We Can Build You by Philip K. Dick Page B

at me out of the corner of her eye. “That’s a closed book to me. They fulfill themselves through their reproductive system, don’t they? Golly, I’ve known women like that but I could never be that way. I’m never happy unless I’m doing things with my hands. Why is that, I wonder?”
    “No knowing.”
    “There has to be an explanation; everything has a cause. Louis, I can’t remember for sure, but I don’t think any boy ever said he was in love with me before.”
    “Oh, they must have. Boys in school.”
    “No, you’re the first. I hardly know how to act … I’m not even sure if I like it. It feels strange.”
    “Accept it,” I said.
    “Love and creativity,” Pris said, half to herself. “It’s birth we’re bringing about with the Stanton and the Lincoln; love and birth—the two are tied together, aren’t they? You love what you give birth to, and since you love me, Louis, you must want to join me in bringing something new to life, don’t you?”
    “Guess so.”
    “We’re like gods,” Pris said, “in what we’ve done, this task of ours, this great labor. Stanton and Lincoln, the newrace … and yet by giving them life we empty ourselves. Don’t you feel hollow, now?”
    “Heck no.”
    “Well, you’re so different from me. You have no real sense of this task. Coming here to this bar … it was a momentary impulse that you yielded to. Maury and Bob and your dad and the Stanton are back at MASA with the Lincoln—you have no consciousness of that because you
want
to sit in a bar and have a drink.” She smiled at me genially, tolerantly.
    “Suppose so,” I said.
    “I’m boring you, aren’t I? You really have no interest in me; you’re only interested in yourself.”
    “That’s so. I realize you’re right.”
    “Why did you say you wanted to know everything about me? Why did you say you were almost in love with me except that fear held you back?”
    “I dunno.”
    “Don’t you ever try to look yourself in the face and understand your own motives? I’m always analyzing myself.”
    I said, “Pris, be sensible for a moment. You’re only one person among many, no better and no worse. Thousands of Americans go to—are right now in—mental health clinics, get schizophrenia and are committed under the McHeston Act. You’re attractive, I’ll admit, but any number of movie starlets in Sweden and Italy are more so. Your intelligence is—”
    “It’s yourself you’re trying to convince.”
    “Pardon?” I said, taken aback.
    “You’re the one who idolizes me and is fighting against recognizing it,” Pris said calmly.
    I pushed away my drink. “Let’s get back to MASA.” The alcohol made my cut lip burn searingly.
    “Did I say the wrong thing?” For a moment she looked disconcerted; she was thinking back over what she had said, amending it, improving it. “I mean, you’re ambivalent about me …
    I took hold of her arm. “Finish your beer and let’s leave.”
    As we left the bar she said wanly, “You’re sore at me again.”
    “No.”
    “I try to be nice to you but I always rub people the wrong way when I make a deliberate effort to be polite to them and say what I ought to say … it’s wrong of me to be artificial. I told you I shouldn’t adopt a set of behavior-patterns that are false to me. It never works out.” She spoke accusingly, as if it had been my idea.
    “Listen,” I said, as we got back into the car and set out into the traffic. “We’ll go back and resume our dedicated task of making Sam Barrows the core of all that we do—right?”
    “No,” Pris said. “Only I can do that. That’s not within your power.”
    I patted her on the shoulder. “You know, I’m much more sympathetic to you, too, than I was. I think we’re beginning to work out a very good, wholesome, stable relationship between us.”
    “Maybe so,” Pris said, unaware of any overtone of sarcasm. She smiled at me. “I hope so, Louis. People should understand one