by E. M. Foner
I rarely saw humans riding their bikes after sunset, and those who were out usually pedaled slowly, keeping within the feeble beam of light cast by a sealed reflector lantern. In forested areas, it was easy enough to stay on the road simply by watching the clear ribbon of sky overhead, but bicycles were so expensive that most of the locals were unwilling to gamble on damaging them in a silly night-riding accident.
For the first time in six months, I reached out with all of my active sensors, including millimeter-wave radar, and almost fell off my bike. An Original was silently loping through the fields parallel to the road, casually leaping over fences and irrigation ditches as he kept pace. Yes, the resolution of my night imaging is more than sufficient to pick out anatomical features on a running anthropoid in the dark. How long had the Originals been following me, and were they tracking the rest of my team as well?
Paul, I sent. I’m under observation.
Pedal faster, he replied. I lost my tail a minute after I left the village.
That’s not the point, I transmitted. I want to know how long this has been going on.
Can’t turn back time, Mark. I’ve had the feeling that somebody is watching me the whole time we’ve been here, but I wrote it off to paranoia.
Since when does artificial intelligence suffer from paranoia?
You really should have paid more attention to pop culture back on Earth. I’m activating the first unit. Transmit your absolute receive time to me.
For the next hour I followed Paul’s instructions, helping him bring the detection grid online and calibrating the results. Coverage wasn’t perfect because three-quarters of the world’s surface was ocean and he’d only managed to ship a couple of units to the northern continent, but taking the planet’s rotation into account, we would get a reasonably complete picture of local space at least once a day.
What’s your stalker doing, he sent when we finished.
Keeping his distance. I don’t think he knows that I’m onto him.
Assuming he follows you back home, do you want me to nab him?
I considered the plan for a moment and then rejected it. No. Let’s let them think that they’re in control of the situation. If we panic them, they could go to ground and the seven of us would never find them.
Okay. I’m returning to the village and I’m going to take the gag off my antenna’s receiver. I’m getting tired of having to manually connect to check if there’s been any action. It’s primitive. Next time you insist on radio silence I’m going to rig the receiver with an alarm or a flare.
Twelve
“That’s the last time I give my students a pop quiz on their first day back from vacation,” eBeth declared, throwing herself onto the bench where Spot was snoozing. “Ow! When are you going to buy a couch?”
“I’m worried about spillage,” I told her. “Did your students all fail?”
“They cheated,” the girl complained. “Who cheats on multiple choice tests? I was so disappointed that I pretended not to notice when everybody around Naomi began copying from her and passing their papers around, but I still had to send Monos to the back of the class because he was repeating the answers out loud and distracting everybody. Then he started acting like a complete maniac.”
“You mean he threw a tantrum?”
“It was more like watching one of those crazy street people back home. He was holding up his paper and talking to the indoor garden like a bush was going to give him the right answer. I was so freaked out by the whole thing that I snuck out the front exit and went around to the back of the auditorium so I could stick my head in the door and see what he was doing. And you know what?”
“He was reading each question and all of the possible answers—”
“He was reading each question and all of the possible answers—” eBeth continued before my words registered. “How did you know?”
“There’s an Original hiding in the garden auditing your class. His English is very good, at least as far as listening and literacy goes. He isn’t able to speak, though, so he must have been shaking a bush or giving some other sign when Monos hit the correct answer.”
“And you were going to tell me this when?” eBeth growled at me.
“Sue said it might upset you,” I lied, throwing my second-in-command under the bus in the same way husbands on Earth blame their wives. “He seemed very nice.”
“Does this Original have a name?” she demanded icily.
“Art, though he might have made it up on the spot. They aren’t actually original, by the way. At least not to this planet.” The girl’s eyes grew even colder, if that was possible. “I was going to tell you soon,” I concluded feebly. “I’ve had a lot on my plate.”
“If Monos knew about the Original hiding in the auditorium’s garden then everybody else had to know about it as well,” eBeth said, after a few minutes of giving me the silent treatment, during which I did my best to look remorseful. “There’s no way that boy could keep a secret.”
“It seems that the humans on Reservation build indoor gardens in their large meeting rooms to give the Originals an opportunity to observe,” I told her. “My mistake was in assuming that the greenery was there for health reasons or as a sweetheart deal for the glass blowers to help them sell window panes.”
“So I’m not only pretending to teach Northern to my students but to an alien as well!”
“I think he knows it’s not Northern,” I told her, figuring I would get all the bad news out in one shot. “I suspect that the villagers know it’s not Northern as well. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty certain that everybody has us pegged for aliens.”
“But I’m NOT an alien,” eBeth protested. “I’m as human as the villagers. More human, if being born on Earth counts for anything.”
“There aren’t any Ferrymen on the planet,” I said, rushing to get it all out. “The humans run the whole show and keep to the covenant for their own reasons, though I have the feeling we’ll be finding out soon enough.”
“Is that everything?”
I reviewed the recent events in my mind and added, “I visited Library. Somehow my mentor knew about Sue’s engagement ring, and I figured out that Pffift will be here any day.”
“I certainly didn’t tell your mentor about the ring if that’s what you’re implying,” eBeth said, but I detected a hint of obfuscation in her speech pattern.
“You did tell somebody,” I hazarded a guess.
“Just because it was funny. I mean, come on. I think you knew all along what I was doing and you just wanted somebody to blame in case Sue rejected you. I even asked how much you earned the last three months before picking out the ring.”
“That did ring a bell, but without Internet access—”
“You could have checked your copy of Wikipedia.”
“Your turret clock will be here in a few days,” I said.
“Smooth,” eBeth mocked me. “I never saw that subject change coming. And since when is it my turret clock?”
“It’s your apprenticeship graduation project,” I told her. “Technically, you don’t meet the time-in-service guidelines, but I’m counting the three years you helped me on Earth and giving you credit for sixteen hours a day.”
Spot barked a short warning from out front, and a quick scan showed me that the headmaster of the village school was approaching The Eatery with two other humans, one of whom I recognized as the county safety inspector from the unmistakable radar signature of the bronze star on his belt. The female was a mystery.
“Are you forgetting to tell me about something that happened at school today?” I asked eBeth.
“Oh, right. The headmaster said to tell you he’d be stopping by. He apologized for not making an appointment but he knows that you come home at lunch to take me out on your afternoon repair jobs. I told him you wouldn’t mind.”
“Hard to believe he’s that anxious about the clock,” I said with a frown. “This could turn out to be sticky. Maybe you had—”
Considering I was going to suggest that she sneak out the back door, her guess wasn’t even close. Before I could crow about it, The Eatery’s front door opened and the delegation trooped in, with Spot bringing up the rear.
“Joshua, Saul,” I greeted the headmaster and the safety inspector at the entrance to the dining room. “I hope none of you have had lunch yet. It’s a little late and the kitchen is between shifts, but I’m sure eBeth and I could manage something between us.”
“We’ve already eaten,” the headmaster assured me. “I don’t know exactly how to put it, Mark, but this isn’t a social visit.”
“Is eBeth in trouble?” I asked, focusing my attention on the woman who accompanied the men. She carried herself like Lieutenant Harper, which reminded me that I was due to make a smuggling run to Earth myself. “My daughter was raised on the northern continent, you know, and they do things differently.”
“I do know,” the woman replied. “My name is Hilde and I’m the customs officer for the northern continent stationed at your provincial spaceport. Saul asked me to come.”
“I hope I haven’t been breaking the law by mail-ordering parts from other provinces,” I said, mainly to buy time for eBeth, who had turned beet-red when Hilde mentioned being from the northern continent. None of the visitors as much as cracked a smile at my weak joke. “Why don’t the three of you come in and have a seat?”
Saul grunted his assent and led the others to the table I indicated, confirming my suspicion that he was the one in charge. I gave eBeth a head tilt towards the exit, but despite the fact that she was obviously battling off a panic attack, she elected to stay. I tried a different head tilt on Spot, who interpreted it correctly and moved in close to the girl to offer emotional support.
“We’ll come right to the point, Mark,” the headmaster said. “We know that you and your extended family and friends aren’t from this world.”
“I’ve been called a lot of things in my life but this is the first time somebody has taken me for an alien,” I fibbed, at the same time silently alerting my team that we’d been made. “What led you to this bizarre conclusion, Joshua?”
“The day you arrived through your temporary portal outside of the village, a shepherd happened to be recording an authenticity video of himself watching his sheep,” the headmaster replied. “He didn’t notice your arrival because he was facing the wrong way and he’s a bit deaf, but an editor at the spaceport saw your group appearing out of nowhere in the video’s background and alerted the administration.”
“When did this allegedly occur?” I asked, clinging to the idea that we might yet talk our way out of it. Mass hallucinations wouldn’t cut it as an excuse since the evidence was on video, but maybe I could convince them that the images were ghosts from a previous recording that hadn’t been fully erased.
“The spaceport authorities notified me within a week of your arrival. The opportunity to have a native speaker from Earth come in and teach to the children was too tempting to pass up,” he said, turning to eBeth. “I’m sorry we deceived you into believing we thought you were teaching Northern, but we wanted more time to assess what your group was doing here before showing our hand.”
“I forgive you,” eBeth said immediately. “Actually, I felt bad about teaching a language the children may never get the chance to use. But if you already knew I wasn’t teaching Northern, why bring her?” she asked, indicating Hilde.
“Customs is the closest thing we have to a global security service on this planet,” Hilde replied, her answer suggesting that she was familiar with policing on other worlds. “Saul thought it would be a good idea to have a senior representative along, and I happened to be available.”
“So why are you telling us this now?” I asked, eBeth’s confession having rendered pointless any further attempts to cling to our cover story. My main concern was that other aliens were involved and that Paul had been wrong about nobody monitoring the radio frequency spectrum. “Are you acting in place of the Ferrymen?”
“We wanted to confirm that you were artificial intelligence before contacting you,” Saul said. “The Ferrymen may not be the only aliens who transported a population of humans to another planet. You might have been industrial spies from a reservation world set up by a different species.”
“The Ferrymen may have moved humans to more than one planet,” I said, curious to find out how much they knew.
“They seeded three worlds with humans, as I’m sure you already know. Now that I’ve answered your questions, I’d appreciate if you could tell us your purpose in coming here.”
I was a bit taken aback by the directness of his approach, but with our cover blown, there was no reason to sow further confusion.
“My team’s previous mission was to evaluate Earth for membership in the League, with which you’re obviously familiar. On discovering that the Ferrymen had set up reservation worlds for humans, we were tasked with assessing your condition.”
“To offer us membership to the League?” Saul asked cautiously.
“That’s above my pay scale,” I told him. “The Ferrymen are already members of the League, so our initial brief was to make sure they weren’t violating Sky God rules on this world.”
Strangely enough, all three members of the delegation breathed a sigh of relief at my answer, leading me to conclude that they didn’t want to be invited to join the portal network. I was still phrasing my next question when eBeth asked, “How did you know that Mark is artificial intelligence?”
“Little things,” the headmaster told her. “We’ve all taken turns testing your math skills, physical abilities such as strength, reaction time and night vision, and none of the young men who’ve seen Helen dance believe that it’s humanly possible.”
“But it is,” eBeth told him. “I’ve already told her she should teach a class.”
“Have her talk to me. It’s a shame we don’t get more use out of the building outside of school hours.”
“Maybe the Originals have a full schedule of classes in the middle of the night,” I suggested, trawling for whatever information they might have been holding back.
“The natives are solitary creatures,” Saul said, which told me that he wasn’t aware they were as alien to the planet as the humans. “The Ferrymen prohibited us from interfering with them, though our scholars who study the League’s laws suggest that this was overly cautious since the Originals are obviously intelligent enough to make their own decisions.”
“Our turn,” Hilde said. “Our security at the spaceport reported an alien insect flying around inside a ship and raised the alarm about a potential invasive species. Attempts to quarantine the bug failed, but one of the crew members who saw it thought it was likely artificial.”
“Was he a fisherman?” I asked.
“How did you know?”
“I guess that was my fault,” eBeth said. “I made some insect disguises for mobile bugs and I used my imagination.”
“Very impressive for artificial intelligence,” Hilde said.
“I’m as human as you are,” eBeth blurted out before I could stop her. “So is Peter.”
“From Earth?” the headmaster asked, and received a head nod from the girl in confirmation. “That’s fine, then. We don’t expect any competition from that direction.”
“What’s wrong with Earth?” she demanded.
“We don’t have portal access ourselves so this is all second-hand, but according to reports in the galactic media, the planet is technology-crazed. Even if there are still people in poor areas with the skills needed to compete with us, they’ll be the first to leave your planet for cushy jobs in the galactic service industry. Your world scored an eight on the League’s long-term planning scale.”
“Out of ten?”
“A hundred,” I told her. “Don’t feel too bad. You scored above average for energy, even if you
spend most of your time running in circles.”
“While our sponsors are a bit lazy,” Joshua said with a chuckle. “Are there any species in the League who do less with more?”
“You’d be surprised. At least the Ferrymen wander around and find other sentients to earn them profits. There are a number of fully automated civilizations at the bottom of the scale who can’t even be bothered to communicate with the rest of us anymore. In fact, I doubt anybody would notice if they died out and were replaced by their robots.”
“If I could return to the subject at hand,” Saul said politely. “Although our people have been traveling the galaxy in Ferrymen ships since we took over distribution for our goods hundreds of years ago, none of us could risk using the portal network for fear of being detected. We’re told that the filters can see through any physical disguise.”
“That’s true, although now that Earth has joined the League, you could pass as, uh, Earthlings,” I said, with an apologetic glance at eBeth for using the term she disliked. “What I don’t understand is why you seem intent on keeping your existence a secret from the rest of the galaxy, especially when you’re doing such good business.”
“The Ferrymen are the ones doing the business,” Hilde reminded me. “We’re just their humble workers.”
“Why don’t you take over?” eBeth demanded with the impetuosity of youth. “If you’re making the goods, flying the spaceships, doing the marketing—are the Ferrymen good salesmen?” she interrupted herself.
“No,” the headmaster told her. “The only thing the Ferrymen are good at is ferrying. They used to dump our excess production on the galactic equivalent of flea markets and accept whatever was offered. It wasn’t until our people took over distribution that we started getting fair prices for our goods.”