Goat Song

this whole time. How long a time that was, I cannot tell.

Its squat form leads me in another direction. Weariness crawls upward through mime, my feet stumble, my lips tingle, lids are weighted and muscles have each their separate aches. Now and then I feel a jag of fear, but dully. When the robot indicates Lie down here, I am grateful.

The box fits me well. I let various wires be attached to me, various needles be injected which lead into tubes. I pay little attention to the machines which cluster amid murmur around me. The robot goes away. I sink into blessed darkness.

I wake renewed in body. A kind of shell seems to have grown between my forebrain and the old animal parts. Far away I can feel the horror and hear the screaming and thrashing of my instincts; but awareness is chill, calm, logical. I have also a feeling that I slept for weeks, months, while leaves blew loose and snow fell on the upper world. But this may be wrong, and in no case does it matter. I am about to be judged by SUM.

The little faceless robot leads me off, through murmurous black corridors where the dead wind blows. I unsling my harp and clutch it to me, my sole friend and weapon. So the tranquility of the reasoning mind which has been decreed for me cannot be absolute. I decide that It simply does not want to be bothered by anguish. (No; wrong; nothing so humanhike; It has no desires; beneath that power to reason is nullity.)

At length a wall opens for us and we enter a room where She sits enthroned. The self-radiation of metal and flesh is not apparent here, for light is provided, a featureless white radiance with no apparent source. White, too, is the muted sound of the machines which encompass Her throne. White are Her robe and face. I look away from the multitudinous unwinking scanner eyes, into Hers, but She does not appear to recognize me. Does She even see me? SUM has reached out with invisible fingers of electromagnetic induction and taken Her back into Itself. I do not tremble or sweat—I cannot—but I square my shoulders, strike one plangent chord, and wait for It to speak.

It does, from sonic invisible place. I recognize the voice It has chosen to use: my own. The overtones, the inflections are true, normal, what I myself would use in talking as one reasonable man to another. Why not? In computing what to do about me, and in programming Itself accordingly, SUM must have used so many billion bits of information that adequate accent is a negligible subproblem.

No… there I am mistaken again… SUM does not do things on the basis that It might as well do them as not. This talk with myself is intended to have some effect on me. I do not know what.

“Well,” It says pleasantly, “you made quite a journey, didn’t you? I’m glad. Welcome.”

My instincts bare teeth to hear those words of humanity used by the unfeeling unalive. My logical mind considers replying with an ironic “Thank you,” decides against it, and holds me silent.

“You see,” SUM continues after a moment that whirrs, “you are unique. Pardon Me if I speak a little bluntly. Your sexual monomania is just one aspect of a generally atavistic, superstition-oriented personality. And yet, unlike the ordinary misfit, you’re both strong and realistic enough to cope with the world. This chance to meet you, to analyze you while you rested, has opened new insights for Me on human psychophysiology. Which may head to improved techniques for governing it and its evolution.”

“That being so,” I reply, “give me my reward.”

“Now look here,” SUM says in a mild tone, “you if anyone should know I’m not omnipotent. I was built originally to help govern a civilization grown too complex. Gradually, as My program of self-expansion progressed, I took over more and more decision-making functions. They were given to Me. People were happy to be relieved of responsibility, and they could see for themselves how much better I was running things than any mortal could. But to this day, My authority depends on a substantial consensus. If I started playing favorites, as by re-creating your girl, well, I’d have troubles.”

“The consensus depends more on awe than on reason,” I say. “You haven’t abolished the gods, You’ve simply absorbed them into Yourself. If You choose to pass a miracle for me, your prophet singer—and I will be Your prophet if You do this—why, that strengthens the faith of the rest.”

“So you think. But your opinions aren’t based on any exact data. The historical and anthropological records from the past before Me are unquantitative. I’ve already phased them out of the curriculum. Eventually, when the culture’s ready for such a move, I’ll order them destroyed. They’re too misleading. Look what they’ve done to you.”

I grin into the scanner eyes. “Instead,” I say, “people will be encouraged to think that before the world was, was SUM. All right. I don’t care, as long as I get my girl back. Pass me a miracle, SUM, and I’ll guarantee You a good payment.”

“But I have no miracles. Not in your sense. You know how the soul works. The metal bracelet encloses a pseudovirus, a set of giant protein molecules with taps directly to the bloodstream and nervous system. They record the chromosome pattern, the synapse flash, the permanent changes, everything. At the owner’s death, the bracelet is dissected out. The Winged Heels bring it here, and the information contained is transferred to one of My memory banks. I can use such a record to guide the growing of a new body in the vats: a young body, on which the former habits and recollections are imprinted. But you don’t understand the complexity of the process, Harper. It takes Me weeks, every seven years, and every available biochemical facility, to re-create My human liaison. And the process isn’t perfect, either. The pattern is affected by storage. You might say that this body and brain you see before you remembers each death. And those are short deaths. A longer one—man, use your sense. Imagine.”

I can't; and the shield between reason and feeling begins to crack. I had sung, of my darling dead.

“No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Roll’d round in earth’s diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.”

Peace, at least. But if the memory-storage is not permanent but circulating; if, within those gloomy caverns of tubes and wire and outerspace cold, some remnant of her psyche must flit and flicker, alone, unremembering, aware of nothing hut having lost life—No!

I smite the harp and shout so the room rings: “Give her back! Or I’ll kill you!”

SUM finds it expedient to chuckle; and, horribly, the smile is reflected for a moment on the Dark Queen’s hips, though otherwise She never stirs. “And how do you propose to do that?” It asks me.

It knows, I know, what I have in mind, so I counter: “How do You propose to stop me?”

“No need. You’ll be considered a nuisance. Finally someone will decide you ought to have psychiatric treatment. They’ll query My diagnostic outlet. I’ll recommend certain excisions.”

“On the other hand, since You’ve sifted my mind by now, and since You know how I’ve affected people with my songs—even the Lady yonder, even Her—wouldn’t you rather have me working for You? With words like, ‘O taste, and see, how gracious the Lord is; blessed is the man that trusteth in him. 0 fear the Lord, ye that are his saints; for they that fear him lack nothing.’ I can make You into God.”

“In a sense, I already am God.”

“And in another sense not. Not yet.” I can endure no more. “Why are we arguing? You made Your decision before I woke. Tell me and let me go!”

With an odd carefulness, SUM responds: “I’m still studying you. No harm in admitting to you, My knowledge of the human psyche is as yet imperfect. Certain areas won’t yield to computation. I don’t know precisely what you’d do, Harper. If to that uncertainty I added a potentially dangerous precedent—”

“Kill me, then.” Let my ghost wander forever with hers, down in Your cryogenic dreams.

“No, that’s also inexpedient. You’ve made yourself too conspicuous and controversial. Too many people know by now that you went off with the Lady.” Is it possible that, behind steel and energy, a nonexistent hand brushes across a shadow face in puzzlement? My heartbeat is thick in the silence.

Suddenly It shakes me with decision: “The calculated probabilities do favor your keeping your promises and making yourself useful. Therefore I shall grant your request. However—”

I am on my knees. My forehead knocks on the floor until blood runs into my eyes. I hear through storm winds:

“—testing must continue. Your faith in Me is not absolute; in fact, you’re very skeptical of what you call My goodness. Without additional proof of your willingness to trust Me, I can’t let you have the kind of importance which