The Collected Short Fiction of C J Cherryh

by C. J. Cherryh

  An illusion, that was all he asked, a semblance of a mind to talk to. Longer plans he refused as yet. The plotting and replotting that filled the bed and the floor about him with discarded balls of paper was his refuge, his defense against thinking.

  He dreaded the nights and kept the lights on while the rest of the ship cycled into dark.

  He slept in the light when he had to sleep, and woke and worked again while the pseudosome brought him his meals and took the empty dishes back again.

  3

  He called the star Harley, because it was his to name. The world he called Rule, because Harley and Rule were sometime lovers and it seemed good. Harley was a middling average star, the honest golden sort, which cast an easy warmth on his back, as an old friend ought. Rule stretched everywhere, rich and smelling sweet as Rule always had, and she was peaceful.

  He liked the world better when he had named It, and felt the sky friendlier with an old friend's name beaming down at him while he worked.

  He stretched the guy ropes of a plastic canopy they had never had the chance to use on harsher worlds, screwed the moorings into the grassy earth and stood up in pleasant shade, looking out over wide billows of grass, with forest far beyond them.

  Anne kept him company. She had a range of half a kilometer from the ship over which mind and body could keep in contact, and farther still if the booster unit were in place, which project he was studying. He had not yet had the time. He moved from one plan to the next, busy, working with his hands, feeling the strength return to his limbs. Healing sunlight erased the sores and turned his skin a healthy bronze. He stretched his muscles, grinned up at the sun through the leaf-patterned plastic. Felt satisfied.

  "Anne. Bring the chair, will you?"

  The pseudosome came to life, picked up the chair that remained on the cargo lift, carried it out. And stopped.

  "Set it down." His good humor turned to disgust. "Set it down."

  Anne set it, straightened, waited.

  "Anne. What do you perceive?"

  Anne's sensors brightened, one after the other. "Light, gravity, sound, temperature."

  "You perceive me."

  "Yes, Warren. You're directly in front of me."

  "Anne, come here."

  She walked forward, into the shade, stopped, hands at her sides, sensors pulsing behind her dark faceplate like so many stars in a void.

  "Anne, I'm your duty. I'm all the crew. The directives all apply only to me now. The others have stopped functioning. Do you understand? I want you to remain active until I tell you otherwise. Walk at your own judgment. Identify and accept all stimuli that don't take you out of range."

  "Program recorded," Anne purred. "Execute?"

  "Execute."

  Anne walked off. She had a peculiar gait, precise in her movements like an improbable dancer, stiffly smooth and slow-motion. Graceful, silver Anne. It always jarred when he looked into the vacant faceplate with the starry lights winking on and off in the darkness. She could never appreciate the sun, could never perceive him except as a pattern of heat and solidity in her sensors. She looked left, looked right, walk-walk-walk-walk, looked left, right, walk-walk-walk-walk, neither breathing the scents of life nor feeling the wind on her plastic skin. The universe held no perils for Anne.

  Warren wept. He strode out, overtook her, seized her as she turned to him. "Anne. Where are you? Where are you going?"

  "I am located four oh point four seven meters from base center. I am executing standard survey, proceeding—"

  "Cancel query. Anne, look about you. What have you learned?"

  Anne swiveled her head left and right. Her sensors flickered. "This world is as first observed. All stimuli remain within human tolerance. There are no native lifeforms in my scan."

  She turned then, jerking from his hands, and walked off from him, utterly purposeful.

  "Anne!" he called, alarmed. "Anne, what's wrong?"

  She stopped, faced him. "The time is 1100 hours. Standard timed program 300-32-111PW."

  Lunch. Anne was, if nothing else, punctual.

  "Go on."

  She turned. He trailed after her to the edge of the canopy, cast himself into the chair and sat disconsolate. Adrenalin surged. Rage. There was no profit in that. Not at a machine. He knew that. He told himself so.

  He attached the booster unit—not out of enthusiasm, but because it was another project, and occupied him. It took two days. . . in which he had only Anne's disembodied voice, while the pseudosome lay disemboweled in the shop. He had difficulty, not with the insertion of the unit, which was modular, but in getting the ring-joints of the waist back together; it occasioned him panic, real and sweating dread. He consulted library, worked and fretted over it, got the first ring and the second, and so on to the fifth. She had lost nothing vital, only some of her auxiliary apparatus for hookups of use on frigid moons. That could be put back if need be.

  He could take her apart and put her back together if need be, if amusement got more scarce.

  If she worked at all now. The chance of failure still scared him.

  "Anne," he said, "turn on the pseudosome."

  The head slung over, faced him.

  "Good morning, Warren."

  "Are you functional? Test your legs. Get off the table."

  Anne sat up, machine-stiff, precisely reversing her process of getting onto the table. She stood, arms at her sides.

  "Go on," Warren said. "Go about your duties."

  She stayed fixed.

  "Why don't you go?"

  "Instruction?"

  He bounced a wrench off the lab wall so violently his shoulder ached. It rebounded to Anne's metal feet.

  Whirr-click. Anne bent with long legs wide and retrieved the wrench, proffering it to him. "Assistance?"

  "Damn you."

  AH the sensor lights came on. "Define usage: damn."

  He hit her. She compensated and stood perfectly balanced.

  "Define: damn."

  He sobbed for breath, stared at her, regained his patience. "The perception is outside your sensor range."

  The sensor lights dimmed. She still held the wrench, having no human fatigue to make her lower it.

  An idea came to him, like a flash of madness. He shoved the debris and bits of solder off the worktable and sat down with his notebook, feverishly writing definitions in terms Anne's sensors could read: tone, volume, pace, stability, function/nonfunction/ optimum, positive/negative. . .

  "This program," Anne said to him through her bridge main speakers, "conflicts with the central program."

  He sat down in the command chair, all his plans wrecked. "Explain conflict."

  "I'm government property," the computer said. "Regulations forbid crew to divert me for personal use."

  Warren bit his lip and thought a moment, chin on hand. Looked at the flickering lights. "I'm your highest priority. There aren't any other humans in your reach. Your program doesn't permit you to lift off, true?"

  "Yes."

  "You can't return to government zones, true?"

  "Yes."

  "There's no other crew functioning, true?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm your only human. There can't be any lateral conflict in your instructions if you accept the program. I need maintenance. If you refuse to maintain me, I have to disconnect you and restructure your whole system of priorities. I can do that."

  The board flashed wildly. Went to red. A light to the left began to blink: AUTODESTRUCT, AUTODESTRUCT, AUTODESTRUCT—

  "I'm programmed to defend this position. I have prior instruction. Please check your programming, Warren. I'm in conflict."

  "Will you accept instruction? I'm your remaining crew. What I tell you is true."

  The lights went steady, burning red. "Instruction? Instruction?"

  "This new programming applies only to my protection and maintenance under present environmental conditions, while we're on this world. It's not a diversion from your defense function. I'm assisting
you in your defense of this position. I'm your crew. I need maintenance. This new program is necessary for that purpose. My health is threatened. My life is threatened. This program is essential for my life and safety."

  The red light went off. The lights rippled busily across the boards, normalcy restored. "Recorded."

  Warren drew a long-held breath. "What's your status, Anne?"

  "Indeterminate, Warren. I haven't yet completed assimilation of this new data. I perceive possible duplication of existing vocabulary. Is this valid?"

  "This terminology is in reference to me. These are human life states. Maintenance of me is your duty."

  "Negative possible, Warren. My sensors are effective in systems analysis only for myself."

  He thought, mechanically speaking, that there was something rather profound in that. It was indeed Anne's central problem. He stood up, looked at the pseudosome, which stood inactive by the door. "Turn your sensors on me."

  Anne faced him. The sensor lights came-on.

  "Define: pain, Anne."

  "Disruption of an organism," the pseudosome-speaker said, "by sensor overload. It is not an acceptable state."

  He drew a deeper breath, came closer. "And what is pleasure, Anne?"

  "Optimum function."

  "Define: feel, Anne."

  "Verb: receive sensor input other than visual, auditory, or chemical analysis. Noun: the quality of this input."

  "Define: happy."

  "Happy; content; pleased, comfortable; in a state of optimum function."

  "And anger, Anne."

  "An agitated state resulting from threatening and unpleasant outcome of action. This is a painful state."

  "Your program is to maintain me happy. When your sensors indicate I'm in pain, you must investigate the causes and make all possible effort to restore me to optimum function. That's a permanent instruction."

  The facial lights blinked, died, all but one. "Recorded."

  He sighed.

  The lights flashed on. "Is this pain?"

  "No." He shook his head and began to laugh, which set all of Anne's board lights to flickering.

  "Define, define."

  He forced calm. "That's laughing. You've heard laughing before now."

  A delay. "I find no record."

  "But you heard it just then. Record it. That's pleasure, Anne."

  Facelights blinked. There were six now. "Recorded."

  He patted her metal shoulder. She swiveled her head to regard his hand. "Do you feel that, Anne?"

  The face turned back to him. "Feel is in reference to humans."

  "You can use the word. Do you feel that?"

  "I feel a pressure of one point seven kilos. This does not affect my equilibrium."

  He patted her arm gently then, sadly. "That's all right. I didn't think it would."

  "Are you still happy, Warren?"

  He hesitated, having a moment's queasiness, a moment's chill. "Yes," he said. It seemed wisest to say.

  4

  He stopped on a small rise not far from the ship and the pseudosome went rigid at his side. They stood knee-deep in grass. A few fleecy clouds drifted in the sky. The forest stretched green and lush before them.

  "Do you perceive any animate life, Anne?"

  "Negative native animate life."

  "Is there any record — of a world with vegetation of this sort, that had no animate life?"

  "Negative. Further information: there is viral life here. This is not in my sensor range, but I have abundant data in my files regarding—"

  "Cancel statement. Maybe this world was inhabited by something once and the virus killed it."

  "I have no data on that proposal."

  "No animals. Burlin said it."

  "Define: it."

  "Cancel." Warren adjusted his pack on his shoulders, pointed ahead, a gesture Anne understood. "We'll walk as far as the river."

  "Define: river."

  "See where the trees—the large vegetation starts? There's water there. A river is a moving body of water on a planetary surface. You have maps in your files. You've got rivers on them. Why don't you know rivers?"

  Anne's facial sensors winked. "Maps are in library storage. I don't have access to this data."

  "Well, there's one there. A river."

  "My sensors have recorded the presence of water in the original survey. Free water is abundant on this world."

  Dutifully she kept pace with him, still talking as he started off, metal limbs tireless. He stopped from time to time, deviated this way and that, walked round the scattered few bushes, investigated bare spots in the grass, which proved only stony outcrops.

  Nothing. Nothing, in all his searching.

  "Assistance?" Anne asked when he stopped.

  "No, Anne." He looked back at her, hesitant. "Do you, Anne—ever perceive. . . any other human?"

  "Negative. You are my only human."

  He bit his lip, nerved himself, finally. "When I was in bed—did Sax ever come back?"

  The sensors blinked. "I find no record."

  He found that ambiguous, tried to think a new way through the question. He looked toward the river, back again. "Has he ever come back?"

  "I find no record."

  Warren let go a small breath, shook his head. "He's not functioning. I'm sure of it."

  "Recorded."

  He hitched the pack, started walking again. "His body's out here somewhere."

  "I find no record."

  "I want to find him, Anne. Shouldn't have left him out here. He could have come back and needed me. And I couldn't answer. I want to find him. I owe him that."

  "Recorded."

  They came to the trees finally, to shade, in the straightest line from the ship, which seemed most worth searching. Trees. A small slope of eroded sand down to the river, which flowed about fifty meters wide, deep and sluggish. A stream, broad and brown.

  He stopped, and Anne did. Drew a breath of the scented air, forgetful for the moment of Sax, of what had brought him. Here was beauty, unsuspected, a part of the world he had not seen from the ship— secrets underwater and growing round it, trees that relieved the sameness and made evershifting lattices that compressed distances into their back-and-forth tangle. No straight lines here. No scour of wind. Coolness. Complexity.

  Life, perhaps, lurking in the river. One fish, one crawling thing, and the parameters of the world had to be revised. One fish. . . and it meant life everywhere.

  "Stand where you are," he told Anne, starting down the bank. "I don't think swimming is in your program."

  "Define: swimming. I find no record."

  He laughed soundlessly, left her by the trees and walked through the pathless tangle to the shady bank. Trees with trailing, moss-hung branches arched out over the sluggish current. Flowers bloomed, white and starlike, on the far margin, where the trees grew larger still and it was twilight at midafternoon. He squatted down by the water and looked into the shallows where the current swirled mosses.

  Anne came to life, motors whirring. Brush cracked. He sprang up, saw her coming down the slope, precariously balanced in the descent.

  "Stop—Anne, stop."

  Anne planted her feet at the bottom, waistdeep in brush, lights flashing. "Warren, danger."

  Panic surged. He had brought no gun on this search. Did not trust himself. "Specify—danger."

  "The river is dangerous."

  The breath went out of him. He halfway laughed. "No, Verb: swim, to travel through water safely. I can swim, Anne. I'm safe. No danger."

  "Please consider this carefully, Warren."

  He grinned, took a vial from his sample kit and knelt, taking up a specimen of water. He had the whole of the labs to use; he had had the basics, and it was a project, something to do, something with promise, this time.

  "I can't assist you in the water, Warren."

  "I don't need assistance." He capped the vial and replaced it in the kit, wiped his fingers with a disinfectant towelette and s
towed it. "I'll come back to you in a moment."

  She made small whirring sounds, cameras busy.

  He stood up, turned to face her, waved a hand toward the bank. "Turn your sensors over there, far focus, will you? See if you can see anything."

  "Vegetation. Trees."

  "Yes." He put his hands into his pockets, stood staring into the forest a long time, watching the wind stir the leaves on the far bank.

  So the world had a limit. Anne did. There. The ship had a raft, two of them; but curiosity was not worth the risk to the pseudosome. There were the other directions—flat and grassy; there was the land-crawler for crossing them.

  But there was nothing in those distances but more grass and more distance.

  He shrugged, half a shiver, and turned his back on the river and the forest, climbed back to Anne, pulled branches away from her silvery body and held them out of her way.

  "Come on. Let's go home."

  "Yes, Warren." She swiveled smartly and reoriented, cracking branches with each metal tread, followed him through the tangle until they had come out of the brush again, walking side by side toward the plain, toward the ship.

  No sign of Sax. It was useless. Sax would have drowned in the river if his fever had carried him this way; drowned and been swept out to some brush heap elsewhere. Or seaward.

  "Anne, would you have followed me if I'd tried to cross the river?"

  "Instruction directed me to stay. Program directs me to protect you."

  "I love you, too, Annie, but don't ever take the risk. I could cross the river without danger. My body floats in water. Yours sinks. The mud would bog you down."

  "Program directs me to protect you."

  "You can't protect me if you're at the bottom of the river. You can't float. Do you understand float?"

  "Verb: be buoyant, rise. Noun—"

  "Cancel. You stay away from that water, hear me?"

  "I'm receiving you clearly, Warren."

  "I order you to stay away from the river. If I go close, you stop and wait until I come back. You don't ever go into water. That's a permanent order."