Tower of Glass

by Robert Silverberg

  “Is this what you were told?” Watchman asked the ectogene.

  “Yes,” Spaulding said. “I expressed a desire to inspect its interior. I was told that it would be dangerous for me to enter. I answered that I am familiar with basic safety techniques. I was then told that it would be physically uncomfortable for me to go within. I responded that it is possible for me to tolerate a reasonable level of discomfort, and that I would be the judge of such levels. Whereupon I was informed that delicate maintenance procedures are taking place inside, and that to admit me to the building might jeopardize the success of the work in progress. I was invited instead to tour a different refrigeration dome several hundred meters from here. At no time during these exchanges did the two betas you see allow me free access to the building entrance. I believe, Alpha Watchman, that they would have barred me by force if I tried to enter. Watchman, what's going on in here?”

  “Have you considered the possibility that everything these betas were telling you is true?”

  “Their stubbornness arouses suspicion in me.”

  “What do you think is in there? An android brothel? The headquarters of conspirators? A cache of psych-bombs?”

  Spaulding said crisply, “At this point I'm more concerned by the efforts made to keep me out of this building than I am by what may actually be inside it. As the private secretary of Simeon Krug—”

  The two betas, tense, automatically began to make the sign of Krug-be-praised. Watchman glared at them and they quickly lowered their hands.

  “...I certainly have the privilege of keeping check on all activities in this place,” Spaulding went on, evidently having noticed nothing. “And therefore...”

  Watchman studied him closely, trying to determine how much he might know. Was Spaulding making trouble merely for the sake of making trouble? Was he throwing this tantrum only because his curiosity had been piqued, and his authority somewhat dented, by his inability to get into this unimportant-seeming building? Or was he already aware of the building's nature, and staging an elaborate charade to make Watchman squirm?

  It was never easy to fathom Spaulding's motives. The primary source of his hostility toward androids was obvious enough: it lay in his own origin. His father, when young, had feared that some accident might cut him down before he had received a certificate of eligibility for parenthood; his mother had found the notion of childbearing abhorrent. Both, therefore, had deposited gametes in freezer-banks. Shortly afterward they had perished in an avalanche in Ganymede. Their families had wealth and political influence, but nevertheless, nearly fifteen years of litigation ensued before a decree of genetic desirability was granted, permitting the retroactive awarding of parenthood certificates to the frozen ova and sperm of the dead couple.

  Leon Spaulding then was conceived by in vitro fertilization and enwombed in a steel-bound placenta, from which he was propelled after the customary 266 days. From the moment of his birth he had the full legal rights of a human being, including a claim on his parents’ estate. Yet, like most ectogenes, he was uneasy over the shadowy borderline that separated the bottle-born from the vat-born, and reinforced his sense of his own existence by showing contempt for those who were wholly synthetic, not just the artificially conceived offspring of natural gametes. Androids at least had no illusions of having had parents; ectogenes often suspected that they had not. In a way Watchman pitied Spaulding, who occupied a thorny perch midway between the world of the wholly natural and the world of wholly artificial. But he could not bring himself to feel much sorrow for the ectogene's maladjustments.

  And in any case it would be disastrous to have Spaulding go blundering into the chapel. Trying to buy time, Watchman said, “We can settle this easy enough. Wait her while I go inside to see what's happening there.”

  “I'll accompany you,” Spaulding said.

  “These betas say it would be hazardous.”

  “More hazardous for me than for you? We'll both go in, Watchman.”

  The android frowned. So far as status in the organization went, he and Spaulding were equals; neither could coerce the other, neither could accuse the other of insubordination. But the fact remained that he was an android and Spaulding was human, and in any conflict of wills between android and human, all other things being equal, the android was obliged to give ground. Spaulding was already walking toward the entrance to the dome.

  Watchman said quickly, “Please. No. If there's risk, let me be the one to take it. I'll check the building and make certain it's safe for you to enter. Don't come in until I call you.”

  “I insist—”

  “What would Krug say if he knew we had both gone into a building after we'd been warned it was dangerous? We owe it to him to guard our lives. Wait. Wait. Only a moment.”

  “Very well,” Spaulding said, looking displeased.

  The betas parted to admit Watchman. The alpha hurried into the chapel. Within, he found three gammas at the altar in the posture of the Yielder caste; a beta stood above them in Projector posture, and a second beta crouched near the wall, fingertips against the hologram of Krug as he whispered the words of the Transcender ritual. All five came to attention as Watchman entered.

  The alpha hastily improvised a possible diversionary tactic.

  Beckoning to one of the gammas, he said, “There is an enemy outside. With your help we will confuse him.” Watchman gave the gamma careful instructions, ordering the android to repeat them. Then he pointed to the chapel's rear door, behind the altar, and the gamma went out.

  After a moment of prayer, Watchman returned to Leon Spaulding.

  “You were told the complete truth,” the alpha reported. “This is indeed a refrigeration dome. A team of mechanics is engaged in difficult recalibration work inside. If you enter, you'll certainly disturb them, and you'll have to walk carefully to sidestep some open traps in the floor, and in addition you will be exposed to a temperature of minus—”

  “Even so, I want to go in,” said Spaulding. “Please let me get through.”

  Watchman caught sight of his gamma approaching, breathless, from the east. Unhurriedly, the alpha made as if to give Spaulding access to the chapel door. In that instant the gamma rushed up, shouting, “Help! Help for Krug! Krug is in danger! Save Krug!”

  “Where?” Watchman demanded.

  “By the control center! Assassins! Assassins!”

  Watchman allowed Spaulding no opportunity to ponder the implausibilities of the situation. “Come on,” he said, tugging the ectogene's arm. “We have to hurry!”

  Spaulding was pale with shock. As Watchman had hoped, the supposed emergency had blotted the problem of the chapel from his mind.

  Together they ran toward the control center. After twenty strides, Watchman looked back and saw dozens of androids rushing toward the chapel, in accordance with his orders. They would dismantle it within minutes. By the time Leon Spaulding was able to return to this sector, the dome would house nothing by refrigeration equipment.

  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 c
ommunications, 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 an android?

  He said quickly to Niccolò 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. Niccolò 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 agita
tors,” 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.”

  13

  As he walked toward the control center, Watchman went through the Rite of Balancing the Soul two full times before the numbness began to leave him. The hideous outcome of his ruse still stunned his spirit.

  When he reached the office, Watchman made the sign of Krug-be-praised eight times in succession and ran through half the sequences of codon triplets. These devotions calmed him. He put through a call to San Francisco, to the offices of Fearon & Doheny, Krug's chief counsel in liability cases. Lou Fearon, the Witherer Senator's younger brother, came on the screen, and Watchman told him the story.

  “Why did Spaulding shoot?” Fearon asked.

  “Hysteria. Stupidity. Excitement.”

  “Krug didn't order him to fire?”

  “Absolutely not. The bolt came within a meter of killing Krug himself. And he was in no danger.”

  “Witnesses?”