried harder to save him? Might realAl be alive now, if we succeeded?

Regret seemed pointless, with my own clock rapidly ticking out. Why was Kaolin playing this tape for us? To taunt our failure?

The poor forklift writhes ... can't blame him, but it drives me deeper, holding my breath ... being consumed ...

Am I deep enough? Will the huge clay body contain -- The recital ended in a harsh squeal.

Palloid and I turned once again to watch the stolid, almost-human features of ditAeneas Kaolin, who regarded us for a long time while one of his hands trembled slightly. Finally, he spoke in a low voice that sounded more fatigued than a middle-aged golem ought to feel.

"So. Would you two like a chance to find the perverts who did all this?"

Pal's ditto and I shared a stare of blank surprise.

"You mean," I asked. "You mean you want to hire hire us?" us?"

What, exactly, did Kaolin expect us to accomplish in the ten hours (or less) that we had left?

23.

Glazed Buns ... as Albert discovers, realtime, how real it can get ...

The desert is a lot brighter than they portray in holocinema. Some say the glare can even penetrate your skull and affect the pineal gland -- that deeply buried "third eye" oldtime mystics used to call a direct link to the soul. Searing light is said to reveal hidden truths. Or else make you delirious enough to find cosmic meaning in stark simplicity. No wonder deserts are the traditional abode of wild-eyed ascetics, seeking the face of G.o.d.

I wouldn't mind running into an ascetic, right about now.

I'd ask to borrow his phone.

Is this thing working? I spent the last couple of hours messing with a tiny, muscle-powered sound archiver, testing it by reciting an account of what happened last night. First I had to dig it out of the gray golem I had stored in back of my wrecked Volvo. A gruesome ch.o.r.e, but the ditto was spoiled anyway, along with every bit of electronics in the car, when that platinum Kaolin fired a strange weapon at us on the road.

A subvocal archiver doesn't need electricity -- one reason I install them in my grays, scribing microscopic spirals onto a cylinder of neutral-density dolomite. I can't recite in high-speed grunt code, like I do when I'm clay. Still, the little unit should pick up ambient sound, like a spoken voice, while wedged under the skin behind my jaw. Small twitches can provide power. Ritu will think it's a nervous tic, after all we've been through.

She left our cave -- a sheltered cleft amid boulders -- to drink from a little canyon pool we found. Even dittos need water out here, unless you want to be baked into dinnerware. It gives me an excuse for my own trips to the pool. I'm real, after all. The mark of Adam is on me, covered by makeup and clothing.

Why keep feigning artificiality? As a kindness. Ritu's golem hasn't much chance of getting home to inload. As if her rig would want want these memories. I, on the other hand, face pretty good odds of getting out of here. Wait till nightfall, then hoof west by moonlight till I reach a road, a house, or some eco group's webcam. Anything to shout an SOS into. Civilization is simply too big to miss nowadays, and a healthy organic body can endure lots, if you don't do anything stupid. these memories. I, on the other hand, face pretty good odds of getting out of here. Wait till nightfall, then hoof west by moonlight till I reach a road, a house, or some eco group's webcam. Anything to shout an SOS into. Civilization is simply too big to miss nowadays, and a healthy organic body can endure lots, if you don't do anything stupid.

Suppose I do reach a phone. Should I use it? Right now my enemy -- Vic Kaolin? -- must think I'm dead. True-dead True-dead from that missile strike against my home. And now all my dittos too. A lot of effort to deny Albert Morris any continuity. Reappearing would only draw attention again. from that missile strike against my home. And now all my dittos too. A lot of effort to deny Albert Morris any continuity. Reappearing would only draw attention again.

I need information first. A plan.

And better keep away from the cops, too. Till I can prove I was set up. A little extra suffering -- a cross-desert march avoiding cameras all the way -- could be worthwhile if it lets me sneak into town undetected.

Am I up to it? Oh, I've withstood a thousand injuries that would've finished any of my ancestors -- from incinerations to smotherings to decapitations. I've died more times than I can count. But a modern person never does any of that in organic form! The real body is for exercise, not anguish.

My tough old twentieth-century grandpa threw his his body -- his only life -- off a bridge one time at the end of an elastic band. He suffered unbelievable torment in primitive dental offices. He traveled every day on highways without guidebeams, trusting his entire existence to the uncertain driving skills of total strangers whipping past him in crude vehicles fueled by liquid explosives. body -- his only life -- off a bridge one time at the end of an elastic band. He suffered unbelievable torment in primitive dental offices. He traveled every day on highways without guidebeams, trusting his entire existence to the uncertain driving skills of total strangers whipping past him in crude vehicles fueled by liquid explosives.

Grampa might've shrugged at this challenge, walking all the way from a desert ravine to the city, without complaint. I'll probably whimper when a pebble gets in my shoe. Still, I'm determined to try. Tonight, after Ritu's golem pa.s.ses on to where hopeless golems go.

I'll keep her company till then.

She's coming back, so no more reciting. Anything else that gets recorded will have to be picked up from conversation.

"Albert, you're back. Did you salvage anything from the car?"

"Not much. Everything's fried, my forensic gear, radio, and locators ... I figure n.o.body knows we're here."

"Do you have any idea how we got here?"

"A wild guess. That weapon ditKaolin fired, it killed every bit of electronics and must have been meant to scramble imprinted clay."

"Then why are we still walking about?"

"That old Volvo has more metal than most cars today. We were better sheltered than the poor gray stored in back. Also, I surprised Kaolin by charging right at him, spoiling his aim. That may be why we only blacked out."

"But after! How did we get to the bottom of this gully, surrounded by miles of cactus and scrub. Where's the road?"

"Good question. This time I spotted something at the wreck we didn't notice before, a puddle near the driver's door."

"Puddle?"

"Golem slurry. Remains of our would-be a.s.sa.s.sin, I guess."

"I ... still can't believe it's Aeneas. Why would he want us dead?"

"I'm curious about that too. But here's the interesting part, Ritu. The puddle looked too small -- about half-sized!"

"Half ... he must have been torn in two when you smashed into him. But how did the remnants get way out here?"

"My guess? Though ripped apart by the collision, Kaolin must have dragged what was left of himself to the car, climbing to my half-open window. We were knocked out, inside. The engine was running but the doors and the windows frozen. He couldn't squeeze through to finish us with his bare hands. So -- "

"So he reached in to grab your side-stick controller ... the throttle and steering lever ... piloting us offroad, across open desert, with his half-body dangling all the way."

"He had to get us under cover, so we wouldn't be spotted and rescued. Somewhere surrounded by hot country no ditto can cross by day. We'd be trapped if we did waken. Then, his mission accomplished, ditKaolin ended his torment by dropping off and melting."

"But what's to stop us from walking out after dusk? Oh. Right. Expiration. What time on Tuesday were you imprinted, Albert?"