by Neil Clarke
Clarkesworld Magazine
Issue 169
Table of Contents
Callme and Mink
by Brenda Cooper
To Set at Twilight In a Land of Reeds
by Natalia Theodoridou
Wandering Rocks
by Gregory Feeley
You and Whose Army?
by Greg Egan
Last Wishes
by D.A. Xiaolin Spires
All Living Creation
by Xiu Xinyu
Ashes Under Uricon
by Adrastos Omissi
“I Can Build It!” Tom Said Inventively: The Strange History of the Six Tom Swifts
by Mark Cole
Eyewitness to History’s Future: A Conversation with Kim Stanley Robinson
by Arley Sorg
Living Raw and Out Loud: A Conversation with Rebecca Roanhorse
by Arley Sorg
Editor’s Desk: In Mourning
by Neil Clarke
Ancient Stones
Art by Francesca Resta
© Clarkesworld Magazine, 2020
www.clarkesworldmagazine.com
Callme and Mink
Brenda Cooper
Julie stepped outside into the first light of morning and opened the door of the chicken coop. She tossed leftover white rice onto the ground. The chickens scurried for breakfast, throwing thin and busy shadows across the grass. She scooped the nearest hen and took it to the side of the house, snapped its neck with a flick of her wrist, and plucked the colorful feathers into a bin by the garage door. Back inside, she gutted the bird and boiled the meat free of the bones.
Julie prepared breakfast. This morning’s bottom layer was stale, dry cereal from a cupboard four houses away and a fist of last night’s rice. She added the heart and liver, and then white, soft meat from the chicken’s breast.
Callme curled with her back to the corner and watched Julie’s every precise move. The old border collie often knew more about their surroundings than Julie, and so Julie trusted her to help guard. This morning, Callme’s ears pricked forward in benign interest as she focused on the younger dog, Mink, a two-year-old male golden retriever. Mink sat straight and pretty, his nose up, his ears alert to every flick of Julie’s knife.
She ordered each dog to its food spot: Callme to the corner by the fireplace and Mink to the bottom of the stairs. It took two minutes for Mink to settle, tail thumping.
Julie bent at the knees to set the dishes down so that each hit the stone floor at the same moment. While the dogs’ rough tongues and eager noses scraped the metal bowls lightly across the floor, Julie peered out the kitchen window at the chicken coop, and beyond it, toward the beach. Her weather app suggested ninety-two degrees with a soft wind, low tide in an hour and three minutes. A perfect day for the dogs.
Ten minutes later, Julie set the dogs’ clean, dry dishes on the counter, ready for dinner.
She closed her clothing over her joints to keep the sand out and braided her silky hair into two long braids to keep the wind from wrecking it. When she opened the door, Mink bounded out. Callme followed, then turned, swirling this way and that as she did her best to watch both Julie and Mink.
Julie dropped to all fours. The three of them raced toward the waves. Mink plunged directly into the surge, but Julie went no further than the sea-foam at the edge. Callme pranced beside her while Mink bounded joyously into waves almost as tall as he was. Everything about him looked healthy—his fur bright with drops of salt spray that sparkled with midmorning light.
Julie watched him duck in and out of the waves, throwing his head up, prancing. She and Callme circled each other, raced up and down the sand, and circled again. They glanced at Mink regularly, ready to go in if he faltered. But he knew the water now, no longer stumbling with excitement or turning his back to the sea.
When Callme looked exhausted, Julie whistled Mink back. All three loped along the beach, disturbing raucous crowds of seabirds. Julie avoided empty glass bottles and bright green and blue shards of plastic and broken shells. They alone shared the vast expanse of warming sand until they reached the pier. There, a simple non-gendered carebot wheeled an old woman down the wooden boards, her face turned into the sun and breeze. Below the old woman, two repair bots scuttled along the sand, taking advantage of the low tide to scrape barnacles away from the pier’s supports.
Julie stood, ordering the dogs to heel as she walked down the old main street toward Jack’s Ice Cream. The building sagged on one side, and two of the windows needed paint and fresh panes of glass. When Jack could get milk from one of the town’s fifteen cows, it opened. Yesterday, it had been closed. Today, the swinging half-door hung open. Jack stuck his head out and gestured her toward him. He was small, slightly hunched, an old man with wheeled prosthetics. His face had been splotched red from years of sun. His broad smile elicited a return smile from her, a casual note in her programming. If a human smiles at you, and is no threat, then smile back.
The dogs raced to the side of the building and lapped water from the bowl he kept in there for them.
“I found a family for you to consider.” Jack filled two tiny cups with ice cubes and frozen cream for the dogs. “They can use the help.”
Julie took the cups from him, knelt, and placed them as carefully as she had the dog’s breakfast. “When will they come to me?”
“This afternoon. After lunch. Only the mom knows the dogs exist.”
“Thank you.” She had come to Jack’s every day the weather allowed the dogs out. During that time, Mink had grown into a stable, well-trained two year old. He had been ready for six months, but no one suitable had come to town. The gates and loops of logic inside Julie’s head should be settling into a pleased relief, and the beginnings of new programming designed to let him go should be gating open. She didn’t feel that yet. Instead, she watched her own reaction with something like puzzlement. Must it be time?
As if he heard her, Jack said, “It’s time, you know.”
Some humans seemed to react to her thoughts as well as her facial expressions. This was especially true when she saw humans often, and she had seen Jack one hundred and fifty-two times in the last three years and eighteen months. He had found good humans for her twice.
Julie stood and watched Mink finish his treat while Callme’s pink tongue flicked around the edges of her half-empty cup. She knew Jack required a verbal response from her. “Yes.” It was time, but she still did not feel settled about the conclusion. Her programming learned. It had to. She would never have survived four decades since her release without adaptation. What made it stutter? “I don’t want to learn attachment.”
Jack laughed. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
She turned around and lifted one of her braids. “Behind my ear.”
Jack opened the bottom door and rolled out. He bent down to examine her neck. The tips of his fingers felt warm. He fished in his pockets for a multi-tool and then used the tweezers to pluck something from behind her ear. “How did you get a splinter there?”
“Was that it? Maybe fixing the door on the chicken coop yesterday.” She swiveled her neck back and forth. “That’s better. I guess I’ll go home and wait.”
Jack scooped up the dogs’ bowls, stopped, looking right at her.
“What are you trying to say?”
“I hope you don’t move on yet. You told me you might.”
“It took four hours to forage yesterday.” Do not ally yourself with a single human. To do so is to weaken your gift to all mankind.
He cocked his head at her. “I know your programming has nothing much to do with me, except that I’m a resource.” He reached down to pet Mink. �
�But I also know you won’t hurt me, and I like you in the neighborhood.” He hesitated. “I feel safer with you here.”
She had long ago calculated that Jack was trustworthy. He had been here when she arrived, an old man with health problems and a store he’d owned for fifty-seven years. “You are a resource. Who else would have found that splinter?” When a human helps you, help them.
He smiled, his eyes a little sad.
Not lying to him meant she didn’t signal emotions she didn’t believe were appropriate. She could signal most feelings back to humans, but they were always a lie. She acted. She did not feel. She chose a patient configuration for her face. “I will do as I must.”
There was only a little bitterness to his laugh.
“Who am I watching for?”
“A woman and two children. A boy and a girl. The girl is about seven.”
“One adult?”
He hesitated. “That was all I talked to. They came for ice cream three times before I spoke to them about what you do.”
“Thank you.” She called the dogs to her, dropped back to all fours, and led them in a bouncing chase up the beach. Outside, she cleaned off the bench by the front door. She blew the sand from her feet and her clothes, making sure no small tear or puncture had let any of it inside of her. Then she blew the dogs clean, sand flying away from the air hose and losing itself in the grass. Satisfied, she led them all in. Each dog curled up for a post-play nap. Mink’s fur smelled of salt and ocean, Callme’s of sand and crabs.
The chickens scratched contentedly in the yard. She had between one and two hours, by her estimate, before the people Jack had spoken of arrived. She started her daily code review, looking for mistakes, following branches and tidying up stray instruction strings that had created themselves overnight but went nowhere. She reviewed and snipped files that did not matter. The color of the plastic cap she had accidentally stepped on halfway between here and Jack’s. The creaky hinge on Jack’s top door. Then she reached back and removed more details from the previous week.
She reviewed her interaction with Jack closely. He liked the family. He wanted them to succeed. Everything in his micro-expressions calculated as factual, truth in which he believed.
Still, her algorithms flashed a fifteen percent risk. High. She had less information than usual.
She had done this twelve times in twenty-two years. The first family had been brought to her by her trainers. She had found the rest on her own, except the three Jack had helped with. He had also told her where to find Mink, behind a broken tractor-trailer with three other puppies. She had chosen Mink and left the others; she could only raise and feed one. She hadn’t gone back to see if they lived.
Julie moved to the front porch and watched. She spotted the three humans approaching before they found the house, but stayed completely still. Observation time was valuable.
The woman was easily as tall as many men. She wore long green pants, black boots, and an orange tank top. Her skin glowed a burnished brown. A wide black pony band kept her hair from her dark eyes, allowing it to spill down to her broad shoulders. The boy, almost her height, still sported the skinny shoulders and awkward gait of a young teen. He was also some form of mixed-blood dark, but the girl he carried on his hip had fine red hair and freckles. Her long legs dangled down past his knees, her legs too long for her worn jeans. They spoke in low tones, peering at houses, but sensibly not approaching.
They looked more confident than a group that size should, especially weighed down with the girl, but Julie’s analysis suggested competence rather than bravado. The boy whispered in the girl’s ear often, and twice she laughed.
Julie stepped out into the middle of the street.
The dogs woke at her movement, but the first thing she taught any of her dogs was silence. She could hear their toenails on the floor and Mink’s slight panting, but both would be inaudible to the family.
The girl saw her first, stopping and pointing. She whispered at her brother. “She isn’t a robot.”
He narrowed his eyes, peering at Julie. “She might be. See how straight she’s standing?”
Before the girl could reply, the mother stopped them all with a wave of her hand.
They obeyed, as silent as the dogs.
Good. “I’m Julie.”
“Jack sent me,” the woman said. “I’m Maria, and these are my children, Tom and Belinda.”
Julie calculated the chances that Tom was her physical son as close to seventy percent, but the girl was not hers by birth. Older than Jack had reported, maybe ten. Old to be carried.
Julie gestured toward the house she and dogs occupied. “Would you like to sit a moment and tell me about yourself?”
Maria nodded. “Of course.”
Julie waited as they splayed across her front steps, and then she leaned on the wall beside them, her posture calm and ready. If a human is new, then let them know you are strong and peaceful.
“Why do you want a dog?” she asked.
“For Belinda. She wants a dog more than anything, and she is wasting.”
“I see that.”
“She has a few years left. I would have her be happy.”
Jack had decided not to tell her that the girl was sick. “How do you know her?”
Maria raised an eyebrow. “I found her. Someone had left her by the road with a sign. Free.” She laughed. “Free like a puppy used to be.”
Julie would not charge for Mink. If a human wants an animal, then find out if they can keep it safe. “Where are you going?”
“South.”
“North is reported to be safer.”
Maria took a breath, and the boy clutched his sister. She snuggled in close to him, her eyes shining with her illness. “We came from New York,” Maria said. “I don’t know what ‘safer’ is, but it’s not safe.” She hesitated, her eyes drawn a little tight and mouth pursing. Signs of human thinking. “How long have you been here?” she asked Julie.
“Two years and nine months and one day and three hours.”
Maria laughed. “And not a minute more or a minute less.” The joy of her laughter left her face. “Your information is old. Many people have gone north, some with guns. We will keep heading south. I am a good forager, and Lou has enhanced hearing. This has kept us safe.”
Julie glanced at the boy, clicking her teeth together very softly. “How many clicks did I just make?”
“Seven,” he answered quickly, a sly but friendly smile on his face.
She glanced at Maria. “Enhanced?”
“As soon as he hit puberty. Some of the clinics still run, and we used to have resources. He can also see farther than me, but he can’t smell as well as a dog.” She blew out a breath, glancing at the girl. “Belinda wants one very, very much.”
Belinda’s wide green eyes blinked up at her, but she said nothing. Another sign of competence.
It was odd that Jack had not mentioned the competence or the illness. The enhancements. But humans often told robots things they would never tell another human. Jack probably did not know about the enhancement.
Maria watched the front door, as if hoping that it would open and show a puppy waiting inside.
Julie told her, “The south has been foraged almost empty. We have moved north every few years.”
Maria cocked her head. “We?”
“One of the dogs has been with me for eight years. She stays.”
The woman nodded. “What do you need to know?”
Julie’s algorithms decided Maria was sincere. When a human has told you all they want to, then watch how they act.
Julie pushed herself away from the wall and opened the door. She went in first, checking that the dogs were in their places, Callme against the wall, and Mink in front of the wood stove. They were, each curled up, noses resting on paws.
They watched her quietly.
“Come in,” she called to Maria.
Tom pushed through the door, his sister leaning on him but shuffling o
n her own feet. Good to know she could stand, even with help.
Callme raised her head, ears pricked forward.
Julie gestured a release to Mink, who stood, head lifted, tail flipping back and forth.
The boy set Belinda to the ground beside him and sank to his knees.
Maria’s bulk blocked some of the sun, her shadow covering her children.
The two dogs stayed still.
The only sound was the swishing tail and the slight excited breath of dogs and humans. Julie whispered, “His name is Mink. Call him.”
Belinda whispered, “Mink.” The single word sounded like prayer.
Mink glided over to Belinda, whining softly, and Belinda whispered, “You are beautiful.”
Tom spoke over her head. “Gently.”
“Yes!” Belinda buried both her hands in Mink’s fur.
Julie stood and faced Maria. “I will have to teach you to care for him.”
Maria nodded. “Someone told me that.”
“Who?”
“Jack. But before him . . . ” Her voice trailed off, her face lost in a memory. “One evening we met a man with a dog at his heels, and I had tea and a rabbit, and he had skillet cornbread. He told me that you existed, that you raised dogs to be companions. We could have found a stray, but Belinda . . . ” She shrugged. “Belinda will never be stronger than she is today. I can’t take the risk or time to tame a stray. This man’s dog was beautiful, and strong, and guarded our camp for a night before we parted.”
“What dog?”
“A black and white one. Big. Charlie.”
Two dogs before Mink. “What was the man’s name?”
“Joel.”
She had liked Joel. A steady man, middle aged, stout, and afraid of most people. Verify your work when you can. Evaluate how well you do. “Thank you for telling me about Joel and Charlie.”
Maria watched her children stroke Mink while he stretched out, relaxed, tail thumping. “Has anyone failed?”
“Once. I had to take a dog back from a woman who couldn’t feed him.” When Marie said nothing in response, Julie asked, “Can you kill a chicken?”
Maria’s eyes widened. “I suppose.”
“Then we should start the dogs’ dinner.”