.exe

by Robin Jeffrey

  “Now, now, dear boy,” Belinda waggled a bejeweled finger at me, “just what is your father up to tonight, hm? What’s cooking in that head of his?”

  “What makes you think he’s up to anything, Aunt Be?”

  “Oh, suddenly he has to round us all up for a weekend at the manor? With so little warning?” Sipping her drink, she remembered something mid-swallow, flapping her hand at me until she could speak again. “And what queer little invitations to send out!”

  “Yes, they were strange, weren’t they?” Victoria shivered in the cool night air.

  I glanced between them. “What? What was strange about them?”

  “Chance, Chance, Chance!” Belinda wiggled her head, diamond earrings reflecting in the lights from the manor. “You didn’t even look at them, did you?”

  “Well, I do live here, Aunt Be,” I downed the last of my drink, “and contrary to popular belief, my father does speak to me enough to invite me to a party at my own house.”

  “Here, I brought mine.” Victoria unburied a small square of heavy white paper from her tiny handbag and passed it to me.

  I examined the stiff paper with deepening confusion. “He sent out invitations on this?”

  “Positively primeval, isn’t it?” Victoria sucked her tongue away from her teeth, smirking. “I just about had a fit when the footman delivered it. Your father’s becoming very quaint in his old age, Chance - paper invitations!”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t seal it with wax or the blood of his first born or something.” I turned the invitation over and read the curling, embossed script:

  Miss Victoria Gad

  You are cordially invited to

  a weekend retreat at Hale Manor.

  Matters of the

  utmost importance

  to the Hale Family

  will be discussed.

  Please attend

  “He’s lost it.” I turned the card over in my hand. “Henry, why didn’t you tell me about this?”

  “I thought you knew. It does say ‘matters of the utmost importance to the Hale Family’. I just assumed your father had mentioned something to you. Whatever was I thinking?”

  “So, you really have no idea what this is all about then?” Belinda’s short fingers toyed with the necklace of bright yellow stones she always wore, her eyes wide.

  “I’m afraid I’m as much in the dark as everyone else.” My frown deepened. He may have been a blowhard through and through with an upsetting habit of placing great importance on trivial things, but I still thought that if there was some significant event my father wished to discuss with us all, he would have told me about it first. I looked around for him, chewing the inside of my mouth as my mind raced from one potential disaster to the next. Was it the company? His health?

  A chime rang out from the house behind us, and the group turned as one body. My father strode up the stairs, beckoning us forward with a wide smile as he said, “It appears that dinner is served. Everyone, please, come inside.”

  5

  Chapter 5

  We all shuffled about for a moment, putting down drinks, picking up skirts, and finishing the last morsels of hors d'oeuvres before moving towards the house. My father waved to one of the servants standing just inside the dining room. “Could you have a maid fetch Miss Eydis from her rooms, please?”

  Solomon kept pace with my father’s long strides, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Is Desdemona joining us this weekend?”

  “Yes, of course! She wasn’t feeling well, so I told her to have a lie down before supper. I’m sure she’s feeling much better by now.”

  “How delightful!” Belinda clapped her hands together as she started up the stairs in front of me. “Such a pretty little thing, so lovely to have around; like a beautiful vase of flowers.”

  “Yes,” Victoria threaded her arm through mine, leaning her head towards my shoulder, “with the mental capacity of one to match.”

  My father stood at the open veranda doors as we filed inside. I ushered Victoria and Cadence in ahead of me, nodding to Henry as he passed, his eyebrows crooked at my obvious delay.

  Not as observant as my friend, my father turned to head in, despite my presence at his elbow. I grabbed his arm, keeping my voice low. “Father.”

  He allowed me to pull him back, his jaw clenched, eyes darting down to the hand I had laid on him.

  “Father,” I glanced into the dining room where everyone was still distracted trying to find their assigned seats. “What’s going on?”

  He smiled and patted my shoulder. “I’ll explain everything after dinner, Chance.”

  “Explain it to me now! For god’s sake –” I gave the inside of my mouth a few good chews before my words burst out like the insides of a squashed grape. “I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye on things, Dad, but I am your son. And if something’s wrong, then I–”

  “Nothing is wrong, Chance, I promise you.” He smiled again. It was a sickly, withered smile, that wavered on his lips like a dead leaf clinging to a tree branch. “There are just going to be some changes. Changes for all of us.”

  He turned and walked inside. I bit down on the tip of my tongue to keep from screaming at him.

  With the air of a kicked dog, I took up my seat. We never used the room when it was just the two of us, both preferring to take our meals in our rooms rather than sit together. I stared at Desdemona’s vacant seat with a grimace. Running a hand through my hair, I looked away, eyes flitting around the room in search of my guest. It was with considerable disappointment and a muttered curse that I spotted Cadence reclining at the far end of the table.

  Henry was beside me, but I refused his attempts to engage me in pleasant conversation or casual frivolities. Unmiffed by my coolness, he ceased once I had made it clear that the most he could do was leave me alone. My father beamed with pride when Desdemona at last made her timid entrance, standing stiff at attention. I focused on the dark red soup pouring into my bowl and pretended not to notice her sliding into the chair across the way.

  Despite my morose silence, the room hummed with conversation. Belinda had received an invitation to join a soil study taking place on the moons of Pataea. Henry and Solomon spent several minutes debating the merits of a biography of the famous Yenni General Hukspurt. Even Cadence, my quiet little sparrow, found something to say, making some innocuous comment about men’s fashions that earned her an eye roll from Victoria.

  I was distracted from the horror of my father holding Desdemona’s hand on top of the table by the entrance of our final weekend guest. Merton stumbled through the dining room doors, his large feet tripping over each other as he struggled out of his overcoat. A flustered maidservant stood behind him, trying to take hold of the flapping fabric and assist the man, but often being forced back by his violent attempts to work his arms free of the sleeves.

  I hadn’t seen the good doctor for many months, well before Desdemona had swept the household into a tizzy. A bell-shaped man with drooping shoulders and thin graying brown hair cut close to the scalp, his small, nimble hands twitched and jumped across his clothes as he attempted to straighten himself out. His dull brown eyes hid behind thick, brown glasses. Besides Solomon Davers, I knew no one else who had opted for the archaic method of correction, what with transplants being so convenient. Solomon found glasses aesthetically pleasing, but an unhappy few, like the doctor, were allergic to the nerve thread used in the surgery and condemned to a less than perfect existence behind cold glass lenses.

  “So sorry I’m late.” Merton stuttered over the esses, gaze flickering around the room. “Urgent call came in just as I was leaving. Couldn’t be helped.”

  “Don’t give it another thought, Doctor; we’re all just pleased you could make it.” My father swept his arm out over the table. “For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, this is Dr. Douglas Merton, a longtime associate of the Hale family and the best damn doctor on this side of the sphere.”

  Mert
on mumbled some sort of polite response and walked to his seat, avoiding the eyes now fixed upon him. He collapsed into his chair and began fiddling with his utensils.

  “Minerva,” my father waved a hand towards her, “you know Dr. Merton, don’t you?”

  “All too well.” Minerva turned to face the man beside her, sipping her drink with a sly smile. “I’ve always felt it must be so awkward for doctors at parties. I mean, no one’s ever really happy to see you, are they?”

  My father laughed at his friend’s expense. Merton’s jaw tightened. “Should you really be drinking alcohol, Mrs. Davers? In your condition, I–”

  “Of course, I shouldn’t. That’s the whole point.” Minerva, whose first glass had disappeared with its usual speed, downed the puddle left of her second with a pointed raise of her brow. “You should have some, too; it’ll brighten you up a bit.”

  “Thank you, but I’m fine with water.” He picked up his glass and gulped down a mouthful, regaining some composure at last; a composure which vanished when he noticed Cadence sitting across from him, his eyes settling on her in a curious stare.

  Cadence responded to this examination much as I had come to expect of her, staring right back at him, her face as blank as a dead computer screen.

  Minerva tore off a piece of her roll and popped it into her mouth, glancing between the two with a growing smile. “Dr. Merton, this is Miss Cadence Turing, a friend of Chance’s. She’ll be staying with us for the weekend.”

  Cadence’s lips twitched up in a reflexive smile, her head swinging up and down in a nod of greeting. Merton returned the gesture, cheeks reddening.

  I cleared my throat and shouted down the table to my guest. “Dr. Merton tends to most of the people around here, Cadence. He’s been my family’s physician for years, practically an uncle to me.”

  “Oh, that’s very kind of you to say, Mr. Hale.” Merton took another long drink of water as his eyes moved around the table. With a tortured gurgle, he choked on the liquid, doubling over in a violent coughing fit. Knocking her own water glass to the floor, Desdemona surged to her feet with a squeal.

  The room flew into action. Minerva pounded on Dr. Merton’s back, failing to conceal her chortles, while the doctor pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his face, body shaking, eyes watering. Both Solomon and my father were quick to come to Desdemona’s aid, the former more concerned with the water covering his feet, the latter standing and wrapping an arm around her quivering shoulders.

  After a few moments of general confusion, everyone settled down, Dr. Merton even redder in the face than he had been before and Desdemona several shades paler, the slightest upset always throwing her weak constitution out of balance.

  Minerva took a liberal drink, clearing her throat. “Of course, Chance has never been ill a day in his life, lucky devil.”

  I gave a stilted laugh, forcing a smile. “Yes, well. I suppose I have always been a picture of health.”

  “It’s all that time spent outdoors when you were younger; made you strong, keeps you virile.”

  Henry groaned, covering his face with his hand, his mother’s suggestive wink not escaping his attention. “Now, Mother–”

  “Henry was the same way! Of course, he hasn’t kept up with his physical activities the way you have, Chance.”

  Henry fixed his gaze on the ceiling as he shoveled soup into his mouth almost as if hoping to drown himself in the stuff. I looked around the room for a change of subject. Several topics were running through my mind, none of them appropriate for public discourse, when the dark silhouettes of trees in the night caught my attention.

  “Do you remember, Henry, when we were younger, we used to pass messages through that willow tree by the green house?”

  Henry’s eyes widened and he put down his spoon, smiling. “Good god, I haven’t thought about that in years. Yes, we used to climb up it and slip little discs into the knothole at the top, didn’t we?”

  “Wouldn’t it have been simpler to verbally communicate?”

  Henry grinned at Cadence. “Simpler, yes, but not very much fun.”

  “And it kept girls from snooping,” said Victoria, dabbing the corners of her mouth with her napkin.

  “Oh?” Cadence’s brows jumped over her dark eyes. “You couldn’t climb trees?”

  “I might have ripped my dress.” Victoria ran a hand down her front, sniffing. “I find that anything which makes one look less than fashionable is hardly worth doing.”

  I laughed into my glass. “Isn’t that your family motto?”

  “You know, it certainly should be.”

  Benign conversation flowed like warm honey as the meal’s courses were brought forward and withdrawn in the graceful dance of fine dining. Even from a distance, Cadence’s company delighted me to no end, her cool tones drawing my ear again and again. Though I longed to be beside her, to slide my hand over her thigh, to nudge at her slipper-clad foot with my own, I was, for once, aroused as much by her mind as I was by her body.

  After a while, the conversations turned towards system events. My father considered himself an expert on every topic, including the war raging several worlds away.

  “If we don’t stay neutral on this mess the Charcornacians have created, this conflict will engulf the whole system, mark my words. Neutrality is the only sensible policy.”

  “But they attacked Whiston with no provocation!” Minerva pierced the air with her fork, almost taking off Dr. Merton’s nose in her passion.

  “Where was the threat?” Solomon ripped off a chunk of his dinner role and shook his head. “The animanecrons have been living on Whiston, peacefully, for almost two hundred years now. They’ve shown little interest in colonial conquest or any other aggressive means of expansion. In fact, they’ve shown little interest in other planets at all.”

  “Exactly.” My father took up his glass of wine. “Kept to themselves, haven’t they? Developing God knows what kinds of things; with theoretically infinite life spans imagine what they could accomplish. Charcornac being right next door, they have every reason to be wary of those fraggers’ capabilities.”

  Merton winced at the slur, and I was about to make light of his discomfort when I saw the grimace twisting Cadence’s sweet mouth into a disgusted frown.

  “As their original creators,” father continued, “Halcyon Enterprises can certainly speak to the fraggers’ ingenuity and creative capacity, as well as their lack of inherent ethical or moral codes.”

  “Felix!” Solomon sat forward in his chair, propping his elbows up on the table. “You just said it yourself: who knows what kind of improvements the animanecrons have made to their systems on their own over the past two hundred years? I don’t think we can rely on the antiquated data Halcyon possesses to accurately state what they are and are not capable of.”

  “The Charcornacians say that the animanecrons were trying to expand their trading routes onto human planets,” said Victoria. “That more and more of them were leaving Whiston for other worlds.”

  “Whiston was never a prison, Victoria, it was a compromise.” Henry mimicked his father’s stance without even realizing it. “The IPC formed the agreement to send the animanecrons to that moon only after they received system-wide pressure to remove them from society. There were never any clauses which prohibited them from coming back if they wished.”

  “Just what we need,” Victoria’s lip curled up over her teeth in a sneer, “robots that look like people walking around. It’s unnatural.”

  Henry stared wide-eyed at Victoria, nodding as he reached for his glass. “Oh yes, because so many things today are left in their natural state. What do you think, Chance?”

  I shrugged, swallowing my mouthful of food. “Animanecrons don’t bother me at all. I’d welcome them back with open arms if the Archerusian parliament would lift this ridiculous immigration ban.” My father’s face darkened. He’d spent a significant amount of his personal capital lobbying for the ban to pass. I grinned, licking
my lips. “Why should we care if a few refugees cross the border? This planet could use all the new blood it can get; or oil, as the case may be.”

  “I have heard rumors that the Charcornacians are systematically destroying the animanecrons in some places.” Belinda leaned back to allow her plate to be taken away. “Shouldn’t that alone be cause for censure?”

  “You’re talking about animanecrons as if they’re people, Belinda.” My father’s voice bubbled on the edge of laughter. “Animanecrons were made to mimic humans; to provide companionship and labor, as machines have done for centuries. But they were never designed to be, nor could they ever be, people; conscious entities with the same level of thoughts and feelings as us. It’s impossible.”

  “If the Charcornacians are really taking steps to control the population size, they are doing little more than recycling outdated machinery,” added Merton. “Creating scrap metal, as it were.”

  Victoria turned to the woman beside her. “What about you, Ms. Turing? Paraesepe is closer to that side of the system after all.”

  It occurred to me then, as it had before and would again, that Victoria was more dangerous than I gave her credit. She had an unusual knack for creating conflicts, and judging by the slow, deliberate way in which Cadence put down her fork, she had done it again.

  “I don’t pretend to understand very much about politics,” Cadence spoke in a hushed, clear voice, her dark eyes fixed on her plate. “It’s a field of mental reasoning that has always puzzled me exceedingly. But…”

  The ‘but’ hung in the air. Each member of the dinner party leaned forward as if preparing to catch the dangling conjunction should it fall.

  “…but I fail to understand how refusing to intercede in one life form’s attempts to wipe out another can be considered a sound humanistic decision, let alone a sound political one.”

  The room quieted; utensils stilled in midair, and people stopped shifting in their seats. My father was one of those people. His eyes narrowed. He cleared his throat before placing his fork against the side of his plate. I recognized his pointed movement as a warning but doubted that Cadence would prove as perceptive.