Рич Ларсон - Tomorrow Factory - Collected Fiction

“I’ll help out you,” Carver Seven says. “Make you safe. But you have to do something for me, too, okay? Finish fix it up a bit Anita.”

The Man slumps. “You should just let them cut me up.”

Carver Seven knows the Man sometimes self-damages for reasons beyond his understanding, but there is no time to learn why. He looks around, sees Carrier Three’s head set on a little mound of sand, and picks it up carefully.

“Nearly finished,” he says. “Now finish fix it up a bit.”

“I can’t,” the Man says. “I have no fucking idea how a positronic brain works. I lied. I lied so you would help me with the boat. I can’t fix your friend.”

Carver Seven replays the sounds over and over, unwilling to believe it. The Man can’t fix Carrier Three. The Man never could. Recycler was right.

“I did try.” The Man makes its clipped noise, just once. “I looked at the wiring and all. But that was done in a lab with lasers and microtools and… all that robot shit. I’m sorry, buddy.”

“Anita is gone,” Carver Seven says, to be sure, hoping desperately the Man will contradict him.

“Yeah,” the Man says instead. “Anita is gone.” It rubs its head. “Don’t think I’ve said it till now. Said it properly.” It pauses. “I’m sorry.”

“Why boat?” Carver Seven asks, because he has no way to articulate what he really wants to say, that he has the deep hollow feeling like Carrier Three is being disassembled all over again.

“Thought I’d try to get to the mainland,” the Man says. “See if any survivors got carried past this little spit. If any lifeboats made it. Doesn’t matter, though. If I don’t die here, I’ll probably die in the sea. If I don’t die in the sea, I’ll die somewhere else. Doesn’t matter.”

Carver Seven thinks again of his sharp blades, how simple it would be to damage the Man. Simpler still to let the clan do it for him. Then he thinks of Carrier Three’s kindness.

“Nearly finished boat,” Carver Seven says. “Tin mans no go sea. Boat make you safe.” He goes to the last tree they felled and dragged, rolling it toward the others.

“You serious?” the Man asks.

In answer, Carver Seven begins stripping the log, short sharp strikes, precise and rhythmic. He is a Carver, so he will carve. He will be kind how Carrier Three was kind.

“You’re a better human being than I am,” the Man says. “You should know that.”

“You should let’s get to work,” Carver Seven says.

By the time the Man declares the boat finished, the sky is changing color, turning purple and red. The glimmering lifelights up above them are fading away. Carver Seven asks the Man what they are before they disappear completely, in case it knows.

“Stars,” the Man says. “They’re stars in the sky.”

“Stars in the sky,” Carver Seven echoes.

The Man pauses. “Some people, you know, they think we go up there when we die. They think our souls… our…” It taps its head, then its body. “They think a part of us gets to go up in the sky. And watch over the people who are still down here.”

Carver Seven parses the information. He looks down at Carrier Three’s near-dark lifelight, cradled in his manipulators, and wonders if maybe the other sparks are up in the sky. It seems improbable.

“If you want I could take her with me,” the Man says. “Just in case I meet some crazy roboticist.”

“Anita is gone,” Carver Seven says.

“Yeah.” The Man sucks in air through its audio port. “Thanks for helping me. Hope your people aren’t going to be pissed at you. Other tin mans hunt you?”

“No,” Carver Seven says. He’ll tell the rest of the clan the truth, that the Man must have floated away on its boat in the dark. He won’t tell them he worked through the night to ensure it. Recycler will guess, maybe, but not tell the others. Carver Seven will apologize to her, and give her Carrier Three’s head to finally recycle, but maybe ask that a small piece, just a tiny piece, be soldered to him.

“Good,” the Man says. “That’s good.”

Carver Seven uses one manipulator to help the Man drag the boat as close to the waves as he dares, then steps back. The Man hops on, making the wood bob in the water.

“Guess this is goodbye,” it says, with its photoreceptors in danger of leaking lubricant again.

“Crying like a little bitch,” Carver Seven says. “Get out of here.”

The Man makes its clipped noise, over and over, as it poles out into the waves. Carver Seven can’t tell if it is distress or happiness. As Watcher-in-the-sky rises and warms his back, making his steps back toward the village smooth and strong, Carver Seven can’t tell which he is feeling, either.

“If you’re having eye problems, you should go see him,” Durden said, stripping down. His brow was knitted. Eris put her hand where his muscle sliced lean to hip bone. His brow unknit. He grinned white and made his stomach taut.

“It might not happen again,” Eris said. She raised her arms and Durden tugged her shirt up and away. He stowed it in the locker and fed it a token.

Eris looked at her naked reflection a moment longer, then they stepped into the baths. Steam sucked towards her lips. The floor was stark white, prickling with rubber traction pad. The walls were wet marble. Bronze bodies appeared in slices through the fog, sculpted backs and sylph limbs. Relaxed voices mingled. Flesh slapped on flesh.

“Still,” Durden said, when they were entwined under a hot jet.

“Still what?” Eris asked, watching the tracery on the wall.

“Getting resynched would be safest.” Durden scrubbed under his arm. “How, ah, how did it happen? Exactly? You said things jumped.”

“Yes. They jumped.”

Eris thought of how to explain it. She’d been walking Addy to the school, crossing the bridge. Then something split the top of her head open. She’d stumbled against the railing but the vines turned to metal under her hands, and when she looked down the bright clear canal had no water, only brackish sludge, and something pale and red-spotted was lying in the mud.

“And then right back to normal?”

“I don’t want Addy to know,” Eris said, hooking her chin over his shoulder. “She’s worried about getting her imps. This would just make it worse.”

Durden said something to that, but Eris didn’t hear. It was happening again.

The steam vanished, whisked by some invisible hand, and the floor turned slimy cold under her feet. Cracked tiles with black tendrils creeping between the gaps. The rusted shower nozzles were discharging a pale blue foam. Bodies shivered where they stood and laughed and nuzzled against each other. Sagged breasts, sharp ribs. She saw shiny pink scar tissue and puckered lesions.

Eris closed her eyes and didn’t open them until she was sure it had passed, and then she buried herself in Durden’s unblemished skin.

She’d thought this might happen one day.

“Lind got his imps today, mammy,” Addy said. “Showed us them.”

“That’s early,” Eris remarked, spooning yogurt.

“Reckon they bribed the optometrist,” Durden said. The yogurt plopped in his bowl and he grinned over Addy’s yellow head. Eris tried to picture the optometrist taking a food bribe. She tried to imagine him even eating.

“He says it’s blue,” Addy said. “And it’s all bright and beauty.” Her small voice was somber.

“Soon you’ll be seeing it too, little duck.” Durden tapped his eyelid. “You should be excited, Addy. Your mammy and me, we’re excited.”

Addy played with her spoon. “Lind says it hurt,” she told it.

“Maybe a little,” Durden said. “Hell if I remember. You’re a big girl, though, aren’t you? Six is a big brave girl.” He looked sideways.