Tower of Glass (26 page)

Three androids now enter from the rear of the chapel. Two betas and an alpha, wearing brocaded stoles on which the letters of the genetic code are inscribed. They have a priestly look about them. The service is about to begin. As the three kneel by the altar, everyone else makes Krug-be-praised, and then Krug-preserve-us. I do as they do.

Are they priests?

They’re celebrants, Lilith says. We don’t exactly have a priesthood. We have various castes that play different roles in different ceremonies, according to structure and texture of the ritual. The alpha’s a Preserver. He enters a trance that places him in direct communion with Krug. The two betas are Projectors. They amplify his emotional state. At other times you might see Engulfers, Transcenders, or Protectors officiating, with the help of Yielders or Sacrificers or Re- sponders.

Which caste are you?

Responder.

And Thor Watchman?

Preserver.

The alpha by the altar began to chant: CAU, UUC, UCA, CGA. CCG, GCC, GAG, AUC.

Is the whole thing going to be in code?

No. This is just to establish the texture.

What’s he saying?

Two betas not far in front of us turn around to glare. Shushing us. They see we are alphas and bite their lips.

Lilith whispers, more faintly than before, He’s saying, Krug brings us into the world and to Krug we return.

GGC, GUU, UUC, GAG.

Krug is our creator and our protector and our deliverer.

UUC, CUG, CUC, UAC.

Krug, we beseech Thee to lead us toward the light.

I can’t comprehend the code. The symbols don’t match the sense. Which symbol is Krug? How does the grammar work? I can’t ask Lilith that here. Others are turning to stare. Those noisy alphas back there. Don’t they have any respect?

The Projectors hum deep resonant chords. The Preserver continues to chant code. Lilith now begins to function as a Responder, echoing what is chanted. The lights dim and grow bright. The fluid over the altar bubbles more fiercely. The image of Krug seems to glow; the eyes reach into my soul.

Now I can understand about half the words of the service. Interspersed with the code, they are asking Krug to redeem the Children of the Vat, to give them freedom, to lift them to the level of the Children of the Womb. They sing about the day when Womb and Vat and Vat and Womb are one. With an infinity of Krug-preserve-us gestures they beg the mercy of Krug. Krug! Krug! Krug! Krug! Everything here orbits around the idea of a merciful Krug!

I start to see the picture. This is an equality movement! This is an android liberation front!

Krug our master, lead us to our rightful place beside our brothers and sisters of the flesh.

Krug bring redemption.

Krug end our suffering.

Praise be to Krug.

Glory be to Krug.

The service gains intensity. Everyone is singing, chanting, making signs, including several that Lilith never showed me. Lilith herself is wholly absorbed in prayer. I feel isolated, an infidel, an intruder, as I listen to them pray to their creator, my father, who is their god. For long spells the service is conducted entirely in the code-language, but familiar words keep bursting through. Krug descend and redeem us. Krug give your blessing. Krug end this time of testing. Krug we need you. Krug Krug Krug Krug Krug. With each Krug I jump minutely, I twitch in the shoulderblades. I never suspected any of this. How did they keep it so secret? Krug the god. My father the god. And I am Krug too. If Krug dies, what will they worship? How can a god die? Do they preach the resurrection of Krug? Or is Krug on Earth only a transient manifestation of the true Krug on high? From some of the lines of the service, I get that idea.

Now they are all singing at once, a booming unison:

AAA AAG AAC AAU be to Krug.

AGA
AGG AGC AGU be to Krug.

ACA ACG ACC ACU be to Krug.

They are offering him the whole genetic code, line by line. I follow from a column on the wall. Suddenly I hear my own voice joining the chant:

GAA GAG GAC GAU be to Krug.

GGA GGG GGC GGU be to Krug.

Lilith turns and smiles at me. Her face is flushed and bright, excited, exalted, almost a sexual rapture on it. She nods, encouraging me.

I sing louder.

GCA GCG GCC GCU be to Krug.

GUA GUG GUC GUU be to Krug.

On and on it goes, the pitch strange, no one hitting any note squarely yet everyone keeping together perfectly, as though androids tune themselves to different intervals on some different scale. I have little trouble adapting, though, and stay with them right to the end, UUA UUG UUC UUU be to Krug.

We rise. We approach the altar. Standing shoulder to shoulder, Lilith to my left and some beta pressing against my right, we put our hands on that block of living flesh. It is warm and slippery; it quivers as we touch it. Vibrations pass through us. Krug, we chant, Krug, Krug, Krug, Krug.

The service is over.

Some of the androids file out. Others remain, looking too exhausted by the experience to leave just yet. I feel that way myself, and I have hardly taken part. An intense religious communion. Religion is said to be dead, a quaint olden custom now lapsed into disuse, but no, not among these people. They believe in higher powers and the efficacy of prayer. They think Krug listens. Does Krug listen? Has Krug ever listened? But they think so. If he does not listen now, they say, he
will
listen. And will lift them up out of bondage. The opiate of the masses, what? But the alphas also believe.

To Lilith I say, How long has this been happening, this religion?

Since before I was born.

Who invented it?

It started here in Stockholm. A group of alphas. It spread rapidly. Now there are believers all over the world.

Every android believes?

Not every. The AEP people don’t. We ask for miracles and divine grace; they stand for direct political agitation. But we outnumber them. Most of us believe. More than half. Just about every gamma, and most betas, and many alphas.

And you think that if you keep asking Krug to redeem you, he will?

Lilith smiles. What else can we hope for?

Have you ever approached Krug directly?

Never. You see, we distinguish between Krug the man and Krug the Creator, and we feel— She shakes her head. Let’s not talk in here. Someone might listen.

We start to go out. Halfway to the door she halts, goes back, takes something from a box at the base of the altar. She hands it to me. It is a data cube. She turns it on and I read the words that appear:

In the beginning there was Krug, and He said, Let there be Vats, and there were Vats.

And Krug looked upon the Vats and found them good.

And Krug said, Let there be high-energy nucleotides in the Vats. And the nucleotides were poured, and Krug mixed them until they were bonded one to another.

And the nucleotides formed the great molecules, and Krug said, Let there be the father and the mother both in the Vats, and let the cells divide, and let there be life brought forth within the Vats.

And there was life, for there was Replication.

And Krug presided over the Replication, and touched the fluids with His own hands, and gave them shape and essence.

Let men come forth from the Vats, said Krug, and let women come forth, and let them live and go among us and be sturdy and useful, and we shall call them Androids.

I thumb the cube. More of the same. Much more. An android bible. Well, why not?

Fascinating, I tell Lilith. When was this written?

They started it years ago. They still add sections now. About the nature of Krug, and the relation of man to Krug.

The relation of man to Krug. Beautiful.

She says, Keep it, if you find it interesting. It’s for you.

We leave the chapel. I hide the android bible under my clothes. It bulges.

At Lilith’s flat again. She said, Now you know. Our great secret. Our great hope.

What exactly do you expect my father to do for you?

Someday, she said, he will go before all the world and reveal his feelings about us. He will say, These androids have been treated unfairly, and now it is time to make amends. Let us give them citizenship. Let us give them full rights. Let us stop treating them as articles of property. And because he is Krug, because he is the one who gave the world androids, people will listen. He alone will sway them all. And things will change for us.

You really think this is going to happen?

I hope and pray it will, she said.

When? Soon?

That’s not for me to say. Five years—twenty years—forty years—maybe next month. Read the cube I gave you. It explains how we think Krug is just testing us, seeing how tough we are. Eventually the test will be over.

I wish I shared your optimism, I said. But I’m afraid you may wait a long, long time.

Why do you say that?

My father isn’t the humanitarian you think he is. He’s no villain, no, but he doesn’t think much about other people and their problems. He’s totally absorbed by his own projects.

Yet basically he’s an honorable person, Lilith said. I mean Krug the man, now. Not the divine figure we pray to. Just your father.

Yes, he’s honorable.

Then he’ll see the merits of our cause.

Maybe. Maybe not. I took her in my arms. Lilith, I wish there was something I could do to help!

There is.

What?

Speak to your father about us, she said.

32

January 30, 2219.

The tower is at 1165 meters: Even the androids are having some difficulty with the cold, thin air, now, as they labor more than a kilometer above the surface of the tundra. At least six, dizzied, have fallen from the summit in the past ten days. Thor Watchman has decreed oxygen-infusion sprays for all who work on high, but many of the gammas scorn the sprays as degrading and emasculating. Doubtless there will be more casualties as the final 335 meters of the tower are built in February and March.

But how splendid the structure is! The last few hundred meters cannot possibly add anything to its majesty and elegance; they can merely provide a terminal point for the wondrous thing that already exists. It tapers, it diminishes, it dwindles, and its upper reaches are lost in a halo of fire far overhead. Within, the busy technicians are making rapid progress installing the communications equipment. It is thought now that the accelerators will be in place by April, the proton track will be running in May, the preliminary testing of the tachyon generator can be done in June, and by August, perhaps, the first messages can go forth.

Perhaps the star-folk will reply; perhaps not.

It does not matter. The place of the tower in human history is assured.

33

At the beginning of the day, awakening beside snoring Quenelle in Uganda, Krug felt an enormous surge of energy, an upwelling of the vital force. He had rarely known such strength within himself. He took it as an omen: this was a day for activity, a day for the display of power in the pursuit of his various ends. He breakfasted and sped through the transmat to Denver.

Morning in East Africa was evening in Colorado; the late shift was at work on the starship. But Alpha Romulus Fusion was there, the diligent foreman of the vehicle-assembly center. He told Krug proudly that the starship had been transported from its underground construction hangar to the adjoining spacefield, where it was being readied for its first flight-tests.

Krug and Alpha Fusion went to the spacefield. Under a dazzle of reflector plates the starship looked plain and almost insignificant, for there was nothing unusual about its size—ordinary systemships were much larger—and its pebbly surface failed to gleam in the artificial illumination. Yet it seemed unutterably beautiful to Krug, second only to the tower in loveliness.

“What kind of flight-tests are planned?” he asked.

“A three-stage program. Early in February,” Romulus Fusion said, “we’ll give it its first lift and place it in Earth orbit. This merely to see that the basic drive system is functioning correctly. Next will come the first velocity test, at the end of February. We’ll put it under the full 2.4 g acceleration and make a short voyage, probably to the orbit of Mars. If that goes according to plan, we’ll stage a major velocity test in April, with a voyage lasting several weeks and covering several billion kilometers—that is, past the orbit of Saturn, possibly to the orbit of Pluto. Which should give us a clear idea of whether the ship is ready to undertake an interstellar voyage. If it can sustain itself under constant acceleration while going to Pluto and back, it should be able to go anywhere.”