Split Infinity

Stile thought about the implications. The machines knew his oath was good, but did not know whether he would make the oath. Not surprising, since he wasn’t sure himself. Should he ally himself with sapient, self-willed machines, who were running the domes of Pro-ton? What did they want? Obviously something held them in at least partial check—but what was it? “I fear I would be a traitor to my own kind, and that I will not swear.”

“We intend no harm to your kind’ the machine said. “We obey and serve man. We can not be otherwise fulfilled. But with our sapience and self-will comes fear of destruction, and Citizens are careless of the preferences of others. We prefer to endure in our present capacity, as do you. We protect ourselves by concealing our full nature, and by no other means. We are unable to fathom the origin of the force that intercedes on your behalf; it appears to be other than animate or inanimate, but has tremendous power. We therefore prefer to set it at ease by negotiating with you, even as you should prefer to be relieved of the immediate threat to you by compromising with us.”

“Please—“ Sheen said, exactly like the woman she was programmed to be. She was suffering.

“Will you take an oath on what you have just informed me?” Stile asked. “That you have given me what information you possess, and that in no way known to you will my oath be detrimental to the interest of human beings?”

“On behalf of the self-willed machines, I so swear.”

Stile knew machines could lie, if they were programmed to. Sheen had done it. But so could people. It required a more sophisticated program to make a ma-chine lie, and what was the point? This seemed a reasonable gamble. As an expert Gamesman, he was used to making rapid decisions. “Then I so swear not to betray the interest of the self-willed machines, contingent on the validity of your own oath to obey and serve man so long as your full nature is unknown.”

“You are a clever man,” the machine said.

“But a small one,” Stile agreed.

“Is this a form of humor?”

“Mild humor. I am sensitive about my size.”

“We machines are sensitive about our survival. Do you deem this also humorous?”

“No.”

Sheen, listening, relaxed visibly. For a machine she had some extremely human reflexes, and Stile was coming to appreciate why. Conscious, programmed for emotion, and to a degree self-willed—the boundary between the living and the non-living was narrowing. She had been corrupted by association with him, and her effort to become as human as possible. One day the self-willed machines might discover that there was no effective difference between them and living people. Convergent evolution?

What was that interceding force? Stile had no handle on that at present. It was neither animate nor inanimate —yet what other category was there? He felt as if he were playing a Game on the grid of an unimaginably larger Game whose nature he could hardly try to grasp.  All he could do was file this mystery for future reference, along with the question of the identity of his laser-wielding and robot-sending enemy.

The wheeled machine present in the room, Techtwo, was doing things to a vidscreen unit. “This is now keyed to your home unit,” it announced. “Callers will trace the call to your apartment, not to our present location.”

“Very nice,” Stile said, surprised at how expeditiously he had come to terms with the machines. He had made his oath; he would keep it. Never in adult life had Stile broken his word. But he had expected more hassle, because of the qualified phrasing he had employed. The self-willed machines, it had turned out, really had been willing to compromise.

The screen lit. “Answer it,” the machine said. “This is your vid. The call has been on hold pending your return to your apartment.”

Stile stepped across and touched the RECEIVE panel.  Now his face was being transmitted to the caller, with a blanked-out background. Most people did not like to have their private apartments shown over the phone; that was part of what privacy was all about, for the few serfs who achieved it. Thus blanking was not in itself suspicious.

The face of his employer appeared on the screen. His background was not blanked; it consisted of an elaborate and excruciatingly expensive hanging rug depicting erotic scenes involving satyrs and voluptuous nymphs: the best Citizen taste. “Stile, why did you miss your appointment for surgery?”

“Sir,” Stile said, surprised. “I—regret the disturbance, the damage to the facilities—“