Android Karenina Part 17

CHAPTER 8.

IN SPITE OF VRONSKY'S apparently frivolous life in society, he was a man who hated irregularity. He liked to know, for instance, that all of his weapons were in proper working order at all times, and particularly when (according to the rumor currently making the regimental rounds) the Ministry's Department of War was preparing to deploy them against some new, unnamed threat. So he would shut himself up alone and go through each weapon, from grip to muzzle, to satisfy himself that all was in proper working order. This he called his day of reckoning apparently frivolous life in society, he was a man who hated irregularity. He liked to know, for instance, that all of his weapons were in proper working order at all times, and particularly when (according to the rumor currently making the regimental rounds) the Ministry's Department of War was preparing to deploy them against some new, unnamed threat. So he would shut himself up alone and go through each weapon, from grip to muzzle, to satisfy himself that all was in proper working order. This he called his day of reckoning or faire la lessive. or faire la lessive.

On waking up the day after the Cull, Vronsky put on a white linen coat, and without shaving or taking his bath, he distributed about him all the different pieces of weaponry he used, whether frequently or infrequently. Lupo padded in happy circles in a square of sunlight on the floor of the room, ready to be of use if needed, prepared even to act as a moving target if his master was in a mood to practice his aim.

As he worked, Vronsky considered the complexities of his life. Every man who knows the minutest details of the conditions surrounding him cannot help imagining that the complexity of these conditions, and the difficulty of making them clear, is something exceptional and personal, peculiar to himself, and never supposes that others are surrounded by just as complicated an array of personal affairs as he is. So indeed it seemed to Vronsky. And not without inward pride, he thought that any other man would long ago have been in difficulties, would have been forced to some dishonorable course, if he had found himself in such a difficult position. But Vronsky felt that now especially it was essential for him to clear up and define his position if he were to avoid getting into difficulties. As he thought, he bent over his work table.

What Vronsky attacked first were the small arms, the special favorite pieces he kept on his person, and for which he was known. These amounted to: the smokers, which sat with pride on his belt, one jutting forth from each hip; the smoldering hot-whip that coiled around his upper thigh in its transparent skin; and the gleaming crackle dagger tucked into his handsome, black leather boot.

He found all in excellent condition: the smokers unloaded their sizzling streams at the rate of sixteen'a'second, twice the regimental standard. At the pressure of his thumb on the hilt, the hot-whip leaped to life like an extension of his arm, and snapped across the length of the room in all directions. The crackle dagger he hurled with deadly accuracy into the far corner of his lodgings, propelling it into the body of a racc.o.o.n, which had picked the wrong moment to emerge from hiding behind the wastepaper basket.

He plucked the twitching, electrocuted racc.o.o.n from the blade, and tossed it to Lupo before, remembering his conversation with Anna from the previous day, he sank into meditation.

Vronsky's life was particularly happy in that he had a code of principles that defined with unfailing cert.i.tude what he ought and what he ought not to do. This code of principles covered only a very small circle of contingencies, but then the principles were never doubtful, and Vronsky, as he never went outside that circle, had never had a moment's hesitation about doing what he ought to do. In his own mind, he jokingly referred to these principles as the "Bronze Laws," in winking homage to the Iron Laws that regulated robot behavior.

Vronsky's Bronze Laws were a set of invariable rules: that one must never tell a lie to a man, but one may to a woman; that one must never cheat anyone, but one may a husband; that one must never pardon an insult, but one may give one; and so on. These principles were possibly not reasonable and not good, but they were of unfailing certainty, and so long as he adhered to them, Vronsky felt that his heart was at peace and he could hold his head up. Only quite lately in regard to his relations with Anna, Vronsky had begun to feel that his code of principles did not fully cover all possible contingencies, and to foresee in the future difficulties and perplexities for which he could find no guiding clue.

He sighed and turned his little tour of inspection to the complex pieces of ordnance: there was the shoulder-mounted Disrupter; the Demagnetizing Wand; the gleaming obsidian Sapper Gun; and, of course, the dreaded organ-destabilizing propellant gun known as the "Tsar's Vengeance." One by one, he picked up each deadly machine, and with practiced ease disa.s.sembled it, inspected the connections, slicked the gears with fresh humectant, and snapped all back in place.

The familiar and repet.i.tive actions cleared his mind and gladdened his heart. His present relation to Anna and to her husband was to his mind clear and simple. It was clearly and precisely defined in the code of principles by which he was guided.

She was an honorable woman who had bestowed her love upon him, and he loved her, and therefore she was in his eyes a woman who had a right to the same, or even more, respect than a lawful wife. He would have had his hand chopped off before he would have allowed himself by a word, by a hint, to humiliate her, or even to fall short of the fullest respect a woman could look for.

His att.i.tude to society, too, was clear. Everyone might know, might suspect it, but no one might dare to speak of it. If any did so, he was ready to force all who might speak to be silent and to respect the nonexistent honor of the woman he loved.

"Ah!" he shouted as, in his split concentration, he closed the clip of the Disrupter over his hand, pinching his fingertips. "Dratted thing."

Vronsky's att.i.tude to the husband was the clearest of all. Thinking of Alexei Alexandrovich, he selected the next weapon from the table, an experimental device called a Particulate Intensifier-one of only seven yet in existence, according to the conspiratorial gadgetman who had sold it to him-and leveled it at the target bay he'd had constructed in the far corner of his chamber.

Vronsky paused before firing the Particulate Intensifier. From the moment that Anna loved him, he had regarded his own right over her as the one thing una.s.sailable. Her husband was simply a superfluous and tiresome person. No doubt he was in a pitiable position, but how could that be helped? He squinted, drew his aim, and pictured superfluous and tiresome Alexei Alexandrovich standing in the target bay, imagined the smirking, half-metal face, and squeezed the trigger.

The target rattled violently for three long seconds, then exploded in a tumult of splintered wood and orange flares; Lupo howled his approval, dancing on his four legs about the room catching sparks and shards on his tongue like snowflakes. Vronsky smiled and looked at this new weapon admiringly. If it crossed his mind that Alexei Alexandrovich was no ordinary husband, and that he might have powers both literally and figuratively greater than any Vronsky may have previously encountered, he did not let that fact bother him. Striding about in his regimental barracks, surrounded by the deadly accoutrements of his trade, Vronsky could feel no sense that there was any man in the world more powerful than he, nor more deserving of the woman upon whom he had settled his attentions.

And yet, of late, new inner relations had arisen between him and her, which frightened Vronsky by their indefmiteness. Only the day before she had told him that she was with child. And he felt that this fact and what she expected of him called for something not fully defined in that code of principles by which he had hitherto steered his course in life. And he had been indeed caught unawares, and at the first moment when she spoke to him of her position, at that awful moment when the G.o.dmouth had yawned open and threatened to swallow her away forever, his heart had prompted him to beg her to leave her husband. He had said that, but now thinking things over he saw clearly that it would be better to manage to avoid that; and at the same time, as he told himself so, he was afraid whether it was not wrong.

"If I told her to leave her husband, that must mean uniting her life with mine; am I prepared for that? How can I take her away now, when I have no money? Supposing I could arrange . . . But how can I take her away while I'm in the service? If I say that, I ought to be prepared to do it, that is, I ought to have the money and to retire from the army. But . . . to retire from the army? Can I?" he said to Lupo, bending to scratch the wolf-like Cla.s.s III in the sensitive spot above his Third Bay.

He flung his crackle dagger again, with an extra curl of the wrist, and watched it sail toward the wall before swinging itself around like a Carpathian throwing stick toward the opposite corner of the room, where it embedded itself solidly in the heart of a second rac.o.o.n.

Vronsky let out a long whistle, low and admiring, while Lupo retrieved the catch. He had worked all the days of his life to earn his place: the right to wield such powerful devices. Ambition was the old dream of his youth and childhood, a dream which he did not confess even to himself, though it was so strong that now this pa.s.sion was even doing battle with his love.

"Women are the chief stumbling block in a man's career," his old friend Serpuhovskoy had p.r.o.nounced the previous night, as they raised gla.s.ses together in memoriam of poor Frou-Frou. "It's hard to love a woman and do anything. There's only one way of having love conveniently without its being a hindrance-that's marriage."

"But Serpuhovskoy has never loved," Vronsky murmured softly now, looking straight before him and thinking of Anna. Sensing the drift of his master's thoughts, Lupo yelped sharply in protest, regarding Vronsky with eyes like slits; a Regimental Cla.s.s III, he was naturally anxious that Vronsky should remain in the service.

"Yes, yes, you're right," Vronsky said. "If I retire, I burn my s.h.i.+ps. If I remain in the army, I lose nothing. She said herself she did not wish to change her position." And slowly twirling his mustache, he got up from the table and walked about the room. His eyes shone particularly brightly, and he felt in that confident, calm, and happy frame of mind which always came after he had thoroughly faced his position. Everything was straight and clear, every piece of his armory having been checked and rechecked and fired-except the Tsar's Vengeance, which even the most elite soldiers were not permitted to discharge outside of combat situations-and stowed in its proper place.

Except his oldest and dearest friends: his simple, beloved smokers. Before reholstering them, Vronsky took one more trick shot, admiring the way the weapons' hot blast lit up the four corners of the room.

Lupo ducked and rolled, his Vox-Em howling in vigorous approval of his master's steady eye.

CHAPTER 9.

IT WAS SIX O'CLOCK ALREADY, and so, in order to reach Anna quickly, and at the same time not to drive with his own carriage, known to everyone, Vronsky got into Yashvin's hired fly, and ordered the II/Coachman/644 to drive as quickly as possible. It was a roomy, old-fas.h.i.+oned fly, with seats for four. He sat in one corner, stretched his legs out on the front seat, and sank into meditation.

I'm happy, very happy I he said to himself. He had often before had a sense of physical joy in his own body, but he had never felt so fond of himself, of his every sinew, as at that moment. He enjoyed the slight ache in his strong leg, an aftereffect of the catastrophe at the Cull, and he enjoyed the muscular sensation of movement in his chest as he breathed. The bright, cold August day, which had made Anna feel so hopeless, seemed to him keenly stimulating, and refreshed his face and neck, which still tingled from the cold water. The scent of brilliantine on his whiskers struck him as particularly pleasant in the fresh air. Everything he saw from the carriage window, everything in that cold, pure air, in the pale light of the sunset, was as fresh and cheery and strong as he was himself: the roofs of the houses s.h.i.+ning in the rays of the setting sun, the strong Russian four-treads driven by gleaming groznium androids, the sharp outlines of fences and angles of buildings, the figures of pa.s.sers-by, the motionless green of the trees and gra.s.s, the airs.h.i.+ps in their slow, majestic glide, the hydroponic greenhouses where grew the ma.s.sive super-potatoes, each of which would feed a peasant family for a week-everything was bright like a pretty landscape just finished and freshly varnished. he said to himself. He had often before had a sense of physical joy in his own body, but he had never felt so fond of himself, of his every sinew, as at that moment. He enjoyed the slight ache in his strong leg, an aftereffect of the catastrophe at the Cull, and he enjoyed the muscular sensation of movement in his chest as he breathed. The bright, cold August day, which had made Anna feel so hopeless, seemed to him keenly stimulating, and refreshed his face and neck, which still tingled from the cold water. The scent of brilliantine on his whiskers struck him as particularly pleasant in the fresh air. Everything he saw from the carriage window, everything in that cold, pure air, in the pale light of the sunset, was as fresh and cheery and strong as he was himself: the roofs of the houses s.h.i.+ning in the rays of the setting sun, the strong Russian four-treads driven by gleaming groznium androids, the sharp outlines of fences and angles of buildings, the figures of pa.s.sers-by, the motionless green of the trees and gra.s.s, the airs.h.i.+ps in their slow, majestic glide, the hydroponic greenhouses where grew the ma.s.sive super-potatoes, each of which would feed a peasant family for a week-everything was bright like a pretty landscape just finished and freshly varnished.

"Get on, get on!" he said to the driver, putting his head out of the window, giving the Cla.s.s II a light jolt with his hot-whip, and the carriage rolled rapidly along the smooth highroad.

"I want nothing, nothing but this happiness," Vronsky declared to Lupo, who gave a happy woof of agreement before sticking his head out the carriage window to taste the wind.

"And as I go on," Vronsky declared further, "I love her more and more. Ah, here's the garden of the Vrede Villa"-where they had planned to meet. Whereabouts will she be? Whereabouts will she be? he wondered. he wondered. How will she look? How will she look?

He ordered the driver to stop before reaching the avenue, and, opening the door, jumped out of the carriage as it was moving, and went into the avenue that led up to the house. There was no one in the avenue; but looking round to the right he caught sight of her. Her face was hidden by a veil, but he drank in with glad eyes the special movement in walking, peculiar to her alone, the slope of the shoulders and the setting of the head, and at once a sort of electric shock ran all over him, as if someone had jolted him him with a hot-whip. With fresh force, he felt conscious of himself, from the springy motions of his legs to the movements of his lungs as he breathed, and something set his lips twitching. with a hot-whip. With fresh force, he felt conscious of himself, from the springy motions of his legs to the movements of his lungs as he breathed, and something set his lips twitching.

Joining him, she pressed his hand tightly.

"You're not angry that I sent for you? I absolutely had to see you," she said; and the serious and set line of her lips, which he saw under the veil, transformed his mood at once.

"I, angry?" he stammered, taken aback by her somber demeanor. "Of course not! But-how have you come, where from?"

"Never mind," she said, laying her hand on his. "I must talk to you."

She and Android Karenina were standing beneath a flowering tree, of a kind that Vronsky had never seen before, with large, overhanging emerald petals. The tree had an unfamiliar and vaguely foreboding appearance, which seemed in keeping with Anna's expression. Vronsky saw clearly that something had happened, and that the rendezvous would not be a joyous one. For all the elation he had felt just a minute before, in her presence he had no will of his own: without knowing the grounds of her distress, he already felt the same distress unconsciously pa.s.sing over him. He felt like a robot who'd had a burst of rainwater splashed violently behind its faceplate, shorting out his ability to reason and rendering him a useless, immobile hunk of man-shaped debris.

"What is it? What?" he asked her, squeezing her hand with his elbow, and trying to read her thoughts in her face.

She waited a few steps in silence, leaning against the trunk of the peculiar tree, gathering her courage; then suddenly she stopped.

"Yesterday," she began, breathing quickly and painfully, "coming home with Alexei Alexandrovich I told him everything . . . told him I could not be his wife, that . . . and told him everything."

He heard her, unconsciously bending his whole figure down to her as though hoping in this way to soften the hardness of her position for her. But as soon as she had said this he suddenly drew himself up, and a proud and hard expression came over his face.

"Yes, yes, that's better, a thousand times better! I know how painful it was," he said.

But she was not listening to his words; she was reading his thoughts from the expression of his face. She could not guess that that expression arose from the first idea that presented itself to Vronsky-that a duel was now inevitable. The idea of a duel had never crossed her mind, and so she put a different interpretation on this pa.s.sing expression of hardness.

For Anna, when she got her husband's communique, she knew at the bottom of her heart that everything would go on in the old way, that she would not have the strength of will to forego her position, to abandon her son, and to join her lover. But this talk with Vronsky was still of the utmost gravity for her. She had hoped that their conversation would transform her position, and save her. If on hearing this news he were to say to her resolutely, pa.s.sionately, without an instant's wavering: "Throw up everything and come with me!" she would give up her son and go away with him. But her news had not produced what she had expected in him; he simply seemed as though he were resenting some affront.

"It was not in the least painful to me. It happened of itself," she said irritably, "and see . . . "With a brusque gesture, she directed Android Karenina to play the communique for Vronsky.

"I understand, I understand," he interrupted her, ignoring the android's display, not hearing Anna's words, only trying to in vain to soothe her. As he held her in his arms he happened to glance above her head, and observed that one of the unusual tree's emerald flowers had suddenly blossomed-at least, the flower was open, and he was certain, or thought he was certain, that only a moment ago it had been quite shut.

"Anna," he began, but then drew silent, staring at the curious tree as it grew more curious still: A thin film had emerged from within the bell of the flower, and it descended slowly, pouring down over the sides, as if a child with a Cla.s.s I toy were inside the plant, blowing a bubble.

Anna scowled at his distraction, and he shook his head and focused his eyes upon her. "The one thing I longed for," he continued, "the one thing I prayed for, was to cut short this position, so as to devote my life to your happiness."

"Why do you tell me that?" she said. "Do you suppose I can doubt it? If I doubted-"

A sudden noise made Vronsky start. "Who's that coming?" he asked, pointing to two ladies walking toward them. "Perhaps they know us!" He abruptly took a step backward into the foliage.

"Oh, I don't care!" Anna said, turning away from him. Her lips were quivering. And he fancied that her eyes looked with strange fury at him from under the veil. "Just see what he says to me. Watch the communique." She cued Android Karenina to begin again.

Vronsky watched the display, and once again was unconsciously carried away by the sensations aroused in him by his own relation to the betrayed husband. Now he could not help picturing the challenge, which he would most likely find at home today or tomorrow, and the duel itself, in which, with the same cold and haughty expression that his face was a.s.suming at this moment, he would await the injured husband's shot, after having himself gallantly fired his smokers into the air. And at that instant there flashed across his mind the thought of what Serpuhovskoy had said to him, and what he had himself been thinking in the morning-that it was better not to bind himself-and he knew that this thought he could not tell her.

Neither Anna nor Vronsky, preoccupied by these thoughts and counter-thoughts running through their minds while the communique played, noticed what transpired directly above her head: the transparent film oozing from the odd flowering tree had silently ballooned outward to huge, though near-invisible, proportions. Now, like a soap bubble, it popped free of the tree and closed around Anna's body, so thin and transparent as to be imperceptible even as it hardened into an impenetrable sh.e.l.l.

"You see the sort of man he is," Anna said, with a shaking voice. "He . . ."

"I rejoice at this!" Vronsky said, speaking at the same time. Each was on their own side of the unseen sphere, and so neither could hear the other; and with Anna looking off into the distance, neither could even see that the other was speaking.

"Things can't go on as they have," Vronsky continued. "hope that now you will leave him. I hope that you will let me arrange and plan our life."

Unaware, Anna carried on her own conversation: ". . . my child! I should have to leave him!"

Android Karenina looked around curiously. Lupo sniffed the air, with a dawning awareness that something was dreadfully amiss.

And so it went. Not hearing, both lovers simply a.s.sumed they knew what the other was thinking. When Vronsky finally looked away from Android Karenina's monitor and raised his eyes to Anna, she did not know what caused them to seem so implacable; she knew only that, whatever he might say to her, he would not say all he thought. And she was certain her last hope had failed her. This was not what she had been reckoning on. And while these sickening thoughts chased themselves around in her mind, the sides of the near-invisible sheath drew taut under her feet like the cinching of a drawstring sack, and she lurched off the ground and up into the air.

"My G.o.d!" Vronsky shouted, noticing her for the first time:" Anna! You are floating!"

As if the strange conveyance that was carrying Anna into the air somehow knew it had been discovered, it accelerated the upward motion with which it was lifting her off her feet. Lupo leaped up on his powerful, pneumatic-actuated legs toward the mysterious conveyance, but it was already too high to be reached.

"Stay the thing, Lupo!" shouted Vronsky, reverting at once to his regimental training. Lupo, settling back on his haunches, made his wide, fierce mouth into a perfect O and howled out a resonating battle-cry, sending a precisely modulated echo wave toward the base of Anna's airborne prison-steadying it against the wind and holding it in place. Vronsky searched furiously for a way to deliver Anna to safety, even as, in the back of his mind, he wondered: first a G.o.dmouth, and now this bubble-like cage of a prison? UnConSciya was trying to capture or kill Anna Karenina. But why?

He squatted, plucked the crackle-dagger from his boot, and stared carefully towards his target. An inch too high, and the dagger would sail uselessly off into the gardens; an inch too low, and it would bounce harmlessly off the side of the bubble-or, worse, slice through the exterior and into Anna's precious flesh. He squinted, took aim . . . and hesitated, as the wind s.h.i.+fted the bubble ever so slightly upon the air. Lupo redoubled his powerful air-disrupting war cry, but Vronsky knew he hadn't much time left before the sh.e.l.l would be borne off by the winds.

Inside her queer floating prison, Anna looked down upon Vronsky, in his soldier's crouch with weapons drawn, and, despite the furious tangle of fears and doubts that had gripped her, felt her heart wrung by love. He is a man of action He is a man of action, she thought, a man who does not hesitate to grab hold of whatever life presents to him. That is how I am meant to live: with truth, with purpose, with vitality. I cannot give this up-cannot give him up, cannot stop loving him. But . . . am I really prepared to leave my husband? To lose my son? To abandon all I have begun, all I have known? To uproot my life entirely? a man who does not hesitate to grab hold of whatever life presents to him. That is how I am meant to live: with truth, with purpose, with vitality. I cannot give this up-cannot give him up, cannot stop loving him. But . . . am I really prepared to leave my husband? To lose my son? To abandon all I have begun, all I have known? To uproot my life entirely?

At that thought, all her problems coalesced. Of course! Anna gestured frantically to Vronsky, waving and pointing. Her wild but deliberate motions captured his attention, stopping him just before his c.o.c.ked arm would have sent the deadly crackle-dagger arcing towards her. At last, they were communicating.

Vronsky, following her pantomimed suggestion, swung his crackle-dagger around to attack not the flowering bubble that held her fast, but at the base of the tree whence it had come. Lupo joined in the a.s.sault, extending excavation-quality end-effectors from his paws to dig furiously at the root of the mechanical plant. Within moments, they severed the trunk from the earth, and as it creaked and fell to the ground, the bubble that had been its progeny dissipated-sending Anna tumbling down to where Android Karenina waited to catch her beloved mistress in her arms.

"MY G.o.d!" VRONSKY SHOUTED, AT LAST NOTICING: "ANNA! YOU ARE FLOATING!"

After Anna had a.s.sured Vronsky for the third time that she had suffered nothing but minor bruising in the fall, they sat beside each other upon the stone wall beside the tree.

She turned his face to hers, looking him squarely in the eye. With the intensity brought on by peril, they focused and listened to one another.

"I cannot lose my son," Anna began simply.

"But, for G.o.d's sake, which is better?-leave your child, or keep up this degrading position?"

"To whom is it degrading?"

"To all, and most of all to you."

As they spoke, Lupo padded carefully around the tree, sniffing at the earth, gathering up fragments of the translucent sheath for later a.n.a.lysis.

"You say degrading . . . don't say that. That has no meaning for me." Her voice shook. She did not want him now to say what was untrue. She had nothing left but his love, and she wanted to love him. "Don't you understand that from the day I loved you everything has changed for me? For me there is one thing, and one thing only-your love. If that's mine, I feel so exalted, so strong, that nothing can be humiliating to me. I am proud of my position, because . . . proud of being . . . proud . . ." She could not say what she was proud of. Tears of shame and despair choked her utterance. She stood still and sobbed.

He, too, felt, something swelling in his throat and twitching in his nose, and for the first time in his life Vronsky found himself on the point of weeping. The flower-trap; his love; their impossible situation; he could not have said exactly what it was that touched him so. He felt sorry for her, and he felt he could not help her, and with that he knew that he was to blame for her wretchedness, and that he had done something wrong.

"Is not a divorce possible?" he said feebly. She shook her head, not answering. "Couldn't you take your son, and still leave him?"

"Yes; but it all depends on him. Now I must go to him," she said shortly. Her presentiment that all would again go on in the old way had not deceived her.

"On Tuesday I shall be in Petersburg, and everything can be settled."

"Yes," she said. "But don't let us talk any more of it."

Anna's carriage, which she had sent away and ordered to come back to the little gate of the Vrede Garden, drove up. Anna said good-bye to Vronsky. Android Karenina gingerly lifted her up into their carriage, and they drove home.

CHAPTER 10.

ON MONDAY THERE WAS the usual sitting of the Higher Branches of the Ministry. Alexei Alexandrovich walked into the hall where the sitting was held, greeted the members and the president as usual, and sat down in his place, the papers laid ready before him. Among these papers lay the necessary evidence and a rough outline of the speech he intended to make. But he did not really need these doc.u.ments. He remembered every point, and did not think it necessary to go over in his memory what he would say. He knew that when the time came, and when he saw his enemy facing him, and studiously endeavoring to a.s.sume an expression of indifference, his speech would flow of itself better than he could prepare it now. The Face murmured quiet encouragement into his cerebral cortex, a.s.suring him that the import of his speech was of such magnitude that every word of it would have weight. Meanwhile, as he listened to the usual report, he had the most innocent and inoffensive air. No one, looking at him gazing calmly through the monocle he wore, somewhat pompously, over his one human eye, and at the air of weariness with which his head drooped on one side, would have suspected that in a few minutes a torrent of words would flow from his lips that would arouse a fearful storm, set the members shouting and attacking one another, and force the president to call for order. the usual sitting of the Higher Branches of the Ministry. Alexei Alexandrovich walked into the hall where the sitting was held, greeted the members and the president as usual, and sat down in his place, the papers laid ready before him. Among these papers lay the necessary evidence and a rough outline of the speech he intended to make. But he did not really need these doc.u.ments. He remembered every point, and did not think it necessary to go over in his memory what he would say. He knew that when the time came, and when he saw his enemy facing him, and studiously endeavoring to a.s.sume an expression of indifference, his speech would flow of itself better than he could prepare it now. The Face murmured quiet encouragement into his cerebral cortex, a.s.suring him that the import of his speech was of such magnitude that every word of it would have weight. Meanwhile, as he listened to the usual report, he had the most innocent and inoffensive air. No one, looking at him gazing calmly through the monocle he wore, somewhat pompously, over his one human eye, and at the air of weariness with which his head drooped on one side, would have suspected that in a few minutes a torrent of words would flow from his lips that would arouse a fearful storm, set the members shouting and attacking one another, and force the president to call for order.

When the report was over, Alexei Alexandrovich announced in his subdued, delicate voice that he had several points to bring before the meeting in regard to the subsequent phases of the Project they had undertaken. All attention was turned upon him. Alexei Alexandrovich cleared his throat, and not looking at his opponent, but selecting, as he always did while he was delivering his speeches, the first person sitting opposite him, an inoffensive little old man who never had an opinion of any sort in the commission, began to expound his views.

"As those of you who have, like myself, been partic.i.p.ants in the development of the Project are aware, the first phase of our n.o.ble endeavor has been a total and unqualified success."

SO IT HAS BEEN, hissed the Face. SO I HAVE BEEN SO I HAVE BEEN.

"The second phase is now being made ready, under my direct supervision, in a subterranean work office in the Moscow Tower. The new prototype of robot, exactly as I planned, will have those three advancements we wished for: advancements in appearance, advancements in capacity, and advancements in the appropriate distribution of loyalty."

This set of euphemistic and jargonistic phrases earned a smattering of applause from Karenin's colleagues. But when he reached the point about the next phase of the Project, in which all Cla.s.s III robots extant in Russian society would be gathered up and adjusted to meet the new standard, his opponent jumped up and began to protest. Stremov took the position that only those individuals who so desired it should have their Cla.s.s Ills updated to the new version that Karenin was perfecting. Stremov, who had long been Karenin's political enemy, was a man of fifty, partly gray, but still vigorous-looking, very ugly, but with a characteristic and intelligent face. He spoke longly and loudly about "ancient prerogatives" and the "unique nature of the bond between man and beloved-companion," and altogether a stormy sitting followed. But Alexei Alexandrovich triumphed, and his motion was carried, the oath of secrecy-unto-death was sworn; Alexei Alexandrovich's success had been even greater than he had antic.i.p.ated.