Android Karenina - By Count Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy & Ben H. Winters & Leo Tolstoy Page 0,7

the country where he was doing something, but what precisely Stepan Arkadyich could never quite make out, and indeed he took no interest in the matter. Levin arrived in Moscow always excited and in a hurry, rather ill at ease and irritated by his own want of ease, and for the most part with a perfectly new, unexpected view of things. Stepan Arkadyich laughed at this, and liked it. In the same way Levin in his heart despised the town mode of life of his friend, and his official duties, which he laughed at, and regarded as trifling. But the difference was that Oblonsky, as he was doing the same as everyone did, laughed complacently and good-humoredly, while Levin laughed without complacency and sometimes angrily.

“We have long been expecting you,” said Stepan Arkadyich, going into his room and letting Levin’s hand go as though to show that here all danger was over. “I am very, very glad to see you,” he went on. “That is, to see both of you.”

Socrates bowed awkwardly. Stepan Arkadyich marveled, as he always did on greeting his friend’s Class III, at how different the machine was from his genial, pleasant little Small Stiva. But as they said, everyone gets the Class III that he deserves; such was the miracle of the technology that had created the beloved-companions. Companion robots were built-to-suit, their qualities created to match the needs of the recipient; some were glib and some grave; some reassuring and some critical; every one played the role in the life of the master that the master needed it to play.

“I have to sizzle a whole container of outmoded Ones,” Stiva said to his old friend. “Shall we take turns?”

“Ah, no,” said Levin, with his characteristic unsmiling awkwardness. “No, thank you.”

Oblonsky smiled and flicked a red switch on his desk, which caused a copper panel to slide open. From this hidden chamber he produced a sleek, handsome Ministry-issued Class I called a sizzler, a one-trigger shooting device for neatly destroying small robots. Then from a box beside his desk he took out the first of the Class Is slated for sizzling. They were simple I/Mouse/9s, household favorites for keeping one’s kitchen or backyard free of roaches and other pests. These were perfectly functional—indeed, as Oblonsky held it aloft by the tail, the I/Mouse/9 squeaked and looked around the room with its little glass eyes—but they were no longer desired for distribution, since the I/Mouse/10s had become available.

“Well, how are you?” asked Stiva, and zapped the Class I in its little lifelike face with the sizzler. The thing arced its back and dropped from his hand onto the desk. “When did you come? How is your groznium mine?” Levin was silent.

As it writhed on the desk, the mouselike automaton let out a loud, pained squeal. Stiva wrinkled his nose and shot Levin a helpless, apologetic smile.

“Makes conversation difficult, but it is in their circuits—they can’t help it.”

“They don’t feel pain?” asked Levin.

Stiva selected a second I/Mouse/9 and zapped it in the face. “What? Oh, yes. Certainly they do.” Levin said nothing, only shot a disapproving glance to Socrates, who flashed his dark-yellow eyebank and tugged at his cluster of springs.

“What brings you to our fair Babylon this time?” Stiva inquired with a wink, as he felt around in the box, finally snatching up another squirming I/Mouse/9.

“I have nothing very particular. Only a few words to say, and a question I want to ask you.”

“Well, say the few words, then, at once!”

Levin paused, unsure how to proceed, and turned to his companion android. Socrates regarded him sternly. “Just say it,” urged the Class III tinnily sotto voce.

“I cannot simply say it.”

“Can and must.”

“Do not badger me, Socrates.”

Stiva regarded this conversation with a sardonic expression, and looked knowingly at his own Class III, Small Stiva, who whirred with amusement.

“Well, it’s this,” said Levin to Stiva finally, “but it’s of no importance, though.”

“Oh?” Stiva tossed the next I/Mouse/9 up into the air and sizzled it with a twirling trick shot.

Levin’s face all at once took an expression of anger from the effort he was making to surmount his shyness. Socrates angled his head forward with a significant gesture, bidding his master summon the nerve to say his piece.

“What are the Shcherbatskys doing? Everything as it used to be?” Levin said finally.

Stepan Arkadyich had long known that Levin was in love with his sister-in-law Kitty. His eyes sparkled merrily as he plucked up two I/Mouse/9s at once and sizzled them both