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 another 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?”
Complete renovation: the removal of his brain! “Sir—thank you—no.”
“No?” Fuzzy as it was, the surprise was still apparent. No serf said no to a Citizen!
“Sir, I decline your kind offer. I will never race again.”
“Now look—I’m making you a good offer! What more do you want?”
“Sir, I want to retire from horse racing.” And Stile wondered: could this be the one who had had him lasered? If so, this was a test call, and Stile was giving the correct responses.
“I am putting a guard on your apartment, Stile. You will not be allowed to leave until you come to terms with me.”
That did not sound like a gratified enemy! “I’ll complain to the Citizen council—”
“Your calls will be nulled. You can not complain.”
“Sir, you can’t do that. As a serf I have at least the right to terminate my tenure, rather than—”
“Ha ha,” the Citizen said without humor. “Get this. Stile: you will race for me or you will never get out of your apartment. I am not wishy-washy like your former employer. What I want, I get—and I want you on my horses.”
“You play a hard game, sir.”
“It is the only kind for the smart person. But I can be generous to those who cooperate. What is your answer now? My generosity will decline as time passes, but not my determination.”
Unsubtle warning. Stile trusted neither this man’s purported generosity nor his constancy. Power had certainly corrupted, in this case. “I believe I will walk out of my apartment now,” he said. “Please ask your minions to stand aside.”
“Don’t be a fool.”
Stile cocked one finger in an obscene gesture at the screen.
Even through the blur, he could see the Citizen’s eyes expand. “You dare!” the man cried. “You impertinent runt! I’ll have you dismembered for this!”
Stile broke the connection. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said with satisfaction. But the rogue Citizen had stung him with that word “runt.” Stile had no reason to care what such a man thought of him, yet the term was so freighted with derogation, extending right back into his childhood, that he could not entirely fend it off. Damn him!
“Your life is now in direct jeopardy,” the anonymous machine said. “Soon that Citizen will realize he has been tricked, and he is already angry. We can conceal your location for a time, but if the Citizen makes a full-scale effort, he will find you. You must obtain the participatory protection of another Citizen quickly.”
“I can only do that by agreeing to race,” Stile said. “For one Citizen or another. I fear that is doom.”
“The machines will help you hide,” Sheen said.
“If the Citizen puts a tracer on you, we can not help you long,” the spokesone said. “It would be damaging to our secrecy, and would also constitute violation of our oath not to act against the interest of your kind, ironic as that may be in this circumstance. We must obey direct orders.”
“Understood. Suppose I develop an uncommon facility for diverting machines to my use?” Stile asked. “No machine helps me voluntarily, since it is known that machines do not possess free will. I merely have more talent than I have evidenced before.”
“This would be limited. We prefer to assist you in modes of our own choosing. However, should you be captured and interrogated—”
“I know. The first sapient-machine-controlled test will accidentally wipe me out, before any critical information escapes.”
“We understand each other. The drugs and mechanisms Citizens have available for interrogation negate any will-to-resist any person has. Only death can abate that power.”
Grim truth. Stile put it out of his mind. “Come on, Sheen—you can help me actively. It’s your directive, remember.”
“I remember,” she said, smiling. As a robot she did not need to sleep, so he had had her plug in to humor information while he was sleeping. Now she had a much better notion of the forms. Every error of human characterization she made was followed in due course by remedial research, and it showed. “But I doubt there is any warrant out on you. The hospital matter is null, and the second Citizen’s quarrel with you is private. If we could nullify him, there should be no bar to your finding compatible employment elsewhere.”
Stile caught her arm, swung her in close, and kissed her. His emotions were penduluming; at the moment it was almost as if he loved her.
“There is no general warrant on Stile,” the spokesone said. “The anonymous Citizen still has androids guarding your apartment.”
“Then let’s identify that Citizen! Maybe he’s the one who had me lasered, just to get me on his horses.” But he didn’t really believe that. The lasering had been too sophisticated a move for this particular Citizen. “Do we have a recording of his call?”
“There is a recording,” the local machine, Techtwo, said. “But it can not be released prior to the expiration of the mandatory processing period for private calls. To do so before then would be to indicate some flaw or perversion of the processing machinery.”
Just so. A betrayal of the nature of these machines. They had to play by the rules. “What is the prescribed time delay?”
“Seven days.”
“So if I can file that recording in a memory bank, keyed for publication on my demise, that would protect me from further harassment by that particular Citizen. He’s not going to risk exposure by having that tape analyzed by the Citizen security department.”
“You can’t file it for a week,” Sheen said. “And if that Citizen catches up to you in the interim—”
“Let’s not rehash the obvious.” They moved out of the chamber. The machines did not challenge them, or show in any way that the equipment was other than what it seemed to be. But Stile had a new awareness of robotics!
It was good to merge with the serf populace again. Many serfs served their tenures only for the sake of the excellent payment they would receive upon expiration, but Stile was emotionally committed to Proton. He knew the system had faults, but it also had enormous luxury. And it had the Game.
“I’m hungry,” he said. “But my food dispenser is in my apartment. Maybe a public unit—”
“You dare not
appear in a public dining hall!” Sheen said, alarmed. “All food machines are monitored, and your ID may have been circulated. It does not have to be a police warrant; the anonymous Citizen may merely have a routine location-check on you, that will not arouse suspicion.”
“True. How about your ID? They wouldn’t bother putting a search on a machine, and you aren’t registered as a serf. You are truly anonymous.”
“That is so. I can get you food, if I go to a unit with no flesh-sensing node. I will have to eat it myself, then regurgitate it for you.”
Stile quailed, but knew it to be the best course. The food would be sanitary, despite appearances. Since food was freely available all over Proton, a serf carrying it away from the dispenser would arouse suspicion—the last thing they wanted. “Make it something that won’t change much, like nutro-pudding.”
She parked him in a toolshed and went to forage for food. All the fundamental necessities of life were free, in this society. Tenure, not economics, was the governing force. This was another reason few serfs wanted to leave; once acclimatized to this type of security, a person could have trouble adjusting to the outside galaxy.
Soon she returned. She had no bowl or spoon, as these too would have been suspicious. She had had to use them to eat on the dispenser premises, then put them into the cleaning system. “Hold out your hands,” she said.
Stile cupped his hands. She leaned over and heaved out a double handful of yellow pudding. It was warm and slippery and so exactly like vomit that his stomach recoiled. But Stile had trained for eating contests too, including the obnoxious ones; it was all part of the Game. Nutro-food could be formed into the likeness of almost anything, including animal droppings or lubricating oil. He pretended this was a Game—which in its way it was—and slurped up his pudding. It was actually quite good. Then he found a work-area relief chamber and got cleaned up.
“An alarm has been sprung,” a machine voice murmured as the toilet flushed.
Stile moved out in a hurry. He knew that the anonymous Citizen had put a private survey squad on the project; now that they had Stile’s scent, the execution squad would be dispatched. That squad would be swift and effective, hesitating only to make sure Stile’s demise seemed accidental, so as not to arouse suspicion. Citizens seldom liked to advertise their little indiscretions. That meant he could anticipate subtle but deadly threats to his welfare. Sheen would try to protect him, of course—but a smart execution squad would take that into consideration. It would be foolish to stand and wait for the attempt.
“Let’s lose ourselves in a crowd,” Stile suggested. “There’s no surer way to get lost than that.”
“Several objections,” Sheen said. “You can’t stay in a crowd indefinitely; the others all have places to go, and you don’t; your continued presence in the halls will become evident to the routine crowd-flow monitors, and suspicious. Also, you will tire; you must have rest and sleep periodically. And your enemy agents can lose themselves in the crowd, and attack you covertly from that concealment. Now that the hunt is on, a throng is not safe at all.”
“You’re too damn logical,” Stile grumped.
“Oh, Stile—I’m afraid for you!” she exclaimed.
“That’s not a bad approximation of the relevant attitude.”
“I wasn’t acting. I love you.”
“You’re too damn emotional.”
She grabbed him and kissed him passionately. “I know you can’t love me,” she said. “You’ve seen me as I am, and I feel your withdrawal. But oh, I exist to guard you from harm, and I am slowly failing to do that, and in this week while you need me most—isn’t that somewhere close to an approximation of human love?”
They were in a machine-access conduit, alone. Stile embraced her, though what she said was true. He could not love a nonliving thing. But he was grateful to her, and did like her. It was indeed possible to approximate the emotion she craved. “This week,” he agreed.
His hands slid down her smooth body, but she drew back. “There’s nothing I’d like better,” she whispered. “But there is murder on your trail, and I must keep you from it. We must get you to some safe place. Then—”
“You’re too damn practical.” But he wondered, now, if a living girl in Sheen’s likeness were substituted for her, would he really know the difference? To speak readiness while withdrawing—that was often woman’s way. But he let her go and moved out again. After all, he was withdrawing from her much more than she was withdrawing from him.
“I think we can hide you in—”
“Don’t say it,” he cautioned her. “The walls have monitors. Just take me there—by a roundabout route, so we can lose the pursuit.”
“In a reasonably short time,” she finished.
“Oh. I thought you were going to say—oh, never mind. Take me to your hideout.”
She nodded, drawing him forward. He noted the way her slender body flexed; had he not seen her dismantle parts of it, he would hardly have believed it was not natural flesh. And did it matter, that it was not? If a living woman were dismantled, the result would be quite messy; it was not the innards a man wanted, but the externals. Regardless, Sheen was quite a female.
They emerged into a concourse crowded with serfs. Now she was taking his suggestion about merging with a crowd, at least for the moment. This channel led to the main depot for transport to other domes. Could they take a flight to a distant locale and lose the pursuit that way? Stile doubted it; any Citizen could check any flight at the touch of a button. But if they did not, where would they go?
And, his thoughts continued ruthlessly, assuming she was able to hide him, and smuggled food to him—ah, joy: to live for a week on regurgitations!—and took care of his other needs—would she have to tote away his bodily wastes by hand, too?—so that he survived the necessary time—what then would he do for employment? Serfs were allowed a ten-day grace period between employers. After that their tenure was canceled and they were summarily deported. That meant he would have just three days to find a Citizen who could use his services—in a nonracing capacity. Stile’s doubt that the anonymous Citizen after him was the same one who had sent Sheen or lasered his knee had grown and firmed. It just didn’t fit. This meant there was another party involved, a more persistent and intelligent enemy, from whom he would never be safe—if he raced again.
A middle-aged serf stumbled and lunged against Stile. “Oops, sorry, junior,” the man exclaimed, putting up a hand to steady Stile.
Sheen whirled with remarkable rapidity. Her open hand struck the man’s wrist with nerve-stunning force. An ampule flew from his palm to shatter on the floor. “Oops, sorry, senior,” she said, giving him a brief but hostile stare. The man backed hastily away and was gone.
That ampule—the needle would have touched Stile’s flesh, had the man’s hand landed. What had it contained? Nothing good for his health, surely! Sheen had intercepted it; she did know her business. He couldn’t even thank her, at the moment, lest he give her away.
They moved on. Now there was no doubt: the enemy had him spotted, and the death squad was present. Sheen’s caution about the crowd had been well considered; they could not remain here. He, Stile, was no longer hidden; his enemies were. The next ampule might score, perhaps containing a hypno-drug that would cause him to commit suicide or agree to a brain transplant. He didn’t even dare look nervously about!
Sheen, with gentle pressure on his elbow, guided him into a cross-passage leading to a rest room. This one, for reasons having to do with the hour and direction of flow, was unused at the moment. It was dusk, and most serfs were eager to return to their residences, not delaying on the way.
She gave him a little shove ahead, but stayed back herself. Oh—she was going to ambush the pursuit, if there were any. Stile played along, marching on down to the rest room and stepping through its irising portal. Actually, he was in need of the facility. He had a reputation for nerve like iron in the Game, but never before had he been exposed to direct thre
ats against his life. He felt tense and ill. He was now dependent on Sheen for initiative; he felt like locking himself into a relief booth and hiding his head under his arms. A useless gesture, of course.
The portal irised for another man. This one looked about quickly, saw that the facility was empty except for Stile, and advanced on him. “So you attack me, do you?” the stranger growled, flexing his muscular arms. He was large, even for this planet’s healthy norm, and the old scars on his body hinted at his many prior fights. He probably had a free-for-all specialty in the Game, indulging in his propensity for unnecessary violence.
Stile rose hastily from his seat. How had Sheen let this torpedo through?
The man swung at Stile. One thing about nakedness: there were few concealed weapons. The blow, of course, never landed. Stile dodged, skipped around, and let the man stumble into the commode. Then Stile stepped quickly out through the iris. He could readily have injured or knocked out the man, for Stile himself was a combat specialist of no mean skill, but preferred to keep it neat and clean.
Sheen was there. “Did he touch you?” she asked immediately. “Or you him?”
“As it happens, no. I didn’t see the need—”
She breathed a humanlike sigh of relief. “I let him through, knowing you could handle him, so I could verify how many others there were, and of what type they were,” She gestured down the hall. Three bodies lay there. “If I had taken him out, the others might not have come, and the trap would have remained unsprung. But when I met the others, I comprehended the trap. They’re all coated with stun-powder. Can’t hurt me, can’t hurt them—they’re neutralized android stock. But you—”
Stile nodded. He had assumed he was being set up for an assault charge if he won, so had played it safe by never laying a finger on the man. Lucky for him!
Sheen gestured toward the Lady’s room, her hands closed. Stile knew why; she had the powder on her hands, and could not touch him until she washed it off.
Stile poked his arm through the iris to open it for her—and someone on the other side grabbed his wrist. Oh-oh! He put his head down and dove through, primed to fight.