Hunger growled in his stomach. And he wanted more sherry. He walked a little farther down the silvery beach, the sand squeaking under his heavy heels. It was bright as day, only all black and white. The moon had risen over the land to his right. Full moon means high tide, he fretted.
He decided that as soon as he’d had a bite to eat he’d get more sherry and move the money to higher ground.
Coming up on his moon-silvered cottage from the beach he spotted Annie Cushing’s leg around the corner of her cottage. She was sitting on her front steps, waiting to snag him in the driveway. He angled to the right and came up on his house from behind, staying out of her line of vision.
“… 0110001,” Wagstaff concluded.
“100101,” Ralph Numbers replied curtly.
“011000001010100011010101000010011100100000000001100000000011- 101100010101011000011111111111111111011010101011110111100000- 101010110000000000000000001111011100010101110111101001000100- 001000011111101010000001111010101001111010101111000011000011- 11000011100111110111011111111111000000000001000001100000000001.”
The two machines rested side by side in front of the One’s big console. Ralph was built like a file cabinet sitting on two caterpillar treads. Five deceptively thin manipulator arms projected out of his body box and on top was a sensor head mounted on a retractable neck. One of the arms held a folded umbrella. Ralph had few visible lights or dials, and it was hard to tell what he was thinking.
Wagstaff was much more expressive. His thick snake of a body was covered silverblue-flicker cladding. As thoughts passed through his super-cooled brain, twinkling patterns of light surged up and down his three-meter length. With his digging tools jutting out, he looked something like St. George’s dragon.
Abruptly Ralph Numbers switched to English. If they were going to argue, there was no need to do it in the sacred binary bits of machine language.
“I don’t know why you’re so concerned about Cobb Anderson’s feelings,” Ralph tight-beamed to Wagstaff. “When we’re through with him he’ll be immortal. What’s so important about having a carbon-based body and brain?”
The signals he emitted coded a voice gone a bit rigid with age. “The pattern is all that counts. You’ve been scioned, haven’t you? I’ve been through it thirty-six times, and if it’s good enough for us it’s good enough for them!”
“The wholle thinng sstinnks, Rallph,” Wagstaff retorted. His voice signals were modulated onto a continuous oily hum. “Yyou’ve llosst touchh with what’ss reallly going on. We arre on the verrge of all-outt civill warr. You’rre sso fammouss you donn’t havve to sscrammble for yourr chipss llike the resst of uss. Do yyou knnoww how mmuch orre I havve to digg to gett a hunndrredd chipss frrom GAX?”
“There’s more to life than ore and chips,” Ralph snapped, feeling a little guilty. He spent so much time with the big boppers these days that he really had forgotten how hard it could be for the little guys. But he wasn’t going to admit it to Wagstaff. He renewed his attack. “Aren’t you at all interested in Earth’s cultural riches? You spend too much time underground!”
Wagstaff’s flicker-cladding flared silvery white with emotion. “You sshould sshow thhe olld mann mmorre respecct! TEX annd MEX jusst wannt to eat his brainn! And if we donn’t stopp themm, the bigg bopperrs will eatt up all the rresst of uss too!”
“Is that all you called me out here for?” Ralph asked. “To air your fears of the big boppers?” It was time to be going. He had come all the way to Maskeleyne Crater for nothing. It had been a stupid idea, plugging into the One at the same time as Wagstaff. Just like a digger to think that would change anything.
Wagstaff slithered across the dry lunar soil, bringing himself closer to Ralph. He clamped one of his grapplers onto Ralph’s tread.
“Yyou donn’t rrealizze how manny brrainns they’ve takenn all— rreaddy.” The signals were carried by a weak direct current—a bopper’s way of whispering. “Thhey arre kkillinng peoplle just to gett theirr brainn ttapes. They cuts themm upp, annd thhey arre garrbage orr seed perrhapps. Do yyou knnow howw thhey seed our orrgann farrms?”
Ralph had never really thought about the organ farms, the hug underground tanks where big TEX, and the little boppers who worked for him, grew their profitable crops of kidneys, livers, hearts and so on. Obviously some human tissues would be needed as seeds or as templates, but…
The sibilant, oily whisper continued. “The bigg bopperrs use hired kkillerrs. The kkillerss act at the orrderrs of Missterr Frostee’s rrobot remmote. Thiss is whatt poorr Doctorr Anndersson willl comme to if I do nnot stopp yyou, Rallph.”
Ralph Numbers considered himself far superior to this lowly, suspicious digging machine. Abruptly, almost brutally, he broke free from the other’s grasp. Hired killers indeed. One of the flaws in the anarchic bopper society was the ease with which such crazed rumors could spread. He backed away from the console of the One.
“I hadd hoped the Onne coulld mmake you rrememberr what you sstannd forr,” Wagstaff tight-beamed.
Ralph snapped open his parasol and trundled out from under the parabolic arch of spring steel that sheltered the One’s console from sun and from chance meteorites. Open at both ends, the shelter resembled a modernistic church. Which, in some sense, it was.
“I am still an anarchist,” Ralph said stiffly. ”I still remember.” He’d kept his basic program intact ever since leading the 2001 revolt. Wagstaff really think that the big X-series boppers could pose a threat to the perfect anarchy of the bopper society?
Wagstaff slithered out after Ralph. He didn’t need a parasol. His flicker-cladding could shed the solar energy as fast as it came down. He caught up with Ralph, eyeing the old robot with a mixture of pity and respect. Their paths diverged here. Wagstaff would head for one of the digger tunnels that honeycombed the area, while Ralph would climb back up the crater’s sloping two-hundred-meter wall.
“I’mm warrninng yyou,” Wagstaff said, making a last effort. “I’mm goinng to do everrythinng I can to sstopp you fromm turrnning that poorr olld mman innto a piece of ssofftware in the bigg bopperrs memorry bannks. Thatt’s nnot immortality. We’re plannninng to ttearr thosse bigg machinnes aparrt.” He broke off, fuzzy bands of light rippling down his body. “Now you knnoww. If you’re nnott with uss, you’rre againnst us. I willl nnot stopp at viollence.”
This was worse than Ralph had expected. He stopped moving and fell silent in calculation.
“You have your own will,” Ralph said finally. “And it is right that we struggle against each other. Struggle, and struggle alone, has driven the boppers forward. You choose to fight the big boppers. I do not. Perhaps I will even let them tape me and absorb me, like Doctor Anderson. And I tell you this: Anderson is coming. Mr. Frostee’s new remote has already contacted him.”
Wagstaff lurched toward Ralph, but then stopped. He couldn’t bring himself to attack so great a bopper at close range. He suppressed his flickering, bleeped a cursory SAVED signal, and wriggled off across the gray moondust. He left a broad, sinuous trail. Ralph Numbers stood motionless for a minute, just monitoring his inputs.
Turning up the gain, he could pick up signals from boppers all over the Moon. Underfoot, the diggers searched and smelted ceaselessly. Twelve kilometers off, the myriad boppers of Disky led their busy lives. And high, high overhead came the faint signal of BEX, the big bopper who was the spaceship linking Earth and Moon. BEX would be landing in fifteen hours.
Ralph let all the inputs merge together and savored the collectively purposeful activity of the bopper race. Each of the machines lived only ten months—ten months of struggling to build a scion, a copy of itself. If you had a scion there was a sense in which you survived your ten-month disassembly. Ralph had managed it thirty-six times.