THE SIMULATED GOLEM

Part 1 of 2

by

Christopher Stasheff

Copyright © 1990

 

AD 2053: Too many ghosts loose in the machine?  Perhaps some house-cleaning is in order.  To catch a mouse, one employs a cat.  But to trap errant electronic spirits, a stranger beast may be required.

 

"But why does this guy Forge want to re-create the Rabbi Loew?"

Hearth took a deep breath and strove not to sound sarcastic.  Being a vice president of Simultech had its disadvantages—and one of them was trying to ex­plain the facts of life to idealistic, ivory-tower pro­grammers.  Gently, he said, "Marteau, it's not our job to ask why.  We want his money, he wants the Rabbi.  That's all there is to it."

Marteau frowned.  "I don't know if I can work on that basis, R.H."

Hearth just looked at him for a few seconds.  Then he said, "Do you like getting paid, Marteau?"

"I can always get another job," Marteau retorted, the first edge of obstinacy creeping into his voice.  "I can sling hash, if I have to—I did it in college, and I'm not married."

Hearth bit back the sharp retort and reined in his temper.  Marteau was one of the best of the new breed of programmers, and the fact was that Hearth needed him.  It had to be persuasion, not coercion—somehow, he didn't doubt that Marteau would walk.  "No reason to think he wants the Rabbi raised for any bad purpose, is there?"

Marteau shrugged.  "Forge doesn't exactly have a reputation for racial tolerance."

"Anybody who owns a controlling interest in the biggest computer factory in the world, is bound to have labor problems now and then."

"He's got one right now."  Marteau frowned.  "He owns a piece of this company, too, doesn't he?"

"About ten percent.  So you see, Marteau, it would be very hard to tell this man 'no'."

"Yeah, I see," Marteau said grudgingly.  "And this is a good place to work.  But hasn't he given you any reason?"

"Just the order."  Hearth steepled his fingers, gazing down past them at the glass table and the silver carpet under it, then glancing around at the chrome and ebony walls of his office, and the city outside the huge win­dow.  "I do know Forge is interested in moral problems."

"Yeah," said Marteau, "from the Fundamentalist side."

"He can't be too much of a Fundamentalist if he's buying into Simultech—but he hasn't said anything about whether or not the simulacra have rights."

Marteau frowned.  "No, he hasn't.  I heard him on a talk show, and he gave both sides of the issue, and said he hadn't made up his mind yet."

Hearth nodded.  "And he's outspoken enough so that I don't think he'd waffle.  Does that suggest anything about why he'd want to raise Rabbi Loew?"

"Yeah," Marteau said somberly.  "Loew made the Golem of Prague in the sixteenth century, according to legend."

"And destroyed it when it began to go berserk and kill Christians."  Hearth nodded.  "He might have some ideas about the rights of synthetic people."

"You mean Forge just wants to talk to the rabbi?"

"What else could he do?"  Hearth spread his hands.

"That's true."  Marteau frowned.  "There's just one problem, R.H.— the real Rabbi Loew didn't make the golem."

 

*          *          *

 

"What do you mean, he didn't make the golem?"  Forge frowned down at the diminutive figure in the tank.  "I've read five versions of the legend, and they all say he did!"

He was a distinguished-looking man with a strong jaw, a neat moustache under an aquiline nose, large eyes and dark hair that was graying at the temples.  He was no longer young, but didn't seem middle-aged, either.

"That's the legend," Marteau reminded him.  "We can't make fictitious characters here, Mr. Forge—it never works.  This is the historical Rabbi Loew, not the legendary.  He never even heard of the Golem of Prague—the legend wasn't grafted onto him until two hundred years after his death."

"That's not what I ordered."  Forge glared at the young man.  "I wanted the man who made the golem—MoHaRal."

"Moreny Ha-Rav Loew."  Marteau nodded.  "But he didn't make a golem, Mr. Forge.  Nobody could— it's just a story.  You can't bring a clay statue to life by magic.  Not in the real world."

"And what would you say it is you do?"

"We make simulacra out of numbers and electrical impulses—and the synthetic bodies are much more complex than clay statues."

"We're all clay."  Forge dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand.  "It says so in the Bible.  What you're telling me is, he couldn't make a golem in the sixteenth century.  Maybe what I really want to know is—can he make a golem now?"

"Yes, he can," Marteau said.  "In there."

 

*          *          *

 

It had been a strange, and rude, awakening.  The rabbi found himself adrift in a sea of mist, with bright clouds overhead and fluffy clouds underfoot.  He floated, and when he tried to walk, he moved, though he felt no pressure against his feet.  Still, he saw no reason to—it made far greater sense to stay where he was, and pray.

He had quickly determined that he was not in Heaven, because there was no evidence of the pres­ence of God.  It followed that his spirit had been revived by men, not the Almighty—and if men had summoned him, he would wait for them to tell him why.  In the meantime, he was glad of the opportu­nity to rest a while and contemplate the holy books.  He did not have them with him, of course, not the physical objects—but in another sense, he always had the Torah with him, for he had committed most of it to memory.  There was also the Cabala, the book of dazzling mysticism—but of questionable validity.  Though he could not disagree with some of its state­ments, others seemed to have more of fiction than of faith.  Of that, he had memorized enough to stand him in good stead—and it was always a pleasure to try to puzzle out what within it he could accept, and what he could not, and why.  He composed himself for contemplation.

The mist thickened in front of him, swirling more and more densely until the form of a man stood before him.  Outwardly calm, the rabbi braced him­self within.  Certainly that was no man he saw, who could appear out of cloud.  Was it an angel in human form?  Or a human in some altered form?

He studied the stranger while the apparition stud­ied him.  It was a strong face, perhaps even a hand­some one—but its eyes burned with zeal, and there was menace.

"Greetings, Rabbi," the apparition said, politely enough.  "I am Corby Forge."

"Good day to you, Reb Forge."  The rabbi saw the man stiffen, and asked, "You are not Jewish, then?"

"Of course not!" the man said, offended—as a Gentile would be.  The rabbi tried not to be offended in his own turn and asked, "What is your form of address?"

" 'Mister' will do, Rabbi."

"Mister Forge, then."  The rabbi nodded.  "I would not offend without cause, by a breach of custom.  Is it you who have brought me here?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes.  I have paid a sor­cerer to raise your ghost so that I can talk with you."

Right away, the rabbi knew that he was lying, for he knew that sorcery and necromancy were lies.  In­dignantly, he said, "I am not a child, Mr. Forge, and my people were not primitive.  Tell me as you would another adult of your own time and place."

"As you wish."  Forge frowned.  "I have paid to have you resurrected."

The rabbi smiled thinly.  "I do not remember death, Mr. Forge, and there is no resurrection save in the bosom of Abraham.  Yet from your words, I would conjecture that I have died, and from that, that much time has passed."

Forge frowned, looking nettled, and the rabbi re­alized the man felt he had been outwitted.  He would have to tread lightly—a man who was so easily of­fended could not be sure of his own worth.  "How much time has passed?"

Forge thought it over for a second, then said, "Five and a half centuries."

"So much?"  The rabbi raised his eyebrows.  "What has happened in the world, then?"

"Nothing of importance," said Forge, with an im­patient gesture, so the rabbi knew there had been very much that was important, and vital to himself.  "Much that was attributed to magic has become un­derstood, and is now termed 'science'."

" 'Knowledge?' "  The rabbi frowned, uncertain of the implications.  "And therefore you can raise the dead?"

"In a manner of speaking.  We can re-create an historical person as he probably was, so completely that he can think and feel, and believe himself to be real."

"But he is not?"

"Of that, we are not sure," Forge hedged, "and therefore I have wished to speak with you."

"I would certainly wish to speak of it, for I am just such a simulacrum, I gather.  But why me?  I know nothing of such matters."

"You know a great deal," said Forge, "for you made the first golem, in Prague, to guard the ghetto from mob riots."

"A golem?  What nonsense!  This is superstition, and a tale to frighten children.  Golems can be made only in stories—and the first such tale was old when I was born."

"Nonetheless, tradition speaks of you as the maker of the first, and certainly the most famous, of the artificial men."

"Most famous?"  The rabbi frowned.  "What is the legend?"

"Why, that the ghetto in Prague was threatened with mob violence, so you made the golem to guard the Jews and protect them.  But the Christians broke down the gate and came over the wall, and your golem took an axe and slew them."

The rabbi stared at him, shaken.  Then he col­lected himself and said, "You speak of pogroms, of a mob of Christians running riot through the ghetto to rape and murder Jews, to burn their houses and steal what little they had."

"Steal!  The Jews hoarded wealth, money wrung from Christians."

The rabbi frowned again, beginning to understand what he was dealing with.  "There were never more than a few Jews who were wealthy; most of us were honest tradesmen and laborers.  But as to the golem, I would never have done such a thing, even if I could!"

"But you know how," Forge pressed.

Rabbi Loew waved the objection away.  "Oh, of course, I have read the Cabala, I have heard the superstitions.  I can tell a story as well as the next man, if he is not a great poet.  I could make a golem, certainly, if golems could be made.  But they cannot be, for they are only children's tales, not part of the real world.  Yet even if they were real, I would never raise one.  Even the threat of a pogrom is no excuse for bloodshed, for only evil can come of evil!"

"Many of your countrymen disagree," Forge snapped.

"My countrymen?"  The rabbi looked up.  "Is Israel reborn, then?  Have my people returned to their homeland?"

Forge flushed.  "We have spoken enough."  He made a flat, dismissive gesture, and disappeared.

The rabbi stood alone, joy thrilling through him.  Israel reborn!  The Homecoming!  The Return!  " 'For this year, we are slaves in a foreign land,' " he breathed, " 'but next year, we shall be in Israel.' "

 

*          *          *

 

"He can do it," Forge snarled, pacing around the tank.  "The bastard knows how to do it, and knows I know he did it.  But he won't admit it, damn it!  He won't say why he did it!"

"But he didn't."  Marteau was working really hard at being patient.  "This is the historical rabbi, I tell you.  He didn't really make a golem."

"But he knows how!  You heard him in there—he knows how!  He just won't admit it, to spite me!"

"Look," Marteau said, "he doesn't even know the legend you're talking about."

"Then feed it into him, damn it!  Make him know!  And you'll see!  The bastard's a paranoid maniac!  Once he knows, he'll do it again!  Feed it into him!"

Marteau explained patiently, "He won't make a golem, even if he knows how."  Then he realized how he could put it into terms Forge would understand.  "Why should he?  The legendary MoHaRal made the golem to protect his congregation—and there's no Jewish community in there for the rabbi to need to protect."

"What are you trying to do, hold me up?" Forge exploded.  "What is this, extortion?  You think you can blackmail me into paying you to make me a whole Jewish ghetto in there?"

"Of course not!" Marteau yelled.  Then he got him­self under control quickly and said, "It wouldn't be feasible, no matter how much you were willing to pay.  Each individual would have to be a complete recreation, and we don't have records on more than one or two of his people.  Even if we did, it would take way too long—years, maybe a decade."

"But you're telling me the man has to have a whole damn community to protect."

"He has one already."  Marteau nodded at the tank.  "In there.  All the other simulacra who have been made before him.  He just has to get to know them."

Forge frowned at the tank.  "But they have to be his."

"I think he'll find that he has more than enough in common with them."

Forge lifted his head, searching the younger man's face for a minute, then nodded, satisfied.  "Put the rabbi in touch with them."

"They'll take care of that themselves—if they haven't already."

 

*          *          *

 

The rabbi's head was whirling.  So many people, in so short a time!  Some he had heard of—Cicero and Caesar, Cleopatra and Antony, Joan who was called the saint, Socrates…  Ah, there was one who was persuasive!  With his insistence that the unexamined life was not worth living, and that the rabbi must examine his current nature, and discover his com­monality with them, realize why he must help them resist the people who had re-awakened them!  And Joan, with her fascinating glimpse of this strange new mathematics called "calculus."  She had, at least, prom­ised to return and teach it all to him…  And the wonder of it, the notion that they were all simulacra, man-made things, reconstructions of human beings long dead and gone, created by numbers as a writer would create a character by words!  The audacity, the arrogance of it!  Certainly there was overweening pride in that?

No, no more than there was in the writer.  That, at least, the rabbi understood, as he understood the wonder and fascination of numbers and their rela­tionships.

And the new ones, the dead ones of whom he'd never heard, but who knew of him—as history!  That arrogant, swaggering Pizarro, ready to damn him for being a Jew—and Voltaire.  Always Voltaire, with his calm, reasoned arguments why the rabbi alone could truly understand the nature of the simulacra, and had the greatest potential to defend them all.

But this—this one was worse than any of them, with his haranguing against government, all govern­ment, any government, the very idea of government!  With his bland assumption that of course Rabbi Loew would help them to block the power of Forge and his minions.  "No, Mr. Bakunin, I do not agree!  Anarchy—a lack of all government…"  He shuddered.  "The evil in the worst of men would break loose and overwhelm us all!  The strong would prey upon the weak, the savage on the meek!"

"No, no!" Bakunin corrected.  "That is what gov­ernments do!  They twist men, they make them rapa­cious and corrupted!"

The rabbi shook his head.  "I have seen too much of the more evil side of our natures, Mr. Bakunin.  I have seen ordinary men and women, whose hate is contained by the morality of their churches, caught up in mobs and changing their natures completely, becoming like the very beasts in their frenzy!"

"Mobs!  Do you not see that they are government?"

"No!"  The rabbi shook his head, trembling.  "They are the absence of government!  That, Mr. Bakunin, is your anarchy!"

Bakunin reddened, but the gentler side of his nature came to the fore, and he peered more closely at the rabbi.  "Why are you so agitated, Rabbi Loew?  This is surely but an academic discussion—for cer­tainly, no one has ever seen anarchy."

"But I have, I have!  The state you describe, Mr. Bakunin, is far too strongly reminiscent of the po­groms that ripped apart our ghetto in Prague, not once, no, but again and again, throughout the years of my life!"

"But do you not see, those pogroms were the work of the government!  They were used as a means of punishment by the tyrants who gripped your city, even by the king himself!  They were a way of keep­ing your people down!"

"There may be some truth in that," said the rabbi, "but the pogrom itself was the lack of authority.  The government let it be known that the law would not be enforced, that the Watch would look the other way.  Those who were consumed by hate and greed ravaged forth then, to loot and slay and fulfill their most base instincts!"

"No, no!"  Bakunin raised his hands to fend off the rabbi's argument, closing his eyes and shaking his head.  "You do not see it as it is!"

"You have not seen it at all!" The rabbi strove to contain his temper.  "Until you have seen people running wild through your streets, Mr. Bakunin, until you have heard the mob in full-throated howl­ing, you know not of what you speak!"

"I have devoted my whole life to this study!"  Bakunin caught his temper at the last second, pressed a trembling hand to his forehead, then forced a smile.  "Perhaps later, Rabbi Loew—yes?  Perhaps, when you have seen more of our life here, we may talk."

And he was gone, striding off into the pearlescent distance, swallowed up in the mist.

Shaken, the rabbi turned, to call up the words of the Law in his mind, and calm himself with prayer.

 

*          *          *

 

"All the legends of the golem!  Make sure he knows them all!"

"I'll download them into him while he's dormant," Marteau sighed.  "That doesn't guarantee he'll try to make one, you know."

"He will when they're threatened.  Did you set up that refuge I told you to make?"

"Yes, complete with narrow, twisting streets and tottering, in-leaning houses behind a high wall.  But why did you want it hidden?"

"So they'll think they discovered it themselves, and that it's safe to go to."

"Safe from what?"

"You'll see," Forge said, his burning eyes gazing off into the distance.  "We'll all see."

 

*          *          *

 

The rabbi woke, confused.  So many nightmares in one sleep!  So many visions of the golem, some with the word "emes" on his forehead, some with the shem-ha-maphoresh; some of them with an axe, some with a sword, some pudgy and gentle, some lean and with burning eyes—but all, all, striking out in anger, bringing oceans of blood.

He held fast to the memory as, trembling, he donned his phylacteries for his morning prayers.

 

Done, he looked up, and found Voltaire sitting beside him in a brocade armchair.  "Good morning, Rabbi."

The rabbi sighed.  "Good morning, Monsieur Vol­taire.  I trust you will not assault me with more of your arguments against the nature of authority?"

"Certainly not."  Voltaire gestured.  "I have brought others who have greater expertise than I on the subject."

Looking up, the rabbi saw a lean man with an aquiline nose and thinning hair surrounded by a laurel wreath.  He wore the armor of a Roman officer, and beside him stood Cicero, in his toga.

"May I introduce you to His Excellency, Julius Caesar," Voltaire murmured.

"Great Caesar!  And will you seek to convince me of the wrongness of authority?"

"Of any but mine," the Roman murmured.

Suddenly, the air between them thickened.

Caesar's smile disappeared.  "Who comes?"

The swirling hardened into a giant head with a saturnine smile.  "Good day, gentlemen."

Caesar looked up at the rabbi with a frown, but Loew kept his gaze on the head.  "Good day, Mr. Forge.  I trust you are well."

"Very well," the industrialist said, with an air of smugness.  "I am delighted to inform you that I have just completed the purchase of the controlling inter­est in Simultech, Incorporated."

Voltaire and the Roman exchanged frowns, but Rabbi Loew said, "I congratulate you—but I do not understand.  What is 'Simultech, Incorporated'?"

"The company that owns the equipment and hires the personnel that made you," Forge answered, "and therefore owns you, too."

"Never!" Caesar barked, and Voltaire's eyes snapped, while Cicero said, "Perhaps you are imprecise…"

"None own me save God."  The rabbi frowned.  "Are you a slave dealer then, Mr. Forge?"

"Perhaps."  But Forge was clearly irritated by the word.  "And if you are my property, I can do with you as I see fit."

"That remains to be seen," said Loew stiffly.  "What do you see fit to do, Mr. Forge?"

"To destroy you," the industrialist said, "to de­stroy you all."

 

TO BE CONTINUED…