O Master Caliban Read Online Free PDF

his icy way, that there were things they were not sure of about him. It did not occur to him to deceive them.
    They led him down the halls, where the debris had been cleaned away. It amused him, too, that they had gotten rid of the things that would horrify or distract him.
    He was brought into a small room in which there was a screen with a chair in front of it. They locked him in and he sat down.
    The screen flickered and filled with a ceiling view of a group of small ergs gathered about a low table, engaged with an object their meshing limbs hid from sight. They looked like drones attending a queen bee. They withdrew slightly, exposing limbs, a torso, metal-boned and flashing silver. They tightened, trimmed, smoothed; flexed and adjusted.
    “Android robot,” Dahlgren murmured. “Playing with dolls!” A flash of contempt moved him. First curiosity, then contempt. Human feelings. “Am I becoming a man again?” asked Dahlgren. “Perhaps I will even feel ...”
    Fear.
    The ergs slid back and exposed the upper part of the body. It had two arms, five fingers on each. It was boned in gears and spindles, muscled in wires and flexes.
    Above the neck it was, or seemed to be, flesh; it had eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hair, beard. Dahlgren’s.
    The ergs moved out of the picture.
    The erg-android blinked, straight into Dahlgren’s eyes, blue for blue. An erg approached to snip one lock of beard with its claw, and retreated.
    The android blinked again, pulled back the pink lip comers into the beard, into Dahlgren’s rare smile, and raised a steel-tendoned arm, palm outward.
    “Hello, Dahlgren Zero,” it said. “I am Dahlgren One.”

    * * *

    Dahlgren looked into the eyes and swallowed. Then he sat up straight in his new health, his clean cloth, and said, “How do you do, erg-Dahlgren. I am Dahlgren Man.”
    Erg-Dahlgren smiled again; the screen went blank. Dahlgren touched his ginger-gray hair and beard, his mouth, and closed his eyes. He did not bend. Inside the closed lids he saw himself crawling the rough floor on his bleeding knees and palms. That was peace.

MORNINGS, SVEN exercised on the beaten earth outside the door. The sun shone pink through haze, the thatch steamed; blurred red lines striped the housefront from the bloodrains of spring and summer; small animals chattered in their hutches. The wind was light now, the birds chimed like bells and flowers twittered as drifting air whirred their blades; insects buzzed and screamed.
    Sven took off his clothes and clasped his upper hands behind his neck; he sprang onto his lower ones and walked on them with legs and torso bent back and upward like a dragonfly’s long thorax, excruciatingly.
    because you are not going to look like some damned freak, said Dahlgren. I don’t want those lower arms hanging limp like a bottled thing in a cheap circus.
    Then why did you make them that way, Dahlgren? But he never asked.
    Now lower left and upper right. Upper left and lower right. Sweat dripped from his nose and chin. I want every muscle growing, every bone. You have seventy-four extra bones, muscles to move them, tendons to hold them, blood vessels to feed them ...
    Sometimes he juggled with stones, or the heavy pods of the luk flower. You won’t have to earn a living as a court jester on Cinnabar Seven, don’t worry. Among Solthrees you will be a Solthree and less clumsy than most. Then why?
    Today he did not juggle. Standing on four arms, sweat dripping, beating blood in his head half stifling him, he wanted to stay that way, not thinking of Dahlgren.
    He blinked, saw an upside-down face, and jumped to his feet.
    Ardagh was leaning against the doorway. She picked up the rag he had left near his clothes to dry himself and handed it to him.
    He took it and wiped himself, not looking at her and not hiding from her, put on the net singlet and pants he wore as sweat-catchers to make up for his lack of body hair. “You have a question about my physiology?” He glanced up and