“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
“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
“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,’
