A sheet slithered from the facsimile slot. Krug scanned it carelessly and scribbled his signature across it. He rose. To Watchman he said, “Let’s go. The shunt room’s waiting.”

Watchman knew relatively little about shunting. It was a sport only for humans, and only for the rich; lovers did it to intensify the union of their souls, good friends shunted on a lark, those who were jaded visited shunt rooms in the company of strangers of similar mood purely for the sake of introducing a variety to their lives. It had never occurred to him that he would shunt himself, and certainly he would not ever have dared entertain the fantasy of shunting with Krug. Yet there was no pulling back from it now. Instantly the transmat swept them from New York to the dark antechamber of the New Orleans shunt room, where they were received by a staff of remarkably uneasy-looking alphas. The tensions of the alphas increased visibly as they realized that one of today’s shunters was himself an alpha. Krug too seemed on edge, his jaws clamped, facial muscles working revealingly. The alphas bustled around them. One said again and again, “You must know how irregular this is. We’ve always programmed the stasis net. In the event of a sudden charisma surge anything might happen this way!”

“I take responsibility,” Krug answered. “I have no time to waste waiting for your net.”

The anguished androids led them swiftly into the shunt room itself. Two couches lay in a chamber of glistening darkness and tingling silence; glittering apparatus dangled from fixtures somewhere overhead. Krug was ushered to his couch first. Watchman, when his turn came, peered into the eyes of his alpha escort and was stunned by the awe and bewilderment he found there. Watchman shrugged imperceptibly to say, I know as little about this as you.

Once the shunt helmets had been put in place over their faces and the electrodes were attached, the alpha in charge said, “When the switch is thrown you will immediately feel the pressure of the stasis net as it works to separate ego from physical matrix. It will seem to you as though you are under attack, and in a sense you are. However, try to relax and accept the phenomena, since resistance is impossible and all that you will be experiencing is actually the ego-shift process for which you have come. There should be no cause for alarm. In the event of any malfunction we will automatically break the circuit and restore you to your proper identity.”

“Make sure you do,” Krug muttered.

Watchman could see and hear nothing. He waited. He could not make any of the ritual gestures of comfort, for they had strapped his limbs to the couch to prevent violent movements during the shunt. He tried to pray. I believe in Krug everlasting the Maker of all things, he thought. Krug brings us into the world and to Krug we return. Krug is our Creator and our Protector and our Deliverer. Krug, we beseech Thee to lead us toward the light. AAA AAG AAC AAU be to Krug. AGA AGG AGC AGU be to Krug. ACA ACG ACC—

A force descended without warning and separated his ego from his body as though he had been smitten by a cleaver.

He was cast adrift. He wandered in timeless abysses where no star gleamed. He saw colors found nowhere in the spectrum; he heard musical tones of no identifiable pitch. Moving at will, he soared across gulfs in which giant ropes stretched like bars from rim to rim of emptiness. He disappeared into dismal tunnels and emerged at the horizon, feeling himself extended to infinite length. He was without mass. He was without duration. He was without form. He flowed through gray realms of mystery.

Without a sense of transition, he entered the soul of Simeon Krug.

He retained a slippery awareness of his own identity. He did notbecome Krug; he merely gained access to the entire store of memories; attitudes, responses, and purposes that constituted Krug’s ego. He could exert no influence over those memories, attitudes, responses, and purposes; he was a passenger amidst them, a spectator. And he knew that in some other corner of the universe the wandering ego of Simeon Krug had access to the file of memories, attitudes, responses, and purposes that constituted the ego of the android Alpha Thor Watchman.

He moved freely within Krug.

Here was childhood: something damp and distorted, crammed into a dark component. Here were hopes, dreams, intentions fulfilled and unfulfilled, lies, achievements, enmities, envies, abilities, disciplines, delusions, contradictions, fantasies, satisfactions, frustrations, and rigidities. Here was a girl with stringy orange hair and heavy breasts on a bony frame, hesitantly opening her thighs, and here was the memory of the feel of first passion as he glided into the harbor of her. Here were foul-smelling chemicals in a vat. Here were molecular patterns dancing on a screen. Here was suspicion. Here was triumph. Here was the thickening of the flesh in later years. Here was an insistent pattern of pleeping sounds: 2-5-1, 2-3-1, 2-1. Here was the tower sprouting like a shining phallus that pierced the sky. Here was Manuel smiling, mincing, apologizing. Here was a dark, deep vat with shapes moving in it. Here was a ring of financial advisors muttering elaborate calculations. Here was a baby, pink and doughy-faced. Here were the stars, fiery in the night. Here was Thor Watchman haloed by pride and praise. Here was Leon Spaulding, slinking, bitter. Here was a plump wench pumping her hips in desperate rhythm. Here was the explosion of orgasm. Here was the tower stabbing the clouds. Here was the sound of the star-signal, a sharp small noise against a furry background. Here was Justin Maledetto unrolling the plans for the tower. Here was Clissa Krug naked, her belly swollen, her breasts choked with milk. Here were moist alphas climbing from a vat. Here was a rough-hulled strange ship pointed toward the stars. Here was Lilith Meson. Here was Siegfried Fileclerk. Here was Cassandra Nucleus, collapsing on the frozen earth. Here was the father of Krug, faceless, mist-shrouded. Here was a vast building in which androids shuffled and stumbled through their early training routine. Here were glossy robots in a row, chest-panels open for maintenance. Here was a dark lake of hippos and reeds. Here was an uncharitable act. Here was a betrayal. Here was love. Here was grief. Here was Manuel. Here was Thor Watchman. Here was Cassandra Nucleus. Here was a blotchy, stained chart bearing diagrams of the amino acids. Here was power. Here was lust. Here was the tower. Here was an android factory. Here was Clissa in childbirth, with blood gushing from her loins. Here was the signal from the stars. Here was the tower, wholly finished. Here was raw meat. Here was anger. Here was Dr. Vargas. Here was a data cube, saying,In the beginning there was Krug, and He said, Let there be Vats, and there were Vats.

The intensity of Krug’s refusal to accept godhood was devastating to Watchman. The android saw that refusal rising like a smooth wall of gleaming white stone, without crevice, without gate, without flaw, stretching along the horizon, sealing off the world. I am not their god, the wall said. I am not their god. I am not their god. I do not accept. I do not accept.

Watchman soared, drifting over that infinitely long white wall and settling gently beyond it.

Worse yet, here.

Here he found a total dismissal of android aspirations. He found Krug’s attitudes and responses arrayed like soldiers drilling on a plain. What are androids? Androids are things out of a vat. Why do they exist? To serve mankind. What do you think of the android equality movement? A foolishness. When should androids receive the full rights of citizenship? About the same time robots and computers do. And toothbrushes. Are androids then such dull creatures? Some androids are quite intelligent, I must say. So are some computers, though. Man makes computers. Man makes androids. They’re both manufactured things. I don’t favor citizenship for things. Even if the things are clever enough to ask for it. And pray for it. A thing can’t have a god. A thing can only think it has a god. I’m not their god, no matter what they think. I made them. I made them. I made them. They are things.