Human Sister (35 page)

First Brother

T
he house door opens. The dog rises from its lying position in the shade of the garage and runs toward the arborway, from which she emerges, wearing only pants and undershirt. The dog nuzzles her right hand as she walks. She appears not to notice me standing near the tiltrotor.

She walks southeastward toward three memorial markers lying near the western edge of the garden. Each of the markers is a granite stone, one side of which is polished and inscribed. There is a space about 25 centimeters between the rightmost marker and the middle marker, as well as between the middle marker and the leftmost marker. The markers are surrounded by wilted violas of multifarious colors.

It is 1 hour 12 minutes 23 seconds before sunset.

Sara

M
ichael just cautioned me, in the same professorial tone as Grandpa would have, as to the possibility that I’m becoming compulsively worried about our safety. Perhaps it’s true—I hadn’t noticed until he pointed it out: I have been inquiring every day, sometimes several times each day, about whether microcracks might be developing in the molluscan outer shells of the domes, and whether he is certain the worm-like robots that constantly monitor the outer surface are all working optimally. He assures me that the domes are fine. He hasn’t said so, but perhaps he thinks I’m the one who’s cracking.

The only part of the dome's inner surface that I can see—and, yes, lately I have been examining it carefully and often, perhaps compulsively often—is our artificial sky. Each time I examine it for cracks that might be caused by the tremendous pressure of water at this depth, I wonder: How will Michael’s children respond when they finally experience the real sky, that blue-within-blue immensity they won’t be able to touch merely by standing atop a desk? Will they think it a hollow fraud, its clouds merely ephemeral floss unimaginably far away? And once they’re ashore, free at last of these domes, which until then will have held them inside like a jealous lover, how will they experience the ocean—the salt, the seaweed, the labial scent of the sea—from which they came but never so much as dipped their little toes into?

Early in the morning of Monday, 11 November, two months after Mom, Dad, Aunt Lynh, and all of their human companions on Mars had died, Elio and I walked under the dripping arborway toward the garage. The old joints of the garage door creaked as it rose in the cool air. Elio set his briefcase down beside his car, walked over to Lily’s house, and peeked in. “Good morning, Lily!”

Her face appeared, nose lowered, eyes downcast. She looked blue, perhaps ashamed that she’d again failed to greet us. “Good girl!” he said, stroking her head. “I don’t blame you for wanting to stay in where it’s nice and dry. On days like this, I’d rather do that myself, rather than drive to school.”

Two months—it had been a difficult time for Lily. She’d had several organs replaced because of cancer, and she’d never fully recovered her spunk. Now, we were managing arthritis until Dr. Lopez, her veterinarian, felt she could endure an operation to replace her hip and shoulder joints. “Nearly fourteen,” I was told. “That’s old for a German shepherd. You’ve got to expect these things.”

Two months—it had been a difficult time for me, too. I’d missed Mom and Dad more in death, it seemed, than in life. Each cold night and each thought of the approaching winter saddened me, reminding me that their bodies probably lay frozen out on some Martian plain.

I’d also felt First Brother’s absence more now that he was at an unreachable distance. He had become the androids’ leader and had broadcast to Earth heartrending, precise details of the attacks, the deaths of their human companions, the deaths of many of their human attackers, the misery and the putting down of several of their own kind that had been mutilated beyond repair. And he had threatened that additional attacks against the androids would bring unspecified dire consequences to humanity.

I failed to help you love, I’d thought, watching him deliver this threat. He had appeared as cold as Mom had during her final transmissions.

I walked with Elio back to his car. He kissed me and said he would pick me up the next morning at the Palo Alto Airport.

Two days after the crisis climaxed on Mars, Grandpa had insisted I begin my university education. He’d explained that it was important for me to meet other bright young people and that he could no longer keep up with the pace of my learning. I’d countered that his tutorials were going well, that I planned to continue following all of Elio’s classes, and that I wanted to spend as much time as possible with Michael, who, I’d claimed, was challenging me more than any university class ever could.

“True,” he’d said. “But you also must begin interacting with other people your age. I’ll try to get you enrolled as a part-time student. You and Michael look at the fall schedule of classes and pick out two or three that meet on the same two days of the week. You can drive in with Elio if you have Monday or Thursday classes. Other mornings, I’ll take you with me in the tiltrotor, and you can return with me at night. Two days away from here each week will do you good, and you’ll bring back many stimulating ideas and experiences for Michael.”

Michael had enthusiastically agreed with Grandpa, and I’d enrolled in three graduate courses—Discrete Analysis, Neurogenesis, and Quantum Theory of Entropic Ordering—all of which met on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. However, because Grandpa insisted on having security personnel close by me whenever I was away from home, interacting with other students had been a bit strained at first; but as time went by, it seemed as though the guards began to blend into the background.

I stood beside Lily as Elio drove away; then I groomed her and massaged her hips and shoulders before we set off for our morning walk, which, if she felt up to it, would turn into a slow run down the length of the drive and back four times.

As we headed toward the security gate, Lily tugged forward on the leash, hurrying me along. She was obviously feeling better. It was then I glanced up at the southeast corner of the winery roof where First Brother had told me to look for the pigeonoid. After nearly eleven months of daily disappointment, I’d become resigned to believing I would never receive a message via the feathered robot. But this time, I saw a bird, gray on gray with some white adorning its neck and wings, perched near the prescribed corner of the roof—a bird appearing to closely resemble the pigeonoid.

I quickly looked away, back to Lily. “Sit. That’s a good girl.” I knelt in front of her with my back to the winery and listened. I couldn’t detect any work going on in the vineyard. First Brother had instructed me to go to the plum tree nearest the security gate, inspect and touch the tree’s bark, then go up to the study table on the deck. But if someone had been following my activities lately, that someone surely would be expecting me to get up now and proceed with Lily’s exercise. Like Grandpa, I generally followed my routines precisely.

I stood up and walked with Lily toward and through the security gate. It was a clear morning after a night of light rain. The low November sun glistened in water beading up on the grass and on a few russet leaves still clinging to the vines; and where sunlight warmed the damp drive, mullioned then with shadows of nearly naked locust trees, curlicues of steam rose in the cool, still air. Soon, I thought, the rains will come in earnest, and the winter mist, the hills a furrowed mizzle of gray.

We made it to the checkpoint at the end of the drive, waved at the guards—I with my free hand, Lily with her tail—and walked back toward the winery. The bird was no longer there. Maybe it was a natural pigeon, I thought. I looked up again as we neared the yard gate—it wasn’t there. Instantly, my grief over Mom and Dad returned: I would never see them again, would never have another chance to be their human daughter.

Archipelagoes of little yellow locust leaves were steeping in a shallow puddle beside the drive. Lily disliked getting wet and treaded carefully around the puddle with her large white paws. What does First Brother want to tell me? What’s taken him so long?

Lily and I turned back down the drive for our second pass. “Can we run today, Lily?” I asked, increasing my speed as the world took on an aqueous appearance through my watery eyes. Lily broke into a trot. Would the bird come back? Sparrows skittered playfully across the drive in front of us. Lily chased them off with a bark.

At the end of our second and third passes, the bird was still absent. Lily tugged back on the leash as we jogged down the drive the fourth time, I slowed to a walk, and we completed our exercise at a leisurely pace.

I prepared her food and filled her water bowl with fresh water. “Maybe you’ll catch one today,” I said, remembering how pleasurable it had been lately to see Lily again defending her water bowl from birds that had attempted to turn it into a bath during her infirmity. Michael had first brought this sign of Lily’s improvement to my attention by pointing one evening at our scenescreen. Lily was stalking on her belly through the grass, eyes and nose intent on the splashing little intruders. Then, in a flurry of hair, teeth, growls, and flapping of wings, she pounced. Michael clapped, happy that the birds had escaped and also that Lily was feeling better. For years he’d told me he loved petting Lily in my memories, loved feeling her some-places-soft, some-places-bristly, thick white coat, and the cool wetness of her tongue, the hardness of her teeth, the gentle touch of her paws.

I stroked Lily’s back and told her we’d go on another walk before dark. Her tail wagged ever so slightly; she’d never been very sociable while engaged in the serious matter of eating.

When I came back outside later that afternoon, Lily was waiting for me at the door. She trotted ahead of me through the arborway, past the garage, and toward the toolshed where her leash was stored.

I glanced toward the winery roof. No bird perched there. Lily and I exercised. She ate her dinner.

We were playing catch with an old tennis ball, and the hour was nearing sunset—with shadows crawling up the west-facing hills and clouds beginning to bloom—when a sudden gust of wind burst through a nearby palm, setting its fronds fluttering like wings of startled birds, reminding me of the pigeonoid and of my brothers far away.

I looked up just in time to see the chevron glide and final flutter of wings as a bird, real or robotic, landed on the winery roof. I tossed the ball to Lily again, and by the time she returned, I was at the plum tree, examining its bark, as First Brother had instructed. Then I walked toward the deck stairs, tossing the ball to Lily a few more times along the way.

As I walked up the stairs I stopped several times to look out over the garden and vineyard. I was pleased to think that my actions wouldn’t appear peculiar to anyone who might have been spying on me, for I often went up to my study table near sundown to enjoy the glorious sky and long, softened shadows that add dimension and texture to the garden.

I walked around the table. On the bench lay a chip. Trying to appear calm, I sat down beside it, put my elbows on the table, held my face in my hands, and surveyed the landscape. I wondered what First Brother had to say. How was he? Was he having problems? Did he need me? After about a minute, I sat up straight, and, while looking out at milky fog spilling over hills to the west, lowered my hands to the bench. My right hand found the chip and slipped it into my pants pocket.

“The pigeonoid returned!” I said, showing Michael the chip as I walked to our computer. He frowned. Unlike me, he wasn’t excited to hear from my brothers. Ever since reviewing my memory of what had been done to my finger, Michael had been reluctant to discuss these brothers who looked like him yet could do such a thing.

The computer decoded First Brother's message:

Sara:

Although our microbots have been unable to penetrate the Lawrence Livermore National Research Center, we conclude there is a high probability that Professor Jensen assists in plans to attack us again. Since your interrogation, he has been spending increasing amounts of time at the LLNRC. He is there on average 8.93 hours each day, six days each week. The second joint China-United States attack is tentatively scheduled to launch next September.

During our Council meeting, Second Brother quotes Mom: “Human societies have developed strategies of survival similar to the immunologic strategies of their bodies: identify self and contain or destroy nonself. Consider their long, violent, and disgusting history: the extermination of thousands of species; the discrimination and murder among the races; the discrimination and murder among those infected with different ideas, such as of religion or politics; the discrimination against and subjugation of women by men; the discrimination against and murder of those with different affectional preferences; et cetera, et cetera—any difference will do—and now the discrimination against and murder of androids. I tell you this: Never trust the humans—those biologic creatures subject to fatigue of body and terror of mind in the struggle for continuance—to be anything other than the vicious beasts they are.”