"Just because I'm a little snappish… Jose! You don't mean it!"
"But… but I thought… You said you wanted to be…"
"Don't you dare!"
"A free and independent entity!" Jose bawled.
"That's the Declaration, not me.' How could you possibly think I would want a divorce?"
"But that's what it means, to be independent…"
"Oh, that's just a word!" Marcia leaned forward to squeeze his hand. "I mean, can't I even have a little light conversation with you in the mornings?"
The aircar grounded, and its grille announced, "Eight-Mile and Adams."
"Don't you even think about a divorce!" Marcia commanded, darting a quick kiss at him. "Have a good day, darling."
Well, that was something of a tall order. How could Jose "have a good day" when it had started with such turmoil? He sighed philosophically, then sighed again to try to get his emotions under control, and wondered whether he'd ever be able to tell when Marcia was serious, and when she was just talking.
But he couldn't help thinking about it. Every time he tried to do something else, the argument came back to him. He heaved a sigh and took his hands off the keyboard, closing his eyes and leaning back in his chair, trying to think the experience through so he could put it to rest.
The Declaration. That was it. That had been the keystone of Marcia's argument, the phrases "that all people are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" and "these colonies ought to be free and independent states." He knew she'd been misquoting, twisting Jefferson's words to suit her argument. Not that it mattered; when she was in one of those moods, she'd use any ammunition that was handy. Still, it might help him to get the argument out of his mind if he could see the phrases the way Jefferson had written them, and reassure himself that he wasn't really violating the Declaration's principles by the way he was living.
So he cleared his screen and punched in the code for the central library's database, feeling like an idiot—he knew very well that he was living according to his own ideals, and knew he was letting his weakness show by having to prove it to himself.
The screen lit up with the library's logo and a request for a request. Jose punched in "The Declaration of Independence" with a feeling of relief; at least something was being reasonable.
The political entity that the Declaration had founded still existed, though it had become so completely involved in the complex of nations that it was one part of a united Gestalt, as were all the other nations of Terra. But the words that had begun that union still rang down the corridors of human history, firing youthful minds with zeal and exalting older spirits—and, through them, had in turn become the basis of the Terran Union.
Then it jumped at him from the screen, a full facsimile of the document itself, but he knew that each letter was also in binary. Not that he would dream of moving sentences around in it.
But he could scroll through it, of course, and he did. He read it word by word, feeling a measure of calmness returning to him as the clarion phrases rang out through his mind.
There they were, right at the beginning, the truths Jefferson had held to be self-evident—that all men were created equal, that they were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…
His mind came to a screeching halt. "All men are created equal?" Yes, Marcia had been misquoting. Only one word changed, though—right?
He dismissed the notion as unworthy. The distinction wasn't significant; Jefferson had probably had all people in mind, men and women; and if he hadn't in 1776, he surely would have in 3035.
But it did rather undercut Marcia's argument, didn't it? And since all she was using it for was argument…
Sexist document. He could almost hear her voice dismissing it angrily. And she might have a point there—but then, she shouldn't have cited the Declaration.
That wasn't germane, either, though. What mattered was knowing that he, Jose, hadn't tried to treat her as inferior—and he knew damned well that he hadn't. He'd been showing her a bit of consideration, not being condescending.
He scrolled on through the document, feeling a little better, reading as he went, until he came to the phrase, "These United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES." He held the phrase centered on the screen, nodding with satisfaction—he'd remembered the quotation almost accurately. And Marcia had been wrong as well as right—there was a difference between a colony's having a right to govern itself, and a woman's right to not have to take orders any more than a man did.
Of course, everybody had to take orders, unless they were royalty—and these days, even the kings and queens had to obey the law. But a woman shouldn't have to take orders from her husband any more than he should have to take orders from her…
For a moment, Jose's head whirled, and he found himself wondering what he was doing in that marriage. Or was it really a marriage?
Heresy. He brought his attention back firmly to the issue at hand. He was living in accord with the Declaration's principles; he didn't have anything to feel badly about.
Unless, said a niggling doubt in the back of his mind—unless Jefferson's principle of independence really meant that no one should ever become so fully dependent on another person that you could really say they were married. But Jose was sure Jefferson hadn't meant that.
But the principle itself… ?
The principle could wait. Jose pulled himself together firmly. He could work out that principle now and again, for the rest of his life; it was only one more problem to solve, the problem of being independent but married, and he was sure he could figure it out in time. Meanwhile, there was an important issue of a robot brain that needed to be programmed, and had been waiting far longer than it should have.
But he was almost at the end of the document. He punched for "Scroll" and read the rest of the Declaration, letting it fill him with pride in being human, in being…
"Hey, Jose!"
Jose frowned, turning to the programmer next to him. "Yeah, Bob?"
"It won't access the original." Bob sat back, waving at his screen. "What am I doing wrong?"
Jose suppressed a smile. Bob was very young, and very new to the job. He knew computers better than Jose did, but he hadn't learned much about the asininities of bureaucracy yet, or the arbitrary nature of its decisions. "Here, let me see." He shoved his chair over to Bob's workstation and frowned at the screen, pursing his lips. "What access code were you using?"
"RB-34h-Z." Bob shoved the manual over and pointed to the entry.
Jose let the smile show. "We quit making that model five years ago, Bob. The RB-34h-Z series is a mile long now."
Bob frowned. "Then how am I supposed to know which one to call up?"
"The catalogue is supposed to appear on your screen automatically when you enter the code."
"Then how come it didn't?"
"Because you're supposed to enter that code before you initiate the copying procedure." Jose aborted the copy program, clearing the screen, then punched in "RB-34H-Z." The screen lit up with a scrolling display on the left, while a note on the right informed them that those models marked with an asterisk were still in production.
Bob frowned. "Why didn't the manual tell me about this?"
"Because the guy who wrote it is a cretin."
Bob just stared for a second, then smiled. "Well, not much I can say to that, is there?"
"Other than asking why he keeps his job, no." Jose smiled. "Fact is, he was fired last year, but they figure everybody who works here knows the routine, so they haven't bothered to update the manual."
Bob sighed. "Makes it tough on a beginner, doesn't it?"
"That's why they mix you in with us old fogies." Jose was thirty-two. "Now—you get to guess which model you're supposed to load."