Kiln People

72 Rigmarole

With a wide-open main gate, the estate seemed to lack security, an illusion the owner could afford. Cruising toward a great stone mansion, our limousine passed groundskeepers at work. They were ostentatiously real.

“This is kind of familiar,” said Pal from his life-sustaining chair. “I remember thinking we’d be lucky to get out of this place alive.” Somehow he had managed to absorb some bits of memory from the smashed mini-golem — my companion across a frantic Tuesday and Wednesday. It felt good knowing some of clever Palloid survived.

Sensors turned a narrow patch of the limo’s body transparent wherever a passenger’s eye happened to focus, creating an illusion of no roof or walls, though nosy outsiders would spy just a few dim circles, darting about madly. Still, in order to inhale the scent composition of Aeneas Kaolin’s gardens, I had to roll down a window.

Smells kept surprising me, like memories of another life.

Someone else took a deep breath when I did. Albert, to my left, gave one of his distant smiles, clearly enjoying hints of autumn in the breeze. Except for a small bandage below an ear, and one around his thumb, he didn’t look too bad. He could even dress and shave himself, if gently coaxed. But his attention lay elsewhere.

Are you a neshamah? I wondered. A body without a soul?

If so, what an ironic role reversal. For I, a golem, felt well equipped in that regard.

Is there no one home in there, Albert? Or are we just getting a “busy signal”?

I must have been staring again. A gentle squeeze from the other side drew me back as Clara’s slim, strong hand took mine.

“Do you think we’ll get to look over Kaolin’s medieval armor collection?” she asked. “I’d love to try a few cuts with that big, two-handed Claymore.”

This from a beautiful young woman wearing a sun hat and a light summer dress. Clara sometimes enjoyed downplaying her “formidable” side. It enhanced her feral attractiveness.

“He may be in no mood to play tour guide,” I predicted, but she just smiled.

Closer to the house, Clara glanced pointedly at a sunken parking area holding two more automatic limos, just like this one. We had timed our arrival to closely follow that pair.

Red-striped guardits watched a forklift remove a tall shipping crate from a delivery truck by the chateau’s main entrance. They turned warily as we pulled up … till some hidden signal made them back off.

“I always wanted a job like that,” Pal murmured as the grunting forklift hoisted its cargo on sturdy legs, ascending wide steps to the house.

“No, you didn’t,” I replied, maneuvering his life-support chair onto the pavement. Hard work wasn’t Pal’s style.

Clara examined the chair’s medical dials, then fussed over realAlbert, straightening his collar. “Will you two be okay out here?”

Pal took Albert’s arm, getting another enigmatic smile. “Us? We’ll just stroll the grounds, helping each other over bumps and looking for trouble.”

Clara still worried, but I squeezed her hand. What place could be safer? And their presence would make a point to Kaolin.

“Go on in.” Pal nodded toward the mansion. “If Mr. Zillionaire gives you any trouble, holler. We’ll bust in, right, old buddy?”

Instead of responding, Albert turned, as if following something barely visible against the blue sky. He pointed with his bandaged thumb, like some kind of metaphysical hitchhiker.

“Dust,” he said in tones of bemused interest. “They left shapes in it. Deep ones. Everybody did.”

We all waited a few seconds, but there was no more.

“O-o-okay,” Pal commented. “I hope that’s good news. About dust. Hm.”

Absent and unruffled, Albert put a hand to steady Pal’s chair on the gravel path. Clara and I watched till they rounded a corner, toward the sound of cooing doves. On the roof, several stories above, a reflective dome was said to house the famed hermit himself — realAeneas Kaolin.

With a glance at each other for encouragement, Clara and I headed up broad granite steps.

After rolling along for a while, Pal gives the signal. At last!

I drop from the undercarriage of his chair onto sun-warmed pebbles. Wait for the wheels to pass and … now!

Skittering on-belly, dodging Albert’s human feet, I dash into shade beneath a gardenia hedge. Oof, what stench! Too much of my small head was modeled on a critter who hunts by scent. Should have left more room for brains.

Ah well. Just do what my maker wants. And satisfy the built-in craving of curiosity — better than food or sex. Go!

But keep alert for sensors, trip-threads. My clever eyes tune to see IR beams. Also cockatrices, tripfalls, and regular old gopher traps.

A decorative brickwork niche runs all the way up. Get inside. Deploy claws tipped with diamond augments. Strong paws sink those shiny diamond-tipped claws into stone.

Lovely what you can do with clay, these days.

A platinum rox stood in the foyer, watching servants direct the grunting forklift toward a large study — the same place where Yosil Maharal’s open coffin lay a couple of weeks ago. But Kaolin wouldn’t expect me to know about that. Those memories were destroyed. Supposedly.

The shipping crate was his immediate concern, though he beckoned us to follow. Clara happily aimed her implant at the old spears, shields, maces, and other pointy things on display. Only when the forklift gently dropped its cargo by a southern wall did our host turn with an extended hand.

“Major Gonzales and ditto Morris. You’re early. By several hours.”

“Are we? My fault then,” Clara said. “I’m operating on East Coast time these days.”

A dubious excuse. Still, the convenience of a real guest outweighs annoyance to any ditto, even the ditto of a trillionaire.

“Not at all. You two are busy people these days! Thanks for accepting my invitation. Though I imagine you had your own reasons for coming.”

“There are matters to discuss,” I agreed.

“No doubt. But first, how are the bodies working out?”

I glanced down at the one I wore today. Its buff shade of beige-gray, plus realistic hair and skin texture, pushed the tolerant edges of legality. But no one complained amid all the buzz about my “heroics.” I cared more about other features, those letting me smell and see and touch Clara with utter vividness.

“Impressive work. Must be expensive,”

“Very.” He nodded. “But that doesn’t matter if—”

The platinum golem flinched as one side of the shipping crate fell with a sharp bang. Servants moved on to the other panels.

“Naturally,” ditKaolin resumed, “you’ll be supplied with these hyperquality blanks, gratis, till the problem with your original is sorted out. Have there been any signs … ?”

“Plenty of signs. But none that say welcome.”

After two weeks of expert study, it was evident that the mind/soul of realAlbert Morris had “gone away” in some fashion no one understood. Yosil Maharal might have explained. But he too was gone, even more decisively.

“Well, you can count on Universal Kilns. Either until it becomes possible to reload to your original, or else …”

“Or else till I pass my limit at performing ditto-to-ditto transfers.”

He nodded. “We’ll help with hyperquality blanks and the experimental golem-prolongation process. In part because we owe a debt—”

“You sure do,” Clara muttered.

The shiny golem winced. “Though in exchange, my technicians naturally wish to monitor your remarkable endurance. No one else ever achieved such fidelity, imprinting from one animated doll to another!”

I noticed Kaolin’s right hand quiver slightly. If anything, he was downplaying his eagerness.

“Hm, yes. Monitoring. That may present a problem if—” I stopped as Kaolin’s servants finally broke apart the shipping box, liberating a heavy crystal display cabinet. Within stood the dun brown figure of a small, well-built man — a soldier with Asiatic features, hand-molded and kiln-fired roughly two thousand years ago. His confident half smile seemed almost alive.

“Only ten of the Sian terracottas have left China,” ditKaolin breathed happily. “I’ll keep this one here to honor my late friend Yosil. Till his heir returns to claim it.”

The tycoon clearly didn’t expect that to happen any time soon, though I saw a portrait of Ritu Maharal prominently displayed atop the grand piano. Had it been deliberately moved there as a gesture?

My “memory” of this room came from a voice-recording Clara found under Urraca Mesa, inside the shattered Albert gray who was kidnapped from this very estate, subjected to cruel torments, then assigned to serve as a “mirror” in that bizarre experiment. Fortunately, the gray’s diary spool survived the culminating explosion, offering a compulsive sotto voce recitation about the murderous activities of a mad ghost. Another recording spool, removed from realAlbert’s neck, offered a sporadic, low-quality transcription of a few more puzzle-piece events — a roadside ambush, desert treks, and underground betrayals, shedding some light on how Yosil’s daughter got involved.

How much more convenient if all three versions of us had been able to recombine memories at the end! As things stood, Clara and I had to rely on old-fashioned detective work.

“Have they made any progress treating Ritu’s condition?”

“Just diagnostic work. Contact’s been made with the Beta personality. Doctors are probing for any more siblings lying dormant within.” Kaolin gave a melancholy sigh. “None of this would have happened before the age of golemtech. Surely not the original tragic blunder Yosil inflicted on Ritu as a child. And even if she did still get a divided-personality syndrome, it would never have manifested so powerfully in the outer world. Who would ever expect such a character as Beta to emerge and—”

“Oh, spare us,” Clara interrupted.

We turned to see her examining the Sian soldier, one warrior to another. But her attention to our conversation never drifted.

“You knew about Beta for years,” she added. “You found it convenient to maintain a relationship with one so uncannily skilled at deception. Someone able to consistently fool the World Eye! One of the last brilliant underworld figures, and you were in a position to blackmail him into doing all sorts of favors, because Beta was ultimately vulnerable at the source. Come on, admit it.”

Platinum fists tightened, but anger was futile. As realAlbert’s assigned guardian and my nominal owner, Clara had legal standing. I was her adviser, not the other way around.

“I … admit no such thing.”

“Then let’s investigate. Subpoena cam-records going back years, interview employees under the Henchman Law. Heck, it won’t take much for me to interest the national security apparat, now that—”

“—of course speaking hypothetically,” Kaolin rushed in. “For the sake of argument, suppose I did have prior dealings with the figure known as Beta. You’d scour forever without finding a single genuine criminal act on my part. Sure, I may have committed a few civil torts … all right, maybe a lot of those. Gineen Wammaker and some other perverts could sue for copyright damages.

“So? Would you jeopardize our beneficial relationship on her account?”

Implicit was a threat. The hyperquality bodies I got free, plus gear for high-fi imprinting and replenishment, were matters of survival to a stranded soul. My unique copying talent still needed plenty of help, until realAlbert finally chose to let me climb back into the only organic brain on Earth that could accommodate me.

Would it work even then? I couldn’t help still regarding myself as Frankie — or Gumby — a rebellious green puppet who ran off one day, declaring independence while dreaming of becoming a real boy. Perhaps my Standing Wave and Albert’s strangely mutated soul were too far diverged ever to rejoin again.

I might be a ghost.

Well, if so, I was a ghost with full sensoria, loved by an exciting woman, with important work to do. One can imagine worse afterlives.

“Let’s talk about this triangle that you had going with the Maharals,” Clara urged our host. “You and Yosil and Beta and … I guess it was a square if you include Ritu herself … each one using the others, scheming and exploiting each other’s talents and resources, making and breaking deals—”

“No,” I interrupted.

When she gave me a questioning look, I added, “Later, please, Clara.” ditKaolin seemed relieved. “Yes. Later. Anyway, I forget myself. Please come this way. I ordered refreshments.”

A sure-enough paranoid bastard lives here. Good thing I’m one, too.

My chosen path upward is choked with prickly things — detectors and nanowires … toxin-mites and mini-caltrops. Ridiculous overkill!

I must switch routes. Try climbing the open wall instead, where the nasty stuff will all be weathered by sun and smog and rain. Anyway, who looks out for burglars climbing a flat wall in broad daylight?

Can’t answer that. Brain’s too small for memories. But I seem to know what’s possible.

Pixelated skin on my back mimics the reflectance of each bit of wall I pass over. Got the idea from a cool trick of Beta’s. Bought the tech-details off a UK techie for a Henchman Prize. Cheap! Other gimmicks are military — Clara has connections. But the cleverest come from hobbyists, unhappy with UK’s long refusal to share source code.

Take the special eye in the middle of my right paw. Press it against an opaque window as I pass by. It hijacks the room’s attention monitor and voilà! A narrow circle turns clear for a whole millisecond!

Long enough to verify, nobody’s in that room. Ah well. The next one seemed likelier for architectural reasons that I can’t remember now.

Just a little farther …

Following behind our host, Clara glanced back at the terracotta soldier of Sian, part of a legion modeled — some say imprinted — from real warriors who served the legendary First Emperor, duty-bound to come fiercely alive whenever called. Clara played much the same role in scores of replicas. Only now she had another job, helping investigate how things went so wrong in the Dodecahedron, where the halls were now resounding to a staccato thud of falling heads.

On a veranda we found food and drink — generous portions for Clara and nibble-bites that appeal to a high-class golem like me, with tastebuds but no stomach to speak of. Clara laughed, pointing at two figures across the tree-flecked meadow, one rolling in a wheelchair. The other broke pace to skip, like a small boy. ditKaolin jotted on a clipboard held by an ebony assistant. “More lawsuits,” he explained. “Now from Farshid Lum and those ditto liberation freaks! As if I dug their stupid tunnel into UK headquarters.”

“Perhaps they want to learn who set them up for blame in a case of industrial sabotage. I’m curious, too.”

Aeneas shrugged. “Beta, of course. No one was better at such ploys. He schemed with that Irene deviant, tricking an Albert into—”

“Into doing some quasilegal technology sniffing, they claimed. A prion bomb never featured, till someone else hijacked the plan.” ditKaolin groaned, sitting down to grab a glass of Golem-Cola. “Yes, I’m familiar with the popular theory. Beta and I were allies, but had a falling out. I took revenge by waging total war, furtively using the Albert Morris Detective Agency, among many weapons. Despite his brilliance, Beta had an Achilles heel when I found his secret point of origin. Soon I eliminated his copies and took over his operations. Right?”

“According to some popular theories.”

“But it gets better! Next, I manipulated Irene and Wammaker and Lum and everybody else … to sabotage my own factory!”

The words formed a lovely confession, ruined by Kaolin’s dripping sarcasm. “Can’t you see how foolish it all sounds? What motive could I have?”

I nodded in complete agreement.

“Yes. Motive is key.” ditKaolin stared at me, then went on, “True, I didn’t just sit there when Yosil and Beta turned on me, stealing from both UK and the government.” He nodded to Clara. “I won a few rounds. Still, I’m the victim!”

“It’s hard to tell. All the maneuvers—”

“—disguises and double-crosses,” Clara added, “even the belligerents needed a multidimensional diagram.”

“So? The Maharals were geniuses! Father and daughter, in all their manifestations. And crazy! What could I do but act in self-defense?”

I answered silently, You might have gone public. Called on the cleansing immune systems of an open society. That is, if you had no craziness of your own to hide.

Clara bore in. “So you admit you waged clandestine war against your former allies.”

“I’d be a fool to deny it after you arrested my ditto right there in Yosil’s lab, wearing a Beta disguise!” Kaolin smiled then. “I was getting pretty good, actually. I sure had you fooled, both in dittotown and in the scooter, didn’t I, Albert?”

Don’t call me Albert, I almost said. But what’s the point?

Then the mogul’s expression darkened. “I never expected you to follow, grabbing the Harley when I took off … and it’s a good thing. You thwarted a catastrophe — the whole city’s in your debt.

“As for those damned germ missiles, I swear, I never had any idea Yosil planned to take things so far.”

Third window on the second floor — it’s just the right position for a waiting-meeting room.

Carefully check for motion detectors and pressure-sensitive coatings. Okay, now press the paw with its clever gel-lens into one corner and -

Ha! Our best guess was right.

Within — a comfy salon. Plush chairs. Plenty to drink. Just the place for Kaolin to stash folks at an awkward moment. Like when Clara and Gumby drove up, hours earlier than expected, interrupting a secret meeting!

A convention of scoundrels.

That was crucial, as far as both the public and the law were concerned. Could Kaolin be pinned with crimes against real people?

Clear evidence blamed Yosil Maharal, driven by visions of transcendence, for trying to blow up Albert Morris in his home, then stealing war germs to aim at millions. Plenty of onus remained left over, to heap on the small group of Dodecs who chose to hide those bioweapons, instead of destroying them by treaty.

But what could Aeneas be accused of? Shooting at realRitu and realAlbert on a desert highway? The act was criminal — endangering organic citizens. But anyone would say Ritu and Al were just asking for trouble by traveling disguised as grays. Besides, they survived that attack. At most, Kaolin would pay triple golem-geld.

Likewise if it were proved that he participated in Beta’s old ditnapping empire — lawyers and accountants might stay busy for years, but that’s what they’re for.

Oh, the tally could add up, starting with a new car for Albert. Repairs to the Teller Building and Pal’s dittotown apartment. A free supply of high-sensitivity ivories for the maestra of Studio Neo. Settlements for Lum and Gadarene. So? Kaolin could buy his way out of all that with pocket change.

He knew that I thought him responsible. Prove it, he’d be thinking. Offer a motive anyone would believe.

What about the filmstrip Palloid and I found at the Rainbow Lounge? Why did Kaolin, disguised as spiral-Beta, want me to transmit it? To undermine my reputation as an honest investigator? Or to muddy the waters? Clara tried explaining once, but the interconvoluted logic fell right out of my floppy brain.

It’s what I deserve for getting mixed up in a war among prodigies. All my “victories” were gained through sheer doggedness. That plus -

Across the meadow, I saw realAlbert pluck up something from the path to show Pal. A pebble maybe, or another miracle -

— plus some help I’ll never understand.

No, the key to all of this wouldn’t be found among the murky twists and turns. In an era when everyone has means, opportunity, and too-easy alibis, just one thing stays elemental.

Motive.

How strange to see through a clever eye in my paw. No stranger than having paws, I guess. Or a brain too small for speech.

Grabbing another stolen glimpse through this “opaque” window, I feel like a stealthy, leering predator. Inside, sitting or pacing the room nervously, I see a covey of conspirators.

Three are easy to recognize. The perversion queen, Gineen Wammaker. And James Gadarene, who preaches that folks should go back to living one life at a time. Those two are easy because they’re real. And Farshid Lum, the fanatic “mancie” who claims that mayfly creatures like me should get the vote. His duplicate wears an honest copy of his own face.

Three others came today as nondescript dittos, but we already know their names — movers and shakers who want to help control the coming changes in dittotech.

Which of them is worth watching before I move on?

Easy! The maestra crosses her long legs, seductively vamping the puritan, Gadarene, who stomps away. But seconds later he can’t help looking back again!

Blushing in shame, he’s under her spell, poor Jimmy-boy.

Oh, she’s the maestra all right. In every provocative remark and saucy move, queen of the city’s seamy side, tantalizing with subtly implicit sadomasochistic thrills that her fans prize.

And me, drooling at the window? I’m relishing it, too!

“Those virus warheads changed everything around here,” Kaolin said.

“No kidding,” Clara replied. “Six current and retired Dodecs in prison. The whole defense establishment—”

“No, around here.” The platinum ditto motioned toward the house, with an upward emphasis.

“Oh, you mean upstairs. Your real …”

“My lifestyle has been ridiculed by carping fools for over a decade. But since that close call with the germ rockets, thousands have sought my advice. I’m thinking of starting a new line of business.”

“Helping people to cut themselves off from the world?” Clara asked.

“You could put it that way. No offense, Major, but your mission to restore public confidence is doomed. Our near escape from Yosil’s mad effort to liberate souls revealed a key truth.”

“What truth?”

“Humanity’s vaunted technology now threatens us with annihilation.”

“It always has. So?”

“We’ve been shaken from our complacency. Organic flesh is vulnerable, as you should know better than most!” Kaolin jabbed a finger at me. Where an organic might have flushed, his ditto cast an angry glow, revealing a fine pattern of speckles that I quickly recognized.

He’s been replenished. Often.

The flush also highlighted a scar where ditKaolin’s shoulder met his neck. Repair spackle, dyed to match his skin. Dang, I thought, remembering when that injury was made. Two weeks ago. Over a dozen life-times.

I can’t stop watching Wammaker through this tiny eye in my paw!

Odd. Albert always found her voodoo charm repulsive. But my tastes seem shifted by … this body Pal provided! Among all the high-energy built-ins, he must have slipped something kinky as a practical joke. Thanks loads, Pal.

Well, I know a remedy. Think of it as having something in common with Gadarene!

Okay, I’m cured. Mental note to self: Don’t let anyone talk you into wearing the body of a weasel, ever again.

Our host regained his composure, and sighed. “Sometimes I wish Yosil and Bevvisov never showed up at my studio, offering to give souls to my animated dolls.”

“You’re kidding.” Clara glanced at our surroundings, paid for by the industry spawned that day.

“Am I? Since helping usher in a Golem Age, I’ve seen how new things get misused when they’re shared with the masses. From printing to cybernetics to bioengineering, every new medium becomes a conduit for pornography and callousness toward the human form.”

Didn’t he say the same thing, last time I was here? Another of Kaolin’s characteristic memory lapses. “Each of those tech-revolutions also unleashed unparalleled criticism and creativity,” Clara answered.

“Along with social upheaval, alienation—”

“And empathy. New ways to know different, races, genders, species—”

“Ditexperience junkies and rox-potatoes—”

“Inventors of new sports, new art forms and explorations.” She laughed. “Every step in human progress challenges us, Vic. Some wallow in excess. Others fearfully reject change. And a surprising number combine the new with verve and common sense, rising beyond all expectations.”

“Progress? Is that what you’d call events in Yosil’s secret lab?”

I joined in. “You said the key word: ‘secret.’ Maharal tried to shortcut the way science uses criticism to avoid error, with near-catastrophic results. But the actual problems he was working on — long-range dittoing, non-homologous imprinting …”

“Mythologies! My friend was obsessed, guilt-ridden, demented from trying experimental processes on himself.”

“Some top minds in soulistics think he was onto—”

“Ravings!”

“Well, something blasted those ditto ‘mirrors’ and left realAlbert in this state. Beta and Ritu believed in their father, enough to join forces at the end—”

“All right.” ditKaolin waved a hand. “Assume it’s true! Yosil discovered a vast plane of hyper-reality, running parallel to all we know. A soulscape. Then it means we’re in trouble worse than all the bombs and bugs and eco-calamities of a generation ago. Because now our fate won’t be in the hands of elites or the benighted masses.

“It will be decided by an angry God.”

Being real, Wammaker and Gadarene arrived here in a black limo, believing no one could see inside. Another conspirator came disguised as a red-striped security guard. Two were shipped in canisters and thawed. All for a risky/urgent meeting with one goal, to get their stories straight!

Only then Clara and Gumby/Albert appeared, interrupting and dragging their host away. It’s got them nervous. The awkward allies fidget, mostly avoiding each other.

What mix of bribery, blackmail, idealism, and self-interest binds them? Even a brief try to theorize hurts the brain inside this little skull.

Enough. Away!

Attaching a tiny transducer to the window, I go back to climbing the sun-drenched wall. Slither a bit. Dig in diamond claws. Hunker while my pixelated back resembles stone. Check the way ahead for traps and sensors.

Then slither up some more

Across the meadow I glimpsed Pal and realAlbert unfolding a gold and red kite, laughing as the wind filled its gull wings. It leaped, a symbol of soaring innocence. Innocent in fact, since it carried no weapons or instruments. Nothing that a vigilant securityman could worry about. Just a kite. Alluring.

It even caught the eye of ditKaolin, who smiled slightly, then shook his head with an expression of poignant regret. “I should be the one flying kites. In fact, I’m planning to retire soon.”

“You surprise me, sir,” Clara said.

“Why? Don’t I deserve a rest? Anyway, I’ve long felt uncomfortable with this world I helped create, where people blithely talk of ‘copying souls.’ Only now it’s grown far worse than mere effrontery of jargon. Before, only a few kooks blathered about soul-amplification. Now, inspired by Yosil, enthusiasts and mystics and techno-hobbyists have all started experimenting on their own, by the thousands, millions, chattering about using science to become gods.”

Clara mused. “Mormons have always believed that people have the potential to—” But she stopped when I shook my head. Our little spy-golem should be getting into position about now. We had spent enough time on chitchat.

“Vic Kaolin, please. We know your plans to retire have nothing to do with respect for religion. May I suggest another reason?”

The platinum golem blinked. “Go on.”

“It’s the world’s oldest story. The same obsession drove the ruler of that ancient terracotta army you admire. You shared it with Yosil Maharal, differing only in details.

“You don’t want to die, Vic Kaolin.

“You want to live forever.”

From the laboratory-hospital in the basement all the way to a rooftop sanctuary that no living outsider has seen in years, the mansion is a nested puzzle. If money and power could defend secrets against a modern age, this is the place.

My climb reaches a slate attic where I must angle a bit and change my skin reflectance. Stopping by a dormer window, I peer in at rows of cooler units built for holding ditto blanks. Most now stand empty, their ready lights turned off. Only a dozen look active, with contents ready to bake and release.

Yup, I thought, turning to resume my climb. Damn that distraction, wasting time by staring at the maestra! I’m running late.

“Who does want to die?” asked the platinum copy of Aeneas Kaolin. “We all fight to live, at all costs.”

“Not all costs.”

“Okay. But what’s your point? That I seal myself away as an organic hermit, interacting with the world by telepresence and ditto? Are you comparing a fastidious lifestyle — which hurts no one — to Yosil’s willingness to sacrifice millions for some mystical transcendence?”

I shook my head. “No comparison. You’re more pragmatic and subtle. Though your plans suffered recent setbacks, they aren’t dashed. If your former allies proved erratic, you’ll replace them with others, less brilliant but more easily controlled.”

His expression was blank as a robot’s. “Go on.”

“Take that gray Albert who carried the bomb to Universal. He thought he was looking for hidden technologies. And there were! A whole series of breakthroughs from Project Zoroaster. First, golem-replenishment—”

“Which had worrying side effects, so I held back from announcing it. There’s nothing sinister. In fact—”

“In fact, you use the process yourself.”

“It’s obvious? Well, maybe I’m just trying to get the most out of these expensive shiny dolls.” ditKaolin chuckled dryly. “Aren’t most rich hermits penny-pinchers?”

“You’ve been reboosting this one for weeks.”

“It shows?” Kaolin feigned a vain look in a nearby mirror. “All right, my aim is to test the process.” He raised a jittering hand. “No doubt you’ve noticed the shaking.”

What I noticed — with growing respect — was his multilayered cover story. Peel one level back, and he slid easily to another.

“And memory lapses?”

“Another unpleasant side effect you should watch for, Morris. Call it one last sacrifice for my customers.”

“Admirable. And the explanation might stand, if replenishment were the only new technology. But there’s dit-to-dit imprinting—”

“You’re the pioneer in that area, Albert.”

“Am I? Your technicians hope to learn from my peculiar Standing Wave. But the machinery for high-fidelity transfer seems far advanced. Farshid Lum thinks we’re entering an era when long-lived dittos will pass their memories on to fresh blanks without needing a rig, creating their own sense of personhood—”

“And millions, maybe a majority, will resist that weird future!” ditKaolin shook his head sadly. “We’ll see a return to the social upheavals a generation ago.”

“No doubt. Then, to make things worse, there’s remote dittoing. Specialists like Gineen Wammaker see a golden chance to expand markets. Top experts in any field may dominate their professions worldwide, not just in the city where they live. Will that throw the rest of us on the purple wage?”

Clara sat on the edge of her chair, clearly wanting to poke holes in this argument, but she suppressed the impulse. Good girl. ditKaolin raised his shoulders.

“All right, Morris. I admit it. I saw these trends, over a year ago, and didn’t like where they’re taking us. So I dragged my feet in bringing them to market.”

“Frustrating the chief innovator—”

“—and thus maybe pushing toward mystical pursuits. Dammit. I should never have launched Project Zoroaster in the first place.”

His sigh was so dolorous and reflective … I hated to spoil such an artful pose.

“You express ambivalence, Vic Kaolin. Yet the R D workers at Universal got every support, almost to the very moment the technologies were ready. It was only then that you pulled back. And, coincidentally, someone hired an unsuspecting Albert gray to investigate rumors of squelched—”

“I see where you’re taking this,” he answered with a frown. “Beta and Wammaker and Irene all had reasons to want the new techniques. So did Lum’s Emancipation zealots. None of them had a motive to wreck the Research Division, any more than I did.”

“Less reason than you, sir.”

The frown deepened.

“You imply that I acted on my fears about the coming new age. That I arranged for the bombing as an act of conscience, to safeguard society from destabilizing and possibly immoral technologies?” ditKaolin paused, looking down. “Have you any idea how much I’d sacrifice? The friendships, wealth, position, and power?”

Clara nodded. “Yes. Though even your enemies would credit you with the valor of strong convictions …

“… if any of that were true.”

Here comes the tricky part. A rat’s nest of fibers entangles the roof, surrounding the reflective dome.

I must extend my claws, far longer than any natural beast, using them as stilts to step carefully over the detector filaments. My belly brushes them, gently as a local breeze.

The same breeze lofting Albert’s kite, a gorgeous eye-lure, high above the meadow …

Pay attention now! With my body arched high, the pixelated skin on my back can’t pull off the invisibility trick. Not in all directions at once.

I’m running late. But hurry is out of the question. Mustn’t overheat.

Pal couldn’t do this. It’s not a matter of brains (not many in this skull), or guts (Pal has more than anyone), or even soul. Patience is what I bring from Albert.

Steady now … then quickly, to the silvery dome!

Across a hilly field, Pal and realAlbert maneuvered their gold and red kite, playing the exquisite toy against rolling white clouds. A pretty distraction.

My real concern? The little spy-golem we sent climbing the mansion wall was late checking in! This could all turn into a big bluff.

“Why are there so few of you?” I asked our host. “There used to be dozens of these platinums running around. But now, UK employees see you mostly by telepresence, if at all. What happened to hands-on management?” ditKaolin’s tremor permeated to his voice, stammering angrily. “Enough! I’ve been forbearing with you t-two … but this impudent g-grilling has gone too—”

He sputtered to a halt as beams of light shot up from a nearby table. Rays swirled, resolving into the figure of an elegant gray-haired man in his hale seventies, wearing a loose white robe. The face, pinkish-brown, matched the platinum’s, but details of crease and wattle were more finely etched. Perfectly imperfect, down to the pores.

“I owe you an apology, Major Gonzales and ditto Morris, for assigning this golem as your host. It’s old and so often replenished, the poor thing isn’t thinking clearly.”

The shiny ditto started to protest — then shut its mouth and sagged. For all intents and purposes, it was no longer there.

“Of course I see where you’re going with this line of questioning, ditective. You’ve shown that I did have a motive to sabotage UK — my ethical and social concerns about new golemtechnology. Concerns borne out by recent events.

“Not that I’m admitting anything. But with a possible motive established, shareholders will act to safeguard their interests. My retirement won’t be voluntary. You can see why I might have acted clandestinely—”

“Setting up others to take the blame!” Clara accused.

“Again without confessing, tell me who was harmed. The arch criminal Beta? He’s a figment in the mind of a sick young lady. As for that strange person, Queen Irene, it’s too bad what happened to her. But she chose her own path. One with no exit.”

Moving closer to the holo image, I wondered — was it artificial? Among all the promises of the so-called Digital Age, one of the best-fulfilled was lifelike simulation in 3-D. High-level computers can fool you in a conversation, especially if a golem provides backup for the hard questions.

We had a plan to check on that.

I held up a finger, starting to enumerate. “First you devoted vast resources to Project Zoroaster, urging Yosil and his team forward. But when prototypes were built, you forbade mass production.”

“I said, I changed my mind.”

“After moving prototypes here, to your house! Then you tried to have the R D Division destroyed—”

“I never admitted—”

“—snaring Wammaker, Gadarene, and Lum, to scatter blame on both those who favor and oppose the new methods!”

Kaolin’s expression was cold. “A clever plan. If it worked that way.”

“And it almost did! But for the Maharals. They surprised you, Vic. When you tried pushing Yosil aside, he stole truckloads of equipment and vanished. That could only happen with Beta’s help, so you set out to destroy your ally … only to discover he was linked to Ritu, the assistant who knew your business inside out!

“The Maharals threw you into panic. You made hasty mistakes.”

“Like underestimating you, Mr. Morris.”

I waved that away. “Worse, events under Urraca Mesa drew unwelcome attention. The World Eye is alerted now. Your scientists are blabbing like songbirds. So there’s no longer any hope of suppressing the new golemtechnologies. But you do have another option. Is it possible to distract everybody, enough to still have your way?”

“How would I manage that?”

“By provoking social war! Give Lum’s emancipators enough new tricks to demand golem-citizenship. Help the maestra transmit ‘hurt-me’ succubus-ivories to every town. Neo-Luddites like Gadarene will denounce all this from pulpits, gaining scads of angry new followers. So long as they all keep their stories straight, everyone profits handsomely!”

“You make it sound so cynical.”

“Hence the new role you’ve chosen!” Clara stood up. “Your days at the helm of Universal Kilns are over, but there’s still time to affect style and spin. Cry out about pornography and God and declining morals. Convince half the public that your aims were pure, and they’ll protect you from the other half! Your new businesses will thrive, and nobody will remember all the toys you stashed away in your basement.”

The holo figure shook his head.

“I should never have replenished that green. But I was shorthanded and needed somebody to send over to Irene’s.” After a pause, Kaolin smiled. “This is all very clever. But it assumes I had a reason — a goal — worth so much effort, cost, and risk. Why cause turmoil, just to monopolize a few new wrinkles in golemtech?”

His questioning smile seemed confident. Without proof, all I could do was bluff. Where was our little spy-golem?

“You had plenty of reason,” I said quite slowly. “Because those new wrinkles, put together just right, add up to a form of immortality. Something you want, Vic Kaolin. Because, in fact, you’re actually—”

That very moment, my implant lit up.

Finally!

Letters began resolving in the focal plane of my left eye, forming a message from the tiny ferret-ditto we had sent scaling the mansion walls. The information I needed to complete my sentence.

“Because, Vic Kaolin, you are actually—”

— NOT DEAD.

Damn. I owe Pal fifty.

Well, Gumby owes it, in a bet over whether the head of UK was still alive.

It seemed obvious! What other reason could Kaolin have for all the schemes, tricks, and betrayals? He had to be dead! Everything pointed. The hermit thing. Only being seen in ditto or holo form. And those shiny platinums getting scarcer every year …

The memory problems made sense if his copies were stockpiled months or years ago. Each one must study briefings when it’s thawed. Then each golem tries to last as long as possible to maintain the illusion. To keep away the coroner and probate. To prevent folks from crying “ghost!”

Why else would he pay a fortune to develop dit-replenishment and dit-to-dit, then keep them off the market? It all made sense.

Yet there he stands, inside the dome, glimpsed by the clever eye in my paw — a gaunt figure with mottled-pale skin that meets every spectral test my clever implant can apply, wearing a white robe while facing a holo display that shows Clara and Gumby … who look dumbfounded as I transmit the news.

NOT DEAD, my message reads inside their glowing implants.

From across the meadow float sounds of laughter, tinkling like bells, mocking how certain we were. Everyone but Pal, who made the bet, offering odds and saying -

“Naw. A trillionaire can afford to be more clever than just dead. There’s got to be more to it than that.”

“Because I’m actually not dead?”

The holo image of Kaolin raised an eyebrow. “Did I hear you right, ditective? My motive in this grand scenario is that I’m still alive?”

Internally, I tried to gird myself. A bluff is a bluff, after all. You must carry it through.

“That’s right, Vic Kaolin. Because … because the dead-man scenario is too obvious! Someone would put it together and get a writ, demanding to see you in person.”

“It’s been tried.”

“Yes, but people will persist, eventually finding cause to invade your privacy screen and demand proof of life.” I shook my head. “No, the immortality we’re talking about isn’t yours. At least not now. Rather, it’s—”

I paused, buying a few seconds by coughing behind my fist. The man in the holo tilted his head, prompting me.

“Yes? It’s—”

“It’s about business!” Clara blurted. “Because … you’re a businessman. And an avowed elitist. You’ve watched your fellow zillionaires, many in their waning years, grow desperate for more time. Why not provide it and make a buck? With renewal and dit-to-dit, your peers can release their dying organic bodies, then continue in a daisy chain of dittos!”

Clara grinned, barely able to contain herself. “But that’s only part of the plan. It has do be done in secret because—”

“Because the law says only organics are people!” I exclaimed. “To make it work, your customers have to become hermits, like you, allowing no one near enough to check flesh. And it could look awfully suspicious if more than a few turned recluse at the same time. That limits your market, except—”

Clara hurried in. “Except for the recent frenzy over those plague missiles that Maharal so nearly launched. All of a sudden, life seems perilous again. Any day, without warning, the air may be filled with nasty viruses. Justification enough for scores of wealthy old eccentrics to order shiny new reflective domes built atop their mansions, swearing to venture forth only in clay … blaming the dangerous world when, in fact, they’re preparing for the pragmatists’ version of life after death. Where you can actually take it with you.”

The face in the holo display stared at Clara, then back at me.

“This is the most astonishing scenario I ever … What proof can you—”

I laughed.

“Why none at all. Yet. But the scheme counts on two fickle elements, money and secrecy. What about the heirs who stand to lose if Gramps never dies? Some will gladly pay for a real investigation and—”

Clara gasped, staring at nothing. “What is it?” I asked.

Her jaw hardened. She turned and glared at Aeneas Kaolin. “We had better not learn those missiles were your idea … sir. Cleverly arranged, in order to set up this very situation.”

Her tone chilled my ersatz spine. And it rocked our host, who paled as he raised both hands.

“The … the missiles surprised me as much as anyone, I swear it! I — I’m just taking advantage … the mood of fear … to do a little business.

“Again, where’s the harm?”

A great knot seemed to let go where my intestines would be, if I had them. Our new speculation, drawn impulsively from the ruined story we had been so sure of, was on target! In the end, it wasn’t logic that pinned Kaolin — he could have called our bluff — but the raw power of Clara’s personality.

“We’ll see,” she told the nervous hermit, keeping her momentum.

“I promise, you’ll have every chance to prove your innocence.”

73 Riding the Wheel

The kite, fluttering and swooping against the sky, is beautiful. Isn’t it? Like so much in the world. A big part of why you can’t let go.

Yosil was right about the “anchor” effect. You’ll never do all the ambitious things that he planned, or achieve his goals. Those vast new territories to conquer, to mold by will alone — you’ll leave those for another generation, perhaps a wiser one.

Still, you understand something that he didn’t.

Nature is necessary.

Without a gritty, paradox-free level of reality, bound by implacable physical laws, rich complexity could never emerge. Only fierce selection on an enormous scale could produce human beings — so competent at tooth-and-claw, yet rising to dream far beyond, to qualities like art, love, and soul.

But evolution clings! Your body yearns for the tingle of fair wind, the sting of rain, the luscious scent and taste of food, the fight-flight rush of adrenaline.

The rub-slap-tickle of a happy lover.

The music of laughter.

You who make the world by observing it — causing the probability amplitudes of stars to collapse and whole galaxies to reify, just by looking at them — you remain wedded to cause-effect because it offers hope! Hope that evolution will play fair. (Though it hasn’t yet.) Hope that you may win, no matter how unlikely it seems. (Because you are descended from generations of winners!)

Hope to stay alive, though death always waits.

You know it better than others. For you’ve seen the barren soulscape, where just a few billion algae-colonists struggle at the shoreline, clinging till the very last moment. Then, leaping for a moment’s glory like salmon plunging upstream, they try to achieve some goal beyond reckoning — something religions hint at, the way sketches on a cave wall once flickered by torchlight, almost coming alive.

Yes, every flicker that launched itself has failed, so far. But falling back, they left impressions. There, in dust.

And impressions last.

So, what will you do? Cut loose and try for higher ground? Without the stored energy that Yosil tried to gather, your chances will be slim. His calculations were good, even if his soul was warped.

Stay here, then? Half in one world and half elsewhere? Share a bed with Clara and the far-more-human version of your former self … the Albert variant who changes bodies, living from day to day?

It could work. But is it fair?

Or will you try something else? Something creative. Something never seen … at least in this cosmos.

The odds seem low. But then, it’s all in the trying, right?

For creatures rising out of flesh or mud, that’s all there’s ever been.

74 Impressionism

Departing the veranda of Aeneas Kaolin’s stone mansion, Clara and I wandered down the back steps, through a rose garden and past an elaborate dovecote, all the way to the grassy verge where Pal and realAlbert flew their kite.

As expected, they had drawn attention — not from the security staff, but people living in an enclave of small houses that lay tucked behind the hill, built for servants and their families. A crowd of children stared, or ran shouting excitedly.

Even today, there’s something about a well-handled kite.

Pal was clearly having a ball, controlling it from his medchair. Though golems give him access to the world, I never saw any of them provide such simple joy. Causing the wing panels to warp just right, he sent it swooping, climbing, then diving in mock attacks that drew delighted shrieks from kids and their parents.

All except one pair of adults who seemed less happy. They kept chivvying at three boys, trying to herd them back toward the small faux neighborhood. I sensed a glaring meanness there. But for now, the kids were having none of it, screaming and running like the others.

Turning to the platinum ditKaolin, who still accompanied us after his original signed off, I asked, “Are those the heirs?”

Grim-faced, the ditto nodded. “Nephews. Sons of a half sister who died three years ago.”

This truth had been part of the price Clara and I demanded.

“Do they know?” ditKaolin shook his head. “Their mother left me … left Aeneas … with full legal authority. You cannot interfere.”

Clara sighed. “Well, for now just remember that we know. We’ll be watching.”

“Of that I’m sure.”

The golem’s voice lacked any hint of resentment or resignation. I might have felt better if it had.

It took a while to collect Pal and realAlbert and the little spy-ferret, leaving the kite behind in the hands of some kids.

I thought about our “victory” during the limo ride back. Despite having cornered the great Kaolin and extracted the truth, I didn’t feel especially elated. Maybe long ago, before the Big Deregulation, we might have nailed him for all sorts of criminal offenses — from fraud to blackmail to extortion. But those were all civil torts now and most of his victims were happily bought off.

The most we could do was make him pay some more. And put crimps in the worst parts of his plan.

For one thing, the scattered team from Project Zoroaster would be recombined, along with outside critics, under the auspices of a neutral foundation. The aim: to release those new technologies in the least unsettling sequence, not the most disruptive. Though in truth, much of Kaolin’s social war seemed unavoidable. We were due for interesting times.

Another foundation, bankrolled by a generous Kaolin Grant, would look into the more “mystical” interests of Yosil Maharal. Not timidly, but with due attention to the raw feelings of millions, who still believe some lines aren’t meant to cross. As if there would be any way — over the long run — to keep folks from crossing.

Poor Ritu would be cared for, and quite wealthy when she stepped out. Doctors even spoke of teaching her to collaborate with a “rehabilitated” Beta personality. An exceptionally interesting person might emerge … and the world would be well advised to keep a wary eye open.

As for Kaolin’s new customers, he was welcome to try selling package tours of tomorrow for those who had everything except time. But since the new dittoing techniques won’t be secret anymore, everybody will have a fair idea what’s going on. So then, let heirs and lawyers and advocacy groups and ad hoc juries all thrash it out. Maybe elites will throw their influence behind the emancipators and to get ditimmortality declared legal. Perhaps not.

So long as the whole thing happens in the open, it’s really none of a ditective’s concern. Is it?

Pal bid us drop him off at the Ephemerals Temple. He had a date with the volunteer healer there — Alexie — who repaired me twice when I was green. His old flame who, Pal freely admitted, he “didn’t deserve.”

Perhaps. But who could refuse Pal’s company for very long? Half of him was more alive than most men I’ve known. Certainly more fun.

The little ferret-golem agreed. After reporting what he’d seen climbing the walls at Kaolin Manor, that small version of me figured he might as well find whatever excitement the world offered during life’s second half — the next dozen hours. So he hopped onto Pal’s shoulder and together they wheeled up the ramp, giving me that familiar old sensation of déjà vu.

Turning back to the car, Clara and I had a surprise. realAlbert sat inside, smiling as he waited. And we could see him clearly! Even though we stood on the pavement outside.

In fact, all of the limo walls and panels were completely transparent, not just one narrow, jittery dot per occupant. “Goodness,” Clara murmured. “That means he’s looking everywhere, in all directions at the same—”

“Yes, I know.”

When you get right down to it, this was no surprise at all.

Taking her hand, I glanced back at Pal and the smallest Albert, entering the temple together under the rosette window, past all the injured, broken, and spurned roxes who gather there each day for comfort and hope, passing into a place that welcomed all souls.

“Where to now?” queried the limo’s automatic driver.

I looked to my owner, the woman I loved.

She, in turn, glanced over at realAlbert. His attention might be everywhere at once — omni-awareness — but his smile seemed present right here with us.

“Home,” he said, in a voice clear and commanding. “Time for everybody to go home.”

For now, home meant Clara’s houseboat, just a kilometer downstream from Odeon Square … though it felt like years since I schlepped that distance underwater, thinking that I’d be in heaven if only I could unmask the infamous ditnapper, Beta.

Ah well. Heaven is a state of mind. I knew that now.

One favor that Yosil Maharal had done for us was forcing Clara and me to finally live together. Sure, I missed my house and garden, but we were both surprised at each other’s willingness to compromise in all the details of sharing a roof. Even one so cramped. Even with there being two of me.

It was an odd menage, even by modern standards. I mean, with hyperquality blanks and top equipment, I might last quite a while. So could realAlbert. Two halves of a complete husband for Clara. Able to father children. Able to help raise them. But in separate units.

“Kind of handy,” she said, putting a positive spin on things. But I could see worry. There were careers to balance, her new duties with the Dodecahedron, several kinds of biological and ceramic clocks, and two half-men to love … with no room aboard the houseboat for all the grays and ebonies and such we were going to need.

Time to get a house. At least now we could afford one. realAlbert was in the tiny forward cabin puttering with the imprinting equipment. I quashed an impulse to go stop him. Though childlike in his state of perpetual distraction, he was no simpleton. In fact, quite the opposite.

“Dinner is cooking,” the houseboat computer announced to Clara. “I have also prioritized four hundred and seventy-two messages for you and five hundred twenty for Mr. Morris. And the University called to inform you that you received incompletes on all of last semester’s courses.”

Clara cursed colorfully. The life of a student and part-time warrior was one more thing due to change. Welcome to the life of a full-time professional, dear. C’est la vie.

Then humming sounds drew our attention toward the bow — equipment warming up. Clara glanced at me as if to say, Make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.

I hurried forward on time to hear realAlbert mutter happily to himself. Something about how “we’re all bosons in this dust,” or something like it. Arriving at the cabin, I saw him lie down on the platten with his head — our head — between the tetragramatron tendrils, waving gently on all sides. I noticed that the transfer switch was pulled to UNLOAD.

After staring for several seconds, I asked, “Are you sure?”

The last time we tried this, there had been a busy signal. The organic brain was full, or fully occupied, with something immensely large. No more room inside. No room for me at all.

For the first time since Urraca Mesa — or since our soul-paths separated the Tuesday before — I felt complete attention from those eyes, durable organic eyes, built to last for thirty thousand days, or more.

“She’s all yours, Pinocchio,” I heard my own voice say, and it had something else — a tone that said farewell.

There would be room, now, I realized. A clean slate. A home to reimprint with all that I was and all I had become. Everything necessary for this wayward puppet to be a real boy.

And boy, won’t Clara be surprised.

Lying down on the other table, the one with a recycling bucket underneath, I took a moment to wish myself a nice trip.

Then I put my clay head down to begin life once again.

75 Soul Comfort