01 Taxilas Children

TAXILA'S CHILDREN
"Now, we're making progress. I know you can't understand a word I am saying but that
doesn't matter. Just so long as you don't run off and leave me to starve to death. Oh woman!
How can I tell you I'm hungry?"
He said all this with many nods and an equal number of squeezes of her hand, while still
wearing his most dazzling and winsome smile. She flushed a little and smiled in return and
she didn't try to pull her hand away. If she had been a few years younger and he had been
feeling a good bit stronger, he might have tried to take advantage. Sober reflection told him
that wouldn't have been a good idea. There was no way of telling where that might lead on a
strange planet inhabited by catlike aliens. In another way, he was encouraged, there couldn't
be much wrong with him, if he was getting randy.
She disengaged her hand gently, hesitated for a moment and then hurried from the room. It
looked as if his fatal attraction wasn't overwhelming after all. He lifted his head to look
around again. He spotted the Bole standing neatly in one corner. His heart began to race - he
hadn't lost his mechanical marvel! It had survived the vortex, even as he had survived the
vortex. His unknown hosts hadn't abandoned it as a useless piece of metal. There was only
one way of finding out whether it had suffered as a result of its unorthodox journey. He
cleared his throat and tried to steady his voice to something that sounded like his former
robust and manly tone.
"Activate!"
The Bole remained silent as if considering the command. The small glimmer bulb on the
top surface blinked.
"Status."
"Integrity."
He relaxed, there was no reason to suppose that the Bole wasn't fully operational. It had
infinite capabilities and a nuclear power pack for use when it wasn't plugged in to any other
source. Its memory was sub-atomic, where the status of the electron, positive or negative, was
the equivalent of a binary bit of information. It was a mine of information on subjects ranging
from astro-navigation, space-time, advanced mathematics and kindred subjects - to the
correction of spelling and punctuation.
The Bole was also the most supercilious, smart-arsed, ego-deflating contraption ever
devised by one man to plague another. Just at that moment, however, he was glad of the
company.
"What happened to me?"
"Insufficient data to formulate an answer."
He sighed, there was nothing much wrong with it. They were back to the usual footing. He
would ask perfectly reasonable questions and it would give a perfectly unreasonable answers.
"It wouldn't occur to you to try to guess?"
"Insufficient data to formulate an answer."
He complained unreasonably.
"Have you been unconscious or something?"
"With the exception of in-built time circuits and other essential functions, I have been
deactivated."
Steve tried again.
"I have been deactivated, as you call it and I want to know for how long!"
He had raised his voice without realising it. It was a pity that the woman chose that precise
moment to return, just as the Bole was giving one of its more elaborate answers.
"My internal data-log indicates that the moment of disconnection prior to the
discontinuation of the time-line on the originating planet, was 296.1.2.19.31. In-built time
registers are 296.4.28.18.10. Mathematical calculation indicates an elapsed earth-time of
three months, twenty-six days, one hour, twenty-one minutes."
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