Analog SFF, July-August 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

We got to work and by “we,” I mean mostly Deal, who was either very familiar with the procedure or incredibly adept at following pictorial instructions. And of course, with all those optical cilia, manipulative cilia, and arms, her motor skills made the operation dazzling to behold.

  Three boxes were crammed with smallish pieces, the other two had very few, but much larger ones. Looking at the sheet, I counted fifty-seven assembly steps ending with a completed robot standing next to the presumably empty boxes, all neatly stacked. Now and then, Deal asked me to hand over “the tetrahedron with an octagonal protruded helix” or some such, but I think she was just trying to involve me in the process as an act of pity. The gizmo kept getting more impressive and once its head—at least it looked headlike—was on, I estimated the finished project would be nearly ten feet tall and as broad as three of me. Most of its surface had a dusty, bluish gleam.

  My countdown timer had reached five minutes when Deal installed the final component: a shiny, twisted strip of translucent material that went around the thing's waist like a frou-frou cummerbund.

  “What do you think of it?” she asked. “Can you account for its surprising variety of waveguides?”

  “No, but it looks like a robot all right. Sort of manlike, if I squint hard enough . . . except for the three legs.”

  “Personally, I would assess it as an uncanny likeness, and see little difference between two and three legs, save for stability.”

  L's voice came from behind us. “The spitting image, as the locals say, of a human being.” L could sidle quieter than a cat by extruding a plethora of soft little tentacles.

  “Need me for something?” I asked him.

  “Not presently, but I thought it prudent to remind you of your upcoming appointment. And I must confess to a whim of curiosity concerning just what those boxes contained.” That must've been some whim since L had extruded a record number of eyestalks.

  I opened my mouth to point out that I hadn't forgotten an appointment yet, but the robot interrupted me.

  “Doctor Alanso Jose Morganson,” it said very clearly, but in a voice like a squeaky hinge.

  “Um. That's me.”

  “Doctor Alanso Jose Morganson,” it repeated.

  I turned toward Deal. “What's is this?”

  “A pity. We'd hoped for a different response than we'd gotten after prior assemblies. Now you know why we brought the robot to you; no matter what we tried, the completed machine would only stand in one place and say your name three times.”

  “Doctor Alanso Jose Morganson.”

  “Just so,” Deal continued. “If it follows precedent, it will now remain silent indefinitely until it is disassembled and reassembled.”

  I stared at my latest patient. “Where did this thing come from, anyway?”

  Deal stopped clicking but to my surprise, her translator said, “Thinking.” The translator's current mode evidently included a verbal “busy” signal.

  My timer flashed discreetly and vanished just as the clicking resumed. “The issue you raise, Doctor, has convolutions. I gather you are presently under a time constraint, and suggest we return to this topic later.”

  “Good idea. There's a client I have to see now, but I'll be back shortly. If you'd like to be more comfortable in here while you wait, my receptionist can boost the gravity while I'm gone.”

  “If you have no objections, I would prefer to accompany you since I have my own whim of curiosity to satisfy.”

  L backed out of the doorway as smoothly as warm butter gliding over an oil slick, but slowly and with his eyestalks all aimed at the robot. That gave me time to weigh the ethics of Deal's request before giving her an answer. Normally, I wouldn't consider bringing an observer to a private session, but in this case, I couldn't imagine what difference it would make.

  “What are you so curious about?” I asked.

  “I've been informed that this patient is a Vapabond, reputedly a most interesting species. I have seen images but have never met one before.”

  I looked at her in surprise as a baker's dozen eye-cilia gazed back at me. “We've got two Vapabondi here. Thought you knew.”

  “Yes, the other is your security officer.”

  “Supposedly. And a nurse, also supposedly. Her name is Tadehtraulagong, but I just call her ‘Tad.’ You haven't bumped into her yet?”

  “I haven't encountered her if that was your question.”

  “Come to think of it, I hadn't seen her today either.” This was odd since she was always underfoot—if “underfoot” can apply to someone nearly twice my height.

  * * * *

  Vapabondi are comfortable in Earth's gravity and can breathe our air as if they'd evolved here, so it hadn't been necessary to customize conditions in my patient's room. That is, it hadn't been necessary for her. I'd arranged for odor filtering to make the space more pleasant for me; that elephantine smell tended to build up. A Tsf translating device, programmed appropriately, sat near the vast bed in which my patient, Coratennulagond, lay supine, staring at the ceiling. If she'd been human, I would've judged her condition a twelve on the Glasgow Coma Scale—more stupor than coma.

  As a female2, Cora was visibly different from Tad: shorter but wider, and her torso-shell had fancier articulation. I'd never been able to mine much information from Tad, but a helpful Tsf visitor had explained that in Vapabondi, the female1 generates an equivalent to a human ovum and retains it until impregnated by a male1. After fertilization, the egg is transferred to a womblike organ in a female2 who, if all follows nature's blueprint, is protected by a male2 until the little one is born, or more precisely, ejected.

  "This is your patient?” Deal asked and I wondered why the translation came out sounding surprised.

  “She is. Hello, Cora,” I said as always, the translator honked and growled as always, and I received the usual response. Cora's walrusoid head gradually turned toward me, and the wrinkled eyelids quivered for a moment but remained at half-mast. “I've brought a friend, the Trader Deal-of-ten-lifetimes.”

  Deal clicked and the translator did some honking and growling, then said in English, “I am pleased to greet you.”

  The massive head slowed aimed itself toward the Tsf. Cora eyes opened fully, then blinked in slow motion. Surprise and excitement set my heart racing. The tip of a blue tongue appeared between her two lower tusks, licked across six inches of black, rubbery lip, and then withdrew.

  As I gawked at her unprecedented responsiveness, Deal placed a few finger-cilia on my arm. “What is wrong with her?” she asked, clicking more quietly than I'd thought she could, and the translation came out as a whisper.

  To my disappointment, Cora's eyelids drifted halfway down and she resumed her standard torpor. “Let's talk outside,” I suggested.

  Deal led the way to the hallway and after I'd closed the door asked, “What is wrong with her mind?”

  “Wish I knew.” I puffed out my cheeks and let the air out in a rush, a way of expressing frustration that always bugs my wife. “Deal, you've gotten more out of Cora in a minute than I have in the last six months. Maybe it's me, but everything about her case is . . . off somehow, even the way she arrived. I assume you know about that?”

  “I do not, and evidently what little information I did receive is incorrect. Soon-to-be-wealthy, a Trader in another division who is still a novice at dealing with extrinsic species, made the arrangements. I understand that your notoriety had been attracting deranged humans to this location and Soon-to-be-wealthy's solution involved a barter in which you were to be loaned a Vapabondi security specialist in exchange for your aid in treating a mentally ill Vapabond. What did you find unsettling about her arrival?”

  The idea that Tad was any kind of specialist gave me an instant hit of what we shrinks call “cognitive dissonance.” “You Traders brought me all the other ET patients I've had. Not Cora. She and Tad just showed up one day in a van driven by federal agents. It seems Tad had flown a shuttle down from whatever spaceship had brought th
em to Earth and landed it in a field fifty miles from the clinic.”

  Deal wriggled four limbs like pythons doing tricks, a Tsf gesture I hadn't seen enough times to make a stab at interpreting. “Vapabondi are clever but cautious beings, Doctor. They insist on autonomy in all things, so they would inevitably wish to affect the delivery. I cannot explain why the shuttle landed so far away, but I am no authority on Vapabondi behavior. Did the unexpected arrival create a problem for you?”

  “I wouldn't say unexpected. Your people told me the pair was coming, just not when. They even gave me a micro-briefing about Vapabondi.” Thank God. “But they knew nothing about Cora's condition. My problem was that she showed up with no documentation, patient history, or previous diagnosis—not so much as a Post-It—and the only thing I could get out of Tad concerning Cora was that Tad herself would be her nurse because only a fellow Vapabond could be qualified. In terms of evaluation, let alone therapy, I've been flying blind . . . without a paddle.”

  “Your metaphor mystifies me, but surely this Tad has oriented you by now?”

  I snorted. “Anything but. One theory I have is that Tad was ordered to tell me nothing so that I could assess Cora without preconceptions.” I had another theory less based on the intrinsic benevolence of all beings, namely that Tad was a jerk.

  “Shall we return to your patient?”

  We did, but this time Cora just lay there like a very large lump. Deal and I took turns talking at her, both of us failing to elicit any reaction. As always, I sensed that she heard but couldn't or wouldn't respond. Seeing that we were on a roll of non-accomplishment, I suggested we return to the room with the robot and continue wasting our time in a fresh venue. Deal agreed.

  The machine, to no one's surprise, stood exactly where we'd left it.

  “We have time now,” I said. “Getting back to my question, where did this thing come from?”

  The Trader aimed a few optical cilia at me, but kept most of them facing the subject of my question. “No doubt you recall the unfortunate Hoouk you correctly diagnosed on the Parent Ship.”

  I managed to mate a chuckle with a snort. “Even if I habitually forgot my patients, I'd make an exception for the only one from another galaxy.”

  “That is why I said ‘no doubt.’ After you returned to Earth, this individual recovered fully and was soon able, with our aid, to converse with its fellows.”

  My eyebrows decided to levitate. “They must have one hell of a communication system.”

  Several of Deal's limbs rippled.

  “Now what,” I asked, “is so funny?”

  She twitched, just once but all over, and more eye-cilia swung around toward me. “Your perceptiveness alarms me, Doctor, although by now I should have learned to expect it. How did you become so expert on Tsf body language?”

  “I'm no expert. But I've been around you Traders enough to pick up a hint or two. The source of your amusement?”

  “I will tell you, if you will remember that I mean no offense.”

  “Okay. Consider my skin properly thickened.”

  “At last, an intelligible metaphor!” It made sense to her, Pastor, because Tsf can thicken and harden the outer cells in their limbs into swordlike weapons.

  Then she let me in on the joke. “I was—” The translation device paused for an instant. “—tickled by something I've often observed. The manner in which a species survives long enough to become technological usually limits that technology.”

  “For instance?”

  “Humans. Despite your many physical limitations, humans possess adequate grasping powers combined with a shape that allows fair leverage. Therefore, your earliest foreparents depended on hurling objects both to hunt and to defend themselves against predators. Aids such as bows and guns flow from the basic idea of throwing, which has become so embedded in human perspective that in English, ‘weapons’ and ‘limbs’ are synonyms.”

  “I think you mean arms."

  “I see no distinction.”

  “Right. What does this have to do with long-distance communication?”

  “All your devices for this purpose are tools for throwing such things as microwaves, light, or radio waves. The Hoouk are more advanced than we Tsf in transportation, but we use identical communication tools. Distance is irrelevant when nothing has to travel.”

  I studied Deal for a long moment. “That's interesting. How do you communicate without moving anything?”

  Deal raised a limb and waved it chidingly; I wasn't the only one who'd learned something about alien body languages. “This information could be the basis of a future trade. It would be irresponsible of me to supply it gratis. Perhaps we should now turn all curiosity toward disassembling and reassembling the robot. We must be certain that no mistake has been made.”

  My curiosity wasn't in the mood to turn, but I saw no point in arguing. “I'm game.”

  “You might be distressed by how your last statement was translated, but I take it you are willing so we will proceed. Observe the process with critical eyes, if you will, for the smallest blunder could result in cumulative error.”

  I pored over the assembly sheet while Deal followed the instructions in reverse but so slowly that I could follow the procedure and sign off on each step. From the start, though, I had a nagging feeling we'd missed something obvious. If so, we both missed it all the way to the end, where nothing but machine parts and us littered the floor.

  “You agree,” Deal asked, “that I made no mistakes?”

  “Seems that way.”

  “Then I shall construct it again under your few but watchful eyes.”

  I sighed. “One downside to having a mere pair is that they get tired, but go ahead.”

  “Since I have memorized this process and wish to avoid automatically repeating any errors, I suggest you provide all assembly information as we proceed, and I will obey your directions.”

  “I like it.” And that way I'd set the pace. I lifted the assembly sheet and tried to look at it as if for first time. “Step one. Push the three long, gray rods into the holes in the smallest cylinder. . . .”

  With me calling the shots, the job took over two hours. I wouldn't say we completely wasted our time because when we were finished, I had the fun of hearing my name repeated three times.

  After that third repetition, I noticed that my shadow was darker than it should've been considering the room lighting. I wondered how long Gara had been with us, but if she wanted to go incognito, who was I to out her?

  * * * *

  That night, Sunny and I took turns reading bedtime books to our son. He finally drifted off and we dared tiptoe to our bedroom. The weather had made a surprise U-turn to unseasonably muggy, but my weather widget claimed cooler air would return after midnight, so I left a window and its curtains open. We put our DM CPUs on their chargers and lay in bed with the lights off, chatting a little and watching a broad patch of moonlight on the ceiling that had snuck into our room by bouncing off the small pond in our backyard. Whenever even the mildest wind arose outside, the light above us would fill with moving ripples.

  All this seemed incredibly peaceful, but I was too aware of the patrol car parked out front and too full of questions to relax. And when I closed my eyes, I kept seeing that damn assembly sheet. So I swallowed my pride and had my DM send a gentle 3-Hz pulse though my nervous system, knowing that within eight minutes my brainwaves would automatically sync to the pulse and I'd fall into a deep, delta-level sleep.

  Why the pride-swallowing act? Because I usually advise against direct DM brain stimulus as a soporific. It's too easy to become dependent on it and the process, continued over months, can scramble a person's natural sleep cycle. Yes, acoustic entrainment is supposedly safe, but that night I wanted the biggest guns. I'd been awake most of the previous night and didn't want to spend another day in a fog.

  So I was gently settling into a dream when a nasty thought that must've been circling my mind for hours finally landed. If the governme
nt could shut off my DM's recording function, what else could they legally make my DM do? Was I now bugged . . . from the inside? I paused the delta signal and called up a virtual screen, grateful that modern technology made it possible to do online research without getting out of bed and thus waking my wife.

  Having spent most of my life in the dark ages before nanobiotechnology and computer science got married, before data management systems were partially implanted, I still feel most comfortable controlling my DM with a keyboard. Oh, I can use subvocals just fine to input simple instructions, but strange things happen when I try the non-simple kind, and Sunny tells me that such attempts remind her of watching a bad ventriloquist. So I only used sub-V to summon what I wanted: a virtual keyboard facing me, floating in midair below an impalpable screen.

  I called up a meta-search engine, raised my hands to type, and then hesitated. If my DM system was bugged, did I want the, um, buggers plotting the exact vector of my suspicions? I needed to take a more tangential approach. Considering how Smith et al had prevented me from recording our session, wouldn't it be reasonable for me to research the legalities involved with that, and if the information I really wanted happened to hang out nearby. . . ?

  Figuring my best bet would be the kind of omnibus document reserved for law libraries, I forked over the twenty-five bucks for a single LexNex session and lo, the veils parted as the blindfolded lady with the scales appeared. Thanks to DM nerve pulses, I felt the projected keys under my fingers as I typed in my search parameters.

  Over a million hits, but LexNex sorted them so brilliantly that my answer waited in the very first document. What I'd feared was called a “mind-tap,” and it was out-and-out prohibited except when specifically authorized by an act of Congress.

  So I was semireassured. I dispelled my toys, closed my eyes, and of course the damn assembly sheet that I'd been staring at all day floated up again. An impressively clear image considering that my visual memory isn't normally terrific. I could practically see every detail, but it occurred to me that one detail could be missing.

  Where was the power supply?