Robots through the ages, p.2
Robots through the Ages, page 2
A news story out of Prague a couple of years ago would have brought an ironic smile to Karel Čapek’s face: a huge hospital bed factory in central Bohemia let it be known that it was going to make use of robots to help it meet surging orders, because of a shortage of human workers in the Czech Republic. “We can’t find enough humans,” the head of the company said. “We’re trying to replace people with machines wherever we can.” And so the advertising poster that I had misunderstood in Warsaw fifteen years ago has finally taken on the meaning I thought it had then. That company in central Bohemia has placed an eight-million-euro order for superfast laser-powered robots to help speed up its assembly line.
Here, Bryan Thomas Schmidt and I have brought together a group of stories examining the robot concept in many different ways—some serious, some lighthearted—to illustrate the way writers have looked at the relationship between humans and synthetic humans over the years. We have a nineteenth-century story by Ambrose Bierce to show how even then artificial intelligence was an important concern, we have Jack Williamson’s definitive “With Folded Hands” to demonstrate the problems encountered when robot design becomes too successful, we have such tales as Clifford Simak’s “Good Night, Mr. James” and Philip K. Dick’s grim “Second Variety” and my own playful “Good News from the Vatican” to portray one aspect or another of what it will be like to have robots among us, and we have a group of previously unpublished stories written just recently, in an era when robots are actually all about us, delivering groceries, defusing land mines, performing surgery. It has been a long journey from Hephaestus’s Talos to today’s scurrying little mechanical helpers, and the stories here show how well writers have succeeded in anticipating the complexities of our dealings with the useful metallic creatures we have conjured into our midst.
Our opening story is one of three original to this book. Seanan McGuire is no stranger to most science fiction readers these days. She’s written many wonderful stories and novels and has the accolades to prove it, but this particular story blew me away when she submitted it, and it’s the perfect opening for this volume. We hope you agree. —BTS
PERFECTION
SEANAN MCGUIRE
Mother says I am perfect, and so I am to marry the perfect man. Father says I am a pearl beyond price, and so I am to marry the perfect man. On this they can agree. Their ideas of “perfection,” however, differ so that I am not certain that they can be reconciled.
To Mother, the perfect man is kind, loving, considerate, compassionate, and near enough to me in age that we will grow in wisdom together, as well-matched as Poseidon and his Amphitrite, and if Poseidon strayed, well, he always returned to her side. It is a marriage to be idolized and emulated. She wishes me a handsome husband, but not too handsome, for men who are too well-featured are often possessed of wandering eyes, and she would prefer I find a love who keeps closer to home. She wishes me love.
To Father, the perfect man will set me on a pedestal, will all but worship me, and will keep me in the comfort and plenty which he feels I deserve . . . with coin left in his coffers to raise up his new in-laws as well, that they might not bring shame upon his household with their poverty. He would see me as Aphrodite wedded to Hephaestus, and should love one day bloom between us, he would not be displeased. But neither would he be displeased by its absence. To Father, I am beauty and fortune yet to come and my heart has little place in the accounting of my future.
They are hunting, even now, to find the perfect man for me, and as they hunt together, they will both bring something of their opinion to the table, but Father’s voice will, I know, sound all the louder in the halls where such men can be found. I will be wedded, I am sure, to an old man, old enough to have amassed a considerable fortune, ugly enough to have no bride already. Ugly, or cruel, to have buried the bride before me. And as my father will present him to me on our wedding day, and I will accept him dutifully, as is my place in this performance.
It will be perfect.
Today is my wedding day, and I have not heard a single whisper of the groom, beyond the joyous announcement of my impending marriage made by my mother one week ago, when she and Father came back from the agora with arms full of shopping and mouths full of words. “Dearest!” she had exclaimed, eyes bright. “We have found your husband, and he is perfect!”
So perfect, in fact, that he bade them not to tell me his name, nor whisper me any truth of his identity, save that he was acceptable to the both of them, and that he was to marry me today. So I am gowned and anointed, polished to my own form of perfection, and will now be led to him.
Oh, I hope he is young. I would prefer a man of my own age, or not too terribly much more, to keep pace with me in the world—and in the bedchamber. Some of my friends who have already gone to their own “perfect” matches with men older than our fathers walk with bruises on their faces from where their husbands, outraged by their own flagging flesh, have placed the blame upon their brides. They speak in hushed tones of being asked to do horrible, degrading things in the night, goaded on by husbands who have already exhausted their enjoyment of the simpler pleasures of the flesh, and found comfort in the strange and the extreme. Oh, I hope he is young. I hope the gods have pity on me, and allow me a peaceful bridal bed.
There is no question he will be wealthy. My father has been too pleased this past week, has walked with the easy stride of a man who sees a rich son-in-law seated at the future’s table, who sees his grandchildren raised in wealth. Perhaps they have both had their way, and I will be fortunate beyond all measure, and he will be, truly, perfect.
The maidens are coming to lead me to my marriage. I hope he will be handsome, but even more, I hope he will be kind.
He is handsome, my husband.
He is handsome, and young, and wealthy beyond all wishing. So wealthy it seems obscene that he should lower himself to me, who is beautiful, but brings little beyond beauty to our union. I can say this with a clear and open eye, for I have known since I was very young that my value is my beauty, not my virtue.
And yet, I still possess both things. He has not come to me, although he claims to find me acceptable; I sleep alone at night, retire without him after dinner. Tonight, finally, I asked him why, after two long months of marriage, I still slumber alone. If he is one of those who dislikes the company of women, I could understand and accept it; he would still be handsome, and wealthy, and mine.
Instead, he looked at me, my handsome husband, with coldness in his eyes, and said, “Your hands.”
My hands? What of them? I looked at them in dismay. They are good, strong hands. They have washed my clothes and served my meals and done whatever duties I have asked of them for as long as I’ve been alive. I looked from my hands back to him, uncomprehending, and he sighed.
“They are rough. Coarse. I felt them at our marriage. The thought of them upon me . . . no. Your hands keep me from your bed, for all that you are beautiful.”
“What can I do? There are salves, to soften them, and ways to cut and shape the nails. How can I be good enough for you?”
His gaze sharpened, and for the first time since we were wed, he smiled. “Let me have them.”
“You have them already. You have all of me.”
“You misunderstand. Let me remove them from your body, and replace them with hands of my own creation, that are perfect, and you will be good enough for me.” He looked at me, still smiling, and I believed him.
“I promise,” he said, and I was lost.
It hurt no more nor less than I expected, which is to say, it hurt like I was dying. He lay me out on the table and sliced my hands from my body in one hard stroke, leaving them to fall to the floor. The shock which followed was almost bigger than the pain. I looked at my hands, my dear, beloved hands, which had done everything I ever asked of them, and felt a wrenching loss. They were no longer a part of me. One of my fingers twitched, as if my hands were bidding me farewell.
And then my husband, my handsome, perfect husband, bent over me with something in his hands (still attached, still his own), and I closed my eyes, and the world went away.
When I woke again, the pain was gone, and my hands were returned, in new form. Silver and shining white marble, they were, empty of color and of life, but they moved when I willed that they do so, fingers opening and closing, and they had a strength to them I had never known. I rose from my bed and went to seek my husband, finding him on the balcony, looking out over the sea.
Finally perfect, I moved to embrace him, and he pushed me away.
“But why?” I asked. “I made myself good enough for you. I let you take my hands. Why will you not hold me, as I so deeply desire to be held?”
“I thought your hands would be enough,” he said, with what seemed genuine sorrow in his voice. “I hoped to be your husband properly, once they were gone, but without them, I can see all the more clearly the flaws of your arms. I am truly sorry. You’re not perfect, and without perfection, I cannot embrace you.”
I looked at him, my handsome husband against the setting sun, and I had already given up my hands for him. What other man would have me, even untouched, with these mechanical constructs in their place? No. I would have to be perfect for him, or I would be perfect for no man. I would be, in the end, alone.
“What must we do?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.
“Let me have them,” he said, and fool that I am, I agreed.
The pain was less the second time, perhaps because my hands could no longer feel it. Two strikes and my arms were on the floor, clever mechanical hands and all, and he was bringing me new arms, sleek and silver, to connect onto my shoulders. The old hands he left discarded, and when he walked away and left me on the table, I rose, legs trembling from the pain, and recovered them from the blood slicking the tile.
I left the arms. I had given them to him, after all. But he had never spoken of the hands, and so I felt those were mine, to do with as I like. I have them still. They move of their own accord, like strange kittens, and like kittens, they play, rolling rough and tumble over each other, coming to me for comfort when they run up against a wall or scrape themselves against the edge of a dresser. He has never asked for them back. I am not even sure he registered their absence. They were no longer relevant to him, after he had taken my arms, after he had replaced them with a treasure of his own design, and for a time, oh. For a time, after that night, we were happy, he and I.
When I went to him on the balcony above the sea, he opened his arms, and he held me, and his lips sought mine, and we lay together that night as husband and wife. And my new arms answered to me as well as my old ones ever had, fetching and carrying, lifting and placing. They do not tire. They do not show the marks of my exertion. I polish them every night before bed, keeping them as pristine as they were in the moment they were given to me, and they are perfect. I am perfect.
I am beautiful still, for all that the people in town will murmur when they see my shining arms, and my husband is handsome, and wealthy, and treats me with kindness. This is a better life than ever I had reason to expect for myself. Except . . .
Except . . .
Except that recently, when I have reached for him, he has hesitated before closing the distance between us. Except that I have seen him looking at my feet when he thinks my attention elsewhere; I have seen the old calculation in his eyes. Except I fear that I may no longer be perfect enough for him, and I am still flawed enough to fear the pain I know will follow imperfection.
I am afraid.
The table was colder than I remembered it being, the stone rough against my shoulders, but not against the gleaming metal of my arms. They felt neither cold nor roughness, but remained as pleasantly neutral as ever they were. Then came the strike, and my feet were on the floor, and I almost wept to see them so, my old friends, companions on a thousand journeys, discarded like so much unwanted rubbish. I do not know, even now, what he does with the pieces of me he claims as his own. They are yielded, and then they are removed, and I shall see them nevermore.
My new feet are twins to my hands, perfect, gleaming, and they do not feel the sharp stones when I step upon them, nor notice the heat of the day when I tread outside without my shoes. They are perfect, as I am perfect, and we must both remain so, if we are to remain worthy of his love.
But love them he does. He welcomed me to his bed again after they were placed upon the ends of my legs, and the brush of my toes against his calf no longer disturbed him, but made him shiver in delight. I think, this time, that I may be perfect enough forever.
I was wrong.
He led me to the table again, and this time it was for the removal of my legs, both of them up to the hip, and the placement of new legs, shining stone and silver, with none of the softness or yielding grace of flesh. He hurt me and he did not care that he did so, for he pursued perfection, and he left my poor feet in the pooled blood—my blood—that covered the floor, hence to be forgotten. Well, I did not forget them. I gathered them to me and took them to my chambers, and they gambol with my hands now, four disembodied appendages at play in the wonderland of my bedclothes and belongings.
I may have no children of my own, but I will still be a mother, for I have my hands and my feet, and that will be enough for me. It is, in its own way, perfect.
The loss of my legs was a great and terrible shock to my body, frail and mortal as it was, and it took me some time to stir from the table. My husband was long gone by the time I could find it in myself to move, to see myself back to my room and stand before the mirror, studying the changes he had made in me. I was somewhat taller now, longer in the thigh, more delicate in the ankle, but the legs were mine, and they answered to me as their mistress. They would do.
I still held that thought in my mind as I collapsed into my bed, severed feet falling from my hands to the floor, and knew no more for a time.
While I slept—if sleep it can be called in truth, when it came so completely and against my willing it—a man appeared to me, short, broad of shoulder and kind of eye, with one leg that twisted back on itself like the root of an aged tree. He wore a smith’s apron, and had rough-skinned hands that made my sleeping heart ache with the memory of my own hands, long lost and still beloved.
“I am sorry,” he said, and beckoned me to come and sit beside him. As it was a dream, there could be no shame in answering his summons, and so I went, realizing as I sat that in the dream, my legs were still of flesh and bone. I looked down, heart filled with hope, and beheld my hands as they had been before my marriage. There was a small scar across the back of my left thumb.
“I forgot this,” I said, wondering, and looked at the man. He looked back at me with sorrow, and took my hand in his.
“You should not have had to.”
“Why not? My new hands are beautiful. They were a gift from my husband, and they are . . .” My throat filled with sorrow, and I had to choke it down to speak the next word. “. . . perfect.”
“He is my wife’s creation,” said the man. “She thought to do better than the mortal sculptor she inspired. He had made a woman fit of stone to rival her in beauty, and she had turned that woman to flesh to fulfill his dreams. It seemed a thing she should be able to accomplish for herself, and so she did, crafting a man of metal and stone and bringing him to life with never a mortal hand upon him.”
Every word dripped regret like honey, trickling down from his voice until it seemed it must stain the floors.
“She forgot that mortality leaves its own mark upon things, and that to make a demigod, one needs the mortal and the divine. The divine alone will always be missing a certain something, a sort of softness that you have refined here in the mortal world, but we have never seen a need for in Olympus. And so I am sorry, child, that this has fallen to you.”
I blinked at him in my bewilderment. “My husband is a god?”
“No. Your husband is the creation of a god, made without mortal aid, and as such fails to understand some of the things which come to you, as a mortal, without thinking of them. He loves you, but he sees only imperfection in your humanity, and it disgusts him, as it would disgust my lady wife. He will continue to slice pieces of you away until none are left, and you are remade in his own design.”
“Will I live?”
“Yes.”
“Will I be perfect?”
“In his eyes, yes.”
“And will he love me?”
The man—the god—sighed and looked away, not saying anything.
“Will he love me?” I asked again, more urgently, for surely even the gods could not punish me for impertinence in a dream.
He looked back to me, and nodded. “Yes,” he said, with sorrow. “He will love you, as well as he can, so long as you are perfect. So long as he can make you in his image.”
“Then I am not afraid.”
I woke then, in my bed with my hands and feet playing a coy game of chase-and-tag across my midsection, and I laughed, for I was closer to perfect than I had ever been, and when I went to him that night, he welcomed me gladly, and our limbs tangled, smooth skin against smoother metal and stone, and he whispered that he loved me in the dead of the night, and I believed him. Gods help me, I believed him, and in that moment, I would have agreed to anything he asked of me.
I still would.
Love makes fools of the wisest men, and I was never famed for wisdom.
