TERRY DOWLING.

HOMESITE.

The Robot is Running Away From the Trees

Terry Dowling

The old Ab'O rotated his hands in opposite directions, palm to palm, two inches apart, and held the universe between them.

"It will give you everything. A lovely gift for a famous desert sailor like yourself, and a good price."

"No. Thank you, Phar. I don't think I need a double-planisphere. You use it."

"Ah, no," Phar said, taking the intricate device from me and putting it away under gla.s.s. "My shop is universe enough. I dream already."

"I'm sure that's not what you wanted to show me, Phar."

"No, Captain Tom. But, ah, it's a delicate matter. A surprise. Look around awhile. Humour me."

"Very well," I said, and moved among the stacked counters, ducked under hanging shapes, navigated between pieces of furniture, antique converters, broken consoles, musical instruments, worn-out belltrees, seized-up motion sculptures, headed back into the dustier, gloomier shadows of Phar's Emporium. I knew the shop well, probably as well as anyone apart from the old man. I loved it, loved its timelessness, the way it was tucked into its deep wedge-shaped niche at the end of Socket Lane, sandwiched between two large warehouses near the sea-wall in the poorer part of the Byzantine Quarter. It was a place of shadows and quiet, unchanged for generations-a place for finding unexpected treasures, splendid curios, heart's desires.

Phar followed me as he had for years, whenever I came to examine his mostly questionable, sometimes remarkable merchandise, always the Man in the Shadow Shop, as he was first introduced to me nearly six years ago.

"That's a vanity," he said, pointing to a glossy dark rock in a broken vacuum case.

"I doubt it. It looks like qua.s.sail slag."

"A meteorite then. I have vanities!" Phar said in a conspiratorial voice. "Specials too. Nader's eyes locked away in stone. Very good price!"

"No," I said. "Tell me what it is you want or let me look."

"Look!" he said, and pretended to move away-pretended because he stayed close by, muttering softly so I could hear. "I think the planisphere suits you." Then I saw it, a dull metal man-shape in the gloom, standing where I remembered a dusty wall-hanging had always been fixed.

"Phar, what is this? Armour?"

The Ab'O was there like a toy on a spring. "Armour, that?" His eyes widened. "Yes, armour. A battle suit."

"It looks like a robot. A high-mankin."

"No. No. It's just an old low-mankin. Totem use only. Scarecrow use."

"But, Phar-"

"Not so loud, Captain Tom. You bring me trouble."

"But it's a robot!"

"Was," he said. "Doesn't work. Absolutely illegal. Come, I lead you back into the light!" The little man laughed, but it was nervous laughter. This was what he'd wanted me to see, and understandably he was worried.

"Where did you get it? Your people would kill you."

"Wisdom and understatement there in one hit, Captain Tom."

"Close the shop. Bring a light."

The Ab'O did so, and found me rubbing dust from the big rust-flecked barrel chest, the articulated stove-pipe legs, the cylindrical tin-can head.

"This is incredible, Phar. It looks like an old Antaeus, powered from the earth."

"No. No," Phar said. "A Helios. Sun-driven originally and adapted to my shadows." He laughed again. "Made by Antique Futures. This one is broken." I regarded the blank metal face, the faceted dead gla.s.s eyes that had once viewed the world as an endless stream of moire patterns in the days before robots and mankins had been outlawed. I reached out and wiped more dust from the dull grey arms, from the impressive rococo decorations, from the faded dim-gold exotic curlicues on thighs and shoulders.

"This must be worth a fortune, Phar. Do you have the manual for it?"

The Ab'O nodded. "It is a Maitre cla.s.s. Its oriete was coded in India, in the Bati Gardens."

"This is what you wanted me to see."

Phar stared at me through the gloom. Again he nodded.

"Why?" I said.

"Please," the Ab'O replied, concern showing on every line of his face as he moved forward into the light. "Let me complete this tour slowly now. I respect your feelings."

"I appreciate that. Now tell me. Why?"

"You know why they were outlawed, Captain Tom?"

"I know what Antique Futures was trying to do, yes, of course. The high-mankins-"

"Saw death. They read life-patterns, saw and recorded energy flow out of the newly-dead body. The robots, simply reporting, giving requested data, spoke of the ancient concept of the noosphere, of a mantle of life-energy surrounding the Earth, fed by dead souls, discorporated ent.i.ties."

"It contravened Ab'O philosophical thought. A conflict of interests with their concept of the haldanes."

"Yes," Phar said. "You know the Ab'Os did not take kindly to the Nationals intruding into this area of knowledge. I am one who believes that the law against robots began in Australia as a carefully controlled move against the powerful AI organisation."

"And the tribes won."

"How could they not?" Phar said. "The mankins reported what they were built to see, and that was too much; the things the Ab'O mentalists traditionally interpreted. My people didn't want a world full of oracle machines reducing the Dreamtime to circ.u.mstantial data this way. The Dreamtime haldanes have to be much more, they still feel, than just the departed life-energy from dead humans. The Dreamtime is meant to put us in touch with our cosmic selves, not the released energy of the dead."

"Is there a difference?" I indicated the mankin. "Does it work, Phar?"

"This? Yes," the Ab'O said. "Lud is broken, as I told you, but he can talk, and can be made motile with no trouble . . ."

"Lud?"

Phar smiled. "A joke, Captain Tom. From the Luddites, the men who wanted to stop technology, to halt the use of all the labour-saving devices in the early 1800s. Named after a simpleton, Ned Ludd, who destroyed his stocking-frame. Lud can do well in conversation. He loves to talk. But he is limited; he is damaged. Misfunctions. His distance vision is impaired. When he walks, he is like the machine men in the ancient movies."

"That's the cla.s.sic AI design," I said. "The nostalgia factor. Maximum non-threat."

"Not too human, no." Phar agreed. "Clumsy-looking. Comical."

"So why did you want me to see it?"

"He wants your help," the old Ab'O said.

I understood Phar's delicacy in the matter now. He knew my views on the mankins.

"It wants what?"

"Your help."

"What sort of help?"

Phar looked uncomfortable. "He wants-"

"Stop saying he!" I said, and surprised myself by my own vehemence.

"Allow me this, Tom. It matters to me that I am permitted to say he he."

Slightly ashamed of my outburst, I nodded. "I'm sorry. Go on."

"Lud wants to be taken into the town. To the Soul Stone in Catherine Park."

"There is a forest there now." I said. "The Stone is overgrown, mostly forgotten."

"Lud wants to be escorted there by humans. During the morning, two days from now, when the Life Festival begins. So he can fulfil a program he has."

"It wouldn't last ten minutes on the streets. It would be destroyed or confiscated. Any escorts would be arrested or killed. The law, Phar! Tribal law. You should know."

"Yes, I know, Tom. But there is the program-"

"Who gave it this program? You?"

"That is the problem."

"What? You said it was broken, damaged."

"Yes. His imprinter is broken. The program is his own."

"It's recording all this? Now?" I was amazed.

Phar nodded. "He cannot stop. Everything goes in. The Helios oriete is an infinite matrix as far as I know. The imprinter should have cut off nearly a century ago . . ."

"It's been in this shop that long? Staring at shadows and junk!"

"Yes. Unable to be off. Having dreams if you like. I did not know. My father and grandfather did not know. They inherited two high-mankins from relatives who had shares in Antique Futures and elected to harbour prototypes before the Move-for-Life raids. One was partly dismantled, virtually junk-just a head: an oriete, sensor system and casque. The other was Lud. We all thought he was inert, like the belltrees and the sculptures here."

"Who discovered it?"

"I did, by accident. I have a r.e.t.a.r.ded grand-daughter, as you know. I thought it would be good to use Lud as a teaching machine, to help with talking, to use the vocab functions, and the eyes for colour. I started using Lud for her in the evenings. Such a little thing; you understand how it is. I could rest. When I had the eyes lit and the voice on, Phaya sat with him so peacefully. I did more basic maintenance and found the open imprinter."

I marvelled at that, disturbed by the thought of it.

"Infinite input." I said. "The conversations, the long dead hours. d.a.m.n you, Phar!"

"Yes, d.a.m.n me! You see how it is. I was left with the Artificial Intelligence dilemma on my hands, the old AI trap. And please know, Tom, I agree with many of your views. Our difficulty is with the anthropomorphisation, the impulse we feel to humanise the mankins. It's exactly that. My father opposed the voice-activated computers on the same grounds, but even he could not help but bestow personality, a selfness. We talked about it many times. He thought very much as you do. Apart from understanding the nature of life and death, Artificial Intelligence is absolutely the ultimate conundrum. Intolerable and unhealthy, my father said. If we accept it, we are G.o.dlike so easily, and yet we trivialise our humanity at the same time. We cannot accept it."

"I cannot accept it."

"Yes. And you accept so much. I have sat here talking with Lud until I am his hopeless friend, a believer in AI. It is not good, but I have no choice. If I activate Lud now, you will tend to believe him too, want to believe him, as if believing in his life as an AI unit reaffirms your own-and challenges it at the same time, its parameters, its essence, its n.o.bility. Humans are fascinated but are mortally afraid of AI, of what it represents."

"Masquerades as," I said.

"As you say. We cannot prove. Will I activate Lud?"

"Phar, this does no good. I won't help you on this. I can't. If you do let us talk, you just put me back in the loop again. I'll have all the old arguments to satisfy, all the nagging AI dilemmas that ever were. I don't need it. Hide it again. Leave it! The Ab'Os did a wise thing in banning them, whatever their real reasons." The old Ab'O seemed not to hear what I said.

"Will I bring him up?"

"No, Phar. Don't."

The old man accepted it this time. He nodded. "I'm sorry then, Tom. I should not have troubled you. But the imprinter, you understand. Lud has heard of you. He asked for you by name." Asked for me! I cursed Phar silently, feeling as I always did when AI was discussed: the doubts, the incredible resistance, the definite touch of self-loathing for that resistance, for my prejudice. And the aching curiosity. The need to know. "Bring him up," I said.

Without further comment, Phar opened the chest plate, adjusted some settings. There were deep inner sounds, clicks and burrings, then a soft humming. The eyes became two dimly-glowing emeralds, faint faceted stars, watching.

"There's the usual Antique Futures access code," Phar said, and touched more tabs. There was static, a harsh dissonant sound from the robot's head, then words from the low rich voice.

"I met a traveller from an antique land."

"Who said," Phar countered.

"Who said I met a traveller from an antique land?"

"Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley," Phar said, completing it.

"h.e.l.lo, Phar."

"h.e.l.lo, Lud," Phar said. "This is Tom Tyson. The Tom Rynosseros you have heard of."

"h.e.l.lo, Tom."

"Lud," I said, watching the faceted emeralds, aware of the sensors and the open imprinter, keenly aware of my dread of mankins and mankin minds, remembering my long years in the Madhouse. Lud was too much like the talking machines there, those machines that chattered in darkness, the only illegal AI machines the Ab'Os used, because ultimately they couldn't afford not to cover all the possibilities; the machines that read death and what resembled it: the sleep of dreamers in stasis, shut away in the sepulchral Madhouse gloom.