Split Infinity

“Why should I pretend? I accept you as you are.” “Stop it!” she cried. “You have no idea what it is like to be a robot!  To be made in the image of the ideal, yet doomed always to fall short—“

Now Stile felt brief anger. “Sheen, turn off your logic and listen.” He sat beside her on the couch and took her hand. Her fingers trembled with an unmechanical disturbance. “I am a small man, smaller than almost anyone I know. All my life it has been the bane of my existence. As a child I was teased and excluded from many games because others did not believe I could per-form. My deficiency was so obvious that the others often did not even realize they were hurting my feelings by omitting me. In adolescence it was worse; no girl cared to associate with a boy smaller than herself. In adult life it is more subtle, yet perhaps worst of all.  Human beings place inordinate stress on physical height. Tall men are deemed to be the leaders, short men are the clowns. In reality, small people are generally healthier than large ones; they are better coordinated, they live longer. They eat less, waste less, require less space. I benefit from all these things; it is part of what makes me a master of the Game and a top jockey.  But small people are not taken seriously. My opinion is not granted the same respect as that of a large man.

When I encounter another person, and my level gaze meets his chin, he knows I am inferior, and so does everyone else, and it becomes difficult for me to doubt it myself.” “But you are not inferior!” Sheen protested. “Neither are you! Does that knowledge help?”

She was silent. “We are not dealing with an objective thing,” Stile continued. “Self-respect is subjective. It may be based on foolishness, but it is critical to a per-son’s motivation. You said I had no idea what it meant to be doomed always to fall short. But I am literally shorter than you are. Do you understand?”

“No. You are human. You have proved yourself. It would be foolish to—“

“Foolish? Indubitably. But I would give all my status in the Game, perhaps my soul itself, for one quarter meter more height. To be able to stand before you and look down at you. You may be fashioned in my ideal of woman, but I am not fashioned in my ideal of man. You are a rational creature, beneath your superficial programming; under my programming I am an irrational animal.”

She shifted her weight on the couch, but did not try to stand. Her body, under the gauze, was a marvel of allure. How patently her designer had crafted her to subvert Stile’s reason, making him blind himself to the truth in his sheer desire to possess such a woman! On another day, that might have worked. Stile had almost been fooled. “Would you exchange your small human body,” she asked, “for a large humanoid robot body?”

“No.” He did not even need to consider.

“Then you do not fall short of me.”

“This is the point I am making. I know what it is to be unfairly ridiculed or dismissed. I know what it is to be doomed to be less than the ideal, with no hope of improvement. Because the failure is, at least in part, in my ideal. I could have surgery to lengthen my body.  But the wounds are no longer of the body. My body has proved itself. My soul has not.”

“I have no soul at all.”

“How do you know?”

Again she did not answer. “I know how you know,” he said. “You know because you know. It is inherent in your philosophy. Just as I know I am inferior. Such knowledge is not subject to rational refutation. So I do understand your position. I understand the position of all the dispossessed. I empathize with all those who hunger for what they can not have. I long to help them, knowing no one can help them. I would trade every-thing I am or might be for greater physical height, knowing how crazy that desire is, knowing it would not bring me happiness or satisfaction. You would trade your logic and beauty for genuine flesh and blood and bone. Your machine invulnerability for human mortality. You are worse off than I; we both know that.  Therefore I feel no competition in your presence, as I would were you human. A real girl like you would be above me; I would have to compete to prove myself, to bring her down, to make her less than my ideal, so that I could feel worthy of her. But with you—“

“You can accept me as I am—because I am a robot,” Sheen said, seeming amazed. “Because I am less than you.”

“Now I think we understand each other.” Stile put his arm about her and brought her in for a kiss. “If you want me on that basis—“

She drew away. “You’re sorry for me! You raped me and now you’re trying to make me like it.”

He let her go. “Maybe I am. I don’t really know all my motives. I won’t hold you here if you don’t want to stay. I’ll leave you strictly alone if you do stay, and want it that way. I’ll show you how to perfect your human role, so that others will not fathom your nature the way I did. I’ll try to make it up to you—“