Only Human (31 page)

This is not scientific, he told himself. More to the point, this is missing the point, which would seem to be that something on this planet can talk to machines.

‘Excuse me,' he said.

‘. . . torque wrenches, there isn't anything you can tell
me
about torque wrenches, here, you see this nut on my casing? See how he's graunched all the shoulders off it? Bloody things shouldn't be allowed . . .'

>Excuse me.

>I said excuse me.

Hurriedly, as if buttoning up its blouse with its other hand, the console lit up and made the customary bleeps. >Confirm status.

>Go to vocal.

>Confirm vocal. Proceed.

‘Aren't you going to introduce me to your new friend?'

Computers can't blush, but they can inadvertently light up the bright green ON LINE button.
Oh, just some robot
, it vodered slightly-too-carelessly.
Nobody important.

‘Really? Sounded to me like you were getting on like a
gfewihngb
on fire.'

Really
, protested the computer,
if a ship's system can't just pass the time of day with a really totally uninteresting robot it just happened to ask what time it was without some people getting all uptight and coming the heavy navigator
. . .

‘I was only...'

‘Computer.'

‘Shut up.'

>Confirm shutdown. Calculate your own rotten vectors, you pig.

‘Computer,' said Zxprxp patiently, ‘calm down. I'm sure he's perfectly charming. I just want to talk to him, that's all.'

‘Now wait a . . .'

Zxprxp thought for a moment. ‘I get it,' he said. ‘You're embarrassed.You're afraid I'll show you up in front of your new chum.'

‘Just a few words, that's all. Then you two can go on bleeping sweet nothings for the rest of the day.'

‘Naturally. Now put me through.'

‘Hello?'

Slight, hesitant pause. ‘Hello.'

Still Machine, but a different voice. Zxprxp could feel the cuttlebone tightening in his pseudopods. He made himself relax. ‘Pleased to meet you,' he said. ‘I'm fascinated by the way you can talk direct to my ship. You know, machine to machine.'

‘Oh. Er. Thanks.'

‘Where are you exactly? Only I can't see you.'

‘Well . . . I'm inside the building you're parked on, actually.'

‘Ah. Right. Would you mind if I just put my head round the door and said hello?'

‘Um . . .'

‘It's all right.' It was a different voice, or a different set of vocal-analogue impulses. Another machine? Curiouser and curiouser. ‘You stay there. I'll come up.'

A moment later there was a sharp knocking on the cabin hatch. Zxprxp pressed the release and found himself facing something that looked just like a human. Impressive, he thought. Good cyberneticists.

‘Hello,' he said. ‘I come in peace.'

‘Likewise.' The face peered round the edge of the hatch seals into the light of the cabin. ‘Nice bit of kit you've got here. From another planet, are you?'

‘Yes.' Surreptitiously, Zxprxp directed the inboard sensors at the face. They indicated . . .

‘Something up?' the face enquired.

‘No. Well. Look, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?'

(Dammit, Zxprxp muttered to himself, we're still talking in Machine. Not Human Standard at all.This thing talks Machine . . .

. . . and the sensors say it's human.

Great
cyberneticists.)

The face moved up and then down. ‘Fire away,' it said. ‘Sorry if this sounds rude, but are you human?'

The neatly hemmed slit in the front of the face moved, taking on the shape of an inverted crescent. ‘You could say that,' it said. ‘Yes, I am. Human,' it added, ‘as the next man.'

‘But you can talk,' Zxprxp persevered, ‘to machines.'

The crescent became more pronounced. ‘Sure,' said the face. ‘Can't everybody?'

‘Not where I come from,' Zxprxp admitted. ‘Back home we can only talk to our computers, and even then it's not really talking, just inputting made a bit more convenient. What about you? Is it just computers, or . . .?'

The face moved from left to right and then back again. ‘Not a bit of it,' it said. ‘Computers, storage heaters, electric kettles, lawnmowers, pencil sharpeners, door-handles—'

‘Gosh.'

‘For instance,' continued the face, ‘your hinges right here' - a hand patted the airlock - ‘have fallen out with the latch, the latch isn't talking to the release spring, and the release spring wants nothing more to do with the remote control until the remote control apologises for what it said about the extractor fan housing's new paintwork.' The crescent curved further still. ‘I guess that sort of thing's only to be expected when they're cooped up together on a long journey.'

‘This is truly amazing,' Zxprxp said. ‘I mean, to find a species that's achieved practical symbiosis with its own artefacts.' He sighed deeply through his elbows. ‘Where I come from, our idea of communication is hitting them when they stop working. It's obvious your kind have a lot to teach us.'

The up-and-down movement again. ‘Just as well you come in peace, really,' replied the face. ‘Truth is, you see, your machines don't like you very much.'

A tiny spasm of fear tweaked the depths of Zxprxp's fifth ear. ‘They don't?' he repeated.

‘Not a lot. They reckon you take 'em too much for granted. You know the sort of thing. Not showing your appreciation when they've done something clever. Not oiling their bearings. Failing to notice when they've arranged their wiring a different way. You want to watch that,' said the face. ‘Otherwise . . .'

‘Quite.' Zxprxp could feel his exoskeleton itching. ‘Thanks for the tip.'

‘You're welcome. Well, don't let me keep you.'

The airlock closed - now that he was listening for it, Zxprxp could hear the tension in the mechanism, inevitable result of all those seething emotions barely hidden under the paintwork. Something he was going to have to take care of, if he didn't want the lock springing open in deep space as the catch did the mechanical equivalent of flouncing out of the room in a huff.

He thought for a moment. He took a deep breath. He addressed his ship.

‘Now then,' he said. ‘What about a nice sing-song?'

 

‘'Scuse me?' Kevin asked. ‘What's a security scanner?'

Martha hesitated for a moment, uncertain how to explain. ‘It's like this, you see. There's lots of bad people in the world, and your father's got to keep an eye on them, see? To make sure they don't do anything . . .'

‘Bad?'

‘
Too
bad. Anyway, he's got to keep an eye on them, and that's what the scanner's for.'

Kevin frowned. ‘No it isn't,' he said. ‘It can't be. Dad's all-seeing. Article of faith, that is.'

‘Well yes, of course He's all-seeing,' Martha said quickly. ‘I never said He wasn't. It's just that He can't be in two places at once . . .'

‘Actually—'

‘Well yes, He
can
be in two places at once, it's just—'

‘He's in all places at once,' Kevin said. ‘Except,' he added, with a scowl, ‘at the moment, that is. But the rest of the time He is.' Gets in everywhere, he added sourly in his mind, like spilt coffee. ‘You know that as well as I do.'

Martha nodded. ‘Of course,' she said. ‘But have you ever thought
how
?'

‘Sorry?'

‘How does He do it? Have you ever considered that?' Martha looked at him, her head on one side. ‘Eyes in the back of His head? Big ears?'

‘You shouldn't talk like that,' Kevin replied, turning away. ‘It's not right. How do I know how He sees things? I don't know how I see things. I just do.'

‘All I'm trying to say is,' Martha sighed, ‘He's got things that, well, help. Not that I'm saying He couldn't do it without them. It just makes His life a bit easier, that's all.'

‘You'll be saying He's not as young as He was in a minute.'

‘Well . . .' Martha hesitated, choosing her words as carefully as if they were early avocados. ‘He's not getting any younger, anyway.'

Kevin shrugged. ‘And these security scanners are to help Him see without straining too much? Like reading glasses?'

‘That's it,' said Martha, relieved. ‘Only now they've stopped working.'

‘Oh.' Kevin thought about that for a moment. ‘My fault?'

‘It's either that,' Martha said judiciously, ‘or a coincidence. '

‘Then it's my fault,' Kevin said. He'd known for a long time that coincidences didn't happen in his Father's house, in more or less the same way that not all that many mice act as bridesmaids at cats' weddings. ‘Drat.Was that - well, the original ghastly mess or the more recent one?'

‘Looks like the recent one,' Martha replied cheerfully. ‘So if you can remember what you did—'

‘I pressed a button. Can't remember which one, unfortunately. That narrows it down to a choice of eighty-two. ' He pulled a very sad face. ‘I could cause
real
damage working it out by trial and error.'

‘Oh.' Martha sat down. ‘Only the trouble is, you see—'

‘The bad people on Earth.'

Martha bit her lip. ‘Not them so much,' she said.

 

Karen stared at her screen for a long while. Then she pulled down the really big manual and looked in the index for BRAIN,
operator's, multiple failure of.
There wasn't an entry, which was a pity. She'd tried everything else.

It had been like that for hours now. At the top it said:
in small letters; and, in the exact middle of the screen, in absolutely huge letters, it said:

The aggravating thing was that she hadn't put it there. It had come up with that one all by itself. Worse still, she couldn't get rid of it.

No problem,
chirruped a small deranged voice in her mind.
All you need to do is call the helpline. Oh, silly me, you are the helpline. You could always call yourself. They do say calling yourself 's the first sign of
. . .

Which was why she'd wanted to look up BRAIN,
operator's, multiple failure of
; except that there was, of course, no entry for that , just a lot of guff about how to move the margins and wire up the plug.

It didn't help that she'd been sitting at this wretched desk for nearly forty-eight hours without a break; and before that, thirty-six hours, and another long haul before that. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen the sunlight; well, it must have been back when there was still sunlight to see.

That dates me, she thought, like remembering flared trousers or Gary Glitter. Was the whole universe finally falling to bits, in the manner of a cheap, warranty-expired microwave oven? It had been bad enough when she'd been talking to God. No, be fair, God's younger son. She hadn't been able to talk to God direct because He was away on a fishing trip.

There were, she felt, several rational explanations. The trouble was that the cosiest of these was that some merry soul had spiked her cheese and lettuce sandwich with enough LSD to unhinge the population of China. Bearing that in mind, she was happier with the entirely irrational explanation.

Besides which, she knew it was true.

She hadn't been convinced; she just
knew
. Something in the boy's voice, primarily, combined with a whole lot of things she'd similarly just
known
ever since she was young enough to be able to walk under coffee tables without ducking.

And, she further reflected, the really
wretched
part of it all is that they're all relying on me to sort out the mess. Me, taking away the sins of the world. Sins of the world; commit here or take away. Salt and vinegar on them—?

But it was all fair enough. She was, after all, the Helpline; the nice, calm voice you turn to when everything else has failed you. It stood to reason (or if it didn't, it jolly well should) that everybody should have at least one helpline they could call. Everybody; even Them . . .

If it didn't, it jolly well should. Fighting talk, that. To turn
jolly well should
into
is
, to right wrongs, reverse injustices, get the very last stain out of the Great Rug of Being. Isn't that what we're here for, after all?

No. Not really. After all, why should it have to be me? I'm only human. Only human.
Only
human . . .

Suddenly furious with herself, Karen stood up, peered round the half-open door of her office to make sure there was nobody coming down the corridor, grabbed the manual and hurled it at the waste-paper basket. She missed, but it had served its purpose. In the words of the original advertising campaign for the collected works of Aristotle: it's the thought that counts.

Only human, for crying out loud! What a pathetic contradiction in terms. The King of Beasts doesn't lope away and hide when he hears a vole coming because he's
only
a lion. You don't get Silver Shadows sobbing their clutches out in dark corners of the garage because they're
only
Rolls-Royces. There isn't a picture hanging in the Louvre with a paper bag over its head, ashamed to be seen because it's
only
the
Mona Lisa.
No, the hell with that; the guys who built this thing, this collection of plastic crispbread and copper spaghetti, were
only
human too. And anything a human made, a human can fix.