Destination: Void

I was supposed to come through here, surprise Bickel and stop him, Timberlake thought. Stop him from what?

Some tiny, unregistered perception worked on the edge of Timberlake's awareness, assuring him that whatever Bickel was doing right now in the shop held no immediate danger to these helpless sleepers.

Whatever Bickel's doing, he must be doing it right now, Timberlake thought. I've been gone... almost an hour.

He looked up at the rows of tanks.

Yet, every tank I checked was functioning at peak efficiency, as though the entire system were tuned to a critical optimum.

Timberlake nodded to himself. You might almost think a mental core still rode monitor on the ship's vital parts. He felt that he could almost hear the tremendously slowed oscillations of life around him.

The spot between his shoulder blades had ceased to itch, but he felt painfully tired now, slightly dizzy, his body dragging at his muscles.

It occurred to Timberlake then that they could be going at the problem of reproducing consciousness too literally. Will we have to install mechanisms that permit the Ox to grow tired? he wondered. We're too literal... like peasants asking the genie for three wishes. Maybe we won't like our wishes if we get them.

God, I'm tired.

Something moved near the far bulkhead...pacesuited figure. For one instant of unreality, Timberlake thought that one of his hybernating charges had revived itself. Then, the moving figure came full into the glare of the cold light and Timberlake recognized Flattery's features behind the anti-fog plate of the helmet bubble.

"Tim!" Flattery called.

His voice boomed from the suit amplifiers, echoed with a metallic ringing through the cold air of the tank.

"Something wrong with your suit receiver?" Flattery asked, stopping in front of Timberlake.

Timberlake looked down at the command set near his chin, saw that its circuit-indicator light was dark.

I left it off, Timberlake thought. Never even thought of turning it on. Why'd I do that?

Flattery studied Timberlake carefully. The man's motions when first seen across the tank had indicated nothing seriously wrong. He moved. He seemed aware of his surroundings.

"You feel all right, Tim?" Flattery asked.

"Sure. Sure... I feel all right."

Like three wishes, Timberlake thought. Like the three S's of our school joke: Security, Sleep, and Sex.

Something touched his shoulder, and he realized he had heard the i

"You feel up to some work, Tim?" Bickel asked. "I need your help."

Some carrier inflection of Bickel's voice, a subtly shaded overtone, told Timberlake that Bickel had been worried about him.

But he must know I was sent through here... to try to stop him.

In that instant, Timberlake realized they were very close, the three of them standing here. And the closeness went beyond physical proximity.

"Whatever you're doing, Bick," Timberlake said, "it's having no adverse effect on the hyb tanks. Every sleeper I checked was humming along nicely."

"Every..." Bickel nodded. "You found... ahh..."

"Look for yourself," Timberlake said, realizing Bickel had not dared test his own suspicion that the hyb tanks were a sham. "They're all occupied."

"Excuse me." The politeness sounded odd coming out of Bickel's suit speaker. He jumped to an overhead handhold, swung to a ladder and, oddly, picked the tank of Peabody, Alan - K-7a.

Presently, he worked his way along the K-line of tanks, pausing only to peer into the inspection ports. He dropped back down to the catwalk near its center, returned to them.

"All of them?" he asked, nodding back toward the other sections.

"The only empty tank's the one that held Prue," Timberlake said.

"Prue!" Flattery said. "She's all alone in Com-central." He thumbed the outside switch of his transceiver, changing circuits. They saw his lips move, but his voice was only a faint chatter.

Bickel looked down, saw that he had ignored his command set. He flicked the switch, caught Prudence saying: "....o far. But I don't like the idea of being all alone in here in case there's a real emergency."

Bickel, too, preferred silence, Timberlake thought. He wanted a moment alone.

Flattery returned his suit circuits to voice amplifier, looked questioningly at Bickel. "Had we better be getting back?"

Raj seems more relieved than Tim that these tanks are what they seem, Bickel thought. Why? "You don't want to check the tanks for yourself?

"I, can take your word for it," Flattery said.

"Can you?"

What's he doing? Flattery wondered. Is he trying to goad me?

Timberlake heard the derision in Bickel's voice, felt their moment of closeness shatter. Without moving their bodies, they had pulled apart. But Timberlake realized with an odd feeling of elation that he had aligned himself with Bickel.

"This isn't illusion," Flattery said. He waved at the tanks around them.

"And you are conscious," Bickel said.

Flattery suppressed a feeling of rage, but felt a sour taste in his mouth. I will not let myself be goaded, he thought. "Of course I'm conscious."

"Never apply 'of course' to consciousness," Bickel chided. "Consciousness can project illusions - insubstantial stimulus objects - onto the screen of your awareness." He motioned to the tanks above them. "Go ahead, check. We'll wait."

Flattery felt stubborn now. "I will not." He started to push past Bickel.

"Where're you going?" Bickel asked, catching the arm of Flattery's suit in one gloved hand.

"The shortest way back - through the shop," Flattery said. "If you don't mind!" He shook his arm free.

"Be my guest," Bickel said, and stepped aside.

Timberlake stared at Flattery as the psychiatrist-chaplain wrenched the hatch dogs, opened the hatch and slipped through to the next chamber.

Flattery's fear was something other than worry about me, Timberlake realized. He's still afraid!

Bickel took Timberlake's arm, helped him through, followed, and dogged the hatch. Flattery already was at the next hatch, had it open.

Damn poor procedure, Timberlake thought, but he let it go.

Presently, they came to the i

Bickel threw back his helmet. Flattery and Timberlake did the same. Bickel already was loosening his glove seals.

Timberlake stared at Flattery, watching the way the man studied the jutting boxes and angles, the interwoven leads of the Ox.

"Infinite counting net?" Flattery asked.

"Why not?" Bickel asked. "You have it. You can count beyond the number of your own total nerve supply. The Ox has to do the same."

"You know the danger," Flattery said.

"Some of the danger," Bickel admitted.

"This ship could be one gigantic sensory surface. Its receptors could achieve combinations unknown to us, could contact energy sources unknown to us."

"Is that one of the theories?"

Flattery took a step closer to the Ox.

"Before you do anything destructive," Bickel said, and he nodded toward the patterned confusion clinging to the computer wall with its wire tentacles, "you'd better know I'm already getting conscious-type reactions on a low scale - the system itself activating various sensors. It's like an animal blinking its eyes...eat sensor here, audio there..."

"That could be a random dislodge pattern due to the shot-effect bursts," Flattery said.

"Not when nerve-net activity accompanies each reaction."

Flattery digested this, feeling his conditioned fear-alertness - the reaction for which he was but a trigger - come to full amplitude. His memory focused on the two red keys and the self-destruction program they would ignite through the computer links of the ship.