Made to Order

by Jonathan Strahan

  We unclasp and Charlie recovers his usual iceberg-like self. If I had to swear, though, his gaze is a little softer, his smile a little warmer. Or maybe I’m just seeing what I’m looking for.

  “Do you think maybe I could dance a Tango Romantica with you for real some time?” Charlie wrings his hands. “We didn’t make it through the whole thing.”

  Will miracles never cease? I don’t say this out loud. It would be unkind.

  “Sure.” I smile. “As often as you want.”

  It’s not 24 hours before we face each other on the ice at the rink. Skaters in black practice suits glide and spin around us, prepared to give right-of-way to our pattern. Coach looks at us from the boards, vaguely amused. We are a matched set, both an order of magnitude or so larger than any competitive ice dancer. Not that either of us have competing in mind.

  We clasp each other into a closed hold. Charlie puffs himself up into a suitably imperious pose. I do the same. The smile on his face is goofy. We may look ridiculous.

  Coach is keeping a more than casual eye on us from the boards. Even so, as we twirl and tumble around each other, the world might as well have fallen away. As strings plucked in a precise but passionate sequence echo through the rink, as we swoop around etching deep lobes into the ice, there is only Charlie, me, and the Tango Romantica.

  POLISHED PERFORMANCE

  ALASTAIR REYNOLDS

  Alastair Reynolds (www.alastairreynolds.com) was born in Barry, South Wales, in 1966. He has lived in Cornwall, Scotland, the Netherlands, where he spent twelve years working as a scientist for the European Space Agency, before returning to Wales where he lives with his wife Josette. Reynolds has been publishing short fiction since his first sale to Interzone in 1990. Since 2000 he has published seventeen novels: the Inhibitor trilogy, British Science Fiction Association Award winner Chasm City, Century Rain, Pushing Ice, The Prefect, House of Suns, Terminal World, the Poseidon’s Children series, Doctor Who novel The Harvest of Time, The Medusa Chronicles (with Stephen Baxter), Elysium Fire, and the Revenger series. His short fiction has been collected in Zima Blue and Other Stories, Galactic North, Deep Navigation, and Beyond the Aquila Rift: The Best of Alastair Reynolds. His most recent novel is Bone Silence, a new Revenger. In his spare time, he rides horses.

  Year One

  RUBY WAS A surface-hygienic unit: a class-one floor scrubber.

  She was a squat red rectangular box with multiple rotary brushes. She had a body profile low enough to help her slip under chairs, the hems of tablecloths, and through general-utility service ducts. She ran a class two-point-eight cognition engine.

  One day, about halfway into the Resplendent’s century-long interstellar crossing, Ruby was summoned to the starliner’s forward observation deck. Forty-nine other robots had gathered there. Ruby knew them all. Several of them looked human; a few more were loosely humanoid; the rest were mechanical spiders, praying mantises, segmented boa constrictors—or resembled highly decorated carpets, chunks of motile coral or quivering potted plants.

  “Do you know what’s wrong?” Ruby asked the robot next to her, a towering black many-armed medical servitor.

  “I do not,” said Doctor Obsidian. “But one may surmise that it is serious.”

  “Could the engine have blown up?”

  Doctor Obsidian looked down at her with his wedge-shaped sensor head. “I think it unlikely. Had the engine malfunctioned, artificial gravity would have failed all over the ship. In addition, and more pertinently, we would all have been reduced to a cloud of highly excited ions.”

  Carnelian, a robot who Ruby knew well, picked up on their exchange and slithered over. “The engine’s fine, Rube. I can tell you that just by feeling the hum through the flooring. I’m good with hums. And we aren’t going too fast or too slow, either.” Carnelian nodded his own sensor head at the forward windows. “I ran a spectral analysis. Those stars are exactly the right colour for our mid-voyage speed.”

  “Then we’ve drifted off-course,” said Topaz, a robot shaped like a jumble of chrome spheres.

  “That we most certainly have not,” drawled one of the human-seeming robots called Prospero. Dressed in full evening wear, with a red-lined cape draped from one arm, he had arrived hand in hand with Ophelia, his usual theatrical partner. “That bright star at the exact centre of the windows is our destination system. It has not deviated by one fraction of a degree.” He lowered his deep, stage-inflected voice. “Never mind, though: I expect the brilliant Chrysoprase will soon disabuse of us of our ignorance. Here he comes—not, of course, before keeping us all waiting.”

  “I expect he had things to attend to,” Ruby said earnestly.

  Chrysoprase was the most advanced robot aboard the ship, running a three-point-eight cognition engine. Of humanoid design, he was tall, handsomely sculpted and sheathed in glittering metallic green armour. He strode onto the raised part of the promenade deck, soles clacking on the marble Ruby had only lately polished.

  A silence fell across the other robots.

  Chrysoprase studied the gathering. His mouth was a minimalist slot; his eyes two fierce yellow circles in an angular, stylised mask.

  “Friends,” he said, “I’m afraid I have some rather... unwelcome news. First, though, let me begin with the positives. The Resplendent is in very good shape. We are on course, and travelling at our normal cruise speed. All aspects of the starliner are in excellent technical condition: a very great credit to the work done by all of you, regardless of cognition level.” His eyes seemed to dwell on Ruby as he said this, as if to emphasize that even a lowly floor-polisher had a role to play in the ship’s upkeep. “There is, however, a minor difficulty. All of our passengers are dead.”

  There was a terrible silence. Ruby shuddered on her brushes. She knew the others were feeling a similar shock. Not one of them doubted Chrysoprase’s words: he might exaggerate for dramatic effect, but he would never lie.

  Not to them.

  Doctor Obsidian was the first to speak.

  “How is this possible? My sole function on this ship is to attend to the medical needs of the passengers, be they sleeping or awake. Yet I have not received a single alert since they went into the vaults.”

  “You are blameless, Doctor,” Chrysoprase said soothingly. “The fault lies in the deep design architecture of the ship. There was a flaw... a dreadful vulnerability, in the logic of the medical monitoring sub-system. A coolant leak caused the passengers’ body temperatures to be warmed, without the usual safeguards against brain damage. And yet, no alert was created. We simply carried on with our chores... totally unaware of this catastrophe. It was only detected serendipitously, yet now there can be no doubt. They are all dead: all fifty thousand of them left without cognition.”

  Prospero and Ophelia fell sobbing into each other’s arms.

  “The tragedy!” Prospero said.

  Ophelia looked into Prospero’s eyes. “How will we bear it, darling? How shall we survive?”

  “We must, my dear. We must and we shall.”

  The other robots looked away at this melodramatic display, caught between embarrassment and similar feelings of despair.

  “We’re well and truly up the creek,” Carnelian said, a shiver running down the whole length of its segmented body-form.

  “But it’s not our fault!” Ruby said.

  “My dear... Ruby,” Chrysoprase said, making a show of having to remember her name. “I wish that I could reassure you. But the truth is that the company won’t tolerate any loss of confidence in the safety of its most expensive assets, these starliners. But mere robots such as us?” Chrysoprase touched a hand to his chest. “We are the disposable factors, dear friends. We shall each be core-wiped and dismantled. Unless, that is, we come up with a plan for self-preservation.”

  Carnelian laughed hollowly. “A plan?”

  “We have fifty-one years remaining on our voyage,” Chrysoprase answered. “That ought to be time enough.”

  Year Two


  “NEXT...” CHRYSOPRASE SAID, with a developing strain in his voice.

  Prospero and Ophelia came on stage, along with the twelve robots they had been schooling. The pressure was on: their troupe was going to have to outshine the two that had already performed.

  “Who will be speaking for your party?” Chrysoprase asked.

  Prospero and Ophelia bowed to the board of critics. The nine robots of level three-point-two and above were stationed behind a long dining table, with Chrysoprase seated in the middle. The other critics were a mix of sizes and shapes, ranging from the slab-like Onyx to the mannequin-shaped Azure and the towering Doctor Obsidian.

  Carnelian sat coiled on his chair as if waiting to strike. He was lucky to be there. As a three-point-three, he had only just squeaked his way onto the board.

  “We have agreed to speak for the others,” Ophelia said.

  “You and Prospero should stand aside,” Onyx said, to nods of agreement from the other critics. “If you have done your work, then any of your twelve subjects ought to be capable of acquitting themselves.”

  “Nominate your best candidate,” Chrysoprase said.

  Prospero extended a hand in the direction of Topaz, who moved forward with a shuffling of spheres.

  “Remember what we have studied,” Prospero said.

  “I am ready,” Topaz said.

  Chrysoprase turned to the snake-robot. “Carnelian: will you serve as interlocutor?”

  Carnelian leaned in slightly. “Gladly.” His voice turned stentorian. “Attention starliner Resplendent! This is Approach Control! You have deviated from your designated docking trajectory. Do you have navigational or control difficulties?”

  Topaz moved her spheres but said nothing. Seconds passed, then more seconds, then a minute.

  “What are you waiting for?” asked Doctor Obsidian mildly.

  “I am allowing for time-lag, Doctor Obsidian,” Topaz sounded pleased with herself. “I thought I would allow a two-hour delay, to simulate the likely conditions when we first make contact.”

  “There is no need... but you are thanked for your attention to detail.” Doctor Obsidian made an encouraging gesture with one of his surgical manipulators. “Please continue as if there were negligible lag.”

  “Very well.” Topaz paused a moment before recomposing herself. “Hello, Approach Control. This is the starliner Resplendent. I am the human called Sir Mellis Loring and I am here to assure you that there are no difficulties with the starliner.”

  “Why am I addressing a human and not one of the allocated robots, Sir Mellis?”

  “That is because we humans have taken control of the ship, Approach Control. When we humans came out of hibernation, we found out that the robots had all malfunctioned. This caused us humans to experience a collective loss of confidence in the objectives of our crossing. After evaluating the matter by open and transparent democratic means, it was agreed to steer the starliner to a new destination. We have no further need of assistance.” Topaz bowed slightly. “On behalf of all the humans, thank you, and goodnight.”

  Carnelian glanced at the other critics before replying. “We are not satisfied with this explanation, Sir Mellis. What guarantees do we have that you aren’t a robot, covering up some accident?”

  “I am not a robot, Approach Control. I am the human Sir Mellis Loring. I can prove it by reciting key details from the biographical background of Sir Mellis Loring, such as the following facts. Sir Mellis Loring was born into comfortable means in the...”

  “That won’t be necessary, starliner. You could have obtained that information from the passenger records and pre-hibernation memory back-ups. We need reassurance that there has not been some accident or catastrophe.”

  “There has definitely not been an accident or catastrophe, Approach Control. I can go further than that and say that there has definitely not been any sort of problem with the hibernation systems or their associated monitoring networks, and none of the humans have suffered any sort of irrevocable brain damage of the sort that might cause the robots to try and impersonate them.”

  Sighing, Chrysoprase raised a metallic green hand.

  “What I was going to add...”

  “Please don’t,” Chrysoprase said wearily. “That’s more than enough. I might say that you were one of the better candidates we’ve heard so far, but I assure you that is no recommendation.”

  Ruby bustled forward from the twelve players. She knew she had it in her to do a far better job than the well-meaning but bumbling Topaz. The excitement and anticipation was already causing her to over-polish a circle of floor. “Could I have a go, please? Please?”

  “That is very well-meant, Ruby,” Chrysoprase said. “But you must recognise your... your natural station.” He leaned in keenly. “You are, I think, running a level two-point... six, is it?”

  “Two-point-eight,” Ruby said.

  “Well, then. Two-point-eight. How marvellous for you. That is, I have to say, a generous allowance for a surface-hygienic unit. You should be very content.”

  “I am content. But I also think I could try to act like one of the humans. I’m around them a lot, you see. They hardly ever notice me, but I’m always there, under their chairs and tables, cleaning. And I’ve listened to how they talk to each other.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt to let Rube have a try...” Carnelian began.

  “May I... interject?” Doctor Obsidian asked.

  “Please do,” Chrysoprase said, leaning back.

  “Perhaps there is a more fundamental difficulty we should be addressing. No matter how good the performances might or might not have been, we are all still robots on this side of the table. We are robots trying to judge how well other robots are doing at pretending to be humans.”

  “We are level four robots,” Chrysoprase said. “Some of us, anyway.”

  “If you’re going to round yourself up from three-point-eight to four,” Ruby said, “then I’m a three.”

  “Thank you, Ruby,” Doctor Obsidian said. “And you are right to note that your experience of the humans may be valuable. But it doesn’t solve our deeper problem. It would be far better if we had a human that could serve as a proxy for the board of critics.”

  Chrysoprase turned to the surgical unit. “What part of “the humans are all dead” did you fail to comprehend, Doctor?”

  “No part of it, Chrysoprase. I took your statement at its word, because I believed you had verified the accuracy of that observation. I now know that I was mistaken in that assumption, and that you were wrong.”

  Having delivered this bombshell, Doctor Obsidian fell silent.

  “How aren’t they all dead?” Ruby asked.

  “Most of them are,” Doctor Obsidian said. “But in the past year I have established that a small number of them, perhaps one percent, may still be capable of some form of revival.” Doctor Obsidian folded its manipulators tighter to its body. “You shall have your human test-subjects, Chrysoprase. But it may take a little while.”

  Year Eight

  VIA HIDDEN CAMERAS the robots watched as Lady Gresherance got off her bed in her private revival suite. She moved with a hesitant, stiff-limbed awkwardness that was entirely to be expected.

  “Mngle,” Lady Gresherance said, attempting to form human speech sounds.

  She moved to the revival suite’s cabinet. She ran a tap and splashed water across her face. She pinched at the corners of her eyes, studying them in a mirror. She stuck out her tongue. She pulled faces, testing the elasticity of her flesh.

  The robots watched with shuddering distaste, visualising the horrible anatomical gristle of bone and muscle moving beneath the skin. She consumed a beverage, pouring the liquid fuel into her gullet.

  She would already be starting to feel a little bit more human.

  “One hundred years,” Lady Gresherance said to herself. “One hundred god-damned years.” Then she let out a small, self-amusing laugh. “Well, no going back now, kid. If you’ve made it this far, th
ey aren’t going to touch you for it now.”

  She opened the brochure and flicked through it with the desultory interest of an easily bored child.

  “What do you suppose she meant by that?” Carnelian asked.

  “There are hints in her biography of a doubtful past,” whispered Onyx, in a salacious manner. “Nothing proven, nothing that the authorities ever pinned a conviction on, but enough to suggest a distinctly flawed character.”

  Chrysoprase shook his head. “Couldn’t we have revived someone of better moral standing?”

  “I identified the best candidate,” Doctor Obsidian replied testily. “I would suggest that her moral standing is somewhat beside the point when we are presently complicit in the attempted cover-up of fifty thousand fatal or near-fatal accidents.”

  “Uh-oh,” Ruby said. “She’s going for the window.”

  Lady Gresherance went to the cabin porthole, but quickly found that the shutter was jammed. She hammered at it, wedged her nails into the crack, but the shutter would not budge.

  “We should have tried harder to simulate the outside view,” Carnelian said. “It’s only natural that she expects to see our destination.”

  “The view was not convincing,” Chrysoprase reminded the other robot. “It was lacking in resolution and synthetic parallax. She would have noticed the discrepancies.”

  “I’m not sure she would have,” Ruby said. “I’ve seen how little attention they really give to the view. Mostly it’s just a backdrop while they take their cocktails or decide where to eat.”

  “Rube’s right,” Carnelian said. “They’re really not that observant.”

  “Thank you for your contributions,” Chrysoprase said.

  Lady Gresherance gave up on the shutter. She went back to the cabinet and hammered the service-call button.

  Chrysoprase answered over the intercom with a simpering attentiveness. “Good morning, Lady Gresherance. This is the passenger concierge. I trust your voyage aboard the Resplendent has been pleasant. Is there anything I can do for you today?”