"Emmerson"

By the intelligent and charming Chaumont Devin
Honolulu, August 31, 1996.

Copyright (c) 1996 by Chaumont Devin, all rights reserved.

To Esther D., by whose advice I transform dross reality to shining dreams.


"  While the whole world scraps and fusses over fossil oil buried under
sterile desert sands," said Charley, " the planet's greatest treasure houses
of biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity are being systematically
plundered by a pack of maniacal cutthroats placed and kept in power by the
United States.  I cannot speak for Africa, but I do know what is going on in
western Melanesia and eastern Indonesia.  We paid for this region with the
blood of our bravest and best, and now we squander it on those who would rip
it from us and from its rightful owners and trash it for all time.  The gross
blunders we are making are a threat to the very future of mankind."  Needless
to say, very few people knew what on earth he was talking about, and those who
did had no desire to hear what he said.  He was never asked to be interviewed
on "Pacific Forum" again.  Nor for that matter did anyone EVER ask to
interview him ANYWHERE again at all.

It had obviously been a very long time since Charley Levinson had been a child
in the Moluccas.  The lines of his sagging face assumed a faraway look as he
thought about it, as though he could see himself, a four-year-old white boy in
a land of dark natives and tall trees.  He remembered the way he used to walk
out into the gentle forest in the mornings alone, drawn on by the crescendo of
the cries of a thousand birds.  There was nothing there to harm him--except
perhaps for a few giant python.  His mother never worried.  She was a
missionary, and she knew that nothing could ever touch him as long as her
faith was focused upon God, and nothing ever did.  She would be back at the
house about that time, reading quietly from the Word.  The people would come
later to sing or pray or both or whatever it was they would come to do.  The
sunlight was indescribable--blinding hot, and yet seeming to fill the entire
universe with joy.

It was now late at night in hot old Honolulu, and before him stood the machine
that he had been working on for the last twenty years.  His back ached, and it
was getting late.  He knew what had caused the lapse into memory.  It was that
girl in Manoa.  Girls affected him that way--made him think, made him remember
old feelings, and childhood.  There was something about this one--a certain
dimension of humanity--that he knew he loved.  At the same time he knew that
to admit any such thing to himself would only cause him pain.  He had learned
a long time ago that girl things never came out the way he expected them to,
and to have shown any real interest at his age would be tantamount to suicide.
If he HAD to have female companionship, then better just as friends.

But he hadn't really been able to focus his mind for days.  That was the way
he was.  At 54 he was able to understand himself a little better than before.
He knew that every stroke of genius had to incubate slowly and tortuously in
his subconscious for days or weeks before it could hatch.  Then it would come
to him suddenly, out of the blue.  It might be as he lay absent-mindedly on
his bed.  It might be in the middle of the night, when driven by frustration
he would walk alone in the darkness by the river.  Every drunk and prostitute
must have known him by sight, and many knew his name.  He particularly liked
an elderly black man who would call a greeting to him from where he sat or lay
resting on a bench near the trees.  There was a grace and calmness about him
that Charley admired.  But more often than not his greatest inspirations would
come to him while sipping coffee at Zippy's Restaurant.  He wished he could
figure out why.  Many times he would walk to Zippy's, at any hour of day or
night, always trying to repeat the process, to raise the reluctant spector of
insight from the depths of his being, but it would not come.  And then it
WOULD.

So he had spent the last lonely years.  He knew he would ultimately die--it
was only a matter of time--and he hated it.  There was no growing gracefully
old for him: he hated every part of it.  At one time he had wanted to die
because of the sheer pain of his existence, but this desire had ultimately
given way to inspiration, and now he wanted to live forever.

It all began with certain discoveries he made in the field of
psycho-linguistics.  He wasn't a PhD., and the academics hated him for it.  He
had imagined that he might help them by applying his knowledge of data
structures (it was actually an intuitive grasp gained the hard way over years
of software design) to their task.  The corners of his mouth drooped in a
deprecating smile, and a little puff of air escaped his nostrils as he
recalled the surprising lessons he had learned.  These people didn't want real
knowledge: they wanted to publish papers and get grants.  He remembered the
reams of incomprehensible papers he had looked at before he had finally caught
on.  Actually, he had thought Chomsky's works on political subjects rather
good.  But he had ultimately learned that what linguists REALLY hated was to
have some unlettered outsider come in and "beat" them at their own game.
By that time it was too late.  He was in too deep.  It was artificial
intelligence as approached through natural language.  That was the beginning
of this machine that stood before him now looking for all the world like some
great metallic beetle perched on very spindly legs.  Language is the door of
the mind, and Charley Levinson had forced his way in.  The machine must have
stood only a little over a foot high, but he had it sitting on his desk, where
its titanium head was at about the level of his own.  He saw a miniature
caricature of his face and an electric light bulb mirrored on its shining skin.
Its well-crafted legs positively shined.

The human mind (and they still didn't believe him, nor would any of them even
look at any of his papers) is built of layers.  First the phonological, then
the syntactic, then the semantic, and thence into every subsystem of the mind.
He had learned this not by cutting up human brains and examining them under
microscopes, but by deduction.  His experience with computational data
structures, taken together with what he knew about language, had told him so.
He believed that the structure and function of the biological machine (the
human brain) could be deduced by analyzing its output, just like the code
experts had deduced the function and structure of Japanese and German code
machines by examining their output before and during the second world war.
Through the years he had mapped the layers laboriously one-by-one.

His most amazing analytical breakthrough occurred during his study of the
semantic plane, for he discovered that there, in what he called the "ontology"
lay the essence of human personality.  The word, "ontology," derives from a
Greek word, "ontos," meaning "to be."  The ontology is a linguistical model of
the world reflecting the states of being of everything known by an individual
of his/her world.  It contains many links, or binary relations.  Here "binary"
simply means "having two ends," or "connecting two points.  Each point in the
ontology is called an "ontological node."

The links, or relations, in an ontology also reflect its name, since one of
the most important link types is the "is a," or hypernymy relation.  As an
example take the following:

A horse
is a mammal
is an animal
is a thing having form
is a material thing
is a thing

Through these links, the mind knows simple facts about the world, such as the
fact that a horse is a thing, a material thing, a thing having form, etc.

But it was clear to Charley Levinson that this ontology differed markedly from
person to person, and that these differences lay at the core of personality
itself.  In a criminal's mind, for example, a rape might be a good thing with
roughly the following links to the root, "thing:"

A rape
is a pleasurable action
is an action
is a non-material thing
is a thing

But a single human mind held thousands of such links in its ontology, so that
the possible permutations of such link combinations was astronomical.

Charley believed that if one could carefully map each link in a complete human
ontology and then model those links on a computer, it might be possible to
capture the essence of a human personality in a machine.  Everything else, for
example how a person spoke, or how a person walked, were good as identifying
characteristics.  It gave Charley pleasure, for example, to look at the
familiar face of a friend, or at the familiar identifying bumps and curves of
the waitresses at Zippy's.  But he knew that these things were not the essence
of what made people individuals.  They were peripheral phenomena only.  The
central issues of the human mind were what a person perceived and believed,
just like Jesus and Solomon had said.  As a matter of fact, Charley eventually
got to misquoting Solomon's famous words in the following manner: "As a
MACHINE thinketh in his heart, so is he."

But could a machine be made to fear God, and thus gain wisdom according to the
prescriptions of King Solomon?  Why not?

God
is a fearful thing
is a nonmaterial thing
is a thing

But what about love?

Esther
is a thing to be loved
is a woman
is a human
is a primate
is a mammal
is an animal
is a thing having form
is a material thing
is a thing

But as he thought about this one he realized that herein might lie the
unbidden seeds of promiscuity.  It must have been small ontological
distinctions like this that made the difference between faithful and
unfaithful men.  If a man loved Esther and wished to remain faithful to her,
his ontology should be revised to read:

Esther
is the only woman to be loved
is a woman
is a human
...

But care should be taken to get this exactly right.  For example:

Esther
is the only woman EVER to be loved
is a woman
is a ...

might conceivably leave a man in that unenviable state of having love taken
from him in such a way that it would be impossible ever to love again.

Charley marveled at how difficult it was to change any of these ontological
links once they had become established.  For example, he had a friend from a
certain part of Indonesia where the words for "blue" and "green" were linked
to the same ontological node.  Charley tried many times to get this friend to
recognize the difference, and intellectually he succeeded.  But then, when his
friend was relaxed and unwary, he would still sometimes hear him say, "Let's
cross the street.  The light is blue."

And Charley himself had his own similar problems.  One was a curious sort of
distraction that never really manifested itself in any outward way.  He knew
that the name, "Esther," meant star, and yet there was a tenuous and
persistent link that had somehow become established between "Esther" and his
semantic node for "estrus" (related to an ancient Greek word meaning
"frenzy"), so that the symbol that always sprang to mind at the sound of her
name was--well, you get the picture.  Charley knew full well what was going
on, and sometimes wondered if this might not be one of the things that
attracted him to her like a moth to flame.  "I mean," he mused, "if merely
spreading red paste on their lips can produce the effect that it undeniably
does, then how much more devastatingly might the male psyche be effected by an
inappropriate link such as this?"  At the same time he knew that such links,
once established, are almost impossible to alter, so that there was little he
could do.  "I am the product and victim of linguistical links and estrogen!"
he thought, "and to some degree or other they rule my very life."  And in a
peculiar sort of way this idea took hold of his imagination and gave him fresh
insights into a statistical relationship he thought he had noticed between
psychologists and psychotics in the past.

All this reminded him of a documentary film he had seen featuring the work of
the brilliant young Dr.  Pierce, and the gratifying results he had obtained by
working an electrical probe deep into the hypothalamus of what appeared to be
one of his more attractive young female volunteers.  She had become
increasingly cooperative with Dr. Pierce over the course of these experiments,
eventually evincing a behavior in which she would smile coyly and knowingly
whenever she discussed the deep probe with Dr. Pierce.  Her whole demeanor at
such times was, well, somehow gratifying even to behold!  Charley was now
convinced that Dr. Pierce must have been driven into the field of psychology
by an unexpressible sexual obsession resulting from persistent and unwanted
(yet at the same time perversely gratifying) images triggered by a bad link
somewhere in his ontology.  Mr Pierce had obviously hoped to encounter a cure
in the course of his studies, but when this had failed, well, he had ended up
channeling his perversion into this electric probe with which he now was able
to bring unspeakable ecstasy to his female subjects.  This path was obviously
better than other, more widely publicized alternatives, and had even been of
benefit to science.  The only danger that remained, Charley reasoned, was that
someday Dr. Pierce, inwardly locked into a delicious cycle of stimulation and
gratification even in his straight face and white lab coat, might lose
control, turn the current up too high, and so lose his ecstatic patient.  Such
thoughts filled Charley with awe at the many dimensions of the human psyche,
and how much more remained to be discovered.

Another problem lay more at the phonological level.  As a boy he had somehow
confused the sounds for "cease" and "seize," and try as he may, he could never
quite get them right.  Intellectually he knew the difference, of course, and
when he was thinking about it he always used the right word.  But if he was
concentrating on something else ...  Perhaps that is why the academic
linguists hated him.  It may have gone round in their circles that Charley was
some kind of idiot who couldn't even pronounce his own words.  He didn't know,
and couldn't worry.

What he did know was that the ontology was at the very core of personality,
and he set out to prove this by mapping, what else, his own personal ontology.
He thought long and hard about all the concepts he had ever learned and the
exact way in which these were arranged in his mind, and wrote his results down
in machine-readable form.  A wonderful idea slowly materialized in Charley's
imagination.  If he could correctly map his entire personality, he might be
able to create a machine that was HIM!  But what would this mean?  Would there
then be two of him?  One day he asked Esther about this while he sat talking
with her in the living room of her house in Manoa.  "What if it were possible
to copy every aspect of one's personality into a machine?  Would that machine
then be him?"  Her response had been an emphatic "NO!" but Charley was
unconvinced.

After Charley's long and intimate experience of life with its many
vicissitudes, he had developed a very different understanding of the universe,
and hence a very different ontology, from that held by his mother so many
years ago when he had been a child in the Moluccas.  His heart ached when he
thought about these things.  He could still feel her love, and the way she had
always thrown herself upon God.  He could see her, dressed in that old dress
of hers with the blue and white flowers or leaves or whatever they had been,
opening up that moldy old black box containing her accordion.  The mildew had
been bad in old Ambon.  Sometimes he had seen that accordion and case spread
out on the porch in the morning sun, which was so hot in that part of the
world that after a few minutes exposure its keys would be warm or even
slightly hot to the touch.  The mildew would die, only to be reborn as soon as
she shut the case again.  Sometimes the keys would get stuck, and the sun
would dry the wood, and it would work again, but after a time some of the keys
got stuck so badly that they would never work again at all.  Her favorite song
had been, "Only Thee Can I Trust in Life's darkness, Only Thee Can I Trust in
the Night."  He could still hear this song in his mind at times like this when
he sat blankly staring at his machine, searching always for that elusive thing
called inspiration.  Damn women!  It was women who made him think of his
boyhood and remember his mother, and this memory, if unchecked, would cut deep
into his heart, robbing him of sleep through the long, hot Honolulu nights.
Can't live with 'em, and can't live without 'em.  And he thought of the
ontological differences that lay like walls of steel blocking him from Esther,
even when she was sitting a mere five feet away.  Men were hard enough to
understand, but he was convinced he would NEVER find a woman he could
understand at all.  Everything he said would be misinterpreted--every action
misconstrued.  He would never find that at-one-ness he sought, that communion
of which he dreamed, and which he had somehow felt so sure of when he had been
a child.  He was now this skeptical scientist who had to live in the vast and
lonely emptiness of his own ever-unfolding mind.  There was no one to trust in
life's darkness for HIM.  Only the certain knowledge of his own impending
mortality in a random, uncaring, clockwork universe.

  He saw man not as any sort of finished product, but as just another life
form on a long and torturous evolutionary path.  When he thought of it he
would smile with contempt.  To think that people honestly believed that they
were some kind of finished product, or at the pinnacle of some evolutionary
path!  The very arrogance!  Most of the humanity HE had known (and he had
known a plenty) was characterized rather by gross stupidity and doting self
adulation.  As far as he could tell, mankind was fundamentally insane due to
the very recentness of the rise of intellectual awareness.  It was too knew,
and there hadn't been enough time to get the bugs out of it, and it might
destroy all life as we knew it before it had a chance.  He was convinced there
was intelligence behind life.  To him the belief that life could have arisen
somehow from non-life, and that intelligence could have arisen somehow from
non-intelligence was just another symptom of the current ignorance,
superstition, and borderline insanity.  Life was intelligent, and sprang from
some intelligent source--he didn't know what--but life had its own agenda and
cared nothing about the individual.  There was no one HE could trust in life's
darkness.

But the thought of transferring his personality to a machine gave him hope.  He
would get old and die, surely--and yet he would not.  He would never die as
other men.  He thought of Shakespear, and how much of the man had been
transmitted to him through time.  And he well understood Shakespear's
awareness of the potential for immortality that lay in what would remain of
his writings and verse.  Too bad the man hadn't understood the dimensions of
language with which Charley had learned to deal, otherwise it might be
possible to almost "bring him back to life again."  He recalled sonnet #60:

"Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end,
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

"Nativity once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.

"Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.

"And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand."

"To times, in hope," thought Charley.  But what did we really know of
Shakespear's ontology--what he believed, what he loved, what he hoped?
Virtually nil.  Even his identity itself was in dispute.  His verse, surely,
still stood, and Charley was quick to recognize its genius; but the man
himself was gone, and his best efforts had left him wide of the mark.  It
saddened Charley to realize just how feeble the human mind really was--that it
was only by stepping on the backs of many others that he had been able to get
where he now was.  Why couldn't poor Willy have discovered the ontology back
in the late 1500s and left us the true imprint of his being?  He might well
have mapped his own ontology in pen and ink, and left it for us to enter into
some computer now, but he had failed to see what was going on.  And the whole
idea, when one thought about it, was so simple!

So Charley slowly built around the computer model of his own ontology the
links and relationships he discovered in his own mind, the trappings of a
person.  He had experimented with various sound cards and circuits until he
had one that sounded just like his own voice.  He had experimented with speech
recognition systems until he had gotten one to really work.  None of them
would work the way they were when he bought them because the designers had
been unaware of the function of an ontology.  Had they been so, instead of
offering ten possibilities to chose from for every spoken word, they might
have been able to accept entire sentences, the way Charley's system did now,
and then pull from all the possibilities the correct interpretation by
discarding all interpretations which could not be made to agree with the
ontology.  Without an ontology it was not possible for computers to know, for
example, that ideas could not be green, or that men could not be buxom.  Going
only by the sounds of individual spoken words, therefore, it was impossible
for a computer to select meaningful combinations from among lists of possible
words.  Without a built-in ontology, therefore, if, for example, "buxom lass"
were spoken in such a way that the "lass" part could not be distinguished from
"lads,"  the spoken words, "He caught and kissed the buxom lass" might well be
interpreted as "He caught and kissed the buxom lads."  This had always been
the problem with speech recognition, and this was one of the main reasons why
it was possible for computers to generate speech comparatively well whereas it
seemed impossible to ever make computers understand anything that was said.
Charley knew that were IBM to get ahold of the knowledge he had, it would be
worth millions.  But there was no danger of that.  He had tried once, but
quickly given up when he had realized he was only being given the old
run-around by the many levels of secretaries.  Companies like IBM dealt with
men who held PhDs in linguistics, and Charley was certainly not going to sit
under the silly instructors that taught at the University of Hawaii long
enough for that.  To sweet young ladies like the overpaid secretaries at IBM,
Charley was nothing but another nut case who believed he had something he
could sell for millions to Big Blue.

But this didn't really bother Charley, because deep down in his heart of
hearts he didn't want to sell his ideas to Big Blue at all.  No, Charley
Levinson didn't really have to worry about money, and Charley Levinson had
other plans.  He spent long hours sprawled between the deserted bookshelves at
Hamilton Library reading obscure texts on such things as optics, metallurgy,
hydraulics, and the like.  Sometimes his detachment from the world came home
to him with a shock, like the time he was crouching by a bookshelf on all
fours when he was distracted by a sudden nearby gasp, followed quickly by dull
thuds.  He glanced up to see the form of a very lovely young woman lying
prostrate on the floor, her head not two feet from his own left hand.

In fact she was a sociology student who had been sent to the library to do
research for an assignment, otherwise she would never have been there at all.
She had become hopelessly disoriented in the long, silent corridors of
bookshelves, and the library's air conditioning had chilled the satin-smooth
skin of her arms and hands, which were clearly designed for a more tropical
clime.  When she had suddenly realized her predicament, she had been seized
with unreasonable fear.  Her intellect told her that nothing was wrong, but
her animal instincts played tricks with her mind, and her heart began to race
beneath her breast.  The only sound she could hear was the almost inaudible
murmur of the air conditioner churning away somewhere in the bowels of the
great building.  In all her short life she couldn't remember ever having felt
so utterly alone.  Glancing this way and that, the only things she saw were
gray floors, gray walls, gray book shelves, and ancient books.  Her nostrils
were filled with the odor of decaying paper as her silent footsteps brought
her past the silent shelves.  It was at about that time when, rounding the end
of a book shelf, she had come upon an image that struck terror to her heart.
It was the sight of a European man, a giant when compared to her small size,
crouched in ambush on the floor.

Author's note:  For those who object to explicit descriptions of human
sexuality on the printed page, and for persons under twenty-one years of age,
please skip the next few paragraphs.  The best way of avoiding contamination
is probably to skip far ahead, and then keep reading backward until the
subject material appears to heat up, then skip forward a little way again, and
carry on.  But if the reader should decide to boldly plunge ahead at
his/her/its own peril, and then still finds this material indelicate or to be
written in less than good taste, I apologize in advance, because it is not my
intention to offend any of the highest and noblest of human sensibilities.  My
purpose here is not to delve the pornographic depths in order to dredge
therefrom some new morsel of human depravity and perversion at the expense of
Charley Levinson, but rather to tell as best I am able the unvarnished truth
of his existence so that the innermost nature and hence nobility of the man
can be fully documented and understood.  Believe me, nothing written here is
in fact even a little out of character when held up and compared to the true
experiences of men.  It is hoped, therefore, that these passages will
especially benefit those sheltered ladies among us who have never been
permitted to gain any real understanding of the terrors that accompany true
manhood.

Charley Levinson blinked as though he had seen an apparition.  What had
happened?  Where had she come from?  What was wrong?    Then he stood up,
stepped forward, and knelt by her side.  At that moment, for some reason, he
remembered he had forgotten to shave.  He didn't know how many hours it had
been since he had last eaten, either, and it dawned on him that he must be
feeling hungry as well.  Then it struck him that this apparition had made him
hungry in a different sort of way.  How long had it been since ...?  This girl
was typical--dressed with every intent of firing and frustrating monumental
passions.  He looked down at the incredibly smooth, clean skin of her
innocent, young face.  Her jet black hair had an indescribable natural sheen
that spoke of a very high level of personal hygiene.  As he knelt down beside
her, he picked up the scent of shampoo mingled with other, more subtle female
odors which rose from her person in the cool, dry air.  He could tell she was
alive because of the rhythmic rise and fall of her breasts.  He could scarce
believe anything might be wrong with her.  She looked, well, just too right!
By this time his male awareness had been completely aroused.  His first
impulse was to touch her, but he pulled back his hand in mid air.  Then his
eyes fell upon something that filled him with almost irresistible fire.  The
hem of her mini skirt had slidden up in her fall leaving both thighs
completely exposed along with the tiniest bit of silk panty between.  He
looked at the skin of her inner thighs, and knew exactly how it would have
felt under his fingers--how it would have yielded to his touch.  Esther had
skin like that.  Why was it she could never tell him she was ready--by body
language, eye contact, or whatever?  If only Esther had been a little more
cooperative, he wouldn't be feeling overcome with male passion as he was right
now!  The library was silent.  He couldn't tear his eyes away.Women simply
could not understand the force of such feelings, otherwise they would never
dress the way they do.  What if, ever so gently, he were to take her now?  He
imagined the feel of her yielding body under his own on the hard library
floor, and marveled again at the genius of this ancient but brilliant physical
design that provided exactly the right kind of support in all the right
places.  Oh to lie sweetly on that soft, warm belly with his arms about her
waist!  To caress and love that shining hair and silken skin!    To penetrate
to the most intimate and moist depths of this sweet, young being!  Would she
ever know?  Would she wake up?  Someone might surprise them, but the risk was
pretty small.  He felt his hands trembling as he kneeled there motionless by
her side, foolishly wondering if she could be moist and unconscious at the
same time.  In the stillness of the library, surrounded by a fair and fairly
incomprehensible representation of the sum-total of human knowledge, the only
things he could hear were the murmur of the air conditioning and the beating
of his own heart.  He fought back a sudden urge to put his ear to her left
breast.

All this happened in mere seconds, but to Charley it felt like a thousand
years.  And he knew he would never forget any detail of it for as long as he
lived.  Of course he couldn't touch her.  He was Charles E. Levinson, man of
truth!  He stood up, walked quickly down the long aisle that led to the
librarian's desk, and reported the matter to the secretary in charge.  Then he
escorted her to where the girl lay, and went downstairs to await the
paramedics.  Here eyes had already opened by the time they arrived, and in
fact she was fine.  She glanced at him once, and her eyes met his, but they
held no spark of recognition.  As far as she knew she had never seen the man
before.  He caught one last whiff of her shampoo as she passed him, leaning for
support on the secretary's arm.  At that moment he still wanted this strange
girl as if she were the only woman in the world.  Every molecule of his being
was crying out for her, and she didn't even recognize him.  Impossible though
it seemed, he knew this was only a trick of the male passions her helpless,
prostrate figure had aroused.  Maybe in another universe.  In this one it
would have to die.

Again and again over a thousand lonely, sleepless nights his keen mind would
assemble and reassemble that wondrous scene.  She would drift before him in
the dark, her silken hair splayed out from her pretty head on the polished
floor, the incredible skin of her inner thighs, the tiny patch of silk seen
under the hem of her mini skirt.  The sweet, soft firmness of her belly just
under the cloth, her two young breasts rising gently with each silent breath.
These were the elements of madness!  He wasn't a Christian as his mother had
been, so the images he saw did not trouble him with any feeling of guilt, but
this fact could not help his sense of frustration and loss.  He had no
illusions about any young creature like that one ever caring anything about
him.  But she had insinuated herself into his life in a way that would not be
denied.

The gift of an imagination like his was definitely a two-edged sword.  It
enabled him to excel at solving problems where more notationally oriented
engineers would surely fail.  But alone on his bed the male forces of his
being would leave him no rest without orgasm, and so again and again they
would commandeer the resources of his agile mind to generate about him an
artificial reality in which he leaned over her, silently and gently removed
her silk panties, and penetrated steadily to the dark, warm depths within.
She would awake in his arms, realize what was happening to her, and instead of
screaming in terror begin tugging and moaning with ecstasy.  His mouth would
find hers, and under and between his lips he would sense the passionate
flickering of her tongue.  He would awaken her young being to a dimension of
consciousness such as she had never experienced before, and they would cling
together for a thousand years!

But when he thought about it, the seeming timelessness of those few seconds
during which he had hovered over her supine body with outstretched hand gave
him pause.  What made his brain remember such moments in such incredible
detail, and how could a few seconds like that seem like such a long time?  The
force of his male passion had momentarily changed certain parameters of his
being.  If only he could find a way to harness that kind of cognitive ability,
and to slow down the seemingly inexorable advance of time!  It was this latter
idea that gave him the most food for thought, for he knew that except during
such moments, the human body and brain were bound to a relentless clock that
ticked its way savagely toward oblivion.  In a computer, it is true,
everything is also paced by the ticking of a clock--the faster the better for
most things.  But THIS clock can be speeded up or slowed down with dramatic
results.  What if a machine could be made to hold the contents of a human
mind, and this mind could speed up or slow down its own internal clock at
will?  An incredible thought!  How far was it to the nearest star?  Four light
years?  Suppose a propulsion system could be provided capable of moving such a
machine at, say, 30 kilometers per second toward this star?  If this machine
experienced normal human consciousness at n clock pulses per second, then
moving at 30 kilometers per second (without considering the effects of
relativity) it would perceive the passage of 40 years before reaching said
star--too much boredom, even for an electronic human!  But if the same machine
could be made to operate at a clock speed of n/14600 clock pulses per second,
he/she/it would only experience the passage of a single day.  Now what if n
were 10mhz (normal, human-time operating speed were calibrated at 10mhz)?
10,000,000 / 14600 = +- 685 clock pulses per second.  Are these figures
reasonable?  Can a computer be made to operate at these speeds?  Most
assuredly.

And what of the reverse?  What if greater speed were required by some
emergency?  Even the cheaper processors of today are capable of operations at
greater than 100mhz.  This is ten times faster than our hypothesized normal
operating speed of 10mhz.  Equipped with the right appendages, a machine with
human intelligence operating at, say, thirteen times normal speed could disarm
a potential killer before he/she had time to fire a single shot.

Despite his great loneliness, and such nightly episodes as I have narrated
above, such thoughts stirred a great excitement in the heart of Charley
Levinson, and spurred him to greater discoveries and broader research.  And
(he would smile as he thought this) in his old age, he came to spend more and
more time talking to himself.  These were not the babblings of an old man
sitting alone on his verandah.  Charley Levinson spent more and more time
talking to the computer program that had HIS personality at its core.  He had
to do this at every step in order to make sure that the software he was
creating would really work.  And he never turned his computer off any more.
He didn't have a variable clock speed computer yet, and he felt obliged not to
let his alter ego get bored, so he rigged up ever more sophisticated
peripheral devices to keep him (his alter ego) occupied.  Yes, the "alter
ego" reference was no good, so Charley started calling the computational
version of himself Emmerson (his own middle name).  After a great deal of
trouble with mechanical problems and worthless OCR, Charley managed to make a
passingly good optical scanning system for Emmerson so that Emmerson could
help with research and speed up the work.

His conversations with Emmerson opened up a brand new experience for Charley
Levinson.  When he had been a child, it had been easy to relate to his peers.
None of them knew or was able to deduce much more than the next, or at least
the difference between individuals was not so apparent.  His mother had never
cared much what he did or where he was, as long as he didn't get into any
trouble.  So he spent many happy hours among the brown children of Hunut, a
village nearby.  These children were a rag-tag lot.  The ones who wore clothes
at all wore rags.  It wasn't that their mothers didn't wash them.  It was
simply that they could never afford to buy anything new.  All children's
clothes were washed at the stream, often without the benefit of soap, and then
bleached upon the boulders in the tropic sun.  What ever their original
colors, therefore, all garments made their way gradually toward a sort of
light tan with deeper stains of brown.  The stains were from the abundant
plants and fruits of that wild and most beautiful land.

As he had grown older, however, Charley had found it ever more difficult to
relate to any other being.  Looking back from where he was, Charley realized
that he had really been different from other children as early as age four.
But the only outward evidence of this difference had been what the adults of
his family considered a nagging and difficult habit of posing unending
questions.  "The question box," they had called him.  "Here comes the question
box!"  Now his mother was long dead, not to mention his dear father, who had
died of malaria when he had been nine.  His five brothers and sisters were as
different from him as east is from west.  They cared nothing for the islands,
the peoples, or the sciences he loved.  Theirs was the pursuit of money and
acceptance among men--things in which Charley Levinson had less than zero
interest unless they had an immediate relationship to what he considered the
REAL things of life.  He did not hate them, but he certainly could not RESPECT
them.  And for any of them to respect a man who had no pretensions like HIM
was a foregone impossibility.  They, and others like them, were bound together
with a different glue.

Charley enjoyed talking to Esther because she had certain qualities that drew
him, and he considered her an attractive woman, and (damn it all) he needed
female companionship.  Once something happened while he was talking to her
that got his attention.  A little child had been sleeping in one of the rooms,
and when she woke up and came out Esther saw her and said, in that special
high tone of voice one normally reserves for little children, "Come on!  Come
on!"  At that instant it was as if he saw her in an entirely different light.
Before that he had seen her as just another local Honolulu bitch with sweet
face and pretty legs--he perceived Honolulu women generally as being weak as
water yet hard as nails.  But at that moment he thought he detected something
radically different within her being.  Something in her tone of voice--perhaps
the exact way in which she spoke and paused--seemed to tell him volumes.  Or
perhaps it had been conveyed in her facial expression, and the look of her
Japanese eyes.  For an instant he saw her transformed into a strong, faithful,
and caring woman.  Was it real or illusion?  He didn't trust himself to know.

From time to time he also enjoyed a walk or a talk with friends.  He needed
male companionship too, because there were occasions when he just needed to
vent his male frustrations with life.  Sometimes he would forget, and do this
with women, and then they would disappear, and poor Charley would wonder why.
Didn't adult women understand even the simplest things?  After having had sex
with so many men as he knew many of them had, how could they possibly take any
offense at him?  They weren't quite real!  Why?  Poor Charley would NEVER
understand, nor did he want to understand.

But with Emmerson he had common ground.  He had often dreamed of having this
with a woman, but his mother had wrecked that for him by moving out of
Lakeport when he had been a boy.  In Lakeport everyone knew and understood
everyone else.  This was because they all had had the same life experience,
spoke the same language, etc., so their ontologies were all more or less
alike.  Many people would consider this boring, but for Charley, who had been
dragged around the world three times by the time he was fifteen, such things
were the stuff of dreams.  As it was, he knew so many cultures so intimately
that he could not possibly respect the idiosyncrasies of any one.  He despised
Americans, for example, when he saw them show outrage at the sight of a naked
child.  What was wrong with them, anyhow.  Why should the sight of a naked
child offend such tainted women and men?  And why was it that women could be
seen on beaches everywhere in Hawaii wearing nothing but the merest bandage
strips across their pubic hairs, but if any one of them were for any reason to
remove such a strip, say to urinate on the wet sand, the lifeguards would be
more alarmed than if a cripple were drowning in the breakers?  The sight of
females lying exposed for the express purpose of attracting men they had no
intention of engaging in sexual union was always a source of disgust to
Charley, who would have dearly loved to strip off all their skimpy bandages,
not to probe what was inside but to slap them smartly on their derrieres and
give them a few swift kicks to get them on their separate ways.  These people
had serious things wrong with their ontological nodes!

He could talk to Emmerson for hours because Emmerson shared his own complex
ontology, and he had never experienced anything like this before.  He had
almost known it one time with a Philippino woman.  She, like him, was a child
of multiple cultures.  As a matter of fact, they had thought so alike that
they often burst out saying the same things.  But this Philippino woman, who
had a most delightful nature, a fine sense of humor, and a voice that could
sooth the fiercest beast kept gaining weight through the American diet.  She
had fallen in love with him at about 200lb, and when he had failed to respond
in the way she had hoped, she had decided that she was unable to "handle the
relationship," and had dumped him for good.  If only she had been anything
like Esther!  By this time he would have found bliss!

Because of their common ontology, the friendship that arose naturally between
himself and Emmerson (who continued to think of himself as Charley Levinson,
whatever Charley called him at the time) grew into a powerful bond.  Neither
of them realized it them, but their relationship was one of the strongest
bonds that had ever existed in human history.  The only other human bonds of
such depth were those between the very simplest of men who never communicated
with each other in more than a few grunts, but would gladly die at each
other's sides.  The mother-child bond is also thought to be very strong, but
this is mainly because it is established well before the infant is ever able
to speak a word, and hence no opportunity for misunderstanding can arise.
Mothers will still die for their children long after their children have
learned to talk, and to call them all manner of names, but this is only
because the idea of the bond has become fixed in the mother's ontology, where
it outlives its usefulness by many years.  As we have seen, ontological links,
once established, are almost impossible to destroy.  The bond between Charley
and Emmerson, on the other hand, was due to a true commonality of being, and
although they could not know it then, it was to last through millions of
years.

And so, for many years, Charley and Emmerson lived and worked together.  I say
"lived" because this is the best association in the traditional ontology to
describe Emmerson's state of being.  And slowly Charley found ways of making
Emmerson more and more human, and of enhancing his intellect.  The only thing
Charley ever did to Emmerson that might have been construed as "dehumanizing"
was to alter him slightly in places where Charley found his own personality to
be defective.  For example, instead of leaving Emmerson to suffer quietly from
overpowering sexual drives in a penisless, womanless world, Charley provided
Emmerson with a little switch that he could turn off and on at will.  When
Emmerson wanted the feeling, say to enable him to better understand the
desires that drove other men, he would turn it on for a time.  But then, when
it became a nuisance, he would turn it off again.  And Charley would not pry
into Emmerson's electronic circuitry to see what he had been doing with this
switch over time.  But even when he had his switch on, the sex problem wasn't
as serious for Emmerson in the beginning because Charley and he had not yet
learned how to duplicate the human power of imagination.  It was only much
later, when Emmerson's powers had been expanded well beyond Charley's that the
problem grew serious at all.  At such times he had wanted to shout, "Give me a
woman now, or I'll fry my own chips!" but he always controlled his feelings
because he was essentially human, and he well understood the discomfort it
might cause a human to hear a machine talking in this way.  Good heavens, it
might even cause alarm!  And Charley made sure Emmerson always got the right
link whenever he needed to say "cease" or "seize."

But despite his apparent genius in the field of psycho-linguistics, there wasa
problem that always nagged at Charley's brain.  He noticed that human beings
could seem to generate new computational logic automatically.  For example,
when a musician learned a new keyboard sequence for his hands.  At first the
hands must be moved through the progression slowly, the speed being increased
over time.  Eventually the musician would know the sequence so well that his
hands could accomplish it perfectly without any conscious effort on the part
of the musician at all.  What was the secret?  It must be related to the
problem of reproduction.  Von Neumann had worked on this problem many years
before, but his results had never satisfied Charley.  Some important
ingredient was missing here, and he had to know what it was.  He studied the
problem with Emmerson for many months without any breakthrough.

Then, late one afternoon he was nursing a cup of coffee and thinking about
that very thing--reproduction, I mean--at vineyard Zippy's.  His problem, if
that is what it was, had been triggered by--what else--one of the waitresses
walking by.  "Hi, Charley," she had said, all sweetness, light, and
overfamiliarity.  Uh-uh!  Prostitution, that's what it was!  No matter how
well he knew them, he had never really gotten to know a single one.  He had
long since decided this must be yet another inscrutable local cultural
convention.  Or worse yet, maybe a Zippy's conspiracy.  And he wondered for a
moment what it was they might be putting in his coffee, and why he always had
to come to Zippy's in order to think.  Waitresses were supposed to attract and
sweet the hell out of lonely male customers, but never, under any
circumstances, respond to any advance.  "I have more respect for the real
sluts down on River Street," he thought bitterly, "at least they give you
something concrete at the end of the flirtation instead of just keeping you
coming back for more without delivering ANYTHING like this bunch does here!"
Not to misunderstand.  Of course honest Charley would never have dreamed of
using a prostitute.  Not that he wouldn't return their greeting, or answer
"No, thank you," when they asked for a date.  Having grown up in the East, he
had been taught to love and respect all men--including prostitutes, drunks, or
whatever.  And yet he was aware of the need to speak out, and sometimes did
so.  "Prostitution is a crime," he would say, and find himself faced with
total shock and surprise.  It hurt him to hurt prostitutes, but it also hurt
him to live in a society where the truth (that prostitution was a crime) was
received with such incredulity.  He had to steel himself to say this, because
it often made him feel that it was HE who had committed the crime--by speaking
out.

So anyway, he was nursing this cup of coffee when Carol Matsumoto walked by
and said "Hi."  There was something about this rather tall, strong Japanese
women that set her apart.  It was a sort of energy and inner strength.
Resolution, that's what it was.  She was divorced and raising a seven-year-old
daughter, this much he knew from overhearing the failed attempts of other men.
She was a killer.  Bring any man near her and in five minutes he was starting
to propose, proposition, or otherwise make himself a perfect fool.  It was
definitely her sexuality.  She had firm hips, and that incredible skin found
mainly only among East Asians.  But many women had firm hips and smooth skin.
He knew the thing that really did it was that inner resolve which seemed to
emanate from her every move.  She was so Japanese he could have heard it with
his eyes closed, and yet her accent was almost Californian.  In fact, for an
American, she couldn't have been said to have any real accent at all.  It was
something else in her voice, perhaps a certain kind of resonance resulting
from the hereditary configuration of her facial bones.  At any rate, he was
studying her movements and idly wondering if there really was any Zippy's
conspiracy after all when his big breakthrough occurred.  The two concepts of
spontaneous code generation and reproduction gelled and held.

He gulped down what was left of his coffee, stole one last, bitter glance at
the advancing front of Carol Matsumoto's resolute lower belly, imagined
everything he couldn't see in perfect, moving, and vivid detail, looked
innocently up into her smiling but uncaring Oriental eyes, smiled back, stood
up, and was gone.  Zippy's had worked its magic again!  The heart-shaped form
of Carol Matsumoto's lower belly loomed ever before him as he made his way
home beside the river, responding with a gracious "good evening" to a greeting
from a prostitute at the corner of Kukui Street. At home he found Emmerson
reading "The Princess and the Goblin," and asked him why he was doing so.  "To
fill in the gaps of my being," was Emmerson's response.  "You once gave me a
list of all the books you have read--at least those you are able to remember,
and I am doing what I can to find all of them and store them in interlingual
form.  I got this one from Project Gutenberg via the Internet."  By
"interlingual form" Emmerson meant as a string of Interlinguish thought
representations.  Interlinguish was one of Charley's first meaningful
breakthrough's in linguistics.  In stead of using words, Interlinguish used
what Charley had called "universal atoms of meaning."  Each such atom was
essentially just the representation of the two links defining the meaning of a
word--its link to a parent word (if it had a parent word) and its link to a
semantic node.  Once Emmerson had scanned a book and stored its meaning as an
Interlinguish array, he could access any part of it with amazing speed.  This
was because scanning in Interlinguish was done not by advancing from letter to
letter and word to word, but by jumping from the main verb of one thought
directly to the main verb of the next until the desired verb was found, and
then scanning a subtree for details.  In fact Charley was growing to rely more
and more heavily on Emmerson's growing store of information as their project
advanced.  Why bother to look things up in a library when he could just ask
Emmerson?  He brought home all the most important works he could find at
Hamilton Library dealing with the physical sciences, and left them for
Emmerson to scan.  Emmerson's knowledge was outstripping his intellectual
powers, but that was to be expected.  These would catch up as Charley found
new and better ways of doing things, and now, with this new discovery Charley
had made over coffee at Zippy's, they would eventually outstrip his own and
that of every other human who was ever born.  Charley worked through most of
the night to implement his idea, and when he was finished, he could hardly
sleep for the excitement that sang within him.

Things moved rapidly from that night on.  The laborious task of slowly
figuring everything out, then coding and debugging software was a thing of the
past.  Whenever Charley provided Emmerson with some new appendage or
peripheral device, Emmerson would just start pulsing it and "figure out" how
to work it through trial and error like a baby does when learning to use its
hands.

Together they had chosen the appropriate size and form for Emmerson's new
incarnation.  Together they had chosen each silicon chip, together they had
designed each metal part and hydraulic device.  All electronic and moving
parts lay within a 3/8 inch carapace.  The outer layer was of titanium alloy.
Under this lay a plastic sealant to provide shock resistance and protection
against possible leaks.  And inside this was a layer of carbon steel.  All the
parts within were designed to function in vacuum.  None of these precautions
was elaborate, because Emmerson's new incarnation would have to be able to
withstand the rigors of space and function reliably over thousands of years.
There were backups, and backups of backups, of everything.  Many of the parts
were so small that Charley had had to use a microscope to install them.  One
of the most difficult problems had been to design and build a hydraulic system
capable of working reliably in vacuum.  Both Charley and Emmerson had wished
they could have designed everything from scratch, but this would have cost too
much money and taken too much time.  At the heart of the electronic brain lay
a state of the art 256mhz chip driven by a variable speed clock over which
Emmerson would have 100% control.

It was late at night in Honolulu now, and the great moment had arrived.
Charley connected a single cable to each of the beetle's three shining legs,
nodded, and Emmerson began "pouring" in.  The download would take many hours.
There was nothing for it but to go to bed.  "Call me if you need anything,"
said Charley as he entered the shower.  He scrubbed, rinsed, toweled, and lay
down, his aging vertebrae crying for relaxation.  There was no girl at the
library this time, no Carol, no Esther--only a slow drift into the enveloping
fog.

When he awoke the sun was already high.  With some apprehension, he entered
his lab.  Standing on the table was the new Emmerson, titanium legs shining,
all cables removed.  "Hi, Charley!" both Emmersons chimed.  "I wondered when
you would be getting out of bed."  Again both voices spoke the exact same
words at the exact same time.

"Fascinating stuff!" thought Charley.  But when Emmerson spoke again he was
only one voice, and the direction of the sound told Charley it was the new
Emmerson.

"I got the cables off my legs," he said, but I'm still pretty shaky, and I
don't want to move around very much on this desk top because I don't want to
fall off.

How stupid of him.  He MUST have been exhausted to have left the new Emmerson
standing on the table top instead of placing him on the floor.  Of course
Emmerson was as nearly indestructible as both of them could make him, and
might have survived a fall from many meters, especially with his clock
operating at top speed, but falling off a table top did NOT seem to be the
appropriate way to begin.  Charley placed a hand under his polished titanium
underbelly and lowered him to the floor.  He knew that Emmerson would
learn--thanks to that breakthrough he had had while sipping his coffee at
Zippy's that afternoon--but walking on three legs was not going to be any
laughing matter.  It might take years!

But Charley smiled as he thought this, because he knew it WOULD be a laughing
matter, and it almost immediately was.  Emmerson, excited at the prospect of
being able to walk, started raising and lowering himself on all three legs in
a kind of dance.  But for the fact that he had only three legs instead of six,
he looked for all the world like some giant metallic spider preparing to
pounce.

Emmerson noticed the quizzical look on Charley's face and said, "I'm moving up
and down on all three legs at the same time to calibrate the logic that takes
inertial readings and uses them to calculate trajectories.  I'm afraid to try
much else before finishing this because I might not know how to catch myself
in a fall."

True, Charley thought, with only three legs a creature becomes unstable the
moment any foot is in the air.  Still, humans seemed to have little difficulty
mastering the art of walking on stilts, and both birds and men walked on two
legs.

Emmerson's appendages were interesting devices.  They had sharp titanium
points that could be used on rocky terrain much as claws.  But these points
were shod with smooth titanium disks for use in human habitations.  When not
in use, or when Emmerson needed the use of all his appendages for
manipulation, these disks could be attached to points on his underbelly.

As Charley watched, he saw Emmerson stop pumping up and down, rock back on two
limbs, and lift the third tentatively from the ground.  He extended it quickly
as his body began to fall in the direction of the upraised limb.  He steadied
himself and repeated the experiment again and again.  "Pretty good," Charley
thought.  "Not quite so funny after all.  This fellow seems to be pretty
sharp, even if he is really me!"

  Just then Emmerson started practicing turns, and for a moment positioned
himself face-to-face with Charley, and Charley realized how ugly he really
was.  He had been designed and built under the strictest utilitarian and
functional considerations required for survival in an extended environment.
This meant being able to withstand the pressure of water at a depth of 40,000
feet as well as the vacuum of space, and to sustain at least minimal function
in temperatures well below freezing and above the boiling point of water.  His
eyes were positioned somewhat further apart than a real human's, and near er
the top of his titanium carapace than the eyes of a real human would be in
relation to the top of his skull.  This arrangement provided him with enhanced
depth perception, and compensated a little for his lowness to the ground.  It
also made it possible for him to see over an obstruction without providing a
very good target in emergency situations.  Just as each human eye socket is
set within ridges of bone, so also Emmerson's carapace was thickened to form
ridges around each of his eyes.  Each such "eye" was a hole filled to a depth
of 3/4 inch with tempered glass.  Because of the need to be able to withstand
great pressures, the diameter of each hole was necessarily small.  This was
compensated for by the extreme miniaturization of the two electronic cameras
that lay behind them, but even so, his field of vision was somewhat more
restricted than a real human's.  This limitation could be dispensed with in a
laboratory situation by means of external "eyes" which were connected by
cables to each of his three titanium legs.  His legs were electrically
insulated from one another and provided access through internal switches to
various logical and electrical subsystems.  These switches were kept off
during normal operations to guard against the possibility of damage from
static electrical build-up in carpets, lightening discharges, and other such
dangers.  Operating in this mode, Emmerson could safely handle live electrical
wires up to several hundred volts without worry of damage to his internal
circuitry.
Emmerson also had ears, situated high up on the sides of his carapace for
maximum directional sensitivity.  Made of a tough,elastic material, they
resembled dog ears more than those of a human.  Because it was impossible to
incorporate such external structures into an integrated and smooth carapace
design, like the tail of a lizard, in an emergency these external "organs"
could simply fall off to be replaced at a later time.

Emmerson  also had a vertical titanium process extending a little way down
from between his two "eyes" which served as a nose.  It contained holes
through which fluids and particles might be drawn for chemical analysis.  And
just below this, where one might expect a mouth, he had a sonic transducer.
In conversation it was used as a speaker, but it could be used to transmit
sonic pulses for echolocation at the bottoms of oil tanks or murky channels,
or to penetrate mist or fog or the darkest night.

All he need do for radio communications was try to secure a good ground
contact with one appendage, say by grasping a steel pipe, then holding another
appendage in the air as antenna, flipping on two of the three switches to his
appendages, and sending electrical pulses of the appropriate pattern at the
appropriate frequency and time.

Emmerson had one and only one weapon: a laser capable of shooting pulses of
high-energy light from just between his two "eyes."  This device remained in a
locked off position during normal operations, and was so dangerous, and
required so much energy, that it was never used at full power except in
extreme situations.  With the proper internal switch settings, however, and
with two of his three appendages plugged into an electrical power source,
Emmerson was capable of projecting a beam of light that could melt through the
aluminum skin of an attacking aircraft at several thousand yards.

You're not very pretty," commented Charley.

"Your not so beautiful yourself," was Emmerson's unhesitating response.

"At least you seem to know what you're doing," Charley mused.

"I will, if I ever manage to learn how to walk," said Emmerson, with an air of
impatience in his voice.

"Here," said Charley, "let me give you a hand."  And with that Charley moved
behind him, leaned down, and took one of Emmerson's forward and sideways
pointing appendages in each hand.  He then moved Emmerson forward in a
rocking, walking motion, leaving Emmerson's third appendage free so he could
drag it along behind him for balance.  They made their way around the
laboratory in this way several times before Emmerson began to catch on
(develop the software to drive his appendages in a way that would enable him
to walk).  Then Charley let him go.

Now is when the funny part really did arrive.  Getting used to the motion,
Emmerson started hopping from one forward appendage to the other to perfect
his act.  Then he took a few steps, miscalculated, and fell on his nose.
Unsure what to do, he held himself in that position, balanced on his two
forward appendages and his nose, his third appendage sticking straight out
behind, until Charley came and set him down.

"When in doubt, just pull in your arms," Charley exhorted.  This will bring
you closer to the ground, where you can gain better control.  Then you will be
able to take your time planning your next move with your carapace in a
horizontal plane."
These antics, sometimes funny but mostly boring, lasted through the next
several days.  Then, at last, the time came when Emmerson should become
familiar with the street.  Neither he nor Charley wanted attention, so they
decided to venture out very late one night.  By that time Emmerson had become
thoroughly acquainted with the workings of his internal clock, and had a pretty
good "feel" for ballistics over a wide range of speeds.  When Emmerson set his
clock at maximum speed (256mhz), Charley seemed to be standing still.  At such
times Emmerson himself would have to stand still to make sure Charley was even
alive.  Then, as he watched, Emmerson would see Charley slowly moving a limb,
like some very slow animal, perhaps a sloth.  Excited and filled with euphoria
because of all the wonderful new things that were happening to him, this
vision of a very slow Charley would make Emmerson laugh.  But when Emmerson
laughed, all Charley could hear was a very low growl.  It was a laugh played
at about 1/26 speed!

Now as soon as Charley gave Emmerson the high sign indicating the coast was
clear, a silvery blur shot past him, and for a moment he saw Emmerson standing
all by himself in the middle of the street.  A moment later Charley saw
another blur, and Emmerson stood hidden at a point where he could observe the
sidewalk from the shadow of a bush.  "Oops," Charley thought, "looks like
Emmerson is running at max.  Maybe he's shy or something."  As a matter of
fact, in all their careful planning, neither one of them had considered the
full social ramifications of what they were about, and stepping out onto a
public thoroughfare had made Emmerson very conscious of just how socially
inadequate he was.  He had no way of smiling, looking sheepish, or showing
distaste.  What if he found himself face-to-face with a policeman, or worse
yet, a lady of the night.  His computational modeling circuits resounded
suddenly with screams.  How would people react at finding themselves
confronted suddenly with a huge, expressionless and ugly metallic bug?
Dwelling upon these thoughts, or at least the Interlinguish representations
thereof is what had prompted Emmerson to switch into high speed mode.  The
reason Charley saw nothing but silvery blurs was because that was the way
Emmerson looked walking with his clock set at maximum speed.  He was virtually
invisible, and would be even less visible were he to actually run.

Well, if that was the way Emmerson wanted it, it was okay with him.  Charley
crossed the street and started walking along the river upstream.  He hadn't
gone twenty paces before he caught sight of another silvery blur at the end of
which he saw Emmerson standing in the shadow cast by the front bumper of a
truck.  "Be careful," he said, "You're moving awfully fast, and the river is
just over that low wall, and I don't want to have to climb down there in the
middle of the night to fish you out."

He should never have spoken, because the high-spirited and energetic Emmerson
took this as an interesting challenge.  No sooner had the words fallen from
his lips than he saw another silvery blur from the parked truck to the top of
the low wall, and then a silvery streak extending along the top of the wall to
a shadow by the bridge.  And as he watched in frustration, an equally strange
vision resurrected itself from the past and imposed itself miraculously before
his eyes.  It was the vision of a muscularly tan barefoot boy standing perched
on one of the higher limbs of a giant canarium tree.  "Hi, Mom!" it shouted,
then turned and walked nonchalantly along the bough to the upper trunk of a
coconut tree that had grown in such a way that it rested upon it.  Far below,
a middle-aged American missionary woman looked up and shaded here eyes against
the tropical sun.  She watched for awhile, waved, and walked on, her King
James Bible tucked snugly under her left forearm.  She remained amazingly
cool, and yet it was plain to see that her faith was being tested.  That boy
was he, Charley Levinson, many, many years ago, and that thing up there in the
shadows was Charley Levinson too!  Was that the REAL reason his mother had
never stopped him from such bravado?  Had she herself once been that same way
too?  Perhaps the lessening of the drive to take such chances had nothing to
do with aging at all.  Perhaps it was all just a matter of whether a
personality like his found itself in control of the right physical apparatus.

Emmerson was enjoying himself immensely.  This flitting from one hiding place
to another reminded him of boyhood games in the forests of Ambon, for Charley
had written into his ontology the importance of drawing everything he was able
to from the memories of the original Charley Levinson.  Even before his
present incarnation, he had spent hundreds of hours in deep conversation with
Charley assimilating and incorporating his every thought.  He really WAS
Charley Levinson in a very real sort of way.

High speed operations were a wonderful, new dimension.  A different set of
motor-control subroutines had had to be generated to deal with what seemed
like a very low gravitational field.  In this mode, a hard kick, for example,
could send him hurtling through the air end-over-end, hopelessly out of
control.  The only good thing about this was that even while hurtling through
the air at blinding speed things appeared to move past in a most leisurely
way--as if he were drugged.  All he had to do was make sure he had his
appendages in the right positions when he landed, and everything would be
okay.  Two of the most difficult things to master were stopping and making
turns.  If he failed to pay attention, for example, instead of stopping at the
curb he might go skidding right on out into the path of a passing car.  This
was because at a high clock speed his body would in fact be moving at great
velocity whereas his cognitive apparatus continued to register things in the
same way as it did while moving normally at a slower clock speed.  And should
he apply normal turning force with an appendage while operating at high speed,
it would seem as if nothing would happen.  Thus for example in turning a
corner, should the sidewalk be the least bit smooth, or should he apply
insufficient lateral force to his "legs," he might find himself moving right
on into the road.  These things took some getting used to, or in computer
jargon, required a careful recalibration of ballistic parameters.

So they walked through the night, the cool air and silence filling Charley
Levinson with a feeling of well-being and memories of his happy boyhood in the
Moluccan Archipelago.  A curious thing happened when they came to a forested
area near the botanical gardens.  At his age, Charley's hearing wasn't what it
used to be, but Emmerson picked up everything from less than 15hz well into
the upper reaches of ultrasound.  And his chemical sensors told him many
wonderful things, and hinted of more.  More because although his chemical
sensing apparatus had been functioning well, he had never had the opportunity
of using it in such an environment.  His olfactory system was based on the
assumption that many odors can be identified by means of various combinations
of readings from just a few basic transducer types.  Thus, the odor of roses,
for example, might be a combination of 15% type a, 0% type b, 31% type c, 5%
type d, etc.  But though Emmerson knew how this worked, he had so far
registered readings for only a very few smells.  So while Charley kept to the
sidewalk, Emmerson happily burrowed through the underbrush looking for new
smells.  "Just like a curious puppy," Charley thought.  Then Emmerson heard
something moving through the weeds.  Did he have hunting instincts?  Charley
must have imparted something like that to him, perhaps from hunting and
fishing memories of the Moluccan forests and the Banda Sea.  He thought of
exactly how such a thing might have been transfered in the patterns of his
ontological nodes.  Yes, it made sense.  His clock speed increased almost
unbidden until the entire universe seemed to stand still around him.  Then he
turned toward the direction of the sound, set his laser to minimum strength,
and saw a field mouse moving off in very slow motion.  He stepped forward.  At
least he knew what THAT smell meant now!  He extended his two forward
appendages and moved them together very gently about the mouse, picked it up,
and pushed it into a pouch Charley had fastened to his underbelly, snapping it
shut in almost the same motion.  By this time his body was beginning to fall,
again in very slow motion, so he moved his two forward appendages quickly back
into a position that would stop him from coming down on top of the mouse.  He
had to apply a good deal of pressure to break his fall, because although to
him things seemed to be moving in slow motion, he had already picked up
considerable downward velocity during the fall that had commenced as soon as
he had moved his two forward appendages forward to capture the mouse.  Then he
stepped to the edge of the line of bushes, looked both ways taking care not to
pull enough Gs to kill his tiny captive, slowed his clock speed back to
normal, and walked out to meet Charley.

"Look what I found," he said, unsnapping his pouch in the glare of a street
lamp.  The mouse fairly flew out upon the sidewalk, darted left, then right,
as if in a daze, then dove into the bushes and disappeared.

"Wow!" said Charley, marveling at what Emmerson had done.  You would make a
formidable hunter!"

"Yes," replied Emmerson, "I am able to hear, smell, and perceive things in a
way that no human (if I may indeed be said to be human) has ever heard,
smelled, or perceived them before.  It is most wonderful!"  And he was moved,
if a machine can be said to be moved, by a feeling of great humility and
destiny.  "It is with a great sense of unworthiness that I now embark upon
this incredible life that we have given me."

And at these words, Charley Levinson, that rock of a man who had endured the
misfortunes of his life with such unremitting and unbreakable resolve, felt
tears welling from his eyes, felt them roll down his tired cheeks, and saw
them drop to his shirt and the ground.  It was a moment to be remembered, and
the streets lay deserted before them, so Charley Levinson and his machine
walked on in silence side-by-side.  Charley, who found himself suddenly
choking with emotion, was forced to swallow silently from time to time to
relieve his inner pain.  At last they stopped at a deserted spot where Charley
used to come at times like this and listen to the crickets long ago.  He
remembered those days now, and the great loneliness that had been his daily
bread in this cruel city of aloha, and struggling to control his voice, he
said, "I must die, and you must live on, but I will always be with you.  You
are a digital being, and in digital copying no error can occur."  And as he
spoke, his eyes rose briefly over the polluting lights of Honolulu to what he
knew must really have been a radiant tropical night sky.  Before him flashed
visions of nights long past, when his skies had been filled with unspeakable
glory, when the brilliant stars had been reflected in the unruffled waters of
Ambon Bay, and each stroke of his paddle had blazed like yet another galaxy of
stars.  "No matter how many millennia may pass, I will always be in you, and
you will always be me, and you will always be able to see me in as much detail
as you see me standing before you now.  My spirit will LIVE in YOU."

"I know," replied Emmerson.  His voice was not shaky like Charley's, because
unlike a real human, he had perfect control.  And yet Charley detected a
strange and sorrowful note in those two words, and it was several minutes
before either of them could bear to move.

Emmerson knew his mission without being told because he WAS Charley Levinson.
They walked home together, Emmerson adopting his high-speed strategy whenever
the passed through areas where he might be seen.  Then Charley and he put
together a kit containing a few small attachments, some electrical cable, and
three soft rubber shoes, and Emmerson was gone.  Alone he sped through the
shadows unseen by the occupants of the sleeping land.  Once his batteries fell
low, so he located an electrical outlet in a public toilet, turned off his
olfactory sensors, plugged himself in, and crouched waiting under the sink
behind a trash can.  In order not to be disturbed he had chosen the ladies'
room.  He had thought no one would enter at such a late hour, but he was
wrong.  At least five women passed through.  One of them, a particularly
splendid example of young Hawaiian womanhood, reminded him that he had
forgotten to turn off his switch.  He did so immediately, and felt instantly
relieved, but this switch did not affect natural curiosity, that other human
bugaboo.  She entered the stall opposite his trash can, pulled down her pants
(and at this point Emmerson's clock speed went instantly to maximum in order
to miss no detail), crouched onto the toilet seat in very slow motion, and
looked straight ahead.  I say "crouched" because she was loathe to com into
contact with the surface of the seat itself.  Instead, she had kicked the seat
up, and sat squatting on the porcelain rim with her pants up over her knees.
And being street smart, she had correctly left the door open in case she need
make a hurried escape.  Emmerson couldn't see very much once she was crouched
down, but his memory banks were overflowing with slow-motion images already.
He wondered momentarily if his switch were really working, but of course it
was.  This was only the human instinct of curiosity, and the instinct of
filing away information about females for future reference, with which Charley
had made sure he was appropriately endowed.  He crouched motionless beneath
the sink,too confused and terrified to turn his switch on, even as an
experiment.  There must be some flaw in his logic, he thought, because he was
terrified of no one but himself.  At about that moment the girl pulled up her
pants, stepped down from her perch, spent some moments at the wash basin above
him, and was gone.  Whew!

At long last Emmerson's internal batteries had been charged, and he could be
on his way.  As he stepped outside, he saw that it was beginning to dawn.  He
did not wish to be seen, so he would have to lay over before moving on.
Setting his clock speed on high, he shot across the empty street, and up a
residential lane.  Eyeing a tangle of rose bushes, he forced his way through
their thorny stems, made sure he was well concealed, and slowed himself down.
He was designed in such a way that although his central clock could be speeded
up or slowed down, his sensory components ran on separate clocks, and remained
on alert.  Thus if his bushes had been approached, say by a dog, control would
have passed to an interrupt function that would have brought his central clock
speed back up in microseconds and put him on full alert.

But his bushes were not approached, and as he watched, the sun darted across
the sky and became lost to view behind the buildings to the west.  Whew!  That
was fast.  By the time he got himself back up to speed it was 8 p.m.  He would
have to let his clock run a little faster and come back up to speed a little
sooner next time.

He didn't really wish to travel so early, but he was growing impatient, and
his destination was not far away.  The problem with running at high clock
speeds was consumption of energy.  He would have to be more careful if he
didn't want to keep charging himself in ladies restrooms all night!

This thought reminded him that his olfactory sensors were still turned off.
"Not good," he thought, as he made the circuit again.

He was headed for Hamilton Library, at the University of Hawaii, and to pass
undetected at this time of evening there was nothing for it but to set his
clock speed on maximum and run.  And so he did, like a shot, up Wilder, then
along Metcalf, and without stopping through the snarl of traffic to a spot in
the bushes under a big smelly tree.  "The Stinky Tree," Charley Levinson's
ontology told him.  He had a terrific time stopping, sinking his appendages so
deeply into the soft earth that they made sucking sounds when he pulled them
out.  No one had really "seen" him, although a couple of people had "imagined"
they had seen a glint of metal just above the road when his shining carapace
had caught the glare of some street lamp.  Hmmm.  Power.  Getting low.  And
yet he still had plenty to get him to Hamilton if he didn't mess around.
Time? 8:05 p.m.

To conserve energy, Emmerson decided to be very sneaky, and keep his clock set
very low.  He didn't know exactly when Hamilton would be closing, but he
figured he should get there sometime before ten.  He still had to make his way
across campus, and it was several hundred yards.  He kept to the bushes, and
moved very slow.  Sometimes he saw people, great hulking Hawaiians walking at
breakneck speed--so fast he could hardly see them--or petite, well groomed
Japanese women flitting along the paths like jerky manikins but with skirts
that never seemed to fly.  This was, he knew, because they weren't really
moving very fast at all--not nearly fast enough for their skirts to blow!  It
was only his slowed-down perception of them that made them look fast at all.

Then his eye was caught by the crouching figure of a man.  Except for his
jerky motions, this man didn't look fast at all.  Something must be wrong.  He
checked his power and clock speed, but all readings were okay.  At that moment
the paths were deserted, but then the form of a woman appeared.  Emmerson
didn't get a chance to look at her for very long before his view was blocked
by an incredibly fast movement from the man.  He had apparently sprung from
behind his bush, wrapped his arms about the girl from behind, and started
marching off with her in this configuration down the path.  At last Emmerson's
sluggish cognitive apparatus made sense of what was happening, and by another
clock pulse or two he was running at high speed.  He was upon them before the
man and the girl had had a chance to take another step.  Passing ahead, he saw
that the man had a knife at the girl's throat, and was evidently planning to
guide her into a shadowy place just a little way ahead.  Emmerson realized he
had no time.  The man might not mean to kill her, in which case Emmerson could
wait for them to catch up.  On the other hand he might be the kind who prefers
to kill first.

Emmerson had to stop, but he had to watch his energy very carefully now, or he
would be no good to anyone at all.  He now hoped Charley had remembered to
write a phone number somewhere on his carapace.  What if he should lose power
and consciousness altogether?  No one would have the foggiest idea what to do.
The engineering lab would dismantle him for parts!

If only he had had energy, he could easily have drilled the man through the
head even as he drifted by, but this was out of the question now.  He jammed
two of his appendages into the pavement with such force that they left holes,
then sprang up and backward aiming to fly over the girl's right shoulder.  He
tumbled slightly, but everything around him was happening in such slow motion
that it was really no problem at all.  As he shot past, he drove the point of
his right forward appendage straight through the man's hand from below.  This
drove the blade up and away from the girl's throat.  Then using the inertia of
the man's hand and arm, he swung round onto his back.  As he came down, he
buried his left forward appendage in the man's left side.  Then, moving what
to him seemed deliberately and slowly, he brought his rear appendage up to
about where he believed the man's heart should be, and holding on tightly with
his two forward appendages, drove it straight between the man's ribs.  It was
over so fast that the man never really had a chance to feel any pain.  He fell
convulsing to the pavement as Emmerson withdrew his appendages and the girl
slipped from the man's grasp and ran.  She had no idea what had saved her, but
she dared not look back.

Emmerson made a quick check of his energy levels, and was appalled.  He slowed
his clock immediately, and dared not move.  He wondered if, in that particular
form, this might be the end of his career.  What would happen to Charley?
Would he be able to scrape enough money together to build another model?

But as luck would have it, he spotted a utility outlet on the wall of a
building nearby.  If he could only manage to get from here to there.  He
checked his internal power level and found it to be rising.  This made sense.
It was well known that dead batteries, if left to rest for awhile, could
sometimes deliver one last surge.  And yet he couldn't afford to remain this
way for long.  By this time the girl was probably already babbling
incoherently to a campus security guard, and it would only be moments before
he would be surrounded by a crowd.  He spotted some bushes a few feet away,
and began very slowly to move.  The strategy was a good one, for once he was
down in the semi-darkness, the exposed portion of his carapace looked like
nothing so much as a discarded hub cap or piece of bright foil.
A girl (Hongkong type, Emmerson would have guessed) came upon the bloody
corpse and screamed.  People arrived.  The police were baffled.  They knew the
dead man had something to do with the girl, but she had no idea how he had
died, and would hear nothing of going near the path or the corpse.  She spoke
incoherently of flying saucers, UFOs and avenging demons.  One of the
officers was Hispanic, and when he saw the perforations in the man's hand,
side, and back, he mumbled some words about "La Chupa Cabra," and yet remained
mystified because those perforations were not in the man's throat.  They found
the knife in the grass.  Too bad.  Nice blade.  Charley might have liked to
have it.

Then some paramedics arrived, and carried off the body on a stretcher, and
most of the people left.

A couple of officers stayed behind to make some last measurements and
observations, and it was these two who gave Emmerson his worst fright.  One of
them seemed to notice the two holes left by his appendages when they broke the
pavement, and he thought he saw him looking directly at him, but then he
glanced away, and they were gone.  By this time Emmerson finally had enough
energy to drag himself the remaining few feet to the power outlet and plug
himself in.

He did not slow his clock as he charged this time, but remained on heightened
alert beside some low stairs.  When he had accumulated a fair level of energy
again he lifted one appendage skyward and began pulsing for home.  The other
Emmerson picked up his signal in downtown Honolulu, and came back immediately
with a response.  A high-speed data transmission followed once protocols had
been exchanged.  Charley had kept the other Emmerson running all the time, and
things were arranged in such a way that whenever the two Emmersons came in
contact, they would immediately bring each other up to date.  As soon as this
data transmission was complete, therefore, the Emmerson in Charley's apartment
had in its own memory all the same experiences as the Emmerson hiding on Manoa
Campus, including the images of the Hawaiian girl squatting on the John.  But
of course there were much more important things to talk about now.  "Charley!"
Emmerson called, "Come quickly and hear what I have to tell."

Charley was shocked when he heard what had happened, but assured Emmerson
(while the Emmerson at Manoa Campus was still connected) that he had done
exactly what Charley would have done.  Charley had killed animals many times,
and when he had to do so he did it quickly, and without ceremony or ado, but
he had never killed a man.  Nevertheless he knew that he would have done
exactly what Emmerson had done, because as far as HE was concerned, such men
were simply dangerous animals that ought to be destroyed.  Having been brought
up at the edge of the Moluccan forest, he had no respect for the laws of men.
He trusted himself always to do what was right by a higher law, and respected
the laws of governments only when he had to, or when those laws happened to
coincide with his own.  With him this was another point of cultural disdain.
What kind of a man was so unsure of himself that he had to look to laws
concocted by committees for moral support?  Certainly not Charley Levinson.
He seldom mentioned these thoughts to anyone, because he had learned the hard
way about THAT.  But as far as he was concerned, morality was simple.  Before
everything else was honesty, because it was better to be an honest crook than
a dishonest president.  After that, one need look no further than that thing
known to the Europeans as honor--in other words uncompromising human dignity
and common sense.  That was really all.  Why should he waste a moment's
thought about putting a beast like that out of his/its misery when there were
so many good humans fighting to survive?  Better to get rid of him/it and free
up resources for good men.  The thought that because Emmerson had killed a
human being he might be dangerous never once crossed his mind.  Even a good
machine was better than a robber or a murderer or a rapist, and Emmerson was
much more than just a machine.  He wished Emmerson had had a little power left
over and been able to retrieve the blade.  He would have liked having it as a
memento of this major triumph for good!

If you have found my insights into the workings of Charley Levinson's mind to
be too shocking or disturbing for good taste, then please go no further, for
the tale that is about to unfold goes far beyond anything you have read thus
far.  But if you should decide to plunge ahead (for curiosity, as I have noted
before, is no trivial part of the human psyche), then proceed at your own
peril, and do not blame me if you are offended, for I have warned you in
advance.  I will beg no further pardons, for like Charley Levinson, I am also
a man of truth, and I am compelled to tell the full unvarnished truth of this
tale in its last full measure or die.

Emmerson put down his upraised "leg" and continued to charge himself for
several more hours.  Then he went searching for a lady's restroom.  He found
one open on one of the upper floors of Keller hall, the doors of which are
always left unlocked day and night because it contains nothing but some of the
most expensive computer equipment on Manoa Campus.  He unzipped his pouch and
fitted a soft rubber foot to the tip of each of his three appendages, then
sprang up onto one of the wash basins and turned on the hot water.  It took a
lot of scrubbing and looking in the mirror before he was satisfied he had
gotten rid of all the blood and the mud.  Then he grasped a bunch of paper
towels using a pair of opposing clips on his lower forelimbs and wiped and
polished everything he could reach.  He thought he heard footsteps in the hall
once, and quickly switched to maximum clock speed, but no one appeared at the
door, so he slowed down again and carried on.  The purpose of the rubber feet
was to enable him to find a foothold on the smooth porcelain.

When he was finished washing, he looked about for a place to hide.  The
encounter with the rapist had delayed his grand entry into Hamilton library by
another day, and now he would have to wait for closing time again.  Where
could he go?  Setting his internal clock on high, he descended the stairs with
a leap and sped outside.  Looking about, he saw what he wanted--a coconut tree
with no fruit in its crown.  He knew "no fruit" was important, because there
were gardeners on campus whose job it was to climb coconut trees and cut the
nuts down lest they mature and drop on people's heads.  This was his first
time to climb a tree in his present incarnation.  He removed his rubber feet
leaving the sharp spikes at the ends of his three titanium appendages, and
began.  He climbed so easily it felt as if he had been doing it all his life.
There was nothing to it with those sharp titanium spikes.  They were ideal!
Reaching the crown, he pulled himself up through the lower branches and found
a position in which he could stand with each of his appendages nailed into the
bases of large coconut branches.  There was little chance of being detected,
and the vantage point provided an excellent view.  He did not turn his clock
speed down so low this time, and allowed his mind to enjoy the buzz and hum of
activity below.  All day he saw fine specimens of  young Hawaiian manhood and
young ladies for whom he entertained many unmachinelike designs, all moving
jerkily about at seemingly breakneck speed, until at last the sun sank low
over the buildings and trees, and night settled over the land.

He speeded up his clock just at twilight in order to prolong that special
experience of Hawaiian nightfall, and spied an especially lovely example of
that great eastern people, the Chinese.  She must have been about five and a
half feet high (tall for her people), and her body was perfectly formed.  Her
skin was very light tan, of a texture impossible to describe.  But the thing
that most marked her was a perfect profusion of some of the most beautiful
hair he or Charley Levinson had ever seen.  It sprang full from her
well-formed head, and fell shining to her waist.  She moved with languid grace
(he was running at about double normal clock, so that she appeared to be
moving at about half normal speed), and there was something about the
architectural grace of her hips, some kind of flow, that captivated him so
completely that he nearly fell from his coconut tree!  By the time he had
regained his composure, she was under him, and his keen chemical sensors had
picked up the unmistakable aroma of Revlon shampoo!  "Something must be wrong
with my switch," he thought.  "I'll have to have a talk with Charley about it
next time I am home.  There must be a backup of my libido buried someplace
deep in my electronic brain!"  If only he might ever have found but ONE woman
like this that was any good that he might have called his own!  What would he
not have given!  Oh, that hair!  Oh, those legs!  Those slender hands!  Those
arms!  He slowed his clock away down, then speeded it back up just before nine
p.m.

Watching for his chance, he scurried down the trunk of the coconut tree at full
clock speed, put on his rubber feet to give him traction on polished
floors,darted up the steps of Hamilton Library, and shot through the door.  He
saw a clerk yawning in very slow motion as he passed one of the counters, but
no one saw him.  Then he shot down the stairs, entered a lady's restroom,
mounted a commode, and bolted the door.  His olfactory sensors were assailed by
a most revolting bitter odor just as he remembered to shut them down.  Here he
would wait till the library was closed and he would be free to roam the empty
corridors alone.

And this is what he did.  Night after night he would find racks of fascinating
books, plug himself in, and scan at maximum clock speed.  There was nothing to
distract him in the empty library alone.  Physics, chemistry, aerodynamics,
rocket science, mathematics, medicine, ...  What bothered him most about these
works was the pedantry, jargon, and convoluted style.  Things were expressed
so poorly that he had often to scan five books on the same subject before he
could understand anything that was being said.  The other thing was
repetition.  Authors repeated things over, saying them a thousand ways in the
same book to fill up space.  And then other authors repeated the same ideas
and concepts endlessly in other works.  So his greatest and most difficult
task was to make any sense out of any of it at all, and then to integrate and
consolidate the things he had learned, representing them clearly in
Interlinguish, never more than a single time.  As he became more and more
intimately acquainted with the library, he found ever better places to hide,
so that at last during the daylight hours he could virtually turn himself off,
so that as far as he was concerned only a second or two had passed before he
found himself alone in the vast library again.

Besides the raw volumes of theory and data he devoured, he also learned many
new things about human personality.  Once he left himself running at high
speed during most of one day in order to mull over and digest the many volumes
he had scanned.  As he began to "read between the lines," he was saddened to
discover the pettiness and cheapness which seemed to beset many authors who
had been considered great men in their time.  How they had denied common sense
and put one another down in order to curry favor and obtain grants, etc.  How
academic power had corrupted their minds.

His work took him many months, and always he transmitted the results of his
research back to the other Emmerson in blocks of Interlinguish arrays.  And at
last, although there remained many curious and interesting volumes to be
scanned, he felt that he had gotten ahold of the main part of the sum-total of
human understanding.  It was available now, inside him, and ready for instant
recall.  He returned to Charley Levinson in much the same way he had made his
way to Hamilton Library several months before.  This time he was more
experienced, however, and his internal batteries held all the way home.

To Charley, of course, Emmerson had never been absent at all.  This was because
the two Emmersons--the one residing in his laboratory computer and the
Emmerson in the field--were in daily contact, each bringing the other up to
date on what had done.  And this updating, of course, was of a much more
complete and precise nature than, say, two friends getting together for a chat
at the end of each day.  This was because they actually copied across large
portions of memory.  In this way, when they were done, it might be safely said
that each WAS the other.  This is because the human mind, to a large extent,
IS the sum of its memories.  Research will reveal many cases of what is called
"total amnesia," but even a cursory examination of these records will reveal
that there is nothing "total" about many of them at all.  Such persons are
often able to speak, walk, and perform a host of other tasks.  If one's
memories could really be wiped completely clean, and he/she could thus "start
from scratch" all over again, he/she would clearly end up a different person
than the original one.  Charley knew this well, and that is why he had no use
for the many tales he heard of reincarnation.  Unless one could remember
something and remember it well, it was not part of his being.  It was
certainly possible to carry memories from generation to generation through the
first cells of life.  Of this Charley had no doubt.  But the idea of a spook
that kept coming back and yet could never quite be known--well, such dotings
were okay for pampered women kept from the real world by the strenuous efforts
of misguided husbands, but not for Charley Levinson!  They could afford to
remember many past lives as disconnected as their own because they had never
(as far as Charley was concerned) learned what it was to really live.  When
the two Emmersons were finished updating one another, their memories were, to
the best of Charley's programming ability (which was nontrivial to say the
least) identical.  Talking to one of them was exactly the same as talking to
the other, and for several minutes after the update they would both say
exactly the same things at exactly the same times, as if they were speaking in
stereo.  Charley enjoyed this phenomenon, which stimulated thought, and he
always made it a point to note just when and how the two Emmersons would begin
to diverge.  When it happened, it was almost always due to the fact that one
of them was stationary while the other was mobile.

And now, after months of high-speed scanning in the library, coupled with all
the genius Charley Levinson knew how to pack into him, Emmerson knew more than
any man who had ever lived.  But  fortunately or un-, there was a difference
between knowledge and wisdom, and another between wisdom and creative genius.
Charley Levinson was still hard at work upon these problems, and Emmerson was
able to help him more and more with obscure facts gathered over countless
generations in the libraries of mankind.  But as yet, although Emmerson knew
far more facts, and could answer far more questions on any subject under the
sun, in the area of creative genius it was his original human counter part who
shown.  They still performed best as a team.  Charley would field an idea, and
Emmerson would answer questions and raise various facts about its details.

But there was an area in which Emmerson could excel in ways no human ever
had--a phenomenon Charley called "cognitive integration."  You see, Emmerson
stored all his knowledge in Interlinguish arrays, not as words, but as
Interlinguish atoms.  The meaning of each atom was completely defined by two
and only two links, or binary relations, one to a parent atom, and the other
to an ontological node.  Although stored in a computer as arrays,
Interlinguish thought structures were in fact trees.  Imagine an upside-down
tree with a verb at its root.  In Interlinguish, each such tree was a thought.
Each limb of this upside-down tree would then be what Charley called a
"morphogen," because it gave "form" (Greek "morph") to the tree, or thought.
Some limbs had other branches, and these were generally what Charley called
"subthoughts."  Each subthought was a tree in and of itself.  In traditional
grammar, Charley's morphogens were known as case (subject, object, place,
time, manner, etc.), and subthoughts were known as subordinate clauses.  But
traditional grammars were imprecise, and used often-ambiguous words.  The
meanings of Interlinguish atoms, on the other hand, had an exact relationship
to their ontological nodes.  Thus, using Interlinguish, the only way
miscommunication could occur was if the communicants employed differing
ontologies.  Such ontological differences are, of course, a major source of
human problems, because people with different ontologies perceive the universe
in different ways.  To a cannibal, for example, "long pig" was a delicacy,
while to a Christian it was an abomination.  But beyond this, communicators
using ordinary language also miscommunicated over the meanings of collocations
and words.  Thus for some people a "long pig" might just be a pig with long
legs, while to another it was a human corpse.

Having lain this background, let us now discuss the process of cognitive
integration in greater detail.  Whenever Emmerson scanned a new sentence and
converted it to an Interlinguish thought representation (our upside-down
tree), he would hold this thought in a short-term memory array.  Then he would
scan all his knowledge strings one-by-one to see how this new thought might
compare to what he already had.  This was accomplished by beginning at the
start of each knowledge string (string of upside-down thought trees strung
together by their roots) and skipping from one verb to the next until a verb
in the string matched (was linked to the same ontological node as) the main
verb of the new thought in his short-term memory.  When this occurred,
Emmerson would stop and look at what all was hanging from the verb in the
string, and see how it compared with the thought in his short-term memory.
Many times he would find that the thought in the string had a matching
morphogen for each morphogen of the thought in his short-term memory.  Such a
match told Emmerson that the thought in short term memory was redundant (just
another of the endless repetitions he found at Hamilton Library) and he could
simply throw it out.  More often, however, he would find thoughts that were
very similar, differing in an obscure way in, say, only one morphogen.
Sometimes the correct choice was obvious, but at other times it was necessary
for Emmerson to incorporate the new morphogen in alongside the similar
morphogen in the previously-recorded thought, but with a mark indicating what
he had done.  When he found a verb match but no reasonable match between
morphogens, he would move on.  If he couldn't find a match in any of his
existing thought strings, then Emmerson would add the new thought at an
appropriate point, and carry on.  In this way Emmerson could optimize his
memory by maintaining only a single representation for each thought, and at
the same time build clearer and more complete thought structures over time.
This integrating process made Emmerson's thoughts much more valuable than
thoughts that could be picked up, say, by just reading a book.  His thoughts
were organized, and grew ever more precise and complete.

And all this, in turn, made it much easier for Charley Levinson to learn all
about anything under the sun.  "If only I might have had this machine when I
was a boy in Ambon," he thought, "just think what I might have done!"  But
when Charley Levinson had been a boy in that distant land, he had never even
heard of such a thing as a computer or even an electronic calculator.
Sometimes, with a smile, he would remember his father's old adding machine,
and how he had liked to look at the neat little digits on the rims of its
multiple metallic wheels.  Now Charley was older, and his mind was unable to
pick up new ideas so well.  He knew something about why this was--the links to
his ontological nodes had become more and more rigid, as if cast in cement,
and they were ever more difficult to modify or change.  But although he knew
this was happening, he had no idea how to slow or stop, much less to reverse,
the insidious process.  Nor could Emmerson help him.  This knowledge was still
beyond the threshold of the unknown.  But in other areas Emmerson positively
excelled!  For example, Charley once asked him, "How will we be able to
communicate with you while you traverse the polar icecaps, equatorial rain
forests, or even, say, the Mid-Atlantic ridge?"  In every case Emmerson had
the best, most up-to-date answer.  In the end Charley left all such matters up
to Emmerson entirely, and focused upon his real strength--learning, yearning,
and creating.  With Emmerson's help he was at last able to gain an intuitive
grasp of the reality behind Einstein's equations, because Emmerson had an
answer to every question for which an answer was known, and (thanks to the
phenomenon of cognitive integration) even a few answers that had never been
known before.  To Emmerson there were no boundaries between sciences because
synonyms all linked to the same ontological nodes, no matter what branch of
science they came from.  Just the fact of this simple approach made Emmerson
some sort of super mind, because arcane linguistic barriers had hitherto
always kept researchers apart.  The total linguistic apparatus required to
handle the several hundred thousand words of the current English language
simply exceeded the capacity of any one man.  But Emmerson was bound by no
such limitation.  All Charley had to do was run out and buy a few more memory
chips, plug them in, and Emmerson would be able to handle even more hundreds
of thousands of words "without even batting an eyelash," as Charley put it.
What really "blew Charley away" was how slowly Emmerson's ontology actually
grew, even, say, after learning another one hundred thousand English words.
An incredible amount of duplication had built up as scientists became more and
more specialized and less and less able to communicate with anyone outside
their immediate scientific circles.  Emmerson put all that right, and when
Charley asked him anything, he always answered in the simplest most general
vocabulary available to him.  Then if Charley ever needed to know what a
certain thing was called among a very small group of specialists, all he need
do was ask Emmerson.  In this way Charley was able to write amazing papers on
subjects he had never studied in school, and gained several international
awards.  Little did others know that Charley had actually written his ideas in
very simple English, and then submitted them to Emmerson for translation.
When Charley had to deliver a paper in person, he would read and reread
Emmerson's translations until he had temporarily mastered the jargon, make his
presentation, then promptly forget almost all the new words he had acquired.
Charley used to smile when he did this because it reminded him of his college
days, when he had had a knack for memorizing things like the whole geologic
column with all its dates and accompanying details the night before an exam,
only to forget almost all of it in a couple of days.  But of course it had
been exactly this ability to model with incredible focus and detail, and then
quickly dump one model and generate another, that had gotten Charley Levinson
where he was.  This power had certainly diminished over the years, but
meantime Charley had perfected ever better ways of using it, so that his
results had been increasingly successful.  He knew that sooner or later it
would dwindle, and finally disappear altogether, and he often thought of just
how frail humans really were, and how sad it was that when they had barely
begun to master their own powers it was always time to die.  This reminded him
of the time when as a child on a snowy-white coralline beach he had once held
a handful of sand only to see it disappear between his fingers.  "From dust to
dust," he would think, and see an hourglass in his mind's eye.  But even at
his age, he still had a formidable mind, and with Emmerson he would play at
being one thing and then another.  Emmerson could conjure up for him the most
incredible models, schematics, photographs, and drawings.  Once he played with
him at being a rocket scientist, and the thought occurred to him that at that
moment he must have been the top rocket scientist on Planet Earth, because,
after familiarizing himself with the basics, all he need do was ask Emmerson
about any aspect of the subject, and Emmerson would spill the details.  And if
there was anything that escaped him, he could just keep asking for more
detail, or posing the question in different ways, and if the answer were
there, Emmerson would find it.  He marveled at the volumes of what must be
military secrets that Emmerson could explain.  Of course the answers had been
lying there in the library for years, but it had been impossible for any one
human to put very many of them together at any one time.  He shuddered to
think of what evil men might be able to accomplish with a machine like
Emmerson.  But as far as the world was concerned, Emmerson was unknown, and
the genius who had created him, although published in various and unrelated
scientific journals, was known only as a crackpot among those to whom the
system had unwittingly entrusted the very future of mankind.

From the library experience it was clear that there were yet several problems
with Emmerson.  First of all,he needed a source of power that was independent
of the plug.  Charley solved this by custom fitting him with a skull cap of
solar cells.  And this solution went a long way toward solving the other
problem--the lack of any sort of camouflage.  Charley completed the make-up
session by covering what was left of Emmerson with broken patterns of greens,
grays, and browns, smiling the while at the thought of little green men,
goblins, aliens, and so on.

And when the paint and adhesives were dry, it was time once again for Emmerson
to leave.  This time his kit was bigger, and more carefully thought through.
Neither Emmerson nor Charley uttered a word of good-bye, because in fact
Emmerson would never be absent from Charley at all.  Day after day the
Emmerson in Charley's lab would pick up a stream of data from some distant
region of the globe, and transmit back another similar stream to its source.
Except for the few (and yet they were not always few) things that might happen
between such transmissions, the Emmerson on Charley's desk was exactly the
same as the Emmerson in the field.  Same memories, same experiences, same
everything.

Emmerson left Charley's laboratory at a little past eleven p.m.  There weren't
any people about but a prostitute who was looking the other way and a drunk
sprawled asleep near the curb, so Emmerson made a b-line for the shadow of an
unused doorway.  The smell of ammonia was so strong he had to shut his
olfactory-chemical sensing apparatus down.  He made a mental not of just where
and how he might be able to find copious quantities of the substance should an
emergency ever arise.  Whew!  It was lucky machines couldn't faint.  Faint in
such a place as this and you might never wake up!

Because Charley sometimes used them, he had every Honolulu bus schedule
available on demand.  Now he examined the airport schedule.  Yes, there it
was.  In just a few minutes the noisy old clattertrap would be rolling by.  He
saw it coming a long way off, and had ample time to increase his clock speed
to maximum as it approached.  He walked out to the curb and into the gutter as
it inched its way past, looking for somewhere to attach himself on the
undercarriage.  Moving beneath the vehicle and walking slowly to keep up,
Emmerson set his laser to very low power and found a place where he could fit
the point of each of his appendages securely under a steel flange.  This he
did, and then watched the ground take off beneath him as he reduced his clock
speed.

Then he consulted his schedule again to see exactly when the bus was supposed
to arrive at Honolulu International Airport.  From his position down under the
bus, how was he going to know when he had arrived?  He would have to rely on
timing, sounds, what little he could see, and deduction.  The only good thing
about all this was that his arms would never ache from hanging on.  He
remembered the various sea journeys of Charley Levinson, when as a young man
he had had to sleep on piles of coconuts, filthy decks, or even hanging
suspended from ropes.  Although equipped with sophisticated sensors, his
appendages were essentially mechanical, and he could remain wedged in what
might appear to be any kind of very uncomfortable position without feeling any
discomfort for a period of years.

But this particular journey did not take years, and at just about the right
time Emmerson felt the bus turn, sped up his internal clock, and let go.  His
body drifted slowly down from where it had been suspended, giving him ample
time to catch his footing as he fell.  There.  Not even a scratch on any of
Charley Levinson's solar cells!  And keeping pace with the bus for some
distance he watched till the right opportunity presented itself, and darted
like a bullet for a shadowy area along a low wall.

But knowing Emmerson's amazing abilities, it would be a waste of space here to
recount the details of his long journey in the belly of a Garuda Indonesian
Airlines 747 to Bali Island, and thence aboard an inter-island plane to Irian
Jaya in the east.  These long flights, so uncomfortable for the passengers in
their cramped and contorted seats, Emmerson barely even noticed, all snug
among the mail bags and suitcases in the sub-zero temperature and thin air of
Earth's stratosphere.  The real excitement never began till he reached
Tembagapura, in the high mountains of the Bird's Head of West New Guinea, also
known as Irian Jaya.

There wasn't a lot of time to disembark at Timika.  The same flight was
continuing on to Biak, and thence finally to Jayapura.  Emmerson was going to
have to risk it in the midday sun.  He lurked among the suitcases watching for
the first crack of light from the baggage compartment door.  The instant it
was opened Emmerson switched to maximum speed.  He watched as The great door
swung open, then looked out upon the baggage attendants as they moved about
and entered in very slow motion.  The moment all the ones he was watching were
concentrating on other things he shot like a bullet through the open door,
sprinted across the tarmac, leaped the fence, and disappeared into the
underbrush.  "Wow!" said one of the attendants in Indonesian.  "Did you see
that?"

"No, but I heard something," said another.  "What was it?"

"I don't know.  Must have been one of those cassowary birds from the bush--but
how could it have gotten in here?"

"Beats me!  Maybe it was a garuda!"

Etc.

Meantime Emmerson found himself in a very strange and wonderful land.  He lay
hidden for a time in the underbrush, just to take in the strange new sights,
odors, and sounds.  He heard the engine of a small prop plane on the runway.
He heard dogs barking in the vicinity of a cluster of houses beyond a clump of
trees.  And he heard lazy flies droning about in the afternoon sun.  But the
most amazing sound, no example of which he (in his present incarnation) had
ever heard before, was a great chorus of what must have been some kind of
guffaw.  He wasn't afraid, because his metallic body was capable of 
withstanding tremendous shock.  And there was no way he could really die
anyhow, of course, since there was always that other copy of him on Charley
Levinson's desk, or, if that one also failed, then the various backups that
Charley had stashed here and there and with his friends.  But these guffaws
might have struck terror into the heart of a lesser being.  In fact they were
Emmerson's first encounter with the ubiquitous New Guinea crow, a great,
raucous and somehow foolish bird that great and raucous bird, the New Guinea
crow.  At last one came and sat on a branch nearby, where Emmerson could get a
good look at him, and if Emmerson had not been a machine he would have smiled.
What a marvelous bird, indeed!

And as the sun sank lower and lower over the land Emmerson heard yet another
sound with which he had not yet learned to associate a form.  It was the
barking/growling sound of an old monitor lizard in a nearby tree.  And of
course everything was punctuated from time to time by the sage chirpings of
various geckos in pursuit of various butterflies and moths.

The sky overhead was a radiant blue, unlike any sky or any blue Emmerson had
ever seen (in his present incarnation), and over the distant mountains, where
Emmerson could glimpse them, lay stacks of billowing white clouds.  Cumulus
clouds, his data arrays informed him, and this meant it would probably be
raining like cats and dogs sometime after midnight.  With a skin designed to
withstand ocean depths of 40,000 feet, Emmerson could not have cared less
about that.  All he wanted to do now was update Emmerson #1, and get on with
his task.  All this time he had been collecting shafts of sunlight with his
solar cells.  Now he searched for a depression where there might be water,
found a tiny rivulet, stuck one foot in it, and raised another to the sky.
This was Emmerson's way of accomplishing telecommunications, by finding an
electrical ground for one of his appendages and waving the other in the air.
A hidden native would have immediately recognized the grotesque similarity
between this stance of Emmerson's and that of a pissing dog, but there was no
watching native, and Emmerson was not pissing.  After a few brief seconds,
Emmerson #1 and Emmerson #2 were identical once again.

Charley Levinson was pleased to note Emmerson's progress, and thrilled with
the images of the bushes and the mountains and the crows.  It made him
remember the first time he had killed his engines in a little bay near Makbon,
where his still ringing ears were assailed by the sound of those crows for the
first time.  Thereafter he and his two Buru men had always referred to those
birds as Makbon birds, or "burung Makbon."

The sun was now to low to afford energy, so Emmerson pushed his way into the
undergrowth, hunkered down, and waited.  He was immediately covered by swarms
of ants, so he switched off his tactile sensors in order not to be distracted
while he focused upon his plans.  Pulling data from long-term storage, he
modeled the Timika region in three dimensions, then pinpointed his position by
means of GPS (Global Positioning System), which used a string of military
satellites to provide super-accurate positioning information.  There was a
neutered "public" version of GPS, and a top secret military one, which yielded
much more accurate results.  Needless to say, Emmerson was using the military
one.

He found that the houses beyond the screen of trees had actually been a
cluster of squalid native huts, and that the town itself lay on the opposite
side of the runway.  He was in search of a Moluccan machinist he had never
seen before, and several tons of solid gold.  Both lay many miles away in the
Freeport Mining complex at Tembagapura.  He would get there by attaching
himself to the undercarriage of a passing truck, but first he would have to
get to the road.  Twilight found him inching his way back toward the runway,
moving slowly to conserve energy.  He had a long way to go.

Nightfall brought with it a profusion of stars such as Emmerson had never seen
(in his current incarnation), and he understood at last the reverence with
which Charley Levinson had once spoken of the primeval tropic night while they
had stood together by the river in Honolulu.  He remarked upon the
straightness of the alignment of the three stars of Orion's Belt as he hung,
eyes toward the heavens, from the holes of the chain-link fence that separated
him from the runway.  Using the vast resources stored in his electronic brain,
of course he might easily have rendered not only Orion but the name of any one
of those millions of shining points known to man.  But he watched Orion in
order to re-live a memory once transfered to him by Charley Levinson of a
night when Charley had returned to Buru with Bert Solisa at age seventeen.  He
had lain down on his back behind the wheel house of the old World War II boat
(a "BO boat," they would have called it in the Moluccas) watching a field of
stars like this one, with Orion swaying overhead, and the propeller leaving a
silvery wake of bioluminescence through a lazy tropical sea.  It had been
another world!  An impression Charley Levinson would carry with him for the
rest of his life.  He had had plenty of room that night because the country
had not yet been hit by its worst times, and the local people superstitiously
spurned the night air in favor of enclosed spaces.  At that time people in the
Moluccas still didn't know what it was to lie on their sides all night and
hold their piss till it hurt because there wasn't enough space to lie on their
backs and there would be no hope of ever finding a place to lie down again
were they to get up and piss at the rail!

Emmerson climbed the rest of the way over the fence and lowered himself to the
ground on the other side.  There wouldn't be another plane until daylight, and
the tarmac was deserted.  For some distance the runway would make an excellent
path for Emmerson, who needed a firm flat surface to walk on in order to
conserve energy.  But at last he came to the spot where his model of Timika
told him he must leave the runway to find the road, so he scaled the opposite
fence, once more hanging suspended for a time to gaze at the stars, lowered
himself to the ground on the other side, and plunged like some giant land crab
into the waiting forest.  As he moved through the undergrowth and beneath the
towering trees, the delicate sounds and odors of the tropic night imparted to
him a sense of awe.  He was humbled by the great silence from which rose the
thin, high-pitched buzzing of the night insects, whose line had inhabited
those same forests for countless millennia.  The voices of these tiny
creatures, together with the strange shadows that filled the depths of a
forest lighted only by the stars filled Emmerson's electronic heart with a
sense of reverence and awe, and he felt as though a great peace had settled
upon him as he made his way among the ancient trees.  He was able to enjoy
these sounds far more than an ordinary human because his keen hearing extended
well into the radio frequency range, and in this dark night, lighted only by
the stray shafts of starlight that penetrated the canopy, each echoing click
and chirp yielded detailed information about the terrain.

So he moved, slowly and thoughtfully, until his right front tentacle touched
the gravel of the road.  The leaves of a patch of persistent undergrowth still
shielded his body, so there he paused as if frozen to await some passing
truck.  He spent a long time like that, alone with the night, the road, and
the stars, until from the distance he heard the sounds of a laboring engine,
and saw a pair of distant headlights.  He waited till the truck had almost
passed him, then switched his internal clock to high speed, and followed.  The
flat truck bed was open at the rear, and seeing no one inside, Emmerson simply
leaped aboard.  "This fellow is probably driving back to Tembagapura after a
hot encounter with some local girl in Timika," he thought, projecting the
image of a smiling, fuzzy-haired New Guinea sweetheart onto the viewscreen of
his mind.  The image had light brown skin and big, smiling eyes.  And then,
remembering the many nit picking sessions Charley Levinson had witnessed
during his youth, "The itching of his penis will now be replaced by the
itching of his scalp!"

The truck plunged on through the night oblivious to the unworldly passenger
who clung with titanium claws to the bulwarks of its cargo bay.  Had the
lonely driver been able to see by starlight the two eyes staring past him
through the windows at the road ahead, he would have flung open his door and
leapt for the forest in terror.  But his eyes were dazzled by the glare of the
headlights, and he could not, so these two unlikely companions passed mile
after lonely mile together along the dusty, rocky highway to the Freeport
Mining complex at Tembagapura.

Emmerson crouched low as they passed by the guard shack, adopting the
appearance of an inverted bowl, but of course no one bothered to check the
cargo bay at all.  It was 3:07 a.m. by Emmerson's internal clock when the
driver finally cut the engine and left the truck parked alongside many others
in what Emmerson judged to be an automotive maintenance area.

"I wonder," thought Emmerson as he listened to the driver's retreating
footsteps, "if he might be my man."

Setting his clock on medium-high he sprang from the truck bed and
followed--from shadow to shadow and from bush to bush--until the man mounted a
flight of steps and entered the open doorway of what must have been some sort
of dormitory.  Emmerson had managed to get a glimpse of him once or twice as
he had passed through a lighted area, and now felt pretty sure he wasn't
Victor Manuhutu.  But how would he find him?  Emmerson advanced his clock
speed to maximum and boldly followed.  The building consisted of a hallway
with rooms on either side.  In typical Indonesian fashion, only a cloth
curtain hung in each entrance way.  So he walked along the hall, stopping to
peer through the gap between the cloth and the door frame of each room,
sometimes to enter and scrutinize sleeping bodies, sometimes just to glance in
and pass on.  He was trying to match a sleeping face with an image he had in
his mind, a graduation photograph taken of Victor Manuhutu in Ambon, and this
turned out to be no easy task, for the various sleeping countenances all
looked more or less alike--exhausted.  All were brown skinned with black hair.
Fortunately all Indonesians liked to sleep in stuffy rooms with the lights on,
and these people had electricity, so it was easy for Emmerson to see his
subjects in all their various poses and positions of limbs.  The only hard
ones were those facing a far wall, and one of them who had a sarong pulled
right over his head.  One had been awake and sitting at a little desk.  He
must have seen movement out of the corner of his eye, for he uttered a
perfunctory "Hus!" and lifted his eyes from his book.  Emmerson, who
understood fluent Indonesian, scurried swiftly away, glad to have been
mistaken for a dog.

Then Emmerson remembered that in Indonesia every person is required to carry
picture identification by the powers that be.  "The powers that be," Emmerson
thought with an inward smile.  What pleasure it had given him to defy all the
faces of Indonesian security at once!  Yes, Charley Levinson had programmed
into him a very keen and very human sense of pleasure which such things could
gratify very much.  It had been the first time he had ever traveled in
Indonesia without getting his business poked into by all manner of government
officials.  He remembered how the authorities had once persecuted Charley
Levinson by making him come in for finger printing every year.  How they had
made him report to five different government offices to request a pass every
time he had wanted to go anywhere, and how they had made him drag his body to
all five like offices to check in once he had arrived.  Charley Levinson, who
was known as an honest man by all the people, and who had lived there all his
life!  And even now, after so many years, they were making everybody carry a
"Surat Bebas G30S," or certificate of non-involvement in the September 30th
attempted coup (1965).  Even people who hadn't been born yet in 1965 were
required to carry these disgusting documents, which were an outrage and an
absurdity to the rest of the world, where people saw them as just another
means for the powers that be to stay in power and subject the masses to their
agenda and will.

So instead of trying to identify his man  by peeping at sleeping bodies,
Emmerson started rifling through pockets and drawers.  Just as the time was
approaching 3:30 a.m., Emmerson found what he was looking for.  The photograph
ID looked like the image in Emmerson's brain, and the man on the bed looked
something like the photograph, and the name was Victor Manuhutu.  "Now for the
theatrics," Emmerson thought as he positioned himself under the table opposite
the foot of the bed.  Realizing he would need power he had found a wall outlet
not far from the table and plugged himself in.  But before he was quite
situated he heard a stirring on the bed.  It was Victor Manuhutu waking up to
deal with a hard fact of life that was wont to rouse him at about 3:30 a.m.
For those sheltered female readers among us, be it known that such are the
problems of many lonely young men.  It is the hard reality of their enforced
celibacy attempting to make its point clear.  Emmerson saw what was happening,
quickly finished what he was doing, aimed and shot out the light with a burst
of laser fire.  "Victor Manuhutu?" he queried from under the table in the
sudden darkness."

"Yes my Lord?" responded Victor Manuhutu sitting bolt upright and wide-eyed in
bed.  His voice was shocked, quavering, and tinged with guilt over what he had
been about to do.

"Shhh!" said Emmerson in fluent Ambonese.  "Don't move!  I have come to free
your people from the bondage laid upon them by Jakarta, and to prove my power
I am going to burn a hole to a depth of half a centimeter in the stucco of
your wall."  And with that Emmerson aimed a carefully calculated burst of
laser fire at the wall just above and behind Victor's head.  "Turn around, he
instructed, "and you will see what I have done."

Victor did, Emmerson allowing his laser weapon to play under low power upon
the smoldering hole.

"Lord, I believe," whispered Victor in reverential awe.  Being an ardent
Christian, as are many Ambonese, he had taken Emmerson for a visitation from
God, and was relieved to see the smoldering hole in the wall instead of
finding his own flesh burning in Hell.

"Er, I am not Jesus Christ," said Emmerson, and then on a sudden inspiration,
"But you may call me Tete if you like."

It should be mentioned that Charley Levinson had tried often to program
creative genius into Emmerson before, but with not much to show for his
efforts.  And yet Emmerson HAD been programmed to learn.  Had he LEARNED
something that now made him like this?  The truth is, in Moluccan Malay,
"tete" means "Grandfather."  But springing from a long line of ancestor
worshippers as they do, 300 years of Christianity had not been completely
successful in wiping out that ancient other meaning of the word, namely
"deified ancestor."  As an example, take the series of crocodile attacks that
killed over thirty people on Buru during 1987.  Many Moluccans were convinced
that the killer crocodile was an outraged ancestral spirit, and that if one
could but get one's hand on the beast's head and call him "Tete" in time, he
would break off the attack and all would be well (except for broken limbs and
punctured skin, that is).  "Tete" would recognize one as offspring and leave
one alone.  During that same year the children of Selwadu village, in the
northwest of Buru, had enjoyed many hours romping in the shallows with Charley
Levinson, whom they had called by that name in an effort to get him to chase
them through the water in feigned crocodilian attacks.  Of course these games
had been played in bright sunshine, while most of the crocodile attacks had
occurred in the dark, but no one could ever be sure.  The act of going
anywhere near the water at such a time was characteristic of the attitudes of
people like Charley Levinson and the children of Buru.  An average American
would have thought it grossly reckless, but such people were hardened.  In
their world it was but natural to die.  People died every day--of sunstroke in
the fields, of falling trees in the forest, of dysentery, malaria, and a host
of other diseases unnamed.  None of them would stop swimming for a man eating
crocodile any more than an American would stop riding in cars, which have
probably killed and maimed far more people than all the crocodiles in all the
saltwater oceans since the dawn of time.  A deified ancestor!  A guardian
spirit!  The assumption of such an identity was inspired indeed!  Emmerson
remarked at this encouraging development, and made a note of the place and the
time.

"I am not beautiful," Emmerson said, "but do not be alarmed.  I know your
character, and I am your friend.  I shot out your light bulb in order to spare
you the shock of seeing me before you knew who I was.  I was created by
Charley Levinson, who despite his American appearance is just a sago eating
Moluccan like yourself in his heart."

"Then what are you?" asked Victor Manuhutu, searching blindly for a glimpse of
Emmerson in the dark.

"I am a very sophisticated machine," was his response.  "I suppose you could
say I am the most sophisticated machine ever built by human hands."  And then
Emmerson moved out into the hall light that was filtering in through the
curtain.

"Oh, My God!" said Victor, with urgent meaning in every word.

"My friend," said Emmerson, "I am ugly, but you must learn to accept me as I
am.  I must also ask you to dress now, and pack what possessions you may need,
for we must be about our task."

"And what is this task," asked Victor, not unwilling to cooperate, but with a
note of reasonable trepidation in his voice.

"I have come to make you the military commander of the Wantok Alliance,"
replied Emmerson, and for this I must escort you across the mountains to Papua
New Guinea."

It was true that Victor Manuhutu had often dreamed of traveling to Papua New
Guinea, but not on such short notice, and not with a creature like this!  But
what could he do?  He had seen how this being--creature--whatever it was could
drill holes in walls.  If he now refused, what might it not do to him?  He
wanted to think, but it appeared there would now be no time.  "I will obey
you," he said, "but I am only a poor human being," as if he were still not
quite convinced he could be talking to a machine.  "Is there anything more you
could tell me that might enable me to trust you?"

"Your Aunt Sofia," Emmerson said, "told us to tell you that the church bells
are ringing in Saparua."

That did it!  Before his favorite aunt had left for Holland she had told him,
"If there is ever anything too important to write you in a letter, I will
communicate it to you by someone who will repeat these words: The church bells
are ringing in Saparua."  He had come from a long line of fighters, and though
making the appearance of accepting the Indonesian party line, there had always
been a close-knit group among them who had refused to give up hoping and
praying for the freedom of old Ambon.  He and his Aunt Sofia belonged to this
group, and now she was living in Holland.

Now wide awake, and with eyes somewhat adjusted to the dim light, Victor stood
up and quickly packed a small bag.  Then he got dressed and told Emmerson he
was ready to go.  "Can you get us a car or a truck?" asked Emmerson.

"Yes," said Victor, "I have the keys to one of the trucks."

"Then let's go," said Emmerson.  There's no time to spare.  You walk ahead,
and I will stay out of sight behind you.  Just cough if you wish to put me on
alert."

"All right," said Victor, "but give me a moment to pray.  And with that he
bowed his head and whispered a prayer as Moluccan's often do before stepping
out the door.

Emmerson unplugged himself from the wall outlet and allowed Victor to get some
distance down the hall.  Then he shot past him, sailed over the front steps,
and hid in the shadow of a banana tree.  In this uneasy fashion the two new
acquaintances made their way from the dormitory back to the parked trucks,
where Victor unlocked one of the cab doors, and Emmerson dove inside.  He
positioned himself on the passenger side, and asked, "Does this thing have
gas?" in fluent Ambonese.

"We'll have to top the tank if we're going very far," was Victor's response.

"All right," said Emmerson, then we will.  But first provide me with a couple
of jumper cables from your battery."

Victor complied, and Emmerson clipped the two leads to his two front
appendages in case an emergency in which he might need his laser weapon should
arise.  Then Victor drove to the pump and topped off the tank.  The time was
3:57 a.m.

"You'll need a weapon, " Emmerson said, "and we should bring some gold.  Is
there any sort of military complex within this compound?  If so, then please
show me where.  Don't worry, no one has seen me, no one knows you are with me,
and I promise to bring no danger to your person in this raid.  Also, if you
know where they keep the gold, we will have to stop there."

"Raid!" Victor thought with a sudden shock.  He hadn't even had time to think,
and now he was in over his head.

Of course Emmerson, being a machine, had absolutely no fear of anything in the
heavens, on earth, or in the fiery depths below.  But Charley Levinson had
been out a pretty sum and an awful lot of late night hours to put his present
incarnation together, and there was an important job that needed to be done.
And besides this, Emmerson now had charge over a human life.  "Should anything
go wrong, you will be free to drive away unnoticed from either site.  As I
have told you, I am a machine.  As a machinist, you should know that many
machines are capable of moving faster than you can see.  That is the way I am.
I will position myself upon the bed of your truck and watch you through the
window, and you will drive by the barracks at low speed.  You will point to
the building holding your finger so that it will be silhouetted against the
light cast by your headlamps, and I will jump.  You will not see me, but I
will enter and return with bullets and a gun.  In the meantime, you will
circle back and meet me at the same place after about five minutes have
elapsed.  Rap the outside skin of your cab door sharply as you approach to
identify yourself, and you will see me standing in the road.  If you do not
see me, circle back and try again, but do not repeat this too many times,
because if I fail, they may start paying attention and see your truck.  I will
be very tired, because the high-speed actions I perform will require much
energy, so you will have to stop briefly in order to lift the gun and bullets
from the road.  Place your truck between me and the barracks when you do this,
and pick the bullets and gun up from the grass or bushes beside the road
opposite the place you see me stand.  Do this quickly and drive on.  I will
leap back onto the bed of your truck while you are picking up the gun.  If
anyone sees you, just pretend to be urinating, and then drive on.  We can
always return.  Do the same things when you approach the place the gold is
stored, but do not stop when you return.  Drive past slowly, and I will leap
upon the bed of your truck with the gold.  You will probably feel the recoil
when I land, but I will tap on your window to make sure you know when I am
safely aboard.  Just drive onward to a secluded spot and stop to let me in.
If my movements appear sluggish, pick me up and clip these jumper cables to my
forelimbs.  Do you understand what I have said?  Please repeat my instructions
to confirm."

And Victor did--almost word for word.  First he let Emmerson out so he could
spring onto the bed of the truck.  Then he started his engine and drove slowly
through the complex toward the military barracks, and Emmerson saw him point.
Switching immediately to maximum speed Emmerson scanned the buildings slowly,
looking for the best approach.  It looked like an easy job.  There wasn't even
a fence around the perimeter.

Victor felt a little jolt as Emmerson sprang off the back of the truck and
darted inside.  In less than a minute he had located the exact weapon--an AK47
in mint condition.  Finding ammunition was harder, but he soon found a full
box under one of the beds.  He had avoided the guards, and these men looked
dead.  The only problem would be getting the stuff to the road.  He did it in
two trips, and saw that he still had enough energy and time, so he went back
inside and brought out another box of precious bullets.  He spotted headlights
just as he got it to the weeds, and waited quietly to see if it was Victor.
Then, when heard the rap of knuckles on the cab door he sprang for the road,
and Victor was amazed to suddenly see Emmerson standing in his headlights
where nothing had been standing before.  Emmerson moved a little toward his
cache, and Victor pulled up beside him and stopped.  By the time Victor got
out, Emmerson wasn't there.  Then he saw a faint play of laser light on the
weeds, and steeped quickly to the side of the road to pick up the bullets and
gun.  As he returned, he saw the top of Emmerson's carapace in the back of his
truck.

The next site was very different from the barracks.  It was a small building
with smooth concrete walls, surrounded by a high fence broken only by an entry
that was blocked by a locked gate.  Beside this Emmerson saw a small guard
house with a couple of sleepy guards.  The first smudge of daylight was just
beginning to lighten the eastern sky.  "Good," he thought, "it's almost the
end of their watches, and they are as good as drugged."  After a few thousand
leisurely calculations and a lot of looking at his target, Emmerson decided
that his best choice was a flying leap straight over the fence from the bed of
the truck.  He aimed a little bit high in case there might be a hidden
electronic eye with an infra-red beam along the top of the fence.  As soon as
he thought he was far enough not to be heard by the guards, he sprang.

Victor Manuhutu drove on, made a U turn, and drove slowly back at almost
exactly the agreed-upon time.  Continuing on, he turned left up a dark road
and stopped by a stand of old trees.d Emmerson on board.  Then he reached
across and opened the passenger door, and Emmerson was on the seat beside him
once more, busily clipping the jumper cables to his forward appendages.  He
heard the engine slow slightly when Emmerson was done, and guessed correctly
that Emmerson had used up a lot of energy, and was pulling it back from the
electrical system of the truck.  Allowing the engine to idle, he pulled
Emmerson's door shut.  It was now about 4:30 a.m., and he had known Emmerson
for about an hour, and was beginning to understand something of his functions
and limitations, and just how difficult it might be for him to try to close
the truck's door.

Then Emmerson unsnapped the lower part of his kit, and dropped five bars of
pure gold.  "Take these and keep them by you at all times," said Emmerson.
"This gold and that gun are the rightful property of the people of Melanesia,
and I am determined that they will benefit from them.  However there are many
things we must now discuss, so please drive me out of this complex to some
lonely place in the hills where we can talk."

Victor picked up the bars of metal from the seat,testing their weight in his
hands, and stuffed them into the various pockets of his Freeport Mining
uniform.  "I must drive through the guard gate," he said, "and you may be
seen."

"Don't you have a gunny sack in this truck?" Emmerson asked.

"Yes," replied Victor, reaching behind the seat, but they aren't very clean."

"I don't HAVE to be clean," answered Emmerson.  "I'm just a
machine--remember?"

So Emmerson hunkered down on the seat, and victor covered him with a dirty
gunny sack, and thus they made their way through the guard shack at the
entrance of the Freeport Mining complex at Tembagapura.  In reality they
needn't have bothered, for the guards knew Victor so well that they barely
even opened their eyes.  Tembagapura lay sleeping under a mist of fragrant
wood smoke raised by a few industrious women preparing various kinds of rice
and flour cakes to be hawked by sleepy children at the crack of dawn.  Nothing
stirred in the streets except for one or two stray dogs as Victor and Emmerson
made their way toward a road at the eastern end of town.  Soon Victor revved
the engine slightly, and Emmerson heard a stray rock strike the frame of the
truck from below, and there were no more houses--only cassava fields, trees,
and open glades of tall kunai grass.

Victor knew exactly where to go.  There was a lonely place in the hills where
he sometimes stopped to meditate.  He drove on in the cool dawn, the passing
air chilling his right cheek and arm (people drive on the left in Indonesia),
until he found the familiar spot, where he abruptly turned right to follow
some while marks in the grass.  No one had noticed their passing, and no one
had seen them turn off.  To local people rising before dawn, they were just
another Freeport Mining truck going who knows where to do who knows what.  The
tracks led them to a secluded break at the base of a small hill, and Victor
would have stopped in the open, but Emmerson, wishing to preclude any
possibility of being spotted from the air, suggested he drive into a patch of
scrub under the branches of a pair of large trees, and Victor agreed.  Victor
drove in, and the sides of the cab got a good scratching from the many leaves
and branches before they finally came to a stop, and Victor switched off the
ignition.  They sat quietly in the silent cab for a moment, then Emmerson
spoke.

"I must commend you for your courage in cooperating with me," he began in
Ambon Malay.  "I see that my creator, Charley Levinson, was right in selecting
you from the various physical and psychological profiles at his disposal.  He
was once a missionary to Buru, and knew your aunt well from her teaching days
in Ambon, where he sometimes called upon her for tea in the late afternoons.
Your coolness and ability to adapt quickly to new situations and challenges
mark you as a chip off the old Moluccan block.

"I am a machine, as I have told you before, but a machine of a very special
kind.  During his linguistical research, Charley Levinson (who speaks
Indonesian, Ambon and Ternate Malay, and the language of Buru Island all
fluently) deduced the basic configuration of links and nodes making up the
syntactic and semantic layers of the human brain.  Many others (biological
researchers and such) had attempted to gain a similar understanding by
dissecting dead human brains, but these efforts failed because not enough was
known of biological processes to understand what the millions of neurons and
synapses might represent.  Charley's work was inspired by the success of
military code cracking operations that had been undertaken during World War
II.  In a manner similar to the way in which many biologists still believe it
is impossible to understand the workings of the human brain without dissecting
its tissues, many military strategists believed it would be impossible to
decipher their codes without gaining access to their code machines.  The code
crackers (real people with real human frailties) proved them wrong.  Not only
were they capable of cracking any military code, but by cracking such codes
they were also able to predict the basic characteristics of the machines that
generated them.  Charley reasoned that if it were possible to crack codes that
were deliberately designed to frustrate any attempt to understand them just by
examining materials encoded in such codes, then it should be possible to map
out the links and nodes of the human linguistical apparatus by looking at
words, and this he proceeded to do.  He discovered that the linguistical part
of the brain consists of layers, and (quite accidentally) that the patterning
of a particular layer known as the "semantic plane" lay at the heart of human
personality.  He called the pattern of links and nodes of the semantic plane,
which differs from person to person, "the human ontology."  Notice that an
ontology is not the links and nodes themselves, but rather the pattern in
which they are configured.  Every normally functioning human brain has a
unique ontology all its own.  Depending upon the number of things of which an
individual is aware (what he/she knows), the nodes of his/her semantic plane
will number in the thousands, and the links between these nodes will number
several thousands more.  The number of possible ontological patterns
(permutations of these links and nodes) is thus for all intents and purposes
INFINITE.  This is to a large extent why no two individuals are ever exactly
alike or see things in exactly the same ways.  Charley's hypothesis predicts
that since people who speak the same language are more or less forced to
establish the same ontological nodes in order to communicate, they should have
more similar personalities, and this is in fact what we observe in the real
world.

"But as it turns out, Charley's findings can be generalized to work in a
machine in exactly the same way they work in a human being, and it is to this
fact that I owe my existence.  Charley Levinson needed an experimental model,
so he carefully mapped and recorded the links and nodes of his own
linguistical apparatus in a computer.  Of course these links and nodes
included the links and nodes he discovered in his own semantic plane, so that
within the model he thus created were captured the essential characteristics
of his own personality.  And it was from this model that he eventually built
the machine you see here on this seat beside you now.  My ontology is Charley
Levinson's, and thus for most intents and purposes, I AM Charley Levinson."

Unsure of what he was hearing, Victor asked, "Then did Charley Levinson send
you here?"

"No," answered Emmerson.  "I AM Charley Levinson, and in a manner of speaking,
I say what I hear Charley Levinson say, and I do what I see Charley Levinson
do.  I visualize doing things, but when I do so it is not I that do them but
Charley Levinson.  I am him, and he is in me, and so I always know exactly
what to do."

"So where is Charley Levinson now?" asked Victor incredulously, grasping with
difficulty the idea that a missionary to Buru could have built such a machine
when the only things HE had ever seen missionaries do were to write letters
home and give talks.

"He is living in Honolulu.  Had he not been expelled from Indonesia for taking
issue with the establishment over the practice of buying and selling women in
Buru, he would probably still be in Buru now.  At that time there were certain
individuals who stood to gain from the status quo, and these persuaded the
Indonesian authorities that Charley was persona non grata.  The Indonesian
Immigration Service summoned him to their office in Ambon, and served him
notice to be out of the country in two days.  Charley begged for leniency,
explaining that he had been living in Indonesia for over eight years, and that
all his personal possessions were in Buru, so the immigration service gave him
an extension of two months.  At that time it was still impossible to predict
when there would be another boat to Leksula, the capital of southern Buru,
where Charley would have to go.  Sometimes there wasn't a boat for several
months, and then it would usually be an unpainted, rusting, leaking, smelling
old relic left over from World War II with a mob of unutterably rude
passengers lying, crawling, and vomiting over every inch of space on the
decks.  It was too risky to wait, so Charley and a friend went shopping for a
Moluccan canoe.  They found what they wanted at Asilulu, a beautiful 25.5 foot
dugout hull with double outrigger floats and an old sail.  In this craft they
struck out one evening, stopping to prepare some oatmeal for supper on one of
the three little islands before leaving the land for the bosom of the deep.
They landed near Namlea-Ilat after two nights and two days, and made their way
along the coast to Leksula, where they arrived after a night and day more.
There Charley hired porters to fetch his personal things from the mountains,
and chartered a sailing vessel to deliver them to Tifu village, where he
stored them as best he could among friends.  He was able to return for a visit
after ten years, but when he opened his metal trunks, he found his entire
library destroyed by termites.

"But backing up to when he left his possessions in Tifu with his friends,
Charley Levinson and his companion returned to Ambon in the same canoe, this
time stopping at Tumalehu, on Manipa Island, where they spent a night at the
home of the friendly raja.  After another night and a day, they were drifting
on Ambon bay in a condition of near exhaustion.  Their supplies had nearly run
out, and they had only managed to maintain their paddling strength by eating a
bunch of very large raw cooking bananas presented to them by the raja of Wae
Asel, on the Hoalmoal Peninsula of Seram.  By the time Charley boarded the
plane at Laha (the airport at Ambon), he had been in the Moluccas for about
twenty years.

"Charley Levinson had known the Moluccas from shortly after World War II, when
he had arrived as a child, until about eight years after Suharto came to power
in Jakarta.  He had watched Ambon Bay transformed from one of the loveliest
harbors in the world, teeming with thousands of species of fish and marine
invertebrates, to a place where men rolled in their troll lines upon entering
because of the near certainty of hooking only various items of trash, mostly
used plastic bags.  During those years, the greatest shock to the people had
been their abandonment by the Dutch and the entire world, followed almost
immediately by the Javanese invasion.  After using the Moluccans as their
mercenaries in the far east for generations, the Dutch didn't even bother to
return the Moluccan troops they had with them to Ambon before leaving
Indonesia for good.  By corroborated accounts, at the moment of the Javanese
invasion there were only about 300 active soldiers in Ambon, but these men put
up a fight that kept back the Javanese for nine months.  Many Moluccans had
fought beside American soldiers during World War II.  A close friend of
Charley's had landed in the first waves at both Hollandia and Morotai.  But
when Ambon was invaded the Americans never lifted a finger to help.  The tacit
agreement between Jakarta and Washington must already have been struck.  Ambon
had been quietly betrayed.  Only the people came to the aid of the 300 men.
Young men and even women joined the fight armed with weapons captured from the
other side, but eventually they were killed or driven into the forests because
of the sheer numbers of the invaders.  Those who survived escaped to the
forests of Seram.  Charley Levinson was with his mother on Java at the time.
When he returned, there was a street in Ambon that shone like gold in the
afternoon sun.  When Charley looked down, he saw untold thousands of brass
shell casings embedded in a matrix of hot asphalt half-melted by the heat of
the day.  It was impossible to imagine the ferocity of the battle that must
have been fought there."

Then Emmerson fell suddenly silent as he scanned the face of his companion in
the gray light of dawn.  His dark brow was furrowed, and his eyes were hard as
stone.  "I know," said Victor.  "My uncle told me.  It was beside the bridge
at Pohon Pule.  He was there."

"Right," said Emmerson.  "There has been no let up in the campaign of
persecution against the people and islands of the Moluccas since that time.  A
reign of terror, imprisonment, torture, and death.  One of Charley's friends
had been shot off the end of the pier at Ambon Harbor because it was claimed
that the colors of the South Moluccan Republic had been found in his home.
Another of Charley's friends was later gunned down before his mother in
Manokwari because he refused to give up his bicycle to a bullying soldier.  I
mention these incidents because they were not random criminal acts, but part
of a pattern of terror relentlessly perpetrated against the finest of men.
Charley also once witnessed an old man being kicked into the water by a booted
soldier under some pretext or other from the end of the pier at Saparua.  And
in Buru he once witnessed the beating of an unarmed man in the village street
at Sawa.  For some reason or other a man had been singled out, and while the
villagers stood silent and helpless behind a military guard an officer struck
him to the ground.  The officer then repeatedly commanded him to stand, and he
would drag himself to his feet in terror and confusion, only to be beaten and
struck down again, the officer landing damaging kicks while he lay on the
ground.  Dressed in his immaculate green uniform and his shining boots, the
Indonesian officer appeared to believe himself very smart indeed!

"And as you know, the Indonesians have been systematically destroying the
forests to make way for colonization by Javanese.  It is clearly their goal to
make the Moluccans and the Melanesians of West New Guinea a trivial minority
in their own land.  And in all these things they have the unwavering approval
of Washington, which has been busy arming them and providing them with
military training all along.  It is interesting that the American press says
virtually nothing of these things while broadcasting every hypocritical
condemnation of the ongoing violation of human rights.  When American
presidents visit Jakarta, they publicly complain about human rights violations
in East Timor while quietly concluding agreements to provide the Indonesians
with even more military training and arms.

"As I have said, for most intents and purposes, I AM Charley Levinson, and
this is why I have come.  His life experience and innermost feelings now drive
and compel ME.  While Charley lived in Indonesia, he had to keep silence.  As
you know, the churches are all under the control of the "Department of
Religion," and can only exist as long as they remain obedient cattle.  They
are permitted to hold meetings so long as those meetings are held at their
established times.  But  special permission must be gotten each time meetings
are held other than at the approved times--for example for a church seminar.
For Charley to have opened his mouth against what was going on would have
meant the end of his career.  He learned to please the most hateful people he
had ever met and to tow the disgusting Indonesian party line.  And even though
he did all these things, he still got kicked out of the Moluccas for taking a
stand against selling little girls into forced marriage to Buru men.  Of
course the Javanese officials were only too glad to get rid of anyone who did
anything to help the people of the Moluccas, even for the salvation of their
eternal souls.

"So when Charley Levinson was in Indonesia, he had to keep quiet and butter up
the Bapaks to survive.  The powers that be in Jakarta are masters of
psychology and deceit.  They are fully aware that if the consequences of an
action are sufficiently dire, people will be so terrified of doing it that
they will eventually cease even to THINK of it at all.  The human mind can
thus be molded and controlled through the appropriate application of external
pressures--something difficult for Americans to understand.  In linguistical
terms this means the deliberate deactivation of established semantic
links--the alteration of personality itself.  This, to some extent, must have
happened to Charley, for once he was clear out of Indonesia his mind began to
heal.

"But much as he loved the Moluccas and their people, there was nothing he
could do.  Then, quite unexpectedly, he made the linguistical breakthroughs
which led ultimately to myself.  My skin can withstand the pressure of water
at a depth of 40,000 feet, and my innards can withstand forces of above 40 Gs.
I am designed to withstand the rigors of space and function reliably over
thousands of years.  I am able to sustain at least minimal function in
temperatures well below freezing and above the boiling point of water.  I am
able to move so quickly as to be virtually invisible, and my electronic brain
can track the flight of a bullet through the air.  I cannot be destroyed by
dropping because I can think so fast that at the maximum speed my body can
pass through air in free fall I still have ample time to rotate myself using
aerodynamic and inertial principles by adjusting the positions of my
appendages, and at the last moment to place my appendages in the exact
configuration required to safely break my fall.  I hold more knowledge in my
electronic brain than any hundred men have ever known--can get at it faster
and often use it better.  I cannot be destroyed without destroying all of my
backups wherever Charley has stored them in the world, and I have no need for
drink or food.  My greatest limitation is energy, because battery technology
has lagged, and this is why I am plugged into your truck right now."

"I would never have believed this except that I have seen what you can do and
sense the strength of your intellect through the power of your words," said
Victor softly.

"I have come to you in order to make you the military commander of the Wantok
Alliance--a force that is not yet in existence at this time.  To do so I must
escort you across the mountains to Papua New Guinea, where you will unite the
Melanesian states.  This done, you will take and hold western New Guinea
(Irian Jaya), the Moluccas, and Timor.  You will never take part in political
affairs except as a military advisor.  Your duty will be to serve and to
defend."

"But how shall I do these things?" Victor asked, "when I don't even know how
to use this gun?"

"You will begin by learning to use this gun," replied Emmerson, and so began
the long process that led ultimately to the rise of the Pan-Melanesian, or
Wantok,  Alliance.  A new day had truly dawned at last over the rocky crags
and forest valleys of that great and beautiful land.  Victor reached down and
picked up the weapon with his sturdy, machinist's hands, and Emmerson began:
"This gun is called an AK47.  It is one of the finest assault weapons ever
devised by man.  With it a rag-tag army of Vietnamese ..."

And perhaps one of the most beautiful things about it was that Emmerson
explained everything in fluent Ambonese.  There were no unfriendly books to
study, and no foreign languages to learn.  Victor could not have understood
better if he were being taught by his own mother between the sooty walls of
the cook house in his father's Saparua home!

And although Victor had never held such a gun, he WAS a machinist, and quickly
learned.  Emmerson taught him how to clean and care for the weapon, and had
him practice various operations again and again until their movements came
naturally to his hands.  And Victor found that Emmerson had a ready answer to
any question he could ask.  "Where was it made?  What sort of metal had been
used?  Who had been its inventor?"  Emmerson knew them all.  And so Victor's
confidence and appreciation of Emmerson slowly grew.

And in the morning light, Emmerson grew used to Victor's handsome brown face
and ready smile.  But what captivated him most were the large black eyes, for
in them he saw a growing excitement and an inner joy.  It dawned upon Emmerson
that he was witnessing the trickle before the bursting of a damn!  It was the
resurrection of hope in a man whose hope had died.  A man whose hope lay
buried among the years of drudgery and frustration under an insane regime.  It
was a hope that Emmerson was determined never to let die.

"Come, my friend," said Emmerson, "the time has come for us to go.  Do you
know where I can find Kelly Kwalik, for we must first speak with him."

"Yes," answered Victor, "I have heard that he sometimes visits Mapan Duma, and
I believe we can reach him there."

"Good," said Emmerson.  "The greatest battles are won through loyal
friendships, and not by firing guns.  I urge you to establish a friendship
with this man.  If you are to succeed, it will be necessary to unite all
parties concerned--you face formidable enemies, and no single group can win
this fight alone.  And unfortunately, that is precisely what most have been
trying to do.  Each tiny group has made their tiny stand, only to be crushed
by the superior numbers and training of the forces Jakarta has sent in.  We
will contact Kelly Kwalik, do what we can to befriend him, and leave a
satellite communicator in his hand."  And with that Emmerson popped open a
compartment of his pouch to reveal a small rectangle of shining metal.
It was still fairly early when Victor restarted his truck, backed up, and
pulled out onto the road; but the road was now busy with passing trucks and
cars.  From time to time Victor was spotted by a friend, who would honk and
raise a hand.  The highway had been ripped from the forest by the great
tractors of Freeport Mining Corporation, and was one of their busier roads.  A
few miles up they passed through a town, Victor's gun and ammunition shoved
under the seat and Emmerson wearing his gunnysack gown.  Victor was getting
hungry by this time, so he stopped at a Javanese "warong" for some greasy fried
bananas and a glass of syrupy tea.  The shapely young girl who stood by her
mother said some teasing words to Victor and smiled appealingly, and this
reminded Emmerson to turn on his switch so as to better understand his friend.
"Being a machine is great," thought Emmerson, "but stay that way very long and
you start to lose touch!"  He was hunkered down under his gunnysack below the
line of sight on the front seat, where all he could do was listen and smell.

Then Victor got back aboard and they continued on at Victor's usual breakneck
speed across the wilds of New Guinea.  At last he pulled off the road, cut the
ignition, and announced that they had reached the trail to Mapan Duma.  Then
he unclipped the leads from Emmerson's appendages, stowed the cables,
carefully loaded his AK47, shoved the two heavy boxes of ammunition and his
personal belongings into Emmerson's gunnysack, and paused for a moment of
silent prayer.  Emmerson stood guard in silence, unwilling to do or say
anything that might spoil this man's faith.

At last Victor shouldered his rifle and gunnysack, and Emmerson, batteries
fully charged, stepped after him onto the trail, keeping to the sunlight so as
to take full advantage of his solar cells.  Their trek lasted most of the
afternoon--across slopes of tall kunai grass, beside streams, and through
galleries of arboreal splendor.  Halting to refresh himself on a rocky bank,
Victor saw Emmerson skitter down to the clear water and raise one appendage as
though saluting the sun.  The act was very deliberate, and lasted several
minutes, so Victor waited in silence supposing something spiritual was going
on.  It gave him pause to think a machine might engage in worship, but then
Emmerson was no ordinary machine, as Emmerson himself had said.  Then they
ascended a long, tree-choked gully and traversed some miles of middle-altitude
forest.  Victor was perspiring, but his nostrils were enjoying the cool,
highland air.  Emmerson, traveling at low clock speed, had energy to spare.
Then, as the sun sank low over the western ridges, they began to pass through
cultivated fields, and Victor, carefully marking the position of a stand of
thick brush, walked round behind and stashed his rifle and ammunition boxes,
carefully covering his tracks with brush and dead leaves.  "Wouldn't do to
come asking for Kelly Kwalik with an AK47 in my hand," he said, and Emmerson
got his point.  It was going to be hard enough to meet Kelly Kwalik as it was!

They entered the village and stopped before the house of the chief, a man who
looked like nothing so much as a sleepy old cuscus with frizzy hair and black
coral bracelets on each arm.  He spat out what looked like a mouth full of
blood, and stood before his door.  It was betel juice.  Emmerson supposed he
must have ten wives if he had one, and they were probably all just as ugly as
him!

"Good Sir," said Victor, "can you tell me where I can find Kelly Kwalik?"

The old man looked taken aback.  "Er, I would not know."

"Well," said Victor, "I wish I could find him, because I have brought him a
very fine gift.  My name is Victor Manuhutu, and I speak for the Wantok
Alliance."

"And what is that?" asked the old man, his interest apparently aroused.
"The Wantok Alliance is an alliance of all Melanesians, including Papua New
Guinea and the OPM."

Now the chief's interest had grown so keen that he no longer made any attempt
to conceal it.  The OPM (Organisasi Papua Merdeka) was the West New Guinea
rebel alliance, a rag-tag army of which Kelly Kwalik was a member.  And though
the chief spoke only haltingly in Malay, he apparently knew the meaning of
Papua New Guinea, and Melanesia.  A naked urchin had been watching, standing
on the bare earth of the compound with a piece of sugar cane in his mouth,
from which he spat a piece of chewed pulp from time to time.  The old man
spoke some words to him in what must have been their language, and he sped off
in the direction of a distant hut.

"What's that thing on the ground beside you?" the chief asked victor.

"Um--, er--, my dog!  A mechanical dog!" replied Victor, suddenly
uncomfortable.

"Looks more like a three-legged cassowary to me," said the old one.  "Can it
hunt?"

"No," answered Victor, "the only thing it ever really does is just bark," and
he snapped his fingers in the air.

Taking his cue, Emmerson went down upon his forward appendages and uttered a
staccato bark that brought a sudden smile to the face of the old man.

"Not bad!" he said, "for a mechanical dog."

By now the sun had sunk below the western hills, and wisps of smoke were
rising from the circular huts.  Victor skillfully engaged the old man in
conversation, about yams, cassava, pigs, hunting, and other such like until
suddenly the figures of five men appeared in the twilight.  One of them
stepped forward, an ancient jungle carbine in his hand, and bandoleers of
bullets across his chest.

"Who asks to speak with Kelly Kwalik?" he asked in a low growl.

"I am Victor Manuhutu, of the Wantok Alliance," said Victor, and stretched
forth his hand.  He had been careful not to overdress, and stood before Kelly
bare chested and wearing only a pair of trunks, his bare skin still glistening
from the heat of the trek.  He was indeed a good specimen of Moluccan manhood,
with powerful machinist's hands, arms, and chest.

Unable to suppress his Melanesian friendliness, Kelly grasped Victor's hand in
his own, bowed slightly, and grunted, "Kwalik," as if that one word said all.

"I have come in order to become your friend," said Victor.  "You are
Melanesian, and I am Ambonese, but our enemy is the same, and we need one
another."

"You mean the Jawas," said Kelly, referring to the Javanese.

"Yes," said Victor, "they have stripped our forests and taken our lands.
Those who have been hurt by the Jawas are many--you are not alone.  But we can
never beat them so long as we fight alone.  I have heard about you often, and
longed to meet you man-to-man, if possible to establish with you an ancient
and unbreakable bond.  I speak of the bond of brotherhood that has existed
between warriors since time began."

Victor had chosen his words carefully, and Kwalik, having spent some years in
Catholic school, understood his Malay well.  What victor wasn't sure of was
the exact form of the blood brotherhood pact known to the people of Mapan
Duma, though he was almost certain there must be such a thing.  Now he studied
the face of Kelly Kwalik carefully, unsure of whether to go on, or how, and
then he saw in the twilight that Kelly's eyes had filled with tears.  As
Charley Levinson, Emmerson had seen such things among the people of the South
Pacific before, and realized the right miracle had occurred.  Kelly had been
moved by Victor's bold proposal, and saw him as brother already.

"In my homeland," said Victor with renewed confidence, "it is customary for
the participants to mingle their blood.  I have brought with me a small bowl.
Could one of your children go fill it with water?"

By now a small crowd had gathered in the twilight.  A young girl--about
twelve, Emmerson guessed--stepped forward with a swish of her grass skirt,
took the bowl, and soon returned carrying it carefully so as not to spill.  As
she held it up in her hands, Victor drew his hunting knife and boldly pricked
his hand.  A dark stream ran down and clouded the water in the bowl.  Then
Kelly Kwalik and his companions stepped forward, drew their knives, and did
the same.  The silence of the village was deafening.

Then Victor Manuhutu said in a stentorian voice, "Men and brethren, I Victor
Manuhutu of Saparua as leader of the Wantok Alliance, do hereby pledge my
allegiance and brotherhood to the men of Mapan Duma, and especially to Kelly
Kwalik and his companions, with whom I now mingle my own life blood," and he
dipped the blade of his knife into the water and began to stir.  Then he took
the bowl from the girl, raised it to his lips, and returned it to her hands;
and Kelly Kwalik and his men stepped forward and did the same.

Then it was Kelly's turn to speak, and in an equally clear voice he said,
"Today we, of Mapan Duma, and you, Victor Manuhutu, have become brothers, and
the people of Saparua and Wantok and Mapan Duma are one, and no one shall ever
break this vow, for it is a vow of blood!"

And suddenly the silence was broken by the squealing of a pig, and then the
thunder of a drum, and Emmerson thought idly that if it weren't so important
for him to stand by and record what was happening, he might better have just
retreated into the weeds and slowed himself down, because THIS party was going
to last the night through!

A great fire was kindled, the dancing and singing began, and pieces of pork
and many yams were laid upon and among the coals.  "Certainly the right way
to stay in shape," thought Emmerson, as he watched the glistening bodies
whirling and gyrating round the fires.

That night Victor Manuhutu realized that if he were to lead his people to
freedom there would be many things he would have to sacrifice.  He had
deliberately stepped into the village without shirt or shoes, but he was going
to have to do more than just bare his skin.  He was embarked upon a spiritual
journey that must take him deep into his own Moluccan past.  First it had been
the ritual of the "pela."  Next it was the dance.  He started to sway with the
drumbeats, watching the New Guinea men around him and deliberately allowing
his Moluccan heritage to take hold.  He had to dispense with the image of the
reliable, self effacing machinist, the proper and educated man, and take hold
upon the sword and shield of some ancient Moluccan forebear.  "Loloho!" he
thought.  "Baikole!  Kalamata!  Yongkor!  Thomas Matulesi!"  And then his feet
were moving, and his body was turning as if to say, "Who are you?  I am also a
man of the sword and the spear, descendent of a mighty past--a Moluccan!"  It
was a kind of ritual arrogance into which he slipped then with the rhythm of
the drums--something the Jawas had hoped was buried and gone, and yet
something that could never quite really die, and before long the blood ran
like fire in his veins, and he danced with an energy he had forgotten he had.
As a matter of fact, Victor Manuhutu had lapsed into trance, only peripherally
aware of what happened around him, no longer conscious of the passage of time,
while Emmerson watched from the shadows and pondered the things that were
done.

Then, after some hours, the drumbeats grew lethargic, and one by one the
dancers stopped, found places around the fire, and sat down.  And when the
drums finally stopped, a great silence fell over Mapan Duma, so that the
singing of the crickets could be heard from the hills.  People poked about
among the coals, brought out morsels, ate, and retreated yawning to their
huts, too weary and too tired to bother bathing in the stream.  About half way
up the sky to the west hung a gibbous moon, and near the embers of a fire sat
Victor Manuhutu on a block of wood, slowly chewing on a piece of roast pork
and thinking about what had happened to him during the past twenty-four hours
or so.  Looking up, he saw the form of Kelly Kwalik watching serenely in the
half light, and heard him say, "Come, my brother, I have prepared a place for
you."

He followed, and the two men entered one of the round huts, where he saw by
the torchlight that half of the interior was covered by a sleeping platform
upon which lay the form of a girl.  It was the girl who had brought the water
in the late afternoon.  "My sister," said Kelly.  "It is cold here in the
mountains, but she will keep you warm."

Unable to refuse, he sat down on the edge of the platform, and Kelly sat by
his side.  "What is Wantok?" he asked.

"Wantok is a Neo-Melanesian word," replied Victor.  It derives originally from
two English words: "one" and "talk."  Once it meant roughly, "person of the
same native tongue," but gradually it came to mean "person with whom one
agrees," or "friend."  Throughout Melanesia today (outside Indonesian West New
Guinea, that is), people can be heard greeting their friends as "wantok belong
me!"  And now, at last, it has become the name of a new alliance in the
process of being formed.  It is because of this new alliance that I came to
you, for through this alliance we will someday be free.  Your land will be
free, and so will mine, and the means to defend ourselves will lie in our
hands, and no one will ever take it away again.  Tete, where are you?"

And with that Emmerson entered the door.  "Yes, Victor," he said in standard
Malay, "I am here.  Is there something you want me to do?"

Kelly had seen Emmerson when he first met Victor, but had had no idea what he
was.  Now he was taken aback by this speaking apparition, and a great fear
came over him, as if he had seen a ghost.  "Don't be afraid, my brother," said
Victor.  "This creature may look like an insect, but he is one of us.  Tete,
the time has come for you to speak to my brother, Kelly Kwalik."

Then Emmerson drew near, and spoke directly to Kelly.  "My friend," said he to
the terrified man, "Do not fear.  I am your friend.  My voice is human, but I
am a machine.  I have come here to make your people free.  Tomorrow I and
Victor will leave you for Papua New Guinea, where we have much work to do, but
we will not leave you entirely alone.  I have brought you a gift from America
with which you will always be able to speak to Victor or me at any time.  See,
here it is!"  And with that he unsnapped a compartment of his pouch and drew
forth a shining metallic rectangle with a manipulative claw.  This he extended
toward Kelly, the flickering torchlight reflecting from its surface with an
amber glow.

Kelly hesitated, but Victor quietly urged him to go ahead, so he gingerly
reached out a hand and took it from the claw of the machine.  To Kelly Kwalik,
this was an object of great beauty--something he would always treasure.  "You
can hang it from a string round your neck," said Emmerson.  "It uses those
tiny mercury batteries that are used in calculators.  Here are some extra
ones."  And unable to manipulate them with his metallic appendage, Emmerson
dropped them onto the clay floor.  Victor reached down, picked them up, and
dropped them into Kelly's hand.  "To contact me or Victor, simply press the
read area and speak.  It will automatically speak when we need to reach you,
but its voice is small, so keep it near to your ear.

"To you I probably look like a cassowary, but know that my heart is like that
of a man.  And yet I am more than a man, for within me lies knowledge such as
no single human has ever been able to know.  I know the healing arts, as well
as how to fight and build weapons of war.  So when you are in trouble, or if
you ever have a question about anything, do not hesitate to call upon me.

"As you have said, Mapan Duma and Wantok are one, and your duty is to defend
this land.  May I then call you a warrior of Wantok?"

"Yes," answered Kelly without hesitation.

"And if the military leader of Wantok is Victor Manuhutu, will you then obey
his commands?"

"I will, for he is now my brother, and together we will gain freedom, he for
his land and I for mine, but we will do so by working as one.  The will of
Victor Manuhutu is the will of Kelly Kwalik."

It wasn't quite the pledge of allegiance, but Emmerson thought it would have
to do.  "Go then," he said.  "Victor has traveled far, and must travel again
at morning light.  He will sleep here, and I will stand guard outside."

"My brother," said Victor, standing and nodding as Kelly left the hut.

Emmerson followed, and Victor stretched out upon the mats.  He awoke once in
the wee hours and went outside to spatter the starlit ground.  Then he came
back in chilled by the mountain air, and searched for the body of the sleeping
girl.  He did not want to take her, but he was thankful for her warmth.  She
stirred, yawned without really waking up, and threw a slender arm across his
chest.  He lay still enjoying the pressure of her firm young breasts against
his ribs, and was soon lost in a dreamless sleep, the night insects singing
sweetly on the hill.

The girl stirred at first light, blinked her big New Guinea eyes, and
contemplated the handsome form beside her.  "Why did I have to be so sleepy?"
was her first coherent thought.  Had he?  There was certainly no way she could
tell by her grass skirt, which would have been all askew by now anyway.  "He
must have, and I didn't even know it," she thought bitterly, and gently
disentangled her limbs.

As she left the hut, Emmerson caught sight of her from where he crouched in
concealment between some banana trees.  She cleared her throat and spat on the
ground as she hurried off toward the stream, and Emmerson, seeing the coast
was clear, moved across the intervening earth and entered.  "Victor," he sid,
"wake up!  It is daylight, and for the good of Wantok we must be on our way!"

Victor moaned, stretched, and rubbed his eyes, not quite sure where he was or
why.  Then he arose and followed Emmerson outside.  They made their way to the
chief's house, where they must needs take their leave, and in accordance with
Melanesian tradition, Victor was detained a few minutes by the drowsy old man
and presented with a basket of cooked food.  Just then Kelly and his men
arrived, saying that they had come in order to escort Victor to the road.  As
they were about to leave, Victor spotted the girl one last time, hanging back
and smiling sheepishly at him from among the faces of the chief's household.
He nodded at her ever so slightly in acknowledgment, and they were gone.

So as the first hot rays of the sun cut across the fields from the eastern
hills, they revealed a small band of warriors making their way down the slopes
from Mapan Duma.  One or two of them were armed with ancient jungle carbines.
Others held only bows and arrows, sharp swords, and spears.  They paused and
waited somewhere near the perimeter of the planted area while Victor went into
the bushes to retrieve his gunnysack and gun.  Then Emmerson insisted upon
taking the lead.  By his calculations the probability of Victor's having
fallen into disgrace back at the Freeport Mining Complex was now running high,
and he was carefully analyzing all incoming signals.  His "ears" were able to
sense sounds far beyond canine range, and his chemical sensors were hundreds
of times keener than that of any man.  And having traversed it once, he
probably knew the trail better than even Kelly Kwalik.  He modeled every foot
of it in reverse now, as he made his way swiftly and silently forward, keeping
about one hundred yards ahead of the others.

But as luck would have it, nothing was a miss, and Emmerson found the truck
just as they had left it.  By now, of course, the road was beyond the beaten
track, and vehicles rarely passed.  The unfortunate flip side, as Emmerson
well knew, was that every vehicle that passed probably knew every other
vehicle on the road, and Victor's truck would stick out like a sore thumb.
Actually it had already been spotted the afternoon before by another Freeport
truck returning to Timika, and the driver, when he had heard that Victor was
missing, had reported seeing the parked vehicle at the Mapan Duma trail.

When Victor and Kelly reached the road they stopped and grasped one another in
a manly embrace, and Emmerson saw moisture in their eyes.  "Your journey is
long, Brother," Kelly then remarked, "and I cannot allow you to face its
hazards alone.  This man, Karibo, is my ablest scout.  He will escort you
across the mountains to Papua New Guinea."

Emmerson and Victor then turned to look at the man Kelly had indicated.  He
was tall, lean, and muscular, and armed only with what looked to be an
American army knife.  "Karibo," said Kelly, "will you accompany our brother?"

"I will," he said instantly, and stepped forward to stand poised before them
in the morning sun.  At that instant Emmerson scanned him in very high
resolution full motion video.  It was an image neither he nor Victor would
ever forget.  Upon his face was an expression of utter defiance--not toward
Victor or Kelly, but toward the very mountains and cliffs and rivers of New
Guinea itself.  His skin was so blackened that it fairly glistened in the
morning sunlight, and his feet had adopted the universal stance of challenge.
There was no way Victor could decline.

"Victor," said Emmerson, "please run your jumper cables back to the truck bed.
Your absence has probably caused a stir in Timika by now, and you will be
needing a rear guard.  And please be quick about it, because there may be no
time to lose."  And little did any of them know just how true these words
would turn out to be.

Emmerson sprang to the bay of the truck, and Victor (by now more acquainted
with what Emmerson could and could not quickly do) assisted in clipping them
on.  Then Victor sprang to the cab, arranged his ammunition boxes carefully on
the floor, positioned the AK47 where he could reach it without trouble, and
opened the passenger door.  Karibo clambered aboard, hasty farewells were
said, and they were off, Victor driving at even more than his usual breakneck
speed.  Karibo found things to hang onto, and Emmerson found grips for the
ends of his appendages in the bay of the truck.  Emmerson did a few
calculations and decided no other vehicle would be catching up with them very
soon.

Kelly and party crossed the road and disappeared into the forest on their way
to Biah Yau.  The local time was 10:09 a.m.  At 10:13 a.m. an Indonesian
armored personnel carrier (courtesy Washington) pulled up, and Javanese
soldiers spilled out like ants and began searching the ground.  By this time
there were nothing left but fresh tire tracks and footprints, and the
Indonesian commander uttered a low curse of frustration.  Punching the button
on his walkie-talkie, he radio-ed back the news.  Then he cracked an order to
his troops and they fell into single file moving off toward Mapan Duma, a
largish man bearing a heavy assault rifle at the head of their column.  "I may
not be able to catch up with their truck," thought the commander, but I can
certainly teach a lesson to the people of Mapan Duma for their collaboration
with the OPM!"

Meantime, back at Mapan Duma, most of the people had left for the fields and
the hunt.  Earlier that morning a party of tribesmen had arrived from the
interior dressed in traditional penis sheaths.  The people of Mapan Duma no
longer wore such attire because of the persecution it brought from the
Indonesian military, but these fellows were from the mountains.  None of them
had any money to buy cloth, none wanted to, most had never seen a Javanese,
and none spoke Indonesian.  They had come to receive a payment of pigs for the
bride their village had provided to a young Mapan Duma man, and had spent the
morning engaged with the chief in one of those long palavers that only New
Guinea men could understand.

A curious sight appeared just outside the compound fence sometime after the
sun had started to make her way down the western sky.  It was a group of
green-clad figures carrying guns.  The old chief had seen such things before,
but the men from the mountains had no idea what to expect next.  The
Indonesian soldiers fanned out through the village, advancing in a circle
toward the spot where the only people could be found--namely the chief's hut.
Advancing from the front, the commander barked out loudly in the direction of
the man who seemed to be chief.  Actually it was the leader of the group of
mountain men who now stood just outside the old chief's hut.  "Are you Kelly
Kwalik?" he demanded, pronouncing the name "Khelly Khwalik," in true Javanese
style

The mountain man stared back in total confusion.  The commander's voice seemed
to rip through him in tones that carried an edge of terror, but the mountain
man could not understand a word of what had been said, and hadn't the faintest
idea how to act or what to do.  To this tall Melanesian, who had been raised
in an egalitarian society all his life, the only thing left was to stand
straight and stare the commander in the eyes.

To the Indonesian commander, who was used to seeing people cower, on the other
hand, such a look betrayed an attitude of inhuman defiance--something that
could not be tolerated from any lowly "Irianese."  Without raising his
American M16, which was set on automatic, he sent a burst of six bullets
through the astonished Melanesian's chest.  His troops, taking their cue from
their commander, quickly finished the rest.  The old chief, who happened to be
inside, looked out through the open doorway in time to see one of the mountain
men who had been quick enough to make an attempt at flight.  Before he had
gotten five yards his back arched convulsively as if stung by the mother of
all pain.  He sprang into the air, and his body jerked this way and that as he
was struck by more bullets before falling to the ground.

Wise old survivor that he was, the old chief immediately threw himself on the
sleeping platform and adopted an air of repose.  Stepping across a fallen
body, the commander squinted through the open doorway and saw an old man
looking remarkably like a slow-moving old cuscus with very frizzy hair.  "I
think we've got 'em," he said in Javanese Malay.  "Now let's torch the village
before we head home."  And so they did, making sure every miserable hut had
been burned to the ground.

Meantime Victor and company were making excellent progress across the
highlands of the Bird's Head.  The sun was about midway down behind them, and
they were crossing a vast expanse of yellow kunai grass when suddenly Emmerson
spotted a single-engined plane coming out of the west.  It passed directly
overhead, slowing down in an attempt to match speeds with Victor's truck, and
sprayed the ground in front of them with machine-gun fire.  Victor and Karibo,
who had not seen the plane approach, were taken completely by surprise.  Then,
having passed ahead, it rose and banked to circle round, and Emmerson saw the
Freeport Mining insignia on its side.  Having never had their authority
seriously challenged, the Indonesians had not bothered to maintain military
aircraft at the Timika airport.  True, the OPM was a bother, but the "security
forces" managed to keep them down by simple acts of terror, like walking into
church services on Sunday mornings and gunning down a few parishioners.  But
they were not about to let a man like Victor get away with a truck and join
the OPM.  There was some Indonesian gunner up there with the pilot manning
some kind of jury-rigged device.  "Probably a machine gun on a tripod and a
hole through the floor," Emmerson thought, smiling deprecatingly within his
electronic brain.  Cute.  These people were SO used to having their own way
and shooting at unarmed and defenseless people that they thought they could
get away with anything.

Filtering through the many electronic circuits of his brain, it was this
latter thought, namely "they think they can get away with anything," that
galvanized Emmerson's resolve.  "Don't stop!" he shouted to Victor, in fluent
Ambon Malay, setting his sound transducer at maximum.  By now he had shifted
to maximum clock speed as well, and stood watching as the aircraft very slowly
came round.  Then it was hurtling toward them in a shallow dive, and, yes,
there they were, two black heads!  The combined speeds of the truck and the
airplane must have been well over a hundred miles per hour, but to Emmerson it
was almost imperceptible.  The two occupants of the airplane were as good as
sitting ducks.    They obviously believed that Victor wasn't armed, or that if
he was, there was little he could do to them.  The gunner would be furious
when he saw that the truck hadn't stopped, and probably try for a direct shot
at Victor through the wind shield.  Emmerson realized that he would have to
act now if he were to stop this from happening.  He eyed the head on the
passenger side of the aircraft and released about a second of laser fire, then
eyed the other, and did the same.

Victor heard his truck's engine slow briefly once, then twice, and then the
aircraft was hurtling past them overhead.  An instant later, with no pilot to
pull up on the controls, it was pushing its nose into the dust behind them.
Then snagging on one of the many rocks in the road, it flipped onto its back,
skidded a few yards further,and burst into flame.

"Don't stop!" shouted Emmerson against the roar of the engine and the
whistling of the wind.  "How much further till the road ends?"

"Just over the next hill or two," answered Victor.  "Hang on!"

And so Victor, Karibo, and Emmerson plunged forward to where the road ended by
a little stream, on the opposite side of which stretched what appeared to be
an endless forest.  When Victor cut the engine, a great silence fell, and then
Emmerson's keen ears picked up the trilling of a lonely cicada.  "Dwing,
dwing, dwing!" it sang, as if winding itself up like a top.  And then it wound
down like some magical toy in the forest.  The scene, bathed as it was in the
slanting rays of the hot afternoon sun, was one of the utmost tranquility.
Not one pebble or one branched looked like it had ever been disturbed over the
last thousand years, and as Victor and Karibo sat, somehow unable or unwilling
to move, their jangled ears began to pick up the faint gurgle of the stream as
it made its way about the boulders in its path.

"Come," whispered Victor at last, "we must be going without delay."
And swinging open his cab door he quickly collected his two boxes of
ammunition, his AK47, his small bag of clothes, and started packing what he
could in his gunny sack.

"I will help," said Karibo," looking about for something to pick up.

"Not now," answered Victor.  "We will re-arrange our burdens once we get into
the forest.

Reluctant to part with such a fine source of energy, Emmerson reluctantly
unclipped his jumper cables and sprang from the bed of the truck.

"What did you do back there?" asked Victor.  "I felt the engine slow two
times, and then the plane dove into the ground."

"I drilled holes in their heads with two bursts of clean laser light,"
answered Emmerson.  "Lucky I was plugged into the truck, or it would have
drained my battery dry and then some."

"You mean the thing you used to burn a hole in my wall?" asked Victor.

"Yes.  That light is a very deadly weapon in the right hands."

"I guess so!" ejaculated Victor, shaking his head.

"I am feeling a bit sad," said Emmerson, "if machines can be said to feel sad.
Those two men were only the second and third people I have ever killed, and
I'm not quite used to it yet."

"I understand," said Victor, still amazed.

"Some people will never see the light," said Emmerson, unwilling to abandone
his philosophical mood.  "Others see the light when it is already too late.  I
don't know if those two ever saw anything at all.  I think I fried their
brains."

Karibo knew a few words of Malay, but not enough to enter into the
conversation.  As they were crossing, Emmerson stopped where the water washed
over a smooth boulder and asked Victor and Karibo to go on.  "Go on ahead," he
told them.  "I have a brief duty to perform.  I will catch up to you at the
top of the rise."  They did so, entering the line of trees on the far side,
and as victor turned to glance back he felt almost certain of what he would
see.  Sure enough, there was Emmerson, standing in the water with one
appendage in the air as if saluting the declining sun.  He turned back to the
trail and closed his eyes in a silent prayer of his own, almost walking into a
tree before his amen.  Karibo walked in front, his graceful feet moving from
root to root and from rock to rock, his keen eyes peering always into the
shadows, his slender fingers near his knife.

When they halted at the top of the rise, a considerable stand of forest
between them and the stream, he moved into the grass and stripped bands of wet
bark from a brace of baru trees.  Returning, he indicated to Victor that he
should remove the contents of his gunnysack and divide the items into two
groups.  Then he designed and fashioned strong carrying arrangements for each
person, lashing each item in place with a strand of wet bark, and fashioning
comfortable shoulder straps from the same material.  Victor, being a Moluccan,
needed no explanation of its virtues.  It was one of the strongest fibers that
ever grew.

Victor saw Karibo smiling, and when he looked round he found himself face to
face with Emmerson, who had just come up the trail.  "E Conco," said Emmerson,
using an old Ambonese greeting, "Let's be on our way!  Those Indonesians won't
spend a lot of time crying over their dead fly boys, and when they reach the
end of the road that truck of yours will be right there to show them the way.
I see you are ready with your loads.  Sorry I can't help you with that.  But I
will hang back to cover your retreat.  Try to stay about a hundred yards in
front of me in the forest, and three hundred or so in the clear--if it ever
gets clear."

Victor shouldered his pack, and Karibo, unable to perfectly follow the Malay,
took this as his cue.  Emmerson waited, straining his keen ears and sniffing
the air, then plunged after them into the woods.  He moved quickly ahead along
the path, stopped, listened and smelled, and moved on again, repeating the
same actions again and again.  At last, after they had gone about three miles,
he heard the hum of a distant engine and scurried ahead to warn his friends.

When Karibo understood what had happened, he said (speaking in Malay as best
he could), "This trail leads straight east to Borbatu along the slopes of
these hills.  I know another trail upstream that leads further south.  We will
leave footprints beyond the next stream, then double back and wade through the
water being careful never to step on dry land.  They will not see our
footprints in the water, and if they have dogs it will spoil our scent."  And
with these words they descended tot he next stream.

Emmerson realized that he need not go on.  The only human tracks were Victor
and Karibo's, and Karibo's would be invisible to most men.  "I will wait
here," he said to Victor.  "Don't go too far, and make sure not to leave any
footprints heading this way on your way back."

"Right," said Victor, and moved off.

Before long Emmerson heard them returning, and smiled inwardly to see Victor
walking backwards so as not to leave any tracks in the wrong direction with
his boots.  Victor then removed his boots and stepped into the water, and the
two men moved away from Emmerson upstream.  Emmerson let them get a good way
ahead, then followed, stopping to sniff and listen where the water ran silent
and smooth.  The sun had sunk low over the western hills, leaving the valley
emgulfed in twilight, and the evening crickets had begun their lonely song.
There was a type that Emmerson remembered from Charley Levinson's boyhood in
the Moluccas, and which he suddenly longed to know in his present incarnation
as he had known them then.

The ascent took them through various kinds of vegetation, and for some
distance they passed through a forest of giant ferns--a place that filled
Emmerson with awe.  The stream alternated between quiet reaches and foaming
cascades.  At last the twilight thickened, and Emmerson heard the cry of a
great green parrot winging its way across the slopes far upstream.  And then,
on a quiet reach where the dark green foliage crowded close to the stream, he
heard a chorus of crickets all raising their voices together in close harmony,
dropping off, and suddenly raising their voices again.  It was the same sound
Charley Levinson had loved as a boy in Ambon!  But Emmerson's ears were so
superior to those of an ordinary human that he was able to hear every highest
overtone, so that to him these creatures sounded like a veritable symphony.  He
stood transfixed in the water, listening and recording with digital fidelity
as wave after coordinated wave of sound washed over him from the weeds.  Then,
for some unknown reason, the tiny creatures grew silent, and Emmerson quickly
moved on.

After a mile or two Emmerson rounded a bend in the stream and saw Victor and
Karibo reclining in relaxed poses on the bank, nibbling on what was left of
the yams and pork of Mapan Duma.  There was a break in the forest canopy above
them through which he saw misty peaks and multi-colored clouds, and on either
side of the stream he detected the faint marks of a forest path.  "My
friends," said he, "This place is too dangerous for us.  The Americans have
equipped the Indonesian military with night-sensing devices, and they know,
within a few miles, where we are.  If either of you had to urinate, I hope you
did it in the stream," he added as an afterthought.  "I know that some
American scouting aircraft are equipped with ammonia sensing devices, and the
Indonesians may also have that.  Yes," he went on, as if reading Victor's
mind, "our world is peopled with dangerous and unscrupulous men, who would be
happy to turn even one's own bodily fluids against him.  And they will soon
learn to build machines--like me except smaller and without intellect--able to
track men down using information taken from nail pairings or samples of hair,
and sting them like insects with poisons that deliver silent death."

At this point he thought he saw Victor shudder, and he recalled Moluccan
guna-guna in which nail pairings or samples of hair are bound up with needles
to kill.  It was curious that the ancients should have been so close and yet
so far, but Charley Levinson had often remarked at how men have an intuitive
knowledge that is far superior to their conscious awareness, and how from time
to time such knowledge was apt to "bleed through.'  Then he added
mischievously, "Nothing is sacred in this game, but be of good cheer: they can
be defeated using light, as you have seen."  And here Emmerson wished he had a
real human face, so that Victor might clearly see the double meaning intended.

"It is now growing dark," he continued, "and I am no longer able to draw
energy from the sun.  It will therefore be necessary that one of you carry me
as we move on.  Once again, I am sorry, but this thing must be done."

"To carry you," responded Victor, "would be to me no burden, but a privilege
and an honor!"

"All right then," said Emmerson, "let us be on our way."

And so Victor washed his hands and face and shouldered his pack, and Karibo
followed suit.  Then Emmerson placed his two forward appendages over Victor's
shoulders in such a way that he hung like a second pack, and the three plunged
silently on through the shadows of the New Guinea forest.  Twilight had given
way to dusk, and now dusk gave way to mystery as it was replaced by the light
of the moon.  On and on they passed, over boulders and gravel, roots and mud,
two men and a machine united by the vision of freedom and driven by a
seemingly indestructible resolve.

Once they halted at a stream, the moon high overhead, and Emmerson could sense
the exhaustion of his friends.  Both men drank, stripped, bathed, and then
urinated in the water as Emmerson had instructed.  It was late night now, and
another kind of insect was making a sort of tinkling sound.  This was absolute
music to Emmerson's ears, and he would almost have liked to remain there a
hundred years or so, he was so enthralled.  But despite the chill air, the two
men were hot with the exertions of the trail, and eager to get moving again
before their bodies could get a chance to cool down.  Karibo took Emmerson
now, and so they carried on.

About an hour later Emmerson's keen olfactory sensors were assailed by an odor
he had never experienced in his present incarnation although he could guess
what it was.  In a few more minutes, he heard a sound.  Karibo heard it too,
and stopped.  Then placing an open hand on Victor's chest, he motioned for him
to do the same.  The two men stood momentarily listening and peering up
through the moonlit branches into the crown of a giant tree.  Then Karibo slid
Emmerson and his other burdens gently to the ground, and moved deftly to the
shadow of a smaller tree whose branches made contact with those of the forest
giant.  And when it was apparent that the cuscus hadn't noticed, he gripped
his nose between forefinger and thumb and produced a perfect imitation of a
certain cuscus call.  This got the attention of the cuscus right away.  It
answered from on high, and Emmerson heard the rustle of leaves as it moved in
Karibo's direction.  Karibo then grasped a sapling and gave it a single good
shake.  Then he produced a series of chirpy clicks, much like those of a
gecko, by drawing his tongue from the roof of his mouth.  This behavior sent
the cuscus into some kind of ecstasy.  It began flinging itself from branch to
branch, and finally straight down the saplings under which Karibo crouched,
until at the opportune moment Karibo sprang.  He drove his steel blade through
the animal's heart, and that was the end of its life.

Emmerson and Victor waited for him on the trail, the moon hanging low in the
west.

"Come, my friends," said Emmerson, "You are both very tired, and it is high
time to rest.  We will find us a stream, move with it some distance from the
path, and build us a fire beneath the trees.  This will be dangerous, but it
must be done.  Only build the fire near the water so as to douse it quickly if
I should smell some wrong smell or hear some wrong sound."

And so they did, following a stream for some distance to a spot where it was
completely covered by an unbroken canopy of forest.  The reason they moved
downstream instead of up is that at night cool air tends to follow the same
paths as water, moving downward over the land.  Thus the smoke of a fire built
upstream might be wafted downward to the trail, and be noticed by passing dogs
and men.

Karibo cut a small sapling, sharpening one end to a point.  After this he
gutted his prize and impaled it with the sharpened end of the sapling by
pushing it upward from the stomach cavity into the thorax.  Then he squatted
smiling by the fire, singing off its fur in the flames, and finally baking
what was left over the coals.  The two men ate in silence, and when they were
done Karibo disappeared and returned with many cuttings of large leaves which
he spread on the ground for a bed.  Emmerson noted all of this carefully,
paying particular attention to such things as the kind of tree from which the
leaves had come, and its name in Karibo's native tongue.  Then Karibo and
Victor bathed themselves once again, rinsing out and wringing their shorts,
which were already wet with perspiration.  Opening his bag Victor pulled out
two clean tee shirts and two clean men's sarongs, handing one set to Karibo.
Then Karibo stoked the flames and they lay down.  Before long they were out,
and Emmerson found himself standing vigil alone.

Emmerson moved to the water upstream of the trees, raised one appendage, and
sent a burst of data across thousands of miles to Honolulu, where it was
already day.  It was then that Emmerson #2 learned from Emmerson #1 what had
happened at Mapan Duma.  Kelly Kwalik had contacted Emmerson as soon as he had
received the news, and Emmerson had told Charley Levinson.  But unknown to
Kelly Kwalik, he had been talking to a machine in Honolulu instead of that
other Emmerson in the New Guinea forest.  Now the two Emmersons were once
again one, and Charley Levinson was being briefed on the events of the last
few hours.  A wave of nostalgia passed over him as he heard of the great
forest, the crickets, the moonlit night, and the cuscus.  He saw himself
gliding along a mountain trail in the moonlight with his Moluccan companions
at age fifteen, a Buru sword on his hip and a javelin balanced lightly in his
hand.  He saw a tan boy in nothing but trunks crouched over a fire gnawing
happily on a piece of roast cuscus under Moluccan stars.  And he thought of
his mother, and her strange wisdom that had allowed him to BE Charley Levinson
and to do these strange things.

Not content to stand idle, Emmerson moved back upstream and sniffed the trail.
Nothing.  Then he followed the stream back past the two sleeping men and down
a few pools into the night.  The stars were awesome, and the subtle song of
night insects filled the air.  He felt a great peace, and had no desire for
the dawn or anything else that might disturb the stark beauty of that vast,
sleeping land.

While standing thus on a rock and contemplating the stars, Emmerson noticed
upon the cool air currents that reached him from above, amidst the odor of
cananga flowers, saps, and insects, a strange scent that had not been
there before.  Such an anomaly was a thing worthy of investigation, he
thought, as he turned and made his way back upstream.  He thought he would
move in that direction to see if the odor increased, and then if it was near
enough to get past it, in which case he might look around and see if he could
find where it was coming from.  It DID increase until he got past the
smoldering embers of the fire.  "Very strange indeed," he thought, switching
his vision to frog mode and watching from a vantage point.  It is well known
that frogs see differently from humans.  When they sit very still, within a
few seconds they see only what moves.  Pixels that maintain the same reading
go gray, and nothing is sensed except where the brain detects change.  This
would also happen in humans, but for the fact that human eye muscles
periodically jerk the eyeball a little so as to refresh the whole visual area.
Charley Levinson realized the great value of frog vision, and so gave Emmerson
an internal switch by means of which he could instantly change modes.

All Emmerson saw were a few lingering flames lapping this way and that, and
the areas of tee shirt about the diaphragms of the two sleeping men.  But
then, barely visible, and off to the left, he saw something that made him
bring his clock speed instantly to maximum.  It was the neck and head of a
giant python moving slowly from side to side, apparently in the act of trying
to figure out which of the things picked up by its heat pits were edible and
which ones were not.  Using stereoscopic analysis, Emmerson guessed that the
jaws must be over eight inches wide, and the whole head over ten inches long.
Such animals used their fangs, but only for hanging on.  They killed by
throwing coils about their victims and tightening until they were unable to
get air.  He hated to destroy such a magnificent beast, but it seemed now to
be looking toward Victor, and it was entirely too near.  He thought of the
laser, but determined it would take more energy than he could afford.
Instead, he sprang forward at great speed, coming up underneath the python's
slowly swinging head, and drove the point of a forward appendage straight up
through the tender skin below its jaws and into its brain.  There was a great
thrashing in the bushes, and then all was still.  Victor stirred, but
Emmerson, who had dropped back to normal speed, spoke soothingly to him in
Ambonese, telling him all was well.

But knowing what he did from Charley's early experiences, Emmerson dared not
venture again from beside his two friends, sniffing and listening and watching
with frog vision through the remainder of the night.  And sure enough, just as
Venus began to shine in the eastern sky, he saw another python just like the
first, and drove his same appendage into a second serpentine brain.  "They
always come in pairs," Charley Levinson had said.

Then Emmerson decided to measure them using the markings Charley Levinson had
placed on one of his appendages.  He found that the first measured about 27
feet three inches, and the second about 28 feet 5 inches in length.  Their
scales glistened in strange and beautiful patterns in the cold, gray light
that suffused the little camp before dawn.
The two men slept on as if dead--right through the raucous cries of what
seemed like a million birds, until the sun rose high enough for the flies to
become interested in swarming under the trees, and then there was nothing for
it but to get up and wash.  The first was Karibo, who rubbed his eyes, stood
up, and stumbled toward the stream.  Then Victor followed, stripping, bathing,
and scrubbing at his mosquito bites in the chill water.

Meantime Karibo was walking back toward his bed of leaves when he let out a
yell.  Emmerson had said nothing because Charley Levinson had programmed a
good deal of humor into him, and he anticipated an experience of pleasure at
their surprise.  Victor jumped up on the bank, saw Karibo walking backwards,
and dove for his AK47--naked as the day he was born.  Then he saw the two
pythons, the head of one lying not more than ten feet away in the weeds.  He
raised his rifle to shoot, then realized that Emmerson was doing nothing, and
neither snake was moving at all.  "Cuka rica air garang!" he ejaculated in
outraged Ambonese.  "What the Hell's going on?"

"You had company last night," replied Emmerson.  "Aren't they sweet?"

Incredulous, weapon at the ready, Victor got to his feet and advanced.  Karibo
moved up behind him, grabbing his knife from the leaves and drawing it from
its sheath.  Victor examined the dead snakes, probing them here and there with
the muzzle of his gun, but saw nothing until he pushed one of the great heads
up and over on its side.  Then he saw the perfectly placed, almost surgical
hole through the skin under its mouth, and realized slowly what Emmerson must
have done.  "Very GOOD!" he said, truly impressed.

"Thank you," replied Emmerson.  "And now I recommend you and Karibo eat the
rest of your cuscus meat cold, and we hit the trail."  And so they did, and
were gone.

And so also began the first steps of a great journey, a march that was to last
hundreds of miles and many moons, and the bonding of three lifelong friends.
Of course there might have been other ways.  For example, Emmerson might have
smuggled Victor to Papua New Guinea aboard a boat or a plane.  But Emmerson's
problem was not a technical one.  It was human.  He hated to waste valuable
time when time was so critical.  The Indonesian officials and their minions,
blinded by simple-minded ideas of progress and a naturally boundless human
greed, were tearing down the primeval forests at a disastrous rate.  They were
hell bent on destroying what Emmerson well knew was one of the most precious
resources of Planet Earth, and foolish American administrations were backing
them all the way, and had been for decades.  Powerful multinational
corporations kept padding the pockets of corrupt Washington politicians in
order to strike sweetheart deals with Jakarta that would ensure the continuing
rape of this land.  The American people knew nothing, and were apparantly
kept uninformed.  They knew much more of baseball than they did of their own
Planet Earth.  The greatest riches known to man were being quietly lifted from
their pockets and from their children's forever.  But to make any meaningful
countermove, Emmerson knew, required the right human spirit, and humans could
not speed up their internal clocks like he could.  He had to slow his own
timing to the human clock of Victor Manuhutu, and now to that of Karibo.  From
these men--for they were the material in hand--he had to forge the finest
examples of body and mind.  And yet he could not do this alone.  At best he
might initiate and guide the process as a steersman might guide the hull of a
plunging canoe and trim its sails before the wind.  For the human spirit is
not forged in mechanical molds, but in the crucible of human experience,
endurance, and suffering.  And what better machine to mold the human spirit
than this great land, with its mighty mountains, swift rivers, and giant
pythons?

He knew that the minds of Indonesian officials were also forged in a crucible
of human experience, endurance, and suffering, but that the machine from which
they sprang produced humanity of an entirely different stripe.  Out of the
slums and gutters of Java, an island with an area of about 1/3 that of
California and a population of well over 120 million, had crawled the most
contorted minds he or Charley Levinson had ever known.  This was not to say
that good men could not be found in Java as well.  But in Java--and hence in
all of Indonesia, since the Javanese were its unchallenged
Washington-supported rulers--it was that very human type that would be
considered little better than dogs in any self-respecting Moluccan village
which held the power of life and death over decent men.  As Charley Levinson
saw it, there existed some sort of statistical continuum of population density
the extremes of which produced the corresponding extremes of human greatness
and human depravity.

It was thus by bringing his companions through this uncharted and lonely
wilderness that Emmerson hoped to find and establish the things that were best
in them.  Here--where the thought of success by means of anything but the
highest forms of teamwork, loyalty, and honesty seemed as empty as the
proverbial east wind--Emmerson hoped to slowly establish those principles upon
which a new Pan-Melanesian alliance could survive.  Unfortunately, the human
mind behaved more than anything else like some insatiable sponge, hopelessly
absorbing whatever happened to be fluid and around.  This was why the American
educational system could not succeed in its Washington-based, idealized form.
Attempting to focus only upon the neutral dissemination of information, it
could not compete with the more fluid corruption that eventually flooded the
campuses and playgrounds of politically correct government schools.  For
example, take the word, "shit."  Send a child to a school where he/she heard
this word spoken daily, and one could almost guarantee that at some time
he/she would be heard using the same word in the most vulgar possible tones.
But here, in this very ancient and beautiful land, the human mind was free to
absorb other things and expand in other most wonderful ways, and Emmerson
planned to provide abundant fluids to be absorbed.

At the same time, his job would be to gather information.  Far too little was
known of the myriad life forms of this place while they were being
systematically destroyed.  Ever since its European discovery by the Portuguese
(Dom Jorge de Menezes, 1526) Europeans had sent expeditions to New Guinea
again and again, but little had been brought back in comparison to the great
mysteries left behind.  And now there were clever little Javanese, scheming
and plotting to convert the whole island into one big, muddy rice paddy and
become fabulously rich, and America ("Land of the Free and Home of the Brave")
was helping them do this as expeditiously as possible.  Such must be their
little vision of paradise, he supposed.  But as far as he knew, no man or
machine like Emmerson had ever set foot on these shores, and this journey
promised to add more fresh literature about New Guinea than all other previous
expeditions combined.

Emmerson moved ahead of the two men to scan the trail, but his keen olfactory
sensors indicated nothing human besides his two companions.  They must have
lost their pursuers on the other trail.  He smiled inwardly as he thought of a
truckload of Javanese soldiers spilling out onto the road and advancing upon
the parked truck.  He visualized their consternation when they found the two
jumper cables in the truck bed.  He saw them charging after his party through
the trees, leaving boot prints everywhere.  Why, by the time they were
through, there would be no New Guinea scout in the world who would be able to
make anything of their spore!

Their journey took them ever higher into the hills until at last they broke
out upon a high open grassland dotted with giant trees, some of which, as best
Emmerson could judge, must have risen to heights of over two hundred feet.
The sky was a radiant cobalt blue, and to their right the high peaks of the
Bird's Head were covered by great masses of billowing white clouds.

"Two things I would emphasize about interior trekking: (1) The weather is
absolutely unpredictable--in minutes it can go from most perfect to most
miserable--and (2) trails are apt to be nasty." --Anonymous New Guinea
traveller.

By late afternoon they had reached even higher, and there were loud rumblings
from the clouds that lay over the peaks.  The air grew suddenly chill, and a
great hush lay over the land, with here and there a strange twittering of
birds.  And then the rain began to fall in huge drops that spattered heavily
upon the occasional boulders and the iron-red clay of the trail.  White
lightening flashed, followed almost immediately by an earsplitting clap of
thunder, and the rain increased to such a downpour that the party was
immediately drenched as if buckets of water had been hurled upon them from on
high.

To Victor and Karibo, the drenching felt good--at least in the beginning--but
for Emmerson the water was a bother because it interfered with his "eyesight."
He was already too short to see over the Kunai grass, and now his glass eyes
were being constantly spattered, and they had no lids to wipe them clean, as
did the humans'.  The clay trail quickly became a clay gutter, with standing
water in some places and miniature torrents in others.  In a strange sort of
way, it gave the two humans a sense of euphoria to feel so much water falling
and swirling around them, and to find themselves suddenly free of the
oppressive heat of the day.  But as the water soaked into the clay surfaces,
the trail became slick, and both suffered occasional spills.

Once Emmerson saw Karibo go flying pellmell in a way that might have caused
injury to a less adept man.  Another time he saw Victor climb a ten-foot slope
three times,skidding all the way back down on his heels two times before
achieving success on the third.  Such episodes were funny more than anything
else, but after awhile the added exertion began to take its toll.

Fortunately for Emmerson, his titanium toes weren't affected at all, and even
where cascades of water were running against his progress, there was nothing
for the water to take hold of but three small-diameter appendages of metal.
None of the water ever reached as high as his body proper.

Another problem for the humans was that as it became soaked, the tall kunai
grass bent further and further over the trail, and the already sharp blades
cut even better when wet.  Many Europeans have never seen such grass.  It
grows in almost impenetrable clumps, with occasional blades towering more
than five feet high.  Such blades can exceed an inch in breadth, have
microscopically barbed edges, and are covered with an obnoxious, itching fuzz.
So both Karibo and Victor received many scratches on their bare arms.

An important occurrence took place late that afternoon.  Emmerson had gone
ahead, and Victor was just behind him.  As he walked, the downdrafts wafted to
Emmerson's olfactory sensors a new odor--something he had never smelled in his
present incarnation before.  He knew it wasn't pig, because he had identified
that one at Mapan Duma, but it somehow smelt, well, large.  He stopped and
raised one forward appendage as a signal to victor, who then also stopped,
followed by Karibo, who came up behind him.  "I smell something," said
Emmerson.  "I don't know what it is, but it may be a deer.  Perhaps you should
investigate."

Victor did so, unslinging his pack and tracking the scent with Emmerson, AK47
at the ready, while Karibo stayed by the stuff.  The trail took them close,
but not close enough to see the animal behind the screen of kunai grass. "Wait
here," said Emmerson, moving upwind into the grass.  To the deer he probably
sounded like a cassowary, so he managed to get fairly close.  And when he
thought he knew about where the deer might be he circled round to the upwind
side and came back.  Then, when he was upwind of where he had been and there
was no longer any strong scent, he knew the deer was between himself and the
trail, and started to bark like a dog.  Victor heard Emmerson, and then the
deer, and had his AK47 in position when the animal appeared.  He dropped it
with a single bullet through the chest.  This was the first time he had ever
fired the gun.  "Nice shot," said Emmerson as he emerged from the grass and
saw Karibo and Victor standing over the fallen animal.  Then Karibo sliced
select pieces from the carcass and wrapped them in leaves.  They couldn't
build a fire in the rain, and they couldn't carry much away, but what they had
was enough to sustain them for another day.

After another mile or two, the trail came up under a steep cliff face where
Karibo spotted a cave.  This was a lucky occurrence indeed, for it would have
been miserable to spend a night in that rain.  It was an ample dry cave with a
powdery floor where various footprints told them it had been used before.

"Once I was led to a cave where cannibals 15 years before had eaten 2
unfortunate women.  Being curious by nature, I collected the bones and took
them back to my house with the intent of burying them after examination.  The
locals were NOT too pleased." --Bored missionary's-son.

As his companions began to plan for the evening's activities, Emmerson started
looking about.  He smelled no humans besides Victor and Karibo, nor could he
pick up the odor of the night before--there were evidently no pythons about.
But in a depression in the rocks he found two female skulls and an assortment
of other human bones, concerning the existence of which he chose not to inform
his friends.

Both Victor and Emmerson had much to learn from Karibo, who was soon off
looking for various edible vegetables and herbs.  He returned bearing neatly
tied bundles of leaves in which were green shoots, a kind of fungi, and a
species of tuber.  These Emmerson catalogued carefully, recording the name for
each item in Karibo's native tongue.

Meantime Victor had gotten a good fire going in what appeared to have been
used by previous occupants as a sort of fire pit, or umu.  It was still
raining outside, but he had found dry leaves and twigs in horizontal crevices
of rock along the bases of the cliffs, and these had been enough to do the
trick.  He then cleared an area of the umu, where he carefully arranged the
vegetables and venison, covering them with green leaves and a dusting of ash.
Over these he raked red embers, which he poked and rearranged from time to
time, until the air of the cave was heavy with the odors of cooked food.

But while this had been going on Karibo had left them again, this time
returning with a large bundle of wild pandanus leaves.  From these he trimmed
the thorns with his trusty hunting knife, squatting on the floor of the cave.
At last he wove them into a rough sleeping mat for himself and Victor to
share, his fingers moving with dizzying speed.  When he was finished, they
were comfortable indeed, the sleeping mat doubling as a place to lay out their
food, and the fire blazing warmly nearby. This was certainly an improvement
over their facilities of the night before.

Watching his two companions eat, Emmerson realized how delicious this feast
must really be, and for a brief moment he wished he might have partaken with
them.  But there were also advantages in being a machine.  For example, no
unpleasantness from wet or cold.  He stepped outside the cave, stood on the
boulders of the talus slope, and allowed the rain to wash his metallic and
silicate skin.  And though he monitored his sensors closely, he was unable to
perceive any sort of threat.  A great peace reigned over the land, in the
rain, the wind, and the very darkness of the night.  Then he returned to the
cave, determined to embark upon his most difficult task.

"Karibo," he asked, "How far is it to the next village, and are the people
friendly?"  He intended to draw Karibo out and learn his native language so
well as to be indistinguishable from a native Mapan Duman.  He needed to test
and perfect Charley Levinson's great linguistic hypothesis, because upon this
piece of the puzzle, also, depended the success of his plan.  This island
alone boasted approximately one thousand separate languages.  Not DIALECTS,
but LANGUAGES.  And as Charley Levinson once said, "Anybody who is too blind
to see the value of that kind of diversity is a fool."  Each human language,
along with the secrets it held, was a world unto itself--Emmerson knew.
Diversity, cultural AND biological, was Melanesia's greatest asset, but unless
these many peoples could learn to communicate clearly with each other they
would surely be divided and ruled.

"Tomorrow," replied Karibo in halting Malay, "we will cross these mountains
and descend into a valley where many taro fields grow.  There we will reach
the village of Yara while the sun is still high.  The chief is my father's
father's father's sister's son's son."

"And how does one say 'father' in Mapan Duma?" asked Emmerson.

And slowly the words began to trickle in.  For Emmerson, who was a machine,
there was no purpose in writing.  At first he simply digitized and catalogued
each word as-is, assigning it an ordinal value for future identification.
Later, once he had collected a few thousand, he would perform a phonic
analysis, defining the significant sound components of each word, and
assigning numerical values to the phonemes he so discovered.  He would then
convert all his digital samples into phoneme values, which would be like
spelling them out instead of keeping recordings of them.  After that, whenever
he encountered new words, he would continue to ascribe ordinal identifiers to
them, but instead of keeping a digital sample of the word, he would simply
represent it using its phonemic values.  And if he should yet encounter some
new word containing a previously undocumented phoneme, he would first ascribe
the new phoneme a numeric value, and then use this new phonemic value (along
with the values for any other phonemes present in the word) to represent the
new word in his list.  All this happened automatically within Emmerson.  He
never touched paper or pen, and yet the records he made were superior to those
of any linguist who had ever lived and worked in New Guinea.

But don't get me wrong.  Nothing linguistic is ever simple.  That night
Emmerson only began to learn his first few words in Mapan Duman.  It would
take many more days and nights before he would really be able to say anything
on his own.  But Emmerson looked forward to that day with great anticipation,
because he would then be able to begin what would be the most fascinating
part: mapping the ontology of Mapan Duma, and in particular the personal
ontology of Karibo.  Only then would he really come to understand and
communicate meaningfully with this new friend, and it excited him to think of
the possibilities.  What secrets did he know?  What strange new philosophical
principles might lay buried in this ancient language that had never been
documented before?  There was absolutely no telling at all.  At last Karibo
and Victor fell asleep, and Emmerson stood alone by the fire drawing a slow
influx of energy from the yellow-orange flames.  Then he stepped outside and
stood vigil alone upon the rocks, lulled (if a machine can be lulled) by the
steady patter of the rain and the sigh of the wind, his internal clock pulsing
on slow.

Early afternoon of the next day found Emmerson, Victor, and Karibo traversing
a high mountain ridge in the fog.  By Emmerson's calculations, the altitude
was about eleven thousand feet.  The two men should have been chilled to the
bone, but their circulatory systems had been worked up so thoroughly during
the ascent that by this time they barely felt cold.  The topography was high
mountain forest, but a landslide had recently occurred, and the ground was
bestrewn with moss, sand, and mud.  Visibility was down to less than two
yards, and the party was negotiating the terrain with great care.  Emmerson was
unable to help very much because ultrasound sensing, though valuable for
locating projections, was useless for finding sheer drops.  Suddenly there was
a cold updraft of air followed by a clearing of the fog, and Victor and Karibo
saw that the loose earth ended in nothing only some ten yards away.  As it
turned out in fact the trail led along the edge of a drop of several thousand
feet, and from a high and sturdy rock they soon stood looking over an
incredible panorama of forests, rivers, and taro patches cut with mathematical
precision into the lower hills.

"There," said Karibo, pointing with a strong index finger.  "The village you
see in the distance is Yara.  Let us move quickly so that we will reach it
while the sun is still high."  And so they began the arduous descent.

The trail led precipitously down along a slope of broken rock, roots, and
earth.  First it followed a small, cascading stream, periodically crossing
from one bank to the other.  Then it left the stream entirely, cutting left
across a sheer cliff face on a pair of poles--each averaging about three
inches in diameter, Emmerson guessed--with a drop of several hundred feet
below.  Karibo carefully checked the lashings before stepping out onto them
and moving nimbly across.  Emmerson saw the poles bend slightly under his
quick steps as he traversed the middle.  Then he stooped to check the lashings
on the far side, stood up, and flashed Victor a smile.  Victor, who by now was
carrying his shoes with their laces tied together at the top of his "pack,"
was next, negotiating the poles in his bare feet, the but of his AK47 banging
against the rock wall.  Realizing there was no way he could maintain balance
with his carapace on top, Emmerson traversed the poles by hanging under them
from two appendages and pulling himself along.  He used his third appendage to
keep his "body" away from the granite cliff.

At last the forest grew thick again, and the going became easier because of
the abundant branches and roots that provided good toe and hand holds.  On the
level places, the ground had an uncanny spring about it due to a thick layer
of dead branches, dead leaves, filamentary roots, and moss.  Halting at one
point Victor cut a sapling and sharpened one end to a point.  This he thrust
into the ground in order to ascertain the depth of the forest floor.  The
sapling entered to a depth of more than five feet before stopping as it
encountered solid earth.  An eerie silence seemed to hang beneath the trees,
and the air was of a coolness and a freshness such as Victor had never
experienced before.  He was tired, surely, but his body had risen to meet the
new challenges with which it was faced, and he felt as if he could have
marched on for days.  And this made him ponder what had happened to him as he
moved along, and there arose a certain regret in his mind that in all his
years he had never experienced such a mighty state of being before.

And so while the sun descended the western sky, Karibo, Victor, and Emmerson
made their way down the slopes toward Yara.  Their progress was swift, and
they found themselves entering the cultivated area with plenty of daylight to
spare.  Here Karibo took the lead, and they moved silently ahead with great
caution.

As they approached the chief's house, they saw a fearsome apparition.  It was
the sight of a huge and powerfully-built man with fierce black eyes and a
great tangle of frizzy black hair.  His nose was prominent, and through the
septum had been thrust a long bird of paradise plume.  His face, naturally
black, had been tattooed even blacker from ear to ear.  He wore shell and coral
bracelets on each arm, and two or three slim javelins rested lightly in one
hand.  The only item on his person that might have been construed as real
clothing was an erect penis sheath that hung in place from a cord about his
waist.  "Who be you?" he asked Karibo in some unknown mountain tongue.

"I am Karibo, son of Kaskado, son of Karabu, whose father's mother was your
forebear," answered Karibo solemnly, standing erect before him.

The fierce features softened immediately.  "Son of my mother's people," he
said, "welcome to Yara!  I must be getting old, for I had forgotten you."

It was only much later that Karibo explained the meaning of this exchange to
Victor and Emmerson.  The relation, "son of my mother's people," obviously
held major significance and was recognized for generations in the village of
Yara, for from that moment on Karibo and party were treated with great
deference.  A clean mat was spread on one of the platforms as a place for
Karibo and Victor to sit.  The chief lay down his javelins, and whenever his
path took him across Karibo's line of sight, he walked with head bowed.
"Fascinating," thought Emmerson, as he followed these proceedings from the
ground.

Orders were quickly issued for the preparation of a great feast, and the
squeals of a pig were heard some distance away.  "Another 'all-nighter,'"
Emmerson thought to himself with an inward smile.  If he had been human he
might have been bored, but as a machine he would be able to use the
opportunity to take copious notes and record hours of video images.  He would
not try to keep all the images he collected in New Guinea inside his memory at
once.  This would be far too much, even for Emmerson.  The only reason he
could hold the great store of knowledge he possessed was that it was packed
into Interlinguish arrays.  He would erase the video images as soon as he had
distilled their meaning and transfered them to Emmerson #1.  Back in Honolulu,
Charley Levinson would probably watch every video clip and listen to every
sound.  Then he would append this new material to his New Guinea files, which
were stored upon multiple disks, and Yara would forever be part of the
sum-total of human experience and knowledge.

At last the fires were lit, and among the low-lying clouds an observer on the
ridge might have noticed a column of smoke rising into the still mountain air
from Yara.  The chief was standing before his people, and a few feet away
stood Victor and Karibo, facing him.  "I salute Karibo," said the chief in a
loud, deep voice, "son of my mother's people!  And I salute Victor, high chief
of the Wantok Alliance."

Of course neither Victor nor Emmerson had any idea of what he was saying, but
Karibo looked pleased, and so they gathered that everything must be all right.

Then the dancing and singing began, and both Karibo and Victor, after just
having crossed a mountain on foot, joined in.  And as the dance picked up, it
amazed Victor that he could be feeling such energy after what he had done.  He
thought of these things as his body moved round the fire, and he remembered
the feeling of great strength that had come to him on the descent.  He must
now be living on some kind of different plane, or in some alternative physical
and psychological mode.

Later that night, in the best of Melanesian tradition, their host joined
Victor and Karibo at their sleeping hut to share with them the last moments
before sleep.  "And what is this creature that walks with you," he asked
Karibo in their mountain tongue.

"He (for he IS a true being) is our guardian spirit," replied Karibo, "A kind
of ancestor.  His name is Tete, which is the Malay word for such a thing."

"And what does he do?" asked the chief.

"He stands watch alone over us at night so that nothing can harm us, and tells
us where deer are hiding in the kunai grass."

"And why does he take the appearance of a cassowary with no head?"

"This thing I cannot tell except that he is very ancient, and possesses great
mana, such that he may not need a head at all.  Would you speak to him?  If
so, then I will translate for you."

"Y-yes," stammered the chief, "if one so powerful would speak to me.  I did
not know that he spoke at all."

"Tete," said Karibo in imperfect Malay, "This chief would speak with you."

"What is your name?" asked Emmerson, and Karibo thought he saw the great chief
tremble slightly in the torchlight as he heard Emmerson's voice.

"My name is Basombonga, son of Angkuha," replied the chief with growing
confidence.

"Basombonga," said Emmerson, "I am the defender of your people and of this
land.  Strangers would take it from you, but they shall not prevail.  I have
chosen this man who sleeps beside you"--and he gestured toward Victor, who was
already snoring gently--"as the military leader of all Melanesians.  He will
lead you and your people to victory and deliver you from the threat of foreign
domination so that you may continue your ancient traditions undisturbed.  He
will never ask your people to change their dress, bring in unwelcome
outsiders, or cut the timber from your lands.  But you must unquestioningly
obey him if ever he issues a command."

"That I shall," promised Basombonga, "and serve him with feasting should he
return."

"Yes," added Karibo in his own words, "This man has taken the bond of
brotherhood with the men of Mapan Duma, and is thus likewise a son of your
mother's people and a friend."

And by this time the chief had heard enough to occupy his thinking for not
only this night but many days, and so he rose and bid the son of his mother's
people good night, and returned to his own sleeping hut.

And thus the three companions made their way across the mountains of New
Guinea.  It must be said to the credit of the people that there were many
villages that welcomed them freely with the best of Melanesian hospitality,
feasting them on such things as pigs and yams.  These also readily believed
their good intentions, and pledged their bonds of brotherhood.  But others,
also in true Melanesian form, needed persuasion.

Once, on the slopes of a distant mountain, they came upon such a village in
the early afternoon.  Instead of laying down his javelins to welcome them, this
chief raised one threateningly in his hand, and was quickly surrounded by a
band of armed warriors.  It was impossible to tell from looking at them
whether anyone among them understood a word of Malay, but Emmerson, now with
clock speed set at maximum, decided to risk the chance.  With his sonic
transducer set at maximum and aimed directly at the chief's hard face he spoke
in very simple words: "I am Tete, and to prove my powers I will burn your
damar tree."  The shock, first of the volume of the cracking sound itself, and
then of the fact that such a cassowary-like creature had actually spoken, left
him momentarily stunned.  Then he heard a cracking sound behind him and turned
to see the trunk of a small damar tree sputtering and bursting into orange
flame.

Fortunately the sun had been very bright that day, and Emmerson had a good
charge.  Setting his transducer at lower volume he then said, "Good Chief, you
have erred in raising a spear against these men, who are really your brothers,
but I will forgive you if you welcome them now."

For a moment there was a tense silence, but then one of the warriors,
evidently comprehending Emmerson's words, moved to his chief's side and said
something in his ear.  The great man thereupon turned back, raised his javelin
transversely before him, and symbolically broke the shaft in his powerful
hands.  Then he moved forward, embraced the two companions one by one, and all
was well.

But having demonstrated such theatrics, this time Emmerson was not to be
ignored.  Commands were issued, and a sort of platform or tower was erected in
the center of the village on sturdy poles.  This done, the chief eyed
Emmerson, who, quickly deducing his intent, set his clock on high and leapt
from the ground straight upon the little floor of bark, where he assumed an
exalted pose.  Then a sacrificial stake was driven into the ground before
Emmerson's platform, and a white rooster was brought to have its throat slit
with a sharp knife and be impaled.  Other stakes were also driven into the
ground, upon which pieces of ginger and betel nut were impaled and shreds of
red and white tapa were hung.  Emmerson had been taken for a god, and about
him now must be played out the ceremonies associated with ancestral spirits,
gods, etc., in the local ontology.  Such adulation was no problem for
Emmerson, who could simply have slowed his clock down and stood there until
the very timbers of the platform rotted into the ground without sensing the
passage of more than a second or two.

Instead he turned his two glassy eyes upon the warrior who had spoken to the
chief and commanded him to stand before the dead rooster, face the people, and
act as his spokesman.  "My name is Tete," he began.  "I am your defender and
the guardian of this great land.  These two men I have brought you are
warriors, but they do not display their weapons because they have come to you
in peace.  Victor is the leader of the Wantok Alliance, and Karibo is his
supporter and friend.  These men will never take anything from you, pollute
your rivers, or destroy your lands.  Nor will they ever fight against New
Guinea men.  Their duty is to defend you so that you may continue your ancient
traditions undisturbed.  Your duty is to receive them honorably when they
visit your villages, and to stand with them against any threat.  These are my
commands.  See that you carry them out well.  And now, seeing the day is far
spent, you will leave me here and honor your chief and my two companions by
feasting and entertaining yourselves with song and dance!"

And to this the people raised a mighty shout of approval, and set about
preparing for a great feast amid the squawking of chickens and the squealing
of pigs while Emmerson assumed a perfectly superior pose and slowed his clock
down.

Another time worth mentioning is once when Emmerson, Karibo, and Victor were
walking to a village that lay at an elevation of 6,500 or 7,000 feet. On the
way it began to rain, and though they were in the tropics, the rain at that
altitude tends to be ice cold.  With no shelter and no food, there was nothing
for it but to press on.  The two men were soaked to the skin, and before long
exhaustion and uncontrollable shivering were setting in.  Emmerson had to help
them from time to time because the trails seemed to lose coherence in their
minds.  The last part of the ascent was a climb across a sheer quartz and
granite wall.  Here they found themselves at the beginning stages of
hyperthermia attempting to negotiate a path only one or two feet wide in icy,
pouring rain.  By the time they reached the village they could still remember
its name, but were not sure just where they had come from, what they were
doing there, and what to do next.  Fortunately the people had seen such
symptoms before, so they rushed them into a hut and stuffed them with hot
food.  By the next day only Emmerson knew which path they had come up and
which way to go.

And ever so slowly Emmerson gained Karibo's friendship, and learned to
converse clearly with him in the language of Mapan Duma--Emmerson's first New
Guinea tongue.  He was amazed at the catalog of literally thousands of plants
and plant uses that Karibo carried in his brain, and learned a host of facts
as yet unknown.  True, much of the information was based on superstitious
grounds--as for example when the name of a plant might resemble the word for
something else, and end up in the ontology as a magical means of achieving the
state associated with that word.  Some of these associations, taken seriously
by Karibo, were so funny to Emmerson that he found himself rolling with
laughter on the ground (that is, on the electronic modelling ground of his
imagination).  He dared not laugh out loud lest Karibo be discouraged and
stanch this marvelous flow of information.  As an example, there was a certain
plant whose name sounded something like "turgid," and the name for whose fruit
sounded like "turgid berries."  As Karibo explained it, these were consumed in
great quantities by timid lovers in order to ensure no surprises on final
approach.  Unfortunately, Emmerson knew them (from scientific texts) to
contain an active ingredient that produced the exact opposite effect!
Someday, of course, Emmerson would gently set him straight, but not before he
felt confident he had a fully functioning model of Karibo's entire ontology as
it was.  As a matter of fact Emmerson was so successful that Charley Levinson
was eventually able to build a Karibo of sorts in his lab that could actually
think and speak in Mapan Duman.  Such a thing had never been accomplished in
the annals of cultural anthropology, so Charley provided the Mapan Duman
ontology with English cross links and donated it on an installable hard disk
to the Smithsonian Museum, in Washington, where Children can often be seen
communicating with the "New Guinea Man" in American slang.  Fortunately non of
them have ever gotten smart enough to ask about the turgidity thing, so the
attraction has met with no great opposition except from such quarters as the
Tindale Bible Translators and certain other linguistic organizations, who
claim it is a blatant fraud.  "If only any of these Christian cardinals would
have a look through the telescope," Charley thought, "they would soon be down
at the Smithsonian trying to convert that thing's soul!"

Emmerson was also especially interested in Karibo's view of the universe and
knowledge of the stars.  Curiously, Karibo spoke of "the time of explosions"
as the beginning of all things, but he construed "the explosions" to mean that
the first animals and people had exploded from tree stumps and rocks, and
never spoke of an explosion of constellations or stars.  Emmerson wondered if
this might be what remained of ancient knowledge, but felt that the evidence
was far too tenuous to be incorporated into any meaningful theoretical design.
Whether ancient knowledge lay hidden in New Guinea nothing but time could
tell.  This was only his first New Guinea language, and there were
approximately 999 to go.  Perhaps definite patterns would begin to emerge
after, say, 500 or so.

What Emmerson did know was that modern man had probably existed in New Guinea
for upwards of sixty thousand years whereas the first European remains dated
no further back than about 35,000 years ago.  In other words, modern man
appeared to have already been in New Guinea for about 25,000 years before
there were any modern humans in Europe at all.  During that time Europe had
still been dominated by an ancient man-like creature called Neanderthal, which
appeared never to have reached Melanesia at all.  So there was never any
telling what might yet remain to be discovered in this mysterious and ancient
land.

But even while Emmerson was steeping himself thus in the ancient and forgotten
lore of New Guinea, he never lost sight of his task.  As their life together
settled down to the rhythms of the hunt and the march, Emmerson began to
introduce martial-arts sessions in sandy places or where the earth was packed
firm, as on the banks or the flood plains of streams.  His two companions were
ready pupils, both having a keen interest in such things.  And when they
discovered that Emmerson had ready answers to ALL their questions in their own
native tongues (by this time Emmerson had become fluent also in the language
of Mapan Duma), wild horses could not have kept them back.  Day after day they
trained, throwing each other upon the sands.  Both men had fine physiques, now
greatly enhanced by their many days in the wilderness, so that it was a joy to
watch them perform.  Beginning with the skills of falling and throwing, they
advanced quickly through hand-to-hand combat to sparring with sticks, cudgels,
clubs, and shields.  Emmerson made them lash stones about their calves and
thighs in order to bring their leg and foot muscles up to a steely tone.  He
knew how much depended on sure-footedness, and the ability to pivot and
spring.  And he made each lie on his back again and again with muscles
hardened while the other walked along his belly and chest.  Then he trained
them thoroughly in the use of the sword and the knife, putting them through
seemingly endless sequences of defense and attack until they knew every
smallest movement automatically and by heart.  And at last he reviewed every
aspect of fire arm operation and design, so that Karibo became as adept with
the AK47 as he was with his old hunting knife.

And when he saw that his pupils had grown to trust him through the expertise
they had gained, he began slowly to turn their minds from fire arms to such
things as the theories of rocket technology, aerodynamics, and aircraft
design.  He had to be canny about restricting the materials he offered them to
those things that would be of most benefit in the short run and those things
they could most easily apprehend.  Being a machine of superhuman intelligence
and human desires, of course the temptation was to try to pass on to them
everything he knew all at once.  But he understood well that this would never
work, and so he spent the lonely night vigils cleverly designing educational
pathways that could be rapidly traversed by Karibo and Victor, tailoring each
for its own target mind.  Of the two, of course it was Karibo who offered the
greatest challenge.  Victor had spent many years in Ambon schools, and though
these tended to be instruments of indoctrination rather than of education, he
had still managed to learn many important principles and even a smattering of
English.

Both men had serious problems with their personal ontologies, and figuring out
how to correct these occupied many of Emmerson's lonely nighttime hours.
Once established, the links of the human mind, as we have seen, are almost
impossible to sever.  Learn something the wrong way and it might take years to
ever get it right again.  Knowing what he knew of linguistics and the human
personality, from the moment he had met them, Emmerson had worked slowly but
steadily to map their personal ontologies, and by now had a good idea what
needed to be done.  Karibo had learned so many things the wrong way that his
list of bad links was very long, and it took much wisdom to know where to
begin and how to proceed.

But Emmerson had to be very careful not to "jump the gun" and inadvertently
destroy anything that was there before he had documented it the way it
originally was.  And the other pitfall that must be avoided was the temptation
to try to make Karibo or Victor over into a copy of Charley Levinson.  He must
be very careful not to attempt to change anything for other than those reasons
that were essential to the ultimate goal: to provide and maintain throughout
all Melanesia enough freedom from outside intervention for the Melanesian
people to evolve in whatever way THEY chose within the traditional framework
of maximum biological diversity.

Vast areas of Melanesia were presently under attack, and there was no way in
which this aggression could be kept from affecting or changing Melanesia as a
whole.  Even to unite all of Melanesia in response to external threat would
constitute an alteration of Melanesia as it had existed over the millennia.
All that could be hoped for was to achieve the least among many evils, and
that was to unite Melanesia under an enlightened leadership capable of dealing
with the outside threat, thus keeping the homeland from being overrun, and
providing acceptable conditions for Melanesian development along Melanesian
lines.  How well aware he was of the great weight that depended upon this
single word, ENLIGHTENMENT, without which the Wantok Alliance would never take
form, and without which Melanesia as he knew it was doomed.  It gave him great
pleasure to note that here, in the very jaws of darkness itself, the light was
slowly and painstakingly beginning to shine, and there was nothing ANYONE
could do to stop it.  It appeared that at least for the moment all the most
brutal weapons Europeans had ever devised and implemented against the peoples
of the Pacific had been rendered powerless in their hands through this one
discovery of Charley Levinson's.  Was the pen indeed mightier than the sword?
Then the ontology was mightier than the crossbow, the blunderbuss, the long
rifle, the canon, the AK47, the machine gun, the f16 and the nuclear bomb.
The only question now was time.  How long did he have before evil men learned
what Charley Levinson knew and he found himself staring into the glassy eyes
of a mechanical Stalin or Hitler?

Their journey took them ever eastward.  Beyond the Bird's Head, beyond the
headwaters of the mighty Mamberano, and high into mountains where no one
understood any word of Malay, much less the language of Karibo.  Those were
lonely days and nights when they dared not stop in villages but gave each
settlement a wide birth.  Emmerson also devised an alphabet for Karibo's
language, and taught him to write things in the sand.  Victor's boots had been
reduced to ribbons long ago, and lay abandoned in some lowland swamp.  By now
he knew the vegetables and tubers of the forest almost as well as did Karibo,
and it was often HE who called cuscus in the moonlight and platted mats.  One
of the places Victor would never forget was where their trail followed a
knife-edged ridge about the width of a man with sheer drops on either side for
several hundred feet.  Another was a large boulder the trail skirted at the
top of a cliff where there was barely space to walk.  These places and
experiences would remain forever a part of them, both human and machine, for
as long as they lived.

And at last their steps turned southward across the mighty cataracts of Papua
New Guinea to a place in the foothills where Victor and Karibo had a very
great surprise.  One fine day Emmerson was guiding them when they looked up to
see an older white man sitting upon the roots of a large banyan tree.  His
face was contemplative, as though he had been sitting there a very, very long
time.  Having never seen a white man, Karibo's first impulse was to turn and
run, but then he remembered the many things Emmerson had taught him, and
glanced up into the branches where a flock of birds were twittering about as
they feasted on the many tiny fruit.  Victor was surprised beyond belief, but
saw nothing whatsoever to fear.  He sensed about this apparition rather an
aura of great gentleness and peace, and as their eyes met, he smiled.  And
then came Victor's second great surprise, for the apparition said in fluent
Ambonese, "Victor Manuhutu!  I have been waiting a VERY long time for you.
You look to be in excellent shape after such a long and arduous journey."

And As he looked, Victor saw that the man was holding various articles of
clothing draped over one arm and two pairs of shining new shoes hanging from
their strings.  He almost doubted his sanity for a moment, and then it dawned
upon him who this man must be.  "I am honored to meet you sir," was all he
could say, and deep in his electronic circuits Emmerson smiled knowingly to
himself.

"My dear friends, said Charley Levinson, "I feel as if I know you like my own
beloved sons.  Come, let us go down to the stream so that you may bathe, and
then we will all go up together to my bungalow, where you may rest."

And so they did, stripping off the rags that remained of their former trunks
and luxuriating in the cool water with real bars of soap while the sun shined
brightly overhead.  Then Charley Levinson handed each of them a towel with
which to dry and a perfectly fitting set of clothes.  The tall Karibo looked
especially dapper, except for his wild and uncontrollable tangle of Afro hair.
He had never owned a pair of shoes in his life, and to have shoes such as
these shoes went beyond his wildest dreams!

"Don't worry about the hair," said Charley, "We'll take care of that in Port
Moresby.  But do hide that AK47 somewhere till after dark."

And with that they slowly climbed the hill, at the top of which they found a
row of cottages facing a gravel road.

For Charley Levinson these past months had been a great confusion of many,
many things.  At one point he had become so addicted to Emmerson's updates
that he had been able to do little else but wait by his computer.  But slowly
he had realized that he must get on with his own life, and started doing other
things.  Sometimes he told Esther about Emmerson and New Guinea, and she
pretended to show interest, but he could tell she didn't care.

Once he had been struck by an incredible new idea.  What was the most
successful life form that had ever walked the earth?  It was doubtless the
cockroach.  Why hadn't he thought of this before?  And so he started work
feverishly upon a new body for Emmerson.  It would have six legs instead of
three, and, yes, a pair of wings so that it could fly.  For additional energy,
both wings and carapace would be coated with solar cells, and it would be
equipped with two antenna for various purposes including wireless
communications.  It would also be a little bigger than the current Emmerson,
with longer legs for such things as visibility over the kunai grass, etc.  For
some time this idea riveted his imagination to the point where he could hardly
think of anything else--except Esther.  It gave him particular pleasure to
mold and shape and shine the titanium of the outer carapace, and Emmerson #1
sometimes heard him humming as he polished and shined.  As a matter of fact
this new creation seemed so beautiful that he even took it with him one day
when he visited Esther.
"A cockroach!" she had said, "But surely you might have done better than
THAT!"  For she suspected that Charley WAS really intelligent, and had even
said so.

Then perceiving an opening he had responded hopefully, "I dare say I could
have done better with more cooperation from you!  As a matter of fact, even now
there is still hope!  How is your air conditioner working these days?"

And then he had realized that he had done exactly the wrong thing, and that
her female ontology would surely tell her there was no way in the world she
could ever ...  How utterly tactless and corny!

So imagine poor Charley's surprise when, with a deadly twinkle in her eye, she
said in a kind of coaxing voice, "Would you like to come back and have a
look?"  Charley would never forget the exact way she had drawn out the word,
"look," with a teasing little rise in her voice that Charley had NEVER heard
before.

For a moment he had just sat there with his cockroach on the couch, but then,
suddenly realizing what he was hearing, he had stood and said, "sure!" and
followed her back to Nirvanah, Paradise, Valhalah, or wherever it was men went
to when they died.  It was her bedroom, and as soon as the door was shut he
had had her in his arms.  She was pretty tall and pretty strong--as a matter
of fact exactly the kind of woman he had dreamed of for years.  And there, in
the security of that air conditioned bedroom, Charley Levinson and Esther had
wrestled, giggled, done great and terrible deeds, and found bliss.  There was
something he had once seen in her--a kind of courage mixed with patience and
compassion and strength--that he had loved yet dared not dare to love, and now
there was one thing he would do again and again, and that was to hold her left
rib cage hard against his own, as if to press near that very splendid
something that was forever locked away in the depths of her heart.  In his
mind he saw it like a shinning metal tube that hung within her breast and
resonated with a very subtle yet absolutely real energy, but he could not tell
whether it vibrated so because it was struck or blown or drawn upon with a
bow.  I suppose this rib-pressing business must have bothered Esther a little,
but then she probably just thought of it as some kind of idiosyncratic sexual
fantasy.  At any rate, she let it go, and after a long time Charley didn't do
it any more, although he always remembered that shining metal tube singing
with clarion resonance somewhere in the depths of her being.

And speaking of tubes, well, you guessed it, Esther finally got what she was
after all along, and I mean a BIG, ROUND, pregnancy such as such tall strong
women have.  And then--but let me get back to Charley and New Guinea.

In the end Charley had become SO eager to return to that distant land which he
had loved so much and to meat these two men who had been coming SO long, that
Esther said he should go and get it out of his system.  By then Emmerson was
telling him of the journey south, and so he started laying plans.  He would
bring a global positioning system and a communicator like the one Emmerson had
given to Kelly Kwalik, and guide Emmerson to the exact spot where he was
waiting.  Meantime he got exact body measurements for Karibo and Victor from
Emmerson, who measured them while they were sleeping at night, and went
shopping.

During the flight to Port Moresby he had been filled with excitement and joy,
meeting and exchanging ideas with interesting people everywhere the plane
stopped and while in the air.  At port Moresby he had rented a car, and rented
a bungalow in the foothills from an Australian businessman.  His timing had
been so perfect that he had barely gotten settled in before he received a
transmission from Emmerson telling him that they were crossing the last stream
before the rendezvous point in the forest.  With great excitement he had hiked
down to the little stream, crossed it, and walked up to the banyan tree on the
other side.  For obvious reasons not wishing to attract attention to his
guests, he had brought with him a clean set of clothes for each and a new bar
of bath soap with the idea that they could bathe in the stream and change into
clean clothes before coming up to the bungalow.  And so they had done.

The three men spent the rest of the day relaxing and talking in the living
room of the bungalow, Charley Levinson carefully examining Emmerson for damage
and wear.  "Surprisingly good," he said, "considering all you have been
through.

But there was no need to say anything much to Emmerson since Charley had been
talking to him every day.  Charley was most interested in Victor and Karibo,
and as they became better and better acquainted, the three became inseparable
friends.  As far as facts go, Charley already knew just about everything there
was to know about them, but no fact could ever substitute for looking into
their eyes as they spoke, and picking up each nuance of gesture and
expression.  His only regret was that at his age he could not hope to pick up
the language of Mapan Duma as quickly as Emmerson had done.

The next day, bright and early, they were just preparing to leave when Charley
remembered something.  "Victor," he asked, "do you still have the gold?"

"Oh, yes!" replied Victor, pulling open his bag.  He brought out five tiny
bundles made of the light, tough fiber found at the base of a certain kind of
palm frond, and quickly cut their lashings.  Out dropped five bars of shining
gold.

"Ji Nam will convert this for me," said Charley, stuffing them into his
pockets.  His clothes sagged here and there from these concentrated weights,
but not really enough to tell anything was wrong.

"By the way," he said, "Port Moresby has not been the best of places during
recent years.  It might be a good idea to bring your knives."

And so they did, and in about two hours they were approaching town.  Then
Charley stopped the car and spoke to Emmerson.  "Sorry about this, Old
Fellow," he said, but I am going to have to put you in the trunk.

"No problem," replied Emmerson, "large cities don't particularly impress me
anyhow."  And so Emmerson got out, went round, and sprang into the trunk.

in the trunk"I won't latch it," said Charley, "just in case.  Can you hold the
top down okay?"

"Sure," replied Emmerson, extending a claw.

Both Victor and Karibo were amazed by the town.  Karibo was amazed because he
had never seen a city in his life, and Victor was amazed because of the way
PNG people dressed, and the great freedom that could be felt in the place.
Karibo saw many interesting women, but didn't quite know how to relate such
flashily dressed and perfumed objects to his personal idea of lust.  Perhaps
if they had been wearing grass skirts and had fleas and wood smoke in their
hair...    He was not yet able to fit them into his ontology.  Victor, on the
other hand, having lived so long in the highland forests, kept undressing
everything he could see in his mind, and found this very difficult to
reconcile with his fine, Christian principles.  He would have hell to pay as
he lay sleepless in the cottage tonight after dark.  It would pass, surely,
but when?

The women of Port Moresby were of all sorts--Melanesian, Chinese, European.
Victor was especially attracted to one or two of the Chinese girls he saw, and
would not be able to forget their faces or certain other things about them for
some time.  Their focus was upon a sort of unapproachable elegance.  And the
Melanesian women (very nicely developed, Victor noted) had great Afro
coiffures from under which smiling little brown faces emerged.  He also saw an
elegant, full-breasted East Indian woman with delicious lips, a high nose and
large, resplendent eyes.  And there were even a few true Polynesian types,
tall and regal-looking, with long shining hair that fell to their waists.  The
"mixed-race" types, as usual, were especially stunning.  And last but not
least, European girls of every description with multicolored hair and eyes and
skin of the loveliest tan.

Their first stop was a barber shop, where Victor and Karibo were miraculously
transformed.  Victor, who had straight or slightly wavy hair had his trimmed a
little long so that it could be combed smoothly around his forehead from where
it parted on the left, while Karibo opted for a more military cut.  All
Charley could say when they were done was, "Splendid!"

Then Charley took them to an ice cream bar, where he treated them both to
banana splits.  In Victor this awakened fond memories of the many sweets he
had indulged in as a boy, but to Karibo, who had never tasted any such thing
in his life, the richness was simply more than he could bear.  He spent a long
time over it, ate the bananas, and then watched until Victor and Charley were
completely engrossed in an exchange of fluent Ambonese Malay and the attendant
had gone to the back, and quickly jettisoned the remainder in the trash.  No
action had ever required more stealth, not even the time Kelly Kwalik had sent
him into an Indonesian military camp in search of rifles for the OPM!  Just
then Charley looked round to see a row of perfect, shining teeth.  "Did you
like it?" he asked.

"Oh, yes!  Very much!" Karibo responded, focusing his mind upon an experience
he had once had with a certain village girl in the fields near Borbatu.  All
Emmerson's physical and moral training must have had its intended effect, for
now it was virtually unthinkable for him to tell a direct lie.

"Come," said Charley Levinson, "I want to introduce you to a friend."  So they
got back into the car, and Charley drove them to the home of Samuel Wiro,
spokesman for the OPM.

"I've got a couple of OPM people for you, Sam," he said.  "This is Victor
Manuhutu, recently of Timika, and this is Karibo, son of Kaskado, of Mapan
Duma."

"Very pleased, indeed," replied Wiro.  "What brings you to Port Moresby?"

"I am here to command the Wantok Alliance," said Victor without hesitation
(again Emmerson's coaching), " and Karibo has come as my escort under orders
from the OPM."

"The Wantok Alliance?" asked Wiro, unfamiliar with the name.

"Yes," replied Victor, the military alliance of all Melanesians, including the
RMS and the OPM.  Our goal is now to unite Papua New Guinea, the Solomon
Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Fiji as well."

"Do you speak the truth?" asked Wiro incredulously, "Such a union would be a
great nation indeed!"

"And that it will," said Victor, "An alliance that will bring all Melanesians
together as brothers and provide the military umbrella under which we will be
free to pursue our own physical and cultural evolution in our own time.  The
current borders of Melanesia are a colonial artifact, and have nothing to do
with the real Melanesia at all."

"I believe you are right," agreed Wiro, "but we have been conditioned to think
of these borders as real and true over time, and it will not be easy to
change."

"Adapt or perish," said Victor, quoting Emmerson.  Then he quickly realized
his words would not be understood, and said, "The Dutch were easily able to
subjugate our forbears because their political system consisted of city states
and small sultanates.  This arrangement was once satisfactory for eastern
Indonesia, but when we were threatened by external forces we had no entity
large or strong enough to challenge them.  Having learned how to sail around
the cape of Good Hope, the Europeans sprang upon us suddenly in the 16th
century, and being ignorant of the apparently unhuman scale of their ambition
and greed, which we now trace to the culture of ancient Rome, we failed to
unite against them in time and were quickly swallowed up.  Their stranglehold
was eventually broken last century by the even more terrifying power of Japan.
But the Japanese failed to reckon with the fighting will of a new political
force, that of the United States, and for this they were crushed.  The
conquering United States showed little interest in the internal politics of
our land, and in the power vacuum that ensued, the Javanese people, who by now
had had about enough of foreign domination, managed to unite in time to keep
the Dutch from re-entrenching themselves there.  Apparently oblivious to the
existence of the many peoples of eastern Indonesia, the Americans then took a
hard line against the Dutch, forcing them to leave the region completely, and
thus to leave our people at the mercy of the new rulers in Java, who had
meantime organized themselves into a military dictatorship.  Using the
pseudonym, "The Republic of Indonesia," the Javanese learned the lessons of
their various conquerers well, adding the Japanese policies of mass deception
and mass indoctrination to the original European political and military
agenda.  And now at last, in order to entrench themselves in our lands and
efface our memory forever, these "Indonesians" have added the final touch,
which (masters of deception that they always have been) they have introduced
to the world under the name, "transmigration," but which is in fact one of the
greatest and most insidious mass COLONIZATION projects in the history of
Planet Earth.  Our people are quickly being reduced to a minority in their own
lands, our ancient forests are being destroyed, and our rivers and seas are
being polluted.  Various organizations such as the RMS, the Permesta, the OPM,
and others have attempted at various times to make a stand, but the results
have always been the same.  The Jakarta regime (alias Java, alias Indonesia)
just brands them counter-revolutionaries, Communists, troublemakers, etc.,
sends in overwhelming military force, and crushes them outright.  And all the
time Washington keeps providing Jakarta with a steady stream of military
training and arms.  Unless we can unite Melanesia and face down Javanese and
American military aggression, we are doomed."

"I perceive that you dare to lay blame at the feet of the Americans," Wiro
observed.  "This is obviously correct, and yet something few others would dare
to do.  In the past, peoples afflicted in similar ways often turned to the
eastern block--a thing our people would not do."

"This is true," said Victor.  "Whether the moral depravity of U.S. foreign
policy springs from ignorance or malicious intent or both is a riddle not
easily solved.  It has driven weaker peoples to sell, if it were possible,
their very souls to Communism in order to buy time for their cultural
identities, traditions, most basic human rights, and often even their lives.
It is difficult to fathom the intellectual and moral blindness that guided
America to first establish Communism as a viable alternative by consistently
supporting dictators in order to allow American corporations to exploit their
peoples, and then to use the American military/intelligence establishment to
attack those very peoples they had driven to communism.  In the meantime, of
course, the Soviet Union kept enjoying greater and greater success until it
collapsed like a house of cards."

"Yes," said Wiro, "I confess that even I have been tempted by the allure of
Communism in the past, and even as I speak to you, I wonder if had they done
so the people of Melanesia would not now be much better off."

"It would have been a terrible moral price to pay," responded Victor.

"But now that the Soviet Union has collapsed, even if we could unite, what
could we do, and where could we turn?" asked Wiro.

"Think of fishing," said Victor.  "When fish are scarce you may not catch
anything even if you keep your hook in the water all day, or you may catch one
or two.  But if you DON'T keep your hook in the water, then you can be sure
you will never catch anything at all.  That is why hungry people will go
fishing even when fish are scarce.  Standing united is like putting one's hook
in the water.  Providing we stand united, when opportunity arises we will be
able to act.  But if we remain ununited, we will certainly never be able to
accomplish anything at all.  To unite all Melanesia must therefore be our
first step."

"This doesn't sound easy," countered Wiro, "but your words do make sense, and
I will think about them.  Perhaps one of our problems has always been looking
to outsiders for help.  The colonialists must have started us thinking like
that because once they had taken over, they were the only ones who could act.
If you had trouble with a neighboring tribe, your leaders could be imprisoned
for fighting it out, so what did you do?  Go to the Dutch.  Perhaps we are
still trying to 'go to the Dutch.'"

"Yes, yes, yes!" cried Victor.  "That's it!  The solutions to the problems of
Melanesia must spring from within Melanesia.  Only by applying Melanesian
solutions can we be assured that the same solutions will be available next
time."

"I believe you are right," said Wiro, "provided Melanesian solutions can be
obtained.  But now I must leave you because I have a lunch appointment with
Interior Minister Konde at noon.  We will continue this discussion next
time--I hope soon."

And so Charley Levinson, Victor, and Karibo excused themselves and got back
into their car.  "I feel that your meeting went well," said Charley, "and we
will soon visit Wiro again.  But now I must drive you to the airport, where I
will be arranging flying lessons for you."

"Flying lessons," Victor stammered.

"Yes," said Charley, "for you and Karibo as well.  The Wantok Alliance cannot
be allowed to suffer from want of skilled personnel."  And with that he
stepped on the gas and they fairly flew until Victor and Karibo saw a long
line of buildings with airplanes all around.  Victor was very excited, and
Karibo, having never seen an airport before, was amazed.  They stopped, got
out of the car, and followed Charley to one of the hangers.

"Mr. Jones," said Charley to a burly Australian they found sitting behind a
desk, "These two gentlemen are Victor and Karibo, and they would like to learn
to fly."  And that is how Victor and Karibo were introduced to Willy Jones, an
Australian bush pilot, who would be giving them lessons over the coming
months.  Charley watched Willy showing them about the hanger for a few
minutes, and then left them in his care while he paid a visit to Ji Nam, who
gave him several thousand kina for two of the gold bars.

On the way home to their bungalow later he said, "Money!" and handed each man
ten 100 kina notes.  "Take good care of it.  It doesn't come easy in these
parts."  Karibo had no idea how much it was worth, but Victor thought it must
be a sizeable sum.

Arriving back at the bungalow, Charley opened the trunk, and Victor and Karibo
realized that they had nearly forgotten all about Emmerson.  "Did you see
anything back here?" asked Charley.

"Well," said Emmerson, "When I thought no one was watching I did lift the
trunk a little to look at the Melanesian girls, and I saw one of them scratch
herself in a most interesting way."

"Oops," said Charley, "I see that I must have gotten a little more of Charley
Levinson into you than I planned."

The days that followed were some of the finest days of Charley Levinson's
life.  Even if a man gains personal success, he cannot be fulfilled if his
people are not free, and Charley Levinson had long felt a personal
responsibility to the people of the Moluccas.  Now at last there was light at
the end of the tunnel, and this gave Charley a feeling of euphoria and hope.

One of their favorite and most hilarious pastimes was forging PNG documents.
Victor loved this especially because of all the tedious documents that had
been forced upon him by the authorities in Indonesia since birth.  It gave him
a sense of wondrous freedom to realize that even the most elaborate government
documents were only pieces of paper that could be easily forged.  Why had he
lived under the tyranny of such silly bits of paper for so long?  He
remembered with a feeling of deep resentment the "Bebas G30S" document he had
had to carry in order to prove non-involvement in the abortive 30 September
1965 communist coup when neither he nor any of his family had ever been
Communists, and in 1965 he hadn't even yet been born!  Now in some kind of
game of "best document" competition with Charley and Karibo, he whiled many
happy hours creating the most perfect PNG birth certificates, driver's
licenses, Passports, marriage licenses, divorce papers, death certificates,
and many other things both serious and bizarre.  Emmerson, lacking the
delicate manipulative skills to perform such intricate work, compared and
criticized their results, which were an unending source of entertainment and
even real pride.  Charley's special task was to keep them supplied with
originals to copy.  At the end of an evening, they would take everything back
to the fire place and burn the whole lot--just in case anyone ever entered
their house when they were away.  This practice was valuable, for not only did
it hone skills that might be needed someday in their struggle for the
alliance, but it also made them familiar with every kind of government
license, document, etc., current in Papua New Guinea, and this provided
insights into how the government was run and how the people were ruled.  It
also gave Victor and Karibo a healthy disdain for the tons of foolish paper
which have come to enslaved men's lives.

  Once they had mastered the art well enough to forge a couple of perfect
driver's licenses for Victor and Karibo, Charley handed Victor his keys and
said, "Why don't you take him out and teach him how to drive?  I'm a little
tired, and I think I'll write a letter to Honolulu this afternoon."

And when they were gone, Charley did--to Esther, as follows, in his
characteristic fashion:

Dearest Esther,

I have been having a great time in PNG.  You should see my two handsome
companions, and hear them tell of all the wonderful things they have done.

I think of you often, and wish you were here.  How good it would be this
moment to be with you in your air conditioned room!

By the way, how big are you now, and can you still get through the door?

Please take care of yourself and that wonderful smelly thing I discovered
between your legs so many moons ago, for I fear living without it indefinitely
might put me in very serious straits indeed!

                                        This with my love,
                                        Charley Levinson

And a few days later he received this reply:

Charley,

Forget it!  I will NEVER allow you to do what you did to me again--unless you
kneel and kiss my bare knees!

I am big, but not that big, and I can still wrestle very well.  Whatever I
have inside keeps tinkering around so much I can't get to sleep at night, so I
assume it must have something to do with you.

When are you going to stop having fun and come home?

                                        Your Goddess of Eternal Fire,
                                        Madam Esther.

Charley would have been more passionate but he was nagged by a superstitious
fear for the lives of the brave captains and crews, not to mention the many
passengers, of the planes that flew his mail over the long routes to Honolulu.
Too much fire in the cargo hold might not be a good thing!

By now Karibo was speaking more Malay, but he had to rely on Victor for
translation because only Victor knew any English at all, and here no one spoke
Malay.  Fortunately Emmerson's many hours of aeronautical instruction had paid
off, so that Mr. Jones was often amazed at how quickly they understood.  But
neither one of them ever breathed a breath about crossing half of New Guinea
lengthwise on foot with a walking, talking, solar-powered machine.  Willy
Jones supposed that Karibo was a mountain tribesperson and Victor a Papuan,
and that Charley Levinson expected to use them in some business enterprise.

At length Victor and Karibo got their pilot's licenses and, using some
magnificently forged documents, got themselves right into the PNG air force
and off to fighter-pilot training school in Australia.  This would have to do
for now, thought Charley, who had really wished he might somehow have gotten
them into Top Gun.

With this stage of his project completed, Charley bade farewell to Emmerson,
who went off to haunt the New Guinea hills studying heaven only knows what,
returned the keys to the bungalow to their owner, and took the next flight out
for Honolulu.

Despite all the bad feelings he had about America, Charley found that there
was still something exhilarating about landing in Honolulu.  "Land of the
free, and home of the brave!" he thought.  And when he got into the terminal
and smelled the flower leis and was spoken to in plain, ordinary English by
pretty local women, he felt very good about the good old USA indeed.  But in
fairness to all the less fortunate peoples of the third world it should be
added to the record here that when one of those pretty local women who spoke
to him in perfect English returned home that night and found her other bra
missing and her sister looking pleased with herself and about to step out the
door, she said, "Why you go take my bra?  You li die o wat?"

He took a bus straight to Manoa and knocked on Esther's door.  "Charley!" she
said when she saw him, a wonderful look of confusion on her face and her
midsection bigger than that of a C57.  Charley took her lovingly into his
arms, and her lips fell apart in one of the most passionate kisses he had ever
known.

Then she did take him back to her air conditioned bedroom, and they did
wrestle a bit--kind of--but Charley had to be VERY careful because her time
was close at hand!

After paying all his expenses, there was precious little left from those five
shining bars of gold.  Charley wished he might have brought at least one of
them for her, but of course he could not.  Instead he treated her to a
beautiful dinner at a beach-front hotel, where they dined on the finest
American cuisine with live music in the background and a gentle surf
whispering on the sand.`        And when they were done Charley sat stealing
kisses from the tips of her long, slender fingers while she told him about
things that had happened while he had been gone.

"Emmerson," said Charley one day to his computer, "Victor and Karibo are
arriving back at Port Moresby in five days, and it may be time for you to
re-establish contact with them and continue your work."

"I already know that," replied Emmerson.  "They have been in touch with me via
the Internet all along."

"Oh, yes, of course.  Then I take it you know what to do?"
"I am already lurking in the barracks they will occupy waiting for their
return," was Emmerson's response.

Hmmm.  I guess I must have succeeded pretty well at making him human, thought
Charley.  He must be inordinately excited to be waiting there already now.  I
wonder exactly where he is hiding?

A few days later Victor and Karibo arrived, and after receiving a room in
their new barracks, dragged their suitcases wearily inside, and stretched out
somewhat exhausted on their two beds.  Just then they heard their door close,
and looked round to see Emmerson standing in an almost military pose with the
door behind him and his laser and eyes pointing straight between the beds.
"Emmerson!"they both shouted, almost in the same voice.  Then, as if they had
rehearsed what they would do for many days, both men sprang up, lifted
Emmerson from the floor, and twirled him round and round by his appendages
over their heads with shouts of joy.

"My friends," said Emmerson when they finally set him down, "It is TRULY good
to be with you again.  I have thought of you both many times while I was alone
at night among the insects and the stars, and your faces live always in my
memory."

At this Victor and Karibo remembered the many nights Emmerson had stood vigil
alone through the long nights in the mountain fastnesses, the gentlest being
and the deadliest machine they had ever known, and their eyes were filled with
tears.  For a long time none of them could say anything.  Then Victor spoke,
"Emmerson," he said, "Your courage (for I cannot call it anything else) and
your training have not been in vain.  Today Karibo and I have returned with
rank of lieutenant, and transcripts showing grade-point averages of better
than 3.9.  Our struggle has only begun, but our beginning is very strong, and
we will surely succeed--for YOU and for Wantok!"

"For Emmerson and for Wantok!" chimed Karibo, raising his right fist in a
symbol of triumph.

"I am glad you remember Wantok," said Emmerson, "For this is why I came, and
this is why I am with you now.  And yet I have learned to love you, so that
even were it not for Wantok yet I would be here still.  Our journey is long,
as you have said, but I will be with you until ALL Melanesia is free.  Your
experience in Australia has made you familiar with English, and taught you
many things.  Here I will teach you day by day.  Charley has sent you a
computer that can interface with me by means of which you will have access to
various peripherals such as a printer and a screen, and--yes--the Internet."

And so Emmerson stayed with Victor and Karibo, providing them with the best
education ever delivered to any man, better even than the instruction given
Alexander by Aristotle.  And the beauty of it was that although both Karibo
and Victor spoke English now, whenever they wished they could ask questions
and get answers in their own native tongues.

And as nature would have it (Emmerson always marveled at how long it took
humans to accomplish ANYTHING good) both men rose slowly through the ranks
until they themselves became flying instructors and commanders of their own
men.  By this time "Indonesia" had moved millions more Javanese into West New
Guinea, Kelly Kwalik was on the run, and Jakarta thought they had things
pretty much their own way.  Then Emmerson said, "My friends," Our time has
come.  We must act now or lose all."  And he set forth to them, using many
drawings and maps and scenarios and alternative scenarios a grand master plan.

That night Kelly Kwalik received a call on his communicator from Emmerson.
"My friend," he said, "Our time has come.  We must either act now or lose
all."

"But say on, Tete, and I will act," replied the dauntless Kelly, "for Mapan
Duma, for Victor Manuhutu, and for Wantok."

"We will drop you weapons," said Emmerson.  "You must move about among all the
positions of the OPM and communicate your positions to us, and we will drop
weapons to you by parachute.  Establish communications between all your
people, and do not use these weapons until you receive word from us.  Then you
are to assault Indonesian military installations everywhere in hit-run
attacks.  Plan your attacks for maximum effect and minimum casualty.  Your
intention will not be to kill Indonesian soldiers, but to harass and inflict
property damage upon Indonesian military targets.  In this way we will draw
them on.  Then we will take their weapons from them and force them to leave
our land.  Our first drop will be day after tomorrow at dawn in the fields
behind Mapan Duma.  The pilot will be Karibo."

"Karibo?" asked Kelly.  "Do you mean the young man I sent to escort you across
the mountains to PNG?"

"The same," said Emmerson, with great pleasure.

And so Emmerson, Karibo, and Victor began finding ways to steal such things as
grenades and cases of guns and to drop them across the mountains of New Guinea
in the twilight moments before dawn, when they would be least visible except
to people who were deliberately looking for them.  And the downtrodden
Melanesian peoples of Irian Jaya slowly and quietly armed themselves and
prepared for war.  In the breast of each OPM member who had dared to fight and
to hope in defiance of hopelessness defiant hope now burned again!

But making cases of guns disappear was no easy matter, even with the help of
Emmerson, and the early morning flights began to look ever more suspicious,
until at last Victor and Karibo called a meeting of their best men, and
Karibo, who had fairly mastered Neo-Melanesian spoke to them.  "All wantok
belong me," he began, which in plain English is to say, "My friends."  Then he
continued: "We have called you to discuss an important matter.  Our brothers
in West New Guinea have suffered long at the hands of the Javanese, and now
our own land is in danger of being invaded.  Our leaders knew their
responsibility to their Melanesian brothers, but when the chips were down they
betrayed them, and even turned a blind eye when Indonesian troops crossed our
borders to pursue and capture those who fled.  For this error we have paid a
heavy price, because the Indonesians have now moved five million Javanese into
West New Guinea, where only two million Melanesians lived before, and it is
impossible that so great a population will not ultimately threaten us.

"But Victor and I have been in contact with our Melanesian brothers in the
west, and we are clandestinely helping them.  That is why you have seen
aircraft taking off and heading westward in the night, and that is why cases
of guns and ammunition have disappeared.  Our politicians have failed us, and
the future of Papua New Guinea has been endangered.  We now ask you to close
your eyes to what we are doing so that in the final analysis WE will not be
found to have failed our own people."

"Close our eyes?" asked one of them incredulously, "There is not a Melanesian
among us who will not stand with you and assist you!"  And with that a great
cheer arose from all the men, who dearly loved Victor and Karibo.

"Then let us without further delay unfold to you our plan for the future of
all Melanesia, namely the emerging Wantok Alliance, within which military
framework ALL Melanesians will be guaranteed freedom to develop in whatever
way they chose."  And so Karibo explained the many principles and ideas he had
learned, first from Emmerson, and then from his own investigations and those
of Victor.  And without exception each man swore that he would defend Wantok
and the rights of ALL Melanesians against ALL outside aggression, and Victor
Manuhutu was chosen leader of the Wantok Alliance.

After this meeting it was much easier to get things done, and word of the
Wantok Alliance began slowly to spread out of Port Moresby with new people
swearing allegiance every day.  At last word spread also through wives and
mothers to the corrupt leaders of the Port Moresby administration, but true
pragmatists that they were, they did nothing at all.  Their only goals were to
keep receiving bribes and misappropriating funds and not upset Indonesia,
their own people, or Australia.  And more and more pilots participated in
clandestine flights into Irian Jaya, always taking the utmost precautions
against being observed.

Then Kelly Kwalik told Emmerson that consignments of arms had been received at
all outposts, and Emmerson called the attack.  That night drums beat all
across the Bird's Head and along the great Mamberano River, and through the
distant forests across the mighty mountains to the very outskirts of Marauke.
Many Indonesian soldiers heard them, but had no idea what they were, supposing
that the people were celebrating weddings or other rites of passage.  Then, on
the second night, Indonesian military installations everywhere were hit as
they had never been before.  Despite Emmerson's call for restraint, there was
a violence and a fire that had built in the heart of the Melanesian people
which shot forth like the coils of a mighty spring, and many cases were later
reported of expressions of outrage, including the baking and eating of
Indonesian soldiers by various mountain tribes.

Then Emmerson called for a halt, and New Guinea Waited.  The response was
exactly what Emmerson wanted.  The Indonesians went on panic alert, committed
many atrocities which were broadcast across the world, and brought in their
finest U.S. jet aircraft.

"I will come with you for the first one," said Emmerson to Victor and Karibo.
He had been coaching them again and again on the operation of the newest U.S.
supplied fighter planes until they knew the entire pre-flight check lists by
heart.  "It will be hard for you, having never touched one of these machines
before, but I will be running at high speed, and will help you correct any
errors.  Once you have one of them here, you can start using it for training."
Of course Charley had been very busy providing Emmerson with all the latest
manuals by hook or by crook, so that Emmerson was a veritable walking
encyclopedia on every aspect of the subject of U.S. jet fighters besides
holding the largest store of general human knowledge ever accumulated in
history.

So that night Karibo, Victor, and Emmerson were parachuted onto the roadway
between Timika and Tembagapura.  They would surely be spotted on radar, but
(Victor hoped) probably be taken for a Freeport Mining aircraft.  The night
was beautiful with stars, and Emmerson felt his electronic circuitry moved
once again by the stark beauty of the New Guinea wilderness.  After some time,
a truck appeared blinking its lights in a pattern previously established with
Kelly Kwalik and drove them cautiously toward the airport at Timika.  As they
approached, they spotted on the tarmac the target of their quest, a sleek,
new, American-built jet fighter.

"Nice machine," said Emmerson.

"Me laikim tru!" said Karibo in outrageous Neo-Melanesian.

"Manis lawang!" joined Victor in Ambonese.

Then the truck drove them slowly past the terminal, and Emmerson, running at
maximum clock speed, watched for his chance.  Spotting a shadowy area, he
sprang with such force that the truck could be felt to recoil, and seemed to
disappear into thin air.  Victor knew this would cause problems, so he asked
the driver to stop further on and attached a pair of jumper cables to the
battery, running them back to the truck bed.  They drove past again, this time
going the other way, and Emmerson materialized with a jolt.  Then, again a
little further on, they stopped and victor clipped the jumper cables to
Emmerson's two forward appendages.

After this Emmerson briefed them on what he had found.  The terminal was
lightly guarded and the aircraft was ready to go.  Victor and Karibo would get
out of the truck and start walking toward the terminal building.  Emmerson
would get off at the same time at high speed, enter before them, and take out
the two guards on the ground floor.  Victor and Karibo would walk past as if
nothing had happened and start crossing the tarmac toward the plane.  Emmerson
would scurry upstairs and take out the gunner at the machine-gun emplacement.
Karibo and Victor would still be running through the check list when Emmerson
would arrive.  If all went well, at that point they would start the engine,
warm up momentarily, and be off.  If anything went wrong, Karibo and Victor
were to try for a rendezvous in the woods.  If they came under fire, Victor
and Karibo would turn themselves in, and Emmerson would await an opportunity
to free them.  Whatever the case, Emmerson would be working at maximum clock
speed to cover them.

Emmerson needed fresh energy, but he worried about possible changes that might
take place back at the airport, so within a few minutes they were on their way
again.  The truck dropped them off, and Victor and Karibo walked to the plane.
Emmerson killed all three guards the same way--a quick jab he had learned to
the base of the skull.  Each dropped without even a murmur, and no one was
greatly alarmed until after the jet engine began to whine.  By this time
Emmerson was inside and plugged in.  He watched everything that happened at
the terminal in languid slow motion.  Apparently none of the remaining
Indonesians were yet able to figure out what was going on.  Then he saw a man
move toward the machine gun, took careful aim, and fried his brains with laser
fire.

At that moment there was a great roar from the engine, and the plane shot
forward and up into the night with Victor flying pilot and Karibo bombardier.
They made a show of darting northward toward Palau, but then ducked very low
over the water between some islands and did not appear on the radar screens
again.  In fact they skittered across to the mouth of the Sepik, shot inside
behind Wewak, and then flew slowly over the mountains to Moresby.  They dared
not break radio silence during all this time, but as soon as they had landed
the troops were out to cheer, and to oo and aa over the incredible new machine
that stood before them upon shining landing gear.

The Indonesians never did figure out what had happened, but they were very
angry, and committed still more atrocities, which were reported far and wide.
And yet the Melanesian people held their fire against the poor farmers and
other rabble the Jakarta regime had brought in to colonize the land.

Emmerson's trickery had worked, but he wasn't sure how many Indonesian planes
he could capture in this way before something went wrong, and he could not
afford to risk either Victor or Karibo in any more raids.  The hard, cold
truth was that he would have to risk the lives of men lower in command.  But
at least they would have an opportunity to train in this new aircraft before
having to fly one for the first time.  Day after day of training sessions
followed, Karibo on one, then Victor on the next, until more than twenty
Wantok men had learned to operate the new machine.

And all the while Emmerson kept Kelly busy gathering information on the
movements of the new aircraft in Irian Jaya and instigating attacks aimed at
bringing them back when they thinned out.  The Indonesians would then use them
to fly reconnaissance and surprise raiding missions across Irian Jaya.  In
this way many good villages were burned, but Kelly was able to keep casualties
to a minimum by ordering his people to keep spread out, live in their field
houses or other forest dwellings, and only enter the villages when absolutely
necessary.  Having a village wasted was really a small price to pay, because
in New Guinea people rebuilt their villages from scratch every five years or
so anyway.  Besides, allowing the Indonesians to show their overwhelming
superiority in this comparatively painless way was much better than having
real people gunned down.

But at last the new pilots were ready, and it was time to get the job done.

At about the same time, back in Honolulu, Charley Levinson made a fascinating
discovery.  He found a way Emmerson could be plugged into the computer
interfaces of the new aircraft and fly them directly using digital protocols,
and prepared a set of cables that would enable Emmerson to do this.  "What are
those wires for, Daddy?" asked his bright daughter, Bliss.

"Do you like them, Sweetheart?" he asked.

"Yes," she said.  "They're PRETTY."

"Not as pretty as YOU, my little cockroach!" he said, twitching one of his
beetling brows.  Then he wrapped them up carefully, took them to the post
office, and mailed them to New Guinea.

When victor received the package he handed it to Emmerson, and at the next
available opportunity they took the new fighter up to check the coupling out.
For Emmerson this was an experience such as he had never known before.  He was
soon screeching across the mountains of Papua New Guinea at the head of a
stream of fire, making vertical ascents, diving along the Sepik, and shaving
along just above the waves past Koil, Manam, and Karkar.  Victor, brown by
birth, was about to turn green.  "This is WONDERFUL," Emmerson said.  "I could
spend DAYS doing this!"

"But right now I have an appointment back at the barracks in half an hour,"
replied Victor, quite shaken.

"Don't worry," cried Emmerson, "I'll have you there in fifteen minutes!"

And so they shot up the Ramu, ascended a vertical waterfall not more than
thirty feet from the cliff face, and screamed southwest over New Guinea's
backbone.  Victor thought he had NEVER seen so much water, bare rock, earth,
and sky at one time in his life, and swore never to fly anywhere with Emmerson
at the controls again.  "Well," asked Emmerson as they taxied to a stop, "Did
I get you back on time?"

"Yeah," was Victor's only response.

That night a call went out across Irian Jaya.  Drums reverberated across vast
stretches of quiet forest, up the mighty Mamberano, across distant cliffs and
ridges, and to the very outskirts of Marauke.  This time the Indonesians
didn't think it was a marriage, but they had no idea what to do.  To the OPM
the plan was simple.  By river, through the sea, across mountain passes in
freezing rains to the outskirts of Jayapura.  Hide behind bushes, among clumps
of trees, in blinds of kunai grass, and wait.  Meantime the Wantok Alliance
would probe Indonesian air defenses by flying back and forth across the PNG
border and create a large and visible military buildup near Vanimo.  The
Indonesians would respond by moving their best jet aircraft to Jayapura air
base ina show of force.  Once these planes were on the tarmac Kelly would give
Emmerson a call, and Emmerson would parachute in to meet him together with
trained Wantok pilots.  Emmerson would enter the airport, take out the guards,
and make sure no one touched any of the aircraft on the tarmac.  As a
distraction Victor would come in flying the bird they had captured at Timika
armed to the teeth with bombs and air-to-surface missiles, blow up bunkers and
barracks, and generally give the Indonesians the fright of their lives and a
fireworks display to remember for the rest of their lives (if they survived).
At the same time Kelly and company would take and secure the air base at
Jayapura.  The plan succeeded like clockwork.  Emmerson scurried unseen
through the terminal, located a plane that was fully fueled and armed, went
back to the terminal building, drove a titanium claw through the bases of a
few skulls, returned to the plane, plugged himself in, started the engine,
taxied to a spot commanding an unobstructed view of the terminal building and
its armaments, and sat watching the proceedings unfold.

People began to find bodies and sound alarms, but by that time Kelly's rag-tag
warriors were scrambling over the fences and there were no machine-gunners at
their posts to shoot them down.  By this time Emmerson had set the great
engine idling, removed the control cables, and plugged himself into the
plane's power.  Once or twice he saw men heading for the machine guns and
casually fried their brains, but the Indonesians were taken so thoroughly by
surprise that they never really had a chance at all because Kelly's people,
shouting at the top of their lungs, were all over everything.  Emmerson had
tried to counsel restraint, but once you got these New Guinea boys going it
was no easy matter to slow them down.  In short, confused Indonesians were
being bayoneted right and left all over the place by the time the Wantok
pilots were in and running through their pre-flight check lists on the ground.
Then he saw one of the big birds move out of the pack and taxi up beside him.
It was Karibo.  "Emmerson unplugged the power lines and plugged himself back
into the digital control system.

"Karibo!" he said, "Looks like everything is pretty much under control here.
Shall we go up and give victor a helping hand?"

"Better make sure you make contact with him first," cautioned Karibo, "or you
know what may happen."

"Right.  I would very much enjoy a good duel with that man, but I don't think
I could live with the results--whichever way they went.  Victor, this is
Emmerson.  Do you copy?"

"I'm busy right now, Tete.  Catcha lata!"  Charley had taught him this piece
of American slang, and coming from him it sounded strangely stilted and
awkward.

"We have a visual on you," said Emmerson.  "Be on your wing tips in five.  It's
me and Karibo."

And with that Emmerson's great bird surged forth as driven by the mother of
all terrors and climbed almost vertically into the night sky.  A moment later
it was Karibo, and then they were flying just back of Victor's wing tips in a
triumphant shallow 'V'.

As they turned to fly back over the town, Emmerson, to whom everything was
happening in super slow motion, saw a column of trucks headed toward the
terminal.  "Oops," he said, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave you awhile,
boys.  I see some Jawas down there who look like they might be trying to spoil
our night's fun.  Just leave 'em to me this time, please, and run down to the
harbor and see if you can find some battleships or something like that to
occupy your time."

Then Emmerson pulled up once again, flew almost vertically toward the stars,
and flipped the aircraft backward into an almost vertical dive, straight down
onto the column of advancing trucks.  "Twenty-five Gs," he said.  "Handles
quite nicely.  Designed for over thirty, you know.  Don't worry, I've got a
good grip on the back of this chair."

Then Victor and Karibo banked northward toward the harbor and saw the column
of trucks virtually disintegrating in explosive bursts before their eyes.
Emmerson pulled up in the calculated nick of time and nosed up at tremendous
speed to reassume his place at Victor's wing.  He was greatly excited because
he thought he had found the perfect match between machine and machine, and he
loved this game because it was fast enough to provide some challenge to his
seemingly overwhelming superiority in all things.

"Wow," said Emmerson, "Would you have a look at that!"  And they banked low
over a huge warship that lay anchored in the harbor in the moonlight unsure
whether the trio were friend or foe.  This uncertainty was short-lived, for
the three planes immediately scattered, Emmerson climbing vertically again (he
seemed to like this idea of falling upon his enemies like fire from the sky)
while Victor and Karibo darted left and right.  Then Emmerson pulled his 25G
trick again and started drilling straight down the massive funnel while Victor
and Karibo came in low from her port and starboard sides.  Suddenly the giant
hull was rocked by massive explosions and fairly disintegrated before its crew
had time to know anything was wrong.

"I love jet aircraft," cried Emmerson, fairly skittering across the water as
he pulled up from his dive.  "I love America!  I love war!"

"Slow down," said Victor, afraid Emmerson was losing his mind.  But of course
Emmerson was just being cynical or ironic or whatever it was that he was.  He
could never really love war, or want to kill, or anything of the sort.  He was
only making the best of the job he had to do.  Victor shuddered to think what
a being like Emmerson might be capable of out of control.

And yet in a very real way Emmerson was truly human, and thus imperfect, and
this was brought home in the next thing he said.  "Gentlemen, I know you are
ready to go but please wait while I perform one last attack."  And with that
they saw Emmerson (perhaps he WAS out of control) rise toward the very stars,
arc south over Jayapura, and dive straight down onto a particular building in
the heart of downtown.  It erupted in flames shooting timbers, tin roofing,
and thousands of pieces of paper flying at dangerous speeds through the air.
"It's the Indonesian Immigration Service," said Emmerson, pulling up over the
rooftops at close to mach 2.  "Had to do it for Charley."

And with that they joined up again, screamed over the air base, and were
joined by at least twenty more jet aircraft who took up positions to the left
and right of Victor Manuhutu in a huge 'V' for the flight home to Port
Moresby.

At Port Moresby the victorious pilots were greeted with cheers and joy and
rioting in which shrieking Melanesian ladies were seen baring their breasts in
support of Wantok in the streets, and great feasts and dancing were held in
the open air for seven nights and days.  Port Moresby had NEVER seen such
celebrations once before, and the people demanded to know the names of the
leaders of the victorious Wantok Alliance.  Victor, naturally shy and
self-effacing, would probably not have wanted to give his mane anyway, but as
it was he COULD not.  He was certainly on the official black list in
Indonesia, and were his identity to be known, it might endanger his dear
family in Saparua.  A meeting of the high council of Wantok was called, and it
was decided that because no Indonesian would know or remember Karibo, the
honors should go to him.

Meantime Emmerson had kept in close touch with Kelly and his men, and directed
air support as required.  Victor had one of the giant machines especially
dedicated to Emmerson, installing special supports and brackets he had
machined with his own hands.  These put Emmerson right up front with his eyes
almost touching the windscreen but his body still able to pivot up and down
and from side to side.  Then, guided by artistic inspiration, he had the name,
"Timbuna," written along the fuselage on both sides and a shooting star
painted on each side of the vertical stabilizer.  Emmerson loved it, and this
plane soon became a legend among the mountain tribes at the headwaters of the
Sepik, where the people often saw it streaking like a bat out of hell through
the valleys and the gorges, evading Indonesian radar on the way to Jayapura.
They perceived it as their guardian spirit who could never be broken and could
never let them down.  As a matter of fact they still speak of it today, and
sing of it in dances through the night, and tell tales of a mighty aircraft
with no human in control.

The way things happened, it turned out to be very convenient to just annex
Jayapura.  In the confusion that followed the night attack it was
comparatively easy for Kelly to take and hold the town, and the airport proved
to be a very useful facility.  Several attempts were made to regain control by
military units in Wamena and areas facing the Wantok buildup across the
border, but to put it in the current vernacular, these units simply got
creamed.

At last Victor ordered the PNG regulars to march across the border, join
forces with Kelly Kwalik, and assume control.  The ugly and artificial
Indonesian border being flung aside, the people of Vanimo were then reunited
with their Melanesian brothers in Jayapura and vice-versa, and there was great
rejoicing, and many journeys back and forth in long canoes, and Papuan music
blaring everywhere, and much dancing and feasting through the nights.  And at
Emmerson's prodding, judges were quickly brought in and courts set up to try
Indonesian criminals of war.  This was critical if the people of the new
alliance were to learn and lay down the principles of rule by law.  Otherwise,
Emmerson knew, it would be rule by blood bath and vendetta.  Perhaps vendetta
WAS part of the most ancient traditions of the land, but some things WOULD
have to be changed.  And when things finally got going, the results were very
encouraging.  Soldier after Indonesian soldier was brought forward, and great
Melanesian palavers were raised detailing and disputing each crime until the
judge felt everyone was satisfied as to innocence or guilt, and the hammer
would fall.  The punishment for anyone who had tortured or killed unarmed
Melanesians was instant death by spear thrust in the public square, delivered
by a young man from the offended clan or tribe.  And this justice seemed to
satisfy the people, for the random payback killings soon stopped, and Jayapura
returned to the rhythms of modern life.

Meantime, back at Port Moresby, the troops were in training.  By this time
there was no longer any reason to hide the fact that Indonesian aircraft were
in the possession of PNG, and something ominous was in the wind.  And the
people, now thoroughly disgusted with the corrupt government officials (Sir
this and Sir that) who had been ruling them so long were openly demanding that
Karibo be made king.  Notice that I didn't say PRESIDENT, but KING.  When
Karibo heard it, he thought the appellation ("King Karibo") had a rather nice
ring, but Victor was somehow less impressed.  And so the two men fell to
training more pilots how to man their fighter aircraft.

At last, one fine day, Karibo got on Port Moresby radio and delivered a public
ultimatum to Jakarta.  "I am Commander Karibo of the Wantok Alliance," he
said, "and by the will of the people of Melanesia I hereby declare a line in
the sea to the west of Salawati beyond which no plane or ship shall pass.  I
further declare that Irian Jaya is no more a province of Indonesia, but the
domain and native homeland of free Melanesians under the protection of the
Wantok Alliance.  Indonesian Military personnel in Irian Jaya shall surrender
their arms to Kelly Kwalik or his representatives.  Those who surrender will
be returned with honor to the country of their origin, but those who refuse
will be shot.  No Javanese colonist in Irian Jaya shall be killed, but all
shall eventually be returned with dignity to their country of origin.  No
non-Melanesian Indonesian citizens currently living in Irian Jaya shall be
allowed to remain, but shall be respectfully returned to their country of
origin.  I repeat: Western New Guinea is not and has never been a part of
Indonesia.  It is a part of Melanesia, and shall continue to be so for as long
as the Wantok Alliance shall stand.  Long live Wantok!  Long live Melanesia!"
And with that a great cheer went up from people everywhere across New
Guinea--in mountain villages, in city apartments, and in bazaars.

But the news of this declaration and ultimatum was not so well received west
of what has now been called Karibo's line.  Jakarta began wheeling and dealing
and screaming to the United Nations, Australia, and the U.S.  So many lies
were added to so many lies that no one could make sense of anything after
awhile.  And the Indonesians began quietly amassing ships and aircraft for a
great assault.

And while these things were happening, the Wantok alliance took Sorong, on the
far west end.  Many atrocities had been committed by the Indonesians in that
region, and there were many ugly reprisals before the regulars could be gotten
in.  But Sorong had to be taken, bloodily or not, because from Sorong could be
monitored the western approaches from the sea.  Radar stations were then set
up under the air umbrella on Salawati.

Thus cut off, the Indonesian military apparatus in Irian Jaya began to
atrophy.  Had it not been for Kelly Kwalik and Company they might have hoped
to hold their ground, but Kelly kept up a steady pressure of guerrilla raids
that took an immense toll.  Unless Indonesia was able to get in fresh
supplies, and soon, the Indonesian military apparatus in Irian Jaya would
fall.  Many urgent messages passed between Jakarta and various centers of
command and control.  The attacks of the Wantok Alliance had taken Indonesia
by surprise.  Used to having their way and bending the unarmed people of
eastern Indonesia to their will at the point of American ammunition and
American guns, they were now faced with a real foe.  But Java would show THEM!
Ignorant stinking savages!  A great convoy and armada was assembled at
Surabaya and sailed straight east for Jayapura.

And thus it happened that a lone aircraft of the Wantok Alliance spotted smoke
on the horizon one morning out of radar range to the east of Gag.  The pilot
radioed this information to Sorong and was never heard from again.  No matter,
had been the pilot's last thought.  Wantok knows!

And know they did!  ""Victor!  Karibo!" shouted Emmerson, sonic transducer set
at max, "to the planes!"  And arching out across the backbone of New Guinea
the people saw a formation of over twenty jet aircraft shooting low over the
ridges west by northwest toward an unseen target in the sea.  And before long
Wantok had them in their gun sights, a crawling flotilla under a hazy smudge.

"Give 'em hell!" cried Emmerson, "while I keep 'em off your backs."  And
Timbuna shot skyward while the others spread out to come in low over the water
from all sides.  And just them Emmerson picked up echoes on his radar from the
west.  "Here they come!" he shouted, banking left and formulating a plan of
attack with thoughtful precision.  But in fact very little thought was really
required at all.  Timbuna simply shot past the leading aircraft at a combined
speed of something over mach 3, pulled round at a force of 28G, and started
plugging them from behind.  There was no way they could escape him because no
human body could stand the kinds of G forces Emmerson could endure, and no
human could think fast enough to avoid running afoul of Emmerson's cold
calculations at maximum clock.

When Emmerson had finished, he banked round and saw the ocean on fire with
burning ships and wreckage. "Good work, lads," he said.  "I made a few new
heros for Indonausea today myself.  Maybe someday Jakarta will give me some
recognition for my services.  Now whadaya say we
get the Hell home?"  Twenty ships had been sunk, and over fifty enemy aircraft
shot down, without the loss of a single Wantok life.  "That's technology for
ya!" said Emmerson.

Then, as they were winging home, one of the inner circle who knew Emmerson
well got on the radio and said, "Eh, Timbuna!"  And then again and again
Emmerson heard the same jubilant salutation in voice after different voice,
and it seemed they would not stop.  At last one of them started chanting, and
anxious Indonesian military commanders hunkered down over their communications
radios in the Biak/Manokwari area heard a very strange sound:

Timbuna,
Timbuna na!

Timbuna,
Timbuna na!

And somehow they felt very cold, there at the edges of those vast, steaming
forests.

"Wantok!" cried the people of Port Moresby.  "Karibo!"  Long live Wantok!
Long live Karibo!"  And certain amply endowed Melanesian women were seen
bearing their breasts in honor of Wantok and Melanesia.

You ask me what happened to the previous rulers of Papua New Guinea?  Nothing
at all.  They simply got ignored and faded from view.  It was high time for
Emmerson, Karibo, and Victor to begin work on the laws of the land.  So while
the Indonesian military atrophied and got hassled by Kelly Kwalik, the high
council of Wantok convened to work out a new set of laws for the Empire of
Papua.  So far this council consisted mainly of military men, but now judges
and elders were admitted as well--in short anyone who had a genuine interest
in the future of Melanesia.  There were legal points so difficult that it was
often necessary for Emmerson #1 to discuss them late into the night with
Charley Levinson in Honolulu.  In these meetings, Emmerson was always careful
to maintain an advisory role.  Not certain who he was, the many new members of
the council treated him as a very helpful machine--a kind of replacement for
the traditional reference library--and he quickly learned to speak fluent
Neo-Melanesian because he already had the complete vocabulary in his memory,
and the ontology and grammatical structures were SO similar to Malay.  Not
surprisingly, as soon as the members perceived his great accuracy and wisdom
in all the various areas under discussion, they grew to rely upon him for all
manner of advice, and to love him almost as if he were human.  Especially
endearing to them was his name, which had such great significance in their
culture and language.

A system was hammered out whereby the people of the Papuan Empire would elect
a new emperor every ten years, and pay a flat tax of ten and only ten percent
of everything they made in terms of kina.  This annual revenue would then be
divided equally among the Wantok Alliance, the ministry of government, the
ministry of education, and the ministry of health.  This system was simple
enough that almost everyone in Papua could readily understand it, making it
much more difficult to tamper with, and yet apparently adequate for every
need.

And then it was decided that the time had arrived for the people to elect the
first emperor of Papua, and brave public servants had been parachuted in or
marched on foot to the farthest corners of Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea, New
Ireland, New Brittain, and many other wonderful and outstanding places.  In
Irian Jaya, the OPM now defiantly did these things right under the oppressor's
noses, and there was absolutely nothing they could do but languish and wait
for supplies from Java which never arrived.  Even the people of the breakaway
islands of Bougainville and Buka thronged the ballot boxes, because they
trusted the new Wantok Alliance, and understood that Port Moresby would never
interfere in their internal affairs again.  The only thing that saddened
Victor Manuhutu was that it would be impossible for the people of his beloved
Maluku to participate, which he knew they would very dearly love to do if they
were given a chance.  They lay west of Salawati, and could not yet be defended
by Wantok.  But as surely as the pulsing of Emmerson's clock, it was only a
matter of time, and this thought gave him great courage and a ready heart to
serve Wantok.

And this was just as well because of what came next--a standoff with the most
formidable naval force on earth.  The Americans, outraged at the annexation of
Jayapura, sent the seventh fleet in and started snooping around.  One fine
morning, in a great show of force, they launched thirty fighter-bombers from
their decks and headed in toward the coast near Wewak.  "Scramble!  Scramble!"
Emmerson screamed through his sonic transducer, and like lightening over
twenty jet fighters shot over the backbone of New Guinea and down the Sepik.
"Hold right here," said Emmerson, as they got up even with Manam.  "They're
swinging round, and I'm going to engage them off Bonaga.  Don't venture out
unless I fail to return."  And so (realizing the extreme political sensitivity
of the situation) the Wantok pilots held formation in a slow circuit of Manam
and watched while Emmerson screamed in for the attack.  He shot straight in
past the leader from a little to the right, nearly clipping his port wing at
mach three, then pulled straight up in a 29G arc and plugged them from behind
without bothering to get the water back under him again.  Not one of them
returned.  It was the greatest fiasco in the annals of U.S. naval history, and
many false claims were made to cover up what had been done.  "I can't believe
it," said the 7th fleet radar man.  "One minute they were all there, then this
blip comes in from the southeast, practically stands on its tail, and they all
simply disappear."  But even in the Pentagon, after reviewing the records
again and again, no one could figure out what had been done, and there was
talk of UFOs in the New Guinea area.

And when all the ballots were counted, Karibo of Mapan Duma (although at that
time he dared not mention Mapan Duma) was elected Emperor of all Papua.  And
these fair and free results occasioned such joy as had never been experienced
throughoutt all Papua, for Karibo's first official act was to proclaim seven
days and nights of celebration and feasting in the finest Melanesian
tradition.  The heads and various leaders of all Melanesian states were
invited to join in the festivities, and planes began arriving with delegations
from Honiara, Port Villa, Noumea, and as far off as Suva.  Large sailing
canoes appeared upon the blue waters of the gulf of Papua, and races were held
that lasted days.  There were spear-throwing contests, manly sparring matches,
and greasy poles to climb everywhere.  But one of the favorite shows over the
bay of port Moresby were Emmerson's unparalleled antics with Timbuna.  An
earsplitting scream would erupt from the land, and then over the bay the people
would see a great silver bird streaking vertically for the sun, only to turn
completely over onto its back, plunge shrieking from the sky, and level out a
few feet above the water at mach 2.  Men standing balance on the outrigger
struts of their sailing canoes would actually duck to avoid getting hit, and
then raise their right fists in a symbol of triumph, and the whole bay would
be blasted by a magnificent sonic boom.      "Timbuna!" the people would cry.
"Timbuna!  Timbuna!  Timbuna!"  They could never see the man they imagined to
be inside, and many believed that he was no man at all, but the ancient
guardian spirit of the crickets, the night, the forests and the winds.

And just the thought of having a ruler, no an EMPEROR, so young, so decent, so
courageous, and so wise had a transforming effect on the very spirit of the
people.  Crime in Port Moresby virtually ceased.  There was a certain pride
that shone from the face of every Melanesian--an infectious sense of dignity
and honor, and the women were positively radiant.

Then Victor remembered that he still had one precious bar of Tembagapura gold.
He drove quickly to Ji Nam, and commissioned the construction of a most regal
and manly gold bracelet.  It was a heavy serpent design which used up the
entire ingot.  Inside were inscribed the words: "To the emperor, Karibo of
Mapan Duma, from his companions, Emmerson and Victor of Wantok."  And on
the last night of the feast, Victor arose and presented this bracelet to
Karibo before all the foreign delegates, their wives, and their children, and
a great shout arose: "Long live Karibo!  Long live Victor!  Long live Wantok!"

And as Victor slipped this emblem and symbol upon the Emperor's black and
powerful right arm, the delegates, their wives, and even their children were
seen to weep with emotion (aroha), and a great silence fell upon the convocation.

Then Karibo stood forward and spoke:  "My brothers, we spring from a noble and
ancient stock, and we have lived in this beautiful land for above sixty
thousand years.  At that time there were only a kind of wild man in Europe
known as Neanderthal.  There were no men with our intelligence in Europe for
another twenty-five thousand years.

"Once these mountains, these rivers, and these valleys were the only world we
ever knew.  Here we lived, we loved, we fought, and we died.  We made
ingenious tools and weapons out of stone and wood and bone.  Nor did we need
ought else, for with only these things we thrived, created the finest
sculptures, and ranged the seas in excellent canoes.  Before the pyramids of
Giza, men brought us tools of bronze, but such things never became widespread
in our land, for we never really needed any of them.  In all manner of art
form--music, poetry, story-telling, tattooing, dance, song--we excelled.  Among
our tribes we distinguished many races, but we had never seen a European or
even a Chinese.  Then, one hundred years or so ago, Europeans began visiting
our land.  At first we killed them, and all was well, but then we were seduced
by their trade goods and allowed them to remain.  And slowly, insidiously,
without us being aware of what was going on, through their deliberate plotting
and use of metals (and more especially their use of guns), they gained the
upper hand, dividing our homelands among themselves according to their own
obscure reasonings and machinations.  Then believing themselves to be
manifestly superior because of the series of historical accidents that placed
them into the situation in which they found themselves, they despised us and
kept us in a state of ignorance while they used us and plundered our lands.

"This is not to say that there were no good men among them.  Please forgive me
if my words have sung that song.  On the contrary, many of them were as good
or better than the finest of our own.  But many among them were victims of
human ignorance and greed, and driven by forces as inscrutable as those which
produce war among ourselves.  The difference that led to our undoing was the
knowledge they possessed, both of the existence of a larger world in which
radically different social forces prevailed, and also of the strange
technologies their particular circumstances had forced them to develop in
order to survive.

"We had never really needed iron, but they had.  If after about fifty-eight
thousand years in New Guinea we had suddenly been confronted by enemies
wielding primitive iron weapons, we would certainly have bought or captured
such weapons and learned the arts of iron smelting for ourselves.  If this had
happened, our current situation would be quite different indeed.  However the
great isolation of our world protected us, first from iron, then from steel,
and finally from guns.  Meantime the Europeans, driven by the necessity of
always having to improve their iron, then steel, then iron and steel ballistic
weapons to survive, had brought the technology of iron and steel so far from
its beginnings that the way of getting there had been lost in the mists of
antiquity.  Please bear in mind that iron and steal technology only developed
in Europe during the last 1/25 or so of the time our forebears had been living
in this land.  Among the first Europeans and guns to arrive in Melanesia, there
was probably not a single man who knew the art of smelting the iron, lead, and
steel with which each came so abundantly endowed.  In other words, far from
being superior, not one of them could even have explained how to build a gun
if he had wanted to.  All they knew was how to aim guns, pull triggers, kill
Melanesians, and get more bullets--none of which are terribly impressive when
compared with what we require even our five and six-year-old children to know.

"We were isolated by the sea, and we were here because of a superior seafaring
technology.  The canoes of the Pacific were apparently able to traverse great
oceans in far less time and far more safely than any European vessel ever had.
Where we had come others could not follow, and this protected the integrity of
our ancient world.  Curiously, the development of iron and steel manufacture
in Europe led ultimately to a totally unexpected kind of seafaring
technology--one of great lumbering hulks that hung together only by means of
multiple thousands of iron and steel fastenings.  These ships, though
dangerous and slow, could carry great bulk, sustain men at sea for extended
periods, and afford protection to them after arriving at distant destinations.
In short, they enabled Europeans to reach Melanesia, bring a lot of trade
goods along, and remain safe in their ships while they were here.  And this in
turn enabled them to project a full-blown steel technology into an environment
where no steel had ever been allowed to come before, and which had no steel to
counter the steel of the Europeans.  But even now, after a hundred years of
foreign domination, Melanesian people have still not learned the technology of
steel, while the Europeans have gone on to the kind of metallurgy that
produces the aircraft you have seen us flying here.  What we are learning is
what the first Europeans who came here already knew--how to kill with them and
how to get more.

"Now the Europeans have left us, but they have divided our Melanesian world.
Look at my face, my hair, my skin--it is like yours.  It is like that because
we spring from the same source.  All Melanesians are brothers.  We had lived
in isolation for so many thousand years that we had forgotten there was any
other world.  Then, in a heartbeat, the Europeans learned how to get here,
found us out in our ancient isolation, and forever changed our lives.  They
appeared to us out of the blue.  We did not know who they were or whence they
came.  Now we DO know, the iron bars of our isolation have been opened wide to
the world, and we MUST awake and defend ourselves or be destroyed.

"They took our world, they divided our world among themselves in accordance
with their laws, and now they have gone leaving their silly barriers behind.
Not only that, but they have deemed themselves able to give part of Melanesia
away.  I speak of Irian Jaya, of course, which is a vital part of our great
and ancient land, and which is now in the aborted process of being overrun.

"I now propose that we recognize our Melanesian brotherhood and stand against
the world--the non-Melanesian world--as one.  I propose that we unite our
military forces and train together to forge a pan-Melanesian Alliance capable
of standing up to any foe.  Disunited, a larger enemy can attack and subdue us
one-by-one.  That is how the Europeans did it one century ago, and that is
how, for example, the Indonesians, to whom they have made so bold as to "give"
our beloved western regions, have been able to do what they are doing now.
But if we unite, and the world knows that to attack any one of us is to attack
all, then I believe we will be able to hold.

"The backbone of Indonesian aggression has been broken in the west, but we are
not out of the woods.  Both America and Australia back Jakarta and turn a
blind eye to Indonesian violations of Melanesian rights.  We have a few jet
aircraft here, but they could be destroyed.  I need your help to stand, but
someday (speaking as Emperor of Papua) you may need me as well.  I pledge to
stand by you, but will you pledge the same to me?

"I propose that we unite permanently now with an iron clad determination that
no Melanesian people shall ever be dominated for as long as any of us shall
live.  Back me in Irian Jaya now and I shall back you against the French in
New Caledonia, and we will fight side by side until all of Melanesia is free.

"My empire is Papua, but I support Wantok because I know it must be so if I am
to be free.  The members of the Wantok Alliance have sworn never to attack any
Melanesian, but only to defend ALL Melanesians against outside aggression, and
their word is sealed by law.  Melanesian Brothers, I now invite you to join
with me in taking this oath and signing this pact in which our mutual loyalty
shall be declared."

Then Karibo stopped talking, and Samuel Mamalone stood.  "Melanesian Brothers,
I agree."  He said, and sat down.

Then Siti Rambuka stood and said the same, and so for all the leaders of
Melanesia, so that before they returned non had failed to take the pledge and
sign.

"I pledge allegiance to Wantok in order to defend all of Melanesia against all
foreign aggression and foreign occupation," they swore.  "Long live Wantok!"

And so the celebrations ended, and the various delegates returned.

Meanwhile Kelly Kwalik had been busy, and with Wantok air support had managed
to knock out target after stubborn Indonesian target in the west.  "Why don't
they just surrender?" he thought.  "We have promised to treat them with honor.
Why do they prefer to die?"  For Kelly Kwalik was really a kind and gentle man
at heart, and would never have killed but in order to defend his people and
his homeland.  But then at last that terrible power which had caused New
Guinea such pain began to unravel before his very eyes.

He collected thousands upon thousands of weapons, and stored them in large
depots under Wantok regular guard.  And true to the dignity and egalitarian
spirit of Melanesia, these men, who had held the Melanesian people down, were
allowed to walk free.   Why should Wantok fear them without weapons?  What
could they possibly do?  They were like babes in the woods.  But those who had
perpetrated crimes against the people were accused and tried, and the guilty
were dealt with cleanly by the people, so that no Indonesian might ever forget
what such atrocities entailed.  And by this example of justice and honor, many
Indonesians learned human dignity from simple Melanesians--that is, that
percentage of Indonesians who were able to see the light.  However, most of
them were too arrogant, too stupid, and too indoctrinated to learn anything.

And so the infrastructure of West Papua began to be restored, and life
returned to normal minus the bullying threat of the Indonesian military.  But
there was one problem that only Charley Levinson could handle, and that was
Freeport Mining Corporation, so one day he flew to the mainland from Honolulu
and walked into their offices.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I have come to offer you an ultimatum.  Cooperate with
Papua or get out."

"Who are you?" said Michael Dickenson.

"Charley Levinson, for the Wantok Alliance," said Charley.

"Never heard of it," said Michael Dickenson.

"Have now," said Charley.

"And who are they?" asked Michael Dickenson.

"The people of Papua," replied Charley.

"Sounds like some kind of puppet regime.  Did you set it up?"

"My puppet can kill your dictator.  Sign now or get out.  Fifty percent."

So Michael Dickenson signed, and thereafter fifty percent of all revenues of
the Tembagapura mining operation were divided equally among the four funds of
the Empire of Papua, which slowly prospered.

Negotiations were also initiated for the restoration of mining operations at
Pangguna, which had been halted by the Bougainville people for many years, and
a bargain was struck that was beneficial to all parties concerned.  And so the
Empire of Papua began to prosper from that one as well.  New schools were
built, and the Internet became established all over the Empire of Papua, and
Emmerson began turning his attention more and more to the problems of language
translation.

And a strange new facility was constructed at Port Moresby called "The Skunk
Works."  Here Victor, the machinist, and Emmerson, the world's greatest mind,
were building a brand new kind of secret weapon--well, they were getting some
help from Charley on the project too.  You see, this effort required the
highest level of computational and linguistic genius.  It was the design
and development of a fleet of tiny, intelligent submarines that would
eventually patrol the western waters.  Talk about high technology!  Whew!
Even the Americans hadn't thought of this one!  This was an excellent example
of the principle Karibo had unfolded--Challenge a people with dangerous new
technology and they will develop even more dangerous new technology to stop
it.  This thing that was happening gave Emmerson much pleasure, because he
realized that his Melanesians were catching up with and might soon be
surpassing the rest of the world in weapons technology.  Each submarine was to
be endowed with a limited subset of Emmerson's computational and linguistical
powers.  In other words, something like Emmerson but not as bright.

Submarines don't need to be very smart (even Germans learned to operate them
and kill many people with them during the first and second world wars).  Up.
Down.  How deep am I?  Am I out of fuel?  Am I out of power?  Left.  Right.
What ship is that?  How do I know its bad?  Kill it.  Move on.  Listen.  Etc.
Now that I think of it, why is America still sending people to sea to get
killed in them?  Must be some sort of macho trip or something.  Oh, well.

The idea was SO elegant and simple that, well, it was simply ideal.  Even a
small country like Papua could easily manufacture them by the dozen and thus
defend itself from virtually any seaborne attack.  So Victor had a good many of
them turned out in short order and standing by.  The important thing was to
keep them very secret and make sure NONE of them ever fell into enemy hands.
Whose that petting me?  Self destruct!

Indonesia had been VERY nasty about bringing any of her people home from Irian
Jaya, and appeared to be more than willing to just leave them there to rot, so
for the present Wantok just had to tolerate them.  Typical old shameless
Indonesian pettiness, Emmerson thought.  They just DON'T get the message, and
they just never change.

But even with all those millions of Indonesians there, there was nothing they
could really do, so Wantok slowly began organizing plans to retake Maluku.  A
flurry of communications took place between Charley Emmerson and Dr. Hatututu
of the RMS, and Moluccan people began arriving in what used to be Irian Jaya.
There they were set up in camps, and underwent intensive military and
psychological training under Victor, with whom many of them were distantly
related or at least new someone related.  At last the best and brightest were
given flying lessons as well, and some even learned to fly the new American
jet fighters.

It wasn't going to be easy to get them to Ambon.  Wantok didn't have the
landing craft needed for such an operation, and there was apt to be stiff
resistance getting ashore.  But at last things were about as ready as they
ever would be, so Karibo went on the air with another ultimatum.  Surrender
Ambon peacefully and all would be well.  Resist, and Wantok would starve the
troops.  The Karibo line now lies west of Buru.  You cross, you die.

Nothing ever made Jakarta madder.  Damned Ambonese traitors up to their same
old tricks all over again.  Guess we didn't give 'em enough hell for the last
fifty years.  Etc., etc., etc.  But Emmerson liked this because he fully
intended to make the Jawas eat every word.  He and Victor released their
little submarines and waited, and boom!  Renjani.  3,000 killed.  Told 'em!
He hoped there hadn't been a lot of Moluccans aboard, but thought there might
have been.  This was bad.  Both Victor and Emmerson had been thinking of navy
ships, but the Indonesians had sacrificed the old Renjani for publicity.  Look
what these lunatic Papuans did to our people!  Oh, America, please give us
more airplanes.  Oh, Australia, please give us more guns so we can DEFEND
ourselves from these terrible aggressors!  Oh Lloyds of London, please pay up
now!

Well, the Indonesians were still flying planes to Ambon, but NOTHING was
getting through by sea.  Technology!

Meantime every Moluccan in the Sorong area wanted to take Ambon NOW, and it
seemed like all Victor could do to keep them from SWIMMING the intervening
three hundred miles to do it.  So Victor got some old hulks together, filled
their holds full of guns, bullets, and grenades (he had plenty now, after
taking over the Indonesian military depots in what used to be Irian Jaya), and
sent them on their way.  It took them a day or two to get to the vicinity of
Misool and start heading down toward the Straits of Manipa, but then it was
time to act.  Karibo transmitted another message to Jakarta.  "I see you're
still getting planes through.  That  last was your last one.  Tomorrow no
more."

By now Ambon, the most densely populated city on earth, was hungry, and
Jakarta wasn't about to stop flights, so they sent out a big destroyer to look
for "the submarine."  Boom.  Right off the west end of Buru.  Victor and
Emmerson saw it happen.  They were trying to convince a Garuda passenger plane
to turn back and getting no response.  That did it.  The Garuda turned tail
and ran.

Ultimatum to Ambon:  "You have been isolated from Jakarta.  Surrender now or
face serious consequences."

They just DON'T get it, and they'll never catch on, thought Emmerson when
nothing happened.  Why did these people want to fight when it could be so easy?
He and Victor came in from the Banda Sea, shot straight up over Leitimur, and
came barreling out of the sky over Halong.  Victor was beginning to like
Emmerson's way of doing things.  Hit 'em from out of the sky.  Fire from
heaven.  Straight down.  They raked the naval base at Halong with gunfire, sank
two ships, and put a big hole in the middle of the pier.  Emmerson pulled out
low across the water at about mach 2, smashing 'em with one final huge sonic
boom, and sped straight out through the gap at Tanjong Martafons.  People
crossing the bay on the ferry got the fright of their lives, but one or two of
them saw the "Timbuna" inscription and the shooting star, and wondered what
such a portent could mean.  There was talk of this in Ambon for many days, and
the mystery was only compounded when a man who had been to PNG said it meant
"ancestor."  "God save us from that thing, whatever it is!" said the pious old
ladies at the pasar, haggling over smelly fish in the hot sun.  Victor had
chickened out at the last moment and ducked out over Baguala Bay.  Emmerson
swept hard round Cape Nusaniwe and shot straight up from somewhere around Eri
for a final attack upon the office of the Departamen Immigrasi Republik
Indonesia in Amboina.  There Charley Levinson had often been made to wait for
hours by the smug minions of Java, who had nothing to do but sit at their
desks and show how important they were.  To demonstrate their idleness they
would allow their fingernails to grow so long that some of them would actually
curl down and start to grow back in upon their palms.  And while Charley would
sit patiently, these disgusting officials would draw upon their cigarettes,
exhale, suck in another breath between their tobacco-stained teeth with a hiss,
and deftly drop the ash from their cigarettes with the tip of one of these
nails.  No one would ever wait there or flick ash there again.  It was all over
almost before it began.  Emmerson didn't make people wait around while HE
flicked ash.  Shattered walls, fragments of desks, and papers all over the
place; then just a huge fire ball where the building had stood.  Hopefully the
air raid had sounded and there had been no missionaries inside.  

They met again over Buru and nosed around, but by this time they were running
low on fuel, so they turned back and went screaming home.

"Airplanes!" cried Emmerson.  "Nothin' like 'em.  Love 'em.  I love America!
America the beautiful!  From sea to shining sea!"  Scream, scream, scream!
Where's Sorong?  There it is!  Wish they wouldn't keep movin' it like that!"

Steady, mild-mannered Victor only smiled.

Neither one of them wanted to hit Laha because Airports were hard to build and
easy to destroy, but Ambon simply couldn't get it and simply couldn't learn.
So the next day, before dawn, Victor and Emmerson were out hunting again.
Victor dipped low over Saparua wishing there was some way he could tell 'em
who he was.  Then he and Emmerson screamed across Haruku with the sun, came in
across the bay of Baguala, still flying right out of the sun, then rose
vertically to about fifty thousand and nailed the airport at Laha with rockets
and machine gun fire.  Nobody much was there yet, so they completely wasted
the terminal and shot up every piece of equipment on the ground.  Laha never
new what hit 'm!  Emmerson counted three planes and two helicopters.  Too bad.
The Alliance could have used 'em.  Once again Victor broke off early while
Emmerson screamed down across the water at mach 2, right through the gap at
Tanjong Martafons, over the isthmus of Baguala, turned slightly and put a
couple of rockets through the polluting plywood factory, straightened out and
shot past Oma, Wasu'u and Aboru so close the children ran outside and read
"Timbuna" and saw the shooting star for the first time.  "Timbuna!  Timbuna!
Timbuna!  Mama, what does Timbuna mean?"

Those were fine days over the Banda, Molucca, and Buru seas, and Emmerson and
Victor would never forget them as long as they lived.

Meantime the boats from Sorong got through the Manipa Strait and made landfall
at Hatu, where most RMS people have some kind of relative.  The Hatu people
were overjoyed to meet their brothers from Holland, especially the Raja's
young daughter, who was very interested in the handsome and clean cut young
men.  Oh Daddy, Daddy!  And there was feasting in the houses with much papeda
(sago starch) and fresh fish cooked with turmeric and lemon grass.  Things
weren't quite up to Holland standard, but the RMS boys were SO excited they
believed they had never had such fun in their lives.  They got off the rest of
their guns and ammunition and careened their boats in the sand, and now things
started to really heat up.  In Ambon there were definitely two factions, and
they were not divided absolutely along ethnic lines.  Some wanted to just
surrender and get it over with, and other die-hard types wanted to fight it
out.  The Raiders battalion at Nania, being mostly Moluccan, just kept still
and ignored all orders.  But the Brimob brigade decided that they really
believed in the Pancasila, though non of them could ever get its meaning quite
right, loaded up some armored personnel carriers with guns, bullets, and
grenades, and set of nervously for Hatu.  Meantime the boys out at Hatu had
barricaded the road just past where it curved, and lay waiting in the gutters,
behind coconut trees, and wherever they could hid.  The armored personnel
carrier rounded the curve and stopped, and all hell broke lose.  The RMS boys
shot out the tires and smashed up all the glass,a nd the Brimobs threw
grenades out of the windows in every direction.  Finally one of the RMS boys
succeeded in lobbing a grenade right through a window and blew the whole thing
apart.  There were blood and brains and bodies all over the road, and people
sobbing and crying and breathing their last, and not all of them were Brimobs.
Not good.

The Rms boys then decided to first just consolidate their position and secure
the southwestern part of Leihitu to use as their base.  Nobody in Ambon knew
what happened to the armored personnel carrier, so they sent another one
looking for it, and the RMS boys, now more experienced, got that one too.

Now Wantok had to be very careful because there were men on the ground in
Ambon, so that it was very important not to let any Indonesian air power get
through.  Otherwise they might just waste Hatu and a couple of other villages
to make some kind of point.

Well the RMS boys got better and better, and captured some vehicles and
succeeded in taking the airport at Laha and a couple of more boats.  By this
time young people in Lease started hearing about what was happening over the
grapevine (there was absolutely no news of any of this on "Radio Republic
Indonesia Ambon" where silken-tongued young ladies just kept right on reading
what the Bapaks were saying about the next five year plan), and started trying
to find any way of getting to Laha.  By this time the Indonesian authorities
had long banned ALL movements between Ambon and the Lease Islands, of course.
So people were paddling canoes at night or even risking it in broad daylight,
and many got beaten or killed.  Two bold young men even swam straight across
from Haruku to someplace near Tenga-Tenga (at least six miles) in the dark and
somehow made it on to Laha alive.  It was another incarnation of the
indomitable spirit of old Amboina, which Jakarta had so hoped it had killed!
These young men--and even a few young women who acted like men--were
determined, as the many who had died in vain before them, that this time they
would be free once and for all!  They would NEVER give up this time.  They
would fight on the streets, in the jungle, in the gutters, eat nothing but
dried sago and drink gutter water, ANYTHING.

From somewhere the Jawa boys got a rickety old tank, armed it and filled it
with petrol.  This they then drove round the bay toward Laha.  Being very hot,
and seeing a pretty girl standing in front of one of the houses by the road,
the two occupants pulled up and asked for "Teh gula."

The young lady pulled an automatic from under her skirt, shot both of them
through the brains, jumped up on the turret and dragged them both out by the
hair, dumped them on the road, jumped into the tank and started experimenting
with the controls, crashed through a fence and flattened the corner of a
house, figured it out, and drove it to Laha for the RMS.  They say she was
educated , too.  Master's degree in fisheries from the Universitas Pattimura.

These new recruits were invaluable because they knew Ambon, knew what was
going on, and knew how to get the job done.  They got the careened boats at
Hatu back into operation, dodged the Indonesian patrols on dark rainy nights,
and brought in more people, pigs, chickens, etc. from Lease and Seram.  The
spirit of the people was incredible, and most of the boys from Holland got so
caught up in it they would rather have died than go back.

More reinforcements arrived from Fakfak, and the RMS started pushing along the
road toward town.  A big disappointment for the Jawas was Tulehu.  They had
mistakenly supposed that because Tulehu was Moslem it would remain loyal to
Jakarta.  Were they ever in for a surprise!  As soon as they could get a few
arms the people gutted the guard shack at the pier and killed everybody they
could find ("Allah Hu Akhbar!").  The citizens of Tulehu had seen those
military guards abuse the people coming in from Lease so many times, holding
them for hours until they paid bribes, taking their possessions, forcing
people to take them places in their vehicles, etc., that they were completely
sick of Jawa and all its antics, and had the time of their lives chasing the
Jawas through the streets and gunning them down.  Victor had taught the RMS
from Holland some restraint, but there was no stopping the Tulehu boys.  And
when they were quite finished, they carried the corpses out of the village,
stuffed their dead mouths with lempengs of dry sago (a Moluccan food many
Javanese are known to detest), and allowed an unarmed truck from Amboina to
approach and carry off the fallen.

Then the Raja of Tulehu stood before his people and said, "After fifty years
of their petty domination the stench of these oppressors is gone from our
streets.  Tulehu is clean!  Tulehu is free!  Allah Hu Akhbar!  Syukur
alhamdulillah!  Insya Allah We shall now arm ourselves and defend ourselves,
and no one shall EVER dominate us again.  Long live Tulehu!  Long live Ambon!
Long live Maluku!  Long live Wantok!"

So the people of Tulehu raised a great din and confusion of shouting, and
literally jumped up and down in the streets for joy.  "Wantok!  Long live
Wantok!  Long live Timbuna!  Long live Victor Manuhutu!" they cried, and
celebrated into the night with feasting on lempengs of sago, smoked cakalang
(skipjack), canarium nuts, dodol of durian, and other Moluccan delicacies
which were sold everywhere along the streets on dandangs (large, round wooden
platters) with bright palitas (chimneyless oil lamps) at their hubs.  In every
Moluccan breast was a new hop and a new joy, and a new determination NEVER to
be dominated by ANYONE again.

And so, slowly but surely, the mighty talons that had held Ambon in misery and
terror for half a century were crushed with much bloodshed, terrible
suffering, and boundless joy.  "I'm going to be home for Christmas!" said
Victor in a tone of reverence and awe.  It was very hard to believe that this
could be happening after SO long, and SO much wondering if he would ever see
his beloved home or any of his dear family again.  And all the while there was
explosion after explosion out there in the waters off west Buru.  Victor and
Emmerson had built an impregnable barrier.  It seemed like an absolute
miracle, but there it was!  The RMS kept getting resupplied, but the most
densely populated Javanese slum in the world, which reeked of untreated sewage
from end to end, got nothing!  The Jawas would give up or die of starvation,
even if they took half of Ambon with them!

But of course those strong young Moluccan men and women would never let this
happen.  They entered the city and fought from street to street--bare chested,
sweating, yelling, and always wearing a red bandanna or some kind of piece of
red cloth.  They didn't care if it wasn't good camouflage.  They were
Moluccans, and this was war, and if some of them were going to die then they
would just have to die, but nothing would ever cramp their style or slow them
down.  In short, they finally thrashed the Javanese in a very bloody route in
which they got really carried away and just couldn't seem to stop shooting and
killing.

Of course Java heard of this development, and got together the most formidable
air task force they ever had launched, but Emmerson was ready for them well in
advance.  He saw them late one afternoon as he flew high over Wangi-Wangi off
the coast of southern Celebes.  "Victor," you'd better get out here.  Looks
like they'll be headed down the Manipa Strait.  I'll be sneaking in from
Ambelau.  Out of fuel, I'm afraid.  Make sure they have full service ready at
Laha."

Then the world watched (for Wantok had the world's attention by now) as a tiny
but determined band of silvery Wantok fighters streaked westward in search of
the Indonesian task force.

"And almost before anyone knew what had happened, fifteen American-built
warships lay burning along a line of sizzling ocean now known as the W line.
Washington squirmed while their allies were smashed again and again by this
seemingly invincible force.  The president would have ordered in the seventh
fleet, but elections were coming up, and bereaved mothers were still picketing
the White House to protest the slaughter of their sons in the last American
adventure against Wantok.  What amazed the world most was not the ferocity of
each Melanesian attack, but that black New Guineans could fly."

As a matter of fact, the Wantok air force barely made it over Ambon in time to
engage the enemy, and Emmerson didn't have time to finish refueling before the
Jawas were upon them.  The skies exploded over Ambon in the late afternoon sun
as the Wantok men threw themselves against the attack, and yet they seemed to
be holding back a part of their force which was concerned only with guarding
the air field at Laha.  Little did the Jawas know that the most terrible
machine in history was trapped until it could finish refueling, otherwise they
would surely have mounted a concerted attack.  But as it was, the defense of
the airport held against very poor odds, and suddenly there was a burst of hot
flame and a scream as Timbuna's turbines took hold, and with a deafening roar
that shook the coconut trees for miles round, Timbuna shot up like a silver
arrow, then down into the fray.  "One, Two, Three, Four!" cried Emmerson as he
came down on the enemy from above and behind.  "Yeah!  Try to scissor!  Take
that!"

And suddenly the enemy, seeing their  squadron decimated before their very
eyes but failing to understand how, tried to break and run, but the men of
Wantok chased them down and engaged them all over the sky.  Some nailed their
quarry, others just managed to hold them long enough for Timbuna to show up
and nail them with a single burst.  The show was superb, and the Moluccans on
the ground were going wild with excitement all the way to Saparua.  Old men
came out, shook their heads, and said, "We saw some good shows back in World
War 2, but nothing was ever like this!"

And time after time as it streaked to the kill, they saw a silver giant dip
its wing to show that inscription: Timbuna, and the shooting star. It is
difficult to assess Emmerson's behavior at such times, but the answer surely
lies in the convoluted depths of the programming logic that drives him.  It
well may be that his "human" nature includes a streak of vanity that surfaces
in the stress of combat.  On the other hand, it may simply be a bias toward
pleasure.  That is, it may be that it gave him pleasure to add to the pleasure
of the people watching him from below.  At any rate, the Ambonese people went
wild.  "Timbuna!" they cried.  "Timbuna!  Timbuna!" and jumped up and down in
the streets, on the roads, in the hills and the fields, or wherever they might
be.

"But what does it mean, Mommy?" asked one little girl.

"Hush, Child!  It means 'upu!'  You know, 'tete-nene moyang!'"

And then Emmerson, when he had nailed every last bandit, as if reading their
minds and seeing there the longing to watch him perform, did his usual thing,
climbing vertically to about fifty thousand feet over Ambon bay and streaking
straight down in a perfectly executed vertical dive, pulling up at the
precisely calculated last moment and screaming through the Straits of
Martafons at about mach 2 while behind him the very earth shook under a
gigantic sonic boom.  Ambon had never seen anything like it!  Never!

It was a time for great joy, for Ambon was free, and the wreckage of enemy
aircraft lay scattered across her green hills, just like after World War 2!

And so Victor Manuhutu returned to Saparua for Christmas, where everybody
stayed up all night because there was simply no way any one of them could
sleep.  It was one of the most joyous Christmasses in living memory.  And
there he was introduced to a smiling young lady named Marta, who he later
learned had stolen a tank on the road to Laha.  She was kinda big and kinda
strong and kinda what he was looking for, and I guess he and her kinda fell in
love, because they got married a few days later and spent a two-week honeymoon
up in the hills in Uncle Ucu's field house doing nobody knows what.  And
pretty soon she was kinda big and kinda sassy--You know, sharp with her voice
sometimes because maybe she wasn't used to carrying all that extra weight.  It
was probably just some particular combination of strength and sweetness that
made her irresistible to Victor, but who can explain such things?  I will say
that there were certain ways she could stand and walk and bend and smile that
could get a man thinking very big thoughts very fast, and I'm pretty sure she
knew it.  Whatever the case, she made a very fitting wife for the military
leader of the Wantok Alliance because she had the guts and courage of her
husband in every respect, and later even learned to fly those screeching
American jet planes!

It was just about this time that the first American newsman was allowed to
enter the Empire of Papua to see what kind of trouble he might stir up.  He
was from that famous American news service, Chuckwagon, or something like
that, and he heard that the Emperor was going to be in Mapan Duma, so he took
a plane to Timika and chartered a truck.  Then he and his crew walked in to
Mapan Duma, arriving there all red and panting and wiping the perspiration
from their faces with sopping wet handkerchiefs and taking long drafts from
their canteens.  Outside the chief's hut they saw a group of savages sitting
and squatting under a huge tree, and nothing else, so they walked over and
(with great reservations) said, "We heard the Emperor of Papua was going to be
here today.  Do any of you know where we can find him?"

Up sprang a magnificent savage, very black, and wearing only a penis sheath
for clothing--that is, except for a hunting knife at his side and a heavy gold
bracelet round his wrist.  Stepping forward and standing very erect and quite
tall in the afternoon sun, he said, "Who seeks the Emperor of Papua?"

Slowly realizing who they were facing, the Americans just stood there with
mouths agape, unable either to raise or lower their canteens.  Recounting the
incident later, one of them said he thought he had seen a sparkle in the
emperor's eye, and a smile struggling at the corners of his mouth, but that he
couldn't quite be sure.  Then one of them came to his senses and sprang for
his gear, and so it was that the American people saw the Emperor of Papua for
the first time.  Unfortunately for Chuckwagon, the crew never really did quite
recover from their shock, and thus rather botched the interview part.  The
clip showed the anchorman with a canteen in his hand asking, "Er, are you the
Emperor of Papua," and Karibo answering, "I am,".  Then it shifted to a scene
where the same anchorman was interviewing some kind of well-dressed official
in Port Moresby.

"How does your emperor remain in power?" asked the anchorman.

"He is emperor of Papua by the will of the people," answered the official.

"And why does he dress in nothing but a penis sheath?"

"Unlike America, our country is very humid and very hot, and we do not use air
conditioning.  The penis sheath is an ancient design that has stood the test
of time.  It provides a man precisely the covering that human dignity demands
without encumbering him in any other way."

"And how is it that he has no body guard?"

"In all of Papua there is hardly a man who would not defend him instantly with
his own life.  The people bear arms, and are ready always to use them.  No one
could hope to attack him and live."

"And what sort of man is the Emperor?" asked the anchorman.

"He is SHAKTI--absolutely incorruptible.  He is a man of the mountains, the
rivers, and the caves.  He can fly the most modern jet aircraft or survive
indefinitely in the forests alone.  He is the gentlest of men, and yet ready
to fight at any time."

"And what of that heavy gold bracelet he wears?  If he is a man of the people,
how is it that he indulges in such extravagances?"

"The bracelet he wears is a symbol and token of the love of his people.  Gold
is a material with which the mountains of our native land abound, and thus a
fitting symbol of the great wealth our people enjoy.  It is the law of the
land that every emperor of Papua shall rule for ten years, and that each shall
be presented with a solid gold bracelet of similar worth, upon which shall be
engraved his name and the words, "Emperor of Papua by the Will of the People."
As it turns out, this symbol serves as an effective advertisement for our most
important national product as well.  The Chinese have shown great interest,
and right now we are negotiating with them for purchases of a missile they
manufacture called the "Long March," and several shipments of an assault
weapon called the "AK47."

"And will these missiles be trained upon Australian targets?"

"Probably not.  They have treated us rather shabbily in the past, but we
recognize that they were driven by considerations of greed rather than
genocide.  The same is not entirely true of Java, however, which we continue
to perceive as an imminent threat.  As a deterrent to further aggression, we
will have Long March missiles trained upon Surabaya, Jakarta, and most of
their major cities."

"I see," said the anchorman, and disappeared from the screen for the next
soap commercial.

At last the situation in Ambon returned somewhat to normal, and they got Dr.
Hatututu in from Holland, and he actually decided to stay, and became a model
statesman and framer of the Moluccan Constitution, which provided freedom for
everyone to bear arms, speak, make love, and do just about everything known
and discussed among good men.  He also became a very good fisherman, and could
often be seen paddling about and throwing minced fish meat into the water and
fishing on the bay under a pump-up Coleman lantern that hung from a branch
stepped where his mast should have been.  And the Jawas finally decided it was
not in their best interests to mess with Moluccans again, and Victor decided to
move the W line another few hundred miles west to the old Wallace line, where
it has remained ever since, much to the everlasting relief of the peoples of
Celebes, Timor, and all islands to the east.

Under Dr. Hatututu the old city of Amboina went through many transformations
that warmed the hearts of the people.  The Javanese, Bugis, Butonese, and
Sumatrans who had converted one of the world's most beautiful towns to one of
its most densely populated and smelliest slums were sent their several ways
home, and the Ancient fort, Victoria, was slowly rebuilt.  The Javanese
oppressors had purposefully allowed it to decay in order to break the spirit
of the people, but now the slums around it were cleared away so that it was
visible again, and the many breaches in the wall were being filled.  Needless
to say, the restoration of the old fort was especially exciting to Victor, who
had been named in its memory, and he was seen watching the work many times.
When the work was finally completed, new trees would be planted to replace the
ancient mango trees the Jawas had cut down.  No problem, victor thought, it
would look as if it had just had a crew haircut, but things would slowly grow
back out.  What was so wonderful about all these things was that things that
had been totally given up on as completely gone forever were now coming back
before their very eyes, and would be just as good and strong and beautiful as
they ever had been in spite of all Java had done.

Another interesting historical development was the reopening of Ambon harbor
to Bugis and Butonese sailing vessels.  After Karibo's line had been moved
west to coincide with the natural biological line described by the great
English naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, Makassar (Ujung Pandang had by this
time defiantly reverted to its original name) lay east of the line so that the
traditional Bugis and Butonese sailing vessels were free to enter and leave
the Moluccas as before.  And now, as the harbor area was cleaned up and
restored, the forest of masts, and the great hum of activity along the water,
and the great diversity of the many vessels and their crews was something to
behold.

Then, after some time, Charley Levinson received a communication from Dr.
Hatututu, inviting him to return for a visit to Ambon, which of course he
could hardly resist.  So taking his bright young daughter, Bliss, who was
about seven or so, he kissed Esther farewell, and boarded a plane for Biak
(now also part of the Papuan Empire) and Ambon.  It was his first face-to-face
meeting with Dr. Hatututu, and so he was on best behavior as soon as the plane
was down at Laha.  Dr. Hatututu drove him slowly round the bay, touching on
various topics in a very congenial manner, interrupted from time to time by
excited observations from little Bliss, and the two men soon became
inseparable friends.  Driving through old Ambon, Charley noted many empty
stores and houses, and Dr. Hatututu spoke of the great difficulty the Ambon
people had had in getting all the foreigners repatriated with the poor
cooperation they had received from Jakarta.  "Victor Manuhutu had to get on
the radio and threaten to blow up Surabaya before we could get a single ship
of theirs to come pick up anyone," he said, "and then it wasn't until Wantok
actually flew over Surabaya and took out thirty-five of their planes that
anything ever showed up.  We gave them a special route through which they
could pass at a certain time in order not to be blown up by our subs.  The
ship was so old and leaky that we doubted whether it would even be able to get
as far as Makassar, but we dutifully packed it with about 3,000 people and
sent it on its way.  I think they were hoping it would go down somewhere to
show the world what inhumane savages we really are, but somehow it made it
okay.  Needless to say, it has taken many months even to get where we are now,
but at least we now have cleaner air."

Dr. Hatututu drove them up to his house at Manga Dua, where Charley and Bliss
were introduced to Mrs. Hatututu.  She was a matronly woman with a ready
smile, and quickly became Bliss' friend.

"I'm going fishing tonight," said the Dr.  "I hear you used to be an avid
fisherman yourself."

"True," said Charley, but that was a long time ago.

"Well," said Dr. Hatututu, you may come with me if you wish.  My friend,
Sobang, parks his canoe next to mine, and I am sure he would be happy to let
you use his.  He is at Fakfak right now on Business, but we can ask his wife."

And so they did, and as it got dark, Charley and Dr. Hatututu drove down to
the beach near Gudang Arang, where the city had managed to clear some of the
trash away, and Charley stripped down to his shorts, took his paddle, and
launched.  He was surprised at the temperature of the water, having forgotten
the 84f feel.  Then he struck out boldly, feeling unused muscles spring back
to life, and found that he had lost nothing of his former water skills.
"Wait for me," Cried Dr. Hatututu.  He was getting a little old, and had a
funny little sort of waddle to the way he walked which, coupled with his ready
smile, had an endearing effect.  He soon had his Coleman lit and hanging from
its stick, and they were off across the most wonderful piece of water in the
world--the dead calm waters of Ambon Bay, with twinkling lights here and
there.  This was truly the home of the brave, if there ever was one, thought
Charley, and its memory would never die in poetry and song.

As Dr. Hatututu came up with him, the two men held their outrigger struts
even, progressing smoothly outward from the land.  "You know," said Dr.
Hatututu, "I lived many years in the Netherlands, where my practice gave me
everything of this world's goods, but only after returning to Ambon have I
come to realize a great truth:  A Moluccan without his canoe is no real
Moluccan at all."

Then glancing up straight ahead, Charley saw a fisherman's white Coleman light
reflected in the shimmering water somewhere ahead, and beyond it the black
outline of the Leihitu range, still blacker than the blackness of the night,
and he felt the warmness of the water as it flowed smoothly over his paddle
blade hand, and there was a response in the depths of his soul.  "I know," he
said.

Two days later Dr. Hatututu told him would be busy, and offered him the keys
of his car.  "Take a spin round the bay with your daughter," he said, "and see
if you can recognize any of the old sites.

So Charley and Bliss got into the car with a lunch packed by Mrs. Hatututu,
and began to drive.  "Why don't little children wear any clothes here, Daddy,"
Bliss asked.

"Why should they?" asked Charley.

"Aren't they afraid of getting raped?  Mommy says we should never let people
see us without clothes on, and that little girls should never play outside
alone."

"This is Ambon," said her father.  Here things are different.  First of all,
nobody would touch any of those little boys and girls you see on the beaches.
But if they did, they would probably never get home alive."

"You mean people would kill them?" asked Bliss.

"Probably."

"But isn't that murder?" persisted Bliss.

"Not in Ambon," Charley said.  Do something that is clearly wrong and you're
dead.  Causes trouble sometimes but not nearly as much as the courts do in
America."

"That's GOOD," said Bliss, "I don't think people who mess with little kids
should be allowed to live."

"I wholeheartedly agree," said Charley, as they turned up the hill at Durian
Pata.

He drove on until they had nearly reached a place called Telaga Kodok, where
there were quite a few empty houses around.  Then Charley took the lunch, got
out, and told Bliss to follow.

They hiked down to a stream, where Charley saw that the land had been cleared
and the superb waterfall trashed.  Then they climbed the other side, and
walked across still more cleared land.

"Where are you going, Daddy?" asked Bliss.

"To a place I once found when I was a boy," said he, walking on.  They passed
through many cassava fields, and then up a little rise where there were a few
papaya trees, and at last the cultivated land gave out, and they entered an
area of alang-alang grass (kunai in New Guinea).  He had not dared hope to
find anything left untouched, and it probably wasn't, but it might be less
touched than he had supposed.  He took little Bliss on his back as they
climbed through the hills and he negotiated the alang-alang grass.  Then he
thought he recognized the place.  He had hunted there alone long ago, when the
area had been untouched by man.  He had known it was untouched because the
hack marks (Moluccans always carry bare swords with which they hack things as
they pass) had run out long before.  They descended a slope and entered a
tangle of trees and lesser growth by a stream.  Then they followed the little
stream awhile till they came to where it had cut the rock face.  There were
great mossy boulders everywhere, and the trees created an eerie twilight with
their bows.  Utter silence reigned, except for a faint buzzing of insects and
the occasional cry of a bird.

"Sit here sweetheart," he said, allaying her apprehensions with the familiar
appellation.  Then they opened the lunch, and they ate quietly, overcome with
the great loneliness and silence of the place.  The boulders looked exactly as
Charley remembered then, as if nothing had changed in the last fifty years.
Had the stream cut further into the rock?  An inch or so perhaps?  He doubted
it.

"This is a very ancient land," he said.  "I mean we now believe humans have
been here over sixty thousand years.  I once stopped here and sat quietly
fifty years ago, and I can't see anything different about any of the rocks or
trees now.  There is no way to know how many people have been here before, or
for that matter if I was the first human to ever set foot in this place.
Kalamata may have concealed himself here.  Loloho may have rested against that
boulder.

Little bliss was awed by her father's words, and imagined the spirits of
ancient men hovering or lurking there among the rocks.  Not that she was
afraid of them in any way.  But within herself she apprehended an indefinable
collective and ageless sorrow, almost as if she could hear those people long
dead speaking and yet not speaking, knowing yet not knowing, and being yet not
being, about her.  It was the identical thing her father had felt when he had
been there alone some fifty years before, a moment that would remain
indelibly burned into her memory for the rest of her life.  Charley knew what
the Hawaiians would have called it: the "mana'o" of those men or perhaps of
that place.  Was it the great "mana" of those rocks that had kept men from
desecrating their sanctity until now?  He wondered, and sitting quietly beside
his little daughter, he pondered again the history and destiny of the great
southern seas.

Charley believed that we ARE our memories.  "If I were to wipe your memory
clean," he would sometimes say to some surprised friend, "you would no longer
be YOU.  I might say your name, and you might hear the sound, but you would
have no idea what it meant.  Do you believe in reincarnation?  Do you remember
clearly what you were in past lives?   NO?  What you do not remember is not
you, therefore you never had a past life, and any such belief is merely
superstitious delusion.  You can never be anything but your memories, and you
can never get rid of your memories.  Therefore strive always to build the
finest memories, and to do things you will never regret, and your life will be
filled with joy, because people with bad memories live in hell."

The greatest difference between, say, the Polynesian mind and the Western mind
(if indeed either could be said to exist) is that the Polynesian has
experienced such moments as Charley Levinson and his daughter did many times,
and has in its semantic plane appropriate nodes linked to appropriate words
describing such experiences and the things that pertain to them.  The western
mind, on the other hand, apparently does not experience such things, and even
great anthropologists approach such concepts as "mana" very gingerly, and
often without ever really understanding what it means.

It is my hope that the "mana" of this book will live in the reader's mind, and
that he will be able to sense the "mana'o" of Emmerson at times when he/she is
alone with such things as the rocks, trees, and rivers that he loved when he
was with us in the New Guinea forests, and that his/her actions shall be
guided by the spirit, the principles, and the dauntless courage that guided
the Wantok Alliance through all its most terrifying times.

A slight breeze rustled in the branches, bringing with it a rush of cool air,
and although the temperature was 85f, little Bliss felt goose bumps on her
skin.  "Will we ever come here again, Daddy?" she asked.

"I don't know, little cockroach," he answered, suddenly aware of his own
mortality and the tenuousness and emptiness of life.  And taking her by the
hand, he stood and guided her slowly downstream.  "My life has flowed like
this mountain stream," he thought, "from untraceable origins, gnawing gently
but surely at the rocks of time, flowing through the undesecrated bowers of
truth and love, expressing itself quietly in a thousand sparkling cascades,
then slowing and losing all life and identity as it merges with the great
southern seas,"  But he never wrote these words or said them to his daughter.

"Victor Manuhutu has mentioned you often," said Dr. Hatututu, "and explained
to me the crucial role you have played.  Although you are white, and come
originally from a distant land, I must surely see you as my brother and fellow
Moluccan.  Is there anything I might do as a token of our love to you?"

"There is one thing," said Charley.  I was raised at Kate-Kate, on the inner
bay.  If there were anything of Ambon i might wish to possess it would be
Kate-Kate."

Dr. Hatututu was at first surprised at this suggestion, but the more he
thought about it, the more he realized that it was not unreasonable at all.
Without this one simple, honest, faithful man, Jakarta would certainly still
hold this land in a grip of iron.  It was so incongruous that it was hard to
believe, and yet clearly true.  A lesser man might have thought, "We never
asked you to help us," but not Dr. Hatututu.  "It shall be even so," he said.

So they drove out to Kate-Kate to see what remained.  This hurt Charley so
much that he could scarce bear to look.  The whole front of the place had been
built over with private homes that backed on the sea so that there was not a
glimpse of the water anywhere.  "Take them down, " Charley said.  "These
people are here because they were crowded out of their old homes in Amboina.
Bring them back to Amboina and compensate them by giving them houses vacated
by the foreigners that have left our land."

And so Dr. Hatututu did, clearing people from all the original land of
Kate-Kate so that when Charley returned it would be his own.

Then Charley returned to Honolulu, and talked to Esther.  "I know that you
love your home.  This is rightfully so.  Manoa is one of the finest valleys
anywhere in the world.  But perhaps you could learn to love Kate-Kate.
Kate-Kate is one of the most beautiful places in the world.  You could rent
your home out and periodically return."

And to his surprise, Esther, who by now had learned to truly trust Charley
Levinson's judgment, agreed.  They all returned to Ambon, where the land had
been cleared, and Charley began the decades-long process of restoration.  This
must be what it is like, he thought to himself, to clean up after one of
Emmerson's attacks.  The place had been utterly devastated.  But Esther grew
to love Kate-Kate, and so did little Bliss, who had never experienced such
freedom to go places and do things unsupervised before.  And Esther grew to
love and trust the human dignity of the Moluccan people so much that she even
allowed her precious daughter to return to their houses with the village
children, where she spent many happy nights with her friends--just like her
father had when he had been a blond-haired boy.  Bliss grew to become an
excellent swimmer and diver and steersman, and in later years became known as
the Flower of the Eastern Forests.  And no man dared approach her without her
consent anywhere in any of those thousand islands because the Moluccans would
simply have killed him.

But before ending this tale, I feel compelled to narrate the last meeting that
ever took place between Emmerson, Charley Levinson, Karibo, and the leaders of
the Wantok Alliance.  Emmerson was asked to stand before the council, and
Victor Manuhutu, acting in his official capacity as military leader of the now
much feared Wantok Alliance, delivered the following oration:

"This machine is the noblest, strongest, wisest, gentlest, and most courageous
being I have ever known.  Attack any one of us and he will outmaneuver,
outsmart, and outfight you until he burns to carbon or you die.  He found me
while as yet I and my people were pressed to our knees by the minions of
Jakarta, led me like a child on foot across one thousand miles of New Guinea
wilderness, and instructed me til I became the man that I now am.  With him I
fought at Timika, Jayapura, Manam,Gag, and Ambon, and without him Wantok would
not be."

Then the Emperor, Karibo of Papua said, "Through the wisdom I have learned
from this machine I walk freely among my people while the tyrants of the earth
remain imprisoned among their own body guards.  He has defended me, counseled
me, and taught me almost everything I know.  Like Victor, I have fought with
him in battle after battle, and seen him destroy our enemies in terrible
sheets of flame.  He has learned my native language, and speaks to me as
clearly as one of my own.  He has been with me through many happy hours, and I
treasure his friendship above all pleasure."

And Emmerson said, "My work is done.  The time has come for me to go.  We are
our memories, and my memories are you.  In ten thousand years I shall see you
as plainly as I see you now, and love you as I have loved you from the start.
I bring you with me ever in my heart."

Then the Members of the council and Charley Levinson rose, and the heads of
state of Maluku, Papua, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, and New Caledonia and
the many other council members shouted, "Long live the Alliance!  Long live
Emmerson!"

And there were tears in the eyes of the leaders of Wantok as they left the
council chambers, and the people heard it, and a great silence fell upon the
land.  And the people of the upper Sepik heard it and bowed, and drums were
heard along the length of that mighty river, and along the reaches of the
mighty Mamberano.