She stared at him, a film of moisture in her eyes. She didn't cry or
ask questions or protest. Joe wished she would. This was worse.
"It's not your fault," he said, after a moment. "I'm not going to get
another. You're as ideal, almost, as a human wife can ever be."
"I've tried so hard," she said. "Maybe I tried too hard."
"No," he said, "it isn't your fault. Any reasonable man would be
delighted with you, Vera. You won't be at the Center long."
"I don't want a reasonable man," she said quietly. "I want you, Joe.
I--I loved you."
He had started to get out of the car. He paused to look back. "Loved?
Did you use the past tense?"
"I used the past tense." She started to get out on her side of the car.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"But I do," he told her. "Is this love something you can turn on and
off like a faucet?"
"I don't care to explain it to you," she said. "I've got to pack." She
left the car, slammed the door, and moved hurriedly toward the house.
Joe watched her. Something was troubling him, something he couldn't
analyze, but he felt certain that if he could, it would prove to be
absurd.
He went thoughtfully into the living room and snapped on the telenews.
He saw troops moving by on foot, a file of them dispersed along a
Brazilian road. He turned the knob to another station and saw the
huge stock market board, a rebroadcast. Another twist and he saw a
disheveled, shrieking woman being transported down some tenement steps
by a pair of policemen. The small crowd on the sidewalk mugged into the
camera.
He snapped it off impatiently and went into the kitchen. The dinette
was a glass-walled alcove off this, and the table was set. There was
food on his plate, none on Vera's.
* * * * *
He went to the living room and then, with a mutter of impatience, to
the door of the back bedroom. She had her grips open on the low bed.
"You don't have to leave tonight, you know."
"I know."
"You're being very unreasonable."
"Am I?"
"I wasn't trying to be intentionally cruel."
"Weren't you?"
His voice rose. "Will you stop talking like some damned robot? Are you
a human being, or aren't you?"
"I'm afraid I am," she said, "and that's why I'm going back to the
Center. I've changed my mind. I want to get registered. I want to find
a _man_."
She started to go past him, her grip in her hand. He put a hand on her
shoulder. "Vera, you--"
Something flashed toward his face. It was her slim, white hand, but it
didn't feel slim and white. She said, "I can see now why you weren't
made _Senior_ Assistant to the Adjutant Science Director. You're a
stupid, emotionless mechanic. A machine."
He was still staring after her when the door slammed. He thought of the
huge Domestic Center with its classes in Allure, Boudoir Manners, Diet,
Poise, Budgeting. That vast, efficient, beautifully decorated Center
which was the brain child of Sam Tullgren, but which still had to deal
with imperfect humans.
People, people, people ... and particularly women. He rose, after a
while, and went into the dinette. He sat down and stared moodily at his
food.
Little boys are made of something and snails and puppydogs' tails. What
are little girls made of? Joe didn't want a little girl; he wanted
one about a hundred and twenty-two pounds and five feet, four inches
high. He wanted her to be flat where she should be and curved where she
should be, with blonde hair and gray-green eyes and an exciting smile.
He had a medical degree, among his others. The nerves, muscles, flesh,
circulatory system could be made--and better than they were ever made
naturally. The brain would be cybernetic and fashioned after his own,
with his own mental background stored in the memory circuits.
So far, of course, he had described nothing more than a robot of flesh
and blood. The spark, now--what distinguished the better-grade robots
from people? Prenatal heat, that was it. Incubation. A mold, a heated
mold. Warmth, the spark, the sun, life.
* * * * *
For the skin, he went to Pete Celano, the top syntho-dermatologist in
the Department.
"Something special?" Pete asked. "Not just a local skin graft? What
then?"
"A wife. A perfect wife."