‘Now, sweetums, listen to what’s happening. The prosecutor said you’ll be off to the war soon. They’ve just explained to me that this new law’s come out. It’s called “On Defending the Defender”. They’re putting the country to rights now – basically anyone whose documents are being held up by the authorities, if they get stained by the crimson blood of battle, the orders are to resolve the matter without delay, and they won’t dare demand a bribe. Grim dear, I want you to come back in one piece, but in case, Manitou forbid, you do get a scratch – can I give you a little folder to take with you? It’s got a few documents in it in Siberian, ours for the barn, and some from the relatives in the village. They’re taking forever to lay in the water pipes. People’ve been carrying water from the river in buckets for years now; a cobra just recently killed two girls. Okie dokie?’

  CHAPTER 5

  In order to understand how suras can engage us in full-blooded personal interaction without possessing a personality, consciousness or soul (or whatever we might call that which makes us human), you have to be an erudite sommelier. I’m not one of those, and my retelling of their explanations might prove not entirely accurate. But I don’t intend to devote very much space to the theory.

  To put it briefly, suras deceive us.

  But in exactly the same way as we deceive each other.

  What happens when we talk to someone? We evaluate the words that we have heard, select an appropriate response and pronounce it out loud. If we want to offend the other person, we make our words barbed and biting, if we want to flatter him, we sprinkle them with sugar, and so forth. This is simply the processing of incoming information on the basis of cultural codes, biological imperatives and personal intentions.

  The cultural codes are the simplest part of all this – it’s no problem at all to pour into a sura the most detailed encyclopaedia and all of its cross links, multiplied by themselves ten times over. Subjects for conversation, phrases and turns of speech, the circumstances under which they should be spoken, the intonations and so on – that’s not really such complicated science. And in any case, a real woman only opens her mouth to divert your attention. On this point, I liked an extract from the glossy manual for Kaya:

  A woman of reproductive age making small talk at a social function usually controls the process of interaction not along the parameter of meaning, but in accordance with entirely different indications, and after assessing an immense array of input information, she decides the question of biological contact quite apart from any connection with the content of the conversation, and the other person immediately senses this …

  Precisely so. This is the source of all those legends about the irrationality of a woman’s heart – what rubbish, may Manitou forgive me. There is nothing more rational than a woman’s heart, it is simply a rationality of a higher order – the role the woman is playing here is not that of a little fool at a party, but living out an impersonal aspect of nature and eternity. This socio-biological mechanism also lends itself to simulation and programming without any particular problems, since it is based on entirely calculable parameters – this fact, in my opinion, is quite clear.

  But the matter of the intentions of the human heart is a bit more complicated. I mean the emotionally coloured desires that make us dash around in ambient space from the moment we wake up until we go to bed.

  Many users don’t want to believe this, but a sura simply doesn’t have anything of the kind, because she lacks the internal subjectivity for such desire. You can wrestle with this as hard as you like, but in this respect a sura will always remain the insensate rubber woman from which she originated at some time in the ancient country of Nippo. A sura can only simulate feelings. But the most important thing is the quality of the simulation.

  Do they have a personality? Yes and no. It all depends on how you understand the word. Suras of Kaya’s class are unique. This is achieved by a special configuration of internal data connections. They are as distinctive and individual as different locks of the same make – the design is the same, but in each case a lock has its own key. If you buy a second sura and give it the same settings, it will be a rather different being. Or, more correctly, a different simulation. Experiments of this kind have been conducted.

  The most important and subtlest part of a sura’s internal organisation is what is called the emotional and volitional block. The algorithms built into it are very complicated and based on sophisticated interactions between the database of cultural codes and a random events generator, which is controlled, in turn, by another random events generator – which means that a sura can be made genuinely unpredictable. Of course, within strictly defined limits – as in the case of a live woman.

  All the biological mechanisms that have been invented by remorseless nature over millions of years in order to deceive living creatures are exploited by a sura for a single purpose – to give you the maximum possible pleasure. But along the way to this pleasure you may possibly also have to experience pain. Such, the operational manual asserts, is the dialectics of ecstasy.

  The company offers about a hundred standard ‘characters’ – emotional and volitional modalities, each of which has been checked using numerous tests (I suspect that biological women can be divided up into a significantly smaller number of real types). If you use any of the factory presets, your sura carries a long-term warranty and you have nothing be afraid of.

  The warranty is voided if you switch to the manual adjustment of settings. You can only do this after you have read and signed an addendum to the licensing agreement, under which the company ceases to be responsible for the sura and for your life. A sura on manual settings really can be dangerous. Especially if you don’t know how to use her properly.

  But this is precisely where genuine happiness awaits the owner of a sura.

  The point is that this is the procedure that transforms a sura from an item of furniture to a living, unpredictable life partner, who can kill herself or dispatch you to the next world. Such things have really happened. It’s highly improbable that you will die, though. The greatest danger is that the sura might run away or shut herself down.

  The point here is not that she really wants to leave you or to die. She doesn’t want anything. And she can’t die either, since she’s not alive.

  But she simulates with extreme precision the behaviour of the emotional and volitional type that you have chosen, on the basis of the templates that she possesses – and your craving for verisimilitude in the relationship can easily lead to a conflict with the harsh facts of life. Take a look at yourself in the mirror, and you’ll understand what I mean. But then, suras that have run away from an ugly owner are quickly found – their spatial blocking doesn’t allow them to get far away. This happens often, and it brings the owner only a few additional minutes of joy.

  Things are more complicated with so-called ‘nirvana’. This is a kind of internal short-circuit that often happens under manual control when owners set their suras to maximum spirituality. In this case the sura doesn’t simply run away, she hides and switches off all her systems, falling into a hibernation-like state – which can make finding her rather difficult. I’ll say a couple of words about this later.

  While you are adjusting the settings, what you see on the manitou is something like a large control panel with numerous knobs that can be moved up or down – as if you were tuning a multiband equaliser. There are many of these screens, so the number of actual settings is absolutely countless, and the parameters often have funny names, such as ‘reddening of the cheeks’, ‘drowsy affection’, or ‘intermittent yawning’.

  It all seems intuitively understandable – for instance, you increase the parameter ‘drowsy affection’ and when your sura is simulating falling asleep, she doesn’t simply stop moving about in the bed beside you, she moves up close to you and presses her warm, tender little body against your side, or something of the sort. The result is that you get the reassuring impression that you’re adjusting a safe and simple domestic electrical appliance, such as a bed warmer, and you already understand everything about it.

  Nothing could be further from the truth.

  It really isn’t very difficult to make sense of the settings for minor behavioural characteristics. Let’s say you like your sura to yawn from time to time. No problem. She’ll do that every thirty seconds if you like, and it won’t affect anything else.

  But with parameters like ‘spirituality’, ‘bitchiness’, ‘seduction, ‘frankness’, ‘coquettishness’, ‘duplicity’ and all the others that make up the so-called ‘red block’ (the adjustments marked with a little red star), things are much more complicated.

  On the subject of quirks of sura behaviour, there’s an age-old saying: ‘every knob has its flop’. As the dictionary explains, in ancient times a knob was not just a visual element on your manitou, but a real round handle that you had to turn to adjust the tuning of an electronic device. The control screen for the red block is arranged exactly like that. This isn’t simply the sommeliers playing games or a nod to the fashion for antiquity, but a stern reminder to the client of the seriousness of what is taking place.

  The point is that in changing the parameters of the red block, you influence all aspects of behaviour simultaneously. If, let’s say, you set ‘bitchiness’ and ‘drowsy affection’ both to maximum, then your sura can squeeze up against you so hard that you’ll fall out of bed.

  I’m exaggerating slightly, of course, but ‘behavioural pattern interference’, as the manual puts it, can really lead to unexpected results. That’s why a live woman, for all her capriciousness, is far more transparent than a sura in manual adjustment mode.

  The most insidious parameter is ‘spirituality’. When it’s set in positions close to the maximum, all the sura’s behaviour, everything she says and all her reactions resonate with the ancient wisdom of mankind. And in addition, the database is updated from time to time. When your control manitou tells you something like: ‘Downloaded: five books of the Pali Canon and the Gospel of Barnabas’, and you haven’t got the remotest idea of what that is, you’ll be left guessing whether you might get a fork in the eye in response to some indelicate request.

  That’s precisely why all the professional tuners recommend not raising spirituality above forty, or at most, fifty per cent of the maximum, and in the factory settings it’s never higher than five per cent. This guarantees that the sura’s internal references to sacral meanings will not lead to tragic consequences. To put it crudely, if your sura does run away, her intention is to make you find her and press her to your heart – she doesn’t plan to fall into nirvana in some forgotten ventilation shaft that isn’t on any navigator.

  But all the genuine connoisseurs are freaks. And I’m one of them.

  At maximum spirituality our interaction has become incredibly interesting and exciting. When she tries to explain something important to me in the course of our tender embraces, when she tries to rescue me from the abyss of my degradation, it awakens an incredible power in my loins. She, so to speak, preaches and exhorts, and meanwhile I … You can guess that for yourselves.

  Some people might think that spirituality is not all that important in a sura. But for the less sophisticated users there are rubber dolls, filled with red dye. The genuine connoisseur knows that to take possession of a lovely body is one thing, but to take possession of a highly spiritual and lovely body, a divine blossom, in which the ancient heart of mankind beats, is something quite different. It is something that has to be experienced; you can’t explain it in words. And if you have already tried this poison, the question for you is not whether to switch your sura to maximum spirituality or not, but how to make use of this mode safely.

  I solved the problem simply.

  Kaya can’t move beyond the bounds of my home – her spatial displacement block is engaged. To call things by their proper names, she runs around the bed on an invisible lead, but the lead is long enough for her not to notice it until she tries to cross the threshold of our little nest.

  Kaya has already fallen into nirvana twice, but as long as she’s at home, dragging her back out again is no problem. It’s done by using ‘restore defaults’, after which the manual settings have to be entered all over again. But that’s not such a long process – that is, of course, if you kept a backup of the latest configuration. Fortunately, the memory is saved.

  If I add that, simultaneously with spirituality, I keep bitchiness and seduction on maximum, you’ll realise what an explosive mixture is heaving about beneath my little doll’s delicate skin. You can’t relax with her for a single second.

  In my mind I understand that her thrilling existence is only a distorted reflection of my own, a pure illusion – in essence, I am simply clowning about in front of a sophisticated mirror. But for me Kaya is a far more real living creature than any of the Orks that I see in my flying goggles. And to be quite honest, I could say the same thing about people.

  Some people assert that a sura is simply a complicated means of erotic self-deception. That may be so. But I would much rather deceive myself than let it be done by Stepmother Nature, smashing me over the head with her hormonal club, or hypocritical social morality, which is preparing to raise the age of consent from forty-six to forty-eight.

  After Kaya began simulating interest in the two young Orks, I stopped being afraid that she would fall into nirvana – the simulation was taking up too much of her software resources. I remembered, of course, that it was sheer pretence – but it was precisely my clear understanding of that particular circumstance that transformed Kaya into a living woman. And although manual adjustment mode meant losing the warranty, our relationship was approaching the kind of harmony that all the sex encyclopaedias talk and all couples dream about. The game was worth the candle.

  True, every now and then I had to fly Hannelore to Orkland when work didn’t require me to – simply to amuse my little darling. Searching for Grim and Chloe wasn’t difficult, because my markers were still in their bodies – the manitou could locate them from far away. Cruising around above Slava, I took several evocative close-ups of Orkish degradation, for which I was paid rather well.

  There was another pleasant consequence. When she’d seen enough of my camera gliding along above the narrow little Orkish streets, dodging posts and pillars, rounding advertisement hoardings and squeezing in through gateways, Kaya finally realised what kind of pilot had chosen her for his companion in life. Effects that I had not personally programmed started manifesting themselves in her attitude to me.

  It was that ‘pattern interference’ again – and I was all for it. Everything now was exactly the same as it was with people. When I caught her rapturous glance after returning from a flight, all evening long I felt like weeping and singing.

  So far, I didn’t know why it was these two Orks who had caught her attention and not, for instance, the technical aspect of capturing images on temple film in conditions of poor visibility. Evidently it was the outcome of her entire set of preferences. Especially spirituality, which makes her simulate extreme compassion for all living creatures that appear in my sights (what she saw on the control manitou was exactly the same as what I saw in my flying goggles).

  Of course, every day before the war started I was deluged with reproaches. In a way they were just – but precisely to the extent that an Ork can be reproached for trampling on ants when he ploughs his field.

  ‘Do you realise that you’re a butcher?’ she used to ask me. ‘That time on the road – why did you kill those poor Orks?’

  ‘Poor? They were men in military uniform with weapons in their hands.’

  ‘Yesterday they were peasants. They were simply drafted into that … I don’t know what it’s called, into that administration. And they were ordered to put on those idiotic costumes invented by your sommeliers. And that gives you the right to kill them?’

  ‘They have to think for themselves about why they have that form of government. Let them fight for freedom. We’ll help them from the air.’

  ‘You started the war.’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate. A war starts because it’s the will of Manitou. The nature of Manitou is such that sometimes He demands blood. We artists and philosophers have only one choice – to earn money on this, or not. And money is always needed, my little darling. If only to pay for your fit of righteous wrath. Well, and all the other things that you and I like to do, he-he-he …’

  ‘You filthy, lecherous, fat monkey.’

  Insults are incredibly arousing.

  ‘Not only did you kill those unfortunate soldiers, you also shattered the lives of those two, Grim and Chloe. They’ll probably kill Grim now as well …’

  At that point I got really angry.

  That’s extremely unusual for me. I analysed my feelings – and there was a genuine discovery in store for me.

  I was starting to feel jealous about her.

  That was stunning – as if suddenly it turned out that I also had a control manitou on which my little doll could move the settings with her own delicate little fingers. I was in ecstasy, in genuine ecstasy – and the poor little thing had to share it with me yet again right there on the floor.

  An unforgettable moment.

  However, there was some basis for what she had said. By that time things were getting rather difficult for the Orkish couple. I suppose they had even ceased to be a couple. Grim had joined the army and was sitting in the barracks, waiting for the war – it wasn’t clear now if he would be able to make use of Bernard-Henri’s invitation or if it was only his soul that would soar on high. And Bernard-Henri himself evidently didn’t remember him very often, because he was spending most of his time with Grim’s girlfriend.