Deep Black Road: The Head of the Snake

Chapter 10

Lieutenant General Orkan sent the chart of military command in the Federation of North America from his memory onto the virtual screen in front of him just above his desk.

He knew well enough who his allies were among the other senior officers of the Federation; but he needed to get to know those under him in the province of Foredan better-especially where their loyalties lay-before trying to make a move among the top brass.

In one sense it was easy enough to do-monitor the link and Network traffic, looking for certain bits of information that would tell him what he needed to know so that he could shuffle the unwilling out of the way and promote those who favoured his plan-but it took time.

He'd run some experiments; but the computers required considerable monitoring themselves.

He wanted-no, he needed-Ricky Sheppard, a robot who could do the filtering required with a minimum of supervision.

Would the boy robot take his bait?

General Orkan might have lost his 'instincts' when he'd become robotic-he'd expected that-but he still knew enough about what motivated people to accurately judge them. He was confident that he would soon be hearing from Ricky.

#

Dr. Sheppard got back to work on the dynamic display for the robotic-skin seminar first thing in the morning.

It was to demonstrate the various capabilities of his skin inventions to a forum of robotics engineers and corporate bigwigs; and he gave Ricky the job of monitoring the three-dimensional printer while it did a series of sample prints of modified robot skins for the display.

As the printer plodded through its complex task, Ricky glanced over at his father and thought, Are you ever going to see me as your son, instead of one of your robots?

Dr. Shamir's the only carnate human who's treating me like a person these days; and I doubt I can move in with him.

So ... so if I can't be friends with carnate humans, maybe I can get respect from a robotic one.

#

As they tidied up later, Ricky asked his father, "Do you think I could go see General Orkan sometime? We're both robotic after all."

"No," Dr. Sheppard replied firmly. "I don't want to risk the technology you represent falling into the wrong hands."

"You were okay with me going to school."

"Yeah, but if I'd known how hard it was going to be for you to hide your being a robot, I wouldn't have allowed that either. You've got too many important secrets."

"General Orkan ..."

"Orkan's a three-star general. I'm confident he can keep his secrets under military security."

"But I'd be with him; so what's the problem?"

Dr. Sheppard leaned heavily against a worktable. "Okay, tell you what. I'll contact him and see if he's willing to arrange secure transporta-tion for you to Atlanta. If he is, I'm okay with it."

"Good enough." Ricky finished gathering up his equipment, and stashed it in his locker.

#

Standing on the balcony just outside the living-room, Ricky gazed at Jupiter where it hung high in the night sky.

God, he thought. I know you're real, because I felt you there at death's door. So what exactly do you want with me?