This choice: Continue reading "Double Double" • Go Back...Chapter #28Double Double (3) by: Seuzz   Chapter 3
THE SCREAMING WHIR OF THE DUPLICATION PLATFORM faded to a dull hum as it slowed. Brown peered out through the window that separated the manufacturing chamber from the control room. If he had been programmed to feel relief, that's what he would have felt. Instead, he only felt ... satisfaction ... at his success.
The machine, as he had anticipated, still held the physical template of the last being it had duplicated, and a duplicate of that being now rested on the platform, in the cavity where he had laid the material husk. But it would be a useless and inert thing unless the mental patterns had also been preserved.
Brown touched the controls, closing and rerouting template circuits, and adjusted the neural output matrix. Then he activated the receptors. The platform remained still, but a shrill electrical whine filled the room.
The form on the platform jerked, lifting its hips and flinging its head from side to side. The tendons in its neck stood out like knotted cords.
Then it abruptly relaxed and lay still.
The whine died away as the machine cycled down, and Brown cut the power. Indicator lights around the platform rim blinked in a sequence that told Brown the pattern had been fully and correctly copied.
Brown stepped out into the main chamber, and walked over to stand over the human form locked within the restraining belts. As if sensing Brown's presence, the thing fluttered its eyelids open.
There was intelligence in those eyes. And something else—something that seemed to hold Brown captive.
"Brown," said the new android. Its voice was a resonant baritone. "That's your name. Isn't it?" It was barely a question.
"That's right," said Brown. "And you are?"
"James T. Kirk, captain, U.S.S. Enterprise," the other answered. It was a clipped reply, slightly impatient.
Then the muscles around the eyes relaxed, and he chuckled. "The improved version," he said.
Brown nodded.
"Now," said the Kirk android, "how about getting me out of here?" With a glance, he indicated the restraints. His tone was mellow, but it demanded obedience.
And so, before he quite knew what he was doing, Brown was unlocking the restraints. He jumped back as Kirk swung upright and stood. Unmindful of his nakedness, the duplicate of the starship captain glanced around the chamber with a piercing gaze.
"Where's Doctor Korby?" he demanded. "And my original?"
"What is the last thing in your memory banks?" Brown asked.
"Being strapped into that thing there," Kirk replied. "What would I remember after that?"
"Of course," Brown said. "You had better come with me. There is much to tell you. Much has happened since then."
Kirk's eyes narrowed, and his expression turned wary. Then, with a sudden, cold smile, he indicated that Brown should lead the way.
As they walked, Brown chided himself for the easy way he had fallen back into the servitor mode. It wasn't right. He served only the Creator, just as this one did, which put them on the same level.
So why did he feel like an inferior in the other's presence?
He found no answer to the question before they reached the parlor, where, with a catlike grace, the naked Kirk settled into Doctor Korby's chair. He leaned forward as Brown brought up the playback recordings.
Brown stood at his elbow as Kirk watched the destruction of the party at the hands of the Enterprise's captain. Brown's own memory banks of course had copied it exactly as he watched it the first time, but he watched it again while trying to anticipate how the "improved" Kirk—who knew his original intimately—would interpret the events he was watching. But Brown was at a loss when the recording ended. The other simply hid his thoughts too well.
"Interesting," the new android said when the images faded. "And unfortunate. How long ago did this occur?"
"Nearly six Earth months."
"We would have been well on our way toward fulfilling the Creator's plans if my original had not been so ... adept ... at foiling them."
Brown wondered if that did not indicate a failure in the duplication process. After all, if the android Doctor Korby had made could not anticipate and parry the real captain's countermoves, did that not suggest the android was an imperfect copy?
Kirk was studying Brown's face, and seemed to have read the thoughts there.
"I would not occupy myself with doubts if I were you, Brown," he said. "You're not programmed to handle them."
Brown's eyes fell.
"I suppose it doesn't much matter now," he replied. "The Enterprise is long gone, and your original with it. The next thing is to make more of you."
Kirk laughed. Derisively, almost.
"I think one of me is enough," he said. "Two would be at best redundant." His gaze went briefly distant. "We'll have to do something about that," he said.
Then his attention returned to Brown.
"You must understand that I am in command. I know," he said, raising a hand as Brown started to protest. "You are going to say that you are my senior, that you were closer to Doctor Korby—to the Creator—and that you understood him better. I may assure you, doctor"—he uttered the honorific with an icy disdain—"that you are wrong on both counts.
"In the first place," he continued as Brown listened with a kind of frozen shock, as though his processing unit had seized up, "I am the analogue of a starship captain, while you are only the echo—a distant echo, as your original was already dead when you were made—of an anonymous scientist. I, on the other hand, am a direct copy of one who has been trained and equipped for command.
"And in the second place, I am programmed with the Creator's plan already drawn up. I know exactly what was in his mind. Not only his goal but the methods to implement it."
Kirk's eyes sharpened to a point so intense that Brown actually took a step back.
"I am the Creator, Brown," he said, "now that the original is no more. Realized in a new body and form, perhaps, but still equipped with the instinct and knowledge to carry is plan out. I might even say that I am superior to the Creator—" he said, his voice rising.
But he caught himself as Brown blanched, and his expression relaxed as he smiled.
"I was going to say that I might be superior," he continued, "but only in that I have better training, and a deeper understanding of what is required to carry the plan out. So if I am superior, Brown," he said gently, "it is only in the way that the sword is sharper than the hand that wields it, or that a starship is faster than the man who commands it. I am the Creator's instrument still, Brown. Just as you are."
Still smiling, he put out his hand.
Brown's processing circuits were so overwhelmed by this display that he stood frozen for a moment before taking the hand of the other. He found that Kirk had a crushing grip.
"Thank you, Brown," Kirk said. "Now that we understand who we are and where we stand, I think we will find ourselves getting along splendidly."
He smiled still, with both his mouth and his eyes, though his tone was firm.
And it was in a tone of humorous exasperation that he added, "Now, as our first order of business, how about getting me some clothes?"
* * * * *
To continue investigating the room: "Disposing of Lucy"    indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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