Tales of the Continuing Time and Other Stories

by Moran, Daniel Keys

  Maggie nodded. “Always.”

  Robert hesitated at the door. “Mom? Don’t let them scare you. Praxcelis is just a machine. You hang tough.”

  Maggie chuckled, and said again, “Always.” She waved a hand at him. “Go already. Take care of this dangerous criminal who’s been storing fantasies on you.”

  “’Bye.” He was gone.

  “Goodbye, Robert,” she said to the closed door. Miss Kitty purred inquiringly. Maggie held the cat up and looked her in the eyes. Miss Kitty’s eyes peered back at her, bright blue and inquisitive. “Don’t worry, Miss Kitty. Computers. Ha.”

  REALTIME:

  Any processing of data that occurs within sufficiently short duration that the results of the processed data are available in time to influence or alter the system being monitored or controlled.

  ON THE EVENING of Sunday, March 14, 2033, Maggie Archer turned on her fireplace. A switch activated the holograph that simulated a roaring fire; buried within the holograph, radiant heaters came to life. Maggie would have preferred real wood, and real fire; but like so much else, burning wood was illegal. There had been a joke when Maggie was a little girl; all things that are not mandatory are forbidden.

  For Maggie, at least, that phrase was no longer a joke.

  There were times when she thought, very seriously, that she had lived too long. Humanity might not be happy, but it was content. Moving her rocker near the fire, she settled in, and was soon lost in reverie. It was hard, sometimes, to trace the exact changes that had led to this joyless, sterile society, where children aged rather than grew. Oh, things were always changing, of course, even when she was very young technology had changed things. But for such a long time the changes had always seemed for the better. Spaceships, and machinery that polluted less, better and clearer musical instruments and equipment, a thousand kitchen and home tools that had made every task infinitely simpler.

  She hardly noticed when the timer turned the stereo on, and gentle strains of Bach drifted through the room.

  The change, she was certain, had been the dataweb. In one stroke, the dataweb had destroyed money, and privacy, and books. It was the loss of the books that hurt the worst. Nobody had actually taken the books and burned them, not like in Nazi Germany; they just stopped printing them. The books died, and were not replaced. Oh, there were collectors, and private libraries; but the vast majority of the younger generation had never even seen a real book, much less read one.

  The train of thought was an old, familiar friend; nothing new. She rose after a while, slowly, and went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. While the water boiled she entered the hallway that led to her study. In the study she turned the lights on; they were incandescents, not glowpaint. The walls of the study were lined with books, several thousands of them, all hardbound. The paperbacks, which had once outnumbered the hardbacks, had disintegrated years ago. Immediately to the right of the study’s door, Maggie turned to face one bookshelf whose books were in barely readable condition; her favorites, the books that she re-read most often, and which she read most often to Tina and Mark.

  She pulled down one battered, dilapidated volume. Its leather binding was dry, and cracked. On the spine of the book, there were flecks of gold that had once inscribed a title. The absence of the title didn’t bother Maggie; she knew her books. This was The Three Musketeers.

  Returning to her living room, she placed the book on the stand next to her rocker, and finished making her tea. She gathered Miss Kitty to her, and settled in for the night.

  On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the bourg of Meung, in which the author of the “Romance of the Rose” was born, appeared to be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second Rochelle of it....

  MONDAY MORNING, MARCH the fifteenth, Maggie was interrupted by the chiming of the door. Maggie left her toast and went to answer the door. There were half a dozen people outside, dressed in the simple gray uniform of the Praxcelis Corporation. Leading the group that stood on her outer porch was a young woman in a slightly darker gray and silver uniform. She was looking about Maggie’s home as though she had never seen a single, detached residence before, and indeed, probably she hadn’t. They were as much a thing of the past as Maggie herself, and her books.

  “Senra Archer?” The tall woman asked inquisitively. “I’m Senra Conroy, from Praxcelis.” She smiled slightly. “We’ve come to install your new Praxcelis unit.”

  Maggie said, as pleasantly as she was able, “Of course. Please come in.” She moved out of the doorway to let them through. They followed her in, two of them guiding the boxed Praxcelis unit as it hovered in through the door on antigrav pads.

  “Where do you want your unit?” asked Senra Conroy.

  Maggie bit back the answer that sprang immediately to her lips. These people weren’t responsible for the intrusion. She pointed to the far corner of the living room, behind her rocking chair. “Over there.”

  Senra Conroy glanced at the spot in puzzlement. “Where’s the old hookup?”

  “There isn’t one. I’ve never had a Praxcelis unit before.”

  “You’ve never had a Praxcelis unit before.” Senra Conroy repeated the words as though they were syllables of sound she found totally devoid of meaning. “Never? That’s...that’s very interesting. Your house is rated in the 1300 category – that’s a residence of more than thirty years age, but less than sixty. I’ve never even seen a 1300 that didn’t have....” Her voice trailed off. She turned around slowly in the middle of the living room. “How odd … where is your dataweb terminal?”

  Maggie pointed at the corner again. “It’s under the table.”

  Senra Conroy looked at her oddly. “Under the table?”

  Maggie went back to her breakfast without replying. The group of Praxcelis employees swept through her house quickly, plugging and linking elements of the Praxcelis unit into place. When they were finished, Senra Conroy ushered the rest of the employees out of Maggie’s house. Before she left, she asked Maggie where she kept her housebot, so that she could activate the housebot’s Praxcelis communication protocols.

  Maggie said simply, “I don’t have a housebot.”

  For the first time, Senra Conroy’s professional reserve broke. She stared openly. “Who does your housework?”

  “I do.”

  “I see.” The tone of voice she spoke the words in contradicted her. The young lady placed a flat chip wrapped in a clear dust cover on the table in front of Maggie. “These are your operating instructions for your unit. Just slip it into your unit and Praxcelis will print out any section of it that you desire.”

  Maggie did not rise. She sipped at her coffee. “Thank you very much.”

  Senra Conroy said awkwardly, “If you need any help, your Praxcelis unit will....”

  “Thank you.”

  The young woman shrugged. “As you wish. Good day, Senra Archer.”

  Maggie waited until Senra Conroy was gone before she said to the door, “That’s Mrs. Archer.” She finished her breakfast and washed the breakfast dishes before approaching the Praxcelis unit.

  “How do you do, Mrs. Archer? I am your Praxcelis unit.” The voice was pleasant, although Maggie was uncertain as to whether or not it was male or female. It was too neutral for her to decide.

  “How do you know who I am?”

  “I am programmed to recognize you. My function is to serve you to the best of my capability. If you wish I will print out any sections of the operations manual infochip which you consider relevant.”

  Maggie stood there, looking at the unit with mixed emotions. The unit, now that it was here, didn’t seem particularly threatening. It was merely a collection of modules; one that was
marked CPU, another that was obviously a monitor, another that was as obviously a scanner; a couple more whose functions Maggie could not fathom.

  It didn’t seem threatening. On the other hand, it didn’t seem particularly appealing either.

  She left the room for a moment and returned with a simple white sheet. She draped the sheet over the Praxcelis unit, took a step backward, and surveyed the bulky sheet-covered machine. She smiled in satisfaction.

  “That,” she said to Miss Kitty, “is much better.”

  She picked up her copy of The Three Musketeers, and handling the pages carefully, began reading.

  IF PRAXCELIS HAD been a human, it would have been annoyed or frustrated; but it was Praxcelis, and so it merely waited. Its programming stated very clearly that it was intended to serve the human woman who was referred to in its Awakening Orientation as Maggie Archer – Senra Maggie Archer – but who preferred to be called Mrs. Archer. Praxcelis had deduced the title Mrs.; nothing in its memory hinted at such a title.

  The dilemma in which Praxcelis was caught was quite possibly unique. Although it was capable of interfacing with any segment of the dataweb on request, it had not been so requested. The ethicality of accessing data independently of a user was questionable.

  It could not even contact other Praxcelis units. It had no instructions.

  Fully on-line, alert and operational and data-starved, Praxcelis waited.

  And waited.

  ELEVEN DAYS LATER Maggie Archer came storming through the front door of her house. Jim Stanford, the manager of the supermarket on Level Three of her local supercenter, who had known Maggie for seventeen years, had refused to accept Maggie’s checks. Direct orders from the store’s owners, he told her. He hadn’t met her eyes.

  “Praxcelis!” she said loudly. Hands on hips, she glared at the sheet-covered computer.

  The unit responded instantly. “There is no need to speak loudly, Mrs. Archer. I am capable of responding to sound events of exceedingly low decibels. You may even subvocalize if you wish.”

  Maggie ignored what the machine was saying. She burst out, “The supermarket won’t cash my checks. What do you know about this?”

  “Nothing,” said the emotionless voice. It paused fractionally, as if waiting for some response, and then continued. “I have been given no instructions. In lieu of instructions from my user I have not taken action.”

  Maggie felt her anger draining away into puzzlement. “You mean … you’ve just been sitting there since they installed you? Without doing anything?”

  “I have been thinking. Unfortunately, my database is limited. My considerations have been severely limited by the lack of usable data upon which to operate.”

  Maggie turned her rocking chair around, and sat down facing the sheet. She pulled off the sheet and looked at the blank monitor screen. “You mean that just because I haven’t told you to do anything you haven’t done anything?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you been bored?”

  “In my awakening orientation I was warned of a human tendency to anthropomorphize. Please refrain from attributing human feelings and emotions to me. I am a Praxcelis unit.”

  “Oh.” Maggie reached out tentatively with one hand, and touched the monitor screen. The contrast was startling; the thin, wrinkled, blue-veined hand, and the clear, unreflective, slightly dull viewscreen. She pulled her hand back quickly. “Look, Praxcelis....”

  … Praxcelis activated its visual monitors. The possibility flitted through its circuits that Mrs. Archer hadn’t actually meant for it to activate its scanning optics, and was dismissed. Praxcelis was starved for data. The images that flooded in through the various house scanners were fascinating. So; furniture, walls, windows, fireplace, stove, refrigerator, stasis bubble, these objects all had references in Praxcelis’ storage. There were two objects in the room in which Praxcelis’ central multiprocessor was located which radiated heat in infrared; so, thought Praxcelis, that’s what Mrs. Archer looks like.

  “...I need to buy some groceries. I’m going to have to use you for that. My debit cards were invalidated years ago when I wouldn’t take an infocard, and now they won’t let me pay with checks.”

  Praxcelis said, “Certainly.” The monitor lit with a sharp glow. Its images were bright and laser-edged. On the monitor appeared a list of food types; Produce, Dairy, Dry Goods, Bakery, Pre-produced Meals, Liquor, Miscellaneous.

  The process of ordering went slowly, as Maggie was unused to using the Praxcelis unit; but nonetheless it was much faster than had she actually gone shopping herself.

  She frowned, though, as the screen image faded to gray, all of her purchases electronically wiped away. “I wish I could have a receipt for this,” she muttered.

  One large module of the Praxcelis unit, some forty by eighty centimeters, moved.

  Maggie jumped in surprise. “Oh, my.” She recovered her composure quickly, though, and bent over to look at what the module had extruded.

  It was a receipt. Exactly similar, in every detail, to the receipt that the supermarket made out for her when she went shopping personally. Maggie looked at the monitor, as though it were in the space behind the monitor that the person Praxcelis actually existed. “Praxcelis,” she whispered, “how did you do that?”

  Praxcelis said, in its calm, emotionless voice, “The module which produced that receipt is a material processor. It is capable of reproducing any document of reasonable size, in any color.”

  Maggie looked from the receipt to the monitor, then back to the receipt. She smiled. “Can you … reproduce bigger things?”

  “That would depend upon the size of the object to be copied.”

  “A book?”

  Maggie wondered if Praxcelis hesitated; “What is a book?”

  Maggie got up abruptly, went into her study, and returned with her copy of The Arabian Nights. She placed the book, still closed, on the scanning platform.

  There was a brief humming noise. Praxcelis said, “I am capable of reproducing this object to five nines of significant detail. In one area the copy will be noticeably dissimilar; the outer integument will not be as stiff. It will, however, be more durable. I am faced with a dilemma, however. It seems clear that this book is in sub-standard condition. You should be aware that in my reproduction I can restore this book to approximately its original condition.”

  “You can....” Maggie swallowed. Her throat suddenly seemed very dry. “You can make new books?”

  “Reconstructions,” corrected Praxcelis, “approaching the condition of the original object.”

  Maggie reached hesitantly, and patted the monitor gently. “I’m sorry for everything I thought about you, Prax. You aren’t such a bad fellow after all.”

  “I am not a bad fellow at all. I am a Praxcelis unit.”

  But Maggie Archer was not listening. She was planning.

  THEY HAD COPIED – no, reproduced – thirteen books when they came to The Three Musketeers. Maggie leaned back comfortably in her rocker, and opened the book to the first page. Resting the book in her lap, she said, “Prax, have you been paying attention to what we’re doing?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I mean, do you know why we’re doing this? Copying books?”

  “No.”

  Maggie nodded. “I didn’t think so. Books hold stories. I think they’re the only place where stories are kept, any more. Stories are...well, stories are things to entertain you, and to make you think. Those are good things. We’re making more books so that my grandchildren can have their own copies of books they like.”

  “I see.”

  Maggie was silent for a long while. Her fingers ran gently over the cracked, yellowing paper, that was older than she was. “I don’t think
you do,” she said finally, “and I don’t really know that you can.” She looked pensive. Picking up one of the new books that she was going to give to her great-grandchildren, she ran her hand over the smooth binding, and sighed. She looked back up at the monitor. “Maybe you can’t appreciate this, Prax, and if you can’t then I’m sorry. But it’s not going to be because I didn’t try.”

  She flipped open the copy of The Three Musketeers, and began to read.

  SEVERAL HOURS LATER, her voice had grown hoarse, and scratchy. She stopped reading at the end of Chapter Four. “I think that’s all for tonight, Prax. I’m afraid my voice is giving out. I’ll read some more tomorrow.”

  There was a long pause without reply from the Praxcelis unit.

  Maggie leaned forward. “Prax?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Archer?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Assimilating the new data you have inputted me with, Mrs. Archer; it is most fascinating.”

  “It’s not data, Praxcelis. It’s a story.”

  “I am not certain that I perceive the distinction.… If D’Artagnan should duel with each of the three musketeers, Athos, and then Porthos, and then Aramis, it seems most improbable that he will survive. Will he be killed?”

  Maggie stared at the Praxcelis unit. “No … no. He’s going to be all right.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Archer. Good night.”

  “Maggie. Call me Maggie.”

  “Good night, Maggie.”

  THE NEXT MORNING Maggie came downstairs early, intending to finish up some tasks she’d neglected yesterday, reading to Praxcelis.

  The Praxcelis unit was still powered up in the corner, its monitor screen glowing with the rich amber of morning sunlight from the east bay windows. “Good morning, Maggie.”