Split Infinity (9 page)

“Sir,” Stile said, surprised. “I—regret the disturbance, the damage to the facilities—“

“There was no disturbance, no damage,” the Citizen said, giving him a momentary stare. Stile realized that the matter had been covered up to prevent embarrassment to the various parties. The hospital would not want to admit that an isolated pair of serfs had over- come four androids and a doctor, and made good their escape despite an organized search, and the Citizen did not want his name associated with such a scandal. This meant, in turn, that Stile was not in the trouble he had thought he was. No complaint had been lodged.

“Sir, I feared a complication in the surgery,” Stile said. Even for a Citizen, he was not about to lie. But there seemed to be no point in making an issue of the particular happenings at the hospital.

“Your paramour feared a complication,” the Citizen corrected him. “An investigation was made. There was no threat to your welfare at the hospital. There will be no threat. Will you now return for the surgery?”

The way had been smoothed. One word, and Stile’s career and standing would be restored without blemish.

“No, sir,” Stile said, surprising himself. “I do not believe my life is safe if I become able to race again.”

“Then you are fired.” There was not even regret or anger on the Citizen’s face as he faded out; he had simply cut his losses.

“I’m sorry,” Sheen said, coming to him. “I may have protected you physically, but—“

Stile kissed her, though now he held the image of her breasts being carried like platters in her hands, there in the hospital. She was very good, for what she was—but she was still a machine, assembled from nonliving substances. He felt guilty for his reservation, but could not abolish it.

Then he had another regret. “Battleaxe—who will ride the horse, now? No one but I can handle—“

“He will be retired to stud,” she said. “He won’t fight that.”

The screen lit again. Stile answered again. This time it was a sealed transmission: flashing lights and noise in the background, indicating the jamming that protected it from interception. Except, ironically, that this was an interception; the machine had done its job better than the caller could know.

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 an-other 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 spokes-one 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 per-son 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.”