The rattle of his office doorknob drew his attention back to the room behind him. He watched the door open, a hand appear, holding a cloth and a pump-bottle of cleaning solution, a figure, her scalp covered with small yellow flowers, her trunk as green as grass and remarkably feminine in the contours that showed beneath the green sheath of her leaves, her face intelligent and sensitive. She wore only a short apron rather like a carpenter’s around her waist; its pockets were weighted down with cleaning equipment. He watched the eyes widen as the bot realized the room’s lights were still on. He heard Renny’s chuff of inquiry, almost as if he had cleared his throat, and he actually, if briefly, smiled at her startled jump.
“Excuse me!” said the bot. “I didn’t know…”
“Come on in,” said Frederick. “You can work around us, can’t you?”
She nodded. “But…We’re not supposed to. Will you be here long?”
“A while.” The truth was that he had no idea how long he would linger in his office. There was no work that needed doing, but then there was nothing he could do anywhere else either. “What’s your name?”
After a moment’s hesitation, the bot murmured, “Donna Rose.” She stepped all the way into the room and let the door close behind her. Her eyes searched the room, lighting first on the veedo, source of the quiet music that warded off utter silence, then on the computer, on Renny, his face aimed like a sword at her midriff, his ears sharply erect, his tail furiously active. Finally, she sprayed her cloth with cleaning solution, turned her back, and reached for a nearby shelf.
Frederick and Renny continued to watch her. Her movements slowed and stopped. Her hand still on the shelf, she turned back toward them. “I…”
When she faltered, Renny said, “Been doing this long?”
Her eyes widened at the dog’s words. “Ever since,” she said. “Ever since I started working.” She did not seem very old. “Always this building.”
“Do you know what we do here?” asked Frederick gently.
She shook her head. “I’ve wondered.”
“This is the BRA building,” he explained, and she nodded slowly, uncertainly. That much she had heard. “The Bioform Regulatory Administration. The government set it up when gengineering was still new. It was supposed to keep people from making anything that could get out of control. Like diseases, or genimals that might destroy crops, or plants that would take over forests and fields.”
“Like honeysuckle,” said Donna Rose. She abandoned her cloth and bottle on the shelf and stepped nearer to him.
Frederick nodded. Once there had been a plant called kudzu that had done its best to smother the landscape of the American south. The honeysuckle had replaced it with unsurpassable vigor; the new plant was now found even in Canada, while kudzu was scarce. “BRA wasn’t very successful, was it?” he said. “The technology got too easy to use. It became available to too many people, even in children’s gengineering kits.” He watched her as he spoke, but she seemed oblivious to his reference. One of those kits, he had learned years before, had led indirectly to her kind. A teenaged boy had played with himself as young gene-hackers often did, and…“Now our job is to try to help the world adapt to the inevitable. Sometimes that means fighting—we’ve got gengineers trying to develop a virus to kill honeysuckle.” He snorted.
“Is that what you do?” Did she seem suddenly wary? Was she afraid that he might have a virus that would kill her?
He shook his head as Renny growled, “Tell her, Freddy. You’re just as futile as the honey zappers.” The dog looked at the bot. “As soon as they release a virus they think will kill the stuff, it stops working.”
The man sighed. “I’m supposed to protect those genimals that turned out to be smart.” He gestured at the dog. “He’s been hanging around this office too long. He knows more than he should.”
“Too many human genes,” said Renny. “Too nosey.”
“That’s what he’s got,” said Frederick. “So do you, though you’re not a genimal. You’re a plant, a plant with as many brains as me.”
“He’s a genimal, though,” said the German shepherd.
When Donna Rose looked surprised—Wasn’t he human, truly? How could he be a genimal?—Frederick explained how he had gained a human body. Then he said, “But appearances don’t really count, do they? There are too many humans who don’t want us around.” Donna Rose nodded, and he described Renny’s plight.
“The enemy,” she said. “They hate us. They want to kill us all.”
“I’d like to think it’s not that bad,” said Frederick. “But I’m afraid it is.”
“Litterheads!” said Renny. “They want the Good Old Days back. The Machine Age, when all us plants and animals knew our place! And they’ll wreck every bit of gengineering if they get the chance.” Donna Rose stared at Renny, saying nothing, as if she had never before seen a genimal talk back to a human being, even if that human was only an artifact, a product of the same technology that had made the dog.
As if, thought Frederick, being human was a matter of appearance only. And perhaps it was, to his fellow artifacts. To true humans, born humans, however…He sighed. “You may be right,” he said. “I don’t want to believe it, but…” He had seen the Engineers progress from demonstrations and picket signs to streetside Roachster bakes and terrorist massacres. He had seen news reports of murdered bots, stripped of roots and leaves and flowers. And he had seen the Engineers’ numbers swell. He had seen them gain sympathizers, even within BRA. The trend was there to be seen, though he prayed that it would not go as far as the bot and the dog clearly feared.
“We do the best we can,” he finally added. Briefly, he described Jeremy Duncan’s secret lab. “We keep it quiet,” he said. “We don’t want any attention from the Engineers.”
“There’s a lot more of us,” said Donna Rose. Her voice bore a plaintive note. “I wish you could make us human.”
“Someday, I’m sure,” said Frederick. “The principles are just the same. Though that’s not necessarily the answer.” The veedo music stopped, and a voice announced a special news program, ‘“Coming up right after we hear from…”’
Renny got to his feet, stepped nearer to the bot, and licked her hand sympathetically. “It wouldn’t help,” he said. “It doesn’t help him.”
Frederick shrugged and sighed. “There’s another office for the bots. It sets up the dormitories in the parks. And it’s planning to set up more of them, on rooftops, on islands in the bay. They’ll be harder for the Engineers to get to, safer from whatever they might do.”
There was nothing he could do, Frederick knew. Not for Renny, though he would keep trying. Not for the bots. Not for anyone. The Engineers would rise up on a tide of prejudice and persecution and sweep everything away. His mood was so bleak that he barely noticed when the veedo began to speak of Engineers marching on the bot dorms in the city park.
“Oh!” cried Donna Rose. “What’s happening?”
“Turn it on,” said Renny, his ears pricking toward the veedo set. “Let’s get a picture.”
Frederick obeyed, tapping at the keyboard of his computer. He did not use a mouse-glove, though one lay forgotten in the drawer, because such interfaces worked best with electronic computers. They did not interface well with bioforms.
The small screen replaced its random colors with a long shot down a major avenue. The street was filled with people, and the picture flickered with the flames of torches. Many of the marchers, but by no means all, wore the blue coveralls and cogwheel patches of Engineers. Visible in many hands were kitchen knives, axes, machetes, crude swords of the sort that still haunted Frederick’s nightmares. The narrator was saying, ’”…heading toward the park. They gathered in the streets less than an hour ago. There was no apparent provocation.”’
The view jumped to an outdoor reporter, standing beside the mob of Engineers, a building facade at her back. Beside her was a burly Engineer with an axe over his shoulder. ‘“What are your pla
ns for tonight?”’ asked the reporter.
‘“Chop the bots!”’ was the reply, punctuated by a shaking of the axe in the air.
‘“But why?”’
‘“They’re obscene! Things! Machines, not genes!”’
Donna Rose moaned. Renny crossed the room to the window, where he reared up on his hind legs, scanned the cityscape outside, and said, “You can see the glow from here.”
Frederick and Donna Rose joined him, ignoring the veedo screen for the moment. “See?” said the dog, and yes, they could. The crowd itself was not visible, but despite the streetlights the torches they carried did indeed cast a noticeable glow against the overcast.
“And there,” said Frederick. Where he pointed they could see a street end-on, vehicles excluded by the press of bodies, the pavement obscured by the sparks of a host of torches.
“What are they going to do?” Donna Rose’s voice trembled on the verge of tears.
“Chop the bots,” said Renny. “Just like they want to dock this dog. Purify the planet.”
Together, they turned back toward the veedo screen. It now showed a daylight scene, and the announcer was describing the Engineers’ target: ‘“Every dawn,”’ he said. ‘“Every day, they leave their jobs just like everyone else at the end of a long day.”’ The screen showed the weary workers walking, boarding subways, Bernie buses, trains, going home.
‘“They work in factories. Night shift.”’ A view of assembly lines, staffed almost entirely by bots, the blossoms on their heads making long rows of colorful blossoms, interrupted occasionally by the smoother heads of humans. ‘“In office buildings.”’ A cleaning crew like that of which Donna Rose was a member. A human supervisor stood by, idle. ‘“Stores.”’ A discount store, an all-night diner.
‘“Going home.”’ The gates to the dormitories in the parks, the bot ghettoes, the gardens in which they slept and chatted away the days, stood open wide in welcome. They streamed through, found the small plots of earth they called their own, and stopped. The roots that bushed around their shins unraveled, stretched, kissed the earth, and burrowed in. The leaves that coiled around their trunks unfurled to drink the sun. Faces tipped like flowers toward the light. There could not possibly have been a less threatening scene.
The scene changed and changed again until the screen held a group of bot pedestrians striding toward their bus, a Bernie, a greatly enlarged Saint Bernard with a passenger pod strapped to its back. Nearby were three humans, well dressed, prosperous, on their way to their own jobs. They sneered, stepped aside as if to avoid contamination, and passed on. The bots took a few more steps and passed a shabbily dressed human who extended a cane to trip the nearest. As the bot picked herself up, the man grinned and spat. In the background, a grimy face peered from the tangle of honeysuckle that choked the mouth of an alley.
The narrator said, ‘“Prejudice is widespread. The worst comes from the poorest. They blame the bots and the gengineers for stealing their jobs. The poorest, however, say nothing at all. They can’t be bothered. They are the honey-bums.”’
The camera jumped back to the park to show the high chain-link fence around the dormitory area, its harsh lines softened by the leafy mass of honeysuckle growing thickly around its base. Honey-bums lounged near the vines, never far from the drug that consumed their lives. ‘“We try to protect them.”’ Security guards stood near the entrance to the dorm.
‘“But security is not perfect.”’ The scene turned dark once more as the view returned to the present and night. The mob of Engineers had reached the park and begun to spread out, approaching the fence on a broad front. The guards were now conspicuous by their absence, while axes, machetes, and bolt-cutters made short work of the vines, of the fencing, and of any honey-bums or guards who happened to stand in the way.
The veedo cameras spared no detail of the slaughter that followed. The mob used its steel weaponry on every bot who had not, for whatever reason, gone to a job that night. Some, like the human poor, were unemployed, for there were more menial jobs than bots to fill them. Some were heavy with seed. Some were young, not yet even able to draw their roots from the soil and attempt to flee.
Renny lay down on the carpet and whimpered. One forepaw twitched as if he would like to cover his eyes.
“Lily,” screamed Donna Rose as one slender bot was hewn down. “Mindy Alder. Hyacinth. Angelica. Rosa Lee.” For a moment, she hid her face in her hands, but that could not last. She had to see. Her hands moved aside to clutch at her cheeks, the fingers digging into her temples, the nails tearing blossoms loose, blood flowing.
Her blood, the blood on the screen, the blood on the ground, none of it was the colorless or green-tinged or latex-white sap of plants. It was red, as red as that of any true human, as red as that of the Engineers themselves.
The city’s riot police did not arrive until a forest had been laid low. When they did come, riding Sparrowhawks and Roachsters, equipped with tear gas and riot shields and sonic grenades and rubber bullets, the Engineers faded away, flowing back through the gaps they had made in the security fences, returning to their homes, their faces, brought to the veedo screen by long-range lenses, full of righteous satisfaction.
The announcer’s face filled the screen. Beside him sat a hastily assembled panel of experts, ready to comment on what had just happened, just as if it were some upheaval of nature, an earthquake or a hurricane. Ignoring him, Frederick turned to look at Donna Rose. Her eyes were swollen, her cheeks wet, her nose red. Blood was clotting on her cheeks. Yes, he thought, bots can cry. They can grieve, and mourn, and even hate. They are as human as I.
“That was my…” Donna Rose choked on her words. “My home. My dorm. Mindy Alder was my sister. The rest were…were friends.” She sobbed. “They’re dead.”
“Not all of them,” said Renny. “Most were at work, right?”
She nodded. “But…I can’t go back. I can’t.”
Frederick hesitated. “I wouldn’t expect you to,” he said. “No one should. It wouldn’t be safe, now that…” Now that the Engineers had broken all the bounds of civilized dissent, he thought. Broken them more thoroughly than ever they had before. There was no telling what would happen next. It might well be just as bad as the dog and the bot had suggested just a little while before.
“They must have planned it,” said Renny. “For night, when most of the bots would be gone. That way, there wouldn’t be much possibility of resistance. And they could be sure of getting on prime-time veedo.”
The office’s doorknob rattled again, as it had at Donna Rose’s entrance. The door creaked, and words interrupted them: “There you are! I been looking all over for you! C’mon now. Let’s get back to work.” Frederick recognized the harsh voice even before he turned toward the door. It belonged to the cleaning crew’s supervisor. Now he saw a paunchy, red-faced man wearing a sand-colored coverall. The thin ruff of hair surrounding the bald top of his head was grey.
“Haven’t you heard?” asked Frederick. “The Engineers just raided her dorm. They killed her friends. She’s too upset to work.” Renny said nothing, but he did growl, and the fur on his neck bristled.
The supervisor’s eyes went wide, but he clenched his fists and ignored the dog. “Who cares?” he said. “She’s got work to do, and it won’t wait for her to stop crying. And she’d better not tell any of her friends about it. The last thing I want is a bunch of mechin’ weepers.” He leaned backward just enough to see the nameplate on the door. “Mr. Suida, right? Freddy. I’ve heard of you.” His expression plainly said what he dared not put into words: Jumped-up genimal, less than human, don’t shove your do-good interference in my face.
Frederick sighed. “She’s working now,” he said. His mouth twisted as if he had bitten into something bitter. “Helping me understand what hap…”
“She’s a stupid bot,” the other man interrupted. “She don’t know enough to help you with anything. C’mon, Rosie. You’re holding up the whole crew.”
/> Frederick said simply, “No. She can stay if she wishes.”
“She ain’t got any wishes. She’s dumb as a post.”
Frederick stared at the other man for a long moment. Renny growled louder, deep in his throat. The supervisor took half a step backwards before quelling his instinctive reaction. “Of course,” he said. “If you want her…”
“You mean she’s property.”
“Damn near.”
Renny got to his feet, still growling. The fur over his shoulders rose even further than it had already. “Then I’ll keep her,” said Frederick. “As a pet.”
The silence that followed was broken first when Donna Rose let her equipment apron fall to the floor by her feet. “Attagirl,” said Renny. His fur was still bristling.
Donna Rose’s supervisor glanced again at the German shepherd with the swollen skull and swallowed. “Sure, Freddy.” He hesitated, and then he began to seem relieved, as if Frederick had finally put matters on a footing that he understood. “Right. Lots of folks do that. They say they’re lotsa fun.”
There was a long pause while Freddy wondered what must be going through the man’s mind. Finally, he thought he had it figured out. Deliberately, though without the humor that had vanished from his life years before, he grinned. He winked. He said, “I’ve heard the same.”
The supervisor laughed and bobbed his head. “Right, Freddy. You’ll both enjoy it, I promise. And it won’t hurt her a bit.” He backed up into the hallway. “I’ll bring a pot of dirt for her, eh?”
As Frederick crossed the room to the door, the other began to sidle apprehensively to one side. He stopped when he saw Frederick’s hand reaching for his wallet, and when a bill emerged, his eyes narrowed greedily. “Just let me know when you’re tired of her.” He did not refuse the bribe.
When the door was closed once more, Renny said, “I hope you didn’t mean it.”
“It’s all right,” said Donna Rose. “If that’s what it takes…”
Frederick shook his head. “No,” he said. “Let him think whatever he likes. It’s not unheard of. It’s not even rare. And if the word gets out, I don’t see how it could make people think any worse of me.”
Woodsman Page 5
