Jack L. Chalker - Rings Of The Master 04 by Masks Of The Martyrs

Author:Masks Of The Martyrs [Martyrs, Masks Of The]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-02-15T01:12:26.389000+00:00

“I just can’t understand it,” Isaac Clayben mumbled for perhaps the tenth time in an hour. He had been going over all the tests on Vulture.

“You said I was immune to the transmuter,” the little male Chanchukian reminded him in his high, somewhat squeaky tenor. “You said that what they did to me couldn’t be done!”

“I—I thought it couldn’t. I swear to you I thought it could not be done. Your cells—your original cells—were quite literally created in a transmuter. They were tested, many times, and found to be impervious to the transmuter process. All we got was an automatic abort from the control computer—every time. Even I, who created you, could not uncreate you, as it were. Star Eagle was fed from my data banks all the information on your creation and structure, just how you worked, and there was no way even he could see how it was done. Alas, it would take a far larger computer than we have here to repeat the experiment—if indeed we dared repeat it.”

Vulture shuddered. “I am small and weak now, and I am but a shadow of my former self, but I believe I would kill you no matter what if you should try. You can never know the pain, the horror of that experience. So terrible is it that even though most of my past lives are mercifully dim, just pale shadows now, still that period haunts my nightmares.”

“Rest easy on that score,” Star Eagle broke in. The great computer that ran the ship was also virtually omnipresent on it. “All of the data that we have examined shows that even were I a hundred times as large and complex and even if I had all the esoteric biophysics and biochemistry needed for it, still it would be impossible. There is a missing element in all the data. Just what is impossible to determine, but without it the rest will not work. It’s just so much synthetic primordial soup.”

“Impossible! Everything was there! Everything!” Clayben exclaimed.

“No. Sorry to puncture your ego, Doctor, but you are a brilliant man and you will survive it. Now that I have all the files, though, and all the records of the work done, I can see the procedures and the holes. The conclusion is unmistakable, Doctor. You did not invent Vulture. You created him, but you did not invent him.”

“No, that’s not true . . . ”

Even Vulture was puzzled. “Invent, create—what’s the difference?”

“The difference between a scientist and an engineer, for the most part. Clayben was the engineer who oversaw the project, but this is far too complex even in its minor parts for any human brain to follow with the detail required. In many important ways, Vulture, you were a far more complex synthetic organism than I, or a Val. We had no problems synthesizing a Val, or at least a cyborg that allowed tiny, organic Ikira Sukotae to become a being much larger and who would measure as synthetic. But be honest, Doctor.

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