More Tales of Pirx the Pilot (17 page)

Pirx’s silence prompted the visitor to continue, his self-confidence now a trifle shaken.

“They kept us apart the whole time. Each had his own room, his own john, his own private gym. They even fed us separately, except during the last few days before our departure to Europe. So I can’t tell you which of them is human and which isn’t. I just don’t know. Though I have my suspicions.”

“Hold on a sec,” Pirx interrupted. “Why did you dodge my question by saying it wasn’t ‘your department’?”

Brown sat up in his chair, shifted one leg, and, eying his shoe tip, which was doodling something on the floor, said in a hushed voice:

“Because I’d already decided to clue you in, and, well… I was in the hot seat. I was afraid McGuirr might get wise. So I answered your question in a way that would make him believe I was—”

“So it was because of McGuirr?”

“Yes.”

“And
do
you believe in God?”

“I do.”

“But you didn’t think a robot would, right?”

“Right.”

“That a ‘yes’ answer would have been a dead give-away?”

“Exactly.”

“But even a robot can believe in God,” said Pirx after a moment’s pause, with a nonchalance that made Brown’s eyes bulge.

“Come again?”

“You think not?”

“It never crossed my mind…”

“OK, let’s skip it. At least for now. You said something about having your suspicions…”

“The dark-haired one—Burns—I’m sure he’s not human.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Little things, hard to pinpoint, but they add up. For one thing, when he sits or stands, he doesn’t move a muscle. A regular statue. And you know how hard it is for a human to keep still: you’re uncomfortable, your leg goes to sleep so you shift positions, you stretch, rub your face… But this guy just plain freezes!”

“All the time?”

“That’s just it; not all the time. And that seems to me the tip-off.”

“Why tip-off?”

“My guess is that when he remembers, he’s all fidgets and bodily motion; but when he forgets, he freezes. With us, it’s the other way around: we have to make a conscious effort to keep still.”

“You have a point there. What else?”

“He eats everything.”

“How so?”

“Whatever comes along. It makes no difference to him. I noticed it on our flight across the Atlantic. Even back in the States, and at the airport restaurant—eats whatever he’s served, indiscriminately. I mean, everyone has his likes and dislikes!”

“That doesn’t prove anything.”

“You’re quite right—it doesn’t. But in combination with the stiffness…? And another thing.”

“Yes?”

“He doesn’t write letters. I’m not a hundred percent sure of that … but Burton, now, I saw him drop a letter into the hotel mailbox.”

“Writing letters is against regs?”

“Yes.”

“You’re all extremely conscientious, I see,” muttered Pirx. He sat up on his bunk and, breathing practically into Brown’s face, said in a deliberate tone:

“You broke your oath. Why?”

“Ouch, that hurt, Commander!”

“Well, didn’t you swear to keep your identity a secret?”

“Oh, that! Yes, but … there are situations when a man has a right—no, a duty—to break his word.”

“Such as?”

“This one. I mean, they take a bunch of metal dolls, pad them with plastic, add a little make-up, then shuffle them like phony cards into a deck of humans—and hope to make a killing on the deal. No, any honest man would do what I’m doing. Hasn’t anyone else been around to see you?”

“Not yet. You’re the first. But we’ve just lifted off…” Pirx said with a tonelessness not devoid of irony; the irony was evidently lost on Brown.

“I’ll do whatever you think advisable.”

“What for?”

Brown batted his doll-like lashes.

“What for?
To help you tell the humans from the nonhumans.”

“Eight thousand, wasn’t it?”

“So? I was hired on as a pilot, which is what I am. And a damned good one, at that.”

“And another eight on signing off—all for a few weeks’ work. Brown, no one gets sixteen thousand for a shakedown cruise—not a passenger pilot, not a patrol pilot, not a navigator. You got that money for keeping your mouth shut. They wanted to spare you any temptations.”

Dismay was written all over Brown’s pretty-boy face.

“So you’re offended by my coming, by my confiding in you…?”

“Not at all. What’s your IQ?”

“My IQ? A hundred twenty.”

“High enough for you to know what’s what. Tell me, what do I gain by listening to your suspicions about Burns?”

The young pilot stood up.

“Sorry, Commander. It was a mistake, a misunderstanding. I meant well, but … it’s obvious what you’re thinking. Let’s forget it. But remember, you gave me—”

He was silenced by a smile from Pirx.

“Sit down, Brown. I said, sit down!”

He sat down.

“You were about to remind me of my promise, right? Because what would happen if I were to blab? Shh! Don’t interrupt your commanding officer! You see, it’s not so simple. It’s not that I don’t value your trust. But trust is one thing, logic another. Suppose, thanks to you, I know by now who you are and who Burns is. What good does that do me?”

“That’s up to you. You’re the one who’s supposed to rate the crew’s performance…”

“Right! The whole crew, Brown! And you don’t expect me to falsify the record, do you? To penalize the robots for not being human?”

“That’s none of my business,” callously said the pilot, who had been squirming on his chair during this lecture.

Pirx’s glower stilled him.

“Stop playing the airman first class who can’t see anything beyond his stripes. If you’re human and feel any loyalty toward your fellow humans, then try to—”

“What do you mean, ‘if’?” Brown flinched. “Don’t you believe me? Do you take me for a—”

“Whoa there! Just a slip of the tongue!” came Pirx’s quick rejoinder. “Sure, I believe you. In fact, since you’ve told me your identity and I have no intention of judging you, morally or otherwise, I would like you to go on reporting to me.”

“Now I’m really confused,” said Brown with an unpremeditated sigh. “First you put me down, then you ask me to turn—”

“No, two different things, Brown. What’s done is done; there’s no backing out now. The money, now, that’s different. Maybe you were right to talk. But if I were you, I wouldn’t take it.”

“Huh? But, sir…” Brown was desperately searching for a justification. “Then they’d know for sure I broke contract! They might even sue me for breach—”

“It’s up to you. I’m not insisting you give it back. I gave you my word; I’m not my brother’s keeper. I only told you what I would do if I were you. But you’re not me and I’m not you, and that’s that. Anything else?”

Brown shook his head, then parted his lips, only to clamp them shut again and shrug. He betrayed more than just disappointment at the outcome of their conversation, but, without uttering another word, he assumed his usual erect bearing and left.

Pirx took a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have said ‘if you’re human,’” he reproached himself. “What a goddamned guessing game! Either he’s human, or it was all a big act—not just to throw me, but to do a little probing, to see if I would pull anything in violation of the contract… Anyway, I didn’t come off too badly this round. If he was telling the truth, he’ll be in a cold sweat after all that lecturing. If he wasn’t … well, I haven’t really told him anything. Boy, a sweet mess I got myself into this time.”

Unable to relax, he paced the cabin. The intercom buzzed once; it was Calder up in the control room. They agreed on the course corrections and acceleration for the night. After the call, Pirx sat and stared into space; he was mulling something over, with eyebrows knitted, when someone knocked.

Now what?

“Come in!”

It was Burns, the neurologist, medic, and cyberneticist all in one.

“May I?”

“Please sit down.”

Burns smiled.

“I’m here to inform you that I’m not human.”

Pirx abruptly swiveled around on his chair.

“You’re not
what?”

“Not human. I’m on your side in this experiment.”

Pirx breathed a deep sigh.

“That’s confidential, of course.”

“I leave that to your judgment; I don’t mind, either way.”

“Pardon me?”

The visitor smiled again.

“It’s quite simple. I’m selfish. If you write a glowing commendation of the nonlinears, it’s bound to unleash a chain reaction of mass production, mass marketing… And not only on spaceships. Humans will have to bear the brunt of it—of a new kind of discrimination, hatred… I see it coming but, I repeat, I’m motivated more by self-interest. As long as I’m the only one, or one of a handful, it wouldn’t matter socially; we’d simply melt into the crowd, unnoticed and unnoticeable. My—our—future would be like that of any human, allowing for a significant difference in intelligence and versatility. Barring mass production, there’s no limit to what we might achieve.”

“Yes, I see your point,” said Pirx, slightly bewildered. “But why the lack of discretion? Aren’t you afraid your company—”

“Not in the least afraid,” said Burns in the subdued voice of a lecturer. “Of anything. You see, I’m awfully expensive. This thing here”—he touched his chest—“cost billions. You don’t believe some irate manufacturer will have me dismantled—figuratively, of course—screw by screw, do you? Sure, they’d be upset, but nothing would change; I’d still be on their payroll. I actually prefer my present company—its medical and disability plans are first-rate. But I doubt they would try to put me away. What for? Silencing me by force would only backfire. You know the power of the press.”

The word “blackmail” flashed through Pirx’s mind. For a second he thought he was dreaming, but he went on listening with undivided attention.

“Now you see why I want the report to be negative.”

“Yes, I suppose I do. Can you tell me which of the others…?”

“I would only be guessing, and my conjectures might do more harm than good. Better zero than a minus information, so to speak.”

“Hm… Anyway, regardless of your motives, I’m grateful to you. Yes, grateful. Would you mind telling me a few things about yourself? About certain structural aspects that might help me…”

“I read you, Commander. I know nothing of my constituent elements, as little as you know anything of your own anatomy or physiology—except what you may have read in some textbook. But the structural aspect probably interests you less than the psychological. Than our frailties.”

“Those, too. But, look, everyone knows something, maybe not scientifically, but from experience, from self-observation…”

“Observations based on the fact that one uses—lives in, so to speak—one’s body?” Burns smiled as before, exposing his moderately even teeth.

“So you won’t object to a few questions?”

“Go right ahead.”

Pirx strained to collect his thoughts.

“Even some indiscreet, personal questions?”

“I have nothing to hide.”

“Have you ever been surprised, alarmed, or even revolted by the fact that you’re not human?”

“Only once, during an operation at which I assisted. The other assistant was a woman. By then I knew what that was.”

“Sorry, I don’t…”

“What a woman was,” said Burns. “Sex was a complete unknown to me until then.”

“Oh, I see!” Pirx blurted out, much to his chagrin, “So a woman was there. What about it?”

“The surgeon nicked my finger with the scalpel and the rubber glove split open, but no blood.”

“Hold it! McGuirr told me that you bleed…”

“Now,
yes, but in those days I was still ‘dry’—as our ‘parents’ say in their own parlance. Our blood, you see, is just for show: the underside of the skin is like a sponge, blood-absorbent…”

“I see. And the woman noticed? How about the surgeon?”

“Oh, the surgeon knew who I was. But his assistant didn’t catch on until the very end, until the surgeon’s embarrassed look gave me away.”

Burns grinned.

“She grabbed hold of my hand, examined it up close, but when she saw what was under there … she dropped it and ran. But she forgot which way the operating-room door opened, kept pulling instead of pushing, and finally went into hysterics.”

“I see,” said Pirx. He gulped. “How did that make you feel?”

“I’m not in the habit of feeling, but … it wasn’t very flattering,” he said, his voice turning more deliberate, until he was smiling again. “I’ve never discussed this with anyone”—he resumed after a moment’s pause—“but I suspect that men, even newcomers, find us easier to take. Men accept the facts. Women don’t, at least not some facts. They’ll go on saying no even when yes is the only possible answer.”

Pirx kept his gaze trained on him—especially when the other wasn’t looking—searching for some confirming alien quality, for a sign testifying to the imperfect incarnation of machines into men. Earlier, when he had been suspicious of all of them, the game had been different; now, even as he found himself gradually accepting the truth of Burns’s words, he was all the while searching for the telltale lie in the man’s pallor, which had struck him at their first encounter, or in his masterfully controlled gestures, or the calm limpidity of his gaze. And yet Pirx had to acknowledge that a pallid complexion and a composed manner were not uncommon among humans; and with that recognition came new doubts, a renewed probing, answered always by that smile, a smile reflecting not what was being said, but knowledge of what Pirx was actually feeling; a smile that disturbed, confuted, and impeded an interrogation made all the more difficult by the man’s unabashed candor.

“Aren’t you generalizing a little?” muttered Pirx.

“Oh, that was not my only encounter with women. Some of my instructors were women. They were told in advance and tried to hide their emotions, but my teasing didn’t make things any easier for them!”

The smile with which he looked Pirx in the eye bordered on the lascivious.

“You see, they had to find some inadequacies, imperfections, and just because they were so determined, it amused me to oblige them at times.”