Tower of Glass

12

“Enough,” Krug said. “It gets cold. Now we go down.”

The scooprods descended. Snowflakes were beginning to swirl about the tower; the repellor field at the summit deflected them, sending them cascading off at a broad angle. It was impossible to run proper weather control here, because of the need to keep the tundra constantly frozen. A good thing, Krug thought, that androids didn’t mind working in the snow.

Manuel said, “We’re leaving, father. We’re booked into the New Orleans shunt room for a week of ego shifts.”

Krug scowled. “I wish to hell you’d stop that stuff.”

“Where’s the harm, father? To swap identities with your own true friends? To spend a week in somebody else’s soul? It’s harmless. It’s liberating. It’s miraculous. You ought to try it!”

Krug spat.

“I’m serious,” Manuel said. “It would pull you out of yourself a little. That morbid concentration on the problems of high finance, that intense and exhausting fascination with interstellar communications, the terrible strain on your neural network that comes from—”

“Go on,” Krug said. “Go. Change your minds all around. I’m busy.”

“You wouldn’t even consider shunting, father?”

“It’s quite pleasant,” said Nick Ssu-ma. He was Krug’s favorite among his son’s friends, and amiable Chinese boy with close-cropped blond hair and an easy smile. “It gives you a splendid new perspective on all human relationships.”

“Try it once, just once,” Jed Guilbert offered, “and I promise that you’ll never—”

“Quicker than that I take up swimming on Jupiter,” said Krug. “Go. Go. Be happy. Shunt all you like. Not me.”

“I’ll see you next week, father.”

Manuel and his friends sprinted toward the transmat. Krug rammed his knuckles together and stood watching the young men run. He felt a tremor of something close to envy. He had never had time for any of these amusements. There had always been work to do, a deal to close, a crucial series of lab tests to oversee, a meeting with the bankers, a crisis in the Martian market. While others gaily jumped into stasis nets and exchanged egos for week-long trips, he had built a corporate empire, and now it was too late for him to give himself up to the pleasures of the world. So what, he told himself fiercely. So what? So I’m a nineteenth-century man in a twenty-third-century body. So I’ll get along without shunt rooms. Anyway, who would I trust inside my head? What friend would I swap egos with? Who, who, who? He realized that there was hardly anyone. Manuel, perhaps. It might be helpful to do a shunt with Manuel. We’d get to understand each other better, maybe. Give up some of our extreme positions, move toward a meeting in the middle. He’s not all wrong about how he lives. I’m not all right. See things with each other’s eyes, maybe? But at once Krug recoiled from the idea. A father-son ego shift seemed almost incestuous. There were things he didn’t want to know about Manuel. There certainly were things he didn’t want Manuel to know about him. To swap identities, even for a moment, was out of the question. But what about Thor Watchman, then, as a shunt partner? The alpha was admirably sane, competent, trustworthy; in many ways Krug was closer to him than to any other living person; he could not think of any secrets that he had kept from Watchman; if he intended to sample the shunt experience at all, he might find it useful and informative to—

Shocked, Krug crushed the thought. Trade egos with anandroid ?

He said quickly to Niccolт Vargas, “Do you have some time, or you have to get back to the observatory right away?”

“There’s no rush.”

“We can go to the ultrawave lab now. They just set up a small working model of the prime-level accumulator. You’ll be interested.” They began to walk across the crisp, mossy tundra. A crew of gammas came by, driving snoweaters. After a moment Krug said, “You ever try the shunt room?”

Vargas chuckled. “I’ve spent seventy years calibrating my mind so I can use it properly. I’m not that eager to let somebody get into it and change all the settings.”

“Exactly. Exactly. These games are for the very young. We—”

Krug paused. Two alphas, a male and a female, had emerged from a transmat and were walking rapidly toward him. He did not recognize them. The male wore a dark tunic open at the throat, the female a short gray robe. A glittering emblem, radiating energy up and down the spectrum in steady pulsations, was affixed to the right breast of each. As they drew close, Krug was able to see the letters AEP at the center of the emblem. Political agitators? No doubt. And he was caught out here in the open, forced to listen to their spiel. What splendid timing! Where’s Spaulding, he wondered? Leon will get them out of here fast enough.

The male alpha said, “How fortunate we are to find you here, Mr. Krug. For some weeks we have sought an appointment with you, but it proved unattainable, and so we have come — I should introduce myself, first. Forgive me. I am Siegfried Fileclerk, certified field representative of the Android Equality Party, as no doubt you have already discovered by these emblems. My companion is Alpha Cassandra Nucleus, AEP district secretary. If we might have just a word with you—”

“—concerning the forthcoming session of the Congress, and the proposed constitutional amendment dealing with the civil rights of synthetic persons,” said Cassandra Nucleus.

Krug was astounded by the audacity of the pair. Anyone, even an android of another employ, was free to come here via transmat. But to accost him like this, to bedevil him with politics — incredible!

Siegfried Fileclerk said, “Our boldness in approaching you directly is the outgrowth of the seriousness of our concern. To define the place of the android in the modern world is no slight challenge, Mr. Krug.”

“And you, as the central figure in the manufacture of synthetic persons,” said Cassandra Nucleus, “hold the key role in determining the future of the synthetic person in human society. Therefore we request you—”

“Synthetic persons?” Krug said, incredulous. “Is that what you call yourselves now? Are you crazy, telling me such things? Me? Whose androids are you, anyway?”

Siegfried Fileclerk stumbled back a pace, as though the vehemence of Krug’s tone had shattered his amazing self-confidence, as though the enormity of what he was trying to do had burst upon his mind at last. But Cassandra Nucleus remained poised. The slender alpha female said coolly, “Alpha Fileclerk is registered with the Property Protection Syndicate of Buenos Aires, and I am a modulator assigned to Labrador Transmat General. However, we are both in free-time periods at present, and by act of Congress 2212 it is legitimate for us when off duty to carry on overt political activity on behalf of the rights of synthetic persons. If you would grant us only a short while to explain the text of our proposed constitutional amendment, and to indicate why we feel it is appropriate for you to take a public position in favor of—”

“Spaulding!” Krug roared. “Spaulding, where are you? Get these maniac androids away from me!”

He saw no sign of Spaulding. The ectogene had wandered off on some sort of inspection tour of the site perimeter while Krug had gone to the tower’s summit.

Cassandra Nucleus drew a glistening data cube from the bosom of her robe. Holding it toward Krug, she said, “The essence of our views is contained in this. If you—”

“Spaulding!”

This time Krug’s shout conjured up the ectogene. He came from the northern part of the site at a frenzied gallop, with Thor Watchman running more smoothly beside him. As he approached, Cassandra Nucleus showed alarm for the first time: in agitation she tried to press the data cube into Krug’s hand. Krug glared at it as if it were a psych-bomb. They struggled briefly. To his surprise he found the android female in his arms, in a curious counterfeit of a passionate embrace, though she was only attempting to give him the cube. He caught her by one shoulder and pushed her away from him, holding her at arm’s length. An instant later Leon Spaulding drew a small shining needler and fired a single bolt that penetrated Cassandra Nucleus’ breast precisely in the center of her AEP emblem. The female alpha went spinning backward and fell without uttering a sound. The data cube bounced along the frozen earth; Siegfried Fileclerk, moaning, snatched it up. With a terrible cry of anguish Thor Watchman slapped the needler from Spaulding’s hand and with a single thrust of his fist sent the ectogene toppling. Niccolт Vargas, who had looked on silently since the arrival of the two alphas, knelt beside Cassandra Nucleus, examining her wound.

“Idiot!” Krug cried, glaring at Spaulding.

Watchman, hovering over the fallen Spaulding, muttered, “You could have killed Krug! She wasn’t a meter away from him when you fired! Barbarian! Barbarian!”

“She’s dead,” Vargas said.

Siegfried Fileclerk began to sob. A ring of workmen, betas and gammas, collected at a safe distance and looked on in terror. Krug felt the world whirling about his head.

“Why did you shoot?” he asked Spaulding.

Trembling, Spaulding said, “You were in danger — they said there were assassins—”

“Political agitators,” Krug said, eyeing him with contempt. “She was only trying to give me some propaganda for android equality.”

“I was told—” Shivering, crumpled, Spaulding hid his face.

“Idiot!”

Watchman said hollowly, “It was an error. An unfortunate coincidence. The report that was brought to us—”

“Enough,” Krug said. “An android’s dead. I’ll take responsibility. She said she belonged to Labrador Transmat General; Spaulding, get in touch with their lawyers and — no, you aren’t in shape to do anything now. Watchman! Notify our legal staff that Labrador Transmat has the basis for a tort action against us, destruction of android, and that we admit culpability and are willing to settle. Tell counsel to do what has to be done. Then get somebody from staff working on a press statement. Regrettable accident, that kind of thing. No political overtones. Clear?”

“What shall I do with the body?” Watchman asked. “Regular disposal procedures?”

“The body belongs to Labrador Transmat,” said Krug. “Freeze it for them. Hold it pending claim.” To Spaulding he said, “Get up. I’m due in New York now. You come with me.”