Read Online We Can Build You by Philip K. Dick - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Philip K. Dick
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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 somedark 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 easy-chair.
“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
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 somedark 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 easy-chair.
“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
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