Not wanting any virtual buzzers, gongs, or even a quiet internal word to further abrade my nerves, I had my DM place a countdown stopwatch at one edge of my vision, where I couldn’t forget it, yet it wouldn’t block my view. I set this timer for an hour and twelve minutes and started it running, further validating my self-diagnosis of a mild case of OCD since I had no good reason to meet with Cora at that specific time every workday. But that was my schedule, and I was sticking to it.
“How heavy are those boxes?” I asked.
“When full, some outweigh us both while others are less massive. In either case, they are easy to transport due to the adaptable material coating the bottom surfaces. Apply steady pressure to any side, and those surfaces become frictionless.”
“Slippery when pushed?”
“So I said. I assume from your query concerning weight that you wish to open these containers in another location?”
“I do. If this robot really needs my… services, I’d like to build it in one of the rooms dedicated to extraterrestrial patients.”
“That is sensible since the automaton, once complete, will be far more challenging to transport. This will require several trips if we work alone.”
Tad could help, theoretically, but the fastest road to chaos I’d ever found was to have her help; her grasp of any job tended to be more miss than hit. L knew to distract Tad if she showed up, so I wanted him at his desk. And Gara was nowhere in sight.
“Let’s do it ourselves.”
“Then we shall begin.”
Deal was right about the boxes sliding along easily, although it took a while to get them moving, and the heavier ones adored sliding straight when you wanted them to turn. Still, five minutes later they were all sitting pretty in one of my controlled-environment rooms.
We got to work and by “we,” I mean mostly Deal, who was either very familiar with the procedure or incredibly adept at following pictorial instructions. And of course, with all those optical cilia, manipulative cilia, and arms, her motor skills made the operation dazzling to behold.
Three boxes were crammed with smallish pieces, the other two had very few, but much larger ones. Looking at the sheet, I counted fifty-seven assembly steps ending with a completed robot standing next to the presumably empty boxes, all neatly stacked. Now and then, Deal asked me to hand over “the tetrahedron with an octagonal protruded helix” or some such, but I think she was just trying to involve me in the process as an act of pity. The gizmo kept getting more impressive and once its head—at least it looked headlike—was on, I estimated the finished project would be nearly ten feet tall and as broad as three of me. Most of its surface had a dusty, bluish gleam.
My countdown timer had reached five minutes when Deal installed the final component: a shiny, twisted strip of translucent material that went around the thing’s waist like a frou-frou cummerbund.
“What do you think of it?” she asked. “Can you account for its surprising variety of waveguides?”
“No, but it looks like a robot all right. Sort of manlike, if I squint hard enough… except for the three legs.”
“Personally, I would assess it as an uncanny likeness, and see little difference between two and three legs, save for stability.”
L’s voice came from behind us. “The spitting image, as the locals say, of a human being.” L could sidle quieter than a cat by extruding a plethora of soft little tentacles.
“Need me for something?” I asked him.
“Not presently, but I thought it prudent to remind you of your upcoming appointment. And I must confess to a whim of curiosity concerning just what those boxes contained.” That must’ve been some whim since L had extruded a record number of eyestalks.
I opened my mouth to point out that I hadn’t forgotten an appointment yet, but the robot interrupted me.
“Doctor Alanso Jose Morganson,” it said very clearly, but in a voice like a squeaky hinge.
“Um. That’s me.”
“Doctor Alanso Jose Morganson,” it repeated.
I turned toward Deal. “What’s is this?”
“A pity. We’d hoped for a different response than we’d gotten after prior assemblies. Now you know why we brought the robot to you; no matter what we tried, the completed machine would only stand in one place and say your name three times.”
“Doctor Alanso Jose Morganson.”
“Just so,” Deal continued. “If it follows precedent, it will now remain silent indefinitely until it is disassembled and reassembled.”
I stared at my latest patient. “Where did this thing come from, anyway?”
Deal stopped clicking but to my surprise, her translator said, “Thinking.” The translator’s current mode evidently included a verbal “busy” signal.
My timer flashed discreetly and vanished just as the clicking resumed. “The issue you raise, Doctor, has convolutions. I gather you are presently under a time constraint, and suggest we return to this topic later.”
“Good idea. There’s a client I have to see now, but I’ll be back shortly. If you’d like to be more comfortable in here while you wait, my receptionist can boost the gravity while I’m gone.”
“If you have no objections, I would prefer to accompany you since I have my own whim of curiosity to satisfy.”
L backed out of the doorway as smoothly as warm butter gliding over an oil slick, but slowly and with his eyestalks all aimed at the robot. That gave me time to weigh the ethics of Deal’s request before giving her an answer. Normally, I wouldn’t consider bringing an observer to a private session, but in this case, I couldn’t imagine what difference it would make.
“What are you so curious about?” I asked.
“I’ve been informed that this patient is a Vapabond, reputedly a most interesting species. I have seen images but have never met one before.”
I looked at her in surprise as a baker’s dozen eye-cilia gazed back at me. “We’ve got two Vapabondi here. Thought you knew.”
“Yes, the other is your security officer.”
“Supposedly. And a nurse, also supposedly. Her name is Tadehtraulagong, but I just call her ‘Tad.’ You haven’t bumped into her yet?”
“I haven’t encountered her if that was your question.”
“Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen her today either.” This was odd since she was always underfoot—if “underfoot” can apply to someone nearly twice my height.
Vapabondi are comfortable in Earth’s gravity and can breathe our air as if they’d evolved here, so it hadn’t been necessary to customize conditions in my patient’s room. That is, it hadn’t been necessary for her. I’d arranged for odor filtering to make the space more pleasant for me; that elephantine smell tended to build up. A Tsf translating device, programmed appropriately, sat near the vast bed in which my patient, Coratennulagond, lay supine, staring at the ceiling. If she’d been human, I would’ve judged her condition a twelve on the Glasgow Coma Scale—more stupor than coma.
As a female2, Cora was visibly different from Tad: shorter but wider, and her torso-shell had fancier articulation. I’d never been able to mine much information from Tad, but a helpful Tsf visitor had explained that in Vapabondi, the female1 generates an equivalent to a human ovum and retains it until impregnated by a male1. After fertilization, the egg is transferred to a womblike organ in a female2 who, if all follows nature’s blueprint, is protected by a male2 until the little one is born, or more precisely, ejected.
“This is your patient?” Deal asked and I wondered why the translation came out sounding surprised.