‘I have consumed this food type before,’ said Bob, reaching for the offered loafof bread and biting off the end of it. After chewing on it for a moment, his saliva breakingit down, his on-board computer analysed the protein content.
He nodded. ‘This is adequate.’
Liam sat down on a wooden crate opposite. ‘You know, I thought I was going to be stuckin that camp forever. I thought I was going to die in there.’
He shuddered at the memories of those months inside, the faces of prisoners he’d grownto know well. Wallace, he wondered, what had become of him in the chaos? Did he survive themassacre? Had he escaped? Liam hoped so.
He slurped noisily on the soup. ‘I found myself wondering if I’d have been betteroff staying on the Titanic. Drowning to death would’ve beena lot quicker than starving to death, eh?’
‘Correct,’ announced Bob. ‘Death by oxygen denial takes approximately threeto five minutes.’
Nice. Soothing words.
Liam put down his spoon, reached out and patted one of Bob’s meaty shoulders. ‘Iknow this probably won’t mean much to you, since Foster says your mind is just a littlemachine filled with codes and programs and stuff. But… Isuppose… look, I just want to say thank you, Bob. Thanks for coming and gettingme.’
He saw some kind of expression flicker across the support unit’s rigid face. Was itsome sort of involuntary muscle twitch, or was it a smile? Whatever it was, it almost lookedconvincing.
They ate in silence for a while. Silence that is, except for Liam’s soup-slurping andthe grinding of Bob’s teeth — sounding not unlike the grating noise Liamremembered his Uncle Diarmid’s cows made as they chewed on their winter maize.
‘So you’re suggesting we stay here indefinitely until we get amessage?’
‘Negative.’
‘Just say “no”, Bob. It sounds more natural.’
‘No.’
‘Then how long for?’
‘We wait another seventy-eight hours, fifty-seven minutes.’
‘Uh?’ Seventy-eight hours and fifty-seven minutes seemed somewhat specific. ‘Bob, why exactly that long?’
‘By that time, I must have self-terminated.’
Liam dropped his spoon in the soup. ‘Excuse me? Self-terminate… what exactly does that mean?’
Bob stopped chewing on the bread and turned his cool grey eyes on him. ‘Basicoperational requirement: six-month lifespan in the field. If I fail to return from a missionafter six months, I must self-terminate. They know this. So they will not attempt to send meany messages after six months. If we are to receive a message it will occur beforethen.’
‘Six months? But… but you’re telling me you’re going to destroy yourself in… in… in…?’
‘Three days, six hours and fifty-seven minutes’ time,’ answered Bobhelpfully. ‘I must terminate by then.’
‘But why?’
‘To prevent my computer technology being used.’
Liam suddenly realized he felt something for the big automaton in front of him. A fondness?He knew it didn’t make any sense that he should care for what was basically ameat-and-muscle weapons platform with a personal organizer stored up top. Perhaps, in a way,it was because they were both new to this timeriding thing. Bothnew boys. Or maybe it was the thought of being alone in a world that should never have beenwithout Bob to watch over him, to protect him.
‘Bob, can’t you decide not to destroyyourself?’
‘Negative.’
‘What if I were to give you a direct order? As the mission operative, I’m incommand here, right?’
‘This is correct.’
‘So if I were to order you to cancel — ’
‘This protocol cannot be countermanded. It is firmware.’
‘Firmware?’
‘Built into the computer’s design. It cannot be overridden.’
Liam looked up at his expressionless face. ‘But that’s stupid!’
‘It is unavoidable.’
Liam looked down at his soup, growing cool in its bowl. ‘Doesn’t the thought ofdying, well… does it not scare you?’
‘Negative.’
‘Bob, say “no”… not “negative”.’
‘No.’
‘You don’t have any strong feelings about… about terminating yourself?’
‘My consciousness is merely procedural code; my memories are stored on my internal harddrive. My body can be regrown from a single cell. I can be endlessly duplicated, LiamO’Connor. I have no concept of death. So I have no concept of fear.’
‘No fear,’ Liam snorted humourlessly. ‘Jay-zus, I wish Icould say that. I’ve spent the last few months spending every waking hour in fear.Afraid I might be picked on by a guard to be made an example of. Afraid they’d decide tofinish us all off. Afraid that — ’
‘I wish…’ rumbled Bob.
The words stopped Liam’s self-pitying ramble in its tracks. He set the spoon down inhis soup bowl and looked up to see the support unit’s eyes were glazed over, focused onsome far-off, unattainable desire.
Did he just say ‘I wish…’?
He remembered Foster saying the computer was linked to a small organic brain. Perhaps thattiny wrinkled part of Bob, that undeveloped nub of brain matter, was able to wish forsomething, to desire something, in an indefinable way?
‘Tell me,’ Liam said softly. ‘What… what do you wish for, Bob?’
‘I wish… I was… like you, Liam O’Connor.’
Liam cocked his head. ‘Like me? Jeez! Look at me. A weedy little runt. I’msixteen and I still don’t have any bristles I can shave. And the best I ever managed toachieve, before I was supposed to have died, was to become a ship’s steward. Just aflippin’ waiter. Great, huh?’
‘You were recruited because you have essential skills.’
‘Essential skills? You kidding? I can tidy a cabin, make a pot of tea and deliver itwithout spilling it on a napkin. Big deal.’
‘Your data records indicate you have a very high intelligence quotient, fast mentalreaction times and creative cognitive skills.’
‘Really?’
‘These things are listed in your personal profile records.’
‘What records?’
‘I have your complete profile on my hard drive. This includes WhiteStar Shipping’s personnel records, details on your family, your home town, your schoolreports — ’
‘You’ve got my school reports up there in yourhead?’
‘Affirmative.’ Bob’s eyes flickered momentarily, a sign that he wasretrieving data.
‘Liam O’Connor is quite clearly a clever lad,’Bob began reciting words Liam recognized as being penned by his old headmaster, FatherO’Herlihy, ‘perhaps one of the brightest in his academicyear. However, he is also prone to gazing out of the window, wool-gathering at the slightestopportunity and not applying himself as much as some of the other promising young boys inhis year. Liam is something of a loner; it seems he does rather enjoy his own company duringbreak times, not joining in — ’
Bob stopped dead. Frozen for a moment.
‘You all right there, Bob?’
‘One moment… one moment.’
The muscles in Bob’s face flickered and tensed, his eyes blinked rapidly as, inside hishead, every thought process came to a sudden grinding halt.
[Transmission particles detected]
His computer sifted the data coming in, sub-atomic particles winking into existence as if bymagic and passing through solid matter as if it was air. Enough tachyons were appearing in hisneural net — caught like flies in a web — for him to begin to decode some partialmessage fragments.
[… time cont… complete devastation… low energy…for one on… as follows: Lat: 38°54′24…]
‘Bob? What’s up with you?’
‘One moment… one moment,’ he replied tonelessly.
More particles arriving, more fragments of message assembling. He waited until the passingwave of particles appeared to have finally ceased. Another minute in silence, waiting for a possible second wave of tachyons to be ensnared inside his head. But thereseemed to be nothing more now. The signal beam from the future had briefly passed this way andmoved on.