“They didn’t really want me there,” she said at last. “Even though they kidnapped me. They weren’t about to give me any tours. They didn’t even want to let me taste Earth’s soil. But I escaped just long enough.”
“Was it what you expected?”
She looked down at him and rocked her forehead against the bar she held. “No. It wasn’t home. It must have been once upon a time. But it isn’t now.”
“Maybe I should take a lesson from that. If I defected…”
“I can’t defect. I’m a bot. I couldn’t even visit, until they decided to kidnap me.”
“No one’s going to kidnap me.”
“Then give it up. Stop wishing. Settle for hidebound, oppressive, irrational…”
“It’s not that bad!”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. We’re innovative enough. We just don’t do things the way you do.”
“And there’s room for both of us in the universe?”
He nodded silently. “I don’t see why they want to wipe you out.”
“They’re afraid we’ll prove they’re wrong.”
Chapter Twelve
The corridor mouths held small clumps of young Engineers, three here, four there, none much older than boys. They peered toward Pearl Angelica, pointed, waved at their friends across the concourse, talked, and laughed. Then they vanished, only to appear again a little later.
Robots, oblivious of tension, scooted out of the corridors and across the concourse, swaying on their wheels. Other Engineers, men and women both, hurried through like planet-dwellers who sensed a coming storm. Few lingered near the dais and the cage. None spoke to the captive bot.
Pearl Angelica tried to ignore the situation, but as the day wore on that grew harder and harder. She guessed the youths were working up their nerve to approach her, the gengineered monster, and taunt, torment, even kill her. She did not know their actual plans or when the crisis would come.
But before anything could happen, the camera robot appeared in the one corridor that held no cluster of young men. Beside it materialized two Security guards, identifiable by their holstered sidearms and watchful air. Across the concourse, Hrecker emerged behind one group and spoke to them using gestures that let Pearl Angelica construct his words in her mind: “What are you doing here? We know she’s scum and worse, but we can’t do anything to her now. She’s our only hope of getting a starship, don’t you know? Queer that deal, and we’ll make compost out of you. C’mon, clear out, get lost.”
The strut went out of the group and its members vanished up the corridor Hrecker had used. When he moved along the concourse’s rim to a second group, the scene played out again, and then again. Yet Pearl Angelica’s state of mind did not improve when all the youths were gone. She found herself wishing that Anatol Rivkin would appear, but though she studied carefully every passerby, she saw no sign of him.
The lights dimmed. The traffic through the concourse grew sparse and sparser and finally stopped entirely. No one came, and she began to wonder whether Security had indeed been listening to their conversations, whether Hrecker had decided that Anatol was no longer a loyal or reliable Engineer, whether her sole friend on the Moon had been arrested, imprisoned, executed, or sent back to Earth.
The morning shower announced another day that crawled past, bringing night again in its wake. Still there was no sign of her only friend. She found herself thinking of him constantly. Was he safe? Where was he? Would she see him again? When?
Gradually, other questions grew to dominate her thoughts: She had known him so briefly. Why was she so obsessed with him? He was the only Engineer who had offered her a friendly word. Was that enough to account for her obsession? Or was there something more? Would she care so much if he were another Gypsy?
Struggling to control her mind, she forced herself to think of the last words she had said to him: “They’re afraid we’ll prove they’re wrong.”
Were they wrong?
It was mechanical technology that had raised the human species from savagery, wasn’t it? That had fed and clothed billions and tied a global economy together with rapid transportation and communication?
But what had made those billions possible? Not transportation or communication. Not industry. But agriculture—that had enabled the birth of civilization. Antibiotics and vaccines and Green Revolutions. Greatest of all, perhaps, sanitation, the simple realization that sewage and drinking water do not mix.
Mechanical technology had played a role. Of course it had, and for a while it had been by far the more visible of the two. But the greater impact on human life had always belonged to biological technologies, even though few people had ever recognized them as such. And when the machines had run short of fuels and raw materials, their latest versions had filled the gap.
Yet biology could not do everything. Even the Orbitals and Gypsies had to rely on machines for some things, such as space travel.
And the Engineers were buying Macks and Sponges.
In time, perhaps, the two groups would meet in the idea that a single civilization could use both kinds of technology, each in its appropriate place, for its appropriate purposes.
She thought that future might have much more in common with her own peoples than with the Engineers, for the Orbitals and Gypsies already freely used machines when they were better suited to a job than bioforms, although the Gypsies at least did have a distinct preference for the latter. If a larger difference remained, it would be rooted in the natures of Engineers as people who craved control of others and of Orbitals and Gypsies as enablers. The group versus the individual. Authority versus freedom. Duty versus responsibility.
Over the next two days, Security guards strolled through the concourse frequently. When the constantly blaring veedo set said nothing about their presence, Pearl Angelica guessed they were on guard against any recurrence of youthful fervor, any danger to official plans to acquire a starship, perhaps even any risk that a riot might damage their contained environment. Other Engineers did not linger near the dais but rather hurried past, heads down or turned aside.
The situation slowly shifted toward normal. The intervals between Security patrols grew longer. Passersby slowed their pace and once more recognized the bot’s existence. A few paused to sniff the flowers and indulge in longer covert stares. At last a couple shared a lunch while sitting on the edge of the dais that held Pearl Angelica’s stone planter, ignoring the bot until the man picked a cluster of mock orange blossoms, held them toward her, said, “With your permission,” and tucked them into the woman’s hair.
When Anatol finally appeared just before dawn, he peered furtively from the empty corridor mouth, scuttled across the concourse floor, and crouched among the bushes beneath the rim of the dais. His face was grey with fatigue, his eyes hollowed. “I heard about the kids.”
“Where have you been?” She pushed a hand between the bars but could not reach him.
“Busy. Did I tell you I’m on a tunneling crew? Yeah. Rush order. Back-to-back shifts. No time for anything but sleep.”
“I missed you.” Her smile was relief and frustration and pain. “What are you doing down there?”
A fading rose blocked her view of his face. He brushed it aside and grinned back at her. “The kids pulled in their horns very nicely, but the halls are still full of Hrecker’s troops. I don’t want to be chased back to my room.”
She withdrew her roots from the soil, knelt, and tried again to reach him. This time their fingers touched. “Just one room?”
He shook his head. “An apartment. But that’s what we call it.”
“If I could get out of here…”
His expression said that he understood what she was offering.
“I think I know how to do it,” she added. “But I’ll need your help.”
&nbs
p; “Not now. Wait till the cops go back in their holes.”
* * * *
It was two more days before the Security guards vanished from the concourse entirely. That night, Pearl Angelica said, “They can’t be watching me, can they? No cameras, no mikes.”
“Or they’d have arrested me already?” When she nodded, he said, “I suppose so. Does that mean we don’t have to worry about what we say? Or I say?”
“Uh-uh.” She reached between the bars to pat his arm. “I’m not worried for me. I can’t be any worse off. But you…”
His answering smile was strained. “Just tell me what to do.”
“Stand there, Anatol. Right against the bars.”
He obeyed, but he asked, “What good will that do?”
“I can’t squeeze between the bars. They’re too smooth to climb. And they’re too high to jump over, even in this gravity. Now bend your knee. Put your hand on your hip.”
“Ah,” he said, and she set one foot on his knee, the other where his hip braced his wrist. The next step put her on his shoulders. The last perched her on the top of his head.
“Straighten up now,” she said. “Grab the bars, and brace yourself. I think I can jump from…” There was a grunt of effort. The joints of Anatol’s spine popped, and he swayed from the force of her push-off.
She was sliding down the bars, gripping them with both arms and legs, but now she was on the outside of the cage and grinning broadly. Her teeth gleamed in the dim light. “We’ll know soon enough if they’re watching. If they catch me…”
“They’ll make the bars higher. Or they’ll add a roof.”
“I’ll worry about that when it happens.” She did not look as if she thought it wouldn’t. “But you… you’re risking a lot. Everything. I wish you had someplace safe to go.”
He gave a soft bark of laughter. “So do I.”
She patted a bar with one hand. Her eyes seemed to probe the corridor mouths on the borders of the concourse. “Is there anywhere we can go where no one will see us?”
“You can’t hide out. They’ll turn the place upside down. They’ll find you for sure. And then you’ll never get loose again.”
She laughed. “Then I’ll have to get back here before dawn. Before anyone sees I’m gone. Where’s your room?”
“It’s too far away. Too long a hike. Dawn’s not that far off.” He did not say there was too much chance of meeting someone, for she had planned for that. By his feet was a sack containing a blue shirt and pants. Now he helped her don the clothes and cover up her leaves. When she was dressed, he reached into the sack one more time and said, “I thought of shoes, though I didn’t know your size.” He held out a pair of sandals.
“I’m not used to these.” She frowned in concentration as she fitted them to her feet. When she was done, she stamped her feet and laughed again. “Now let’s take a walk,” she said. “I need to stretch my legs.”
“I wish we had something to cover your head.”
“My petals? The light’s not bright. We’ll be okay.”
They almost ran from the concourse and into the nearest corridor. Then they walked, taking turns almost at random, peering into empty, darkened rooms, picking apples and oranges and apricots from dwarf trees in their pots, sniffing flowers, seeing no one other than a few robots trundling by on mysterious errands. Eventually, and far too soon, Anatol was saying, “The night is almost done. We’ve got to get you back.”
Her face fell. “Can’t we get a peek at the Teller first?”
“No,” he said. “That’s shut up much too tight.”
“Then…” She stopped when she remembered Hrecker tapping numbers into a keypad lock. “Okay.” She pointed at a left turn just ahead. She had been trying to build up a map of the base in her head as they explored. She did not think they had used that corridor before, but it seemed to go toward familiar ground. “Will that get us back faster?”
“It should. Why do you want to see the ship?”
“I’d like to know how close it is to flying.”
He indicated another turn. “I heard two more fuel tanks have been delivered.”
“Making four?”
He shrugged. “As far as I know.”
They stopped at the border of the concourse and looked at each other. Footsteps sounded faintly in the corridor behind them. “Hurry!” she said, and a moment later she was climbing his sturdy frame once more. The clothes she had worn were hidden under a mock orange bush.
The footsteps were closer now. “Tonight?” she whispered from within her cage. Anatol gave her a curt wave of one hand and vanished into a different corridor.
The concourse lights brightened and the sun-mimicking spotlight above the cage flooded her with brilliance. Water began to sprinkle from the ceiling. The footsteps stopped. She turned, afraid of who she would see in the corridor mouth. But no, the thin-lipped face belonged to no one that she knew. Certainly it was not Hrecker’s.
* * * *
When Anatol returned the next night, he had a wig of black hair long enough to cover Pearl Angelica’s ears. With it on, and dressed, she could be betrayed only by the green cast to her skin. Yet, they thought, that would matter only in brighter light than was available in the nighttime corridors. They felt free to explore the lunar base, pausing by viewports, inspecting dark and empty dining halls and libraries and game rooms, avoiding footsteps whenever possible. And when they rounded a corner to confront a cleaning crew, they were delighted to find how well her Engineer disguise worked. Not one of the night workers showed the slightest sign of recognition or alarm at seeing her.
“At least I’m getting exercise,” she said three nights later. They were standing beside a viewport that revealed a grey and dusty square of lunar surface tracked by feet and wheels, littered with scraps of twisted metal, cast-off machine parts, and even a forgotten tool or two. The view was surrounded on three sides by the ridges that marked buried tunnels. The fourth side was blocked by a row of sturdy pillars that supported a thick roof; in the black-shadowed space beneath the roof were parked three balloon-tired ground vehicles. Two space-suited workers and a trio of robots were working near the rear of one of them.
“The roof keeps the meteorites off the trucks,” he had told her. “We bring them inside only for major repairs.”
Her arm brushed his. Their fingers met, and they were holding hands. “I know my way around the base now,” she said. “But there’s no way out of here.”
“Of course there isn’t,” he said. “We don’t keep spaceships here, and if we did…” He shrugged. “You’d have to deal with locks and crews. You’d be caught for sure.”
She sighed. “I haven’t seen your room yet. Do we have time tonight?”
Anatol’s “room” turned out to be more than ample for a single man. One room of the apartment held shelves of books, veedo tapes, and music disks, as well as a comfortable reclining seat; one wall was nearly covered with photographs of friends, lunar landscapes, and spiral storms on Earth, viewed from orbit. Another was a bedroom with a small bathroom off one corner. The third room held a small refrigerator and microwave oven, a single glass-fronted cupboard full of dishes, a table, and a computer terminal. “Mostly I use the dining halls,” he said. “This is where I study. I don’t want to dig tunnels all my life.”
“What are you studying?”
He touched the keyboard, and the screen lit up with diagrams and words. “Project management,” he said. “Someday I’ll be telling the diggers where and when to dig.” He looked at his watch. “We’ve got to get you back.”
She made a face. “Can we come here earlier next time?”
* * * *
Pearl Angelica began to remove her pants and shirt as soon as the apartment door closed behind them.
“Wait a minu
te!” cried Anatol.
“Bots don’t wear clothes,” she said. Nor were they ever as celibate as she had been forced to be among the Engineers, and she was a bot. A bot who had never chosen a mate with whom to produce children, though she had had lovers enough.
She threw the shirt on the floor. The wig followed it. “You know that.”
“But you’re a woman! Aren’t you?”
She lifted a single leaf to expose a nipple. “The last time I looked. All the parts are there. And you’re a man.” She reached for his shirt front and grinned when he blushed. There was nothing accidental about the effect she was having on him. “You’re the only one here to be nice to me. You’re sweet. So go ahead. You strip too. It’ll be a nice way to pass the night.”
“But…”
“It’s taboo? I’ll contaminate you? That’s what they said on Earth when I complained about being raped. No one would do such a thing! But Hamid did.”
“He’s probably dead now.”
“Are you afraid they’ll find out?” When he nodded jerkily, she said, “I won’t tell if you won’t. I like you.”
Later, she said, “No. No ‘Baby.’ Call me Pearl if you want. Or Angie. That’s okay. But not Angie-Baby.”
He grinned and ran his fingers gently under the leaves that covered her stomach. “Angie, then. Angie. I wish I didn’t have to take you back to that cage.”
“If you don’t, we’ll never be able to do this again.” Her hand was as gentle as his.
“Maybe someday.”
“But for now…”
* * * *
Pearl Angelica froze in the doorway. The room was full of Engineers she had never seen before, unless they had visited the concourse to see her in her cage. So many had done that, she told herself. So many she had seen so briefly that it was no wonder she could not remember any of them.
Thomas A. Easton’s GMO Future MEGAPACK® Page 112
