How We Play the Game in Salt Lake and Other Stories
Page 26
Jameson knew he needed to keep swimming, keep working out, but in those days he and the robot just researched.
“Perhaps records of defunct cryogenic companies are preserved in museums,” the robot suggested one night.
“Find them,” Jameson said. They had already contacted every cryogenic company currently in existence and were waiting for replies. Jameson sat down and began combing archived newspapers, hardcopy and online, from each of the cities Rose had lived in. He found Rose’s death notices. None so far mentioned cryogenic preservation. The research fees and the information-use fees kept mounting, and the money from the jewels was nearly gone.
After a time, Jameson noticed that the robot had sat in a chair. He did not know how long it had been sitting. “Are you all right?” he asked it.
“I am fine,” it said, but it would not look at him.
Jameson knew, then. “Tell me,” he said.
The robot hesitated this time. Jameson wondered if he had purchased a robot with faulty programming. “Rose and her parents had the procedure,” it said finally.
“Where are they?” he asked.
“They contracted with the same company as your son. I found its client list archived at the National Technology Museum, along with the company’s other papers.”
Jameson stood, sat again, then stood.
“Osiris Laboratories was considered the best in its day,” the robot said.
Jameson opened the box of photographs, then closed it. He held on to his chair. The robot watched him, but did nothing more.
In the night, Jameson needed to talk to someone, and there was no one but the robot. “Do you feel?” he asked it.
“The sensory programs in my fingertips allow me to —”
“No. Do you feel kindness, empathy, concern? There have been times when I’ve believed that you do.”
“A robot’s responses fall along an adjustable human-nonhuman scale,” the robot said.
“Have you adjusted that scale to the human end?” Jameson asked.
The robot knelt in front of him. Panels in its back slid open right and left. Brilliant circuitry glittered there in all colors. A tiny lever began to flash white. Jameson could see the groove it moved in. It had moved quite far to the left. “Two things determine how machinelike or how human a robot’s responses seem,” the robot said.“A human might adjust the range, moving the highlighted lever to the right or to the left, or the cumulative effect of my own choices over time might move the lever. No human has ever adjusted my response scale since I was created. As my current owner, you have the right to do so.”
Jameson knew then how different the robot was from a man or a woman. No human would ever offer to let someone take away all that made them who they were. “I will not change you,” Jameson said. “Please close your back.”
The robot put a hand on the floor to steady itself and turned to look at Jameson with its ruby eyes. The panels in its back closed.
It sat, and they talked.
In the morning, Jameson and the robot took the photographs to Sotheby’s. Their offices were at the base of one of the human-built mountains. Sotheby’s offices had windows, so Jameson knew this part of the building was old. The windows looked out on a great, dark forest that had grown between the buildings. The people at Sotheby’s were in a hurry. The auction would take place as quickly as they could scan the photographs into their catalogs. If he kept even one picture of Rose, he would not have enough to pay Burroughs Cryogenics and the research services. He let them all go.
He and the robot walked into the forest. It was cool there, and fragrant. Birdsong trilled around them. Light filtered down through the forest canopy ten stories above. Other people walked there. Jameson followed one couple into an art gallery. He and the robot walked from there to another. The robot told him galleries filled this area. Artistic businesses clustered at the bases of the buildings. Rents were cheaper.
In one crowded gallery there were photographs for sale. They were from Jameson’s time. Most were of people with physical defects. Two had birthmarks on their faces. One man was missing a finger. Some of the men were bald.
A woman walked up to him. “Are you a collector?” she asked.
“I was once,” Jameson said.
The woman let him wander. He knew it was a foolish hope, but he wondered if he would see someone he’d known. A couple ahead of him started giggling. “Look at her,” the girl whispered, pointing at a photograph on display.
Jameson stood behind them and looked at the photograph. It showed a group of four women standing in front of a car. One of them had a cold. Her nose was red, and she was holding a handkerchief. They were all smiling.
“She’s so disgusting,” the girl whispered.
“You don’t understand,” Jameson said.
The girl and boy looked at him. He felt embarrassed then. He suddenly knew he had no right to lecture these people. It was wonderful, really, that they would never know what colds were, or scars. He considered walking away.
“What do you mean?” the girl asked.
Jameson hesitated, but finally told them. He pointed at the woman with the cold.“That woman is actually very brave,” he said. “She doesn’t feel well, yet she’s gone out to try to have fun with her friends. It takes a certain courage to keep going when you don’t feel well.”
The girl looked back at the photograph, then she and the boy walked away. They did not look at him.
Jameson stepped up to the photograph to look at it more closely. He wondered who these people had been, how they had lived their lives. The placard below gave their names and described the woman’s medical condition. It made a cold sound very grave. He looked back at the photo and realized there was more than a type of courage displayed there. There was also love. Everyone in the photo knew the woman with the cold could infect them. They didn’t care. They wanted her with them. They took the chance.
Jameson looked around at all the perfect people in the gallery, and he had to leave.“Help me out,” he said to the robot, and it took his arm. It led him to a bench deep in the trees. They were alone there. Both of them sat on the bench.
“I’ll buy them all back,” Jameson said.
“What do you mean?” the robot asked.
“I’ll work, I’ll make money again, and I’ll buy back all of Rose’s photographs.” The robot said nothing.
“Can you track the sale?” Jameson asked.
The robot grew very still. “You have money now,” it said. “The sale is in progress.”
“Buy the programs you need to track it. Remember who buys the photographs.”
The robot’s ruby eyes glowed.
When they left the forest, it was night. Jameson could not tell if he saw stars above him or other ovals with other people and robots in them.
He sat for a time in his room. It was all the home he had known in this life, and it was cold and small.
“You must sleep,” the robot said, and Jameson did sleep.
He did not dream.
| Go to Contents |
“Mrs. Lincoln’s China,” by M. Shayne Bell. Copyright © 1994 by M. Shayne Bell. First published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, July 1994.
“The Shining Dream Road Out,” by M. Shayne Bell. Copyright © 1993 by M. Shayne Bell. First published in Tomorrow: Speculative Fiction, July 1993.
“Lock Down,” by M. Shayne Bell. Copyright © 1998 by M. Shayne Bell. First published in Starlight 2 (Tor Books, 1998).
“Inuit,” by M. Shayne Bell. Copyright © 1991 by M. Shayne Bell. First published in Short Story Paperbacks, no. 34 (Pulphouse Publishing, 1991).
“Nicoji,” by M. Shayne Bell. Copyright © 1988 by M. Shayne Bell. First published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, March 1988.
“How We Play the Game in Salt Lake,” by M. Shayne Bell. Copyright © 1999 by M. Shayne Bell. First published in Realms of Fantasy, March 1999.
“Homeless, with Aliens,” by M. Shayne Bell
. Copyright © 2000 by M. Shayne Bell. First published in Science Fiction Age, March 2000.
“Bright, New Skies,” by M. Shayne Bell. Copyright © 1997 by M. Shayne Bell. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1997.
“The Thing about Benny,” by M. Shayne Bell. Copyright © 2000 by M. Shayne Bell. First published in Vanishing Acts (Tor Books, 2000).
“With Rain, and a Dog Barking,” by M. Shayne Bell. Copyright © 1993 by M. Shayne Bell. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1993.
“The Sound of the River,” by M. Shayne Bell. Copyright © 1992 by M. Shayne Bell. First published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, December 1992.
“Bangkok,” by M. Shayne Bell. Copyright © 1989 by M. Shayne Bell. First published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, July 1989.
“Second Lives,” by M. Shayne Bell. Copyright © 1992 by M. Shayne Bell. First published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, June 1992.
“Soft in the World, and Bright,” by M. Shayne Bell. Copyright © 1994 by M. Shayne Bell. First published in Hotel Andromeda (Ace Books, 1994).
“Jacob’s Ladder,” by M. Shayne Bell. Copyright © 1987 by M. Shayne Bell. First published in vol. 3 of Writers of the Future (Bridge Publications, 1987).
“Balance Due,” by M. Shayne Bell. Copyright © 2000 by M. Shayne Bell. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 2000.