Tower of Glass by Robert Silverberg Page A

automatically began to make the sign of Krug-be-praised. Watchman glared at them and they quickly lowered their hands.
    “... I certainly have the privilege of keeping check on all activities in this place,” Spaulding went on, evidently having noticed nothing. “And therefore...”
    Watchman studied him closely, trying to determine how much he might know. Was Spaulding making trouble merely for the sake of making trouble? Was he throwing this tantrum only because his curiosity had been piqued, and his authority somewhat dented, by his inability to get into this unimportant-seeming building? Or was he already aware of the building’s nature, and staging an elaborate charade to make Watchman squirm?
    It was never easy to fathom Spaulding’s motives. The primary source of his hostility toward androids was obvious enough: it lay in his own origin. His father, when young, had feared that some accident might cut him down before he had received a certificate of eligibility for parenthood; his mother had found the notion of childbearing abhorrent. Both, therefore, had deposited gametes in freezer-banks. Shortly afterward they had perished in an avalanche on Ganymede. Their families had wealth and political influence, but nevertheless, nearly fifteen years of litigation ensued before a decree of genetic desirability was granted, permitting the retroactive awarding of parenthood certificates to the frozen ova and sperm of the dead couple.
    Leon Spaulding then was conceived by in vitro fertilization and enwombed in a steel-bound placenta, from which he was propelled after the customary 266 days. From the moment of his birth he had the full legal rights of a human being, including a claim on his parents’ estate. Yet, like most ectogenes, he was uneasy over the shadowy borderline that separated the bottle-born from the vat-born, and reinforced his sense of his own existence by showing contempt for those who were wholly synthetic, not just the artificially conceived offspring of natural gametes. Androids at least had no illusions of having had parents; ectogenes often suspected that they had not. In a way Watchman pitied Spaulding, who occupied a thorny perch midway between the world of the wholly natural and the world of the wholly artificial. But he could not bring himself to feel much sorrow for the ectogene’s maladjustments.
    And in any case it would be disastrous to have Spaulding go blundering into the chapel. Trying to buy time, Watchman said, “We can settle this easily enough. Wait here while I go inside to see what’s happening there.”
    “I’ll accompany you,” Spaulding said.
    “These betas say it would be hazardous.”
    “More hazardous for me than for you? We’ll both go in, Watchman.”
    The android frowned. So far as status in the organization went, he and Spaulding were equals; neither could coerce the other, neither could accuse the other of insubordination. But the fact remained that he was an android and Spaulding was human, and in any conflict of wills between android and human, all other things being equal, the android was obliged to give ground. Spaulding was already walking toward the entrance of the dome.
    Watchman said quickly, “Please. No. If there’s risk, let me be the one to take it. I’ll check the building and make certain it’s safe for you to enter. Don’t come in until I call you.”
    “I insist—”
    “What would Krug say if he knew we had both gone into a building after we’d been warned it was dangerous? We owe it to him to guard our lives. Wait. Wait. Only a moment.”
    “Very well,” Spaulding said, looking displeased.
    The betas parted to admit Watchman. The alpha hurried into the chapel. Within, he found three gammas at the altar in the posture of the Yielder caste; a beta stood above them in Projector posture, and a second beta crouched near the wall, fingertips against the hologram of Krug as he whispered the words of the Transcender ritual. All five came to