The Boy Who Would Live Forever

I

I was not unmoved by Gelle-Klara Moynlin's passionate entreaties. I shared her impatience with the pusillanimous behavior of the Heechee. There is such a thing as being too unremittingly logical, and besides the Stored Minds had had no right to make decisions for human beings.

However, it was true that the danger to Planetless Very Large White Very Hot Star overrode any personal considerations. My primary efforts, therefore, had to be directed to neutralizing that menace.

It is embarrassing to me to admit my efforts did not succeed.

The difficulty was in locating the torpedo that carried the star-bursting device. To do so required sorting through every spacecraft trail that had ever approached that star, identifying the approaches and departures for every one of them until the one which approached the star but did not depart again was found. That, of course, would be the one we sought. In principle it was quite a simple task, though arduous. When I displayed the trails for my analysis there were a much larger number of them than I had anticipated.

While I was considering that matter, Klara's shipmind called.

I heard them out but made no promises. Then, when I returned to my own surround, I came to a decision. I summoned one of the high-speed torpedoes, and while waiting for its arrival gave my sous-chefs new instructions. No one of them was anywhere near as able as myself, to be sure. But there were 293 of them and, collectively, they possessed great analytical power.

Diverting them away from their usual tasks meant that many clients would be getting a restricted menu for a time, but I saw no choice.

Then I took off.

It was a tedious flight, but not a challenging one. I had had no difficulty in tracking Wan's ship-traces to his hideout. Its identity was not a surprise to me. There is a saying I have heard, though I was never given the source—most likely Plato, or George Washington, or some other ancient political person: "The dog returns to his vomit." Wan had. Its name was Arabella.

Truthfully, I had rather expected that would be the case. Even for an organic, Wan was not particularly inventive.

After I had left my vessel in a forced orbit I sought for and quickly found Achiever's ship. It sat on top of a smallish mountain, below which lay the little valley where the captives were held.

It was a nuisance that Wan had removed the servomodule, thus deprogramming the ship so that no nonmaterial person could fly it anymore. I suppose he did that because he was afraid that, given a chance, some of his nonmaterial people would get bored with life on Arabella and fly off with it. But with the help of one of the organics—it was that young Turkish boy that Klara had been concerned about, Stan Avery, the one who had excluded me from his residence for a time—I flew the ship to the valley. The captives seemed to be in good shape, or as good shape as organics ever are in, so I opened the ship's doors to them. While they were boarding everyone my presence was not required, so I attended to the more important business.

Dealing with Wan presented no real difficulties. I easily identified the collection of rabbit warrens tunneled into the mountain that Wan and his servants had occupied. It had not changed much since my last visit, except, of course, that everything that could decay had done so. (Not a surprise. By Outside standards, that had been a seriously long time ago.) Most of the tunnels were no longer in physical use, since there were no longer any organics with his company. But Wan did have to have a physical place to store their data fans, and that too was easy to locate.

Wan's people were all there, waiting for me as I entered the storage chamber—rather unimaginatively protected with bars and locks, but with nothing that could keep out even the feeblest AI. And his entire company of machine-stored servants were deployed around the rack of storage fans that held their—well, I've heard organics call them their "souls." Most of them stood silently, looking as though they wished they were somewhere else. One, however, seemed pugnacious.

I recognized Wan immediately. Since becoming machine-stored he had elected to make himself a good deal less unattractive, but he was the most belligerent-looking of all. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded. "What the hell are you doing here? Anyway, you're not leaving. Robin! De-Von! Take this man prisoner."

He was quite amusing, really. I didn't bother to answer. I merely wrapped myself around him, as I had done to his servant long before, and began to squeeze.

None of his present servants interfered. I hadn't expected them to. It would have made no difference if they had, of course, nor did Wan's own struggles. In less than ten milliseconds I had him cooped up in his data fan; I turned it off and ordered the others: "Have this delivered to the spacecraft in the valley."

They didn't look eager to carry out my instructions. They didn't look as though they objected much, either. After a moment one of them spoke. She was human and female, and she apparently had given much thought to her appearance. "Take us with you, please?" she asked.

That had not been among my priorities, but I could see no objection. "You are not to waken Wan," I told them, "or you will deeply regret it. However, you may include your data fans with his on the ship." They had started a handling machine loading their fans for the trip down into the valley and I returned there as well. After that it was only a matter of completing the boarding and flying back home.