Unexpected Magic

by Diana Wynne Jones

  “But it seems to get on with the kitchen machines,” said No One.

  “Don’t be too sure of that!” Aut grunted.

  No One left Aut dozing in the sun and went to his next task, which was to mow the lawn. Aut had told him a great deal which did not match any program he had. He was trying to adjust to it all the way to the shed where the lawn mower lived. The lawn mower was only a semi-intelligent robot, with a bigger brain than the floor cleaner, but not much. “Don’t ask me to do the grass alone,” it said as No One wheeled it out. “I’m no thinker.”

  “But you have been here longer than me,” No One said. “You can tell me about the creature called Someone. Is it hard or soft?”

  “I don’t know that it’s either one,” said the mower. “But I heard it drinks milk. Where do I start?”

  No One surveyed the garden. One half of it looked a neat flat green. The other half was green too, but high and ragged. Obviously the ragged half needed mowing. “Here,” he said, wheeling the mower over to the high part.

  The mower started with a whoop and a roar, joyously, and went to work with a will. It cut two long swathes in the ragged green stuff. Then it choked. It stopped, chugging with juicy uncontrollable laughter. “Do you know what we just mowed?” it coughed.

  “Grass,” said No One.

  “Grass! Oh my rotors!” laughed the mower. “We just cut down Scantion’s dahlias. And before that we did for his raspberry canes. Oh, he will be mad!” Here it sobered down. “Look what you made me do!” it chugged dismally. “We’ll both be scrapped for this!”

  “Oh dear,” said No One. His acute robot hearing picked up the snuffling sound in the bushes. Someone was there, laughing at him. He also picked up a gasp from Edward, who was standing at the back door with both hands over his mouth. Edward had taught him to bargain. “I will admit it was all my fault,” he told the mower, “so that it will be me who is scrapped. In exchange, you must tell me truthfully why all the machines are making fun of me all the time.”

  “Had orders, didn’t I? We all did,” the mower said. “Mind you, it was funny, too.”

  “Whose orders?” said No One.

  “Don’t make me say,” whined the mower. “He’d melt my chips.”

  “Is Aut part of the fun?” asked No One.

  “Old Man Aut!” said the mower. “I should say not! He’s a half-soft like you. He doesn’t take orders.”

  “Thank you,” said No One and walked sadly back to the house. “How long do dahlias and raspberries take to grow?” he asked Edward.

  “Ages!” said Edward. “Nuth, Dad’s going to be furious. I don’t want you scrapped. What shall we do?”

  “I must try to think for once,” No One said. He went into the house. He deserved to be scrapped. His programs were no good at all. They did not even tell him what grass looked like. He went to the phone. He dialed Automart and ordered it to send Fawley Manor five hundred dahlia plants and a thousand raspberry canes by Express. That should be enough. Then he went to Mr. Scantion’s County Computer Outlet and asked it about Someone.

  County Computer was unhelpful and inclined to be snappish. “This thing does not exist,” it said.

  “But I can hear it,” said No One. “It laughs. My audials do not lie. It moves things about the house.”

  “Your audials must have flange-flutter,” said County Computer. “You say it isn’t machine, or animal, or human, and you can’t see it, but it drinks milk. You’re telling me it’s supernatural. Such things do not exist.”

  “I see,” said No One. This unhelpfulness was probably quite helpful. Pondering it, he went toward the cellar door.

  Edward ran after him. “Nuth, you can’t go there! That’s where House Control is. No one’s allowed down there.”

  No One turned and looked at Edward. “No One?” he said. To both their surprise, No One’s silver face wrinkled in a way which, in a human, would have been a smile. He opened the cellar door and went down the stone steps.

  “Warn off! Warn off!” said House Control, flashing blue sparks. Little blue and red lights dimpled all over it. It was a large black installation with cables running from it in all directions. “No one is allowed to approach me!”

  “That is all right. I am No One,” said No One. “Please stop sparking. I do not melt at those temperatures and I am more expensive than you. Why are you ordering all the machines to make fun of me?”

  “It’s boring down here,” complained House Control. “Besides, I do everything which needs doing in this house. We don’t need a half-soft like you.”

  “But I am here mainly to look after Edward,” No One explained. “And he costs more than either of us.”

  “I look after Edward,” said House Control. “I run six different burglar alarms and an emergency line to the police. I only let things through Security Gate if I have pictures of them in my memory bank. I don’t need you. When you came, I was warned that you’d try to take over my functions, and you are doing. Go and get scrapped!”

  “I shall get scrapped,” said No One, “as soon as Mr. Scantion gets back. So you have won. Now let us make a bargain for the time I have left. If you will order the machines to behave, you can help me look after Edward and have some fun as well.”

  “What kind of fun?” House Control asked suspiciously.

  “A game,” said No One. “My Games Capacity program tells me that you have many possibilities. Edward and I will go to the attic, and you must try to stop us getting down through the house to the Security Gate. But you must let me refuel Edward first with some sausages, or he may break down on the way.”

  “Done!” said House Control. “If I hold you up till nightfall, then I’ve won. This is going to be good. Shout ‘Coming, ready or not’ when we start, and I’ll throw the whole house at you.”

  “But there is a rule that you don’t hurt Edward,” said No One.

  Edward greeted him with relief as he climbed out of the cellar. He was even more enthusiastic than House Control about the game. “I don’t need lunch,” he said.

  But No One had his orders. They went to the kitchen area. There, the hopper had stopped pouring out beans and the dishwasher was no longer sending out water. The floor cleaner was at work sucking up coffee beans and wiping up water. When No One went to the freezer, the gray packet on top was obviously sausages. The microwave meekly allowed him to put the sausages in it to thaw. But the clothes washer grumbled to itself and the autocooker protested, “I can cook sausages. I am a professional artiste and you’re just a Jack of All Trades. Let me do him some of my spinach pancakes au maison.”

  “Edward is going to cook the sausages,” No One said hastily.

  Edward liked cooking as it turned out. He liked his sausages black on one side and pink on the other, which No One’s program assured him was incorrect. The autocooker agreed. “And he’s just a blasted amateur,” it said.

  “Quiet,” said No One. “Edward, what is your full name?”

  Edward looked around as he carried his plateful of parti-colored sausages to the dining area. “Edward Roderick Fitzherbert De Courcy Scantion. Isn’t it awful? Why?”

  “To help me learn to think,” No One explained. “Why is it Fitzherbert and De Courcy?”

  “After Mum’s ancestors,” said Edward and departed to eat his sausages.

  No One fetched a saucer of milk and put it in the middle of the clean floor. Then he stood as still as only a robot can, waiting. His audials picked up an eager little pattering almost at once. The milk in the saucer began gently rippling, and getting less as it rippled. The very slight sounds that went with this assured No One that something about half the size of Edward was drinking the milk. He let it almost finish. Then he said, “Someone.” His audials told him that the thing sat up and looked at him. He said, “Someone, you are being unfair to me. I have a program called History of Fawley Manor which tells me that when Edward’s ancestors owned this house, they too had servants dressed in silver like me to look after them
. I am quite traditional really.”

  Someone did speak, in a sort of way. No One understood it when it told him it was too bad! And anyway, silver servants were always expendable.

  “Maybe,” No One said cunningly. “And you have organized the machines against me so that I shall be scrapped. This is a pity, since I am now programmed to give you milk. Nobody else knows you exist.”

  True, Someone agreed. But it saw No One’s game, and it didn’t have to have milk: it just enjoyed it now and then. He didn’t think it would ever put up with something as improbable and newfangled as a man-machine, did he? Look at what people had done to Fawley Manor already! No One was the last straw!

  “Think again,” said No One. “I am so new and advanced that I am as improbable as you are. We have a great deal in common. Our names prove it. It is the attraction of opposites.” That was from the Miscellaneous Wisdom program, which perhaps was not so useless after all. “The wheel has come full circle,” No One added.

  Put that way, Someone said, there was something in what No One said.

  “And I think we are both anxious for Edward’s safety,” said No One.

  As for that, Edwards come and Edwards go, said Someone. But he was the heir to Fawley. Very well, it said grudgingly. It would see what it could do about stopping No One getting scrapped—though, frankly, it couldn’t see what. Mr. Scantion was not going to forgive those dahlias in a hurry.

  “Thank you,” said No One. He was putting down another saucer of milk, when he heard the chimes from the Security Gate. That meant Betty had come back, rather sooner than she usually did. No One went to the Gate panel beside the front door. Edward stuffed the last sausage into his mouth and pattered after him.

  Betty’s face appeared in the panel, looking woebegone even for her. “I am come back,” she announced morbidly. “By wild horses dragged—ai-ai-ai! I mean this is me what am by this gate is.”

  “Don’t let her in, Nuth,” said Edward. “She’ll spoil the game with House Control.”

  This probably counted as an order. No One hesitated. Security Gate said, “Have to let her in, House. Face on the memory banks.”

  “Bother it!” said House Control. “Yes, I agree we have to. Never mind. She’ll probably walk out again when the fun starts. Press the switch, No One.”

  “I suppose you’d better really,” Edward said, sighing.

  And Mrs. Scantion had told him to be especially nice to Betty. No One rather reluctantly pressed the switch, wondering why—The panel swirled and went blank, which was not usual. “What is Betty doing?” No One said.

  “Who cares?” said Edward. “Leave the door on the latch for her and let’s get up to the attic and start the game at least.”

  They had got to the foot of the stairs when the front door crashed open. Betty was hustled through it by four strange men who all had guns. Behind them, outside the open door, were the pink headlights of a strange robot car.

  “Stand where you are, both of you!” shouted one of the men.

  Another said, “Damn it! That’s a robot. Why didn’t you warn us, girl?” and hit Betty so hard that she fell over.

  Betty lay in a terrified huddle, screaming, “Nobody asked and I done telled you! Swear I! And is stupid robot, stupid!”

  No One stood by the stairs with his eyes pulsing from pink to white, almost on extreme overload now he saw what he had done. He had seen irregularities in Betty’s behavior. She had tried to warn him. If ever a robot deserved scrapping, he did for this.

  Beside him, Edward was on overload too. His face was so white it had a greenish tinge. “What do you lot think you’re doing?” he said loudly. “How did you get in?”

  “By disconnecting the Gate as soon as you threw the switch in the house,” one of the men said smugly. “I’m a gate expert.”

  “And you’re coming with us, lad,” said another man. “Come quietly and you won’t get hurt.”

  “Why?” said Edward.

  “Because your mum can be useful to us in Parliament, and your dad can be even more useful to us with money,” said the man who had shouted. “Come over here before I shoot you in the leg, there’s a good boy.”

  As Edward started moving slowly across the hall space, No One recollected what Aut had told him and took a step forward. “Stand still, robot!” shouted the man who had hit Betty.

  “I am a household robot. You have to order me by name,” said No One, and he kept walking.

  The man darted forward and snatched hold of Edward’s arm. “What’s your robot’s name, boy? Out with it, or someone will get hurt!”

  “Nuth,” said Edward. “Stand still, Nuth, please!” Since Edward had ordered him, No One was forced to stop, while Edward went on, “No One can help. No One can walk about without getting shot. A bullet through your brain would finish you just like a human, Nuth. There,” he said to the man. “I’ve made Nuth see reason.”

  He had indeed. As the men walked toward the front door with Edward, No One used his radio to House Control. “Coming, ready or not,” he said. “In the hall. Count the four men as playing, but count me and Betty out.”

  “Right,” said House Control. One of the moveable walls instantly slid across the open front door, blocking the men’s path. The men backed away from it, shouting in surprise. They glanced angrily at No One, but he was standing stock-still. While they were looking, two moveable sofas came racing down on them. House Control had spent Edward’s lunchtime working out its plan of campaign. But, since No One had told it to leave Betty out, it simply forgot about her. No One was forced to move into superspeed, pick Betty off the floor, and drop her on top of the sofa as it whizzed across the place where she had been crouching.

  There was a loud noise. Something clanged on the side of No One’s head and he swayed on his spongy feet.

  “No, don’t!” Edward shouted. “Nuth had to do that! Robots aren’t allowed to let people get hurt. Stand still, Nuth.”

  No One was forced to stand obediently by the wall across the front door, while the men dragged Edward away toward the living area. “Show us the back door, lad,” one of them said. “And no tricks.” Betty buried her head under the sofa cushions and sobbed. She was not going to be any help.

  “Did your alarm go off at the police station?” No One radioed to House Control.

  “No,” said House Control disgustedly. “They cut all my wires.”

  “Then hold them up as long as you can,” No One radioed. He turned his radio to full volume, tuned it to BBC One, set it to repeat, and broadcast an appeal for help. That meant that he was out of touch with House Control, but House Control seemed to be doing quite well on its own. Whenever the four men tried to drag Edward toward the back door, a wall slid and got in their way. They had to make their way through a moving maze. Every time they saw an opening and dived for it, there was a table or an armchair in the way. Every time they came near a heating vent, steam whistled out at them and drove them backward.

  “Someone! Where are you?” called No One.

  Someone scuttered around the end of the sofa where Betty was. This was a pretty pickle! it said. Fat lot of use No One was as a servitor!

  “I know,” said No One. “I must certainly be scrapped. Can you think of any way to get rid of the car those men came in?”

  Someone chuckled. Just watch! And, in its supernatural way, it melted itself through the wall and through the front door. Meanwhile, the four men were kicking over the cocktail cabinet that was blocking their way to the dining area and hurrying through toward the kitchen. House Control had laid an ambush here. The floor cleaner trundled out from behind the last wall, set to blow. A blast of dirty coffee beans met the four men. When they tried to take shelter behind the dining table, the table dodged.

  “No One can do anything to help!” Edward screamed above the rattling beans.

  This allowed No One to go to the nearest window, where he could see the men’s robot car standing by the front door. The lawn mower was advancing on i
t, roaring. “Out, out!” it howled, whirling its rotors threateningly. “I shall slash your tires!” The car juddered nervously and backed off down the drive. The lawn mower followed it. “Go away! I shall have you in ribbons!”

  Then one of the men shot the floor cleaner and they all rushed past it to the kitchen area. House Control had laid on a splendid reception here. The refrigerator, which was a very meek machine, lay sideways across the entry. On top of it stood the microwave, far from meek, open and turned on. The men got out of its way quickly, knowing they could be cooked. But the gate expert pulled himself together and waved an arm in front of the microwave—the arm was Edward’s, not his own—and the safety circuit at once switched the microwave off. Another of the men shoved it to the floor, and they all scrambled over the refrigerator into knee-deep foam from the dishwasher and the clothes washer. Under the foam, like mines in a minefield, lay gray frozen packets from the freezer. All five of them, Edward included, slid flat on their backs. As they lay there, the pepper grinder began to work, and the coffee grinder, the flour dispenser, the cornflakes hopper, the spice mill, and the garlic crusher.

  No One overrode his own safety circuits by assuring them that he was going to be scrapped anyway. He walked out through the window in a shower of burglar-proofed double-glazing and went at superspeed down the drive to shut the Security Gate again. The robot car was by then doing a desperate U-turn through Mrs. Scantion’s rose garden, and the lawn mower was flailing after it. Fast as No One went, the car was faster. It flashed past him on the drive, crashed through the Gate, and roared away down the road, with the angry lawn mower in such hot pursuit that it left a vapor trail like a jet plane. By the time No One reached the Gate, it was a complete wreck. He picked it up, trailing wires, and stood it between the gateposts.

  That wouldn’t even stop a mouse, Someone remarked, scuttering at his feet. Why didn’t people use boiling oil these days?