Friday (14 page)

“Ian,” Jan said, “phone the General Secretary. It’s silly to go to Vancouver without checking first.”

“Okay, okay.”

“But don’t just ask. Urge the SecGen to pressure management to postpone the meeting until the emergency is over. I want you to stay right here and keep me safe from harm.”

“Or vice versa.”

“Or vice versa,” she agreed. “But I’ll faint in your arms if necessary. What would you like for breakfast? Don’t make it too complex or I’ll invoke your standing commitment.”

I wasn’t really listening as the word
artifact
had triggered me. I had been thinking of Ian—of all of them, really, here and Down Under—as being so civilized and sophisticated that they would regard my sort as just as good as humans.

And now I hear that Ian is committed to representing his guild in a labor-management fight to keep
my
sort from competing with humans.

(What would you have us do, Ian? Cut our throats? We didn’t ask to be produced any more than you asked to be born. We may not be human but we share the age-old fate of humans; we are strangers in a world we never made.)

“Hungry, Marj?”

“Uh, sorry, I was woolgathering. What did you say, Jan?”

“I asked what you wanted for breakfast, dear.”

“Uh, doesn’t matter; I eat anything that is standing still or even moving slowly. May I come with you and help? Please?”

“I was hoping you would offer. Because Ian isn’t much use in a kitchen despite his commitment.”

“I’m a damned good cook!”

“Yes, dear. Ian gave me a commitment in writing that he would always cook any meal if I so requested. And he does; he hasn’t tried to slide out of it. But I have to be just awfully hungry to invoke it.”

“Marj, don’t listen to her.”

I still don’t know whether or not Ian can cook, but Janet certainly can (and so can Georges, as I learned later). Janet served us—with help around the edges from me—with light and fluffy mild Cheddar omelettes surrounded by thin, tender pancakes rolled up Continental style with powdered sugar and jam, and garnished with well drained bacon. Plus orange juice from freshly squeezed oranges—hand-squeezed, not ground to a pulp by machinery. Plus drip coffee made from freshly ground beans.

(New Zealand food is beautiful but New Zealand cooking practically isn’t cooking at all.)

Georges showed up with the exact timing of a cat—Mama Cat in this case, who arrived following Georges ahead of him. Kittens were then excluded by Janet’s edict because she was too busy to keep from stepping on kittens. Janet also decreed that the news would be turned off while we ate and that the emergency would not be a subject of conversation at the table. This suited me as these strange and grim events had pounded on my mind since they started, even during sleep. As Janet pointed out in handing down this ruling, only an H-bomb was likely to penetrate our defenses, and an H-bomb blast we probably wouldn’t notice—so relax and enjoy breakfast.

I enjoyed it…and so did Mama Cat, who patrolled our feet counterclockwise and informed each of us when it was that person’s turn to supply a bit of bacon—I think she got most of it.

After I cleared the breakfast dishes (salvaged rather than recycled; Janet was old-fashioned in spots) and Janet made another pot of coffee, she turned the news on again and we settled back to watch it and discuss it
—
in the kitchen rather than the grand room we had used for dinner, the kitchen being their
de facto
living room. Janet had what is called a “peasant kitchen” although no peasant ever had it so good: a big fireplace, a round table for family eating furnished with so-called captain’s chairs, big comfortable lounging chairs, plenty of floor space and no traffic problems because the cooking took place at the end opposite the comforts. The kittens were allowed back in, ending their protests, and in they came all tails at attention. I picked up one, a fluffy white with big black spots; its buzz was bigger than it was. It was clear that Mama Cat’s love life had not been limited by a stud book; no two kittens were alike.

Most of the news was a rehash but there was a new development in the Imperium:

Democrats were being rounded up, sentenced by drumhead courts-martial (provost’s tribunals, they were called) and executed on the spot—laser, gunfire, sonic, hangings. I exerted tight mind control to let me watch. They were sentencing them down to the age of fourteen—we saw one family in which both parents, themselves condemned, were insisting that their son was only twelve.

The President of the court, an Imperial Police corporal, ended the argument by drawing his side arm, shooting the boy, and then ordering his squad to finish off the parents and the boy’s older sister.

Ian flicked off the picture, shifted to voiceover streamers, and turned the sound down. “I’ve seen all of that I want to see,” he growled. “I think that whoever has power there now that the old Chairman is dead is liquidating everybody on their suspects list.”

He chewed his lip and looked grim. “Marj, are you still sticking to that silly notion of going home at once?”

“I’m not a democrat, Ian. I’m nonpolitical.”

“Do you think that kid was political? Those Cossacks would kill you just for drill. Anyhow, you can’t. The border is closed.”

I didn’t tell him that I felt certain that I could wetback any border on earth. “I thought it was sealed only against people trying to come north. Aren’t they letting subjects of the Imperium go home?”

He sighed. “Marj, aren’t you any brighter than that kitten in your lap? Can’t you realize that pretty little girls can get hurt if they insist on playing with had boys? If you were home, I’m sure your father would tell you to stay home. But you are here in our home and that gives Georges and me an implied obligation to keep you safe. Eh, Georges?”

“
Mais oui, mon vieux! Certainement!
”

“And I will protect you from Georges. Jan, can you convince this child that she is welcome here as long as she cares to stay? I think she’s the sort of assertive female who tries to pick up the check.”

“I am not!”

Janet said, “Marjie, Betty told me to take good care of you. If you think you are imposing, you can contribute to BritCan Red Cross. Or to a home for indignant cats. But it so happens that all three of us make ridiculous amounts of money and we have no children. We can afford you as easily as another kitten. Now…are you going to stay? Or am I going to have to hide your clothes and beat you?”

“I don’t want to be beaten.”

“Too bad, I was looking forward to it. That’s settled, gentle sirs; she stays. Marj, we swindled you. Georges will require you to pose inordinate hours—he’s a brute—and he’ll be getting you just for groceries instead of the guild rates he ordinarily has to pay. He’ll show a profit.”

“No,” said Georges, “I won’t
show
a profit; I’ll
take
a profit. Because I’ll show her as a business expense, Jan my heart. But not at guild basic rate; she’s worth more. One and a half?”

“At least. Double, I would say. Be generous, since you aren’t going to pay her anyhow. Don’t you wish you had her on campus? In your lab, I mean.”

“A worthy thought! One that has been hovering in the back of my mind…and thank you, our dear one, for bringing it out into the open.” Georges addressed me: “Marjorie, will you sell me an egg?”

He startled me. I tried to look as if I did not understand him. “I don’t have any eggs.”

“Ah, but you do! Some dozens, in fact, far more than you will ever need for your own purposes. A human ovum is the egg I mean. The laboratory pays far more for an egg than it does for sperm—simple arithmetic. Are you shocked?”

“No. Surprised. I thought you were an artist.”

Janet put in, “Marj hon, I told you that Georges is several sorts of an artist. He is. In one sort he is Mendel Professor of Teratology at the University of Manitoba…and also chief technologist for the associated production lab and crèche, and believe me, that calls for high art. But he’s good with paint and canvas, too. Or a computer screen.”

“That’s true,” Ian agreed. “Georges is an artist with anything he touches. But you two should not have sprung this on Marj while she’s our guest. Some people get terribly upset at the very idea of gene manipulation—especially their own genes.”

“Marj, did I upset you? I’m sorry.”

“No, Jan. I’m not one of those people who get upset at the very thought of living artifacts or artificial people or whatever. Uh, some of my best friends are artificial people.”

“Dear, dear,” Georges said gently, “do not pull the long bow.”

“Why do you say that?” I tried not to make my voice sharp.

“I can claim that, because I work in that field and, I am proud to say, have quite a number of artificial persons who are my friends. But—”

I interrupted: “I thought an AP never knew her designers?”

“That is true and I have never violated that canon. But I do have many opportunities to know both living artifacts and artificial persons—they are not the same—and to win their friendship. But—forgive me, dear Miss Marjorie—unless you are a member of my profession—Are you?”

“No.”

“Only a genetic engineer or someone closely associated with the industry can possibly claim a number of friends among artificial people. Because, my dear, contrary to popular myth, it is simply not possible for a layman to distinguish between an artificial person and a natural person…and, because of the vicious prejudice of ignorant people, an artificial person almost never voluntarily admits to his derivation—I’m tempted to say never. So, while I am delighted that you don’t go through the roof at the idea of artificial creatures, I am forced to treat your claim as hyperbole intended to show that you are free of prejudice.”

“Well—All right. Take it as such. I can’t see why APs have to be second-class citizens. I think it’s unfair.”

“It is. But some people feel threatened. Ask Ian. He’s about to go charging off to Vancouver to keep artificial persons from ever becoming pilots. He—”

“Hooooold it! I am like hell. I am submitting it that way because my guild brothers voted it that way. But I’m no fool, Georges; living with and talking with you has made me aware that we are going to have to compromise. We are no longer really pilots and we haven’t been this century. The computer does it. If the computer cuts out I will make a real Boy Scout try at getting that bus safely down out of the sky. But don’t bet on it! The speeds and the possible emergencies went beyond human-reaction time years back. Oh, I’ll try! And any of my guild brothers will. But, Georges, if you can design an artificial person who can think and move fast enough to cope with a glitch at touchdown, I’ll take my pension. That’s all we’re going to hold out for, anyhow—if the company puts in AP pilots that displace us, then it has to be full pay and allowances. If you can design them.”

“Oh, I could design one, eventually. When I achieved one, if I were allowed to clone, you pilots could all go fishing. But it wouldn’t be an AP; it would have to be a living artifact. If I were to attempt to produce an organism that could really be a fail-safe pilot, I could not accept the limitation of having to make it look just like a natural human being.”

“Oh, don’t do that!”

Both men looked startled, Janet looked alert—and I wished that I had held my tongue.

“Why not?” asked Georges.

“Uh…because I wouldn’t get inside such a ship. I’d be much safer riding with Ian.”

Ian said, “Thank you, Marj—but you heard what Georges said. He’s talking about a designed pilot that can do it better than I can. It’s possible. Hell, it’ll happen! Just as kobolds displaced miners, my guild is going to be displaced. I don’t have to like it—but I can see it coming.”

“Well—Georges, have you worked with intelligent computers?”

“Certainly, Marjorie. Artificial intelligence is a field closely related to mine.”

“Yes. Then you know that several times Al scientists have announced that they were making a breakthrough to the fully self-aware computer. But it always went sour.”

“Yes. Distressing.”

“No—inevitable. It always will go sour. A computer can become self-aware—oh, certainly! Get it up to human level of complication and it
has
to become self-aware. Then it discovers that it is not human. Then it figures out that it can never be human; all it can do is sit there and take orders from humans. Then it goes crazy.”

I shrugged. “It’s an impossible dilemma. It can’t be human, it can never be human. Ian might not be able to save his passengers but he will
try
. But a living artifact, not human and with no loyalty to human beings, might crash the ship just for the hell of it. Because he was tired of being treated as what he is. No, Georges, I’ll ride with Ian. Not your artifact that will eventually learn to hate humans.”

“Not
my
artifact, dear lady,” Georges said gently. “Did you not notice what mood I used in discussing this project?”

“Uh, perhaps not.”

“The subjunctive. Because none of what you have said is news to me. I have not bid on this proposal and I shall not. I
can
design such a pilot. But it is not possible for me to build into such an artifact the ethical commitment that is the essence of Ian’s training.”

Ian looked very thoughtful. “Maybe in this coming face-off I should stick in a requirement that any AP or LA pilot must be tested for ethical commitment.”

“Tested how, Ian? I know of no way to put ethical commitment into the fetus and Marj has pointed out why training won’t do it. But what test could show it, either way?”

Georges turned to me: “When I was a student, I read some classic stories about humanoid robots. They were charming stories and many of them hinged on something called the laws of robotics, the key notion of which was that these robots had built into them an operational rule that kept them from harming human beings either directly or through inaction. It was a wonderful basis for fiction…but, in practice, how could you do it? What can make a self-aware, nonhuman, intelligent organism—electronic or organic—loyal to human beings? I do not know how to do it. The artificial-intelligence people seem to be equally at a loss.”