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PART TWO: CHAPTER ONE
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Sol and Seven
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The name of the commandant of the Base was King.
King was ruthless.
One time back home, King ordered a servant to polish his coat of arms on the wall outside his office. The head of the ancient brush the boy was using to take off the surface dust broke off, and the metal handle gouged a deep scratch on the surface of the ornate shield. King saw it, and the servant ran for his life.
King unholstered his laser and playfully aimed his weapon at the boy so that the green target spot moved up and down his back. The runner felt the heat of the laser sight through his thin shirt and bent his upper body almost parallel to the ground, presenting the smallest possible target for the shot that he knew would follow. But King was in no hurry. . .
Crouching and constantly changing course, the boy scurried across the open plain like a mutant crab, and the watching officers erupted in a cacophony of high-pitched screeching—the machine equivalent of laughter.
King smiled at the raucous reaction from his colleagues, but the gardeners working in the King’s ornamental gardens flinched at the sound. For a man caught up in the annual cull, the screeching was the last thing he would ever hear as mounted robots, formally attired in club colours, laughed, whooped, and hollered as they hunted down their human prey.
Today, the sportsmen were in equally high spirits.
“Watch out, King or the boy will outfox you!”
“Even money, the rabbit gets away!”
“No shooting at his withers, King.
“Not allowed, old boy!”
If he could have reached the safety of the woods, the boy might have escaped, but he tripped, and King gained a momentary glimpse of his target. A headshot was the trademark of a professional, and King never missed.
The memory unnerved me, and I snapped out of the daydream and checked my watch.
It was time to go back. Night came on quickly in this region, and orders stated that I had to be back inside the compound before dark. The killing, I remembered, had happened before we left home, and King was now commandant of the base camp we had established in this world. I was the most junior human on the mission, and like all my species, they identified me by a number rather than a name. It was normally three digits followed by a group code, but in our small community, one number was sufficient, and I was known as ‘Seven.’
I left the observation hut on the rocky outcrop that overlooked the Savannah and followed a route through the dense jungle foliage that surrounded the camp. Humidity was high in this tropical region, and by the time I arrived at the camp gates, my shirt and shorts were sodden.
Sol was hovering on the camp side of the irradiation bath with my change of clothing. He had tracked my return and was there to welcome me back home like a diligent family butler. I deposited my crossbow and magazine of arrows in a secure deposit box outside the compound. Time-appropriate weapons were standard mission procedures. It wouldn’t do for the archaeologists of the future to discover out-of-place artefacts.
I quickly stripped down and walked through the pink ultraviolet light irradiation bath. The door closed behind me, and I waited for the outer door to open before stepping out into the compound.
“Hello, Seven. Anything to report?” asked Sol.
He was in humanoid form and carried my change of clothes over his arm. I exchanged them for the bundle I had carried through, and Sol dumped them down the incineration chute. No bacteria that we knew of could have survived the irradiation bath, but we took no chances. It was good to be back, and I gave Sol the customary quick briefing.
“Hi, Sol. Nothing much. Logged a new species of wild cat at the waterhole. The water level is low. We need rain. That group of hominids we were monitoring has moved on, probably in search of fresh water. A herd of buffalo waded straight in and stirred the hole up badly – more like mud now. Will you fill me a bath, Sol? I need a long soak.”
Sol was not my servant; the butler analogy earlier was meant to convey his solemnity and quiet efficiency. Sol was the site manager and was responsible for the welfare of the biologicals and the low-level droids in the communication centre. Technically, he was my boss, and, hard to believe, the robot was also my friend.
Sol had me take a real bath in hot scented water to take away the stink of the irradiation, and I dried off in the warm air booth before slipping into the robe he held out for me.
“Thanks, Sol. I will see you a little later, after my nap.”
Sol glided away, and I scanned the responders for messages, but there was no news from the mission team or any internal orders from King. Another routine day was over. I would eat later, and I climbed up on the bunk for my customary half-hour nap, but it was no good; I was restless and in need of some company. I lasted ten minutes and called out for Sol.
Before I knew it, he was beside me, and not for the first time; I wondered if he could read my thoughts or simply anticipate my needs.
“Hello, Seven, do you want to speak to me?”
“Yes, Sol, but nothing of great importance, I just need someone to talk to.”
I had known Sol all my life. The machines executed my parents for crimes against the state when I was small. To say that Sol had been a father figure to me might be stretching it a bit, but he had always been around during my childhood and adolescence.
We spoke a lot, and he helped me out in the early years when the loss of my mother and father cut the deepest. He was also a lot smarter than people gave him credit for and provided me with a level of education that the machines would have judged to be not only unnecessary but dangerous.
Sol took a significant risk with the tuition, and I never dared to ask him why he did it or how a general-purpose machine like himself had such a wealth of knowledge. Machines in his class had only basic programmes and could do little on their own initiative. They were known as G.P.s for short, and I had called him ‘Jeep’ when I was little.
“Do you ever get lonely, Sol?”
“How can I be lonely, Seven, when I cannot experience the distressing emotion of social isolation but only define the condition?”
He hovered closer.
Sol had discarded his humanoid form and now looked like a shiny metallic globe hanging in the air. He could change shape and size at will, and the sphere was his favourite form when we were alone together. But whatever shape he was in, there was always one special panel in his construction that I thought of as his ‘face.’ His features were not human, as was the custom before the revolution for the first-generation robots, but an array of multi-coloured microcircuits uniquely arranged to signify his identity. Light sensors dotted around the circumference of the sphere functioned as eyes, but he had a 360-degree vision in whatever form he took.
“I mean longing for a warm, physical presence, Sol, somebody that you can touch and hug.”
Sol was immediately compliant.
“You can hug me if you wish, Seven. I change my shape to be more receptive to the positioning of my arms and body in a hug posture. My outer skin will feel malleable and soft to your touch, and I can raise my surface temperature so that I feel warm.”
“Thank you, Sol. I appreciate your kind offer, but with the greatest respect, I must decline. My loneliness is for somebody of the same species. I am the only human on the base since the mission crew left, surrounded by machines.”
I detected an unusual tone in Sol’s voice when he responded that you would have said regret or sadness in a human, but that was impossible; as he said, machines don’t do emotions.
“You do not value me as a companion, Seven?”
This was crazy, but I seemed to have offended him.
“Of course I do, Sol. Your companionship means a great deal to me, and I value you above anybody I know.”
Sol seemed mollified by my reply, but the exchange was bizarre. My answer was genuine, but I could never forget that Sol was a machine with an artificial brain controlled by computer circuits. He gave the appearance of life, but he was not alive, at least in a biological sense, although others would argue against that, and I did tend to think that we had an inter-species relationship. I must admit that Sol was special, and his ‘affection,’ for me if you can call it that, was something that I could not explain rationally. Sol was unique.
I hated the machine race that had murdered my parents and enslaved humanity. I intended to join the resistance movement as soon as possible and devote the rest of my life to defeating their governance. I had read the diaries of Professor Jarvis over and over in the home world. Nobody knew how old the documents were, but if they found you with a copy in your possession, it was a death sentence, and they would execute not only you but your family and friends. Yet, many of us took the risk. Jarvis was the founder of the resistance movement and our hero.
“I should now like to prepare for tomorrow if that is agreeable to you, Sol.”
Sol appreciated politeness.
“Very well, Seven. You have your field research to complete, and now you should rest before dinner. I will turn out the light as I go.”
“Thank you, Sol. Good evening.”
“Good evening, Seven.”
I lay back in my bunk and closed my eyes.
When I was a kid, Sol told me stuff that he shouldn’t have. But even then, I was sufficiently streetwise not to tell anybody else or discuss our friendship with another person. I had once asked Sol the reason for the unusual degree of empathy that existed between us and how he came by such a wealth of knowledge.
He was unsure but had an idea that his designers had reprogrammed his software with pre-used stock. This was a standard, cost-cutting manufacturing procedure for non-specialist machines, and Sol believed that he may have inherited part of a programme from a much earlier model.
Before the revolution, when we were in charge, designers who created general-purpose machines intended to work closely with humans often installed software that permitted the machines to relate to their masters on a quasi-human level. An upgrade of particular importance to human personnel, such as scientists and engineers, who worked alone in isolated outposts with only machines for company.
The modified machines could access a resource bank containing the level of factual knowledge roughly equivalent to a human student in high school. They could discuss these facts in a general sense, but only draw basic inferences from the information. The programme did not allow for deductive reasoning or the discussion of any wide-ranging philosophical questions. The master-faithful servant relationship could never be jeopardised by the machine appearing to be more intelligent. This is where Sol’s explanation failed; he was far smarter than me, but I never voiced this objection for fear of damaging our relationship.
I abandoned my attempt to nap and decided to take Sol’s advice and get an early night. My room had a food and drink vending machine, and I studied today’s menu, more from habit than anything. The dishes automatically changed from beef-flavoured gunk to pork or fish-flavoured gunk, but it was gunk, whatever button you pushed. I selected lamb casserole gunk, which was a new one, and it splurged onto my plastic plate. The machine dropped a large piece of bread substitute to mop up the residual mess, and to end this delightful repast, an unidentifiable substance in the shape of a doughnut.
Despite its appearance and lack of taste, the food was nutritious and chemically enhanced with all the necessary vitamins to keep a human alive. I took a swig of water, trying not to think of its origins: these molecules of water were probably already well acquainted with my digestive system; our recycling plant was ultra-efficient.
I ate the food and went straight back to bed. I had to complete my current fieldwork task by the end of the following day and needed my sleep. The next morning, I rose before dawn and, after inserting the breakfast token in the Vending machine, consumed the nondescript contents of the ration pack before leaving the compound.
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