We Can Build You

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‘To impress Mr Barrows.’

‘Who is Mr Barrows?’ The old man’s voice grated.

‘A multi-millionaire who lives in Seattle, Washington. It was his influence that got sub-dividers started on the Moon.’

‘Sir, have you ever heard of Artemus Ward?’

‘No,’ I admitted.

‘If Mr Lincoln is revived you will be subjected to endless humorous selections from the writings of Mr Ward.’ Scowling, the Stanton picked up its book and once more read. Its face was red and its hands shook.

Obviously I had said the wrong thing.

There was really not much that I knew about Edwin M. Stanton. Since everybody today looks up to Abraham Lincoln it hadn’t occurred to me that the Stanton would feel otherwise. But you live and learn. After all, the simulacrum’s attitude was formed well over a century ago. and there’s not much you can do to change an attitude that old.

I excused myself – the Stanton barely glanced up and nodded – and set off down the street to the library. Fifteen minutes later I had the Britannica out and laid flat on a table; I looked up both Lincoln and Stanton and then the Civil War itself.

The article on Stanton was short but interesting. Stanton had started out hating Lincoln; the old man had been a Democrat, and he both hated and distrusted the new Republican Party. It described Stanton as being harsh, which I had already noticed, and it told of many squabbles with generals, especially Sherman. But, the article said, the old man was good in his job under Lincoln; he booted out fraudulent contractors and kept the troops well-equipped. And at the end of hostilities he was able to demobilize 800,000 men, no mean feat after a bloody Civil War.

The trouble hadn’t started until Lincoln’s death. It had really been hot-going there for a while, between Stanton and President Johnson; in fact it looked as if the Congress were going to take over and be the sole governing body. As I read the article I began to get a pretty good idea of the old man. He was a real tiger. He had a violent temper and a sharp tongue. He almost got Johnson out and himself in as a military dictator.

But the Britannica added, too, that Stanton was thoroughly honest and a genuine patriot.

The article on Johnson stated bluntly that Stanton was disloyal to his chief and in league with his enemies. It called Stanton obnoxious. It was a miracle that Johnson got the old man out.

When I put the volumes of the Britannica back on the shelf I breathed a sigh of relief; just in those little articles you could catch the atmosphere of pure poison which reigned in those days, the intrigues and hates, like something out of Medieval Russia. In fact all the plotting at the end of Stalin’s lifetime – it was much like that.

As I walked slowly back to the office I thought, Kindly old gentleman hell. The Rock-Frauenzimmer combine, in their greed, had reawakened more than a man; they had reawakened what had been an awesome and awful force in this country’s history. Better they should have made a Zachary Taylor simulacrum. No doubt it was Pris and her perverse, nihilistic mind that had conceived this great joker in the deck, this choice out of all the possible thousands, even millions. Why not Socrates? Or Gandhi?

And so now they expected calmly and happily to bring to life a second simulacrum: someone whom Edwin M. Stanton had a good deal of animosity toward. Idiots!

I entered our shop once more and found the Stanton reading as before. It had almost finished its cybernetics book.

There, not more than ten feet away, on the largest of MASA’s workbenches, lay the mass of half-completed circuits which would one day be the Abraham Lincoln. Had the Stanton made it out? Had it connected this electronic confusion with what I had said? I stole a glance at the new simulacrum. It did not look as if anyone – or anything – had meddled inappropriately. Bundy’s careful work could be seen, nothing else. Surely if the Stanton had gone at it in my absence, there would be a few broken or burned segments … I saw nothing like that.

Pris, I decided, was probably at home these days, putting the final life-like colors into the sunken cheeks of the Abe Lincoln shell which would house all these parts. That in itself was a full-time job. The beard, the big hands, skinny legs, the sad eyes. A field for her creativity, her artistic soul, to run and howl rampant. She would not show up until she had done a top-notch job.

Going back upstairs I confronted Maury. ‘Listen, friend. That Stanton thing is going to up and bang Honest Abe over the head. Or haven’t you bothered to read the history books?’ And then I saw it. ‘You had to read the books in order to make the instruction tapes. So you know better than I what the Stanton feels toward Lincoln! You know he’s apt to roast the Lincoln into charred rust any minute!’

‘Don’t get mixed up in last year’s politics.’ Maury put down his letters for a moment, sighing. ‘The other day it was my daughter; now it’s the Stanton. There’s always some dark horror lurking. You have the mind of an old maid, you know that? Lay off and let me work.’

I went back downstairs to the shop again.

There, as before, sat the Stanton, but now it had finished its book; it sat pondering.

‘Young man,’ it called to me, ‘give me more information about this Barrows. Did you say he lives at our nation’s Capitol?’

‘No sir, the state of Washington.’ I explained where it was.

‘And is it true, as Mr Rock tells me, that this Barrows arranged for the World’s Fair to be held in that city through his great influence?’

‘I’ve heard that. Of course, when a man is that rich and eccentric all sorts of legends crop up about him.’

‘Is the fair still in progress?’

‘No, that was years ago.’

‘A pity,’ the Stanton murmured. ‘I wanted to go.’

That touched me to the heart. Again I reexperienced my first impression of it: that in many ways it was more human – god help us! – than we were, than Pris or Maury or even me, Louis Rosen. Only my father stood above it in dignity. Doctor Horstowski – another only partly-human creature, dwarfed by this electronic simulacrum. And, I thought, what about Barrows? How will he look when compared, face to face, with the Stanton?

And then I thought, How about the Lincoln? I wonder how that will make us feel and make us look.

‘I’d like your opinion about Miss Frauenzimmer, sir,’ I said to the simulacrum. ‘If you have the time to spare.’

‘I have the time, Mr Rosen.’

I seated myself on a truck tire opposite its brown easychair.

‘I have known Miss Frauenzimmer for some time. I am not certain precisely how long, but no matter; we are well-acquainted. She has recently left the Kasanin Medical Clinic at Kansas City, Missouri and returned here to her family. As a matter of fact I live at the Frauenzimmer home. She has light gray eyes and stands five feet six inches. Her weight is one-hundred-twenty-pounds at this time. She has been losing weight, I am told. I cannot recall her as anything but beauteous. Now I shall dilate on deeper matters. Her stock is of the highest, although immigrant; for it has imbibed of the American vision, which is: that a person is only limited by his abilities and may rise to whatever station in life is best-suited to those abilities. It does not follow from that however, that all men will rise equally; far from it. But Miss Frauenzimmer is quite right in refusing to accept any arrangement which denies her expression of those abilities and she senses any infringement with a flash of fire in her gray eyes.’