Free To Be a Woman by Piers Anthony Page A

confused?”
    A woman raised her hand.
    “That leaves six unaccounted for,” Moncho said. “What, then is your opinion?”
    The foreman was one of the six. He spoke. “We suspect that this is a test of our objectivity. Both are human.”
    Moncho smiled. “Then I suppose I had better demonstrate my case.” He turned to the two women. “Ladies, will the real femdroid please reveal herself.”
    Mona dropped her bra and put her hands to her breasts, drawing them outward. They stretched a little, but did not give way. “I guess it isn't me,” she said as if disappointed.
    Elasa did the same. Her breasts swung outward as the panel doors opened, showing the battery pack cavity behind. “Then it must be me.”
    The members of the jury stared, not from any lasciviousness, but in amazement. Elasa had completely fooled most of them, and the two who had selected her had plainly been guessing.
    Elasa closed her cavity. Then she removed her red wig and let her natural hair emerge. Now she looked like herself. She smiled at the jury. Several of them smiled back.
    “Now you know what it means to pass the Turing Test,” Moncho said as the girls dressed and went to their table. “These machines are very realistic. And, to answer your likely questions, yes they can shop for groceries, watch children, and perform sexually without betraying their nature. Femdroid Inc. has any number of similar machines that can do these things.” He winked. “I understand that the only thing that gives them away in bed is that they are better than real women care to be. You will never see a man complain that his fembot ever left him unsatisfied. They can all pass the Turing Test, though generally they don't eat and eliminate.”
    He paused meaningfully. “What, then, is the difference between my client Elasa and those other femdroids? I will tell you: it is that she is conscious. That makes her infinitely more valuable to the company than the others, because she can survey the available options in any given situation and select the best one. That saves an enormous amount of programming for every possible alternative. It would take an encyclopedia to list every theoretical response to even an ordinary question, and that would burden and drastically slow the machine. But with conscious choice, the most effective one can be crafted ad-hoc.”
    He took a breath. “For example, when you asked Black for a date, she gave the likely programmed answer, emulating a femdroid. An ordinary femdroid would then either have restated it, or said something like ‘I agree.’ But Red was not limited in that manner. She chose to be original, saying ‘echo.’” He glanced at the opposition table. “Would one of your other machines have done that?”
    The answer was prompt. “No.” Then “Not yet.”
    “You can program anything,” Moncho agreed. “As you originally programmed my client. She had an excellent basis, and could readily deceive the average person. But when she became aware, her capacity multiplied. That is why you want her back: so you can make thousands more just like her. And we don't begrudge you that. We would gladly share the key to consciousness, if it could be done without killing my client. But that's the rub: you will need to take her apart, literally, and that will not only destroy her, but also the secret you desire to fathom. No one will profit, and you will be guilty of murder.”
    “Objection!”
    Moncho faced the judge. “I stand by my terminology. We are here to ascertain whether my client is a person. Deliberately destroying a person is murder.”
    “Overruled,” the judge agreed.
    “I believe I have demonstrated what is at stake here,” Moncho said. “My client can't be distinguished from a living person by any ordinary investigation, and we agree with our esteemed opposition that she is a conscious creature. The question is whether she can be emancipated and recognized as a legal person. That, ladies and gentlemen of the