by Mike Resnick
“Shh, Golrina is about to give birth,” Danura said, bending farther over the table and peering intently at the words as she scrolled to the next page.
I sat back, a smile upon my lips. I knew that she had got it, that the love of reading had lodged in her heart. I recalled the days of my youth when I first discovered Jules Verne and, later, Edgar Rice Burroughs. I was surprised to realize that I was now living a life far more interesting—and dangerous—than John Carter of Mars.
I leaned forward again, to discover that Danura had paused, rubbing away the tears that were streaming down her face. She noticed me and buried her head in my shoulder, crying, “She lost the baby, she lost the baby!”
I comforted her as best I could and reminded her that it was a work of fiction, that it wasn’t real.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s real; it matters what I feel!” she scolded me. A yawn escaped her and she looked back at the book, clearly torn between reading more and her need for sleep.
“It will be there tomorrow,” I told her, recalling fondly my mother’s words to me as a child: “The print won’t fade.”
She allowed herself to be led back to her room. There she got ready for bed in her usual unselfconscious manner, being no more concerned with her modesty than if I had been a piece of furniture. I had grown used to it, though it still made me uncomfortable. She knew it, and it amused her.
Finally she crawled under her sheets, and I made ready to go. But she stopped me with a raised hand, patting the side of her bed.
“You’ve never told me of your homeworld, Tangor,” she said now, muzzily.
“There’s not much to tell,” I said evasively. I had made it clear to her that Argos heard every word said in the domes and was listening with special care to the words I said—as I’d made it a point of asking him to do so (saying it was to be certain that he sent aid if I asked for it but also allowing me to verify my suspicion as to his eavesdropping abilities).
“Were there many women for you?” she asked now. “Were you a lusty lover in that other body?”
We had been in each other’s close company for such a while now that I had little difficulty grasping the import of her question.
“They are thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands—of years gone,” I replied. In truth, there had only been one brief romance before the rigors of war restricted my movements—and it had been a chaste thing with all the heat of first love.
Yamoda was not much different, although I got to see more of her than I had of Veronica Smith.
“But you still have your memories,” Danura said, reaching out from under her blankets to pat my leg. “In that way you are like a book. So tell me your tale.”
I toyed with denying her but then decided it would be a harmless diversion and give nothing away to Argos that I would regret. So I told her about Veronica—“Ronnie”—and how we’d met in high school and how we’d danced at the Fall Ball. And then there’d been Pearl Harbor, and I’d signed up with the Army Air Corps and had been sent to fight the Germans.
I kept my voice in a low monotone and, soon enough, was rewarded by the sound of Danura’s gentle snores. Gently I put her hand back under the sheets and leaned over to kiss her forehead good night.
She said nothing the next evening when I came for her, instead prattling on about the book and being certain that I had not read ahead of her. She finished that book and three others, even as I introduced her to the technical manuals. Those bored her and she dismissed them with a wave.
However, I had planned for that, leaving her to read while I worked on several projects for Argos—and myself.
When she was ready for a break, I whistled up one of the more imposing worker machines and then whistled for another. I made the right hand signal for the first mount to descend and climbed aboard.
“You can ride them?” Danura cried in delighted surprise. “Show me!”
“It’s in the manual,” I told her. “I’ve keyed it for your screen, all you have to do is read it.”
“But I want to ride now!” she said imperiously.
“So read quickly,” I told her. “I’m hungry and I’m going to eat at the High Commissary—they’ve made your favorite soup.”
“What?” Danura said. She stamped her foot. “You can’t leave me here!”
I smiled at her and rolled the controls on my worker machine. Noiselessly we turned outside around her and the worker I’d summoned for her and then sped off into the distance even as she wailed angrily, “Tangor!”
Hunger, as always, proved an excellent motivator, and she was only twenty-five minutes late in joining me. She dismounted, her face flushed with excitement and her hair akimbo from the wind that her flying worker machine had generated in its speed.
On the ground, she rushed up to me, fists raised, and pummeled my chest. “That’s for leaving me!” she cried, and then leaned up and forward to plant a kiss on my lips. “And that’s for making me learn.”
I wrapped my arms around her and gave her a tight hug before turning to the tables. “I’ve kept the soup warm.”
“I knew you would,” she purred, retaining one of my hands and leading us to the waiting table. A server machine whisked out our hot food and poured drinks.
We spent little time talking while we ate, but our eyes spoke volumes.
Over the next few days, Danura perfected her grasp of reading and her grasp of technical work. She became engrossed in the most intriguing tasks and insisted on treating Argos like a mere male which seemed to cause the machine some confusion which pleased me quite a lot, particularly as I was busy with my own plans.
So when Danura became engrossed in one of her projects, I engaged in some of mine.
As I’ve said, Argos is an intelligent machine and runs the three domes of Tonos. Its ability to track parts and explain repairs was phenomenal, but it was just as stupid as any supply officer when it came to preventing a little creative accounting, as my old tech sergeant used to say with me, winking before presenting me with a brand-new engine he just “happened” to locate.
I knew that Argos would track items, because it was a requirement of its operations, but I also knew that, however intelligent Argos was, it was originally designed and built by humans—Tonosians over three thousand years ago—and so subject to the same industrial myopia that afflicted all such massive engineering tasks.
Argos, in short, couldn’t see the trees for the forest. I soon learned exactly how it maintained track of its inventory—it used the simple assumption that all powered machinery needed powerpacks or batteries of some kind and so rigged special trackers in those.
Once learned, it was not difficult to become an expert on “troubleshooting” problems with power supplies, some of which invariably were deemed too decrepit to spare. In fact, most of them were nothing of the sort; I merely declared them so when, in fact, I had removed the tracking circuitry.
So, for my escape, I had constructed several items that I was reasonably sure Argos would not be able to track.
I had also been careful not to reveal the location of our craft.
Now my plan was complete. It was time to implement it, return to my craft, leave this planet—but not return to Poloda.
I knew that sooner or later my disappearance would be noticed, but I’d planned to create the maximum amount of confusion just before my departure. Even so, I was too certain that Argos forgot nothing and its “hatred”—if a machine can have such emotions—of the long-dead Kapar meant that it would not be long before it considered taking vengeance on his descendants. In that much, I wished the machine all the luck it could get.
Unfortunately, it was obvious that once the population of Tonos was restored to its former levels, there would neither be enough resources nor dome space for all the people. At such point, naturally, Argos would look to expand its presence.
By coming to Tonos, I had endangered not just the despised Kapars but all Poloda.
I was resolved to come up with
a solution. There was no solution here—only more problems—and no solution back on Poloda, even with the technology I’d learned of. So my best hope was to press on to the other worlds of Omos and see if perhaps on one of them I could find either a world the Unis could inhabit or help that would protect them from not only the Kapars but also the more dangerous machine intelligence, Argos.
There was no reason to believe that Handon Gar would support me in this. In fact, he seemed more than willing to remain with Evina and become the father to a reinvigorated race of Tonosians. If I tried to tell him my fears, I risked losing all, so I decided that I would venture on my own.
All this, naturally, I kept from Danura, for she, too, had a part to play in my plan.
Of course, I was a fool.
It began well enough. It started when I escorted Danura back to her quarters late one evening. After I left her, I went on to my quarters, which I now could check to see if they were empty using a simple electronic detector Argos had provided—for he was in on my avowed plan to usurp Gar and provide more humans to be trained as technicians.
In my quarters, I checked the gear I had stowed earlier, pleased to see that no one had disturbed its location—Argos did not realize that in revealing his tracking abilities to me, he had showed me how to evade them. I was now very good with that sort of electronic circuitry.
After that, I lay down and tried to sleep. I had set an alarm on my communicator and glanced at the time display restlessly as the minutes crawled slowly on.
Finally, unable to take the strain, I made my way to a refresher and showered. I was surprised to find Danura there in another stall.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she confessed with a wry expression.
“Get dressed, and I’ll meet you in the Great Hall, where we planned,” I told her.
Ten minutes later we entered the Great Hall together. The Great Hall was the name for one of the many large gathering places in the dome. It was the place that Danura had led me to that first day when Gar and I were brought to learn the Tonosian language.
We grabbed food and took a table far away from the rest of the morning crowd, eating slowly and waiting for the arrival of Gar and Evina.
They came, Evina moving regally, with her head high and a haughty expression in her eyes. Beside her, Gar looked smug and well-pleased. I knew from the recordings Argos had shown me that both secretly plotted to be the ruler of the other—they were well-matched in their duplicity.
A few well-wishers approached, made obeisance, and moved away. Others left for the food dispensers and returned bearing trays that they set in front of Evina and, with less evident relish, Gar.
“Your friend acts like he’s a Prime Mother,” Danura murmured to me, her eyes flaring with anger.
“If Argos is right, he is even more important,” I reminded her. Danura snorted; the notion that a male could steadily provide offspring was beyond her experience and outside her comprehension, so low had the reproductive potential of the Tonosian men sunk.
“If Argos is correct, your world will change in short order,” I reminded her. “What will it be like when there are hundreds—thousands—of Prime Mothers?”
Danura shook her head, denying the notion.
“It’s time,” I said to her. “Are you ready?”
In response, she rose from her chair and paced toward the cluster that surrounded Evina and Gar. I followed her, my eyes on Handon Gar.
The group surrounding them slowly grew quiet and parted as we approached, eyeing me with surprise and Danura with respect.
“Evina,” Danura said.
“Ah, I see it is Danura risen from her illness,” Evina said to the others with a faint smile on her lips. “Perhaps she has recovered from the news that I bear my third child.”
“As do I,” Danura returned easily. Evina’s eyes went wide and Gar shot me an astonished look. I held my expression tightly, not knowing what Danura meant.
“So, little Yamoda will be disappointed,” Gar said, rising from his chair and moving toward me with a hand outstretched, “but I imagine congratulations are in order.” He grabbed my hand and murmured to me, “You old rogue, you.”
“Did you miss me?” I asked him.
Gar’s smile widened and then slipped. “I, ah, didn’t notice you were gone for quite a while, to be honest.”
“I presume congratulations are in order,” I said, nodding toward Evina.
“Perhaps twice,” Gar said, his smile broadening as he nodded toward Danura. “Unless you are claiming responsibility.”
“It would be easy enough to tell,” I said, masking my mixed emotions over this revelation about Danura.
“Not even on Poloda do we know how to do that,” Gar said, shaking his head. “One could make assumptions based on looks, but that is not always accurate.”
“No,” Danura said, stepping over toward us, “there are ways to tell who is the father.”
“What are you talking about?” Evina demanded, moving to regain her position in the center of the conversation.
“Gar,” I said, turning to the Polodan, “did you not wonder where I was during my absence?”
“I presumed you were either pouting or otherwise occupied,” Gar said with a wide grin, his hands moving to gather Evina and Danura against him. Evina moved in reluctantly, unused to such male behavior, but Danura slipped out of his grasp with a look of fury.
“You are not my master!” Danura said.
“No,” Evina purred to her, “but soon I will be. As Prime Mother, you are bound to my rules.”
“There are two Prime Mothers here, Evina,” Danura replied tightly.
“Maybe more,” I said with a smirk toward Gar, who, to my surprise, laughed at the quip. Clearly, he had no inkling of his danger.
“What matters most,” I said, “is the care and raising of children, the preservation of the dome, and the people.”
Evina snorted at my statement of the obvious.
I raised my voice to carry, “What if all men could sire children and all women bear them safely? What then?”
I could see by the reactions of the others that this idea intrigued them.
“That is not possible,” Evina said. “Too many men are weak, as are so many women.”
I nodded to Danura, who smiled and pulled forth her communicator, tapping a quick code into it.
“What is that?” Evina asked, brows furrowed. Gar’s head snapped around, and his eyes widened as he guessed at what Danura held. Then he whipped his head to me.
I merely waited, a smile forming on my lips. Oh, I was going to enjoy this!
We had only to wait a moment before two worker machines noiselessly entered the room, moved to us, and stopped, lowering themselves for us to mount.
“This is the future of Tonos!” Danura declared, climbing aboard her machine. She pulled a reader from her large thigh pocket and waved it over her head. “This is what we forgot hundreds of years ago, and what I’ve learned again!”
As Gar, Evina, and the rest stared at us, two more machines noiselessly moved in and, at Danura’s gesture, lowered themselves in front of Evina and Gar.
“Come with us if you want to save Tonos!” Danura cried daringly to Evina. She saw the fear in the other’s eyes and said, with a sneer, “Or stay here to die in ignorance.”
Gar needed no urging, eyeing the machine thoughtfully for a moment before climbing effortlessly aboard. It rose silently into the air once more, and he turned to me, eyes shining.
The murmur of the crowd changed from confusion to disapproval of Evina, and the younger Prime Mother glanced around anxiously before reluctantly following Gar in climbing aboard her mount.
“Where to now, Tangor?” Gar asked.
“You’ll see,” I said, nodding to Danura, who entered a command into her communicator. The worker machines moved silently out of the room, followed by all the eyes of Tonos.
It was hard to determine which was more ecstatic—Gar or Argos—over the additio
n of our personnel. Certainly Evina was the most anxious, shrieking when Argos’s voice first erupted into the control room. She was also the slowest of us all to learn to read and disliked the effort required. At best she would never be more than an indifferent reader and a terrible technician. It was clear that Danura was by far the smarter of the two, a fact not unnoticed by Gar who spent time trying to distance himself from the other woman and spend more time with Danura.
In that, he bought himself the worst of all worlds. Danura wanted nothing to do with him, and Evina alternated between being clingy and waspish—and I got the distinct impression that the favors she had previously so lavishly bestowed upon him grew far less frequent.
As Evina learned to read and interact with Argos, she and Danura argued more frequently over who to bring next into the control room to learn to read and work on the complex machinery of the domes.
Evina, while not smart, was persistent, and before the end of the second week was demanding proof that the machinery of the domes could help in childbirth.
I myself had been amazed and not a little overwhelmed by the wealth of medical knowledge and ability possessed by Argos and its minions. I had been very careful to ensure that Danura did not learn how to operate the complex diagnostic equipment and so now spent time teaching Gar how to operate it while using Evina as a reluctant and very fidgety patient.
The equipment was a bit more personal than I would have imagined, but she took the invasion of her person philosophically, except when she was not only told the parentage of her child, and the state of the pregnancy but also its sex.
“A girl!” Evina cried happily. “Gar, you’ve fathered a girl!” She leaned forward to grab his face in her hands, disregarding any hope of modesty as she praised him. “You’re such a good boy!”
Gar bore the praise with what grace he could, considering he was being treated as would an infant on Poloda.
“Here, Danura, let’s see about you!” Evina said now, gesturing for Danura to disrobe so as to enter the machinery.
