“Zadoc, the mechanical thing, reactivated. He—it—released me while they were in another chamber one afternoon … perhaps vivisecting some other poor victim, like a rabbit. I was torn. I was bandaged. But I fled, as fast and as far as I could in that state. I owe my life to the mercy of a machine!”
“Machines that have mercy are hard to think of as machines,” Lloyd replied. “The question is, did you escape or were you allowed to escape?”
“I have wondered that myself ever since,” St. Ives rasped, still blinking. “But … are you not horrified by all that I have told you?”
“I see hope in what you have said—as well as horror,” Lloyd replied. “It may be that what happened to you had been planned. Still, it somehow sounds that it did not go quite according to their plan. If things can go against their desires in the heart of their control, that reassures me. And I think it a very encouraging sign that they are worried about physical survival.”
“You, young sir”—the gambler shrugged, and then could not control a crest of emotion—“are the son I’ve never had. Always raising the ante. And then some.”
“You taught me what an ante was,” Lloyd replied.
“Friends always?” St. Ives said, offering up his mechanical hand once more.
“Partners,” Lloyd answered, squeezing down on the metal digits. “This is the biggest mystery of all. Why do you think they gave it to you?”
“Who can say?” the gambler grumbled, a storm of anger and grief filling his eyes. “I would not rule out pure cruelty as their motive. I sensed it in them. Some conspiracy of hatred. A mania. What does your intuition say?”
Lloyd frowned and then stared out across the river to a stand of cottonwoods. “I feel that they are one … a different kind of creature than we are familiar with. Of one mind. I sense this being or beast is some holdover from long ago … and I feel some shadowy sympathy with all that you have related, which raises the question whether I am in fact who I believe myself to be—or as young as I appear.”
“But you are just a child! A boy!”
“Am I? I know how many syllables you have spoken in the last minute. Give me the materials and a bit of time, and I could make this hand. But that is not all. Do you see the dog I am thinking of? Boomer. That was my old dog, buried back in Zanesville. Smell his ragged blanket.”
“Oh …” The gambler shivered, seeing in his mind … smelling … “How did you do that?”
“I cannot say,” Lloyd answered. “It has something to do with the rapport we have. This is one of the reasons we have done so well at the tables. Seeing the others’ cards through my eyes. It is a species of communication like unto the cube you discovered, but the mechanisms that underlie it are obscure to me. I’m now thinking of a number between one and one thousand. What is it?”
“What?” the gambler squawked caught off guard. “Uh, seventy-three.”
“Correct,” Lloyd replied. “The odds are very long against you getting that right. I suspect you may have hidden talents, Mr. St. Ives, which is why we work so well. That may have something to do with why you were chosen. And it may provide some hint as to their larger purpose. You said you could not see the gathering’s mosaic diagram whole and clear, yet they or it can. Perhaps the adversary is working to a plan we cannot perceive … and we are a part of that plan. The hunger for human form may be part of the struggle to endure so as to fulfill that plan. What I find puzzling is that your hand is a baser technology than what you described in the female you were offered. If they can cultivate a fully fleshed human, real enough for you to find attractive, why bother with these metal joints and hinges?”
“Well, the hand is useful.” The gambler shrugged. “For years I hid it in a glove and loathed it. Resented the sensation of being able to direct it. I have no idea how I am able to make it work. It is a part of me, though.”
“To graft nerves onto raw metal is no small feat,” the boy agreed. “But this may be another hopeful sign—that they have had to become more mechanically ingenious because of some other lack. In any case, you