Read Online Split Infinity by Piers Anthony - Free Book Online Page B

operate—“
    “Why do you think there’s further danger? They got my knees; that’s obviously all they wanted. It was a neat shot, just above the withers of the racing horse, bypassing the torso of a crouching jockey. They could have killed me or the horse—had this been the object.”
    “Indeed he or they could have,” she agreed. “The object was obviously to finish your racing career. If that measure does not succeed, what do you think they will do next?”
    Stile mulled that over. “You have a paranoid robot mind. It’s contagious. I think I’d better retire from racing. But I don’t have to let my knees remain out of commission.”
    “If your knees are corrected, you will be required to ride,” she said. “You are not in a position to countermand Citizen demands.”
    Again Stile had to agree. That episode at the hospital —they had intended to operate on his knees, and only his quick and surprising break and Sheen’s help had enabled him to avoid that. He could not simply stand like a Citizen and say “No.” No serf could. “And if I resume riding, the opposition’s next shot will not be at the knees. This was as much warning as action—just as your presence is. Some other Citizen wants me removed from the racing scene—probably so his stable can do some winning for a change.”
    “I believe so. Perhaps that Citizen preferred not to indulge in murder—it is after all frowned upon, especially when the interests of other Citizens are affected—so he initiated a two-step warning. First me, then the laser. Stile, I think this is a warning you had better heed. I can not guard you long from the mischief of a Citizen.”
    “Though that same Citizen may have sent you to argue his case, I find myself agreeing,” Stile said.   “Twice he has shown me his power. Let’s get back to my apartment and call my employer. I’ll ask him for assignment to a nonracing position.”
    “That won’t work.”
    “I’m sure it won’t. He has surely already fired me.
    But common ethics require the effort.”
    “What you call common ethics are not common. We are not dealing with people like you. Let me intercept your apartment vid. You can not safely return to your residence physically.”
    No, of course not. Now that Sheen was actively protecting him, she was showing her competence. His in-jury, and the matter at the hospital, had obscured the realities of his situation. He would be taken into custody and charged with hospital vandalism the moment he appeared at his apartment. “You know how to tap a vidline?”
    “No. I am not that sort of machine. But I have friends who know how.”
    “A machine has friends?”
    “Variants of consciousness and emotion feedback circuits are fairly common among robots of my caliber.   We are used normally in machine-supervisory capacities. Our interaction on a familiar basis is roughly analogous to what is termed friendship in human people.”
    She brought him to a subterranean storage chamber and closed its access-aperture. She checked its electronic terminal, then punched out a code. “My friend will come.”
    Stile was dubious. “If friendship exists among robots, I suspect men are not supposed to know it. Your friend may not be my friend.”
    “I will protect you; it is my prime directive.”
    Still, Stile was uneasy. This misadventure had al-ready opened unpleasant new horizons on his life, and he doubted he had seen the last of them. Obviously the robots of Proton were getting out of control, and this fact would have been noted and dealt with before, if evidence had not been systematically suppressed.   Sheen, in her loyalty to him, could have betrayed him.
    In due course her friend arrived. It was a mobile technician—a wheeled machine with computer brain, presumably similar to the digital-analog marvel Sheen possessed. “You called. Sheen?” it inquired from a speaker grille.
    “Techtwo, this is Stile—human,” Sheen said. “I must guard him from harm,