His attorney, Dave Blunk, turned to regard him thoughtfully, still plucking at his chin.
“I think we should start back to Seattle,” Barrows said to him. To me and Maury he said, “Here’s my decision. We’ll come in, but we have to have a controlling interest so we can direct policy. For instance, this Civil War notion is pure absurdity. As it stands.”
Taken absolutely by surprise I stammered, “W-what?”
“The Civil War scheme could be made to bring in a reasonable return in only one way. You’d never think of it in a million years. Refight the Civil War with robots; yes. But the return comes in when it’s set up so you can bet on the outcome.”
“What outcome?” I said.
“Outcome as to which side prevails,” Barrows said. “The blue or the gray.”
“Like the World Series,” Dave Blunk said, frowning thoughtfully.
“Exactly.” Barrows nodded.
“The South couldn’t win,” Maury said. “It had no industry.”
“Then set up a handicap system,” Barrows said.
Maury and I were at a loss for words.
“You’re not serious,” I finally managed.
“I am serious.”
“A national epic made into a horse race? A dog race? A lottery?”
Barrows shrugged. “I’ve given you a million-dollar idea. You can throw it away; that’s your privilege. I can tell you that there’s no other way a Civil War use of your dolls can be made to pay. Myself, I would put them to a different use entirely. I know where your engineer, Robert Bundy, came from; I’m aware that he formerly was employed by the Federal Space Agency in designing circuits for their simulacra. After all, it’s of the utmost importance to me to know as much about space-exploration hardware as can be known. I’m aware that your Stanton and Lincoln are minor modifications of Government systems.”
“Major,” Maury corrected hoarsely. “The Government simulacra are simply mobile machines that creep about on an airless surface where no humans could exist.”
Barrows said, “I’ll tell you what I envision. Can you produce simulacra that are friendly-like?”
“What?” both I and Maury said together.
“I could use a number of them designed to look exactly like the family next door. A friendly, helpful family that would make a good neighbor. People you’d want to move in near, people like you remember from your childhood back in Omaha, Nebraska.”
After a pause Maury said, “He means that he’s going to sell lots of them. So they can build.”
“Not sell,” Barrows said. “_Give_. Colonization has to begin; it’s been put off too long as it is. The Moon is barren and desolate. People are going to be lonely, there. It’s difficult, we’ve found, to get anyone to go first. They’ll buy the land but they won’t settle on it. We want towns to spring up. To do that possibly we’ve got to prime the pump.”
“Would the actual human settlers know that their neighbors are merely simulacra?” I asked.
“Of course,” Barrows said smoothly.
“You wouldn’t try to deceive them?”
“Hell no,” Dave Blunk said. “That would be fraud.”
I looked at Maury; he looked at me.
“You’d give them names,” I said to Barrows. “Good old homey American names. The Edwards family, Bill and Mary Edwards and their son Tim who’s seven. They’re going to the Moon; they’re not afraid of the cold and the lack of air and the empty, barren wastes.”
Barrows eyed me.
“And as more and more people got hooked,” I said, “you could quietly begin to pull the simulacra back out. The Edwards family and the Jones family and the rest–they’d sell their houses and move on. Until finally your subdivisions, your tract houses, would be populated by authentic people. And no one would ever know.”
“I wouldn’t count on it working,” Maury said. “Some authentic settler might try to sleep with Mrs. Edwards and then he’d find out. You know how life is in housing tracts.”
Dave Blunk brayed out in a hee-haw of laughter. “Very good!”
Placidly, Barrows said, “I think it would work.”
“You have to,” Maury said. “You’ve got all those parcels of land up there in the sky. So people are loath to emigrate . . . I thought there was a constant clamor, and all that was holding them back was the strict laws.”
“The laws are strict,” Barrows said–“but–let’s be realistic. It’s an environment up there that once you’ve seen it . . . well, let’s put it this way. About ten minutes is enough for most people. I’ve been there. I’m not going again.”
I said, “Thanks for being so candid with us, Barrows.”
Barrows said, “I know that the Government simulacra have functioned to good effect on the Lunar surface. I know what you have: a good modification of those simulacra. I know how you acquired the modification. I want the modification, once again modified, this time to my own concept. Any other arrangement is out of the question. Except for planetary exploration your simulacra have no genuine market value. It’s a foolish pipe dream, this Civil War stunt. I won’t do business with you on any understanding except as I’ve outlined. And I want it in writing.” He turned to Blunk, and Blunk nodded soberly.
I gaped at Barrows, not knowing whether to believe him; was this serious? Simulacra posing as human colonists, living on the Moon in order to create an illusion of prosperity? Man, woman and child simulacra in little living rooms, eating phony dinners, going to phony bathrooms . . . it was horrible. It was a way of bailing this man out of the troubles he had run into; did we want to hang our fortunes and lives onto that?
Maury sat puffing away miserably on his cigar; he was no doubt thinking along the lines I was.
And yet I could see Barrows’s position. He had to persuade people in the mass that emigration to the Moon was desirable; his economic holdings hinged on it. And perhaps the end justified the means. The human race had to conquer its fear, its squeamishness, and enter an alien environment for the first time in its history. This might help entice it; there was comfort in solidarity. Heat and air domes protecting the great tracts would be built . . . living would not be physically bad–it was only the psychological reality which was terrible, the aura of the Lunar environment. Nothing living, nothing growing . . . changeless forever. A brightly-lit house next door, with a family seated at their breakfast table, chatting and enjoying themselves: Barrows could provide them, as he would provide air, heat, houses and water.
I had to hand it to the man. From my standpoint it was fine except for one single joker. Obviously, every effort would be made to keep the secret. But if the efforts were a failure, if news got out, probably Barrows would be financially ruined, possibly even prosecuted and sent to jail. And we would go with him.
How much else in Barrows’ empire had been concocted in this manner? Appearance built up over the fake . . .
I managed to switch the topic to the problems involved in a trip back to Seattle that night; I persuaded Barrows to phone a nearby motel for rooms. He and his party would stay until tomorrow and then return.
The interlude gave me a chance to do some phoning of my own. Off by myself where no one could overhear me I telephoned my dad at Boise.
“He’s dragging us into something too deep for us,” I told my dad. “We’re out of our depth and none of us know what to do. We just can’t handle this man.”
Naturally my dad had already gone to bed. He sounded befuddled. “This Barrows, he is here flow?”
“Yes. And he’s got a brilliant mind. He even debated with the Lirrcoln and thinks he won. Maybe he did win; he quoted Spinoza, about animals being clever machines instead of alive. Not Barrows–Lincoln. Did Spinoza really say that?”
“Regretfully I must confess it.”
“When can you get down here?”
“Not tonight,” my father said.
“Tomorrow, then. They’re staying over. We’ll knock off and resume tomorrow. We need your gentle humanism so be damn sure to show up.”
I hung up and returned to the group. The five of them– six, if you counted the simulacrum–were together in the main office, chatting.
“We’re going down the street for a drink before we turn in,” Barrows said to me. “You’ll join us, of course.” He nodded toward the simulacrum. “I’d like it to come along, too.”
I groaned to myself. But aloud I agreed.
Presently we were seated in a bar and the bartender was fixing our drinks.
The Lincoln had remained silent during the ordering, but Barrows had ordered a Tom Collins for it. Now Barrows handed it the glass.
“Cheers,” Dave Blunk said to the simulacrum, raising his whiskey sour.
“Although I am not a temperance man,” the simulacrum said in its odd, high-pitched voice, “I seldom drink.” It examined its drink dubiously, then sipped it.