Split Infinity

“We’ll have to pass through a human-serviced area ahead,” Sheen said. “I’m a robot, but I’d rather they did not know that. It would have a deleterious effect on the efficiency of my prime directive. I’d better make us both up as androids.”

“Androids are sexless,” Stile protested.

“I’m taking care of that.”

“Now, wait! I don’t want to be neutered just yet, and you are too obviously female—“

“Precisely. They will not be alert for neuters.” She unfolded a breast, revealing an efficient cabinet inside, filled with rubber foam to eliminate rattling. She removed a roll of flesh-toned adhesive tape and squatted before Stile. In a moment she had rendered him into a seeming eunuch, binding up his genitals in a constricted but not painful manner. “Now do not allow yourself to become—“

“I know! I know! I won’t even look at a sexy girl!”

She removed her breast from its hinge and applied the tape to herself. Then she did the same for the other breast, and carried the two in her hands. They resembled filled bedpans, this way up. “Do you know how to emulate an android?” she asked.

“Duh-uh?” Stile asked.

“Follow me.” She led the way along the passage, walking somewhat clumsily, in the manner of an android. Stile followed with a similar performance. He hoped there were small androids as well as large ones; if there were not, size would be a giveaway.

The escape was almost disappointing. The hospital staff paid no attention to them. It was an automatic human reaction. Androids were invisible, beneath notice.

Safe in the machine-service region, Sheen put herself back together and Stile un-neutered himself. “Good thing I didn’t see that huge-breasted nurse bouncing down the hall,” he remarked.

“She was a sixth of a meter taller than you.”

“Oh, was she? My gaze never got to that elevation.”

They boarded a freight-shipping capsule and rode back to the residential dome.

Stile had an ugly thought. “I know I’m fired; I can’t race horses without my knees, and I can’t recover full use of my knees without surgery. Knees just don’t heal well. My enemy made a most precise move; he could hardly have put me into more trouble without killing me. Since I have no other really marketable skill, it seems I must choose: surgery or loss of employment.”

“If I could be with you while they operate—“

“Why do you think there’s further danger? They got my knees; that’s obviously all they wanted. It was a neat shot, just above the withers of the racing horse, bypassing the torso of a crouching jockey. They could have killed me or the horse—had this been the object.”

“Indeed he or they could have,” she agreed. “The object was obviously to finish your racing career. If that measure does not succeed, what do you think they will do next?”

Stile mulled that over. “You have a paranoid robot mind. It’s contagious. I think I’d better retire from racing. But I don’t have to let my knees remain out of commission.”

“If your knees are corrected, you will be required to ride,” she said. “You are not in a position to countermand Citizen demands.”

Again Stile had to agree. That episode at the hospital —they had intended to operate on his knees, and only his quick and surprising break and Sheen’s help had enabled him to avoid that. He could not simply stand like a Citizen and say “No.” No serf could. “And if I resume riding, the opposition’s next shot will not be at the knees. This was as much warning as action—just as your presence is. Some other Citizen wants me removed from the racing scene—probably so his stable can do some winning for a change.”

“I believe so. Perhaps that Citizen preferred not to indulge in murder—it is after all frowned upon, especially when the interests of other Citizens are affected—so he initiated a two-step warning. First me, then the laser. Stile, I think this is a warning you had better heed. I can not guard you long from the mischief of a Citizen.”

“Though that same Citizen may have sent you to argue his case, I find myself agreeing,” Stile said.  “Twice he has shown me his power. Let’s get back to my apartment and call my employer. I’ll ask him for assignment to a nonracing position.”

“That won’t work.”

“I’m sure it won’t. He has surely already fired me.

But common ethics require the effort.”

“What you call common ethics are not common. We are not dealing with people like you. Let me intercept your apartment vid. You can not safely return to your residence physically.”

No, of course not. Now that Sheen was actively protecting him, she was showing her competence. His in-jury, and the matter at the hospital, had obscured the realities of his situation. He would be taken into custody and charged with hospital vandalism the moment he appeared at his apartment. “You know how to tap a vidline?”

“No. I am not that sort of machine. But I have friends who know how.”

“A machine has friends?”