Clockwork Souls Read Online Free PDF Page A

“This is beside the point. The
defendant, Thomas Covington, unlawfully prevented my client from enjoying the
use of his property.”
    Taney’s voice dropped in pitch and his dark, unruly brows
drew together. “Are you attesting
that the defendant is guilty of failing to take positive action to return property that expressly did not wish
to be returned?”
    The attorney blanched, but only for a moment. “The automaton
is not a volitional agent, your Honor. It is a machine. It can be taught to
parrot back phrases and it can follow a limited range of instructions, but it
cannot wish for anything.”
    “That remains to be determined. Mr. Turner, in your
affidavit you state that the device was eventually recovered. Present it before
this court for examination.”
    Turner got to his feet. “I’m afraid that wouldn’t do any
good, your Honor. When the automaton refused to function as it ought, I took it
back to the manufacturer. They removed the animation element and inserted a new
one. It’s working properly now, but it doesn’t remember what happened to it
before.”
    Oh, Adam. Thomas
wished Hannah were here.
    “Animation element?” Taney lifted one eyebrow. “And what
might that consist of?”
    “It’s . . .” Turner bent over the table and
rifled through a stack of papers, finally extracting one and reading from it. “It’s
a discorporated nonmaterial motivational
unit .”
    “A what?” someone in the audience exclaimed. Taney glared at
the man and the hubbub subsided.
    “By this,” Taney addressed himself to Turner once more, “do
you mean a soul ?”
    “I . . . I suppose so.”
    “And whence came this soul?”
    “I’m sorry, your Honor, the papers don’t say. It must have
been the sort of man suited to catching slaves. Maybe even a slave himself.”
Turner recovered a modicum of composure as he nodded in approval of his own
argument.
    Thomas felt too numb, too horrified to speak. At his side,
John Wales scribbled notes on a piece of foolscap.
    Judge Hall cleared his throat. “So you have no information
as to whether the provider of this . . . soul was a free man or
slave?”
    “Your Honor!” Turner’s attorney exclaimed, gesturing for his
client to remain silent. “Is this germane to the charges?”
    “We are attempting to determine whether the automaton
constitutes in itself a device for the unlawful imprisonment of a free man’s . . .
soul, or whether, in its capacity as the encasing structure for a slave, it
fulfills in its entirety the definition of property. ”
    The discussion went on for another three-quarters of an
hour, although Thomas had not the heart to follow it closely. It sickened him
to his very marrow to think of Adam, that new and bright spirit, now so
casually extinguished. As a Friend, he was committed to the testimony of peace,
but he could not deny the anger that stirred at the notion of the souls of men,
those reflections of Divinity itself, treated as expendable commodities.
    Adam, gone. . . .
    Turner submitted his ownership papers, along with other
informational materials from the Lake Geneva Trading Company, as evidence.
Taney announced that he and Judge Hall would review the documents and hear
closing arguments after the recess. After they retired, John Wales leaned
toward Thomas.
    “Mr. Covington, are you unwell?”
    Thomas came back to himself. “Friend,” he said, gently
reminding the lawyer that Quakers did not use such titles, “I am distressed to
learn of the death of a friend.”
    “You cannot mean the automaton?”
    “Not the metal housing, but the soul within it, yes. John
Wales, this was a child of God, even as you or I. Should we not mourn his
passing, and for such a senseless cause as the pursuit of men who seek only
their own freedom?”
    Wales swept his hair back from his high forehead. “The
business at hand is your acquittal. Grief and politics can come later.”
    Grief comes when it comes, Thomas thought, but did not say it