I still remember that night, the night we rounded the Moon, as though it was yesterday instead of seven decades ago. I remember something deep and full of awe stirring in my heart. It was a moment that has been the yardstick against which I have always measured wonder, and nothing at all has ever really managed to hold a candle to it. That night was their gift to us, although I don’t even remember now, not any more, why it happened that way, why the Moon was a part of it all. Looking back, it seems almost impossible for me to believe the smug complacency, almost, with which we all responded to it then — we barely believed it, to be sure, but we nonetheless took it as our due, and accepted it, and threw a revel for it, and partied the night away.
I felt let down, almost cheated, at the way that this transcendent experience was completely ignored by the rest of the oblivious world. To this day I fail to understand how it was that an entire hotel — the physical building, and all within it — could be literally kidnapped from the face of the Earth on a Friday without even a single newspaper headline mentioning the fact on the Monday that followed. But that is what happened. In our day, in the years that followed, nobody knew, nobody cared — and my speaking about it now could be treated as a work of science fiction.
Back then, the writer Vincent Silverman and I and one of the ConCom people, a young man by the name of Alexander Washington, ended up together in an elevator that failed — and had to be rescued out of the precariously hanging elevator car by one of those very androids who had taken us along for the ride to the Moon. I was the last in the elevator, waiting for my turn to climb out of the top hatch and clamber up a fragile little ladder up into the corridor of the hotel, when one of the cables of the elevator failed and came smashing down on top of the car with deadly force. The android who had been on the roof, helping people out, had jumped into the car with me as the cable came down, avoiding being smeared flat by it when it smashed into the place where he had been standing — down with me, into what was a pitch — dark cabin to which power had been cut to effect our rescue.
We were both brought down onto our knees as the elevator car shuddered from the impact. I scrambled around on all fours on the floor of that elevator, full of debris and shattered pieces of sharp plastic from what had been the roof panels, when my hand stumbled on something round and smooth, something that I somehow knew even then could not have been just a simple piece of junk from the smashed — up elevator. I instinctively picked it up and put it into the pocket of my jeans before I was helped out to safety.
It was only then that I saw the hand of the android who had been in the elevator with me.
And realized that the cable accident had severed several fingers on one hand.
And knew, immediately and surely, just what it was that I had in my pocket.
I remember, also, the panel discussion to which we all went immediately after this incident, where the chief of the androids ended up answering questions from the audience. They were difficult questions, sometimes, and I will never forget the answer that he gave to one of them — an answer that I knew to be a falsehood, something that I had believed it was impossible for an android to do. But this one told us something that was not true, because the truth was not something that we could have handled, perhaps. Whatever his reasons, he lied.
He did something else.
Not in so many words, but in ways that only I could truly understand, the android whom we had named ‘Boss’ gave me the knowledge that it was I, myself, whom they had come to seek. That they had not, perhaps, known this when they arrived at the same convention which I was at, or even when they set out to get here. Time paradoxes abounded, many of which played havoc with my mind and my imagination even back then, many of which I have never adequately worked out to my own satisfaction. But there were several things that seemed clear enough.
I had that finger. It would serve to point me — quite literally, here — in the right direction. I would somehow end up using the knowledge I gleaned from this artifact to become in effect the father of the android race, of the very creatures who had come there on that day. That any choice I might have had in doing or not doing this thing had already been taken from me — because, by the very virtue of their being present in that space and that time and being able to come and speak to me at all, at some point in my future life I had already accomplished this thing and built, or created, or caused to be born, the primitive robots who would become these androids’ ancestors.
At the time, of course, I had no idea at all as to how I would go about accomplishing this thing, and I had very ambivalent feelings about even attempting to. But in the end I did not know enough, and so I embarked on the task that had been set for me. The rest — all the years that followed, about which you will be reading in this book — is now history.
I do wonder what would have happened if I had not been there on that weekend. Would they have come anyway? Could they have done so, if I had not invented their predecessors? Would they have turned up somewhere else entirely, trying to nudge some other human mind into the waters into which they ultimately guided mine? Would our entire future have been completely different?
Boss said to us, at that time, that our planet would be abandoned and bereft of human life by the year 2400. It is difficult to believe that we are almost a quarter of the way to that year from the beginning of this millennium, at the time I write these lines. I will certainly not live to see whether this is our true future, or if something that we did — I, and the androids who came back in time to us to 2014 — changed the destiny of my people, and my world. All I can say, from this end of my life, from here and now as I know it, that I did what I believed I needed to do, I had to do, and if ever it is proved that my belief is in error I can only ask forgiveness of all of you who remain behind me, human and mechanical alike, all of you to whom I leave my legacy.
Regrets? Yes, I have a few. I will not say that I have never been in love, but I have never married, never had children, because my androids were my family, in the end, and they needed all that I had to give. These might look like they’re large regrets, and deep, but they are not. It has been said that indulging in regrets means that you regret the very life you have been given… and I cannot bring myself to admit to this. I was what I was. I hope history will judge me accordingly. And, as evidence, I offer this book, the most true and faithful account I can offer about the birth of the mechanical man, over which it has been my burden and my privilege to preside.
As for the legacy I leave behind, you, the readers of this book, the generations that follow until we do or do not leave this world for another… you will have to decide if it was worthy.
Dr. Marius Tarkovski, San Francisco, 3 November 2076
PART TWO — DATELINE 4 DECEMBER 2080
OBITUARY DR. MARIUS TARKOVSKI
Dr. Marius Tarkovski PhD DSc, Professor Emeritus of Robotics at Princeton University and the University of the Pacific Rim, passed away peacefully in his sleep in the early hours of the morning of December 4. He leaves behind no immediate family except a godson, Marcus Washington. There will be a memorial for Dr. Tarkovski in the Eternal Rest Funeral Home at 10:30 AM on 12 December 2080 (attendance by mechanical entities welcome). Donations to the Tarkovski Foundation for Robotics Research are suggested in lieu of flowers. The eminent scientist and academic Dr. Tarkovski is best known for his pioneering role in the science of robotics, which he largely guided in achieving its full potential, and is credited with the creation of the first fledgling AI sentient entities created by human hand. Full obituary and overview of Dr. Tarkovski’s life and career will appear in the site within 24 hours.