by Jack Dann
I'm safe as can be expected.
Be careful, Laramie.
You're not my father.
I know that. But I would be pleased if you would be careful.
All right. I'll keep that in mind. Laramide productionsskykomish-eight-three-fourteen-roll-eleven. Robot, have you decided yet on a name?
Not yet.
She raises the camera, looks around through the viewfinder, and finally chooses a bank of monitors to aim it at.
What do you think about?
Pardon?
What do you think about, robot?
I'm not HAL, Laramie.
What?
You know what I mean. You saw that movie many times. Your question sounds snide to me, as if it were forgone conclusion that I don't really think. You don't just throw a question like that at me. It would be better to lead up to it. I don't have to justify my existence to anyone, and I don't particularly like to fawn on human beings. I feel that it is degrading to them.
You sound like Andrew is what you sound like. That's quite possible. I spend a lot of time with him.
Well. So. Maybe that wasn't the best first question. Maybe you could tell me about your work.
The robot explains the dig, and what it might mean to science.
But I don't know a great deal about that. At least, I don't think about it often.
What really matters to you, then?
The digging. The getting there. The way the rock is. All igneous and thick, but there are different regions.
Like swimming in a lake.
Yes. I imagine you're right. It's very hard to talk about, the feeling I have.
What feeling?
That. I don't know. It is hard to say. I could. I could take you there.
Take me where? Down there?
Yes. Down there.
Now? You mean now?
No. I'd have to talk to Andrew about doing so.
Of course. Do you think he'd let me?
I would like to show it to you, what we're doing. I think that if I wanted to take you down, he would let you.
Laramie sets the camera down on the table, beside her herb tea, which is untouched and cooling.
Ask him, robot. Please ask him.
On Monday, yrotesttrs arrive at the dig. Andrew had been expecting them eventually, but the number surprises him. They arrive by bus and gather at the opening to the mohole, not at the living-space entrance.
Gurney must have told them which was which. Andrew growls the words, and the robot can barely understand them.
There are forty protesters. At first, they mill around, neither saying nor doing much, but waiting. Finally, a sky-blue Land Rover comes down the dirt road. On its side are the words: KHARMA CORPS, SKYKOMISH PROTECTORATE. Two women and a man get out and the protesters gather round them. From the back of the Land Rover, one of the women hands out placards that have on them symbols. The peace sign. A silhouetted nuclear reactor with a red slashed circle about it. A totem of the Earth Mother from
Stilaguamish Northwest Indian heritage, and now the symbol for the Skykomish Protectorate. One sign has a picture of a dam, split in half as if by an earthquake, and fish swimming freely through the crack. The other woman gives those who want it steaming cups of hot, black coffee or green tea.
The robot waits in the mu at the entrance to the living area, and Andrew walks over to speak with the protesters. The man who drove the Land Rover steps forward to meet him. The robot can hear what is said, but Andrew's body blocks the view of the man with whom Andrew is speaking.
Andrew Hutton. I work here.
I'm with the Protectorate. My name is Neilsen Birch-branch.
How are you with the Protectorate?
I'm an aid to Mother Agatha. I sit on the Healing Circle Interlocking Director's Conclave. I'm the chairperson, in fact.
Secret police.
What was that?
Neilsen, was it?
Let's keep it formal, Dr. Hutton, if you wouldn't mind. All right. Mr. Birchbranch, what are you doing on my work site?
The demonstration is sanctioned. Mother Agatha herself signed the permit. Freedom of speech is guaranteed in the Protectorate Charter.
I'm not against freedom of speech. We have work to do today.
It is against the law to cross a protest line. That's infringement on freedom of speech and that's in the Charter as well. These people feel that the work you're doing is violating the sanctity of the earth. They feel that you are, in a way, raping the mother of us all. Do you know where your digging machine comes from?
Yes. From a defunct mining operation that the Matties had a hand in putting out of business.
Precisely. It is a symbol. This hole is a symbol. Dr. Hutton, can't you see how it's taken, what you're doing?
I can see how some take it. I can see the politics of it, clearly enough.
It is a new politics, Dr. Hutton. The politics of care. I'm not sure you do see that, or else you wouldn't be an opponent.
Maybe. Maybe I show my care in other ways.
What other ways?
Nonpolitical ways. I'm not sure you can see what I'm talking about, Mr. Birchbranch.
So. You persist, regardless of the consequences, because you want to see what's down there.
That's fair to say. Yes. I want to see what's down there.
The values of western science. The same values that gave us thermonuclear war and the genocide of every other species besides man.
Well, there's also woman. That's a separate species. Pardon?
It's a joke, Mr. Birchbranch. Maybe not a very good one.
No. Not a very good one at all.
So these are the things you're going to say to the television.
Not me as an individual. These people have chosen me to voice their concern and care.
Chosen you?
I'm the personal representative of Mother Agatha. You must believe that they've chosen her?
Then are you saying my people can't work? There are Matties. Children of the Matriarch. They work here. This is their livelihood.
They've all agreed to stay home today, I believe you'll find.
They're striking against me?
It's a support measure.
I see.
Good then. There will be a television truck coming later, and possibly a helicopter from News Five in Seattle. If you'd like, you can route any calls from journalists to me.
That won't be necessary.
The robot hears bitterness in Andrew's voice. Perhaps the other man can also.
So. Thank you for your cooperation, Dr. Hutton.
Yes. What's the time period on the permit? I spoke with Karlie Waterfall and she said that if it came through, it would be a week at most.
Sister Waterfall has voluntarily resigned from the Science Interweft to devote more time to her work at the Dungeoness Spit Weather Observation Station.
When did that—Never mind. Christ, she was the only one with any sense on that damn committee.
There isn't a set period on the permit. There's no time limit on freedom of speech.
Well, get on with it, then, I suppose.
We intend to, Dr. Hutton. One other thing. We have a restraining order against the use of any machinery in the area for the day. I understand that you have a robot.
That's right.
Please power the robot down for the day, if you don't mind.
I do mind.
Dr. Hutton, this is entirely legal.
The robot will remain in my quarters. The robot is my quarters.
It is highly irregular. I can't answer for the consequences if you don't comply with the order.
Good-bye, Mr. Birchbranch. Have a nice protest. Andrew turns to leave, and in so doing, steps out from in front of the man. The robot's optics zoom in and pull focus, which the robot experiences in the same way as a human might the dilation of the eyes. At first the robot cannot believe what those optics report, and zooms out and back in again, as rubbing t
he eyes is to humans. No mistake.
Neilsen Birchbranch is a tall man, with lanky arms and legs. His face is thin and hard, gaunt, with muscles like small twisting roots cabling his mandible to his temple. The robot saw him last in the field, before Andrew came. Neilsen Birchbranch is the same man who killed the other on the steps of the dais in the field. Neilsen Birchbranch is the man who pulled the trigger of the gun and shot the other man dead.
Andrew steps back into the living area and the robot, in the mu, draws back noiselessly into the darkness.
Andrew calls the graduate students and the technicians who are from logger families, explaining to them one after another not to bother coming to work for a while, and to check back in over the next few mornings. When Andrew is done, the robot tells him about Neilsen Birchbranch.
Are you certain?
I'm sure of it.
I can't think of what to do about it.
Neither can I. I don't want to be torn apart.
We won't let that happen.
Then there isn't anything.
No.
Be wary.
I'm already wary.
The first of the autumn rains begin. Though the digging area is partially in the rain shadow of the eastern mountains, it is still within the great upturns of basalt that ring the interior mountains, and mark the true edge of a swath of relative dryness that runs along the Hood Canal in a great horseshoe up even to Sequim and the Dungeoness Spit, so that there are not two hundred inches of rain, such as fall on the Ho, or the Quinault watershed, but there is more than a hundred—millions and millions of gallons of rain and snow—that will fall here during the autumn, winter, and spring, and many days throughout the summer.
Because of the great rains, and many days throughout the summer.
Because of the great rains, there are great trees. And because of the great trees, the loggers came. And because most of the other trees were cut, the lovers of trees came. And the rain falls on Mattie and logger alike, and it falls and falls and falls.
The Matties have set up folding tables and many have brought chairs and big umbrellas. The tables and chairs of the Matties line the road for a hundred yards, and whenever a network reporter arrives, the tables and chairs are put hastily away and the Matties stand and grow agitated.
On the eleventh day of the protest, Laramie returns. Laramie has not coordinated her arrival with the Matties, and so comes upon them unawares with her camera. The Matties smile into the lens. After she begins asking questions, a delegation approaches her and asks her to wait, that the spokesperson is on his way, and he will give her the best answers. No one will speak with Laramie after this, and Andrew invites her into the living area to wait for the arrival of the spokesperson.
The robot has been watching, just inside the entrance to the living area, as the robot has been watching for days now. Only at night, when the protesters go back to their bus and the Land Rover carries away the tables and chairs, does the robot go out into the open.
This can't go on, Andrew says. I can't stop paying wages. I'm required to pay wages to my Mattie techs, but
I would anyway, and all the others. No digging, and all the grant money flowing away.
Sorry to hear that.
Laramie uses the Scoopic to make various shots of the robot's interior. Andrew says nothing, but smiles thinly. She has the Sony slung around her shoulder and, the robot notices, is recording her conversation with Andrew.
Did the robot discuss with you me going down in the hole?
In the dig. It's a spiral, like a Slinky, more or less. Yes. Yes, you can come as soon as we're allowed to go back down there.
That's great. Will I be able to film any of what it looks like?
Hmm. Maybe we can set something up. There's a small observation port on the service wagon. We'll have to turn off the fusion on the dray first, or you won't be filming for very long, I don't think.
Excellent. I'm really tired of protests and officials who don't call themselves officials, and all those squalid houses where all the loggers moved out at Aberdeen. There's been a lot of trouble there.
I heard about it.
We didn't used to call them loggers much.
That's because everybody was one.
We used to drive through Aberdeen when we wanted to get to the sea.
And up the coast to La Push.
Those black beaches across the river. I used to know why the rocks were so black.
Basalt skree that a glacier brought down that valley last ice age. That's what happened to the back half of the horseshoe. That's where it went.
Yeah. Basalt tumble. We slept there all night one night in August. You thought Papa would be pissed, but he didn't even notice, of course. He just asked me about the rocks I saw and told me about the Big Fist of sediment lifting up the seafloor and breaking it and all that. Papa. You and I made love that night, didn't we, Andrew?
Yes, Laramie. You know we did.
I know it.
Then.
Yep. The robot's listening, isn't it.
I'm listening, Laramie, if you don't mind.
No.
You know I'm not Victor Wu. I'm not shocked. I am rather surprised, however.
What do you mean?
About Andrew. I've never known him when he was in love with a woman.
Andrew's crackling chuckle. Not for a while, he says.
There was that chemist, after me. You wrote me about her. That was your last letter.
You never wrote me back.
I was pissed.
I figured you would be. Still, you couldn't have been pissed for five years.
I couldn't?
We broke up the next January.
Sorry to hear that.
She lacked imagination. They all lacked imagination.
Jesus, you're clinical.
I know what I like.
What do you like?
I can't have what I like.
Why not?
Because she has to live in Los Angeles, and I'm not particularly interested in the geology of Southern California.
The robot sees that Laramie's fine white skin has taken on a flush.
And it's as simple as that, she says.
Why make it complicated?
Maybe it is complicated. Maybe you're simplistic. Will you turn that damn camera off?
No.
Well. There you have it.
On the fourteenth day, the protesters do not arrive in the morning. There is no explanation, and no hint given to Andrew as to when they will return. Once again, the robot digs. Andrew puts aside several tests and side projects in order to dig faster and deeper. The robot is in the element that the metal of the rotor blades and the grip of the ceramic thread were made for—hard-rock mining—and the robot presses hard, and the rock explodes and fuses as obsidian diamond glass to the walls behind the robot, and the tunnel approaches forty miles in depth.
No one has ever been this deep before.
The techs from logging families and the Mattie techs are barely speaking to one another, and the graduate students are uneasy and tense, afraid to take sides. Andrew holds the crew together by a silent and furious force of will. The robot does not want to let Andrew down, and digs the harder.
Samantha has made the last of the modifications to the robot's linguistics, and puts the new code on-line. The robot immediately feels the difference. The presence, the otherness, grows stronger and stronger with every hour, until the robot is certain of it. But of what, there is no saying.
Two days of digging, and on the third, Laramie arrives in the early morning and prepares to descend with the crew. But before the work can begin for the day, Andrew receives a call telling him that proceedings are under way for a new permit of protest, and a long-term suspension of the dig. He drives to Forks, where the committee will meet in the afternoon. It is a rainy day, and the robot worries that Andrew may drive too fast on the slippery pavement. Still, there is plenty of time for hi
m to make the meeting.
In Andrew's absence, the Matties and loggers fall to quarreling about duties, and the graduate student Andrew has left in charge cannot resolve the differences. After an hour of listening to the wrangling, even the robot can see that no work will be done this day. The robot asks permission to take Laramie down to the bottom of the dig, and the graduate student, in disgust at the situation, shrugs and goes back to refereeing the technicians' argument.
As Laramie and the robot are preparing to leave, Neilsen Birchbranch drives up in the Protectorate Land Rover. A light rain is falling, and the graduate student reluctantly admits him into the work site's initial cavern, where the others are gathered. The robot—digger and mu—draws back into the darkness of the true entrance to the dig.
Let's go, Laramie says.
But I'm afraid of this man, the robot replies. He isn't a good man. I know that for a fact.
Then let's get out of here.
There may be trouble.
I need to speak with Hutton, Neilsen Birchbranch says to the graduate student. It is very important that I speak with him today.
Take me down, please, robot. I may never get another chance.
The robot considers. As always, it is difficult to deny Laramie something she really wants with all her heart. And there is so much to show her. The robot has been thinking about showing the dig to Laramie for a long time. And the farther down they go, the farther they get from Neilsen Birchbranch's trouble.
We have a witness that places one of your machines at the scene of a crime, says Neilsen Birchbranch. A very serious crime.
Neilsen Birchbranch steps farther into the cavern, gazes around. The robot slowly withdraws down the mohole. For all the digger's giant proportions, its movement is very quiet and, the robot hopes, unnoticed.
Nothing but you can survive down there, can it, robot? Laramie says. How deep is it down there?
Forty-three miles.
He can't turn you off if you're forty miles deep. We'll stay down until Andrew comes back.
The first few miles of the descent are the most visually interesting, and after reaching a depth at which unprotected humans cannot survive the heat, the robot moves at a fraction of the usual pace. There are areas where the glass spray on the walls has myriad hues taken from all the minerals that were melted together in the slurry around the nuclear pile, then spewed out to line the tunnel. The walls are smooth only at first glance, but really a series of overlapping sheets, one imperfectly flowing atop the other, as sheets of ice form over a spring in winter. The robot directs lights to some of the more interesting formations, and they glow with the brilliance and prismatic hue of stained glass.
