"Like that guy in the lab?" Remo said.
"Right."
Dickey's manicured fingers were twirling the hair on Remo's wrists. "I think we ought to talk this over a lot," he said.
"What happened to your entrance card?" Remo said.
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"I lost it last night. I'll take you to a place with quiet nv'Sic and paper lanterns."
"I think I'm going to be busy being heterosexual," Remo said.
"I was only trying to be friendly," Dickey said. .
"I've got too many friends as it is," Remo said.
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Í
CHAPTER SIX
"I am Mr. Gordons. I am an android. I was created four years ago by a woman scientist. I am a survival machine."
"You're a bullshit artist," said Dr. Frances Pay-ton-Holmes. "But you're cute. I'll admit that. Got a drink on you, Gordons?"
"I do not drink beverages. They are harmful to my components. But I understand your craving for alcohol. My creator was also an alcoholic; I seem always to be involved with females who are alcoholics. My creator named me for her favorite libation. My predecessors, Messrs. Seagrams and Gilbeys, were less perfect mechanisms than me," he said proudly.
"Must be great to be so wonderful," the professor muttered.
"I must have been programmed to be wonderful," Mr. Gordons mused. "Otherwise I wouldn't
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be. You see, I can only perform what I was programmed to do."
"Yeah, yeah," she said. "See here. I don't know about this android stuff, but I want to know about that writing on your foot."
"I am troubled," Mr. Gordons said.
"Join the club."
"The man who was just here, the one in the black T-shirt," he began.
"What about him?"
"I know him from somewhere, but I cannot recall where."
"Oh, to hell with him. Where's the frigging LC-111?"
"Let me explain from the beginning," Mr. Gordons said. "I was somehow disassembled at a point in time I no longer recall, due to certain damaged mechanisms in my memory banks."
The professor looked ceilingward.
"I was deposited in a repository for unusable artifacts." He glanced down at Verbanic's uniform and picked at the Hollywood Disposal Service emblem on its pocket. "This one."
"The dump? You were living in a dump?"
"I was disassembled, and my necessary components destroyed. Not until your computer was placed in the same location could I amalgamate its parts and become functional again. You see, I am an assimilator."
"A what?"
"An assimilator. As long as one of my components remains intact, I have the capability to reassemble myself. My creator programmed this
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capability into me. As I've said before, I am a survival machine."
The professor was stunned. "The LC-111 is part of you?"
He nodded. "I assimilated it."
The professor shrieked. "My baby! My darling LC-111 in a garbage dump!"
"Fortunately, your computer was in excellent repair, and I was able to use all its parts."
She looked at him askance. "Do you expect me to believe that you're really a robot?"
"An android. I have human features."
"And what do you know about the LC-111?" she asked suspiciously.
"I know everything about it."
"Liar. No one knows everything about that computer. Not even me, and I built it."
"I do. For example, I know that the fourth cathode in the laser transmission is faulty, which accounts for a 1/250-per-second lapse. Unaware of the cause of this problem, you undoubtedly corrected for it by connecting an entire new terminal." He pointed at one of the three remaining computers on the table. "That one, most likely."
The professor was incredulous. "The fourth cathode? How could that be?"
"Moisture absorption through a hairline crack at the base."
"Of course!" she exulted. "That could have done it. It took two years of work on that booster terminal—hey, why am I telling you this? How did you know about the frigging fourth cathode?"
Mr. Gordons stared at her blankly. "I have already told you. I am the LC-111."