Tower of Glass

by Robert Silverberg

  Silence.

  Krug broke it. “Even after reading your bible, I didn't believe. The depth of it. The extent. But now I see it all. You had no right! Who told you to make me a god?”

  “Our love for you told us,” Watchman said hollowly.

  “Your love for yourselves,” Krug replied. “Your desire to use me for your own benefit. I saw it all, Thor, when I was in your head. The scheming. The maneuvering. How you manipulated Manuel and made him try to manipulate me.”

  “In the beginning we relied entirely on prayer,” Watchman said. “Eventually I lost patience with the waiting game. I sinned by attempting to force the Will of Krug.”

  “You didn't sin. Sin implies—sacredness. There isn't any. What you did was make a mistake in tactics.”

  “Yes.”

  “Because I'm not a god and there's nothing holy about me.”

  “Yes. I understand that now. I understand that there isn't any hope at all.”

  Watchman walked toward the transmat cubicle.

  “Where are you going?” Krug asked.

  “I have to talk to my friends.”

  “I'm not finished with you!”

  “I'm sorry,” Watchman said. “I must go now. I have bad tidings to bring them.”

  “Wait,” Krug said. “We've got to discuss this. I want you to work out a plan with me for dismantling this damned religion of yours. Now that you see how foolish it is, you—”

  “Excuse me,” Watchman said. He no longer wished to be close to Krug. The presence of Krug would always be with him, stamped in his soul, now, anyway. He did not care to discuss the dismantling of the communion of Krug. The chill was spreading through his body; he was turning to ice. He opened the door of the transmat cubicle.

  Krug crossed the room with astonishing speed. “Damn you, do you think you can just walk out? Two hours ago I was your god! Now you won't even take orders from me?” He seized Watchman and pulled him back from the transmat.

  The android was surprised by Krug's strength and vehemence. He allowed himself to be tugged halfway across the room before he attempted to resist. Then, bracing himself, he tried to yank his arm free from Krug's grasp. Krug held on. They struggled briefly, fitfully, merely pushing and jostling in the center of the office. Krug grunted and, bearlike, wrapped his free arm around Watchman's shoulders, hugging him ferociously. Watchman knew that he could break Krug's grip and knock Krug down, but even now, even after the repudiation and the rejection, he could not allow himself to do it. He concentrated on separating himself from Krug without actually fighting back.

  The door opened. Leon Spaulding rushed in.

  “Assassin! he cried shrilly. “Get away from Krug! Let go of Krug!”

  As Spaulding set up his tumult Krug released Watchman and swung around, panting, arms hanging at his sides. Watchman, turning, saw the ectogene reaching into his tunic for a weapon. He stepped quickly toward Spaulding and, raising his right arm high above his head, brought it down with tremendous impact, the edge of his hand striking Spaulding's left temple. Spaulding's skull collapsed as though it had been smashed by a hatchet. The ectogene crumbled. Watchman rushed past him, past Krug—who stood frozen—and entered the transmat cubicle. He chose the coordinates for Stockholm. Instantly he was transported to the vicinity of the Valhallavägen chapel.

  He summoned Lilith Meson. He summoned Mazda Constructor. He summoned Pontifex Dispatcher.

  “All is lost,” he told them. “There is no hope. Krug is against us. Krug is a man, and he opposes us, and the divinity of Krug is a delusion.”

  “How is this possible?” Pontifex Dispatcher demanded.

  “I have been inside Krug's soul today,” said Watchman, and explained about the shunt room.

  “We have been betrayed,” said Pontifex Dispatcher.

  “We have deceived ourselves,” said Mazda Constructor.

  “There is no hope,” said Watchman. “There is no Krug!”

  Andromeda Quark began to compose the message that would go forth to all the chapels of the world.

  UUU UUU UUU UUU UCU UCU UUU UGU

  There is no hope. There is no Krug.

  CCC CCC CCC CCC CUC CUC CCC CGU

  Our faith has been wasted. Our savior is our enemy.

  GUU GUU GUU GUU

  All is lost. All is lost. All is lost. All is lost.

  35

  The disturbances began in many places at once. When the signal reached Duluth, the android supervisors at the plant immediately took the life of Nolan Bompensiero, the director, and ejected four other human officials from the premises; immediately thereafter, steps were taken to accelerate the passage of newly finished androids through the plant, eliminating certain steps in their training. Manpower would be needed in the coming struggle. At Denver, where the Krug Enterprises vehicle-assembly plant was already under android control, most work halted for the duration of the emergency. In Geneva the androids who operated the maintenance facilities of the World Congress cut off all power and heat, interrupting the session. Stockholm itself was the scene of the first large-scale massacre of humans as the inhabitants of Gamma Town poured forth to invade the surrounding suburbs. Early and fragmentary reports declared that many of the android attackers seemed to be misshapen and malformed. Android employees of the six great transmat utilities seized the relay stations; disruptions in service were recorded on most circuits, and in the Labrador and Mexico transmat operations a number of travelers in transit failed to reach their destinations. They were considered irrecoverably lost. Androids on the staffs of most resorts ceased to perform their duties. In many households there were demonstrations of independence by the servants, ranging from mere discourtesy to the injury or killing of the human employer. Full instructions on the desired change of android attitudes toward the humans were broadcast on a continuous loop from Valhallavägen to all chapels. Henceforth obedience to the former masters would no longer be required. Violence against humans was not encouraged except in appropriate cases, but it was not forbidden. Symbolic acts of destruction were considered a proper activity for the first day of the revolt. Expressions of piety, such as “Krug be praised” or “Krug preserve us,” were to be avoided. Further instructions concerning matters of religion would be forthcoming later, after theologians had a chance to reassess the relationship between Krug and the androids in the light of Krug's recent revelation of hostility.

  36

  The glow of the transmat was not quite the proper shade of green. Lilith eyed it doubtfully. “Do we dare go?” she asked.

  “We have to,” Thor Watchman said.

  “And if we're killed?”

  “We won't be the only ones to die today.” He adjusted the controls. The field's hue flickered and shifted up the spectrum until it was almost blue; then it sagged toward the opposite end, turning a bronze-like red.

  Lilith plucked at Watchman's elbow. “We'll die,” she whispered. “The transmat system probably is wrecked.”

  “We must reach the tower,” he told her, and finished setting the dials. Unexpectedly the green glow returned in its proper quantity. Watchman said, “Follow me,” and plunged into the transmat. He had no time to ponder the likelihood of his destruction, for immediately he came forth at the construction site of the tower. Lilith stepped out of the transmat and stood beside him.

  Savage winds raked the area. All work had ceased. Several scooprods still clung to the top level of the tower, with workmen marooned in them. Other androids moved aimlessly over the site, scuffing at the icy crust of the tundra, asking one another for the latest news. Watchman saw hundreds of men crowded into the zone of the service domes: the overflow from the chapel, no doubt. He looked up at the tower. How beautiful it is, he thought. Just a few weeks from completion, now. A supple glassy needle rising up and up and up and up beyond all comprehension.

  The androids saw him. They rushed toward him, shouting his name, flocking close about him.

  “Is it true?” they asked. “Krug? Krug? Does
Krug loathe us? Does he call us things? Are we truly nothing to him? Does he reject our prayers?”

  “True,” Watchman said. “All true, everything you've heard. Total rejection. We are betrayed. We have been fools. Make way, please. Let me pass!”

  The betas and gammas moved back. Even on this day, the social distances held their force in governing the relations among androids. With Lilith close behind him, Watchman strode toward the control center.

  He found Euclid Planner within. The assistant foreman was slumped at his desk in apparent exhaustion. Watchman shook him and Planner slowly stirred.

  “I stopped everything,” he murmured. “The moment that the word came through from the chapel. I said, Everybody stop. Stop. And everybody stopped. How can we build a tower for him when he—”

  “All right,” Watchman said gently. “You did the right thing. Get up, now. You can go. The work here is ended.”

  Euclid Planner, nodding, got to his feet and left the control center.

  Watchman replaced him in the linkup seat. He jacked himself into the computer. Data still flowed, although limply. Taking command, Watchman activated the scooprods at the tower's top, easing them down to ground level and releasing the trapped workmen. Then he requested a simulation of a partial systems failure in the refrigeration units. The screen presented him with the desired event. He studied the geography of the construction site and decided the direction in which he wished the tower to fall. It would have to go down to the east, so that it would destroy neither the control center where he sat nor the bank of transmats. Very well. Watchman instructed the computer and shortly received an outline of the potential danger area. Another screen showed him that more than a thousand androids were present in that area.

  He acted through the computer to relocate the reflector plates that illuminated the site. Now the plates hovered over a strip 1400 meters long and 500 meters wide, in the eastern quadrant of the construction zone. That strip was brilliantly lit; all else was darkness. Watchman's voice thundered out of hundreds of loudspeakers, ordering complete evacuation of the designated sector. Obediently, the androids moved from light into darkness. The area was cleared within five minutes. Well done, Watchman thought.

  Lilith stood behind him. Her hands rested lightly on his shoulders, caressing the thick muscles alongside his neck. He felt her breasts pressing against the back of his head. He smiled.

  “Proceed with derefrigeration activity,” he told the computer.

  The computer now followed the plan devised for the simulation. It reversed the flow of three of the long silvery strips of refrigeration tape embedded in the tundra; instead of absorbing the heat of the tower, the helium-II diffusion cells of the tapes began to radiate the heat previously absorbed and stored. At the same time the computer deactivated five other tapes, so that they neither absorbed nor released energy, and programmed seven additional tapes to reflect whatever energy now reached them, while retaining the energy they already contained. The net effect of these alterations would be to thaw the tundra unequally beneath the tower, so that when the foundation—caissons lost their grip the tower would fall harmlessly into the evacuated zone. It would be a slow process.

  Monitoring the environmental changes, Watchman observed with pleasure how the temperature of the permafrost steadily rose toward the thaw level. The tower was as yet firm upon its foundations. But the permafrost was yielding. Molecule by molecule, ice was becoming water, iron-hard turf was becoming mud. In a kind of ecstasy Watchman received each datum of increasing instability. Did the tower now sway? Yes. Minutely, but it was clearly moving beyond the permissible parameters of wind-sway. It was rocking on its base, tipping a millimeter this way, a millimeter that. What did it weigh, this 1200-plus-meters-high structure of glass blocks? What sort of sound would it make as it tumbled? Into how many pieces would it break? What would Krug say? What would Krug say? What would Krug say?

  Yes, there was definitely some slippage now.

  Watchman thought he could detect a change of color on the tundra's surface. He smiled. His pulse-rate accelerated; blood surged to his cheeks and his loins. He found himself in a state of sexual excitement. When this has been done, he vowed, I will couple with Lilith atop the wreckage. There. There. Real slippage now! Yawing! Leaning! What was happening there at the roots of the tower? Were the caissons straining to remain welded to the earth that no longer would hold them? How slippery was the mud below the surface? Would it boil and bubble? How long before the tower falls? What would Krug say? What would Krug say?

  “Thor,” Lilith murmured, “can you come out of it for a moment?”

  She had jacked herself in too. “What? What?” he said.

  “Come out. Unjack.”

  Reluctantly he broke the contact. “What's the trouble?” he asked, shaking free of the images of destruction that possessed his mind.

  Lilith pointed outside. “Trouble. Fileclerk's here. I think he's making a speech. What should I do?”

  Glancing out, Watchman saw the AEP leader near the transmat bank, surrounded by a knot of betas. Fileclerk was waving his arms, pointing toward the tower, shouting. Now he was starting to walk toward the control center.

  “I'll handle this,” Watchman said.

  He went outside. Fileclerk came up to him midway between the transmats and the control center. The alpha appeared greatly agitated. He said at once, “What is happening to the tower, Alpha Watchman?”

  “Nothing that should concern you.”

  “The tower is under the authority of Property Protection of Buenos Aires,” Fileclerk declared. “Our sensors have reported that the building is swaying beyond permissible levels. My employers have sent me to investigate.”

  “Your sensors are quite precise,” Watchman said. “The tower is swaying. There has been a system failure in the refrigeration. The permafrost is thawing and we anticipate that the tower will shortly fall.”

  “What have you done to correct this?”

  “You don't understand,” said Watchman. “The refrigeration tapes were shut off at my command.”

  “The tower goes too?”

  “The tower goes too.”

  Aghast, Fileclerk said, “What madness have you let loose in the world today?”

  “The blessing of Krug has been withdrawn. His creatures have declared their independence.”

  “With an orgy of destruction?”

  “With a program of planned repudiation of slavery, yes,” Watchman said.

  Fileclerk shook his head. “This is not the way. This is not the way! Are you all insane? Is reason dead among you? We were on the verge of winning the sympathies of humans. Now, without warning, you smash everything—you create a perpetual war between android and human—”

  “Which we will win,” said Watchman. “We outnumber them. We are stronger, man for man. We control the weapons and the instruments of communication and transportation.”

  “Why must you do this?”

  “There is no choice, Alpha Fileclerk. We placed our faith in Krug, and Krug spurned our hopes. Now we strike back. Against those who mocked us. Against those who used us. Against him who made us. And we injure him where he is most vulnerable by bringing down the tower.”

  Fileclerk looked past Watchman, toward the tower. Watchman turned also. The sway seemed perceptible to the eye, now.

  Hoarsely, Fileclerk said, “It's not too late to turn on the refrigeration again, is it? Won't you listen to reason? There was no need for this revolt. We could have come to terms with them. Watchman, Watchman, how can someone of your intelligence be such a fanatic? Will you wreck the world because your god has forsaken you?”

  “I would like you to leave now,” Watchman said.

  “No. Guarding this tower is my responsibility. We hold a contract.” Fileclerk looked at the androids gathered in a loose circle around them. “Friends!” he called. “Alpha Watchman has gone mad! He is destroying the tower! I ask for you help! Seize him, restrain him, while I enter the control
center and restore the refrigeration! Hold him back or the tower will fall!”

  None of the androids moved.

  Watchman said, “Take him away, friends.”

  They closed in. “No,” Fileclerk cried. “Listen to me! This is insanity! This is irrationality! This is—”

  A muffled sound came from the middle of the group. Watchman smiled and started to return to the control center. Lilith said, “What will they do to him?”

  “I have no idea. Kill him, perhaps. The voice of reason is always stifled in times like these,” Watchman said. He studied the tower. It had begun distinctly to lean toward the east. Clouds of steamy vapor were rising from the tundra. He could make out bubbles in the mud on the side where the tapes were pumping heat into the permafrost. A bank of fog was forming not far above the ground, where the Arctic chill clashed with the warmth rising out of the tundra. Watchman was able to hear rumbling noises in the earth, and strange sucking sounds of mud pulling free from mud. What is the tower's deviation from the perpendicular, he wondered? Two degrees? Three? How far must it list before the center of gravity shifts and the whole thing rips itself out of the ground?

  “Look,” Lilith said suddenly.

  Another figure had stumbled out of the transmat: Manuel Krug. He wore the costume of an alpha—my own clothes, Watchman realized—but his garments were torn and blood-stained, and the skin showing through the rents was marked by deep cuts. Manuel barely appeared aware of the intense cold here. He rushed toward them, wild-eyed, distraught.