Mr. Happiness—a tiny white-haired gentleman with a twinkling smile—came back with bad news. “The young lady seems to be a traditionalist,” he said. “She expects to be courted.”
“What does that entail, specifically?” I asked.
“It means that you must videophone her and set up an appointment, take her out to dinner, then to a place of public entertainment and so forth.”
“My schedule doesn’t allow time for that sort of thing,” I said. “Still, if it’s absolutely necessary, I suppose I could wedge it in next Thursday between nine and twelve p.m.”
“That would make an excellent beginning,” Mr. Happiness said.
“Beginning? How many evenings am I supposed to spend like that5”
Mr. Happiness figured that a proper courtship would require a minimum of three evenings a week and would continue for two months.
“Ridiculous!” I said. “The young lady seems to have a great deal of idle time on her hands.”
“Not at all,” Mr. Happiness assured me. “Elaine has a busy, completely scheduled life, just like any educated person in this day and age. Her time is completely taken up by her job, family, charities, artistic pursuits, politics, education, and so forth.”
“Then why does she insist upon this time-consuming courtship?”
“It seems to be a matter of principle. That is to say, she wants it.”
“Is she given to other irrationalities?”
Mr. Happiness sighed. “Not Really. But she is a woman, you know.”
I thought about it during my next Leisure Hour. There seemed to be no more than two alternatives. I could give up Elaine; or I could do as she desired, losing an estimated 17% of my income during the courtship period and spending my evenings in a manner I considered silly, boring, and unproductive.
Both alternatives were unacceptable. I was at an impasse.
I swore. I hit the desk with my fist, upsetting an antique ashtray. Gordon, one of my robot secretaries, heard the commotion and hurried into the room. “Is there anything the matter, sir?” he asked.
Gordon is one of the Sperry’s Deluxe Limited Personalized Series Androids, number twelve out of a production run of twenty-five. He is tall and thin and walks with a slight stoop and looks a little like Leslie Howard. You would not know he was artificial except for the government-required stamps on his forehead and hands. Looking at him, the solution to my problem came to me in a single flash of inspiration.
“Gordon,” I said slowly, “would you happen to know who handcrafts the best one-shot individualized robots?”
“Snaithe of Greater New Newark,” he replied without hesitation.
I had a talk with Snaithe and found him normally larcenous. He agreed to build a robot without government markings, identical to me, and capable of duplicating my behavior patterns. 1 paid heavily for this, but I was content: I had plenty of money, but practically no time to spend. That was how it all began.
The robot, sent via pneumo-express, was at my apartment when I arrived. I animated him and set to work at once. My computer transmitted the relevant data direct to the robot’s memory tapes. Then I punched in a courtship plan and ran the necessary tests. The results were even better than I had expected. Elated, I called Elaine and made a date with her for that evening.
During the rest of the day I worked on the Spring market offers, which had begun to pile up. At 8:00 pm I dispatched Charles II, as I had come to call the robot. Then I took a brief nap and went back to work.
Charles II returned promptly at midnight, as programmed. I did not have to question him: the events of the evening were recorded on the miniature concealed movie camera which Snaithe had built into his left eye. I watched and listened to the beginning of my courtship with mixed emotions.
It went beyond impersonation; the robot was me, right down to the way I clear my throat before I speak and rub my forefinger against my thumb when I am thinking. I noticed for the first time that my laugh was unpleasantly close to a giggle; I decided to phase that and certain other annoying mannerisms out of me and Charles II.
Still, taken all together, I thought that the experiment had come off extremely well. I was pleased. My work and my courtship were both proceeding with high efficiency. I had achieved an ancient dream; I was a single ego served by two bodies. Who could ask for more?
What marvelous evenings we all had! My experiences were vicarious, of course, but genuinely moving all the same. I can still remember my first quarrel with Elaine, how beautiful and stubborn she was, and how deliciously we made up afterward.
That “making up” raised certain problems, as a matter of fact. I had programmed Charles II to proceed to a certain discreet point of physical intimacy and no further. But now I learned that one person cannot plan out every move of a courtship involving two autonomous beings, especially if one of those beings is a woman. For the sake of verisimilitude I had to permit the robot more intimacies than I had previously thought advisable.
After the first shock, I did not find this unpalatable. Quite the contrary—I might as well admit that I became deeply interested in the films of myself and Elaine. I suppose some stuffy psychiatrist would call this a case of voyeurism, or worse. But that would be to ignore the deeper philosophical implications. After all, what man has not dreamed of being able to view himself in action? It is a common fantasy to imagine one’s own hidden cameras recording one’s every move. Given the chance, who could resist the extraordinary privilege of being simultaneously actor and audience?
My dramas with Elaine developed in a direction that surprised me. A quality of desperation began to show itself, a love-madness of which I would never have believed myself capable. Our evenings became imbued with a quality of delicious sadness, a sense of imminent loss. Sometimes we didn’t speak at all, just held hands and looked at each other. And once Elaine wept for no discernible reason, and I stroked her hair, and she said to me, “What can we do?” and I looked at her and did not reply.
I am perfectly aware that these things happened to the robot, of course. But the robot was an aspect or attribute of me—my shadow, twin, double, animus, doppelganger. He was a projection of my personality into a particular situation; therefore whatever happened to him became my experience. Metaphysically there can be no doubt of this.
It was all very interesting. But at last I had to bring the courtship to an end. It was time for Elaine and me to plan our marriage and to coordinate our schedules. Accordingly, exactly two months after its inception, I told the robot to propose a wedding date and to terminate the courtship as of that night.
“You have done extremely well,” I told him. “When this is over, you will receive a new personality, plastic surgery and a respected place in my organization.”
“Thank you, sir,” he said. His face was unreadable, as is my own. I heard no hint of anything in his voice except perfect obedience. He left carrying my latest gift to Elaine.
Midnight came and Charles II didn’t return. An hour later I felt disturbed. By three a.m. I was in a state of agitation, experiencing erotic and masochistic fantasies, seeing him with her in every conceivable combination of mechano-physical lewdness. The minutes dragged by, Charles II still did not return, and my fantasies became sadistic. I imagined the slow and terrible ways in which I would take my revenge on both of them, the robot for his presumption and Elaine for her stupidity in being deceived by a mechanical substitute for a real man.
The long night crept slowly by. At last I fell into a fitful sleep.
I awoke early. Charles II still had not returned. I canceled my appointments for the entire morning and rushed over to Elaine’s apartment.
“Charles!” she said. “What an unexpected pleasure!”
I entered her apartment with an air of nonchalance. I was determined to remain calm until I had learned exactly what had happened last night. Beyond that, I didn’t know what I might do.