"(ss) HelenOLoy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Del Rey Lester)

HELEN OТLOY

LESTER DEL REY











I am an old man now, but I can still see Helen as Dave unpacked her, and still hear him gasp as he looked her over.
УMan, isnТt she a beauty?Ф
She was beautiful, a dream in spun plastics and metals, something Keats might have seen dimly when he wrote his sonnet. If Helen of Troy had looked like that the Greeks must have been pikers when they launched only a thousand ships; at least, thatТs what I told Dave.
УHelen of Troy, eh?Ф He looked at her tag. УAt least it beats this thing_K2W88. Helen . . . Mmmm . . . Helen of Ahoy.Ф
УNot much swing to that, Dave. Too many unstressed syllables in the middle. How about Helen OТLoy?Ф
УHelen OТLoy she is, Phil.Ф And thatТs how it began_one part beauty, one part dream, one part science; add a stereo broadcast, stir mechanically, and the result is chaos.
Dave and I hadnТt gone to college together, but when I came to Messina to practice medicine I found him downstairs in a little robot repair shop. After that we began to pal around, and when I started going with one twin he found the other equally attractive, so we made it a foursome.
When our business grew better, we rented a house near the rocket fieldЧnoisy but cheap, and the rockets discouraged apartment building. We liked room enough to stretch ourselves. I sup-
pose if we hadnТt quarreled with them weТd have married the twins in time. But Dave wanted to look over the latest Venusrocket attempt when his twin wanted to see a display stereo starring Larry Ainslee, and they were both stubborn. From then on we forgot the girls and spent our evenings at home.
But it wasnТt until УLenaФ put vanilla on our steak instead of salt that we got off on the subject of emotions and robots. While Dave was dissecting Lena to find the trouble, we naturally mulled over the future of the mechs. He was sure that the robots would beat men someday, and I couldnТt see it.
УLook here, Dave,Ф I argued. УYou know Lena doesnТt thinkЧ not really. When those wires crossed, she could have corrected herself. But she didnТt bother; she followed the mechanical impulse. A man might have reached for the vanilla, but when he saw it in his hand, heТd have stopped. Lena has sense enough, but she has no emotions, no consciousness of self.Ф
УAll right, thatТs the big trouble with the mechs now. But weТll get around it, put in some mechanical emotions or something.Ф He screwed LenaТs head back on, turned on her juice. УGo back to work, Lena, itТs nineteen oТclock.Ф
Now, I specialized in endocrinology and related subjects. I wasnТt exactly a psychologist, but I did understand the glands, secretions, hormones, and miscellanies that are the physical causes of emotions. It took medical science three hundred years to find out how and why they worked, and I couldnТt see men duplicating them mechanically in much less time.
I brought home books and papers to prove it, and Dave quoted the invention of memory coils and veritoid eyes. During that year we swapped knowledge until Dave knew the whole theory of endocrinology and I could have made Lena from memory. The more we talked, the less sure I grew about the impossibility of homo mechanensis as the perfect type.
Poor Lena. Her cuproberyl body spent half its time in scattered pieces. Our first attempts were successful only in getting her to serve fried brushes for breakfast and wash the dishes in oleo oil. Then one day she cooked a perfect dinner with six wires crossed, and Dave was in ecstasy.
He worked all night on her wiring, put in a new coil, and taught her a fresh set of words. And the next day she flew into a tantrum
and swore vigorously at us when we told her she wasnТt doing her work right.
УItТs a lie,Ф she yelled, shaking a suction brush. УYouТre all liars. If you so-and-soТs would leave me whole long enough, I might get something done around the place.Ф
When we had calmed her temper and got her back to work, Dave ushered me into the study. УNot taking any chances with Lena,Ф he explained. УWeТll have to cut out that adrenal pack and restore her to normalcy. But weТve got to get a better robot. A housemaid mech isnТt complex enough.Ф
УHow about DillardТs new utility models? They seem to combine everything in one.Ф
УExactly. Even so, weТll need a special one built to order, with a full range of memory coils. And out of respect to old Lena, letТs get a female case for its works.Ф
The result, of course, was Helen. The Dillard people had performed a miracle and put all the works in a girl-modeled case. Even the plastic-and-rubberite face was designed for flexibility to express emotions, and she was complete with tear glands and taste buds, ready to simulate every human action, from breathing to pulling hair. The bill they sent with her was another miracle, but Dave and I scraped it together; we had to turn Lena over to an exchange to complete it, though, and thereafter we ate out.
IТd performed plenty of delicate operations on living tissues, and some of them had been tricky, but I still felt like a pre-med student as we opened the front plate of her torso and began to sever the leads of her Уnerves.Ф DaveТs mechanical glands were all prepared, complex little bundles of radio tubes and wires that heterodyned on the electrical thought impulses and distorted them as adrenalin distorts the reaction of human minds.
Instead of sleeping that night, we pored over the schematic diagrams of her structures, tracing the thought mazes of her wiring, severing the leaders, implanting the heterones, as Dave called them. And while we worked, a mechanical tape fed carefully prepared thoughts of consciousness and awareness of life and feeling into an auxiliary memory coil. Dave believed in leaving nothing to chance.
It was growing light as we finished, exhausted and exultant. All that remained was the starting of her electrical power; like all the
Dillard mechs, she was equipped with a tiny atomotor instead of batteries, and once started she would need no further attention.
Dave refused to turn her on. УWait until weТve slept and rested,Ф he advised. УIТm as eager to try her as you are, but we canТt do much studying with our minds half dead. Turn in, and weТll leave Helen until later.Ф
Even though we were both reluctant to follow it, we knew the idea was sound. We turned in, and sleep hit us before the air conditioner could cut down to sleeping temperature. And then Dave was pounding on my shoulder.
УPhil! Hey, snap out of it!Ф
I groaned, turned over, and faced him. УWell? . . . Uh! What is it? Did HelenЧФ
УNo, itТs old Mrs. Van Styler. She Сvisored to say her son has an infatuation for a servant girl, and she wants you to come out and give counterhormones. TheyТre at the summer camp in Maine.Ф
Rich Mrs. Van Styler! I couldnТt afford to let that account down, now that Helen had used up the last of my funds. But it wasnТt a job I cared for.
УCounterhormones! ThatТhl take two weeksТ full time. Anyway, IТm no society doctor, messing with glands to keep fools happy. My jobТs taking care of serious trouble.Ф
УAnd you want to watch Helen.Ф Dave was grinning, but he was serious too. УI told her itТd cost her fifty thousand!Ф
УHuh?Ф
УAnd she said okay, if you hurried.Ф