Hugh Cook - The Wazir and the Witch

‘What’s going on?’ said Justina. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘We’re arguing,’ said Pokrov. ‘The — the metal monster here can kill me. But I can order it to destroy itself. It — it wants time to talk about how we came here, and, oh, things like that. ’

‘What’ve you got to lose?’ said Justina.

‘You don’t understand,’ said Pokrov. ‘This machine was made to interrogate, torture and kill. It was built with high-level bluff strategies to start with. Since then it’s improved itself. I don’t trust it. It’s already tried to tell me at least one lie.’

Then, to Pokrov’s shock, the therapist addressed Justina in Janjuladoola, saying:

‘What Ivan Pokrov has told you is true. I was indeed made to torture, interrogate and kill. But since I am a therapist, I am, as you see, of too big a build to move anywhere in any direction. I have no access to the surface world in which human confusions take place. The dorgi which brought you here is my sole servant. It too is far too substantial to escape into the streets of Injiltaprajura. My curiosity I admit. I would like to hear what is going on in the world above. But my curiosity cannot damage your security. Tell me of Injiltaprajura and of what happens there.’

‘How do you come to know Injiltaprajura?’ said, Pokrov.

‘Shabble has learnt it, has Shabble not?’ said the therapist.

‘Shabble never comes this way,’ said Pokrov.

‘But others do,’ said the therapist. ‘They — they come here. They teach me. And… and I teach them.’

‘You teach them?’ said Justina. ‘What?’

The therapist laughed, softly.

‘I teach them… I teach them some aspects of their own potential,’ said the therapist. ‘Watch. I will show you.’

‘Please do,’ said Justina.

A door opened in one of the therapist’s many flanks. The assembled humans looked down a long tunnel filled with misty light. At the far end of that tunnel, they perceived five tubes running together. Then the mist cleared and they saw A human.

Or what had been human once.

Grey, corrugated tubes had enveloped each of its legs and each of its arms, and a fifth tube had swallowed its head, and And, as they watched, the tubes became transparent And Olivia screamed.

Justina jerked her head away as if she had been slapped.

As for Pokrov, he trembled as if caught on an ice plateau in the chills of a blizzard.

‘Close the door,’ said Artemis Ingalawa.

To Pokrov’s surprise, the therapist obeyed, thus terminating their exposure to the ghastly vision. Pokrov should not have been surprised. The assembled humans had already seen what they had seen: and they would never forget it.

‘It’s hideous,’ sobbed Olivia, clinging to Chegory. ‘It’s hideous.’

‘There, there,’ said he, trying his best to soothe her. ‘It’s gone now, it’s all right, it’s gone.’

‘So,’ said the therapist, with a soft chuckle. ‘You see how it is. People come. Not often, but sometimes. And we… we talk a little. Before… before proceeding to other entertainments. Educational entertainments. Oh, I teach them all right. I teach them very well indeed. So. Do you grant me leave to talk a little longer? Or must I kill you, Pokrov? First you, then myself.’

‘You must kill me,’ said Pokrov; for he regretted having let the therapist live for even another quarter arc. ‘Kill me. Now! Then destroy yourself.’

‘No,’ said Justina decisively.

‘No?’ said Pokrov, turning to the Empress with horror in his face. ‘You — you see what it is. What it does.’

‘I see Power,’ said the Empress. ‘I hear Knowledge.’ ‘It’s evil!’ screamed Olivia. ‘Kill it, kill it!’

‘Olivia,’ said Artemis Ingalawa sharply. ‘You are an Ashdan. But you are not acting like one.’

The words had the desired effect. While Olivia continued to snivel, all traces of hysteria were extinguished at once. Artemis Ingalawa continued:

‘Justina has reason. This thing is monstrous. But we dwell in an age of darkness when all Powers are monstrous. By playing one against the other, we may yet survive. By refusing to deal with either we secure merely the certainty of our own destruction.’

‘Who,’ said the therapist softly, ‘is this other?’

‘Aldarch the Third is his name,’ said Justina.

‘Oh,’ said the therapist, with interest. ‘I have heard of him. Has he arrived at Injiltaprajura already?’

‘He has not,’ said Justina. ‘Nor do we expect him in person. But his will exerts an influence on our affairs even though he dwells at an ocean’s remove. Pokrov! Grant this thing the time it needs to talk to us. Pokrov! That is an order! If you do not obey me I will — I will have your precious Analytical Engine smashed down to its separate cogs then melted into so many chamber pots.’

A trivial threat, this; or so it may seem to an outsider. But Justina knew her man. She was obeyed.

Thereafter, the Empress Justina was long in discourse with the therapist, and much they learnt of each other. Such was the extent of their discussions that the therapist learnt of its visitors’ quest for an organic rectifier, that magical device said to be able to make a Crab human.

‘What would the Crab do if it were human?’ said the therapist.

‘Why, rule Injiltaprajura, of course,’ said Justina.

‘But first it would come down here and kill you,’ said Chegory savagely.

A stupid thing to say. But it only made the therapist laugh. The therapist had interrogated a great many people who had known of the Crab. Thanks to those interrogations, the therapist knew the Crab to be an incorrigibly solitary eremite, an unsociable stoic which valued human life at naught. Over the centuries, the therapist had also become tainted with the prejudices of those it interrogated; so it had come to believe Ebrell Islanders to be the lowest form of human life imaginable, incapable of rational cognition, and universally scorned and hated by reason of their closeness to the brute beasts.

Working from this database, the therapist made a major error. It dismissed Chegory’s claim as a nonsense. Whereas all Chegory’s companions realized there was every possibility that the Crab might make war against the therapist in gratitude for the gift of human form.

But did it make any difference?

They were no nearer than ever before to finding an organic rectifier. They were trapped in this hideous place. And the therapist looked nasty enough to kill them for a whim. Probably Pokrov was right. The thing might declare itself ready to do a deal, but there was no way it could properly be trusted.

While the therapist’s captives were still pondering their quandary, the therapist bade them pay attention. Into the air it projected three-dimensional images of certain people. Then it asked:

‘Who are these people?’

Not: do you know these people?

The therapist had a very good idea of the city which lay overhead. It knew Injiltaprajura to be a small place of no more than about 30,000 souls; a place where most people know each other and strangers find it hard to hide.

Its j udgement was excellent.

‘I know them,’ said Chegory, who had met all four. ‘Name them,’ sa id the therapist. ‘Tell me no lies for I know their names in truth.’

‘The — the one on the left is Pelagius Zozimus,’ said Chegory. ‘He’s, um, he cooks for the Crab. Then, uh, with him, that’s Sken-Pitilkin, Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, he was building a ship to fly, but the wonder-workers pulled it to bits with magics. Oh, and the other one, he’s, he’s-’

‘Gulkan,’ offered Olivia.

‘That’s right, Guest Gulkan. We haven’t seen much of him, not lately. He’s still around, but he keeps to the ship, Turbothot’s ship. He’s trying to work out how to steal the wishstone, that’s what everyone thinks. That’s what he came for, he won’t live without it. The other one… well, he’s a knifeman, I don’t remember his name.’