Kiln People Part 25

"All right! I concede the point. Come here already."

"Oh my."

" ... What?"

"Albert, you spend extra on your grays!"

"You do, too."

"UK offers supertactile enhancement on employee discount -- that's nice ... "

"Yeah. Let's -- "

"Uh, wait, there's a rock under me ... There. Better. Now, give me your weight. Feel good, Albert. Forget everything."

"All right. It's so ... so ... " "

" ... so real. Almost as if ... "

" ... as if ... Ah ... ch-phlwef! ch-phlwef!"

"What was that? Did you just ... sneeze?"

"I thought you did. I mean the dust ... "

"You did! You're real, dammit! I can tell!"

"Ritu, let me explain -- "

"Get off, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Sure. But ... what's this dye rubbing off your neck?"

"Shut up."

"And the contacts in your eyes have slipped. I thought thought your texture was too perfect. You're real, too!" your texture was too perfect. You're real, too!"

"I thought you were dead. dead. A ghost, about to melt away. I was trying to console you." A ghost, about to melt away. I was trying to console you."

"I was consoling you! What was all that talk about needing distraction?"

"I was talking about you, you, idiot." idiot."

"It sounded like you were talking about yourself."

"A likely excuse."

"Hey! Do you think I'd have touched you if I knew? I said, Clara and I -- "

"d.a.m.n you."

"For what? We both both lied, okay? I'll tell you my reason for coming disguised, if you tell me yours. Deal?" lied, okay? I'll tell you my reason for coming disguised, if you tell me yours. Deal?"

"Go to h.e.l.l!"

"Aren't you glad I wasn't wasn't in my house when that missile hit? You'd rather I were dead?" in my house when that missile hit? You'd rather I were dead?"

"Of course not. It's just -- "

"I could have started walking hours ago. I stayed to -- "

"Take advantage!"

"Ritu, each of us thought -- aw, what's the point?"

"d.a.m.n right!"

"What?"

" ... What?"

"Did you just mutter something?"

"No! That is ... "

"Yes?"

"I only said it was ... real nice ... while it lasted."

"Yeah ... it was. Oh, now what are you laughing at?"

"I was just picturing us, lying here afterward, feeling pleased having 'consoled' each other ... then waiting for the other one to start melting. Then waiting some more ... "

"Heh. That is is kind of funny. It's kind of too bad we found out so soon." kind of funny. It's kind of too bad we found out so soon."

"Yes. But, Albert?"

"Yes, Ritu?"

"I really am glad you're alive."

"Thanks. That's sweet to say."

"So, now what?"

"Now? I guess we start walking. Get a plastic jug from the car, fill it from the pool, and head west."

"Back to town. Are you sure you don't mean southeast?"

"Southeast?"

"To my father's cabin."

"Urraca Mesa. I don't know, Ritu. I'm in big trouble back home."

"And you have lots to figure out before trying to solve it. The cabin is private, with s.h.i.+elded net-links. You could send out feelers, find out what's going on before you emerge to confront Aeneas ... or whoever's behind all this."

"I see your point. Can we make it there on foot?"

"There's one way to find out."

"Well ... "

"And we'll pa.s.s near the battle range. Was that why you came in person, instead of sending a ditto?"

"Am I that obvious, Ritu?"

"I'm realistic enough to tell -- and be envious -- when someone is in love."

"Well, Clara and I ... we're both shy about commitment. But -- "

"All right, then. Let's make your soldier-la.s.s our goal. It's getting dark, but the moon is up and I've got a light-amplifier in my left eye."

"Me too."

"We can do it at a jog. Our ancestors crossed this desert long ago. Anything they could do, we can do, right?"

"If you say so, Ritu. In my experience, people can talk themselves into just about anything."

24.

Psycho-Ceramic ... Tuesday's surviving gray makes an impression ...

I never imagined that being a mad scientist's experimental guinea pig could be so interesting.

It's been about ten hours since my protein clock starting running down, triggering the salmon reflex ... that familiar urge to swim or run or fly back home, overcoming any obstacle to spill memories from this mini-life into the copious storage of a real human brain. But that nagging reflex soon fell away. Every golem-reflex that was pressed into my pseudoflesh, back at the factory, has been worn down by a physical and spiritual pummeling.

"You'll get used to the renewal treatments," ditMaharal explained after putting me through torments of steam, hot jets, and tingling rays, leaving torso and limbs all puffy, quivering like those first moments when you slide out of the kiln.

"It only hurts the first few times," he said.

"How often can you do this, before -- "

"Before inevitable wear and tear makes it futile? Clay is still far less enduring than flesh. This prototype apparatus has done up to thirty renewals. My old team at Universal may have pushed that higher by now. If Aeneas hasn't terminated the project -- which seems rather likely at this point."

Thirty renewals, I pondered. I pondered.

Thirty times the normal ditto span. A pittance next to the many tens of thousands of days you feel ent.i.tled to in a modern, multibranched life. But with fresh elan elan surging through my clay body, I answered Maharal frankly. surging through my clay body, I answered Maharal frankly.

"You'd have my thanks, if this weren't just your way of extending my captivity."

"Oh come, now. Where there's continuity, there is hope. Just think of it -- thirty days, to hope and scheme for escape!"

"Maybe. But you say I've been here before. Ditnapped and experimented on. Did any of those other Alberts escape?"

"As a matter of fact, three found clever ways to get away. One was stopped by my dogs, just outside. Another melted crossing the desert. And one actually made it to a phone! But you had already zeroed out the poor ditto's credit code, after it was missing for a week. My robotic hunter caught up before it managed to format a message through one of the free-nets."

"I'll be sure and leave the codes active much longer in the future."

"Always the optimist!" Maharal laughed. "I told you about those others in order to show the futility of escape. I fixed the security flaws you exploited those times."

"I'll have to come up with something original, then."

"I also know how you think, Albert. I've studied you for years."

"Yeah? Then why am am I here, ditYosil? Something about me bugs the h.e.l.l out of you. Something you need, is that it?" I here, ditYosil? Something about me bugs the h.e.l.l out of you. Something you need, is that it?"

He looked at me, trapped immobile in his stony laboratory-catacomb, and I swear his golem eyes seemed to glint with a look that lay somewhere between avarice and fear. "I am getting close," he says. "Very close."

"You had better be," I answered. "Even restorative technology can't keep you going forever without a real body. I hold the key, don't I? Some kind of secret that will solve your problem. But I'll I'll wear out too, in a matter of days. wear out too, in a matter of days.

"You're in a race against time.

"Then there's Aeneas Kaolin. He was awfully anxious to see you taken to the lab for dissection, Tuesday morning. Why? Does he suspect you've stolen equipment and set up your own clandestine lab, using it to cheat death?"

Maharal's tense expression turned haughty.

"You are clever, as usual, Albert," he replied. "But always there's something missing from your sharp guesswork. You never quite catch onto the truth, even when I lay it all in front of you."

How do you answer when a body says something like that to you? When another person claims to know what you will do even better than you do? Because he remembers many past episodes like this one, tense encounters that you don't recall?

Having no answer, I lapsed silent. Renewal had given me some time, so I bided it.

He pulled a switch and the containment vessel quickly flushed clear of sustaino-fluid, then split open. While my body still quivered, regaining full levels of catalysis, he slipped powered manacles over my wrists and ankles. Using a controller, he used them to force me, marionettelike, onto a machine that looked like a souped-up imprinting unit. Round a corner of the apparatus, I glimpsed a pair of legs, colored bright crimson. A ditto blank. Rather small.