T. Bass - Half Past Human

In the Year of Olga, twenty-three-forty-nine, Moon and Dan returned to Rocky Top Mountain. Edentulous and withered with years, they sought refuge above the ten-thousand-foot level where the Big ES couldn’t reach. In this, the third millennium, Earth was avocado and peaceful. Avocado, because all land photosynthesized; and peaceful, because mankind was evolving into the four-toed Nebish—the complacent hive citizen.

Moon and Dan had no time for complacency. Hunted and starving, they struggled for survival in an ecology where the food chain had been shortened to its extreme. Earth Society had squeezed its docile citizens between the plankton ponds and the sewers, until there were no niches for the In-between people except with the varmints and vermin—thieving from garbage and gardens.

The hive culture flourished underground. Three trillion Nebishes shared in Earth’s bounty and found their happiness in the simple, stereotyped rewards rationed out by Earth Society—the Big ES. Nothing moved on the planet’s surface except the Agromecks and a rare fugitive such as Moon. He was a five-toed throwback unable to adjust to the crowded society. Both he and his dog Dan were living fossils. Their species were crowded out by the Nebish masses, but they lived on. Both had been subjects in ancient experiments on the metabolic clock—rendering them clockless; so their bodies lingered through the generations enabling them to witness, in agony, the extinction of their kind. The extinction was still going on, for an occasional throwback still appeared in the Nebish stock—primitives left behind by evolution.

Faithful, dull-witted Agromecks labored in the avocado-colored vegetation, striving to catch every quantum of the sun’s light energy and transform it into the needed carbohydrates. Their mechanical intelligences were suited to their tasks—they were dedicated, reliable. On this day in 2349 AO, a new meck brain stirred on Rocky Top Mountain. Its circuitry was far more complex—it was quick-witted and dedicated to no one and nothing but itself.

“Hi ho! Old man with dog. Pick me up.”

“Who speaks?” asked Moon, picking up a stone.

Dan’s snout wrinkled back in a toothless snarl.

“I am down here, under these leaves.”

“The spirit of the spear?”

“No—I’m a machine. Toothpick is my name.”

Moon and Dan crouched a respectable distance away.

“You are no machine I know. Machines can move.”

“I am a small one—to be carried. Pick me up.”

Moon hesitated.

“But the metal detectors…”

“Don’t worry. I’m not iron,” coaxed Toothpick. “Pick me up. I can feed you.”

Moon and Dan were hungry.

“Edibles are always welcome, but how can you feed us if you cannot move?”

“Carry me and I will show you.”

Moon and Dan remained hidden.

“Feed us first, and we’ll talk some more.”

In the silence that followed they heard the dry leaves rustle. Like a frozen worm the spear edged into view. They saw several inches of blade-on-shaft, then an optic. Toothpick studied them. They crouched lower.

“Return to the valley, old man,” instructed the cyber. “There you will find Harvesters. When the rains fall it will be safe to take what you need.”

Moon scoffed silently to himself. He knew there were Harvesters. There always were. But rain! The sky was perfectly clear. Without a word he and his dog backed away from Toothpick. They would return to the valley, not out of faith in the talking spear, but out of caution—they felt safer in the valley with a strange intruder in their mountain refuge—and if there was one thing that their long In-between years had taught them, it was caution.

Senses alert, they crawled between the trees on the edge of the orchard. Harvesters rolled by on wide soft wheels like giant beetles, appendages folded up and thorax-like bins laden with plankton powder, fruits and vegetables. The sky glinted a bright, glassy plum-blue. They waited.

Moon saw an old familiar Harvester carrying a load of wooden tomatoes. He stood up shouting and waving at the machine’s anterior bulge of sensors—the “head’ that housed neurocircuitry and communicator. The huge machine stopped and rotated its head toward the approaching human. Moon gave the balloon wheel a friendly pat.

“Good afternoon, human.”

Moon nodded and walked around the bulky machine giving its undercarriage a critical eye.

“Need any repairs?”

“Just a loose dust cover on my L box—but it can wait until I get back to—”

“I’ll take a look at it,” said Moon, going to the tool kit. While he worked he glanced hopefully at the western horizon. The evening sun hid intermittently behind dark clouds. “Anyone asking for me these days?”

“No,” answered the Harvester.

“Are you going to report seeing me?”

“I have not been ordered to. I only report what I am ordered to report.”

“I know,” said Moon, patting the machine affectionately. He knew it must report him if he stole part of the harvest. It would never hurt him or try to interfere, but it had to report any loss or damage.

Thunder rumbled softly in the distance.

“Mind if I ride along?”

“Enjoy your company,” said the machine as it started to roll.

Dan perked up his ears and began to pad along behind. A breeze carried scattered drops which pock-marked the dust. Soon, as Toothpick had predicted, fierce lightning flashed. Blinking through the downpour, old Moon packed slippery wooden tomatoes into his sack. Shouting over the thunder’s roar, he asked the machine to stop. It obliged. He hopped off into the mud. It waved and moved on. It would report him as soon as the storm lifted—but that would be several hours later, if Toothpick proved right.

The banana sun was well up in the grape sky when Moon and Dan returned to the spot where Toothpick protruded from the musty humus. Below, on the flats, the thunderstorm dissipated.

“You are a god!” exclaimed Moon, sorting damp spheres.

“Hardly.”

“You brought the rains and kept Harvester from reporting me,” said Moon, cracking one of the tomato-colored, ten-inch fruits on a stone. He tossed pulp to Dan and began to gum a piece himself.

The cyber spoke carefully, didactically: “I predicted the rain. The electrical activity of the storm prevented the Harvester from reporting. My abilities are based on science, not sorcery.” Toothpick paused to watch the old man and dog struggle with nutritious pulp in toothless mouths—then continued: “Of course we could represent my powers as spiritual—gather a following—organize a religion—”

“Gather a following? Never!” spat old man Moon. He tossed down a coarsely gummed rind. Face screwed up in disgust, he shouted: “Organization is what the Big ES thrives on—organize, cooperate and crush the individual. Never. Man was meant to be wild and free.”

Toothpick flexed his surface membrane charge and squirmed in the chocolate debris.

“Pick me up.”

Moon and Dan were still a bit chary about letting a talking javelin into their tight partnership.

“Why?”

“I am a companion robot—designed to offer companionship in exchange for companionship.”

“Dan and I are sufficient. What do we need with you? You can’t even walk. You’d be a burden.”

Toothpick watched them preparing to move on. His little cyber circuits raced.