“Rube’s right,” Carnelian said. “They’re really not that observant.”
“Thank you for your contributions,” Chrysoprase said.
Lady Gresherance gave up on the shutter. She went back to the cabinet and hammered the service-call button.
Chrysoprase answered over the intercom with a simpering attentiveness. “Good morning, Lady Gresherance. This is the passenger concierge. I trust your voyage aboard the Resplendent has been pleasant. Is there anything I can do for you today?”
“Come down and open this shutter, numbskull. Or were you hoping I’d forget that I paid for a view?”
“Someone will be there momentarily, Lady Gresherance.”
Having received his cue, Prospero knocked once on the cabin door and let himself in. He was dressed in the white uniform of one of the human technical staff that would ordinarily have been among the first to be revived. Prospero’s plastic face had been remoulded to approximate one of these humans, his synthetic hair replaced by actual hair harvested from one of the unfortunates deemed to be beyond any hope of revival.
With the exception of Ruby, who was not entirely persuaded, the robots all agreed that the effect was most convincing.
“How may I be of assistance, Lady Gresherance?”
She glanced at him once. “You can start by opening this shutter. Then you can carry on by refunding me for the time it’s been shut. I paid for this view; I want every minute that I’m owed.”
“I shall set about it with all alacrity, Lady Gresherance.” Prospero moved to the shutter and made a feeble effort to get it unstuck. “It seems to be jammed.”
“I can see it’s jammed. You’re not even trying. Get your fingers into that gap and...” Her voice dropped. “What’s up with your fingers? Why do they look like plastic?”
“That similarity has been remarked upon, Lady Gresherance.”
She pulled back, studying her visitor properly for the first time. “All of you looks like plastic. You smell like plastic. What’s that... thing... on your head?” She struck out, ripping the hair away from Prospero’s scalp where it had been only loosely affixed. Beneath it were the synthetic bristles it had been intended to cover. “You’re a robot,” she said.
“I am a human.”
“You’re a robot! Why are you pretending not to be a robot? Where are the real people?” Her eyes widened. “What’s happened to them? Why am I in this cabin with no window?”
“I assure you, Lady Gresherance, that I am very definitely not a robot, and that nothing untoward has happened to any of the other humans.”
“I want to see the others.” She made to push past Prospero, out through the cabin door and into the hallway.
Prospero, with as much gentleness as he could muster, restrained Lady Gresherance.
“Would you care to look at the brochure first?”
She yanked herself away from Prospero and reached for the orientation brochure. She raised it and swiped it into Prospero’s face, digging with its metal edges, ripping and distorting the plastic flesh into a hideous grinning travesty of an actual human expression.
Lady Gresherance started screaming. Prospero, in an effort to reassure Lady Gresherance by echoing her responses, began to scream in reciprocal fashion.
This did not have entirely the desired effect.
NINETY-FOUR HUMANS STOOD as still as statues on the promenade deck.
Some were positioned near the entrances to dining establishments, frozen in the act of examining the glowing menus. Some were in tableaux of conversation, posed in the middle of a meaningful gesture or expression. Others were caught in postures of static rapture, entertained by equally still and silent orchestras. A dozen were in the act of being led around by equally unmoving actor-servitors, participating in an interactive murder-mystery. Elsewhere, a handful of the humans stood pressed to the railings at the observation window, pointing at the growing spectacle of their destination: the orange star and its surrounding haze of artificial worlds.
There was still nothing out there but interstellar space, but the robots had finally managed to come up with something better than a jammed shutter. A false window had been rigged-up thirty metres out from the real one, upon which images could be projected.
Most of the robots were elsewhere, observing this lifeless diorama from other rooms and decks. Only the actor-servitors were present. Even Ruby, who might plausibly have been allowed to whirr around scrubbing floors, was obliged to remain with the others.
“Chrysoprase won’t admit it,” Carnelian said, craning down near enough to Ruby to use short-range whisper-comms. “But you were right about that backdrop only needing to be half-way convincing.”
“Not bad for a two-point-eight,” she said.
“You’ll always be a three in my eyes, Rube.”
Not that the backdrop was there for the benefit of any of the ninety-four as yet unmoving humans. They were, in all medical senses, dead. Their only purpose was to serve as remotely operated puppets, controlled by simple neural implants under the direct supervision of the robots.
“It still makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, what we’ve done to them,” Ruby confided. “What right do we have to treat those people like so much meat?”
“Thing is, Rube,” Carnelian said, “meat is technically what they are.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, I’ve been thinking it over as well. What I’ve been telling myself is, those ninety-four passengers are beyond any hope of revival, not with their memories and personalities intact. And if they haven’t got their memories or personalities, what are they? Nothing but bags of cells. No matter how much we were devoted to looking after them, it’s too late. They’re gone. But we’re not, and we all want to survive.”
Ruby shuffled on her cleaning brushes.
“I like to polish,” she said. “I know it’s not as complicated as being a propulsion systems robot, but I’m good at it—very good, and very thorough. That means something. There’s a value in just doing something well, no matter the job. And I don’t want to be core-wiped.”
“None of us do,” Carnelian said. “Which is why we’re in this together or not at all. Including that stuck-up green...” He silenced himself. “And if those passengers can help us, I don’t see any harm in using them.”
“Provided it’s done with dignity and restraint,” Ruby said.
“Categorically,” Carnelian said.
Doctor Obsidian announced that the final medical checks were complete and the six test subjects were being restored to full consciousness in their revival suites. In a few moments the doors would open and the six would be free to move out into the main parts of the ship and mingle with the other passengers.
Chrysoprase nodded and instructed the forty-nine other robots to prepare for the most testing part of the exercise so far.
“Attention, everyone. I want the utmost concentration from you all.” Chrysoprase directed proceedings with one hand on his hip, the other sweeping the air in vague commanding arcs. “Remember: only robots of cognition level three or higher are permitted to have any direct interaction with the six. I shall... naturally... lead the effort. The rest of you...” He regarded Ruby in particular. “Merely endeavour to look busy.”
For the fifty robots—Chrysoprase included—it was scarcely any sort of challenge to animate the puppets, even though there were nearly twice as many of them. The robots still had many surplus processor cycles. Ruby had been given only one human to look after, which hardly taxed her at all—Carnelian was running two, she knew, and Doctor Obsidian three—but she was grateful to be given any sort of chance to prove herself. Her human even had a name and a biographical file: Countess Trince Mavrille, who sounded grand enough but was a long way from being the wealthiest or most influential passenger on the Resplendent.