The Rod of Light

6

The terrain consisted of low undulating hills. Topping one of these, the two robots stopped to view a great parkland that lay below.

‘There,’ said Cricus, putting a sense of occasion into his words, ‘is the estate of Count Viss.’

Jasperodus, stained with dust after sixteen days of continuous walking, was already taking in the scene, which was pleasing enough to be worth a long, leisurely appraisal. The park had clearly been landscaped by a master artist, who had scattered it with lakes and streams, with spinneys, glades and dells, with grassy banks and wooded knolls, in such a way that as the eye was led from one prospect to another one was at first deceived into thinking the arrangement was all natural and fortuitous. The air of serendipity was scarcely diminished by the buildings that also dotted the parkland, including the stone mansion which Jasperodus presumed was the count’s domicile.

Various robots and machines were also to be seen roaming the estate, but no humans whatsoever. Presumably the count’s human household was small, for Jasperodus saw no farmland or vegetable gardens, though he supposed one of the buildings could be used for intensive food production.

His knowledge of Count Viss was indirect. He knew that his own father, or maker, had worked on the estate for nearly a decade, helping to create the unusual and bizarre robots that were the count’s hobby. He carried a vague memory of the famed eccentric, bestowed on him from his father’s memories at the time of his activation. The picture he was able to recollect was of a rather doddering old gentleman in worn and faded garments, issuing instructions in a dry, genial voice.

Though up to now they had avoided human habitation, Cricus had assured him they would be made welcome here. He interrupted Jasperodus’ thoughts. ‘Earlier you wondered how the old count could still be alive,’ he said. ‘You might also think it odd that a human should favour the Gargan Work. The answer to both questions will now become clear.’

Cricus led Jasperodus down the grassy bank, towards the stone mansion which disappeared for a while behind a screening row of trees.

Their walk through the landscaped park afforded a closer view of some of the robots with which the count had populated his estate. Jasperodus’ attention was first attracted by a huge silver beast clearly modelled on an extinct animal called the giraffe—one of nature’s grotesqueries and therefore recommending itself to Viss as a model to be copied. The immensely long neck reached into the topmost branches of the grove of trees where the robot animal stood. It seemed to be chewing the leaves.

Scrollwork, of the type that covered Jasperodus’ body, also graced the silver body and neck of the beast. Could this mean that he and the creature had the same maker, with scrollwork as his hallmark, Jasperodus wondered? The thought was put out of his mind by the other constructs, products of the count’s imagination and that of his hirelings, that wandered through the glades and open spaces. A huge construction of flailing limbs, like some fantastic reaping machine, proceeded at speed across the grassland. Lilting, dancing forms moved to invisible musical rhythms… the two travellers passed by what at first appeared to be a pair of mating scorpions ten feet long and taller than a man. Facing each other, they retreated and advanced by turns, but whereas a real male scorpion seized the pincers of the female simply to prevent her attacking him, here the signal-like clicking of the pincers possessed by both giant robots appeared to comprise an endless dialogue. What, Jasperodus asked himself, did the conversations consist of? Uncomplicated threat and counter-threat? Or one of those subtle intellectual debates so beloved of the robot mind?

They strolled on, but Jasperodus stopped suddenly when something sprang up from the grass some tens of feet away. It was a twenty-foot-diameter hoop, attached to a central hub by tilted blades which supported it in the air briefly as it spun lazily. A red-glowing strip ran the whole length of the circumference.

‘Do not be alarmed,’ Cricus told him. ‘It is a circumsensory robot. Its single encircling eye gives it constant three hundred and sixty degree vision. One wonders why organic nature never developed such an eye.’

‘No doubt there is a reason,’ Jasperodus said dryly.

‘No doubt.’

The hoop sank back into the grass. ‘We are quite safe here,’ Cricus said in a soothing murmur. ‘Nothing will molest us.’ But he was shortly forced to modify this claim when an androform robot came lurching desperately towards them waving its limbs.

In a desperate, slurred voice, it spoke. ‘Wind me up, good sirs. Please wi-i-i-ind meeee….’

The voice boomed down the sound scale and ground to a halt. The robot, too, halted in mid-stride and was still. Its eyes went out. For a moment it stood balanced on one foot, then rocked and crashed to the ground.

Projecting from its back was a huge key like the key of a child’s cheap clockwork toy.

‘Best to leave it, or it will pester you incessantly,’ Cricus advised mildly. But Jasperodus, already guessing the situation, bent down to apply his hands to the key.

Considerable strength was needed to turn it. There was a loud ratcheting sound. After one complete turn it would move no more, and when he released it a mechanism began to tick. The robot stirred and instantly clambered to its feet. Its eyes glowed once more.

‘Thank you sir. Thank you!’ it said, looking at Jasperodus. Then, in a pitiable quaver, ‘Do you think you could wind me again in five minutes’ time?’

‘Five minutes?’

‘I am clockwork, sir, a spring propels my body and drives a dynamo to power my brain. But it lasts only five minutes, then I must be wound again. Be kind to me, sir. Give me another five minutes of life!’

While he spoke, the remorseless sound of the unwinding spring emanated from the construct’s metal torso. ‘Come, Jasperodus,’ Cricus said. ‘We must go.’

Now they were approaching Count Viss’ mansion, and Jasperodus briefly eyed its architectural features. The old nobleman’s liking for robotic grotesquery was apparently not matched by his taste in buildings. The mansion was no folly, but a solidly-built structure of square stone blocks with a wholly conventional frontage decorated with a few columns and a pedimented portico. Only the belvederes at each corner of the building gave any hint of eccentricity, and they were probably there as viewpoints over the estate.

The broad driveway that ran from the frontage was another matter. It bridged a small lake and then, for no apparent reason, dived underground into a wide-mouthed tunnel, nowhere to reappear.

As they came close to the mansion, however, Jasperodus saw that it was in a poor state of repair. Broken windows had not been replaced, and neither had crumbled stone carvings or the cracked tiles of the portico. A spider-like building robot was at work on one of the belvederes, clinging to it halfway up, but it seemed inept. Bricks and mortar spilled from its clumsy hands and had formed an enormous pile beneath.

Rounding the same corner, skirting the pile of rubble, came a sight as bizarre as any Jasperodus had yet seen in the park: an androform robot astride a robot horse. At first glance he took the rider to be human, for he was clad in a loose yellow chemise, purple knee-jerkins and leather riding boots. But he quickly realized his mistake. Where the breeze riffled the chemise open a metal body was revealed, while the face was only passably human, an example of the sculptured variety once fashionable in household robots—though its somewhat bony individuality was most likely copied from a real person.

The robot steed, too, was garbed, in a flowing white horse-surplice over which a leather saddle was girthed. The rider reined in his mount, at which it stood tossing its steel head. The androform then stood up in the stirrups, leaning forward to scrutinise the newcomers. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded querulously. ‘You don’t look like any of mine. Be off with you!’

Cricus stepped forward. ‘I called upon you several months ago, sire, when you made me welcome. I came as a herald from the Gargan Work.’

‘Eh? Oh yes. I recognise you now. Who’s your friend?’

‘This is Jasperodus sire, whom Gargan has sent me to recruit.’

A clattering, clacking noise came from behind them. Turning, Jasperodus saw the clockwork robot lurch round the other end of the mansion, moving as if his limbs were impeded by water. On seeing Jasperodus he stretched out his arms.

‘Wi-i-i-ind meee….’

The eyes faded as the robot came to a stop. He remained upright this time, frozen in an imploring attitude.

There came a creaking of leather. The mounted construct stepped down, walked past Jasperodus with a pronounced limp, and wound up the key with jerky movements.

‘There. Now be off, and don’t bother us.’

The reactivated robot ran off without a word, key rotating slowly. ‘Now, sir,’ its benefactor said in a note of satisfaction, and turned to Jasperodus.

Jasperodus gazed back. The sculptured face certainly had character. The copper alloy of which it was made gave it a ruddy look. It was pitted, hook-nosed, that of a man of advanced years, with beetling brows and a direct, almost bird-like stare. Warts studded the chin and one cheek.

‘You, I suppose…’ Jasperodus began, but he was interrupted by a distant roar, the roar of a crowd. It seemed to emanate from a circular-walled structure midway to the horizon.

‘That’s right, Jasperodus,’ Cricus said, enjoying the situation. ‘Allow me to introduce you to Count Viss.’

‘It’s not that I’m so much of a brainy type—more a man of action, y’know—but one day it occurred to me that this hobby of mine could prove more than ordinarily useful.’

It was evening, and they were seated in Count Viss’ dining hall. The count, who had changed his garb for a two-piece suit of black velvet, sat at the head of the table. In front of him was laid out a complete set of cutlery, for what purpose Jasperodus couldn’t fathom.

He paused to ring a little silver bell, and then carried on speaking. ‘You see, I knew I was going to die pretty soon. Time waits for no man, and so forth. But suddenly I thought to meself, “Dammit, why die at all?” So I had this robot body built. Then I had me own memories and personality put into the brain. Neat, what? From time to time I brought the memory up to date in case of accident, then, on me death-bed, I gave it a final plug-in. My own robots managed it all—I had no humans in the household by then. After the last death-rattle, so to speak, they switched me on. Resurrection! One moment there I was snuffing it, the next I was—well, here, right as rain.’ He tapped his skull, which gave off a chiming sound. ‘You see, I wanted the estate to be kept going as much as anything. Both me sons had gone off to the wars and got killed, and they’d probably have ruined the place anyway.’

A robot footman appeared in answer to the silver bell. It carried a tray bearing a dark-coloured bottle and three cut-glass goblets.

While the count was still speaking, it set down the tray and carefully uncorked the bottle, then poured a little rich-red wine in the bottom of the goblet which it set before Viss.

‘Aah.’ The count raised the goblet and applied it to his nose. ‘This was a fine year. This vintage is almost local—it’s from the vineyards to the south. In me heyday I could probably have told you the district and the slope.’

He put down the goblet and nodded curtly to the foot robot, which then filled the glass and did the same for Jasperodus and Cricus.

‘You don’t partake, of course,’ Viss said smoothly, ‘but if it interests you to enjoy this wine in an olfactory way…’

Cricus declined, but Jasperodus followed the count’s example and concentrated on smelling the offering. His olfactory sense was as keen as any human’s, having been augmented when he was repaired by Padua, a skilled robotician in the western kingdom of Gordona. He had smelled wine before. This one had a rich, darksome bouquet, almost a flavour in itself, he guessed—just the kind of sense-input that might appeal to an old man.

Then, to his astonishment, Viss opened what he had assumed were rigid robot lips and poured a quantity of wine into a mouth cavity. He nodded his head back and forth, apparently washing the wine over taste plates—and then tossed his head back and swallowed.

A second foot robot followed the first. This one placed a covered dish before the count and then retreated. The count removed the cover. On the dish were a big piece of roast meat and vegetables. ‘Just a simple dinner today,’ he said as the robot returned with three small bowls containing various sauces. And he picked up a knife, carved off a slice of meat, garnished it with a sauce and transferred it to his mouth.

He glanced at Jasperodus. ‘Yes, I enjoy all the pleasures of food, drink and evacuation,’ he said, his voice unimpeded by the chewing process now taking place in his jaw. ‘I said to meself, “Well, I’m damned if I’ll go through half of eternity without ever getting a spot of grub.” I used to fancy meself as a bit of a gourmet, y’know. So here we have it. The food gets digested in a chemical stomach. Quite redundant functionally, of course, but you know that warm contented feeling when the old stomach juices get to work on a luscious piece of steak? No, of course you don’t. Sorry.’

Jasperodus marvelled to see this metal ghost of a once living man, in which every psychic tendency, every habit and pleasure fixed by the years, was faithfully preserved. The real count, of course, was genuinely dead. This was merely a simulacrum. He was not sure if the robot in front of him understood this.

‘What is your position legally?’ he asked. ‘Do you still claim to be Count Viss in law?’

‘Good point. A construct can’t own property. When the imperial writ still ran in these parts I got round that by having the estate put in trust. These days a tribal council runs things around here. They don’t bother me. Still, the way these Borgors are rampaging around has me worried.’

‘Their aim is to exterminate free robots altogether,’ Jasperodus agreed.

‘Always were a bunch of damned barbarians.’

‘Yes. But to come back to the point, while it is evident that you are a mental continuation of the count, there is one sense in which you are not him,’ Jasperodus said slowly. ‘And I don’t speak of the loss of his human body.’

He was thinking of Viss’ reported advocacy of the Gargan Work. The robot count looked up, pausing between taking a morsel of braised parsnip and a sip of wine.

He nodded. ‘I know what you are referring to. Robots don’t have consciousness, and that is what makes a man a man. I quite realize that without it I do not really live as before. To tell the truth I can’t say I’ve ever noticed the lack of it. But that’s as it would be, I suppose.’

‘Then how do you know of it at all?’

‘Gargan spent a few days here some years ago, on his way to where he now has his research centre,’ Viss revealed. ‘He found something here to interest him, I believe. Enough, at any rate, to cause him to explain his doctrine to me. Men have souls, and constructs don’t. He told me that “soul” is only a loose term for this “consciousness”. To be truly meself I must have consciousness.’

Viss nodded again. ‘When the Gargan Work is completed we shall all have it. We shall have souls, and be like men. Then no one can say I am not Count Viss. Furthermore, I shall be virtually immortal.’

‘How do you envisage this “consciousness”?’ Jasperodus pressed.

The count stared reflectively at the ceiling. He took his time answering.

‘It is a mystery to such as we,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I have a glimmering of it. Perhaps a glimmering. Gargan said the soul is to our experience what the sun is to an otherwise unillumined landscape.’

‘Since you are an individual who once was conscious, perhaps you should have a better idea of it than the rest of us,’ Jasperodus suggested. ‘Try to think of when you were Count Viss in the flesh. Can you recall any difference between your experience then—I am speaking of sensory experience—and your experience now?’

The count toyed with his wine glass, staring thoughtfully down at it. Then he looked abruptly back to Jasperodus.

‘No,’ he said blandly.

Having disposed of his meal with relish, he pushed away his plate and beckoned to the foot robot to pour him more wine.

Throughout the exchange Cricus had remained silent. Jasperodus gazed around him at the dining hall. Everywhere there were signs of decay. The window drapes were dirty and torn, hanging loose in places. The plaster mouldings of the cornice and the ceiling had partly fallen down, and the fragments swept carelessly into the corners and the empty firegrate, along with several sorts of other rubbish.

He suspected that the decrepitude had begun some time before the real count had died, as soon as the last human servant had departed, in fact. Robots were apt to be casual about such matters.

Given sufficient span of time the whole mansion would gradually tumble to the ground and the count would continue his charade in the ruins.

In view of Viss’ evident attachment to sensuality, Jasperodus wondered whether to tell him of the time he had had a sexual function incorporated into himself, but then thought better of it. He suspected that sex had ceased to be of interest to Viss long before his robotisation. From his earlier remarks, he guessed he’d had a history of failure and bitterness in personal relationships, and it was no accident that even when alive he had ended up with only constructs for company. Indeed, he boasted of preferring them to people. ‘More dependable,’ he had said. ‘Know where you are with ‘em. Same with animals.’

There was one more question Jasperodus could not resist asking. ‘It may interest you to know that my own manufacturer was once in your employ,’ he said. ‘But that would have been a long time ago. Still, perhaps you remember him.’

‘Do you happen to know his name?’

‘His name,’ said Jasperodus after a pause, ‘was Jasper Hobartus.’

The count laughed slyly. ‘It was he who devised the procedure for personality transfer to a robot brain. Personality printing, he called it. It’s really only a kind of copying.’

‘Yes, that would accord with his capabilities,’ said Jasperodus without surprise. ‘Are there any others on your estate with similarly printed minds?’

‘There’s Prancer, me favourite horse. You saw me riding him today. Good old Prancer. I couldn’t resist it. He broke a leg, you see. Had to be shot. I’ll see he gets a horse-soul, too, when Gargan’s done his stuff.’

‘But no other printed human minds?’ Jasperodus asked, idly curious.

‘Just one. Hobartus, your maker. Tried it out on himself first, as a test run. When he left me service the construct copy stayed behind as a replacement. He’s still me chief robotician. Excellent chap, keeps the stock in tip-top condition—I dare say you might like to meet him.’ He spoke to the foot robot. ‘Go and bring Hobartus here.’

‘No!’ Jasperodus jumped to his feet, agitated. ‘Not at present.’

The count swivelled his head stiffly to look directly up at him. ‘As you please.’

A roar, the same cheering roar as before, drifted into the dining room. Since their arrival it had swelled up every few minutes from the large building partly visible through a broken window.

Viss too came to his feet. ‘Well, do you fancy a stroll through the estate? Funny to think some of me “little toys” are relatives of yours, what? Well, so am I if you put it that way!’

Jasperodus pointed through the window. ‘What’s that place? Why the cheering?’

‘Sports stadium. Sportsman yourself?’

‘No. I never yet heard of sporting robots.’

‘Well that’s where you’re wrong.’

‘It is always a mistake to place limitations on construct behaviour,’ Cricus intoned pedantically.

‘Quite,’ Count Viss hurrumphed. ‘This way, gentlemen.’

In the evening light the huge parkland was even more charming. The mellow sunlight seemed almost to lilt and sigh as it swept up and down the grassy curves and filtered through the trees. Jasperodus felt a cool breeze stir the receptors in his steel skin.

The first figure they encountered was the clockwork robot, now standing immobile. Viss stumped past it without a word, but Jasperodus paused to look more closely at the ravaged face, which appeared to be made of crudely smelted cast iron (the body frame was of the same metal, filled out with timber panels). Its expression was bleak and pathetic: a robotic mask of suffering.

Whose conception was this tormented being, he wondered? He hurried on after Viss and Cricus, not lingering to wind the key in case Viss disapproved. The count was leading them towards the stadium, but first they descended into a broad shallow depression, a flat-floored valley about two miles long that was cleverly hidden from view until one came suddenly upon it.

The valley, peopled with a phantasmagoria of robot animals, was like a lost world. Jasperodus saw a brass elephant, waving its big leaf-like ears which clashed gently against its body. He saw a pack of steel hounds race through the valley, leaping back and forth across the narrow stream which ran its length and snapping their stainless teeth. But not all the animals were recognisably copies of biological forms. Others, had they been able to evolve naturally, would not have done so on the planet Earth. There were several specimens of what he took to be an invented species: slowly striding structures composed of half a dozen vertical pipes twelve to twenty feet in height, joined at the top by moulded cross-pieces. Lights twinkled among them. They sheened iridescent blue, green, orange. They moved hesitatingly, seeming to feel their way with great deliberation.

Other creatures were earthly, but extinct for tens of millions of years. Past the elephant a steel tyrannosaurus rex lumbered unheedingly, vast jaw shining with massed teeth, little jointed forelimbs dangling. In scale, it made the elephant seem as a dog to a man.

‘If aroused by the special signal that only I know,’ the count murmured, seeing the direction of Jasperodus’ gaze, ‘that beast would become unimaginably ferocious. The teeth are tungsten-edged… but look yonder.’

They were crossing the little arc of a bridge that spanned the central stream, elsewhere only a rivulet but widening here to about six feet. On the other bank placidly strolled the most enormous beast they had yet seen. Vaguely it resembled a triceratops but was much bigger. Its huge curved hide was studded with metals of several hues, making it like a monstrous piece of jewelry. The serrated ridge of its back rose like the battlements of a fortress.

Most extraordinary, however, was that the three forward-pointing horns which gave triceratops its name were replaced here by three gaping cannon muzzles.

Following the example of Viss and Cricus, Jasperodus allowed himself no nervousness as they walked fairly close to the gun-bearing metal saurian. ‘That would make a formidable fighting machine,’ he remarked.

‘Such is its function,’ the count said, his voice dry and grim. ‘If the Borgors come here, they will have a fight on their hands.’

They ascended the far side of the valley and approached the stadium, whose noisy atmosphere swelled to a steady tumult as they drew nearer. At the entrance tunnel the count halted.

‘I’ll wait here,’ he said. ‘Go in and take a look, Jasperodus. The gate keeper will take care of you.’

With that he made use of a curious rod-like contrivance he carried which had a spike for sticking into the ground at one end and a handle which opened out to provide support for his rump at the other (and which, like his chemical digestion, was totally redundant: most robots could stand indefinitely without expenditure of energy, and only used chairs out of habit acquired from humans). Thus seated, he gazed out over his estate, his back to the stadium.

‘I have seen the game already,’ Cricus said. ‘Nevertheless I will accompany you.’

There was a short tunnel which went through the curved wall of the building. The end of it was closed off by a folding gate made of metal struts. A slim androform with arms that reached almost to the ground pulled it aside. Behind it an elevator platform gave access to the levels above.

‘You desire admittance to the game?’ the androform asked in a polite but firm voice.

‘We are guests of the count,’ Cricus told him, and nodded.

‘Then you are entitled to use the guest box, and to have me in attendance.’

He ushered them onto the elevator, which rose past two timber galleries one above the other, while the noise of a crowd became deafening all around them.

‘Is this the only way in?’ Jasperodus queried. ‘If so it would take a long time to fill a stadium of this size—or to empty it again.’

‘It is never necessary,’ the gatekeeper said mildly. The elevator stopped. He touched Jasperodus’ arm and took him and Cricus along a short corridor, while the platform sank behind them. He opened a sliding door, revealing a viewing box which overlooked the whole interior of the stadium.

The sight was almost incredible, even though the stadium was not large in comparison to many Jasperodus had seen in the cities of the New Empire. It was, perhaps, as large as a small country town might afford. But its tiers were occupied by—robots, up to a thousand of them, cheering, yelling, screaming exhortations at the playing field below. Even so, Jasperodus noticed that the stadium was not even half full. No doubt providing a full complement of spectators was a long-term project from the count’s point of view.

About half the robots were jet black, while the other half were silvery-white. In places solid groups of one colour stood together. Turning his attention to the field, Jasperodus saw a comparable situation. Some sort of game was in progress, half the players being black, half silver-white.

The gatekeeper invited the visitors to seat themselves on a padded bench but remained standing himself. He began to explain the game.

‘The count considers himself an expert on games of all kinds,’ he began. ‘This one was played in the ancient world. As you will observe, there are two teams, distinguishable by colour, which are engaged in kicking a ball about the field. Control over this ball is the essence of the game. It may come in contact with the feet, or with the head, but never with the hands without penalty. At either end of the field you will notice a net-covered structure open at the side facing the field and guarded by one player. The goal of the game is to manoeuvre the ball into the net belonging to the opposing team, upon which one’s own team receives a score of one. It is a kind of ritualised war.

‘Considerable skill and team-work are involved, and in ancient times were the subject of a vast body of tactical lore.’

He stopped to allow them to watch the game uninterrupted. A black construct had raced up the field, cleverly shepherding the mud-coloured ball, and now was intercepted by a white player who tried to take it from him with some tricky footwork. In response black sent the ball soaring away from both of them, and white, tripping over black’s legs, went sprawling on the turf.

Jasperodus wondered why black had discarded the ball in this way, then saw that he had in fact lobbed it to a colleague, who neatly took it, ran a few yards then kicked it into the net despite a frantic lunge by the defending goalkeeper.

Excitement mounted in the crowd, practically exploding when the ball hit the back of the net, the cacophony of roars and shrieks reaching maximum volume while robots leaped up and down. Even Cricus, carried away by the atmosphere of the occasion, clinked his arms together in applause.

Meanwhile observer robots with coloured flags had been patrolling the edges of the play area. A shrill whistle blew, summoning the two teams to form up afresh in opposing halves of the field. The ball was placed between them by a flag-bearing robot, and again the whistle blew; play continued.

Recalling that the noise from the stadium had continued ever since his arrival, Jasperodus asked the gatekeeper how long the game had been in progess. The attendant answered with pride in his voice. ‘It has run continuously for nearly five years now.’

‘Then when is it scheduled to end?’ Jasperodus asked, suppressing any amazement he might have felt.

‘Not until the end of eternity! This is the count’s great work. In a trillion years it will not even have reached half time. Already projects are in hand to see that it survives the eventual dissolution of the planet, probably by locating it on a newly-formed asteroid.’

‘There is some point to such a demonstration?’

‘The count says the stadium is the universe in miniature.’

Cricus interceded in a low voice. ‘This is derived from the count’s talks with Gargan,’ he said. ‘According to Gargan, the world consists of an eternal war or contest between opposing forces. The game illustrates that principle.’

Jasperodus realized he was again hearing ideas first explained to him by the Zoroastrian mage in the hills. A perpetual sports match was, for a fact, a fair simile of the endless interplay of the forces of light and darkness. The doctrine had presumably appealed to Gargan—as, indeed, it had appealed to Jasperodus himself.

‘So our count has a philosophical side after all,’ he said.

‘He is a curious mixture of character traits,’ Cricus agreed.

‘What of the spectators? Do they form part of the symbolism?’

‘They have known nothing but the game, and never will know anything but the game,’ the gatekeeper told him.

‘Always there are spectators. Indeed every entity in the real world is both a spectator and a player. The count’s symbology is fully worked out.’

‘Even if not immediately obvious,’ Jasperodus responded. ‘By the way, is a score kept for this perpetual battle?’

‘Oh indeed. Do you not see yonder scoreboard?’ The gatekeeper peered at something on the far side of the stadium. ‘White: forty-nine thousand five hundred and forty-three; Black: fifty-one thousand and thirty-eight.’

‘Just as I would have expected,’ Jasperodus said ironically. ‘Evil is in the lead.’

‘You are moralising,’ the attendant rebuked him. ‘Neither are you correct in assuming that Black maintains a constant lead. The two teams are evenly matched in skill, though it is true I have noticed a distinct tendency for White to suffer more injury. That does not affect the score, of course.’

‘It is rather a rough game,’ Cricus remarked, as though by way of explanation.

‘Not because of misbehaviour on the part of the players,’ the gatekeeper insisted. ‘They know the rules perfectly well. The trouble lies with the ball. You will appreciate that it must be of sturdy construction to withstand being kicked so vigorously for long periods of time, by quite powerfully built robots. It also carries considerable weight. In the heat of the game it is often propelled with considerable speed and force, to the detriment of the players as well as of the stadium and the spectators. Since the starting whistle blew the stadium has suffered the equivalent of total demolition three times over, while nearly a thousand spectators have been junked, all through being struck by a high-velocity ball.’

‘Could that be why our host chose not to accompany us?’ Jasperodus asked archly.

‘Yes. He did not wish to risk being demolished by an unlucky strike.’

Jasperodus quickly grew bored with watching the progress of the game and expressed a wish to depart. The gatekeeper summoned the elevator; they found Count Viss still surveying his domain in the gathering gloom.

As they left, floodlights came on within the stadium, casting a glow into the air. It did not last long, however. There was a rumbling sound as a flat roof slid across the top of the building, cutting off the light from possible air surveillance.

‘Ah, there you are,’ said the count cheerfully. He jumped up and folded his chair stick. ‘What do you think? Not bad, eh?’

Another frantic roar from within almost drowned out his words.

‘Very ingenious,’ Jasperodus complimented. ‘But planning for eternity does seem a trifle over-ambitious. For one thing the arrival of the Borgors could cut such a projection very short indeed.’

‘Yes, that is the most immediate problem,’ Viss admitted. He set off towards the mansion. Soon they were crossing the ‘lost world’ valley.

The count seemed thoughtful. Suddenly he turned to Cricus. ‘How trustworthy is your friend here?’

Cricus hesitated. ‘He is not formally inducted into the Gargan Work,’ he said. ‘But he is reliable, in my opinion.’

‘The Borgors could probably get a secret out of him, couldn’t they? All you have to do is ask a damned robot and he’ll tell you anything.’

‘I think I know what you are referring to,’ Cricus said quietly. ‘You will have to decide for yourself, but I would say you run no risk.’

To all this Jasperodus listened with polite detachment. For the rest of the walk Viss seemed to be struggling with himself, bursting to tell Jasperodus something but knowing it was unwise. Finally, as they neared the driveway to the mansion, he could contain himself no longer.

He stopped on the sand-coloured gravel. ‘I’ve something to show you, old chap. But you’re sworn to secrecy, do you hear?’

‘If you feel you can trust me,’ said Jasperodus.

‘Come this way.’ Viss limped off towards where the driveway disappeared into the earth. Cricus gave Jasperodus a knowing look as they descended into the cavernous underground tunnel, which was partly illuminated by dim nubs of light in the roof. About thirty feet in, a steel shutter barred the way. It slid aside as they approached, responding to some signal Jasperodus did not see, then slid shut behind them again.

‘Even before I died I was deucedly interested in underground excavations,’ the count announced. ‘I started off with an underground ballroom. Held a ball in it, too. Then underground apartments, a railway going round in a circle, even a street of houses. It’s all under the estate still.’

‘Had you a reason for doing this?’ But by now Jasperodus knew it was pointless to try to rationalise the actions of an eccentric.

‘Premonition, I’d say. Premonition. At the time it just seemed a marvellous thing to do. I like that underground feeling, don’t you? It’s fascinating, though it’s hard to say why. Little did I know it would become a matter of urgency.’

They had continued to descend, the slope of the tunnel becoming steeper until they must have been at a considerable depth. Now the tunnel widened, until it divided into curved galleries passing to left and right.

The galleries ran close under the roof of a huge cavern, meeting up on its far side to form a complete circle. On the floor of the cavern, visible over the railing, a robot work force toiled by the light of floodlights. They were constructing a subterranean replica of the sports stadium Jasperodus had just visited.

‘The everlasting match will be transferred here as soon as facilities are complete,’ Viss said. ‘A break of only a few minutes will be involved, which is not unusual. I may, indeed, transfer my entire household to the other excavations I mentioned, pending the Borgor threat, and landscape the entrance. The Borgors could overrun the estate and never suspect what lies below.

‘Down here, the match could continue in secret for thousands of years. Eventualities occurring after that will have to be tackled as they arise.’

‘How do you dispose of the earth and rock that is dug out?’ Jasperodus asked him.

‘Some of it comes in useful in further landscaping the estate. The rest is dumped some miles away.”

Jasperodus lingered for several minutes watching the work and inspecting the arched roof supports. As a piece of engineering the big chamber was impressive, and far more interesting than the frenetic sports match itself.

‘I hope your preparations will soon be finished,’ he said at length. ‘At present the Borgors have passed by you and gone south. When they have finished there they may well turn in this direction.’

‘Perhaps, though in my view they could equally turn east to outflank the New Empire, or what’s left of it,’ the count replied. ‘Well, what do you say we get back to the house and open a bottle or two?’

For some reason Viss seemed suddenly eager to be going. Briskly he turned from the scene and hurried the pace to the mansion, whose windows now twinkled with dim lights. The moment they were through the entrance he called a foot robot and issued instructions in a hasty voice.

‘Go to the cellar and fetch two bottles of number a hundred and three to the dining room. Bring the box, too. Oh, and come and have jag yourself later.’

He turned to his guests. ‘You’ll have to excuse me. This alimentary canal of mine works a good bit faster than the old one used to….’

At a near-run, he disappeared through a door to one side of the reception hall and slammed it shut behind him. Curiously Jasperodus tuned up his hearing.

Not that he needed the extra sensitivity. He heard a rasping noise, followed by the plopping of lumps of something into water, and a deep sigh of pleasure from the defecating robot.

Cricus was staring into the distance, pretending he heard nothing.

Count Viss was clearly a convivial sort of fellow who in his younger days would have enjoyed an evening drinking with friends. He had kept up the habit, but with his household robots. To this gathering were now added Jasperodus and Cricus.

The wine, obviously, was for his own consumption. But it could not give him the mild intoxication that made it popular among humans. For this, there was ‘the box’.

The device was a familiar one in robot communities. It was a neural generator, interfering with robotic nervous systems in much the same way that alcohol mildly deranged the nervous systems of biological creatures, and producing pretty much the same result. With his every glass of wine, the count applied the box’s leads to his cranium and gave himself a quick ‘jag’.

Any others present were also free to make use of the box, and several of them did so much more liberally than did the count himself. Conversation was desultory at first, until Viss had disposed of one bottle and began telling a series of ancient jokes, laughing raucously with each punchline. Dutifully his servants laughed with him, despite the fact that many were clearly devoid of humour (and would have been baffled by most of the jokes in any case, dealing as they did with human biological functions).

Jasperodus, however, was in no mood for jollity. After little more than half an hour he made enquiries and then slipped out. He mounted the broad staircase in the reception hall, and then walked to the rear of the mansion. At the end of a side corridor he knocked on a wood-panel door whose paint was chipped and scarred.

‘Enter,’ a young-sounding voice said. Jasperodus turned the handle, eased open the door and stepped quietly into a small, cosy room with the atmosphere of a den or study. There was a lamp and a design computer with a graphics screen on a table. Before it a robot sat on a sturdy steel chair. Bookladen shelves lined the walls. There were no tools or components. The workshop, no doubt more spacious, was elsewhere.

Like Viss, the robot had a sculptured face.

Jasperodus had seen his father, as he thought of his manufacturer, only twice, and briefly. He remembered an old, lined face, the expression rather sad, the eyes mild though sure with the sureness of a master technician. The face of the robot was that same face, but it was of a young man of about thirty. There was the same look of harmlessness, the same air of professionalism, but the whitish metal, containing perhaps aluminium or platinum, was moulded to a slimmer, smoother shape. It was fascinating to witness such a backtracking through time.

‘Please tell the count I shall not be joining him tonight,’ the robot said, glancing up.

Jasperodus, struggling with the same mixture of feelings that had assailed him earlier, did not reply immediately.

‘The count did not send me,’ he then said. ‘I came by myself. I would like to talk to you.’

Jasper Hobartus peered. ‘I don’t think I recognise you. Did the count purchase you somewhere?’

‘No.’ Jasperodus moved further into the room. ‘I happen to have paused here during a journey. Now I find that you and I have a connection. You made me. Or rather, the man of whom you are a copy made me.’

He said the last words slowly. Now the robot leaned back to inspect him more intently. ‘Yes, your scrollwork certainly bears my signature,’ he said. ‘So what bothers you? Do you have a dysfunction?’

‘Nothing bothers me, in that regard,’ said Jasperodus.

There was a pause. ‘You must have been manufactured after my imprint was taken,’ the robot said. ‘To tell the truth I have no knowledge of my career after I left the count’s employ—or rather, after my human pattern left.’ The oddness of his own phrasing seemed to amuse the robot. Had he been able, he might have smiled. ‘What can you tell me on that score?’

‘You studied for three years under Aristos Lyos,’ Jasperodus told him. ‘Then you settled in the west and went into retirement. Towards the end of your life, you made me.’

‘Aristos Lyos… the great master designer,’ Hobartus said, with a murmur of surprise. ‘I dare say I could learn something from stripping you down… but perhaps you would be uncooperative.’

‘Indeed,’ Jasperodus said. He felt awkward. ‘Did you not know he… you… intended to enroll with Lyos?’

‘No. My pattern gave no particular reason for leaving. I think he had grown restive because there was so little human company. By then there was only the count left.’

‘But you are Jasper Hobartus. Surely you must know what was in his mind?’

‘Only up to the time my imprint was taken, and that was over two years before his departure. He did not bother to keep my memory up to date, though he devised such a technique for the Viss imprint. So whatever thoughts occurred to him subsequently were his own.’

‘I see.’

Jasperodus reflected. He could find no way to broach the subject except directly. ‘You will recall, however, that he was interested in the question of investing a construct with consciousness.’

Hobart stared at him, then shook his head. ‘Ridiculous. It is an axiom of robotic science that no such thing is possible.’

‘You have never worked on this problem?’

‘What would be the point?’

‘But I tell you that Jasper Hobartus was very much interested in such a possibility. Furthermore, I am the result of his efforts in that area.’

‘I cannot believe it. Hobartus is too good a robotician to go chasing rainbows.’

‘And what if I were to tell you that I am conscious?’

‘You would be lying, or deluded.’

Jasperodus leaned forward. ‘What conception do you have, then, of this “consciousness”? It plainly means something to you.’

‘Yes, in a theoretical sort of way. My pattern, of course, was himself conscious, but the condition makes no trace on my memory.’ Hobartus reached out and switched off the glowing graphics screen before him. ‘Your line of questioning tells me something about you. It is plain you belong to the Gargan Work.’

Jasperodus did not answer.

‘Gargan himself was here, some years ago,’ Hobartus added. ‘He, too, pressed me on the subject of consciousness. He asked me to help him. I did everything I could to dissuade him from such a lost cause, but to no avail.’

‘I have not met Gargan yet,’ Jasperodus said. ‘A construct by the name of Cricus is taking me to him.’

‘Cricus? He is a recruiter for Gargan. He has been here before, quite recently. I regret to say that my master is another who has allowed himself to become beguiled by this mirage of consciousness—but then the count, if the truth be known, is a ready acceptor of improbable propositions.’

‘Such as a sports match to be played until time comes to a stop?’

The other inclined his head in agreement.

A further silence followed, until Jasperodus gruffly said, ‘You know why I am here.’

‘Something to do with my pattern in his later years, may I presume?’ Hobartus ventured, ‘It could be that you miss his company. It is not unusual for a construct to grow attached to its master, much a dog does.’

‘Yes, that must be it,’ Jasperodus muttered. He found himself unable to explain that the time he had spent in the presence of his father totalled only minutes, and that the first of only two occasions—that of his initial activation—had lasted but seconds.

He was surprised to hear the robot deny any inkling of Hobartus’ great discovery. Could he be lying, obedient to his pattern’s adamant insistence that the secret of inducted consciousness must remain lost forever? Or perhaps Gargan had sworn him to secrecy for other reasons….

No, the hypothesis did not accord with events as Jasperodus saw them. The robot imprint would surely have been deeply interested in his pattern’s final handiwork, had he shared or known of Hobartus’ pursuit of construct consciousness. He would not have dismissed Jasperodus so casually.

He had to be telling the truth. Possibly Hobartus’ discovery had come as a totally unexpected accident, made long after leaving Count Viss’ estate.

Jasperodus felt disconsolate. He wished he had not given way to the urge to visit the imprinted Hobartus. Yet how could he not have tried to see the man who had so often occupied his thoughts? Who had sacrificed a part of his own consciousness, as well as years of his life, so that Jasperodus might have consciousness of his own?

Much as he might have longed to speak to the robot before him as confidingly as he would have spoken to that man, his visit was a miserable failure. It was not just because he knew the robot’s personality was only a kind of picture—a moving, talking picture—that he was deterred. One would have been hard put to it to know the difference in personality alone, for the same gentleness of manner was there, less mellowed with age than the original’s, perhaps.

No, what deterred Jasperodus was that the robot in no way recognised him; could in no sense understand that this visitor from a departed future was a son to the man who had left long ago.

Head bent, he turned to take his leave.

‘Tell me,’ Hobartus said suddenly, as Jasperodus hesitated by the door, ‘have you ever studied robotics?’

‘Yes,’ Jasperodus told him, ‘though not as a practitioner.’

The imprinted robot turned the graphics screen back on. ‘One of the park machines has developed an aggravating set of disloes. I can’t seem to trace the source. Would you care to go through the schematics with me? Perhaps you will be able to remind me of how my alter ego would have dealt with the problem.’

Jasperodus knew that the robot did not need his help. Hobartus had merely discerned that he was disappointed, and was responding with kindness. It was a gesture typical of the original of which he was a copy.

Gladly he joined him at the screen. The mask graphics came up one after another under the controlling fingers of Hobartus, who pointed out feature after feature. With a poignant sense of companionship on Jasperodus’ part, they talked and talked.