He managed to make his voice sound almost normal. "I've got to do an article for Llewellyn tonight," he said.
"Oh." She came slowly into the room. "I'll wait for you." She paced silently around the room for a minute or two, then began to dance slowly and somehow sadly.
Yuri couldn't think of a single thing to write.
After a long time, five or ten minutes, Sugar slowed down, blinking sleepily. She finally came back to his chair, stood by him silently for a time, then climbed onto his lap. "Tell me when you get it done," she said drowsily. Yuri held his breath for five minutes or so, and then she was asleep. He picked her up gently, carried her over to the couch, and laid her out comfortably. For a moment he stood looking down on her slight, girlish body and peaceful, childish face. A sweet twink, he thought. Poor little innocent. Just seven months old! He smoothed her silky fur, drew a sheet up over her, and started for his own bed, heaving a sigh of relief.
"Damn you, Yuri!" She sat up, blinking at him in sleepy anger.
"You shouldn't say such . . ." he began weakly.
"I'd've said worse if I'd known it," she growled. She curled up, muttering about, "Prudes and their Teaching Machines."
The next morning Yuri was up early, and checked through the unicom's records. There was a whole series of requests for interviews from reporters who knew or had learned his Unident number, and a few from friends, cautiously curious. There were also calls from Pepper and Ginger for Sugar. On the telefax section of the unicom, there were several business offers, ranging from bids for Sugar to queries on rentals, both from private individuals and from booking agents. One prospective purchaser was an aging, wealthy socialite who affected a gold-plated astromobile. There was also a cautious message from Llewellyn, requesting a public statement, if not an interview. Pan Solar would have liked an article on the future of androids if possible. That must be handled very delicately; it was for the family newspapers.
"He's telling me?" muttered Yuri. Sugar awoke about then, cheerful again. She gave Yuri a good-morning kiss, and he put her to work on breakfast; she had mastered the apartment's simple cooking equipment quickly. She returned her sisters' calls. Yuri brooded over the publicity problem, finally decided to avoid all reporters for a day or two, to make a public statement, and to write an article tying in with it and Frolich's "theory" that androids were "nothing but" better than robots. The public statement was simple; it had been outlined by Frolich the day before. Basically, he had bought Sugar on spec and bad options on her sisters; he would promote them as dancers, exactly as a man with a troupe of robo-puppets would. Frolich would back him from the other end, saying that Yuri was the natural choice for manager, as the girls knew and liked him.
The article had to cheerfully assume that androids would never be free, without coming out and saying so; and Yuri was careful to work in the opinion that had been growing on him, that all record companies would soon be producing their own androids. That hit the Actors' Guild from both sides; their actions condemned the girls to slavery without actually protecting their own jobs. Finished, it looked like something that might be found in a girlie magazine. He telefaxed it and the statement off to PSN quickly, before he lost his nerve.
During breakfast, he and Sugar read the papers and watched the news. In general, the sale of the beautiful android had unleashed pandemonium. Expressions of outrage were made by a large number of influential people, but Frolich had discounted their protests against the Actors' Guild suit; people pay no attention to moralisms when their jobs are threatened. Other expressions of outrage, however, were more important. Reporters had descended on the Spire apparently just after he and Sugar had retired. They had tramped the public rooms until midnight, questioning everybody, and many newspapers carried one news service poll of the Spire's occupants on the ethics of the ownership of androids—reaction overwhelmingly negative.
"It's working even faster than I thought," sighed Yuri in relief. Sugar said, "They came around and questioned Pepper and Ginger again last night. Can you get the interview on TV?"
"Should; I always leave it set to record news." Yuri checked through the TV's record index, found androids mentioned under News Briefs. He tuned to it and the wall opened on the lounge of Dr. Birrel's astromobile. Sugar caught her breath at sight of the familiar room. Pepper stood in the center of the visiplate, pouting; Ginger was curled sullenly in a lounger farther back. Sugar started to giggle at their expressions.
"What do you think," came the voice of the reporter from behind his icon, "of having your sister sold like that?"
"I think it was awful, and if she shows her head here again, we'll dehorn her," flashed Pepper hotly.
"What?"
"You heard me," she said clearly. "It was a sneaky trick. Not fair!"
"But he bought her!" protested the flabbergasted reporter.
"Ha!" exclaimed Pepper.
"That's right," Ginger agreed angrily. "She's the one talked Him into selling just one of us at first, because Yuri couldn't afford the down payment for us all. We never knew anything about it until it was all over with."
"You really mean you see nothing wrong with being sold?"
They looked at him as if he were a cretin.
Ginger said, "If He wants to make some credit off us, well, He earned it. We're here, aren't we?"
"Well, but what about future androids, androids made by other people. Unscrupulous people who'd sell 'em to anyone with the credit?"
Pepper looked at him, shrugged, turned and marched back to the lounger, stamping her hooves and switching her tail angrily with every step. "Ask the Actors' Guild," she growled, curling up beside Ginger.
"People will do whatever they want with them no matter what we say. We've got our own problems," Ginger agreed.
"If you see Sugar, tell her to swim the Atlantic," said Pepper. "Yuri, too!" Yuri joined Sugar in laughter, but said worriedly, "They're not being innocent enough and they're not making me out to be enough of a monster."
Sugar gripped his arm. "They had to play it that way," she said. "After the image we've projected, they couldn't act shocked; it would seem phony." She grinned impishly. "They're putting on a good act, too, aren't they?"
Yuri found one other significant reaction to yesterday's news of the sale of Sugar. The Actors' Guild had requested a continuance to rephrase their plea. The judge had denied it, but he had recessed until noon to "study the issues." Frolich's plan was definitely working, at whatever cost to Yuri; His Honor was undoubtedly considering the next election. Yuri was quite cheerful as he began to call up booking agents. Sugar, at loose ends, took their clothes down to the laundromat and made the rounds of the eighty-ninth level's public rooms. Yuri watched her on TV later; she made it a point to avoid reporters'
questions. The public appearance was eminently successful; feeling against Yuri did not decline much, despite her evident happiness.
Newspaper reporters got to Ginger and Pepper and finally made them admit that selling androids was bad—for the androids. The afternoon editions were filled with gloomy pictures of future android slavery in both gray and purple prose. Yuri's article was the only one that seemed cheerful at the prospect; it replenished the monster image with a vengeance, and the left-handed crack in it at the Actors' Guild drew blood.