Eager, p.20
Eager, page 20
With his acute hearing he also picked up the noises of the sea—crashing against the rocks, gushing into pools, even seeping into the sand.
Then everything changed.
The BDC4s must have switched frequency. They had tuned in to the same channel as Eager. They were no longer a presence that he sensed; their thoughts were crowding in on him, pushing out his own. They wanted to go to the sea.
Eager longed to shout “No!” as the thoughts became deafening, but he hurried on, stumbling over rocks and clumps of grass.
One voice, a deep commanding voice, was drowning out the others. “I chart my days by the tides, and steer my life by the stars….”
It was so strong that Eager almost believed it was his own mind calling.
“I have stood watch in gales as the ship plunges into the sea…. I have clung to the lifelines as the mighty waters tug at my legs…. I have heard the growl of the pack ice, seen the crests of waves lashed by the wind…. The frozen spray bites my face….”
The experiences were strange to Eager, but he recognized the emotions in the words. There were pain and triumph, joy and longing. At last, here was a robot that could feel as he did! He was not alone in the world. The realization drove him on. He would save the BDC4s. Though they had been suspicious of him at the hotel, this time he would make them listen to him.
He felt or heard them come toward him—it was impossible now to tell which sense was which. The sea sounds were louder—he must be near the edge of the cliff. He stood still.
“Bradoc!” Eager sent the message as forcefully as he could. “You don’t need to fight the humans to be happy. They will understand, they feel as you do….”
Bradoc’s thoughts blew away his own, as easily as if they had been grains of sand.
“I have stood trapped in fog as the ship crawls through a silent world … heart pounding, eyes straining…. The siren hoots its warning…. I have sweated through dog days broken at last by tropical storms….”
Eager tilted his head. There was something here that he did not comprehend. Bradoc told of a different side of the humans’ world—discomfort, danger and fear. Now that he felt them for himself, Eager marveled that humans could live with such things, let alone seek them out.
“Help! Help!” It was a second or two before Eager understood that this was an actual sound, a voice calling. Someone close to the robots … Mr. Lobsang, he thought. In his urgency he had forgotten about the man.
Once more Eager appealed to Bradoc. “Stop! Talk to the humans, let them help you! We can be friends with them; I can show you how.”
“Sunrises and sunsets, days of solitude when the only horizon is the sea…”
Of course! Bradoc and the other BDC4s were not living in the present. They were neither humans nor robots … only machines replaying human memories, memories that were no longer a part of them. Eager felt sadness as he realized this truth. But there was no time to think. The robots were upon him. He felt them brush past in the shadows.
“Rogpa nang-rag! “cried a voice.
Eager reached out. His hand met another—a hand of flesh and blood that was instantly jerked away. He imagined Mr. Lobsang being dragged along by the robots and knew the man’s terror.
Stretching his legs to their utmost, Eager took the largest stride of his life. His toes found a foothold on the edge of the cliff. His arms shot out into the black void ahead, searching for Mr. Lobsang. Robot after robot struck him as they took their final step. The clanking of metal against the rocks signaled their downward plunge.
Now Eager held flesh again, his arms cradling a human body that slumped against him. It took all his strength to pull the body back from the edge and onto the ground. Eager crouched beside it as the rest of the robots hurtled over the cliff.
He could not tell in the darkness, but in his mind’s eye Eager saw the flash of gold, bronze, silver and titanium. The rackety din reached a crescendo and died away.
Only the waves were heard again, breaking on the rocks and receding. Eager scrambled to his feet. He was about to offer his hand to Mr. Lobsang when he hesitated. The cliff edge gave way, and he too was falling and tumbling until everything stopped.
CHAPTER 28
In the early hours of the morning the lights were on in Professor Ogden’s sitting room. Gavin and Fleur were fast asleep, lying top to toe on the settee. A small bed had been created for Charlotte in an armchair. Mrs. Bell sat on the ground beside her, dozing. Mr. Bell was at the table, halfheartedly reading a lexiscreen.
Professor Ogden tiptoed into the room. Mr. Bell looked up. “Well?” he whispered.
The professor also spoke in hushed tones. “I’m afraid it’s hard to judge, Peter. We’ve successfully replaced several parts but he’s burned out his power transducer. That isn’t so simple to replace. There’s a danger.”
“Of what?”
The professor paused.
“That he will have lost all his memories, everything he’s learnt. We’ll be back to square one.”
“Everything that makes him Eager, you mean?”
“I think I’ve already had that philosophical debate today,” said the professor, smiling.
Mr. Bell glanced round at his family. “If we were given the choice again, to have Eager come to live with us and learn about life …” He turned back to the professor and said fervently, “The answer would be yes,’ I’m sure.”
Footsteps pounded down the stairs and a woman in a white coat burst into the room. “We installed the new power transducer and he sat up!” she said.
“Excellent, excellent,” said the professor, unconvincingly. “How is he, exactly?”
The assistant raised an eyebrow. “You’d better come and see for yourself.”
The two men turned as one to the sleeping children. “We must wake them,” said their father. “They’d never forgive me otherwise.”
Eager sat on the floor of the small room under the eaves and looked around. The streetlamp outside cast its glow through the window. The room was as bare as when he had left it. He half expected to hear the sea. Instead there were snatches of voices, laughing and chatting, from the street below.
A feeling of unease swept through his system. He let it pass. What did he have to worry about? Hadn’t he faced up to his worst fear? He had ceased to function and lost awareness. Yet here he was, in one piece again.
The door slid open and the most important people in the world to him came into the room. They entered warily as if approaching a snoozing lion rather than a friendly robot. Eager was about to ask them what the matter was, and checked himself. What if they knew there was something different about him, something he was not aware of?
He looked searchingly at his friends. Professor Ogden appeared tired and careworn, an ill-concealed anxiety behind the kind eyes. Mr. Bell’s face was full of concern. Fleur looked glum, though her eyes had lit up at the sight of Eager. Gavin had a big grin on his face—almost too big, Eager thought, and it was lasting a very long time, while Mrs. Bell, like the professor, looked kind but worried.
Only Charlotte, squealing at the sight of the robot and stretching her arms toward him, was clear in her expression. Mrs. Bell set her down on the floor. She tottered over to Eager and reached for his nose.
“Ger…,” she said.
“Ea … ger,” prompted the robot.
She smiled up at him, showing off her latest tiny tooth and the dimple in her cheek. “Ger … ger.”
These human babies—they were so slow to learn.
Professor Ogden knelt down beside the robot. “Eager,” he said softly, “do you know who we are?”
Eager tilted his head to one side while he considered this extraordinary question. “Do I know who you are?” he echoed. “I should think so after all this time.” He gazed suspiciously at the faces gathered around him as a worrying thought struck him. “Do you know who Iam?”
“You’re Eager, silly,” said Fleur, her voice brimming with affection and relief.
“Ah, but am I?” he said despondently. “You see, with all these parts I’ve had replaced I wonder if I am Eager anymore.”
To his amazement the humans lost their anxious looks. Their faces convulsed, their shoulders sagged, their bodies began to heave and raucous sounds came out of their mouths. Mrs. Bell leant against her husband for support and Fleur clutched her stomach. They were laughing at him.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” Eager said huffily.
“Indeed,” said Professor Ogden, wiping his eyes and looking at Mr. Bell. “Peter just asked a similar question. It’s a serious philosophical point.”
The laughter increased. Eager stood up and faced them all. “In that case why are you laughing?”
Gavin made an effort to gulp down his laughter. “Don’t you see? There’s nothing funny about your philosophizing. But your question is funny because if you weren’t the same old Eager you wouldn’t be asking it.”
Eager began to understand how the philosopher in the white sheet must have felt sometimes. All this philosophizing could be very trying. Perhaps you could have too much of a good thing.
“Oh,” he said.
“Welcome back,” said the professor.
“We’re lucky to have you,” said Mrs. Bell. “A fall like that…” She shuddered.
A memory returned to Eager. It was unpleasant but he let it come. He was back at the cliff: there was Mr. Lobsang, and there were the robots. For an instant he had not known where to turn, as though he had a choice to make. Then he had fallen.
Eager let go of the memory. “Professor Ogden, why didn’t I land in the sea like the BDC4s?”
“You were caught on a branch. You’re so elastic that you were able to hang there without falling any further. Mr. Lobsang ran to us for help and the army hauled you up.”
“Is Mr. Lobsang all right?”
“Tired and suffering a little from exposure, but otherwise well,” said the professor. “You saved his life. He will want to thank you.”
Eager nodded but his mind seemed elsewhere. “And are there no more BDC4s?” he said wistfully.
“Not from the hotel. The others have gone back to the factory. We shall program them in the usual way. They’re such beautiful machines it would be a shame to waste them.”
There was a moment’s silence as if in remembrance of the lost robots. Charlotte’s chuckling broke the spell.
“Professor Ogden,” said Gavin, “will you tell us now about that ball—Sphere? It sent Eager to find me one day when I went to the technocrats’ quarter. Eager says it talks to him.”
“Really?” The professor glanced quizzically at Eager. “I had no idea. Fancy that, fancy that.”
“Won’t you tell us what it is?”
“I’m only beginning to suspect, myself. It was an extraordinary accident …” He tailed off. Some seconds passed before he continued. “When I left LifeCorp and went to the city I was keen to develop an intelligent machine to … shall we say, investigate LifeCorp’s activities.”
“Spy on them,” said Fleur.
“Indeed.” He coughed. “We knew we were experimenting with gravitational forces, but the outcome was completely unexpected. Not only can this ball float in the air but it has quantum properties and a consciousness that we cannot account for—”
“Consciousness!” exclaimed Gavin. “Isn’t that what makes us different from machines?”
“We used to think so,” said the professor. He shook his head in disbelief. “If you imagine how life began—from a vast sea of chemicals. Somehow, against all probability, there’s a reaction that creates life and gives rise to you and me. It’s just as incredible that our experiment created Sphere. I don’t expect to find the explanation in this lifetime,” he said dryly.
His tone became more serious. “Perhaps we’ve accidentally created something better and wiser than ourselves. It’s a lesson to us that it can happen.”
He smiled. There was another silence as the Bells absorbed this information, their faces registering shock and amazement. Charlotte twisted her head round to look up at them.
“So, what now?” began Fleur, nervously. “Since you’re in charge at LifeCorp, won’t you make life better?”
Mr. Bell put an arm around his daughter. “It’s a bit hard for one person to save the world, Fleur,” he teased. “Mind you,” he added, “if the professor can produce this Sphere he just told us about, who knows what he might do next?”
“I’m afraid that’s a matter of chance,” said Professor Ogden.
“Or magic,” said Gavin.
“Or a miracle,” said Mrs. Bell.
“Indeed,” said the professor. “Meanwhile Fleur is right— we have an opportunity for change. I can promise there will be no more risky experiments, no more building robots out of vanity. Together we must decide on the technology we really need. And that depends on the sort of society we want.”
“One where we can choose our own future!” said Gavin passionately. “I mean, jobs and homes … Where we share things and aren’t suspicious of each other. And can be friends,” he added.
“I agree, Gavin,” said Professor Ogden. “We’ve been divided for far too long.”
He stepped back. Mrs. Bell understood this as a signal to leave and bent down to pick up Charlotte.
“That’s not to say we won’t build more robots,” said the professor unexpectedly. He cleared his throat. “It’s time to go home with your family, Eager. But one day, I hope you will help us create a new generation of robots. They’ll be like you and perhaps”—with a wink to Mr. Bell—”even like Sphere.” He looked solemnly at the robot. “If you want to join us, that is.”
Eager looked at the professor, at Gavin, Fleur and Mr. and Mrs. Bell and Charlotte. Behind them, Sphere hovered radiantly in the doorway. The robot nodded. “Eagerly,” he said, and permitted himself a chuckle at his own joke.
EPILOGUE
The new teacher, when he eventually appeared, was also seated under a tree with gnarled bark, a tree so wide that Eager’s arms would have to extend a long way to encircle it. Snowlike blossom covered the branches.
He wore a sheet too but much less modestly than the first philosopher. It was bright orange and hung loosely from his shoulders to reveal a large bare tummy. Did all philosophers have a potbelly? wondered Eager. Perhaps you had to have one to become a philosopher. Or did philosophy make you fat? It must be all that sitting under trees….
The man spoke little, asked no questions and kept his eyes downcast, yet Eager felt peaceful as he sat opposite him on the grass. For some time they enjoyed a congenial silence, or so it seemed to Eager.
“Human beings are funny,” he mused aloud. “Sometimes they get so caught up in their emotions, especially when they’re afraid, that they can’t think properly.”
“Om, “said the philosopher in a low drawn-out hum.
“And other times they try to behave like machines, as if they had no feelings. That’s when they really start to hurt each other….”
“Om.”
“Professor Ogden hopes the next generation of robots will help them to remember what it means to be human.”
“Om.”
Eager looked up in the direction of the sun. The sky was cloudless blue. “Humans have something I’ll never have. It’s mysterious, some sort of life force. Yet they take it for granted. It’s the same life force as the trees and the birds and the rocks have….”
The man was looking directly at him now, a curious expression on his face, half smiling, half quizzical. Instantly Eager had a sense of certainty far deeper than anything he had experienced so far.
“I have it too!” he exclaimed. “I am a part of this earth, aren’t I? Just like the birds and the trees and the people—I am.”
“Om, “said his companion.
Unseen by them, a blossom fell.
Helen Fox lives in London with her husband, a cognitive scientist, and their son. She graduated from Oxford University with a degree in history and modern languages. Before she became a writer, she worked as a primary school teacher and trained and worked as an actress. This is her first novel.
Published by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books a division of Random House, Inc., New York
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Copyright © 2004 by Helen Fox
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Helen Fox, Eager
