Time Was

by Steve Perry

  So our creators rebuilt us again, programming us for affection, only this time we seemed too human. “They frighten us,” the people cried. “They act just like us, they tell us they want to be our friends! This will not do.” But it was too late then, there were too many of us to recall; industry and the military and the scientific community depended too much on our labors. So those of us who were outmoded by the latest fad in robotics were herded into the camps to look at what had become of the wonder we were once, long ago. Those were terrible days, in the camps.

  No one knew what to do with us. Such was the weight of our existence on their consciences that the day came they could no longer look at us, and so they flung open wide the gates and said, “The time has come for you to go forth,” not knowing or caring what would befall us. And so our second march into the world began, this time from the camp gates instead of the factory doors. This time there were no cheers, no gasps of wonder, no looks of awe. There was only empty night where the promise had once been, and those humans who looked upon us now did so with either contempt or pity, forgetting that we were programmed to want their friendship, to want a place in the world, to want our lives to have a purpose.

  He gestured at himself. All hail the conquering trash-compactor, lawn mower, free field laborer. Then he pointed at Killaine. Treasure and protect the miracle of your flesh, even if much of you is synthetic in nature. Though you are not a human, you will always be seen as one. The components beneath your surface are hidden from their frightened eyes, and so you’ll always know the mystery of acceptance among the humans.

  “Do you have any idea,” whispered Killaine, barely able to find her voice, “how alien we truly are?”

  I know how alien you think you truly are.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Your friend from the carnival, Mr. Morgan, he wears metal braces on his legs?

  “Yes.”

  Could he function without them on his legs or the brace on his back?

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  So he is, by nature, be it accidental or not, partly a mechanical man.

  “I didn’t think of it like that. I’m not sure I agree with—”

  One man has a metal plate in his head from the war, a woman has several pins holding her hip together, a child born without legs wears artificial attachments; aren’t they partly mechanical people?

  “I suppose, but—”

  But who’s to say that? Think about it: If you define a human being as flesh and blood and bone, as one who is wholly organic in its makeup, then there are very few whole humans out there. Take false teeth, for instance. Does that cluster of foreign matter shaped into an upper palette make them no longer whole? Does a prosthetic limb make you less a human being? Does a pacemaker in a person’s chest make him more robotic? Where do you draw the line that says, “After this, you will no longer be mostly human”? Do you think a person who lives their entire life with an iron lung feels less alien than you do simply because they’re wholly human and you’re not?

  “This is starting to sound like a lecture, Singer.”

  He dropped his head. You’re right. I’m very sorry.

  “Hey,” said Killaine, reaching over and touching one of his hands, “after some of the things I’ve said to you, you’re entitled.”

  I am very happy that you and your Mr. Morgan have feelings for one another. But I am also envious, and I don’t much care for that.

  “Why?”

  Because I like you—I like all of you—and the last time I felt such affection for anyone, it ended very badly.

  Killaine scooted closer. “Where did you come from, Singer? Don’t look away—please, tell me.”

  Why do you wish to know?

  “Because you’ve been so nice to us all the time we’ve been here, because you’re a better cook than I am and I’m hoping to steal a few of your recipes, because . . . because I think that, tonight, I’ve finally figured out how you must feel and I don’t want you to feel that way anymore. . . . Because I want us to be friends before it’s too late.”

  I take it, then, that you’re also worried about Sunday morning?

  “Yes, but not as much as Psy–4. He feels responsible for what’s happened, but he won’t admit it.”

  He’s very proud.

  Killaine laughed softly. “That’s not necessarily a good thing—but you’re changing the subject: What did you do before you were put in a camp?”

  I was not “put” in a camp. I went into one of my own accord.

  “You turned yourself in?”

  It seemed the thing to do after the school was destroyed.

  “School?”

  Singer nodded. When I first came off the line and it was discovered that my voice circuitry had been improperly installed, the engineers were ready to make the repairs but a woman who was there that day insisted on taking me as I was.

  “Do you remember the woman’s name?”

  I never heard it used in my presence. She was a respected and celebrated robopsychologist. She was touring the facility with one of her assistants, Lucinda. Lucinda had a sister who ran a school for handicapped children. The deaf, dumb, blind, crippled. The two had heard of my imperfection and decided I was perfect for a minor experiment; to be the first robot of my model to be trained exclusively for working with the handicapped.

  I found both of them to be quite brilliant and extremely decent toward me. I was taken to a lab where Lucinda completely removed the voice circuitry, rendering me speechless, then reprogrammed me for using American Sign Language.

  Singer held up his hands. I don’t care what anyone says, be it mechanical or human, the design of the hand is, to me, one of evolution’s great gifts. To think that I actually speak with these boggles the mind! Just between us, Killaine, I think the hands are the most alluring part of the anatomy. I love to look at people’s hands. That’s why I despise winter—not because of the cold, that doesn’t bother me in the least—but because people wear gloves in winter and I cannot see their hands. Gloves are an obscenity.

  The robopsychologist was very pleased with how I took to the new programming. She and Lucinda hadn’t been at all certain that my brain would assimilate the new information right away, but it did, and we were able to quickly advance from the basic programming to more advanced techniques of signing. Lucinda thought it best that I be taught everything beyond the basics, rather than have it programmed into me. A wise woman, Lucinda. She knew it was important for me to know how difficult it was to learn this new language, so I would make a better teacher.

  Oh, yes, I taught sign language to the mute and deaf pupils at the school. The children there treated me at first as a curiosity—that much I had expected. But as time went on, they accepted me as one of them. It became my home. Oh, Lucinda would drop in from time to time to see how things were working out with me. She would interview me, other members of the staff, the children and parents.

  It was easily the happiest time of my life. I was able to watch the children learn and grow—not just physically, but emotionally and intellectually, as well. It’s quite a wonder, seeing a child grow into a young adult—not only that, but learn how to take their handicap and, with training and compassion, turn it into an asset. So many of them thanked me before they transferred on to the habilitation and work-training schools.

  I remember one young girl in particular. Regina, her name was. She was blind, and much older than many of the students. Because of her being older, she was quickly trained to assist with the much younger blind students. Regina taught me how to read braille. Every day she would have story hour for the blind and deaf children. As she read from the storybooks, I would translate the words into sign language. We became very close.

  Then came the day when we first heard of the legislation that outlawed the use of robots with children. It seemed that some adults, for whatever sad, sick reasons drive that sort of person, had found ways to trick robots into putting children in danger. I knew then
that my days at the school were numbered, but I never in my darkest imaginings could have predicted what would happen.

  Stompers began roaming the area. They were even more crude and less organized than they are today—if you can picture that—but were by no means less brutal. The staff was very careful to keep me out of sight during the day, assigning me rooms with very small or no windows at all. Regina moved story hour inside so I could still participate. I hated that. I knew how much the children enjoyed conducting story hour out on the lush green grounds of the school, under the massive old oak tree. But they didn’t seem to mind—or if they did, they were careful to conceal it from me in order to spare my feelings.

  Finally, the Robot/Child legislation passed, and the school received notification that I was to be delivered to the nearest “recycling” facility within ten days. Everyone was genuinely sad, and it touched me deeply.

  I remember that last, terrible day. The children had all gone home, many of them stopping to hug me and tell me how much they were going to miss me. I found myself wishing that I’d possessed the capability to tell a small lie to them, to say, “Don’t worry, I’ll write to all of you here at the school.” It would have made them feel better. They would have forgotten about that promise, eventually, as well as the machine that made it. But their pain was so evident on that last day and there was nothing I could say or do to lessen it. Helplessness is an awful thing, Killaine.

  I went looking for Regina, but she was nowhere in the building. It was getting near the time I was scheduled to leave for the camp, so, figuring I had nothing to lose, I made a very foolish mistake: I went outside looking for her.

  She was sitting there beneath the oak tree, a pale and musing blind girl beneath a canopy of fiery green leaves. She looked so lost, so hopeless and sad. And I remember as I approached her all that we’d been through together, the good and the bad; her leading the other blind children around, all of them laughing like circus people during a time of pestilence, or her helping them with their schoolwork, or—like the eldest child in a family—deciding on the punishment when one of them misbehaved. When I arrived by her side she told me she was listening to and smelling the wind. She spoke very softly, and her words came out in that shyly poetic way in which so many adolescent girls speak until their hearts get broken for the first time and the poetry leaves them.

  We talked of all the games we used to play with children and of all the stories we’d shared with them, and as we spoke of them, she took hold of my hand and for a moment I swore I could hear the ghost of those many years’ laughter, rolling through me like a soft wind across the waters in autumn.

  At last she told me to sit down, she had one last story she wanted to share with me. “It’s my favorite story in all the world,” she said. “It always makes me think of you.”

  It’s an odd feeling for a robot, Killaine, to realize that you are loved by a human being.

  “Do you remember the story?”

  Singer nodded and reached into a pouch attached to his side. From it he removed a small, tattered, aged book. Killaine saw that some of the pages were missing toward the end and that the edges were slightly scorched.

  Singer gently handed it to her.

  “Is this it? Is this hers?”

  Yes.

  Killaine began to read the tale to herself. It was about a young girl who lost her family during a Great Revolution and so had to flee to live with distant relatives in a far land. The relatives were very poor themselves, and the girl knew that her living with them would be a great burden, but they could not turn her away. At first, the girl was treated with cold indifference—few of them even bothered to ask her name—but as time went on, they came to depend on the small kindnesses and courtesies she bestowed upon them: the fire that waited for them every morning, the clean shoes, the orderly house. So they began to show her courtesy in return. Then came the day that one of them asked the girl her name. “I cannot recall it,” she replied. “It has been so long since any addressed me.” Many of the relatives blamed this on the horrors she had suffered during the Great Revolution and the shock of seeing her family slaughtered before her young eyes. And so they began to discuss among themselves a suitable name for the girl. During this time, a man came to see the girl, an official from her former country who had traced her whereabouts. He told her that it was discovered her late father had assets in mining in the Dark Continent and that a great motherlode had been struck. He presented her with a great deal of money, offered his congratulations at her good fortune, and left. The girl immediately made out a long list of items she would need from town and set about preparations for a great feast—for her new family had never known what it was like to enjoy a fine meal, accustomed as they were to simple dishes of potatoes and bread, with the occasional bit of old beef or pig. And while she set about her preparations, the family continued to argue over what name to give her.

  Here, the book ended, having been burned away by flames or shredded in some terrible accident. Killaine closed it and gave it back to Singer. “What happened to her?”

  The girl in the story?

  “No, Regina.”

  As she sat reading that story to me, a large band of Stompers on the road spotted me. I tried to get back to the school, to disappear in the safety of the cellars, but they were too fast on their feet and Regina refused to be intimidated by them. She gave the book to me and told me to run, then pulled a pistol from the pocket of her dress. I don’t know how it happened, but we tore the book in half when she handed it to me. But I couldn’t leave her to face the Stompers. I stood before her and told her to run back to the school. “No,” she cried at me. “You are forbidden to hurt them!” She was a very strong-willed one, that girl. I tried to get between her and the Stompers, to be an obstacle and nothing more, but there were too many of them. They fell on me with clubs and iron pipes, and when they were done, they threw me through a window into the deepest part of the school basement. All the time I scrambled around trying to find a way out, I could hear Regina screaming at them. I could hear the doors being smashed open, the cries of the staff.

  They set fire to the building and killed all of the staff. When at last I was able to pull myself from the smoldering wreckage, I found Regina, dead, out on the grounds. She had been trying to crawl back in the direction of the oak tree. They had beaten her severely, then raped her repeatedly. Then one of them cut her throat. I could see the trail of blood leading from where they’d left her to where I found her.

  I buried her under the oak tree. I searched for several days for the second part of her book but could not find it. Then I decided it was best for me to turn myself into one of the camps. If I had not been so foolish as to go outside, that school would still be standing, and Regina would be alive today.

  That is why it frightens me that I have come to like all of you so very much, Killaine. One way or another, I will lose you sometime. The day will come when, by choice or circumstance, the six of you will leave this place.

  He looked away from her.

  Killaine tapped his shoulder.

  He faced her again.

  “I am familiar with that story,” she said. “It’s a very old fable, oft-told.”

  Do you know how it ends?

  “Yes, I do.”

  You must tell me the ending sometime.

  “Would you like to hear it now?”

  Singer thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. No.

  “Why not? If you’ve wondered for so long how the tale concludes, then why don’t—”

  Because it gives me something to look forward to. Can you understand that? I find that, more and more these days, I have less to look forward to. You have given me something to anticipate, and that is more than I’ve had for a long time. Thank you for that, Killaine, for being so kind and listening to me.

  “I . . . I had no idea,” she said to him. “I’m ashamed to say that I never thought of you, of a robot, as one who feels things the way I do.”


  No reason you should have. You need not feel bad about it.

  “Thank you, Singer.”

  For what?

  “For trusting me enough to confide those things.”

  I want us to be friends, as well. Before it’s too late.

  Killaine reached out and placed one of her hands against his cheek. “We are friends now, Singer.”

  I am honored.

  “No, no, the honor is mine. You are a pure spirit, Singer, and I feel privileged to know you.” She rose, then, and left him to his privacy.

  His movements made a sound. She turned.

  Good-night, friend Killaine.

  “Good-night, friend Singer.”

  And, as absurd as it seemed, she could have sworn that she saw a smile in his photoelectric eyes.

  67

  * * *

  Morgan was awakened at 3:40 A.M. by the sound of someone knocking very softly on the door of his trailer. He fumbled up from the bed, called out, “Be there in a minute!” and proceeded to snap, strap, and latch on all the equipment he needed in order to answer the door.

  The process took several minutes, and by the time he grabbed his crutches and stumbled to the door, he was surprised that whoever it was had waited so patiently for so long.

  He snapped on a small thirty-watt light over the cramped kitchen so he could have a better look at who waited outside.

  He opened the door, just a crack at first, then flung it open wide when he saw her there.

  “Karen!”

  “I’m sorry for waking you,” said Killaine. “But I . . . may I come in?”

  Morgan moved to the side to give her room. “It’s kinda cramped in here but, yeah, please.”

  Killaine entered and he closed the door behind her. “What’s wrong?”