We Can Build You (7 page)

“What’s it do?” I put the bottle away in my inside pocket.

“I can explain it to you because you are professionally familar with the Mood Organ. Hubrizine stimulates the anterior portion of the spetal region of the brain. Stimulation in that area, Mr. Rosen, will bring about greater alertness, plus cheerfulness and a belief that events will work out all right on their own. It compares to this setting on the Hammerstein Mood Organ.” He passed me a small glossy folded printed piece of paper; I saw Hammerstein stop-setting indications on it. “But the effect of the drug is much more intense; as you know, the amplitude of affect-shock produced by the Mood Organ is severely limited by law.”

I read the setting critically. By god, when translated into notes it was close to the opening of the Beethoven Sixteenth Quartet. What a vindication for enthusiasts of the Beethoven Third Period, I said to myself. Just looked at, the stop-setting numbers made me feel better.

“I can almost hum this drug,” I said. “Want me to try?”

“No thank you. Now, you understand that if drug therapy does not avail in your case we can always attempt brain-slicing in the region of the temporal lobes—based, of course, on extensive brain-mapping, which would have to be conducted at U.C. Hospital in San Francisco or Mount Zion; we have no facilities, here. I prefer to avoid that myself if possible, since it often develops that the section of the temporal lobes involved can’t be spared. The Government has abandoned that at its clinics, you know.”

“I’d rather not be sliced,” I agreed. “I’ve had friends who’ve had that done … but personally it gives me the shivers. Let me ask you this. Do you by any chance have a drug whose setting in terms of the Mood Organ corresponds to portions of the Choral Movement of the Beethoven Ninth?”

“I’ve never looked into it,” Horstowski said.

“On a Mood Organ I’m particularly affected when I play the part where the choir sings,
‘Mus’ ein Lieber Vater wohnen,’
and then very high up, like angels, the violins and the soprano part of the choir sing as an answer,
‘Ubrem Sternenzelt.’
”

“I’m not familiar with it to that extent,” Horstowski admitted.

“They’re asking whether a Heavenly Father exists, and then very high up they answer, yes, above the realm of stars. That part—if you could find the correspondence in terms of pharmacology, I might benefit enormously.”

Doctor Horstowski got out a massive loose-leaf binder and began to thumb through it. “I’m afraid I can’t locate a pill corresponding to that. You might consult with the Ham-merstein engineers, however.”

“Good idea,” I said.

“Now, as to your dealings with Pris. I think you’re a little strong in your view of her as a menace. After all, you are free not to associate with her
at all
, aren’t you?” He eyed me slyly.

“I guess so.”

“Pris has challenged you. She’s a provocative personality … most people who know her, I’d imagine, get to feeling as you do. That’s Pris’s way of stirring them up, making them react. It is probably allied to her scientific bent … it’s a form of curiosity; she wants to see what makes people tick.” He smiled.

“In this case,” I said, “she almost killed the specimen while trying to investigate it.”

“Pardon?” He cupped his ear. “Yes, a specimen. She perceives
other people sometimes in that aspect. But I wouldn’t let that throw me. We live in a society where detachment is almost essential.”

While he was saying this, Doctor Horstowski was writing in his appointment book.

“What do you think of,” he murmured, “when you think of Pris.”

“Milk,” I said.

“Milk!” His eyes opened wide. “Interesting. Milk …”

“I’m not coming back here,” I told him. “It’s no use giving me that card.” However, I accepted the appointment card. “Our time is up for today, is it?”

“Regrettably,” Doctor Horstowski said, “it is.”

“I was not kidding when I told you I’m one of Pris’s simulacra. There used to be a Louis Rosen, but no more. Now there’s only me. And if anything happens to me, Pris and Maury have the instructional tapes to create another. Pris makes the body out of bathroom tile. It’s pretty good, isn’t it? It fooled you and my brother Chester and almost my father. That’s the actual reason he’s so unhappy; he guessed the truth.” Having said that I nodded goodbye and walked from the office, along the hall and through the waiting room, to the street.

But you, I said to myself. You’ll never guess, Doctor Horstowski, not in a million years. I’m good enough to fool you and all the rest of them like you.

Getting into my Chevrolet Magic Fire, I drove slowly back to the office.

After having told Doctor Horstowski that I was a simulacrum I could not get the idea out of my mind. Once there had been a real Louis Rosen but now he was gone and I stood in his spot, fooling almost everyone, including myself.

This idea persisted for the next week, growing a little dimmer each day but not quite fading out.

And yet on another level I knew it was a preposterous idea, just a lot of drivel I had come up with because of my resentment toward Doctor Horstowski.

The immediate effect of the idea was to cause me to look up the Edwin M. Stanton simulacrum; when I got back to the office from my visit to the doctor I asked Maury where the thing could be found.

“Bundy’s feeding a new tape to it,” Maury said. “Pris came across a biography of Stanton that had some new material.” He returned to his letter-reading.

I found Bundy in the shop with the Stanton; having finished, he was putting it back together. Now he was asking it questions.

“Andrew Johnson betrayed the Union by his inability to
conceive the rebellious states as—” Seeing me, Bundy broke off. “Hi, Rosen.”

“I want to talk to the thing. Okay?”

Bundy departed, leaving me alone with the Stanton. It was seated in a brown, cloth-covered armchair, with a book open on its lap; it regarded me sternly.

“Sir,” I said, “do you recall me?”

“Yes sir, I do. You are Mr. Louis Rosen of Boise, Idaho. I recall a pleasant overnight stay with your father. Is he well?”

“Not as well as I wish he was.”

“A pity.”

“Sir, I’d like to ask you a question. Doesn’t it seem odd to you that although you were born around 1800 you are still alive in 1982? And doesn’t it seem odd to you to be shut off every now and then? And what about your being made out of transistors and relays? You didn’t used to be, because in 1800 they didn’t have transistors and relays.” I paused, waiting.

“Yes,” the Stanton agreed, “those are oddities. I have here a volume—” He held up his book. “Which deals with the new science of cybernetics, and this science has shed light on my perplexity.”

That excited me. “Your perplexity!”

“Yes sir. During my stay with your father I discussed puzzling matters of this nature with him. When I consider the brief span of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and behind it, the small space that I fill, or even see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces which I know not, and which know not me, I am afraid.”

“I should think so,” I said.

“I am afraid, sir, and wonder to see myself here rather than there. For there is no reason why I should be here rather than there, now rather than then.”

“Did you come to any conclusion?”

The Stanton cleared its throat, then got out a folded linen handkerchief and carefully blew its nose. “It seems to me that time must move in strange jumps, passing over intervening
epochs. But why it would do that, or even how, I do not know. At a certain point the mind cannot fathom anything further.”

“You want to hear my theory?”

“Yes sir.”

“I claim there is no Edwin M. Stanton or Louis Rosen anymore. There was once, but they’re dead. We’re machines.”

The Stanton regarded me, its round, wrinkled face twisted up. “There may be some truth in that,” it said finally.

“And,” I said, “Maury Rock and Pris Frauenzimmer designed us and Bob Bundy built us. And right now they’re working on an Abe Lincoln simulacrum.”

The round, wrinkled face darkened. “Mr. Lincoln is dead.”

“I know.”

“You mean they are going to bring him back?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Why?”

“To impress Mr. Barrows.”

“Who is Mr. Barrows?” The old man’s voice grated.

“A multi-millionaire who lives in Seattle, Washington. It was his influence that got sub-dividers started on the Moon.”

“Sir, have you ever heard of Artemus Ward?”

“No,” I admitted.

“If Mr. Lincoln is revived you will be subjected to endless humorous selections from the writings of Mr. Ward.” Scowling, the Stanton picked up its book and once more read. Its face was red and its hands shook.

Obviously I had said the wrong thing.

There was really not much that I knew about Edwin M. Stanton. Since everybody today looks up to Abraham Lincoln it hadn’t occurred to me that the Stanton would feel otherwise. But you live and learn. After all, the simulacrum’s attitude was formed well over a century ago, and there’s not much you can do to change an attitude that old.

I excused myself—the Stanton barely glanced up and nodded—and set off down the street to the library. Fifteen minutes
later I had the Britannica out and laid flat on a table; I looked up both Lincoln and Stanton and then the Civil War itself.

The article on Stanton was short but interesting. Stanton had started out hating Lincoln; the old man had been a Democrat, and he both hated and distrusted the new Republican Party. It described Stanton as being harsh, which I had already noticed, and it told of many squabbles with generals, especially Sherman. But, the article said, the old man was good in his job under Lincoln; he booted out fraudulent contractors and kept the troops well-equipped. And at the end of hostilities he was able to demobilize 800,000 men, no mean feat after a bloody Civil War.

The trouble hadn’t started until Lincoln’s death. It had really been hot-going there for a while, between Stanton and President Johnson; in fact it looked as if the Congress were going to take over and be the sole governing body. As I read the article I began to get a pretty good idea of the old man. He was a real tiger. He had a violent temper and a sharp tongue. He almost got Johnson out and himself in as a military dictator.

But the Britannica added, too, that Stanton was thoroughly honest and a genuine patriot.

The article on Johnson stated bluntly that Stanton was disloyal to his chief and in league with his enemies. It called Stanton obnoxious. It was a miracle that Johnson got the old man out.

When I put the volumes of the Britannica back on the shelf I breathed a sigh of relief; just in those little articles you could catch the atmosphere of pure poison which reigned in those days, the intrigues and hates, like something out of Medieval Russia. In fact all the plotting at the end of Stalin’s lifetime—it was much like that.

As I walked slowly back to the office I thought, Kindly old gentleman hell. The Rock-Frauenzimmer combine, in their greed, had reawakened more than a man; they had reawakened what had been an awesome and awful force in this
country’s history. Better they should have made a Zachary Taylor simulacrum. No doubt it was Pris and her perverse, nihilistic mind that had conceived this great joker in the deck, this choice out of all the possible thousands, even millions. Why not Socrates? Or Gandhi?

And so now they expected calmly and happily to bring to life a second simulacrum: someone whom Edwin M. Stanton had a good deal of animosity toward. Idiots!

I entered our shop once more and found the Stanton reading as before. It had almost finished its cybernetics book.

There, not more than ten feet away, on the largest of MASA’s workbenches, lay the mass of half-completed circuits which would one day be the Abraham Lincoln. Had the Stanton made it out? Had it connected this electronic confusion with what I had said? I stole a glance at the new simulacrum. It did not look as if anyone—or anything—had meddled inappropriately. Bundy’s careful work could be seen, nothing else. Surely if the Stanton had gone at it in my absence, there would be a few broken or burned segments…. I saw nothing like that.

Pris, I decided, was probably at home these days, putting the final life-like colors into the sunken cheeks of the Abe Lincoln shell which would house all these parts. That in itself was a full-time job. The beard, the big hands, skinny legs, the sad eyes. A field for her creativity, her artistic soul, to run and howl rampant. She would not show up until she had done a top-notch job.

Going back upstairs I confronted Maury. “Listen, friend. That Stanton thing is going to up and bang Honest Abe over the head. Or haven’t you bothered to read the history books?” And then I saw it. “You
had
to read the books in order to make the instruction tapes. So you know better than I what the Stanton feels toward Lincoln! You know he’s apt to roast the Lincoln into charred rust any minute!”

“Don’t get mixed up in last year’s politics.” Maury put down his letters for a moment, sighing. “The other day it was my daughter; now it’s the Stanton. There’s always some
dark horror lurking. You have the mind of an old maid, you know that? Lay off and let me work.”

I went back downstairs to the shop again.

There, as before, sat the Stanton, but now it had finished its book; it sat pondering.

“Young man,” it called to me, “give me more information about this Barrows. Did you say he lives at our nation’s Capitol?”

“No sir, the state of Washington.” I explained where it was.

“And is it true, as Mr. Rock tells me, that this Barrows arranged for the World’s Fair to be held in that city through his great influence?”

“I’ve heard that. Of course, when a man is that rich and eccentric all sorts of legends crop up about him.”

“Is the fair still in progress?”

“No, that was years ago.”

“A pity,” the Stanton murmured. “I wanted to go.”

That touched me to the heart. Again I reexperienced my first impression of it: that in many ways it was more human—god help us!—than we were, than Pris or Maury or even me, Louis Rosen. Only my father stood above it in dignity. Doctor Horstowski—another only partly-human creature, dwarfed by this electronic simulacrum. And, I thought, what about Barrows? How will he look when compared, face to face, with the Stanton?