“I consider…” Darya Alexandrovna began again, but at that instant Vassenka Veslovsky blundered past them, riding in Anna’s majestic Exterior, bumbling heavily along and sending a spray of electrical fire over their heads into the lintels of the farmhouse.
“This thing is out of control, Anna Arkadyevna!” he shouted, laughing. Anna did not even glance at him.
“I don’t think anything,” Dolly said, and, lacking the courage to bring up those points that she knew her husband would have made, continued vaguely, “but I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be…”
Anna, taking her eyes off her friend’s face and dropping her eyelids-this was a new habit Dolly had not seen in her before-pondered, trying to penetrate the full significance of the words.
And obviously interpreting them as she would have wished, she glanced at Dolly. “If you had any sins,” she said, “they would all be forgiven you for your coming to see me and for these words.” And Dolly saw that tears stood in her eyes. She pressed Anna’s hand in silence. Android Karenina sat cross-legged on the porch at Anna’s feet, her faceplate calm and still, emitting a calming hum from her Third Bay. It struck Dolly that to say her piece-to urge Anna to abandon this world and this cause-would mean urging her to abandon her Android Karenina… and thus to suffer exactly as she had suffered in the loss of her Dolichka.
“Well, tell me more, won’t you?” said Dolly, getting to her feet and looking avidly about the grounds of Vozdvizhenskoe. After a moment’s silence she repeated her question. “Tell me more! These marvelous fire pits, are they only intended for fixing what things you have found, or do you intend to smelt groznium and build new robots as well? How many there are of them!”
At last Anna was drawn out of her melancholy humor and into conversation. She explained to her friend about the layout of the camp; about the decoms who had arrived and from where they had come; about her hopes that this place could be a safe haven for junkers who would otherwise meet their fiery doom in the furnaces below the Moscow Tower.
As they spoke, crouched unseen just past the porch was Vassenka Veslovsky, standing totally-that is, robotically-still, his aural sensors on alert.
Next, Anna and Dolly rose and spent a fascinated hour watching Vronsky drill a small group of decoms in a cleared-out wheat field behind the barn. In tromping lockstep, the dozen or so dented robots formed into rows, the rows shifted into columns, columns merged into little phalanxes, phalanxes split and regrouped and melted in and out of one another in a series of precise military maneuvers. Interlocking, delicate, balletic, their metal torsos glinting marvelously in the noonday sun, the robots practiced these maneuvers, while Vronsky and Lupo prowled amongst them, barking orders and making small adjustments. As Dolly and the obviously proud Anna watched, Vronsky seemed to rage at the slowness of his mechanical charges, chewed on the ends of his mustache with feigned frustration, all the while quite evidently swollen with self-satisfaction at the ever-growing skill of his ragged troops.
And Vassenka Veslovsky turned up to make a nuisance of himself, mainly by parading next to Vronsky as if he, too, were a commander of some sort, peppering him with all sorts of questions: “How many precisely do you have? What capabilities do they have? How well do they take such orders?”
CHAPTER 9
WHEN THE “TROOPS” were dismissed, Anna and Dolly continued their little inspection tour, crossing the vast lawn of Vozdvizhenskoe to one of the small outbuildings, where a pleasant little nursery had been created for Anna’s child and her II/Governess/D145. The rosy baby with her black eyebrows and hair, her sturdy, red little body with tight, goose-flesh skin, delighted Darya Alexandrovna in spite of the cross expression with which she stared at the stranger. She positively envied the baby’s healthy appearance. She was delighted, too, at the baby’s crawling. Not one of her own children had crawled like that. When the baby was put on the carpet and its little dress tucked up behind, it was wonderfully charming. Looking round like some little wild animal at the big grown-up people with her bright, black eyes, she smiled, unmistakably pleased at their admiring her, and holding her legs sideways, she pressed vigorously on her arms, and rapidly drew her whole back up after, and then made another step forward with her little arms.
VRONSKY CHEWED ON THE ENDS OF HIS MOUSTACHE AS HE BARKED ORDERS AT HIS MECHANICAL CHARGES
Dolly clapped in appreciation, but Anna only screwed up her eyes, as though looking at something far away, and said suddenly, “By the way, do you know I saw Seryozha? But we’ll talk about that later. You wouldn’t believe it, I’m like a hungry beggar woman when a full dinner is set before her, and she does not know what to begin on first. The dinner is you, and the talks I have before me with you, which I could never have with anyone else; and I don’t know which subject to begin upon first. Mais je ne vous ferai grâce de rien. I must have everything out with you.”
Dolly opened her mouth to respond, but before she could say a word a terrible shrieking noise was heard from outside, and Anna immediately bolted past her, with Android Karenina at her heels. “What-”
“Aliens!” shouted Anna over her shoulder. “We are under attack!”
By the time Anna and her beloved-companion got to the central field, the tall blue junker named Antipodal had been caught in the terrible talons of the Honored Guest; it was holding the poor, stiff decom over his head, shaking him forward and back. “It will dash him upon the ground!” Anna shouted to Android Karenina, who flickered and beeped, looking for a way to help.
Lupo hurtled out from behind the silo, teeth bared, running directly toward the alien, Vronsky stomping along after him inside Frou-Frou Deux, raising his heavy-fire to send a blast at the alien. “No!” Anna cried out. “You will destroy the robot!” Lupo jumped back, hissing and growling, as the large, jagged clawfeet of the alien kicked at him. The Honored Guest shrieked again, the harsh sound competing with Antipodal’s wild klaxon beep of alarm. Darya Alexandrovna, heaving breaths after rushing to catch up, stood warily between Vronsky and Anna, as all contemplated what would happen next; other decoms trundled over from the far corners of the encampment, eyebanks flickering with distress for their captured comrade.
And then Witch Hazel, exhibiting absolutely none of the scattered, nervous energy Darya had observed in her before, suddenly came tearing at the Honored Guest from behind, catching it with a hard, running shove to the midsection. The alien monster stumbled forward, Antipodal flying from his clutches, and landed belly-down on the outer husk of Tortoiseshell, who like Witch Hazel seemed to have appeared from nowhere in the aid of their fellow decom. Android Karenina motored to Antipodal and began searching out the damaged portions of his plating to begin repairs; meanwhile, Tortoiseshell’s back lit up like the star on a Christmas tree, and the dozens of eyes of the alien blinked madly, while its long beak cracked open to let out a hideous caterwaul of agony-for the turtle-shaped regimental Class III had heated himself in an instant to thousands of degrees, and was baking the body of the alien.
Darya Alexandrovna stood stupefied, and Anna and Vronsky exchanged glances, astonished at the efficient and effective manner in which the robots had taken on the foe. While Vronsky admired the tactical acuity on display, Anna Karenina reflected that, freed by their masterlessness from the immediate dictates of the Iron Laws, these robots were not reverting to a dumb machine state, they were evolving-becoming more independent, more intelligent, and more empathetic toward one another. More human.