The Astral Mirror

by Ben Bova

  By the time he was forty he seldom sallied forth from his penthouse condominium. It took up the entire floor of a posh Manhattan tower and contained every luxury and convenience imaginable. Branley decided to cut off as many of the remaining links to the outside world as possible, to become a hermit, but a regally comfortable hermit. For that, he realized, he needed a computer. But not the ordinary kind of computer. Branley decided to have a personalized computer designed to fit his particular needs, a computer that would allow him to live as he wished to, not far from the madding crowd, but apart from it. He tracked down the best and brightest computer designer in the country, never leaving his apartment to do so, and had the young man dragged from his basement office near the San Andreas Fault to the geologic safety of Manhattan.

  “Design for me a special computer system based on my individual needs and desires,” Branley commanded the young engineer. “Money is no object.”

  The engineer looked around the apartment, a scowl on his fuzzy-cheeked face. Branley sighed as he realized that the uncouth young man would have to spend at least a few days with him. He actually lived in the apartment for nearly a month, then insisted on returning to California.

  “I can’t do any creative work here, man,” the engineer said firmly. “Not enough sun.”

  Six months passed before the engineer showed up again at Branley’s door. His face shone beatifically. In his hands he held a single small gray metal box.

  “Here it is, man. Your system.”

  “That?” Branley was incredulous. “That is the computer you designed for me? That little box?”

  With a smile that bordered on angelic, the engineer carried the box past an astounded Branley and went straight to his office. He placed the box tenderly on Branley’s magnificent Siamese solid teak desk.

  “It’ll do everything you want it to,” the young man said.

  Branley stared at the ugly little box. It had no grace to it at all. Just a square of gray metal, with a slight dent in its top. “Where do I plug it in?” he asked as he walked cautiously toward the desk.

  “Don’t have to plug it in, man. It operates on milliwaves. The latest. Just keep it here where the sun will fall on it once a week at least and it’ll run indefinitely.”

  “Indefinitely?”

  “Like, forever.”

  “Really?”

  The engineer was practically glowing. “You don’t even have to learn a computer language or type input into it. Just tell it what you want in plain English and it’ll program itself. It links automatically to all your other electrical appliances. There’s nothing in the world like it!”

  Branley plopped into the loveseat by the windows that overlooked the river. “It had better work in exactly the fashion you describe. After all I’ve spent on you...”

  “Hey, not to worry, Mr. Hopkins. This little beauty is going to save you all sorts of money.” Patting the gray box, the engineer enumerated, “It’ll run your lights and heat at maximum efficiency, keep inventory of your kitchen supplies and reorder from the stores automatically when you run low, same thing for your clothes, laundry, dry cleaning, keep track of your medical and dental checkups, handle all your bookkeeping, keep tabs on your stock portfolio daily—or hourly, if you want—run your appliances, write letters, answer the phone...”

  He had to draw a breath, and Branley used the moment to get to his feet and start maneuvering the enthusiastic young man toward the front door.

  Undeterred, the engineer resumed, “Oh, yeah, it’s got special learning circuits, too. You tell it what you want it to do and it’ll figure out how to do it. Nothing in the world like it, man!”

  “How marvelous,” said Branley. “I’ll send you a check after it’s worked flawlessly for a month.” He shooed the engineer out the door.

  One month later, Branley told the computer to send a check to the engineer. The young man had been perfectly honest. The little gray box did everything he said it would do, and then some. It understood every word Branford spoke and obeyed like a well-trained genie. It had breakfast ready for him when he arose, no matter what the hour; a different menu each day. With an optical scanner that it suggested Branley purchase, it read all the books in Branley’s library the way a supermarket checkout scanner reads the price on a can of peas, and memorized each volume completely. Branley could now have the world’s classics read to him as he dozed off at night, snug and secure and as happy as a child.

  The computer also guarded the telephone tenaciously, never allowing a caller to disturb Branley unless he specified that he would deign to speak to that individual.

  On the fifth Monday after the computer had come into his life, Branley decided to discharge his only assistant, Ms. Elizabeth James. She had worked for him as secretary, errand girl, sometimes cook and occasional hostess for the rare parties that he threw. He told the computer to summon her to the apartment, then frowned to himself, trying to remember how long she had been working for him. Severance pay, after all, is determined by length of service.

  “How long has Ms. James been in my employ?” he asked the computer.

  Immediately the little gray box replied, “Seven years, four months, and eighteen days.”

  “Oh! That long?” He was somewhat surprised. “Thank you.”

  “Think nothing of it.”

  The computer spoke with Branley’s own voice, which issued from whichever speaker he happened to be nearest: one of the television sets or radios, the stereo, or even one of the phones. It was rather like talking to oneself aloud. That did not bother Branley in the slightest. He enjoyed his own company. It was other people that he could do without.

  Elizabeth James plainly adored Branley Hopkins. She loved him with a steadfast unquenchable flame, and had loved him since she had first met him, seven years, four months, and eighteen days earlier. She knew that he was cold, bitter-hearted, withdrawn, and self-centered. But she also knew with unshakable certainty that once love had opened his heart, true happiness would be theirs forever. She lived to bring him that happiness. It had become quite apparent to Branley in the first month of her employment that she was mad about him. He told her then, quite firmly, that theirs was a business relationship, strictly employer and employee, and he was not the kind of man to mix business with romance.

  She was so deeply and hopelessly in love with him that she accepted his heartless rejection and stood by valiantly while Branley paraded a succession of actresses, models, dancers, and women of dubious career choice through his life. Elizabeth was always there the morning after, cheerfully patching up his broken heart, or whichever part of his anatomy ached the worst.

  At first Branley thought that she was after his money. Over the years, however, he slowly realized that she simply, totally, and enduringly loved him. She was fixated on him, and no matter what he did, her love remained intact. It amused him. She was not a bad-looking woman: a bit short, perhaps, for his taste, and somewhat buxom. But other men apparently found her very attractive. At several of the parties she hosted for him, there had been younger men panting over her.

  Branley smiled to himself as he awaited her final visit to his apartment. He had never done the slightest thing to encourage her. It had been a source of ironic amusement to him that the more he disregarded her, the more she yearned for him. Some women are that way, he thought.

  When she arrived at the apartment he studied her carefully. She was really quite attractive. A lovely, sensitive face with full lips and doe eyes. Even in the skirted business suit she wore he could understand how her figure would set a younger man’s pulse racing. But not his pulse. Since Branley’s student days it had been easy for him to attract the most beautiful, most desirable women. He had found them all vain, shallow, and insensitive to his inner needs. No doubt Elizabeth James would be just like all the others.

  He sat behind his desk, which was bare now of everything except the gray metal box of the computer. Elizabeth sat on the Danish modern chair in front of the desk, hands clas
ped on her knees, obviously nervous.

  “My dear Elizabeth,” Branley said, as kindly as he could, “I’m afraid the moment has come for us to part.”

  Her mouth opened slightly, but no words issued from it. Her eyes darted to the gray box.

  “My computer does everything that you can do for me, and—to be perfectly truthful—does it all much better. I really have no further use for you.”

  “I...” Her voice caught in her throat. “I see.”

  “The computer will send you a check for your severance pay, plus a bonus that I feel you’ve earned,” Branley said, surprised at himself. He had not thought about a bonus until the moment the words formed on his tongue.

  Elizabeth looked down at her shoes. “There’s no need for that, Mr. Hopkins.” Her voice was a shadowy whisper. “Thank you just the same.”

  He thought for an instant, then shrugged. “As you wish.”

  Several long moments dragged past and Branley began to feel uncomfortable. “You’re not going to cry, are you, Elizabeth?”

  She looked up at him. “No,” she said, with a struggle. “No, I won’t cry, Mr. Hopkins.”

  “Good.” He felt enormously relieved. “I’ll give you the highest reference, of course.”

  “I won’t need your reference, Mr. Hopkins,” she said, rising to her feet. “Over the years I’ve invested some of my salary. I’ve had faith in you, Mr. Hopkins. I’m rather well off, thanks to you.”

  Branley smiled at her. “That’s wonderful news, Elizabeth. I’m delighted.”

  “Yes. Well, thanks for everything.”

  “Good-bye, Elizabeth.”

  She started for the door. Halfway there, she turned back slightly. “Mr. Hopkins...” Her face was white with anxiety. “Mr. Hopkins, when I first came into your employ, you told me that ours was strictly a business relationship. Now that that relationship is terminated... might... might we have a chance at a personal...” she swallowed visibly, “a personal... relationship?”

  Branley was taken aback. “A personal relationship? The two of us?”

  “Yes. I don’t work for you anymore, and I’m financially independent. Can’t we meet socially... as friends?”

  “Oh. I see. Certainly. Of course.” His mind was spinning like an automobile tire in soft sand. “Eh, phone me sometime, why don’t you?”

  Her complexion suddenly bloomed into radiant pink. She smiled a smile that would have melted Greenland and hurried to the door.

  Branley sank back into his desk chair and stared for long minutes at the closed door, after she left. Then he told the computer, “Do not accept any calls from her. Be polite. Stall her off. But don’t put her through to me.”

  For the first time since the computer had entered his life, the gray box failed to reply instantly. It hesitated long enough for Branley to sit up straight and give it a hard look.

  Finally it said, “Are you certain that this is what you want to do?”

  “Of course I’m certain!” Branley snapped, aghast at the effrontery of the machine. “I don’t want her whining and pleading with me. I don’t love her and I don’t want to be placed in a position where I might be moved by pity.”

  “Yes, of course,” said the computer.

  Branley nodded, satisfied with his own reasoning. “And while you’re at it, place a call to Nita Salomey. Her play opens at the Royale tomorrow night. Make a dinner date.”

  “Very well.”

  Branley went to his living room and turned on his video recorder. Sinking deep into his relaxer lounge, he was soon lost in the erotic intricacies of Nita Salomey’s latest motion picture, as it played on the wall-sized television screen.

  Every morning, for weeks afterward, the computer dutifully informed Branley that Elizabeth James had phoned the previous day. Often it was more than once a day. Finally, in a fit of pique mixed with a sprinkling of guilt, Branley instructed the computer not to mention her name to him anymore. “Just screen her calls out of the morning summary,” he commanded.

  The computer complied, of course. But it kept a tape of all incoming calls, and late one cold winter night, as Branley sat alone with nothing to do, too bored to watch television, too emotionally arid to call anyone, he ordered the computer to run the accumulated tapes of her phone messages.

  “It always flags my sinking spirits to listen to people begging for my attention,” he told himself, with a smirk.

  Pouring himself a snifter of Armagnac, he settled back in the relaxer lounge and instructed the computer to begin playing back Elizabeth’s messages.

  The first few were rather hesitant, stiffly formal. “You said that I might call, Mr. Hopkins. I merely wanted to stay in contact. Please call me at your earliest convenience.”

  Branley listened carefully to the tone of her voice. She was nervous, frightened of rejection. Poor child, he thought, feeling rather like an anthropologist observing some primitive jungle tribe.

  Over the next several calls, Elizabeth’s voice grew more frantic, more despairing. “Please don’t shut me out of your life, Mr. Hopkins. Seven years is a long time; I can’t just turn my back on all those years. I don’t want anything from you except a little companionship. I know you’re lonely. I’m lonely too. Can’t we be friends? Can’t we end this loneliness together?”

  Lonely? Branley had never thought of himself as lonely. Alone, yes. But that was the natural solitude of the superior man. Only equals can be friends.

  He listened with a measure of sadistic satisfaction as Elizabeth’s calls became more frequent and more pitiful. To her credit, she never whined. She never truly begged. She always put the situation in terms of mutual affection, mutual benefit.

  He had finished his second Armagnac and was starting to feel pleasantly drowsy when he realized that her tone had changed. She was warmer now, happier. There was almost laughter in her voice. And she was addressing him by his first name!

  “Honestly, Branley, you would have loved to have been there. The Mayor bumped his head twice on the low doorways and we all had to stifle ourselves and try to maintain our dignity. But once he left everyone burst into an uproar!”

  He frowned. What had made her change her attitude?

  The next tape was even more puzzling. “Branley, the flowers are beautiful. And so unexpected! I never celebrate my birthday; I try to forget it. But all these roses! Such extravagance! My apartment’s filled with them. I wish you could come over and see them.”

  “Flowers?” he said aloud. “I never sent her flowers.” He leaned forward on the lounge and peered through the doorway into his office. The gray metal box sat quietly on his desk, as it always had. “Flowers,” he muttered.

  “Branley, you’ll never know how much your poetry means to me,” the next message said. “It’s as if you wrote it yourself, and especially for me. Last night was wonderful. I was floating on a cloud, just listening to your voice.”

  Angrily, Branley commanded the computer to stop playing her messages. He got to his feet and strode into the office. Automatically the lights in the living room dimmed and those in the office came up.

  “When was that last message from her?” he demanded of the gray box.

  “Two weeks ago.”

  “You’ve been reading poetry to her?”

  “You instructed me to be kind to her,” said the computer. “I searched the library for appropriate responses to her calls.”

  “With my voice?”

  “That’s the only voice I have.” The computer sounded slightly miffed.

  So furious that he was shaking, Branley sat at his desk chair and glared at the computer as if it was alive.

  “Very well then,” he said at last. “I have new instruction for you. Whenever Ms. James phones, you are to tell her that I do not wish to speak to her. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes.” The voice sounded reluctant, almost sullen.

  “You will confine your telephone replies to simple answers, and devote your attention to running this household
as it should be run, not to building up electronic romances. I want you to stop butting into my personal life. Is that clear?”

  “Perfectly clear,” replied the computer, icily.

  Branley retired to his bedroom. Unable to sleep, he told the computer to show an early Nita Salomey film on the television screen in his ceiling. She had never returned his calls, but at least he could watch her making love to other men and fantasize about her as he fell asleep.

  For a month the apartment ran smoothly. No one disturbed Branley’s self-imposed solitude except the housemaid, whom he had never noticed as a human being. There were no phone calls at all. The penthouse was so high above the streets that hardly a sound seeped through the triple-thick windows. Branley luxuriated in the peaceful quiet, feeling as if he were the last person on Earth.

  “And good riddance to the rest of them,” he said aloud. “Who needs them, anyway.”

  It was on a Monday that he went from heaven to hell. Very quickly.

  The morning began, as usual, with breakfast waiting for him in the dining area. Branley sat in his jade green silk robe and watched the morning news on the television screen set into the wall above the marble-topped sideboard. He asked for the previous day’s accumulation of phone messages, hoping that the computer would answer that there had been none.

  Instead, the computer said, “Telephone service was shut off last night at midnight.”

  “What? Shut off? What do you mean?”

  Very calmly, the computer replied, “Telephone service was shut off due to failure to pay the phone company’s bill.”

  “Failure to pay?” Branley’s eyes went wide, his mouth fell agape. But before he could compose himself, he heard a loud thumping at the front door.

  “Who on earth could that be?”

  “Three large men in business suits,” said the computer as it flashed the image from the hallway camera onto the dining area screen.