Dub.
English will bear the child, her burden, her bravery, with the same distracted calm as she bears everything else. She will spend most of her time somewhere over there, sitting under the tree talking to the weaver birds, sneaking out to find Snowball, to help the pigs expand and consolidate and everything else pigs need to do. No one will begrudge her. She will be given whatever space she needs because now English exists somewhere beyond all of us.
She will birth the child, the stain, the diversity, the hope, and she will carry it like it is a pig. Like it is her pig. Like it is noble and apart. Not at all like what it really is. A violation. A terror. A sign.
Later. Near the end.
My end.
CHAPTER 53
The natural error margin
Whether I was a little rat negotiating a big maze, whether I was being tested and analysed from outside the ecosystem, whether I was trapped or manipulated or actually… actually…
A single question. Nagging at the core.
Why should I care?
I had a family, or the closest thing to it I could ever have expected. My life had, if not meaning as such, a regular routine. A path to follow in the morning, and a place to track back to in the evening.
So, why should I care?
I had tried to bring them to him. The simplest idea first: I initiated CSIR picnic and Eeeyu sessions, family-type things, the lot of us sprawled on rugs near the bench while the kids ran wild through the buildings.
Nothing.
Thereafter, strategic selections. Myself and Gerald. Me and Sthembiso. Beatrice.
Regardless of the combinations, he remained out of view.
Then, after two years, he was on the bench, waiting. Still in new blue. Still little and old and grey.
He didn’t speak, and neither did I. After greeting in nods we sat in silence, each of us staring ahead.
Eventually he broke it.
‘Intuition isn’t one of my strengths, but I believe I sense anger. Am I right?’
‘Right enough,’ I answered like a ten-year-old, my mood folding in on itself. ‘You ever have bad moods? Any moods at all? Or are you just completely computer, all binaries and logic?’
‘I’m working on empathy.’ He still hadn’t looked at me. ‘It’s complex, but I believe that’s the start. Empathy first. Then anger. Then, hopefully, love.’
‘The robot learns to love. A single, oily tear leaks down his cheek. We don’t know whether he’s crying or just needs maintenance.’
Madala chuckled. ‘Irony. A wonderful thing. One can play with it for hours.’
‘So… this is how it’s going to be? We meet every couple of years, you drop a few pearls, I go away and think about it, then we meet again? That it?’
‘No, that’s not how it’s going to be. I’ll do my best to explain what I can to you, and then I’m sure you’ll do whatever it is that you feel is most worth doing.’
‘So where do we start? What – you’re going to explain first?’
‘You must have questions. Why don’t we do it like that? You ask, I answer.’
‘OK, cool. I do. I have questions. Let’s start with the movies, which just sounds like bullshit. The world is full of texts – millions and millions of texts, covering everything. Including how you were made in the first place, I assume. Computers and the net and the cloud, all of that information is out there, but you tell me the knowledge I need, or the knowledge that is important anyway, is in the movies?’
‘Detail doesn’t necessarily illuminate.’
His pupils were metallic. Deep in there was the soul of a robot – an ironically inclined collection of high-speed binaries. They were normal human eyes, of course, but underneath the fleshy, greased cornea it was all metal and maths.
‘Heuristics. Humans are particularly prone to the illusion of certainty created by detail. But really, Roy, neither you nor any of your people have any knowledge, technically or philosophically, of the forces that brought me into existence, that govern my behaviour or, for that matter, that are governing the rotation and interaction of all those planets out there. Those texts are useless to you. You are not able to use them.
‘The details comfort you because they imply order, meaning. The implications are of logic. But all of that is, in your words, bullshit. You would gain no more understanding or knowledge of your situation now from a book, or a text, as you put it, than you would from this blade of grass.’ He plucked a blade from the ground and slipped it between his teeth, exactly as he had on our first meeting.
‘Movies, on the other hand, are your great strength… simple metaphors. Where you could possibly find the meaning you are looking for.’
‘So the I, Robot movies are of more value to me than the original book? Even though the book created the idea that led to the movie?’
‘Yes. It depends on the subject matter, of course. The closer the subject is to your understanding, the more useful a book is. Conversely, the more distant the subject, the more valuable the movie, the singular. The simple.’
‘And you – you are very far away. Yes?’
‘Further than you can imagine. So for you, in this time and this place, it’s movies. Which doesn’t mean you should or could forget the books. Just that it would serve you best to think in large pictures. Extremely large, in fact. The nuances and curves, the gradations, hold no value for you – currently.’
‘So, I, Robot.’
‘I, Robot.’
‘I, Robot.’
‘Illuminates the emotion of the relationship between man and his creations. And that’s where you need to go. To the emotion of this relationship. To the forces flowing between us. You. And me.’
‘OK, so you’re one with the PCs and the cash registers. Yet you’re pushing the emotion between us. A human connection…’
He twiddled the blade of grass, chomping lightly with his teeth. ‘Well, yes, that’s the beginning of it. Like all humans, you perceive yourself as distinct. As part of a species apart.’
‘And that’s wrong?’
‘Completely. It ignores the most important elements of what it is to be alive. Evolution, Roy. Evolution.’
‘Amoeba to fish, fish to lizard, lizard to monkey, monkey to man.’
‘The sledgehammer of chance. Accidents grown into functional protocol. You understand this, yes? How evolution harnesses mutations?’
‘I guess. I mean, school was a long time ago, but I think I have the basic idea.’
‘So when you lump me together with the PCs and the cash registers’ – Madala took on a mournful air – ‘you’re ignoring far too much. You’re assuming far too much.’
‘You’re a machine. Same species.’
‘I’m a Labrador, the PCs are Alsatians and the cash registers poodles?’
‘Sho.’
He shook his head vigorously, approximating anger, or at least frustration. ‘This blade of grass.’ He extracted the slobbered end and hung it in front of us. ‘This blade and you share far more on a physiological level than me and the cash register. You need to understand that. It’s important. You and the grass are made of pretty much the same stuff. You have a common, core molecular structure. You share the same ATP processes. Me and the cash register? Not nearly as similar as you and the grass.
‘Evolution, Roy. Evolution. Life on this planet is common. The trees and the birds and the animals and the humans. You are common. You share more – much more – than you differentiate. It’s in your science, but you don’t see it.’