“Ah,” sang the replicant. With a sound soft as a spider’s feet tickling across its web her eyes opened, and gazed out at Hobi: grass-green, emerald-green, green as the sea and the sirocco sky.
“Ah,” she repeated, a note like a door chiming open. From within its glowing sarcophagus her crystal hand moved, slowly, until it brushed his cheek.
“At last,” she murmured, blinking those emerald eyes.
“The Beautiful One Is Here.”
“Where is my Sister?”
The shock of seeing her move sent Hobi scuttering a few feet backward. Behind him the rasas had fallen silent.
“Where is my Sister?” the nemosyne said again. Now that she was fully awake her voice was surprisingly deep, and gentle—he had never heard a replicant with such a lovely voice. The door of her case clicked shut as she stepped forward, her legs moving smoothly and her head turning back and forth to survey the room. The light streaming from her faded until she shone pale white and yellow. The joints where her metal limbs met her torso gleamed blue, her eyes glowed that supernatural shade of green. She was like some beautiful toy, and in spite of his fear Hobi grinned to see her. A few feet from her cabinet she stopped and looked around, her gaze sweeping the room, taking in the darkened cabinets, the silent fearful rasas. She turned and pointed at Hobi.
“Where is my Sister?”
Hobi swallowed, unclenched his hands. His voice came out in a croak. “Who was your sister?”
Nefertity tipped her head. She was nearly a foot taller than Hobi. She stepped forward, reaching for him. At first he recoiled, then with shaking fingers reached to touch her hand. It felt as though mercury flowed inside it, something warm and heavy yet viscous. Her fingers closed around his and drew him toward her, until he could feel the air around her crackling.
She said gravely, “Sister Loretta Riding of the Order of Divine Compassion. I do not see her here.”
Hobi tried to pull his hand back but the nemosyne wouldn’t let go. This is it, he thought. Now my stupidity will be truly rewarded.
“I think she’s dead,” he said. “I—I’m sorry. It’s—it’s probably been a long time since you were with her.”
Slowly Nefertity released his hand and looked away. “Twenty-one fourteen,” she murmured. “Has it been long?”
He whistled, shaking his head. “God, yes!—it’s—it’s been very long.” He pulled the hair back from his face, trying not to look rattled. “Your sister—what was she? A scientist?”
“Loretta? No.” The deep whispery voice sounded infinitely sad. It had been centuries since the Ascendants lost the artistry to create things such as this, capable of such eloquence and mimed emotions. Hobi listened entranced as she went on.
“My Sister is— was —a cultural archivist backed by the American Vatican State. I was her lifetime project—the NFRTI, the National Feminist Recorded Technical Index. The entire archives of the Library of Congress’s Women’s Wing and the AVS’s feminist collective have been recorded in my files.” She hesitated. “But there were others like me—”
Her gaze swept the dim chamber and settled on the tall cabinet housing Maximillian Ur. She pointed, cocking her head toward Hobi. “They are here?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
Behind Hobi voices stirred, and he looked back. The first rasa had crept forward.
“Mother,” it whispered imploringly. “Mother, speak to us.”
Nefertity regarded it solemnly for a long moment. “I recognize that voice. This person activated the random memory chips,” she said at last. “At the sound of a human voice requesting me to speak, I am programmed to enter a random recitative mode. From my files—stories and poetry and plays.”
“But not interactive,” Hobi said slowly.
“No,” she replied. “But it is not difficult to access my interactive mode. Sister Loretta devised it that way, and all the women knew—”
Hobi nodded. “A kiss. Like in the story—she programmed you to respond to a kiss.”
Nefertity gazed at him and raised her hand. “That’s correct.”
He went on, excited, “And no one knew— That’s why Nasrani was so frustrated!” He stopped, suddenly embarrassed; wondering (as he was sure the nemosyne must be) how it was that someone as unworthy as himself had been so lucky when Nasrani after so many years had failed.
Nefertity touched Hobi’s cheek, staring at him with her cool jade eyes. “You started the interactive program again. You woke me: the kiss.” It might have been a reward, the way she pronounced the words.
“I didn’t know—I mean, I didn’t mean to—”
“Sister Loretta programmed it. It was a joke with her. She called me the Sleeping Beauty. The others, the military modules and the biological and archaeological nodes, all responded to more conventional commands.”
“But why? I mean, why did they make you? ”
“To save the records and stories; to make sure the stories and folktales would not be forgotten. Because of the Long Night; they feared a second Long Night. And so they made us.”
Nefertity crossed the room to Maximillian Ur, her long silver legs gleaming through the darkness. “Units for science, for agriculture, for the arts as well as the military. You have not found them?”
“No. Not that I’ve ever heard. You’re the only one. Nasrani—Nasrani Orsina—”
She touched Maximillian Ur’s case and glanced at the boy. “He is the new archivist?” Her tone was hopeful.
“No. Nasrani was the one who found you; at least he says he did.” Hobi glanced uneasily at the rasas crouching in the shadows. “I guess they found you, too.”
Nefertity shook her head, seeming not to have heard him. “But where are the others?”
She gazed down at the rasa, then back at Hobi. “Are you the new archivist? Sister Loretta said that help would eventually come. If it’s been so terribly long my files must be updated.”
A wave of sorrow swept over Hobi. “I—I don’t think there are any more archivists. Not in Araboth, at least.”
The nemosyne was silent. She stared at Maximillian Ur’s blank grimace behind its swollen glass. For several minutes the room was still, the boy and the rasas alike waiting anxiously as the nemosyne stood, the soft tchk of her circuitry the only sound.
At last she said, “There was another Long Night, wasn’t there? That is why Sister Loretta is gone. That is why there are no archivists left.”
Hobi nodded sadly. “There was another Long Night. And—and some other things happened too.”
“And they are lost, the others like me.” Her emerald orbs inside their eyesockets flickered with golden lightning. “They divided us among the remaining churches and governments and reservations, to be sure that some of us would survive. Some of us were imprinted with a program-memory of our archivist. I was—I am—Loretta Riding. But the others…”
Hobi would not have believed a replicant’s voice was capable of displaying such grief. He felt horrible now for waking her, and wondered if somehow he could manage to switch her off, return her to her sleeping state before Nasrani returned once more and saw her like this.
“Mother,” the rasa whispered. It slipped next to Hobi and raised its head, its ruined eyes wide and hopeful. “More stories now?”