The Genie and the Engineer 3: Ravages of War (7 page)

Paul considered her words. “Yes, it’s the Gary Mitchell
syndrome in the
Star Trek
episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” And
yes, this thought occurred to me earlier as well. This kind of power is
addictive as well as dangerous.”

“Yes, it is,” she acknowledged. “Paul, please promise me
something. Please don’t let it change us. I love you just the way you are, with
all of your imperfections. Please don’t make yourself into a Gary Mitchell. And
I will work on keeping myself imperfect too. Let’s not become what they are:
arrogant, sadistic, and selfish monsters.”

Paul nodded and smiled. “It’s going to be hard, you know. We
use magic for so many things. It’s faster and so much easier to use than muscle
power. But it’s a deal. I too love you for yourself, though I do want to see
you become perfectly healthy. But otherwise, I agree. We need to work at
staying as we are.”

What a wonderful and special woman he had married!

The planet Mars

Coprates Chasma

Gathol House

Wednesday, 3:33 p.m. LMST

December

Day 33

C
apie was
quietly building herself up to a full-blown conniption fit, stomping around the
room, slamming down boxes of books and other supplies on the stone tables in
the room and practically throwing items into drawers and onto shelves.  

She was slaving away in the Dejah Lab (from
A Princess of
Mars
), another in the maze of underground manufactured rooms north of the
house. This particular chamber was rather large, more than two thousand square
feet of floor space. For the moment, it was far more than she needed but, in
time, her research and production of the MBE drug would fill all this space and
several more laboratories like it, once they were hollowed out as well. She
anticipated employing an entire army of Scotties in these rooms for that
purpose at that time.

Right now, she would have been happy to have the assistance
of just one such Scottie.

The hardware and supplies she had on hand were those she had
brought from Earth in the cargo hold of the
Sirius Effort
, and they had
been, by necessity, limited. However, there was more than enough to begin her
research. And the quantity was such as to keep her busy for a few hours,
sorting and organizing it all and setting up the appropriate working areas.

Up until three hours ago, Daneel 1 had been giving her a
hand with all of the drudge work and they had been making fairly decent
progress unpacking and putting everything into its appropriate location. But
then Paul had casually dropped in and begged/borrowed/stole the Scottie ‘for a
while, for a special project,’ to be returned promptly, just as soon as his
small task was complete.

But three hours! Really! Capie was becoming increasingly
convinced that she had been duped and that Paul had no intentions of returning
Daneel 1 for the rest of the day. Indeed, she now strongly suspected that this
would become a common place occurrence in the future, where his projects and
work schedule might be, in his mind, of higher priority than anything she was
working on.

Hence the growing anger on her part.

It just wouldn’t do, she suddenly decided in a huff. If she
didn’t nip this sort of behavior in the bud now, Paul would never learn to cut
her any slack in the future. And the Okar Workshop (
The Warlord of Mars
),
where he was working today, was only fifty yards away via the interconnecting
corridor. Time to pay him a visit and get Daneel 1 back.

In one-third gee, it was not easy to tromp out of the room but
somehow Capie managed it.

The adjoining corridors were roughly hewn out of solid rock.
Since they were considered industrial and temporary at that, Paul had decided
that there was really no particular purpose in improving their appearance.
There wasn’t even any lighting or provisions for such.

However, there was a three-way sign at the corridor
junction, posted there by one of the Daneels, though neither she nor Paul could
get the perpetrator to admit doing it. The sign pointing to the left read “This
Way!” The one to the right: “That Way!” And the third sign pointed straight up,
reading “The Other Way!”

The only concession that Paul would make with the corridors was
to level and smooth out the floor, both to accommodate wheeled carts and
dollies and also as a safety issue in terms of eliminating potential trip
hazards.

As Capie rounded the junction in the tunnel, she picked up a
head of steam and stalked through the doorway of the Okar Workshop. Paul was turned,
his back to her, working on some item or other on one of the work benches.

“Paul!” she barked, coming to a complete halt and putting
both hands on hips. “Where are Daneels 1 and 2? How can I get any work—”

And then a hind portion of her brain got through to her
conscious mind, loudly telling her that something unusual was in the room with
them. Something—no, two somethings—that were floating in midair.

“What the…?”

Paul turned, grinning widely and pointed at the two objects.
“Dear, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but ‘These are not the droids
you are looking for,’ he said, quoting from
Star Wars 4: A New Hope
. “Instead,
I’m honored to introduce to you the latest additions to our household, Daneel 3
and Daneel 4. Boys, say high to Mom.”

The two Scotties were vastly different in appearance to the
first two Daneels. Both of the new Scotties were carbon black cubes, each
eighteen inches on a side and otherwise completely featureless. No monitor
screen, no switches, no seams, no vents, no LEDs—nothing. Just black panels.
And floating freely in midair, two feet above the work bench!

Daneel 3 spun 90 degrees and a very strange thing happened.
A holographic image of a head appeared, projected out the top of the cube. It
was instantly recognizable as Daneel’s head, with the same blond hair, the
hazel eyes and the hint of freckles on nose and cheeks. But as a pure
holographic image now, not on a LCD screen. What was more, it was totally
life-like and utterly realistic. The total effect, with the black cube and his
head sticking out the top, somewhat resembled a jack-in-the-box, an idea which
she hurriedly dismissed.

“Hi, Mom,” said the Daneel image with a knowing smile.
“Surprise! ‘Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave. With a box of scraps!’”

The other cube popped up an identical holographic image of
Daneel’s head. “Daneel 4 reporting, Mom. How’s it going in the lab? Need a
hand?”

“That’s a great idea, Daneels. You’re both free now to go
help her,” Paul announced, with the wave of a hand before turning back to
Capie. “Sorry it took so long, CB. There was a glitch in the personality cloning
process. But how do you like the new look?”

Capie gulped and finally found her voice again. “I’ve been
after you for months to do something about their unsightly neo-cubism appearance.
But I didn’t expect a black cube!”

Her husband nodded, apparently amused by her comparison of
the Scotties to a form of art. “The exterior panels consist of sheets of 10,000
layers of graphene. Extremely strong. And the talismans are tucked inside their
frames. I beefed up the interior structure as well. These Daneels are bullet
proof and can take a lot of pounding. In fact, this design is so successful
that I’m doing a make-over of Daneels 1 and 2.”

Capie glanced over at the workbench and could see the
chassis of one of the other Daneels, strung out in pieces, the LCD monitor off
to one side.

“Hi, Mom,” said Daneel 1 on its screen, as it waved to her.
“I’m positively delighted to get rid of the duct tape. Black is so chic, don’t
you think?”

Daneel 2, sitting further down the bench, also waved from
his LCD monitor. “The duct tape look
was
getting a bit ratty. But basic
black…I don’t know. I’m thinking of adding red and white racing stripes.”

“Naw,” Daneel 3 said, chiming in to the argument. “Green and
yellow dots, mate, that’s the ticket.”

“It’ll take me a couple of hours to get Daneels 1 and 2
squared away,” Paul told Capie, as he scratched one ear. “But please, feel free
to take Daneels 3 and 4 with you.” He turned to the new Scotties. “Please help
Mom all you can. Let me know if you have any problems, okay?”

“‘Compliance!’” the two new Daneels said in unison, floating
toward the doorway.

“Come on, Mom,” said Daneel 4. “I have an idea on how to
arrange your chemical cabinets.”

Paul raised an eyebrow at Capie. “What were you saying when
you came in, CB?”

“Who, moi?” she asked with a feigned innocent air. “I just
wanted to see if you have any preferences for dinner.”

“No, not really,” he replied with a small smirk. “Surprise me.”

With a quick grin, she said, “Funny man.” Then she turned
and left.

Humming to himself, Paul turned and resumed work on a new titanium
bracket for Daneel 1.

Ω

Day 38

“Dad? Oh, Dad?”

Paul turned to face the black cube floating up behind him.
With fourteen operational copies of Daneels all active, he had found it
necessary to paint a small number on the upper right corner of each of their
cubes, in order to keep track of which one he was talking to at any particular
moment.

“Yeah, Daneel 1? What’s up?” Paul asked.

“Do you have a few minutes to talk?” the Scottie asked, his
holographic face projecting above the cube looking a bit apprehensive.

Paul chuckled. The task of keeping fourteen Scotties busy
every day had rapidly gotten beyond his ability to keep up. So instead, Paul
had appointed Daneel 1 as the group leader, a sort of squad sergeant, as it
were. Paul’s intent was to eventually build an entire military organization,
complete with all of the associated ranks. At the moment, however, Daneel 1 was
taking Paul’s general overall directions and translating them into specific
work tasks for all the other Scotties. Which seemed to be working rather well.
Paul was delighted that Daneel 1 had been able to step up to the plate so
handily.

“Of course,” Paul replied. “What’s on your mind?”

“Well, Dad, I’m a little confused on direction here,” the
Scottie admitted. “I know that you intend to create another six Daneels in the
next generation of Scotties. But, at the moment, we only have three spare CPU
modules and the discrete components to fabricate maybe four, possibly five
motherboards.”

“Correct,” Paul said agreeably. “And then there is the lack
of talismans for those six new Scotties.”

“Right. Now, Mom is keeping three of us busy helping her.
And I’ve got Daneels 2 and 3 looking for pallasite meteorites, Daneels 5 and 6
at Syrtis Major mining komatiite, Daneels 4, 7 and 8 mining bertranite near
Olympus Mons, and Daneels 9 and 10 scouring the planet looking for tantalum. So
far, they aren’t having much luck.”

“What’s the confusion?”

“I understand the need for the talismans,” Daneel 1
admitted. “But what good will the talismans be without the Scotties to go with
them? Shouldn’t we also be collecting new material for the CPUs? And what do we
do about the lack of the discrete components? The diodes, transistors,
capacitors and such? All of the ones we’ve used so far we brought with us from
Earth. Shouldn’t we now fabricate the other discrete components we need here on
Mars?”

“Lots of questions, I see,” Paul noted with approval. “So
let’s answer a few of them. As you know, Christmas is coming up pretty soon, and
that is going to disrupt our schedule a bit. There really isn’t time to add six
new Scotties with talismans before the holidays, so we are going to modify our
objectives a little.”

Daneel 1 looked even more bewildered. “In what way?”

“First, by all means, I want to keep the Daneels on the
mineralogical surveys. We need to know where to find the metals and minerals
for the new Scotties. We will focus on their construction
after
Christmas. And don’t worry about the discrete components. I have a plan to
furnish them later. But for right now, I would like to concentrate on two other
tasks, other than the surveys.”

“And they are?”

“First, I want to make two chutzpahs, one for Capie and one
for you. That’s all we can afford to make, for now. So, have the Scotties mine
what is needed for just two chutzpahs from the deposits they find, process it,
and perform the isotope conversions. But don’t do the chutzpah ceremonies. Not
yet.”

“You said there were two tasks.”

“Right. Second, I want two volunteers for a special
mission.”

“A special mission?” Daneel 1 asked frowning. “Is it dangerous?”

“It could be,” Paul admitted uncomfortably. “I need them to
go to John Doe Mons. They won’t have to stay there long. Two days, maybe. For a
special high power project.”

“Is it a secret?” Daneel 1 grimaced and looked down. “More
important, do I really want to know what they will be asked to do.”

“Oh, I think you will approve.”

Ω

Day 44

“Have you talked to Ariel-Leira recently, CR?” Capie asked
with a hint of aggravation.

Paul grimaced, instantly peeved, knowing exactly how his
wife felt. The mirror woman had recently started whining about the view out the
window, how static and how brown it all was, insisting on a change of venue.
Unfortunately, it was already the best view on the entire planet.

The two of them were at the breakfast table, eating pancakes
covered with maple syrup with a side order of bacon. The meal had been prepared
by Daneel 14, who was doing most of the breakfast cooking these days.

“I’m open to suggestions on her situation,” he muttered.
“I’m thinking, at the first chance we get, we send her back to Earth.”

“Amen to that idea!” Capie chuckled curtly.

A change of subject was needed here, Paul knew. Fortunately,
he had one.

“What’s on your schedule for today?” he asked with an
innocent air. “Have you got time to come see something important?”

“I’m really busy right now!” protested Capie irritably as
she waved a fork in her husband’s direction. “I am busy mapping all the human
DNA strands. You have no idea how complicated that is!” she added.

“You will want to make time for this,” Paul assured her with
his most charming smile. “And it won’t take long. A couple of hours, if even
that much.”

“But you won’t tell me what this is all about?”

“It’s a surprise,” he informed her.

“Not my birthday, our anniversary, nor is it Christmas yet,”
she muttered. Then she sighed and put on a tired smile. “Okay, but only because
I love you. And I want to leave Daneels 6 and 9 working in the lab while I’m
gone.”

“Sold!” Paul responded with a wide grin.