Novelas:Conformity



Kari Woz turned her face away from the view portal of the flux chamber and waited for her eyes to adapt to the change in incident light. Now her peripheral vision was exposed the glare being emitted from the chamber, and by force of will she tried to make some hint of motion or change in luminosity occur at the heart of the teleportation experiment. But, as always, her wishes had no effect on the laws of physics. With a sense of disappointment made no less painful by years of repetition, she let all hopes for success in this experiment slip away. She pulled off her heavily polarized goggles and started taking small shuffling steps towards the lab bench as her high acuity vision began to recover.

Suddenly the room went dark and Dr. Woz stood perfectly still. "What-" That single word escaped the control exerted by her disciplined mind. Very little ever came as a surprise to Kari Woz, but now her heart rate quickly doubled as she spun and turned back towards the quartz window of the chamber. The inside of the chamber now seemed completely dark. The gauge that reported the level of bombardment flux still indicated that energy was pouring into the chamber. Then why no light from the particle interactions? Woz quickly saw why. The pressure indicator was now back at one atmosphere -somehow the vacuum had collapsed. And the air temperature in the chamber was now rising rapidly as the bombardment energy was being converted into heat.

Woz rushed to the lab bench and started pounding on the keys of the master control computer terminal. Within seconds the particle beams for the experiment were deflected away from the chamber. Woz realized that the delicate liquid crystal detectors in the chamber were in danger being fractured by the heat. The only way to quickly cool the inside of the chamber was to pop open the access hatch.

The access hatch was in the floor of the chamber. Woz ran out of the control room, down the hall to the stair well, down to the sub-basement. The utility room held "dump targets" for the particle beams and the door would not open when the dumps were in use. Woz checked the radiation meters: they showed the expected exponential decay since the experiment had been terminated. The radiation levels were still in the yellow zone, and normally the door would not open, but Woz could do a yellow zone over-ride. She pounded the codes into the data pad and the door hydrolics started cycling. It took twelve seconds to retract the door.

Woz had nothing to do for ten seconds and time finally seemed to slow for the first time since the experiment had gone bad. She noticed that she was breathing hard and her muscles were twitching in response to the panic hormones leaking into her blood. She slipped a hand into the crack between the door and the wall as the door continued its slow, steady retraction. As she forced her face into the widening gap she wondered how the chamber could have pressurized so rapidly. One moment the chamber had held a high vacuum. How long had it taken to turn and read the gauges?

Suddenly Woz was able to squeeze through and run towards the access hatch. Maybe the hatch had blown? Ignoring the set of steel steps, Woz vaulted up to the platform under the access hatch. She quickly confirmed that the hatch was still sealed and so she had to turn the wheel on the hatch to release the interlocks. The hatch started to swing down, its motion restricted by heavy springs. There was an immediate sensation of warmth emanating from the interior of the chamber, but she began to think how best to force cool air up through the opening. Vaguely, she recalled some fans near the dumps, but before she could go in search of them, an arm dropped out of the chamber.

At first, Woz was startled as if she had just found a bug in her breakfast, but then she was struggling to grab on to the sweaty body that tumbled out of the chamber. Before thought became possible, Woz found herself sprawled in a tangled heap under the lanky body of a panting, trembling girl. Woz struggled into sitting position and looked into the girl's flushed face and fear-filled eyes. Odd sounds came from the girl's mouth and she started gesturing weakly towards Woz. Quickly recovering her rational thought processes, Woz spoke fragments of all the languages she knew, but the girl responded to nothing Woz said. Finally the girl stopped babbling, sat up and looked around at the clutter of cables, pipes and equipment in the utility room.

As reflexive bewilderment faded, Woz finally allowed herself to acknowledge what had happened. The teleportation experiment had been success, but rather than retrieve the microscopic target sample from the mirror chamber on the far side of the asteroid, an entire chamber full of spacetime had been grabbed from somewhere else. Woz suspected that there was no subadult closer than Archeworld and she wondered if such a massive teleportation could have happened over such a vast interplanetary distance. She had never fully accepted the idea that the governing class of Archeworld consisted of invaders from a parallel universe. But if that was true, if people really could move between universes, then such inter-universe travel was a possible explanation for what had materialized in the teleportation chamber.

Woz stood up and held out a hand to the girl. "Come on. Get up."

The girl took one last look around then reached up and took Kari's hand.

Woz kept a firm grip on the girl's hand and jammed the thumb of her other hand into her own chest. "Koz". She then pointed at the girl who understood and said, "Dana. My name is Dana."

Koz assumed that "Dana" was a name and tried to give a reassuring smile. "Okay, Dana. Nice of you to drop in. Now let's see if we can figure out where you came from."

Chapter 2



Dana took Kari's hand and got to her feet, none too steadily. She quickly realized that the force of gravity was too low, but she estimated that it was closer to Earth normal than to the one sixth gee of the Moon. Kari turned and stepped off of the platform, gracefully falling four feet to the floor, her long dark hair sailing behind like a tail.

Dozens of thoughts continued to rise in Dana's mind, including thoughts of alien abduction and desire for clothing. Dana was vaguely comforted that Kari was also naked and seemed quite in control, without being at all threatening. Kari turned and looked up towards Dana. Obviously impatient, Kari gave a brief wave of her hand and spoke more of a language that Dana did not recognize. Dana shuffled her feet over the metal surface of the platform and descended the set of steps, keeping one of her hands on the hand rail.

Kari turned and led the way across the room past jumbles of fascinating machinery, pipes and bundles of colored wires. Several times Dana had the sensation that someone was moving around, off in the distance, but her quick glances revealed no others in the large room besides Kari. They passed through the doorway into an ugly, utilitarian hallway. Although the air was warm, the floor felt distinctly cool against Dana's feet, as did her wet hair against her back. Kari began to move even faster along the open length of the hallway and Dana had to concentrate on establishing a productive gait in the low gravity.

The hallway ended at a monorail where Kari stepped down into a waiting car and sat on a bench along the far side of the car. Dana looked up and down the rail but was disoriented by the strange pattern of lights stretching of in both directions down the tunnel. Dana sat down opposite from Kari and began to notice the transparent dome of the car's windshield. The car accelerated rapidly down the track and the bench seemed to grow tentacles that clung to her torso and held her in place.

Dana saw that Kari was relaxing back into the cushion of the bench as it grew extensions to support her back. Dana tried to do the same, but she quickly grew alarmed at the dizzying rate of the car's movement through the tunnel. The car's acceleration stopped and then reversed. Dana shifted around to face the direction they had come and found that view less inducing of vertigo.

Dana realized that she was being watched by Kari and the two girls locked eyes. Something in Kari's eyes was in conflict with her otherwise youthful appearance. Slowly Dana realized that Kari had fine wrinkles around her eyes and mouth and her eyes did not have the pure clarity of a healthy adolescent. Dana also sensed that there was something odd about the size or shape of Kari's head but it was hard to tell exactly what was under her somewhat unruly mop of hair.

Suddenly the tunnel ended and the car popped out into the open. At first Dana was captivated by the dark, star-filled sky then she became aware of being in the midst of a strange city that seemed to glow with a hundred subtle fluorescent shades. Dana could not put the scale of glowing city into perspective until the car stopped and she stepped out onto a grass-covered slope next to Kari's house. Dana now realized that they were in more of a village than a city and as her mental model adapted she realized that they were in a cavern, not on the surface of a world.

The exterior of the house looked like a cross between a coral reef and child's sand castle and glowed with the light of thousands of nearly random patches of pastel colors. There was a subtle pattern in the colors that seemed like some kind of camouflage, or what might pass for camouflage in a Dr. Seuss storybook setting. As they approached the front to the house, the door slid open and a bipedal robot stepped out to greet Kari. Kari and the robot embraced then turned back to look at Dana. Still standing with an arm around each other's back, Kari and the robot discussed Dana.

Dana quickly decided that the robot had been purposefully designed to not look exactly like a human. Most obviously, the robot had stylized hermaphroditic features, but there were also subtle blendings of features from other species, including pointed, cat-like ears. The machine's movements were inhuman; it appeared that it could bend its body and limbs at any point. When it spoke it emitted a nearly comical mechanical rasping that imitated human speech without any apparent motion of its mouth.

The robot then performed a kind of ritual, quickly advancing close to Dana, dropping its head in a formalized bow and holding out a hand. Dana was both repulsed and enchanted by a double row of blinking lights that were now visible on the bald dome of its head and the hairless, mannequin-like hand. Slowly, Dana took hold of hand and felt it grow around her own hand, just as the bench seat in the monorail car had grown around her body. Glancing down, she saw continuing small adjustments in the shape of the robots' hand as it reacted to her own movements. The robot spoke a short passage and then lifted its head. Now at close range, Dana could assess the inhuman qualities of its rectangular, monochrome eyes. At a distance, Dana could imagine that the eyes were sunglasses, but up close it was clear that they were not detachable covers. The machine pointed at Dana and said, "Dana," then gestured at itself and said, "Toleha." The robot then turned and went into the house. Kari gestured towards the door and Dana followed the machine through the doorway.

Dana quickly adapted to routine of Kari's home, although it was hard to really think much in terms of routine when every day brought new surprises and discovery. Dana learned that Toleha was Kari's companion robot. Dana was given her own companion, a device that called itself "Ayer". Dana and Ayer spent their days learning each others language and exploring the village. Dana learned that Kari was the only human living in the village, but that the village was part of an asteroid. There was one other human, "Ysselen Timbles", who lived on the far side of the asteroid where there was another laboratory that participated with Kari's lab in the teleportation experiments.

The hardest thing for Dana to adapt to was lack of privacy. The idea of a private room seemed totally unknown to Kari. Once or twice a day Kari and Toleha would have what Dana could only label as an "intimate session", apparently with no thought to where or when, and most often on the grassy front yard when Kari returned from the laboratory. Ayer was always with Dana unless she ordered the robot to stay away. Starting the day of her arrival in the asteroid, there were daily visits by another robot, "Ysselen Bwhuc", who took biological samples from both Dana and Kari. As Dana's ability to communicate with Ayer grew, she came to understand that Ysselen Bwhuc was watching for possible pathogenic microbial transfer between Kari and Dana. It became clear to Dana that Kari's only interest in her was in trying to determine where Dana had come from. Dana learned that "Ysselen" was the equivalent of "Doctor" and that Kari was "Ysselen Kari Woz", professionally a research physicist. Dana felt as if she were little more than a new phase of Kari's teleportation research.

Finally Dana realized that she could move to one of the other houses in the village. Nothing was very far away. Of course, Ayer continued as a constant companion. The visits by Ysselen Bwhuc continued and as Dana's language abilities improved, Kari and Dana spent more time talking. Finally on evening, just as the dome of the village chamber was shifting from its daylight simulation into night, both Kari and Ysselen Timbles arrived at the door of Dana's house.

By this point, Ayer had acquired an amazingly good ability to speak and understand English. Dana had a basic understanding of one of the languages that was common on Archeworld. Dana had learned that while Archeworld was amazingly similar to Earth in terms of geography and even biology, cultural artifacts such as languages were quite different. Ayer had introduced Dana to a multiverse theory that suggested the possibility that Earth and Archeworld may have been one and the same until there was a bifurcation into two daughter universes, possibly as recently as 20 or 30 thousand years ago.

Dana, Ayer, Kari and Dr. Timbles sat down and the three humans made themselves comfortable. Another household robot brought bottle of liquid nutrient solutions that passed as both meals and refreshment. Dr. Timbles had the appearance of a middle-age man, but Dana knew he was nearly 150 years old. The technology of Archeworld was more advanced than that of Earth. Dana had learned that Kari was 58 years old, but as was common practice, she was living the first part of her professional life with her physiological development arrested in adolescence. Dr. Timbles was on the back side of his career as a physicist, having raised children at mid-life then entered into a final age-delaying phase that might last another century. Dr. Timbles said, "Ayer has told me all about your world "Earth", no doubt a parallel of our home world. Please tell me in detail what happened just before you came to this universe. Did you notice anything strange?"

Dana had often tried to remember something unusual about the moments before she moved between universes. She had been over this dozens of times with both Ayer and Kari, but she went through it all one more time for Dr. Timbles. Dana explained that she had been wrapped in her bath towel, just about to reach for her hair dryer and then there was a flash of light. She lost her balance and fell.

Dr. Timbles turned to Kari, "Exactly what matter was teleported into your chamber?"

Kari ran down the list that they were all well aware of: Dana, the bath towel, a slice from the edge of a wooden and plastic cabinet, on oval-shaped piece of carpet and the chunk of floor that Dana had been standing on and the air that had been around Dana. "Judging by Earth-normal air pressure and the somewhat lower pressure we maintain here, the total volume transported was about three quarters of the volume of the teleportation chamber."

Dr. Timbles asked, "There was no structural damage to the chamber?"

Once again, Kari reviewed the damage. Fearing she was trapped, Dana had tried pounding on the inside of the chamber and had shattered some of the detectors that formed the inner lining. Other than that, the chamber showed no signs of damage or malfunction. In the following weeks the chamber had been returned to operation and was functioning normally.

Dr. Timbles muttered, "Too many coincidences." He turned back to Dana, "Did you strike your head? Did you lose consciousness?"

Dana thought not. "I collapsed in the chamber, and it was very disorienting to be suddenly in the dark and in a strange place, but I was not hurt. At first I thought there had been an earthquake or an explosion. I feared that I had been blinded and as the temperature rose I worried that there was a fire, but I smelled no smoke. I heard no sounds. It got very hot, and by the time the hatch opened I thought I would be roasted alive, but I did not lose consciousness and I was able to crawl out of the chamber."

Dr. Timbles stood up then began to pace across the room. "There is no theoretically plausible way to explain this as a chance event. But if this is a trick of the Chimys, what can the possibly be thinking?"

Dana was surprised to hear Dr. Timbles mention the Chimys. Dana had discussed the Chimys with both Ayer and Kari and had the impression that the Chimys were like Leprechauns. The legendary Chimys were beings who could travel between universes, moving people and other objects between universes much in the way an artist might paint a picture with a pallet of colors.

An awkward quite settled in the room and Dana decided this was her chance to ask some questions. "Ayer has started teaching me physics, but I still do not understand where the boundary is between speculation and what has been confirmed. For example, in the teleportation experiments, is there a viable theory for how it might work?"

Dr. Timbles grumbled, "Do you think the vast investment in this asteroid laboratory would have been made without a sound theoretical basis?"

Dana shrugged. "I'm not challenging the validity of your experiments." She asked Ayer, "Can you bring up that dimensional structure diagram we were looking at yesterday?" Ayer, like all of the other robots could always be used like a computer terminal. In a moment Ayer provided a flexible display screen showing the structure. "Now, as I understand this, each vertex in the diagram represents a dimension in spacetime. The junctional point here in the center represents time. The three vertices of this shaded triangle represent the tree extended spatial dimensions. The highlighted vertices can be thought of as some of the collapsed spatial dimensions. Normally, this dimensional structure is stable, but under some conditions the structure of spacetime can become unstable, allowing unusual physics.

Kari completed the line of the argument, "Unusual physics such as the movement of matter between two distant points in space."

Dana asked, "But how would that be possible?"

Dr. Timbles replied, "Theoretically, the kind of rupture shown in this diagram could allow matter to use a triplet of collapsed dimensions as a conduit for transport to another location in extended spacetime. The technical problem is that there is no known way to create such a rupture."

Kari had to disagree. "There are models that explain neutrino oscillations as a consequence of spontaneous ruptures in spacetime."

Dr. Timbles snorted, "Bah!. There are far simpler explanations of neutrino oscillations."

Kari replied quietly, "The simple explanation is not always correct."

Dana was not interested in the disputes of particle physicists. She tried to keep the conversation focused on the problem of accounting for her own travel. "Is it possible that this kind of rupture in the structure of space time could allow connections to form between nearby universes?"

Kari asked, "What do you mean by 'nearby universes'?" If there really is a multiverse, then there must be a vast array of universes with many closer to this one than yours."

Dr. Timbles asked, "What is the best estimate of the point of divergence?"

Ayer replied, "With 97 percent of the sequencing complete, the best estimate is that the 'Earth' universe has been isolated from our universe for 28,500 years." Many of the buildings in the village were concerned with biology and keeping a supply of food available and the air composition balanced. In addition to facilities for keeping the asteroid's artificial ecology in balance, there was a robot-staffed biomedical lab that had undertaken the task of completely sequencing Dana's DNA and that of all the microbes that had come with her from Earth.

If Dana's transfer from the parallel universe of Earth has been a chance event, how had it so cleanly extracted just the perfectly sized part of her universe so as to contain a living person? And why Dana's universe been connected to this universe when there had to be so many "closer" universes? But were there closer universes? Kari raised the issue of multiverse inertia. "In some models, divergent universes are not stable and they tend to merge. Depending on how you fudge the variables, you can get mean times of divergence from microseconds to millions of years."

Dr. Timbles stopped his pacing and flopped down in a chair. "Fantasy! Nothing but fantasy."

Dana decided it would be impossible to irritate Dr. Timbles to a greater degree, so she might as well not stop. "Ayer showed me one theory in which there can be at most three parallel universes. What if we now know them all: Earth's universe, this universe, and the universe of 'Uberworld'?"

Dr. Timbles threw his hands into the air above his head. "Its nothing but numerology for people who cannot count past three."

Kari also had never been sympathetic to such "numerology", but she wanted to give Dana a chance to say what was on her mind. "So where are you going with this? What if these are the only three universes?"

Dana replied, "Well, then that solves one of the big mysteries; why my universe was selected. To explain the rest of the mystery, we can assume that there is some agent, and we might as well call it 'Chimys', and we have to ask why that agent would have selected me to bring over to this universe."

Kari played along, "And why you were deposited here in the teleportation chamber."

Dana nodded. "Right. Good question. I've never understood this place. I have to assume there is some danger from the experiments that are done here, that it was felt there is a need to isolate this work and risk as few people as possible here."

Dr. Timbles and Kari seemed lost in thought so Ayer joined into the conversation. "There are many wild stories about the 'Uberworld invasion'. One story is that Uberworld had developed teleportation technology and that it is what allowed the invasion to happen. But in that story, the invasion started with a catastrophic accident. Some suggest that Uberworld has, in fact, been made uninhabitable by the accident and the survivors had no choice but to swarm through a portal to Archeworld."

Dana asked, "So the fear is that the experiments being conducted here might fracture spacetime and....what? Destroy this entire asteroid?"

"Or make another inter-universe invasion possible." Dr. Timbles stood up again and gestured towards Dana, "But all we got was you." He turned to Kari, "And we still have to figure out what we are going to do when the Melsha get here."

All Dana knew about the 'Melsha' was that they were a super secret police force for the invaders from Uberworld. So secret that many people did not believe they existed. Dana asked, "The Melsha are coming here?"

Kari replied, "Our radar had detected an inbound ship, but they have not communicated with us. The ship is not sending out the normal navigational beacon signals of freighters. I have to guess we are going to be visited by Melsha agents. All of our data are automatically transmitted to Archeworld, and the timing is right if this ship left there shortly after you dropped in."

Dr. Timbles excused himself and went off to sleep, exhausted from the long tube trip from the far side of the asteroid and the tiresome nature of the translations and counter translations that had been required during their discussions.

Kari followed Dr. Timbles to the door of Dana's house then let the door close behind Dr. Timbles and she turned back to Dana. "If you had a choice would you rather stay here or go to Archeworld?"

Dana did not like the idea of dealing with Melsha agents, particularly if they were the secret police of a fascist central government that originated as inter-universe invaders who had essentially enslaved the entire population of Archeworld. "Will I have a choice?"

"Of course not." Kari opened the door to depart, but then added mischievously, "Sleep well."

Chapter 3

Dana ordered Ayer not to follow her and she left her house to go for a run around the village. After one lap around the the circumference of the chamber Dana knew that her anxieties called for some serious medicine. She turned into the monorail terminal and started running down the tunnel of the rail line. As usual, after going a short distance down the tunnel she was confronted by a robot. From past experience she knew that there was no way to avoid this little ritual.

The robot said, "Hello Dana."

Dana tried to guess which robot this was. "Flefle? Oh, its Purl. I'm going to run down the tunnel a mile or two then return."

Purl positioned its body to block the way ahead. "It is not safe to be in this tunnel. Please go back to the village."

Dana tried to imitate the tone that Kari used when giving an order to a robot. "I order you to stop all rail traffic. I will be back in less than an hour. Let me pass."

The robot moved against the tunnel wall and said, "I will come with you".

Dana started down the tunnel, "No, I want to be alone. You will wait here."

After about five minutes Dana was enjoying the freedom of running in the low artificial gravity of the asteroid. The asteroid had been "spun up" to speed so as to provide three quarters of the gravity on Archeworld. The food produced by the robots in the village was laced with special hormones that kept human muscle mass adjusted for Archeworld gravity, which meant that physical activity always seemed free and easy to Dana.

But tonight she wished it was easier to run herself into a state of exhaustion. She was very disturbed by the prospect of secret police goons coming to take her into custody and she was even mad at Kari for having joked about the uncomfortable position Dana was in. For the past week Dana had felt like she was starting to understand Kari and that they were slowly establishing a friendship, but what did they really have in common? Was Dana anything more than an inconvenient datum?

Dana leaped over the rail and headed back towards the village, now running on the other side of the tunnel. Her thoughts went down a path that was familiar but that she preferred to avoid. Why me? Why was I ripped out of my own world and dumped here? She lacked the capacity to imagine that chance could account for such an event. There had to be a reason why she had been brought here. She tried to imagine a future in which she was taken to Archeworld and forced to become a cog in the social machine that had been established by a governing elite that apparently exercised strict control in this universe. She found it hard to imagine a more futile existence. What was the noble thing to do under such circumstances? Could she allow herself to live as a slave? An even worse possibility occurred to Dana. What if she became a specimen, a displayed alien life form from another universe, a freak of nature to be studied or exhibited?

Dana slowed to a walk as she returned to where Purl stood waiting for her return. Purl turned and walked along with Dana towards the village. After she caught her breath, she asked the robot, "Does it bother you to be a machine with no control over your life?"

Dana had asked such questions of Ayer and knew what kind of response to expect. Purl replied, "I'm glad to be able to provide for the needs of Kari and yourself. I have served Ysselen Timbles off and on for well over a century. I know that Ayer has previously explained the relationship between robots and humans."

Dana found it convenient to vent her frustrations on the machine. "Oh, come on, are you saying that you have no personal perspective on anything, that you can only provide the same mechanical answers that Ayer provides? Are you admitting that you are just a drone?"

They had reached the rail terminal and Dana leaned against one of the two rail cars docked there. Purl replied, "You leave me with little room to reply. You will twist anything I say to fit your belief that robots cannot have a human-like mind."

Dana chuckled. "I'm more interested in actions than anything else and the way you robots act is not human. If you were human you would do something interesting with your life, not hang around in rail tunnels waiting to tell people to get off the tracks."

Dana suffered through the robot's mechanical laugh. "Ha ha ha." Like their eyes, the laughs of the robots were purposefully made non-human. "If you must know, I do not spend my days waiting here for you. When you went for a run it was possible to predict that you would want to run in one of the tunnels. Flefle went to the L Tube and I came here."

Dana shook her head in disbelief. "That's exactly what I mean. If you has a mind and self-control you would want more out of life than spending you days tending to humans who might be stupid enough to get run over in rail tunnel."

Purl suggested, "Maybe you do not appreciate what life is like for a robot. I have existed longer than any living human. My memories extend back into the lives of earlier robots. Yet, even if you would think of my life as having been long and boring, I expect to live for many thousands of years. Humans are born with many instincts for being human. We robots are engaged in an extended research project to learn about humans and make what is learned available to robots. While your kind does fear the idea of robots being too human, you do want us to understand what it is to be human. I personally agree that it is important to observe humans and advance the goal of better robot understanding of humans."

Dana frowned, "I assume you do know that humans do not like the idea of being studied."

Purl produced a mechanical nod. "In one sense that is true, however, there are other conflicting truths. Humans like to feel important and it is a rare human who objects to having their wishes satisfied by an attentive robot. Of course, you are an unusual case. I suppose you are still adapting to the reality of being around robots. You probably resent having to spend so much time with robots rather than humans. For that reason alone it will be good for you to be taken to Archeworld."

Dana complained, "I imagine there are million robots who all know every facet of my personal life."

Purl emitted the stereotypical noise used to indicate when a robot was making a guess, "Ahhhh, I suspect that the concept of a 'personal life' is more highly developed in your universe -on your world Earth- than it is here. In the current social system of Archeworld 'personal life' certainly does not come before duty to the social system."

Dana was intrigued by such responses from the robots. "Now that is a human reply, I'm proud of you Purl. I do not think Kari can even understand the idea of freedom to have a 'personal life'. She was ordered to exile on this rock and she does not even have the sense to be unhappy about it. She probably feels pride to be serving a useful purpose for her owners. She even seems gleeful that I will be taken into custody by the Melsha."

Purl objected, "I doubt if you ever heard these things from Kari. Wait until you know her better before you assume you know such things about her."

It occurred to Dana that Kari had always known that Melsha agents would come to take Dana away and so Kari never bothered to try to get to know Dana.

Dana felt foolish being told off by a machine. It did not help at all that this particular machine was highly intelligent and totally familiar with what was to Dana a strange and mysterious environment. Dana went back to her house and tried to get some sleep.

Sleep did not come. Her mind was too full of questions, doubts and fears. She asked Ayer, "When do you expect the Melsha ship to get here."

Ayer replied, "It is a very fast ship. It should arrive tomorrow."

Dana decided there was no way she could sleep. Dana ordered the robot to stay put. She got up and went to Kari's house. Toleha opened the door as Dana approached. The robot spoke quietly, "I'm glad you are here."

For a moment Dana expected to be told to go away so as to not wake Kari, but Toleha let her into the house. Dana could see Kari asleep in a chair. Dana had learned that Kari had no concept of a bed. Of course, in a world where chairs and even floors would automatically cradle a sleeping human there was not much need for beds.

Dana now expected Toleha to wake Kari, but instead the robot led Dana to the other end of the house. Dana was surprised to see another human, then her eyes focused and the other person turned. "Me?"

Dana immediately suspected that a robotic replica of had been made. Did they expect to trick the Melsha agents? Dana 2 said, "So it is true."

Dana 1 approached Dana 2 and confirmed that this copy was not a robot. Unless it was a robot that broke the rules and had been designed to be as much like a human as possible. Dana 2 said, "I'm tempted to see if you bleed, so I assume you are thinking the same thing." Dana 1 noticed another robot nearby. Dana 2 explained, "This is my companion robot, Lek'velkoo."

Toleha explained the situation to Dana 1 in the same way that it had previously been explained to Dana 2. Copies of Dana had materialized at the same time in both the transmitting and receiving chambers of the teleportation experiment. Dr. Timbles had long ago lost interest in the teleportation experiments. When Dana 2 had materialized in the transmitter, only robots were present. Dr. Timbles and Kari were unaware of the existence of Dana 2.

Somehow Dana 1 was more shocked by the idea of robots keeping a secret from humans than by the idea that there were two of her. For a moment she wondered if there were other copies, such as a clueless original back on Earth, unaware that copies had been made and sent into another universe. But those stray thoughts were pushed away when a wonderful possibility came to mind. She asked, "Do the Melsha know?"

Lek'velkoo replied, "We think not. We have made an effort to keep the fact of your duplication a secret."

Dana 1 was vaguely aware that there had been a long struggle between the invaders from Uberworlder and resistance forces of Archeworld. Were these robots part of a continuing resistance to the ruling government?" Dana 1 asked, "What if Kari wakes up?"

Toleha assured them, "She will sleep for the short time required. We need to get your permission for our plan."

Dana 2 beat Dana 1 to the question by half a second, "Who is 'we'?"

Dana 1 added, "Or 'what'?"

Lek'velkoo launched into what seemed a well-rehearsed account. The robots were part of an Archeworld resistance faction that was devoted to the idea that the Uberworlders could eventually be defeated. The resistance wanted to use Dana 1 as an agent who might be able to infiltrate the highest reaches of the fascist government.

Dana 2 asked, "What about me? Do I have a role in your plans?"

Lek'velkoo replied, "You and I will go and meet with the leadership of the resistance. There is another possible use for you, but that will have to be decided later by the leadership. But in any case, we will not try to make use of you unless you agree that you are willing to help fight against the Uberworlders."

Dana 1 decided that her only reservation was that there were supposedly two parts to the resistance, the remnants of two empires, one of the 'shadows' and one of the 'light'. Dana imagined that it was fruitless to ask these robots which side they were on.

Both copies of Dana affirmed their willingness to help against the Uberworlders.

Lek'velkoo advanced on Dana 1 and took hold of her arms. "You are going into great danger and we cannot trust you with what you have learned about the resistance. I am now infecting your body with nanoscale devices and drugs that will erase your memories of the past hour. You will sleep and when you awake you will not remember that you have a double or that there are robots in the resistance. When the time is right, new nanites will infect you and you will begin to remember. Hopefully at that time you will be in position close to key Uberworlders where you will be useful to the resistance.

Dana 1 now felt very tired and collapsed against Lek'velkoo. The robot scooped her up and Toleha opened the front door. Ayer was waiting and took Dana 1 back to her house. Lek'velkoo and Dana 2 went to the monorail terminal and started the three hour trip back to the far side of the asteroid. For most of the way the monorail was above ground. Dana 2 tried to sleep and was disturbed by strange dreams and the repeated rising and setting of the sun as the asteroid tumbled through space.

Lek'velkoo watched the stars and tried to put aside doubts about the course of action that had now been set in motion.

Chapter 4