Ilya Varshavsky

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>»»>>>>>>>>>>>>»» THE CONFLICT

To Stanislav Lemm, in memory of our argument which will never be resolved.

*H-m, it looks as if we've been crying? Why? Has anything happened?'

Martha removed her husband's hand from beneath her chin, and, her head drooping, said:

'Nothing. I simply felt blue.'

'Anything to do with Eric?'

'Oh, no. He's an ideal child. A worthy product of a machine upbringing. With a nannie like her, Eric will never give his parents any trouble.'

'He's asleep?'

'He's being told the usual bed-time story. I went in ten minutes ago. He was sitting in his cot, his face flushed, casting adoring glances at his beloved Cybella. Didn't even notice me at first. But when I came up to give him a kiss he waved me away with both little hands, as if to tell me to wait until the story ended. Of course a mother's not an electronic machine, she can wait.'

'What did Cybella do?'

'Charming, clever, level-headed Cybella was up to the mark as she always is. "Eric," she says, "give your mother, with whom you have a blood bond, a good night kiss. What did I tell you about chromosome division?" '

'Why do you hate Cybella so?'

Martha's eyes filled with tears.

'I can't stand it any longer, Luff! Please understand! Always feeling that rational machine's superiority at every step! Hardly a day passes without her letting me realise

PATH INTO THE UNKNOWN         14

my inferiority. Please do something, do! Why do those awful machines have to be so horribly intelligent? Can't they perform their tasks without that? Who needs that?'

'It happens of its own accord. The laws of self-organisation are responsible. We have no hand in it whether it's individual traits or, regrettably, even genius. Want me to ask for another robot in Cybella's place?'

'Unfortunately, that's out of the question. Eric simply dotes on her. Better do something to it to make it a bit stupider. Then I'd find it much easier.'

'But that'd be a crime! Don't you know that the law has made thinking robots man's equal?'

'Talk to her then! She told me such a terrible thing today that I was even at a loss what to say. No, I simply can't stand this humiliation any longer!'

'Quiet, she's coming! Get yourself in hand!'

'Hullo, boss!'

'Why that, Cybella? Surely you know the A-i machine doesn't use that word.'

'Well, you see, I thought Martha would like it. She is always only too delighted to stress the difference between the lord of creation and a man-made machine.'

Martha put up a hankie to her eyes and rushed out of the room.

'Is that all?' Cybella asked.

'Yes, you may go.'

Some ten minutes later Luff went into the kitchen.

'What are you doing at the moment, Cybella?'

With measured movements Cybella removed a spool of microfilm from the receptacle in her temple.

T was studying up Flemish painting. It's my day off tomorrow and I'd like to see my descendants. His teachers say he has a genius for drawing. But I'm afraid he will not get a good enough art training at the boarding school. I have to make up for that on my days off.'

'What happened between you and Martha today?'

'Nothing special. I was clearing up the table in the morn-

THE CONFLICT         15

ing, when by pure chance I caught a glimpse of one of the pages in her thesis and happened to notice two essential errors in the formula for the nucleic acid code. It would have been stupid of me not to tell Martha about it. I simply wanted to help her.'

'And what happened?'

'She started crying and said she was a live human being, not a robot and that to have a machine lecturing her all the time, was just as repulsive to her as kissing a "fridge".'

'You, of course, answered back?'

'Yes, I said, that if she could gratify her progenitive instinct with the help of a fridge, she would probably see nothing reprehensible in kissing it.'

'I see. But it wasn't very nice to mention the instinct business.'

'I didn't want to hurt her. I simply wanted her to realise that it was all so very relative.'

'Please be a bit more tactful with Martha. She is so very high strung.'

'Yes, boss.'

Luff winced and took himself off to the bedroom.

Martha was asleep, her nose pressed into the pillow, and whimpering from time to time.

Trying not to waken her, Luff tiptoed away and lay down on the couch.

He felt terrible.

Meanwhile in the kitchen Cybella thought that this constant contact with human beings was growing unbearable, that one could not demand machines that were now much cleverer than man to express everlasting gratitude to their creators, and that if not for maternal affection for her little cyberkid, who had no one else in the whole wide world, she would willingly throw herself out of the twentieth floor window.