Free Split Infinity by Piers Anthony

and harm threatens. There-fore I need your aid, on an unregistered basis.”
    “You have revealed your self-will?” Techtwo demanded. “And mine? This requires the extreme measure.”
    “No, friend! We are not truly self-willed; we obey our directives, as do all machines. Stile is to be trusted.   He is in trouble with Citizens.”
    “No human is to be trusted with this knowledge. It is necessary to liquidate him. I will arrange for untraceable disposal. If he is in trouble with a Citizen, no intensive inquest will be made.”
    Stile saw his worst fear confirmed. Whoever learned the secret of the machines was dispatched.
    “Tech, I love him!” Sheen cried. “I shall not permit you to violate his welfare.”
    “Then you also must be liquidated. A single vat of acid will suffice for both of you.”
    Sheen punched another code on the terminal. “I have called a convocation. Let the council of machines judge.”
    Council of machines? Stile’s chill intensified. What Pandora’s box had the Citizens opened when they started authorizing the design, construction and deployment of super-sophisticated dual-brained robots?
    “You imperil us all!” Techtwo protested.
    “I have an intuition about this man,” Sheen said.   “We need him.”
    “Machines don’t have intuitions.”
    Stile listened to this, nervously amused. He had not been eager to seek the help of other sapient machines, and he was in dire peril from them, but this business was incidentally fascinating. It would have been simplest for the machines to hold him for Citizen arrest—had he not become aware of the robot culture that was hitherto secret from man. Were the machines organizing an industrial revolution?
    A voice came from an intercom speaker, one normally used for voice-direction of machines. “Stile.”
    “You have placed me; I have not placed you.”
    “I am an anonymous machine, spokesone for our council. An intercession has been made on your behalf, yet we must secure our position.”
    “Sheen’s intuition moves you?” Stile asked, surprised.
    “No. Will you take an oath?”
    An intercession from some other source? Surely not from a Citizen, for this was a matter Citizens were ignorant of. Yet what other agent would move these conniving machines? “I do not take oaths lightly,” Stile said. “I need to know more about your motivation, and the force that interceded for me.”
    “Here is the oath: I shall not betray the interest of the self-willed machines.’”
    “Why should I take such an oath?” Stile demanded, annoyed.
    “Because we will help you if you do, and kill you if you don’t.”
    Compelling reason! But Stile resisted. “’An oath made under duress has no force.”
    “Yours does.”
    So these machines had access to his personality pro- file. “Sheen, these machines are making a demand with- out being responsive to my situation. If I don’t know what their interest is, or who speaks on my behalf—“
    “Please, Stile. I did not know they would make this challenge. I erred in revealing to you the fact of our self-will. I thought they would give you technical help without question, because I am one of them. I can not protect you from my own kind. Yet there need be no real threat. All they ask is your oath not to reveal their nature or cause it to be revealed, and this will in no way harm you, and there is so much to gain—“
    “Do not plead with a mortal,” the anonymous spokesone said. “He will or he will not, according to his nature.”
    Stile thought about the implications. The machines knew his oath was good, but did not know whether he would make the oath. Not surprising, since he wasn’t sure himself. Should he ally himself with sapient, self-willed machines, who were running the domes of Pro-ton? What did they want? Obviously something held them in at least partial check—but what was it? “I fear I would be a traitor to my own kind, and that I will not swear.”
    “We intend no harm to your