menu_book Chapter 3

Part 3 of His Master's Voice by Randall Garrett This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part 3 We settled into a routine pretty quickly. There wasn't much to do since Maguire was taking care of the jobs that require a crew on an ordinary ship.

To avoid boredom, we brought books and a few decks of cards and various other time wasters. Several times, Maguire had to change course slightly because of rocks in his path, and Brentwood would always glance at his instruments when that happened, watching the squiggles that indicated Maguire's replotting. Those occasional rocks were our reason for waiting before we tried any fancy tricks with Maguire.

We wanted to get out into the relatively clear space between Mars and the belt. I beat Vodinsky out of a tin spot at gin rummy, which, oddly enough, seemed to raise his respect for me. Vivian Devereaux talked with Brentwood for a while, then settled down to reading a book entitled

Some Applications of Discontinuity in Pattern Theory. Felder munched apples and read a magazine. We ate another meal amid pleasant chatter, and I went into one of the two bedrooms for a nap. Miss Devereaux had one of the bedrooms all to herself.

We men had drawn straws, and Felder and I had ended up with the bedroom while Vodinsky and Brentwood got the couches in the lounge. I dozed off, but it was only a light doze. If there were an emergency, I would be the only one who could order McGuire around, and I wanted to be ready to wake up at a moment's notice.

I'd been snoozing for half an hour or so when I heard the noise that woke me up. I'd been lying with my face to the wall, and for a moment I couldn't figure out what had awakened me. Then I heard it again. Just the faintest sound of a footstep near the bunk. I moved just in time.

I sat up and turned to see Erwin Brentwood standing near me, holding a hypno-spray gun in one hand. I jumped him, knocking the gun aside, but his hand didn't lose his grip on it as we went down in a tangle. He was a lot tougher than he looked. That boyish figure was all wiry muscle, and I was still dopey from sleep. Not much, but just enough to impair my efficiency.

I got a grip on his gun hand and began slowly twisting it while we rolled over and over on the floor. Then somehow he managed to get his other arm loose, and he drove an elbow into my throat. There was an instant of blinding pain, and I heard the hypnogun go chuff as my muscles tightened with a searing fire in my throat. The next thing I knew, somebody was wiping my face with a cold, wet towel. I opened my eyes.

It was Vivian Devereaux. I tried to say something, but nothing came out. There was only a terrible aching in my throat. Fedensky was standing near a chair where Brentwood was seated. Brentwood looked a little dazed.

Fedensky looked furious. So did Felder, who was looking at the hypnospray gun he was holding in his hand. Who hired you, Brentwood? he asked sharply. There was nothing Santa Clausy about him now. "'A man named Borodin,' Brentwood said in an uninterested voice.

"'I managed to force air past my bruised larynx. All that came out was a whisper. "'What happened?' "'He tried to use Pythantin on you,' Felding said, "'but he got the dose himself.

"'That's why he's cooperative.' I nodded and stopped when a pain went through my throat. Pythanton would have made me receptive to any suggestions Brentwood wanted to make. What were you supposed to do after you dozed, Daniel Oak? Felder asked the electronicist.

Tell him to order McGuire to change course, to go to asteroid MJ31990. I sat up. It was nice just to lie there and have Vivian bathe my brow, but I had more pressing things to do. I didn't feel in the pink of condition, and my throat hurt like hell, but I wasn't in too bad a shape.

This Borodin, I whispered. Who was he working for? I don't know, Brentwood said. He didn't say. We questioned him for another half hour, but it soon became apparent that he didn't know very much. He'd been offered a tremendous amount of money to do the job,

and he didn't have the stamina to refuse it. It's guys like Brentwood who give rise to the saying that every man has his price. What'll we do now? Felding asked at last. Go on to Phobos or go back to Ceres. Back to Ceres, I whispered.

Colonel Brock will know what to do with him. I'd been uneasy ever since my calls to Brock and Morty that morning had disclosed that Venuccio had lost the men who were supposed to be telling him. It's fairly easy to do on Ceres, if you know how. It won't mean much of a delay, I went on.

Ravenhurst can still have his big splash on earth. We herded Brentwood into the lounge and bound him to a chair. Then I said, Maguire? Yes, sir?

We're changing course. Return to Ceres. And Maguire said, I'm sorry, sir, I cannot obey any orders except those of Mr. Daniel Oak. I just stood there for a long minute.

I am Daniel Oak, I whispered. but I was fairly certain that the declaration would do me no good whatever. I was right. No, sir, you are not Mr. Oak. McGuire is always polite to anyone who speaks to him,

even if he doesn't regard that person as human. McGuire, I said patiently, Can you see Mr. Oak? Is he on board? Yes, sir. I perceive him seated on the starboard couch in the main lounge. Fine. Then your directional audio pick-ups should be able to tell you where this voice is coming from.

Yes, sir. It is coming from the approximate volume of space now occupied by Mr. Oaks' head, But it is definitely not Mr. Oak's voice. Felder put a hand over his eyes and moaned. Vidinsky, who had carefully lighted a cigarette, blew out a cloud of smoke and looked at me.

I got to admit he's right. That is not Daniel Oak's voice. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Vivian said abstractedly. What's that got to do with it?

Vodinsky asked with a scowl. A matter of definition, Vivian said. Somewhere along the line of chicken evolution, it would have been possible to point at a specific bird and say, this is a chicken, but its parents were not chickens.

Now, do you define a chicken egg as an egg laid by a chicken, or an egg that hatches out a chicken? That's right, Felder said. Do you define Oak's voice as any voice coming from Oak, or as any voice that sounds like Oak's?

Well, you people ought to be able to answer that, I said. Which is it? Both, said Felder in a dull voice. When you activated him by giving him his first order, He identified you and the voice as parts of the same unit.

If you'd gone hoarse slowly, step by step, as it were, Maguire would have made logical adjustments to the change. But this sudden change is too big a jump for his logic to follow. He hasn't got the intermediate steps he needs to put it into syllogistic form. There was another question I wanted to ask of Maguire.

McGuire, you are not supposed to allow Mr. Oak to come to any harm, yet you did so. Why? I was wondering how he'd managed to let Brentwood get away with his attack on me, without at least warning me. Mr. Oak was in no danger, sir. He has come to no harm. What about Brentwood's attack? Mr. Brentwood did not attack Mr. Oak, sir.

Mr. Oak attacked Mr. Brentwood. The other three looked at me. In a way, he's right, I said quickly. When I saw Brentwood standing there with the hypno-spray, I jumped him. That's another one of our problems, said Felder.

How do you define harm? If you broke your arm and a doctor tried to set it without an anesthetic, what would McGuire think when you yelled? Could you and I engage in a friendly boxing match? And since McGuire is supposed to prevent harm,

he has to be able to define it in advance. Oh, we've had a lot of fun with that one, I'll tell you. There was a thin edge of bitterness in his voice. You see what this means, don't you? Vidensky asked, eyeing me through a cloud of blue cigarette smoke.

Sure, I whispered. It means that McGuire will go right on accelerating until I tell him to stop, and I can't tell him that until my larynx heals, if it ever does. If it takes a week or two, which is likely, Vivian said, we'll be saying goodbye to the solar system.

By the time this heals, I said, we'll be so far out we won't be able to come back. At that distance the amount of sunlight McGuire will be able to pick up will be negligible, and the atomic fuel will be gone. Nobody bothered to suggest that we call for help.

McGuire had the communications system under control, too. One of us, I said, had better think of something. In the next several hours every one of us thought of something one way or another. Not that it did much good, because none of the ideas were worth much directly. Indirectly they told us plenty about what not to try.

When Brentwood finally came out from under the effects of the Pithanton, even he started thinking furiously about some way out of our predicament. We kept him locked in the bedroom for obvious reasons, but he had just as much stake in getting us back in control of McGuire as we did. After all, there's no law against industrial espionage,

and we couldn't prove any charge of sabotage. Even a charge of attempted kidnapping or attempted larceny would be almost impossible to make stand up in court. With a good lawyer, he could get out from under an assault and battery charge. He'd lose his job at Viking, of course,

but that was better than losing his life. His failure to deliver Maguire to Baydecker Metals and Mining might lose him some money he'd been promised, but he was prepared for that, too. I knew he was a Baydecker agent, even if he didn't,

because I knew who Barden worked for him. Meanwhile, five brains were trying frantically to think of some way of convincing Maguire that he should obey my orders. First I tried reasoning with him. McGuire, do you understand what it is that generates a human voice?

Yes, sir. A flow of slightly compressed air from the lungs causes vibrations of the vocal cords, and this sound is modified by the lips, tongue, and teeth. Very well. Now you see Mr. Oak, do you not?

Yes, sir. And you see that his voice is being generated by Mr. Oak? I cannot tell that, sir. I have no way of sensing the operation of Mr. Oak's vocal equipment. But you can tell that this voice is coming from Mr. Oak?

Yes, sir. Then it must be Mr. Oak's voice. that does not coincide with the facts sir therefore the logic is faulty a comparison of the present voice with the voice of Mr. Oak

shows too few points of similarity for identification you won't get anywhere that way Felder said wearily none of the data you give him verbally is used in his final computations since it doesn't come from Daniel Oak by his own reasoning

that is correct sir said McGuire "'Idiot machine!' said Vivian Devereaux angrily. I shut up and did some more thinking. Talking only made my throat hurt.

Nobody could argue impressively with Maguire except Daniel Oak, and as far as Maguire was concerned, Mr. Oak was keeping an impressive silence. "'Maybe I could write out the orders,' I said. "'Nope,' said Vidensky.

He can read, but information coming in that way isn't counted as orders. Not even from you. We should have installed a teletyper, too, but this is a little late for thinking of that. Maguire, I whispered,

what sort of proof would be needed to show you that this is the voice of Daniel Oak? I'm sorry, sir, Maguire said after a moment, But that information is not in my banks. Maybe somebody could imitate Dan's voice, Vivian said hopefully. Vidensky and Felder shook their heads in unison.

No dice, Vidensky said rumblingly. It not only has to sound like oak, it has to come from oak. Ventriloquism, Vivian said with a half-hearted grin. Wouldn't fool Maguire for an instant, Felder said. That's an audio-visual trick of the human mind, not of a robot's.

The ship kept on moving. Maguire went serenely on, following his last orders. We finally reached the point where we were too tired to think, and sleep became imperative. We were nearly two days out of series.

When I announced my intention of taking a snooze, "'Felder looked at me through groggy, bloodshot eyes. "'Hadn't we better sleep in two shifts? "'I mean, just in case there's another spy among us?' "'I shook my head.

"'No spy would try anything now. "'There isn't anything to try. "'We're all safe as far as that's concerned. "'I'll go in and sleep in my assigned room. "'Not even Brentwood could or would do anything to me now.'

For that matter, Felder said, it's senseless to keep him locked up now. He's harmless until we re-establish control over McGuire. When that happens, we can lock him up again. My sentiments, exactly, I said in my new, hoarse, breathy, cusserant voice. Brentwood didn't say much when I gave him the news.

He just thanked me. I got into bed and worried for a while, but lack of sleep soon cut off my ability to worry. I only woke up once in the next nine hours when McGuire changed course a trifle to avoid some unseen meteor.

Not even the ache in my throat kept me from sleep. It was Vedensky's voice that woke me up. The door of my room was slid open a little, and I could hear him in the lounge. I got to my feet fast, shoved open the door, and went out.

Vedensky had grabbed Brentwood by the front of his union suit, and had lifted him off his feet and slammed his back up against the wall. His free hand was swinging back and forth in open-handed slaps that looked as though one of them should have torn the smaller man's head off. Felder was ineffectually trying to pull Vadinsky away from Brentwood,

but the big man didn't even seem to notice it. Vivian Devereaux was nowhere in sight. Vodensky's harsh baritone was filled with invective that should have made the air as glowingly blue as the inside of an old-fashioned rectifier tube.

I ran across the room, grabbed Vodensky by the shoulder, and said, Stop that! He stopped. When I throw out an emotional field like that, only a very exceptional man can disobey.

Let him go! I said. Vedinsky released him, and Brentwood slid down the wall, just this side of unconsciousness. What's the idea? I asked. I'm sorry, Vedinsky rumbled. Lost my temper, I guess. That, I mean, he...

He stopped, fumbling for words. I know. I heard what you were saying. Sure, it's his fault my voice sounds the way it does. Sure, he's a spy and probably a saboteur. And if we die, he'll be morally guilty of manslaughter and suicide, remember that.

But slapping him around like that isn't going to do any of us any good. and we need all the thinking we can get if we intend to pull ourselves out of this mess. So leave him alone, Vdensky here. My whispery voice didn't sound very authoritative, but a crisp, firm, commanding Maritone does not authority make any more than iron bars a cage.

Yeah, he said apologetically. I'm sorry, Oak. I sort of lost my head. It won't happen again. I knelt down and took a look at Brentwood. He wasn't actually damaged much, but his face was going to be swollen and bruised. Somehow I couldn't feel very sorry for him.

I got him to his feet. Come on, Brentwood. Let's go lie down for a while. You'll feel better. Yeah, he mumbled through thickening lips. Thanks. I got him into his bunk, closed the door on him, and came back to the lounge.

Anybody dream of any solutions in his sleep? I asked. It was apparent that they hadn't. Maybe Vivian has, Felder said. She's still asleep. Let's not bank on it, I said. Oh, I did have one idea, Felder said dispiritedly.

Ted here and I were working on it when Brentwood came out. When it didn't pan out, well, that's when the fight started. What was your idea? I asked McGuire if he realized what would happen to Mr. Oak if he just kept going. He said he did, that if he ran out of fuel you'd be marooned and would die.

So he's figured out a nice, complicated orbit that will allow him to obey your last order into the very last possible moment. He'll land us on Titan at the very last moment. The trouble is, we forgot to tell him how much food we have aboard, and he's made the assumption that there's plenty for everybody for an indefinite length of time.

But we're going to be plenty hungry by the time we get there. Can you last twelve days without food? I don't want to try it. And, of course, it wouldn't do any good for you to tell him that we haven't enough food. How about letting him take a look at the food supply?

He doesn't know how much is necessary, and he would only have our word for it that there was no more aboard. One thing I can tell you. If we ever get back to rebuild McGuire, one of the things he's going to have is a lot more sensory devices

so that he can judge more facts on his own hook. Agreed, said another voice. Right now we're dealing with a half-blind idiot. Vivian Devereaux had stepped out of her room and had been listening to Felder explain what he'd tried.

Sleep hadn't done her as much good as it might have under other circumstances. the strain was showing on her face. Breakfast was a half-hearted affair. Brentwood stayed in his room, although he accepted the cup of coffee I brought him.

The rest of us didn't eat much more than that. I was trying to think our way out of the fix, and so were the others. Something, some sort of an idea, had been sitting quietly at the bottom of my mind,

just barely discernible through the semi-permeable barrier that separates the conscious from the subconscious, but I couldn't fish it out. When I managed to grasp part of it, I said, Look, the trouble is that Maguire is incapable of connecting my present voice with the voice he's used to. Then it seems to me that our job is to supply him with the missing steps.

How? asked Felder. One of you, or all of you, if it took that to convince him, could fake a hoarse, whispery voice. You could slowly make your voice worse and worse, so that he could see the steps involved. Vivian brightened.

But Felder and Vedensky shook their heads together like the Bobsy twins, sorrowing over a lost pet. What we may do voluntarily, said Felder, over a relatively long period of time, has nothing to do with what happened to you suddenly and involuntarily. You see, in the long run, he really doesn't care about our voices. He doesn't pay any attention to us, really, except his incidental cargo. He has no concept of intelligence, actually. He can't accept any statements of ours unless they're verifiable by McGuire himself.

Well, we could at least try it, said Vivian. We did, and Felder was right. McGuire seemed almost condescending in his sorrow for our inability to see that there was no logical connection between their whispers and the voice of his lord and master, Daniel Oak.

Vivian, who had been standing near Vodensky while we were talking to McGuire, suddenly blew up when McGuire assured us that our whispering was a waste of time. She grasped her book, some applications of discontinuity in pattern theory, and threw it at the wall speaker from which McGuire's voice came. It bounced, harmless, off the protective grill and fell to the floor.

Vivian Devereaux burst into tears. I put my arm around her, gave Vidensky and Felder the high sign to keep thinking, and led her to her room. As soon as I got her settled, I said, Relax. No matter what happens, we'll get out of it alive.

If we stretch our rations, we'll be able to make it to Titan without being more than underweight and hungry. It's not that, she said tearfully. It's the delay, all that time off the schedule. But I thought that was what you wanted, I said gently. Not anymore.

I... She stopped. suddenly and looked up at me, her eyes widening. What are you talking about? Her voice was as whispery as mine. It was the insistence on meeting me at the seven sisters that gave you away, I said, dyeing your hair and combing it straight back and putting on that plexi skin mask and the

contact lenses. None of that help conceal that lush figure of yours. It can't be done under a Union suit. So you had to put on jacket and shorts, and that meant you had to meet me in some plush restaurant like the Seven Sisters, or you'd look out of place. I knew all that talk about being afraid of being overheard was just that. Talk.

A directional beam microphone could have picked up every word at our table. What made you change your mind about delaying the work on McGuire? But Brentwood, I didn't know they'd go that far in trying to stop the work.

Not kidnapping and piracy? She took a deep breath and forced herself to stop sobbing. I guess they didn't trust me anyway. Otherwise they wouldn't have put Brentwood on the same job without telling me. She didn't know that Brentwood was working for Baydecker rather than for the Thurston group.

How could she? The difference lay in their tactics. Thurston wanted to take over Viking as a going concern, a little under the weather perhaps, but still functioning. That meant that they wanted the work on McGuire delayed and complicated,

but they didn't want to put him out of the picture completely, since they expected to take over the work as soon as they got control of Viking. Baydecker, on the other hand, didn't give a care about Viking spacecraft. They wanted to take over Ceres for their own firm. If that meant that getting rid of Maguire completely would give them what they wanted,

then they'd get rid of Maguire. Why'd you take the job? I asked. Money. I'm sick of the belt. I want to go back home, to Earth. Her eyes were quite dry by now,

and there was a choked sort of fear in them. I hate it out here. There's death all around you all the time. Sometimes it's just outside your skin, on the other side of the fabric of your vac suit.

I wanted to get back home, but all the money is out here in the belt. Back there it's all eaten up in taxes and welfare, and nobody has a chance to get a job that really pays. So when they offered me the money, she stopped and closed her eyes.

I'm scared, that's all. I've been scared ever since I came out here. And now, she shuddered, and now we're at the mercy of this idiot machine. I get so scared that I get mad every time I hear his voice.

If somebody had set a thermonuclear bomb off inside my skull, there couldn't have been more sudden illumination. I patted her on the shoulder. You may get your money, and more besides, I said. She shook her head.

I wouldn't take their money now. I stood up. I think I can talk you into changing your mind, but right now I think I have a way of getting McGuire to listen to me thanks to you. She looked up at me. What did I do? You threw a book, I said. That's enough to win you

a pardon as far as I'm concerned. You sit tight and don't let on that I know anything. Nobody else knows anything at all, not even Brentwood, so keep quiet. She dried her face quickly and stood up too. All right, whatever you say. As we went back out into the lounge, I felt a little pleased with myself. If things worked out right, and they would,

we now had a double agent inside Thurston's organization. It wouldn't take too long to clear things up, and Miss Devereaux could go back to Earth with a nice piece of change in her pocket. What are you looking so happy about? Fidensky asked suspiciously when he saw us.

"'I'll show you,' I said. "'Where's the tool-kit?' Ten minutes later I had the wall speaker in the lounge out of its housing, but still connected. McGuire hadn't interfered with the work,

as he might have if someone else had tried to do it, because he could see perfectly well that it was Daniel Oak who was doing the job, even though Oak hadn't been speaking to him much lately. Then I said, Maguire, can you hear me?

Yes, sir, I can hear you, came his voice from the speaker. Can you hear your own voice? Yes, sir. Very well. Now, are you watching what Mr. Oak is doing? Yes, sir.

I picked up a small ball-peen hammer and hit the speaker, not too gently, at just the right place. Did you see that, Maguire? I asked. Yes, sir, I saw it. His voice sounded hoarse, muffled and whispery, coming through the damaged speaker. Do you see what sudden damage can do to the speaking apparatus?

I must test, McGuire said, an almost hesitant note in his new voice. He spent fifteen seconds or so saying a series of nonsense syllables that are used as a test for a robot's speaking apparatus. They contain every sound used in English. When that was over, he said, The damage inflicted has radically changed the basic patterns of the voice.

If an equivalent amount of damage was done to Mr. Oak's vocal apparatus, then the voice which has been speaking must belong to Mr. Oak. You saw the damage being done in each case, I said quickly. You also see that it is the source of the voice that becomes important when the pattern has changed. Yes, Mr. Oak, I see that.

I breathed a deep, heartfelt sigh of relief. Felder looked at me in a sort of numb awe. How did you figure that out? It came to me in a flash, but the clues were all over the place. Maguire didn't stay on the course I gave him.

He couldn't if he wanted to avoid meteors. And then, too, you said that he ought to have more sensory apparatus so that he could judge facts. The facts that come into his brain from his own sensory apparatus. have to be utilized in his memory banks.

He didn't have to know all the steps in reasoning that would lead from one voice pattern to another if it could be demonstrated as a fact, as an axiom, if you like. If you tell him that he must change course, he isn't obliged to pay any attention.

But if he spots a meteor, he has to accept that as a fact, and he changes course to allow for it. in a sense, then, the meteor is capable of giving Maguire orders, and you aren't. Felder didn't look any too happy. No one likes to have a point in his own field explained to him by a layman, but he couldn't argue with me. There's a great deal more to be done before Maguire can be put into practical service, he said heavily. We may as well head back to Cersei's.

I don't think so, I said. Maguire's in good enough shape to let us make the big splash on earth that Ravenhurst wants to make. He'll need it if Viking is to have enough financial leeway to go on with this project. What about Brentwood? Vivian Devereaux asked. We can get rid of him at Phobos just as easily as we can at Ceres.

If there's any explaining of any kind to do, we can lay the blame on him. He won't be in any position to deny it. She nodded, understanding exactly what I meant. There were still plenty of bugs to be worked out of Maguire, but now I could see our way clear to getting both Thurston and Baydecker off our backs for a while. At that point Brentwood stuck his head in the door. What's going on? he asked in his soft voice. We're going to Phobos, Brentwood, I said.

Go back to your room and stay there. He withdrew his head. I looked at Vadinsky. Go lock him in, Ted. He gives me a pain in the neck.

I got the first laugh I'd heard in 48 hours. End of Part 3 End of His Master's Voice by Randall Garrett This recording by Phil Chenevere

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, June 2016