The Man of Bronze

by James Alan Gardner

  Silver laughed again. “Vivacity!”

  I looked around the room at the nudes Silver had painted. “Vivacity with women?”

  “I have a gift in that direction. I love women; women love me. And unlike Bronze, I am fully equipped to give a woman exquisite pleasure.”

  Ah, I thought. Bronze was a cop, and Silver was a gigolo: a mechanical or mystic pleasure thing designed to keep women happy. Well, why not? As soon as humanity learns to build lifelike robots, someone will get rich selling beautiful female automatons to lonely men. Why not an attentive male robot/golem/joy toy for lonely women?

  “Now what other questions did you ask me?” Silver said. “Ah, yes. What’s my master plan? Mademoiselle, I have no master plan. I merely enjoy life. I take pleasure in all things.” He laughed. “Were you afraid I had sinister ambitions? Perhaps to rule the world? I could have done that ten thousand years ago . . . but it would have been too much bother. Rulers need armies. And tax collectors. And humorless viziers who keep badgering you to make decisions. How tedious! How aggravating! Do I seem like someone who seeks responsibility?”

  He threw his arms wide in a look-at-me gesture. I barely noticed; I was too busy thinking, Ten thousand years ago? That was when Bronze was broken into pieces—Osiris chopped up by Set, his evil rival. “You were Set,” I said. “The one who split Bronze apart.”

  Silver let his arms drop, perhaps annoyed that I wasn’t letting him lead the conversation. “Alas, mademoiselle,” he said, “dealing with Bronze was unpleasantly necessary. He made himself a nuisance: always getting in the way. No sooner would I establish myself as the benevolent deity of some tribe—an easy thing for one who is indestructible . . . all I had to do was kill anybody who wouldn’t submit—but whenever I settled down, Bronze would appear and I’d have to flee. Sometimes I barely escaped. It was terrible! Maddening! So in self-defense, I was forced to treat Bronze, as they say, with extreme prejudice.”

  “Because he was chasing you.” I had a eureka! moment. “Because you aren’t supposed to be here. You’re a fugitive from . . . wherever. And Bronze is a bobby sent to bring you back.”

  “True,” Silver said. “But I am not a criminal, mademoiselle. I’m a tragic victim of boredom. Where I came from, ahh . . . everyone was serious. It hadn’t always been so. Once upon a time, my people knew how to enjoy the good life. Très amusant, every day. But then . . . I don’t want to think about it. Let us simply say the party ended. So I left.”

  I wondered if he was talking about genuine disaster. The collapse of an alien civilization. The Greek gods turning their backs on humanity. A future society mutating itself from human beings into antlike conformity. Or maybe Silver had been laid low by something more trivial: the unstoppable march of progress. Perhaps playthings of Silver’s type became obsolete as new models came on the market. He’d ended up unwanted in some attic or bargain basement.

  The actual cause didn’t matter. Silver had fled from his home to Earth. Bronze was sent to retrieve the renegade, but somehow Silver had turned the tables on his pursuer. Bronze had fallen into a trap; Silver had chopped the policeman into component parts and scattered the pieces all over the planet. Then . . .

  “After you sliced Bronze up,” I said, “why did you scatter the pieces? Why didn’t you hold on to them and keep them from being reassembled?”

  “Oh, please, mademoiselle . . . why on earth would I shackle myself to those lumps of metal? What a dreary existence I’d have, constantly worrying about Bronze and dragging him around with me! Let me assure you, I dumped the chunks of his carcass as fast as I could, then settled down to enjoy myself. I sought out beautiful women. I established charming venues where I could pursue the greatest pleasures. Palaces . . . private retreats . . .”

  “Orgiastic cults?”

  “A few.” He gave me a knowing look. “I’ve enjoyed so many diversions, mademoiselle—all you can imagine and more. I have lived many lives, under many names: Casanova . . . Don Juan . . . the Marquis de Sade . . . a thousand others you wouldn’t recognize. Name a lover from history; it was probably me. I’ve always been able to pass as human. My vast repertoire of skills includes a comprehensive knowledge of cosmetics: powders and ointments I can manufacture in order to disguise my true nature. I’m able to make many other things too—everyday items where I come from but astonishing marvels to your unenlightened civilization. Whenever I need cash to pay for my creature comforts, I toss together some trinket I can sell for millions.”

  “Such as,” I said, “a cold silver force field that’s packaged in a small grenade?”

  “Exactly so,” he replied. “I’ve provided Mr. Urdmann with a number of Silver Shields in thanks for his services. He’s been a useful business partner. Whenever I raise cash by selling my interesting little curios, Mr. Urdmann handles the transaction. He has a flair for squeezing high prices out of miserly bidders.”

  “So Urdmann works for you?”

  “Indeed. He and I met some years ago when we were both trying to sell armaments to the same genocidal dictator. You knew Mr. Urdmann practiced the weapons trade, yes? He realized my wares were superior to his, so he attempted to eliminate me before I hurt his business.” Silver shrugged. “Arms dealers take the phrase ‘cutthroat competition’ much too literally. But when Mr. Urdmann tried to cut mine, he discovered I was not as human as I seemed. One thing led to another, and in the end, my would-be killer agreed to become my sales agent.”

  “Nice of you to be so forgiving,” I said.

  Silver made a dismissive gesture. “Holding grudges is hard work. I can’t be bothered. Besides, Mr. Urdmann saves me a great deal of annoyance. I despise the world of commerce . . . all that haggling and attention to detail. Too dreary. And the people you meet, mademoiselle! Altogether unsavory.”

  “Would it help if you didn’t sell weapons?” I asked. “If you sold, oh, medicines or better ways to feed the hungry?”

  Silver shook his head. “I have lived among your people for ten thousand years, mademoiselle. War is where the money is. Curing the sick? No. The sick are desperate, but they are seldom rich. Feeding the hungry? No. The hungry are hungry because they are poor. They cannot pay me enough to support my lifestyle. So I must cater to the wealthy . . . and wealthy people only want two things: to keep what they have and to acquire more. Ultimately, that means they must command brute force. People in possession of fortunes, mademoiselle, may spend millions on fine wines or lovely houses . . . but those are extras, not essentials. What matters most is firepower. The rich will pay almost anything for personal security. So why would an entrepreneur sell anything but guns?”

  I gazed at him, pondering what he’d just said. How often must Silver have given the same speech . . . in a Parisian salon, a Victorian financiers’ club, a Babylonian market? His argument wasn’t entirely wrong—arms dealing is a lucrative business, and there’s never any shortage of people wanting weapons—but it didn’t take a genius to recognize these were self-serving rationalizations from a creature who valued his own indulgences over human lives. Silver was a thoughtless, soulless machine who’d bought himself beautiful expensive things—like this beautiful expensive house and the beautiful expensive women shown in his paintings—but who’d done so by delivering misery to those beyond his beautiful expensive walls.

  The android didn’t care who he hurt. No remorse. One more thing occurred to me. “You’re the one who set the bomb,” I said. “You’re the one who booby-trapped the false Osiris statue.”

  “Certainly,” he replied. “A nice ploy, if I say so myself. I only recently learned that my bronze counterpart was close to being reassembled. Over the past few years, the Order of Bronze has discreetly asked art collectors if they owned rare bronze antiquities. One such collector was a lady friend of mine. When she mentioned mysterious monks asking about ancient bronze body parts, I began inquiring into the matter. It took time, but I ferreted out the truth—just a few weeks ago. Imagine how I felt when I learned I’d have t
o prevent my old adversary from becoming whole, or I’d end up on the run again.”

  “So you planted the fake statue on Reuben. The one with the bomb that killed him.”

  “Yes, Mr. Baptiste took the bait completely.” He spoke as if Reuben’s life meant nothing. “It was one of my most perfect schemes.”

  “It wasn’t perfect, it was ridiculous,” I said. “Risky, overelaborate . . . how could you be certain Reuben would survive the car bomb? How could you be certain he’d escape from sixteen mercenaries?”

  Silver waved his hand dismissively. “My man didn’t trigger the exploding car until he saw Mr. Baptiste had moved outside the direct area of the blast. As for the mercenaries in the clinic, Mr. Urdmann assured me you’d be on the scene and would have no trouble shooting them to ribbons with your clever little pistols.”

  “I wasn’t wearing my pistols! The doorman confiscated them. I had to face sixteen men completely unarmed.”

  “Really?” Silver gave me a look. “I wonder if Mr. Urdmann knew that would be the case. He dislikes you so much.” Silver laughed. “That’s just like Lancaster, isn’t it? Telling me you’d be perfectly fine, while secretly hoping you’d be killed. But you triumphed anyway, didn’t you? And my plan worked out splendidly.”

  “It didn’t work out at all. You killed Reuben and didn’t kill Bronze.”

  “True. But I came close. Let me tell you something, mademoiselle. Bronze is an extremely clever fellow, but he has a weakness. He’s stodgy in his thinking. Plodding and methodical. He cannot conceive that anyone would be such a fool as to use risky impractical tricks instead of good solid strategies. Flamboyant schemes flummox him—why would anyone do anything so wild and harebrained that there’s only a small chance of success? It makes no sense to him. It’s beyond his programming.”

  “Programming?” I latched on to the word. “I thought you and Bronze weren’t robots.”

  Silver laughed. “I’m not a robot. Bronze, on the other hand . . .” Silver laughed again. “Bronze isn’t a robot either, but, my oh my, he can be robotic. Which is why I did what I did. If I’d tried anything straightforward, he would have seen it coming. As it was, I nearly got him. Not a bad first attempt, if I say so myself. And, of course, I had nothing to lose. My man had already stolen the real statuette, so it didn’t matter if none of the rest worked out.”

  “Why did you need the statuette?” I asked. “Didn’t you already know where you’d scattered the bronze pieces?”

  “I knew where I’d dumped them ten thousand years ago. I had no idea where they’d gone after that. Do you think I’d bother to keep track of them down through the centuries?” He wrinkled his nose in disdain. “I’m a lover, not an antique collector. But once I learned Bronze was almost restored, I decided I’d better send Mr. Urdmann to recover the last few pieces. Now that I have them, I’ll have to find someplace safe to keep them.” Silver sighed like a beleaguered saint. “But Bronze is still too whole for my liking. That’s what I want to discuss with you, mademoiselle: how we can do each other a favor.”

  I resisted snapping back some retort. Better to let the scene play out. Let Silver make his proposition—I could guess what it would be—but on the slim chance he might surprise me, I’d see what he had to say. “What kind of favor?” I asked.

  “You work for the Order of Bronze, mademoiselle. Return to their headquarters in Poland. Take with you a device I’ve made. A bomb. Eliminate my enemy.”

  “Why do you need me?” I asked. “If you know Bronze is in Poland, why don’t you deal with him yourself? Send in your own assault team.”

  Silver shook his head. “There’s no point trying a straightforward attack. I told you, mademoiselle, Bronze is a clever fellow . . . in his plodding uninspired way. That monastery of his has cameras in the woods and sophisticated weapon defenses. He’d see an assault team coming and blast it to pieces. But you, mademoiselle, would be welcomed as a friend. You’d be admitted freely through the gates and straight into Bronze’s inner sanctum.”

  “And I’d be carrying a bomb.”

  “Yes!”

  I shook my head. “It would never work. Bronze’s inner sanctum, as you call it, has top-notch bomb detectors. Bronze told me so himself. The bomb that killed Reuben got past the front gate but not much farther. It would have been noticed long before it came close to Bronze himself.”

  “Possibly,” Silver admitted. “But that was a crude radio-activated device. Since then, I’ve developed something much better.” He smiled smugly. “I beg you to remember, mademoiselle, Bronze and I come from the same place. We both have knowledge far beyond anything you can imagine. His knowledge deals with sniffing out danger and capturing malefactors. But mine . . .” Silver smiled broadly. “I modestly claim expertise in not getting caught. I’ve sneaked through many a window that jealous husbands believed were perfectly secure. I’ve purloined many a pretty bauble right under the watchful gaze of plodders like Bronze. In other words, mademoiselle, Bronze may believe his cold stone chapel is entirely safe behind its firewall of bomb detectors . . . but every armor has chinks. I have produced a masterpiece, mademoiselle: a bomb undetectable by anything Bronze may devise. It produces no radio signals of any kind. It contains no metal. X-ray scans will reveal nothing of interest. It’s so perfectly sealed that none of the explosive chemicals within can leak out and be detected. And the trigger mechanism, mademoiselle! That is the best of all. It senses . . . oh, you might call it a sort of aura, a radiance, an emanation that our kind emits. As soon as Bronze gets close . . . kaboom!”

  “And if I’m there, I go kaboom, too?”

  “No, no,” Silver said, patting my cheek. His hand was soft and warm, not metallic at all . . . but I gritted my teeth to keep from punching him in the face; it would just bruise my knuckles. “I wouldn’t want you injured,” Silver assured me. “Besides, it takes more than physical force to damage creatures like Bronze and me. It takes ethereal energies.”

  “You mean magic?”

  Silver made a face. “Such an imprecise word. Humans use it for so many different things—some real, some imaginary. Let’s just say Bronze is held together by several types of bonds, some of which are stronger than others. A conventional bomb, no matter how powerful, cannot affect Bronze’s fundamental structure. It might blow off his fingers and toes, which are only loosely affixed . . . but even a nuclear blast couldn’t detach his head. To truly rip Bronze apart, you need a device that adds special disruptive energies to an ordinary explosion. The energies weaken the cohesion between Bronze’s component parts. The explosion then does the rest.”

  He patted my cheek again. “It doesn’t have to be a large explosion, mademoiselle. Just enough to break bonds that have been made fragile by the accompanying emanations. You could easily survive such a blast if you were, oh, several meters away and behind some cover.”

  “That’s what you say.” I glowered. “But wouldn’t it be convenient if I were killed in the same explosion that got Bronze?”

  “Not convenient at all!” Silver said. “I want you to survive . . . if only to prevent Bronze’s allies from reassembling his pieces immediately after the blast. I would, of course, have forces standing by to help you. They’d have to stay back far enough not to be detected by Bronze’s sensors, but they’d rush in as soon as the bomb exploded. You’d just have to stave off the Order of Bronze for a minute until reinforcements arrived. After that . . . I’d shower you with my gratitude.”

  Speaking of showers, I’d need one after this was finished—to wash off the feel of his touch. “So basically,” I said, “you want me to turn traitor in exchange for cash.”

  “Money could be supplied,” Silver said, “but you already possess a fortune. I doubt if you hunger for wealth the way many others do. Surely though, you hunger for other things. Adventure? Romance? If you chose to work for me, those could be supplied. In abundance.”

  He waited for me to say yes. I didn’t. “All right, mademoiselle,” he said with
a shrug, “let us ponder what else you might care for. The greatest archaeological treasures of all time? How about those?”

  “What treasures?” I asked.

  “Almost anything you name. I’ve lived on this world ten thousand years. I’ve been god to many peoples, king to many more. I can tell you the locations of a hundred undiscovered tombs. Do you want to know the location of Excalibur? The ring of the Nibelung? The lost gold of the Inca? Once Bronze is out of the way, I’d share everything I know.”

  He waited again. I said nothing. Finally he sighed. “I’d hoped to avoid crude threats, but I do hold your friends prisoner. If you want them released, you’ll cooperate. And it occurs to me, I can offer one more inducement. Do what I ask, and I’ll let you kill Lancaster Urdmann.”

  “Just like that?” I said. “You’d turn him over to me?”

  “Willingly,” Silver replied. “I would even allow you the use of facilities I have in my basement: facilities where you could spend as long as you like in ending Mr. Urdmann’s life.”

  “In other words, you have a torture chamber on the premises.”

  He nodded. “Its resources would be at your disposal.”

  “To kill your ‘trusted’ business partner?”

  “Mr. Urdmann has been useful,” Silver replied, “but he’s not irreplaceable. You’d be a much more satisfactory associate, mademoiselle. You’re more intelligent, more controlled, and more lethal than Mr. Urdmann will ever be. You’re also exceedingly more beautiful . . . and I am a man who appreciates beauty intensely.”

  “You’re not a man at all,” I said. “You’re a monster.” I took a deep breath. “You say you’ll let me kill Urdmann; and I do want to kill him, the way I’d kill a rabid dog. But if Urdmann is a dog, you’re his master. You’re the one who’s truly responsible for Reuben’s death . . . and for the deaths of Lord Horatio’s men too. Do you think Urdmann’s death would satisfy me so thoroughly that I wouldn’t want to kill you? And do you think I’m so witless I’d work for a creature who betrayed his lieutenant on a whim?”