The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [43]
They had left the corridor and entered another, then turned again, and again. It's a maze, he thought, as Jo Jo led him. Soon he could not remember which way they had come. Was it left-left-right, or was it left-rightleft? The dark corridors were now empty of people, and the rooms they passed were unlit and smelled of dust and disuse.
"The Babbage Company, that's what would happen to them," Jo Jo said darkly. "Old Charlie Company's been trying to buy these automatons for years." He barked a laugh. "For their archives. For the benefit of the scientific community. Ha. They can't wait to cut these guys open and dissect them." He looked over his shoulder at Orphan. "'Cause they didn't build them, see? So they have to know."
"Know what?"
He was getting thoroughly disorientated by the walk. The corridors never seemed to end – he was beginning to suspect they were simply walking in circles.
Jo Jo stopped, turned, and tapped his own head with a hairy finger. "Know how they work. Know if they think. 'Cause if they do, china – then how can they do it without old Charlie's engines? We're here."
They stood in the middle of a corridor identical to all the ones before. Jo Jo ran his hand along the wall, pressed something invisible – and a section of the wall smoothly detached itself from the rest of the surrounding structure and swung open, revealing a small dark room hidden beyond.
Jo Jo motioned with his hand for Orphan to enter. He saw Orphan's bemused expression and his face softened, and those great soulful eyes blinked. "If you need me – bark." He laughed. "Don't worry, mate. You're expected."
Orphan looked into the dark room. Was it a trap? It was possible – but even then, was that not what he had wanted? Perhaps it was the Bookman inside there, ready to reveal himself at last. Or perhaps…
He took a deep breath. Tom said he could trust Jo Jo, and he, in his turn, trusted Tom.
So…
He stepped into the dark room, and the door swung shut behind him without a sound.
FOURTEEN
The Mechanical Turk
Let us not say that every machine or every animal perishes altogether or assumes another form after death, for we know absolutely nothing about the subject. On the other hand, to assert that an immortal machine is a chimera or a logical fiction, is to reason as absurdly as caterpillars would reason if, seeing the cast-off skins of their fellow caterpillars, they should bitterly deplore the fate of their species, which to them would seem to come to nothing.
– Julien Offray de La Mettrie, L'Homme Machine
The room was dark and warm. There was a dry, not unpleasant smell in the air, as of a cupboard that had been left closed for a long period of time, containing gently fading clothes and the dying scent of lavender. Orphan stood still and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. There was no movement, no sound in the room but for his own breathing.
He took a cautious step forward.
"Play with me," a voice said. It had a scratchy, echoey quality, as of an old Edison record.
Orphan, keeping silent, took another step forward.
Light, flickering and low, came into existence before him. It emanated from a series of small electrical bulbs set in a half-ring around a square wooden table with a chessboard laid in its middle. A figure was sitting on the other side of the chess table. It was the Turk.
The machine looked remarkably like a man. Only the upper half of the body could be seen, and Orphan had the distinct, uncomfortable notion that that was all there was to the Turk; that, had he looked behind the table, there would be nothing there. The Turk's face was ivory-white, as unchanging as a statue's. A long, thin moustache emerged from its upper lip and curved down. On the Turk's head was a turban, and a heavy fur coat covered its body. The coat looked old; it was moth-eaten. The Turk's hands rested on the table. They were pale, the fingers long and slender. One of his hands held a long-stemmed pipe which disappeared into