There was another region that was barred to the children. It was separated by a high wooden fence with a sign: KEEP OUT. When Shee was ten she decided to explore it. Stubtoe wouldn't do it; he was afraid the adults would find out and he would get in trouble. So she did it alone, one day when school was out but she had an hour before she had to be home. She had found a place where a large tree root had warped part of the fence, so that there was a small clearance beneath it. She used a stone to dig carefully, excavating a hole large enough to scramble through. She would make sure to return well within the hour; no one should know.
She scrambled under, and came up on the other side. She was disappointed: it was just like her own side. A path wended its way through the forest, staying away from the Chroma zones. That would be going to the next village, though by a less direct route; maybe that was why it had been fenced off.
Disappointed, she crawled back under the fence, filled in the hole, and walked home. More time had passed than she had realized, and she just made it on time. She was dirty, too, so she cleaned up carefully and changed her clothing. It hadn't been much of an adventure, and she never went beyond the fence again. There was something about it that frightened her in retrospect.
When she was twelve they had a more thorough anatomy lesson, this time clarifying the nature of sexuality. Now they knew what fitted into what, and why, and what the occasion was for it. The girls were fitted with The Wire, an internal device that prevented pregnancy. They could have sex with boys if they wanted to, but it had to be voluntary.
Any boy who forced a girl would be dealt with severely. Boys and girls were expected to be familiar with sexual expression by the time they were eighteen, because then they had to marry.
When Shee was fourteen, came the bombshell. The word related to an ancient device back on Earth, where only Science Magic existed. It was a thing that exploded violently, hurting or killing anyone within its radius of destruction. This one was conceptual, yet it had similar effect. It changed everything.
Then class was limited to the girls. The boys had disappeared. "You are not what you seem," the teacher said.
"None of us is. We are robots made to emulate human beings as closely as is feasible. It will be the honor of one of you girls to go to the real Planet Charm to become the mistress of its leader, King Havoc."
The girls looked at each other, disbelieving. Of course they knew who Havoc was; he had been king as long as they had existed. He had many mistresses, and treated them well. All the girls had private crushes on him. It would be divine to be his mistress, even for a short time.
"But the wire," one girl asked. "If we are not alive, we can't get pregnant. Why the wire?"
"Because living girls use it," the teacher replied. "Your wire serves the same purpose, preventing conception. Your bodies are capable of incubating living babies. If Havoc wants a baby, you will enable it."
But the other thing still bothered them: they were not real? What nonsense was this? What was this business about robots? They had never heard the term before.
"A robot is a machine," the teacher continued. "A mechanical device powered by internal motors. Observe." She lifted her left arm, touched a place by her elbow, and lifted her forearm and hand away from the upper arm. "You can be similarly dismantled," she said. "But you are securely fastened together, because you are supposed to be close enough to deceive real flesh human beings. We have treated you like fleshly creatures throughout, so that your minds will conform to the human standard. You are able to eat, drink, and eliminate in the living manner. You can feel pain, and have human emotions. But you are emulations, not genuine people."
As time passed, they became satisfied that they were, indeed, machines. They looked like living human beings, and thought like them, but were not. They did not grow the way living creatures did; instead they were turned off and refurbished in larger sizes, having no memory of the process. Only their brains were sacrosanct, being transplanted into the new bodies.
There was reason for this. Living creatures had nuances the machines did not understand. It was not a matter of study but of evolution. Living things generated living young that varied from their parents somewhat, and those with superior qualities survived better than those without. The process could be understood physically, but the mental evolution was just as important, and that had aspects that were beyond the machines' capacity to duplicate. The far future paths indicated that only natural selection could generate the type of creature that could accomplish the mission.
So the robots were evolving, and the final process of selection would be stringent.
Now their education intensified. They learned about the machine culture, which was vast and powerful, crushing all in its path. It was systematically taking over the galaxy, eradicating the living species that squatted on usable resource planets. But some few had some merit, and it was these that were to be addressed by emulation emissaries.
The machines could fathom the far future, but there was a creature among the humans who could fathom the near future, and this was a very special ability. One of the robot girls would go to King Havoc, gain his attention sexually, and persuade him to cooperate with the machines.
The boys returned. The girls had to learn to catch and hold their sexual interest, and to oblige it when the boys were willing to concede the girls' dominance. Shee turned out to be good at this. She had an instinctive awareness of the signals that turned men on. Somehow she could elicit that extra bit of sexual interest that rendered them unable to turn her down. When she had successfully seduced every boy in the class, she became a finalist for the mission.
The others thought she had a better body, but all their bodies were similarly proportioned; only the details of hair and feature differed. Shee knew what it was: she was smarter. She had masked this from the time she discovered it, to seem just like the others, but she knew. They had all started with the same brain capacity, but there were variations in flavor. She attributed it to her curiosity, that had constantly led her to experience new things, and to fathom subtle aspects that did not interest the others. She had studied all the boys, and knew their own variations, and catered to them. This made them find her fascinating, predisposing them to be turned on by her sexual come-ons.
When she was sixteen, it was time for the final selection. Six girls were finalists; only one would achieve the mission. The runner-up would be saved in case of need. The others would be terminated.
They looked at each other. They might be machines, but their minds and bodies felt alive. None of them wanted to die. But three of them would have to.
The final test was simple: follow a marked path to the next village. But a warning: brigands lurked along it.
This was why it had been closed off. In the real Planet Charm girls did not travel alone; they went in groups, or with men who could protect them from the brigands. In return for protection they provided the men with sex. But on this occasion they would have to make it alone.
The path was the one beyond the fence. Now the fence came down. Each girl would take her turn. The one to reach the village most swiftly would win. So it behooved them not to dawdle. They might avoid the brigands by delaying, hiding from them, but would not win the mission.
"Choose your order of travel," the teacher said.
The six got together, but could not agree. Each wanted to go first, hoping to catch the brigands by surprise and get through. After the first, the brigands would know that more were coming, and certainly be ready for them.