I was tempted to say nonsense or something even less polite. "Hazel, you are demanding bald truth from me-and it will hurt your feelings. It sounds like fiction to me. If not your fiction, then that of your foster mother, Wyoming Knott." I added, "Sweetheart, are we going out to attend to our chores? Or are we going to spend all day talking about a theory on which neither of us has any evidence?"
"I'm dressed and ready to go, dear. Just one little bit more and I'll shut up. You find this story unbelievable."
"Yes, I do." I said it as flatly as possible.
"What part of it is unbelievable?"
"All of it."
'Truly? Or is the sticking point the idea that a computer can be self-aware? If you accept that, does the rest of it become easier to swallow?"
(I tried to be honest. If that nonsense did not make me gag, would the rest be acceptable? Oh, certainly! Like the gold spectacles of Joseph Smith, like the tablets handed down to Moses from the Mount, like the red shift to the big bang- accept the postulate and the rest goes down smoothly.) "Hazel-Gwen, if we assume a self-aware computer with emotions and free will, I would not boggle at anything else-from ghosts to little green men. What was it the Red Queen did? Believe seven impossible things before breakfast."
"The White Queen."
"No, the Red Queen."
"Are you sure, Richard? It was just before-"
"Forget it. Talking chessmen are even harder to swallow than a prankster computer. Sweetheart, the only evidence you offer is a story told you by your foster mother in her old age. That's all. Uh, senile, maybe?"
"No, sir. Dying, but not senile. Cancer. From exposure to a solar storm when she was quite young. So she thought. As may be, it was not senility. She told me this when she knew she was to die... because she thought the story should not be lost completely."
"You see the weakness of the story, dear? One death-bed story. No other data."
"Not quite, Richard."
"Eh?"
"My adoptive father Manuel Davis confirms all of it and then some."
"But- You always spoke of him in the past tense. I think you did. And he would be... how old? Older than you are."
"He was bom in 2040, so he would be a century and a half old now... not impossible for a Loonie. But he's both older and younger than that-for the same reasons I am. Richard, if you talked to Manuel Davis and he confirmed what I've told you, would you believe him?"
"Uh-" I grinned at her. "You might force me to bring to the issue the stalwart common sense of ignorance and prejudice."
"Go along with you! Put on your foot, dear, please. I want to take you out and get you at least one more outfit before we move; your trousers have spots on the stains. I'm not being a good wife."
"Yes, ma'am; right away, ma'am. Where is your Papa Man-nie now?"
"You won't believe this."
"If it doesn't involve right-angled time or lonely computers, I'll believe it."
"I think-I haven't checked lately-I think Papa Mannie is with your Uncle Jock in Iowa."
I stopped with my foot in my hand. "You're right; I don't believe it."
XIX
Rascality has limits; stupidity has not.-
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE 1769-1821
How can you argue with a woman who won't? I expected Gwen to start justifying her preposterous allegation, citing chapter and verse in an attempt to convince me. Instead she answered sadly, "I knew that was all I could expect. 111 just have to wait. Richard, do we have any other stops to make besides Macy's and the main post office before we can go out to the Warden's Complex?"
"I need to set up a new checking account and then transfer my present account down from Golden Rule. My cash in pocket is becoming rather seldom. Anemic."
"But dearest, I've tried to tell you. Money is no problem. She opened her purse, dug out a wad of money, started peeling off hundred-crown notes. "I'm on an expense account, of
course." She held them out. .
"Easy, there!" I said. "Save your pennies, little girl. / undertook to support you. Not the other way around."
I expected a retort involving "macho" or "male chauvinist pig" or at least "community property." Instead she flanked me. "Richard? Your bank account in Golden Rule- Is it a numbered account? If not, under what name?"
"Huh? No. 'Richard Ames,' of course."
"Do you think Mr. Sethos might take an interest?"
"Oh. Our kindly landlord. Honey, I'm glad you're here to do my thinking for me." A track leading straight to me as plain as footprints in snow... for Sethos's goons to follow to collect that reward for my carcass-dead or alive. Of course all bank records are confidential, not alone numbered accounts-but "confidential" means only that it takes money or power to break the rules. And Sethos had both. "Gwen, let's go back and booby-trap his air conditioning again. But this time we'll use prussic acid instead of Limburger."
"Good!"
"I wish we could. You're right, I can't touch mat 'Richard Ames' bank account as long as storm warnings are up. We'll use your cash-treat it as a loan. You keep track of it-"
"You keep track of it! Damn it, Richard, I'm your wife!"
"Fight over it later. Leave the wig and the geisha costume here; we won't have time today ... as I must first go see Rabbi Ezra. Unless you want to run your errands while I run mine?"
"Buster, are you feverish? I'm not letting you out of my sight."
"Thanks, Maw; that's the answer I wanted. We go see Father Ezra, then we go hunt living computers. If there is time left, we'll do the other chores when we get back."
It being before noon, we looked for Rabbi Ezra ben David by going to his son's fish market across from the city library. The Rabbi lived in a room back of the shop. He agreed to represent me and act as a mail drop. I explained to him my parallel arrangements with Father Schultz, then wrote a note for him to send to "Henrietta van Loon."
Reb Ezra accepted it. "I'll stat it from my son's terminal at once; it should be printed out in Golden Rule ten minutes from now. Special delivery?"
(Draw attention to it? Or accept slower service? Something was stewing in Golden Rule; Hendrik Schultz might have some answers.) "Special delivery, please."
"Very well. Excuse me a few moments." He rolled out of his room, was back quickly. "Golden Rule acknowledged receipt. Now to other matters- I was expecting you. Dr. Ames. That young man who was with you yesterday- Is he a member of your family? Or a trusted employee?"
"Neither one." "Interesting. Did you send him to ask me who was offering a reward for you and the amount of the reward?" "I certainly did not! Did you tell him anything?" "My dear sir! You asked for the traditional Three Days."
"Thank you, sir."
"Not at all. Since he took the trouble to seek me out here instead of waiting for my business hours, I assumed some urgency. Since you did not mention him, I concluded that the urgency was his, not yours. Now I assume, unless you tell me otherwise, that he intends you no good."
I gave the Rabbi a condensed version of our relations with Bill. He nodded. "You know Mark Twain's remarks on such matters?"
"I think not."
"He said that, if you pick up a stray dog, feed it and take care of it, it will not bite you. This, in his opinion, is the principal difference between a man and a dog. I don't agree fully with Twain. But he had a point."
I asked him to name a retainer, paid it without dickering, plus something for luck.
The Authority Complex (officially the "Administration Center," a name found only in print) is west of Luna City, halfway across Mare Crisium. We were there by noon-that tubeway is not ballistic but is nevertheless fast. Once aboard, we were there in twenty minutes.