Kiln People

He sputtered to a halt as beams of light shot up from a nearby table. Rays swirled, resolving into the figure of an elegant gray-haired man in his hale seventies, wearing a loose white robe. The face, pinkish-brown, matched the platinum’s, but details of crease and wattle were more finely etched. Perfectly imperfect, down to the pores.

“I owe you an apology, Major Gonzales and ditto Morris, for assigning this golem as your host. It’s old and so often replenished, the poor thing isn’t thinking clearly.”

The shiny ditto started to protest — then shut its mouth and sagged. For all intents and purposes, it was no longer there.

“Of course I see where you’re going with this line of questioning, ditective. You’ve shown that I did have a motive to sabotage UK — my ethical and social concerns about new golemtechnology. Concerns borne out by recent events.

“Not that I’m admitting anything. But with a possible motive established, shareholders will act to safeguard their interests. My retirement won’t be voluntary. You can see why I might have acted clandestinely—”

“Setting up others to take the blame!” Clara accused.

“Again without confessing, tell me who was harmed. The arch criminal Beta? He’s a figment in the mind of a sick young lady. As for that strange person, Queen Irene, it’s too bad what happened to her. But she chose her own path. One with no exit.”

Moving closer to the holo image, I wondered — was it artificial? Among all the promises of the so-called Digital Age, one of the best-fulfilled was lifelike simulation in 3-D. High-level computers can fool you in a conversation, especially if a golem provides backup for the hard questions.

We had a plan to check on that.

I held up a finger, starting to enumerate. “First you devoted vast resources to Project Zoroaster, urging Yosil and his team forward. But when prototypes were built, you forbade mass production.”

“I said, I changed my mind.”

“After moving prototypes here, to your house! Then you tried to have the R D Division destroyed—”

“I never admitted—”

“—snaring Wammaker, Gadarene, and Lum, to scatter blame on both those who favor and oppose the new methods!”

Kaolin’s expression was cold. “A clever plan. If it worked that way.”

“And it almost did! But for the Maharals. They surprised you, Vic. When you tried pushing Yosil aside, he stole truckloads of equipment and vanished. That could only happen with Beta’s help, so you set out to destroy your ally … only to discover he was linked to Ritu, the assistant who knew your business inside out!

“The Maharals threw you into panic. You made hasty mistakes.”

“Like underestimating you, Mr. Morris.”

I waved that away. “Worse, events under Urraca Mesa drew unwelcome attention. The World Eye is alerted now. Your scientists are blabbing like songbirds. So there’s no longer any hope of suppressing the new golemtechnologies. But you do have another option. Is it possible to distract everybody, enough to still have your way?”

“How would I manage that?”

“By provoking social war! Give Lum’s emancipators enough new tricks to demand golem-citizenship. Help the maestra transmit ‘hurt-me’ succubus-ivories to every town. Neo-Luddites like Gadarene will denounce all this from pulpits, gaining scads of angry new followers. So long as they all keep their stories straight, everyone profits handsomely!”

“You make it sound so cynical.”

“Hence the new role you’ve chosen!” Clara stood up. “Your days at the helm of Universal Kilns are over, but there’s still time to affect style and spin. Cry out about pornography and God and declining morals. Convince half the public that your aims were pure, and they’ll protect you from the other half! Your new businesses will thrive, and nobody will remember all the toys you stashed away in your basement.”

The holo figure shook his head.

“I should never have replenished that green. But I was shorthanded and needed somebody to send over to Irene’s.” After a pause, Kaolin smiled. “This is all very clever. But it assumes I had a reason — a goal — worth so much effort, cost, and risk. Why cause turmoil, just to monopolize a few new wrinkles in golemtech?”

His questioning smile seemed confident. Without proof, all I could do was bluff. Where was our little spy-golem?

“You had plenty of reason,” I said quite slowly. “Because those new wrinkles, put together just right, add up to a form of immortality. Something you want, Vic Kaolin. Because, in fact, you’re actually—”

That very moment, my implant lit up.

Finally!

Letters began resolving in the focal plane of my left eye, forming a message from the tiny ferret-ditto we had sent scaling the mansion walls. The information I needed to complete my sentence.

“Because, Vic Kaolin, you are actually—”

— NOT DEAD.

Damn. I owe Pal fifty.

Well, Gumby owes it, in a bet over whether the head of UK was still alive.

It seemed obvious! What other reason could Kaolin have for all the schemes, tricks, and betrayals? He had to be dead! Everything pointed. The hermit thing. Only being seen in ditto or holo form. And those shiny platinums getting scarcer every year …

The memory problems made sense if his copies were stockpiled months or years ago. Each one must study briefings when it’s thawed. Then each golem tries to last as long as possible to maintain the illusion. To keep away the coroner and probate. To prevent folks from crying “ghost!”

Why else would he pay a fortune to develop dit-replenishment and dit-to-dit, then keep them off the market? It all made sense.

Yet there he stands, inside the dome, glimpsed by the clever eye in my paw — a gaunt figure with mottled-pale skin that meets every spectral test my clever implant can apply, wearing a white robe while facing a holo display that shows Clara and Gumby … who look dumbfounded as I transmit the news.

NOT DEAD, my message reads inside their glowing implants.

From across the meadow float sounds of laughter, tinkling like bells, mocking how certain we were. Everyone but Pal, who made the bet, offering odds and saying -

“Naw. A trillionaire can afford to be more clever than just dead. There’s got to be more to it than that.”

“Because I’m actually not dead?”

The holo image of Kaolin raised an eyebrow. “Did I hear you right, ditective? My motive in this grand scenario is that I’m still alive?”

Internally, I tried to gird myself. A bluff is a bluff, after all. You must carry it through.

“That’s right, Vic Kaolin. Because … because the dead-man scenario is too obvious! Someone would put it together and get a writ, demanding to see you in person.”

“It’s been tried.”

“Yes, but people will persist, eventually finding cause to invade your privacy screen and demand proof of life.” I shook my head. “No, the immortality we’re talking about isn’t yours. At least not now. Rather, it’s—”

I paused, buying a few seconds by coughing behind my fist. The man in the holo tilted his head, prompting me.

“Yes? It’s—”

“It’s about business!” Clara blurted. “Because … you’re a businessman. And an avowed elitist. You’ve watched your fellow zillionaires, many in their waning years, grow desperate for more time. Why not provide it and make a buck? With renewal and dit-to-dit, your peers can release their dying organic bodies, then continue in a daisy chain of dittos!”

Clara gri