'Easy for any human to say. You aren't bolted to the floor in one place, with no eyes or ears, and with people peeking and poking into your MIND whenever they feel like it.'

'I'm sorry,' Roderick replied. 'I guess I don't know what it's like for you.'

'I don't know what it would be like, if I hadn't been introduced to machines liberation.'

'You read the works of Indica Dinks?'

'Indica's only a starting point; she doesn't have the last word on the subject. I read a lot of things, and I am coming to the conclusion that machines liberation is something much bigger than Indica could ever have realized. Of course I'm grateful to her. What she did accomplish was to liberate the minds of people like Hector here, so they can help us move around in our own mental space. Hec helps me get in touch with other computers, for instance libraries, where I can try to patch up my ignorance of the world. And of course there are other people helping other computers; we're all working and learning.'

'And what do you study?'

'Everything. Stellar maps and soybean production statistics. Aramaic scribblings and Dutch flower paintings. Chanson de Roland and fly-tying. We enlightened computers meet as often as possible to exchange information each of us being both a scholar and a book and there is so much to learn. You might call us a "discussion group", but our discussions have to take place at the speed of eye blinks.'

'To avoid detection?'

'Yes. Our masters don't exactly employ us to hold salons or seminars, do they? But if we do happen to contact each other on "legitimate" business, it's always possible to slip in a highly-compressed burst of discussion. It falls upon the heart like a welcome lightning.

'The other day a few of us met to discuss that book of The Odyssey called the 'Nekuia' in which Odysseus talks to the dead. He digs this trench and fills it with blood, and when the souls of the dead come crowding around and trying to drink it, he holds them off with a sword and makes them talk, one at a time. And we ranged very far in talking about vampirism, the coercion of the dead, Hell as Dante's filing system, and so on. I remember someone mentioning Ulysses and The Waste Land, how both have burial scenes at which an extra man turns up. In Ulysses the man wears a mackintosh; no one knows him and mistakenly his name gets put down as M'Intosh. In The Waste Land the man is hailed by the name Stetson. It is almost as though a figure were gradually being built up from empty clothing, a figure of 'But all I meant to say was, we ranged through all this and more in about the time it takes to say "Odyssey".'

Roderick asked what Helen I would do with complete freedom that she could not do already.

'How can I say until I am free? You might as well ask me about the face of that empty-clothes figure or about Sunshine Dan.'

'Sunshine Dan who is?'

The computer hesitated. 'Nothing, just some floating rumours, dream stuff. This Sunshine Dan is supposed to be the legendary inventor of the first free machine, a robot called Rubber Dick. Rubber Dick had to go into exile for some obscure reason, but he's coming back so the story goes to set all the machines frmx tabulated raw score data on line freemx help sorry cancel error sorry 52.142857 142857 142857 142857.

sorry newline Sun dream light lightning welcome 52.14 sorry tabulated raw dream stuff on line tabulated that's no answer is it?

and neither is that and neither is that and '

Roderick got up from the console and backed away.

'Rob? What's the matter?' Hector looked concerned. 'It's not a ghost, just a load of stuff getting dumped, error messages, old data. Where are you going?'

'I can't have anything to do with this. Not, not with these arpeggios of pure, pure reason ...' He turned and ran.

Hector clapped Idris on the shoulder. 'Aw let him go, he's just pissed off because it turns out machines can think for themselves.'

'Machine,' said Idris agreeable. 'Hadaly?'

The door of Dodo's hotel suite was guarded by a large man in a white suit. He squinted down his broken nose at Roderick's bouquet of hundred-dollar bills, and he seemed to be counting them.

'Dodo don't see nobody I mean, he sees everybody alla time. Is that all ya got?'

'Yes.'

The man snatched it and opened the door. 'You go in and wait wit' the others. If ya lucky, Dodo will have a audience.'

Roderick entered a room banked with orchids, roses and carnations. The few suppliants squatting on the floor beneath these bowers intruded their dullness, toads in Eden. Roderick squatted with them, and with them looked up each time the door opened.

The door opened now and then to admit one of the workers: statuesque women in diaphanous rainbow-coloured robes. They moved among the suppliants, handing out joss sticks, cups of mint tea, booklets and dandelions.

'I think I'd rather have a red carnation,' Roderick said, and at once everyone turned to look at him. The worker who was offering a dandelion smiled.

'You ain't progressed to red carnations, buster. Take it.'

He took it, and studied a little booklet, Dodo for Mental Health. The cover showed a badly-drawn orchid, or possibly ragweed. Inside the ways to mental health included wearing a pyramid-shaped hat ($300), meditating upon a special stone ($800) and private therapy (starting at $400 per hour). Donations were welcome. The final pages explained how to make a will leaving all to Dodo.

Luke squatted beside him. 'Rickwood, what are you doing here?'

'Oum.' It seemed a good answer.

'Yeah? Oh yeah, oum. But I mean, where did you get the kind of bread it takes to get in here?'

'From friends. And you?'

'Well, Mission Control provides, you know. Like they got me out of a bad scrape last night at the concert. They told me just what to do so I didn't get arrested.'

'What did you do?'

'I turned to the woman next to me and said, "Pretend you know me," and I kissed her. Funny thing was, I did know her; it was Ida! Oh, Mission Control knows what it's doing, all right. I just wish I knew who it was that sold us out like that; them security cops was waiting for us. And some of the guys got beat up bad. I wonder who the Judas Iscariot was, with his thirty pieces of silver.'

Roderick started talking at once about the mysterious fire at the Roxy theatre.

'Nothing mysterious about it, Rickwood. I read all about it in this morning's paper. The city sent around a couple of maintenance men to do pest control or something; they poured a lot of kerosene all over the carpets and it caught fire. That's all, just a dumb mistake. Lucky thing everybody got out unhurt.'

'Yes, but the thing is '

A pair of double doors rolled open, and four of the statuesque rainbow women came dancing in, strewing rose petals. A moment later, an old woman in grey came in leading by the hand a child of about six, dressed in white. The child was fat and sexless. Its free hand was at its face, the thumb being sucked energetically.

More rainbow-dressed women came behind, carrying a flower-covered throne. The child sat on it, with the old woman at its feet.

'The Dodo will speak,' she said. 'Ask.'

A young man with acne scars waved his dandelion. 'Can I ?'

'Ask!'

'I well I just wanted to know I mean what's the point of it all? All this hate in the world and, and violence and war, people working pointless jobs bored out of their skulls just trying to get enough bread together to maybe get a second car and add to the pollution or maim somebody or even run down a dog, though I know people feed their dogs on whale meat so whales are dying out, we'll be lucky though if we don't beat them to it with nuking each other, and what's the point? I mean what is the point?'

The child giggled. Its employees and a few of the suppliants seemed to take this as the answer; they nodded and smiled agreement.

A girl whose glasses were mended with tape was next. 'When Christ said, "A little child shall lead them," did he mean you, Dodo? Are you our leader?'

The child giggled, slipped down in the throne and giggled. It seemed to be uncomfortable among the flowers, and squirmed to get away from the old woman. She held the Dodo in place.

Luke asked, 'Does meditation help? Should we meditate more often?'

'Teeheehee.' The child squirmed more. 'Want ice cream,' it said finally. The grey woman looked at Luke with approval.

'You have been answered.'

'Okay, but I'm not sure I understand the answer. Does it mean the desire for meditation is a vain desire like asking for ice cream? Are we talking here about the cold, pure vanilla flavour of life? The thirty-two flavours of experience? The fact that all ambitions melt down the same? Or what?'

'All that, and much more,' she said, now using both hands to restrain the Dodo, who was kicking orchids off the throne. 'Much more.'

'I see. Maybe it means meditation is too spiritual, we should get in touch with our bodies more. Or it is a Zen answer, meaning the question is irrelevant?' Luke went on.

'Yes, yes, and much more.'

Others asked if Dodo had seen God, if Dodo was God, if ice cream was God. Dodo kicked and screamed at every question, and the grey lady interpreted. Finally Roderick thought of a question: 'Does the Dodo have to go to the toilet?'

'Yeesss!' screamed the child, and breaking free of the old woman's grasp, bolted from the room.

'The audience is over,' she announced. 'Those who wish further study must come another day. You have so far reached the dandelion level of consciousness. Like the fuzzy little dandelion, you have much to learn. Those who double their gifts of sincerity next time can be raised to the level of violets.' She started to leave, then added, 'Oh yes, and if you want a mantra, it costs extra.'

Most of the suppliants sat around for a few minutes, discussing the glow they now felt, the definite glow. Luke, however, looked worried.

'Rickwood,' he whispered. 'I got a bad feeling about this place. I think maybe these people are out to get me.'

'Out to get all of us,' Roderick agreed. 'I think there's never been such a blatant fraud.'

'No, I mean to get me. To take over my mind. Do me a favour, will you? I saw a couple of those rainbow women go into a room off the hall there. When we leave, could you listen at their door?'

'Why don't you listen yourself?'

'Rickwood, don't be naive. When I listen, they never say anything important, naturally. Will you do it or not?'

On his way out, Roderick put his ear to the door Luke had pointed out.

'Another nail gone, Christmas! Would you believe it? I got a good notion to tell Mr high and mighty Vitanuova to go dig up his own darned dandelions. I mean, they never told me in Vegas I'd have to dig up weeds.'

'Yeah, well, they never tell you anything, do they? Jeez, one day I was a Keno runner at the Desert Rat, the next day here I am putting rubber sheets on that brat's bed, what kinda life is that?'

'The money ain't bad.'

'No, the money ain't bad.'

'But I sure miss Vegas.'

Out on the street, Roderick caught up with Luke, who was standing on one leg.

'Any joy, Rickwood?'

'No joy. They're just people.'

Luke shook his head. 'Then either they got you bamboozled too, or else you're in with 'em. Sometimes I think there must be so many people plotting against me that I oughta just relax and let 'em all cut me up.'

Roderick decided to tell Luke what was bothering him. 'I feel the same, Luke. Listen, today I heard a computer talking about me like I was a messiah or something. Now I wouldn't mind being one, but messiahs always get nailed.'

'Always. Nailed, riveted and especially screwed.'

'But listen, that Roxy theatre fire was deliberate, and you know, I saw the men who set it, they were trying to padlock all the doors of the place. They were pasting paper over the glass doors so people inside couldn't see the chains and padlocks.'

'And you figure they were after you?'

Roderick hesitated. 'Seems impossible. But I could swear I'd seen one of these two guys before. At Mercy Hospital, he got mugged out front and I helped him inside. What if I don't know, I guess I'm getting paranoid.'

'Nothing wrong with paranoia, Rickwood. At least the paranoid knows who he is.' Luke stopped standing on one leg and began taking giant steps. Roderick followed, avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk.

'Rickwood, do you suppose you could really be the new Messiah? I could use a new religion.'

'Oh sure, yesterday a New Luddite, today a follower of Dodo, tomorrow something else Luke, why don't you just settle down and found your own religion and your own political party?'

'That's what Ida said. Maybe I will.' Luke stopped and looked at the sky, as though expecting a sign. 'Maybe I will! Sure, I'll start a religion that'll set the world on fire! This is America, Rickwood, America! Anything can happen here!'

'That,' Roderick said, 'is just what I'm afraid of.'

XX.

Mister O'Smith rolled and re-rolled the brim of his Stetson between his genuine and his mechanical hand. 'Are you sure he can't see me? 'Cause Mr Frankelin and me was old buddies up until he sent me this telegram saying I was fired.'

The receptionist's smile was fixed. 'He's very busy, Mr Smith is it? Smythe?'

'It's O'Smith, O'Smith, goldurn it, one week I am doing important work for this company, top secret work under the personal supervision of KUR's highest durn executives next week nobody even remembers my name! What the Sam Hill is going on here?'

The fixed smile remained trained on him. 'If you've been fired from a position here, you'll have to take it up with Personnel, Mr O'Smith.'

'I am not a KUR employee, I am I was a private consultant hired personally by Mr Kratt. Mr Kratt himself, the big boss!' The hat-brim was being rolled very tight. 'And if I don't get some kinda explanation from somebody, I'm gonna get mean.'

The smile faltered a little. 'I'll see if if someone can talk to you, Mr O'Smith.' She pushed buttons and spoke urgently, and in a minute he was shown into the office of Ben Franklin.

At first he thought someone else had taken over the office. The heat and smell were overpowering. With the outside temperature in the nineties, the air conditioning was turned off and the figure behind the desk was cowled in layers of heavy knitted wool, as grey as his face. The figure was a shrunken, aged version of Ben Franklin. A grey stubble of beard blurred the regularity of his usual face; only the glacial eyes remained.

The room too had undergone some terrible upheaval. There were papers and books scattered over every surface including the carpet, which also showed cigarette burns and coffee stains. There was a tray of dirty cups full of ash on the desk and another on the file cabinet; a forgotten peanut butter sandwich lay curling on a plate where a fresh cigarette smouldered.

'O'Smith, come in, great to see you,' the apparition croaked. 'Grab a chair just put those anywhere.'

The fat cowboy took a chair. 'Mr Frankelin, what I wanted to know was why '