The Telzey Toy by James Schmitz

Author:James Schmitz [Schmitz, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-09-04T16:46:49.266000+00:00

5

The blue-haired woman Ti had called Challis stood motionless thirty feet away, looking at them. Pale eyes, pale face ... the skin of Telzey's back began to crawl. Perhaps it was only the unexpectedness of the encounter, but she remembered how Ti had lost color when Challis first appeared; and the thought came that she might feel this way if she suddenly saw a ghost and knew what it was.

Challis lifted a hand now, beckoned to them. They started hesitantly forward. She turned aside as they came up, went to an open door, and through it. They glanced at each other.

"I think we'd better see what she wants," Telzey said quietly.

Gaziel nodded, looking quite as reluctant about it as Telzey felt. "Probably."

They went to the door. A narrow dim-lit corridor led off it. Challis was walking up the corridor, some distance away. They exchanged glances again.

"Let's go."

They slipped into the corridor, started after Challis. The door closed silently behind them. They came out, after several corridor turns, into a low wide room, quite bare--the interior of a box. Diffused light poured from floor, ceiling, the four walls. The surfaces looked like highly polished metal but cast no reflections.

"Nothing reaches here," Challis said to them. "We can talk." She had a low musical voice which at first didn't seem to match her appearance, then did. "Don't be alarmed by me. I came here only to talk to you."

They looked at her a moment. "Where did you come from?" Gaziel asked.

"From inside."

"Inside?"

"Inside the machine. I'm usually there, or seem to be. I don't really give much attention to it. Now and then--not often, I believe--I'm told to come out."

"Who tells you to come out?" Telzey said carefully.

Challis' light-gray eyes regarded her.

"The minds," she said. "The machine thinks on many levels. Thinking forms minds. We didn't plan that. It developed. They're there; they do their work. That's the way they feel it should be. You understand?"

They nodded hesitantly.

"He knows they're there," Challis said. "He sees the indications. He can affect some of them. Many more are inaccessible to him at present, but it's been noted that he's again modified and extended the duplicative processes. He's done things that are quite new, and now he's brought in the new model who is one of you. The model's been analyzed and it was found that it incorporates a quality through which he should be able to gain access to any of the minds in the machine. That's not wanted. If the duplicate made of the model--the other of you--has the same quality, that's wanted even less. If it's been duplicated once, it can be duplicated many times. And he will duplicate it many times. It's not his way to make limited use of a successful model. He'll make duplicates enough to control every mind in the machine."

"We don't want that," Gaziel said.

Challis' eyes shifted to her.

"It won't happen," she said, "if he's unable to use either of you for his purpose. It's known that you

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