There is no good restaurant in Boise.
“Just a place where we can get fried prawns,” Barrows said. “A light supper of that sort. We had a few drinks on the plane but none of us ate; we were too busy yakking.”
We found a passable restaurant. The head waiter led us to a leather horseshoe-shaped booth in the rear; we took off our coats and seated ourselves.
We ordered drinks.
“Did you really make your first pile playing poker in the Service?” I asked Barrows.
“No, craps it was. A six-month floating crapgame. Poker takes skill; I have luck.”
Pris said, “It wasn’t luck that got you into real estate.”
“No, it was because my mother used to rent out rooms in our old place in L.A.” Barrows eyed her.
“Nor,” Pris said in the same tense voice, “was it luck that has made you the Don Quixote who successfully tilted the Supreme Court of the United States into ruling against the Space Agency and its greedy monopolizing of entire moons and planets.”
Barrows nodded at her. “You’re generous in your description. I had in my possession what I believed to be valid title to parcels on Luna, and wanted to test the validity of those titles in such a way that they’d never be challenged again. Say, I’ve met you.”
“Yes,” Pris said, bright-eyed.
“Can’t place you, though.”
“It was only for a moment. In your office. I don’t blame you for not remembering. I remember you, however.” She had not taken her eyes from the man.
“You’re Rock’s daughter?”
“Yes, Mr. Barrows.”
She looked a lot better, tonight. Her hair had been done, and she wore enough make-up to hide her paleness, but not so much as to give her the garish mask-like appearance which I had noticed in the past. Now that she had taken off her coat I saw that she wore an attractive fluffy jersey sweater, short-sleeved, with one piece of gold jewelry—a pin shaped like a snake—over her right breast. By god, I decided, she had a bra on, too, the kind that created bulk where there was no bulk. For this extraordinary occasion Pris had obtained a bosom. And, when she rose to hang up her coat, I saw that in her high, very thin heels she appeared to have nice legs. So, when the occasion demanded, she could fix herself up more than correctly.
“Let me take that,” Blunk said, sweeping her coat away from her and bouncing over to the rack to hang it on a hanger. He returned, bowed, smiled merrily at her and reseated himself. “Are you sure,” he boomed, “that this dirty old man—” He indicated Maury. “Is actually your father? Or is it not the case that you’re committing a sin, the sin of statutory rape, sir?” He pointed his finger in a mock-epic manner at Maury. “Shame, sir!” He smiled at us all.
“You just want her for yourself,” Barrows said, biting off the fantail of a prawn and laying it aside. “How do you know she’s not another of those simulacrum things, like the Stanton one?”
“I’ll take a dozen gross!” Blunk cried, his eyes shining.
Maury said, “She really is my daughter. She’s been away at school.” He looked uncomfortable.
“And come back—” Blunk lowered his voice. In an exaggerated aside he whispered hoarsely to Maury, “/” the family way, is that it?”
Maury grinned uneasily.
Changing the subject I said, “It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Nild.”
“Thank you.”
“That Stanton robot scared the slats out of us,” Barrows said to Maury and me, his elbows resting on the table, arms folded. He had finished his prawns and he looked well-fed and sleek. For a man who started out on stewed prunes he seemed to enjoy his food to the hilt. I had to approve of that, personally; it seemed to me to be an encouraging sign.
“You people are to be congratulated!” Blunk said. “You produced a monster!” He laughed loudly, enjoying himself. “I say kill the thing! Get a mob with torches! Onward!”
We all had to laugh at that.
“How did the Frankenstein monster finally die?” Colleen asked.
“Ice,” Maury said. “The castle burned down and they sprayed hoses on it and the water became ice.”
“But the monster was found frozen in the ice in the next movie,” I said. “And they revived him.”
“He disappeared into a pit of bubbling lava,” Blunk said. “I was there. I kept a button from his coat.” From his coat pocket he produced a button which he displayed to each of us in turn. “Off the world-famous Frankenstein monster.”
Colleen said, “It’s off your vest, David.”
“What!” Blunk glanced down, scowling. “So it is! It’s my own button!” Again he laughed.
Barrows, investigating his teeth with the edge of his thumbnail, said to Maury and me, “How much did it set you back to put together the Stanton robot?”
“Around five thousand,” Maury said.
“And how much can it be produced in quantity for? Say, if several hundred thousand are run off.”
“Hell,” Maury said quickly. “I would say around six hundred dollars. That assumes they’re identical, have the same ruling monads and are fed the same tapes.”
“What it is,” Barrows said to him, “is a life-size version of the talking dolls that were so popular in the past; correct—”
“No,” Maury said, “not exactly.”
“Well, it talks and walks around,” Barrows said. “It took a bus to Seattle. Isn’t that the automaton principle made a little more complex?” Before Maury could answer he continued. “What I’m getting at is, there really isn’t anything new here, is there?”
Silence.
“Sure,” Maury said. He did not look very merry, now. And I noticed that Pris, too, seemed abruptly humorless.
“Well, would you spell it out, please,” Barrows said, still with his pleasant tone, his informality. Picking up his glass of Green Hungarian he sipped. “Go ahead, Rock.”
“It’s not an automaton at all,” Maury said. “You know the work of Grey Walter in England? The turtles? It’s what’s called a homeostatic system. It’s cut off from its environment; it produces its own responses. It’s like the fully automated factory which repairs itself. Do you know what ‘feedback’ refers to? In electrical systems there—”
Dave Blunk put his hand on Maury’s shoulder. “What Mr. Barrows wants to know has to do with the patentability, if I may use such an unwieldly term, of your Stanton and Lincoln robots.”
Pris spoke up in a low, controlled voice. “We’re fully covered at the patent office. We have expert legal representation.”
‘That’s good to hear,” Barrows said, smiling at her as he picked his teeth. “Because otherwise there’s nothing to buy.”
“Many new principles are involved,” Maury said. “The Stanton electronic simulacrum represents work developed over a period of years by many research teams in and out of Government and if I may say so myself we’re all abundantly pleased, even amazed, at the terrific results … as you saw yourself when the Stanton got off the Greyhound bus at Seattle and took a taxi to your office.”
“It walked,” Barrows said.
“Pardon?”
“I say, it walked to my office from the Greyhound bus station.”
“In any case,” Maury said, “what we’ve achieved here has no precedent in the electronics trade.”
After dinner we drove to Ontario, arriving at the office of MASA ASSOCIATES at ten o’clock.
“Funny little town,” Dave Blunk said, surveying the empty streets. “Everybody in bed.”
“Wait until you see the Lincoln,” Maury said as we got out from the car.
They had stopped at the showroom window and were reading the sign that had to do with the Lincoln.
“I’ll be a son of a gun,” Barrows said. He put his face to the glass, peering in. “No sign of it right now, though. What does it do, sleep at night? Or do you have it assassinated every evening around five, when sidewalk traffic is heaviest?”
Maury said, “The Lincoln i
s probably down in the shop. We’ll go down there.” He unlocked the door and stood aside to let us enter.
Presently we were standing at the entrance to the dark repairshop as Maury groped for the light switch. At last he found it.
There, seated in meditation, was the Lincoln. It had been sitting quietly in the darkness.
Barrows said at once, “Mr. President.” I saw him nudge Colleen Nild. Blunk grinned, looking enthusiastic, with the greedy, good-humored warmth of a hungry but confident cat. Clearly, he was getting enormous enjoyment out of all this. Mrs. Nild craned her neck, gasped faintly, obviously impressed. Barrows, of course, walked on into the repairshop without hesitation, knowing exactly what to do. He did not hold his hand out to the Lincoln; he halted a few paces from it, showing respect.
Turning his head the Lincoln regarded him with a melancholy expression. I had never seen such despair on a face before, and I shrank back; so did Maury. Pris did not react at all; she merely remained standing in the doorway. The Lincoln rose to its feet, hesitated, and then by degrees the expression of pain faded from its face; it said in a broken, reedy voice—completely at contrast to its tall frame, “Yes sir.” It inspected Barrows from its height, with kindliness and interest, its eyes twinkling a little.
“My name is Sam Barrows,” Barrows said. “It’s a great honor to meet you, Mr. President.”
“Thank you, Mr. Barrows,” the Lincoln said. “Won’t you and your friends enter and accommodate yourselves?”
To me Dave Blunk gave a wide-eyed silent whistle of astonishment and awe. He clapped me on the back. “Wheee,” he said softly.
“You remember me, Mr. President,” I said to the simulacrum.
“Yes, Mr. Rosen.”
“What about me?” Pris said drily.
The simulacrum made a faint, clumsy, formal bow. “Miss Frauenzimmer. And you, Mr. Rock … the person on which this edifice rests, does it not?” The simulacrum chuckled. “The owner, or co-owner, if I am not mistook.”
“What have you been doing?” Maury asked it.
“I was thinking about a remark of Lyman Trumbull’s. As you know, Judge Douglas met with Buchanan and they talked over the Lecompton Constitution and Kansas. Judge Douglas later came out and fought Buchanan, despite the threat, it being an Administration measure. I did not support Judge Douglas, as did a number of those dear to me among my own party, the Republicans and their cause. But in Bloomington, where I was toward the end of 1857, I saw no Republicans going over to Douglas, as one saw in the New York Tribune. I asked Lyman Trumbull to write me in Springfield to tell me whether—”
Barrows interrupted the Lincoln simulacrum, at that point. “Sir, if you’ll excuse me. We have business to conduct, and then I and this gentleman, Mr. Blunk, and Mrs. Nild, here, have to fly back to Seattle.”
The Lincoln bowed. “Mrs. Nild.” He held out his hand, and, with a snorting laugh, Colleen Nild went forward to shake hands with him. “Mr. Blunk.” He gravely shook hands with the short plump attorney. “You’re not related to Nathan Blunk of Cleveland, are you, sir?”
“No, I’m not,” Blunk answered, shaking hands vigorously. “You were an attorney at one time, weren’t you, Mr. Lincoln?”
“Yes sir,” the Lincoln replied.
“My profession.”
“I see,” the Lincoln said, with a smile. “You have the divine ability to wrangle over trifles.”
Blunk boomed out a hearty laugh.
Coming up beside Blunk, Barrows said to the simulacrum, “We flew here from Seattle to discuss with Mr. Rosen and Mr. Rock a financial transaction involving backing of MASA ASSOCIATES by Barrows Enterprises. Before we finalize we wanted to meet you and have a talk. We met the Stanton recently; he came to visit us on a bus. We’d acquire you and Stanton both as assets of MASA ASSOCIATES, as well as basic patents. As an ex-attorney you’re probably familiar with transactions of this sort. I’d be curious to ask you something. What’s your sense of the modern world? Do you know what a vitamin is, for instance? Do you know what year this is?” He scrutinized the simulacrum keenly.
The Lincoln did not answer immediately, and while it was getting ready, Maury waved Barrows over to one side. I joined them.
“That’s all beside the point,” Maury said. “You know perfectly well it wasn’t made to handle topics like that.”
“True,” Barrows agreed. “But I’m curious.”
“Don’t be. You’d feel funny if you burned out one of its primary circuits.”
“Is it that delicate?”
“No,” Maury said, “but you’re needling it.”
“No I’m not. It’s so convincingly lifelike that I want to know how conscious it is of its new existence.”
“Leave it alone,” Maury said.
Barrows gestured abruptly. “Certainly.” He beckoned to Colleen Nild and their attorney. “Let’s conclude our business and start back to Seattle. David, are you satisfied by what you see?”
“No,” Blunk said, as he joined us. Colleen remained with Pris and the simulacrum; they were asking it something about the debates with Stephen Douglas. “It doesn’t seem to function nearly as well as the Stanton one, in my opinion.”
“How so?” Maury demanded.
“It’s—halting.”
“It just came to,” I said.
“No, it’s not that,” Maury said. “It’s a different personality. Stanton’s more inflexible, dogmatic.” To me he said, “I know a hell of a lot about those two people. Lincoln was this way. I made up the tapes. He had periods of brooding, he was brooding here just now when we came in. Other times he’s more cheerful.” To Blunk he said, “That’s his character. If you stick around awhile you’ll see him in other moods. Moody—that’s what he is. Not like Stanton, not positive. I mean, it’s not an electrical failure; it’s supposed to be that way.”
“I see,” Blunk said, but he did not sound convinced.
“I know what you refer to,” Barrows said. “It seems to stick.”
“Right,” Blunk said. “I’m not sure in my own mind that they’ve got this perfected. There may be a lot of bugs left to iron out.”
“And this cover-up line,” Barrows said, “about not questioning it as to contemporary topics—you caught that.”
“I certainly did,” Blunk said.
“Sam,” I said to Barrows, plunging in, “you don’t get the point at all. Maybe that’s due to your having just made that plane flight from Seattle and then that long drive by car from Boise. Frankly, I thought you grasped the principle underlying the simulacra, but let’s let the subject go, for the sake of amicability. Okay?” I smiled.
Barrows contemplated me without answering; so did Blunk. Off in the corner Maury perched on a workstool, with his cigar giving off clouds of lonely blue smoke.
“I understand your disappointment with the Lincoln,” I said. “I sympathize. To be frank, the Stanton one was coached.”
“Ah,” Blunk said, his eyes twinkling.
“It wasn’t my idea. My partner here was nervous and he wanted it all set up.” I wagged my head in Maury’s direction. “He was wrong to do it, but anyhow that’s a dead issue; what we want to deal with is the Lincoln simulacrum because that’s the basis of MASA ASSOCIATES’ genuine discovery. Let’s walk back and query it further.”
The three of us walked back to where Mrs. Nild and Pris stood listening to the tall, bearded, stooped simulacrum.
“… quoted me to the effect that the Negro was included in that clause of the Declaration of Independence which says that all men were created equal. That was at Chicago Judge Douglas says I said that, and then he goes on to say that at Charleston I said the Negro belonged to an inferior race. And that I held it was not a moral issue, but a question of degree, and yet at Galesburg I went back and said it was a moral question once more.” The simulacrum smiled its gentle, pained smile at us. “Thereupon some fellow in the audience called out, ‘He’s right.’ I was glad somebody thought me right, because it seemed to my
self that Judge Douglas had me by the coat tails.”
Pris and Mrs. Nild laughed appreciatively. The rest of us stood silently.
“About the best applause Judge Douglas got was when he said that the whole Republican Party in the northern part of the state stands committed to the doctrine of no more slave states, and that this same doctrine is repudiated by the Republicans in the other part of the state … and the Judge wondered whether Mr. Lincoln and his party do not present the case which Mr. Lincoln cited from the Scriptures, of a house divided against itself which cannot stand.” The simulacrum’s voice had assumed a droll quality. “And the Judge wondered if my principles were the same as the Republican Party’s. Of course, I don’t get the chance to answer the Judge until October at Quincy. But I told him there, that he could argue that a horse-chestnut is the same as a chestnut horse. I certainly had no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together on the footing of perfect equality. But I hold the Negro as much entitled to the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as any white man. He is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color—perhaps not in intellectual and moral endowments. But in the right to eat the bread which his own hand earns, without leave of anybody else, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every other man.” The simulacrum paused. “I received a few good cheers myself at that moment.”
To me Sam Barrows said, “You’ve got quite a tape reeling itself off inside that thing, don’t you?”
“It’s free to say what it wants,” I told him.
“Anything? You mean it wants to speechify?” Barrows obviously did not believe me. “I don’t see that it’s anything but the familiar mechanical man gimmick, with this dressed-up historical guise. The same thing was demonstrated at the 1939 San Francisco World’s Fair, Pedro the Vodor.”
This exchange between Barrows and I had not escaped the attention of the Lincoln simulacrum. In fact both it and Pris and Mrs. Nild were now watching us and listening to us.