Tower of Glass

by Robert Silverberg

“I've never been asked.”

  “Would you testify against the AEP,” Salah al-Din asked, “if the matter were to come before Congress?”

  Krug shrugged. “I don't know. I don't know. I stay out of politics. I'm a manufacturer. Businessman. Entrepreneur, you know? Why look for controversies?”

  “If androids were granted civil rights,” said Leon Spaulding, “it might have repercussions for Krug Enterprises. What I mean is, if you're manufacturing actual human beings, you'd come under the scope of the population control laws, which—”

  “Enough,” Krug said. “It won't happen. I make the androids; I know them. There's a little group of malcontents, yes. Too intelligent for their own good. They think it's black slavery all over again. But it isn't. It isn't. The others know that. They're content. Thor Watchman is content. Why don't all the alphas back the AEP? They oppose it, and why? Because they think it's idiocy. They're treated well as is. This talk of selling alphas against their will, of killing them on whims, it's all just theory; no one sells a good alpha, and nobody kills androids for fun, any more than people wreck their own houses for fun. No need for android rights, eh? The alphas realize it. The betas aren't worried. The gammas can't possibly care. So you see? Gentlemen, it makes good table talk, no more. The AEP will fade way. My respects, Mr. Speaker; your sweetness of soul leads you astray. You will have no alphas in your Congress.”

  Krug's lengthy speech had left him thirsty. He reached for his wine. Again the tension in his muscles betrayed him; again he knocked the glass over; again a watchful alpha, alerted by hidden eyes, rushed in to tidy up the mess. Beyond the thick glass wall of the Nemo Club, a dark red fish a meter in length, with a gigantic toothy satchel of a mouth and a narrow spiny tail, began to move through the school of crustaceans, gulping them down in a terrible hunger.

  28

  January 15, 2219.

  The tower is 1001 meters high. In celebration, Krug has decreed a holiday tomorrow for all workers. It is now estimated that the structure will reach its full height before the middle of March.

  29

  Lilith Meson said, “I had a visitor here yesterday morning, Thor.”

  “Manuel Krug?”

  “No. Siegfried Fileclerk.”

  Watchman uncoiled himself from Lilith's all-engulfing tesseract-divan. “Fileclerk? Here? Why?”

  Lilith laughed. “Are you so human these days that you feel jealousy, Thor?”

  “That doesn't amuse me. How did it happen that he came to you?”

  “He was at the office,” Lilith said. “You know, he's with Property Protection of Buenos Aires, and he came in to discuss some new actuarial pivot clause in their contract. Afterward he asked me if he could see me home. All right. I invited him in. He seemed harmless.”

  “And?”

  “He tried to recruit me for AEP.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No,” Lilith said. “He wants me to recruit you, too.”

  Watchman coughed. “A very slender chance of that.”

  “He's immensely earnest, Thor. Devoted to the cause of equality and liberation, et cetera, et cetera. Two minutes after we walked in he began burying me under arguments for immediate political action. I told him I was religious. He said that didn't matter, that I could go right on praying for the miraculous intervention of Krug, but meanwhile would I please sign this petition? No, I said. I never sign things. He gave me a stack of propaganda cubes, the whole AEP line. They're in the kitchen, if you're interested. He was here more than an hour.” Lilith flashed a dazzling grin. “I didn't sign his petition.”

  “Why did he go after you, though?” Watchman asked. “Does he plan to approach every alpha in the world, one by one, looking for support?”

  “I told you. He wants you to sign up. He knows I'm close with you, and he thinks that if he can persuade me, I'll be able to persuade you. He said so in that many words. And once you're in his camp, everyone else will follow.” Lilith drew herself up stiffly. “’If Alpha Watchman comes over to our side, Alpha Meson, he'll bring scores of influential alphas with him. It could be the turning point of our entire movement. Alpha Watchman may hold the future of every android in his grasp’ How do you feel about that, Alpha Watchman?”

  “Deeply moved, Alpha Meson. I can't begin to describe the awe that stirs in me at the idea. How did you manage to get rid of him?”

  “By trying to seduce him.”

  “What?”

  “Am I being bitchy, Thor? I won't talk about it if you'd rather I didn't.”

  “I was not programmed to feel jealousy,” Watchman said stolidly. “Teasing will get you nowhere with me. And I'm not in a mood to play stupid games.”

  “Very well. I'm sorry I said anything.”

  “Go on. You tried to seduce him. You didn't succeed?”

  “No,” Lilith said. “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I said to myself, Fileclerk is so stuffy that this will probably drive him away screaming. And if he takes the bait instead, well, it might be fun. So I stripped and then I—what's the idiom, the old word?—began to make overtures to him. To make overtures. Come on, I said, let's curl up together, Siggie. Siggie. I put my hands on him. I was very lewd. I jiggled and wiggled. I worked very hard, Thor, even harder than I had to work to seduce you. He wasn't having any. He asked me to stop.”

  “Of course,” Watchman said. “It's as I was trying to explain. Male alphas don't really have much interest in sex. It's irrelevant to their life-pattern.”

  “Don't be so smug about that. Fileclerk wanted me. He was pale. He was shaking.”

  “Then why didn't he go to bed with you? Afraid to compromise himself politically?”

  “No,” Lilith said. “It's because he's still in mourning.”

  “Mourning.”

  “For his wife. Cassandra Nucleus. His wife, Thor. The AEP is advocating android marriage. He was married to Alpha Nucleus three years ago. He's observing a six-month mourning period, during which he doesn't intend to let wanton young alphas lure him into their arms. He explained it to me and then he left fast. As if he was afraid he might give in if he stayed.”

  “His wife,” Watchman muttered.

  “The AEP plans to add a clause about android marriage to its petition before Congress. Fileclerk also said that if you and I wanted to get married, Thor, he'd be able to arrange it the day we join the party.”

  Watchman laughed harshly. “He talks like a child! What good is marriage? Do we have children who need legally constituted homes? If I wanted to live with you, I'd live with you, Lilith. Or you with me. Should someone say words over us first? Give us a piece of paper?”

  “Its the idea, Thor. Of a permanent union between man and woman, the way it is among humans. It's quite touching. He really loved her, Thor.”

  “I'm sure he did. I saw him weeping when Spaulding killed her. But did he love her more because they were married? If marriage is so wonderful, why is Manuel Krug here every week? Shouldn't he be home having a permanent union with Mrs. Krug?”

  “There are good marriages and bad marriages,” Lilith said. “And who you sleep with isn't necessarily what determines how good your marriage is. In any case, Fileclerk's marriage was a good one, and I don't see how it could hurt us to adopt the custom, if we truly believe in our equality.”

  “All right,” Watchman snapped. “Do you want to marry me?”

  “I was speaking in general terms about adopting the custom.”

  “I'm speaking in particular terms. We don't have to join the AEP to get married. I get hold of Alpha Constructor and Alpha Dispatcher and we'll write marriage ceremonies into the communion, and we'll get married at the chapel tonight. All right?”

  “Be serious, Thor.”

  “I am!”

  “You're angry, and you don't know what you're saying. You told me two minutes ago that you think marriage among androids is absurd. Now you're willing to write it into the communion. You can't mean it, Thor.”

  “You don't want to m
arry me? Don't worry, I wouldn't interfere with your affair with Manuel. I'm not programmed for possessiveness, either. But we could live together, we could—”

  “Stop it, Thor.”

  “Why?”

  “Whatever exists between us can exist without a marriage. You know that. I know that. I wasn't looking for a proposal. I was just trying to tell you something about Siegfried Fileclerk, about the nature of his emotions, the complexity of his feelings toward Alpha Nucleus, as well as the position of the AEP on—”

  “Enough. Enough.” Watchman put his hands over his ears and closed his eyes. “End of conversation. I'm fascinated that you couldn't seduce Siggie Fileclerk and astounded that the AEP is going in for marrying, and that's the end. Yes?”

  “You're in foul spirits today, Thor.”

  “I am.”

  “Why? Can I do anything to help?”

  “Leon Spaulding told me something today, Lilith. He says that when the AEP delegation finally gets its turn to address Congress, Krug is going to release a statement denouncing the entire android equality movement and insisting that he never would have created us in the first place if he knew we'd demand civil rights.”

  Lilith gasped. Tears in her eyes, she made a Krug-preserve-us sign four times in succession.

  “It isn't possible,” she whispered.

  “Spaulding said that Krug told him this about a week ago, at the Nemo Club, in the presence of Speaker Salah al-Din, Senator Fearon, and a couple of other people. You realize that Leon was merely making conversation when he passed the remark along to me, of course. A friendly chat between ectogene and android. He knows I'm anti-AEP; he thought I'd be amused. The bastard!”

  “Can it be true?”

  “Of course it can. Krug's never made any sort of statement on what he thinks the android's role ought to be. I've got no idea of his real position myself. I've always assumed he was sympathetic, but I might have been only projecting my own hopes. The question isn't can it be true but is it true.”

  “Do you dare ask him?”

  “I don't dare,” Thor said. “I believe that this entire story originated inside Leon Spaulding's malicious mind, that Krug doesn't plan to break his no-politics rule, and that if he ever did make a statement, Krug would make the statement that we all hope and pray for. But it frightens me to think that I'm wrong. I'm terrified, Lilith. An anti-equality statement from Krug would undermine every belief we have. Dump us into outer darkness. You see what I've been living with all day?”

  “Should you rely just on what Spaulding said? Can't you check with Senator Fearon or the Speaker? Find out what was really said?”

  “Ask them for confidential details of Krug's table talk, you mean? They'd report me to Krug right away.”

  “Then what will you do?”

  “Force Krug's hand,” Watchman said. “I want you to take Manuel to a chapel.”

  “How soon?”

  “As soon as you can. Don't conceal a thing from him. Let him understand everything. Work on his conscience. Then send him to his father, before Krug makes any statements to Congress. If Krug is going to make a statement.”

  “I'll do it,” Lilith said. “Yes.”

  Watchman nodded. He looked down, moving his feet idly over the patterned floor. There was a ticking in his brain and a cottony fullness in his throat. He hated the maneuvers he found himself enmeshed in now, these ploys and counterploys, this staking of so much on the weak will of Manuel Krug, this assumption that Krug—Krug!—could be manipulated by simple one-to-one intrigues. All this seemed to negate true faith. It was a cynical kind of haggling with destiny, which left Watchman wondering how true his faith had ever been. Was it all a facade, then, the kneeling in chapel, the muttering of codon triplets, the immersion in Krugness, the yielding, the prayer? Just a way of filling time until the moment came to seize control of events? Watchman rejected the thought. But that left him with nothing. He wished he had never begun this. He longed to be back at the tower, jacked into the computer, buoyantly riding the data-tide. Is this what being human is like? These decisions, these doubts, these fears? Why not stay android, then? Accept the divine plan. Serve, and desire no more. Step away from these conspiracies, these knotted emotions, these webs of passion. He found himself envying the gammas, who aspired to nothing. But he could not be a gamma. Krug had given him this mind. Krug had created him to doubt and suffer. Blessed be the Will of Krug! Rising, Watchman walked slowly across the room and, to escape himself, snapped on the holovision. The image of Krug's tower blossomed in the screen: immense, brilliant, beautiful, flashing in the January light. A hover-camera panned slowly along the entire length of it while the commentator spoke of the attainment of the 1000-meter level, and compared the tower favorably to the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, the Lighthouse at Alexandria, the Colossus of Rhodes. A magnificent achievement, opening the pathway toward communication with other races on distant stars. A thing of beauty in its own right, shimmering and sleek. Up and down the glass walls the camera leaped. The eye peered into the shaft from the summit. Grinning gammas waved back. Watchman caught a glimpse of himself, enmeshed in problems, unaware that he was being holovised. And there was Krug, aglow with pride, pointing out the tower's features to a crowd of Senators and industrialists. The chill of the tundra seemed to leak from the screen. The camera picked up the refrigeration tapes embedded in the permafrost; mist was rising from them. Unless the ground is kept frozen, the commentator explained, the stability of the tower would be uncertain. An unparalleled feat of environmental engineering. Miraculous. A monument to man's vision and determination. Yes. Yes. Phenomenal. With sudden ferocity Watchman blanked the screen. The shining tower vanished like an interrupted dream. He stood near the wall, his back to Lilith, trying to comprehend how it had happened that life had become so complex for him. He had wanted to be human. Yes. Had he not prayed to Krug that he and all his kind be granted the privileges of the Womb-born? Yes. Yes. And with the privileges went the responsibilities. Yes. And with the responsibilities went the turmoil. Rivalry. Sex. Love. Scheming. Perhaps, Watchman thought, I wasn't ready for all this. Perhaps I should have remained a decent hard-working alpha, instead of rising up to challenge the Will of Krug. Perhaps. Perhaps. He went through the rituals of tranquillity, without success. You are more human now than you really wished to be, Alpha Watchman, he told himself. He became aware of Lilith close behind him. The tips of her breasts grazed his back; then, as she drew closer, he felt the heavy globes flattening and straining against him.

  “Poor Thor,” she murmured. “So tense. So worried. Do you want to make love?”

  Could he refuse her? He pretended enthusiasm. He embraced her. Body slid tight against body. She opened to him, and he entered her. He was more skillful this time. But still it remained an empty thing for him, a butting of flesh, an alien ecstasy. He found no pleasure in it for himself, though there was indirect delight in seeing Lilith throb and moan and arch her back as she took pleasure from him. I am not really human enough, despite everything, he saw, and she is much too human. Yes. Yes. He moved more swiftly. Now he felt a tickle of sensation; Krug had designed His people well, and all the proper neural connections were there, damped though they might sometimes be by self-imposed conditioning. As the climax neared, Watchman experienced some instants of genuine passion; he snorted, he clutched Lilith's buttocks with steely fingers, he bucked and thrust. Then came the spurt of completion, and immediately afterward came, as before, the sadness, the awareness of hollowness. It seemed to him that he stood in a vast subterranean tomb, hundreds of meters long and many meters wide, with nothing in view but pinches of dust and fragments of dried wreaths. He forced himself to remain in Lilith's embrace, though he wanted nothing more than to roll away and be alone. He opened his eyes. She was weeping. She was smiling. She was flushed and sweat-sticky and aglow.

  “I love you,” she said softly.

  Watchman hesitated. A response was required here. His silence, expanding into t
he succeeding seconds, threatened to choke the universe. How could he not reply? It was inhuman to remain silent. He touched her warm flesh. He felt untuned, unstrung.

  Finally he said, quickly, getting it over with, “I love you, Lilith.”

  30

  You may ask, Who was the Maker of the Children of the Womb? Who, indeed, was the Maker of Krug?

  And I say to you that these are wise questions, that these questions are properly asked.

  For you must understand that in the world there are cycles of all things, a cycle of the Womb and a cycle of the Vat, and the one precedes the other, so that it was necessary first for there to be the Womb-born in order that there might be the Vat-born.

  And Krug the man was of the Womb-born, from whom sprang the Children of the Vat.

  Yet Krug the man is merely one aspect of Krug the Creator, whose existence precedes all things and whose Will has shaped all things, and who brought forth the Children of the Womb as forerunners of the Children of the Vat. Therefore must you distinguish between the man Krug, who is mortal and was himself born of the Womb, and the Maker Krug, whose Plan all things follow; for if it was Krug the man who brought forth the Children of the Vat, nevertheless he did so by the design of Krug the Maker, from whom all blessings flow, to whom all praise be given.

  31

  I said to Lilith, You promised to tell me. Why those gammas were using my father's name. The peace of Krug. Go with Krug. Krug be with you. You never said.

  I will.

  When?

  You'll have to dress up as an alpha again. It isn't something I can tell as easily as I can show.

  Do we have to go back to Gamma Town?

  No, she said, not this time. We can drop in on the betas this time. I wouldn't take you to the Valhallavägen chapel, because—

  Where?

  Valhallavägen chapel. Near here. It's where most of the local alphas worship. You couldn't fool them, Manuel. But you could fool betas, I think. If you kept quiet and looked dignified.

  A chapel. Worship? So it's a religion.