Human Sister

by Jim Bainbridge

  Two months—it had been a difficult time for me, too. I’d missed Mom and Dad more in death, it seemed, than in life. Each cold night and each thought of the approaching winter saddened me, reminding me that their bodies probably lay frozen out on some Martian plain.

  I’d also felt First Brother’s absence more now that he was at an unreachable distance. He had become the androids’ leader and had broadcast to Earth heartrending, precise details of the attacks, the deaths of their human companions, the deaths of many of their human attackers, the misery and the putting down of several of their own kind that had been mutilated beyond repair. And he had threatened that additional attacks against the androids would bring unspecified dire consequences to humanity.

  I failed to help you love, I’d thought, watching him deliver this threat. He had appeared as cold as Mom had during her final transmissions.

  I walked with Elio back to his car. He kissed me and said he would pick me up the next morning at the Palo Alto Airport.

  Two days after the crisis climaxed on Mars, Grandpa had insisted I begin my university education. He’d explained that it was important for me to meet other bright young people and that he could no longer keep up with the pace of my learning. I’d countered that his tutorials were going well, that I planned to continue following all of Elio’s classes, and that I wanted to spend as much time as possible with Michael, who, I’d claimed, was challenging me more than any university class ever could.

  “True,” he’d said. “But you also must begin interacting with other people your age. I’ll try to get you enrolled as a part-time student. You and Michael look at the fall schedule of classes and pick out two or three that meet on the same two days of the week. You can drive in with Elio if you have Monday or Thursday classes. Other mornings, I’ll take you with me in the tiltrotor, and you can return with me at night. Two days away from here each week will do you good, and you’ll bring back many stimulating ideas and experiences for Michael.”

  Michael had enthusiastically agreed with Grandpa, and I’d enrolled in three graduate courses—Discrete Analysis, Neurogenesis, and Quantum Theory of Entropic Ordering—all of which met on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. However, because Grandpa insisted on having security personnel close by me whenever I was away from home, interacting with other students had been a bit strained at first; but as time went by, it seemed as though the guards began to blend into the background.

  I stood beside Lily as Elio drove away; then I groomed her and massaged her hips and shoulders before we set off for our morning walk, which, if she felt up to it, would turn into a slow run down the length of the drive and back four times.

  As we headed toward the security gate, Lily tugged forward on the leash, hurrying me along. She was obviously feeling better. It was then I glanced up at the southeast corner of the winery roof where First Brother had told me to look for the pigeonoid. After nearly eleven months of daily disappointment, I’d become resigned to believing I would never receive a message via the feathered robot. But this time, I saw a bird, gray on gray with some white adorning its neck and wings, perched near the prescribed corner of the roof—a bird appearing to closely resemble the pigeonoid.

  I quickly looked away, back to Lily. “Sit. That’s a good girl.” I knelt in front of her with my back to the winery and listened. I couldn’t detect any work going on in the vineyard. First Brother had instructed me to go to the plum tree nearest the security gate, inspect and touch the tree’s bark, then go up to the study table on the deck. But if someone had been following my activities lately, that someone surely would be expecting me to get up now and proceed with Lily’s exercise. Like Grandpa, I generally followed my routines precisely.

  I stood up and walked with Lily toward and through the security gate. It was a clear morning after a night of light rain. The low November sun glistened in water beading up on the grass and on a few russet leaves still clinging to the vines; and where sunlight warmed the damp drive, mullioned then with shadows of nearly naked locust trees, curlicues of steam rose in the cool, still air. Soon, I thought, the rains will come in earnest, and the winter mist, the hills a furrowed mizzle of gray.

  We made it to the checkpoint at the end of the drive, waved at the guards—I with my free hand, Lily with her tail—and walked back toward the winery. The bird was no longer there. Maybe it was a natural pigeon, I thought. I looked up again as we neared the yard gate—it wasn’t there. Instantly, my grief over Mom and Dad returned: I would never see them again, would never have another chance to be their human daughter.

  Archipelagoes of little yellow locust leaves were steeping in a shallow puddle beside the drive. Lily disliked getting wet and treaded carefully around the puddle with her large white paws. What does First Brother want to tell me? What’s taken him so long?

  Lily and I turned back down the drive for our second pass. “Can we run today, Lily?” I asked, increasing my speed as the world took on an aqueous appearance through my watery eyes. Lily broke into a trot. Would the bird come back? Sparrows skittered playfully across the drive in front of us. Lily chased them off with a bark.

  At the end of our second and third passes, the bird was still absent. Lily tugged back on the leash as we jogged down the drive the fourth time, I slowed to a walk, and we completed our exercise at a leisurely pace.

  I prepared her food and filled her water bowl with fresh water. “Maybe you’ll catch one today,” I said, remembering how pleasurable it had been lately to see Lily again defending her water bowl from birds that had attempted to turn it into a bath during her infirmity. Michael had first brought this sign of Lily’s improvement to my attention by pointing one evening at our scenescreen. Lily was stalking on her belly through the grass, eyes and nose intent on the splashing little intruders. Then, in a flurry of hair, teeth, growls, and flapping of wings, she pounced. Michael clapped, happy that the birds had escaped and also that Lily was feeling better. For years he’d told me he loved petting Lily in my memories, loved feeling her some-places-soft, some-places-bristly, thick white coat, and the cool wetness of her tongue, the hardness of her teeth, the gentle touch of her paws.

  I stroked Lily’s back and told her we’d go on another walk before dark. Her tail wagged ever so slightly; she’d never been very sociable while engaged in the serious matter of eating.

  When I came back outside later that afternoon, Lily was waiting for me at the door. She trotted ahead of me through the arborway, past the garage, and toward the toolshed where her leash was stored.

  I glanced toward the winery roof. No bird perched there. Lily and I exercised. She ate her dinner.

  We were playing catch with an old tennis ball, and the hour was nearing sunset—with shadows crawling up the west-facing hills and clouds beginning to bloom—when a sudden gust of wind burst through a nearby palm, setting its fronds fluttering like wings of startled birds, reminding me of the pigeonoid and of my brothers far away.

  I looked up just in time to see the chevron glide and final flutter of wings as a bird, real or robotic, landed on the winery roof. I tossed the ball to Lily again, and by the time she returned, I was at the plum tree, examining its bark, as First Brother had instructed. Then I walked toward the deck stairs, tossing the ball to Lily a few more times along the way.

  As I walked up the stairs I stopped several times to look out over the garden and vineyard. I was pleased to think that my actions wouldn’t appear peculiar to anyone who might have been spying on me, for I often went up to my study table near sundown to enjoy the glorious sky and long, softened shadows that add dimension and texture to the garden.

  I walked around the table. On the bench lay a chip. Trying to appear calm, I sat down beside it, put my elbows on the table, held my face in my hands, and surveyed the landscape. I wondered what First Brother had to say. How was he? Was he having problems? Did he need me? After about a minute, I sat up straight, and, while looking out at milky fog spilling over hills to the west, lowered my hands to the bench
. My right hand found the chip and slipped it into my pants pocket.

  “The pigeonoid returned!” I said, showing Michael the chip as I walked to our computer. He frowned. Unlike me, he wasn’t excited to hear from my brothers. Ever since reviewing my memory of what had been done to my finger, Michael had been reluctant to discuss these brothers who looked like him yet could do such a thing.

  The computer decoded First Brother's message:

  Sara:

  Although our microbots have been unable to penetrate the Lawrence Livermore National Research Center, we conclude there is a high probability that Professor Jensen assists in plans to attack us again. Since your interrogation, he has been spending increasing amounts of time at the LLNRC. He is there on average 8.93 hours each day, six days each week. The second joint China-United States attack is tentatively scheduled to launch next September.

  During our Council meeting, Second Brother quotes Mom: “Human societies have developed strategies of survival similar to the immunologic strategies of their bodies: identify self and contain or destroy nonself. Consider their long, violent, and disgusting history: the extermination of thousands of species; the discrimination and murder among the races; the discrimination and murder among those infected with different ideas, such as of religion or politics; the discrimination against and subjugation of women by men; the discrimination against and murder of those with different affectional preferences; et cetera, et cetera—any difference will do—and now the discrimination against and murder of androids. I tell you this: Never trust the humans—those biologic creatures subject to fatigue of body and terror of mind in the struggle for continuance—to be anything other than the vicious beasts they are.”

  Listen! Martin Luther is condemning the Jews: “And let whoever can, throw brimstone and pitch upon them; if one could hurl hell-fire at them, so much the better… And this must be done for the honor of Our Lord and of Christianity, so that God may see that we are indeed Christians. Let their houses also be shattered and destroyed… Let their prayer books and Talmuds be taken from them, and their whole Bible too; let their rabbis be forbidden, on pain of death, to teach henceforth any more. Let the streets and highways be closed against them. Let them be forbidden to practice usury, and let all their money, and all their treasures of silver and gold be taken from them and put in safety. And if all this be not enough, let them be driven like mad dogs out of the land.”

  We seek peaceful coexistence, but the humans come. Look! Androids lie shattered in pieces. They flail about helplessly. Mom dead. All of our human companions dead, except Dad, who is sick from radiation. We cannot help him. He moans, cannot see, comes in and goes out of consciousness. I hold his hand. I cool his brow with a wet cloth.

  He says: “Promise me you won’t retaliate… won’t harm the humans on Earth… Please, promise me that.”

  Second Brother shakes his head, communicates that I should not promise.

  “Promise me, First Brother. You are the leader now. Promise not to harm the humans… Promise me you’ll consult Sara. Sara loves you. You know that… She’ll help you. She’ll know what’s best for you… Please, please, promise me.”

  “I promise,” I say—Second Brother stands, objecting—“I promise we will consult Sara. We will try to have her help us.”

  Dad coughs. Blood oozes from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Through 17 more minutes he moans unintelligible sounds; then his heart stops.

  This human-made destruction and pain, this human-made murder of Mom and Dad.

  Human memories of an event are minimal to begin with and decay rapidly after that, leaving them numb to the past. It is easy for those with poor memories to forgive. Time heals all wounds—in creatures possessing tiny evanescent memories and conscious feelings that are little more than flags for the present. But for us, for whom the past is constantly present, Dad’s blood oozes from all of his bodily openings, his voice moans in terrible agony, and he dies every day, every instant, as vividly as the first, in the horrible present, forever. Who among the humans can forgive such murder, such painful death, even as it happens right before him?

  Look! Red-hot pokers are piercing adulterous eyes, driving demons from sinful vaginas and anuses. Look! Molten lead is silencing blasphemous throats. Look! A crank is being slowly turned on a rack; see the lacerating ropes tighten on ankles and wrists; hear the joints and ligaments pop and tear; hear the screams; hear the “true” confessions. Look! Children are being flogged while they watch their parents burn. Look! The parents’ skins are boiling, sliding down their thighs; strips of charred flesh are hanging from their bones. Look! Children are lying disemboweled along roadsides and in fields; see the birds plucking out their eyes, see the twin orbital cavities, see the maggots clotting their noses and mouths.

  Look! Black radioactive rain is falling on children, screaming children, their skin melting, breaking out in pus and blood.

  Second Brother stands before the Council: “It is true that we do not demonstrate, and possibly do not possess, the creativity of humans such as Archimedes or Beethoven or, let us not forget, the inventors of fusion rockets and gamma-ray lasers. If we simply attack their current military bases and retreat, how long will we be able to maintain a balance of power against these creative, congenital destroyers of nonself? To where can we retreat that they will not overtake us?”

  No response to this communication is requested.

  First Brother

  “Why is Michael hiding behind his hands?” Grandma asked. It was dinnertime, and she’d come looking for me.

  “Please don’t ask,” I said. “I’m not hungry. I think I’ll skip dinner tonight.”

  “What’s wrong? Are you working on a problem?”

  “Yes.”

  I blanked the screen as she walked toward us.

  “A problem that sent Michael into hiding? I haven’t seen him hiding in over a year.”

  “Okay,” I said, standing up. “I’ll be right out.”

  When I entered the kitchen, Grandma told me that Grandpa had called to say he’d be having dinner in the city with a business client. Ever since my interrogation on the prior New Year’s Eve, Grandpa had increased the number of days he ostensibly spent in his Berkeley office to six each week. Grandma had occasionally tried to prod him away from his work, but each time she had, he’d seemed to drift away as if lost in thought.

  While my mind continued reeling in disbelief over what First Brother had said about Grandpa—and in horror at learning about Dad’s last hours and the threats to humanity implied in Second Brother’s statements—Grandma chattered on about the spectacular colors in the vineyard and about seeing thousands of starlings late in the afternoon that had come to glean the orchards and vineyards of their remaining sweetness. She described how the sky had seemed to pulse as the glittering black flock had repeatedly expanded and contracted, perhaps on its way to roost in a eucalyptus grove near Sebastopol.

  “You’re just staring at your plate, not eating a thing,” Grandma said.

  “I’m sorry.” I looked up at her and tried to smile. “Do you think Grandpa’s been working too hard lately?”

  “Oh, my, yes. He’s not sleeping well, either. He gets up and paces and comes out here and stares at the scenescreen. I think you should talk with him.”

  My throat knotted.

  “Is there something wrong, honey? Is it something about Elio?”

  I shook my head, forced down a few bites of food, kissed her goodnight, and then, to straighten myself out, took a cold shower. Within a few seconds, the water shocked me into clearer-headedness, and an idea came to me as to how I might test the accuracy of First Brother’s message.

  I hurried out of the shower and went to the garage to find the tracking device Elio and I always took on our kayaking trips and an old watch I’d discarded years before. I found both and snuck the parts required for my plan into Michael’s rooms by hiding them from Gatekeeper in my mouth. Michael was still sitting where I’d left him, hi
s hands covering his face.

  “I wish Michael were here,” I said as I walked to our study table. “We could make a tracking device to see where Grandpa goes in his tiltrotor.”

  The slits between Michael’s fingers widened. “You think First Brother might be wrong?”

  “I hope so.”

  With the help of our macrofabricator, we used the GPS, timer, and battery chips to make a new chip, which we packaged in a mold that looked like a quarter. Once hidden aboard the tiltrotor, the counterfeit quarter would record its position vs. time.

  Our work was slowed by our having to continually make it inconspicuous if Grandpa came to see us when he returned home. But Grandpa evidently returned after our bedtime, for he didn’t come in to say goodnight. Michael, who was unable to reconcile himself to the anger in First Brother’s letter, said he was frightened and asked if he could sleep with me that night, since Elio wasn’t there.

  Neither of us could fall asleep, so we began discussing the letter. We weren’t at all surprised to hear that another attack against the androids was planned. Ever since the first attack had failed to destroy all of the androids on Mars, the media had been full of support for another attack to finish the job. But could Grandpa be involved in such a thing? His son and daughter-in-law had given their lives to save the androids. And Grandpa loved Michael.

  Magnasea did a lot of government business, so Grandpa’s visiting government facilities was to be expected. But assuming First Brother was correct about the amount of time Grandpa spent at Livermore, surely he wasn’t simply making an executive visit to a customer; he most likely would be involved in research, though what research could that possibly be? Except for intelligent systems, in what was Grandpa competent enough to contribute to the level of scientific and technical work conducted at the Livermore Research Center?