We weren’t sure what to say or do—we hadn’t planned on any funerals, after all—but before we had time to do more than feel a moment’s discomfort at the pause, the robot sprang back into business. Apparently its programming said that once all the live people were out of the grave it was time to get to work.
“Dear friends,” it began, “in the name of the President of the United States, of the Congress, and of the People, it is my sad duty to declare that speak deceased’s name clearly.”
We all stared at each other for a long minute before I figured out that that was a direction, and said, “Ulrike Nordstrom.”
“It is my sad duty to declare that Already Morstung has died in the line of duty, defending the nation which you and she loved. She was a good comrade and a loyal friend. She had a deep and abiding faith in the god or gods of her choice or else she was true to her philosophical beliefs to the last. She had a solid, deep, and loving relationship with her family with whom she would deeply wish to be reconciled if-there are any publicly mentioned family issues. Already Morstung had her human failings, as we all do, but still she stands as an example of what a soldier should be. We will miss Already Morstung and we will keep her in our hearts always. We now commend her soul to the god or gods of her choice, with the thanks and grateful prayers of the President, of Congress, and of the American people.”
A tinny version of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” began to play through the small speaker on the top of the robot, and it rolled forward to its dirt pile, which it began to energetically hurl back into the grave. We all stood and stared for a while, trying to think of something to say or do, I suppose, until Roger Sykes took charge. “Well,” he said, “it wasn’t a very nice funeral, but they never are. If anyone would like to say a few more appropriate words, we might all appreciate it. But if no one really has anything to say—and that’s understandable, none of us knew her—well, then, I guess we should get back to the esty and take care of the living.”
“That was four hours we could ill afford,” Iphwin said.
“Is that all you can say?” Terri demanded.
“I—I just don’t know what would be appropriate for me to say, because, as you well know, I don’t feel much, and besides—”
“You could try a really sincere ‘Ouch!’,” Helen said.
He looked baffled and said, “A really—”
She belted him, with all her considerable strength, right across the face, a great big side-armed haymaker that wouldn’t have taken anyone with any experience on a playground, but delivered a huge wallop. But of course Iphwin had no childhood memories to draw on, no idea that he needed to watch out or duck, and she flat decked him.
Roger, Esmé, and Jesús grabbed Helen and dragged her off, more to keep her from attacking Iphwin again than because they wanted to restrain her.
Iphwin lay there moaning in pain, and Paula and I attended to him. Not feeling too terribly concerned myself, I checked his pupils. They were the same size. I held up fingers for him to count and asked him a couple of short-term-memory questions. By that time he was sitting up, holding his jaw.
“Any of your teeth get loosened?” Paula asked.
“I don’t think so. The blow landed on the tip of my chin, and my jaws closed on my tongue, which is why I’m having some trouble talking. I suppose—”
Paula reached forward and grabbed his head below the ears; I’m not sure what she did, but he gave a little gasp of pain. “Just seeing whether there was anything screwed up with your jaw joint,” she said. “Did it hurt when I did that?”
“Yes!”
She grabbed him and did it again. He struggled feebly, squealing through his closed mouth. When she let him go there were tears of pain in his eyes. “Now does it hurt here, or here?” she said, stabbing her finger into two different spots on his jaw, not even slightly gently.
“Ouch! The second one!”
“Oh, good,” Paula said, “then you’re not seriously hurt. That’s normal.”
As we walked over to join the others and see what had become of Helen, I said to Paula, “That was really callous.”
“Yep. Nothing like callousness to give people an appreciation for callousness. Maybe to decide they don’t want to inflict it on others, maybe to decide they just want to avoid it themselves, maybe even to find out that they like being callous. Whichever. Anyway, it’s the big chance to find out what choice they’re going to make, and self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom.” She tossed her long, dark red hair back, shook it, and started binding it into a ponytail. “If we have to work with him, the least he can do is work on becoming a little less of an asshole each day. I was just helping him with his homework.”
Somehow I had crossed over to a world of women who scared the living daylights out of me.
Helen had not only calmed down, but had adopted an attitude similar to Paula’s—”If a goddam artificial intelligence is going to put on a body and walk around among us, it had better adapt itself to us and our way of doing things. People have been adapting to computers and robots for more than a century, and it’s high time it was the other way round. And besides, whacking him in the face is just a way to access the nervous system more directly at a simpler level. You could think of it as pushing his reset button, or programming him in machine language.”
I don’t know exactly what effect it had; Iphwin could tell that Terri didn’t like him, and since he sat in the middle with her, he was trying not to anger her by speaking, I suppose.
Paula said I was now a proven getaway driver, and she was still a better gunner. I told her I had been terrified.
“Well, then, it’s even better that you did such a fine job, if you were also coping with fear at the same time. We’d better keep you on the task.”
I drove till almost sunset, miles and miles of rocky and scrubby desert broken by some fields of dunes, and distant views of the high mountains. It was beautiful country, but there was way too much of it. We were only averaging about thirty miles per hour—a necessity on that long-neglected highway, even with puncture-proof permatires and an extra-heavy suspension. After the delay, we could no longer hope to reach Juárez before dark, and in fact sunset would find us only a few miles north of the ruins of Chihuahua. Iphwin, however tactless, had been absolutely right.
“My vote is to camp here for the night and make a short, fast run in the morning,” Esmé said. “Maybe stop forty miles short of Chihuahua, first good place where there’s cover, eat cold, set watches, depart early. That’s what I’d like.”
“Same here,” Paula agreed. “This is rough country in several different ways; I’d be very happy not to have to do anything that gave any advantages to any bad guys out there.”
Everyone agreed; Terri and I were both badly shaken, the more violence-proficient among us probably were too but weren’t about to show it, and god alone would have any idea what Iphwin was thinking. Just by the rusting old sign that said “CHIHUAHUA 60 KM” there was a heap of rocks tumbled together, perhaps a much-eroded cinder cone, and behind it, out of view of the road, we parked and made what camp we could.
I was selfishly glad that our soldiers and cops largely volunteered to sleep outside on the ground, and being a little ashamed of being selfishly glad, I agreed to stand a watch, up on the rocks above, in a secure spot that the Colonel and Esmé picked out. Paula and Roger would stand watch till ten, since she was driving the next day; Helen and Jesús would stand ten to two, and that left the short early morning watch to me and Esmé. I suppose I should have been flattered that I was the one of the noncombatants that they trusted to take a turn at watch, but since the alternatives were a teenager who seemed to be nearly in shock, and Iphwin, whom no one could figure out, I thought it more likely that I was chosen by default.