“I plan to attack Kurland’s activities head on, by enacting an amendment to the operational regulations banning the use of service androids working alone without human supervision, pending a review of their abuse in sexual activities.”
“There will be a firestorm,” said Mark thinly.
“I have to make sure central admin on Earth will back me up. That’s the next thing I have to do: get word through a back channel.”
“Your amendment would make relations such as ours illegal,” Elena said.
“Don’t worry about that. Right now you are a nurse for Mark,” I said. “I have to force Kurland’s hand. I don’t have any problem with integrating androids into human society in the future. Heck, I met two of them asking questions in church yesterday. But there has to be accountability, otherwise it’s a potential powder keg. Just like it was in 1962.”
“A reasonable request,” said Mark, struggling to keep his eyes open.
“We’ll let you sleep, dear,” Elena said, tucking his hand at his side, and pulling the crochet up under his chin.
We walked away. “He is so weak, and his chest hurts so badly,” she said. “I gave him palliative treatment a few hours ago. That’s the only reason he felt well enough to talk.”
“Red Lung is a horrible disease,” I said. I shook my head. “Is there anything they can do for him?”
“It was so advanced, because we had lived out here so long,” she said. “They said there wasn’t much they could do.” She looked at me. “What will I do when he is gone?”
“If you love someone, then you expose yourself to what you will be facing,” I said. “The pain of outliving them. A wise man once said ‘widow’ is the saddest word in the English language.
“If he begins to suffer, call me. Maybe they can do something at the hospital to ease his last hours, when it doesn’t make any difference,” I continued. “He shouldn’t die in agony. Otherwise, keep me posted.”
“Yes, I will,” she said.
“Now, I have a war to fight,” I said.
I put the pressure suit back on. Jenny was waiting outside, as commanded.
“Take me back,” I said.
“Yes, Mister Shuster,” she said.
“I will call upon you to give me reports on the activities of Coltingham and Kurland,” I said. “Don’t indicate your control code override was used.”
“Does this make me what’s called a ‘spy’?” she asked.
“Yes, and remember what happens to spies who are caught. You’re not bullet-proof, are you?”
“No sir, I am not. And I will remember.”
Chapter Eighteen
When I got back to the office, I picked up the phone and called Gunter Lielischkies.
“Hey there, meines Freund,” I said. “I would like to come over again and talk to you.”
“What is on your mind?”
“Can I come over right now?”
“Yes, my door is always open to you, David.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
When I arrived, he closed the door of his office and turned on the filtration system.
“I know you won’t mind if I literally blow smoke in your face,” he said.
“No, not at all. You also smoke quality tobacco.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Ja, so what is on your mind?”
“I think it is time to go public with the subject of androids being used for sex, and have a review of how the regulations need to be modified. In the meantime, I want to put an emergency prohibition of using androids in any capacity where they are not directly supervised with humans. That will stop their use as sexual surrogates.”
“I understand what you are trying to accomplish, but it will cause great problems.” He blew out a thick gust of smoke. “There are too many androids integrated into day-to-day operations.” He paused. “You understand it will not impact our WarPac activities as much as your own,” he said. “We have a much smaller use of androids. But overall, the android presence is extensive.
“Can I ask you a personal question myself?” he continued with a smile.
“Of course.”, I replied.
“Why are you confiding and consulting with an East German, a member of WarPac?” he said. “Don’t you see that as potentially troubling for your career?”
“When you need a friend, you take them where you can find them,” I said. “I think we understand each other. You have not asked me to do anything improper.”
“You have a great deal of self-confidence,” he said.
“Perhaps I feel more comfortable with you since my parents emigrated from Italy. If the Axis had won the war, we might have better jobs now!”
“You do have a sardonic sense of humor,” he said, “and you do appreciate beer.” He stood up and straightened his belt buckle. “The work day is over. Would you like some?”
“Do you have a contact for good German beer?”
“Yes, and I know a cabaret where I think you will get an even better insight as to the android problem,” he said. “Just keep your mouth shut. Your German is horrible.”
“I’ve only tried to speak it a few times,” I said.
“Yes, if that’s what you call it.”
* * *
The Shebeen Kabaret was in a lowest level of Dome One, up against the wall. Another hole in the wall.
It was in the same general area as the Hideaway and the Bluegrass Babysitters. I knew then, as I didn’t know that first night when Mickey, Pete, and Jon took me to the Hideaway, that there was a neighborhood in Dome One that was “grandfathered
The Kabaret may have been cleaned up and painted a few times, but still had an air of sturdy decrepitude. When we arrived, I noticed it was especially dark and smoky.
“Hard to see in here,” I said. “You Eastern Europeans smoke too damn much.”
“This is the traditional way a cabaret looks,” Lielischkies said. “Beer on the table, smoke in the air. It stays dark, and when the entertainment starts, everyone focuses on the stage.”
I put my hand above my eyes like I was peering out into the smoke. “There’s a stage in here?”
Our waiter was a thin young man in a black leotard, with an old-style Beatles haircut.
“I suggest the wheat beer,” Gunter said. “You probably haven’t had it before.”
“No, but I’ve heard of it. I’d like to try it.”
Gunter spoke briefly to the waiter, who dashed off.
“This is not really a German cabaret; it’s run by Germans from Southwest Africa,” he said.
“I see, that’s where the name comes from.”
“Yes, and so my government doesn’t care about it,” he said. “For example, the waiter? Petrus? He’s an android, and a homosexual.”
“What!”
“I thought that would startle you,” he said. “Not all the android sex workers are heterosexual, and not all are females.”
He looked at me looking at “Petrus” at a distance. “Could you tell?”
“That he was gay? Sure. An android? No!” I grimaced. “How can a robot be gay?”
“It’s in the software,” said Gunter.
I looked at him and he smiled slyly.
I looked around. “Is this a gay bar?!”
He guffawed. “No, and don’t look so scared. You Italians are so macho, even an American one like you!”
“It’s just, I didn’t …”
“Think there are homosexuals on Mars? There goes your machismo American space stereotypes,” he said.
“Why did you bring me here?”
“I want to show you the difficulty of the problem you are facing,” he said. “Tonight the entertainment is what is called a tribute band.”
“Who are they knocking off?”
“A group from your own U.S., the J. Geils Band, but they sing in German.”
“Are they androids?”
“Ah, that is the trick. We play ‘Ja oder nein’ tonight.”
“What is
‘Ja oder nein’? That’s yes or no?”
“There are four members of the band. Some are androids, some are not,” he said. “We place bets. The pot is split between those who guess correctly.
“I don’t expect you to bet, but I do want you to watch,” he continued. “That way you can see how serious the problem is.”
I leaned in and lowered me voice. “How serious has this become, really?”
“Very serious.” He stared hard at me. “When an East German Stasi agent tells you he is very, very worried about undetectable infiltration, take it seriously.”
“Shit.”
He leaned back. “Ja, Scheiescheisse.”
Petrus arrived with our beers in tall narrow glasses.
“Here comes the band now,” said Gunter.
The man who played “J. Geils” strode to the mike and began an introduction in German, which I really couldn’t follow. Gunter turned his chair so he faced the stage.
The Master of Ceremonies came out. He looked like a German version of Bert Parks, with an equally affable and plastic smile. I know a smattering of German, and I could tell part of his “schtick” was that he looked very conventional but he spoke in a very street-wise gutter-type language, with a lot of Americanisms sprinkled in, such as “bunny fuck,” “big tits,” and so forth. The audience was obviously mostly Germans and Eastern Europeans, and its members were already well-lubricated with beer, so it didn’t take much to get a laugh out of them.
A young lady went from table to table, collecting up the bets and money held up by Gunter and others. The band members were labeled, for simplicity’s sake, as A, B, C, and D.
I wasn’t familiar enough with the band to tell who was impersonating whom, except I knew “B” was Peter Wolf, the lead singer. I recognized him from the MTV video for “Centerfold.” The band started playing the song, in German:
We leaned together and chatted as they played. “What’s your take on the android problem?” I asked.
“It’s a potential danger in the short term for both sides, NATO and WarPac, and needs to be dealt with. There’s a long-term problem of determining the role of robots and androids in greater society, but that will take years to resolve.”
He took a sip of his beer. “On the other hand, we saw in the Cuban Robot Crisis of 1962 how destabilizing a war with androids could potentially be. That needs to be nipped in the bud, now.”
Gunter looked over the top of his tall glass. “It’s your side that’s probably been infiltrated the most. Since in Eastern Bloc countries the work bureau makes job assignments, it seldom assigns a married person to Mars,” he said. “They will look for young unmarried people, or married couples who can be assigned together. I was almost your age back in the ’50s when my wife and I were sent to the Moon. I worked in customs. She was a translator.”
“I didn’t know you were married.”
“I was, for 25 years. She died of emphysema.
“On the other hand,” he continued, “in the NATO countries, people just apply, and are approved for assignments regardless of marital status. That leads to a lot of separation and temporarily single people here.”
“And the need for female companionship, then?”
“Male companionship, also. Some business owners asked Kurland to modify androids so they could ‘service’ people. But with the sophistication of androids now …”
I jumped in. “It’s become pernicious. They’re everywhere.”
He smiled and took a drag on his cigarette. “Yes, exactly. And from my perspective, this has happened because all the while, he’s been off the leash with everyone—U.S., Soviets, Brits, everybody. We can’t tell exactly how deeply his androids have infiltrated the colony.”
“So what’s his end game?”
He shrugged. “Who knows? We don’t. But no one saw Castro and Guevara coming, either, and they almost started World War III.”
“Do you think he’d pull a power grab right here, and try to take over the colony?”
“Your proposed amendment is a good way to smoke him out.” He leaned in. “I assure you, if you take that action, there will be no complaints from the WarPac side of the joint administration. Your problem is going to be back home in America.”
“I have a plan to deal with that,” I said. “I won’t proceed until and unless I’m sure that I can.”
He nodded. “Smart boy,” he said. “Proceed with caution.”
The “J. Geils Band” had finished their song, and the MC had returned. “By the way,” said Gunter. “How would you bet?”
“I’d say A and B are real, C and D are androids. How did you bet?”
“C is the only real human. The other three, all androids. But I boxed my bet.”
“What does that mean?”
“I paid extra on the odds that only one, but any one, is the android,” he said. “It’s a practice borrowed from horse racing.”
The four band members were now lined up, and the MC asked them in order, “Sind Sie ein Android?”
“Ja!”
“Ja!”
“Nein, Arschloch!”
“Ja!”
There were hoots and groans all around. “You were right,” I said. “How did you know?”
“It takes a keen observational eye, and years of experience,” he said. “Also, a good appreciation of human nature. Mister C was the only one who occasionally looked bored. He’s played this song a million times.”
I laughed.
“So what is your plan to get approval from your superiors on Earth to proceed with your regulatory amendment, without Kurland learning first?”
“Can you keep a secret?” I asked.
“Of course!”
“Do you know what an ‘end run’ is in American football?”
He smiled, sat back, and took another swig of beer, but didn’t say a thing.
Chapter Nineteen
I called Laura at her home when I arrived back at my office.
“Hey, pal, I was wondering whether I could hit you up for a personal favor, for old times’ sake?”
I knew addressing her that way, instead of trying to pretend we were still lovers, would work better.
“Ah, sure,” she said. “What kind of favor?”
“Let me buy you lunch tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll tell you then. That way I can also repay you for the favor.”
“What are you up to?”
“Something suitably subtle. I need help from a non-American.”
“Sounds intriguing. Very well, in the name of inter-NATO relations,” she said. “Saitama at high noon?”
“Sounds great, see you then.”
I hung up the phone and turned around to face the word processor at the side of my desk. It was the latest model made by Radio Shack and used the newest technology to save files, eight-inch floppy magnetic disks.
I opened the program we used to write on these electronic wonders, Word Star.
I started:
Admiral Robert H. Heinlein
Joint U.S.-Soviet Space Program Headquarters
Washington, DC
Dear Admiral Heinlein …
* * *
I arrived at Saitama promptly at noon the next day. I realized when I saw her how much I missed her. But the dalliance had been propelled solely by sexual attraction, and I was stupid not to realize early on how unviable it had been.
She smelled of Chanel and superiority, and probably another guy, if it is possible to smell another man on a woman. I held her chair and shrugged my shoulders behind her before I sat down.
It’s better to have loved and lost … I thought.
We ordered vegetable tempura and shared a small bottle of white wine. Rather than dive straight into what I came for, I made small talk for a while.
Now that I knew what to look for, I realized how many androids were there, and how many of them had been copied from celebrities. There was one who looked like Olivia Newton-John, another like Linda Ronstadt.
&
nbsp; It was obvious Laura was working hard to control her curiosity about what I was after, despite noticing I’d brought a thin metal briefcase.
She finally kicked it lightly with the toe of her shoe. “So what’s in there?”
“What I need your help with,” I said. “You have diplomatic immunity, don’t you?”
She looked slightly puzzled. “Yes, I do, as an attaché. Why do you ask?”
“You can send dispatches back to Earth in electronic diplomatic pouches, then?”
“Yes, I can.”
Just like in the old days, when diplomats were allowed to use carriers that weren’t subject to inspection, foreign offices on Mars were allowed to use secure and highly encrypted communications back to Earth that, even if intercepted, could not be deciphered and read.
“Why would an American want to send a secure message to Italy?” Laura asked. “Whatever for?”
“I want to send a secure message to the Italian Embassy in Washington, to forward to Admiral Heinlein,” I said. “I don’t have the rank to use our own diplomatic pouch. Only the governor and lieutenant governor can do that, and if I asked for authority to use it, they would ask what I want it for.”
“You’re sneaking behind the back of your own government,” she said.
“More like a end-run in football, where you dash behind a lot of people, and it’s not my own government I’m concerned about.”
“Ah, I see, this is about Kurland and Tesla,” she said. “He’s a government unto himself. Of course I will help.”
“Great, there is a floppy disk with a Word Star document inside the briefcase. Just take the briefcase, upload the file, and stuff it in one of your packets, and send it to your embassy in DC.”
Laura raised her eyebrows and smiled. “So what are you up to?”
“Best I not tell you, but you’re right, Kurland will not like it, and I want to know I can pull it off first before I even broach the subject. I need to know if central administration will take a hands-off approach to what I plan to do.”
She poked at her salad. “Very well, it’s your neck on the line. I’m glad to help.”
“By the way, you look very pretty today.”
“You look good yourself, but you seem a little distracted. What’s the word in English? Befuddled.”
Another Girl, Another Planet Page 26
