"Yes."
"And the man I'm after-his name is Croyd-is the man who killed me the first time. And this time Croyd has a protector who is more powerful than he is. We're already fought twice, and they've beaten me both times. The last time I could easily have died. And my creator can't put me together again. He's losing his abilities. He may not be able to repair the damage from the last attack."
Kate drew on her cigarette, exhaled. "Mod Man," she said, "you need help."
"Yes. That's why I'm calling you."
"I mean other wild cards. You can't face these two alone."
"If I went to SCARE or someone, and we captured Croyd together, then I'd have to fight the SCARE aces to get him away. I'd be an outlaw."
"Maybe you could make some kind of deal with them."
"I'll think about it. I'll try." Despair wailed through him. "I'm going to die," he said.
"I'm sorry. Can't you just leave?"
"I'm programmed to obey him. I can't refuse a direct order. And I'm programmed to battle the enemies of society. I don't have a choice in any of that. People like the Turtle, or Cyclone-it's their decision to do what they do. It was never mine. I'm not human that way."
"I see. "
"Sooner or later I'm going to lose a fight. I don't heal like people, someone has to repair me. Any parts that get broken wont get fixed. If I don't die, I'll be a cripple, pieces falling off." Like Travnicek, he thought, and a cold shudder ran through his mind. "And even if I'm crippled," he went on, "I'll still have to fight. I still won't have any choice."
There was a long silence. " I don't know what to tell you." Her voice was choked.
"I was sort of immortal before," Modular Man said. "My creator was going to mass-produce me and sell me to the military. If any single unit was destroyed, the others would go on. They'd have identical programming; they'd still be me, at least mostly me. Now that's not going to happen."
"I'm sorry."
"What happens to machines when they die? I've been wondering that."
"I-"
"Your ancient philosophers never thought about that, right?"
"I suppose they didn't. But they had a lot to say about mortality in general. `Must not all things be swallowed in death'-Plato, quoting Socrates."
"Thank you. That's really comforting."
"There's not a lot of comforting things to say about death. I'm sorry."
"I never really worried about it before. I'd never died before."
"Most of us don't get to come back even once. None of the others killed on Wild Card Day came back."
"This may be a temporary aberration. Normality may resume at any point."
The android realized he was shouting. The words echoed on the empty street. He swiftly wrote himself a piece of programming to keep his voice level.
Kate thought for a long moment. "Most of us have a lifetime to get used to the idea that we have to die. You've just had a few hours."
"I have a hard time getting my mind around it. There are all these feedback loops in my brain, and my thoughts keep going round and round. They're taking up more and more space."
"In other words, you're panicking."
"Am I?" He thought about this for a moment. "I suppose I am."
"The prospect of death, to misquote Samuel Johnson, is supposed to concentrate the mind wonderfully."
"I'll work at it." He suited action to words, swiftly putting an end to the runamuck computer logic that was smashing up against too many unknowns and infinities to do anything other than fill up his logic systems with macroatomic hash. A cooler and more systematic approach to the problem seemed indicated.
"Okay. That's done."
"That was fast."
"One point six six six seconds." She laughed. "Not bad."
"I'm glad you recognized what was happening. I'm not really wired to deal with abstracts. I'd never got hung up that way before."
"You're still superhuman. No human could do that." She thought for a moment. "Do you know Millay? `My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-It gives a lovely light."'
The android considered this. "I suppose that, aesthetically, I might have produced an objectively lovely light when I blew up. The thought seems a bit barren of comfort, mainly I suppose because I wasn't there to see it."
"I think you missed my point." Patiently. "You are incredibly fast at both action and cognition. Your means of apprehending your surroundings are more complete and acute than those of a human. You have the capacity to experience your existence more thoroughly and intensely than anyone on the planet. Might this not compensate for any shortness of duration?" The notion was encoded, spun into the maelstrom of the android's electronic mind, whirled like a leaf into a cold electronic torrent.
"I'll have to think about it," he said.
"You seemed to have crammed a lot of existence into the months you were on the planet. You had many of the experiences that people say lead to wisdom. War, comradeship, love, responsibility-even death."
The android gazed into the mutilated face of Barnett, the presidential candidate, and wondered who the man in the picture was. " I guess I kept busy,"he said.
"There are a lot of people who would envy that existence."
"I'll try to bear that in mind."
"You burn very bright. Cherish that."
"I'll try."
"And you may not burn out. You fought the Swarm without taking serious injury, and there were hundreds of thousands of them. These are just a couple of guys."
"A couple of guys."
"You'll deal with it. I have confidence in you."
"Thank you." JOKER DEATH, the poster read. "I think you've given me something to consider."
"I hope I could help. Call me if you need to talk again."
"Thanks. You've really been of great assistance."
"Anytime."
Modular Man put the phone on the hook and rose silently into the sky. He rose into the darkness, drifted the several blocks to Travnicek's apartment, went in through the skylight. Joker Death, he thought.
Travnicek was lying on his bed, apparently asleep. The camp bed was surrounded by empty tins of food: apparently he'd been eating the stuff right from the cans. Some of the organs around Travnicek's neck had blossomed a bit, were making ultrasonic chirping sounds, the period of which decreased as the android dropped into the apartment. Sonar, the android thought. Travnicek opened the eyes around his neck.
"You," he said. "Yes, sir."
"The module's rebuilt. I think. Some of my memories were kind of hazy."
Fear filled the android. A fly buzzed past and he chased it away with a flap of his arm. "I'll try it." He opened his jumpsuit and his chest, reached for the module that waited on the workbench.
"My brain seems to be evolving," Travnicek said. His voice was dreamy. "I think what's happening is that the virus is enlarging the brain sections concerned with sensory input. I'm perceiving things in every possible way now, very intensely. I've never experienced anything as intensely as I can just lying here, watching things." He gave a hollow laugh. "My god! I never knew that eating creamed corn from the can could be such a sensual experience!"
Modular Man inserted the module, ran test patterns. Relief flooded him. The monitor worked.
"Very good, sir," he said. "Hang on."