Tower of Glass

by Robert Silverberg

  Jed Guilbert peered at him. “Would you really risk going straight into the net?”

  “I think so.”

  “Knowing that in case of an overload or some transmission error you might never get back inside your own head?”

  “What are the chances of that?”

  “Finite,” Guilbert said. “You've got a century and a half of life coming to you. Does it make sense to—”

  “I'm with Manuel,” Cadge Foster said. He was the least glib member of the group, verging on taciturnity, but when he spoke he spoke with conviction. “Risk is essential to life. We need to take chances. We need to venture ourselves.”

  “Pointless chances?” Tennyson asked. “The quality of the shunt wouldn't be any better if we went in immediately. The only difference would be that we'd eliminate the waiting time. I don't like the odds. To gamble a century in order to save a couple of hours? I'm not that bored by waiting.”

  “You might be bored by life itself,” Nick Ssu-ma said. “So weary of it all that you'd stake a century against an hour, just for the sake of diversion. I feel that way sometimes—don't you? There once was a game played with a hand weapon, a game called—ah—Swedish Roulette—?”

  “Polish,” Lloyd Tennyson corrected.

  “Polish Roulette, then. In which they took this weapon, which could be loaded with six or eight separate explosive charges, and loaded it with only one—”

  Manuel disliked the trend of the conversation. Breaking in, he said sharply to Cadge Foster, “What's that thing you're playing with?”

  “I found it in a niche under my couch. It's some kind of communications device. It says things to you.”

  “Let's see it.”

  Foster tossed it over. It was a gray-green plastic rectangle, vaguely cubical, but beveled to a curve at most of the intersections of its faces. Manuel cupped it in his hands and peered into its cloudy depths. Words began to form, making a brilliant red strip across the interior of the object.

  YOU HAVE FIFTY MINUTES MORE TO WAIT

  “Clever,” Manuel said. He held it out for Nick Ssu-ma to see. When he took it back, the massage had changed.

  LIFE IS JOY, JOY IS LIFE.

  CAN YOU REFUTE THAT SYLLOGISM?

  “It isn't a syllogism,” Manuel said. “Syllogisms take the form, All A is B. No T is A. Therefore, T is not B.”

  “What are you babbling about?” Mishima asked.

  “I'm giving this machine a logic lesson. You'd think a machine would know—”

  IF P IMPLIES Q AND Q IMPLIES R, DOES P IMPLY R?

  “I've got one too,” Ssu-ma said. “Just to the left of the channel selector. Oh. Oh, my. Look at that!” He showed his cube to Lloyd Tennyson, who emitted a guffaw. Manuel, craning his neck, still could not see the message. Ssu-ma held the cube so that Manuel could read it.

  THE CHICKEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE PIE

  “I don't understand it,” Manuel said.

  “It's an android dirty joke,” Ssu-ma explained. “One of my betas told it to me a few weeks ago. You see, there's this hermaphrodite gamma—”

  “We've all got them,” Jed Guilbert announced. “It's a new thing for keeping people amused while they're waiting, I guess.”

  DEFEND THE FOLLOWING THESES:

  GOLD IS MALLEABLE

  ALL ELECTRIC RADIOS REQUIRE TUBES

  ALL WHITE TOMCATS WITH BLUE EYES ARE DEAF

  “How does it work?” Manuel asked.

  Cadge Foster said, “It's primed to pick up anything we say. Then I imagine it relays a signal to a randomizing message center that picks out something vaguely relevant—or interestingly irrelevant—and feeds it onto the screen inside the cube.”

  “And we each get a different message?”

  “Nick's and mine are the same right now,” Tennyson reported. “No—his is changing, mine is staying—”

  THE SUM OF THE ANGLES OF A TRIANGLE IS 180 DEGREES

  THIS IS NOT BOTH A CHAIR AND NOT A CHAIR

  WHO SHAVES THE SPANISH BARBER, THEN?

  “I think it's insane,” Mishima said.

  “Maybe that's the whole point,” said Manuel. “Is it handing out anything but gibberish?”

  BECAUSE OF NECESSARY CLIMATE ADJUSTMENTS

  THE FOURTH OF NOVEMBER WILL BE CANCELLED

  BETWEEN 32 DEGREES AND 61 DEGREES SOUTH LATITUDE

  “I'm getting a news report on mine,” Guilbert said. “Something about your father, Manuel—”

  “Let me see!”

  “Here—catch—”

  FEMALE ALPHA SLAIN AT KRUG TOWER SITE.

  POLITICAL EXECUTION, AEP FIGURE CHARGES.

  KRUG ORGANIZATION DENIES CLAIM, ALLEGES

  “More nonsense,” Manuel said. “I don't think I find these things amusing.”

  CLEVELAND LIES BETWEEN NEW YORK AND CHICAGO.

  “I'm getting the news story on mine, now,” said Tennyson. “What do you think it's all about?”

  ALPHA CASSANDRA NUCLEUS DIED INSTANTLY.

  THE FATAL BOLT WAS FIRED BY KRUG'S PRIVATE

  SECRETARY, LEON SPAULDING, 38.

  “Never heard of her,” said Manuel. “And Spaulding's older than that. He's been working for my father since—”

  CAN THE RHYTHM OF THE UNIVERSE'S

  BREATHING BE DETECTED BY STANDARD

  METABOLIC ANALYSIS?

  “Perhaps you should call your father, Manuel,” Ssu-ma said. “If there's really trouble—”

  “And cancel the shunt? When we're booked in here for a week? I'll find out about it when I come out. If there's anything to find out.”

  ACTION FOR DAMAGES HAS BEEN INSTITUTED BY

  LABRADOR TRANSMAT GENERAL, PROPRIETOR OF

  THE DESTROYED ALPHA, EARLY SETTLEMENT IS

  EXPECTED.

  “Let's go back to syllogisms,” Manuel told the cube he held. “If all men are reptiles, and alpha androids are reptiles—”

  THE SUM OF THE PARTS IS EQUAL TO THE

  SQUARE ON THE HYPOTHESIS

  “Listen to what mine says!” shouted Tennyson.

  PANTING WITH DESIRE SHE WAITS FOR THE

  ARRIVAL OF HER COAL-BLACK PARTNER IN

  UNSPEAKABLE SIN

  “More!” Guilbert cried. “More!”

  THEREFORE, YOU ARE A REPTILE

  “Can we put these things away now?” Manuel asked.

  SHOWING DEEP EMOTION, ALPHA SIEGFRIED

  FILECLERK OF AEP ACCUSED KRUG OF PLANNING A

  PURGE OF ANDROID EQUALITY ADVOCATES.

  “I think this really is a news broadcast,” Cadge Foster murmured. “I've heard of this Fileclerk. He's pushing a constitutional amendment that would open Congress to alphas. And—”

  WEEPING AS THE DEAD FEMALE ALPHA LAY IN

  THE SNOW BESIDE THE MIGHTY BULK OF THE

  TOWER, AN ALMOST HUMAN SHOW OF GRIEF.

  “Enough,” Manuel said. He began to toss his cube to the floor; but, seeing the message change, he glanced at it once again.

  DO YOU UNDERSTAND YOUR OWN MOTIVES?

  “Do you?” he asked. The cube went blank. He dropped it, gratefully. The alpha attendant entered the subchamber and started to disconnect the electrodes.

  “You may proceed to the shunt room, gentlemen,” said the alpha blandly. “The programming has been completed and the stasis net is ready to receive you.”

  16

  They had moved the chapel to a dome near the outer rim of the service area, in a section where tools were repaired. In less than two hours a flawless transfer had been carried out; inside, the new chapel was indistinguishable from the old. Watchman found a dozen off-duty betas going through a ritual of consecration, with a knot of gammas looking on. No one spoke to him or even looked directly at him; in the presence of the alpha they all scrupulously obeyed the code of social distances. Briefly Watchman prayed beneath the hologram of Krug. His soul was eased some, after a while, though the tensions of his long wintry dialogue with Siegfried Fileclerk would not leave him. His faith had not wavered
before Fileclerk's brusque pragmatic arguments, but for a few moments, while they were thrusting and parrying beside the body of Cassandra Nucleus, Watchman had felt a touch of despair. Fileclerk had struck at a vulnerable place: Krug's attitude toward the slaying of the alpha. Krug had seemed so removed by it! True, he had looked annoyed—but was it merely the expense, the nuisance of a suit, that bothered him? Watchman had riposted with the proper metaphysical statements, yet he was disturbed. Why had Krug not seemed lessened by the killing? Where was the sense of grace? Where was the hope of redemption? Where was the mercy of the Maker?

  The snow was slackening when Watchman left the chapel. Night had come, moonless, the stars unbearably sharp. Savage winds knifed across the flat, treeless expanse of the construction site. Siegfried Fileclerk was gone; so was the corpse of Cassandra Nucleus. Long lines of workers stood in front of the transmat banks, for the shift was changing. Watchman returned to the control center. Euclid Planner, his relief man, was there.

  “I'm on,” Planner said. “Go. You stayed late tonight.”

  “A complicated day. You know about the killing?”

  “Of course. Labrador Transmat's claimed the body. The lawyers have been all over the place.” Planner eased into the linkup seat. “I understand the chapel's been moved, too.”

  “We had to. That's how it all started—Spaulding got too interested in the chapel. It's a long story.”

  “I've heard it,” Euclid Planner said. He prepared to jack himself into the computer. “There'll be problems out of this. As if there weren't problems enough. Go with Krug, Thor.”

  “Go with Krug,” Watchman murmured. He took his leave.

  The outbound workers on the transmat line made way for him. He entered the cubicle and let the green glow hurl him to his three-room flat in Stockholm, in the section of the android quarter favored by alphas. The private transmat was a rare privilege, a mark of the esteem in which he was held by Krug. He knew no other android who had one; but Krug had insisted that it was necessary for Watchman to be able to leave his apartment on a moment's notice, and had had the cubicle installed.

  He felt drained and weary. He set himself for two hours of sleep, stripped, and lay down.

  When he woke he was as tired as before. That was unusual. He decided to give himself another hour of rest, and closed his eyes. But in a short while he was interrupted by the chime of the telephone. Turning toward the screen, he saw Lilith Meson. Sleepily he made the Krug-be-praised sign at her.

  She looked somber. She said, “Can you come to the Valhallavägen chapel, Thor?”

  “Now?”

  “Now, if you can. It's tense here. The Cassandra Nucleus thing—we don't know what to think, Thor.”

  “Wait,” he said. “I'll be there.”

  He put on a robe, set the transmat coordinates for the Valhallavägen cubicle, and jumped. It was a fifty-meter walk from the cubicle to the chapel; transmats were never installed inside a chapel. A feeble, strained dawn was breaking. In the night there had been a little snow here too, Watchman saw; the remnants of it fleeced the deep window ledges of the old buildings.

  The chapel was in a ground-floor flat at the corner. Some fifteen androids were there, all alphas; the lower classes rarely used the Valhallavägen chapel, though they were free to do so. Betas felt uncomfortable in it, and gammas preferred to worship in Gamma Town, far across the city.

  Watchman recognized some of the most distinguished members of his kind in the group. He acknowledged the greetings of the poetess Andromeda Quark, the historian Mazda Constructor, the theologian Pontifex Dispatcher, the philosopher Krishna Guardsman, and several others who were among the elite of the elite. All seemed ragged with tension. When Watchman made Krug-be-praised at them, most of them returned the gesture halfheartedly, perfunctorily.

  Lilith Meson said, “Forgive us for breaking your rest, Thor. But as you see an important conference is in progress.”

  “How can I help?”

  “You were a witness to the slaying of Alpha Cassandra Nucleus,” Pontifex Dispatcher said. He was heavy, slow-moving, an android of dignified and imposing bearing who came from one of the earliest of Krug's batches. He had played a major role in the shaping of their religion. “We have somewhat of a theological crisis now,” Dispatcher went on. “In view of the charges raised by Siegfried Fileclerk—”

  “Charges? I hadn't heard.”

  “Will you tell him?” Pontifex Dispatcher said, glancing at Andromeda Quark.

  The poetess, lean and intense, with an elegant reedy voice, said, “Fileclerk held a press conference last night at AEP headquarters. He insisted that the killing of Alpha Nucleus was a politically motivated act carried out at the instigation of—” She could barely say it. “—Krug.”

  “Slime of the Vat,” Watchman muttered. “I begged him not to do that! Fileclerk and I stood talking in the snow half an hour, and I told him—I told him—” He knotted his fingers. “Was there a statement from Krug?”

  “A denial,” said Mazda Constructor, who for four years had with Watchman's surreptitious aid been secretly compiling the annals of the androids from Krug's dead-storage date file. “An immediate response. The killing was called accidental.”

  “Who spoke for Krug?” Watchman asked.

  “A lawyer. Fearon, the Senator's brother.”

  “Not Spaulding, eh? Still in shock, I guess. Well, so Fileclerk's been spewing filth. What of it?”

  Softly Pontifex Dispatcher said, “At this moment, chapels everywhere are crowded as your brothers and sisters gather to discuss the implications of the killing, Thor. The theological resonances are so terribly complex. If Krug indeed did give the order for the ending of Cassandra Nucleus’ life, did he do so in order to show His displeasure over the activities of the Android Equality Party? That is, does He prefer our way to theirs? Or, on the other hand, did He take her life to register His disapproval of the ultimate goals of the AEP—which of course are roughly the same as our own? If the former, our faith is justified. But if the latter, you see, then possibly we have been given a sign that Krug totally rejects the concept of android equality. And then there is no hope for us.”

  “A bleak prospect,” croaked Krishna Guardsman, whose teachings on the relationship of Krug to android were revered by all. “However, I take comfort in the thought that if Krug struck Alpha Nucleus down to show His dislike of the equality movement, He did so merely to oppose political agitation for equality now, and was in effect reminding us to be more patient and await His grace. But—”

  “We should also consider a much darker possibility,” said Mazda Constructor. “Is Krug capable of evil? Was His role in the killing a wicked one? If so, then perhaps the entire foundation of our creed must be reexamined and even rebuilt, for if Krug can act arbitrarily and immorally, then it follows—”

  “Wait! Wait!” called an uneasy voice from the rear of the group. “No such talk as this in a chapel!”

  “I speak only figuratively,” Mazda Constructor said, “with no blasphemies intended. We are trying to show Alpha Watchman the range of reactions now being demonstrated around the world. Certainly many of us fear that Fileclerk's charges are correct—that Alpha Nucleus was put to death for her political views—and that has led to a consideration of the possibility that Krug has acted improperly. It is being discussed in many chapels at this very moment.”

  “I think we have to believe,” said Krishna Guardsman, “that all acts of Krug are by definition good acts, leading us toward our ultimate redemption. Our problem here is not to justify Krug's deeds but simply to quiet the unhappy suspicions of Krug's motives that this Fileclerk, who is not even a member of our communion, has stirred up in those that are. We—”

  “It was a sign from Krug! It was a sign!”

  “The Vat giveth, and the Vat taketh away!”

  “Fileclerk said that Krug showed no remorse whatever. He—”

  “—sent for the lawyers. A civil action—”

  “—
property damage. A tort—”

  “—another test of our faith—”

  “—she was our enemy, in any case—”

  “—killing one of His children to warn the rest of us? That makes Him a monster!”

  “—in the fire of His crucible are we smelted—”

  “—revealing an unsuspected capacity for murderous—”

  “—sanctity—”

  “—redemption—”

  “—blood—”

  “Listen to me,” Thor Watchman cried, amazed and impatient. “Please. Please listen!”

  “Let him speak,” Mazda Constructor said. “Of all of us, he is closes to Krug. His words have weight.”

  “I was there,” said Watchman. “I saw the whole thing. Before you destroy yourselves with conflicting theologies, listen. Krug bears no responsibility for the killing. Spaulding, the secretary, the ectogene, acted on his own. There is no other truth but this.” In a cataract of words he told of Spaulding's blustering attempt to force his way into the construction-site chapel, of the ectogene's rising tension in the face of the resistance of the chapel's guards, of his own ruse to draw Spaulding away from the chapel, of the unhappy result when Spaulding discovered Krug beset by the AEP agents.

  “This is deeply reassuring,” said Mazda Constructor when Watchman was done. “We have been misled by Fileclerk's accusations. This is not an issue of Krug's actions at all.”

  “Except in the deeper sense that Krug must have constructed the entire sequence of events,” Krishna Guardsman suggested.

  “Can you seriously maintain that His will underlies even the secular events of—” Pontifex Dispatcher began.

  Mazda Constructor cut him off. “We can debate the intricacies of His will another time. At present our task is to communicate with all other chapels, to transmit Thor's account of the events. Our people everywhere are in unrest; we must calm them. Thor, will you dictate your statement so that it can be coded and transmitted?”

  “Certainly.”

  Andromeda Quark handed him a message cube. Watchman repeated the story, after first identifying himself, explaining his relation to Krug, and swearing to the authenticity of his version of the events. A terrible fatigue hammered at him from within. How eager these brilliant alphas were, he thought, to engulf everything in a mist of theological disquisition! And how quick to accept Fileclerk's lies. In thousands of chapels just now, hundreds of thousands of devout androids were agonizing over the question of why Krug had allowed an alpha to be shot to death in His arms, whereas if they had merely waited to learn the truth from someone who had been present—