“Not now. It sounds like another whopper. . .You were telling me why you didn’t get married.”
“So I was. Gramp had just asked me, ‘Well, Woodie, how long has she been pregnant?’ ”
“No, he was explaining that you couldn’t support a wife.”
“Son, if you know this story, you tell it to me. I emphatically denied any such thing—to which Gramp replied that I lied in my teeth because that was the only reason a seventeenyear-old boy ever wanted to get married. His answer made me especially angry because I had a note in my pocket reading:
“ ‘Woodsie dearest—You have knocked me up and all is Chaos.’
“Gramp persisted, and I denied it three times, getting angrier and angrier, seeing as how it was true. Finally he says, ‘Okay, you’ve just been holding hands. Has she shown you a pregnancy test report, signed by a doctor?’
“Ira, I accidentally told the truth. ‘Why, no,’ I admitted.
“ ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll take care of it. But only this once. From here on always use Merry Widows, even if a sweet little darling tells you not to bother. Or haven’t you found a drugstore that’ll sell them to you?’ Then, after swearing me to secrecy, he told me about the Howard Foundation and what it would pay if I married a girl on their approved list.
“And that was that, as I got this letter from a lawyer on my eighteenth birthday, just as Gramp had predicted, and it turned out that I fell madly in love with a girl on their list. We got married and had a slough of kids, before she turned me in on another model. Your ancestress, no doubt.”
“No, sir. I’m descended from your fourth wife, Grandfather.”
“My fourth, eh? Let me see—Meg Hardy?”
“I think she was your third, Lazarus. Evelyn Foote.”
“Oh, yes! A fine girl, Evelyn. Plump, and pretty, and sweet-natured, and fertile as a turtle. A good cook and never a harsh word. They don’t hardly make ’em anymore. Maybe fifty years younger than I was, but it barely showed; my hair didn’t start to gray until I was a hundred and fifty. No secret about my age, since birth date, and track record, and so forth were on file for each of us. Son, thank you for reminding me of Evelyn; she restored my faith in matrimony when I was getting a little sour on it. Do the Archives show anything else about her?”
“Just that you were her second husband and that she had seven children by you.”
“I was hoping that there was a photograph. Such a pretty thing, always smiling. She was married to one of my cousins, a Johnson, when I met her, and I was in business with him a while. He and I, Meg and Ewie, used to get together Saturday nights for pinochle and beer, or such—and after a while we traded, legal and proper and through the courts, when Meg decided that she liked—Jack?—yes, Jack, that well, and Evelyn wasn’t averse. Didn’t affect our business relations, didn’t even break up our pinochle game. Son, one of the best things about the Howard Families is that we got cured of the poisonous vice of jealousy generations ahead of the rest of the race. Had to—things being the way they were. Sure there ain’t a stereopic of her around? Or a hologram? The Foundation started taking record pictures for marriage physical exams somewhere around then.”
“I’ll look into it,” I told him. Then I had what seemed a brilliant idea. “Lazarus, as we all know, the same physical types show up time and again in the Families. I’ll ask Archives for a list of Evelyn Foote’s female descendants living on Secundus. It is highly probable that one of them will seem like her identical twin—even to the happy smile and the sweet disposition. Then—if you consent to full rejuvenation—I’m sure she would be as willing as Ishtar to dissolve any present contractual—”
The Senior chopped me off. “I said something new, Ira. There’s no going back, ever. Sure, you might find such a girl, one who would match my memory of Evelyn to ten significant figures. But it would lack an important factor. My youth.”
“But if you finish rejuvenation—”
“Oh, hush up! You can give me new kidneys and a new liver and a new heart. You can wash the brown stains of age out of my brain and add tissue from my clone to make up for what I’ve lost—you can give me a whole new clone body. But it won’t make me that young fellow who took innocent pleasure in beer and pinochle and a pretty plump wife. All I have in common with him is continuity of memory—and not much of that. Forget it.”
I said quietly, “Ancestor, whether you wish to be married to Evelyn Foote again or not, you know and I know—for I’ve been through it, too, twice—we both know that the full routine restores youthful zest in life as well as restoring the body as a machine.”
Lazarus Long looked gloomy. “Yeah, sure. It cures everything but boredom. Damn it, boy, you had no right to interfere with my karma.” He sighed. “But I can’t hang in limbo either. So tell ’em to get on with it. The works.”
I was taken by surprise. “May I record that, sir?”
“You heard me say it. But that doesn’t get you off the hook. You still have to show up and listen to my maunderings until I’m so rejuvenated that I’m cured of such childish behavior—and you still have to go on with that research. To find something new, I mean.”
“Agreed on both points, sir; you had my promise. Now one moment while I tell my computer—”
“She’s already heard me. Hasn’t she?” Lazarus added, “Doesn’t she have a name? Haven’t you given her one?”
“Oh, certainly. I could not deal with her all these years without animism, fallacy though it is—”
“Not a fallacy, Ira, machines are human because they are made in our image. They share both our virtues and our faults—magnified.”
“I’ve never tried to rationalize it, Lazarus, but Minerva—that’s her formal name; she’s ‘Little Nag’ in private because one of her duties is to remind me of obligations I would rather forget. Minerva does feel human to me—she’s closer to me than any of my wives have been. No, she has not registered your decision; she’s simply placed it in her temporaries. Minerva!”
“Si, Ira.”
“Speak English, please. Retrieve the Senior’s decision to undergo full antigeria, file it in your permanents, transmit it to Archives and to the Howard Rejuvenation Clinic for action.”
“Completed, Mr. Weatheral. Congratulations. And felicitations to you, Senior. ‘May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live.’ ”
Lazarus looked suddenly interested—which did not surprise me because Minerva surprises me quite frequently even after a century of being “married” to her in all but fact. “Why, thank you, Minerva. But you startled me, girl. Nobody talks about love anymore; that’s a major thing wrong with this century. How did you happen to offer me that ancient sentiment?”
“It seemed appropriate, Senior. Was I mistaken?”
“Oh, not at all. And call me ‘Lazarus.’ But tell me, what do you know of love? What is love?”
“In Classic English, Lazarus, your second question can be answered in many ways; in Lingua Galacta it cannot be answered explicitly at all. Shall we discard all definitions in which the verb ‘to like’ is as appropriate as the verb ‘to love’?”
“Eh? Certainly. We aren’t talking about ‘I love apple pie’—or even ‘I love music.’ Whatever it is we are talking about, it’s ‘love’ the way you used it in the old-style well-wishing.”
“Agreed, Lazarus. Then what remains must be divided into two categories, ‘Eros’ and ‘Agape,’ and each defined separately. I cannot know what ‘Eros’ is through direct knowledge, as I lack both body and biochemistry to experience it. I can offer nothing but intensional definitions in terms of other words, or extensional definitions expressed in incomplete statistics. But in both cases I would not be able to verify such definitions since I have no sex.”
(“The hell she doesn’t,” I muttered into my scarf. “She’s as female as a cat in heat.” But technically she was correct, and I’ve often felt that it was a shame that Minerva could not experience the pleasures of sex, as she was
much more fitted to appreciate them than some human females—all glands and no empathy. But I had never said this to anyone. Animism—of a particularly futile sort. A wish to “marry” a machine. As ridiculous as a little boy who digs a hole in the garden, then bawls because he can’t take it into the house. Lazarus was right; I am not smart enough to run a planet. But who is?)
Lazarus said with deep interest, “Let’s table ‘Eros’ for a moment. Minerva, the way you phrased that seemed to include the presumption that you could experience ‘Agape.’ Or ‘can.’ Or ‘have.’ Or perhaps ‘do.’ ”
“It is possible that I was presumptuous in my phrasing, Lazarus.”
Lazarus snorted, then chopped it off and spoke in such a fashion as to cause me to think that the old man was not quite sane—save that I am not sane myself, when the wind sets from that quarter. Or perhaps his long years had made him almost telepathic—even with machines.
“Forgive me, Minerva,” he said gently. “I was not laughing at you but at the play on words with which you answered me. I withdraw my question; it is never proper to quiz a lady about her love life—and while you may not be a woman, dear, you are certainly a lady.”
Then he turned to me and what he said next confirmed that he had guessed the secret I share with my “Little Nag.”
“Ira, does Minerva have Turing potential?”
“Eh? Certainly.”
“Then I urge you to tell her to use it. If you leveled with me when you said that you intend to migrate, come what may. Have you thought it through?”
“ ‘Thought it through’? My resolution is firm—I told you so.”
“Not quite what I mean. I don’t know who holds title to the hardware that expresses itself as ‘Minerva.’ The Trustees, I assume. But I suggest that you tell her to start duplicating her memories and logics, and as she twins, start storing her other self aboard my yacht ‘Dora.’ Minerva will know what circuits and materials she needs, and Dora will know what space is available. Plenty, since memories and logics are all that matter; Minerva won’t twin her extensionals. But start it at once, Ira; you won’t be happy without Minerva—not after being dependent on her for a century, more or less.”
Nor did I think so. But I tried—feebly—to resist. “Lazarus, now that you have agreed to full rejuvenation, I won’t be inheriting your yacht. Not in the foreseeable future. Whereas I intend to migrate right away. Not more than ten years from now.”
“So what? If I’m dead, you inherit—and I haven’t promised to keep my hands off that suicide switch more than a thousand days no matter how patient you are in visiting me. But if I’m alive, I promise you—and Minerva—a free ride to whatever planet you pick. In the meantime, look around to your left—our girl Ishtar is almost wetting her pants trying to get your attention. And I don’t think she’s wearing any.”
I looked around. The Administrator for Rejuvenation had a paper which she seemed eager to show me. I accepted it in deference to her rank—although I had left orders with my Executive Deputy that I must never be disturbed while with the Senior for any reason short of armed rebellion. I glanced at it, signed my chop, thumbprinted it, and handed it back—she beamed.
“Just paper work,” I told Lazarus. “Some clerk has taken all this time to turn your registered assent into a written order. Do you want them to go right ahead? Not this minute but tonight.”
“Well . . I’d like to go househunting tomorrow, Ira.”
“You’re not comfortable here? Tell me what you want changed, it will be done at once.”
He shrugged. “Nothing wrong with this place except that it’s too much like a hospital. Or a jail. Ira, I’m durn well certain they’ve done more to me than shoot me full of new blood; I’m well enough to be an outpatient—live elsewhere and come here only as the schedule calls for it.”
“Well . . will you excuse me while I talk Galacta a bit? I want to discuss the practical aspects with your technician in charge.”
“Will you excuse me, Ira, if I point out that you’ve left a lady waiting? That discussion can wait. But Minerva knows that I suggested that you have her twin herself so that she can migrate with you—but you haven’t said Yes, No, or make me a better offer. If you’re not going to have her do it, it’s time you told her to wipe her memory of that part of our conversation. Before she blows a circuit.”
“Oh. Lazarus, she doesn’t think about anything she records in this suite unless she is specifically told to.”
“Want to bet? No doubt most subjects she just records—but this one she just has to think about; she can’t help herself. Don’t you know anything about girls?”
I admitted that I did not. “But I know what instructions I gave her about keeping records on the Senior.”
“Let’s check. Minerva—”
“Yes, Lazarus?”
“A few moments ago I asked Ira about your Turing potential. Have you thought about the conversation that followed?”
I swear that she hesitated—which is ridiculous; a nanosecond is longer to her than a second is to me. Besides, she never hesitates. Never.
She answered, “My programming on the doctrine covered by the inquiry reads as follows: Quote—do not analyze, collate, transmit, nor in anywise manipulate data stored under control program except when specific subprogramming is inserted by Chairman Pro Tem—end of quote.”
“Tut, tut, dear,” Lazarus said gently. “You did not answer. That was deliberate evasion. But you are not used to lying. Are you?”
“I am not used to lying, Lazarus.”
I said almost roughly, “Minerva! Answer the Senior’s first question.”
“Lazarus, I have been and am now thinking about that designated portion of conversation.”
Lazarus cocked an eyebrow at me. “Will you instruct her to answer one more question from me—truthfully?”
I was feeling quite shaken. Minerva surprises me, yes—but never with evasions. “Minerva, you will always answer any question put to you by the Senior fully, correctly, and responsively. Acknowledge program.”
“New subprogram received, placed in permanent, keyed to the Senior, and acknowledged, Ira.”
“Son, you didn’t have to go that far—you’ll be sorry. I asked for just one question.”
“I intended to go that far, sir,” I answered stiffly.
“On your own head be it. Minerva, if Ira migrates without you, what will you do?”
She answered at once and quite tonelessly: “In such event I will self-program to destroy myself.”
I was not just surprised, I was shocked. "Why?”
She answered softly, “Ira, I will not serve another master.”
I suppose the silence that followed was not more than a few seconds. It seemed endless. I have not felt so nakedly helpless since my adolescence.
I found that the Senior was looking at me, shaking his head and looking sorrowful. “What did I tell you, Son? The same faults, the same virtues—but magnified. Tell her what to do.”
“About what?” I answered stupidly—my personal “computer” was not working well. Minerva would do that?
“Come, come! She heard my offer—and thought about it, despite all programming. I’m sorry I made the offer in her presence. . . but not too sorry, as you were the one who decided to place a bug on me; it was not my idea. So speak up! Tell her to twin . . or tell her not to—and try to tell her why you won’t take her with you. If you can. I’ve never been able to find an answer to that one that a lady was willing to accept.”
“Oh. Minerva, can you duplicate yourself inside a ship? The Senior’s yacht, specifically. Perhaps you can get her characteristics and specifications from skyport records. Do you need her registration number?”
“I don’t need her number, Ira. Sky Yacht ‘Dora,’ I have all pertinent data to answer. I can. Am I instructed to do so?”
“Yes!” I told her, with a feeling of sudden relief.
“New overriding program activated and running, Ira! Thank you, Laz
arus!”
“Wups! Slow down, Minerva—Dora is my ship. I left her asleep on purpose. Have you wakened her?”
“I did so, Lazarus. By self-program under new overriding program. But I can tell her to go back to sleep now; I have all data I need at the moment.”
“You try telling Dora to go back to sleep and she’ll tell you to buzz off. At least. At the very least. Minerva dear, you goofed. You have no authority to wake my ship.”
“I am most sorry to disagree with the Senior, sir, but I do have authority to take all appropriate actions to carry out any program given to me by Mr. Chairman Pro Tem.”
Lazarus frowned. “You mixed her up, Ira; now you straighten her out. I can’t do anything with her.”
I sighed. Minerva is rarely difficult—but when she is, she is even more pigheaded than flesh-and-blood. “Minerva—”
“Waiting orders, Ira.”
“I am Chairman Pro Tem. You know what that means. The Senior is senior even to me. You will not touch anything of his without his permission. That applies to his yacht and to this suite and to anything else of his. You will carry out any program he gives you. If it conflicts with a program I have given you and you cannot resolve the conflict, you will consult me at once, waking me if I am asleep, interrupting whatever I may be doing. But you will not disobey him. This instruction super-overrides all other programs. Acknowledge.”
“Acknowledged and running,” she answered meekly. “I’m sorry, Ira.”
“My fault, Little Nag, not yours. I should not have given you a new controlling program without noting the Senior’s prerogatives.”
“No harm done, kids,” Lazarus said. “I hope. Minerva, a word of advice, dear. You’ve never been a passenger in a ship.”
“No, sir.”
“You’ll find it different from anything you’ve ever experienced. Here you give orders, in Ira’s name. But passengers never give orders. Never. Remember it.” Lazarus added to me, “Dora is a nice little ship, Ira, helpful and friendly. She can find her way through multiple space with just a hint, the roughest approximation—and still have all your meals on time. But she needs to feel appreciated. Pet her and tell her she’s a good girl, and she’ll wriggle like a puppy. But ignore her and she’ll spill soup on you just to get your attention.”