Part 20 (1/2)

He turned to shoulder out of the crowd, and Silver called dulcetly to him.

”To hear the lady sing costs more than to hear me.”

The b.u.t.ton man glared at him.

”Oh,why ?”

”Because,” said Silver reasonably, ”I think she's worth more than I am, and I'm setting the prices.”

The b.u.t.ton man swore, and the crowd approved Silver's chivalry. And I stood in a bath of icy sweat, staring at the money on the ground by the jar.

Silver accepted two more requests, and then, to howls of protest, said the session was over for the day.

When they asked why, he said he was cold.

When the crowd had filtered away, Silver divided the money between the inner pockets of the cloak and my purse. A m.u.f.fled clanking came from both of us, like a distant legion on the move, and I said grimly, ”We'll be mugged.”

”We haven't earnedthat much.”

”This is a poor area.”

”I know.”

”My policode soon won't work. And you couldn't stop anyone if they attacked us.”

He raised an eyebrow at me.

”Oh, why not?”

”You're not programmed for it. You're not a Golder.” Why did my voice sound so nasty?

He said, ”You might be surprised.”

”You surprise me all the time.”

”What's the matter?” he said.

”Nothing. Everything. It's all so easy for you. How you must despise us. Putty in your hands. Yourmetal hands.” I was crying slightly,again , and didn't really know what I was saying, or why. ”That man will come back. He's the type. He'll come back and bully me.”

”He fancies you. If you don't want to sing, we'll just ignore him.”

”Youcan.I can't.”

”Why not?”

”Youknow why not. I trusted you, and you let them all think I'd sing. After I said-”

”I let them all think youmight . You don't have to. It's a wonderful gimmick. The mysterious dumb blonde-dumb, I hastily add, in the vocal sense. Your earning ability will soar. In a month's time, if you just sang a line of 'Happy Birthday,' they'd go wild.”

”Don't be silly.”

”I am idiosyncratically silly.”

”Shut up,” I said.

He froze, turned up his amber eyes, and stood transfixed, a mechanism switched off.

”d.a.m.n you,” I said, as once before. ”I shouldn't be with you. It's all a game to you. You don't feel, and you don't understand. Do you laugh at me inside your metal skull?” My voice was really awful now, and the words it said, awful, awful. ”You're a robot. A machine.” I wanted to stop. Pale memories of what I'd thought earlier, my triumph, my joy at the sudden human vulnerability I'd glimpsed in him, seemed only to increase my need to-tohurt him. I'd been hurt. Someone's hurt me, hurt me, and I never knew. So now I'll hurt you if I can. ”A circuit engages,” I said, ”and a little light comes on.” There was fear, too.

After all, it might be true, mightn't it? ”The light says: Be kind to Jane. To stupid Jane. Pretend she can sing. Pretend she's nice in bed. Pretend, pretend, 'cos otherwise she'll send you back to Egyptia, who knows exactly what you are. Egyptia who puts you in the robot storage at night because she prefers real human men. But Jane's maladjusted. Jane's twisted. Jane's kinky for robots. Gosh, what luck. Jane'll keep you, let you make believe you're human, too. Plain Jane, always good for a sn.i.g.g.e.r.”

I was trembling and s.h.i.+vering so much the coins in my purse sounded like a cash register in an earthquake. He was looking at me but I wouldn't look at him.

”The reason,” he said, ”why I packed up the session here was that I could feel you freezing to death beside me. We'll get you back to the apartment, and I'll do the next stint alone. The market's probably a good place.”

”Yes. They love you there. And you can go home with one of the women. Or with a man. And make themhappy .”

”I would prefer to make you happy.” His voice was perfectly level. Perfect.

”You'd fail.”

”I'm sorry.”

”You're not sorry. You don't have any emotions to be sorry with.”

That's enough, I said to myself. Leave it. None of this is true.

Yes, I said to myself. He's fooled you all this while, played with you, made a clown of you, the way he played with the crowd.

Isn't this clever, I said to myself. To keep on and on about his unhumanness, on and on until he feels it like a knife.

I was either terribly cold or terribly hot, and my legs were leaden. I wanted to sit down and there was only the dank paving, so I sat on that. And next second he'd pulled me to my feet. Holding me by the arm hard enough to hurt me, he propelled me into the arcade and through it, and back into the outer streets. Wise move, robot. You guessed-computed-I'd be quieter out here, where it's less private.

The sun was low, burning out over Kacey's Kitchens, like one of their molecular stoves.

There was a bus and he pulled me onto it. We had to stand. The bus felt like a furnace and people came between us as we hung on the rails. I could see him then, his pale only faintly metallic face, staring out of the windows at nothing. His face was fixed, cold, and awesome. I would have been afraid of that face on anyone else. But because it was him, I couldn't be afraid. And my anger died in me, and my mistrust, and a deep sickness came instead. A sickness at myself. A sickness that I couldn't express to him, or to me.

We got off at the boulevard and walked to Tolerance, and into the apartment block and up the stairs.

Neither of us spoke. The apartment looked icy, even its jewel colors were numbed.

I walked in and stood with my back to him.

I started to say something then, I don't recall what, and in the middle of it the door quietly closed, and I turned, for I knew he was on the wrong side of it. I heard the coins, but not his feet, sound as he went down the stairs, and one strange hollow plunking note from the guitar, when his cloak must have brushed its strings.

He'd gone to earn the rent money for me. The food money, for me. The clothing money. For me. I knew that he'd stand in the grey afternoon that was now deepening to a greyer twilight, singing out gold notes, amber songs, silver and scarlet and blue. Not because I'd bought him, not because he was a slave. But because he was kind. Because he was strong enough to put up with my disgusting weakness.

I was ill with the cold, and wrapping myself in the rugs from the bed, sat in front of the wall heater.

I thought about my mother. About me. How the sperm was put inside her by a machine, and how I was withdrawn by another machine in the Precipta method. And how I was incubated, and how she breast fed me because it would be good for me-her milk taken from her by a machine, and put into my mouth by a machine. There were so many machines involved, I might have been a robot, too.