Time Was (37 page)

Finally, the Robot/Child legislation passed, and the school received notification that I was to be delivered to the nearest “recycling” facility within ten days. Everyone was genuinely sad, and it touched me deeply.

I remember that last, terrible day. The children had all gone home, many of them stopping to hug me and tell me how much they were going to miss me. I found myself wishing that I'd possessed the capability to tell a small lie to them, to say, “Don't worry, I'll write to all of you here at the school.” It would have made them feel better. They would have forgotten about that promise, eventually, as well as the machine that made it. But their pain was so evident on that last day and there was nothing I could say or do to lessen it. Helplessness is an awful thing, Killaine.

I went looking for Regina, but she was nowhere in the building. It was getting near the time I was scheduled to leave for the camp, so, figuring I had nothing to lose, I made a very foolish mistake: I went outside looking for her.

She was sitting there beneath the oak tree, a pale and musing blind girl beneath a canopy of fiery green leaves. She looked so lost, so hopeless and sad. And I remember as I approached her all that we'd been through together, the good and the bad; her leading the other blind children around, all of them laughing like circus people during a time of pestilence, or her helping them with their schoolwork, or
—
like the eldest child in a family
—
deciding on the punishment when one of them misbehaved. When I arrived by her side she told me she was listening to and smelling the wind. She spoke very softly, and her words came out in that shyly poetic way in which so many adolescent girls speak until their hearts get broken for the first time and the poetry leaves them.

We talked of all the games we used to play with children and of all the stories we'd shared with them, and as we spoke of them, she took hold of my hand and for a moment I swore I could hear the ghost of those many years' laughter, rolling through me like a soft wind across the waters in autumn.

At last she told me to sit down, she had one last story she wanted to share with me. “It's my favorite story in all the world,” she said. “It always makes me think of you.”

It's an odd feeling for a robot, Killaine, to realize that you are loved by a human being.

“Do you remember the story?”

Singer nodded and reached into a pouch attached to his side. From it he removed a small, tattered, aged book. Killaine saw that some of the pages were missing toward the end and that the edges were slightly scorched.

Singer gently handed it to her.

“Is this it? Is this hers?”

Yes.

Killaine began to read the tale to herself. It was about a young girl who lost her family during a Great Revolution and so had to flee to live with distant relatives in a far land. The relatives were very poor themselves, and the girl knew that her living with them would be a great burden, but they could not turn her away. At first, the girl was treated with cold indifference—few of them even bothered to ask her name—but as time went on, they came to depend on the small kindnesses and courtesies she bestowed upon them: the fire that waited for them every morning, the clean shoes, the orderly house. So they began to show her courtesy in return. Then came the day that one of them asked the girl her name. “I cannot recall it,” she replied. “It has been so long since any addressed me.” Many of the relatives blamed this on the horrors she had suffered during the Great Revolution and the shock of seeing her family slaughtered before her young eyes. And so they began to discuss among themselves a suitable name for the girl. During this time, a man came to see the girl, an official from her former country who had traced her whereabouts. He told her that it was discovered her late father had assets in mining in the Dark Continent and that a great motherlode had been struck. He presented her with a great deal of money, offered his congratulations at her good fortune, and left. The girl immediately made out a long list of items she would need from town and set about preparations for a great feast—for her new family had never known what it was like to enjoy a fine meal, accustomed as they were to simple dishes of potatoes and bread, with the occasional bit of old beef or pig. And while she set about her preparations, the family continued to argue over what name to give her.

Here, the book ended, having been burned away by flames or shredded in some terrible accident. Killaine closed it and gave it back to Singer. “What happened to her?”

The girl in the story?

“No, Regina.”

As she sat reading that story to me, a large band of Stompers on the road spotted me. I tried to get back to the school, to disappear in the safety of the cellars, but they were too fast on their feet and Regina refused to be intimidated by them. She gave the book to me and told me to run, then pulled a pistol from the pocket of her dress. I don't know how it happened, but we tore the book in half when she handed it to me. But I couldn't leave her to face the Stompers. I stood before her and told her to run back to the school. “No,” she cried at me. “You are forbidden to hurt them!” She was a very strong-willed one, that girl. I tried to get between her and the Stompers, to be an obstacle and nothing more, but there were too many of them. They fell on me with clubs and iron pipes, and when they were done, they threw me through a window into the deepest part of the school basement. All the time I scrambled around trying to find a way out, I could hear Regina screaming at them. I could hear the doors being smashed open, the cries of the staff.

They set fire to the building and killed all of the staff. When at last I was able to pull myself from the smoldering wreckage, I found Regina, dead, out on the grounds. She had been trying to crawl back in the direction of the oak tree. They had beaten her severely, then raped her repeatedly. Then one of them cut her throat. I could see the trail of blood leading from where they'd left her to where I found her.

I buried her under the oak tree. I searched for several days for the second part of her book but could not find it. Then I decided it was best for me to turn myself into one of the camps. If I had not been so foolish as to go outside, that school would still be standing, and Regina would be alive today.

That is why it frightens me that I have come to like all of you so very much, Killaine. One way or another, I will lose you sometime. The day will come when, by choice or circumstance, the six of you will leave this place.

He looked away from her.

Killaine tapped his shoulder.

He faced her again.

“I am familiar with that story,” she said. “It's a very old fable, oft-told.”

Do you know how it ends?

“Yes, I do.”

You must tell me the ending sometime.

“Would you like to hear it now?”

Singer thought about it for a moment, then shook his head.
No.

“Why not? If you've wondered for so long how the tale concludes, then why don't—”

Because it gives me something to look forward to. Can you understand that? I find that, more and more these days, I have less to look forward to. You have given me something to anticipate, and that is more than I've had for a long time. Thank you for that, Killaine, for being so kind and listening to me.

“I . . . I had no idea,” she said to him. “I'm ashamed to say that I never thought of you, of a robot, as one who feels things the way I do.”

No reason you should have. You need not feel bad about it.

“Thank you, Singer.”

For what?

“For trusting me enough to confide those things.”

I want us to be friends, as well. Before it's too late.

Killaine reached out and placed one of her hands against his cheek. “We
are
friends now, Singer.”

I am honored.

“No, no, the honor is mine. You are a pure spirit, Singer, and I feel privileged to know you.” She rose, then, and left him to his privacy.

His movements made a sound. She turned.

Good-night, friend Killaine.

“Good-night, friend Singer.”

And, as absurd as it seemed, she could have sworn that she saw a smile in his photoelectric eyes.

 

Morgan was awakened at 3:40
A.M.
by the sound of someone knocking very softly on the door of his trailer. He fumbled up from the bed, called out, “Be there in a minute!” and proceeded to snap, strap, and latch on all the equipment he needed in order to answer the door.

The process took several minutes, and by the time he grabbed his crutches and stumbled to the door, he was surprised that whoever it was had waited so patiently for so long.

He snapped on a small thirty-watt light over the cramped kitchen so he could have a better look at who waited outside.

He opened the door, just a crack at first, then flung it open wide when he saw her there.

“Karen!”

“I'm sorry for waking you,” said Killaine. “But I . . . may I come in?”

Morgan moved to the side to give her room. “It's kinda cramped in here but, yeah, please.”

Killaine entered and he closed the door behind her. “What's wrong?”

“What makes you think there's something wrong?”

“It's going on four in the morning. Most people don't make social calls at this hour—this is a
social
call, isn't it?”

She smiled. “Yes.”

He grinned back at her. “So . . . what brings you here?”

“I missed you.”

He sighed loudly, his shoulders slumping as the tension in them dropped to the floor. “
Really?
I missed you, too.”

They met each other halfway, embracing tightly.

Morgan's crutches tumbled to either side of him and he began to lose his balance, but Killaine held him firm.

“Shhh, it's all right,” she whispered in his ear. “I've got you.”

“You sure do,” he replied.

She led him back over to the fold-out bed and helped him to lie down, then gently lay next to him.

Morgan, using his elbows to propel him, moved closer to her, and she put an arm around his shoulders.

“I've never had such a . . . such a lovely female visitor before.”

“But you
have
had female visitors?”

He kissed her cheek. “A few—not the type you'd exactly refer to as ‘ladies.' ‘Working girls,' is more like it.” When Killaine looked at him, he shrugged in her arms and said, “I get lonely sometimes, and the girls are nice enough about it, and I've got . . . I've got a fairly decent amount of money tucked away, so I can afford their rates. That doesn't disgust you, does it?”

“No,” said Killaine. “It makes me a little sad, but I don't think you could ever do anything to disgust me.”

“It means a lot to me, your being here.”

“I haven't been able to stop thinking about you.”

“I've been thinking about you, too.”

“I feel better now, being here with you.”

“Like some part of you that you lost has been returned to you and you're whole again?”

“Yes!”

“Like you can breathe normally again?”

“Yes.”

“Like you could take on the world and emerge victorious?”

“Oh, yes.”

Their lips came together in a soft, warm, moist, deeply satisfying kiss.

“. . .
wow . . .
” said Killaine, leaning her head back into the pillows.

“Took the word right out of my mouth.”

She smiled at him. “Danny, listen, if you'd like to—”

He placed a finger against her lips. “Shhh. No. I mean, yes, I'd like to . . . eventually. But not now, not tonight. It's enough that you're here with me. It's
more
than enough. Any more than this and I would burst into flames from the joy. Do you . . . do you mind that I don't want us to . . . to, uh . . .?”

“No,” she said, kissing him again. “This is what I wanted, too.”

They pulled one another closer.

They kissed again.

And again.

And one more time again.

There was passion between them, but it was not as strong as their need to show tenderness to each other, for there are times when tenderness and closeness are the most sensual things of all, so they lay there, kissing, whispering of their hopes and dreams, nestled safely in one another's arms, becoming more complete.

Toward dawn, they fell asleep.

But in sleep, neither turned away from the other.

As the sun peeked over the horizon and slowly poured its first diffuse beams down onto the land, Killaine awoke, kissed Morgan's forehead, and gently climbed from the bed so as not to wake him. She covered him with the sheet, brushed some hair from his eyes, and kissed his cheek.

She stood back and stared at him, and she would have been content to remain that way for the rest of eternity.

Strange
, she thought,
how these feelings work, how quickly and powerfully they can consume you.

She brushed some hair from her eyes and watched Morgan's sleeping form.

Odd.

How sometimes you see the soul and just fall in love.

And can't do anything about it.

She left a note for him before she left:
The world wants to know our secret, but we must keep it hidden, for the rest of them would be consumed by the thousand secret flames.

Then, quietly closing the door behind her, she checked her watch and figured that, if she ran, she had just enough time to get back to the warehouse and start breakfast before anyone else got up and realized she was gone.

And so, looking around to make sure no one could see her, she took off at nearly full speed—sixty miles per hour.

A woman in love can move fast when she has to.