"Find you," he told it. "I'll find you." He began to laugh, giddy at the spinning course the raft took, the branches whirling in wide circles above him.
"Warren," the box said, self-activated. "Warren? Warren?" 7
"Hello. Warren."
He gave a haggard grin climbing down from the land crawler, staggered a bit from weariness, edged past the pseudosome with a pat on the shoulder. "Hello yourself, Annie. Unload the gear out of the crawler."
"Yes, Warren. What is your status, please?"
"Fine, thanks. Happy. Dirty, tired and hungry, but happy overall."
"Bath and supper?"
"In that order."
"Sleep?"
"Possibly." He walked into the lock, stripped off his clothing as the cargo lift rose into netherdeck, already anticipating the luxury of a warm bath. He took the next lift up. "I'll want my robe. How are you?"
"I'm functioning well, thank you." Her voice came to him all over the ship. The lift stopped and let him out. She turned on the lights for him section by section and extinguished them after.
"What's for supper?"
"Steak and potatoes, Warren. Would you like tea or coffee?"
"Beautiful. Coffee."
"Yes, Warren."
He took a lingering bath, dried and dressed in his robe, went up to the living quarters where Annehad set the table for him, all the appointments, all the best. He sat down and looked up at Anne, who hovered there to pour him coffee.
"Pull up the other chair and sit down, will you, Anne?"
"Yes, Warren."
She released the facing chair from its transit braces, settled it in place, turned it and sat down correctly, metal arms on the table in exact imitation of him. Her lights dimmed once more as she settled into a state of waiting.
Warren ate in contented silence, not disturbing her. Annehad her limitations in small talk. When he had finished he pushed the dishes aside and Anne's sensors brightened at once, a new program clicking into place. She rose and put everything onto the waiting tray, tidying up with a brisk rattle of aluminum and her own metal fingers.
" Anne, love."
"Yes, Warren."
"Activate games function."
Tray forgotten, she turned toward him. The screen on the wall lighted, blank. "Specify."
"You choose. You make a choice. Which game?"
Black and white squares flashed onto the screen.
Chess. He frowned and looked at her. "That's a new one. Who taught you that?"
"My first programmer installed the program."
He looked at the board, drew a deep breath. He had intended something rather simpler, some fast and stimulating fluff to shake the lingering sense from his brain. Something to sleep on. To see after his eyes were closed. He considered the game. "Are you good at chess?"
"Yes, Warren."
He was amused. "Take those dishes to the galley and come back up here. I'll play you."
"Yes, Warren." The board altered. She had chosen white. The first move was made. Warren turned his chair and reclined it to study the board, his feet on the newly cleared table. He gave her his move and the appropriate change appeared on the screen.
The game was almost over by the time the pseudo-some came topside again. She needed only four more moves to make his defeat a certainty. He sat back with his arms folded behind his head, studying his decimated forces. Shook his head in disbelief.
"Annie, ma belle dame sans merci—has anyone ever beaten you?"
"No, Warren."
He considered it a moment more, his lately bolstered well-being pricked. "Can you teach me what you know?"
"I've been programmed with the works of fifteen zonal champions. I don't estimate that I can teach you what I know. Human memory is fallible. Mine is not, provided adequate cues for recall and interrelation of data. One of my programmed functions is instruction in procedures. I can instruct."
He rolled a sidelong glance at her. "Fallible?"
"Fallible: capable of error."
"I don't need the definition. What makes you so talkative? Did I hit a program?"
"My first programmer was Franz Mann. He taught me chess. This is an exercise in logic. It's a testing mechanism, negative private appropriation. My function is to maintain you. I'm programmed to instruct in procedures. Chess is a procedure."
"All right," he said quietly. "All right, you can teach me."
"You're happy."
"You amuse me. Sit down."
She resumed the chair opposite him. . . her back to the board, but she did not need to see it.
"Amusement produces laughter. Laughter is a pleasure or surprise indicator. Amusement is pleasant or surprising. Please specify which, Warren."
"You're both, Anne."
"Thank you. Pleasure is a priority function."
"Is it?"
"This is your instruction, Warren."
He frowned at her. In the human-maintenance programming he had poured a great number of definitions into her, and apparently he had gotten to a fluent area. Herself. Her prime level. She was essentially an egotist.
Another chessboard flashed onto the screen.
"Begin," she said.
She defeated him again, entered another game before he found his eyes watering and his senses blurring out on the screen. He went to bed.
Trees and black and white squares mingled in his dreams.
The next venture took resting. . . took a body in condition and a mind at ease. He looked over the gear the next morning, but he refused to do anything more. Not at once. Not rushing back exhausted into the heart of the forest. He lazed about in the sun, had Anne's careful hands rub lotion over his sore shoulders and back, felt immeasurably at peace with the world. A good lunch, a nap afterward. He gave the ship a long-neglected manual check, in corridors he had not visited since the plague.
There was life in the botany lab, two of Rule's collection, succulents which had survived on their own water, two lone and emaciated spiny clusters. He came on them amid a tangle of brown husks of other plants which had succumbed to neglect, brushed the dead leaves away from them, tiny as they were. He looked for others and found nothing else alive. Two fellow survivors. No knowing from what distant star system they had been gathered. Tray after tray of brown husks collapsed across the planting medium, victims of his shutdown order for the labs. He stripped it all, gathered the dead plants into a bin. Investigated the lockers and the drawers. There were seeds, bulbs, rhizomes, all manner of starts. He thought of putting them outside, of seeing what they would do—but considering the ecology . . . no; nothing that might damage that. He thought of bringing some of the world's life inside, making a garden; but the world outside was mostly lilies and waterflowers, and lacked colors. Some of these, he thought, holding a palmful of seeds, some might be flowers of all kinds of colors. . . odors and perfumes from a dozen different star systems. Such a garden was not for discarding. He could start them here, plant them in containers, fill the ship with them.
He grinned to himself, set to work reworking the planting medium, activating the irrigation system. He located Rule's notebook and sat down and read through it, trying to decide on the seeds, how much water and how deep and what might be best.
He could fill the whole botany lab, and the plants would make seeds of their own. No more sterility. He pictured the living quarters blooming with flowers under the artificial sunlight. There was life outside the ship, something to touch, something to find; and in here. . . he might make the place beautiful, something he could live in while getting used to the world. No more fear. He could navigate the rivers, hike the forest. . . find whatever it was. Bring home the most beautiful things. Turn it all into a garden. He could leave that behind him, at least, when another team did come, even past his lifetime and into the next century. Records. He could feed them into Anneand she could send them to orbiting ships. He could learn the world and make records others could use. His world, after all. Whole colonies here someday who would know the name of Paul Warren and Harley and Rule, Burlin and Sax and Sikutu and the rest. Humans who would look at what he had made.