An Android Dog's Tale (26 page)

“
Over fourteen thousand years,
”
MO-126 said. “
It doesn’t seem that long, somehow.
”

“
I know what you mean. Each day is pretty
much like the last, so you don’t notice them passing. It hasn’t
been bad, I suppose, but I’m hoping my next posting is a bit less
rustic.
”

“
You still don’t know where you’re being
reassigned?
”

“
No. It’s privileged information,
apparently. I won’t know until I get there.
”

The corporation was not obligated to provide
details of employment offers to its workers, even those who
technically enjoyed the status of Galactic Federation citizens, as
both Tam and MO-126 now did. At least they
knew
they were
Corporation employees and they could refuse an assignment, which
was more than the humans here could do. Take the job or leave.
These were Tam’s choices. Of course leaving did not dissolve his
debt. That still must be paid, so if he ever hoped to be truly
free, his only realistic option was to extend his servitude to the
corporation or try to find work with some other organization. The
android dog could not be sure, but he suspected Tam’s next posting
would be another project much like this one. MO-126 did not lend
voice to his speculation. He saw no point in depressing his
partner.

Squat, gray robots that resembled giant bugs
more than they did anything else began unpacking their wagon. The
automatons were mindless and mute. They went about their duties
silently except for the clatter of their insect-like appendages.
MO-126 and Tam ignored them and headed down a corridor to the
maintenance bay for a routine check. When they got there, they
needed to wait. A thin cable tethered another android to the
diagnostic table. She turned as they entered, greeting them with a
smile full of elderly creases.

“Hello, gentlemen,” she said aloud. “A new
day dawns, huh?”

“Granny Greenflower,” Tam said, using the
name she often went by when working in the field. Many of the NASH
androids seemed to prefer this over their Corporation designations.
“It’s good to see you.” He also spoke aloud. Some androids
preferred to, and inside the hub terminal there were no primitives
who might overhear them.

“Same here. Are you staying on with the
corporation or are you going to try something else?”

“I’m staying on,” Tam said. “I’ve got a new
posting.”

“Do you know where?”

“No. I’m hoping it will be Corporation
headquarters, but no one has said.”

“Typical,” she said, her dislike of the
corporation’s disregard of its employee’s preferences evident in
her voice. “What about you, MO-126? Do you have another assignment
as well?”

“
No. I’ve decided to retire
here.
”

“You? Really? Would you mind if I asked you
why?”

He shrugged his furry shoulders. “
To be
honest, I’m not sure. Mostly, I’m curious about what the humans
here will do—what they will become.
”

“They’ll probably become extinct,” Tam said.
“They’re clever enough, I’ll grant that, but they definitely lack
an aptitude for prolonged bouts of sanity. Without oversight,
they’ll be at each other’s throats in a few centuries.”

“I think you’re wrong, there,” Granny
Greenflower said. “At least as far as your long range forecast is
concerned. I agree that humans can be their own worst enemies, but
they tend to get over it. They are instinctively quite kind to one
another. At least most of them are. They aren’t like the koncans
who seem to enjoy being angry, or the faxons who regarded violence
and cruelty as art forms.”

The corporation discovered both of these
sentient species over fifty thousand years ago and quickly
determined that they were not suitable for anything other than
occasional monitoring. After all, they both sat on some fine real
estate upon which the corporation staked contingency claims. The
faxons eventually died out, leaving behind a few crumbling arenas
and stepped pyramids. Federation archeologists subsequently
dismantled some of these and then reassembled them in museums on
other planets. The rest were leveled, ground to dust, and buried.
The faxon home planet became a Corporation project with mayboes as
the imported worker species.

The koncans somehow managed to survive in
small groups, but they never advanced beyond a Paleolithic level of
technology. Their crowning cultural achievement was perfecting the
art of throwing rocks at one another, which served as their primary
sport and as a simpler alternative to rational discussion.

“
I wonder how humans fared on their home
planet,
” MO-126 said.

“Funny you should ask,” Granny Greenflower
said. “I did a data search recently and found that a Corporation
automated probe did a quick flyby there only a few centuries ago.
It discovered evidence of a Bronze Age culture. That makes them of
little interest to the corporation, of course, so I wouldn’t expect
another probe to be sent there for a few thousand years at
least.”

“
I’m glad they survived.
”

“So far,” Tam said.

“Your partner is a gloomy sort, isn’t he?”
Granny Greenflower said ostensibly to MO-126 but clearly as a mild
tease toward Tam.

She hopped down from the diagnostic table
with a sprightliness that belied her apparent age. MO-126 took her
place. A flexible arm extended from the head of the table and
connected with a receptacle hidden inside his right ear.

“
Oh, he’s almost optimistic—for a
trader,
” the android dog said.

“I just don’t see how a bunch of primitive
workers can be expected to manage themselves—especially humans,”
Tam said. “Without us here to keep them productive and, well, tame,
they’ll either starve or kill one another. I’ve worked with them a
long time, and I think you’re wrong about them. As far as I can
tell, they are far too prone to selfish and irrational behavior to
create anything approaching civilization.”

“They also can be caring and empathetic,”
the gray haired nursery android said.

“Exactly! They’re an intrinsically
self-contradictory species. With such conflicting instincts, it’s
no wonder so many of them are insane. I have seen villages in which
the primitives beat one another senseless for sport or forced dogs
or even chickens to fight to the death for entertainment. I’ve
heard of some in which they sacrificed people as part of religious
ceremonies. And people enjoyed watching it all. They even brought
their children to watch. Yes, I know individual humans can be kind
to one another, but they also seem to find violence and the
suffering of others entertaining. They’re even worse when they are
in groups. Some kind of collective madness seems to come over
them.”

“
Maybe they can overcome that,
”
MO-126 said. “
They must have done so on their home
planet.
”

“Bronze technology isn’t clear evidence of
much,” Tam countered. “The faxons developed bronze before they
finally died out. What did they do with it?”

“
Um, I think they made statues, didn’t
they?
” MO-126 said. He recalled downloading something about
that during one of his breaks between assignments.

“And weapons. Lots of weapons, but do you
remember what the statues were of ?”

“Their gods, mostly,” Granny Greenflower
said with some reluctance. “They had several—the Scream Listener,
the Blood Drinker, the Gut Glutton, Judge the Unmerciful, Lingering
Death, and Pain, as I recall. But faxons and humans are far
different species.”

“Maybe,” Tam said. “But I see some
similarities.”

“I’m not saying humans aren’t barbarians,
I’m just saying they don’t have to remain barbarians. There’s more
to them than that.”

“
What about you, Granny Greenflower?
”
MO-126 asked. The discussion was beginning to depress him. “
You
haven’t said what your plans are.
”

“I have a few ideas. Nothing firm, but I am
leaving the corporation. I paid off my debt long ago, and I have
investments that are doing well enough to give me a few options.”
She tapped the side of her nose and winked. MO-126 did not know
exactly what this implied, but he gathered that the corporation or
maybe even the Galactic Federation might not approve of her
tentative plans.

“Why don’t you do that?” Tam asked his
partner. “You’re free and clear, too. Once the last transport
leaves, you’ll be stuck here.”

“
I don’t mind it. Besides, if I want to
do anything different, I’ll need to be modified—fairly extensively,
I imagine. Let’s face it. I’m a dog.
”

“If you stay with the corporation, they’ll
cover the cost,” Tam said.

“
No they won’t. They’ll just add it to my
obligation, and I won’t have much say in what gets modified or
where I end up. I’d just as soon stay here.
”

“As a dog? You’ll never get a set of thumbs
if you do that.” Tam knew him well.

“
I know, but I won’t end up with webbed
feet working on some Corporation swamp project either.
”

“Um, well yes. I suppose there is that,” Tam
said, undoubtedly now estimating the odds of a similar fate
befalling him.

“
And I don’t want to be in debt to the
corporation again. At least here, I’m as free as a dog can
be.
”

“He won’t be alone,” Granny Greenflower
said. “He might be the only mobile observer, but I’ve spoken with
several nursery androids who said they were staying here.”

“Sounds dreadful,” Tam said. “What could
they possibly do among a bunch of primitives?”

“Believe it or not, some of us like working
with humans. The androids I’ve talked to plan on continuing much as
they have before as healers, nannies, storytellers and whatever. It
is, after all, what they were made for.”

“With the project ending, what’s the
point?”

“I think the point is that there is no
point, other than to enjoy what they do. Until now, there has
always been some ulterior motive, and many of us felt, well, a bit
disingenuous about it all. I think a lot of those staying are
trying to make up for that so they can feel good about
themselves.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Tam said. “Their
obligations are to the corporation, not to the primitives.”

“Now their obligations are a matter of
choice,” she said.

“
You sound like you would like to stay
yourself,
” MO-126 said.

A chime sounded, and the cable attaching him
to the diagnostic table withdrew from his ear.

“I considered it,” she said, “but I think
I’m going to try something even more outrageous. Like I said, I
have no firm plans, but I better get going. I’m supposed to be
helping load the transports down in the holding bay. If I don’t see
you again, I’ll wish both of you the best of luck now.”

“Are you sure?” Tam asked his partner again
after the nursery android left. “You can still change your mind,
you know.”

“
I’m sure,
” the android dog told him,
which was close to true. He did not feel completely sure, but the
idea of staying bothered him less than the idea of leaving.

“Well, then, I suppose I’ll say goodbye as
well. After my diagnostic, I’m supposed to be helping with
inventory. I don’t suppose you have an assignment in the shutdown.
No thumbs, right?”

“
It does limit my usefulness,
” MO-126
said good-naturedly.

It did. The Corporation designed him for one
purpose and this was not it. Project shutdown required logistics
planning, scheduling, asset allocation, diagnostics, disconnecting
equipment, and simple packing. He lacked the skills for some of
these tasks and the thumbs for the others. Some equipment, of
course, would be abandoned in place simply because it was not worth
moving. Other things, including the Mark Seven Project Manager
itself and its still functioning project peripherals, would remain
because they could not be moved. They were inextricably integrated
with the planet. Galactic Federation law also required that
provisions be made for those androids who chose to remain.
Officially, and more important, legally, the PM in its new role
would be an independent agent responsible for maintaining minimal
functionality of the systems and resources intended to support the
androids who chose to retire here, and for ensuring that the
project’s residual infrastructure remain hidden from the
primitives, of course.

“Well, then, old friend...,” Tam said.

“
Yes, well, I’ll be seeing you,
Tam.
”

“Probably not, but who knows?”

“
Yeah, it’s a small galaxy,
right?
”

“No, not really, but if you’re right about
these humans, we may be seeing more of them in a few thousand
years. I hope you are.”

MO-126 knew he did not really think so, but
humans just might surprise him. MO-126 would have smiled if his
mouth was designed for it. Instead, he wagged his tail.

The android dog left Hub Terminal Ten and
climbed the rugged mountain until he found a small shelf of flat
rock that provided a clear view of the sky. He remained there three
days until the last stealth transport left the planet.

~*~

Four months later, MO-126 sat on a grassy
hilltop watching artificial stars fall. Another tremor shook the
ground; a strong one this time. The project manager normally
prevented such things, or at least mitigated them. A strong quake
provided further evidence of the PM malfunctioning.

Much of the chatter he picked up from some
of the two hundred or so NASH androids who stayed behind was about
the PM’s rapid psychological deterioration. Such things were not
unprecedented. This particular model, the Mark Seven, was known to
suffer depression if insufficiently challenged. The line was
discontinued millennia ago, but Mark Sevens still ran several
Corporation projects, and the manufacturer maintained that they
were adaptive and creative enough to overcome such problems, given
time, in most cases.