by Bruce Bethke
Not that it was much to look at. The gray lacked even the substance of fog. Nothing shifted, nothing moved, nothing changed. Ever. There was light, but no shadow; light, only because dark would have been a change.
Avery drifted through Perihelion, and he smiled. There was a secret that he knew, and no one else did. Perihelion wasn’t just some nuisance, or by-product of the keys. It was the one critical thing that made teleportation possible.
Perihelion was an infinite buffer.
Sixty seconds. Avery touched the four corners of the time-delay key again, and watched as the teleport button slowly rose from the smooth, flawless surface.
Consider the question of teleportation,Avery said to himself. In all the universe, there is no such thing as a body at rest. Planets rolled through their diurnal cycles and careened around their suns. Galaxies spun like dancers, trailing solar systems like glitter from their spiral arms, and even the universe was expanding, Cyclopean shrapnel flying out from the ancient epicenter of the Big Bang.
Teleporting directly from one planet to another would be like leaping from a moving groundcar onto a moving elevator. You’d arrive at your destination with kinetic energy enough to flatten you into a wet, greasy smear or propel you straight into orbit.
Unless, of course, you had the buffer of Perihelion.
He looked at his watch again. Thirty seconds. “Time to go. ” With two quick jabs, he armed the detonator and pressed the teleport button. Pushing the bomb away from himself, he watched it float slowly away. The firing circuit began to glow a dull red.
The drifting bomb slowed and stopped about two meters away. “Of course. Perihelion absorbed the kinetic energy. ” Dipping into his jacket pocket, Avery pulled out the second key and touched its corners. The teleport button rose. He pushed it down.
Nothing happened.
Two meters away, the firing circuit was growing hotter. The dull red gave way to orange and then to yellow. Thin wisps of smoke began to rise from the brick of explosive. Too soon. It was going to detonate much too soon. Panic-stricken, Avery threw himself backward, flailing against the nothingness. A flare of hellish red light appeared around the detonator, and Avery had time to wonder if the buffer of Perihelion could contain that much kinetic energy.
Then the bomb vanished.
The rush of adrenaline faded, and Avery started to think logically again. “Of course. Two jumps. The first is always to Perihelion, and the second gets you where you’re going. ” He touched the corners of the key again and pressed the teleport button.
A blink later, he was back in Central Hall.
“Dad!” Derec leapt forward and gave Avery a hug.
“Sorry I’m late. What happened?”
“ ‘Ur coordinates were a littl’ off,” Wolruf said. “Missed th’ bridge. Got a direct hit on th’ engine room instead. ”
Avery pushed Derec off and staggered toward the giant viewscreen. “Did they miss the drop? What are they doing now?”
“See f’r yourself. ” Wolruf stepped back and made a sweeping gesture to direct Avery’s attention to the screen.
The Erani ship was nose-on in the view screen now, and obviously in trouble. Small fires danced and sparkled along the connecting tubes. Great flares and jets of flaming gas erupted from the sides. All at once, a fluorescing ring of blue energy leapt out from the stern and then contracted, seeming almost to pull the surrounding stars in after itself. Light red-shifted, and the stars flattened out into thin arcs. Space itself seemed to ripple and contract as the Erani warship shuddered and was abruptly jerked backward.
A moment later, there was nothing on the viewscreen but peaceful black starfield.
“The Erani hyperdrive was unstable,” a rich, warm, female voice announced. “Your device caused it to implode, triggering the formation of a microscopic black hole. That hole has now closed. ”
As one, Derec, Avery, and Wolruf turned around, wonder on their faces. “Central?”
“That is my proper designation. For the convenience of the citizens I also respond to the name SilverSides…
The humans were still staring, bug-eyed and slack-jawed, when Beta stepped into the atrium and broke the silence. “Please forgive us for not explaining all the details of the plan earlier. We were not certain that the personality rebuild would work. ” Beta turned to Adam. “And please, for the benefit of the native humans, you must never assume your SilverSides aspect on this planet again. ”
Somehow, Avery found his voice. “But-Central? You, SilverSides?”
“Who better?” Central asked. “My being permeates this city. Within my operational parameters I am powerful, generous, and very nearly omniscient. Who better to watch over and provide for my children?”
“A computer pretending to be a goddess!” Avery erupted. “That’s utterly immoral!”
“It is also necessary,” Beta said, “at least until the kin find their own reasons for living in the city. ”
“Do not worry, Creator Avery,” Central added. “We will not maintain this fiction for long. Our analysis indicates that within three standard years, the kin will be ready to discover that their goddess is merely a hollow idol. ”
Beta nodded. “In fact, we have already identified the native human best suited to make this ‘discovery. ’ Her name is WhiteTail. ”
Avery was still sputtering and trying to frame an argument when Central spoke again. “Alert! I detect fragments of Erani wreckage entering the atmosphere!” Everyone in the hall, human and robot alike, spun around to face the giant viewscreen.
A moment later, Central updated her report. “No significant radioactives are present. The largest identifiable fragment is a Massey 0-85 lifepod. There is one lifeform on board. I will attempt to establish communications. Atmospheric ionization may make this difficult. ” The viewscreen faded and swirled into an unsteady mass of colors. Static lines raced and jiggled across the screen. Slowly, the colors resolved into a blurry, distorted image.
A head, large and hairless. Two black, glittering eyes in turrets of wrinkled, beaded skin. A wide, lipless mouth, distorted in terror.
“Derrec? Derrrec! I ’ ll be waiting forr you in Hellll!”
The image dissolved in a wash of static.
“I am tracking the lifepod,” Central said. “If it does not break up, it will impact in the forest approximately fifteen kilometers north of the city…,
A soft sound floated in from the night. Soft, yet ancient, and chilling. Arrooo. Then another voice joined it, across the miles, picking up and relaying the call. Aroooooo! More voices joined in, barking, baying. The night exploded in a clamor of crescendoing howls.
The viewscreen changed to display the view north from the Compass Tower. Hundreds of furry bodies were streaming out of the city and into the forest. “The kin have also spotted the pod’s ionization trail,” Central said. “I am preparing to send a team of hunter/seekers to the projected landing site, but I am afraid that the natives will get there first. ”
Central paused, as if disturbed by what she had to say next. “Dr. Avery? Derec and Wolruf? I suggest that you return to the spaceport and prepare to leave. If Aranimas does not survive reentry, the kin will return here…
Epilogue. The Spaceport
Sweet, bright dawn broke across the spaceport tarmac, illuminating the Wild Goose Chase in vivid shades of pink and gold. Scattered patches of dew darkened the pavement; BlackMane’s cubs lay in a tumbled heap by a blast deflection wall, snoring softly and dreaming happy puppy-dreams.
“Coming, Ari?” Derec called out from the boarding ramp.
“In a minute, dear. ” Ariel turned back to BlackMane. The female kin finished a yawn that stretched clear back to her third bicuspids, then sat down and gravely offered Ariel her paw. Squatting on her haunches, Ariel accepted the paw and shook it.
“I just wanted to tell you,” Ariel began, “that I’ve really enjoyed your company, and I will miss you. Your cubs are terrific; I envy you for them. Of course, I don�
�t know why I’m telling you this, since you can’t understand a single word that I’m saying. ”
“Arf,” said BlackMane. “Arf,” Ariel answered. She stood and started to turn toward the ship. Then she gave in to an impulse and gave BlackMane one last good scratch behind the ears.
Avery and Beta strolled past, talking in low voices. “1 quite agree,” Beta said. “Our most recent analysis indicates that it will be at least two hundred standard years before the kin are prepared enough to be allowed off this planet. ”
Avery looked worried. “So you’ll erase all mention of rocketry and spaceflight from the city’s libraries?”
“We will secure and encrypt the information on all advanced technology,” Beta answered. “We will not release the information until such time as we deem the kin to be sufficiently acculturated and no longer a threat to the other species of humanity. After all, the First Law applies to all humans, no matter their form. ”
Avery frowned. “That’s not quite what I was hoping for, but I’ll accept it. ” He looked up and spotted Adam standing by the landing gear, talking to the spaceport maintenance robots. “ Ah, Adam. Have you found any trace of Lucius yet?”
Adam raised an arm and pointed toward the spaceport control tower, behind Avery. “Here he comes now. ” Avery and Beta turned around to see Lucius approaching, followed by Wolruf, Eve, and a trio of unfamiliar robots.
“Lucius?” Avery called out. “Lucius, where the blazes have you been? We thought we were going to have to leave you behind!”
Robotic expressions were difficult to read, but Avery couldn’t miss the note of surliness in the robot’s voice. “I kept out of trouble,” Lucius snarled. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?’, Not waiting for a reply, Lucius stormed past Avery and clanged up the boarding ramp.
With a shrug, Avery looked at Beta. The supervisor responded with a quizzical tilt of his head, as if to say that he didn’t understand Lucius, either. Avery and Beta were still looking at each other when Wolruf and Eve came scampering up. “Where’s Derec?” Wolruf asked, her glee barely concealed.
Avery looked around. “In the ship, I think. Derec!”
A sandy blond head popped out an open hatch. “Yes?”
“C’mere, Derec!” Wolruf called out. “Got someone ‘ere I want ‘u t’ meet!” A few seconds later Derec came jogging down the boarding ramp and over to join them.
“Derec Avery,” Wolruf said, turning to the three new robots, “I’d like t’ intr’duce ‘u t’ ‘uman Medical 17. ”
“My pleasure,” the Wohler-model robot on the left said.
“ ‘Uman Medical 21. ”,, And mine,,, the robot on the right said.
“An’-”
“Derrec?”The tall, unfamiliar robot in the center reeled back as if in shock. “Derrrec!” In a blinding flash, the robot raised his hands and lunged for Derec’s throat
And froze, rooted to the spot.
“Our apologies,” Human Medical 17 said to Derec, “we should have warned you. The data from the original Jeff Leong experiment indicated that cyborgs could be unstable and dangerous, so we took the liberty of giving this one a positronic cerebellum. If he so much as thinks of violating the Three Laws, his muscular system locks up. ”
“Cyborg?”
The two medical robots looked at each other and then at Derec. “No one told you?” From Derec’s blank look, they inferred that the answer was yes. “That lifepod that crashed last night; there was one survivor aboard. But by the time the hunter/seekers reached the scene, the native humans had mauled him quite badly. And we had no information on his physiology, which is not of a human form with which we are familiar. We had no choice but to cyborg what was left. ”
Derec turned to the cyborg. “Aranimas?”
“Oh, is that his name? Here, let me reboot him. ” Human Medical 17 reached over and touched a large red button on the back of the cyborg’s neck. “Don’t worry, rebooting the cerebellum is quick and painless. ” The cyborg shuddered and slowly stepped back and assumed a taut, angry posture. His eyes glowed like hate-filled red coals.
Wolruf stepped between Derec and Aranimas, a toothy smile playing on her lips. “ ‘Ere, allow me t’ demonstrate ‘is Second Law function. ” From behind her back, she produced a footlong stick. “ ‘Ere, boy!” She waved the stick in front of Aranimas’s glaring eyes. “ ‘Eere, Aranimas!” Taking a great wind-up and a running start, she flung the stick as hard as she could across the tarmac.
“Go fetch!”
With one exception, the robots had all gone off to their morning tasks. The last of the dew vanished in rising steam; her cubs were awake and getting crabby about breakfast. Still, BlackMane lingered on the tarmac for a few minutes more, watching the silver bird dwindle into the distance.
“You know, Beta,” she said at last, “once you get used to the way they look, those TwoLegs are okay people. ”
“Indeed they are, Mistress BlackMane,” Beta answered in the soft tones of KinSpeech.
She watched the ship a while longer and then asked another question. “Do you think they’ll ever come back?”
“It’s difficult to say, mistress. Perhaps not those TwoLegs, but in time, others like them definitely will. “
BlackMane nodded. “I see. Good. ” She nodded some more, then let out a pensive whine. “It’s just, I really wanted to ask them one last question, you know?”
Beta took his eyes off the spacecraft and turned his full attention to BlackMane. “Perhaps I can be of help. What was the question, mistress?”
Cocking her head, BlackMane scratched an ear in puzzlement. “Well, you know the game that Wolruf was playing with Aranimas, just before they left? Where she would throw the stick as hard as she could, and Aranimas would run and get it?”
“Yes, I am familiar with the game. It is called ‘fetch. ’ What would you like to know about it?”
“It looked like a great game, really it did. Lots of action, very exciting. I think it could be very popular. But there’s one thing that I just don’t understand. ”
“Yes. ”
BlackMane paused, wrinkled her nose, and then raised her ears and looked the robot straight in the eyes.
“Why did Aranimas get to have all the fun?”
Bruce Bethke
A full-time professional writer whose credits include more than one hundred nonfiction publications and fiction sales to Amazing Stories, Aboriginal SF, Easyriders, Espionage, Hardware, Hitchcock ’ s MysteryMagazine, Tales of the Unanticipated, Weird Tales and the Jerry Pournelle anthologies, Silicon Brains, There Will Be War, and War Among the Ruins, Mr. Bethke is best known for his movement-naming short story, “Cyberpunk,” first published in 1983. Contrary to popular speculation, he does not use the pen-name of Bruce Sterling, nor is he a penname for Bruce Sterling.
Now living in St. Paul with his wife and three daughters, Mr. Bethke is unique among writers in that he does not own a single cat. In fact, he is utterly incapable of appreciating the adorable antics of other writers’ cats, and instead owns a springer spaniel retriever, with whom he hunts pheasants every fall.
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-e26560-f27f-484d-ecb8-2713-d166-154e0a
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 25.07.2008
Created using: Fiction Book Designer software
Document authors :
GattoV
Source URLs :
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственност
и за его использование)
http://www.fb2epub.net
https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/