Gill found himself struggling with new emotions, things he had never felt before. He realized that there was a comfort in being a synthetic man. The trouble with android status was that nothing ever felt very good. There was no joy, no exultation. But the advantage was that nothing ever felt very bad, either.
Strange, though. Now he was filled with unaccustomed emotions: pity for Julie, and something else, some tender feeling that he couldn't quite identify, couldn't quite find a name for. He touched the vein on the side of her neck. It pulsed, but not strongly. He reached over to make Julie more comfortable and only became aware then that his left arm was missing a hand and half its forearm. He had been too busy to notice when the hand went off-line. It was that advantage, again, of being a synthetic: you felt no pain. Now, looking back, he could reconstruct how it happened. The harvester's hatch had been closing, and he had just managed to get inside. But not quite all of him had made it. One hand had still been outside as the alien's big claw closed over his wrist. Stan had pulled, and the alien had pulled back.
There had been a deadly tug-of-war, with the alien pulling one way and Gill the other, sawing his arm back and forth along the door frame. None of the others had been in a position or condition to help. Stan had been out cold, and Julie, staggered by her acid bath, was out of action, too.
Gill and the alien had fought their deadly game. Gill hadn't been exactly sure what happened next. Presumably the door edge had severed some of the cables that controlled his arm movements. Or the combined pulls of Stan and the alien had pulled the skin welds on his arm apart. Suddenly, and with an audible pop, his arm had let go several inches below the elbow. Cracks had appeared in the tough synthetic skin, and had immediately widened. Fine-control cables had come under tension, pulled taut until they sang, and then snapped.
Cables and wires had coiled around Gill's wrist, then pulled free when Gill pulled what was left of his arm the rest of the way inside the ship and the hatch slammed shut. It had been a good sound, that sound of the hatch closing. After that, Gill had been too busy looking after Julie and ascertaining Stan's condition to pay much attention to his own condition. He looked to himself now.
He could see that there was no way of fixing himself. He could have tried a jury-rig if he'd had spare cables with him. But in the close confines of the pod he hadn't brought along the repair and spare parts kit that every synthetic tried to keep with him at all times. And even if he'd had the cables, he was still lacking several transistors and capacitors. Reluctantly he took the arm off-line. He had no motion in it at all. From the shoulder down, it was as dead as a hundred-year-old Ford.
“Gave you a little trouble, did they?” Stan's voice came from over his shoulder.
Stan had revived, calling on reserves he never knew he had. He had even gotten to his feet. He was filled with a strange knowledge; that he was both a dead man and a living one. The two sides of himself were warring now, each trying to establish dominance. Stan thought he knew who was going to win.
Somewhat unsteadily he crossed the harvester and gazed at Gill's wound.
“Pulled it right off, did they?”
“Yes, sir. Or perhaps I did.”
“Comes to the same thing,” Stan said. “Doesn't give you any pain, does it?”
“No, Doctor, none at all. I register the loss of my arm solely as an analogue of loss, not as the real thing.”
“It's abstract for you, is that it?”
“I suppose you could say that, sir.” And yet, Gill knew it wasn't quite true. No human could really imagine what it was like to be a synthetic. And to be a synthetic suffering loss — that was really beyond their scope. Except, he thought, maybe Julie could understand it.
67
“Well, Gill,” Stan said, “I think it'll be best if you look after Julie for the time being. I have some work to do on the radio.”
“I don't think much can be done for her, sir. Not without regular medical facilities.”
“No, I suppose not,” Stan said. “Maybe there's not much that can be done for any of us. Still, we must avail ourselves of every twist and turn. That's what it's like being a human, Gill. You avail yourself of every little opportunity. You assume you're not dead until you can no longer move. I hope you're taking note of all this.”
“Indeed I am, Doctor,” Gill said. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“I'm afraid not,” Stan said. “Unless you happened to bring along a replacement body. No? I didn't think so. But the royal jelly is finally starting to take effect I'm all washed up, Gill, but I'm feeling a lot better.”
“Glad to hear it, sir.”
“Thanks. We'll talk more later, Gill.”
Stan turned to the radio. Gill watched him, and he was disturbed. It seemed to him that Dr. Myakovsky was in some sort of shock. He was hardly registering his grief at Julie's condition. Was it a callousness about him that Gill had missed? Gill thought it was something else. He had noticed that humans from time to time went into a condition they called shock. It was when something terrible happened, either to them or to someone close to them. It was how humans shut down when they experienced overload. But synthetics could never shut down.
68
As Stan turned to the radio it suddenly burst into life. An unfamiliar voice said, “Hello? Is there someone aboard the harvester?”
Stan sat down at the instrument panel. “Yes, there is someone here.”
“I thought as much. This is Potter, captain of the Bio-Pharm ship
“I am Dr. Stanley Myakovsky,” Stan said. There are only three of us here — myself, a woman, and an android. We are all that is left of a survey expedition sent to inspect the hive on AR-32.”
“I knew you were here, Doctor,” Potter said. That says it all, I think.”
“Maybe you don't know everything, Captain,” Stan said. “Our ship was damaged during the recent storm. We require help badly.”
“I understand,” Potter said. “I am sending men to pick you up. Be prepared to leave the harvester. That is all for now.”
Stan put down the microphone and turned to Gill. “He says he's sending help. I suppose you can guess what kind of help Potter is going to offer.” Gill didn't answer. He was watching through one of the view panels as the
“I see you have your force field up,” Stan said. “A wise precaution, I can assure you.”
“We're able to throw some protection around your ship, too,” Potter said. “My men are coming now.”
A bay door in the
“You waste no time, do you, Captain?” Stan said.
“You're damned right,” Potter said. “The sooner I get you people out of the harvester the better.”
“One way or another,” Stan said mildly.
“What was that?”
“Oh, nothing,” Stan muttered. “But it looks to me like your men are running into a little difficulty.”
