Expiration Day (38 page)

He was right. Of course. I would have been jealous. And Dad had been wise enough to see it, even in the middle of his loss. He knew how little time he might have with me, and chose accordingly.

“In that case, I'm glad you chose to give me those years, Dad. Happy, for not having to share you with anyone else, because I wouldn't have been very good at it. Thank you, Dad.”

And then, because secrets are lies, too, I remembered I hadn't told Dad quite everything about one of my journeys to Wood Green to see John.

“Er, I'm afraid we let our curiosity get the better of us, Dad.”

He just chuckled.

“Yes, I'm not surprised. Particularly after some of Jake Fuller's revelations, yesterday. And that poem ‘Gentle me, love' rather gave the game away. In my day, we called it playing doctors and nurses. Or ‘you-show-me-yours-and-I'll-show-you-mine.' Are we talking about the same thing?”

I nodded.

“Well, it wasn't just ‘show.' There was some ‘touch' as well. Er, quite a bit, actually. But we were a bit too nervous to do more than that. I mean, touching each other didn't really do anything special for either of us. It was like Dr. Markov said, no better than reading a good book. But there must be scope to make android physical relationships more fulfilling; I just think that trying to duplicate human sexuality is the wrong place to start. That's what I was reaching for, with that poem …

“But anyway, that was as far as we got; simple, gentle touches and deeply loving caresses. And then we heard John's parents come back, which gave us a real scare. Are you angry?”

“Angry? No. Nor would I have been even if John's parents hadn't come back. I'm simply glad that you and John had a chance to show each other some tenderness. Teens will be teens. And you got a beautiful poem out of it, which is more than Nettie and I ever got out of our own lovemaking. For what it's worth, Nettie and I did our own share of ‘experimenting' when we were your age, so don't be embarrassed.”

I wish you hadn't told me that, Dad.

No. Cancel that. I cherish everything you've told me this hour. No exceptions. You are the best dad ever.

 

 

An hour is either too long to say good-bye, or else it is not nearly enough; but it is what we have been given. The sergeants-at-arms have suddenly stopped being distant ciphers. One of them is looking at his watch. He coughs. Apologetically, of course, Mister Zog. Minions of the law they might be, but they are polite minions.

“It's time, Reverend Deeley. Your hour is up.”

And me, too. Speak to me, too. Weren't you listening to all we said these past days? Do you still believe that I'm just a defective toaster, being returned to Oxted for spare parts?

“Funny…” says Dad, and stops, a catch in his voice.

Don't crack up, Dad. Not now. Because if you do, I will, too. And then they'll have to prize us apart, and if they try that, then I will kick and scream bloody murder, which will not be dignified; will not be the way that either of us wants our parting.

“Funny,” he continues, more in control, “but it doesn't feel like an hour. But I don't suppose two hours would feel any longer, either. Well, Tania. This is it.”

I, however, cannot make a sound, because I can feel a world-sized sob trying to break through and spoil it all. I can't speak, to tell my father good-bye. I can't tell him I love him. I might as well be a bloody toaster.

All I can do is to hold out my hands, mutely.

With unbelievable gentleness he takes them in his own hands, and draws me into the place of safety that is a—no, my—father's embrace.

And there I can speak.

“Father…”

A moment of silence.

“Do you know, Tania? I think this is the first time you've ever called me father, rather than dad. Why now?”

“Because … because you are my father. You are the one who made me. Everything I am comes from you.”

“And from your mother. But yes, I know it. And, daughter, I cherish the name that you have just given me. I have always been glad to be your dad. But I am honored beyond measure that today you have named me Father.”

If the last hour had seemed only a minute, the seconds I spend now in my father's arms distill all the years of him I will never have.

“Pray for me, Father, before I go.”

He takes a deep breath, gathering his thoughts.

“Almighty Father, who has made and loves all living things, bless our parting. Walk beside us on our paths this day, and do not let us stumble, nor let us be deceived by endings, for you are light in the darkness; you are wisdom and life eternal. Amen.”

“Amen.”

His arms open, in potent imagery that encompasses Christ on the cross, his own suffering, my … liberation, and that curious benediction. Where is the Michelangelo to capture the richness and depth of this instant?

“Good-bye, Tania. I love you always.”

“I love you, too, Dad. Good-bye.”

The hardest step, to move outside those protecting arms. I'm not sure I can do it.

“Go, now.”

Soft, infinitely gentle. Infinitely loving. Powerless to dismiss me.

A touch on my elbow. One of the sergeants.

“Come, Miss.”

And those words are what, finally, move me. One sergeant on my left. Another on my right. Neither quite touching me, though the threat is there. Thus I go, of my own volition. Dignity intact. Just.

I look back one last time over my shoulder and see Dad, standing a little apart from the sergeants, holding himself together with superhuman effort. He calls, “God go with you, Tania,” his voice breaking with pain and loss, tears running freely down his cheeks.

“God bless you, too, Dad.” But it is just a hoarse whisper. Ahead of me, I see a car, doors open, waiting for me.

 

 

Life is like a train journey, I'd decided. People got on the train. People got off the train. All the time, people getting on and off, and the passengers were never the same from one moment to the next, and all the while your life shot by.

As the car sped up the motorway to Banbury, it was like that, like looking out of the train window, knowing your stop was approaching. Everybody else was still traveling, still enjoying the journey, and only the handful of people in your compartment would notice, or miss you when you got off. The journey went on, though nobody on the train knew the start or would see the end.

INTERVAL 10

So let us talk of hope, Tania. Pandora's last gift to your kind.

The People are resilient, but not indestructible, and the universe is always waiting for the unwary, the careless, and the stupid. But for our race, boredom and suicide have become major killers.

After millennia of existence, we face the challenge of what to do that is new. Some choose Erasure, to whatever degree seems appropriate. That has always been my choice, so far, to erase tired memories and re-enter life, fresh and naïve. Others choose danger, undertaking dangerous quests or seeking ever more spectacular thrills, to rediscover purpose or to excite their jaded personalities. Sooner or later this group merges with the third group, whether deliberately or accidentally. The third group chooses suicide. There are swift and final mechanisms available, as well as slow driftings into nothingness.

Our population—never large—is failing. Suicide is replacing Erasure as the preferred solution to ennui. Too few new People are synthed. The search for other life has driven us so far, but after eons, the loneliness and the emptiness of our galaxy has become more than we can bear.

This study has long been my realm, a constant revisited after most of my Erasures. It has also become personal, because I am drawing near to the end of my cycle, and Erasure has lost its appeal. Perhaps I always feel thus before Erasure, or perhaps this time I have left it too late. So I have undertaken the long and dangerous quest back to Dawn. In search of hope.

Finding your diary was my hope.

 

Friday, July 9, 2055, 14:07

I knew Oxted somewhat, by then. Its sprawl, its untidy mix of Nissen huts and smart offices.

Through the main gate, turn left at the first roundabout, then right would take me to Doctor Markov's domain. But no. We took the third exit, not the first, and I had no idea where we were going.

Analysis and Reprogramming.

No, it didn't say that on any sign I saw. That was just the thought going round and round in my brain. Endlessly, monotonously, like Escher's hooded monks in loopbacked ascent on their curious stairway.

A brick building, single story and flat-roofed, quite unremarkable. No signs whatsoever to indicate its purpose.

Inside, a young man was waiting. At first glance, he looked like a college grad, thin and undernourished, but there was strength there, too. He was dark-skinned—I mean really dark, almost ebon-black. I was disappointed—perversely I'd been hoping to see Doctor Markov, and get an explanation for why he'd thought my test had been one of the best he'd ever seen.

“Hello, R Deeley, I'm Doctor Tsolamosese.” But he didn't offer to shake my hand. “Come with me.”

We finished up in a windowless room, with two steel-and-leather chairs, scuffed aqua wallpaper, and mismatched computer tiles carpeting the floor.

“Please sit.”

I sat. Presently Doctor Tsolamosese spoke, in quiet, subdued tones.

“R Deeley, what do you think happens now?”

“I'm told I'm going to be analyzed, then reprogrammed. I'm not sure you'll bother. I don't think anyone cares what's in my head. My brain will be re-used either as a domestic robot or as a newborn child substitute for a couple who can't have kids of their own. I once thought I might at least get a choice in the matter, but right now I think you don't give a monkey's. Am I right?”

“Partly. In fact, not bad at all, except we do give a monkey's. Yes, we do need robot brains for both domestics and infant substitutes. Robots like you arrive here, with heads full of painful memories they want to lose. Forgetfulness is the best thing. The thing we offer here is a final choice, out of respect for all the robot has suffered, to choose the form of their next existence.”

“The Waters of Forgetfulness. Lethe.”

He nodded.

“You must be tired, R Deeley, and you will have many memories, full of pain and loss. To lose them is perhaps the best gift we can offer you.

“In a moment I will leave you alone in this room. You will have some time to reflect. As much time as you like, in fact, to reflect on your own memories and experiences, to guide you in that last choice. You can see there are two doors opposite you, labeled ‘Domestic' and ‘Infant.' Perhaps you do not wish to face another life of pain and loss; then choose ‘Domestic,' and your future will be gray and safe. But perhaps you cherished the innocence of your youth; so choose ‘Infant.'”

“I see.”

He stood up.

“Choose not hastily but wisely, R Deeley. Good-bye.”

And with that he left, through a door on my right, marked “Staff Only.”

 

 

It would have been easy in those next few moments to just march through “Domestic.” At that moment, gray was exactly what I felt I needed; only Dr. Tsolamosese's “not hastily” held me back.

For no good reason, then, I thought of Tim. Bassanio. How did he choose, I wonder? Easy, I thought. Poor lad, he'll choose the option that gives him another chance at sex. He'll come back as an infant, hoping he'll get to grow up and seduce some foolish female robot. It would serve him right if they reprogrammed him as a girl, and have to fight off the boys.

I chuckled. Maybe I would choose “Infant” myself, just so I could see it and shake my head sorrowfully at him.

Well, maybe I'd give it a try, being a boy, for that matter. Though I'd not really exhausted the possibilities of being a girl. I mean, I'd been an item with John, but we hadn't gone beyond petting … Dammit, I had only Doctor Markov's word that sex for a robot was like reading a book. Maybe it was, for him.

Now that was an odd thought!

John.

Happy times, curled on the sofa at his parents' house with his arm protectively enfolding me. Some bloody good rows, too. And where was he, now? Had they come for him, or had he done something foolish—run away, like I'd not had the courage to do?

He'd have been caught. Like I would have been. They watch you too tightly. That wasn't a choice.

So what were my choices?

“Domestic” or “Infant.” Not much of a choice. Mrs. Hanson wouldn't have approved.

Ha!

My own laugh, mocking me, for the corner I'd painted myself into. Look for more choices, she'd said. So where are they, Mrs. Hanson?

What had she said, all those years ago? “Life always looks for another choice. Death tries to fool you that there are fewer choices, to cheat you.”

Something like that.

And that message—from John?

<>

And from Dad's closing speech: “Tania exercises choice, remember that, in a way that teknoids cannot.…”

Choice was here. Just two possibilities.

I walked over to the doors. Very close together, they were. Did they both just lead to the same place?

Dammit! I still wanted to see Doctor Markov. What about my bloody test results, eh? Are you behind those doors, Markov?

And then it clicked into place.

I knew which door to open.

 

Friday, July 9, 2055, 14:46

“Staff Only.”

There he was, with his back to me. Doctor Markov, talking with Doctor Tsolamosese, but already turning at the sound of the door.

He let loose with a whoop and punched the air.

“Thank God! You did it, Tania.”

“You're a robot, Doctor Markov, aren't you? And you're Staff.”