Jerry Oltion - Humanity

“Later,” she said. “You go see about the learning machines; I’ll worry about decorating.”

“Yes, Mistress.” Basalom walked toward the door, but Janet stopped him with a word.

“Basalom.”

“Yes?”

“I just want to know what’s happened to them. Information first, actions later, understand?”

“Understood.”

“Good. And don’t let anyone see you. If someone does spot you, I order you not to obey them. Just get away, make sure you’ve lost them, and come back here. My order takes precedence over any others.”

“Very well, Mistress.”

“All right, then, get going.”

Basalom left the apartment, closing the door softly behind him. Janet looked once more at the sterile walls around her, shook her head, and went into the bedroom to unpack.

The contents of one overnight bag didn’t take long to stow. Janet amused herself by ordering the apartment to simulate in ever-greater detail a suite in a medieval castle-a heated one, of course, with hot and cold running water-but she soon grew bored with that game as well. She looked at the desk, now a massive, ornate roll-top with slots and drawers and cubbyholes waiting to be filled, and sat down in the equally massive swivel chair in front of it. Centered in the back of the desk at a comfortable reading height was a flat, dull gray panel that she supposed was a monitor.

So. If she’d been thinking, she could probably have found her learning machines without sending Basalom out after them.

“How do I turn this idiot computer on?” she asked of the desk.

In answer, the gray screen at the back of the desk lit up to white, and the surface of the desk began to differentiate into a keyboard, drawing pad, pointer, and memcube reader. Janet disdained all but the screen, saying aloud to it, “Show me the interior of whatever’s at the address you gave Basalom.” She knew Basalom’s methods, and that he would simply have asked the address to his destination rather than try to find it by dead reckoning.

Sure enough, the computer didn’t ask what address she was talking about. Neither did it give her the interior view she’d asked for. “That location has been restricted,” a calm, generic voice said.

Janet nodded. Not surprising, if the robots were trying to hide. “Give me an outside view, then.”

The screen displayed a wide-angle image of a closed door set in a long corridor, with a two-strip slidewalk running in either direction. There were no figures on the slidewalk, and none of the other doors were open.

It looked about as anonymous as a place could be. Janet considered trying to break through the security for a look inside, but decided to wait for Basalom’s report instead. She didn’t want to start tripping alarms while he was there.

What else could she do while she waited? On impulse, she asked, “Is David on the planet?”

“If by David you mean your son, who now calls himself Derec, then yes, he is.”

Derec. She’d known he’d changed his name, but she hadn’t really assimilated the concept yet. She supposed she was going to have to get used to it. “Let me see him,” she said.

She was prepared to go through the whole rigamarole of talking a recalcitrant computer into letting her invade someone else’s privacy, but instead the screen did a center-out wipe and she found herself staring face to face with David. Derec. Whoever. He, too, was using a computer, and her viewpoint was from his screen. She gasped in surprise and was about to order the computer off when it asked, “Do you wish two-way communication?”

“No!” she whispered. “Don’t let him know I’m watching.”

“Acknowledged.”

Janet laughed in relief. That had been close. If old Stoneface hadn’t been such a snoop, she’d probably have been caught, but she should have known he’d program the system for surveillance first and talking second. She leaned back in her chair and took a good, long look at her son.

He had changed. He was older, for one-much older-but that wasn’t the most obvious change. As Janet watched him work, she noticed the determination in his eyes and the set of his jaw, the hint of a smile that touched his lips momentarily when he succeeded with some aspect of what he was doing, that smile fading back into determination when it didn’t pan out. She watched him lean back and stroke his chin in thought, say something to the computer and read the result on the screen, then close his eyes and sigh.

That was the biggest change: He wasn’t a petulant little brat anymore.

“Let me hear his voice,” Janet ordered.

“Acknowledged.”

Derec remained silent for a time, head tilted back and eyes closed, but after a while he opened them again and said, “How about power usage? Can you give me areas of increased power consumption?”

His voice was shockingly deep-and shockingly familiar. He had inherited his father’s voice. Janet had always considered his voice to be one of Wendy’s most endearing qualities, and now she found herself warming to her son as well. If he hadn’t inherited Wendell’s personality to go with it, then he might actually hold some promise after all.

Evidently what he saw on the screen was no more useful than the response to his earlier request. He leaned forward and shook his head. “No good. There’s too many of them. How about food consumption? Avery’s got to eat.”

Janet’s ears perked up at that. He was looking for Wendell? She’d thought he was talking about her robots.

“That service is not monitored,” the same generic voice that had answered Janet said to Derec.

“ Can you monitor it?”

“Yes.”

“Then do. Let me know the next time someone uses an automat, and record where. Record the next time someone uses a Personal. Monitor oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide buildup, and report any changes consistent with a human presence.”

“Frost,” Janet swore. She hadn’t been here half an hour and already Derec was onto her trail. He would think he’d caught Wendell, but the computer would lead him directly to her.

Unless, of course, he found Wendell first.

And Janet had a feeling she knew where he was.

“Computer, don’t tell Derec my location. He isn’t looking for me. Instead, give him the address I asked to see first. That’s the one he wants.”

“Acknowledged.”

She watched Derec’s eyes widen when the address flashed on his screen. He obviously hadn’t been expecting results so quickly. She watched him go through the same process she had of asking for an interior view, then an exterior one, but he learned no more than she had.

“Contact Wolruf,” she heard him say.

A moment later she heard a voice growl, “Wolruf, ‘ere.”

“Where’s ‘here’?” Derec asked.

“Level seven, four-thirty-six south, nine-fifty east. “

“I think I’ve found Avery at level nine, three-twenty-two north, four-seventy-six east. I’d just about bet the robots are there, too.”

Janet cocked her head. He almost certainly meant her learning machines. So he was looking for them, too. If that was the case then he couldn’t have had anything to do with their disappearance, could he?

Maybe not this time, but finding them all three here on the same planet was pretty suspicious. Janet had put them on three different planets, two of which she’d only later learned Derec and his father had also visited, and when she’d gone back to retrieve those first two robots she’d found no sign of them. Derec and Wendell had no doubt brought them here, where she’d dropped the third one intentionally, but what Derec wanted with them she couldn’t guess.

She knew for certain what Wendell wanted with them. He wanted to steal the technology she had developed for them, just as he had stolen her original cellular robot idea and used it to build his cities. Derec could easily be after the same thing, either with Wendell or on his own.