She sighed fondly, watching him as he did what she knew he was going to do. He limped down the line of CIMs, with a word and a smile and a handshake for each… and not a vote in the lot of them. It was not a kindly place for a human being to be, noisy with the zap of welding sparks, hot, dusty. This was where the torsos were assembled and the limbs attached and the effector motors emplaced. The growing, empty robot bodies swung down the line like beefs at a meat-packer's. Fortunately, the CIMs had only limited capacity for small talk, and so the Congressman was soon enough in the newer, cleaner detailing bays. The finishing touches were applied here. The empty skulls were filled with the Josephson-junction data processors that were their "brains." The freezer units that kept the cryo-circuits working were installed, and into the vacant torsos went the power units that held hydrogen-fusion reactors contained in a nest of monopoles the size of a thimble. The Congressman's time was not wasted here. All these workers were voters, enfranchised robots as new and remarkable as the ones they made. Along that line the robots being finished began to twist and move and emit sounds, as their circuits went through quality-control testing, until at the end of the line they unhooked themselves from the overhead cable, stepped off, blinked, stood silent for a moment while their internal scanners told them who and what they were, and why…
And the Congressman's eyes gleamed, as he perceived them the way they perceived themselves. New beings. New voters!
It was the right place for the Congressman to be, a greeting for each new voter, a handshake… a vote. Carrie hated to try to pull him away, but Martin was looking worried and the schedule had to be met. "Oh, Carrie," he whispered as she tugged at his sleeve, "they're imprinting on me! Just like the ducklings in King Solomon's Ring! I'm the first thing they see, so naturally they're going to remember me forever!"
He was not only happy, he was flushed with pleasure. Carrie hoped that was what it was—pleasure, and not something more worrisome. His eyes were feverishly bright, and he talked so rapidly he was tripping over his words. She was adamant; and then, once she got him into the car, less sure. "Dear," she ventured, as Martin closed the door behind them, "do you suppose you could possibly cancel the Baptist Men's Prayer Breakfast?"
"Certainly not," he said inevitably.
"You really do need a rest—"
"It's only a week till the election," he pointed out reasonably, "and then we'll rest as much as you like—maybe even back to the Sahara for a few days in the sun. Now, what are you going to do?"
She stared at him uncertainly. "Do when?"
"Do now, while I go see the Baptists—it's a men's breakfast, you know."
For once he had caught Carrie unprepared. Gender-segregated events were so rare that she had simply forgotten about this one. "Martin can drop me off and take you home, if you like," her husband supplied, "but of course it's going the wrong way—"
"No." She opened the door on her side, kissed her husband's warm cheek—too warm? she wondered—and got out. "I'll take a cab. You go ahead."
And she watched her husband pull out of one end of the parking lot just as the six-car procession she had seen coming down the far side of the fence entered at the other.
The Mayor.
It was the old days all over again, the next thing to a circus parade. Six cars! And not just cars, but bright-orange vehicles, purpose-built for nothing but campaigning. The first was an open car with half a dozen pretty young she-robots—no! They were human, Carrie was sure!—with pretty girls tossing pink and white carnations to the passersby. There were not many passersby, at that hour of the morning, but the Mayor's parade was pulling out all the stops. Next another open car, with the neat, smiling figure of the Mayor bestowing waves and nods on all sides. Next a PA car, with a handsome male singer and a beautiful female alternating to sing all the traditional political campaign numbers, "Happy Days Are Here Again" and Schiller's "Ode to Joy" and "God Bless America" with an up-tempo beat. And then two more flower-girl cars, surrounding a vehicle that was nothing more than a giant animated electronic display showing the latest and constantly changing poll results and extrapolations. All, of course, favoring the Mayor. How gross! And how very effective, Carrie conceded dismally to herself… "You the lady that wants the taxi?" someone called behind her, and she turned to see a cab creeping up toward her. Reliable Martin had sent for it, of course. She sighed and turned to go inside it, and then paused, shaking her head.
"No, not now. I'll stay here a while."
"Whatever you say, lady," the driver agreed, gazing past her at the Mayor's procession. It was only a central-intelligence mechanical, but Carrie was sure she saw admiration in its eyes.
The Mayor had not noticed her. Carrie devoted herself to noticing it, as inconspicuously as she could. It was repeating her husband's tour of the plant—fair enough—but then she saw that it was not fair at all, for the Mayor had a built-in advantage. It too was a robot. In her husband's tour of the plant he had given each worker a minute's conversation. The Mayor gave each worker just as much conversation, but both it and the workers had their communications systems in fast mode. The sound of their voices was like the sonar squeaks of bats, the pumping of arms in the obligatory handshake like the flutter of hummingbird wings, too fast for Carrie's eyes to follow.
A voice from behind her said, "I know who you are, Mrs. O'Hare, but would you like a carnation anyhow?"
It was one of the flower girls—not, however, one of the human ones from the first car, for human girls did not have liquid-crystal readouts across their foreheads that said Vote for Thom!
There was no guile in its expression, no hidden photographer waiting to sneak a tape of the Congressman's wife accepting a flower from the opponent. It seemed to be simple courtesy, and Carrie O'Hare responded in kind. "Thank you. You're putting on a really nice show," she said, her heart envious but her tone, she hoped, only admiring. "Could you tell me something?"
"Of course, Mrs. O'Hare!"
Carrie hesitated; it was her instinct to be polite to everyone, robots included—her own programming, of course. How to put what she wanted to know? "I notice," she said delicately, "that Mayor Thom is spending time even with the old-fashioned mechanicals that don't have a vote. Can you tell me why?"
"Certainly, Mrs. O'Hare," the flower girl said promptly. "There are three reasons. The first is that it looks good, so when he goes to the autonomous-intellect mechanicals they're disposed in his favor. The second is that the Mayor is going to sponsor a bill to give the CIMs a fractional vote, too—did you know that?"
"I'm afraid I didn't," Carrie confessed. "But surely they can't be treated the way humans or Josephson-junction mechanicals are?"