Dr. Alien, page 13
“Certainly,” Deal proclaimed with a single, confident snap. “The controller must be disabled. I suggest that you and I along with the Vithy do what we can to impede the robot’s progress. Meanwhile the Pokaroll, who has witnessed the disassembly procedure, should attempt to dismantle the controller. Your surprising Vapabond can assist.”
Surprising? No time to ask. I glanced outside. Judging from Thoth’s increasing speed, I guessed it had nearly finished sunbathing. Worse, Phillips and Braun, my guardians parked on the street, were sliding out of their patrol car, weapons already drawn. I ran out the direct way, through the wall’s new hole just beginning to self-heal.
“What is that thing?” Phillips yelled to me.
“Tell you later. Put those guns away, for God’s sake!” Considering Thoth’s Aggressive Protection mission, I figured nothing good would happen if it got the impression the cops were targeting me. And if the cops actually fired? While I was damn sure bullets couldn’t dent a Houck energy servant, that didn’t mean the robot wouldn’t shoot back somehow.
The cops lowered the .38s, maybe thanks to the panic in my voice, but they didn’t holster them. Bad mistake. Thoth stopped dead. A lens-like protrusion emerged from its glittering torso, pointed exactly between the two officers. I’m no sprinter, but would’ve surely broken some world record that day if I’d run that fast on my own. Instead, a textured shadow slid under my feet and flowed in the direction I was running like a super-speed moving walkway. I reached my destination so quickly that I stumbled trying to avoid overrunning the spot. But I got there in time.
The little lens-bubble took one peek at Dr. Human Shield before sinking back into Thoth’s body, and I trusted that this danger, at least, was over.
“Thanks,” I murmured to Gara, now appearing as a deep purple haze, and she gave me a don’t-mention-it sort of wriggle. Unfortunately, my latest feeling of relief had a minuscule half-life. Two smaller bubbles zoomed out from Thoth, whipped around me, and settled on the cops’ foreheads. Officers Phillips and Braun didn’t just stop moving, they seemed to congeal. For a second, I was terrified that they’d been frozen stiff and would shatter when they fell over. And they did fall when I couldn’t reach them fast enough, but they didn’t crack. The robot started off again, still aimed at Pearson headquarters. “Gara, we can’t do anything here, but I’ve got to get to Bradley’s house before that monster does. Can you carry me that far?”
I could barely hear her response. “Sorry, Al. I’d need to recharge first.”
“I can manage that small task,” Deal said. I hadn’t realized she’d gotten close enough to overhear. “If you wouldn’t find it beneath your dignity, Doctor?”
“Hardly. Let’s go! What should I do?”
“Enjoy the ride.” With those cheery words, Deal wrapped limbs around my waist and legs then hoisted me surprisingly high into the air and took off bounding across the street as if Earth’s gravity was on coffee break. I didn’t much enjoy the experience but had to admit that Deal got the job done.
She put me down outside Bradley’s back door, and I barged in.
Bradley S. sat at his kitchen table gluing snips of colored veneers to a rectangular board. He looked up at me with the ire of a man interrupted mid-marquetry and uncharacteristically let me have it, both barrels. “Knock much?”
Normally, I find his 1990s TV cliches annoying, but today my attention was elsewhere. “Brad, you’re in danger! Run out your front door and keep running. Hurry!” Deal squeezed into the kitchen as I was talking.
Bradley stared at the Trader for a second too long, and then it was too late. Four glittering claws smashed through the sheetrock behind me, and then pulled most of the wall out accompanied by an ear-splitting concerto of snaps, crunches, squeals, and bangs. Thoth glided through the newborn dust cloud and over the pile of fresh rubble. It brushed past Deal and tenderly pushed me aside. One of its many claws elongated into long serrated pinchers that opened wide and began closing around Bradley’s thin neck. I’d never seen anyone look so terrified and even though it wasn’t my neck in the alien guillotine, my blood turned to gel.
And time seemed to freeze. Each tick of the oversized clock mounted on one undamaged kitchen wall came slow and far apart. Dust motes lazed in the morning light streaming through Thoth’s demolition project. The big hole tugged at my attention. My supposed protector hadn’t smashed into the house in its usual modus operandi; it had pulled the wall out. Why? Because I stood on the other side and would’ve gotten hurt. That insight told me what to do, or at least what to try.…
“THOTH! If you kill this man, I will also die.” I had to believe the robot would understand me even if it wouldn’t obey me in its current mode. And I was counting on its protective programming.
Thoth didn’t release Bradley, but its pincher didn’t close. My neighbor gazed at me with eyes that were too scared to plead, and I did my best to convey a reassurance I didn’t feel. The impasse stretched on and there seemed no safe way to break it.
Then, for the first time, Thoth proved that it could speak. “You will not die when Bradley S. Pearson dies.” Its voice had a gelatinous tremolo but an ice-cold edge—murder in aspic.
The pinchers closed just enough to squeeze Bradley’s neck without breaking the skin. Brad made a nearly noiseless whimper, and I felt sweat run down my back. “You’re wrong! Killing him will destroy my reputation and career. The guilt will make me kill myself.”
“I will prevent your self-destruction.”
Despite that excellent rebuttal, the pinchers didn’t tighten further. So maybe the Houck had a fairly broad definition of protection. “You can’t save my reputation.”
Thoth responded to my counterargument by doing nothing, a big improvement from what I was afraid it would do. But before I could let myself breathe again, Deal offered a few clicks of advice.
“I suspect, Doctor, that your servant is temporarily engaged in weighing the potential harm to your status resulting from this person’s demise against the harm this person intends to inflict on you.”
Deal’s message came through perfectly: any moment now, Bradley would lose his head.
Once again, something seemed to clog the gears of time as fear whipped my thoughts into clarity. “Don’t hurt him, Thoth!” I ordered for whatever good it might do as I took off running through the big hole, over the rubble, and toward the clinic. Dismantling the controller was Bradley’s only hope, and obviously L and Tad weren’t having much luck.
Halfway across the street, I gasped. Not because I was out of breath. In my mind, a dozen scraps of information snapped together, forming a picture I hadn’t even suspected existed. My Volvo exploding, Tad saving me, the video feed showing no one planting a car bomb, Tad apparently avoiding Deal, Deal calling Tad “surprising,” three shattered macromite walls, and even Cora’s months of unresponsiveness added up to one stunning revelation. A truly disturbing revelation, but one that might provide a tool to save Bradley.
The frozen cops were stirring, although in slow-mo. They didn’t seem hurt. In the distance, I heard sirens and guessed they were headed this way.
The front wall had nearly healed, so I had to use the door to enter the clinic but barely broke stride, sprinting toward the room with the controller. I’ve seen some truly weird things in my life, but the scene within that room beat them all. L had sprouted a forest of tentacles tipped with built-in wrenches, screwdrivers, hammers, and whatnot, and was twisting, prodding, and banging on the controller like an army of insane mechanics. Meanwhile, Tad occupied herself with barehanded tugging and prying. All this hyperactivity was accomplishing zilch.
“Stop!” I shouted over the racket. “L and Tad, join me in the hallway, now!”
I doubted Tad would obey, but L grabbed one of her arms with an extruded vice and tugged her out of the room. I slapped the wall-plate and the door swished closed.
“Have you stopped the robot?” L asked.
I kept my voice below a murmur. “Not exactly. We’ll have to do that from this end.”
“A glorious idea. How?”
I turned to glare at my insecurity officer. “Tad, do you have any of that explosive left? The stuff you used on my car?”
Dead silence for a moment. “You know it was me?”
“I’m positive.” She’d broken her routine to accompany me to the parking lot and reacted too quickly and perfectly to what she’d claimed was the “scent” of a bomb. Also, a team of macromites, too small to be noticeable on a video feed, could’ve easily carried an alien version of C4 to the car in tiny batches. And who would be better at controlling Vapabondi macromites than a Vapabond? “I even know why you did it.”
To make me trust her, to allay any suspicions I might be developing about her.
“If you’ve got any explosive left, get it now,” I ordered in a nearly silent shout. “Hurry!”
You wouldn’t think that something resembling a cross between an ape, a walrus, and an armadillo could look sheepish, but Tad managed the trick. Then she demonstrated that it was also possible to slink away while running. She moved even faster than I’d expected.
“You believe a detonation will disable the controller?” L whispered.
“God, I sure—wow! She’s back already. Guess we’ll find out.”
Tad carried a large, clear jar half-full of what looked like crushed ruby dust and held it out for me to inspect.
“How do you detonate it?”
She answered by pulling out a small gadget with a miniature antenna on one end. She held this device to her mouth and mumbled something. Then she put the thing away and placed one of her sausage-fingers on the nearest wall. A tiny moving strip of ivory appeared on the finger, marched across Tad’s shell, and worked its way down the arm holding the jar. I moved closer, but still could barely distinguish the individual shells of the parading macromites. A few seconds later, the ivory strip abandoned Tad to bury itself in the ruby dust.
“Will ignite at command,” Tad offered.
Useful little buggers. “How fast will that happen?”
“Much quick. Three seconds. Or six. Or—”
“Okay, you stay put and give your little pals the go-ahead when I say, um, ‘Go Tad.” L, you’re our speed-king and we’re running out of time.”
“You wish me to place the explosive near the controller?”
“On it. That jar should balance on a shoulder. Can you do it with extreme speed?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Everyone ready?” I hated to count on Tad but had no choice.
And she came through for me, pulling out her little toy again, ready for her order, as L reconfigured himself into a low-slung torpedo with six legs and two long arms ending in enough spaghetti-like fingers for a gallon of carbonara sauce. L snatched the jar, holding it gently with a dozen spaghetti strands, and took off.
He zipped into the room so quickly that for an instant, I could’ve sworn he remained in the hallway.
Then he was back, triggering the door to close behind him. Even as it zipped shut, I heard the controller say, “The operation you are attempting is forbidden.”
“Go Tad!”
An incredible crash came from behind us, from the reception room, not the place I wanted to hear a bang.
“GO, Tad! NOW!”
Like a speeded-up, stop-action demon, Thoth came charging at us just as some giant fist seemed to punch the world. The force knocked me off my feet, which probably saved my life as five empty but hard boxes flashed through the space that my head had occupied an instant earlier. L caught me in midair and set me on my feet. I think someone was talking, but at that moment my ears were on vacation.
I looked around. Both L and Tad appeared unhurt and even the walls seemed undamaged. I walked over to lift one of the boxes that had been part of Thoth a few moments before. I put it down and hoisted another, then a third. Damn. Color me stupid.
Deal bounded into the hall with Gara right behind in her spherical rolling form.
“Bradley?” I asked and only heard my own voice through a bit of bone conduction.
I could see Deal’s cilia snapping but could only point at my ears while shaking my head. Then the obvious occurred to me and I switched on one of my DM’s “accessibility” functions.
“Say that again, please,” I asked.
This time when Deal spoke, the translated words scrolled across my field of vision: “Your neighbor is healthy save for whatever mental trauma remains. The robot released him and departed at a speed that makes me suspect it of possessing some form of interstellar propulsion. I perceive that you have succeeded in reverting Thoth to its original state.”
“Thanks to L and … the Vapabond here. Deal-of-ten-lifetimes, may I introduce you to my patient, Coratennulagond? She’s been pretending to be the security officer your people hired for me, Tadehtraulagong.”
Deal hopped nearer to the party in question and stared at her with scores of eye-cilia. “So! I’d been informed a female2 had been assigned to you, Doctor, bringing a troubled female1 along. When I saw that your patient was the wrong sub-gender, I assumed my information was faulty. Now the discrepancy is explained.”
Along with plenty of other things, such as “Cora” being so unresponsive for so long. While Tad and Cora had been on their way to Earth, something had gone very wrong and the psychotic Vapabond had gained the upper grasping member.
“How do you intend to rectify the situation?” Deal asked.
I studied the Vapabond. “We’ll get the real Tad off whatever meds this one’s been feeding her to keep her torpid. But as for you, Cora, I believe this crisis has done you some good. I’d even say you’ve just had a breakthrough. This is the first time since we met that you’ve acted in a completely responsible way. If we work together, I’ll bet we can get your mind clear and strong. Are you willing?”
“You are not angry with me?”
“A doctor doesn’t get mad at the patient.” That was a lie, but admitting my real feelings would help no one.
“Then I am willing.”
“Great. But let’s not include bombs as part of your therapy. And speaking of bombs …”
I slapped the nearby wall-plate, exposing the room that had contained the recent blast. The floor was littered in machine parts, but none of them appeared broken or bent or even singed. Impressive metallurgy. The controller had fit together like a Chinese puzzle, so I’d guessed that a powerful explosion would break whatever electromagnetic or chemical bonds had come into play after the system was finally activated. Good thing it had worked because I had no backup plan.
“We will not,” Deal said, “be assembling this device again. Or piling boxes.” My ears were beginning to recover; I could hear her clicks, faintly.
“Probably not, but I think I know where we went wrong.”
“Tell me.”
“The empty boxes look identical, but they don’t weigh the same. I bet if we stacked them from heaviest to lightest, Thoth would come to life in a far more … amenable form. Remember the controller telling us that the servant has one hundred twenty possible configurations? That’s how many different ways there are to stack five boxes if you ignore the issue of which side goes where: five factorial. Simple statistics. A clever person would’ve examined the empty boxes and noticed the weight discrepancy, and a logical person would’ve first made a pile with the greatest stability. The Houck overestimated me.”
Deal remained silent for a moment. “As for me, I again find you difficult to overestimate. We Traders owe you much for the trouble our incomprehension has caused. How may we best repay you?”
I turned toward Cora. “This whole structure is made of your tiny machines. Could they tear themselves down and rebuild the place somewhere else?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent.” I faced Deal again. “I’m about to get drowned in lawsuits, and the trouble is that Bradley and my other neighbors are right. This institution is dangerous. Got an idea that might save my gluteus maximus without the Feds stepping in again and getting me even more resented. I’d like to keep treating my human patients in the Cabin, that’s what we call the small building behind this one; but I want to relocate the main part of the clinic.”
“To somewhere distant?”
“Not so far away that it takes me hours to commute from home, but a place that’s isolated from people.”
“Your desires appear to conflict. Do you have a location in mind?”
I grinned. “Not yet, but you don’t expect me to solve every problem, do you?”
Something about the way Deal tilted a few of her limbs gave me the impression she grinned back. “Then I may have a solution although it might mean that this structure could not simply perambulate to the new position.”
“Perambulate!” L crowed, no doubt eager to rush to the nearest dictionary.
“Tell me,” I asked Deal.
“We are presently not far from one of your large oceans. With Tsf environment control, I see no reason why your clinic shouldn’t be repositioned some distance out to sea.”
I just stood there for a moment, blinking. “You mean floating?”
“I mean deep underwater. Surely your neighbors would be satisfied, and we would supply you an adaptable vehicle for the short commute. Or would you prefer a sky clinic?”
That’s basically the story, Pastor. Oh, I could blab about the subsequent meeting with Smith, Jones, and assorted tons of other officials, but even I’m getting sick of hearing my voice. Besides, you’ve got the answer you were looking for. So don’t let those wheels fool you. Now you know exactly why I drive to work in a submarine.
Doctor Alien and the Spindles of Infinity
A shark glided past my office window. More minnow than Jaws, but it startled me anyway. When my clinic had first been relocated here, safely below any passing keels or propellers but far enough up the continental slope to paint my view turquoise on sunny days, the only fish I’d seen had been dead ones drifting by. Now, thanks to OH 2, the Trader-equipped Ocean Habitat Oxygen Healing project, it seemed enough gilled denizens had moved into the neighborhood to attract high ranking predators.
