The Silver Metal Lover

accumulated. Then someone tried to catch him, asking for a song I didn’t think existed.

“I never heard of that,” said Silver.

“No one did,” a voice shouted.

“But,” said Silver, “I can improvise a song to fit the title.”

They waited, and he did. It was beautiful. He’d remember it, too. He never forgets any song, copied or invented.

A silver coin hit the wall behind my head and sprang down next to the jar. Excited, the crowd was getting rough.

“Thank you,” Silver said, “but no more missiles, please. If you put out my girlfriend’s eye, she won’t be able to see to count the cash tonight.”

His girlfriend. Stupidly I reddened, feeling their eyes all swarm to me. Then the rangey man who’d apparently given us the coat button, but was still there, called:

“Here’s my request. I want to hear her sing.”

It was so awful I didn’t believe my ears, didn’t even feel afraid. But, “Come on,” said the button man. “She’s got a voice, hasn’t she? When’s she going to sing?”

At which sections of the crowd, enjoying the novelty of it all, began to shout in unison that they wanted me to sing, too.

Silver glanced at me, and then he raised his hand and they ceased making a noise.

“She has a sore throat today,” said Silver, and my blood moved in my veins and arteries again. Then he added, “Maybe tomorrow.”

“You going to be here tomorrow?” demanded the button man.

“Unless asked to move elsewhere.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow then,” said the button man, morosely.

He turned to shoulder out of the crowd, and Silver called dulcetly to him.

“To hear the lady sing costs more than to hear me.”

The button man glared at him.

“Oh, why?”

“Because,” said Silver reasonably, “I think she’s worth more than I am, and I’m setting the prices.”

The button man swore, and the crowd approved Silver’s chivalry. And I stood in a bath of icy sweat, staring at the money on the ground by the jar.

Silver accepted two more requests, and then, to howls of protest, said the session was over for the day. When they asked why, he said he was cold.

When the crowd had filtered away, Silver divided the money between the inner pockets of the cloak and my purse. A muffled clanking came from both of us, like a distant legion on the move, and I said grimly, “We’ll be mugged.”

“We haven’t earned that much.”

“This is a poor area.”

“I know.”

“My policode soon won’t work. And you couldn’t stop anyone if they attacked us.”

He raised an eyebrow at me.

“Oh, why not?”

“You’re not programmed for it. You’re not a Golder.” Why did my voice sound so nasty?

He said, “You might be surprised.”

“You surprise me all the time.”

“What’s the matter?” he said.

“Nothing. Everything. It’s all so easy for you. How you must despise us. Putty in your hands. Your metal hands.” I was crying slightly, again, and didn’t really know what I was saying, or why. “That man will come back. He’s the type. He’ll come back and bully me.”

“He fancies you. If you don’t want to sing, we’ll just ignore him.”

“You can. I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“You know why not. I trusted you, and you let them all think I’d sing. After I said —”

“I let them all think you might. You don’t have to. It’s a wonderful gimmick. The mysterious dumb blonde—dumb, I hastily add, in the vocal sense. Your earning ability will soar. In a month’s time, if you just sang a line of ‘Happy Birthday,’ they’d go wild.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“I am idiosyncratically silly.”

“Shut up,” I said.

He froze, turned up his amber eyes, and stood transfixed, a mechanism switched off.

“Damn you,” I said, as once before. “I shouldn’t be with you. It’s all a game to you. You don’t feel, and you don’t understand. Do you laugh at me inside your metal skull?” My voice was really awful now, and the words it said, awful, awful. “You’re a robot. A machine.” I wanted to stop. Pale memories of what I’d thought earlier, my triumph, my joy at the sudden human vulnerability I’d glimpsed in him, seemed only to increase my need to—to hurt him. I’d been hurt. Someone’s hurt me, hurt me, and I never knew. So now I’ll hurt you if I can. “A circuit engages,” I said, “and a little light comes on.” There was fear, too. After all, it might be true, mightn’t it? “The light says: Be kind to Jane. To stupid Jane. Pretend she can sing. Pretend she’s nice in bed. Pretend, pretend, ’cos otherwise she’ll send you back to Egyptia, who knows exactly what you are. Egyptia who puts you in the robot storage at night because she prefers real human men. But Jane’s maladjusted. Jane’s twisted. Jane’s kinky for robots. Gosh, what luck. Jane’ll keep you, let you make believe you’re human, too. Plain Jane, always good for a snigger.”

I was trembling and shivering so much the coins in my purse sounded like a cash register in an earthquake. He was looking at me but I wouldn’t look at him.

“The reason,” he said, “why I packed up the session here was that I could feel you freezing to death beside me. We’ll get you back to the apartment, and I’ll do the next stint alone. The market’s probably a good place.”

“Yes. They love you there. And you can go home with one of the women. Or with a man. And make them happy.”

“I would prefer to make you happy.” His voice was perfectly level. Perfect.

“You’d fail.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re not sorry. You don’t have any emotions to be sorry with.”

That’s enough, I said to myself. Leave it. None of this is true.

Yes, I said to myself. He’s fooled you all this while, played with you, made a clown of you, the way he played with the crowd.

Isn’t this clever, I said to myself. To keep on and on about his unhumanness, on and on until he feels it like a knife.

I was either terribly cold or terribly hot, and my legs were leaden. I wanted to sit down and there was only the dank paving, so I sat on that. And next second he’d pulled me to my feet. Holding me by the arm hard enough to hurt me, he propelled me into the arcade and through it, and back into the outer streets. Wise move, robot. You guessed—computed—I’d be quieter out here, where it’s less private.

The sun was low, burning out over Kacey’s Kitchens, like one of their molecular stoves.

There was a bus and he pulled me onto it. We had to stand. The bus felt like a furnace and people came between us as we hung on the rails. I could see him then, his pale only faintly metallic face, staring out of the windows at nothing. His face was fixed, cold, and awesome. I would have been afraid of that face on anyone else. But because it was him, I couldn’t be afraid. And my anger died in me, and my mistrust, and a deep sickness came instead. A sickness at myself. A sickness that I couldn’t express to him, or to me.

We got off at the boulevard and walked to Tolerance, and into the apartment block and up the stairs. Neither of us spoke. The apartment looked icy, even its jewel colors were numbed.

I walked in and stood with my back to him.