"I did," she said, smiling. "Why does that embarra.s.s you?"

"This city is, despite its weirdities, essentially human. It was made to serve human beings, perhaps women like you -- "

"A matriarchy?"

"Possibly. Now those people are gone, but the city remains, producing breathable air, growing edible fruit, supporting at least some omnivorous wildlife as though in antic.i.p.ation of the needs of the mantas, manufacturing things for human use. Surely the machines remember their erstwhile masters!"

"Then why did it attack you?"

"I was acting in an unfriendly manner, a.s.sociating with aliens who were interfering with the business of the city. I was giving the signals of an enemy or a vandal -- as indeed I regarded myself. The machine reacted accordingly."

Aquilon nodded. "So we know the builders, though not their language."

"We are the builders -- on another variant. Perhaps this city is an artifact of a human alternate many thousands of years in our future. With the alternate framework, it stands to reason that many worlds are ahead of us as well as many behind."

"Dinosaurs on one -- super science on another," she agreed.

"But I do not think the sparkle-cloud is part of this human scheme -- as I was explaining."

"You were?"

"The Life game."

She grimaced. "I haven't gotten through your R Pentomino yet."

"I wouldn't worry about it," he said. "It only achieves a 'steady state' after eleven hundred moves."

"Eleven hundred moves!" she exclaimed indignantly. "And you set me innocently to work with a pencil -- "

"The point is, the entire game is determined by the opening configuration. But that hardly means that all openings are similar, or that a five-point figure does not have impressive complexities in its resolution. Most simple patterns quickly fade or become stable. A few are open-ended, especially when they interact with other figures. So larger opening patterns might conceivably -- "

"Cal!" she cried. "Are you saying that this little dot-game -- the sparkle-pattern -- "

He nodded. " 'Life' is a simple two-dimensional process that nevertheless has certain resemblances to the molecular biology of our living life. Suppose this game were extended to three physical dimensions and given an indefinitely large grid?"

She shook her head so that her hair flew out enticingly. Had she picked up that gesture from Tamme? "It would still be predetermined."

"As we are predetermined, according to certain philosophies. But it becomes extremely difficult to chart that course before the fact. Suppose a number of forms were present on that grid, interacting?"

"If their patterns got too large, they'd mess each other up. There's no telling what would happen then." She paused, his words sinking in. "It would still be predetermined by the initial figures and their relation to each other on the grid -- but too complicated to predict without a computer. Maybe there's no computer that could handle the job if the grid were big enough and the figures too involved. Anything could happen."

"And if it existed in four or five dimensions?"

She spread her hands. "I'm no mathematician. But I should think the possibilities would approach those of organic processes. After all, as you pointed out, enzymes in one sense are like little keys on the molecular level, yet they are indispensable to the life processes. Why not dot-pattern enzymes, building into -- " She paused again. "Into animate sparkle-clouds!"

"So we could have what amounts to independent, free-willed ent.i.ties," he finished. "Their courses may be predetermined by their initial configurations and framework -- but so are ours. We had better think of them as potentially sentient and deal with them accordingly."

"Which means establishing communication with them," she said. "It was a giant mental step, but at last I am with you." She looked down at the complex mess of her R Pentomino and blew out her cheeks.

"That's good," he said. "Because we need that machine -- and you seem to be able to control it. Bring it to the auditorium."

Aquilon struck a dramatic pose before the machine. "Come!" she commanded, gesturing imperatively. And it did.

"You know, I rather enjoy this," she confided as they walked.

Chapter 10.

PHASE.

OX was ready to fight. He now knew he was under observation by pattern-ent.i.ties resembling himself who declined to communicate with him. Had they merely been there, unaware of him, they would not have cut off their normal radiation shoots -- and since he had not cut off his, they had to know of him. So he was certain of his diagnosis.

His combat circuitry, laboriously developed in the process of restoring equilibrium, informed him that it would be nonsurvival to permit the outside patterns to learn of his change of condition. He therefore fashioned a pseudoplacid circuit whose purpose was to maintain normal radiation despite the internal changes. The observing patterns would thus receive no evidence of OX's real intent.

It was also probable that the outside patterns did not comprehend the significance of the spots. That was thus an a.s.set, for the spots had already proved themselves as both element-stimulators and sources of exterior information. In fact, the spots represented OX's major potential weapon. He had ascertained that they, like he, were of recent origin; they, like he, possessed the powers of growth and increased facility. According to the Ornet-Spot memory, the stationary stable Cub was a member of a type that had greater potential than many others. But this needed a great deal of time and concentration to develop. OX decided to exploit this potential.

Each alternate was separated from its neighbors by its phase of duration. OX had verified this by study of the elements he activated: They gradually matured as the plants charged them, and this maturation represented a constant within the individual frame. Even an element that had been activated and recharged many times still reflected its ancestry and age. But the equivalent elements of adjacent alternates differed, one frame always being newer than the other.

Since OX was a pattern having no physical continuity, this differential of alternates did not affect him except as it affected the elements. Generally the older, more established elements were more comfortable; fresh ones were apt to release their energy unevenly, giving him vague notions of nonsurvival.

That differential could, however, affect the spots, who were almost wholly physical. OX could move them from one frame to another as they were, allowing them to change in relation to their environment because of the shift in that environment -- as when he had moved them to a more favorable habitat. He could also, he discovered, modify the transfer so that the alternates remained fixed -- and the spots changed. He had done that when Cub perished before the blade of the machine. It was merely an aspect of crossover: A physical difference between creature and alternate always had to be manifest.

What it amounted to was a method for aging the spots. When OX moved them this way, they were forced to a.s.sume the duration they would have had, had they always existed there. Then he shifted them back, this time letting them be fixed while the frame seemed to change. It was an artificial process that cut the spots off from the untampered frames beyond the enclave -- but he was barred from that, anyway.

In this manner he brought the spots from infancy to maturity in a tiny fraction of the time they would normally have required. Of course to them it seemed as though their full span had pa.s.sed in normal fashion; only OX knew better. But he explained this to them and offered certain proofs for their observation, such as the apparent cessation of the growth of the fixed life around them, the immobile plants. Only those plants within the radius of the frame-travel advanced at the same rate. They discussed this with increasing awareness and finally believed.

The little machine, always hovering near, was also caught up in the progress. OX tried to leave it behind, but with inanimate cunning it moved in whenever it sensed his development of the complex necessary circuits, staying in phase. Originally it had been impervious to the spots' attacks; had they advanced without it, they would have been free of it one way or another, either by getting completely out of phase with it or by becoming large and strong enough to overcome it. Thus, they always had to be on guard against its viciousness.

OX also arranged education shoots that facilitated the expansion of awareness in the spots. Though this almost wholly occupied OX's available circuitry, it did not have a large effect on either Dec or Ornet. They seemed programmed to develop in their own fashions regardless of his influence. But for Cub it was most productive. Ornet's conjecture had been accurate: Cub had enormous potential, in certain respects rivaling OX's own. How this could be in a physical being OX could not quite grasp; he had to a.s.sume that Cub had a nonphysical component that actually made rationality feasible. At any rate, Cub's intellect was malleable, and OX's effort was well rewarded.

OX watched and guided according to his combat nature as Dec became large and swift, able to disable a semi-sentient animal with a few deadly snaps of his tail-appendage, able to receive and project complex information efficiently. He was the fastest-moving spot physically, useful for purely physical observations and communications.

Ornet served to protect and a.s.sist Cub -- but Ornet's memory clarified as he grew and offered many extraordinary insights into the nature of spots and frames that influenced OX's own development. Ornet, limited as he was physically, nevertheless had vested within him more sheer experience than any of the others, including OX himself. That was a tremendous a.s.set, like a stabilizing circuit, guiding him through potential pitfalls of nonsurvival. OX always consulted with Ornet before he made any significant decision.

But Cub was his best investment. He grew from a non-mobile lump to a slowly mobile ent.i.ty, then to a creature approaching Ornet in physical capability. His intellect became larger and larger. Soon he was grasping concepts that baffled both Dec and Ornet. Then, as he approached maturity, his reasoning ability interacted with OX's on something other than a teacher-pupil level. He began to pose questions that OX could not resolve -- and that in turn forced OX to ever-greater capacities.

What about the killer machine? Cub inquired once after they had driven it off. Do you think it gets lonely as we do? Doesn't it have needs and feelings, too?

The very notion was preposterous! Yet OX had to make a new circuit and concede that yes, in machine-terms, it would have needs and feelings, too, and perhaps was lonely for its own land.

Or maybe for sapience of any kind -- including ours? Cub persisted. Could it be that when it tries to consume us, it is really seeking intellectual dialogue, not aware that we do not integrate physically as it does?

OX had to allow that possibility, also. Still, he pointed out, it remains a deadly enemy to us all because we don't integrate as mechanical components. We can never afford to let down our guard.

But long after that dialogue, his circuits fibrillated with the intemperate concept. A machine, seeking intellectual dialogue. A machine!

Chapter 11.