Split Infinity

She stood. “I’d rather be junked.” She crossed to the vid screen and touched the button. “Game-control, please.”

Stile launched himself from the couch and almost leaped through the air to her. He caught her about the shoulder and bore her back. “Cancel call!” he yelled.  Then they both fetched up against the opposite wall.

Sheen’s eyes stared into his, wide. “You care,” she said. “You really do.”

Stile wrapped both arms about her and kissed her savagely.

“I almost believe you,” she said, when speaking was possible.

“To hell with what you believe! You may not want me now, but I want you. I’ll rape you literally if you make one move for that vid.”

“No, you won’t. It’s not your way.”

She was right. “Then I ask you not to turn yourself in,” he said, releasing her again. “I—“ He broke off, choking, trapped by a complex pressure of emotions.

“Your wilderness jungle—the wild beasts are coming from their lairs, attacking your reason,” Sheen said.

“They are,” he agreed ruefully. “I abused you with the printout. I’m sorry. I do believe in your conscious-ness, in your feeling. In your right to privacy and self-respect. I beg your forgiveness. Do what you want, but don’t let my callousness ruin your—“ He couldn’t finish.  He couldn’t say “life” and couldn’t find another word.

“Your callousness,” she murmured, smiling. Then her brow furrowed. “Do you realize you are crying, Stile?”

He touched his cheek with one finger, and found it wet. “I did not realize. I suppose it is my turn.”

“For the feelings of a machine,” she said.

“Why the hell not?”

She put her arms around him. “I think I could love you, even unprogrammed. That’s another illusion, of course.”

“Of course.”

They kissed again. It was the beginning.

CHAPTER 3 - Race

In the morning. Stile had to report to work for his employer. Keyed up, he did not even feel tired; he knew he could carry through the afternoon race, then let down—with her beside him.

Sheen stayed close, like an insecure date. The tube was crowded, for employment time was rush hour; they had to stand. This morning, of all mornings, he would have preferred to sit; that tended to equalize heights.  The other passengers stood a head taller than Stile and crowded him almost unconsciously. One glanced down at him, dismissed him without effort, and fixed his gaze on Sheen.

She looked away, but the stranger persisted, nudging closer to her. “Lose yourself,” she muttered, and took Stile’s arm possessively. Embarrassed, the stranger faced away, the muscles of his buttocks tightening. It had never occurred to him that she could be with so small a man.

This was an air tube. Crowded against the capsule wall. Stile held Sheen’s hand and looked out. The tube was transparent, its rim visible only as a scintillation.  Beyond it was the surface of the Planet of Proton, as bright and bleak as a barren moon. He was reminded of the day before, when he had glimpsed it at the apex of the Slide; his life had changed considerably since then, but Proton not at all. It remained virtually uninhabitable outside the force-field domes that held in the oxygenated air. The planet’s surface gravity was about two-thirds Earth-norm, so had to be intensified about the domes. This meant that such gravity was diminished even further between the domes, since it could only be focused and directed, not created or eliminated.

The natural processes of the planet suffered somewhat.

The result was a wasteland, quite apart from the emissions of the protonite mines. No one would care to live outside a dome!

On the street of the suburb-dome another man took note of them. “Hey, junior—what’s her price?” he called. Stile marched by without response, but Sheen couldn’t let it pass.

“No price; I’m a robot,” she called back.

The stranger guffawed. And of course it was funny: no serf could afford to own a humanoid robot, even were ownership permitted or money available. But how much better it was at the Game-annex, where the glances directed at Stile were of respect and envy, instead of out here where ridicule was an almost mandatory element of humor.

At the stable. Stile had to introduce her. “This is Sheen. I met her at the Game-annex yesterday.” The stableboys nodded appreciatively, enviously. They were all taller than Stile, but no contempt showed. He had a crown similar to that of the Game, here. He did like his work. Sheen clung to his arm possessively, showing the world that her attention and favor were for him alone.

It was foolish, he knew, but Stile gloried in it. She was, in the eyes of the world, an exceptionally pretty girl. He had had women before, but none as nice as this. She was a robot; he could not marry her or have children by her; his relationship with her would be temporary. Yet all she had proffered, before he penetrated her disguise, was two or three years, before they both completed their tenures and had to vacate the planet.  Was this so different?