“What was that all about?” thought Pirx, who could have sworn the man had been looking for him.
“Hey, Thomson!” he yelled into the dark.
Again footsteps were heard as the man re-emerged, barely visible in the phosphorescent glow of the guide cables strung limply under the portholes.
“There must be some chairs around here,” said Pirx. He found them along the opposite wall. “Come on, Thomson, let’s sit down.”
The man dutifully obeyed, and they sat with their heads facing the stellar port.
“There was something you wanted to tell me. Shoot.”
“I hope you won’t—” He broke off in midsentence.
“At ease, Thomson. Feel free to speak your mind. Is it a personal matter?”
“Very much so.”
“Then let’s make it a private talk. What’s the problem?”
“I’d like you to win your bet,” said Thomson. “Rest assured, I won’t break the oath of secrecy. Even so, I want you to know I’m on your side.”
“I don’t see the logic,” said Pirx. A poor place to hold a conversation, he thought, uncomfortable at not being able to see the other’s face.
“Any human would be your ally for obvious reasons. Of course, a nonhuman—look, mass production can only make of him a second-class citizen, company property!”
“Not necessarily.”
“But more than likely. It’ll be the blacks all over again: a select few, because they’re different, will join the privileged class, and once they start to multiply… See what I mean? Then come the problems of segregation, integration, and so on…”
“All right, so I take you for an ally. But isn’t that tantamount to breaking your word?”
“I swore to keep my true identity a secret, nothing else. I signed on as a nucleonics engineer under your command. That’s it. Anything else is my business.”
“Technically, you may be right, but aren’t you in fact acting contrary to your employers’ wishes? Surely you can’t believe you’re not.”
“Maybe I am. But they’re not children; the wording was clear and unambiguous. It was drafted jointly by lawyers representing all the companies involved. They could have added a clause prohibiting such liberties, but they didn’t.”
“An oversight?”
“Possibly. But why are you so inquisitive? Don’t you trust me?”
“I was curious as to your motives.”
Thomson was momentarily silent.
“I hadn’t counted on that,” he said at last, his voice sounding mellower.
“On what?”
“That you might doubt my sincerity. Suspect me, say, of deliberate treachery. Now I get it—it’s you against us. If you devise a test—a test designed to demonstrate human superiority—and you leak it to someone you take to be an ally, but who in fact is ‘the enemy,’ then that someone might be milking you of strategically vital information.”
“An interesting hypothesis.”
“Surely it doesn’t come as news to you. I must admit it never occurred to me until just now; I was too preoccupied with whether I should volunteer my help. I overlooked that other angle. It was silly of me to expect complete frankness on your part.”
“Suppose you’re right,” said Pirx. “It wouldn’t be the end of the world. Even if I can’t brief you, you can still brief me. Starting with your shipmates.”
“But I might be passing on false information.”
“Let me be the judge of that. Do you know anything?”
“Brown isn’t human.”
“Are you sure?”
“No. But all the evidence points to it.”
“Namely?”
“I’m sure you can understand that we’re just as curious as you to know which of us is human and which isn’t.”
“I can.”
“It was during the pre-launch preparations. I was doing a routine reactor check, and was just changing the rods when you, Calder, Brown, and Bums came down into the control room.”
“Yes?”
“I happened to be handling a core specimen and was about to test it for radioactive decay. It wasn’t much, but loaded with strontium isotopes. When I saw the three of you come in, I picked it up with tweezers, and stuck it between a couple of lead bricks, on top of that shelf by the wall. You must have noticed the bricks.”
“I did. Then what?”
“Makeshift as it was, I knew you all had to pass through that pencil of radiation—it was low in rads but still detectable, even on a normal gamma-ray counter. But by the time I was ready, you and Burns had already passed through. Calder and Brown were still coming down the stairs. As they crossed the ray, Brown glanced over at the lead bricks and quickened his pace.”
“And Calder?”
“No reaction.”
“It might prove something if we knew the nonlinears were equipped with built-in detectors.”
“Nice try, Commander: if I don’t know, you’ll think I’m human; and if I do… No good. The fact is, they probably are equipped—otherwise, why go to all the trouble of constructing robots? An extra—radioactive—sense would be a definite advantage on board a ship, and the constructors are sure to have thought of that.”
“And you think Brown has such a sense?”
“I repeat: I can’t be sure. But his behavior in the control room was too marked to have been a coincidence.”
“Any other observations?”
“Not for the moment. I’ll keep you informed of anything else.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
Thomson stood up and walked off into the dark, leaving Pirx to his own thoughts. So—he quickly took inventory—Brown claims he’s human. Thomson contradicts him, and strongly implies that
He entered his cabin, passed through a lilac murk, and activated the light switch with his hand. Someone had dropped by in the meantime. Where some books had been on the table, there was now a small white envelope with “Cmdr. Pirx, Esq.” typed on the front. He picked it up. Sealed. He shut the door, sat down, and ripped open the envelope; the letter was typed and unsigned. He rubbed his forehead. There was no letterhead.
This letter is addressed to you by one of the nonhuman members of the crew. The electronics companies must be blocked, or at least impeded, in the implementation of their plans. To this end, I would like to brief you on the specifications of a nonlinear, based on my own experience.
I drafted this letter in the hotel before we met. At the time, I could not foretell whether the future
