The Fourth Vocation of George Gustaf

Epilogue

Dr. George Gustaf sat back behind his desk, after the last negotiators had left and Farrell Cooper had shut the door.

“Will there be anything else, Your Majesty?” Cooper smiled.

“What more could there be, Farrell? I’m now constitutional monarch of the world. They’ve thrown in the rest of the solar system too, in exchange for my giving up any unilateral right to declare war when we discover aliens… if ever.”

“Quite an accomplishment, Your Majesty. We’ll all be very busy, getting ready for the coronation.”

“Yah.” Gustaf grimaced. “It’s going to be a hard five years before the experiment’s over, and we can publish the results.”

“They won’t like it if you do as you plan and suddenly abdicate then—especially if you’ve been a good king.”

“Oh, I’ll be a good king, for five years. But maybe you’re right. We should figure out a way to go incognito when we publish and let the world know that a bunch of pro actors, amateur historians and artists pulled off the biggest sociological experiment in history… and right under the professionals’ noses!”

Cooper grinned. “Whatever Your Majesty says.”

Gustaf sighed. “There’s only one thing that bothers me.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s the AnMen. My whole procedure depended on a careful manipulation of android psychology, making them believe that my experiment would benefit mankind in the long run, even if it results in a little short-term disruption. Their help was necessary, to clean up my pedigree a bit and make me seem totally legitimate as heir.”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it? You’re the expert robo-psychiatrist. Doesn’t this justify your confidence?”

“I suppose so.” Gustaf frowned. “But it’s those damned triple-A androids that have me worried. They’re totally committed to human welfare and growth, and I was sure at least a few of them would have balked at the demoralizing effect it could have when I publish. After all, I’m doing this simply to win another honorary profession in experimental sociology… a rather selfish motive from their point of view.

“I wonder why they all went so far out of their way to help me on this?”

Cooper finished polishing a fine crystal snifter and placed it and a silver tray on the desk by Gustaf’s arm.

“Maybe they think they know you better than you know them… or perhaps even yourself,” he said.

Gustaf swiveled around to stare at Cooper. The tall, sallow old man lifted a decanter of brandy from the cabinet against the wall. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Cooper looked through the ancient crystal decanter at the fine old cognac. “When the five years are up, what proof will you have, that this was all just part of an experiment?”

Gustaf laughed.

“You mean I might be stuck as king? And never get my honorary vocation? They wouldn’t…!” he began. Then, seeing the expression on Cooper’s face, he frowned, and whispered.

“You wouldn’t!”

Cooper smiled.

“No, of course not… Your Majesty.”

Cooper poured, with quiet precision, exactly the right amount of brandy into the glass at Gustaf’s side. He bowed. But as he turned to go he noticed that the first worry line had begun to buckle in the young man’s brow.