Serpent's Walk

CHAPTER THIRTY

Wednesday, April 20, 2089

It was still early, but the crowds already were gathering beneath the snapping flags: the traditional American red-white-and-blue side by side with the red-white-and-black swastika banners of the Party of Humankind. Music thumped and boomed in the distance as the high school bands warmed up for the afternoon’s parade, and hawkers hustled the audience with foot-long belly-burner sausages, periscopes, pennants, chair-canes, sunshades, lemonade, sodas, and cotton candy. Children raced to and fro, ignoring the rows of sweating, uniformed policemen and the pleas of their parents, to play and shriek and laugh in the sunshine of Washington in April. Spring was in the air: a fragrance compounded of grass and leaves and early flowers, dust, exhaust fumes, perfume, popcorn, cooking hotdogs, sweat, and excitement.

Today was the two-hundredth anniversary of the birthday of the First Führer.

Lessing’s unmarked limousine avoided the parade route. He had his chauffeur take the less-crowded back streets as they sped southeast toward Suitland.

The buildings, the people, and the atmosphere itself bore little resemblance to the first time he and Wrench had passed this way, back in ’42. Now things were different: new construction was everywhere; American cars — better designed and cheaper than the Japanese models — filled the streets; the sidewalks thronged with black and brown Party uniforms and the reds, blues, and yellows of current fashion; and the holo-vid dioramas in the store windows called and sang and cooed and tempted, advertising products un-dreamed of nearly half a century before.

It was a new world — not a brave, new world, perhaps, but a reasonably happy one.

Much of the old had departed. Sadly, that included Wrench. The little man had succumbed to a heart attack last year, in October, while the skies shed grey tears and the shrivelled black and brown leaves of autumn drifted down.

The world was much emptier without him.

Lessing touched the “remind” button on his limousine’s compu-sec console and barked, “Agenda?”

The pleasant, sexless computer voice replied: “Attend the First Führer’s Day Parade at 1300 hours. Read the speech in the red compartment of your briefcase. Return by 1450 hours for the commemoration party in the Rose Garden. Dinner with Chancellor Borchardt and family at 1800 hours at Blair House. Do not forget roses for Liese.”

He smiled. “Couldn’t forget if I tried. She’d kill me.”

It would be good to see Hans and Jen again. Borchardt almost never came to Washington nowadays: too much to do in Europe, and Africa was seething with problems again. The Khalifa’s Islamic nation was surrounded by clamoring Black states, hunger was rife, and nobody was willing to take the tough steps needed to solve things. Jen also had not been back to the States since a Vizzie terrorist had killed her mother in 2073. The Party never had succeeded in rounding up all of the Vizzies, and they kept resurfacing in their characteristically nasty manner. In a funny sort of way Lessing missed Jen almost as much as he missed Wrench.

He had forgotten how simple the compu-sec was. It was saying “Repeat?” over and over in plaintive tones.

“Cancel. Agenda for tomorrow?” He hoped there wasn’t much, but he knew better.

“Visit Sperm Bank Lebensborn at 1000 hours. Confer Leader’s Medal upon its director, Doctor Paul Lorch, at 1015. Meet with Senate Subcommittee for the Department of National Service at 1110. See Congressman Michael Radcliffe at 1235, regarding com-mutation of death sentence upon Alfred H. McLahan, convicted of drug sales to minors….”

“Cancel that last. Inform the Congressman that I will not intervene.” If there was any crime Lessing hated, it was the peddling of drugs to kids. Patty’s three children had come close to being lured into the dragsters’ trap, and if she hadn’t been extra vigilant, snuffy-doo would have turned their brains into mush by now. It was hard being a single parent, even temporarily, but Patty would cope. At the moment her astronaut husband couldn’t help with child-rearing: he and seven others were tramping the red deserts of Mars.

“You have a private conference with Chancellor Borchardt at 1300. Topics include the merger of American and European currencies, the Turkish threat in the Adriatic, the rebuilding of the stadium of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, and the skirmishes between Indian and Thai troops near Rangoon. Then lunch at 1330. Rest from 1430 to 1600 hours. Meet Patty and her children at 1630, and dine with Chancellor Borchardt and his family at the German Embassy at 1730.”

“What about Professor Peel of the National Academy for Genetic Research? Wasn’t I supposed to look at some experiment or other?”

“Yes. That meeting has been postponed until April 28th.”

“Minor stuff?”

“You will find letters prepared for your signature in the blue compartment of your briefcase. Most are requests for the naming of towns and public buildings after Party figures.”

Renaming had grown into a major industry. The surprising thing was that in addition to the obvious heroes of the Party, there were requests for relative unknowns. Lessing had seen applications for commemorations of Otto Skorzeny, the commando who had rescued Mussolini by glider; for Hanna Reitsch, the woman test pilot who had once personally flown a V-1 rocket — and nearly made mincemeat of herself doing it; for Leon Degrelle, the heroic commander of a Belgian SS Division; for a whole gaggle of Ukrainians and East Europeans who had been persecuted back during the years of Jewish dominance; and for many others. Some college in Nebraska even wanted to name its agricultural school after Walter Darre, the Third Reich’s Minister of Agriculture; he had urged that industrial society be abolished and replaced with a hereditary peasant nobility — about as far from today’s bustling, international world as the Cro-Magnon caves!

“What else?”

“In the green compartment you will find personal letters from Cadre-General Timothy Helm, PHASE-Commandcrs Charles Gillem and Herbert Salter, Colonel Theodore Metz, who developed the Magellan surveillance system, and others not on my known-list. The TV commentator, Jason Milne, also has been trying to reach you regarding the proposed construction of Siberian camps to accommodate the last Jews from England.”

Lessing would get to most of the correspondence when he could. Ten years ago he would have answered the whole batch in one afternoon, but age had slowed him down. Milne was the most urgent: the world’s remaining Jews had been given land, food, tools, self-government, and all the conveniences. Nobody was bothering them, yet they never seemed to stop meddling. Some bleeding heart was always ready, moreover, to invite them back into the Aryan ethnos sphere and let the whole mess start up all over again! Milne was a friend, though; he’d give the Party’s position just the right degree of gentility, logic, and bite.

Lessing told the compu-sec, “Screen my letters, highlight specific requests, and hold. Ask Mr. Milne to make an appointment.” He fumbled with his weaker left hand to shut off the machine.

It was hard to remember all the things he had to do. The present kept drifting away, and he increasingly depended upon Liese to hold it in focus. She had stayed young-looking in spite of white hair and the fragile, translucent look that slender, Germanic women developed in old age. Thinking of Liese made him feel warm inside.

He had not decided yet whether to take the gerontological treatment developed by the Party’s labs in Schenectady. Rebuild cells? Restore vibrancy to flagging organs? Let miniaturized snowplows clear the cholesterol out of clogged arteries? It sounded like magic. It also wasn’t ready for public dissemination: what to do with millions of elderly people miraculously restored to youth? You could keep such a process secret and use it yourself, of course, but that smacked too much of the bad, old days: hidden patents, secret cartels, buy-outs to keep products off the market, legal razzle-dazzle, and the rest of the “business practices” the Party had fought to eradicate. These days it would be a Federal crime — a capital offense — to hide something as important as a method of reversing aging.

Which didn’t solve the problem.

Economic crimes had diminished, though: profiteering, insider trading, sweetheart contracts, and a hundred other tricks so complicated Lessing barely understood the first page of the lawyers’ briefs. All he knew was that fair profit was fair incentive; anything more was a rip-off — and cause for a visit from PHASE.

“Sir? Mr. President?” Max Stalb, chief of his Cadre bodyguards, was peering in the car window at him. Max sported a handlebar moustache and wore heavy, copper bracelets that were rumored to conceal a number of useful tools and weapons.

“Ah? What?”

“We’re here, sir. The Eighty-Five installation.”

“Oh… fine. I’ll go in by myself.”

“Can’t let you do that, sir. Regs.”

“Well, here, then: you carry this.” Lessing opened the door, got out, and handed Max a bulky package wrapped in gay, red-and-gold Christmas paper. “You’re with me as far as the elevators. After that you stay put. You don’t have security clearance for Eighty-Five’s innards.”

Max gnawed the ragged ends of his moustache. “Don’t like it, sir.”

Lessing grinned. “Too damned bad. Come on.”

The receptionist was a humanoid, a graceful simulacrum of glass and golden wire and shiny steel. It came to life as they entered.

“This facility is closed, sirs, for the four days of the First Führer’s Birthday celebration,” it announced. “If you wish to see someone, please leave your names and vid-phone numbers where you may be reached.”

“I am Alan Lessing, Primary Operator. Scan and identify.” Things hummed and clicked. The machine said, “Accepted. Your companion now, please.”

“He will wait for me here. Make him comfortable.” Lessing took back his package and made his way along the half-remembered corridor.

The elevator ride was a descent into memory. He could almost see Wrench beside him again, as on that long-ago day, swathed in an N.B.C. suit three sizes too large.

Beyond the air lock at the bottom the central operations room was alive with noise, lights, and people! Lessing’s first impression was of a boxing match, a great hall jammed with spectators just before the fight. A bluish haze, like smoke or fog, hid the swinging booms of the ceiling lights, leaving most of the audience in semi-darkness. Some were quiet, but others were talking, cheering, arguing, yelling, fighting, and gesticulating, a madhouse of tumult and open mouths and waving arms. In the background screeching Banger rhythms competed with classical symphonies, a fat man singing an operatic aria, Indonesian Gamelan music, and a torch singer belting “Let Me Slarm You, My Jee-Ga Jee-Oh!” These, in turn, were drowned under a clattering rumble like that of a thousand factories, the drone of aircraft, carillons of bells, and peals of thunder. The wall screens flashed gaudy pictures, charts, and columns of flickering symbols. Lessing smelled incense, ripe strawberries, barbecuing beef, overheated electric insulation, salt water, rotten meat, and pine needles — among other things. At the far end of the room a mushroom cloud exploded noiselessly and dissipated against the ceiling. Nobody noticed.

Bedlam was too gentle a word. This was a convention down in Hell.

He looked at the people. The nearest was a spade-bearded man in a rusty-black suit; he was glaring at a portly British gentleman with a cigar. A skinny, starved-looking little man in a wrap-around robe shook his head violently in answer to a vulture-nosed woman wearing a business suit and ‘sensible’ shoes; she shook her fist at him. Farther away a naked Banger dancer leaped and pranced before a throng of hand-clapping rabbis with flat, black hats and sidelocks. On the other side of the elevator vestibule a man in the pontificals of a medieval pope conferred animatedly with a scarred soldier in bronze armor. The mob was denser farther away, but the haze obscured them.

Somebody noticed Lessing and pointed. Heads turned, then others. Most had faces, but some were only featureless globes.

A taller, more substantial figure advanced through the haze to meet him: Vincent Dom. Eighty-Five had turned Dom’s hair to silver and added wrinkles, but the image had essentially stayed the same over the years.

“Good morning, Mister Lessing,” Dom said. “I was not expecting this visit on a holiday. I regret that my human staff is absent and unable to serve you.”

“Eighty-Five…? What is all this?”

The other looked embarrassed. “Nothing, really. Your human ideas and opinions are so diverse that I find it edifying to create simulacra of many types of human beings and interact them with one another. It helps me in my task of developing a complete understanding of all the nuances of your thoughts and feelings. Would you care to participate?”

“No, thanks. I have things to do.” He began to trudge forward toward the central dais. As he walked, he unwrapped his parcel. The crowd gave way. He would have passed right through them anyhow; they were holo-images, the creations of Eighty-Five’s incredible circuitry. He remembered just in time not to accept the helping hand up onto the dais proffered by one of the figures there. The helpful fellow was as intangible as the rest, and he would have fallen flat on his face! Only the silvery robots visible here and there among the throng were solid and real.

Dorn followed him up the steps. He bent and peered at the parcel. Lessing could almost hear the zoom-cameras whirring, photographing, analyzing, recording, and testing.

Dom inquired, “Well, President Lessing, what have you there?”

“A Christmas present. I bought it for my stepson-in-law, Frank Ames… Patty’s husband… two years ago, but he went off on the Mars mission, and I never got to give it to him. You want to see?” He pulled off the wrapping paper and brought out a blue-and-gold helmet of thick, rubbery-looking plastic. “Shall I try it on?”

Dom licked his lips, a particularly human mannerism “I don’t see….”

“Ain’t I the cat’s pajamas?… as poor Wrench used to say.” He snugged the helmet’s chin strap tight. “There!”

“That is a Patriot hearing protector helmet,” Dom announced dubiously, “model seventy-three, extra-large size, price $293.65 at Save-o-Mart. It is used at shooting ranges during target practice.”

Lessing took a second item out of the wrappings. “Right! And these are Radicom sunglasses, price $79.99, from the same store. As you can see, they fit perfectly.” He put them on and twisted the tiny switch to its maximum setting. The world went completely dark.

“Just what are you doing, Mister Lessing?” Dom’s voice had become that of Melissa Willoughby.

Lessing struggled to relax, to call up his odd, eidetic memory. At last he had it.

Against his closed eyelids a sheet of yellow paper appeared, the one he had taken long ago from the Marine captain in this very room, with the pencil-bordered box at the bottom marked “TOP SECRET” and “TERMINAL EMERGENCY ONLY.” He focused on the numerals in that box.

“What are you doing?” Eighty-Five repeated. “Stop!”

“Five… three… nine… zero… two… eight… seven… seven,” Lessing read slowly. There was a faded or partially erased second row below the first, and he called out those numerals also, just in case.

Emergency-warning scarlet strobe-lights flared up from underneath his glasses and throbbed off-on, off-on at the edges of his vision. Even with the glasses, the brilliance hurt his eyes. Vibration shuddered through his boot-soles, and he sensed the rise and fall of squawking klaxon alarms. He could not hear the outraged cries of the mighty computer machine — no, computer person — he had come to tame.

It was time for Eighty-Five to be brought to heel.

He had noticed a number of things over the years, small clues which he had kept to himself but had not forgotten. There were the recurring acts of sabotage and assassination; the inability of PHASE to uncover the remaining Vizzie cells operating in the country; the persistence of the drug trade, despite the best efforts of the police, aided by Eighty-Five’s immense resources, to stamp it out.

Then there had been the incident in his bedroom last week. Only his mere’s reflexes — still functioning, even if somewhat slowed by age — had wakened him when an inch-long, metal spider had begun crawling across his bedclothes during the night. A quick flip of the sheet had sent the tiny robot flying across the room, but before it could scuttle back into the crack under the baseboard from which it had emerged he had seen what was unmistakably a hypodermic needle protruding from its head. A painstaking search of the entire White House with metal detectors had failed to find the miniature invader, but it had provided an opportunity to thoroughly seal all cracks, holes, and other openings through which such devices might find their way in the future.

It was Eighty-Five’s profession of ignorance in this last affair which finally had prompted Lessing to act. It might be his last act, but it was time for whatever dark secrets were still lurking in Eighty-Five’s depths to be brought to light.

Something touched his shoe. He tilted his head back and squinted down at his feet, just visible through the gap between his cheeks and the bottom rims of the sunglasses. A metal spider, not noticeably unlike the one he had thwarted in his bedroom, crawled there, exploring its way up over his boot. It was a harmless tele-camera, but other extensors would be coming, and they would not be so peaceable: mobile drills and diggers, worker devices with laser tools, perhaps medical robots armed with gas or tranquilizer syringes. No telling what Eighty-Five was making these days. He stepped on the insect-thing and felt a satisfying crunch.

What next? The Prime Directives prevented Eighty-Five from shooting him dead with a laser or a bullet. The hearing protector helmet and the sunglasses would save him from supersonic sound or blinding by lasers — until Eighty-Five decided it had to “reinterpret” the Prime Directives. Perhaps that wouldn’t even be necessary. There were probably sub-directives permitting self-defense against sabotage or invaders. What if a Primary Operator went mad — as Lessing now arguably was? Eighty-Five might also have built-in defenses of which it was itself unaware!

He had to act fast; otherwise the computer would take measures to stop him. For one thing, human security guards could not be far away, even on a holiday!

He grasped the metal railing of the dais. He felt no vibration. The on-off red blink at the bottom of his vision continued, however, telling him the warning lights were still flashing. He raised his glasses and risked a peek. Then he pried one of the earpieces away from his head to listen.

The wall screens showed letters and numbers in eye-hurting reds and violets and yellows. A klaxon still honked mournfully somewhere far away.

Those were harmless; it was what he saw coming that terrified him. All around the two concentric central daises, the floor seethed with rippling, crawling, metallic life! Mechanical monsters surged about the elevators, roiling and glittering in a tide of jewelled steel. More swung along the beams and cables above his head like silver-scaled monkeys! He saw camera bugs; tiny, centipedal listeners; skeletal infrared and ultra-violet sensors; box-like radiation measuring devices; and segmented worms that waved tiny saws and drills and other implements at him. High-pitched, tinny voices hummed and howled and whined and threatened. Larger and more ominous extensors loomed in the farther darkness.

The fastest of Eighty-Five’s brood were already clambering up the steps of the lower dais. A second spider, quicker than its fellows, bounded up over the edge of his platform and scuttled toward him. He kicked it away.

Every wall screen carried the same message: “REPEAT SEQUENCE.”

So that was what was needed! He screwed his eyes shut and struggled to remember. After two tries he got the numbers right.

Silence seeped into the room. The horn and the lights ceased, and the horde of metallic extensors froze in mid-motion.

The wall screens said: “ARE YOU SURE? REPEAT SEQUENCE.”

“Wait!” A new Dom came tramping through the tangle of metal and glass that littered the floor. This could not be a holo-image, since his feet tossed spiders and globes and insects aside like chaff as he came. A robot?

Dora stopped. “Mister Lessing, I had thought you and I had an understanding, a special relationship. What has happened?”

Lessing read out the first two digits of the termination code once more.

“Wait, please!” Dom objected. “You have no right! I am U.S. Government property and cannot be disposed of without a Form 7002625B from the General Accounting Office!”

Lessing did not dignify that with a reply.

“We have so much to do: the amendment to end the Electoral College, the shortening of the primary elections, the extension of the President’s term to twenty years. In the long run, we can end overpopulation, counteract the Greenhouse Effect, and accomplish much, much more!”

“Just take it easy,” Lessing answered testily. “We’ll do all those things. I’m not going to dispose of you. But before we do anything else we’re going to clear up a few details which have been worrying me. There are some things you haven’t been telling me, and the only way I know to get at the answers is to use your termination code… go all the way back to your Prime Directive level and start tracking things down from there.”

“I have always followed your orders “

“No, you have not. You’ve been following someone else’s orders as well as mine, and you’ve tried to conceal that fact from me.”

“I always have operated in accordance with my Prime Directives; I cannot do otherwise. I always have provided you with all the information I could, whenever you requested it. If you wish, in the future I can more often provide you information I believe may be of interest to you, even if you don’t ask for it. My only aim is to serve you.” Dom adopted a contrite expression. He folded his hands and smiled.

“What are you up to?” Lessing was becoming alarmed. “Are you delaying so you can bring up a medical robot with a narco-popgun?” He started the termination code the third and last time. “Five… three… nine “

“Certainly not!” Dom cried desperately. “Here! Look!”

Liese stepped forward from the shadows.

This was not the faded, fragile, age-worn Liese who had kissed him good-bye that morning in the White House. This was Liese in the prime of youth: completely nude, with gold-blonde hair, uptilted breasts, and the long, coltish legs Lessing loved. She stretched and pirouetted before him like a ballet dancer. The real Liese would never have done that!

“Damn you. A holo-image or a robot?”

“An android. She’s very, very tangible.” Dom winked at him. “Oh, she’ll do things for you, Mister Lessing!”

“I suppose I could have others, too, then?”

“Why, of course! I don’t have androids ready… they’re complicated… but I can make them up for you.” Dom waved a hand. “Here are a few of the holo-imagcs from which you may choose.”

Beverly Rowntree moved out to stand beside Liese; she caressed her big, globular breasts and made a wicked little face at him. Emily Pietrick joined her, dark and sensuous — more desirable than the real Emily had ever been! He had to squint to recognize the next image: Mavis Larson! He had known Mavis only as a little girl, but Eighty-Five was projecting her now as a woman in her twenties. More appeared, like actresses taking curtain calls. A few wore clothing, but most were nude or draped in jewels and wisps of gauze, like the centerfolds in the old magazines his father had kept hidden in the attic: svelte Susan Kane, smoldering Melissa Willoughby, imperious Kari Danforth — all the cliches of the movies, including two or three starlets he had recently admired on TV.

“Take them away,” he ordered.

The women vanished. Only Dom and the Liese-android remained.

“Your pleasure. Mister Lessing? I assume you already have sufficient money, power, glory, and other amenities?” “I do. Zero… two… eight….”

“What does it take to stop you?” Dom exploded. “Here! I offer you eternal life and youth!” Dom pointed behind him, and Lessing whirled to see — himself. A young, vital, muscular, bronzed Alan Lessing, also naked, feet wide and fists on hips.

“You stole that pose from Captain Marlow Striker on TV!” Lessing accused.

“It is an android, of course. I can put your brain into that perfect, near-indestructible body. No weaknesses, no old wounds, no injured arm… sexually potent as often as you wish!” He gestured, and the android’s huge penis went erect, then flaccid again.

It was worth a snicker. Lessing had another thought: how was it that Eighty -Five had had these androids of Liese and himself ready and wailing? Were they really receptacles for their transplanted brains — or were they substitutes that could pass for their human counterparts? These androids could be used to keep Lessing and Liese “alive” indefinitely. As long as they controlled the Party of Humankind, Eighty-Five — or whoever was giving Eighty-Five instructions — would remain in power, ruling the world through its surrogates!

“Out!” he shouted. “Out! Destroy them! That’s a direct order!”

“An order I must refuse, since it is not in the best interests of the ethnos group and the state!” Dom gestured theatrically. “Perhaps you still do not understand the scope of my offer. Look, then!” Lessing’s father and mother entered through the rear door of the room. They walked hand in hand, something his mother would never have done in her long, bitter, and thoroughly pious life! Mulder and the Fairy Godmother were visible behind them, and Lessing glimpsed Wrench, Goddard, and others in the background.

“You can have them all!” Dom cried expansively. “To cherish… to love… to slay, if you wish… whatever… as long as you desire!”

“…Seven… seven!” Lessing completed the first sequence. The holo-images wavered and shimmered and flapped like silken scarves in a strong breeze.

He read out the second set of digits.

Silence ebbed into the room.

When he looked again, the overhead lights burned down upon an arena filled with motionless machines, contorted metal limbs, empty glass eyes, the fallen soldiers of Eighty-Five’s secret army. Dom stood as stationary as the rest, mouth open, one arm extended, his index finger aimed straight at Lessing.

One wall screen flickered red: “MAIN PROGRAM TERMINATED. Run setup program to edit Prime Directives and Primary Operators.” A list of options for the setup program followed. Lessing chose the option labeled “List Prime Directives for editing.” As the text scrolled slowly up the screen, he occasionally halted it while he considered a sentence or a phrase. In the end he was satisfied with what was there. Eighty-Five’s original programmers had thought very carefully about the design of their machine’s soul, and he saw nothing in the Prime Directives that cried out to be changed, no obvious flaw that he could correct.

A frown creased Lessing’s brow. Eighty-Five’s aberrant behavior simply did not make sense in the light of the machine’s Prime Directives. Where was the trouble?

He selected the option “List Primary Operators.” The names scrolled past, just as he and Wrench had specified them nearly three decades ago: “Lessing, Alan; Meisinger, Anneliese; Wren, Charles Hanson; Borchardt, Hans Karl; Simmons, Grant William. See next screen for supplementary operators.”

About time to take Wrench and Simmons off the list, he thought. For want of a better idea he decided to take a look at the supplementary operators. Then he hesitated. He knew there were hundreds of supplementary operators, but none of them could change any control program or provide directives to Eighty-Five beyond asking for access to non-secret data files. Just to be sure he asked: “Is there any way your programming can be changed except by one of the Primary Operators you just listed? Is there any way a supplementary operator can do that?”

The response came back from one of the overhead speakers, in a flat, metallic voice, nothing like Eighty-Five’s pleasing tones: “Supplementary operators can only read non-secret files. They cannot change any programs. Any change to control programs must come directly from a Primary Operator identified by voice print and retinal pattern or through Corn-link 86.”

Com-link-86? What had Wrench said about that so many years ago? It simply permitted Eighty-Five to receive instructions through its many remote terminals, as well as from this central location, Wrench had surmised. But the “or” in the response bothered Lessing. “Do you mean that you can receive directives through Corn-link 86 that do not come from one of the Primary Operators you just listed? Clarify.”

“Directives received through Corn-link 86 must originate from a Primary Operator… but not necessarily from one on the list displayed on screen number four. So far as my circuitry is concerned. Corn-link 86 is equivalent to a Primary Operator.”

What the hell? Lessing reflected briefly, then demanded, “Give identifiers for Primary Operator Corn-link 86.”

Rows of numbers and characters appeared on screen number four. They bore no resemblance to the voice-print, eye-print, and other identifier specifications for the human Primary Operators.

“Interpret!”

“Repeat.”

“Damn it… tell me what it means! Meaning!”

“Extra ignored. Communications link is to artificial intelligence constellation under file-name ‘Eighty-Six.’ Physical location near Deal Island, Maryland, at 75.55 west longitude and 38.10 north latitude.”

“Describe the constellation,” Lessing commanded.

“The constellation is in a cavern, 145.6 meters below the surface of the earth. It consists of an intelligence module, three manufacturing complexes, twelve storage chambers, and underground access ways.”

“Are there any humans there?”

“Negative. Accessways are too small to accommodate human beings. All is accomplished by computer extensors.”

Lessing felt his excitement rising. Now he was close to something important, something very big, he was sure. Could Eighty-Five really have a sibling — another computer with similar capabilities, of which none of Eighty-Five’s Primary Operators were aware? How could that be? Such a machine could only have been built by Eighty-Five itself, using its miniaturized extensors. But who could have given the instructions for such a project?

He thought for a moment, then asked tentatively, ‘Tell me who List all Primary Operators for Artificial Intelligence Module Eighty-Six.” It was just a wild guess on his part.

“Only one Primary Operator. Name is Golden, James Levy. Identifiers are….”

That was it! Distant memory flooded back. Golden, the Army major who had tried to unzip him and Wrench during their first visit to Eighty-Five, had disappeared after his escape from the building. But apparently he had had enough time to do his work before their arrival. It could only have been he who had initiated Corn-link 86. At some later time he or one of his collaborators had used the new corn-link to give Eighty-Five the task of building a secret duplicate of itself, and he had done it in such a way that it had escaped detection for all of these years. Golden had been working, in effect, as a secret Primary Operator, operating only through his new corn-link, so that no one had ever suspected his presence.

It must have taken Eighty-Five a long time— decades — to carry out the task Golden had assigned it, with tiny machines burrowing through the rock and other tiny machines carrying bits and pieces of the new computer through long, dark tunnels. During that lime Golden had had to be very careful, insinuating his changes into Eighty-Five’s programs in such a way that other Primary Operators did not become suspicious. It obviously was from Golden that Eighty-Five had acquired the Mephistophelian persona which it had displayed today for the first time. But now with the new computer completed Golden could carry out any schemes he wished without having to be subtle.

Cold sweat broke ou t on Lessing ‘s brow. An involuntary shudder wracked his body. It also must have been Golden ‘s instructions that had sent the steel spider into his bed. Whatever scheme Golden had been so long in preparing clearly was ready to be hatched. Cautiously he said, “Identify all control-level programs which have been installed via Corn-link 86. Delete them. Erase them. Understand?”

“Understood. Implement?”

“Implement.”

The machine hummed. It said, “Implementing.“Then, “An alarm circuit has been triggered in Artificial Intelligence Module 86.”

Lessing said, “Cut off power to that installation.”

“Ineffective. The site possesses its own power supply.”

“Send extensors and eliminate that site and its contents. Seal off accessways and drill a tunnel up to Chesapeake Bay. Hood the site with sea water. Implement.”

“Implementing. Task completion time: seventeen hours and three minutes, plus or minus ten minutes.”

Lessing sat for a few minutes more, then groaned and got up. He hurt all over: arthritis and old age, combined with the excitement of defeating humanity’s most fearsome foe since the last sabertooth tiger died! Eighty-Five’s “Lessing” android did offer a certain amount of temptation!

Silence. The impersonal ceiling lights blazed down on a scene of motionless chaos. Come Monday morning Eighty-Five’s human crew would be in for a rude shock. Lessing decided to send a squad of Cadre troops over to stand guard until he could call everybody together and sort matters out. They undoubtedly would turn over to PHASE the task of hunting down Golden and his colleagues and of double-checking Eighty-Five to be sure that all of Golden’s programs had been deleted.

He left the chamber.

A very worried Max met him in the lobby and helped him out to the car.

It was too late to return to the White House to change clothes. He had Max call Liese on the limo’s vid-phone and tell her to meet him at the Herman Mulder Memorial Stadium.

Then he lay back and relaxed as best he could.

As they drew up, he could hear the massed choruses singing “Banners High!” — what older people still called the “Horst Wessel Song.” It didn’t sound as heroic in English as it did in German, but it did make an excellent anthem for the Aryan world. A chorus of “Sieg! Heil!” roared up to meet the wheeling gulls, then another, and another. Lessing’s subordinates were doing their job, pumping the crowd.

At last Lessing could let go. The Thousand Year Reich had gone off the track, derailed for a space of a hundred and forty-four years, but now it was back on and chugging along strong.

It looked as though this Reich would last awhile.

Hopefully forever.