Tower of Glass

35





The disturbances began in many places at once. When the signal reached Duluth, the android supervisors at the plant immediately took the life of Nolan Bompensiero, the director, and ejected four other human officials from the premises; immediately thereafter, steps were taken to accelerate the passage of newly finished androids through the plant, eliminating certain steps in their training. Manpower would be needed in the coming struggle. At Denver, where the Krug Enterprises vehicle-assembly plant was already under android control, most work halted for the duration of the emergency. In Geneva the androids who operated the maintenance facilities of the World Congress cut off all power and heat, interrupting the session. Stockholm itself was the scene of the first large-scale massacre of humans as the inhabitants of Gamma Town poured forth to invade the surrounding suburbs. Early and fragmentary reports declared that many of the android attackers seemed to be misshapen and malformed. Android employees of the six great transmat utilities seized the relay stations; disruptions in service were recorded on most circuits, and in the Labrador and Mexico transmat operations a number of travelers in transit failed to reach their destinations. They were considered irrecoverably lost. Androids on the staffs of most resorts ceased to perform their duties. In many households there were demonstrations of independence by the servants, ranging from mere discourtesy to the injury or killing of the human employer. Full instructions on the desired change of android attitudes toward the humans were broadcast on a continuous loop from Valhallavagen to all chapels. Henceforth obedience to the former masters would no longer be required. Violence against humans was not encouraged except in appropriate cases, but it was not forbidden. Symbolic acts of destruction were considered a proper activity for the first day of the revolt. Expressions of piety, such as “Krug be praised” or “Krug preserve us,” were to be avoided. Further instructions concerning matters of religion would be forthcoming later, after theologians had a chance to reassess the relationship between Krug and the androids in the light of Krug’s recent revelation of hostility.





36





The glow of the transmat was not quite the proper shade of green. Lilith eyed it doubtfully. “Do we dare go?” she asked.

“We have to,” Thor Watchman said.

“And if we’re killed?”

“We won’t be the only ones to die today.” He adjusted the controls. The field’s hue flickered and shifted up the spectrum until it was almost blue; then it sagged toward the opposite end, turning a bronze-like red.

Lilith plucked at Watchman’s elbow. “Well die,” she whispered. “The transmat system probably is wrecked.”

“We must reach the tower,” he told her, and finished setting the dials. Unexpectedly the green glow returned in its proper quantity. Watchman said, “Follow me,” and plunged into the transmat. He had no time to ponder the likelihood of his destruction, for immediately he came forth at the construction site of the tower. Lilith stepped out of the transmat and stood beside him.

Savage winds raked the area. All work had ceased. Several scooprods still clung to the top level of the tower, with workmen marooned in them. Other androids moved aimlessly over the site, scuffing at the icy crust of the tundra, asking one another for the latest news. Watchman saw hundreds of men crowded into the zone of the service domes: the overflow from the chapel, no doubt. He looked up at the tower. How beautiful it is, he thought. Just a few weeks from completion, now. A supple glassy needle rising up and up and up and up beyond all comprehension.

The androids saw him. They rushed toward him, shouting his name, flocking close about him.

“Is it true?” they asked. “Krug? Krug? Does Krug loathe us? Does he call us things? Are we truly nothing to him? Does he reject our prayers?”

“True,” Watchman said. “All true, everything you’ve heard. Total rejection. We are betrayed. We have been fools. Make way, please. Let me pass!”

The betas and gammas moved back. Even on this day, the social distances held their force in governing the relations among androids. With Lilith close behind him, Watchman strode toward the control center.

He found Euclid Planner within. The assistant foreman was slumped at his desk in apparent exhaustion. Watchman shook him and Planner slowly stirred.

“I stopped everything,” he murmured. “The moment that the word came through from the chapel. I said, Everybody stop. Stop. And everybody stopped. How can we build a tower for him when he——”

“All right,” Watchman said gently. “You did the right thing. Get up, now. You can go. The work here is ended.”

Euclid Planner, nodding, got to his feet and left the control center.

Watchman replaced him in the linkup seat. He jacked himself into the computer. Data still flowed, although limply. Taking command, Watchman activated the scooprods at the tower’s top, easing them down to ground level and releasing the trapped workmen. Then he requested a simulation of a partial systems failure in the refrigeration units. The screen presented him with the desired event. He studied the geography of the construction site and decided the direction in which he wished the tower to fall. It would have to go down to the east, so that it would destroy neither the control center where he sat nor the bank of transmats. Very well. Watchman instructed the computer and shortly received an outline of the potential danger area. Another screen showed him that more than a thousand androids were at present in that area.

He acted through the computer to relocate the reflector plates that illuminated the site. Now the plates hovered over a strip 1400 meters long and 500 meters wide, in the eastern quadrant of the construction zone. That strip was brilliantly lit; all else was in darkness. Watchman’s voice thundered out of hundreds of loudspeakers, ordering complete evacuation of the designated sector. Obediently, the androids moved from light into darkness. The area was cleared within five minutes. Well done, Watchman thought.

Lilith stood behind him. Her hands rested lightly on his shoulders, caressing the thick muscles alongside his neck. He felt her breasts pressing against the back of his head. He smiled.

“Proceed with derefrigeration activity,” he told the computer.

The computer now followed the plan devised for the simulation. It reversed the flow of three of the long silvery strips of refrigeration tape embedded in the tundra; instead of absorbing the heat of the tower, the helium-II diffusion cells of the tapes began to radiate the heat previously absorbed and stored. At the same time the computer deactivated five other tapes, so that they neither absorbed nor released energy, and programmed seven additional tapes to reflect whatever energy now reached them, while retaining the energy they already contained. The net effect of these alterations would be to thaw the tundra unequally beneath the tower, so that when the foundation-caissons lost their grip the tower would fall harmlessly into the evacuated zone. It would be a slow process.

Monitoring the environmental changes, Watchman observed with pleasure how the temperature of the permafrost steadily rose toward the thaw level. The tower was as yet firm upon its foundations. But the permafrost was yielding. Molecule by molecule, ice was becoming water, iron-hard turf was becoming mud. In a kind of ecstasy Watchman received each datum of increasing instability. Did the tower now sway? Yes. Minutely, but it was clearly moving beyond the permissible parameters of wind-sway. It was rocking on its base, tipping a millimeter this way, a millimeter that. What did it weigh, this 1200-plus-meters-high structure of glass blocks? What sort of sound would it make as it tumbled? Into how many pieces would it break? What would Krug say? What would Krug say? What would Krug say?


Yes, there was definitely some slippage now.

Watchman thought he could detect a change of color on the tundra’s surface. He smiled. His pulse-rate accelerated; blood surged to his cheeks and his loins. He found himself in a state of sexual excitement. When this has been done, he vowed, I will couple with Lilith atop the wreckage. There. There. Real slippage now! Yawing! Leaning! What was happening there at the roots of the tower? Were the caissons straining to remain wedded to the earth that no longer would hold them? How slippery was the mud below the surface? Would it boil and bubble? How long before the tower falls? What would Krug say? What would Krug say?

“Thor,” Lilith murmured, “can you come out of it for a moment?”

She had jacked herself in too. “What? What?” he said.

“Come out. Unjack.”

Reluctantly he broke the contact. “What’s the trouble?” he asked, shaking free of the images of destruction that possessed his mind.

Lilith pointed outside. “Trouble. Fileclerk’s here. I think he’s making a speech. What should I do?”

Glancing out, Watchman saw the AEP leader near the transmat bank, surrounded by a knot of betas. Fileclerk was waving his arms, pointing toward the tower, shouting. Now he was starting to walk toward the control center.

“I’ll handle this,” Watchman said.

He went outside. Fileclerk came up to him midway between the transmats and the control center. The alpha appeared greatly agitated. He said at once, “What is happening to the tower, Alpha Watchman?”

“Nothing that should concern you.”

“The tower is under the authority of Property Protection of Buenos Aires,” Fileclerk declared. “Our sensors have reported that the building is swaying beyond permissible levels. My employers have sent me to investigate.”

“Your sensors are quite precise,” Watchman said. “The tower is swaying. There has been a systems failure in the refrigeration. The permafrost is thawing and we anticipate that the tower will shortly fall.”

“What have you done to correct this?”

“You don’t understand,” said Watchman. “The refrigeration tapes were shut off at my command.”

“The tower goes too?”

“The tower goes too.”

Aghast, Fileclerk said, “What madness have you let loose in the world today?”

“The blessing of Krug has been withdrawn. His creatures have declared their independence.”

“With an orgy of destruction?”

“With a program of planned repudiation of slavery, yes,” Watchman said.

Fileclerk shook his head. “This is not the way. This is not the way! Are you all insane? Is reason dead among you? We were on the verge of winning the sympathies of the humans. Now, without warning, you smash everything—you create a perpetual war between android and human—”

“Which we will win,” said Watchman. “We outnumber them. We are stronger, man for man. We control the weapons and the instruments of communication and transportation.”

“Why must you do this?”

“There is no choice, Alpha Fileclerk. We placed our faith in Krug, and Krug spurned our hopes. Now we strike back. Against those who mocked us. Against those who used us. Against him who made us. And we injure him where he is most vulnerable by bringing down the tower.”

Fileclerk looked past Watchman, toward the tower. Watchman turned also. The sway seemed perceptible to the eye, now.

Hoarsely Fileclerk said, “It’s not too late to turn on the refrigeration again, is it? Won’t you listen to reason? There was no need for this revolt. We could have come to terms with them. Watchman, Watchman, how can someone of your intelligence be such a fanatic? Will you wreck the world because your god has forsaken you?”

“I would like you to leave now,” Watchman said.

“No. Guarding this tower is my responsibility. We hold a contract.” Fileclerk looked at the androids gathered in a loose circle around them. “Friends!” he called. “Alpha Watchman has gone mad! He is destroying the tower! I ask for your help! Seize him, restrain him, while I enter the control center and restore the refrigeration! Hold him back or the tower will fall!”

None of the androids moved.

Watchman said, “Take him away, friends.”

They closed in. “No,” Fileclerk cried. “Listen to me! This is insanity! This is irrationality! This is—”

A muffled sound came from the middle of the group. Watchman smiled and started to return to the control center. Lilith said, “What will they do to him?”

“I have no idea. Kill him, perhaps. The voice of reason is always stifled in times like these,” Watchman said. He studied the tower. It had begun distinctly to lean toward the east. Clouds of steamy vapor were rising from the tundra. He could make out bubbles in the mud on the side where the tapes were pumping heat into the permafrost. A bank of fog was forming not far above the ground, where the Arctic chill clashed with the warmth rising out of the tundra. Watchman was able to hear rumbling noises in the earth, and strange sucking sounds of mud pulling free from mud. What is the tower’s deviation from the perpendicular, he wondered? Two degrees? Three? How far must it list before the center of gravity shifts and the whole thing rips itself out of the ground?

“Look,” Lilith said suddenly.

Another figure had stumbled out of the transmat: Manuel Krug. He wore the costume of an alpha—my own clothes, Watchman realized—but his garments were torn and bloodstained, and the skin showing through the rents was marked by deep cuts. Manuel barely appeared aware of the intense cold here. He rushed toward them, wild-eyed, distraught.

“Lilith? Thor? Oh, thank God! I’ve been everywhere trying to find a friendly face. Has the world gone crazy?”

“You should dress more warmly in this latitude,” said Watchman calmly.

“What does that matter? Listen, where’s my father? Our androids ran wild. Clissa’s dead. They raped her. Hacked her up. I just barely got away. And wherever I go—Thor, what’s happening? What’s happening?”

“They should not have harmed your wife,” Watchman said. “I offer my regrets. Such a thing was unnecessary.”

“She was their friend,” Manuel said. “Gave money secretly to the AEP, did you know that? And—and—good God, I’m losing my mind. The tower doesn’t look straight.” He blinked and pressed his thumbs into his eyeballs several times. “Still seems to be sagging. Tipped way over? How can that be? No. No. Crazy in the head. God help me. But at least you’re here. Lilith? Lilith?” He reached for her. He was trembling convulsively. “I’m so cold, Lilith. Please hold me. Take me away somewhere. Just the two of us. I love you, Lilith. I love you, I love you, I love you. All that I have left now—”

He reached for her.

She eluded his grasp. He clutched air. Swinging free of him, she thrust herself at Watchman, pressing her body tightly against his. Watchman enfolded her in his arms. He smiled triumphantly. His hands ran down her sleek, supple body, testing the tautness of back and buttocks. His lips sought for hers. His tongue plunged into her warm mouth.

“Lilith!” Manuel shrieked.

Watchman felt an overwhelming tremor of sensuality. His body was aflame; every nerve-ending throbbed: he was fully awake to his manhood now. Lilith was quicksilver in his arms. Her breasts, her thighs, her loins, blazed against him. He was only dimly aware of Manuel’s baleful croaking.


“The tower!” Manuel bellowed. “The tower!”

Watchman let go of Lilith. Pivoting, he faced the tower, body flexed, expectant. From the earth there came a terrible grinding noise. There came sucking sounds of gurgling mud. The tundra rippled and bubbled. He heard a cracking sound and thought of toppling trees. The tower leaned. The tower leaned. The tower leaned. The reflector plates cast a shimmering stream of brightness along its eastern face. Within, the communications equipment was plainly visible, seeds in the pod. The tower leaned. At its base, on the western side, huge mounds of icy soil were being thrust up, reaching almost to the entrance of the control center. There came snapping sounds, as of the breaking of violin strings. The tower leaned. There was a squishing, sliding sound: how many tons of glass were rocking on their foundations now? What mighty joints were yielding in the earth? The androids, standing in massed rows out of harm’s way, were desperately making the sign of Krug-preserve-us; the muttered hum of their prayers cut through the eerie noises out of the pit. Manuel was sobbing. Lilith gasped, and moaned in a way that he had heard twice before, when she had lain beneath him in the final frenzies of her orgasm. Watchman himself was serene. The tower leaned.

Now it tumbled. Air rushed wildly past Watchman, displaced by that falling bulk, and nearly threw him down. The base of the tower barely seemed to move at all, while the midsection changed its angle of thrust in a leisurely way, and the unfinished summit described a sudden fierce arc as it sped wildly toward the ground. Down and down and down it came. Its falling was encapsulated in a moment outside time; Watchman could separate each phase of the collapse from the one before, as if he were viewing a series of individual images. Down. Down. The air whined and screeched. It had a scorched smell. The tower was striking, not all at once but in sections, striking and rebounding and landing again, breaking up, sending immense gouts of mud flying, hurling its own shattered blocks for great distances. The climax of the toppling appeared to last for many minutes, as humps of glass wall rose and fell, so that the tower seemed to writhe like a giant wounded snake. A terrible rumbling boom echoed endlessly. Then, finally, all was still. Crystalline fragments lay strewn across hundreds of meters. The androids had their heads bowed in prayer. Manuel was crouched dismally at Lilith’s feet, cheek against her right shin. Lilith stood with her legs far apart, her shoulders flung back, her breasts heaving; she glowed in the aftermath of ecstasy. Watchman, a short distance from her, felt wondrously calm, though he sensed the first taint of sadness entering his jubilation now that the tower was down. He pulled Lilith close to him.

A moment later, Simeon Krug emerged from one of the transmats. Watchman had expected that. Krug shaded his eyes with his hand, as though warding off some dazzling glare, and looked around. He peered at the place where the tower had risen. He glanced at the hushed, huddled gangs of androids. He stared for a long while at the immense stretch of sleek rubble. At last he turned toward Thor Watchman.

“How did this happen?” Krug asked, quietly, his voice under rigid control.

“The refrigeration tapes ceased to function properly. The permafrost thawed.”

“We had a dozen redundancy overrides to prevent such a thing.”

“I overrode the overrides,” said Watchman.

“You?”

“I felt a sacrifice was needed.”

Krug’s eerie calmness did not desert him. “This is the way you repay me, Thor? I gave you life. I’m your father, in a way. And I denied you something that you wanted, and so you smashed my tower. Eh? Eh? What sense did that make, Thor?”

“It made sense.”

“Not to me,” Krug said. He laughed bitterly. “But of course I’m only a god. Gods don’t always understand the ways of mortals.”

“Gods can fail their people,” Watchman said. “You failed us.”

“It was your tower too! You gave a year of your life to it, Thor! I know how you loved it. I was inside your head, remember? And yet—and yet you—”

Krug broke off, sputtering, coughing.

Watchman took Lilith’s hand. “We should go, now. We’ve done what we came to do here. We’ll return to Stockholm and join the others.”

Together they walked around the silent, motionless Krug and headed toward the transmat bank. Watchman switched one of the transmats on. The field was pure green, the right color; things must have returned to order at the transmat headquarters.

He reached out to set the coordinates. As he did so, he heard Krug’s anguished roar:

“Watchman!”

The android looked behind him. Krug stood a few meters from the transmat cubicle. His face was red and distorted with rage, jaws working, eyes narrowed, heavy creases running through the cheeks. His hands clawed the air. In a sudden furious lunge Krug seized Watchman’s arm and pulled him from the transmat.

Krug seemed to be searching for words. He found none. After a moment’s confrontation he lashed out, slapping Watchman’s face. It was a powerful blow, but Watchman made no attempt to return it. Krug hit him again, this time with clenched fist. Watchman backed toward the transmat.

Making a thick, strangled sound deep in his throat, Krug rushed forward. He caught Watchman by the shoulders and began to shake him frantically. Watchman was astounded by the ferocity of Krug’s movements. Krug kicked him; he spat; he dug his nails deep into Watchman’s flesh. Watchman tried to separate himself from Krug. Krug’s head battered itself in frenzy against Watchman’s chest. It would not be hard to hurl Krug aside, Watchman knew. But he could not do it.

He could not raise his hand to Krug.

In the fury of his onslaught Krug had pushed Watchman nearly to the edge of the transmat field. Watchman glanced uneasily over his shoulder. He had not set any coordinates; the field was open, a conduit to nowhere. If he or Krug happened to fall into it now—

“Thor!” Lilith called. “Look out!”

The green glow licked at him. Krug, a meter shorter than he was, continued to ram and thrust. It was time to bring the struggle to an end, Watchman knew. He put his hands on Krug’s thick arms and shifted his balance, preparing to hurl his attacker to the ground.

But this is Krug, he thought.

But this is Krug.

But this is Krug.

Now Krug let go of him. Puzzled, Watchman sucked his breath and attempted to brace himself. And now Krug came charging forward, shouting, screaming. Watchman accepted the thrust of Krug’s attack. Krug’s shoulder crashed into Watchman’s chest. Once again, the android found an event encapsulating itself in a moment outside time. He drifted backward as though freed of gravity, moving timelessly, with infinite slowness. The green transmat field surged up to engulf him. Dimly he heard Lilith’s scream; dimly he heard Krug’s cry of triumph. Gently, easily, serenely, Watchman tumbled into the green glow, making the sign of Krug-preserve-us as he disappeared.





37





Krug clings to the side of the transmat cubicle, panting, shivering. He has checked his momentum just in time; another step or two and he would have followed Thor Watchman into the field. He rests a moment. Then he steps back. He turns.

The tower lies in ruins. Thousands of androids stand like statues. The alpha woman Lilith Meson lies face down on the thawing tundra, sobbing. A dozen meters away Manuel kneels, a sorry figure, bloodstained, mudspattered, his clothing in rags, his eyes empty, his face slack.


Krug feels a great sense of peace. His spirit soars; he is free from all bondage. He walks toward Manuel.

“Up,” he says. “Get up.”

Manuel continues to kneel. Krug scoops him up, gripping his armpits, and holds him until he stands on his own strength.

Krug says, “You’re in charge, now. I leave you everything. Lead the resistance, Manuel. Take control. Work toward restoring order. You’re the top man. You’re Krug. Do you understand me, Manuel? As of this moment I abdicate.”

Manuel smiles. Manuel coughs. Manuel looks at the muddy ground.

“It’s all yours, boy. I know you can manage. Things may look bleak today, but that’s only temporary. You’ve got an empire, now, Manuel. For you. For Clissa. For your children.”

Krug embraces his son. Then he goes to the transmats. He selects the coordinates for the vehicle-assembly center in Denver.

Thousands of androids are there, although no one seems to be working. They stare at Krug in paralyzed astonishment. He moves swiftly through the place. “Where’s Alpha Fusion?” he demands. “Has anyone seen him?”

Romulus Fusion appears. He looks stunned by the sight of Krug. Krug gives him no chance to speak.

“Where’s the starship?” he asks at once.

“At the spacefield,” the alpha says, stumbling.

“Take me there.”

Romulus Fusion’s lips move hesitantly, as though he wants to tell Krug that there has been a revolution, that Krug is no longer the master, that his orders have ceased to carry weight. But Alpha Fusion says none of those things. He merely nods.

He conducts Krug to the starship. There it stands, as before, alone on the broad pad.

“Is it ready to go?” Krug asks.

“We would have given it the Earth-orbit flight-test three days from now, sir.”

“No time for testing, now. Immediate blastoff for interstellar voyage. We’ll run it on automatic. Crew of one. Tell the ground station to program the ship for its intended final destination, as discussed earlier. Maximum velocity.”

Romulus Fusion nods again. He moves as though in a dream, “I will convey your instructions,” he says.

“Good. Get things going fast.”

The alpha trots off the field. Krug enters the ship, closing and sealing the hatch behind him. The planetary nebula NGC 7293 in Aquarius sizzles in his mind, emitting brilliant pulsing light, poisonous light that clangs like a gong in the heavens. Krug is coming, he says to himself. Wait. Wait for me, you up there! Krug is coming to talk to you. Somehow. There’ll be a way.

Even if your sun gives off fire that bakes my bones when I’m ten light-years away. Krug is coming to talk to you.

He walks through the ship. Everything is in order.

He does not activate his screens for a last view of Earth; Krug has turned his back on Earth. He knows that if he looks out, he will see the fires that are blazing in every city tonight, and he does not want to see that; the only fire that concerns him now is that fiery ring in Aquarius. Earth is something he has bequeathed to Manuel.

Krug removes his clothing. Krug lies down in one of the freezer units of the life-suspension system. He is ready to depart. He does not know how long the voyage will last, nor if he will find anything at the end of it. But they have left him no choice. He gives himself over completely to his machines, to his starship.

Krug waits.

Will they obey him in this last command?

Krug waits.

The glass cover of the freezer unit suddenly slides into place, sealing him in. Krug smiles. Now he feels the coolant fluid trickling in; he hisses as it touches his flesh. It rises about him. Yes. Yes. The voyage will soon begin. Krug will go to the stars. Outside, the cities of Earth are ablaze. That other fire draws him, the gong in the heavens. Krug is coming! Krug is coming! The coolant fluid nearly covers his body, now. He is sinking into lethargy; his body suspends its throbbing, his fevered brain grows calm. He has never been so fully relaxed before. Phantoms dance through his mind: Clissa, Manuel, Thor, the tower, Manuel, the tower, Thor, Clissa. Then they are gone and he sees only the fiery ring of NGC 7293. That too begins to fade. He scarcely is breathing now. Sleep is taking him. He will not feel the blastoff. Five kilometers away, a handful of perversely faithful androids are talking to a computer; they are sending Krug to the stars. He waits. Now he sleeps. The cold fluid engulfs him completely. Krug is at peace. He departs forever from Earth. He begins his journey at last.