Part 6 (1/2)

”I'll ask my father when I can.” She glanced toward the ceiling. ”He is still busy with the s.h.i.+p's officers.

I'm sorry you're afraid of my mother. She doesn't hate you, not really. If she seems cool to you, it's just because she has worked so long at the site, digging up relics of the first world. She thinks you seem so-so primitive.”

She shook her head at our uneasy frowns.

”You told her you lied to the s.h.i.+p.” She looked at Casey. ”That bothers her, because the nanorobs do not transmit untruths or let people hurt each other. She feels sorry for you.”

Pepe winced. ”We feel sorry for ourselves.”

Tling sat for a minute, silently, frowning, and turned back to us.

”The s.h.i.+p is big trouble for my father,” she told us. ”It leaves him no time for you. He says you should have stayed on the Moon.”

”I know.” Casey shrugged. ”But we're here. We can't go back. We want to stay alive.”

”I feel your fear.” She gave us an uneasy smile. ”My father's too busy to talk to you, but if you'll come to my room, there is news about the s.h.i.+p.”

The room must have been her nursery. In one corner was a child's bed piled with dolls and toys, a cradle on the floor beside it. The wall above was alive with a scenic holo. Long-legged birds flew away from a water hole when a tiger came out of tall gra.s.s to drink. A zebra stallion ventured warily close, snuffing at us. A prowling leopard froze and ran from a bull elephant. She gestured at the wall.

”I was a baby here, learning to love the animals.”

That green landscape was suddenly gone. The wall had become a wide window that showed us great s.p.a.cecraft drifting though empty blackness. Blinding highlights glared where the Sun struck it. The rest was lost in shadow, but I made out a thick bright metal disk, slowly turning. Tiny-looking sliders clung around a bulging dome at its center.”It's in parking orbit, waiting for anywhere to go,” Tling said. ”Let's look inside.”

She gave us glimpses of the curving floors where the spin created a false gravity. People sat in rows of seats like those in holos of ancient aircraft. More stood crowded in aisles and corridors. I heard sc.r.a.ps of hushed and anxious talk.

”. . . home on a Pacific island.”

The camera caught a woman with a crown of what looked like bright golden feathers instead of hair.

Holding a whimpering baby in one arm, the other around a grim-faced man, she was answering questions from someone we didn't see. The voice we heard was Tling's.

”It's hard for us.” Her lips were not moving, but the voice went sharp with her distress. ”We had a good life there. Mark's an imagineer. I was earning a good living as a genetic artist, designing ornamentals to special order. We are not the pioneer type, but we did want a baby.” An ironic wry smile twisted her lips. ”A dream come true!”

She lifted the infant to kiss its gold-capped head.

”Look at us now.” She smiled sadly at the child. ”We spent our savings for a vision of paradise on Fendris Four. A tropical beach-front between the surf and a bamboo forest, snow on a volcanic cone behind it. A hundred families of us, all friends forever.”

She sighed and rocked the baby.

”They didn't let us off the s.h.i.+p. Or even tell us why. We're desperate, with our money gone and baby to care for. Now they say there's nowhere else we can go.”

The wall flickered and the holos came back with monkeys chattering in jungle treetops.

”That's the problem,” Tling said. ”Two thousand people like them, stuck on the s.h.i.+p with nowhere to live. My father's problem now, since the council voted to put him in charge.”

Casey asked, ”Why can't they leave the s.h.i.+p?”

”If you don't understand-” She was silent for a moment. ”My mother says it's the way of the nanorobs.

They won't let people overrun the planet and use it up like my mother says the primitives did, back before the impacts. Births must be balanced by migration. Those unlucky people lost their s.p.a.ce when they left Earth.”

”Eight hundred years ago?”

”Eight hundred of our time.” She shrugged. ”A day or so of theirs.”

”What can your father do for them?”

”My mother says he's still searching for a safe destination.”

”If he can't find one-” Casey frowned. ”And they can't come home. It seems terribly unfair. Do you let the nanorobs rule you?”

”Rule us?” Puzzled, she turned her head to listen and nodded at the wall. ”You don't understand. They do unite us, but there is no conflict. They live in all of us, acting to keep us alive and well, guiding us tostay free and happy, but moving us only by our own consent. My mother says they are part of what you used to call the unconscious.”

”Those people on the s.h.i.+p?” Doubtfully, Casey frowned. ”Still alive, I guess, but not free to get off or happy at all.”

”They are troubled.” Nodding soberly, she listened again. ”But my mother says I should explain the nanorob way. She says the old primitives lived in what she calls the way of the jungle genes, back when survival required traits of selfish aggression. The nanorobs have let us change our genes to escape the greed and jealousy and violence that led to so much crime and war and pain on the ancient Earth. They guide us toward what is best for all. My mother says the people on the s.h.i.+p will be content to follow the nanorob way when my father has helped them find it.”

She turned her head. ”I heard my mother call.”

I hadn't heard a thing, but she ran out of the room. In the holo wall, high-shouldered wildebeest were leaping off a cliff to swim across a river. One stumbled, toppled, vanished under the rapid water. We watched in dismal silence till Casey turned to frown at Pepe and me.

”I don't think I like the nanorob way.”

We had begun to understand why Sandor had no place on Earth for us.

6.

”Dear sirs, I must beg you to excuse us.”

Tling made a careful little bow and explained that her mother was taking her to dance and music practice, then going on to a meeting about the people on the stranded s.h.i.+p. We were left alone with the robots.

They were man-shaped, ivory-colored, blank-faced. Lacking nanorobs, they were voice-controlled.

Casey tried to question them about the population, cities, and industries of the new Earth, but they had been programmed only for domestic service, with no English or information about anything else. Defeated by their blank-lensed stares, we sat out on the terrace, looking down across the memorial and contemplating our own uncertain future, till they called us in for dinner.

The dishes they served us were strange, but Pepe urged us to eat while we could.

”Manana?”He shook his head uneasily.”Quien sabe?”

Night was falling before we got back to the terrace. A thin Moon was setting in the west. In the east, a locomotive headlight flashed across the memorial. The mall was lit for evening tours, the Taj Mahal a glowing gem, the Great Pyramid an ivory island in the creeping dusk. The robots had our beds ready when the light went out. They had served wine with dinner, and I slept without a dream.

Awake early next morning, rested again and lifted with unreasonable hope, I found Tling standing outside at the end of the terrace, looking down across the valley. She had hair like her mother's, not feathers or fur, but blonde and cropped short. Despite the awesome power of her nanorobs, I thought she looked very small and vulnerable. She started when I spoke.”Good morning, Mr. Dunk.” She wiped at her face with the back of her hand and tried to smile. I saw that her eyes were puffy and red. ”How is your ankle?”