said Stan. “Say I did research and thought I was her uncle. I did have several very randy brothers, so it could even be true.”
I dashed off a courteous note to this strong personality, saying that I would give her the money and explain its origin in person shortly, and got back to work on my second-oldest computer, a Toshiba I had barely touched for a year.
It was hard, detailed going. And it put me under pressure, knowing that I only had the one disk left. I wished I had not left two with Dakros now. In fact I became harassed enough towards the end of that day to get through to the com number Dakros had given me and ask him to spare me another. The answer came back, a prompt and laconic fax:
Both disks melted.
Damn. And I really did not want to melt another computer. There seemed to be nothing for it but to cross my fingers and put the second disk in.
VIRUS DETECTED, announced the Toshiba.
I got the disk out quick, but at least I was on familiar ground here. I clicked my tongue at the paranoia of the Emperor and set about dismantling the virus. It was a magical implantation. It was like undoing old lace.
“Aren’t you going to eat today?” Stan asked a while later.
I looked up to find night had come, early, since it was early in the year, but time to stop for a bit. I made a cup of coffee while I wondered what to eat. Next thing I knew, I was in front of the Toshiba again. It was after midnight. But the virus had gone when I tried the disk.
“You’re getting obsessed with that Empire,” Stan warned me.
“Correction,” I said. “I’m obsessed with a computer problem. It’s not every day I get a magical virus.”
The third day, I actually got the program to copy and display. That was a relief, since I could now reshape some of my own disks and make backups. But it did me no good. All I could get on the screen was the statement that Timotheo was deleted and the perpetual PASSWORD REQUIRED. This was maddening, since I had been behind the scenes of it, so to speak, dealing with the virus, and ought to have been able to bypass the need for a password. But if I tried that, I got nothing at all. And I did not dare push, Magid fashion, for fear of another meltdown.
Stan heard me swearing and drifted into my workroom. “Give it a password then,” he said. “And when you’ve a moment, put me another music disc on, would you?”
“What’s the matter with Diabelli? Have you learnt it by heart?” I said.
“Every note,” he said, quite seriously. “I know Beethoven like a friend now.”
I put him on a choral medley, because that made a change, and got through to Dakros again. The reply was from the mage Jeffros:
Empire passwords are usually seven letters. We didn’t try many because the disks melted at every third mistake. But the High Lady Alexandra suspects the word may have been from a nursery rhyme.
A nursery rhyme! Well, Lady Alexandra was definitely not just a pretty face and the suggestion fitted, as we were dealing with children here. Empire nursery rhymes are not so different from Earth’s. They are one of the things we Magids put into circulation. But seven letters, like a mad hand of Scrabble, in any one of the fourteen languages spoken in the Empire! Actually I was full of hope as I went to set up one of my other computers to run through all the possibilities. I think my only problem was surprise that Timos IX knew such things as nursery rhymes existed.
Just then I heard Stan’s new music lustily bellowing, “In Babylon, the mighty city!”
It gave me a frisson. Babylon is one of the deep secrets of the Magids. But it was, for this reason, also a nursery rhyme. I went to the Toshiba and told it ‘BABYLON’.
It was right.
World maps began to unfold on the screen, Empire fashion, rippling with lines like isobars on weather charts, map after map, world after world, like half of Infinity. I leant back and watched them, wondering why the Emperor had chosen this particular password from this particular rhyme. Babylon was never a place in the Empire. After a while, a moving frieze of graphics appeared, humans and centaurs passing in profile across the shifting maps. They had the look of real people taken from photographs and they all seemed to be different, but it was hard to tell if they were intended to be meaningful or just an indication that the program was now truly running. Finally, the screen cleared. Letters said TYPE KNARROS.
I typed ‘KNARROS.’
NOW TYPE THE NAME OF MY GODDESS came the reply.
I turned frantically to the computer that held my Empire database, knowing I was going to be too late. “Stan!” I shouted. “Stan, what’s the name of the Emperor’s dismal goddess?”
“Can’t remember,” he shouted back across what seemed to be the Hallelujah Chorus. “Some damn great mouthful.”
I remembered it myself – Aglaia-Ualaia – just as the disk wiped.
“And that’s the man who knew every racehorse from 1935!” I said. “Well, at least I have backups.”
I did it all over again. By the early evening I was ready again, this time with a list of various other gods, heroes and historical personages from the Empire, just in case. I had developed a hearty respect for the Emperor’s paranoia. But it seemed that the name of his goddess was his last resort. I typed ‘KNARROS’ followed by ‘AGLAIA-UALAIA’ and a list came up.
KNARROS CODEWORLD LIXOS
FEMALE B. 3390 CODENAME NATHALIA
FEMALE B. 3390 CODENAME PHYSILLA
FEMALE B. 3400 CODENAME ANANTE
MALE B. 3401 CODENAME EKLOS
MALE B. 3402 CODENAME MAGRAKES
PLUS TWO MALE CENTAURS B. 3394 AND 3396
CODEWORLD BABYLON
FEMALE B. 3393 CODENAME TIMOAEA
MALE B. 3399 CODENAME JELLIERO
Each of the names was followed by clumps of letters, numbers and signs, which meant nothing to me, but which I supposed were the Empire’s version of blood groups or genetic codes or some such. The two lists were followed by the statement:
KNARROS WILL SUPPLY IDENTIFICATION AND
AUTHENTICATION OF HEIR(S) ONLY TO ACCREDITED
MESSENGER ON PROOF OF THE DEATH OF TIMOS IX
“Gotcha!” I said. I opened a bottle of wine to celebrate before I endeavoured to get through to Dakros on his com number. After the fun and games of the last few days, it was a simple matter to splice him into my telephone. I got him after half an hour, sounding far-off, crackly and very tired. “Two sets of them,” I said, “on two codenamed worlds.” I read him what they were.
He was nothing like as jubilant. “Who is this Knarros?”
“Some kind of guardian,
