Body of Glass (50 page)

“Reparations for what?”

The Maharal grimaces. “Every time the ghetto is attacked, we’re stuck with reparations afterwards for those gentle souls killed trying to kill us and for any property damage the mob caused. Another survival tax. I must go with Maisl and weep and wail and say we can’t afford what they’ll demand, which we can’t, but there’s never a choice, is there? But we’ll bargain hard. Is my treatise ready for the publisher?”

“Zayde, I am doing a careful job, and I’m only halfway done.”

“Then to work, my sweet one.” He pats her head, his favourite again. “I, too, have work to do.”

forty-three

Shira

Shira was embarrassed. Malkah asked her to go every week, but she had kept putting it off. The meeting started with an intense discussion on their state of defence preparedness, speculation about the intentions of Y-S, reports from the negotiators sent to meet with Lazarus. “They have the troops to help us,” the head of security reported, David something. Did beefy men naturally gravitate towards policing roles? “They’re willing, but they lack transport. They don’t even have enough sec skins. Plus we checked their old dome, and radiation is leaking through. We promised them help in growing and constructing a wrap. Lazarus is convinced we’re not facing invasion but in great danger of assassins.”

Next, Sam reported on informal conversations with Olivacon and Cybernaut, both of which assured him they would not permit an invasion of Tikva or allow Y-S to gobble up the town. Nili explained the new martial arts training. Hannah reported on Tikva’s medical preparedness.

The house was minding Ari. Shira could request audio of his room at any moment. Nili would normally have sat with him ― she liked to ― but she was needed for defence planning. The house would sing to him and show him pictures on the ceiling. The first time Nili picked Ari up, Shira saw that the woman was familiar with children. Up until the moment she saw Nili heft Ari and beam at him, Shira had assumed that Nili was a mother as Riva was, in name only. Now she trusted Nili with Ari. She was real, Shira thought, all the way through. Whatever Nili did, she did thoroughly and with full attention.

Shira had not spent an evening away from Ari since she got him back. Mostly she worked at home, from her terminal. Even if she was deep in the Base and inaccessible to him, she had only to unplug and check him to ease her mind. He had already learned that talking to adults who were plugged in was useless. Instead he babbled to the house, as children always did, as she had, because the house was always attentive.

Yod was the fifth item of business. He came after the question of precautions for the hurricane season now upon them and just before adjournment. It was twenty-two forty, and half the audience left after the hurricane discussion. Hurricanes were a seasonal fact of life for towns in reach of the storm surge and the winds. Yod appeared a minor labour item. Avram and Malkah stepped down from the semicircular Council table for the discussion of Yod, who was seated in the back row with Shira.

“Avram — who’s stepped down for this case since he’s involved — we’ve got a citizens’ grievance against you.” Zipporah’s voice was loud and direct. For all her size, she was fast-moving, efficient and fast-talking too. She laid out the two complaints within four minutes, cited the relevant law and sat back to hear Avram. Obviously, she expected to be out of there momentarily.

Avram was succinct too. “Yes, I applied for a working permit for the object I was calling my nephew. I considered it necessary to conceal the nature of Yod. I named him for a Hebrew letter, because he was the tenth cyborg I created. Some of you have seen Gimel, a primitive robot. Yod was my first successful cyborg.” The room visibly woke up. The few who had not been listening were suddenly at a loss, as everybody else stirred, whispered or mumbled “Cyborg?” Avram continued in the same matter-of-fact voice: “I created him to patrol and protect the Base and the town itself, as no merely human security can. That’s why I haven’t applied for payment for his services or enrolled him in the health programme. I am aware a human-form cyborg is illegal, and I take full responsibility for the matter.”

“A cyborg,” Zipporah repeated. “Could Yod step forward?”

Shira followed Yod to the front of the room. Everybody was staring. One woman reached out and poked his arm.

“What are you?” Zipporah asked him. She hauled herself out of her chair and came slowly around the table.

“I’m a cyborg, as Avram has told you, but I am also a person. I think and feel and have existence just as you do.” Yod stood very still. Shira wished they had taught him to fiddle a little, to slump sometimes, to relax more. He never looked as artificial as he did when he was standing at parade rest. Only his eyes moved, following Zipporah’s as she paddled towards him.

She came very slowly up to him and touched his hand. “It feels like skin to me. Is this a joke?”

“It’s supposed to feel like skin, but under a microscope, even a powerful hand lens, you’d be able to see that it’s not,” Avram said.

“Avram, before you used the resources of our town to break the law about human-form robots, you should have brought the matter to the Council. We signed the same treaty as every other techie free town and every multi.”

“No one ever before created such a cyborg. Never! How did I know I’d succeed? Before Yod, I had failed nine times. It’s been my life’s work, Zipporah, and he has saved the town as I dreamed he would. He’s our army.”

Zipporah was a good-sized woman, who stood almost eye-to-eye with Yod. She looked into his eyes, and he looked into hers. “What do you hope to see?” Yod asked her. He was patient under the scrutiny but puzzled.

“And why did Malkah step down for this question?”

Malkah rose. She looked fresh and rosy. “I was responsible for about a third of the programming, but you must understand it is a sort that, like our own, is self-correcting, growing, dependent on feedback as we are. Yod is a cyborg, but he is also a citizen of this town like any other.”

“And you, Shira.” Zipporah looked her in the eyes. What’s your interest?”

“I was brought back here by Avram to serve as Yod’s trainer, his teacher, if you like. May I point out, Zipporah, that Gadi, who registered the complaint, knows perfectly well what Yod’s nature is, and he still thinks Yod should be paid for his services.”

Zipporah circled Yod and then marched back to her seat. “I move to table this question until we have more information. I want a subcommittee to gather the facts, to study Avram’s notes and relevant law. I want a report next week, and we’ll take it up first. The whole town has to hear about this. We need a full airing of what you’ve committed us to without our knowledge or our consent. We need a full and free and well-informed discussion of what this cyborg means to us and what options we have. Do I have a vote on tabling?”

“The chair can’t ―” Sam began. They never acted as a married couple in Council. Often they disagreed politically.

“I
can
do it, because it makes sense. All in favour of tabling and discussing this next Monday first thing with the whole town here? The Ayes have it. Okay, volunteers for a subcommittee.”

Her last act before adjournment was to suspend Yod from guard duties until his status was clear. Nothing was changed, and everything was changed. Shira walked out with Yod and Malkah. Avram was still in the Council room, arguing with Zipporah and Sam. Zipporah was saying to him in a high irate tone, “Avram, we took you in when you got in trouble with your university for illegal experiments. Sara’s illness cost us a fortune. We’re harbouring your flighty son….”

“Next Monday is crucial,” Malkah said. “We must marshal our arguments. Lobby our friends. I want Yod declared a citizen of the town.”

“That’s what I would like,” Yod said slowly. “It’s disconcerting how people stare at me and poke me, suddenly.”

Shira took his arm. “It’ll take time for them to get used to the idea of you as a machine and as a person at once. You’re unique.”

“I’m weary of uniqueness. I liked being taken for granted as one of the perimeter guards. But I’m not sorry to be taken off double duty.”

The next few days were golden and ripe as perfect pears. Nili had disappeared on one of her quests. Yod patrolled the Base each day for twelve hours, but then he simply came home to Shira. With the revelation of his nature, Yod felt freed from Avram. He did not slip out but went straight from the lab to her. Ari shrieked when he saw Yod. Her son did not view Yod as a figure of authority but as a superior and all-capable playfellow. His ability to tell stories was improving. Malkah coached him on the right way to hold Ari’s attention; Malkah had always been a fine storyteller. But Yod still sometimes missed the point of a human story. For Yod, knowledge and affection were goods he could understand coveting, but objects were of little value. The love of jewels and gold he found vaguely humorous. The sex roles of old stories confused him. In the world he knew, a princess was as apt to rescue a prince as vice versa. Since Ari loved to be told stories of any sort, he did not notice when Yod missed the point. Ari almost always missed the adult point of stories himself. It was the attention he craved and appreciated from Yod.

They would lie in the grass of the courtyard and watch ants together. They played with the kittens round and round with string and tissue or rag butterflies. Yod was endlessly engrossed. As he told Shira, “I never was a child, so Ari’s mysterious to me. With every observation, I am learning about you, understanding Malkah and every one of you. Because so were you all. Once you were smaller than you are….” He took her wrist between two fingers. “It’s as if you used to be somebody else. A dozen other people, of different sizes.”

“I’ll grow old too, Yod. Have you thought about that?”

He winced. “Being old doesn’t matter. But I had never thought about your dying…. When you die, I’ll die. I choose that.”

“Lovers always talk that way at first, but they don’t really mean it. You’re partly biological. Maybe you’ll wear out in two centuries or ten. You too can die. We have to accept that we have this time and no other.”

“Like the yellow rose.” He turned and looked at the place on the wall where the climbing rose had grown. “It overwhelms me. How can we just go on as if everything were permanent, when at any moment you may cease to be?”

She laughed and kissed him glancingly. “Yod, you’ve reached adolescence without ever passing through childhood.”

The house interrupted to announce Gadi, who swept in. “Uni-Par wants Nili. I knew they would. I think my exile might be coming to a timely end, dear people.”

Malkah appeared carrying an apple, which she finished peeling in a single long banner of red. Then she cored the apple, cut in into segments and slid the first slice into her mouth. It always amazed Shira how Malkah could make simple acts appear so dramatic that everyone would focus upon her, waiting. Finally Malkah asked, “Is Nili interested in this offer?”

“Nili doesn’t understand, but she will, she will. I knew their eyes would pop like champagne corks when they saw her.” Shira asked, “Finally she let you tape her?”

“The top dogs are howling for her. She projects reactions and feelings to Mars, even if she is a barbarian. Who can object?”

“Probably Nili will,” Malkah said, savouring another slice of apple.

Gadi paced, twirling so that his cloak flared silver from the lining. He was dressed in tight boots, a sort of gladiator tunic and a cape, high fashion in Veecee Beecee, she presumed. “I want to bring her back with me. She’s addictive. She needs toilet training, but the studio will teach her manners. They’re used to breaking in wild creatures. They’ll take her in hand and put a high gloss on her. But she’s absolutely one of a kind.”

“When you tell her,” Malkah said, “I think I’ll hide under my bed.”

“Malkah, you’re an old-fashioned old lady,” Gadi said, shaking his finger at her. “I’m ashamed of you. And I always thought you were so attuned to the latest quivers of the nouvelle thrill. I’m going to make her famous. What more could any slot lust for? She’ll be rich, and she can do for her people back in the cave any damned thing she pleases.”

Shira had been listening but only slowly understanding. “Does Nili know you recorded her?”

“She wouldn’t let me. I’m telling you, she’s like a savage with a fear of sensi-cams.”

Shira was astonished at the protective rage she felt. “You had no right to record Nili without her permission! You’re endangering her.” She realized she had come to like Nili more than she had admitted to herself.

“Now, is my little Ugi jealous? You’re a sensational woman, Shira, but what a sensi-cam loves is different from what a man standing in front of a woman wants. Nili records as power. She’ll project till the electrodes hum like money in two billion heads. She could be big.”

“I’m sorry you recorded her,” Malkah said, looking up with her brow furrowed. “Sorry for both of you. Because you traffic in imaginary danger, you lose the sense to track and avoid real danger.”

“Now look whose wires are cut!” Gadi gave her a big amused grin. “Your life’s work is building chimeras. Talk about out-of-body experiences ― that’s where you spend your time. Don’t rattle me about imaginary. You’re the original flying witch.”

———

Three days later Nili came back. “Careful,” she said to Malkah and Shira as they greeted her. “No hugging. My ribs are taped.”

“Is Riva all right?” Malkah asked. What happened?”

Nili grinned. “Something blew up, and I got hit by flying debris. Riva’s fine. She says Y-S is about to move against you — she doesn’t know how, but she wants you to stay alert. She also sends word that the top dogs of Y-S are meeting in ten days on an island ― Bellwether Island ― off the coast of Maine. Max security in place. But a great chance for assassination. I’m to give the same message to Avram. Lazarus already knows.”

“Riva plays no favourites,” Shira said bitterly.

“She has a mission,” Nili said. “I wish I was as single-minded and as single-hearted as she is. Saints are hard to endure, no?”

“Why do you call Riva a saint?”

“A brave woman. A wise woman. One who pursues just aims regardless of the danger to herself. She sees what must be done, and she forces herself to do it. How can we not admire her?” Nili cocked her head, beaming.

Nili made Shira feel guilty for her petulance. Perhaps she wanted to forgive Riva for being such a strange mother because this week, in spite of the shadow of the coming Council meeting and the greater shadow cast by the coming revenge of Y-S, she was happy. Every day was a gift. Every day was complete in itself, like a good and satisfying meal. She could not take anything for granted: not the way Ari laughed as he boxed with black Zayit; not the way Yod touched her, his hands at once wondering and precise, as if his fingers had eyes; all the different ways that Malkah laughed in the course of a day; the way the sunlight gentled by the wrap touched the long graceful yellowing leaves of the peach tree. She envied Yod’s not having to sleep, because she hated to lose any of the hours, precious and brief, that flowed over her. She never had enough time for any of them―not for Ari, not for Malkah, not for Yod, not even for Nili. She wondered why she had been impatient for Nili to leave. Yod had moved in, and still the house was big enough for all of them. “I wish I could meet your daughter,” she said to Nili.