We, Robots

by Simon Ings

  The human touched a button on her armor and spoke. Her meat quivered all over, and her meat-voice wavered in frequency and volume. “Send a full security detail down here. Immediately.”

  Friendly descended the ladder. Under her arm she carried Captain’s processor, cold and silent, one lonely light blinking, receiving data but not sending anything. “I was afraid she would eat me next,” she muttered, her tear ducts pumping out fluids. Engineer wondered whether they would make a decent sauce.

  “Glad someone made it out alive, anyway,” said the human. “Six whole weeks trapped with a crew of deranged cyborgs?” She gave a low whistle. “You’re a braver woman than I.”

  “Please,” said Engineer, desperate, “taste it. Just one bite. I worked so hard.”

  “I don’t know if her meat drove her mad, or if the steel did,” said Friendly.

  “Meat?” asked the human.

  “The organic parts, I mean.”

  “Probably a glitch in her wiring,” the human said dismissively. “There is a reason they’re discontinuing these models.”

  The humans flooded into the ship with their funny uneven meat-steps and their lopsided meat-faces and their ever-beating hearts that rang against their bones like clubs on steel. Engineer offered them her best delicacies—the liquefied kidney paste tossed with raw pasta, the origami meat-birds swirled in cinnamon and canned cheese, the wearable fungus bracelets threaded on intestine casings—but they only knocked the dishes away, stunned her with targeted EMP blasts, and bound her in cybernetic locks until she lay prone on the meat-slicked floor.

  One of the humans began unscrewing Engineer’s fingers joint by joint. It didn’t hurt at all, much to her surprise. The bits lay piled like little silver walnuts, the discarded stones of plums. Stringy meat trailed out from her missing fingers, no more than an appetizer’s worth.

  “Where are you taking my steel?” asked Engineer. They flaunted their ingratitude. You were supposed to let the steel be. Otherwise they couldn’t build and build you again.

  The human dethreaded the wires connecting Engineer’s arm meat to her cyborg logic center. “It will be repurposed for whatever is most needed. Ships, chips, knives, bolts, screws. Useful things.”

  “And the meat?”

  The human decoupled the segmented joints of her shoulder. Without the steel exoskeleton for support, Engineer’s meat hung limp and dripped red. “You can keep it. We don’t have a use for it.”

  “But there are,” said Engineer. “So many uses,” and her voice faded as they stripped away the connections, “if you would just give me a moment to demonstrate.”

  Tiny, desperate meat-thoughts bombarded her logic center like cold fingers plucking at tendons. Last shooting pleas from stringy muscles in her steel, unseen servants in the wall, shouting that Engineer had been a fool. There was never any honor in service, no final star to complete a constellation. You offered yourself up for consumption, and when they had eaten you down to the bone, they stole again. Stole your heart, your steel, your everything, to use as forks in their restaurants.

  (2017)

  THE READING MACHINE

  Morris Bishop

  Morris Bishop was born in 1893 in the Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane, New York State (his father was a doctor there). He studied at Cornell University, joined the US Cavalry, fought in World War One, joined an advertising agency, then went back to Cornell, where he remained for the rest of his life, writing learned biographies of Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Ronsard and Samuel de Champlain. Bishop also wrote light verse, mostly for the New Yorker. He became quite celebrated for it, and used to swap limericks by mail with Vladimir Nabokov. He died in 1973.

  “I have invented a reading machine,” said Professor Entwhistle, a strident energumen whose violent enthusiasms are apt to infect his colleagues with nausea or hot flashes before the eyes.

  Every head in the smoking room of the Faculty Club bowed over a magazine, in an attitude of prayer. The prayer was unanswered, as usual.

  “It is obvious,” said Professor Entwhistle, “that the greatest waste of our civilization is the time spent in reading. We have been able to speed up practically everything to fit the modem tempo—communication, transportation, calculation. But today a man takes just as long to read a book as Dante did, or—”

  “Great Caesar!” said the Professor of Amphibology, shutting his magazine with a spank.

  “Or great Caesar,” continued Professor Entwhistle. “So I have invented a machine. It operates by a simple arrangement of photoelectric cells, which scan a line of type at lightning speed. The operation of the photoelectric cells is synchronized with a mechanical device for turning the pages—rather ingenious. I figure that my machine can read a book of three hundred pages in ten minutes.”

  “Can it read French?” said the Professor of Bio-Economics, without looking up.

  “It can read any language that is printed in Roman type. And by an alteration of the master pattern on which the photoelectric cells operate, it can be fitted to read Russian, or Bulgarian, or any language printed in the Cyrillic alphabet. In fact, it will do more. By simply throwing a switch, you can adapt it to read Hebrew, or Arabic, or any language that is written from right to left instead of from left to right.”

  “Chinese?” said the Professor of Amphibology, throwing himself into the arena. The others still studied their magazines.

  “Not Chinese, as yet,” said Professor Entwhistle. “Though by inserting the pages sidewise… Yes, I think it could be done.”

  “Yes, but when you say this contrivance reads, exactly what do you mean? It seems to me—”

  “The light waves registered by the photoelectric cells are first converted into sound waves.”

  “So you can listen in to the reading of the text?”

  “Not at all. The sound waves alter so fast that you hear nothing but a continuous hum. If you hear them at all. You can’t, in fact, because they are on a wavelength inaudible to the human ear.”

  “Well, it seems to me—”

  “Think of the efficiency of the thing!” Professor Entwhistle was really warming up. “Think of the time saved! You assign a student a bibliography of fifty books. He runs them through the machine comfortably in a weekend. And on Monday morning he turns in a certificate from the machine. Everything has been conscientiously read!”

  “Yes, but the student won’t remember what he has read!”

  “He doesn’t remember what he reads now.”

  “Well, you have me there,” said the Professor of Amphibology. “I confess you have me there. But it seems to me we would have to pass the machine and fail the student.”

  “Not at all,” said Professor Entwhistle. “An accountant today does not think of doing his work by multiplication and division. Often he is unable to multiply and divide. He confides his problem to a business machine, and the machine does his work for him. All the accountant has to know is how to run the machine. That is efficiency.”

  “Still, it seems to me that what we want to do is to transfer the contents of the book to the student’s mind.”

  “In the mechanized age? My dear fellow! What we want is to train the student to run machines. An airplane pilot doesn’t need to know the history of aerodynamics. He needs to know how to run his machine. A lawyer doesn’t want to know the development of theories of Roman law. He wants to win cases, if possible by getting the right answers to logical problems. That is largely a mechanical process. It might well be possible to construct a machine. It could begin by solving simple syllogisms, you know—drawing a conclusion from a major premise and a minor premise—”

  “Here, let’s not get distracted. This reading machine of yours, it must do something, it must make some kind of record. What happens after you get the sound waves?”

  “That’s the beauty of it,” said Professor Entwhistle. “The sound waves are converted into light waves, of a different character from the original light waves, and these are communicated to an
automatic typewriter, working at inconceivable speed. This transforms the light impulses into legible typescripts, in folders of a hundred pages each. It tosses them out the way a combine tosses out sacked wheat. Thus, everything the machine reads is preserved entire, in durable form. The only thing that remains is to file it somewhere, and for this you would need only the services of a capable filing clerk.”

  “Or you could read it?” persisted the Professor of Amphibology.

  “Why, yes, if you wanted to you could read it,” said Professor Entwhistle.

  *

  An indigestible silence hung over the Faculty Club.

  “I see where the Athletic Association has bought a pitching machine,” said the Assistant Professor of Business Psychology (Retail). “Damn thing throws any curve desired, with a maximum margin of error of three centimeters over the plate. What’ll they be thinking of next?”

  “A batting machine, obviously,” said Professor Entwhistle.

  (1947)

  BABY H.P.

  by Juan Jose Arreola

  Juan José Arreola Zúñiga (1918–2001), whose formal education was disrupted by religious civil conflict, is remembered one of Mexico’s most revered authors and academics. He fell in love with reading while apprenticed to a bookbinder, trained as an actor, wrote stories that first saw print in the early 1940s, and over the next twenty years turned out stories, sketches, fables – even a bestiary. Jorge Luis Borges described his work with one word: “freedom. Freedom of an unlimited imagination, governed by a lucid intelligence.” You can find further robotic delights lurking inside Confabulario and Other Inventions (1993): “Anuncio” sings the praises of something called Plastisex®, while “Parable of the Exchange” tells the story of a strange merchant who offers men a new (though rather corrosion-prone) wife in exchange for their old one.

  To the Lady of the House: Convert your children’s vitality into a source of power. Introducing the marvelous Baby H.P., a device that will revolutionize home economics.

  The Baby H.P. is a very strong and lightweight metal structure that adapts perfectly to an infant’s delicate body by means of comfortable belts, wrist straps, rings, and pins. The attachments on this supplementary skeleton capture every one of the child’s movements, collecting them in a small Leyden jar that can be fastened, as needed, to the infant’s back or chest. A needle indicates when the jar is full. Then, madam, simply detach the jar and plug it into a special receptacle, into which it automatically discharges its contents. This container can then be stored in any corner of the house, and represents a precious supply of electricity that can be used at any time for the purpose of light and heat, or to run any of the innumerable appliances that now and forever invade our homes.

  From this day forward you will look upon your children’s exhausting running about with new eyes. No longer will you lose patience when your little one flies into a rage, for you shall see it as a generous source of energy. Thanks to Baby H.P., a nursing infant’s round-the-clock tantrum is transformed into a few useful seconds running the blender or into fifteen minutes of radiophonic music.

  Large families can meet their electricity needs by outfitting each of their progeny with a Baby H.P. and can even start up a small and profitable business supplying their neighbors with some of their surplus energy. Big apartment high-rises can satisfactorily cover lapses in public service by linking together all of the families’ energy receptacles.

  The Baby H.P. causes no physical or psychological trauma in children because it neither inhibits nor alters their movements. On the contrary, some doctors believe it contributes to the body’s wholesome development. And as for the spirit, you can foster individual ambition in the wee ones, by rewarding them with little prizes when they surpass their usual production records; for this purpose we recommend sugar treats, which repay your investment with interest. The more calories added to a child’s diet, the more kilowatts saved on the electricity bill.

  Children should wear their lucrative Baby H.P.s day and night. It is important that they always wear them to school so as not to lose out on the valuable hours of recess, from which they return with their storage tanks overflowing with energy.

  Those rumors claiming that some children are electrocuted by the very current they generate are completely irresponsible. The same can be said of the superstitious fear that youngsters outfitted with a Baby H.P. attract lightning bolts and emit sparks. No accident of this type can occur, especially if the instructions that accompany each device are followed to the letter.

  The Baby H.P. is available in fine stores in a range of sizes, models, and prices. It is a modern, durable, trustworthy device, and all of its parts are extendible. Its manufacture is guaranteed by the J. P. Mansfield and Sons company, of Atlanta III.

  (1952)

  Translated by Andrea Bell

  THE STEAM-DRIVEN BOY

  John Sladek

  John Sladek (1937–2000) claimed to read very little sf but the devastating precision of his parodies suggests otherwise. Most of his brilliant, surreal novels and stories were written during the eighteen years he lived in London. (He was born in Iowa in 1937 and moved to the UK in 1966, where he became involved with Michael Moorcock’s New Worlds magazine.) His favourite protagonists were robots and artificial intelligences, who were invariably much more sympathetic than their trend-obsessed, culture-programmed human foils. The Reproductive System (1968) overruns America with little grey boxes that eat technology and spawn more boxes. The hero of The Müller-Fokker Effect (1970) meets several bizarre fates when he is converted to computer tape. Roderick, Or The Education Of A Young Machine (1980–83) is an exploration of human follies modelled closely on Voltaire’s novel Candide. Sladek, incidentally, came up with the best Creationist argument ever: “The so-called apes in zoos are only men dressed up in hairy suits.”

  Capt. Charles Conn was thinking so hard his feet hurt. It reminded him of his first days on the force, back in ’89, when walking a beat gave him headaches.

  Three time-patrolmen stood before his desk, treading awkwardly on the edges of their long red cloaks and fingering their helmets nervously. Capt. Conn wanted to snarl at them, but what was the point? They already understood his problems perfectly – they were, after all, Conn himself, doubling a shift.

  “Okay, Charlie, report.”

  The first patrolman straightened. ‘I went back to three separate periods, sir. One when the President was disbanding the House of Representatives, one when he proclaimed himself the Supreme Court, one when he was signing the pro-pollution bill. I gave him the whole business – statistics, pictures, news stories. All he would say was, “My mind’s made up.”’

  Chuck and Chas reported similar failures. There was no stopping the President. Not only had he usurped all the powers of federal, state and local government, but he used those powers deliberately to torment the population. It was a crime to eat ice cream, sing, whistle, swear or kiss. It was a capital offence to smile, or to use the words ‘Russia’ and ‘China’. Under the Safe Streets Act it was illegal to walk, loiter or converse in public. And of course Negroes and anyone else ‘conspicuous’ were by definition criminals, and under the jurisdiction of the Race Reaction Board.

  The Natural Food Act had seemed at first almost reasonable, a response to scientists’ warnings about depleting the soil and polluting the environment. But the fine print specified that henceforth no fertilizers were to be used but human or canine excrement, and all farm machinery was forbidden. In time the newspapers featured pictures of farmers trudging past their rusting tractors to poke holes in the soil with sharp sticks. And in time, the newspapers had their paper supply curtailed. Famine warnings were ignored until the government had to buy wheat from C****.

  ‘Gentlemen, we’ve tried everything else. It’s time to think about getting rid of President Ernie Barnes.’

  The men began murmuring among themselves. This was done with efficiency and dispatch, for Patrolman Charlie, knowing that Chuck was going t
o murmur to him first, withheld his own murmuring until it was his turn. And when Chuck had murmured to Charlie, he fell silent, and let Charlie and Chas get on with their murmuring before he murmured uneasily to Chas.

  The captain spoke again. ‘Getting rid of him in the past would be easier than getting rid of him now, but it’s only part of the problem. If we remove him from the past we have to make sure no one notices the big jagged hole in history we’ll leave. Since as the time police we have the only time-bikes around, the evidence is going to make us look bad. Remember the trouble we had getting rid of the pyramids? For months, everyone went around saying, “What’s that funny thing on the back of the dollar?” Remember that?’

  ‘Hey, Captain, what is that funny thing—?’

  ‘Shut up. The point is, you can change some of the times some of the time, and, uh, some of the – look at it this way: Ernie must have shaken hands with a million people. We rub him out, and all these people suddenly get back all the germs they rubbed off on him. Suddenly we have an epidemic.’

  ‘Yeah, but, Captain, did he ever shake any hands? He never does any more. Just sits there in the White Fort, all fat and nasty, behind all his FBI and CIA and individualized anti-personnel missiles and poison germ gas towers and – and that big, mean dog.’

  Capt. Conn glared the patrolman down, then continued: ‘My idea is, we kidnap Ernie Barnes from his childhood, back in 1937. And we leave a glass egg.’

  ‘A classic?’

  ‘A glass egg. Like they used to put under chickens when they took away their children. What I mean is, we substitute an artificial child for the real one. Wilbur Grafton says he can make a robot replica of Ernie as he looked in 1937.’

  Wilbur Grafton was a wealthy eccentric and amateur inventor well known to all members of the time patrol. Their father, James Conn, was an employee of Wilbur’s.