We, Robots

by Simon Ings

  I don’t say, I wear your armor because, in my dreams, I’m still pounding on the glass.

  (2014)

  MASKS

  Damon Knight

  Though his output was modest, Damon Francis Knight (1922–2002) was one of America’s leading critics, editors and writers of science fiction. He was a member of the Futurians, a group which included Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, C. M. Kornbluth and James Blish, and in 1956, with Blish and Judith Merril, he started the Milford Writers’ Conference, still the most important gathering for established science fiction writers. He also edited the Orbit anthologies (21 volumes between 1966 and 1980), a series which launched many writers of the New Wave. Knight was married three times. His third wife, Gertrude Meredith, was the sf writer Kate Wilhelm, who died in 2018. Of Knight’s work – by turns mature, surreal, melancholy, and funny – the editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden wrote, “He had a wry but not entirely pessimistic view of human nature. I don’t think anybody that works that hard to get other people to do better work is fundamentally a pessimist.”

  The eight pens danced against the moving strip of paper, like the nervous claws of some mechanical lobster. Roberts, the technician, frowned over the tracings while the other two watched.

  “Here’s the wake-up impulse,” he said, pointing with a skinny finger. “Then here, look, seventeen seconds more, still dreaming.”

  “Delayed response,” said Babcock, the project director. His heavy face was flushed and he was sweating. “Nothing to worry about.”

  “Okay, delayed response, but look at the difference in the tracings. Still dreaming, after the wake-up impulse, but the peaks are closer together. Not the same dream. More anxiety, more motor pulses.”

  “Why does he have to sleep at all?” asked Sinescu, the man from Washington. He was dark, narrow-faced. “You flush the fatigue poisons out, don’t you? So what is it, something psychological?”

  “He needs to dream,” said Babcock. “It’s true he has no physiological need for sleep, but he’s got to dream. If he didn’t, he’d start to hallucinate, maybe go psychotic.”

  “Psychotic,” said Sinescu. “Well—that’s the question, isn’t it? How long has he been doing this?”

  “About six months.”

  “In other words, about the time he got his new body—and started wearing a mask?”

  “About that. Look, let me tell you something, he’s rational. Every test—”

  “Yes, okay, I know about tests. Well—so he’s awake now?”

  The technician glanced at the monitor board. “He’s up. Sam and Irma are with him.” He hunched his shoulders, staring at the EEG tracings again. “I don’t know why it should bother me. It stands to reason, if he has dream needs of his own that we’re not satisfying with the programmed stuff, this is where he gets them in.” His face hardened. “I don’t know. Something about those peaks I don’t like.”

  Sinescu raised his eyebrows. “You program his dreams?”

  “Not program,” said Babcock impatiently. “A routine suggestion to dream the sort of thing we tell him to. Somatic stuff, sex, exercise, sport.”

  “And whose idea was that?”

  “Psych section. He was doing fine neurologically, every other way, but he was withdrawing. Psych decided he needed that somatic input in some form, we had to keep him in touch. He’s alive, he’s functioning, everything works. But don’t forget, he spent forty-three years in a normal human body.”

  *

  In the hush of the elevator, Sinescu said, “… Washington.”

  Swaying, Babcock said, “I’m sorry, what?”

  “You look a little rocky. Getting any sleep?”

  “Not lately. What did you say before?”

  “I said they’re not happy with your reports in Washington.”

  “Goddamn it, I know that.” The elevator door silently opened. A tiny foyer, green carpet, gray walls. There were three doors, one metal, two heavy glass. Cool, stale air. “This way.”

  Sinescu paused at the glass door, glanced through: a gray-carpeted living room, empty. “I don’t see him.”

  “Around the ell. Getting his morning checkup.”

  The door opened against slight pressure; a battery of ceiling lights went on as they entered. “Don’t look up,” said Babcock. “Ultraviolet.” A faint hissing sound stopped when the door closed.

  “And positive pressure in here? To keep out germs? Whose idea was that?”

  “His.” Babcock opened a chrome box on the wall and look out two surgical masks. “Here, put this on.”

  Voices came muffled from around the bend of the room. Sinescu looked with distaste at the white mask, then slowly put it over his head.

  They stared at each other. “Germs,” said Sinescu through the mask. “Is that rational?”

  “All right, he can’t catch a cold or what have you, but think about it a minute. There are just two things now that could kill him. One is a prosthetic failure, and we guard against that; we’ve got five hundred people here, we check him out like an airplane. That leaves a cerebrospinal infection. Don’t go in there with a closed mind.”

  The room was large, part living room, part library, part workshop. Here was a cluster of Swedish-modern chairs, a sofa, coffee table; here a workbench with a metal lathe, electric crucible, drill press, parts bins, tools on wallboards; here a drafting table; here a free-standing wall of bookshelves that Sinescu fingered curiously as they passed. Bound volumes of project reports, technical journals, reference books; no fiction except for Fire and Storm by George Stewart and The Wizard of Oz in a worn blue binding. Behind the bookshelves, set into a little alcove, was a glass door through which they glimpsed another living room, differently furnished: upholstered chairs, a tall philodendron in a ceramic pot. “There’s Sam,” Babcock said.

  A man had appeared in the other room. He saw them, turned to call to someone they could not see, then came forward, smiling. He was bald and stocky, deeply tanned. Behind him, a small, pretty woman hurried up. She crowded through after her husband, leaving the door open. Neither of them wore a mask.

  “Sam and Irma have the next suite,” Babcock said. “Company for him; he’s got to have somebody around. Sam is an old air-force buddy of his, and besides, he’s got a tin arm.

  The stocky man shook hands, grinning. His grip was firm and warm. “Want to guess which one?” He wore a flowered sport shirt. Both arms were brown, muscular and hairy, but when Sinescu looked more closely, he saw that the right one was a slightly different color, not quite authentic. Embarrassed, he said, “The left, I guess.”

  “Nope.” Grinning wider, the stocky man pulled back his right sleeve to show the straps.

  “One of the spin-offs from the project,” said Babcock. “Myoelectric, servo-controlled, weighs the same as the other one. Sam, they about through in there?”

  “Maybe so. Let’s take a peek. Honey, you think you could rustle up some coffee for the gentlemen?”

  “Oh, why, sure.” The little woman turned and darted back through the open doorway.

  The far wall was glass, covered by a translucent white curtain. They turned the corner. The next bay was full of medical and electronic equipment, some built into the walls, some in tall black cabinets on wheels. Four men in white coats were gathered around what looked like an astronaut’s couch. Sinescu could see someone lying on it: feet in Mexican woven-leather shoes, dark socks, gray slacks. A mutter of voices.

  “Not through yet,” Babcock said. “Must have found something else they didn’t like. Let’s go out onto the patio a minute.”

  “Thought they checked him at night—when they exchange his blood, and so on…?”

  “They do,” Babcock said. “And in the morning, too.” He turned and pushed open the heavy glass door. Outside, the roof was paved with cut stone, enclosed by a green plastic canopy and tinted-glass walls. Here and there were concrete basins, empty. “Idea was to have a roof garden out here, something green, but he didn’t want it. We had to
take all the plants out, glass the whole thing in.”

  Sam pulled out metal chairs around a white table and they all sat down. “How is he, Sam?” asked Babcock.

  He grinned and ducked his head. “Mean in the mornings.”

  “Talk to you much? Play any chess?”

  “Not too much. Works, mostly. Reads some, watches the box a little.” His smile was forced; his heavy fingers were clasped together and Sinescu saw now that the fingertips of one hand had turned darker, the others not. He looked away.

  “You’re from Washington, that right?” Sam asked politely. “First time here? Hold on.” He was out of his chair. Vague upright shapes were passing behind the curtained glass door. “Looks like they’re through. If you gentlemen would just wait here a minute, till I see.” He strode across the roof. The two men sat in silence. Babcock had pulled down his surgical mask; Sinescu noticed and did the same.

  “Sam’s wife is a problem,” Babcock said, leaning nearer. “It seemed like a good idea at the time, but she’s lonely here, doesn’t like it—no kids—”

  The door opened again and Sam appeared. He had a mask on, but it was hanging under his chin. “If you gentlemen would come in now.”

  In the living area, the little woman, also with a mask hanging around her neck, was pouring coffee from a flowered ceramic jug. She was smiling brightly but looked unhappy. Opposite her sat someone tall, in gray shirt and slacks, leaning back, legs out, arms on the arms of his chair, motionless. Something was wrong with his face.

  “Well, now,” said Sam heartily. His wife looked up at him with an agonized smile.

  The tall figure turned its head and Sinescu saw with an icy shock that its face was silver, a mask of metal with oblong slits for eyes, no nose or mouth, only curves that were faired into each other… project.” said an inhuman voice.

  Sinescu found himself half bent over a chair. He sat down. They were all looking at him.

  The voice resumed, “I said, are you here to pull the plug on the project.” It was unaccented, indifferent.

  “Have some coffee.” The woman pushed a cup toward him.

  Sinescu reached for it, but his hand was trembling and he drew it back. “Just a fact-finding expedition,” he said.

  “Bull. Who sent you—Senator Hinkel.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Bull. He’s been here himself; why send you? If you are going to pull the plug, might as well tell me.” The face behind the mask did not move when he spoke; the voice did not seem to come from it.

  “He’s just looking around, Jim,” said Babcock.

  “Two hundred million a year,” said the voice, “to keep one man alive. Doesn’t make much sense, does it. Go on, drink your coffee.”

  Sinescu realized that Sam and his wife had already finished theirs and that they had pulled up their masks. He reached for his cup hastily.

  “Hundred percent disability in my grade is thirty thousand a year. I could get along on that easy. For almost an hour and a half.”

  “There’s no intention of terminating the project,” Sinescu said.

  “Phasing it out, though. Would you say phasing it out.”

  “Manners, Jim,” said Babcock.

  “Okay. My worst fault. What do you want to know.”

  Sinescu sipped his coffee. His hands were still trembling. “That mask you’re wearing,” he started.

  “Not for discussion. No comment, no comment. Sorry about that, don’t mean to be rude; a personal matter. Ask me something—” Without warning, he stood up, blaring, “Get that damn thing out of here!” Sam’s wife’s cup smashed, coffee brown across the table. A fawn-colored puppy was sitting in the middle of the carpet, cocking its head, bright-eyed, tongue out.

  The table tipped, Sam’s wife struggled up behind it. Her face was pink, dripping with tears. She scooped up the puppy without pausing and ran out. “I better go with her,” Sam said, getting up.

  “Go on; and, Sam, take a holiday. Drive her into Winnemucca, see a movie.”

  “Yeah, guess I will.” He disappeared behind the bookshelf wall.

  The tall figure sat down again, moving like a man; it leaned back in the same posture, arms on the arms of the chair. It was still. The hands gripping the wood were shapely and perfect but unreal: there was something wrong about the fingernails. The brown, well-combed hair above the mask was a wig; the ears were wax. Sinescu nervously fumbled his surgical mask up over his mouth and nose. “Might as well get along,” he said, and stood up.

  “That’s right, I want to take you over to Engineering and R and D,” said Babcock. “Jim, I’ll be back in a little while. Want to talk to you.”

  “Sure,” said the motionless figure.

  *

  Babcock had had a shower, but sweat was soaking through the armpits of his shirt again. The silent elevator, the green carpet, a little blurred. The air cool, stale. Seven years, blood and money, five hundred good men. Psych section, Cosmetic, Engineering, R and D, Medical, Immunology, Supply, Serology, Administration. The glass doors. Sam’s apartment empty, gone to Winnemucca with Irma. Psych. Good men, but were they the best? Three of the best had turned it down. Buried in the files. Not like an ordinary amputation, this man has had everything cut off.

  The tall figure had not moved. Babcock sat down. The silver mask looked back at him.

  “Jim, let’s level with each other.”

  “Bad, huh.”

  “Sure it’s bad. I left him in his room with a bottle. I’ll see him again before he leaves, but God knows what he’ll say in Washington. Listen, do me a favor, take that thing off.”

  “Sure.” The hand rose, plucked at the edge of the silver mask, lifted it away. Under it, the tan-pink face, sculptured nose and lips, eyebrows, eyelashes, not handsome but good-looking, normal-looking. Only the eyes wrong; pupils too big. And the lips that did not open or move when it spoke. “I can take anything off. What does that prove.”

  “Jim. Cosmetic spent eight and a half months on that model and the first thing you do is slap a mask over it. We’ve asked you what’s wrong, offered to make any changes you want.”

  “No comment.”

  “You talked about phasing out the project. Did you think you were kidding?”

  A pause. “Not kidding.”

  “All right, then open up, Jim, tell me; I have to know. They won’t shut the project down; they’ll keep you alive but that’s all. There are seven hundred on the volunteer list, including two U.S. senators. Suppose one of them gets pulled out of an auto wreck tomorrow. We can’t wait till then to decide; we’ve got to know now. Whether to let the next one die or put him into a TP body like yours. So talk to me.”

  “Suppose I tell you something but it isn’t the truth.”

  “Why would you lie?”

  “Why do you lie to a cancer patient.”

  “I don’t get it. Come on, Jim.”

  “Okay, try this. Do I look like a man to you.”

  “Sure.”

  “Bull. Look at this face.” Calm and perfect. Beyond the fake irises, a wink of metal. “Suppose we had all the other problems solved and I could go into Winnemucca tomorrow; can you see me walking down the street, going into a bar, taking a taxi.”

  “Is that all it is?” Babcock drew a deep breath. “Jim, sure there’s a difference, but for Christ’s sake, it’s like any other prosthesis—people get used to it. Like that arm of Sam’s. You see it, but after a while you forget it, you don’t notice.”

  “Bull. You pretend not to notice. Because it would embarrass the cripple.”

  Babcock looked down at his clasped hands. “Sorry for yourself?”

  “Don’t give me that,” the voice blared. The tall figure was standing. The hands slowly came up, the fists clenched. “I’m in this thing, I’ve been in it for two years. I’m in it when I go to sleep, and when I wake up, I’m still in it.”

  Babcock looked up at him. “What do you want, facial mobility? Give us twenty years, maybe ten, we’ll l
ick it.”

  “No. No.”

  “Then what?”

  “I want you to close down Cosmetic.”

  “But that’s—”

  “Just listen. The first model looked like a tailor’s dummy, so you spent eight months and came up with this one, and it looks like a corpse. The whole idea was to make me look like a man, the first model pretty good, the second model better, until you’ve got something that can smoke cigars and joke with women and go bowling and nobody will know the difference. You can’t do it, and if you could, what for?”

  “I don’t— Let me think about this. What do you mean, a metal—”

  “Metal, sure, but what difference does that make. I’m talking about shape. Function. Wait a minute.” The tall figure strode across the room, unlocked a cabinet, came back with rolled sheets of paper. “Look at this.”

  The drawing showed an oblong metal box on four jointed legs. From one end protruded a tiny mushroom-shaped head on a jointed stem and a cluster of arms ending in probes, drills, grapples. “For moon prospecting.”

  “Too many limbs,” said Babcock after a moment. “How would you—”

  “With the facial nerves. Plenty of them left over. Or here.” Another drawing. “A module plugged into the control system of a spaceship. That’s where I belong, in space. Sterile environment, low grav, I can go where a man can’t go and do what a man can’t do. I can be an asset, not a goddamn billion-dollar liability.”

  Babcock rubbed his eyes. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

  “You were all hipped on prosthetics. You would have told me to tend my knitting.”

  Babcock’s hands were shaking as he rolled up the drawings. “Well, by God, this just may do it. It just might.” He stood up and turned toward the door. “Keep your—” He cleared his throat. “I mean, hang tight, Jim.”