Android Karenina

“In Kyrgyzstan.”

“Don’t correct me, Portcullis, not now of all times!”

“Sorry, sorry.”

“Hmmm,” Count Vronsky mused, displaying for all at the party his mien of wise and dutiful authority. “If it is an UnConSciya device, sir, then the thing must be destroyed, its history as a member of your household notwithstanding.” Korsunsky choked out a sob even as he nodded mutely, and all those present looked away, terrified for him, and ashamed as well by such unmanful behavior. “And yet,” Vronsky continued sympathetically, “it would be irresponsible to deprive you of a beloved-companion without reason.”

“Respectfully, sir,” the Caretaker interjected, glancing with agitation at the red and emotional face of Korsunsky, “there is of course no safe way to check the thing; as you must know, automatons when corrupted with such devices are often rigged with trigger bombs as well.”

Vronsky, clearly put off with the Caretaker’s effrontery in presuming to know what he in his position knew or did not know, stood for a moment in thought, his thumb idly tracing a circle on the hilt of his hot-whip. From where she stood at the periphery of the incident, Kitty Shcherbatskaya saw with pained clarity how Vronsky cast a quick, distracted glance toward A

At last he gave a small wave of his hand, and bent before the twittering orange Class III. Not waiting for permission from the Caretaker, he carefully, with evident expertise, dismantled Portcullis’s exterior safeguards and cracked open the torso of the servomechanism.

A long, tense moment then passed, during which Korsunsky wrung his hands, and whined helplessly from where he stood between the powerful forms of two 77s.

“Yes,” Vronsky said finally, straightening up and roughly wiping metal grease off his hands onto his sharply pressed silver trousers. “This is a Janus machine.”

“No! No, it ca

“No,” said Vronsky to the 77s. “Allow me.”

“Vronsky!” said Korsunsky. “Vronsky, please…” The air sizzled with fire. In the space of an instant, he had drawn both of his twin smokers and fired off the necessary ordnance at the droid’s face, and Portcullis was junkered.

“Ah, God,” cried Korsunsky, kneeling at the mechanized feet of his companion robot, which never again would give him comfort and consolation through life’s trials. “Merciful God.”

The crowd, while sympathizing with Korsunsky’s grief, still clapped enthusiastically, for the threat was eliminated, the mechanism of the state had overcome the peril, and-most importantly from the perspective of the young romantic people in search of polite amusement and not spy-bots and laser fire-the float could proceed. The music began again, the air-chime sounded and the windblasts resumed, and the waltz continued. Vronsky holstered his smokers, and he and Kitty waltzed several times through the air. After the first waltz Kitty went to her mother, and she had hardly time to say a few words to Countess Nordston when Vronsky came up again for the first quadrille. During the quadrille-as the air-patterns busily evolved, blowing faster and slower, harder and weaker, in keeping with the complexity of the music-nothing of any significance was said: only once the conversation touched her to the quick, when he asked her about Levin, whether he was here, and added that he liked him so much. But Kitty did not expect much from the quadrille. She looked forward with a thrill at her heart to the mazurka. She fancied that in the mazurka everything must be decided. The fact that he did not during the quadrille ask her for the mazurka did not trouble her. She felt sure she would dance the mazurka with him as she had done at former floats, and refused five young men, saying she was engaged for the mazurka. The whole float up to the last quadrille was for Kitty an enchanted vision of delightful colors, sounds, and motions. She only sat down when she felt too tired and begged for a rest. But as she was dancing the last quadrille with one of the tiresome young men whom she could not refuse, she chanced to be vis-á-vis with Vronsky and A

She had not been near A

It’s not the admiration of the crowd that has intoxicated her, Kitty thought, but the adoration of one. And that one? Can it be he? Every time he spoke to A

“Kitty, what is it?” said Countess Nordston, setting down gracefully on the carpet beside her. “I don’t understand it.”

Kitty’s lower lip began to quiver; she got up quickly.

“Kitty, the chime has sounded. You’re not dancing the mazurka?”

“No, no,” said Kitty in a voice shaking with tears.

Countess Nordston found Korsunsky, with whom she was to dance the mazurka; he was sunk in a corner, insensible to the world around him, sobbing quietly and cradling the melted wreck of his beloved-companion’s head in his lap. The countess shook him vigorously and told him to get a hold of himself and go ask Kitty.

Kitty danced in the first couple, and luckily for her she had not to talk, because Korsunsky was all the time weeping for his dear Portcullis, and how “there must have been some mistake, there must have been.” Vronsky and A

A