We all had to laugh at that.
“How did the Frankenstein monster finally die?” Colleen asked.
“Ice,” Maury said. “The castle burned down and they sprayed hoses on it and the water became ice.”
“But the monster was found frozen in the ice in the next movie,” I said. “And they revived him.”
“He disappeared into a pit of bubbling lava,” Blunk said. “I was there. I kept a button from his coat.” From his coat pocket he produced a button which he displayed to each of us in turn. “Off the world-famous Frankenstein monster.”
Colleen said, “It’s off your vest, David.”
“What!” Blunk glanced down, scowling. “So it is! It’s my own button!” Again he laughed.
Barrows, investigating his teeth with the edge of his thumbnail, said to Maury and me, “How much did it set you back to put together the Stanton robot?”
“Around five thousand,” Maury said.
“And how much can it be produced in quantity for? Say, if several hundred thousand are run off.”
“Hell,” Maury said quickly. “I would say around six hundred dollars. That assumes they’re identical, have the same ruling monads and are fed the same tapes.”
“What it is,” Barrows said to him, “is a life-size version of the talking dolls that were so popular in the past; correct–”
“No,” Maury said, “not exactly.”
“Well, it talks and walks around,” Barrows said. “It took a bus to Seattle. Isn’t that the automaton principle made a little more complex?” Before Maury could answer he continued. “What I’m getting at is, there really isn’t anything _new_ here, is there?”
Silence.
“Sure,” Maury said. He did not look very merry, now. And I noticed that Pris, too, seemed abruptly humorless.
“Well, would you spell it out, please,” Barrows said, still with his pleasant tone, his informality. Picking up his glass of Green Hungarian he sipped. “Go ahead, Rock.”
“It’s not an automaton at all,” Maury said. “You know the work of Grey Walter in England? The turtles? It’s what’s called a homeostatic system. It’s cut off from its environment; it produces its own responses. It’s like the fully automated factory which repairs itself. Do you know what ‘feedback’ refers to? In electrical systems there–”
Dave Blunk put his hand on Maury’s shoulder. “What Mr. Barrows wants to know has to do with the patentability, if I may use such an unwieldly term, of your Stanton and Lincoln robots.”
Pris spoke up in a low, controlled voice. “We’re fully covered at the patent office. We have expert legal representation.”
“That’s good to hear,” Barrows said, smiling at her as he picked his teeth. “Because otherwise there’s nothing to buy.”
“Many new principles are involved,” Maury said. “The Stanton electronic simulacrum represents work developed over a period of years by many research teams in and out of Government and if I may say so myself we’re all abundantly pleased, even amazed, at the terrific results . . . as you saw yourself when the Stanton got off the Greyhound bus at Seattle and took a taxi to your office.”
“It walked,” Barrows said.
“Pardon?”
“I say, it walked to my office from the Greyhound bus station.”
“In any case,” Maury said, “what we’ve achieved here has no precedent in the electronics trade.”
After dinner we drove to Ontario, arriving at the office of MASA ASSOCIATES at ten o’clock.
“Funny little town,” Dave Blunk said, surveying the empty streets. “Everybody in bed.”
“Wait until you see the Lincoln,” Maury said as we got out from the car.
They had stopped at the showroom window and were reading the sign that had to do with the Lincoln.
“I’ll be a son of a gun,” Barrows said. He put his face to the glass, peering in. “No sign of it right now, though. What does it do, sleep at night? Or do you have it assassinated every evening around five, when sidewalk traffic is heaviest?”
Maury said, “The Lincoln is probably down in the shop. We’ll go down there.” He unlocked the door and stood aside to let us enter.
Presently we were standing at the entrance to the dark repairshop as Maury groped for the light switch. At last he found it.
There, seated in meditation, was the Lincoln. It had been sitting quietly in the darkness.
Barrows said at once, “Mr. President.” I saw him nudge Colleen Nild. Blunk grinned, looking enthusiastic, with the greedy, good-humored warmth of a hungry but confident cat. Clearly, he was getting enormous enjoyment out of all this. Mrs. Nild craned her neck, gasped faintly, obviously impressed. Barrows, of course, walked on into the repairshop without hesitation, knowing exactly what to do. He did not hold his hand out to the Lincoln; he halted a few paces from it, showing respect.
Turning his head the Lincoln regarded him with a melancholy expression. I had never seen such despair on a face before, and I shrank back; so did Maury. Pris did not react at all; she merely remained standing in the doorway. The Lincoln rose to its feet, hesitated, and then by degrees the expression of pain faded from its face; it said in a broken, reedy voice–completely at contrast to its tall frame, “Yes sir.” It inspected Barrows from its height, with kindliness and interest, its eyes twinkling a little.
“My name is Sam Barrows,” Barrows said. “It’s a great honor to meet you, Mr. President.”
“Thank you, Mr. Barrows,” the Lincoln said. “Won’t you and your friends enter and accommodate yourselves?”
To me Dave Blunk gave a wide-eyed silent whistle of astonishment and awe. He clapped me on the back. “Wheee,” he said softly.
“You remember me, Mr. President,” I said to the simulacrum.
“Yes, Mr. Rosen.”
“What about me?” Pris said drily.
The simulacrum made a faint, clumsy, formal bow. “Miss Frauenzimmer. And you, Mr. Rock. . . the person on which this edifice rests, does it not?” The simulacrum chuckled. “The owner, or co-owner, if I am not mistook.”
“What have you been doing?” Maury asked it.
“I was thinking about a remark of Lyman Trumbull’s. As you know, Judge Douglas met with Buchanan and they talked over the Lecompton Constitution and Kansas. Judge Douglas later came out and fought Buchanan, despite the threat, it being an Administration measure. I did not support Judge Douglas, as did a number of those dear to me among my own party, the Republicans and their cause. But in Bloomington, where I was toward the end of 1857, I saw no Republicans going over to Douglas, as one saw in the New York _Tribune_. I asked Lyman Trumbull to write me in Springfield to tell me whether–”
Barrows interrupted the Lincoln simulacrum, at that point. “Sir, if you’ll excuse me. We have business to conduct, and then I and this gentleman, Mr. Blunk, and Mrs. Nild, here, have to fly back to Seattle.”
The Lincoln bowed. “Mrs. Nild.” He held out his hand, and, with a snorting laugh, Colleen Nild went forward to shake hands with him. “Mr. Blunk.” He gravely shook hands with the short plump attorney. “You’re not related to Nathan Blunk of Cleveland, are you, sir?”
“No, I’m not,” Blunk answered, shaking hands vigorously. “You were an attorney at one time, weren’t you, Mr. Lincoln?”
“Yes sir,” the Lincoln replied.
“My profession.”
“I see,” the Lincoln said, with a smile. “You have the divine ability to wrangle over trifles.”
Blunk boomed out a hearty laugh.
Coming up beside Blunk, Barrows said to the simulacrum, “We flew here from Seattle to discuss with Mr. Rosen and Mr. Rock a financial transaction involving backing of MASA ASSOCIATES by Barrows Enterprises. Before we finalize we wanted to meet you and have a talk. We met the Stanton recently; he came to visit us on a bus. We’d acquire you and Stanton both as assets of MASA ASSOCIATES, as well as basic patents. As an ex-attorney you’re probably familiar with transactions of this sort. I’d be curious to ask you something. What’s your sense of the modern world? Do you know what a _vitamin_ is, for instance? Do you know what year this is?” He scrutinized the simulacrum keenly.
The Lincoln did not answer immediately, and while it was getting ready, Maury waved Barrows over to one side. I joined them.
“That’s all beside the point,” Maury said. “You know perfectly well it wasn’t made to handle topics like that.”
“True,” Barrows agreed. “But I’m curious.”
“Don’t be. You’d feel funny if you burned out one of its primary circuits.”
“Is it that delicate?”
“No,” Maury said, “but you’re needling it.”
“No I’m not. It’s so convincingly lifelike that I want to know how conscious it is of its new existence.”
“Leave it alone,” Maury said.
Barrows gestured abruptly. “Certainly.” He beckoned to Colleen Nild and their attorney. “Let’s conclude our business and start back to Seattle. David, are you satisfied by what you see?”
“No,” Blunk said, as he joined us. Colleen remained with Pris and the simulacrum; they were asking it something about the debates with Stephen Douglas. “It doesn’t seem to function nearly as well as the Stanton one, in my opinion.”