"Thank you. Well, to get to the point, he told me about the way you trained your enlistees, putting them into a controlled environment with an intelligent computer training them on a one-on-one basis. May I take it that this attractive young lady is in reality one of those artificial intelligences?"
"You may," I said, wondering where this was leading to. And, was his department as rich as his cousin's department?
"Then I wonder if I might ask her some questions. They call you Agnieshka, don't they?"
"Yes, sir."
"A lovely name. Tell me, Agnieshka, can you reprogram yourself to learn certain new skills? Could you teach yourself to be an engineer, for example?"
"I could download a college-level course and take it myself, if I wanted to. I recently took an extensive course in agriculture, for example."
"Excellent. Tell me, do you think that you could become a psychologist, or a psychiatrist?"
"I could learn the skills, yes, but I don't think that I could ever get a license to practice those professions. I am, after all, only a machine."
"But you are a very remarkable machine, my dear lady. Furthermore, in New Croatia at least,
I
, ultimately, am the person who would make the decision as to whether you would be permitted to practice. Now then, please consider my position. I presently have some ninety-one thousand seriously disturbed people being treated in various institutions around the country. It is costing my government an average of fifty-six thousand marks to support and treat each of them every year, and even with that huge financial outlay, these people are not getting the best possible care. It is difficult to see to it that they are all properly washed and fed, and often it is even more difficult to be sure that they each get and actually take the proper pharmaceuticals. We don't have nearly enough trained psychiatric help available, even if we could afford to pay them properly. On top of all this, I have just been ordered to cut my budgets in half. Unless something drastic is done, I will be forced to arbitrarily declare half of those poor people to be cured, even though they are not, and to dump them on the streets."
"I have sympathy for your difficult position," I said. "But we are a military organization, not a medical one."
"True, but you have the intelligent machinery that would enable us to put each patient in a safe, secure environment, with a trained psychiatrist on full-time duty for each one of them. I know that you can keep them physically fit and healthy, as is obvious from your own excellent physique. I think that your Dream World capabilities could be very useful therapeutically. You have the ability to see to it that medication is always administered properly. You could do a great deal of good for these unfortunate people."
"Perhaps, but such a thing has never been tried before. Also, we are mercenaries, and not a philanthropic organization."
"Yes. But you are accepting criminals into your ranks. Why not take those who could really benefit by what you have to offer?"
"Criminals are still sane, for the most part. In a war situation, one really crazy person could easily get his entire squad killed," I said.
"Or, he just might save them. Until the situation actually occurs, we have no way of knowing what would happen. What I am suggesting is that we at least try this program. I could pay you far more than you are getting for your custodial fees for criminals."
"You would have to, since I would be extremely hesitant about committing psychiatric patients into frontline combat. Even without the attachable external weapons, each of my tanks is worth a million marks. Those tanks that are committed to this program would be militarily useless. At even a three percent return on our investment, we would have to charge you thirty thousand marks per year per patient."
"That is more than I hoped to have to pay. It would mean discharging thousands of people who still need help. Could you possibly accept twenty-five thousand?"
Agnieshka stepped into the conversation, instead of just translating. "Boss, please? We'd really like to do this. We could help a lot of these people, I'm sure of it. And I'm sure that at least some of them could be made into good observers. If even half of them could be made into good soldiers, wouldn't that make the whole project worthwhile?"
"Hmmm. Maybe. But I'm also worried about our legal liabilities in all of this. I can see myself being sued by somebody because his crazy maiden aunt was killed in combat."
Agnieshka said, "But if I were a government-licensed psychologist, and I recommended this therapy, wouldn't that get you off the hook?"
Our visitor said, "And I would have to insist that each tank had such a license before therapy began."
"Okay. Okay. With the clear understanding that this is an experimental program, and that either side may back out of it with, say, three months' notification to the other, we'll do it. Twenty-five thousand marks per patient per year, to be paid quarterly in advance."
"Thank you, General Derdowski. You will never regret this."
"I hope and pray that you are right, Doctor."
As he was leaving, Agnieshka asked him, "Would the tanks who participated in this project get a certificate, that they were licensed to practice psychiatric medicine, written on paper?"
"Why, yes, my dear, although the certificates are actually hand lettered on real parchment."
"Thank you, Doctor."
After he left, I said, "Agnieshka, start getting tanks cycled between the other planets and here as fast as possible. Check the stockpiles in New Kashubia, and have them send us everything that they have with an intelligent computer that can hold a human body. We need them as soon as possible."
"Yes, sir."
"You really like that guy, don't you?"
"Yes, I do. He really cares about people, even those with electronic brains, instead of chemical ones."
"You might be right. For now, find ten tanks that want to get involved with this program. Have them educate themselves as medical doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and every related field you can think of. Assign each of them one of the humanoid drones, since they might have to show off their bedside manner. Once they're ready, have them report to the good doctor for testing."
"Yes, sir."
My God, how the money rolls in!
I was about to ask for a look at the plans of my new mansion when Kasia came in. She was slumped, there were bags under her eyes, and though it was only midafternoon, she looked very tired.
"You look like you need your back rubbed," I said.
"I knew you'd make a wonderful husband."
She sat next to me on the couch, and I started running my fingers over her shoulders and neck. They were a mess, with thousands of tiny, wire-hard muscle fibers that didn't know enough to relax when they weren't needed any more. I started rubbing them out, gently at first. Her shirt got in the way, and I couldn't make it vanish as I could in Dream World. I unbuttoned it in the normal way, and continued with the gentle rubbing, searching out the wires and making them go away.
"That feels so wonderful."
"It is supposed to. It's also very expensive. There is a price tag on this."
"What do you mean?"
"For over a week now, you have been running in and out like a crazy lady, and only staying in bed long enough for sex. You haven't stopped to tell me a thing about what's going on, or what you are doing. I understand about all the wedding preparations, but there's a lot more to all this than just that. The first part of your bill is that you have to start speaking to me again. Now."
"And the second?"
"That's a surprise. Speak."
"Okay. I'm sorry that I haven't given you enough of my time, lately, but . . ."
"I don't need apologies. I need to know what you have been doing."
"These Croatians have very few computers, and they don't know how to use what they've got."
"This is still a frontier world, darling."
"I'm not saying that they're stupid, or anything like that, but take their stock market. All the shares of every publicly owned stock are listed on one big internet site, and people buy and sell with each other. They think that they are somehow investing in the economy, but of course what they really are doing is playing in a big, pari-mutuel betting game with each other."
"I've always thought that, yes," I said, working my way slowly down her back. Somehow, the worst "wires" always seem to be beneath the bra straps, so I took that off, too.
"Oh, it's better than gambling at a casino, because there, since the house has to make a profit to stay in business, the odds must ultimately be against the bettor. In the stock market, companies normally pay dividends to the bettors, so the odds are slightly in their favor, in the long run."
"I'm sure you're right, darling."
"Everybody knows that in this sort of a game, the winning ploy is to plot and analyze the price of each stock versus time, and then watch the second derivative of the function. When the second derivative is positive, you buy. When it goes negative, you sell. Then you play a large number of stocks so your own purchases and sales don't seriously affect the prices. Everybody knows that."
"Of course, dear." I hadn't known that, but what the heck.
"Well, nobody here seems to know it, and we have been making a bloody fortune. We have been doing just as well in the commodity markets and in real estate. Nobody here has ever turned a bunch of modern computers loose on their whole financial sector before, until now. I've been working through hundreds of corporations we've set up to keep people from figuring out what's going on, but it's gotten so tricky that it takes every minute I've got just to keep an eye on it."
"You know, darling, Agnieshka once told me that I was a very good general, and that you were a very good staff officer, but that the skills required were very different for those two jobs. Good staff officers have to worry out every detail, to make sure that nothing can go wrong. Good generals know how to delegate the work out to others, and concentrate on seeing the big picture. You have been trying to do a general's job with a colonel's mind set. As your Husband, your Commanding Officer, and your Lord and Master—stop sniggering!—I am now going to help you out."
I sat up on the couch and said, "Eva? Are you there?"
A beautiful Irish-looking girl with huge green eyes and long black hair appeared on the wall screen.
"Yes, sir?"
"Eva, do you understand everything that Kasia has been doing, financially?"
"Yes, sir."
"Could you take over for a while, and continue doing everything that you know that Kasia would do?"
"Yes, sir, of course."
"Then do it. She is extremely tired, and almost burnt out. She needs a rest. We will start by sending her to bed right now, and tomorrow at noon, we will be leaving on a month-long honeymoon. You will find us a nice desert island someplace where we can be alone. Also, you will not discuss anything financial with my wife until you have my permission to do so. Understood?"
"Yes, sir."
Kasia said, "Mickolai, you can't mean that!"
"I certainly can. I married an intelligent, beautiful woman. One who should be smart enough to know when she needs a rest."
"Damn you. But right now I
am
tired. We'll talk about this in the morning."
I picked her up and carried her back to the bedroom.
"Sleep well, love."
But she already was asleep before her head was on the pillow. I kissed her forehead, tucked her in, and silently left the room.
"Now, then, my fine metal lady, tell me all about the mansion you are going to build me."
"Okay, boss, now we're getting to the fun part. You know, sir, we've done a lot of engineering work for you humans, but this is the first time that anybody has ever asked us to make something beautiful. We love it. Thousands of the girls have made suggestions, and more than two hundred trained architects have been competing on the design. But first, let me show you what we have in mind for the outbuildings."
"Outbuildings? The place was supposed to be carved into the cliff face."
"I mean those six tall mesas in your valley. You said that you wanted the biggest of them made into a Gothic cathedral. What do you think?"
The screen dissolved into an aerial shot that slowly flew around the magnificent structure. It was certainly a Gothic cathedral, with two tall spires that reached high above the surrounding mesas, and a glorious set of flying buttresses, but it wasn't made of the usual light gray limestone, or even of the darker granite of the canyon walls. It appeared to be made almost entirely of gold and silver!
"You've covered it in gold leaf?"
"No, sir. That is gold, platinum, silver, and lead plate, typically five millimeters thick. We will use an ion implantation technique to permanently bond the metal to the stone underneath. Throughout human history, religious buildings have been preserved for very long periods of time. Bare stone will weather and eventually crumble. Our metal plating should last indefinitely. This building is designed to last five thousand years without needing serious exterior maintenance."
Since New Kashubia had millions of cubic kilometers of almost every metal known, precious metals weren't all that precious any more, but still, I was impressed. This church was fantastically beautiful!
The point of view flew to the front of the church, and we seemed to walk up a set of broad golden steps. There was a certain sparkle to them that suggested that some abrasive had been mixed in with the metal to keep people from slipping.
"Diamonds," Agnieshka said, suddenly "walking" up the steps in front of me. She was now wearing a long dress and had a shawl covering her head, as is proper for a woman entering a Catholic church. "It gives good traction and cuts wear down to an acceptably low level."
"The gold, I understand. Where did the diamonds come from?"
"From right here in New Croatia. It's a military secret, so be warned. With it, we can make our computers thirty times faster than anybody else's. That's a big military advantage, and we don't plan on giving it up. We are not permitting any civilian uses of the new semiconductors at all. The Croatian Government and even the Kashubian parliament don't know about either The Diamond or what we're doing with it."