It swept the air from side to side, sniffing, sampling, as though she were a cone of smell. Rapidly, it honed in on its target, and the tubular cowl of skin retracted to reveal two large, moist, saucer-shaped nostrils that looked like black moss. They quivered with activity. Moments later, the HUBIE’s eyes swiveled in unison until they were centered on her face.
It was purely reflexive. A HUBIE was blind. Not that it mattered: she felt transparent.
She’d seen photos, but this was her first face-to-face. Save for the repulsion, the pity and the guilt, it wasn’t that bad.
Actually, it was that bad.
She gagged, and nearly lost her lunch. It was like being poisoned, seeing it there, staring her in the face.
Noiselessly, Dash materialized beside her. The HUBIE’s nose twitched, as it picked up the new scent.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“How are you doing?”
“How do you think?”
“Shocked?”
“Don’t be stupid.”
Not a good beginning. The HUBIE was burning a hole in her brain, but then it broke contact, and transferred its blind stare to Dash. She felt as if a weight had been lifted.
“They take some getting used to,” he said.
“I doubt that’s going to happen. I hope it won’t.”
She knew it would.
He glanced at her, looking concerned.
After a while she said, “I suppose it was inevitable. Once we started making better humans, we’d make lesser ones.”
“They’re not really human.”
“Human enough.”
“They’re not unhappy, Gunjita. They’re doing what they were meant to do. If anything, they’re happy for that. They’re certainly not uncomfortable. They don’t hurt. They feel no pain.”
She knew the song and dance. Had her own opinion.
“They have brains, don’t they?”
“Primitive. Extremely. No cortex. No awareness. If there is pain, they don’t know it. If they know it, they don’t care. It doesn’t bother them. They don’t suffer.”
“So you say.”
“It’s a fact.”
“We suffer,” she said.
He looked pained. “Do you? Really? Is that true?”
“Humanity suffers.”
“But you? Do you?”
“Why? Do you think I shouldn’t? I should be made of sterner stuff?”
“I thought you were.”
“I am.”
“Well then.”
“They were ill-conceived. They should never have been made. You could have designed something else. Anything else.”
He studied the HUBIE, considering this, searching for flaws. Blind, limp, imbecilic. Unable to speak. Unable to hear. Unable to think.
His creation.
He reached up and touched it, laid his hand on its chest, as he would a patient. Felt its lively, cheerful pulse.
“We could have done better,” he confessed. “If there’s ever a next time, we will.”
“You were pressured, no doubt.”
“Yes. Of course. But in the end we called the shots.”
“The team.”
“Yes.”
“You played a significant role?”
Not the time to boast. “I was there.”
“Inner circle?”
He nodded, remembering the buzz. The excitement. The camaraderie.
He’d never thanked her. “I wouldn’t have been there if it weren’t for you.”
“A dubious honor.”
“You could have hung me out to dry.”
“I was doing my job. You deserved to be in a lab. A good one. Tell me something. Their design. Was that aimed at me?”
“At you?”
“Out of spite. For revenge.” It felt good to finally get it off her chest. His response barely mattered.
“No,” he said. “I didn’t have time to be angry. We were too busy. I licked my wounds and moved on.”
She remembered things differently. A superficial licking maybe, but no healing. A chill whenever they were in the same room, which happened periodically over the years.
She felt it less now. “You vowed to get back at me.”
“Heat of the moment. Shoot from the hip.”
“I always wondered.”
“You can stop. I would never do something like that.”
True or false? Was it even important? People changed.
“They look like children,” she said.
“They’re tools, Gunjita. Instruments.”
“Damaged.”
“No. Not damaged. Preventers of damage. Shields. Don’t think of them as children, but as soldiers.”
“Protecting us.”
“Yes.”
“Sacrificing themselves.”
“If necessary.”
She tried to see it. Appreciated different perspectives, theoretically at least.
“They’re both,” she said.
“If you wish.”
“Either way, they’re ours. Yours and mine.”
“I’m proud of what they are.”
“I pity them.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
He wasn’t a bad man. Nothing like that. Better, in fact, than she expected. But better had limited appeal.
“I’m sorry you don’t.”
Cav, meanwhile, was bent over the Ooi, sucking in air, breathing audibly through his nose. In and out, in and out, sampling, just as the HUBIES did. Lacking a free-moving noodle, he moved his head side to side, up and down, a technique used by animals and taught to him by Gunjita, the expert. He closed his eyes and willed himself to take everything in.
Recognition could come and go in an instant. Alternately, it could take hours, weeks, years. This was the book on unknown forms of life, and seemed reasonable, though of course no one knew.
What he could say so far: the Ooi had a clean, faintly metallic scent. He sniffed several times in rapid succession, then inhaled deeply, filling his nostrils and lungs. Nearly impossible to distinguish it from the asteroid. Was this purposeful, a kind of camouflage? An adaptation?
Interesting.
He leaned in closer, until he was nearly touching it, breathed on it, moved his head back and forth, giving it the opportunity to smell him.
He was playing with fire, and he knew it. Gunjita thought he was crazy. Dash probably, too. Maybe he was. But maybe not. Plenty of people, if they knew, would have been in his corner, cheering him on. Crazy? Hardly. More like sanity itself. Just tell us when and where. We’re with you 100 percent.
Plenty believed it had already happened. A fait accompli. They were among us, and had been for years.
Some people said they were very nice.
Others, not so nice.
Some, that sex with one was the very best thing. Some said the worst. One man had reliable information that they had no genitals. He was met by a chorus of jeers: everyone knew they had sex organs everywhere. What was he, a prude?
Cav kept half an ear out for these people. They had their ideas. They weren’t scientific ideas. Most were predictably ridiculous. But every so often one would stand out.
A recent favorite: the One Alien Theory, which posited an enormous, invisible, oyster-shaped entity, embracing and nurturing the Earth as it would its own pearl. A sentient bivalve, it was dismayed to see what was happening to its precious creation. Dismayed and angry.
This explained the outbreaks of planetary fear, suspicion, and anxiety that happened now and again. Oysters weren’t known to lash out, but neither were they known to be especially forgiving. And this was a big one. No one knew what to expect.
Cav felt the same about the Ooi. No problem so far, but how would it react to being cut?
Which, having run out of options, was up next.