Robots

by Jack Dann

  It was early morning when they started. Just after noon they found the top of the tube with its bronze tablet. "Here's where the hard work starts," said MIK.

  It took them two weeks of continual effort. Slowly the tube was exposed as the hole around it grew larger. Since GUF could work better standing still, they had him dig all the time, while DUN and MIK both dug and pushed rock and dirt clear of the crater.

  They found some long flat iron rods partway down, and threw away the worn limbs and used the metal to better effect.

  On one of the trips to push dirt out of the crater, DUN came back looking puzzled.

  "I thought I saw something moving out there," he said. "When I looked, it went away."

  "Probably just another animal," said MIK. "Here, help me lift this rock."

  It was hard work and their motors were taxed. It rained once, and once there was a dust storm.

  huh way I see it," said GUF, looking at their handiwork, "is that yah treat it like a great big of tree made outta rock."

  They stood in the bottom of the vast crater. Up from the center of this stood the concrete tube.

  "We've reached twenty-six meters," said MIK. "The capsule itself should be in the last 2.3816 meters. So we should chop it off," he quickly calculated, "about here." He drew a line all around the tube with a piece of chalky rock.

  They began to smash at the concrete with rocks and pieces of iron and steel.

  "T ímber!" said DUN.

  The column above the line lurched and with a crash shattered itself against the side of the crater wall. "Oh boy! Oh boy!"

  "Come help me, GUF," said MIK.

  Inside the jagged top of the remaining shaft an eyebolt stood out of the core.

  They climbed up on the edge, reached in and raised the gleaming Cupraloy time capsule from its resting place.

  On its side was a message to the finders, and just below the eyebolt at the top was a line and the words CUT HERE.

  "Well," said MIK, shaking DUN's and GUF's hands. "We did it, by gum!"

  He looked at it a moment.

  "How're we gonna get it open?" asked GUF. "That metal shore looks tough!"

  "I think maybe we can abrade it around the cutting line, with sandstone and, well ... go get me a real big sharp piece of iron, DUN."

  When it was brought, MIK handed the iron to GUF and put his long tail over a big rock.

  "Go ahead, GUF," he said. "Won't hurt me a bit." GUF slammed the piece of iron down.

  "Uh hyuk," he said. "Clean as a whistle!"

  MIK took the severed tail, sat down crosslegged near the eyebolt, poured sand on the cutting line, and began to rub it across the line with his tail.

  It took three days, turning the capsule every few hours. They pulled off the eyebolt end. A dusty waxy mess was revealed.

  "That'll be what's left of the waterproof mastic," said MIK. "Help me, you two." They lifted the capsule. "Twist," he said.

  The metal groaned. "Now, pull!"

  A long thin inner core, two meters by a third of a meter, slid out.

  "Okay," said MIK, putting down the capsule shell and wiping away mastic. "This inner shell is threaded in two parts. Turn that way, I'll turn this!"

  They did. Inside was a shiny sealed glass tube through which they could dimly see shapes and colors.

  "Wow!" said GUF. "Looka that!"

  "Oh boy, oh boy," said DUN.

  "That's Pyrex," said MIK. "When we break that, we'll be through."

  "I'll do it!" said DUN.

  "Careful!" said GUF

  The rock shattered the glass. There was a loud noise as the partial vacuum disappeared.

  "Oh boy!" said DUN.

  "Let's do this carefully," said MIK. "It's all supposed to be in some kind of order."

  The first thing they found was the message from four famous humans and another, whole copy of The Book of the Time Capsule. GUF picked that up.

  There was another book with a black cover with a gold cross on it, then they came to a section marked "Articles of Common Use." The first small packet was labeled "Contributing to the Convenience, Comfort, Health and Safety." MIK opened the wrapper.

  Inside was an alarm clock, bifocals, a camera, pencil, nail file, a padlock and keys, toothbrush, tooth powder, a safety pin, knife, fork and slide rule.

  The next packet was labeled "Pertaining to the Grooming and Vanity of Women." Inside was an Elizabeth Arden Daytime Cyclamen Color Harmony Box, a rhinestone clip, and a woman's hat, style of autumn 1938 designed by Lilly Daché.

  "Golly-wow!" said DUN, and put the hat on over his. The next packet was marked "For the Pleasure, Use and Education of Children."

  First out was a small spring-driven toy car, then a small doll and a set of alphabet blocks. Then MIK reached in and pulled out a small cup.

  He stared at it a long, long time. On the side of the cup was a decal with the name of the man who had created them, and a picture of MIK, waving his hand in greeting.

  "Gawrsh, MIK," said GUF, "it's YOU!"

  A tossed brick threw up a shower of dirt next to his foot.

  They all looked up.

  Around the crater edge stood ragged men, women and children. They had sharp sticks, rocks and ugly clubs.

  "Oh boy!" said DUN. "People!" He started toward them.

  "Hello!" he said. "We've been trying to find you for a long time. Do you know the way to the Park? We want to learn all about you."

  He was speaking to them in Japanese.

  The mob hefted its weapons. DUN switched to another language.

  "I said, we come in peace. Do you know the way to the Park?" he asked in Swedish.

  They started down the crater, rocks flying before them. "What's the matter with you?" yelled DUN. "WAK WAK WAK!" He raised his fists.

  "Wait!" said MIK, in English. "We're friends!" Some of the crowd veered off toward him.

  "Uh-oh!" said GUF. He took off clanking up the most sparsely-defended side of the depression.

  Then the ragged people yelled and charged.

  They got the duck first.

  He stood, fists out, jumping up and down on one foot, hopping mad. Several grabbed him, one by the beak. They smashed at him with clubs, pounded him with rocks. He injured three of them seriously before they smashed him into a white, blue and orange pile.

  "Couldn't we, huh-huh, talk this over?' asked MIK. They stuck a sharp stick in his ear mechanism, jamming it. One of his gloved hands was mashed. He fought back with the other and kicked his feet. He hurt them, but he was small. A boulder trapped his legs, then they danced on him.

  GUF made it out of the crater. He had picked the side with the most kids, and they drew back, thinking he was attacking them. When they saw he was only running, they gave gleeful chase, bouncing sticks and rocks off his hobbling form.

  "WHOA!" he yelled, as more people ran to intercept him and he skidded to a stop. He ran up a long slanting pile of rubble. More humans poured out of the crater to get him.

  He reached the end of the long high mound above the crater rim. His attackers paused, throwing bricks and clubs, yelling at him.

  "Halp!" GUF yelled. "Haaaaaaaalp!"

  An arrow sailed into the chest of the nearest attacker.

  GUF turned. Other humans, dressed in cloth, stood in a line around the far side of the crater. They had bows and arrows, metal-tipped spears and metal knives in their belts.

  As he watched, the archers sent another flight of arrows into the people who had attacked the robots.

  The skin-dressed band of humans screamed and fled up out of the crater, down from the mounds, leaving their wounded and the scattered contents of the time capsule behind them.

  It took them a while, but soon the human in command of the metal-using people and GUF found they could make themselves understood. The language was a very changed English/Spanish mixture.

  "We're sorry we didn't know you were here sooner," he said to GUF. "We only heard this morning. Those others," he said with a grimace, "
won't bother you anymore."

  He pointed to the patch of green to the north. "Our lands and village are there. We came to it twenty years ago. It's a good land, but those others raid it as often as they can."

  GUF looked down into the crater with its toppled column and debris. Cigarettes and tobacco drifted from the glass cylinder. The microfilm with all its books and knowledge was tangled all over the rocks. Samples of aluminum, hypernik, ferrovanadium and hypersil gleamed in the dust. Razor blades, an airplane gear and glass wool were strewn up the side of the slope.

  The message from Grover Whalen opening the World's Fair, and knowledge of how to build the microfilm reader were gone. The newsreel, with its pictures of Howard Hughes, Jesse Owens and Babe Ruth, bombings in China and a Miami Beach fashion show, was ripped and torn. The golf ball was in the hands of one of the fleeing children. Poker chips lay side by side with tungsten wire, combs, lipstick. GUF tried to guess what some of the items were.

  "They destroyed one of your party," said the commander. "I think the other one is still alive."

  "I'll tend to 'em," said GUF.

  "We'll take you back to our village," said the man. "There are lots of things we'd like to know about you."

  "That goes double fer us," said GUE. "Those other folks pretty much tore up what we came to find."

  GUF picked up the small cup from the ground. He walked to where they had MIK propped up against a rock.

  "Hello, GUF," he said. "Ha-ha, I'm not in such good shape." His glove hung uselessly on his left arm. His ears were bent and his nose was dented. He gave off a noisy whir when he moved.

  "Oh, hyuk hyuk," said GUF. "We'll go back with these nice people, and you'll rest up and be right as rain, I guarantee."

  "DUN didn't make it, did he, GUF?"

  GUF was quiet a moment. "Nope, MIK, he didn't. I'm shore sorry it turned out this way. I'm gonna miss the of hothead."

  "Me, too," said MIK. "Are we gonna take him with us?"

  "Shore thing," said GUF. He waved to the nearby men.

  The town WAS in a green valley watered by two streams full of fish. There were small fields of beans, tomatoes and corn in town, and cattle and sheep grazed on the hillsides, watched over by guards. There was a coppersmith's shop, a council hut, and many houses of wood and stone.

  GUF was walking up the hill to where MIK lay.

  They had been there a little over two weeks, talking with the people of the village, telling them what they knew. GUF had been playing with the children when he and MIK weren't talking with the grown folks. But from the day after they had buried DUN up on the hill, MIK had been getting worse. His legs had quit moving altogether, and he could now see only in the infrared.

  "Hello, GUF," said MIK.

  "How ya doin', pardner?"

  "I-I think I'm going to terminate soon," said MIK. "Are they making any progress on the flume?"

  Two days before, MIK had told the men how to bring water more efficiently from one of the streams up to the middle of the village.

  "We've almost got it now," said GUF. "I'm sure they'll come up and thank you when they're finished."

  "They don't need to do that," said MIK.

  "I know, but these are real nice folks, MIK. And they've had it pretty rough, what with one thing and another, and they like talkin' to yah."

  GUF noticed that some of the human women and children waited outside the hut, waiting to talk to MIK.

  "I won't stay very long," said GUF. "I gotta get back and organize the cadres into work teams and instruction teams and so forth, like they asked me to help with."

  "Sure thing, GUF," said MIK. "I—"

  "I wisht there was somethin' I could. do ..."

  There was a great whirring noise from MIK and the smell of burning silicone.

  GUF looked away. "They just don't have any stuff here," he said, "that I could use to fix you. Maybe I could find something at thuh crater, or ..."

  "Oh, don't bother," said MIK. "I doubt ..."

  GUF was looking at the village. "Oh," he said, reaching in the bag someone had made him. "I been meanin' to give you this for a week and keep fergettin'." He handed MIK the cup with the picture of him on the side.

  "I've been thinking about this since we found it," said MIK. He turned it in his good hand, barely able to see its outline. "I wonder what else we lost at the crater."

  "Lots of stuff," said GUF. "But we did get to keep this."

  "This was supposed to last for a long time," said MIK, "and tell what people were like for future ages? Then the people who put this there must really have liked the man who thought us up?"

  "That's for sure," said GUF.

  "And me too, I wonder?"

  "You probably most of all," said GUF.

  MIK smiled. The smile froze. The eyes went dark, and a thin line of condensation steam rose up from the eartracks. The hand gripped tightly on the cup.

  Outside, the people began to sing a real sad song.

  If was a bright sunny morning. GUF put flowers on MIK's and DUN's graves at the top of the hill. He patted the earth, stood up uncertainly.

  He had replaced his frozen foot with a little wood-wheeled cart which he could skate along almost as good as walking.

  He stood up and thought of MIK. He set his carpenter's cap forward on his head and whistled a little tune.

  He picked up his wooden toolbox and started off down the hill to build the kids a swing set.

  The Robots Twilight Companion

  Tony Daniel

  Like many writers of his generation, Tony Daniel first made an impression on the field with his short fiction. He made his first sale to Asimov's in 1990, and followed it up with a long string of well-received stories both there and in markets such as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Amazing, SF Age, Universe, and Full Spectrum throughout the '90s, stories such as "The Robot's Twilight Companion," "Grist," "The Careful Man Goes West," "Sun So Hot I Froze To Death," "Prism Tree," "Candle," "Death of Reason," "No Love in All of Dwingeloo," and many others, some of which were collected in The Robot's Twilight Companion. His story "Life on the Moon" was a finalist for the Hugo Award in 1996 and won the Asimov's Science Fiction Readers Award poll. His first novel, Warpath, was released simultaneously in the United States and England in 1993. In 1997, he published a new novel, Earthling. In the first few years of the Aughts, he has produced little short fiction, but instead has been at work on a major science fiction trilogy, the first volume of which, Metaplanetary, was published in 2001; the second volume, Superluminal, appeared in early 2004.

  Here, he gives us a powerful and powerfully strange novella, perhaps the best robot story of the last decade, that takes us from the woods of the Pacific Northwest to the center of the Earth itself, and from life to death and then back to an odd new sort of life again .. .

  Thermostatic preintegration memory thread alpha:

  The Man

  27 March 1980

  The Cascade Range, Washington State, USA

  Monday

  Rhyolite dreams. Maude under the full moon, collecting ash. Pale andesite clouds. Earthquake swarms. Water heat pressure. Microscopy dates the ash old. Not magma. Not yet. Maude in the man's sleeping bag, again.

  "I'm not sure we're doing the right thing, Victor. This couldn't have come at a more difficult time for me."

  Harmonic tremors, though. Could be the big one. Maude, dirty and smiling, copulating with the man among seismic instruments.

  "St. Helens is going to blow, isn't it Victor?" she whispers. Strong harmonies from the depths of the planet. Magmas rising. "You know, don't you, Victor? You can feel it. How do you feel it?"

  Yes.

  "Yes."

  18 May 1980

  Sunday

  8:32 A.M.

  The man glances up.

  Steam on the north slope, under the Bulge. Snow clarifies, streams away. The Bulge, greatening. Pale rhyolite moon in the sky.

  "Victor, it's out of focus."

  "It's
happening, Maude. It's. She's." The Bulge crumbles away. The north slope avalanches. Kilotons of shieldrock. Steam glowing in the air-750 degrees centigrade and neon steam.

  "You were right, Victor. All your predictions are true. This is going to be an incredibly violent affair."

  Maude flush and disbelieving. Pregnant, even then.

  13 September 1980

  Wednesday, Ash Wednesday

  Rhyolite winds today, all day. Maude in tremors. Eclampsia.

  "I can't believe this is going to happen, Victor." Blood on her lips, where she has bitten them. Yellow, frightened eyes.

  "I'm trying, Victor."

  The gravid Bulge, distended. The Bulge, writhing. "Two-twenty-over-a-hundred-and-forty, doctor." "Let's go in and do this quick."

  "I haven't even finished."

  Pushes, groans. Something is not right.

  A girl, the color of blackberry juice. But that is the blood.

  "Victor, I haven't even finished my dissertation." Maude quaking. The rattle of dropped instruments. "Jesus-Christ-what-the-somebody-get-me-a-b.p." "Seventy-over-sixty. Pulse. One twenty-eight." "God-oh-god. Bring me some frozen plasma and some low-titer O neg."

  "Doctor?" The voice of the nurse is afraid. Blood flows from the IV puncture. "Doctor?"

  Maude, no.

  "Oh. Hell. I want some blood for a proper coag study. Tape it to the wall. I want to watch it clot. Oh damndamn. She's got amniotic fluid in a vein. The kid's hair or piss or something. That's what. Get me."

  "Victor?" Oh Victor, I'm dying. Then, listening. "Baby?" Maude dying. Blood flowing from every opening. Nose mouth anus ears eyes.

  "Get me. I."

  "Victor, I'm so scared. The world's gone red." Maude, hemorrhaging like a saint, "The data, Victor, save the data."

  "Professor Wu, please step to the window if you would. Professor Wu? Professor?"

  "Victor?"

  The Bulge—the baby—screams.

  Ashes and ashes dust the parking lot below. Powder the cars. Sky full of cinder and slag. Will this rain never stop? This gravity rain.