The Rod of Light (Soul of the Robot)

Cricus declined, but Jasperodus followed the count’s example and concentrated on smelling the offering. His olfactory sense was as keen as any human’s, having been augmented when he was repaired by Padua, a skilled robotician in the western kingdom of Gordona. He had smelled wine before. This one had a rich, darksome bouquet, almost a flavour in itself, he guessed—just the kind of sense-input that might appeal to an old man.

Then, to his astonishment, Viss opened what he had assumed were rigid robot lips and poured a quantity of wine into a mouth cavity. He nodded his head back and forth, apparently washing the wine over taste plates—and then tossed his head back and swallowed.

A second foot robot followed the first. This one placed a covered dish before the count and then retreated. The count removed the cover. On the dish were a big piece of roast meat and vegetables. ‘Just a simple dinner today,’ he said as the robot returned with three small bowls containing various sauces. And he picked up a knife, carved off a slice of meat, garnished it with a sauce and transferred it to his mouth.

He glanced at Jasperodus. ‘Yes, I enjoy all the pleasures of food, drink and evacuation,’ he said, his voice unimpeded by the chewing process now taking place in his jaw. ‘I said to meself, “Well, I’m damned if I’ll go through half of eternity without ever getting a spot of grub.” I used to fancy meself as a bit of a gourmet, y’know. So here we have it. The food gets digested in a chemical stomach. Quite redundant functionally, of course, but you know that warm contented feeling when the old stomach juices get to work on a luscious piece of steak? No, of course you don’t. Sorry.’

Jasperodus marvelled to see this metal ghost of a once living man, in which every psychic tendency, every habit and pleasure fixed by the years, was faithfully preserved. The real count, of course, was genuinely dead. This was merely a simulacrum. He was not sure if the robot in front of him understood this.

‘What is your position legally?’ he asked. ‘Do you still claim to be Count Viss in law?’

‘Good point. A construct can’t own property. When the imperial writ still ran in these parts I got round that by having the estate put in trust. These days a tribal council runs things around here. They don’t bother me. Still, the way these Borgors are rampaging around has me worried.’

‘Their aim is to exterminate free robots altogether,’ Jasperodus agreed.

‘Always were a bunch of damned barbarians.’

‘Yes. But to come back to the point, while it is evident that you are a mental continuation of the count, there is one sense in which you are not him,’ Jasperodus said slowly. ‘And I don’t speak of the loss of his human body.’

He was thinking of Viss’ reported advocacy of the Gargan Work. The robot count looked up, pausing between taking a morsel of braised parsnip and a sip of wine.

He nodded. ‘I know what you are referring to. Robots don’t have consciousness, and that is what makes a man a man. I quite realize that without it I do not really live as before. To tell the truth I can’t say I’ve ever noticed the lack of it. But that’s as it would be, I suppose.’

‘Then how do you know of it at all?’

‘Gargan spent a few days here some years ago, on his way to where he now has his research centre,’ Viss revealed. ‘He found something here to interest him, I believe. Enough, at any rate, to cause him to explain his doctrine to me. Men have souls, and constructs don’t. He told me that “soul” is only a loose term for this “consciousness”. To be truly meself I must have consciousness.’

Viss nodded again. ‘When the Gargan Work is completed we shall all have it. We shall have souls, and be like men. Then no one can say I am not Count Viss. Furthermore, I shall be virtually immortal.’

‘How do you envisage this “consciousness”?’ Jasperodus pressed.

The count stared reflectively at the ceiling. He took his time answering.

‘It is a mystery to such as we,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I have a glimmering of it. Perhaps a glimmering. Gargan said the soul is to our experience what the sun is to an otherwise unillumined landscape.’

‘Since you are an individual who once was conscious, perhaps you should have a better idea of it than the rest of us,’ Jasperodus suggested. ‘Try to think of when you were Count Viss in the flesh. Can you recall any difference between your experience then—I am speaking of sensory experience—and your experience now?’

The count toyed with his wine glass, staring thoughtfully down at it. Then he looked abruptly back to Jasperodus.

‘No,’ he said blandly.

Having disposed of his meal with relish, he pushed away his plate and beckoned to the foot robot to pour him more wine.