Tower of Glass by Robert Silverberg Page B

attention as Watchman entered.
    The alpha hastily improvised a possible diversionary tactic.
    Beckoning to one of the gammas, he said, “There is an enemy outside. With your help we will confuse him.” Watchman gave the gamma careful instructions, ordering the android to repeat them. Then he pointed to the chapel’s rear door, behind the altar, and the gamma went out.
    After a moment for prayer, Watchman returned to Leon Spaulding.
    “You were told the complete truth,” the alpha reported. “This is indeed a refrigeration dome. A team of mechanics is engaged in difficult recalibration work inside. If you enter, you’ll certainly disturb them, and you’ll have to walk carefully to sidestep some open traps in the floor, and in addition you will be exposed to a temperature of minus—”
    “Even so, I want to go in,” said Spaulding. “Please let me get through.”
    Watchman caught sight of his gamma approaching, breathless, from the east. Unhurriedly, the alpha made as if to give Spaulding access to the chapel door. In that instant the gamma rushed up, shouting, “Help! Help for Krug! Krug is in danger! Save Krug!”
    “Where?” Watchman demanded.
    “By the control center! Assassins! Assassins!”
    Watchman allowed Spaulding no opportunity to ponder the implausibilities of the situation. “Come on,” he said, tugging the ectogene’s arm. “We have to hurry!”
    Spaulding was pale with shock. As Watchman had hoped, the supposed emergency had blotted the problem of the chapel from his mind.
    Together they ran toward the control center. After twenty strides, Watchman looked back and saw dozens of androids rushing toward the chapel, in accordance with his orders. They would dismantle it within minutes. By the time Leon Spaulding was able to return to this sector, the dome would house nothing but refrigeration equipment.
     
     

 
     
    12
     
     
      “Enough,” Krug said. “It gets cold. Now we go down.”
    The scooprods descended. Snowflakes were beginning to swirl about the tower; the repellor field at the summit deflected them, sending them cascading off at a broad angle. It was impossible to run proper weather control here, because of the need to keep the tundra constantly frozen. A good thing, Krug thought, that androids didn’t mind working in the snow.
    Manuel said, “We’re leaving, father. We’re booked into the New Orleans shunt room for a week of ego shifts.”
    Krug scowled. “I wish to hell you stop that stuff.”
    “Where’s the harm, father? To swap identities with your own true friends? To spend a week in somebody else’s soul? It’s harmless. It’s liberating. It’s miraculous. You ought to try it!”
    Krug spat.
    “I’m serious,” Manuel said. “It would pull you out of yourself a little. That morbid concentration on the problems of high finance, that intense and exhausting fascination with interstellar communications, the terrible strain on your neural network that comes from—”
    “Go on,” Krug said. “Go. Change your minds all around. I’m busy.”
    “You wouldn’t even consider shunting, father?”
    “It’s quite pleasant,” said Nick Ssu-ma. He was Krug’s favorite among his son’s friends, an amiable Chinese boy with close-cropped blond hair and an easy smile. “It gives you a splendid new perspective on all human relationships.”
    “Try it once, just once,” Jed Guilbert offered, “and I promise that you’ll never—”
    “Quicker than that I take up swimming on Jupiter,” said Krug. “Go. Go. Be happy. Shunt all you like. Not me.”
    “I’ll see you next week, father.”
    Manuel and his friends sprinted toward the transmat. Krug rammed his knuckles together and stood watching the young men run. He felt a tremor of something close to envy. He had never had time for any of these amusements. There had always been work to do, a deal to close, a crucial series of lab tests to oversee, a meeting with the bankers, a crisis in the Martian market. While