More Tales of Pirx the Pilot (16 page)

“How many rems per hour can you take?”

The man twitched his lips, barely mustering a smile.

“About four hundred, I guess,” he said. “Tops. More than that, and it’s off to sick bay.”

“No more than four hundred?”

“I—no, I don’t think so.”

“Home state?”

“Arizona.”

“Any illnesses?”

“None. Or at least nothing serious.”

“How’s your eyesight?”

“Good.”

Pirx was attending less to what was being said than to the sound of each man’s voice, to its modulation and pitch, to the movements of the facial muscles and lips. There were times when he gave way to the senseless hope that it was all a grand but silly hoax intended to make fun of his gullible faith in the omnipotence of technology. Or maybe to punish him for it. Because these were plain, ordinary human beings. That secretary was crazy—oh, the power of prejudice! And to think that she even took McGuirr…

Until now, it would have been a fairly routine briefing, if not for his none-too-subtle God question. Not only was that not subtle, it was also in bad taste, sophomoric. Pirx could feel it in his bones; he was a real klutz for trying a cute stunt like that. They were still staring at him, except Thomson, the redhead, and the two pilots seemed more poker-faced than before, as if to conceal the fact that they were wise to the deep-down klutziness of this drone who’d just seen his glib, customary, and ever-so-pat composure blown. He felt compelled to go on, to put an end to the silence, which was growing more incriminating by the second, but his mind drew a blank, leaving only despair to tempt him into doing something wild, screwy, something that, in his heart of hearts, he knew he could never bring himself to do. He’d made a fool of himself; it was time to quit; his eyes sought out McGuirr.

“When can I board?”

“Any time you like. Today, even.”

“What about the health inspection?”

“All arranged. Don’t worry about it.”

The engineer sounded indulgent, or so it seemed to Pirx. “I
am
a sore loser,” he told himself. Then out loud:

“That’s it for now. Except for Brown, consider yourselves signed on. Brown, be ready tomorrow with the answer to my question. Mr. McGuirr, do you have the ship’s articles ready for signing?”

“I have, but not with me. They’re up in the office. Shall we?”

“Let’s.”

Pirx stood up, and the others did the same.

“Until tomorrow.” He nodded, and was the first to exit. The engineer caught up with him by the elevator.

“You underestimated us, Commander.”

He was his hearty, jovial self again.

“Oh? In what way?”

The elevator started moving. Carefully, trying not to topple its silver-gray cone of ash, the engineer lifted his cigar to his mouth.

“It’s not so easy … to tell them apart.”

Pirx shrugged.

“If they’re made of the same stuff as I am,” he said, “then they’re people, and I don’t care a damn how they got here—through artificial insemination, in a test tube, or in the more conventional way.”

“But they’re not made of the same stuff!”

“Of what, then?”

“Sorry—a company secret.”

“What’s your part?”

The elevator stopped and the door opened, but Pirx, waiting for an answer, stayed put.

“Do you mean, am I a design engineer? No, I’m in public relations.”

“Are you well enough informed to answer a few questions?”

“Gladly, but not here…”

The same secretary as before showed them into one of the conference rooms.

A long table, impeccably arrayed with chairs on either side. They sat down at the end where the contracts lay in an open portfolio.

“I’m all yours, Commander,” said McGuirr. Some cigar ash spilled, and he blew it off his pants.

Pirx now noticed the bloodshot eyes and perfectly set teeth. “They’re false,” he thought. “He’s trying not to look his age.”

“The—uh—nonhumans, do they act like humans? Do they eat meals? Drink?”

“Yes, they do.”

“What for?”

“To complete the illusion. For the benefit of those around them.”

“So, then, they have to … void it?”

“But of course.”

“And blood?”

“Pardon me?”

“Do they have blood? A heart? Do they bleed if they’re wounded?”

“They have the facsimile of a heart and blood.”

“What does that mean?”

“That only a trained specialist, a doctor, could tell the difference, and then only after a thorough examination.”

“And I couldn’t?”

“No. Assuming you didn’t use any special gadgets.”

“Like an X-ray machine?”

“Very good! But X-ray machines aren’t standard flight equipment.”

“Spoken like a true layman,” said Pirx calmly. “Isotopes I can get from the pile, as many as I want; and—oh, yes—I’ll have to have a fluoroscope aboard. So you see, no X-ray machine needed.”

“No objections, provided you agree not to scan.”

“And if I don’t agree?”

McGuirr sighed and, tamping out his cigar in the ashtray as if he’d suddenly lost the taste for it, said: “Commander, you’re doing your utmost to … complicate things.”

“Right you are!” answered Pirx. “So they do bleed?”

“Yes.”

“Real blood? Even under the microscope?”

“Real blood.”

“How did you manage
that?”

“Impressive, huh?” grinned McGuirr. “Works on the sponge principle. A special subcutaneous sponge. More I can’t tell you.”

“Is it human blood?”

“Yes.”

“Why go to such trouble?”

“Obviously not to make a sucker out of you. This multi-billion-dollar investment wasn’t only for your sake, you know! It was so no one—the passengers, for example—would ever suspect…”

“You’re worried about a public boycott?”

“Not only that. There’s the psychological comfort.”

“Can
you
tell which is which?”

“Only because I know them. OK, there are ways, but… I wouldn’t advise using a hatchet on them.”

“And no other physiological give-aways? Breathing, coughing, blushing…?”

“Minimized. There are differences, sure, but, as I said, only ones a doctor would recognize.”

“Psychological?”

“Our greatest breakthrough!” said McGuirr with genuine pride. “Until now, the brain was centrally located because of its size. But Inteltron was the first to fit it in the head!”

“The second, really—nature was the first.”

“Har-har! OK—second, then. The specs are still hush-hush, but… It’s a monocrystal multistat with sixteen billion binary elements!”

“Their emotional capabilities—is that also hush-hush?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Are they capable, for instance, of telling lies? Can they lose their self-control, control of the situation…?”

“All possible.”

“How so?”

“Technically unavoidable. Any breaks—figuratively, of course—introduced into a neuron or crystal system are relative, can be overridden. If you’re at all up on the latest, you know that a robot that can match man mentally and not be capable of lying or cheating is a fantasy. Either full equivalents or puppets. Nothing in between.”

“Capable of one, capable of the other, right?”

“Yes. But the costs are damned prohibitive. For now, anyway. Psychological versatility, to say nothing of anthropoidality, costs a fortune. The models you’ll be getting are experimental prototypes—the price tag per unit is higher than for a supersonic bomber.”

“No kidding?”

“That includes the cost of research, of course. We hope to be able to mass-produce, even refine them one day, but for the moment … well, we’re giving you the top of the line. In any case, their fallibility ratio will be lower than for humans in a comparable situation.”

“Were they experimentally tested?”

“How else?”

“With human test subjects for comparison?”

“That, too.”

“Under emergency conditions?”

“Those above all.”

“And the results?”

“Humans are more error-prone.”

“What about their aggression instinct?”

“Toward humans?”

“Not only.”

“No need to worry. They come equipped with special built-in inhibitors, called ‘reverse-discharge systems,’ that cushion the aggression potential.”

“In every case?”

“Impossible. Their brain, like ours, is a probability system. The probability of specific responses can be increased, but not raised to a certainty. Though here again they have the edge.”

“And if I went to crack the skull of one…?”

“He’d fight back.”

“To the point of killing me?”

“In self-defense only.”

“And if attack was the only defense?”

“He’d attack.”

“Hand me those contracts,” said Pirx.

The pen squeaked in the silence. The engineer folded the legal forms, then tucked them into his portfolio.

“Are you heading back to the States?” Pirx asked.

“First thing tomorrow.”

“You can tell your superiors I’ll try to bring out the worst in them.”

“That’s the spirit! We’re counting on it! Because even their worst is better than man’s. Only…”

“You were about to say?”

“You’re a brave man, Pirx. All the same, I’d recommend caution.”

“So they don’t gang up on me?” said Pirx, forcing a smile.

“So you’re not made the fall guy. You see, your humans will be the first to bail out. Your average, decent, good-boy types. Get it?”

“Get it,” answered Pirx. “I’ll be shoving off now. Time for me to take command of my ship.”

“My helicopter is on the roof,” said McGuirr, rising to his feet. “Can I give you a lift?”

“No, thanks. I’ll take the subway. Don’t like to take chances, you know. And you’ll tell them that I intend to play rough?”

“If you like.”

McGuirr was searching his pockets for a fresh cigar.

“Frankly, I find your attitude a bit strange. What do you expect? They’re not human; no one’s claiming they are. They’re highly trained professionals—and conscientious, too, ready to oblige. They’ll do anything for you.”

“I’ll make sure they do even more,” retorted Pirx.

Pirx, not about to let Brown off the hook in the God affair, made a point of phoning him the next day—the “nonlinear” pilot’s telephone number was made available courtesy of UNESCO. He dialed and recognized the voice.

“I was expecting your call.”

“Well, which is it to be?” asked Pirx. He felt strangely apathetic, not half so blithe as when he had signed McGuirr’s papers. At the time, he’d thought: No big deal. Now he wasn’t so sure.

“I wasn’t given much time,” said Brown in that flat, purling voice of his. “So all I can say is, I was taught the probability method. I calculate the odds and act accordingly. In this case, I’d say … ninety percent, or even ninety-nine-point-nine percent, it’s no, with less than one chance in a hundred it’s yes.”

“That there is a God?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. You can sign on with the others. See you aboard ship.”

“Good-bye,” answered the softspoken baritone, and the receiver clicked.

Pirx was reminded, out of the blue, of this conversation on his way to the spaceport. Somebody—UNESCO? his crew’s “manufacturers”?—had already got clearance from Port Control. No health inspection, no crew certification, with lift-off scheduled for 1445 hours during the afternoon lull. The three fair-sized satellite probes destined for Saturn were already in their bays. The
Goliath
—a ship of medium tonnage, in the six thousand range, highly computerized, only two years out of the shipyard—had an ultrasmooth, non-oscillating, fast-neutron pile, occupying a mere ten cubic meters in space, with a capacity of forty-five million horsepower, seventy million for quick acceleration.

Pirx knew nothing of his crew’s Paris accommodations—a hotel? a company-rented apartment? (a grotesque, macabre thought: maybe McGuirr had unplugged them and boxed them away for the past two days)—or even how they’d got to the port.

They were mustered in a separate room at Port Control, each with suitcase, duffel bag, and a lightweight tote bag with a name tag dangling from the straps. The sight of the duffel bags inspired comic visions of monkey wrenches, cosmetic oilcans, and the like. But he was in no laughing mood as, having said his hellos to everyone, he submitted the flight authorizations and ship’s articles needed for final clearance. Then, two hours ahead of launch time, they stepped onto a floodlit pad and filed out to the snow-white
Goliath.
It looked a bit like a giant, freshly uncrated wedding cake.

A routine blast-off. The
Goliath
needed almost no help in lifting off, thanks to a full array of automatic and semi-automatic sequencers. A half hour later, they were already far above Earth’s nocturnal hemisphere and its fluorescent rash of cities; and Pirx, although a veteran spaceborne observer of Earth’s atmosphere when it was brushed “against the grain” by the sunrise, was now, as always, a willing spectator to this giant sickle of burning rainbow. Minutes later, they passed the last navigational satellite—one of those “electronic bureaucrats of the cosmos,” as Pirx dubbed the diligent machines—in a hail of crackle and bleeps, and climbed above the ecliptic. After instructing the chief pilot to stay at the controls, Pirx retired to his cabin. Not ten minutes had passed when there was a knock at the door.

“Yes?”

It was Brown. Gently closing the door behind him, he went up to Pirx, who was lounging on the edge of his bunk, and said in a subdued voice:

“I’d like a few words with you.”

“Take a seat.”

Brown lowered himself onto a chair, pulled it up closer to cut down the distance between them, kept demurely silent with eyes lowered for a moment, then suddenly looked straight into the CO’s eyes.

“I have something to tell you. In confidence. Promise you won’t repeat a word?”

Pirx cocked his eyebrows.

“A secret?” He deliberated for a few seconds. “OK, you have my word,” he said at last. “I’m all ears.”

“I’m human,” said Brown, and paused, staring at Pirx to gauge the effect of his words. But Pirx, his eyelids at half mast, his head leaning against the white polyfoam-padded wall, registered no emotion. “I’m coming clean because I want to help you,” the visitor resumed, in the tone of someone reciting a well-rehearsed speech. “When I first applied, I didn’t know what it was all about—they processed us separately, to keep us from getting acquainted. It wasn’t until after I was selected, until after all the flight tests and screenings, that I was briefed. Even then I had to swear absolute secrecy. Look, I have a girl, we want to get married, but financially… Well, here was our big break—a cash advance of eight thousand, with another eight thousand payable on signing off, win or lose. These are the facts; I’m clean, really. How was I supposed to know! Some kind of weirdo experiment, that’s what I thought at the beginning. Then the whole thing started to get to me. I mean, it’s a question of our common cause… Who am I to cover up? I have no right to do that. You agree?”