The Silver Metal Lover(82)

You’ll see me again, the glass said. We’ve been together on several previous occasions. Must mean something.

“Silver—Silver—”

I care about leaving you, but there isn’t much choice.

“When will I—when will I see you again?”

Oh, no, lady. You’re trying to get me to predict your own death.

“But—”

I love you. You’re beautiful. Stay beautiful and live my life for me.

“Don’t go—”

It doesn’t matter, Jain, Jaen, Jane. There’s all of time, as you know it, as it really is. What’s a lifetime to that?

“I shan’t still believe this when you go.”

Try. Try hard.

“You speak just the way you did when—”

How else would you recognize me.

“Silver, will this ever happen again?”

No.

“Silver—”

I love you. I’ll see you again. Don’t ever be afraid.

The glass stopped.

“Wait,” I said.

The glass didn’t move.

I reached and touched it, and it didn’t move.

It didn’t move any more.

“My God,” said Leo.

I sat still, and the others began to move about. Clovis got up. He went to the drinks dispenser. Clovis and Leo were drinking, and Clovis brought me one of the drinks and put it down on the table, and his hand shook. Before I knew what I’d do, I caught his shaking hand.

“Let go, Jane,” he said.

“Tell me first.”

“I can’t. Let go.”

I let go of him.

“Who the hell was it?” asked Leo.

“A friend of ours,” Clovis said. I began to cry, but vaguely. I’d thought I’d never cry again, but this was only a sort of reflex. “Jane,” said Clovis, “look at the glass. The seance glass. Inside, where the magnet was.”

I picked up the glass and peered into it, rubbing the tears out of my eyes. There was no magnet. There wasn’t even the chip missing—it was another glass.

“Austin,” said Clovis, “burst in here one evening, picked up the table and hurled it at me. I ducked and the table hit the wall. As for the glass, I thought he’d try to eat it. We had a lovely uninhibited time as he ranted about fake seances and liars (both of which he’d known about for days; clearly he is a fermenter rather than a creature of impulse), and sobbed and threatened to throw me or himself out of the window. I told him which of these two alternatives I’d prefer, whereupon he decided I’d make an interesting pattern on the street. He left hurriedly when I reminded him about my policode and suggested I might just have pressed it already. The rigged wiring in the table was torn out, and the glass was in twenty-eight separate pieces… or was it twenty-nine? It isn’t likely I’d have asked Jason for a replacement after we all went off him in such a big way. I planned to work the glass myself, this time. But I didn’t get a look-in. I don’t think this drink is helping me at all.”

“Then it was real.”

“Disgustingly so. Unless you did it by willpower and telekinesis.”

“Cogito ergo oops,” said Leo ironically.

Clovis half turned to him. “Leo. It’s been great fun, but I’d really be happier if you packed your bag and left.”

“You what?” Leo asked, surprised.

“Get out,” said Clovis. “We are through.”

“Charming,” said Leo. “Decided to go straight, darling?”

“Only straight to the bathroom,” said Clovis with the utmost elegance, “where I am about to be as sick as a dog. Unless you want to come along and hold my head, I suggest you seek the exit.”

And Clovis strode out and the door of the mahogany bathroom banged and there came the dim plash of aesthetic aquatic concealment.

Leo and I stared at each other.

“Does he mean it?” Leo said. And hastily, accustomed to Clovis: “About leaving.”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

Leo swore violently, downed his drink and went toward the main bedroom for his things.

“I suppose,” he called, hurling shirts, “that was the ghost of a lover.”

“Yes, Leo.”

“Bloody hell,” said Leo.

Something dissolved inside me. I managed to wait until he left before I began, very gently, very calmly, to giggle.

Live my life for me, my lover said. Not easy. No, it won’t be easy. It’s difficult, even so soon, to keep hold of that event, that instant when it seemed he was there and he spoke to me. A spirit. How can a robot have a soul? I never asked him that, or at least, he didn’t answer. Or did he answer? We’ve met before, we’ll meet again. If the soul exists, why shouldn’t it evolve inside a metal body? Just as it does inside a body made of flesh. And if souls do come back and back, maybe one day we’ll all be so full of spare parts and Rejuvinex, and whatever else, metallic or chemical, they’ve invented, that we’ll all be kindred to robots, and a metallic body will be the only place a soul can choose to go.

Small wonder he didn’t check out on E.M.’s vile machines.

Oh, my love, my love with a soul, my love who’s alive, and out there—somewhere—my love who isn’t and never will be dead. So death for me, in the end, will be like catching a flyer. Floating away, and when I reach the platform, he’ll… be there?