Split Infinity (3 page)

“I was born five years before my parents’ tenure ended,” Sheen said, putting down her leaf of lettuce.
 
She had eaten delicately and quite sparingly, as many slender women did. “I obtained a position with a Lady Citizen, first as errand girl, then as nurse. I was a fan of the Game as a child, and had good aptitude, but as my employer grew older she required more care, until—“ She shrugged, and now with the pleasant tingle of the wine and the understanding they were coming to, he could appreciate the way her breasts moved with that gesture. Oh yes, it was a good offer she made—yet something nagged him.

“I have not been to a Game for seven years,” she continued, “though I have viewed it often on my employer’s screens, and rehearsed strategies and techniques constantly in private. My employer has a private exercise gym her doctor recommended; she never used it, so I did, filling in for her. Last week she died, so I have been released on holiday pending settlement of her estate and the inventory her heir is taking. Her heir is female, and healthy, so I do not think the burden will be onerous.”

It could have been quite a different matter. Stile reflected, with a young, healthy male heir. Serfs had no personal rights except termination of tenure in fit physical and mental condition, and no sane person would depart Proton even a day ahead of schedule. Serfs could serve without concern as concubines or studs for their employers—or for each other as private or public entertainment for their employers. Their bodies were the property of the Citizens. Only in privacy, without the intercession of a Citizen, did interpersonal relations between serfs become meaningful. As now.

“So you came to me,” Stile said. “To trade your favors for my favor.”

“Yes.” There needed to be no hesitancy or shame to such acknowledgment. Since serfs had no monetary or property credit, and no power during their tenure, Game-status and sex were the chief instruments of barter.

“I am minded to try it out. Shall we say for a week, then reconsider? I might become tired of you.”

Again there was no formal cause for affront; male-female interactions among serfs were necessarily shallow, though marriage was permitted and provided for.
 
Stile had learned the hard way, long ago, not to expect permanence. Still, he expected a snappy retort to the effect that she would more likely grow tired of him first.

There was no such byplay. “As part of my rehearsal for the Game, I have studied the art of pleasing men,” Sheen said. “I am willing to venture that week.”

A fair answer. And yet, he wondered, would not an ordinary woman, even the most abused of serfs, have evinced some token ire at the callousness of his suggestion? He could have said, “We might not be right for each other.” He had phrased it most bluntly, forcing a reaction. Sheen had not reacted; she was completely matter-of-fact. Again he was nagged. Was there some catch here?

“Do you have special interests?” Stile inquired.
 
“Music?” He hadn’t really wanted to ask that, but it had come out. He associated love with music, because of his prior experience.

“Yes, music,” Sheen agreed.

His interest quickened. “What kind?”

She shrugged again. “Any kind.”

“Vocal? Instrumental? Mechanical?”

Her brow furrowed. “Instrumental.”

“What instrument do you play?”

She looked blank.

“Oh—you just listen,” he said. “I play a number of instruments, preferring the woodwinds. All part of the Game. You will need to acquire skill in at least one instrument, or Game opponents will play you for a weakness there and have easy victories.”

“Yes, I must learn” she agreed.

What would she have done if he had gone for ART instead of PHYSICAL in their match? With her prior choice of NAKED, the intersection would have put them in song, dance or story: the a capella performances.

Perhaps she was a storyteller. Yet she did not seem to have the necessary imagination.

“Let’s do it right,” he said, rising from his meal. “I have a costume—“ He touched a button and the costume fell from a wall vent into his hand. It was a filmy negligee.

Sheen smiled and accepted it. In the privacy of an apartment, clothing was permitted, so long as it was worn discreetly. If there should be a video call, or a visitor at his door. Sheen would have to hide or rip off the clothing lest she be caught by a third party in that state and be compromised. But that only added to the excitement of it, the special, titillating naughtiness of their liaison. It was, in an unvoiced way, the closest any serf could come to emulating any Citizen.

She donned the costume without shame and did a pirouette, causing the material to fling out about her legs. Stile found this indescribably erotic. He shut down the light, so that the material seemed opaque, and the effect intensified. Oh, what clothing did for the woman, creating shadows where ordinarily there were none, making mysteries where none had been before!

Yet again, something ticked a warning in Stile’s mind. Sheen was lovely, yes—but where was her flush of delighted shame? Why hadn’t she questioned his possession of this apparel? He had it on loan, and his employer knew about it and would in due course re-member to reclaim it—but a person who did not know that, who was not aware of the liberalism of this particular employer with respect to his favored serfs, should be alarmed at his seeming hoarding of illicit clothing.
 
Sheen had thought nothing of it.

They were technically within the law—but so was a man who thought treason without acting on it. Stile was an expert Gamesman, attuned to the nuances of human behavior, and there was something wrong with Sheen.
 
But what was it? There was really nothing in her behavior that could not be accounted for by her years of semi-isolation while nursing her Citizen.

Well, perhaps it would come to him. Stile advanced on Sheen, and she met him gladly. None of this oh-please-don’t-hurt-me-sir, catch-me-if-you-can drama. She was not after all very much taller than he, so he had to draw her down only marginally to kiss her. Her body was limber, pliable, and the feel of the gauze between their skins pitched him into a fever of desire.
 
Not in years had he achieved such heat so soon.

She kissed him back, her lips firm and cool. Suddenly the little nagging observations clicked into a comprehensible whole, and he knew her for what she was.
 
Stile’s ardor began sliding into anger.

He bore her back to the couch-bed. She dropped onto it easily, as if this type of fall were commonplace for her. He sat beside her, running his hands along her thighs, still with that tantalizing fabric in place between them. He moved on to knead her breasts, doubly erotic behind the material. A nude woman in public was not arousing, but a clothed one in private ...

His hands were relaxed, gentle—but his mind was tight with coalescing ire and apprehension. He was about to trigger a reaction that could be hazardous to his health.

“I would certainly never have been able to tell,” he remarked.

Her eyes focused on him. “Tell what. Stile?”

He answered her with another question. “Who would want to send me a humanoid robot?”

She did not stiffen. “I wouldn’t know.”

“The information should be in your storage banks. I need a printout.”

She showed no emotion. “How did you discover that I was a robot?”

“Give me that printout, and I’ll give you my source of information.”

“I am not permitted to expose my data.”

“Then I shall have to report you to Game-control,” Stile said evenly. “Robots are not permitted to compete against humans unless under direct guidance by the Game Computer. Are you a Game-machine?”

“No.”

“Then I fear it will go hard with you. The record of our Game has been entered. If I file a complaint, you will be deprogrammed.”

She looked at him, still lovely though he now knew her nature. “I wish you would not do that, Stile.” How strong was her programmed wish? What form would her objection take, when pressed? It was a popular fable that robots could not harm human beings, but Stile knew better. All robots of Proton were prohibited from harming Citizens, or acting contrary to Citizens’ expressed intent, or acting in any manner that might conceivably be deleterious to the welfare of any Citizen —but there were no strictures about serfs. Normally robots did not bother people, but this was because robots simply did not care about people. If a serf interfered with a robot in the performance of its assignment, that man could get hurt.

Stile was now interfering with the robot Sheen.

“Sheen,” he said. “Short for Machine. Someone with a certain impish humor programmed you.”

“I perceive no humor,” she said.

“Naturally not. That was your first giveaway. When I proffered you a draw on the Slide, you should have laughed. It was a joke. You reacted without emotion.”

“I am programmed for emotion. I am programmed for the stigmata of love.”

The stigmata of love. A truly robotic definition! “Not the reality?”

“The reality too. There is no significant distinction. I am here to love you, if you will permit it.”

So far she had shown no sign of violence. That was good; he was not at all sure he could escape her if she attacked him. Robots varied in physical abilities, as they did in intellectual ones; it depended on their in-tended use and the degree of technology applied. This one seemed to be of top-line sophistication; that could mean she imitated the human form and nature so perfectly she had no more strength than a real girl would have. But there was no guarantee. “I must have that printout.”

“I will tell you my mission, if you will not expose my nature.”

“I can not trust your word. You attempted to deceive me with your story about nursing a Citizen. Only the printout is sure.”

“You are making it difficult. My mission is only to guard you from harm.”

“I feel more threatened by your presence than protected. Why should I need guarding from harm?”

“I don’t know. I must love you and guard you.”

“Who sent you?”

“I do not know.”

Stile touched his wall vid. “Game-control,” he said.

“Don’t do that!” Sheen cried.

“Cancel call,” Stile said to the vid. Evidently violence was not in the offing, and he had leverage. This was like a Game. “The printout.”

She dropped her gaze, and her head. Her lustrous hair fell about her shoulders, coursing over the material of the negligee. “Yes.”

Suddenly he felt sorry for her. Was she really a machine? Now he had doubts. But of course the matter was subject to verification. “I have a terminal here,” he said, touching another section of the wall. A cord came into his hand, with a multipronged plug at its end. Very few serfs were permitted such access directly—but he was one of the most privileged serfs on Proton, and would remain so as long as he was circumspect and rode horses well. “Which one?” he asked.

She turned her face away from him. Her hand went to her right ear, clearing away a lock of hair and pressing against the lobe. Her ear slid forward, leaving the socket open.

Stile plugged in the cord. Current flowed. Immediately the printout sheets appeared from the wall slot, crammed with numbers, graphs and pattern-blocks.
 
Though he was no computer specialist. Stile’s Game training made him a fair hand at ballpark analysis of programs, and he had continuing experience doing analysis of the factors leading into given races. That was why his employer had arranged this: to enable Stile to be as good a jockey as he could be. That was extremely good, for he had a ready mind as well as a ready body.

He whistled as he studied the sheets. This was a dual-element brain, with mated digital and analog components, rather like the dual-yet-differing hemispheres of the human brain. The most sophisticated computer capable of being housed in a robot. It possessed intricate feedback circuits, enabling the machine to learn from experience and to reprogram aspects of itself, within its prime directive. It could improve its capacity as it progressed. In short, it was intelligent and conscious: machine’s nearest approach to humanity.

Quickly Stile oriented on the key section: her origin and prime directive. A robot could lie, steal and kill without conscience, but it could not violate its prime directive. He took the relevant data and fed them back to the analyzer for a summary.

The gist was simple:

NO RECORD OF ORIGIN.

DIRECTIVE: GUARD STILE FROM HARM.

SUBDIRECTTVE: LOVE STILE.

What she had told him was true. She did not know who had sent her, and she had only his safety in mind.
 
Tempered by love, so that she would not protect him in some fashion that cost him more than it was worth.
 
This was a necessary caution, with otherwise unfeeling robots. This machine really did care. He could have taken her word.

Stile unplugged the cord, and Sheen put her ear back into place with a certain tremor. Again she looked completely human. He had been unyielding before, when she opposed him; now he felt guilty. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I had to know.”

She did not meet his gaze. “You have raped me.”

Stile realized it was true. He had taken her measure without her true consent; he had done it by duress, forcing the knowledge. There was even a physical analogy, plugging the rigid terminus of the cord into a private aperture, taking what had been hers alone. “I had to know,” he repeated lamely. “I am a very privileged serf, but only a serf. Why should anyone send an ex-pensive robot to guard a man who is not threatened? I could not afford to believe your story without verification, especially since your cover story was untrue.”