“I think this really is a news broadcast,” Cadge Foster murmured. “I’ve heard of this Fileclerk. He’s pushing a constitutional amendment that would open Congress to alphas. And—”
WEEPING AS THE DEAD FEMALE ALPHA LAY IN THE SNOW BESIDE THE MIGHTY BULK OF THE TOWER, AN ALMOST HUMAN SHOW OF GRIEF.
“Enough,” Manuel said. He began to toss his cube to the floor; but, seeing the message change, he glanced at it once again.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND YOUR OWN MOTIVES?
“Do you?” he asked. The cube went blank. He dropped it, gratefully. The alpha attendant entered the subchamber and started to disconnect the electrodes.
“You may proceed to the shunt room, gentlemen,” said the alpha blandly. “The programming has been completed and the stasis net is ready to receive you.”
16
They had moved the chapel to a dome near the outer rim of the service area, in a section where tools were repaired. In less than two hours a flawless transfer had been carried out; inside, the new chapel was indistinguishable from the old. Watchman found a dozen off-duty betas going through a ritual of consecration, with a knot of gammas looking on. No one spoke to him or even looked directly at him; in the presence of the alpha they all scrupulously obeyed the code of social distances. Briefly Watchman prayed beneath the hologram of Krug. His soul was eased some, after a while, though the tensions of his long wintry dialogue with Siegfried Fileclerk would not leave him. His faith had not wavered before Fileclerk’s brusque pragmatic arguments, but for a few moments, while they were thrusting and parrying beside the body of Cassandra Nucleus, Watchman had felt a touch of despair. Fileclerk had struck at a vulnerable place: Krug’s attitude toward the slaying of the alpha. Krug had seemed so removed by it! True, he had looked annoyed — but was it merely the expense, the nuisance of a suit, that bothered him? Watchman had riposted with the proper metaphysical statements, yet he was disturbed. Why had Krug not seemed lessened by the killing? Where was the sense of grace? Where was the hope of redemption? Where was the mercy of the Maker?
The snow was slackening when Watchman left the chapel. Night had come, moonless, the stars unbearably sharp. Savage winds knifed across the flat, treeless expanse of the construction site. Siegfried Fileclerk was gone; so was the corpse of Cassandra Nucleus. Long lines of workers stood in front of the transmat banks, for the shift was changing. Watchman returned to the control center. Euclid Planner, his relief man, was there.
“I’m on,” Planner said. “Go. You stayed late tonight.”
“A complicated day. You know about the killing?”
“Of course. Labrador Transmat’s claimed the body. The lawyers have been all over the place.” Planner eased into the linkup seat. “I understand the chapel’s been moved, too.”
“We had to. That’s how it all started — Spaulding got too interested in the chapel. It’s a long story.”
“I’ve heard it,” Euclid Planner said. He prepared to jack himself into the computer. “There’ll be problems out of this. As if there weren’t problems enough. Go with Krug, Thor.”
“Go with Krug,” Watchman murmured. He took his leave.
The outbound workers on the transmat line made way for him. He entered the cubicle and let the green glow hurl him to his three-room flat in Stockholm, in the section of the android quarter favored by alphas. The private transmat was a rare privilege, a mark of the esteem in which he was held by Krug. He knew no other android who had one; but Krug had insisted that it was necessary for Watchman to be able to leave his apartment on a moment’s notice, and had had the cubicle installed.
He felt drained and weary. He set himself for two hours of sleep, stripped, and lay down.
When he woke he was as tired as before. That was unusual. He decided to give himself another hour of rest, and closed his eyes. But in a short while he was interrupted by the chime of the telephone. Turning toward the screen, he saw Lilith Meson. Sleepily he made the Krug-be-praised sign at her.
She looked somber. She said, “Can you come to the Valhallavдgen chapel, Thor?”
“Now?”
“Now, if you can. It’s tense here. The Cassandra Nucleus thing — we don’t know what to think, Thor.”
“Wait,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
He put on a robe, set the transmat coordinates for the Valhallavдgen cubicle, and jumped. It was a fifty-meter walk from the cubicle to the chapel; transmats were never installed inside a chapel. A feeble, strained dawn was breaking. In the night there had been a little snow here too, Watchman saw; the remnants of it fleeced the deep window ledges of the old buildings.
The chapel was in a ground-floor flat at the corner. Some fifteen androids were there, all alphas; the lower classes rarely used the Valhallavдgen chapel, though they were free to do so. Betas felt uncomfortable in it, and gammas preferred to worship in Gamma Town, far across the city.
Watchman recognized some of the most distinguished members of his kind in the group. He acknowledged the greetings of the poetess Andromeda Quark, the historian Mazda Constructor, the theologian Pontifex Dispatcher, the philosopher Krishna Guardsman, and several others who were among the elite of the elite. All seemed ragged with tension. When Watchman made Krug-be-praised at them, most of them returned the gesture halfheartedly, perfunctorily.
Lilith Meson said, “Forgive us for breaking your rest, Thor. But as you see an important conference is in progress.”
“How can I help?”
“You were a witness to the slaying of Alpha Cassandra Nucleus,” Pontifex Dispatcher said. He was heavy, slow-moving, an android of dignified and imposing bearing who came from one of the earliest of Krug’s batches. He had played a major role in the shaping of their religion. “We have somewhat of a theological crisis now,” Dispatcher went on. “In view of the charges raised by Siegfried Fileclerk—”
“Charges? I hadn’t heard.”
“Will you tell him?” Pontifex Dispatcher said, glancing at Andromeda Quark.
The poetess, lean and intense, with an elegant reedy voice, said, “Fileclerk held a press conference last night at AEP headquarters. He insisted that the killing of Alpha Nucleus was a politically motivated act carried out at the instigation of—” She could barely say it. “—Krug.”
“Slime of the Vat,” Watchman muttered. “I begged him not to do that! Fileclerk and I stood talking in the snow half an hour, and I told him — I told him—” He knotted his fingers. “Was there a statement from Krug?”
“A denial,” said Mazda Constructor, who for four years had with Watchman’s surreptitious aid been secretly compiling the annals of the androids from Krug’s dead-storage date file. “An immediate response. The killing was called accidental.”
“Who spoke for Krug?” Watchman asked.
“A lawyer. Fearon, the Senator’s brother.”
“Not Spaulding, eh? Still in shock, I guess. Well, so Fileclerk’s been spewing filth. What of it?”
Softly Pontifex Dispatcher said, “At this moment, chapels everywhere are crowded as your brothers and sisters gather to discuss the implications of the killing, Thor. The theological resonances are so terribly complex. If Krug indeed did give the order for the ending of Cassandra Nucleus’ life, did he do so in order to show His displeasure over the activities of the Android Equality Party? That is, does He prefer our way to theirs? Or, on the other hand, did He take her life to register His disapproval of the ultimate goals of the AEP — which of course are roughly the same as our own? If the former, our faith is justified. But if the latter, you see, then possibly we have been given a sign that Krug totally rejects the concept of android equality. And then there is no hope for us.”
“A bleak prospect,” croaked Krishna Guardsman, whose teachings on the relationship of Krug to android were revered by all. “However, I take comfort in the thought that if Krug struck Alpha Nucleus down to show His dislike of the equality movement, He did so merely to oppose political agitation for equalitynow , and was in effect reminding us to be more patient and await His grace. But—”