Now he hesitated. “I would have to ask my wife.”
“I shall be happy to query her for you, Blue. I am sure she will understand. She did before.”
He reconsidered. “That will not be necessary. Merle, are you saying you have this information, or are you teasing me?”
“I am doing both, dear boy. Join me on the couch, and in due course I will tell you.”
“Damn thee!” he swore. “To put such a price on such a need!”
Merle sighed. “Now I have made him angry, and that spoils the mood. Very well, I will postpone my satisfaction. I will give you Troubot, and you will be the judge of the nature and the timing of my reward. I believe that is more than fair; don’t you agree?”
“Damn thee!” he repeated.
Merle turned to face the hens. “As you can see, this is definitely Citizen Blue. Any lesser man would have taken my offering and damned with the price. Show yourself.” Troubot, as Heningway, stepped forward. He clucked to the others, and they joined him.
Citizen Blue stared. “The chickens?”
“A most effective ruse, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’m not sure I believe this! How could he be in six living parts?”
“Six parts yes, living no. That is pseudoflesh. Take him and verify him; you will discover him to be a single self willed robot.”
Blue began to believe. “I never thought to check for some thing like this, and neither did the Citizens. It just could be! But I’m not sure I can distinguish one self-willed machine from another; this could be a plant by the Citizens.”
“That had occurred to me,” she said. “Therefore we must take the next step with suitable dispatch. We must bring in the one person who can identify Troubot without doubt.”
“That can only be Nepe! But she be captive o’ the enemy!”
“So we deal with the enemy. They have a similar interest, after all; what is to stop us from planting our own imitation, a machine designed to be a likely winner in a Game?”
“Mine honor!” he flared.
“But the Contrary Citizens hardly believe in honor. They will distrust yours, without reason, and mine, with reason. They must be assured of Troubot’s identity too. So call them; they will bring her here.”
Citizen Blue considered, and nodded. “Thou be earning thy keep,” he said.
“I always do. I only regret that it requires such a situation to entice you to do what any other man would do without price.”
Now he laughed. “It were a good night, that one! Me thought the dawn would ne’er come!”
“I delayed it by retiming the lights.”
He stared at her, then shook his head. “Mind thee, my wife will have thy head for this!”
“Make the call; time is short.”
“Aye.” He opened the door and stepped out, while she picked up her coat and put it on. Then she sat in the couch and waited.
“You see, chickens, there is more than just coming for ward,” she said. “You have to be verified. This is the only way to do it. I do have your best interest at heart, and I trust you will do what needs to be done. If you fail to convince Nepe, all is lost. Make sure you appreciate that.” Troubot appreciated it. Merle was more of a person than he had credited. Again he understood that the intricacies of human logic and action went beyond his own capacities. Later that afternoon a second party arrived: Merle, Blue, Citizen Translucent and Nepe. The contrast between the two men was sharp. Translucent was large and stout in his almost transparent robe, while Blue was so small in his blue robe as to seem childlike; Nepe looked more like his sister than his granddaughter. This was a parlay under truce between those who could be trusted; Translucent was the only one of the Contrary Citizens with a sufficient sense of honor.
Translucent and Blue sat on the couch, and Nepe sat on her grandfather’s lap and hugged him. She knew she would have to return to captivity with Translucent; this was her only chance to visit with the one who by appearances meant more to her than her father. Troubot knew that Blue had not expected issue from a man in the body of a robot with an alien creature, yet it had happened, and Blue had taken the child to his heart at the outset. He had also used her as a tool against the Contrary Citizens, but with her full consent. Nepe had told Troubot everything, needing a confidant in her iso lation, and in the process he had become more human than could otherwise have been the case.
“Now that we are private, here is the situation,” Merie said. “The Contrary Citizens have chosen the self-willed ro bot servitor identified as Troubot to represent Citizen Blue in the second contest of three, to decide who shall have ultimate power in the frame. But Troubot is in hiding, and Blue will have to default if Troubot is not found in time. Only one person can identify this machine, and that person is Nepe, who is his friend.” Merle looked at the child. “Nepe, do you understand that you must speak the truth and only the truth in this matter?”
“I do,” Nepe said.
Merle glanced at the two men. “Do each of you accept her veracity in this?”
Each man nodded.
Merle spoke to Nepe again. “Then I ask you, Nepe: do you see your friend Troubot here?”
“Here?” Nepe asked, startled. “I thought we were going to go find him!”
“We may be. Please answer the question.”
“But there’s no one here but—“ Her eyes fell on the hens, and went abruptly round. “Gosh! It is!” She jumped down and ran to the little flock. She plumped down on the ground and opened her arms, trying to hug all the hens at once. “How clever of you, Troubot! You even had me fooled!”
“But how can you be sure?” Merle asked.
“He’s my friend! I’d know him anywhere, if I looked.”
Merle smiled.. “You must pardon those of us who lack your ability. How can we be sure?”
Nepe considered. “We have a secret code that only the two of us know. Let me tell it to you, and he will respond to you only when you use it.”
“Fair enough,” Merle said.
Nepe got up, went to the woman, and whispered some thing. Then Merle spoke to the two men, who had remained passive. “Agree among yourselves when I should give the code, and see whether the response is there.” Translucent shrugged, and brought out a stylus and pad. He wrote something, then tore off the sheet and passed it to Merle. Blue brought out a similar pad and made a note, also passing it to Merle. She looked at each, then folded them, smiling. “Each of you has written a number, and the one modifies the other. I shall use the result, which neither of you know.”
She faced the hens. “Troubot, here is the code: three, fifteen, one.”
Troubot did not respond. The code was numeric, but she had the wrong numbers.
“Troubot,” she said again, “here is the code: nine, twenty nine, ninety-nine.”
Again he did not respond.
“Troubot, here is the code: four, four, four to the fourth power, forever four.”
That was it: Nepe’s age when they had met, formed into a cherished memory. Heningway clucked, and the others came together to huddle. They formed their pattern in front of Merle, all beaks touching.
“We seem to have a response,” Merie said. “Is it the right time?”
“I wrote the number six,” Translucent said.
“I divided by two,” Blue said.
“Indeed you did,” Merle agreed. “And six divided by two is three; I gave the code the third time. This test may have been crude, but seems indicative. Are we satisfied?” They looked at the flock, which was clustered around Nepe again. They were satisfied.
Troubot assembled himself, removing the fleshly vestments and becoming a single entity again. Now he could function fully. They took down his stats: the part numbers of his components and the electrical pattern of his brain circuitry, so there could be no subsequent confusion about his identity. Then Translucent and Nepe left, and Citizen Blue took Trou bot with him. Merle was left to recover her hens from the quarantine chamber.