O Master Caliban by Phyllis Gotlieb Read Free Book Online Page A

well,” said Dahlgren. “It took sixty-three to make me ... and four million to make Man.”
    YOU MAY NO LONGER PLAY FOR TIME, DAHLGREN. YOU WILL PLAY CHESS FOR US.
    “I have no set,” Dahlgren said.
    YOU HAVE A SET. WE KEPT IT FOR YOU.
    The wall behind the silver erg slid open. Beyond it was a brightly lit room with two chairs, a chess table Dahlgren recognized as his own—the one he had played on with Haruni—and a chessboard set with pieces.
    Dahlgren slid off the examining table and looked at it. “That’s no kind of set to play with. I can’t use that.”
    It was a showpiece, a gift his wife had had made for him in the days when she loved him. The squares of the board were ivory and bone, the pieces transparent lucite blocks, each enclosing an object: the white pawns preserved snail shells, the blacks cowries, the queens slender coral branches of red and white, the kings animal molars in different shadings with roots pointing upward like crowns, the bishops varieties of fossil trilobites, the rooks mammal phalanges, and the knights the skulls of small birds, beaks pointing upward. All earthly, all animal. Dahlgren, master of dead animals.
    “That’s not a set anyone can play with.” He smiled ruefully. “I never was a master, I lost most of my games with Haruni, and I couldn’t even find my way through this. Where’s my old Staunton?”
    Dahlgren’s copy picked up the white coral Queen, blinked at it, and set it down.
    YOU GAVE IT TO YOUR SON, said erg-Queen.
    True. Dahlgren thought of Sven, if he had survived, playing chess with Esther, their faces puckered earnestly, and Yigal, perhaps, sitting with his head resting on a bent hoof, kibitzing. Silliness. Why had he given him the set? “Yes, I remember.”
    Erg-Dahlgren said, “If you cannot play with these we can have a set machined to your specifications.”
    “No thank you,” said Dahlgren. “I don’t care to play with your pieces.”
    THEN BEGIN.
    “I will take white,” said erg-Dahlgren. “I don’t think you will mind my advantage, since I have just learned the game and you know it very well.”
    “I haven’t played in a long time,” Dahlgren said, “but I seem to have no choice,” He sat down at Black and stared at the pieces bemusedly. Cowrie to Coral 4. Ah well, it was an interesting way to die.
    Erg-Dahlgren took his place at White. There was a look on his face that was very human, and perhaps very much machine: the look of the young contender, the new invention, about to supersede the old. The young Morphy, Alekhine, Capablanca, Fischer, Piutto, Haruni, all must have looked so, for the first time, at one game.
    The tall silver erg rolled silently behind him and backed against the wall, her five sets of arms lying downward along the curve of her body.
    Erg-Dahlgren raised his right hand and quietly pushed Pawn, past bone and ivory, to King 4.

SVEN ASKED, “When is Dahlgren giving his report to the Council?”
    “Thirty-one days Standard.” Ardagh drew down her brows. “That’s—I think—thirty-eight Solthree. I dunno about local time.”
    “Twenty-eight or nine,” Sven said. “That’s why so many worlds agreed to work on this place, because its day was so close to Standard,”
    “And here to GalFed Central takes how long?” Esther asked.
    “Twelve to fifteen Standard,” said Joshua.
    Esther scratched her chin. “Well, Sven, are we going?”
    He began to shiver and tensed to control himself. “Yes. We’re not safe here.”
    “Then we have about twelve days local to reach Headquarters.”
    Koz jigged his heel on the floor. “What are we going to do?”
    “Plan.” Sven was watching Shirvanian.
    The boy, silent, was sitting cross-legged on the floor, metal bits and pieces spread out on the skin side of an old rabbit-fur quilt to keep them from falling between the bricks. His fat grubby hands were not graceful, but they slapped parts together perfectly on the true. At the moment the bird was lying disjointed as if