“Can it be true?”

“Of course it can. Krug’s never made any sort of statement on what he thinks the android’s role ought to be. I’ve got no idea of his real position myself. I’ve always assumed he was sympathetic, but I might have been only projecting my own hopes. The question isn’t can it be true but is it true.”

“Do you dare ask him?”

“I don’t dare,” Thor said. “I believe that this entire story originated inside Leon Spaulding’s malicious mind, that Krug doesn’t plan to break his no-politics rule, and that if he ever did make a statement, Krug would make the statement that we all hope and pray for. But it frightens me to think that I’m wrong. I’m terrified, Lilith. An anti-equality statement from Krug would undermine every belief we have. Dump us into outer darkness. You see what I’ve been living with all day?”

“Should you rely just on what Spaulding said? Can’t you check with Senator Fearon or the Speaker? Find out what was really said?”

“Ask them for confidential details of Krug’s table talk, you mean? They’d report me to Krug right away.”

“Then what will you do?”

“Force Krug’s hand,” Watchman said. “I want you to take Manuel to a chapel.”

“How soon?”

“As soon as you can. Don’t conceal a thing from him. Let him understand everything. Work on his conscience. Then send him to his father, before Krug makes any statements to Congress.If Krug is going to make a statement.”

“I’ll do it,” Lilith said. “Yes.”

Watchman nodded. He looked down, moving his feet idly over the patterned floor. There was a ticking in his brain and a cottony fullness in his throat. He hated the maneuvers he found himself enmeshed in now, these ploys and counterploys, this staking of so much on the weak will of Manuel Krug, this assumption that Krug — Krug! — could be manipulated by simple one-to-one intrigues. All this seemed to negate true faith. It was a cynical kind of haggling with destiny, which left Watchman wondering how true his faith had ever been. Was it all a facade, then, the kneeling in chapel, the muttering of codon triplets, the immersion in Krugness, the yielding, the prayer? Just a way of filling time until the moment came to seize control of events? Watchman rejected the thought. But that left him with nothing. He wished he had never begun this. He longed to be back at the tower, jacked into the computer, buoyantly riding the data-tide. Is this what being human is like? These decisions, these doubts, these fears? Why not stay android, then? Accept the divine plan. Serve, and desire no more. Step away from these conspiracies, these knotted emotions, these webs of passion. He found himself envying the gammas, who aspired to nothing. But he could not be a gamma. Krug had given him this mind. Krug had created him to doubt and suffer. Blessed be the Will of Krug! Rising, Watchman walked slowly across the room and, to escape himself, snapped on the holovision. The image of Krug’s tower blossomed in the screen: immense, brilliant, beautiful, flashing in the January light. A hover-camera panned slowly along the entire length of it while the commentator spoke of the attainment of the 1000-meter level, and compared the tower favorably to the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, the Lighthouse at Alexandria, the Colossus of Rhodes. A magnificent achievement, opening the pathway toward communication with other races on distant stars. A thing of beauty in its own right, shimmering and sleek. Up and down the glass walls the camera leaped. The eye peered into the shaft from the summit. Grinning gammas waved back. Watchman caught a glimpse of himself, enmeshed in problems, unaware that he was being holovised. And there was Krug, aglow with pride, pointing out the tower’s features to a crowd of Senators and industrialists. The chill of the tundra seemed to leak from the screen. The camera picked up the refrigeration tapes embedded in the permafrost; mist was rising from them. Unless the ground is kept frozen, the commentator explained, the stability of the tower would be uncertain. An unparalleled feat of environmental engineering. Miraculous. A monument to man’s vision and determination. Yes. Yes. Phenomenal. With sudden ferocity Watchman blanked the screen. The shining tower vanished like an interrupted dream. He stood near the wall, his back to Lilith, trying to comprehend how it had happened that life had become so complex for him. He had wanted to be human. Yes. Had he not prayed to Krug that he and all his kind be granted the privileges of the Womb-born? Yes. Yes. And with the privileges went the responsibilities. Yes. And with the responsibilities went the turmoil. Rivalry. Sex. Love. Scheming. Perhaps, Watchman thought, I wasn’t ready for all this. Perhaps I should have remained a decent hard-working alpha, instead of rising up to challenge the Will of Krug. Perhaps. Perhaps. He went through the rituals of tranquillity, without success. You are more human now than you really wished to be, Alpha Watchman, he told himself. He became aware of Lilith close behind him. The tips of her breasts grazed his back; then, as she drew closer, he felt the heavy globes flattening and straining against him.

“Poor Thor,” she murmured. “So tense. So worried. Do you want to make love?”

Could he refuse her? He pretended enthusiasm. He embraced her. Body slid tight against body. She opened to him, and he entered her. He was more skillful this time. But still it remained an empty thing for him, a butting of flesh, an alien ecstasy. He found no pleasure in it for himself, though there was indirect delight in seeing Lilith throb and moan and arch her back as she took pleasure from him. I am not really human enough, despite everything, he saw, and she is much too human. Yes. Yes. He moved more swiftly. Now he felt a tickle of sensation; Krug had designed His people well, and all the proper neural connections were there, damped though they might sometimes be by self-imposed conditioning. As the climax neared, Watchman experienced some instants of genuine passion; he snorted, he clutched Lilith’s buttocks with steely fingers, he bucked and thrust. Then came the spurt of completion, and immediately afterward came, as before, the sadness, the awareness of hollowness. It seemed to him that he stood in a vast subterranean tomb, hundreds of meters long and many meters wide, with nothing in view but pinches of dust and fragments of dried wreaths. He forced himself to remain in Lilith’s embrace, though he wanted nothing more than to roll away and be alone. He opened his eyes. She was weeping. She was smiling. She was flushed and sweat-sticky and aglow.

“I love you,” she said softly.

Watchman hesitated. A response was required here. His silence, expanding into the succeeding seconds, threatened to choke the universe. How could he not reply? It was inhuman to remain silent. He touched her warm flesh. He felt untuned, unstrung.

Finally he said, quickly, getting it over with, “I love you, Lilith.”