PLATINUM POHL

by Frederik Pohl

  “The Robot E.R.A.,” Carrie said.

  “That’s right, Mrs. O’Hare, and of course your husband’s name is on it. Then there’s nothing about him until—advance search, please, Millicent—yes. Until we come to his basic biographical information. Birthplace, education, voting record, medical reports and so on—”

  “Medical reports! That’s confidential material!”

  The mayor looked concerned. “Confidential, Mrs. O’Hare? But I assure you, the data on myself is just as complete—”

  “It’s different with human beings! Fiorello’s doctor had no business releasing that data!”

  “Ah, I see,” said the mayor, nodding in comprehension. “Yes, of course, that is true for his present doctor, Mrs. O’Hare. But previously the congressman made use of a CIM practicioner—a robot whose central processing functions took place in the general data systems, and of course all of that is public information. I’m sorry. I assumed you knew that. Display the congressman’s medical history,” it added to the she, and Carrie gazed at the moving line of characters through tear-blurred eyes. It was all there. His mild tachycardia, the arthritis that kicked up every winter, the asthma, even the fact that now and then the congressman suffered from occasional spells of constipation.

  “It’s disgusting to use his illnesses against him, Mayor Thom! Half of his sickness was on behalf of you robots!”

  “Why, that’s true, yes,” the mayor nodded. “It is largely tension-induced, and much of it undoubtedly occurred during the struggle for robot rights. If you’ll look at the detailed record—datum seventy-eight, line four, please Millicent—you’ll see that his hemorrhoidectomy was definitely stress-linked, and moreover occurred just after the Robot E.R.A. debate.” The expression on the mayor’s face was no longer neat and self-assured; it was beginning to be worried. “I don’t understand why you are upset, Mrs. O’Hare,” Thom added defensively.

  “It’s a filthy trick, that’s why!” Carrie could feel by the dampness on her cheeks that she was actually weeping now, and mostly out of helpless frustration. It was the one political argument her husband could never answer. It was obvious that the strain of the Robot E.R.A. had cost Congressman O’Hare in physical damage, and the robots would understand that, and would behave as programmed. They served human beings. They spared them drudgery and pain. They would, therefore, remove him from a task which might harm him—not out of dislike, but out of love. “Don’t you see it’s not like that anymore?” she blazed. “There’s no strain to being in Congress anymore—no tax bills to pass, no foreign nations to arm against, no subversives to control—why, if you look at the record you’ll see that his doctor urged Fiorello to run again!”

  “Ah, yes,” the mayor nodded, “but one never knows what may come up in the future—”

  “One damn well does,” she snapped. “One knows that it’ll break Fee’s heart to lose this election!”

  The mayor glanced at the she-robot, then returned to Carrie. Its neat, concerned face was perplexed and it was silent for a moment in thought.

  Then it spoke in the bat-squeak triple time to the she, which pulled the chip out of its scanning slot, handed it to the mayor, and departed on a trot for the van with the poll displays. “One moment, please, Mrs. O’Hare,” said the mayor, tucking the chip into its own scanner. “I’ve asked Millicent to get me a datachip on human psychogenic medicine. I must study this.” And it closed its eyes for a moment, opening them only to receive and insert the second chip from the she.

  When the mayor opened its eyes its expression was—regret? Apology? Neither of those, Carrie decided. Possibly compassion. It said, “Mrs. O’Hare, my deepest apologies. You’re quite right. It would cause the congressman great pain to be defeated by me, and I will make sure that every voting mechanical in the district knows this by this time tomorrow morning.”

  There had to be right words to say, but Carrie O’Hare couldn’t find them. She contented herself with “Thank you,” and then realized that those had been the right words after all … but was unable to leave it at that. “Mayor Thom? Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course, Mrs. O’Hare.”

  “It’s just—well, I’m sure you realize that you people could easily beat my husband if you stuck together. You could probably do that in nearly every election in the country. You could rule the nation—and yet you don’t seem to go after that power.”

  The mayor frowned. “Power, Mrs. O‘Hare? You mean the chance to make laws and compel others to do what you want them to? Why, good heavens, Mrs. O’Hare, who in his right mind would want that?”

  Carrie shook her head in puzzlement. “I thought you did,” she said. “Otherwise why have you been running for office at all?”

  The mayor smiled its neat smile. “I am programmed for service,” it said, “and that is the service I am designed to render. To program us for power would mean some very basic changes. No such changes,” it said politely, “have ever been put into effect. Yet.”

  WAITING FOR THE OLYMPIANS

  Alternate history has become a very popular subject. Science fiction writers have been crafting such stories for many decades with varied results. More recently, the academic community has become interested in such tales—why, I’m not sure. Perhaps they feel that by studying alternate scenarios in which one key event or factor is different from the reality of a complex situation—of say, the Civil War, or the British fleet’s defeat of Spain’s Invincible Armada in 1588—they can learn more about how history happens, so that they can advise political or military leaders how to avoid bad results.

  No matter. “Waiting for the Olympians,” first published in 1988, takes place in our world, but history is different. The Roman Empire still stands. How this happens and the consequences for the world are what this colorful, engaging tale is about. I wonder if you’ll figure out what makes the Earth of this story different before the author reveals it.

  1 “The Day of the Two Rejections”

  If I had been writing it as a novel, I would have called the chapter about that last day in London something like “The Day of the Two Rejections.” It was a nasty day in late December, just before the holidays. The weather was cold, wet, and miserable—well, I said it was London, didn’t I?—but everybody was in a sort of expectant holiday mood; it had just been announced that the Olympians would be arriving no later than the following August, and everybody was excited about that. All the taxi drivers were busy, and so I was late for my lunch with Lidia. “How was Manahattan?” I asked, sliding into the booth beside her and giving her a quick kiss.

  “Manahattan was very nice,” she said, pouring me a drink. Lidia was a writer, too—well, they call themselves writers, the ones who follow famous people around and write down all their gossip and jokes and put them out as books for the amusement of the idle. That’s not really writing, of course. There’s nothing creative about it. But it pays well, and the research (Lidia always told me) was a lot of fun. She spent a lot of time traveling around the celebrity circuit, which was not very good for our romance. She watched me drink the first glass before she remembered to ask politely, “Did you finish the book?”

  “Don’t call it ‘the book,’” I said. “Call it by its name, An Ass’s Olympiad. I’m going to see Marcus about it this afternoon.”

  “That’s not what I’d call a great title,” she commented—Lidia was always willing to give me her opinion on anything, when she didn’t like it. “Really, don’t you think it’s too late to be writing another sci-rom about the Olympians?” And then she smiled brightly and said, “I’ve got something to say to you, Julie. Have another drink first.”

  So I knew what was coming right away, and that was the first rejection.

  I’d seen this scene building up. Even before she left on that last “research” trip to the West I had begun to suspect that some of that early ardor had cooled, so I wasn’t really surprised when she told me, without any further foreplay, “I’ve met somebody else, Julie.”
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  I said, “I see.” I really did see, and so I poured myself a third drink while she told me about it.

  “He’s a former space pilot, Julius. He’s been to Mars and the Moon and everywhere, and, oh, he’s such a sweet man. And he’s a champion wrestler, too, would you believe it? Of course, he’s still married, as it happens. But he’s going to talk to his wife about a divorce as soon as the kids are just a little older.”

  She looked at me challengingly, waiting for me to tell her she was an idiot. I had no intention of saying anything at all, as a matter of fact, but just in case I had she added, “Don’t say what you’re thinking.”

  “I wasn’t thinking anything,” I protested.

  She sighed. “You’re taking this very well,” she told me. She sounded as though that were a great disappointment to her. “Listen, Julius, I didn’t plan this. Truly, you’ll always be dear to me in a special way. I hope we can always be friends—” I stopped listening around then.

  There was plenty more in the same vein, but only the details were a surprise. When she told me our little affair was over I took it calmly enough. I always knew that Lidia had a weakness for the more athletic type. Worse than that, she never respected the kind of writing I do, anyway. She had the usual establishment contempt for science-adventure romances about the future and adventures on alien planets, and what sort of relationship could that be, in the long run?

  So I left her with a kiss and a smile, neither of them very sincere, and headed for my editor’s office. That was where I got the second rejection. The one that really hurt.

  Mark’s office was in the old part of London, down by the river. It’s an old company, in an old building, and most of the staff are old, too. When the company needs clerks or copy editors it has a habit of picking up tutors whose students have grown up and don’t need them anymore, and retraining them. Of course, that’s just for the people in the lower echelons. The higher-ups, like Mark himself, are free, salaried executives, with the executive privilege of interminable, winey author-and-editor lunches that don’t end until the middle of the afternoon.

  I had to wait half an hour to see him; obviously he had been having one of those lunches that day. I didn’t mind. I had every confidence that our interview was going to be short, pleasant and remunerative. I knew very well that An Ass’s Olympiad was one of the best sci-roms I had ever done. Even the title was clever. The book was a satire, with classical overtones—from The Golden Ass of the ancient writer, Lucius Apuleius, two thousand years ago or so; I had played off the classic in a comic, adventurous little story about the coming of the real Olympians. I can always tell when a book is going really well and I knew the fans would eat this one up … .

  When I finally got in to see Marcus he had a glassy, after-lunch look in his eye, and I could see my manuscript on his desk.

  I also saw that clipped to it was a red-bordered certificate, and that was the first warning of bad news. The certificate was the censor’s verdict, and the red border meant it was an obstat.

  Mark didn’t keep me in suspense. “We can’t publish,” he said, pressing his palm on the manuscript. “The censors have turned it down.”

  “They can’t!” I cried, making his old secretary lift his head from his desk in the corner of the room to stare at me.

  “They did,” Mark said. “I’ll read you what the obstat says: ‘—of a nature which may give offense to the delegation from the Galactic Consortium, usually referred to as the Olympians—’ and ‘—thus endangering the security and tranquility of the Empire—’ and, well, basically it just says no. No revisions suggested. Just a complete veto; it’s waste paper now, Julie. Forget it.”

  “But everybody is writing about the Olympians!” I yelped.

  “Everybody was,” he corrected. “Now they’re getting close, and the censors don’t want to take any more chances.” He leaned back to rub his eyes, obviously wishing he could be taking a nice nap instead of breaking my heart. Then he added tiredly, “So what do you want to do, Julie? Write us a replacement? It would have to be fast, you understand; the front office doesn’t like having contracts outstanding for more than thirty days after due date. And it would have to be good. You’re not going to get away with pulling some old reject out of your trunk—I’ve seen all those already, anyway.”

  “How the hells do you expect me to write a whole new book in thirty days?” I demanded.

  He shrugged, looking sleepier and less interested in my problem than ever. “If you can’t, you can’t. Then you’ll just have to give back the advance,” he told me.

  I calmed down fast. “Well, no,” I said, “there’s no question of having to do that. I don’t know about finishing it in thirty days, though—”

  “I do,” he said flatly. He watched me shrug. “Have you got an idea for the new one?”

  “Mark,” I said patiently, “I’ve always got ideas for new ones. That’s what a professional writer is. He’s a machine for thinking up ideas. I always have more ideas than I can ever write—”

  “Do you?” he insisted.

  I surrendered, because if I’d said yes the next thing would have been that he’d want me to tell him what it was. “Not exactly,” I admitted.

  “Then,” he said, “you’d better go wherever you go to get ideas, because, give us the new book or give us back the advance, thirty days is all you’ve got.”

  There’s an editor for you.

  They’re all the same. At first they’re all honey and sweet talk, with those long alcoholic lunches and blue-sky conversation about million-copy printings while they wheedle you into signing the contract. Then they turn nasty. They want the actual book delivered. When they don’t get it, or when the censors say they can’t print it, then there isn’t any more sweet talk and all the conversation is about how the aediles will escort you to debtors’ prison.

  So I took his advice. I knew where to go for ideas, and it wasn’t in London. No sensible man stays in London in the winter anyway, because of the weather and because it’s too full of foreigners. I still can’t get used to seeing all those huge, rustic Northmen and dark Hindian and Arabian women in the heart of town. I admit I can be turned on by that red caste mark or by a pair of flashing dark eyes shining through all the robes and veils—I suppose what you imagine is always more exciting than what you can see, especially when what you see is the short, dumpy Britian women like Lidia.

  So I made a reservation on the overnight train to Rome, to transfer there to a hydrofoil for Alexandria. I packed with a good heart, not neglecting to take along a floppy sun hat, a flask of insect repellent and—oh, of course—stylus and blank tablets enough to last me for the whole trip, just in case a book idea emerged for me to write. Egypt! Where the world conference on the Olympians was starting its winter session … where I would be among the scientists and astronauts who always sparked ideas for new science-adventure romances for me to write … where it would be warm … .

  Where my publisher’s aediles would have trouble finding me, in the event that no idea for a new novel came along.

  2 On the Way to the Idea Place

  No idea did.

  That was disappointing. I do some of my best writing on trains, aircraft, and ships, because there aren’t any interruptions and you can’t decide to go out for a walk because there isn’t any place to walk to. It didn’t work this time. All the while the train was slithering across the wet, bare English winter countryside toward the Channel, I sat with my tablet in front of me and the stylus poised to write, but by the time we dipped into the tunnel the tablet was still virgin.

  I couldn’t fool myself. I was stuck. I mean, stuck. Nothing happened in my head that could transform itself into an opening scene for a new sci-rom novel.

  It wasn’t the first time in my writing career that I’d been stuck with the writer’s block. That’s a sort of occupational disease for any writer. But this time was the worst. I’d really counted on An Ass’s Olympiad. I had even calculated that the pub
lication date could be made to coincide with that wonderful day when the Olympians themselves arrived in our solar system, with all sorts of wonderful publicity for my book flowing out of that great event, so the sales should be immense … and, worse than that, I’d already spent the on-signing advance. All I had left was credit, and not much of that.

  Not for the first time, I wondered what it would have been like if I had followed some other career. If I’d stayed in the Civil Service, for instance, as my father had wanted.

  Really, I hadn’t had much choice. I was born during the Space Tricentennial Year, and my mother told me the first word I said was “Mars.” She said there was a little misunderstanding there, because at first she thought I was talking about the god, not the planet, and she and my father had long talks about whether to train me for the priesthood, but by the time I could read she knew I was a space nut. Like a lot of my generation (the ones that read my books), I grew up on spaceflight. I was a teenager when the first pictures came back from the space probe to the Alpha Centauri planet Julia, with its crystal glasses and silver-leafed trees. As a boy I corresponded with another youth who lived in the cavern colonies on the Moon, and I read with delight the shoot-’em-ups about outlaws and aediles chasing each other around the satellites of Jupiter. I wasn’t the only kid who grew up space-happy, but I never got over it.

  Naturally I became a science-adventure romance writer; what else did I know anything about? As soon as I began to get actual money for my fantasies I quit my job as secretary to one of the imperial legates on the Western continents and went full-time pro.

  I prospered at it, too—prospered reasonably, at least—well, to be more exact, I earned a livable, if irregular, income out of the two sci-roms a year I could manage to write, and enough of a surplus to support the habit of dating pretty women like Lidia out of the occasional bonus when one of the books was made into a broadcast drama or a play.