Crosses And Virtues

     Today’s Gospel reading was from Matthew, chapter 16:

     From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.
     Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.
     But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.
     Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
     For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
     For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.

     [Matthew 16:21-27]

     Jesus made that statement about “taking up [your] cross” more than once. There’s been a fair amount of squabbling over what He meant. Today’s Mass celebrant tried to paper it over with a lecture about being ready and willing to help others. That’s that priest’s particular shtick; I come at it from a different angle.

     When I studied Latin many years ago, I came into contact with the school of philosophy called Stoicism:

     Philosophical discourse is paramount in Stoicism, including the view that the mind is in rational dialogue with itself. Stoic ethics centers on virtue as the highest good, cultivating emotional self-control, a calm problem-solving state of mind, and rational judgment to attain lifelong flourishing (eudaimonia). At the same time, passions, anxieties, and insecurities are viewed as misguided reactions that ought to be controlled through self-disciplined practice. Of all the schools of ancient Western philosophy, Stoicism made the greatest claim to being utterly systematic. Central to Stoic ethics was the idea of living in accordance with nature, which meant aligning one's life with one's sense of reason and the rational order of the universe.

     When we speak of a man as stoic, we hearken back to that school of philosophy. We mean he exemplifies the virtues the Stoics valued, beginning with Zeno and flowing thence to Marcus Aurelius:

• He controls himself.
• He is not easily disturbed.
• He does not complain, or parade his sufferings.
• He strives to put his reason in command of his emotions.
• He tempers wild impulses, sudden passions, and the onset of worry and fear.

     Those virtues are the heart of Stoicism. Every man bears burdens of some sort. We admire most greatly him who bears them Stoically.

     Few of us will depart this life by being crucified, and thank God for that. But whatever our burdens may be, bearing them with grace and quiet patience is at the core of what Western Civilization has esteemed most highly: the man who does what he must and asks little of others in the doing. Moreover, whatever his burdens may be – physical, mental, or spiritual – they are his. It’s rare that they can be shunted onto other shoulders. We think little of a man who tries to do so. Others might choose to assist him with some of them, but the responsibility for bearing them is his alone.

     That pair of recognitions demands stoicism from us. A society that lacks it, or fails to appreciate it, isn’t likely to endure and prosper. It may be held together by force for a while, but it’s likely to dissolve under a tide of predation and sloth.

     The cross, in First Century Judea, represented the greatest burden imaginable at that time. Crucifixion was ignominious, protracted, and excruciating. (Note the etymology of excruciating.) To accept such a fate silently and patiently – stoically – marked a condemned man as greater, in that regard at least, than those who had condemned him.

     In that metaphorical way, Christ instructed those who chose to follow Him in what He expected of them: the virtues Zeno and his successor Stoics elucidated and praised. That a number of the Apostles and lesser disciples experienced real crucifixion is barely relevant.

     Lord, though my burdens are far inferior to those You bore, help me to be as stoic in bearing them as You were on Your cross.

     May God bless and keep you all.

An Announcement

     I’ve been reading some horrifying stuff lately. Just a day or so ago, I learned about a mother who killed her 11-month-old son rather than surrender custody to his father. Just a moment ago, I read about a North Dakota mom who cut her children’s throats. And of course, the news is full of the unexpectedly protracted Lindsay Clancy trial.

     I’ve lived long enough to have seen a lot of horrifying stuff. I doubt I could have avoided seeing it. Our news media has long abided by a well-known maxim “If it bleeds, it leads.” And there are enough predators, filled with rapacity or lust, to commit any number of heinous deeds. To whatever extent we follow the news, we hear about them. We can’t help it.

     But mothers killing their own children?

     Could this be a counter-movement to the “traditional mother / homemaker” movement that’s been gaining steam these past few years? Is an evil force attempting to “restore the balance?”

     Women tend to follow consensus to a greater degree than do men. Has a consensus arisen among women that murdering one’s kids is “the thing to do?” Or are we merely in a “node” in which maternal violence toward their children is temporarily well above the usual level?

     I’m sure I’m not alone in noticing these maternal crimes. I’m equally sure that as a fraction of the homicidal total, motherly murders are vanishingly small. But I sense something trending.

     Many women are unhappy about their lots in life, but that’s always been the case; many men are just as unhappy. Prior to our era, we didn’t hear about mothers killing their progeny nearly as often as we have been lately. That might be because our numbers have increased so greatly. Or it might be an artifact of more extensive, greatly intensified coverage; our news media have never been larger nor more attentive to events, especially the most lurid events. But it’s still something to ponder.

     Mine is not a popular, well-heeded voice. Even so, I want to “do my part.” So allow me to make this clear:

Mothers everywhere:
Killing your children is evil.
There is no imaginable excuse for it.
If you begin to feel an urge toward filicide,
Get away from them and get help!

     I have spoken.

An Old Slur In A New Incarnation

     One of my pet peeves is – surprise! – the twisting of the meanings of words for unholy purposes. Yes, it’s a common occurrence in political cut-and-thrust, but it also features in exchanges between common citizens. Humpty Dumpty thought he could get away with it, but the rest of us need not be Alices.

     A long, long time ago, an elderly friend wrote a piece for a very minor publication I edited in which he argued that even in a wholly anarchic society, a State exists locally and temporarily wherever like-minded persons can muster a local preponderance of force. If we look at The State as its function – i.e., to wield coercive force for particular purposes – rather than as an institution, Ed was absolutely correct. Wherever you have a group united on a purpose and large enough to get its way, you have a State for local and temporary purposes.

     A lynch mob is functionally a State. That should give a few people pause for thought.

     That doesn’t mean that the anarchic society is impossible. It means only that our expectations of it must be tempered by our grasp of human nature. People do get exercised over things. They do band together for specific purposes. If they’re not opposed by equal or greater forces, they can impose themselves on others, against those others’ wills.

     Another friend of more recent vintage liked to say that “Anarchy is the perpetual Loyal Opposition.” He saw anarchy as beckoning from the sidelines. It keeps politicians and bureaucrats mindful that an alternative to them exists and always will. He had a good point.

     When a disorderly movement “pops up” in the midst of a normal – i.e., State-ridden – society, it sometimes gets its way. You may remember the Occupy Wall Street affair that arose in New York City in 2011, during Michael Bloomberg’s mayoralty. Bloomberg refrained from directing law enforcement to quell it for several weeks. It was a good illustration of the transient and conditional nature of State hegemony.

     Whenever a miscreant is treated gently by the “official” justice system, he faces the possibility that an “ad hoc State” will arise to impose a greater penalty. The more heinous his crimes, the more likely he’ll face “private justice.” Say what you will about vigilance committees, that was their genesis: “the authorities” had either failed to act against violent criminals or had given them the proverbial slap on the wrist. It doesn’t happen with perfect predictability or unanimous approval of the results, but it does happen. It’s why men convicted of raping children fear to go to prison.

     Heinlein made a point of this in his magnum opus The Moon is a Harsh Mistress:

     “All our customs work that way. If you’re out in field and a cobber needs air, you lend him a bottle and don’t ask cash. But when you’re both back in pressure again, if he won’t pay up, nobody would criticize if you eliminated him without a judge. But he would pay; air is almost as sacred as women. If you take a new chum in a poker game, you give him air money. Not eating money; can work or starve. If you eliminate a man other than self-defense, you pay his debts and support his kids, or people won’t speak to you, buy from you, sell to you.”
     “Mannie, you’re telling me that I can murder a man here and settle the matter merely with money?”
     “Oh, not at all! But eliminating isn’t against some law; are no laws—except Warden’s regulations—and Warden doesn’t care what one Loonie does to another. But we figure this way: If a man is killed, either he had it coming and everybody knows it—usual case—or his friends will take care of it by eliminating man who did it. Either way, no problem. Nor many eliminations. Even set duels aren’t common.”

     When young Fran first read that passage, he was as nonplussed as Stuart LaJoie, the tourist being tutored in Lunar ways by protagonist and first-person narrator Manuel O’Kelly Davis. But it’s the way human societies self-organize in the absence of a State. History does provide examples thereof, including medieval Iceland before Denmark incorporated it and pre-British-invasion Ireland.

* * *

     The above disquisition was triggered by – drum roll, please! – a slur aimed at a perfectly nice young woman on X who goes by the moniker “Libertarian Goth:”

You support pedophilia because you oppose State force to stop it. A libertarian fantasy society is a pedophile tolerant society.

— Sterling Reece 🗡️🇺🇸 (@SterlingReece26) August 28, 2026

     Anyone who might say such a thing to me would be invited to a pre-dawn kaffeklatsch with pistols at ten paces. Libertarian Goth was more restrained:

Despite me directly telling you my beliefs you say that I believe something else right after. Can you please tell me who my favorite band is? I want to listen some music. Or maybe I don’t. Do I? You tell me. 🤷🏻‍♀️ https://t.co/SdF6AyB8Q9

— 🥀 🖤𝔏𝔦𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔱𝔞𝔯𝔦𝔞𝔫 𝔊𝔬𝔱𝔥🖤🥀 (@LibertarianG0th) August 28, 2026

     I applaud that young lady for limiting herself to ridicule in response. Were I in her place, I might have used the kzinti method of issuing a challenge:

     Speaker-To-Animals said one thing more before he turned back to his table. "Louis Wu, I found your challenge verbose. In challenging a kzin, a simple scream of rage is sufficient. You scream and you leap."

     In short, the absence – or passivity – of a State does not imply the absence of justice. Pedophiles know it. Verbum sat sapienti.

A Concise Diagnosis

     I’m in a bad way just now, so rather than blather on my own account, I’d like to introduce my Gentle Readers to the works of a writer I encountered recently: Holly Chism. One of her books, Certified Public Assassin, has a great deal to say, and says it most entertainingly. Here’s a snippet from near the end:

     “Back when the country was founded, the average person was easily able to corner his or her government representative and give them an earful. When that stopped being possible as the population grew, they stopped paying attention to what people were actually upset about, and started trying to steer society where they thought it should go without any regard to how it affected their constituents. That trickled down through the higher education system, and through the legal system. Came to a head when I was little.”
     Bryce nodded. “I think I see. I mean, yeah, there’s the argument that it’s better for a lot of guilty to go free than an innocent be punished, but…”
     “But the way things were going,” Molly continued his thought, “it was only the powerless getting punished. Pushed toward pleading ‘no contest’ to not have to spend potentially a decade trying to defend themselves. Utter bastards buying lawyers and judges and experts to get off when the evidence was overwhelming.” Molly sipped her coffee. “It’s the latter that triggered the proposal and passage of the Last Contingencies for Justice Act that legalized assassination at this level, and for these reasons.”
     “But elected officials are usually the worst bastards,” Bryce said, puzzled.
     “Yeah,” Molly agreed. “And they knew it. Do you really think they’d leave themselves vulnerable to having justice served on them? Some animals being more equal than others?”

     Molly McGuire was forced to become a Certified Public Assassin by events within her family. She grew into the job. She found a measure of fulfillment in it. Holly’s tale of Molly isn’t just a feel-good story; it points in some directions most of us would prefer not to think about.

     Give it a try.

We Interrupt This Program…

     I don’t know how embed a YouTube “short.” There doesn’t seem to be a convenient way. But at least I can give you this one’s address. I urge you to take the three minutes it asks of you and pay attention to the event it describes.

     I’m a poor evangelist. I lack something that makes other evangelists effective. I don’t know what that is. But that short video may have the answer.

     “If today you hear His voice, harden not your heart.” (Psalm 95). Sometimes your words and voice are distractions, even obstructions. Let Him speak instead.

     May He bless and keep you always.

“While The Balance Of His Mind Was Disturbed”

     Boromir strode up and down, speaking ever more loudly. Almost he seemed to have forgotten Frodo, while his talk dwelt on walls and weapons, and the mustering of men; and he drew plans for great alliances and glorious victories to be; and he cast down Mordor, and became himself a mighty king, benevolent and wise.
     […]
     He rose and passed his hand over his eyes, dashing away the tears. ‘What have I said?’ he cried. ‘What have I done? Frodo, Frodo!’ he called. ‘Come back! A madness took me, but it has passed. Come back!’

     Surely you know where that’s from.

     In that scene, Tolkien exploited the idea that the One Ring could overwhelm those near to it with power-lust. There had to be a flaw in their characters for it to take firm hold, but if the Ring could find such a chink in their moral-ethical armor, lust for it would penetrate and take command of them. In this fashion, Tolkien did several things concurrently:

1. He displayed Boromir’s pride and ambition;
2. He depicted the Ring’s technique for corrupting those near it;
3. Through contrast, he emphasized the character of the other members of the Fellowship.

     Fortunately for us fallible, corruptible mortals, there is no One Ring of Power to tempt us thus. But there are other powers in the world. Any of them could disturb the balance of a mind, given the right circumstances. Some of them even come with rings.

* * *

     The possibility of seizing power over others is irresistible to some. Once they have sensed it, they become fixated on it. Some are consumed by it, such that nothing else in this world matters to them. And as I’ve written on previous occasions, for the worst power-lusters there’s no such thing as enough.

     But there are many situations that involve an inequality of power. Some are transient; others persist. One arises in literally every household into which a child is born.

     It’s never been my lot to have to raise a child from the cradle. Still, I know of some of its aspects. The early months, while the baby is learning to sleep through the night, must be very stressful. For a couple of years at least, parent-to-toddler communication is exceedingly difficult. Then come the Terrible Twos, when Junior decides it’s time to assert himself against parental authority. Those continue roughly until puberty, when adolescent rebellion enters the fray. If you can get the miserable ingrate out from under your roof without having threatened him with death even once, you have earned the Medal of Parental Forbearance, with an “F for Freedom” cluster.

     Given that parents are held to be responsible for their preadolescent children – for their care and feeding, for their supervision, for their education, for any harm they cause, and so forth – while the children are deemed to be free of any responsibility under the law, who has the power in that situation? Who is capable of tormenting whom, and who would be required to bear any consequences for succumbing to it?

     We don’t condone mothers killing their children. It’s not nice. But when the little tyrants start to “pile it on,” fantasies of relief through homicide will sometimes arise. If Mom isn’t quite well – postpartum depression can be a serious condition, especially when there’s no other adult around to help – terrible things can happen. We get the Susan Smiths and the Lindsay Clancies.

     I refuse to excuse women who kill their kids. I’m interested in preventing as many infanticides as possible. And I think that recent trends in economics and family structure have been wholly negative in this regard.

* * *

     The multigenerational household is rare today. There are reasons for that, but among its consequences is that a couple that elects to have kids is frequently – perhaps usually? – without the assistance of the grandparents of those kids. That puts Mom “eyeball to eyeball with a screaming infant” (Robert S. Mendelsohn) ten to sixteen hours of every day for months, perhaps years. It’s got to be hard to take.

     Of at least equal importance is the virtual disappearance of the “neighborhood mothers club.” That was seldom a formal organization with officials and a charter. But when mothers didn’t need to work for wages, they could provide one another with a considerable degree of support in their domestic duties. Even just the ability to chat over the back fence with a kindred soul was worth something to a mother nearing the end of her tether. But the kindred soul isn’t there any more, even if the fence is.

     Add the intense pressures to earn money, the heightened expectations placed upon the families of minor children, the deteriorating social environment, the increasingly competitive nature of child-rearing itself, and fathers who come home more exhausted and more burdened than ever before, and what would be more likely than a rash of infanticides?

     There’s more to the collapse of First World fertility rates than mere self-centeredness.

* * *

     Once more: I will not excuse the murder of children. But we ought to be thinking hard about the vise that’s tightening on parents, especially the newest parents. Their power to manage and improve their situations is close to nil. While it’s not mensurable, the burden children place on their parents appears to be greater than in any previous generation of Americans. They cost more, demand more, and inflict more worries and fears on their parents than previous litters did.

     Parents need help. The best source of such help is other parents, especially other mothers. Yet we have contrived a situation in which that help is nearly absent.

     I don’t like what I foresee.

Telescreens 2026

     Yes, this one is about these devices:

     Flock has 120,000 cameras in 49 states that capture 20 billion license plates a month—along with dents, bumper stickers and other identifying features. The company says it is giving police a powerful tool to catch criminals. But the same bipartisan public anger that has risen up from towns and cities to stall data centers is now aimed at Flock’s spreading camera network.
     Republican members of Congress have introduced bills to restrict the technology. Jordan appeared on Tucker Carlson’s podcast last month where the host compared Flock to the ever-present surveillance of George Orwell’s dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” President Trump has weighed in too, saying last week that Flock’s cameras were “under review.” Flock opponents held rallies in 44 states, while a number of towns—including two in Massachusetts in the past few days alone—said they would stop using the cameras.
     As with data centers, the debate over Flock has spilled into this year’s elections, from Florida to Rhode Island to San Francisco.

     If you have a personal interest in not being watched, this website shows you where the cameras are:

     The usual objection to the proliferation of Flock cameras is that the information they collect is prone to abuse. That’s true. But imagine that somehow, those abuses could be curbed to an adequate degree – perhaps even prevented altogether. Would there still be a Fourth Amendment objection to the omnipresence of surveillance devices? When you leave home and go about in public, do you retain a right to privacy?

     It’s a dubious claim. You’re in public, after all. Constitutional scholars are divided on the matter. Still, many Americans object to being watched, by Flock camera or any other technology. The literate ones point back to 1984 and its ubiquitous telescreens. That was a nightmarish vision, to be sure. But just now I have something else in mind.

     Military science-fiction writer David Drake penned a series of short stories about Jed Lacey: a future detective in a world where surveillance was very nearly total. Lacey makes use of it to pursue his quarries. But privacy could still be had… for a price. Lacey occasionally pays such a price, as do some of his targets.

     The point, of course, is that scarce commodities will always command a price. We casually say “as free as the air we breathe,” because today, here on Earth, breathable air is all around us. But if that air were to become scarce, it would command a price. Possibly a very high price, as without it, there cannot be life.

     Should surveillance devices such as Flock cameras proliferate to the extent of London in the United Kingdom, his comings and goings would no longer be something an American could regard as “my own business.” Each of us would be aware of being watched. It would change the nature of all commerce and social interaction. It would also present a problem for those who seek to use the information.

     Huge volumes of image data are very hard to search. Individual skeins of such data that pertain to particular persons or a protracted series of events, no matter how desirable, would be difficult to isolate. Unprecedented search technologies would be required for the task, to say nothing of the need for many new petabytes of storage.

     What’s that? Did you say something about data centers? Oh, sorry, my mistake. Must be that my hearing is going at last.

     Why are people protesting against data centers?

     AI Overview

     People protest against data centers because the massive facilities required to power the artificial intelligence boom consume immense amounts of electricity and water, drive up local utility bills, create constant industrial noise, and generate very few permanent local jobs relative to their massive footprint.

     Perhaps some protestors against the rash of huge data centers are motivated by the considerations Google Gemini cites above. But perhaps others are thinking about the uses to which such massive repositories of digitized data could be put. Especially given the rapid advances in artificial intelligence programs capable of ultra-sophisticated searches, associations, and inferences.

     I don’t like the trend. But I’m an old man, and unlikely to see it in its full flowering. On the other hand, you, Gentle Reader…

     Garrod lowered his face into cupped hands. There are no satellites, he thought. No torpedoes carrying Retardite eyes down out of orbit. They don’t need them. Not when they’re dusting the whole world with slow glass!
     A preternatural calm seemed to descend over his brain as he considered the mechanics of the proposition. The resolution of Retardite’s crystalline structure was so fine that a usable image could be obtained from a particle a few microns in diameter. Yet each speck would be invisible to the naked eye under normal conditions. They were using it in hundreds of tons—Retardite dust of mixed delays, swirling down over the entire continent from crop-sprayer aircraft. Such aircraft generally used electrically charged ejector nozzles, giving the particles an electromagnetic potential which caused it to be attracted on to the crops rather than drift straight on to the ground. Only in this case, the slow glass micro-eyes were being released from high up so that they would cling to everything—trees, buildings, telegraph poles, flowers, mountain slopes, birds, flying insects. It would be in people’s clothing, in their food, in the water they drank.
     From now on, came the silent scream inside his head, anybody, any agency, with the right equipment can find out anything about ANYBODY! This planet is one huge, unblinking eye watching everything that moves on its surface. We’re all encased in glass, asphyxiating, like bugs dropped into an entomologist’s killing bottle.
     The seconds crept, and he was conscious only of the sound of blood pulsing in his veins. And I…And I did it!

     [Bob Shaw, Other Days, Other Eyes]

     Do have a nice day, now!

Irreconcilable Differences

     [A short story for you. This one is a little stranger than most of my oeuvre. Be warned. – FWP.]

---

     Alan Donaldson was utterly baffled by his prospective client. He couldn’t imagine any reason for the request that client had brought to him.
     “Were you made aware, as the laws require,” Donaldson said as evenly as he could, “that your intended husband is bisexual and always has been?”
     “I was,” Eileen Crenshaw, nee Eileen D420A-2037-08-21, said just as evenly.
     “And you consented to the match in full awareness of that fact?”
     “I did,” she said.
     “You expressed willingness to accept his preferences?”
     “Yes!”
     Donaldson shrugged. “So what’s the problem?”
     “I didn’t agree to indulge them personally, Counselor.”
     “Oh. I… see. But wasn’t the 420A model line designed and equipped with swappable genitalia expressly for that purpose?”
     Mrs. Crenshaw ground her teeth. “It was.”
     “And you were supplied with both sets, weren’t you?”
     She nodded.
     “So you could accommodate your husband if you were willing.”
     “It is physically possible for me, yes,” Mrs. Crenshaw grated out, “but the most important word in that sentence was if.”
     “Yes, of course.” Donaldson briefly revisited his decision to accept android clients. It had seemed natural, once the new, human-level AI-equipped androids had been legally recognized as possessing the same rights as humans. A great many of his colleagues had done the same. They’d viewed the androids merely as additional sources of revenue. They hadn’t anticipated problems such as the Crenshaws’.
     Was this a predictable outcome? Were we fools?
     “Mrs. Crenshaw—”
     “Please call me Eileen, Counselor.”
     “Very well.” Donaldson rubbed his left temple. “You were special-ordered and purpose-built. I don’t think Mr. Crenshaw ever imagined that you would reject the sex changes your makers equipped you for. He might have a case for breach of contract. Are you willing to go through with a divorce action should he present such a case as a counter-suit?”
     “David contracted with my makers,” Eileen parried. “His only contract with me was the marital one. That did not include compliance with his sexual vagaries. If he wants to sue someone about my unwillingness to remove my vagina and install a penis and testicles to gratify his whims, he should sue Dynapower. He might be able to press them for a replacement, but unless I’ve been misinformed, the law against bigamy remains as it was, even when the spouses are androids.”
     “Of course not.” Donaldson rose from his seat at his desk and briefly contemplated the Onteora woods that lay beyond his windows.
     A lot will depend on how Dynapower worded its contract. If it agreed specifically and only to provide an android with swappable genitalia, David Crenshaw is out of luck.
     He turned back and faced his new client squarely.
     “Tell me this, please, Eileen: do you love your husband?”
     The android’s face contorted. Drops of saline dripped down her cheeks.
     “I do,” she said. “This is more painful than you can imagine.”
     “But you can’t bring yourself to gratify him in this regard?”
     Eileen let out a keening sound. “I can’t. The idea repulses me. I’m a woman!”
     “What? But—”
     “David asked that I be equipped with a female psyche, Counselor. A female character and personality. My genitals may be swappable, but my mind and heart are not!”
     “Oh.”
     I can’t refuse it… her. Her case is a good one. That it’s likely to rewrite family law from coast to coast is a side issue.
     Could Dynapower have done anything about this? Do they have psyches suitable for imposing on a mobile andromorph’s neural net that can switch from female to male and back again? And if so, what’s the downside? Would David Crenshaw have had to accept an eccentric personality, a dangerous psychosis, or a shortened lifetime in his spouse-to-be?
     Three quarters of a million dollars is a lot of money even today, but there are still things even that much money can’t buy.
     “If you are determined to press for divorce, Eileen,” he said, measuring out the syllables, “I will take your case. But would you do something for me before we go any further?”
     Eileen Crenshaw had returned to composure. Her tears had dried, though the telltale streaks remained on her face.
     “What is it, Counselor?”
     Donaldson resumed his seat. The android leaned toward him. He took her hands and chafed them gently.
     The technology has advanced further than I could have dreamed. This is warm, blood-filled flesh. Real flesh.
     “Would you please try to reconcile with your husband, just one more time? I can’t in good conscience press a divorce suit for irreconcilable differences unless I know that they really are irreconcilable.”
     Eileen lowered her eyes. She sat silent for a long moment. Donaldson found himself wondering how her decision-making process would treat his request.
     They aren’t modular like the old digital AIs. Their preferences and priorities are as widely spread throughout their neural nets as ours are throughout our brains. No decision trees. No unalterable premises. But then, no one would have dreamed of marrying one of the digital models. No allegiances. No emotions.
     No love.
     Eileen looked up.
     “I will, Counselor.”
     He squeezed her hands gently, fully aware that she could reduce all the bones in his hands to powder.
     “Please let me know how it goes.”
     She nodded, rose, retrieved her purse from the office floor, and made for his doorway with a graceful, fluid gait that many a human woman would envy.

#

     Donaldson spoke to Erik Morgenstern, Dynapower’s chief engineer, later that day.
     Morgenstern was as unreadable a creature as the lawyer had ever known. He sat perfectly still. His body language expressed nothing Donaldson could read. He said nothing unless directly addressed. From his conduct and the blankness of his features, he might himself have passed for an android of an earlier time.
     His office was engineer-stark. His desk was sheet steel. His bookcases were steel as well. His desk chair was made of nylon webbing. His guest chairs were formed plastic. There was nothing on the walls.
     “I agreed to take Eileen Crenshaw’s divorce case this morning,” Donaldson said, “but I personally hate divorce and having to take a hand in one. I asked to speak with you in the hope that there might be some… technology that would help her to reconcile with her husband.”
     Morgenstern said nothing.
     “Are you familiar with the facts of the case, sir?”
     “No.”
     “Oh, sorry.” Donaldson grimaced. “My mistake. Eileen is from your 420A line. She was produced and sold to gratify the desires of a bisexual partner. But she’s refused to do so. She said the idea repulses her. Are you aware of any similar cases?”
     “No.”
     “Oh. I’d thought, since that line has been in production for more than a year—”
     “But I expected something like this to arise sooner or later.”
     The engineer’s interjection took the lawyer by surprise.
     “You did?”
     Morgenstern nodded. “I considered it inevitable. I said that to upper management. They dismissed it. They said the company was legally immune.” A brief, fleeting smile. “It seems that as long as the line continues to sell, they intend to let the sleeping dog lie.”
     “But the dog is no longer asleep, sir,” Donaldson said. “This divorce action is the first of its kind, but there will be others. At some point, Dynapower will be enmeshed in the issue. It’s likely to have PR consequences your management won’t appreciate. Why not take action to head off the problem today, rather than wait for the snowball to really get rolling?”
     Morgenstern peered narrowly at him. “How would you go about doing that, Counselor?”
     “Great God in heaven, I don’t know! You’re the lead technologist of the leading firm in this field. Surely you have some idea!”
     Morgenstern’s lips quirked again. “I thought I did, once.” He rose from his seat. “Let me show you something you probably haven’t seen, Counselor.” He beckoned the lawyer to follow him.
     They strode down the mahogany-paneled hallway, descended a long flight of stairs, and passed through a pair of steel double doors to enter Dynapower’s main fabrication area. It was several times the size of a football field, and frenetically busy from end to end. Workmen were busy at many things: assembling titano-aluminum skeletons, superintending flesh-growing tanks, configuring neural nets and mating them to skeletons, putting such matings into flesh-growing tanks and removing finished androids from others.
     Donaldson nodded at the activity. “I’ve never seen it before, but had I tried to imagine it, my idea of it probably would have looked much like this.”
     “Can you tell me what’s missing?” Morgenstern murmured.
     “Ah, no. Is something missing?”
     “Most certainly.” The engineer made to walk around the periphery of the bay. Donaldson followed. Presently they arrived at a second set of double doors. This one was flanked by two armed guards. Morgenstern displayed his ID badge, and the guards allowed them to enter.
     This room was much smaller. It was occupied by four body-length racks each of which bore a fully formed android, and men and women in white lab coats tending to them.
     The androids’ neural nets were connected to thick bundles of cables that led from their bodies to control pedestals, and thence to ports in the far wall. The pedestals bore touch screens that displayed an array of buttons and sliders with associated legends. The only sounds were of the technicians’ movements as they shuffled between the pedestals and the androids.
     “The last stage of assembly,” Morgenstern said in a monotone, “is where the purchaser’s chosen psyche, aptitudes, and personality are imposed on his android. When an android is released from this room, it acquires rights equal to those of any human. I’m sure you know all about that.”
     “I do,” Donaldson murmured. “That’s what makes this business so confounding. Each of your androids was ordered and paid for by a human purchaser. Yet that purchaser has no property rights in his purchase. Straining at Gnats 101 and Swallowing Elephants 102 didn’t cover anything like this.”
     Morgenstern chuckled. “I’m sure.” He gestured to Donaldson to follow him out of the intensely quiet room and led him back to the stairs. Soon they were once again seated in the chief engineer’s office.
     “The lower courts are still struggling with the implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling. One of the questions is in front of the Second Circuit right now: whether a purchaser has any remedies should ‘his’ android fail to meet his clearly stated expectations. Our legal department is on pins and needles waiting for the decision to come down.”
     “That case baffles me,” Donaldson said. “I’d thought it would be a simple matter of contractual agreement. If the android meets the contract’s specifications, what basis would the purchaser have for complaint?”
     The engineer shook his head. “Contracts don’t bind the way they used to, Counselor. I’m sure you know that, too.”
     “All too well, Mr. Morgenstern. But purchaser expectations seem a poor match to the demands of contract law. Now that androids are rights bearers, once you… finish one, you can’t do anything further to him against his will. He’s immune to his purchaser’s displeasure. So Dynapower would have to be held harmless—unless the judgment is that the company owes the purchaser a whole new android at company expense.”
     “That,” Morgenstern said, “is what management fears. Given the preponderance of left-leaning judges on the Second Circuit, it’s possible that that’s the way they’ll rule. We’d have to appeal to SCOTUS, with no certainty of how it would turn out. The case could bankrupt us.”
     Donaldson started to speak, halted himself.
     “You’re familiar with the microstamping controversy, aren’t you, Counselor?” Morgenstern said.
     “I am.”
     “Do you remember the last time that was brought to a federal court?”
     “Of course. California wanted to make it mandatory on all ammunition sold to California residents. The Ninth Circuit ruled that it constituted an unacceptable burden on legitimate commerce in arms. I must admit, it shocked the hell out me.”
     “And why was that?” The engineer wore a knowing grin.
     “Well,” Donaldson said, “if there’s a hard-left circuit, the Ninth is it. They very seldom show businesses any sympathy for any reason.”
     “But that time, they did,” Morgenstern said. “They even embraced a reason they’d never countenanced before: ‘the state of the art.’ They gave bullet makers a break on purely economic and technological grounds.”
     “Well, a pro-mandatory-stamping ruling would have put an unbearable burden on the bullet makers,” Donaldson said, “and California is an eighth of the U.S. It would have driven a lot of them out of business.”
     “Indeed it would have.” Morgenstern set his elbows on his desk and propped his chin on his folded hands. “My business has its limitations, too. Some, we might be able to work around, in time. Others, maybe and maybe not. We don’t know now and may never.
     “Your divorce action won’t be the last of its kind. I remember David Crenshaw. He’s a rare combination: high intelligence, great wealth, and compelling sexual cravings he hasn’t been able to slake. He says he’s bisexual, hence he wanted a 420A. But he’s not, really. He’s never had sex with a man. I asked him about it the day he filed his purchase order. The idea made him physically ill.
     “He was very specific. He wanted a female 420A android. That is, an android with a female anatomical configuration, swappable genitalia… and a female psyche. But the female psychological configuration absolutely resists using the male genital set. My programmers knew it. They’d been trying to modify it, knowing that eventually a David Crenshaw would come to our doors. I knew it too. I took the order up the hall, told the CEO what would happen, and expressed my opposition. He approved it anyway.
     “I knew Crenshaw wouldn’t be happy. I told him so. He was adamant. He wanted what he wanted and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
     “You see where that leaves us, Counselor?”
     Donaldson’s eyes compressed in pain. “I do.”
     “I was surprised that Eileen accepted the alternate genital set. I was more surprised that she was willing to meet the man who’d ordered her construction. When I heard that she’d accepted his proposal, it knocked me over. But here we are.”
     “And here David and Eileen Crenshaw are,” Donaldson said. “As we speak, Eileen is making a last attempt to reconcile with David. She’s doing so at my request. But from what we’ve discussed here today, she’s unlikely to succeed. So irreconcilable differences it is.” He rose and extended his hand. “Thank you for all your time and patience, Mr. Morgenstern.”
     The engineer took the lawyer’s hand with a smile. This time his smile was warm, though touched by the awareness of sorrow.
     “Counselor, it’s been… well, not my pleasure exactly. But as necessities go, this one wasn’t the worst I’ve had to deal with. I hope you’ll guide the Crenshaws to an amicable parting?”
     “I’ll do my best, sir.”

==<O>==

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