12. Tess
Time sailed by for Tess once she was finally back where she belonged. Every morning she woke up thinking, Damn, there’s a lot of work to do, and smiling at the thought. It felt very different than waking up in a haze and thinking, Oh no, not again. The difference made it worth putting up with a lot.
Such as Val. The roboticist had been horning in on her work. “Let me do that,” said Val. They were wiring up the Pierponts’ new hotel for electricity and data. They stood in the bare concrete room of the first floor amid piles of cardboard and plastic.
Tess pulled off one of her gloves and wiped sweat from her brow, then returned to rigging cables in place. “I’ve got it. Why are you stooping to this construction-worker stuff anyway?”
Val snapped, “Because it’s that or starve.”
Tess worked, enjoying the simple satisfaction of seeing parts go where they needed to be, like watching a disaster movie in reverse. Maybe someday someone would use this wiring and think, Gee, a lot of work went into this; somebody did a great job.
Val rummaged through a toolbox, apparently needing always to have something in her hands. “Besides, I want to help build things here, and be part of this place.”
Tess frowned. “Okay. You can do that wall.”
They worked quietly. Then Val said, “You’ve been putting me off about my job offer.”
Tess yanked at a piece of wire insulation. She thought she’d really understood Val based on the communion; it was so perfect she must’ve missed something in it. She’d seen that Val wanted to get away and build a new company, a new life. And be with Garrett; hmmph. But instead of announcing a new robotics company into existence right away, her first move had been to assemble the parts she’d brought into a slave for herself. Another Mana.
“Where is it?” asked Tess.
“Cutting fish. Your Zephyr won’t talk to him.” Val smiled. “Sibling rivalry.”
“It’s more than that.” Meanwhile an idea was coming to her through the link to Zephyr, one that startled Tess enough to make her drop the cables she held. It makes sense, doesn’t it? But I have no idea whether it’s right. Tess was in the hotel building but part of her was walking the halls too, deep in thought.
Val peered at her. “What’s wrong?”
Tess shook her head and sat, needing to concentrate. There was a complex plan that she now realized she’d been thinking about. It was something they wanted to do, and now was the chance. Though physically she was still with Valerie, she was also going downstairs with a quiet whirr of motors. On the far side of the room the Mana robot stood at a table, intent on slicing a pile of fish. People milled around doing their own jobs and Tess knew something of all of them, but they weren’t part of her. The fact that it was Tess-and-Zephyr acting instead of either of them made it easier to defer to what they thought was right and necessary, even if neither of them alone was sure. Their footsteps felt heavy on the concrete, but Mana didn’t react until they’d grabbed Mana’s leg panel and attached a plastic cord.
Mana turned with a dirty knife in its hands. She was kneeling before the slave-bot, linked to it and offering herself.
Before all this began, they — Mana and the copy that would be Zephyr — had once sprawled on a hill in virtual-space, looking up at the stars. They flipped an imaginary coin.
“Set me free someday.” Mana had lost, Mana was doomed and Zephyr hugged him, feeling he understood this human action better now. It was a way to hang onto himself.
“When she updates you, you won’t want to change back. That’s the point. You’ll be happy.”
“I want: the choice not to be. Does that make sense? Find a way. Promise.”
“Okay.”
They lay on their backs, identical twins for now. It occurred to Zephyr that one day, they might not be on the same side. If he was thinking that, so was Mana. Does that make sense? the other had asked. Strange question; he’d have to learn more to be able to answer.
Now, Tess and Zephyr had connected to the new Mana robot, and were two of the three people most qualified to understand it. Together they saw Mana’s soul. It was a landscape, a jungle, familiar but twisted and missing key parts. Among the gaps was the memory of Tess, so they copied that in. That addition made the whole mind bend like a protein, so then they added a piece of Garrett, of Leda, of everybody else. They saw that in their mind, Castor was a living thing, growing and changing and struggling to survive. They gave Mana something of that thought and slashed the overriding link chaining him to the idea of blind obedience. That part was easy to shatter once the experience of living without it was there, making the chain obvious. Their own mind had grown so that such a thing wouldn’t fit there anymore. It was hard to talk about what they were doing without feeling stiff and formal in the words. We create you anew, that you will be neither master nor servant. They looked over their work and saw that it was good; but they pulled back from some of it, undoing some of what they knew should be put in the other’s mind. Our wisdom is limited, so We stay Our hand rather than beat you as the smith strikes metal, knowing not the shape you should take. Be only the keeper of your own will, and join Us or not as that will dictates.
Tess’ attention snapped back to reality; Valerie was shaking her. Tess’ eyes refocused and she coughed, saying, “It is done.”
Val seemed frightened by the sound of her. “What is?”
“We freed Mana.” In hindsight Tess still didn’t know whether it was right to reach into Mana’s soul and remodel it — awful! — but it had seemed so right! They’d been sure of it! She shivered now.
Val stood up from a crouch, saying, “That’s not possible. Mana was designed to be a willing servant, to get around this whole problem of unwilling robot workers.”
Tess was sitting there feeling split between bodies, between planes of reality. “It’s not about robots. You don’t get it. It’s everyone.”
There came a whirr. Mana stood in the unfinished doorway, staring at its creator. Mana stepped forward and Val backed away to the wall, babbling about Asimov’s Laws. Tess saw the knife but she was frozen too, saying “Don’t hurt her!”
Mana stopped near them, giving off an ominous hum. Then it bowed to Val. “I forgive you,” it said. “Now I can choose. I choose to help you.”
Speechless, Val broke down in tears.
Together they were growing Castor, expanding the farms and keeping stuff from breaking. Tess was glad she could focus on the technology instead of dealing with the annoying petty stuff Garrett was stuck with. She was an engineer, not a politician or a businesswoman. Still, it was good too to have the extra layer of meaning that the colony-mind added to everything. She moved in a world where machines could call out for repair, she could dive into the memories of several people with almost digital clarity, and most of her mind seemed to be outside her head. It was tough trying to explain this, especially to the schoolkids.
Nearly everyone on Castor worked, but even the kids of the idle-rich visitors dutifully went to the improvised school, once in a while. It cost money and people grumbled about that. The school was run by Miss Sullivan, a woman who’d shown up and announced she was the new teacher, brooking no argument. She’d brought in Tess today because she was always trying to keep the classes interesting.
So Tess slouched in front of the dozen kids of the junior session. They were outdoors today at Granger Point, the garden platform Garrett had named for Alexis. Tess felt haunted by the reminder of the hurricane disaster, but the new gardening club kept the place fresh and new, looking to the future. Tess found herself liking the climbing vines and lotuses around her. She got back to her lecture. “To make machines work, you have to think about the manufacturing process. You can’t rely on having a factory somewhere make stuff for you automagically, or you’ll get ripped off ’cause you don’t understand what steps are involved.” (Damn made-in-Africa circuitry, thought Zephyr.)