We Can Build You (13 page)

“You remember me, Mr. President,” I said to the simulacrum.

“Yes, Mr. Rosen.”

“What about me?” Pris said drily.

The simulacrum made a faint, clumsy, formal bow. “Miss Frauenzimmer. And you, Mr. Rock … the person on which this edifice rests, does it not?” The simulacrum chuckled. “The owner, or co-owner, if I am not mistook.”

“What have you been doing?” Maury asked it.

“I was thinking about a remark of Lyman Trumbull’s. As you know, Judge Douglas met with Buchanan and they talked over the Lecompton Constitution and Kansas. Judge Douglas later came out and fought Buchanan, despite the threat, it
being an Administration measure. I did not support Judge Douglas, as did a number of those dear to me among my own party, the Republicans and their cause. But in Bloomington, where I was toward the end of 1857, I saw no Republicans going over to Douglas, as one saw in the New York
Tribune
. I asked Lyman Trumbull to write me in Springfield to tell me whether—”

Barrows interrupted the Lincoln simulacrum, at that point. “Sir, if you’ll excuse me. We have business to conduct, and then I and this gentleman, Mr. Blunk, and Mrs. Nild, here, have to fly back to Seattle.”

The Lincoln bowed. “Mrs. Nild.” He held out his hand, and, with a snorting laugh, Colleen Nild went forward to shake hands with him. “Mr. Blunk.” He gravely shook hands with the short plump attorney. “You’re not related to Nathan Blunk of Cleveland, are you, sir?”

“No, I’m not,” Blunk answered, shaking hands vigorously. “You were an attorney at one time, weren’t you, Mr. Lincoln?”

“Yes sir,” the Lincoln replied.

“My profession.”

“I see,” the Lincoln said, with a smile. “You have the divine ability to wrangle over trifles.”

Blunk boomed out a hearty laugh.

Coming up beside Blunk, Barrows said to the simulacrum, “We flew here from Seattle to discuss with Mr. Rosen and Mr. Rock a financial transaction involving backing of MASA ASSOCIATES by Barrows Enterprises. Before we finalize we wanted to meet you and have a talk. We met the Stanton recently; he came to visit us on a bus. We’d acquire you and Stanton both as assets of MASA ASSOCIATES, as well as basic patents. As an ex-attorney you’re probably familiar with transactions of this sort. I’d be curious to ask you something. What’s your sense of the modern world? Do you know what a
vitamin
is, for instance? Do you know what year this is?” He scrutinized the simulacrum keenly.

The Lincoln did not answer immediately, and while it was
getting ready, Maury waved Barrows over to one side. I joined them.

“That’s all beside the point,” Maury said. “You know perfectly well it wasn’t made to handle topics like that.”

“True,” Barrows agreed. “But I’m curious.”

“Don’t be. You’d feel funny if you burned out one of its primary circuits.”

“Is it that delicate?”

“No,” Maury said, “but you’re needling it.”

“No I’m not. It’s so convincingly lifelike that I want to know how conscious it is of its new existence.”

“Leave it alone,” Maury said.

Barrows gestured abruptly. “Certainly.” He beckoned to Colleen Nild and their attorney. “Let’s conclude our business and start back to Seattle. David, are you satisfied by what you see?”

“No,” Blunk said, as he joined us. Colleen remained with Pris and the simulacrum; they were asking it something about the debates with Stephen Douglas. “It doesn’t seem to function nearly as well as the Stanton one, in my opinion.”

“How so?” Maury demanded.

“It’s—halting.”

“It just came to,” I said.

“No, it’s not that,” Maury said. “It’s a different personality. Stanton’s more inflexible, dogmatic.” To me he said, “I know a hell of a lot about those two people. Lincoln was this way. I made up the tapes. He had periods of brooding, he was brooding here just now when we came in. Other times he’s more cheerful.” To Blunk he said, “That’s his character. If you stick around awhile you’ll see him in other moods. Moody—that’s what he is. Not like Stanton, not positive. I mean, it’s not an electrical failure; it’s supposed to be that way.”

“I see,” Blunk said, but he did not sound convinced.

“I know what you refer to,” Barrows said. “It seems to stick.”

“Right,” Blunk said. “I’m not sure in my own mind that they’ve got this perfected. There may be a lot of bugs left to iron out.”

“And this cover-up line,” Barrows said, “about not questioning it as to contemporary topics—you caught that.”

“I certainly did,” Blunk said.

“Sam,” I said to Barrows, plunging in, “you don’t get the point at all. Maybe that’s due to your having just made that plane flight from Seattle and then that long drive by car from Boise. Frankly, I thought you grasped the principle underlying the simulacra, but let’s let the subject go, for the sake of amicability. Okay?” I smiled.

Barrows contemplated me without answering; so did Blunk. Off in the corner Maury perched on a workstool, with his cigar giving off clouds of lonely blue smoke.

“I understand your disappointment with the Lincoln,” I said. “I sympathize. To be frank, the Stanton one was coached.”

“Ah,” Blunk said, his eyes twinkling.

“It wasn’t my idea. My partner here was nervous and he wanted it all set up.” I wagged my head in Maury’s direction. “He was wrong to do it, but anyhow that’s a dead issue; what we want to deal with is the Lincoln simulacrum because that’s the basis of MASA ASSOCIATES’ genuine discovery. Let’s walk back and query it further.”

The three of us walked back to where Mrs. Nild and Pris stood listening to the tall, bearded, stooped simulacrum.

“… quoted me to the effect that the Negro was included in that clause of the Declaration of Independence which says that all men were created equal. That was at Chicago Judge Douglas says I said that, and then he goes on to say that at Charleston I said the Negro belonged to an inferior race. And that I held it was not a moral issue, but a question of degree, and yet at Galesburg I went back and said it was a moral question once more.” The simulacrum smiled its gentle, pained smile at us. “Thereupon some fellow in the
audience called out, ‘He’s right.’ I was glad somebody thought me right, because it seemed to myself that Judge Douglas had me by the coat tails.”

Pris and Mrs. Nild laughed appreciatively. The rest of us stood silently.

“About the best applause Judge Douglas got was when he said that the whole Republican Party in the northern part of the state stands committed to the doctrine of no more slave states, and that this same doctrine is repudiated by the Republicans in the other part of the state … and the Judge wondered whether Mr. Lincoln and his party do not present the case which Mr. Lincoln cited from the Scriptures, of a house divided against itself which cannot stand.” The simulacrum’s voice had assumed a droll quality. “And the Judge wondered if my principles were the same as the Republican Party’s. Of course, I don’t get the chance to answer the Judge until October at Quincy. But I told him there, that he could argue that a horse-chestnut is the same as a chestnut horse. I certainly had no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together on the footing of perfect equality. But I hold the Negro as much entitled to the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as any white man. He is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color—perhaps not in intellectual and moral endowments. But in the right to eat the bread which his own hand earns, without leave of anybody else, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every other man.” The simulacrum paused. “I received a few good cheers myself at that moment.”

To me Sam Barrows said, “You’ve got quite a tape reeling itself off inside that thing, don’t you?”

“It’s free to say what it wants,” I told him.

“Anything?
You mean it wants to speechify?”
Barrows obviously did not believe me. “I don’t see that it’s anything but the familiar mechanical man gimmick, with this dressed-up
historical guise. The same thing was demonstrated at the 1939 San Francisco World’s Fair, Pedro the Vodor.”

This exchange between Barrows and I had not escaped the attention of the Lincoln simulacrum. In fact both it and Pris and Mrs. Nild were now watching us and listening to us.

The Lincoln said to Mr. Barrows, “Did I not hear you, a short while ago, express the notion of ‘acquiring me,’ as an asset of some kind? Do I recall fairly? If so, I would wonder how you could acquire me or anyone else, when Miss Frauenzimmer tells me that there is a stronger impartiality between the races now than ever before. I am a bit mixed on some of this but I believe there is no more ‘acquiring’ of any human in the world today, even in Russia where it is notorious.”

Barrows said, “That doesn’t include mechanical men.”

“You refer to myself?” the simulacrum said.

With a laugh Barrows said, “All right, yes I do.”

Beside him the short lawyer David Blunk stood plucking at his chin thoughtfully, glancing from Barrows to the simulacrum and back.

“Would you tell me, sir,” the simulacrum said, “what a man is?”

“Yes, I would,” Barrows said. He caught Blunk’s eye; obviously, Barrows was enjoying this. “A man is a forked radish.” He added, “Is that definition familiar to you, Mr. Lincoln?”

“Yes sir, it is,” the simulacrum said. “Shakespeare has his Falstaff speak that, does he not?”

“Right,” Barrows said. “And I’d add to that, A man can be defined as an animal that carries a pocket handkerchief. How about that? Mr. Shakespeare didn’t say that.”

“No sir,” the simulacrum agreed. “He did not.” The simulacrum laughed heartily. “I appreciate your humor, Mr. Barrows. May I use that remark in a speech?”

Barrows nodded.

“Thank you,” the simulacrum said. “Now, you’ve defined a man as an animal which carries a pocket handkerchief. But what is an animal?”

“I can tell you you’re not,” Barrows said, his hands in his trouser pockets; he looked perfectly confident. “An animal has a biological heritage and makeup which you lack. You’ve got valves and wires and switches. You’re a machine. Like a—” He considered. “Spinning jenny. Like a steam engine.” He winked at Blunk. “Can a steam engine consider itself entitled to protection under the clause of the Constitution which you quoted? Has it got a right to eat the bread it produces, like a white man?”

The simulacrum said, “Can a machine talk?”

“Sure. Radios, phonographs, tape recorders, telephones—they all yak away like mad.”

The simulacrum considered. It did not know what those were, but it could make a shrewd guess; it had had enough time by itself to do a good deal of thinking. We could all appreciate that.

“Then what, sir, is a machine?” the simulacrum asked Barrows.

“You’re one. These fellows made you. You belong to them.”

The long, lined, dark-bearded face twisted with weary amusement as the simulacrum gazed down at Barrows. “Then you, sir, are a machine. For you have a Creator, too. And, like ‘these fellows,’ He made you in His image. I believe Spinoza, the great Hebrew scholar, held that opinion regarding animals; that they were clever machines. The critical thing, I think, is the soul. A machine can do anything a man can—you’ll agree to that. But it doesn’t have a soul.”

“There is no soul,” Barrows said. “That’s pap.”

“Then,” the simulacrum said, “a machine is the same as an animal.” It went on slowly in its dry, patient way, “And an animal is the same as a man. Is that not correct?”

“An animal is made out of flesh and blood, and a machine is made out of wiring and tubes, like you. What’s the point of all this? You know darn well you’re a machine; when we came in here you were sitting here alone in the dark thinking about it. So what? I know you’re a machine; I don’t care.
All I care is whether you work or not. As far as I’m concerned you don’t work well enough to interest me. Maybe later on when you have fewer bugs. All you can do is spout on about Judge Douglas and a lot of political, social twaddle that nobody gives a damn about.”

His attorney, Dave Blunk, turned to regard him thoughtfully, still plucking at his chin.

“I think we should start back to Seattle,” Barrows said to him. To me and Maury he said, “Here’s my decision. We’ll come in, but we have to have a controlling interest so we can direct policy. For instance, this Civil War notion is pure absurdity. As it stands.”

Taken absolutely by surprise I stammered, “W-what?”

‘The Civil War scheme could be made to bring in a reasonable return in only one way. You’d never think of it in a million years. Refight the Civil War with robots; yes. But the return comes in when it’s set up so you can bet on the outcome.”

“What outcome?” I said.

“Outcome as to which side prevails,” Barrows said. “The blue or the gray.”

“Like the World Series,” Dave Blunk said, frowning thoughtfully.

“Exactly.” Barrows nodded.

“The South couldn’t win,” Maury said. “It had no industry.”

“Then set up a handicap system,” Barrows said.

Maury and I were at a loss for words.

“You’re not serious,” I finally managed.

“I am serious.”

“A national epic made into a horse race? A dog race? A lottery?”

Barrows shrugged. “I’ve given you a million-dollar idea. You can throw it away; that’s your privilege. I can tell you that there’s no other way a Civil War use of your dolls can be made to pay. Myself, I would put them to a different use entirely. I know where your engineer, Robert Bundy, came
from; I’m aware that he formerly was employed by the Federal Space Agency in designing circuits for their simulacra. After all, it’s of the utmost importance to me to know as much about space-exploration hardware as can be known. I’m aware that your Stanton and Lincoln are minor modifications of Government systems.”

“Major,” Maury corrected hoarsely. “The Government simulacra are simply mobile machines that creep about on an airless surface where no humans could exist.”

Barrows said, “I’ll tell you what I envision. Can you produce simulacra that are friendly-like?”