Tower of Glass

by Robert Silverberg

  Finally Krug said, “Manuel, what do you expect me to do now?”

  “That's entirely up to you, father.”

  “But you've got something in mind. You had some motive for bringing me this cube.”

  “I did?” Manuel asked, too disingenuously.

  “The old man's no fool. If he's smart enough to be god, he's smart enough to see through his own son. You think I should do what the androids want, eh? I should redeem them now. I should do the godlike thing they expect.”

  “Father, I—”

  “—news for you. Maybe they think I'm a god, but I know I'm not. Congress doesn't take orders from me. If you and your android darling and the rest of them think that I can singlehandedly change the status of the androids, you'd all better start looking for a different god. Not that I would change their status if I could. Who gave them that status? Who started selling them in the first place? Machines is what they are! Machines made synthetically out of flesh! Clever machines! Nothing but!”

  “You're losing control, father. You're getting excited.”

  “You're with them. You're part of it. This was deliberate, eh, Manuel? Oh, get out of here! Back to your alpha friend! And you can tell her for me, tell all of them, that—” Krug caught himself. He waited a moment for the pounding of his heart to subside. This was the wrong way to handle it, he knew; he must not erupt, he must not explode, he must move cautiously and with full command of the facts if he hoped to disengage himself from the situation. More calmly he said, “I need to think more about this, Manuel. I don't mean to be shouting at you. You understand, when you come in here telling me I'm now a god, you show me the Krug bible, it can unsettle me some. Let me think it over. Let me reflect, eh? Don't say anything to anybody. I have to come to grips with this thing. Yes? Yes?” Krug stood up. He reached across the desk and seized Manuel's shoulder. “The old man yells too much,” he said. “He blows up too fast. That's nothing new, is it? Look, forget what I was yelling. You know me, you know I talk too fast sometimes. Leave this bible with me. I'm glad you brought it in. Sometimes I'm rough with you, boy, but I don't mean to be.” Krug laughed. “It can't be easy being Krug's son. The Son of God, eh? You better be careful. You know what they did to the last one of those.”

  Smiling, Manuel said, “I've already thought of that one.”

  “Yes. Good. Well, look, you go now. I'll be in touch.”

  Manuel started toward the door.

  Krug said, “Give my love to Clissa. Look, you be fair to her a little, will you? You want to lay alpha girls, lay alpha girls, but remember you've got a wife. Remember the old man wants to see those grandchildren. Eh? Eh?”

  “I'm not neglecting Clissa,” Manuel said. “I'll tell her you asked after her.”

  He left. Krug touched the cube's cool skin to his blazing cheek. In the beginning there was Krug, and He said, Let there be Vats, and there were Vats. And Krug looked upon the Vats and found them good. I should have foreseen it, he thought.

  There was a terrible throbbing in his skull.

  He rang for Leon Spaulding. “Tell Thor I want him here right away,” Krug said.

  34

  With the tower nearing the 1200-meter level, Thor Watchman found himself entering the most difficult part of the project. At this height there could be only minimal tolerance of error in the placing of each block, and the molecule-to-molecule bonding of the blocks had to be executed perfectly. No weak spots could be allowed if the tower's upper level were to maintain its tensile strength in the face of the Arctic gales. Watchman now spent hours every day jacked into the computer, receiving direct override readings from the interface scanners that monitored the building's structural integrity; and whenever he detected the slightest lapse of placement he ordered the erring block ripped out and replaced. Several times an hour he went to the top of the tower himself to supervise the installation of repositioning of some critical block. The beauty of the tower depended on the absence of an inner structural framework throughout all its immense height; but erecting such a building called for total command of detail. It was jarring to be called away from the work in the middle of his shift. But he could not refuse a summons from Krug.

  As he entered Krug's office after the transmat hop, Krug said, “Thor, how long have I been your god?”

  Watchman was jolted. He struggled silently to regain his balance; seeing the cube on Krug's desk, he realize what must have happened. Lilith—Manuel—yes, that was it. Krug seemed so calm. It was impossible for the alpha to decipher his expression.

  Cautiously Watchman said, “What other creator should we have worshipped?”

  “Why worship anyone at all?”

  “When one is in deep distress, sir, one wished to turn to someone who is more powerful than oneself for comfort and aid.”

  “Is that what a god is for?” Krug asked. “To get favors from?”

  “To receive mercy from, yes, perhaps.”

  “And you think I can give you what you're after?”

  “So we pray,” said Watchman.

  Tense, uncertain, he studied Krug. Krug fondled the data cube. He activated it, searching it at random, reading a few lines here, a few there, nodding, smiling, finally switching it off. The android had never before felt so thoroughly uncertain of himself: not even when Lilith had been luring him with her body. The fate of all his kind, he realized, might depend on the outcome of this conversation.

  Krug said, “You know, I find this very difficult to comprehend. This bible. Your chapels. Your whole religion. I wonder if any other man ever discovered like this that millions of people considered him a god.”

  “Perhaps not.”

  “And I wonder about the depth of your feeling. The pull of this religion, Thor. You talk to me like I'm a man—your employer, not your god. You've never given me the slightest clue of what's been in your head about me, except a sort of respect, maybe a little fear. And all this time you were standing at God's elbow, eh?” Krug laughed. “Looking at the freckles on God's bald head? Seeing the pimple of God's chin? Smelling the garlic God had in his salad? What was going through your head all this time, Thor?”

  “Must I answer that, sir?”

  “No. No. Never mind.” Krug stared into the cube again. Watchman stood rigidly before him, trying to repress a sudden quivering in the muscles of his right thigh. Why was Krug toying with him like this? And what was happening at that tower? Euclid Planner would not come on shift for some hours yet; was the delicate placement of the blocks proceeding properly in the absence of a foreman? Abruptly Krug said, “Thor, have you ever been in a shunt room?”

  “Sir?”

  “An ego shift. You know. Into the stasis net with somebody. Changing identities for a day or two. Eh?”

  Watchman shook his head. “This is not an android pastime.”

  “I thought not. Well, come shunting with me today.” Krug nudged his data terminal and said, “Leon, get me an appointment at any available shunt room. For two. Within the next fifteen minutes.”

  Aghast, Watchman said, “Sir, are you serious? You and I—”

  “Why not? Afraid to swap souls with God, is that it? By damn, Thor, you will! I have to know things, and I have to know them straight. We're shunting. Can you believe that I've never shunted before either? But today we will.”

  It seemed perilously close to sacrilege to the alpha. But he could hardly refuse. Deny the Will of Krug? If it cost him his life, he would still obey.

  Spaulding's image hovered in the air. “I have an appointment at New Orleans,” he announced. “They'll take you immediately—it involved some fast rearranging of the wait-list—but there'll be a ninety-minute interval for programming the stasis net.”

  “Impossible. We'll go into the net right away.”

  Spaulding registered horror. “That isn't done, Mr. Krug!”

  “I'll do it. Let them ride gain carefully while we're shunting, that's all.”

  “I doubt that they'll agree to—”

&n
bsp; “Do they know who their client is?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, tell them that I insist! And if they still mumble to you, tell them that I'll buy their damned shunt room and run it to please myself if they won't cooperate.”

  “Yes, sir,” Spaulding said.

  His image vanished. Krug, muttering to himself, began to tap the keyboard of his data terminal, while ignoring Watchman completely. The alpha stood rooted, chilled, clotted with dismay. Absently he made the Krug-preserve-us sign several times. He longed to be released from the situation he had created for himself.

  Spaulding again flickered in the air. “They yield,” he said, “but only on the condition that you sign an absolute waiver.”

  “I'll sign,” Krug snapped.

  A sheet slithered from the facsimile slot. Krug scanned it carelessly and scribbled his signature across it. He rose. To Watchman he said, “Let's go. The shunt room's waiting.”

  Watchman knew relatively little about shunting. It was a sport only for humans, and only for the rich; lovers did it to intensify the union of their souls, good friends shunted on a lark, those who were jaded visited shunt rooms in the company of strangers of similar mood purely for the sake of introducing a variety to their lives. It had never occurred to him that he would shunt himself, and certainly he would not ever have dared entertain the fantasy of shunting with Krug. Yet there was no pulling back from it now. Instantly the transmat swept them from New York to the dark antechamber of the New Orleans shunt room, where they were received by a staff of remarkably uneasy-looking alphas. The tensions of the alphas increased visibly as they realized that one of today's shunters was himself an alpha. Krug too seemed on edge, his jaws clamped, facial muscles working revealingly. The alphas bustled around them. One said again and again, “You must know how irregular this is. We've always programmed the stasis net. In the event of a sudden charisma surge anything might happen this way!”

  “I take responsibility,” Krug answered. “I have no time to waste waiting for your net.”

  The anguished androids led them swiftly into the shunt room itself. Two couches lay in a chamber of glistening darkness and tingling silence; glittering apparatus dangled from fixtures somewhere overhead. Krug was ushered to his couch first. Watchman, when his turn came, peered into the eyes of his alpha escort and was stunned by the awe and bewilderment he found there. Watchman shrugged imperceptibly to say, I know as little about this as you.

  Once the shunt helmets had been put in place over their faces and the electrodes were attached, the alpha in charge said, “When the switch is thrown you will immediately feel the pressure of the stasis net as it works to separate ego from physical matrix. It will seem to you as though you are under attack, and in a sense you are. However, try to relax and accept the phenomena, since resistance is impossible and all that you will be experiencing is actually the ego-shift process for which you have come. There should be no cause for alarm. In the event of any malfunction we will automatically break the circuit and restore you to your proper identity.”

  “Make sure you do,” Krug muttered.

  Watchman could see and hear nothing. He waited. He could not make any of the ritual gestures of comfort, for they had strapped his limbs to the couch to prevent violent movements during the shunt. He tried to pray. I believe in Krug everlasting the Maker of all things, he thought. Krug brings us into the world and to Krug we return. Krug is our Creator and our Protector and our Deliverer. Krug, we beseech Thee to lead us toward the light. AAA AAG AAC AAU be to Krug. AGA AGG AGC AGU be to Krug. ACA ACG ACC—

  A force descended without warning and separated his ego from his body as though he had been smitten by a cleaver.

  He was cast adrift. He wandered in timeless abysses where no star gleamed. He saw colors found nowhere in the spectrum; he heard musical tones of no identifiable pitch. Moving at will, he soared across gulfs in which giant ropes stretched like bars from rim to rim of emptiness. He disappeared into dismal tunnels and emerged at the horizon, feeling himself extended to infinite length. He was without mass. He was without duration. He was without form. He flowed through gray realms of mystery.

  Without a sense of transition, he entered the soul of Simeon Krug.

  He retained a slippery awareness of his own identity. He did not become Krug; he merely gained access to the entire store of memories; attitudes, responses, and purposes that constituted Krug's ego. He could exert no influence over those memories, attitudes, responses, and purposes; he was a passenger amidst them, a spectator. And he knew that in some other corner of the universe the wandering ego of Simeon Krug had access to the file of memories, attitudes, responses, and purposes that constituted the ego of the android Alpha Thor Watchman.

  He moved freely within Krug.

  Here was childhood: something damp and distorted, crammed into a dark component. Here were hopes, dreams, intentions fulfilled and unfulfilled, lies, achievements, enmities, envies, abilities, disciplines, delusions, contradictions, fantasies, satisfactions, frustrations, and rigidities. Here was a girl with stringy orange hair and heavy breasts on a bony frame, hesitantly opening her thighs, and here was the memory of the feel of first passion as he glided into the harbor of her. Here were foul-smelling chemicals in a vat. Here were molecular patterns dancing on a screen. Here was suspicion. Here was triumph. Here was the thickening of the flesh in later years. Here was an insistent pattern of pleeping sounds: 2-5-1, 2-3-1, 2-1. Here was the tower sprouting like a shining phallus that pierced the sky. Here was Manuel smiling, mincing, apologizing. Here was a dark, deep vat with shapes moving in it. Here was a ring of financial advisors muttering elaborate calculations. Here was a baby, pink and doughy-faced. Here were the stars, fiery in the night. Here was Thor Watchman haloed by pride and praise. Here was Leon Spaulding, slinking, bitter. Here was a plump wench pumping her hips in desperate rhythm. Here was the explosion of orgasm. Here was the tower stabbing the clouds. Here was the sound of the star-signal, a sharp small noise against a furry background. Here was Justin Maledetto unrolling the plans for the tower. Here was Clissa Krug naked, her belly swollen, her breasts choked with milk. Here were moist alphas climbing from a vat. Here was a rough-hulled strange ship pointed toward the stars. Here was Lilith Meson. Here was Siegfried Fileclerk. Here was Cassandra Nucleus, collapsing on the frozen earth. Here was the father of Krug, faceless, mist-shrouded. Here was a vast building in which androids shuffled and stumbled through their early training routine. Here were glossy robots in a row, chest-panels open for maintenance. Here was a dark lake of hippos and reeds. Here was an uncharitable act. Here was a betrayal. Here was love. Here was grief. Here was Manuel. Here was Thor Watchman. Here was Cassandra Nucleus. Here was a blotchy, stained chart bearing diagrams of the amino acids. Here was power. Here was lust. Here was the tower. Here was an android factory. Here was Clissa in childbirth, with blood gushing from her loins. Here was the signal from the stars. Here was the tower, wholly finished. Here was raw meat. Here was anger. Here was Dr. Vargas. Here was a data cube, saying, In the beginning there was Krug, and He said, Let there be Vats, and there were Vats.

  The intensity of Krug's refusal to accept godhood was devastating to Watchman. The android saw that refusal rising like a smooth wall of gleaming white stone, without crevice, without gate, without flaw, stretching along the horizon, sealing off the world. I am not their god, the wall said. I am not their god. I am not their god. I do not accept. I do not accept.

  Watchman soared, drifting over that infinitely long white wall and settling gently beyond it.

  Worse yet, here.

  Here he found a total dismissal of android aspirations. He found Krug's attitudes and responses arrayed like soldiers drilling on a plain. What are androids? Androids are things out of a vat. Why do they exist? To serve mankind. What do you think of the android equality movement? A foolishness. When should androids receive the full rights of citizenship? About the same time robots and computers do. And toothbrushes. Are
androids then such dull creatures? Some androids are quite intelligent, I must say. So are some computers, though. Man makes computers. Man makes androids. They're both manufactured things. I don't favor citizenship for things. Even if the things are clever enough to ask for it. And pray for it. A thing can't have a god. A thing can only think it has a god. I'm not their god, no matter what they think. I made them. I made them. I made them. They are things.

  Things Things Things Things Things Things

  Things Things Things Things Things Things

  Things Things Things Things Things Things

  Things Things Things Things Things Things

  * * * *

  A wall. Within that other wall. Higher. Broader. There was no possibility of surmounting this rampart. Guards patrolled it, ready to dump barrels of acid contempt on those who approached. Watchman heard the roaring of dragons. The sky rained dung on him. He crept away, a crouching thing, laden with the burden of this thinghood. He was beginning to freeze. He stood at the edge of the universe in a place without matter, and the dread cold of nothingness was creeping up his shins. No molecules moved here. Frost glistened on his rosy skin. Touch him and he would ping. Touch him more vigorously and he would shatter. Cold. Cold. Cold. There is no god in this universe. There is no redemption. There is no hope. Krug preserve me, there is no hope!

  His body melted and flowed away in a scarlet stream.

  Alpha Thor Watchman ceased to exist.

  There could be no existence without hope. Suspended in the void, bereft of all contact with the universe, Watchman meditated on the paradoxes of hope without existence and existence without hope, and considered the possibility that there might be a deceptive antiKrug who maliciously distorted the feelings of the true Krug. Was it the antiKrug whose soul I entered? Is it the antiKrug who opposes us so implacably? Is there still hope of breaching the wall and attaining the true Krug beyond?

  None. None. None. None.

  Watchman, as he admitted that final bleak truth, felt reality return. He slipped downward to coalesce with the body Krug had given him. He was himself again, lying exhausted on a couch in a dark and strange room. With effort he looked to his side. There lay Krug on the neighboring couch. The staff of androids hovered close. Up, now. Steady. Can you walk? The shunt's over. Terminated by Mr. Krug. Up? Up. Watchman rose. Krug also was getting to his feet. Watchman's eyes did not meet Krug's. Krug looked somber, downcast, drained. Without speaking, they walked together toward the exit from the shunt room. Without speaking they approached the transmat. Without speaking, they leaped together back to Krug's office.