~*~
Tallie was ready and eager to leave when they arrived at Emrie’s hut the next day. She seemed undaunted by the rain, the first since the storm. It was only a light sprinkle, but a deluge would probably not have deterred her. When MO-126 contacted Field Ops to tell them they were about to leave, they said it would clear soon.
The young woman hugged Emrie and told her how much she appreciated what she did for her. The older one smiled, understanding the emotion if not the words. Words must be learned, and they varied between places and times. The instincts they described went deeper than that, and all people shared those.
Thinker approached and received a hug, too, which seemed to both delight and disturb him in the way of men who spend much of their time alone and absorbed in intellectual pursuits. He stammered a few words and handed her a small box made of woven reeds. Inside was a small, copper disc with a hole in the center through which was threaded a strip of leather. Anyone who knew of such things might call it a washer. To the people here, it represented something new and beautiful. It could be a portent of things to come.
Emrie helped her tie it around her neck as a pendant.
“Is it magical?” she said. In her mind, most things were in some fashion. The corporation encouraged this attitude.
None of the villagers understood her question.
Tam answered. “Not especially. It’s just and oddly shaped bit of rock, I think, but it is kind of pretty. Are you ready to leave?”
She nodded, and he helped her onto the broad back of his pack animal. It did not seem to mind and may not have even noticed. The beasts seldom appeared to notice much of anything except edible vegetation, or, during their mating season, other gonds.
They were out of sight of the village before Tallie asked how long it would take to get home.
“It’s difficult to say, exactly,” Tam said. From here on, he would use her native language as if it were his own. The project’s databanks contained comprehensive files on all of them.
He knew how long it would take to get where they were going, of course. He also knew their planned route would not take them directly to her village. The team sent to Semiautonomous Production Cell 46-C would have told her people that they would find her, hoping this would deter them from making a better boat to search downriver. MO-126 suspected it would not, at least not for long, but the team would find Tallie as promised, which would at least remove their immediate motivation. The two teams would join with four additional androids—two NASH units and two mobile observers assigned to the prolonged mitigation effort. One NASH and one MO unit would take up residence in each village.
They made camp that night on a grassy hill with a view of mountains in the near distance.
“Are we safe here?” Tallie asked as Tam helped her down from the gond.
The hairy beast shambled a short distance and began grazing on the wild vegetation.
“Perfectly,” Tam said. “No wild animals or demons will trouble us here.” He unrolled a small tent for Tallie and went to gather wood for a fire at his partner’s suggestion. The androids did not need it, but their guest did.
“Doesn’t it ever make you feel guilty,” MO-126 asked him.
“What?” Tam said.
“Lying to people.”
“I’m not lying. Everything I told her is true.”
The android dog must admit this could be considered true from a purely technical standpoint, and certainly from the frame of reference of the speaker, but what ended up in the mind of the listener was something else entirely. This made what he said to Tallie an untrue truth—or maybe a dishonest truth. Something like that.
“You know what I mean,” MO-126 said.
“What do you want me to say? That there are no demons? That wild animals seldom bother people on this planet? How long do you think we could continue operations here if they knew that? We’d have primitives wandering all over the place, setting up little farms and villages at random and probably, knowing humans, fighting among themselves for the best spots. We’re doing them a favor by not telling them. I don’t feel any guilt about it. In fact, if there’s anything like job satisfaction that comes from working in a place like this, it comes from protecting the primitives from one another.”
“I don’t know. I think they have potential. Look at how the people in that village took in Tallie. They didn’t know her. They couldn’t even understand her, but they accepted her into their homes and helped her.”
“Just instinct. Pure instinct. They’re ruled by it. They’re social animals, so they do sometimes care for one another, but they have other instincts, territorial instincts that are not as benign. They are not rational creatures.”
“That fellow they call Thinker seemed pretty rational to me. And remarkably clever.”
“Disturbingly clever, you mean. Don’t you see the problem?”
“Well, from the corporation’s point of view, sure. But my point was that there are some humans that are kind of impressive. Admirable, even.”
“You think that because all he was making were wheels and a few trinkets, but it won’t stop there. The next clever, uncivilized dirt-grubber will tinker some more and eventually they’ll be poking bronze swords into one another. This is a dangerous and potentially self-destructive species.”
A howl in the distance was quickly followed by a scream that came from much closer. Tallie ran to Tam, grabbing him by the arm.
“What was that?” she said, trembling.
It was a wild dog telling the rest of his pack to avoid this spot because there are some of those strange two-legged animals here. MO-126 understood various dog dialects. The project’s databanks contained comprehensive files on all of them.
“It’s nothing to be afraid of. You’re safe—as long as I’m here.”
“The qualification wasn’t necessary,” MO-126 commented.
“It can’t hurt.”
That, of course, was a matter of perspective as well.
Tam leaned over the kindling he collected earlier and used a fire bow and tinder bundle to start a fire. Quicker and easier ways were available to him, but the primitives already knew this method.
Tam worked on the fire while MO-126 sent a report to Field Ops to advise them of their progress. An administrative android acknowledged receipt of their status report and provided coordinates for a rendezvous with the other groups. The team from Cell 46-C already met with the special mitigation teams, and they now traveled together. MO-126 and Tam would join them late the next day.
After a meal of boiled vegetables, which Tam shared for the sake of appearances, Tallie crawled into the small tent to settle in for the night. Judging from her breathing, MO-126 determined that she was finding it difficult to relax and fall asleep.
“I assume the PM will upgrade the trade goods we provide to her village,” the android dog said to his partner.
“Yeah. We’ll monitor it closely and bring them anything they seem to be making for themselves. It usually works. We just have to arrange it so that it’s not worth the time and effort for them to make the stuff.”
“Even wheels?”
“Unfortunately. We’re already trading small carts to a cell near Hub Terminal One. Needless to say, we’re watching that one closely.”
“How much longer do you think this project has?”
“Why? Are you worried about your job?”
“No. Just asking.”
Tam shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe another ten thousand years. Maybe more. For especially intelligent species, the development of wheels usually marks the halfway point. I don’t think humans are in that category.”
“They might surprise you. The warcrons went from the wheel to computers in just three thousand years.”
Warcrons were one of the corporation’s first worker species. They died out on their home planet peacefully when they lost interest in sleeping, eating, breeding and most other things shortly after inventing incredibly realistic virtual rea
lity games. Some descendants of those who were born on Corporation project planets survived and became citizens of the Galactic Federation. Most found work in the fast food industry after undergoing treatment for various addictive disorders.
“Humans aren’t that bright, although they do seem to have some of the same flaws,” Tam said. “I think we can keep this project going for a while. Maybe indefinitely. Who knows?”
“Probably not indefinitely,” MO-126 said. He glanced over Tam’s shoulder at Tallie. She gave up attempting to sleep and sat with her back to the fire, gazing at the stars.