"We Can Build You" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Philip K.)

9

As we waited in the cold wind at the concourse entrance for the flight from Seattle to land I said to myself, How'll he differ from the other people?

The Boeing 900 landed; it taxied along the runway. The ramps were run out, the doors opened, stewardesses helped people out, and at the bottom of each ramp airline employees made sure the passengers did not take pratfalls onto the asphalt ground. Meanwhile, luggage-carrying vehicles raced around like large bugs, and off to one side a Standard Stations truck had parked with its red lights on.

Every sort of passenger started appearing, issuing forth from the plane at both doors and swarming rapidly down the ramps. Around us friends and relatives pushed forward and out as far onto the field as was allowed. Beside me Maury stirred restlessly.

"Let's get out there and greet him."

Both he and Pris started going, so I went along with them. We were halted by an airline official in a blue uniform who waved us back. However Maury and Pris ignored him; I did so, too, and we reached the bottom of the first class ramp. There we halted. The passengers, one by one, descended, some of them smiling, the businessmen with no expression on their faces. Some of them looked tired.

"There he is," Maury said.

Down the first class ramp came a slender man in a gray suit, smiling slightly, his topcoat over his arm. As he got nearer to us it seemed to me that his suit fitted more naturally than the other men's. No doubt custom-tailored, probably in England or Hong Kong. And he looked more relaxed. He wore greenish dark glasses, rimless; his hair, as in the photos, was cut extra short, almost a GI sort of crewcut. Behind him came a jolly-looking woman I knew: Colleen Nild, with a clipboard and papers under her arm.

"Three in the party," Pris observed. There was another man, very short, portly, in an ill-fitting brown suit with sleeves and trousers too long, a reddish-faced man with a Doctor Doolittle nose and long thinning lank black hair combed across his domed skull. He wore a stickpin in his tie, and the way he strode after Barrows with his short legs convinced me that here was an attorney; this was the way trial lawyers take off from their seat in court, like the manager of a baseball club striding out onto the field to protest a decision. The gesture of protest, I decided as I watched him, is the same in all professions; you get right out there, talking and waving your arms as you come.

The lawyer was beaming in an alert, active fashion, talking away at a great rate to Colleen Nild; he looked to me to be a likable sort of guy, someone with enormous bouncy energy, just the sort of attorney I would have expected Barrows to have on retainer. Colleen, as before, wore a heavy blue-black quilted cloth coat that hung like lead. This time she was dressed up: she had on gloves, a hat, new leather mailpouch type purse. She was listening to the attorney; as he talked away he gestured in all directions, like an interior decorator or the foreman of a construction crew. Something about him gave me a friendly warm feeling and I felt less tense, now. The lawyer looked, I decided, like a great kidder. I felt I understood him.

Now here came Barrows to the bottom of the ramp, his eyes invisible behind his dark glasses, his head down slightly so as to keep an eye on what his feet were doing. He was listening to the attorney. As he started out onto the field Maury stepped forward.

"Mr. Barrows!"

Turning and halting, moving out of the way so those behind him could step from the ramp, Barrows in one movement of his body lithely swiveled and held out his hand. "Mr. Rock?"

"Yes sir," Maury said, shaking hands. Colleen Nild and the attorney clustered around; so did I and Pris. "This is Pris Frauenzimmer. And this is my partner, Louis Rosen."

"Happy, Mr. Rosen," Barrows shook hands with me. "This is Mrs. Nild, my secretary. This gentleman is Mr. Blunk, my counsel." We all shook hands around. "Cold out here on the field, isn't it?" Barrows started for the entrance of the building. He moved so swiftly that we all had to gallop after him like a flock of big awkward animals. Mr. Blunk's short legs pumped away as in a speeded-up old movie; he did not seem to mind, however; he continued to radiate cheerfulness.

"Boise," he declared, gazing around him. "Boise, Idaho. What will they think of next?"

Colleen Nild, falling in beside me, greeted me. "Nice to see you again, Mr. Rosen. We found the Stanton creature quite delightful."

"A fabulous construct," Blunk boomed back at us; we were lagging behind. "We thought it was from the Bureau of Internal Revenue." He gave me a hearty personal smile.

Up front walked Barrows and Maury; Pris had dropped back because the concourse door was so narrow. Barrows and Maury passed on inside and Pris followed next, then Mr. Blunk, then Colleen Nild and I taking up the rear. By the time we had passed through the building and outside again onto the street entrance where the taxis waited, Barrows and Maury had already located the limousine; the uniformed driver was holding one of the rear doors open and Barrows and Maury were crawling inside.

"Luggage?" I said to Mrs. Nild.

"No luggage. Too time-consuming to wait for it. We're only going to be here a few hours and then we're flying back. Probably late tonight. If we should stay over we'll buy what we need."

"Um," I said, impressed.

The rest of us also crawled into the limousine; the driver hopped around, and soon we were out in traffic, on our way into Boise proper.

"I don't see how the Stanton can set up a law office in Seattle," Maury was saying to Barrows. "It's not licensed to practice law in the State of Washington."

"Yes, I think you'll be seeing it again one of these days." Barrows offered Maury, then me, a cigarette from his case.

Summing it up I decided that Barrows differed from the rest of us in that he looked as if he had grown his gray English wool suit the way an animal grows its fur; it was simply part of him, like his nails and his teeth. He was utterly unconscious of it, as well as of his tie, his shoes, his cigarette case--he was unconscious of everything about his appearance.

So that's how it is to be a multi-millionaire, I decided.

A long jump from the bottom rung like myself, where the preoccupation is, I wonder if my fly is unzipped. That's the dregs, people like me, stealing swift covert glances down. Sam K. Barrows never stole a covert look at his fly in his life. If it was unzipped he'd simply zip it up. I wish I was rich, I said to myself.

I felt depressed. My condition was hopeless. I had not even gotten to the stage of worrying about the knot of my necktie, like other men. I probably never would.

And in addition Barrows was a really good-looking guy, sort of Robert Montgomery-shaped. Not handsome like Montgomery; for now Barrows had removed his dark glasses and I saw that he had puffy wrinkled skin beneath his eyes. But he's got that athletic build, probably from playing handball in a five thousand dollar private handball court. And he's got a top-notch doctor who doesn't let him swill cheap liquor or beer of any kind; he never eats in drive-ins... probably never eats any cut of pork, and only those eye lambchops, and only steak and roast type cuts of beef.

Naturally he hasn't got an ounce of extra flab on him, with a diet like that. It depressed me even more.

Now I could see how those bowls of stewed prunes at six o'clock in the morning and those four-mile jogs through the deserted early dawn streets at five a.m. fitted in. The eccentric young millionaire whose picture appeared in _Look_ was not going to drop dead at forty from heart trouble; he intended to live and enjoy his wealth. No widow would inherit it, contrary to the national pattern.

Eccentric, hell.

_Smart_.

The time was a little after seven in the evening as our limousine entered Boise itself, and Mr. Barrows and his two companions announced that they had not eaten dinner. Did we know of a good restaurant in Boise?

There is no good restaurant in Boise.

"Just a place where we can get fried prawns," Barrows said. "A light supper of that sort. We had a few drinks on the plane but none of us ate; we were too busy yakking."

We found a passable restaurant. The head waiter led us to a leather horseshoe-shaped booth in the rear; we took off our coats and seated ourselves.

We ordered drinks.

"Did you really make your first pile playing poker in the Service?" I asked Barrows.

"No, craps it was. A six-month floating crapgame. Poker takes skill; I have luck."

Pris said, "It wasn't luck that got you into real estate."

"No, it was because my mother used to rent out rooms in our old place in L.A." Barrows eyed her.

"Nor," Pris said in the same tense voice, "was it luck that has made you the Don Quixote who successfully tilted the Supreme Court of the United States into ruling against the Space Agency and its greedy monopolizing of entire moons and planets."

Barrows nodded at her. "You're generous in your description. I had in my possession what I believed to be valid title to parcels on Luna, and wanted to test the validity of those titles in such a way that they'd never be challenged again. Say, I've met you."

"Yes," Pris said, bright-eyed.

"Can't place you, though."

"It was only for a moment. In your office. I don't blame you for not remembering. I remember you, however." She had not taken her eyes from the man.

"You're Rock's daughter?"

"Yes, Mr. Barrows."

She looked a lot better, tonight. Her hair had been done, and she wore enough make-up to hide her paleness, but not so much as to give her the garish mask-like appearance which I had noticed in the past. Now that she had taken off her coat I saw that she wore an attractive fluffy jersey sweater, short-sleeved, with one piece of gold jewelry--a pin shaped like a snake--over her right breast. By god, I decided, she had a bra on, too, the kind that created bulk where there was no bulk. For this extraordinary occasion Pris had obtained a bosom. And, when she rose to hang up her coat, I saw that in her high, very thin heels she appeared to have nice legs. So, when the occasion demanded, she could fix herself up more than correctly.

"Let me take that," Blunk said, sweeping her coat away from her and bouncing over to the rack to hang it on a hanger. He returned, bowed, smiled merrily at her and reseated himself. "Are you sure," he boomed, "that this dirty old man--" He indicated Maury. "Is actually your father? Or is it not the case that you're committing a sin, the sin of statutory rape, sir?" He pointed his finger in a mock-epic manner at Maury. "Shame, sir!" He smiled at us all.

"You just want her for yourself," Barrows said, biting off the fantail of a prawn and laying it aside. "How do you know she's not another of those simulacrum things, like the Stanton one?"

"I'll take a dozen gross!" Blunk cried, his eyes shining.

Maury said, "She really is my daughter. She's been away at school." He looked uncomfortable.

"And come back--" Blunk lowered his voice. In an exaggerated aside he whispered hoarsely to Maury, "_In the family way_, is that it?"

Maury grinned uneasily.

Changing the subject I said, "It's nice to see you again, Mrs. Nild."

"Thank you."

"That Stanton robot scared the slats out of us," Barrows said to Maury and me, his elbows resting on the table, arms folded. He had finished his prawns and he looked well-fed and sleek. For a man who started out on stewed prunes he seemed to enjoy his food to the hilt. I had to approve of that, personally; it seemed to me to be an encouraging sign.

"You people are to be congratulated!" Blunk said. "You produced a monster!" He laughed loudly, enjoying himself. "I say kill the thing! Get a mob with torches! Onward!"

We all had to laugh at that.

"How did the Frankenstein monster finally die?" Colleen asked.

"Ice," Maury said. "The castle burned down and they sprayed hoses on it and the water became ice."

"But the monster was found frozen in the ice in the next movie," I said. "And they revived him."

"He disappeared into a pit of bubbling lava," Blunk said. "I was there. I kept a button from his coat." From his coat pocket he produced a button which he displayed to each of us in turn. "Off the world-famous Frankenstein monster."

Colleen said, "It's off your vest, David."

"What!" Blunk glanced down, scowling. "So it is! It's my own button!" Again he laughed.

Barrows, investigating his teeth with the edge of his thumbnail, said to Maury and me, "How much did it set you back to put together the Stanton robot?"

"Around five thousand," Maury said.

"And how much can it be produced in quantity for? Say, if several hundred thousand are run off."

"Hell," Maury said quickly. "I would say around six hundred dollars. That assumes they're identical, have the same ruling monads and are fed the same tapes."

"What it is," Barrows said to him, "is a life-size version of the talking dolls that were so popular in the past; correct--"

"No," Maury said, "not exactly."

"Well, it talks and walks around," Barrows said. "It took a bus to Seattle. Isn't that the automaton principle made a little more complex?" Before Maury could answer he continued. "What I'm getting at is, there really isn't anything _new_ here, is there?"

Silence.

"Sure," Maury said. He did not look very merry, now. And I noticed that Pris, too, seemed abruptly humorless.

"Well, would you spell it out, please," Barrows said, still with his pleasant tone, his informality. Picking up his glass of Green Hungarian he sipped. "Go ahead, Rock."

"It's not an automaton at all," Maury said. "You know the work of Grey Walter in England? The turtles? It's what's called a homeostatic system. It's cut off from its environment; it produces its own responses. It's like the fully automated factory which repairs itself. Do you know what 'feedback' refers to? In electrical systems there--"

Dave Blunk put his hand on Maury's shoulder. "What Mr. Barrows wants to know has to do with the patentability, if I may use such an unwieldly term, of your Stanton and Lincoln robots."

Pris spoke up in a low, controlled voice. "We're fully covered at the patent office. We have expert legal representation."

"That's good to hear," Barrows said, smiling at her as he picked his teeth. "Because otherwise there's nothing to buy."

"Many new principles are involved," Maury said. "The Stanton electronic simulacrum represents work developed over a period of years by many research teams in and out of Government and if I may say so myself we're all abundantly pleased, even amazed, at the terrific results... as you saw yourself when the Stanton got off the Greyhound bus at Seattle and took a taxi to your office."

"It walked," Barrows said.

"Pardon?"

"I say, it walked to my office from the Greyhound bus station."

"In any case," Maury said, "what we've achieved here has no precedent in the electronics trade."

After dinner we drove to Ontario, arriving at the office of MASA ASSOCIATES at ten o'clock.

"Funny little town," Dave Blunk said, surveying the empty streets. "Everybody in bed."

"Wait until you see the Lincoln," Maury said as we got out from the car.

They had stopped at the showroom window and were reading the sign that had to do with the Lincoln.

"I'll be a son of a gun," Barrows said. He put his face to the glass, peering in. "No sign of it right now, though. What does it do, sleep at night? Or do you have it assassinated every evening around five, when sidewalk traffic is heaviest?"

Maury said, "The Lincoln is probably down in the shop. We'll go down there." He unlocked the door and stood aside to let us enter.

Presently we were standing at the entrance to the dark repairshop as Maury groped for the light switch. At last he found it.

There, seated in meditation, was the Lincoln. It had been sitting quietly in the darkness.

Barrows said at once, "Mr. President." I saw him nudge Colleen Nild. Blunk grinned, looking enthusiastic, with the greedy, good-humored warmth of a hungry but confident cat. Clearly, he was getting enormous enjoyment out of all this. Mrs. Nild craned her neck, gasped faintly, obviously impressed. Barrows, of course, walked on into the repairshop without hesitation, knowing exactly what to do. He did not hold his hand out to the Lincoln; he halted a few paces from it, showing respect.

Turning his head the Lincoln regarded him with a melancholy expression. I had never seen such despair on a face before, and I shrank back; so did Maury. Pris did not react at all; she merely remained standing in the doorway. The Lincoln rose to its feet, hesitated, and then by degrees the expression of pain faded from its face; it said in a broken, reedy voice--completely at contrast to its tall frame, "Yes sir." It inspected Barrows from its height, with kindliness and interest, its eyes twinkling a little.

"My name is Sam Barrows," Barrows said. "It's a great honor to meet you, Mr. President."

"Thank you, Mr. Barrows," the Lincoln said. "Won't you and your friends enter and accommodate yourselves?"

To me Dave Blunk gave a wide-eyed silent whistle of astonishment and awe. He clapped me on the back. "Wheee," he said softly.

"You remember me, Mr. President," I said to the simulacrum.

"Yes, Mr. Rosen."

"What about me?" Pris said drily.

The simulacrum made a faint, clumsy, formal bow. "Miss Frauenzimmer. And you, Mr. Rock... the person on which this edifice rests, does it not?" The simulacrum chuckled. "The owner, or co-owner, if I am not mistook."

"What have you been doing?" Maury asked it.

"I was thinking about a remark of Lyman Trumbull's. As you know, Judge Douglas met with Buchanan and they talked over the Lecompton Constitution and Kansas. Judge Douglas later came out and fought Buchanan, despite the threat, it being an Administration measure. I did not support Judge Douglas, as did a number of those dear to me among my own party, the Republicans and their cause. But in Bloomington, where I was toward the end of 1857, I saw no Republicans going over to Douglas, as one saw in the New York _Tribune_. I asked Lyman Trumbull to write me in Springfield to tell me whether--"

Barrows interrupted the Lincoln simulacrum, at that point. "Sir, if you'll excuse me. We have business to conduct, and then I and this gentleman, Mr. Blunk, and Mrs. Nild, here, have to fly back to Seattle."

The Lincoln bowed. "Mrs. Nild." He held out his hand, and, with a snorting laugh, Colleen Nild went forward to shake hands with him. "Mr. Blunk." He gravely shook hands with the short plump attorney. "You're not related to Nathan Blunk of Cleveland, are you, sir?"

"No, I'm not," Blunk answered, shaking hands vigorously. "You were an attorney at one time, weren't you, Mr. Lincoln?"

"Yes sir," the Lincoln replied.

"My profession."

"I see," the Lincoln said, with a smile. "You have the divine ability to wrangle over trifles."

Blunk boomed out a hearty laugh.

Coming up beside Blunk, Barrows said to the simulacrum, "We flew here from Seattle to discuss with Mr. Rosen and Mr. Rock a financial transaction involving backing of MASA ASSOCIATES by Barrows Enterprises. Before we finalize we wanted to meet you and have a talk. We met the Stanton recently; he came to visit us on a bus. We'd acquire you and Stanton both as assets of MASA ASSOCIATES, as well as basic patents. As an ex-attorney you're probably familiar with transactions of this sort. I'd be curious to ask you something. What's your sense of the modern world? Do you know what a _vitamin_ is, for instance? Do you know what year this is?" He scrutinized the simulacrum keenly.

The Lincoln did not answer immediately, and while it was getting ready, Maury waved Barrows over to one side. I joined them.

"That's all beside the point," Maury said. "You know perfectly well it wasn't made to handle topics like that."

"True," Barrows agreed. "But I'm curious."

"Don't be. You'd feel funny if you burned out one of its primary circuits."

"Is it that delicate?"

"No," Maury said, "but you're needling it."

"No I'm not. It's so convincingly lifelike that I want to know how conscious it is of its new existence."

"Leave it alone," Maury said.

Barrows gestured abruptly. "Certainly." He beckoned to Colleen Nild and their attorney. "Let's conclude our business and start back to Seattle. David, are you satisfied by what you see?"

"No," Blunk said, as he joined us. Colleen remained with Pris and the simulacrum; they were asking it something about the debates with Stephen Douglas. "It doesn't seem to function nearly as well as the Stanton one, in my opinion."

"How so?" Maury demanded.

"It's--halting."

"It just came to," I said.

"No, it's not that," Maury said. "It's a different personality. Stanton's more inflexible, dogmatic." To me he said, "I know a hell of a lot about those two people. Lincoln was this way. I made up the tapes. He had periods of brooding, he was brooding here just now when we came in. Other times he's more cheerful." To Blunk he said, "That's his character. If you stick around awhile you'll see him in other moods. Moody--that's what he is. Not like Stanton, not positive. I mean, it's not an electrical failure; it's supposed to be that way."

"I see," Blunk said, but he did not sound convinced.

"I know what you refer to," Barrows said. "It seems to stick."

"Right," Blunk said. "I'm not sure in my own mind that they've got this perfected. There may be a lot of bugs left to iron out."

"And this cover-up line," Barrows said, "about not questioning it as to contemporary topics--you caught that."

"I certainly did," Blunk said.

"Sam," I said to Barrows, plunging in, "you don't get the point at all. Maybe that's due to your having just made that plane flight from Seattle and then that long drive by car from Boise. Frankly, I thought you grasped the principle underlying the simulacra, but let's let the subject go, for the sake of amicability. Okay?" I smiled.

Barrows contemplated me without answering; so did Blunk. Off in the corner Maury perched on a workstool, with his cigar giving off clouds of lonely blue smoke.

"I understand your disappointment with the Lincoln," I said. "I sympathize. To be frank, the Stanton one was coached."

"Ah," Blunk said, his eyes twinkling.

"It wasn't my idea. My partner here was nervous and he wanted it all set up." I wagged my head in Maury's direction. "He was wrong to do it, but anyhow that's a dead issue; what we want to deal with is the Lincoln simulacrum because that's the basis of MASA ASSOCIATES' genuine discovery. Let's walk back and query it further."

The three of us walked back to where Mrs. Nild and Pris stood listening to the tall, bearded, stooped simulacrum.

"... quoted me to the effect that the Negro was included in that clause of the Declaration of Independence which says that all men were created equal. That was at Chicago Judge Douglas says I said that, and then he goes on to say that at Charleston I said the Negro belonged to an inferior race. And that I held it was not a moral issue, but a question of degree, and yet at Galesburg I went back and said it was a moral question once more." The simulacrum smiled its gentle, pained smile at us. "Thereupon some fellow in the audience called out, 'He's right.' I was glad somebody thought me right, because it seemed to myself that Judge Douglas had me by the coat tails."

Pris and Mrs. Nild laughed appreciatively. The rest of us stood silently.

"About the best applause Judge Douglas got was when he said that the whole Republican Party in the northern part of the state stands committed to the doctrine of no more slave states, and that this same doctrine is repudiated by the Republicans in the other part of the state... and the Judge wondered whether Mr. Lincoln and his party do not present the case which Mr. Lincoln cited from the Scriptures, of a house divided against itself which cannot stand." The simulacrum's voice had assumed a droll quality. "And the Judge wondered if my principles were the same as the Republican Party's. Of course, I don't get the chance to answer the Judge until October at Quincy. But I told him there, that he could argue that a horse-chestnut is the same as a chestnut horse. I certainly had no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together on the footing of perfect equality. But I hold the Negro as much entitled to the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as any white man. He is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color--perhaps not in intellectual and moral endowments. But in the right to eat the bread which his own hand earns, without leave of anybody else, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every other man." The simulacrum paused. "I received a few good cheers myself at that moment."

To me Sam Barrows said, "You've got quite a tape reeling itself off inside that thing, don't you?"

"It's free to say what it wants," I told him.

"Anything? _You mean it wants to speechify?_" Barrows obviously did not believe me. "I don't see that it's anything but the familiar mechanical man gimmick, with this dressed-up historical guise. The same thing was demonstrated at the 1939 San Francisco World's Fair, Pedro the Vodor."

This exchange between Barrows and I had not escaped the attention of the Lincoln simulacrum. In fact both it and Pris and Mrs. Nild were now watching us and listening to us.

The Lincoln said to Mr. Barrows, "Did I not hear you, a short while ago, express the notion of 'acquiring me,' as an asset of some kind? Do I recall fairly? If so, I would wonder how you could acquire me or anyone else, when Miss Frauenzimmer tells me that there is a stronger impartiality between the races now than ever before. I am a bit mixed on some of this but I believe there is no more 'acquiring' of any human in the worki today, even in Russia where it is notorious."

Barrows said, "That doesn't include mechanical men."

"You refer to myself?" the simulacrum said.

With a laugh Barrows said, "All right, yes I do."

Beside him the short lawyer David Blunk stood plucking at his chin thoughtfully, glancing from Barrows to the simulacrum and back.

"Would you tell me, sir," the simulacrum said, "what a man is?"

"Yes, I would," Barrows said. He caught Blunk's eye; obviously, Barrows was enjoying this. "A man is a forked radish." He added, "Is that definition familiar to you, Mr. Lincoln?"

"Yes sir, it is," the simulacrum said. "Shakespeare has his Falstaff speak that, does he not?"

"Right," Barrows said. "And I'd add to that, A man can be defined as an animal that carries a pocket handkerchief. How about that? Mr. Shakespeare didn't say that."

"No sir," the simulacrum agreed. "He did not." The simulacrum laughed heartily. "I appreciate your humor, Mr. Barrows. May I use that remark in a speech?"

Barrows nodded.

"Thank you," the simulacrum said. "Now, you've defined a man as an animal which carries a pocket handkerchief. But what is an animal?"

"I can tell you you're not," Barrows said, his hands in his trouser pockets; he looked perfectly confident. "An animal has a biological heritage and makeup which you lack. You've got valves and wires and switches. You're a machine. Like a--" He considered. "Spinning jenny. Like a steam engine." He winked at Blunk. "Can a steam engine consider itself entitled to protection under the clause of the Constitution which you quoted? Has it got a right to eat the bread it produces, like a white man?"

The simulacrum said, "Can a machine talk?"

"Sure. Radios, phonographs, tape recorders, telephones-- they all yak away like mad."

The simulacrum considered. It did not know what those were, but it could make a shrewd guess; it had had enough time by itself to do a good deal of thinking. We could all appreciate that.

"Then what, sir, is a machine?" the simulacrum asked Barrows.

"You're one. These fellows made you. You belong to them."

The long, lined, dark-bearded face twisted with weary amusement as the simulacrum gazed down at Barrows. "Then you, sir, are a machine. For you have a Creator, too. And, like 'these fellows,' He made you in His image. I believe Spinoza, the great Hebrew scholar, held that opinion regarding animals; that they were clever machines. The critical thing, I think, is the soul. A machine can do anything a man can--you'll agree to that. But it doesn't have a soul."

"There is no soul," Barrows said. "That's pap."

"Then," the simulacrum said, "a machine is the same as an animal." It went on slowly in its dry, patient way, "And an animal is the same as a man. Is that not correct?"

"An animal is made out of flesh and blood, and a machine is made out of wiring and tubes, like you. What's the point of all this? You know darn well you're a machine; when we came in here you were sitting here alone in the dark thinking about it. So what? I know you're a machine; I don't care. All I care is whether you work or not. As far as I'm concerned you don't work well enough to interest me. Maybe later on when you have fewer bugs. All you can do is spout on about Judge Douglas and a lot of political, social twaddle that nobody gives a damn about."

His attorney, Dave Blunk, turned to regard him thoughtfully, still plucking at his chin.

"I think we should start back to Seattle," Barrows said to him. To me and Maury he said, "Here's my decision. We'll come in, but we have to have a controlling interest so we can direct policy. For instance, this Civil War notion is pure absurdity. As it stands."

Taken absolutely by surprise I stammered, "W-what?"

"The Civil War scheme could be made to bring in a reasonable return in only one way. You'd never think of it in a million years. Refight the Civil War with robots; yes. But the return comes in when it's set up so you can bet on the outcome."

"What outcome?" I said.

"Outcome as to which side prevails," Barrows said. "The blue or the gray."

"Like the World Series," Dave Blunk said, frowning thoughtfully.

"Exactly." Barrows nodded.

"The South couldn't win," Maury said. "It had no industry."

"Then set up a handicap system," Barrows said.

Maury and I were at a loss for words.

"You're not serious," I finally managed.

"I am serious."

"A national epic made into a horse race? A dog race? A lottery?"

Barrows shrugged. "I've given you a million-dollar idea. You can throw it away; that's your privilege. I can tell you that there's no other way a Civil War use of your dolls can be made to pay. Myself, I would put them to a different use entirely. I know where your engineer, Robert Bundy, came from; I'm aware that he formerly was employed by the Federal Space Agency in designing circuits for their simulacra. After all, it's of the utmost importance to me to know as much about space-exploration hardware as can be known. I'm aware that your Stanton and Lincoln are minor modifications of Government systems."

"Major," Maury corrected hoarsely. "The Government simulacra are simply mobile machines that creep about on an airless surface where no humans could exist."

Barrows said, "I'll tell you what I envision. Can you produce simulacra that are friendly-like?"

"What?" both I and Maury said together.

"I could use a number of them designed to look exactly like the family next door. A friendly, helpful family that would make a good neighbor. People you'd want to move in near, people like you remember from your childhood back in Omaha, Nebraska."

After a pause Maury said, "He means that he's going to sell lots of them. So they can build."

"Not sell," Barrows said. "_Give_. Colonization has to begin; it's been put off too long as it is. The Moon is barren and desolate. People are going to be lonely, there. It's difficult, we've found, to get anyone to go first. They'll buy the land but they won't settle on it. We want towns to spring up. To do that possibly we've got to prime the pump."

"Would the actual human settlers know that their neighbors are merely simulacra?" I asked.

"Of course," Barrows said smoothly.

"You wouldn't try to deceive them?"

"Hell no," Dave Blunk said. "That would be fraud."

I looked at Maury; he looked at me.

"You'd give them names," I said to Barrows. "Good old homey American names. The Edwards family, Bill and Mary Edwards and their son Tim who's seven. They're going to the Moon; they're not afraid of the cold and the lack of air and the empty, barren wastes."

Barrows eyed me.

"And as more and more people got hooked," I said, "you could quietly begin to pull the simulacra back out. The Edwards family and the Jones family and the rest--they'd sell their houses and move on. Until finally your subdivisions, your tract houses, would be populated by authentic people. And no one would ever know."

"I wouldn't count on it working," Maury said. "Some authentic settler might try to sleep with Mrs. Edwards and then he'd find out. You know how life is in housing tracts."

Dave Blunk brayed out in a hee-haw of laughter. "Very good!"

Placidly, Barrows said, "I think it would work."

"You have to," Maury said. "You've got all those parcels of land up there in the sky. So people are loath to emigrate... I thought there was a constant clamor, and all that was holding them back was the strict laws."

"The laws are strict," Barrows said--"but--let's be realistic. It's an environment up there that once you've seen it... well, let's put it this way. About ten minutes is enough for most people. I've been there. I'm not going again."

I said, "Thanks for being so candid with us, Barrows."

Barrows said, "I know that the Government simulacra have functioned to good effect on the Lunar surface. I know what you have: a good modification of those simulacra. I know how you acquired the modification. I want the modification, once again modified, this time to my own concept. Any other arrangement is out of the question. Except for planetary exploration your simulacra have no genuine market value. It's a foolish pipe dream, this Civil War stunt. I won't do business with you on any understanding except as I've outlined. And I want it in writing." He turned to Blunk, and Blunk nodded soberly.

I gaped at Barrows, not knowing whether to believe him; was this serious? Simulacra posing as human colonists, living on the Moon in order to create an illusion of prosperity? Man, woman and child simulacra in little living rooms, eating phony dinners, going to phony bathrooms... it was horrible. It was a way of bailing this man out of the troubles he had run into; did we want to hang our fortunes and lives onto that?

Maury sat puffing away miserably on his cigar; he was no doubt thinking along the lines I was.

And yet I could see Barrows's position. He had to persuade people in the mass that emigration to the Moon was desirable; his economic holdings hinged on it. And perhaps the end justified the means. The human race had to conquer its fear, its squeamishness, and enter an alien environment for the first time in its history. This might help entice it; there was comfort in solidarity. Heat and air domes protecting the great tracts would be built... living would not be physically bad--it was only the psychological reality which was terrible, the aura of the Lunar environment. Nothing living, nothing growing... changeless forever. A brightly-lit house next door, with a family seated at their breakfast table, chatting and enjoying themselves: Barrows could provide them, as he would provide air, heat, houses and water.

I had to hand it to the man. From my standpoint it was fine except for one single joker. Obviously, every effort would be made to keep the secret. But if the efforts were a failure, if news got out, probably Barrows would be financially ruined, possibly even prosecuted and sent to jail. And we would go with him.

How much else in Barrows' empire had been concocted in this manner? Appearance built up over the fake...

I managed to switch the topic to the problems involved in a trip back to Seattle that night; I persuaded Barrows to phone a nearby motel for rooms. He and his party would stay until tomorrow and then return.

The interlude gave me a chance to do some phoning of my own. Off by myself where no one could overhear me I telephoned my dad at Boise.

"He's dragging us into something too deep for us," I told my dad. "We're out of our depth and none of us know what to do. We just can't handle this man."

Naturally my dad had already gone to bed. He sounded befuddled. "This Barrows, he is here flow?"

"Yes. And he's got a brilliant mind. He even debated with the Lirrcoln and thinks he won. Maybe he did win; he quoted Spinoza, about animals being clever machines instead of alive. Not Barrows--Lincoln. Did Spinoza really say that?"

"Regretfully I must confess it."

"When can you get down here?"

"Not tonight," my father said.

"Tomorrow, then. They're staying over. We'll knock off and resume tomorrow. We need your gentle humanism so be damn sure to show up."

I hung up and returned to the group. The five of them-- six, if you counted the simulacrum--were together in the main office, chatting.

"We're going down the street for a drink before we turn in," Barrows said to me. "You'll join us, of course." He nodded toward the simulacrum. "I'd like it to come along, too."

I groaned to myself. But aloud I agreed.

Presently we were seated in a bar and the bartender was fixing our drinks.

The Lincoln had remained silent during the ordering, but Barrows had ordered a Tom Collins for it. Now Barrows handed it the glass.

"Cheers," Dave Blunk said to the simulacrum, raising his whiskey sour.

"Although I am not a temperance man," the simulacrum said in its odd, high-pitched voice, "I seldom drink." It examined its drink dubiously, then sipped it.

"You fellows would have been on firmer ground," Barrows said, "if you'd worked out the logic of your position a little further. But it's too late to accomplish that now. I say whatever this full-sized doll of yours is worth as a salable idea, the idea of utilizing it in space exploration is worth at least as much--maybe more. So the two cancel each other out. Wouldn't you agree?" He glanced inquiringly around.

"The idea of space exploration," I said, "was the Federal Government's."

"My modification of that idea, then," Barrows said. "My point is that it's an even trade."

"I don't see what you mean, Mr. Barrows," Pris said. "_What_ is?"

"Your idea, the simulacrum that looks so much like a human being that you can't tell it from one... and ours, of putting it on Luna in a modern two-bedroom California ranch-style house and calling it the Edwards family."

"That was Louis' idea!" Maury exclaimed desperately. "About the Edwards family!" He gazed wildly around at me. "Wasn't it, Louis?"

"Yes," I said. At least, I thought it was. We have to get out of here, I told myself. We're being backed farther and farther against the wall.

To itself the Lincoln sipped its Tom Collins.

"How do you like that drink?" Barrows asked it. "Flavorful. But it blurs the senses." It continued to sip, however.

That's all we need, I thought. Blurred senses!