“Please—“ Sheen said, exactly like the woman she was programmed to be. She was suffering.
“Will you take an oath on what you have just informed me?” Stile asked. “That you have given me what information you possess, and that in no way known to you will my oath be detrimental to the interest of human beings?”
“On behalf of the self-willed machines, I so swear.”
Stile knew machines could lie, if they were programmed to. Sheen had done it. But so could people. It required a more sophisticated program to make a ma-chine lie, and what was the point? This seemed a reasonable gamble. As an expert Gamesman, he was used to making rapid decisions. “Then I so swear not to betray the interest of the self-willed machines, contingent on the validity of your own oath to obey and serve man so long as your full nature is unknown.”
“You are a clever man,” the machine said.
“But a small one,” Stile agreed.
“Is this a form of humor?”
“Mild humor. I am sensitive about my size.”
“We machines are sensitive about our survival. Do you deem this also humorous?”
“No.”
Sheen, listening, relaxed visibly. For a machine she had some extremely human reflexes, and Stile was coming to appreciate why. Conscious, programmed for emotion, and to a degree self-willed—the boundary between the living and the non-living was narrowing. She had been corrupted by association with him, and her effort to become as human as possible. One day the self-willed machines might discover that there was no effective difference between them and living people. Convergent evolution?
What was that interceding force? Stile had no handle on that at present. It was neither animate nor inanimate —yet what other category was there? He felt as if he were playing a Game on the grid of an unimaginably larger Game whose nature he could hardly try to grasp. All he could do was file this mystery for future reference, along with the question of the identity of his laser-wielding and robot-sending enemy.
The wheeled machine present in the room, Techtwo, was doing things to a vidscreen unit. “This is now keyed to your home unit,” it announced. “Callers will trace the call to your apartment, not to our present location.”
“Very nice,” Stile said, surprised at how expeditiously he had come to terms with the machines. He had made his oath; he would keep it. Never in adult life had Stile broken his word. But he had expected more hassle, because of the qualified phrasing he had employed. The self-willed machines, it had turned out, really had been willing to compromise.
The screen lit. “Answer it,” the machine said. “This is your vid. The call has been on hold pending your return to your apartment.”
Stile stepped across and touched the RECEIVE panel. Now his face was being transmitted to the caller, with a blanked-out background. Most people did not like to have their private apartments shown over the phone; that was part of what privacy was all about, for the few serfs who achieved it. Thus blanking was not in itself suspicious.
The face of his employer appeared on the screen. His background was not blanked; it consisted of an elaborate and excruciatingly expensive hanging rug depicting erotic scenes involving satyrs and voluptuous nymphs: the best Citizen taste. “Stile, why did you miss your appointment for surgery?”
“Sir,” Stile said, surprised. “I—regret the disturbance, the damage to the facilities—“
“There was no disturbance, no damage,” the Citizen said, giving him a momentary stare. Stile realized that the matter had been covered up to prevent embarrassment to the various parties. The hospital would not want to admit that an isolated pair of serfs had over- come four androids and a doctor, and made good their escape despite an organized search, and the Citizen did not want his name associated with such a scandal. This meant, in turn, that Stile was not in the trouble he had thought he was. No complaint had been lodged.
“Sir, I feared a complication in the surgery,” Stile said. Even for a Citizen, he was not about to lie. But there seemed to be no point in making an issue of the particular happenings at the hospital.
“Your paramour feared a complication,” the Citizen corrected him. “An investigation was made. There was no threat to your welfare at the hospital. There will be no threat. Will you now return for the surgery?”
The way had been smoothed. One word, and Stile’s career and standing would be restored without blemish.
“No, sir,” Stile said, surprising himself. “I do not believe my life is safe if I become able to race again.”
“Then you are fired.” There was not even regret or anger on the Citizen’s face as he faded out; he had simply cut his losses.
“I’m sorry,” Sheen said, coming to him. “I may have protected you physically, but—“
Stile kissed her, though now he held the image of her breasts being carried like platters in her hands, there in the hospital. She was very good, for what she was—but she was still a machine, assembled from nonliving substances. He felt guilty for his reservation, but could not abolish it.
Then he had another regret. “Battleaxe—who will ride the horse, now? No one but I can handle—“
“He will be retired to stud,” she said. “He won’t fight that.”
The screen lit again. Stile answered again. This time it was a sealed transmission: flashing lights and noise in the background, indicating the jamming that protected it from interception. Except, ironically, that this was an interception; the machine had done its job better than the caller could know.
It was another Citizen. His clothing was clear, including a tall silk hat, but the face was fuzzed out, making him anonymous. His voice, too, was blurred. “I understand you are available. Stile,” the man said.
News spread quickly! “I am available for employment, sir,” Stile agreed. “But I am unable to race on horseback.”
“I propose to transplant your brain into a good android body fashioned in your likeness. This would be indistinguishable on casual inspection from your original self, with excellent knees. You could race again. I have an excellent stable—“
“A cyborg?” Stile asked. “A human brain in a synthetic body? This would not be legal for competition.” Apart from that, the notion was abhorrent.
“No one would know,” the Citizen said smoothly. “Because your brain would be the original, and your body form and capacity identical, there would be no cause for suspicion.”
No one would know—except the entire self-willed machine community, at this moment listening in. And Stile himself, who would be living a lie. And he was surely being lied to, as well; if brain transplant into android body was so good, why didn’t Citizens use that technique for personal immortality? Quite likely the android system could not maintain a genuinely living brain indefinitely; there would be slow erosion of intelligence and/or sanity, until that person was merely an-other brute creature. This was no bargain offer in any sense!
“Sir, I was just fired because I refused to have surgery on my knees. What makes you suppose I want surgery on my head?”
This bordered on insolence, but the Citizen took it in stride. Greed conquered all! “Obviously you were disgusted at the penny-pinching mode of your former employer. Why undertake the inconvenience of partial restoration, when you could have a complete renovation?”