Рич Ларсон - Tomorrow Factory - Collected Fiction

Carver Seven is silent. It is not the first time Recycler has mentioned the idea. Carver Seven does think the Man has a lifelight, but he does not think it can be accessed the same way. When he first found the Man, blood was leaking from its head.

“May I see her?” he asks.

Recycler gives a long clicking scan to ensure nobody is nearby. Then she reaches down into the hard-packed dirt and begins to dig. Carver Seven joins her, shoveling fast and then slow as they reach the correct depth.

He retrieves Carrier Three’s bashed-in head from where it is hidden in the dark earth, far from the gaze of Watcher-in-the-sky, secret from the clan. In violation of the traditions, Carrier Three was not fully recycled after a falling stone crushed her. Carver Seven pleaded and pleaded and pleaded until Recycler agreed to save her head.

Carrier Three’s photoreceptors are blank, and she makes no sound in response to Carver Seven’s soft clicks. But he knows her lifelight is not fully extinguished. He knows if he waits and watches long enough, he will see a single lazy spark moving in slow circles.

“Nobody can repair a damaged lifelight,” Recycler clicks. “Not the Man. Nobody.”

Carver Seven puts what is left of Carrier Three deep inside his main cavity and covers it over. Recycler is usually correct. Recycler is clever.

But no matter how slim the chances, Carver Seven has to try.

The next day, he goes to visit the Man again.

“Hey, look who it is,” he warbles from a distance, because the Man startles easily, like a bird. It looks up at him. Its photoreceptors are pink and glassy.

“Hey, yourself, robo-butt,” the Man says, then returns to its work. There is a storm-felled tree between its soft feet, and it is using the sharp appendage to strip away the branches. Carver Seven looks around and sees remnants of fire, burned pieces of animal. The Man has hunted, how Recycler hunts. Beyond the mess, there are two more trunks already stripped smooth. He wonders what the Man is building.

But his original query is much more important.

“Can you do me a favor and fuck off?” Carver Seven asks.

That gets the Man’s attention. Its audio port opens and it makes the clipped noise that repeats, over and over, sometimes when the Man is pleased but more often when it leaks lubricant.

Carver Seven scans up and down the beach. “Can you do me a favor and fuck off and look here and fix it up a bit?” he asks. Then he opens his main cavity and pulls out Carrier Three’s caved-in head.

“Whoa.” The Man’s photoreceptors enlarge. “Did you do that? This some Lord of the Flies type shit?”

“Lord of the Flies type shit?” Carver Seven echoes, trying to parse the new sound units.

The Man shakes its head. “Who is it?” it asks.

Carver Seven thinks hard. He knows what this latest question means, but he does not know how to communicate Carrier Three’s name, the beautiful arc of click-squeal-click, into the Man’s ugly wet language. Then his subroutines dredge up the sound unit the Man used to wail at the sea, used to punctuate long rambling speeches with.

“She is Anita,” Carver Seven says.

The muscles across the front of the Man’s head, around its ever-wet audio port and brown photoreceptors, twitch in response to the sound unit Anita. Carver Seven recognizes it as distress. He wonders if he has made a language error. Then the muscles slacken again.

“Don’t say that,” it says. “You don’t understand. Don’t have a fucking idea. You’re a robot.”

“Can you fix it up a bit?” Carver Seven asks.

The Man stares blankly at him, unresponsive.

“You say you make us in lab you know,” Carver Seven says, trying to lay things out as clearly as he can. “Is it yes? Is it no? Make her good, please.” He extends Carrier Three’s head toward the Man.

The Man takes her, gentler than Carver Seven would have guessed from how it handles most objects, and holds her in soft fleshy manipulators. “You think I can fix your friend,” it says. It makes the clipped noise, but only once. Its audio port is contorted. “Jesus. I’m not a roboticist, buddy, I’m an electrician. I…” Its sounds stop. “This why you been hanging around, then?”

Carver Seven can make no sense of it. Too many new sound units in new patterns, not enough context. “Can you fix it up a bit?” he repeats. “Make to see. Make to talk. Make to think.”

The Man looks down at Carrier Three’s head. “Sure,” it says, the sound coming quietly. “Okay. I’ll fix your friend for you. I’ll make your friend good.”

The Man is going to repair Carrier Three’s lifelight. Carver Seven replays the sounds over and over to be sure he has divined the correct meaning. Each loop sends a fragile joy through him.

“But you have to do something for me, too, okay?” the Man says. “You have to help me build this boat and get off this island. Okay?”

“Okay,” Carver Seven says, not bothering to ask what this boat is. “Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.”

Carver Seven will help the Man build, and in return the Man will bring Carrier Three back to him.

Over the course of the next three days, Carver Seven learns what a boat is: a collection of trunks and branches lashed together with vines in order to float on top of the sea, as a leaf floats on the surface of a puddle. The Man explains it as they work.

The Man is slow and clumsy and tires easily, but is also clever the way Recycler is clever. Always thinking a move ahead, always ready to change the plan when obstacles arise, when the wood starts to warp or the vines are too brittle.

It gives Carver Seven hope that the Man will be able to fix Carrier Three. Often while Carver Seven works, shredding branches and sanding the logs smooth, the Man sits in the shade with Carrier Three’s head. It is difficult to keep his photoreceptors from straying to them. Whenever he looks over, the Man is tapping Carrier Three with its soft manipulators, rapping out mysterious patterns, the muscles of its face clenched in what Carver Seven knows is concentration.

“I just need a few more days,” the Man says when he notices. “I’m getting there. Your friend is almost fixed.”

“Okay,” Carver Seven says, feeling a surge of optimism at the news. “Great, just fucking great.”

The Man pushes air from its audio port. “How is it you ended up cussing more than I do? I know I don’t cuss that much.”

“How is few?” Carver Seven asks. “Few is one few is two few is three?”

“Two,” the Man says, putting both manipulators to its sides, looking over the boat. “Few is two.”

“Could be Anita fixed up and boat all finished few two days,” Carver Seven says, hoping that the two events coincide, that Carrier Three wakes up to see the finished boat Carver Seven has helped to build. She always liked to see the things Carver Seven made. She could always recognize the distinct marks and flourishes of his manipulators.

The Man’s face contorts as if it is briefly distressed. “Could be,” it says. There is a long silence. “What do you think Anita means?” it asks softly. “When you say Anita, what’s it mean to you?”

Carver Seven thinks hard, looping all his favorite memories of Carrier Three, the ones he views so often they have started to decay.

The broad shape of her back, her thick sturdy joints. The proud way she made stacks of wood and stone look light as air. Her kindness. How she always saved the best material, an interesting piece of driftwood or a particularly soft wedge of rock, to share with him, to watch him shape. Their slow-moving strategy game, their familiar channel, their small secrets. All the things they had done before her lifelight was damaged.