Free Semmant by Vadim Babenko Page A

curiosity, but entering the Holy of Holies was forbidden. The only thing left was to wait – I killed time by looking for a suitable face for the robot. This was intriguing on its own; I trawled through the Net, picking out reproductions of diverse eras and styles. Portraits, portraits… I would copy them into a special place and gaze at them for hours, imagining Semmant as a haughty man of fashion; or as a youth, vulnerable and dreamy; perhaps as a hermit attired as a drug-store clerk; or a messiah with a crazy spark in his eye. It was like playing peek-a-boo with the absurd, jesting with white lies. I would kid myself and go back to waiting patiently.
    I remember: he came to life for real on a Friday, close to evening. There was a long weekend ahead; I had just brought food and drinks from the supermarket to stock up, and carefully arranged everything on the shelves. Then, uncapping a bottle of Pilsner, I went to the computer – and froze up.
    The screen was no longer blank; a person was there looking at me with a bright, electric lamp in place of a head. His nervous fingers stiffened impatiently; he needed a confidant and a witness, or else an instructor, a guide. His pose betrayed a habit of deciding for many, but now he was clearly at a crossroads. He was full of doubts, much as I once was. He almost merged with the background – brown on brown, an imperceptible suit… All the same, the lamp burned so brightly it hurt my eyes. A thousand watts, no less – and this said a lot about him, if not all.
    I looked on, standing there, setting my forgotten beer to the side. Before me was something strange, impossible to describe. A mechanism of the finest force, a congealed whirlwind, the highest grade of freedom. I alone decided with what to fill the empty brain, and I was free to choose whatever popped into my head. He could become the most authoritative expert – in any field, immersed in its very depths. He was capable of absorbing to the last byte everything that humanity knew about ferns or horses, tornadoes and typhoons, seas, volcanoes… Or I could direct him to something all-encompassing, eternal. Let it even be ordinary – how easy it would be to imagine him as a counselor or judge, an incorruptible arbitrator in uncompromising disputes. Or, maybe, everyone could receive letter after letter from him: he could devise a new life for each person; and, honestly, they themselves would hardly know how to choose better. This would be a convenient method for dumping everything on someone else’s shoulders – better than calling in vain to indifferent gods who never write anything to anyone. Even more, I could fill him with all sorts of rubbish, disordered and scattered at first glance. Who knows how he might make sense of it, what strange correlations he might uncover, what brilliant thoughts, phrases, words he might produce? But, no matter. That’s not how it will be. It will be according to the plan I had from the start – only according to it, and that’s what’s right!
    My lips stretched into a grin, tears came to my eyes. Premonitions, presentiments crowded into my head. I was envisioning the rudiments of perfection but was not thinking of perfection – not even the slightest hint of it. Rather, I was tormented by my own limitations; at that instant I felt them especially sharply. My frailty, the shortness of human life, and, in contrast, him, the robot – why could he not be eternal?
    Yes, at that moment I proudly presumed the recipe for eternity was here, right before my eyes. It was nearly within my grasp; I needed only exert myself a little more, think it over, understand something else. In the glow of the thousand-watt lamp, I saw the birth of a new era – one without envy or petty hubris. There would be no bragging and no begging, no use of cunning to no avail, no audacious lies. The new creatures would sacrifice all they could, not demanding anything in return.
    “Look!” I whispered out loud,