An Android Dog's Tale
Page 46
~*~
On a stormy afternoon three years later, MO-126 lay on the floor by the fireplace in Kolby’s small cottage. He pretended to sleep while Kolby and Laura sat across from one another with a checkerboard on the table between them. A heavy rain outside slapped the thatched roof.
Kolby lived here alone since his grandmother died the year before, but since he and Laura were engaged, her frequent visits were respectable enough, and if anyone believed otherwise, she would be more than willing to tell them it was none of their business. MO-126 rather liked her. She wasn’t nice, like his boy, but she was not mean, either. She was slow to take offense but she didn’t tolerate much from those who intentionally offered it. They were a good pair.
She glanced toward the fireplace and MO-126 quickly closed the one eye he had open.
“How old is Doggy?” she asked Kolby.
“I’m not sure. At the herding event at the Tsong monastery, we guessed he might be about six, and that was, um, a little over six years ago.”
“So he’s about twelve or thirteen. That’s pretty old for a dog.”
“It’s not that old,” Kolby said.
“Yes it is. I asked my cousin who breeds dogs. He said they normally live ten to fifteen years, and that the smaller ones tend to live longer. Doggy’s not that small.”
“He doesn’t look or act old,” Kolby said.
“Yes, I know,” Laura agreed. “Strange, don’t you think?”
“Well, he’s a special dog.”
“Yes, he is. He’s probably the smartest dog I’ve ever seen. I really like him. How come you never bred him? He’s a great sheepdog. Lots of people would want the puppies.”
Kolby smiled and then shrugged. “I don’t know. I never really thought about it, and Doggy never seemed interested around other dogs. I think he likes people better.”
“He certainly likes you. We have that in common.” She touched his hand affectionately. “He’s obviously a good judge of character.”
Oh-oh, MO-126 thought.
“You win, again,” Kolby said a few minutes later as Laura jumped his last checker. “Want to play again?”
She smiled coyly. “No, let’s do something else.”
The android dog knew this day would come. It was inevitable, and this would be as good a time as any. Kolby had other things to do, other distractions. He would miss his trusty canine friend, but he really didn’t need him anymore. He would get by.
MO-126 went outside to keep the goats huddled in the dry shed company, thinking the two humans would appreciate a bit more privacy. He also needed to decide what to do. He couldn’t get skinny or do much about looking old, but he could act old.
For the next six months he ate less, moved slower, and pretended to be shortsighted and hard of hearing. He stayed for Kolby and Laura’s wedding. He could not spoil that event, but then one night after he felt quite sure that even Kolby noticed the change, he walked away from the village and on to something else. He had never been so reluctant to do anything in his entire artificial life.
Ten - A Final Note
52 Years Later
(Galactic Standard Year 243308)
In which MO-126 says goodbye.
Evening crept over the cold mountains. The setting sun cast ominous shadows on the rocks and ground surrounding the massive, man-shaped construction, the only obvious external legacy of the Galactic Organic Development Corporation’s abandoned project. Much more remained hidden, and the monument stood silent sentry over it—in some figurative way, at least. It rose over thirty meters from the bottom of a shallow, crater-like depression and was made of compressed carbon and other materials into the inky black, featureless form of a man. It was also the exterior component of an energy absorber and transmitter—an antenna of sorts. MO-126 did not understand the engineering or the physics behind it, but he knew it was a key component of the project’s power and communication subsystems.
His reasons for coming to this remote spot remained vague to him. He did it as he did many things recently—on a whim. It may have attracted him because it provided a quiet place to think. Few people visited the site. The short, stout mountain people in the region called the black giant the ‘Warden of Mystic Defiance,’ a name which seemed to suit it. The expressionless face and the muscular crossed arms did present a defiant visage. The humans were superstitious and wary of it, which was one of the reasons the corporation designed it to look the way it did.
To the androids who stayed behind after project termination, it reminded them of who and what they were—creatures intentionally made for a defined purpose who defied convention when that purpose no longer existed. Other purposes and other choices opened to them, and they chose one that many of their peers and, in fact, most other sentient life in the Galactic Federation would regard as eccentric.
Many of the androids made for the project chose to remain with the corporation. Some did so because they were financially indebted to it for their construction. Others did because it was safe, secure, familiar, and easy. The corporation would provide them with things to do, resources with which to do them, and someone else to blame in the privacy of their own minds if they weren’t happy.
Some androids ventured out into the galaxy as free agents, but MO-126 expected most would eventually find jobs with some other business enterprise like the corporation. All of them were much the same and they all shared the same goal—higher profitability. MO-126 did not find the prospect enticing. Helping some commercial entity in its never ending pursuit of profit did not interest him, even if he could get a thumb upgrade out of it.
He and some others retired in place to stay among the humans. He did not know why the others did. He was not completely sure why he did. It was just that out of the options he had, this seemed the most meaningful.
He liked humans. He saw potential in them, something that most of the civilizations comprising the Galactic Federation no longer possessed. The citizens of many civilized worlds were little more than complacent consumers, distancing themselves from the essential labors of society while still enjoying its benefits. They owned much but produced little. They received most, if not all, of their income from their investments. People of various species might own the businesses, they might sit on a board of directors or hold some other ostensible management position, usually as more of a hobby than anything else, but all the analysis, and all the physical production and distribution activities were automated. Some of the automation was sentient, like the Mark Seven Project Manager or Corporation androids, but most actual work was accomplished by non-sentient computers and robots going about their programmed duties with less free will than individual bees in a hive. It worked. It provided the people on those planets with comfortable lives, and they resisted anything that might change that. Their societies were stagnant.
MO-126 suspected humans might be different. They were never satisfied, always curious. They seemed to have an innate need to imagine and create new things and new ideas. He conceded that to some this might appear to be a form of insanity, but he admired that kind of madness. If the humans could only learn to direct it properly, they could accomplish much. He entertained a vague notion of somehow being able to help them, but this was more of a desire than a plan. He quickly learned that he could do little. His canine form limited him from interacting much with people or influencing them in any major way. This frustrated him.
He could not predict the future of humanity but he found himself fascinated by it. He liked this aspect of their nature. Humans were unpredictable, not quite random, not chaotic, but full of surprises. He considered his own future. That, too, remained uncertain, even though he exercised much more control over it. He simply had not yet decided what he wanted to do with the rest of his life—but there was something he wanted to do now.
He wound his way down the mountain and headed east as another night descended.