MO-126 contacted Field Ops to provide an update including their discoveries in Thinker’s hut. The duty android wanted to review his previous report first.
“You initial report says that the primitives there are using wheels. Is that correct?” she said.
No. I was just jerking your chain to see if anyone there would blow a circuit, he thought. The humorless administrative androids tended to annoy him. They weren’t much smarter than robots, as far as he could tell, and they all seemed to have the same type of personality—none at all. What he transmitted was, “Yes. That is correct.”
“What kind of applications?” she said. He got the impression she was going down a checklist.
“I saw a wheelbarrow, more like a small handcart, really, a potter’s wheel, and a pulley.”
“Are you sure? The last routine report about that cell indicated nothing anomalous.”
Am I sure they were wheels? No. They could have been some kind or round alien life forms the people here have been secretly breeding. “The observation is confirmed. My partner saw many of the same things,” he said.
“Any sign of axels?”
“Crude ones, but yes,” MO-126 said.
“And your report says you saw a log boat.”
“A dugout canoe. Yes. The humans from a different village made it, but the people here have it now, and they’re learning from it.”
“Yes. I see that here. We’re still awaiting confirmation from the team sent to Semiautonomous Production Cell 46-C. Is there anything more you need to add?”
“Let me think. There was something...” He thought delaying might annoy her, or at least provoke some emotional response. After half a minute of no reaction, he gave up. “They are experimenting with raw copper.”
“Copper?”
“Yes. You know. It’s a fairly common metal.”
A few moments of silence followed. The Field Ops android was probably trying to find ‘copper’ on her checklist.
“Any sign of,” she paused a moment, “annealing?”
“Just preliminary, so far.” MO-126 felt fairly sure that Thinker would perfect his copper heating methods soon, but the Field Ops android did not ask for his opinions, so he did not offer any.
“What applications?”
“None that I saw,” he said. He expected that in a few years they’d be making copper tools if they could find enough raw materials, but Field Ops could make their own speculations. He did not need to share his.
“Okay. Anything else?”
“Yes. I request approval to return the woman known as Tallie to her home village.”
“What is your rationale for this action?”
Because she’s frightened and she wants to go home, but this reason would hold no weight with Field Ops, so he did not mention it. “She will eventually learn to communicate with the people here, and she will tell them about her people. This will make them curious and encourage them to try to find them.”
“That is not a preapproved reason for your recommended mitigation action, but I will forward it with your report for consideration. The faults you have discovered so far justify assigning it a high priority. I expect we will be contacting you later today with instructions.”
“Understood.” The android dog closed the link with Field Ops.
“I sent the update,” he said to his partner. “They said they’d have instructions for us later today.”
Tam was talking with Grannit outside the workshop, trying to convince him of the dangers of Thinker’s new things. The headman did not appear to be buying it.
“Good. I’d like to be done with this and out of here. I don’t envy the team normally assigned to this village. It’s going to take some close watching,” Tam said.