“Bramble!” Billy spoke in a rapt voice. “Bramble!”
Bramble began to wag his tail.
In spite of himself, adult though he was, Hewitt felt a thrill of awe at the achievement of the robotics engineers. “Set him down and go into the kitchen and see if he’ll come to you,” he said.
Billy put the dog on the floor, backed away from it until he was out of sight in the kitchen and called its name. Bramble wagged his tail, then bounded across the room and skidded into the kitchen with the exuberant clumsiness of a real pup. Billy reappeared with the dog clutched to his chest and a beatific expression on his face.
“Can I take him outside, Dad?”
“All right, but don’t go far – he still has to learn his way around.” Hewitt was unable to repress a fond grin as the boy ran out into the sunlight at the back of the house. He would have liked to complete the indulgent parent act by standing with an arm around Liz and watching Billy at play, but Mendip’s presence ruled that out.
“I hope you get your money’s worth out of it,” Mendip said, lowering himself into an armchair. His pale oval face turned this way and that as he surveyed the room.
“Perhaps I already have,” Hewitt answered.
Mendip nodded. “I guess I’d feel guilty about bringing a kid out here.”
“I don’t feel guilty,” Hewitt said quickly.
“Well, maybe I used the wrong word, but you know what I mean – when a kid can’t even have a real dog…’
“Bramble is programmed to be as good as a real dog. Better.”
“It ought to be better if you’re laying out a month’s salary for it. Hell’s fire!” Mendip shifted to make himself more comfortable. “I suppose you and Liz will have to tighten the old belts for a while.”
Hewitt shook his head. “We don’t go out much anyway.”
“That’s right – you don’t. A place like Mesonia is okay for somebody like me who can get around and enjoy the social life. You’d be surprised at what goes on at some of the parties over on the East Hill, Sammy boy.” Mendip gave a ruminative laugh. “You know Marie Duchamp, the systems analyst in Structures One? Well, she and another girl…’
“Carl,” Hewitt put in evenly, ‘what are your plans for today?”
Mendip blinked. “Plans? I thought I’d just visit with you and Liz. Keep you company.”
“You’ve no plans to get around a few wild parties?”
Mendip smiled his thin-lipped smile. “Sammy! You almost sound as if you didn’t want…’
“Coffee’s ready,” Liz announced, coming into the room with a tray.
“I don’t know if I should have one,” Mendip said to her. “I have a feeling Sammy wants me to clear out.”
“Nonsense! You have to stay for a meal now that you’ve come out this far.” Liz distributed beakers of synthetic coffee, giving Hewitt a reproachful frown as she did so. Hewitt slumped into another chair, sipped the hot liquid and tried to calculate how much he had contributed to his boss’s bank balance in the form of free meals in the past year.
“Sam’s always grouchy in the mornings,” Liz said. “Will you try one of these biscuits, Carl?”
“No, thanks.” Mendip patted his stomach. “I’m keeping my weight down – just in case.”
Liz smiled understanding. “When will you hear about the transfer?”
“Not for another four or five weeks, but I’d rather keep myself light. I don’t like crash diets.”
Hewitt was tempted to cut in and reprove Mendip, a senior engineer, for talking about weight when he meant mass, but he decided against being petty in the hope that the day could be rescued from disaster. He knew what Mendip meant, anyway. The Ferrari Transfer System – instantaneous travel from one location to another which had similar spatial properties – was technologically superb, but from the practical viewpoint it had a major drawback in that its cost/weight graph took the form of a steeply ascending straight line. No matter how much mass the engineers transferred, no matter how many times they did it, no matter how many refinements or improvements they tried to introduce to the system – the expense of transmitting each and every gram of matter remained at the same astronomical figure.
The harsh economics of the Ferrari Transfer ruled out any prospect of easing Earth’s population problems, but by the twenty-second century the world political situation had stabilized enough to permit international funding of a project to seed other planets with the nuclei of human colonies. In philosophical terms, the project was grandiose and far-seeing; in operation terms, it was a matter of paring every cargo down to the absolute miserly limit. The prime qualification for colonists was that they should be slightly built. Even then, they were subjected to rigorous reduction dieting before the outward journey, and were dispatched naked and with all hair removed from heads and bodies. The second qualification for interstellar settlers was, of course, dedication.
Not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come, Hewitt had often quoted to himself. But on this Saturday morning – with suburban placidity on one hand, and Company politics personified by Carl Mendip on the other – the clouds of glory were not in evidence. He felt that he might as well be incarcerated in some hopeless prairie town back on Earth, that the sacrifices he and Liz and Billy had made were going to achieve little unless he got the transfer to Nimrod…
“What are you dreaming about now, Sammy boy?” Mendip said comfortably.
“Dreaming?” Hewitt queried the word, sensitive to his boss’s habit of slipping professional criticism into casual conversation. “I was wondering why they have to take so long to decide who’s going and who’s staying.”
“The mills of the Company grind slow, but if it’ll ease your mind I can let you know your chances aren’t too good, Sammy.”
“Why’s that? I thought you put in a good assessment for me.”
“Oh, I did.” Mendip looked benign. “But there’s an economy drive on – and there are three of you.”
“Three people,” Hewitt said. “That’s the whole point of the operation, isn’t it? The idea is to populate planets – not plant flags on them.”
“I know, but it’s cheaper to produce the people after you get there.” Mendip looked appraisingly at Liz. “I reckon that all women in the colonies should be made available to all men who could impregnate them.”
“That lets you out,” Hewitt said, in an automatic response.
Mendip’s ice-blue gaze fastened on him in the instant. “What do you mean, Sammy boy?”
“Nothing.” Hewitt laughed, wondering if his annoyance had driven him too far.
“Your plan wouldn’t work,” Liz said diplomatically, smiling at Carl. “When the word got back to the girls on Earth that you were waiting for them they’d rush the transfer terminal. The system wouldn’t be able to cope.”
“You’d still have first claim,” Mendip said, mollified. “I’m good to my friends.”
Hewitt stood up, went to the rear window and watched his son playing with the dog on the rectangle of mowed grass. The little robot animal was running, leaping, twisting, barking, scampering around Billy in a manner which made it difficult to believe that it was a machine which had been designed by robotics engineers and built in a factory only a few kilometres away. Billy was totally absorbed in his new companion, rolling on the ground and laughing while it clambered over him in a mock attack.
Late that evening when Mendip had left, after consuming two expensive high-protein meals, Liz spent a few minutes tidying the living room. The dog lay quietly on a rug and watched her moving about, its attention directed to one of its secondary owners now that Billy had gone to bed, its brain establishing pathways of familiarity and memory.