CAPACITY

Justinian smiled sweetly again at the robot. He wasn’t going to disturb the baby by letting his temper get the better of him again.

“Leslie,” he said in a sing-song voice, smiling as he did so, “the other people on this planet do not have their fifteen-month-old sons with them. The other people on this planet actually chose to come here.” His voice suddenly hardened. “Most importantly, Leslie, the other people on this planet do not have their images stored in primitive format in the abandoned memory spaces of half-insane AIs.”

The flier lifted effortlessly into the air. The red mud and turquoise water of the delta could be seen dropping away through the floor’s viewing fields. Leslie took a step forward, his fuzzy foot wading into an expanding picture of the river. A note of puzzlement crept into the robot’s voice.

“What do you mean?”

Justinian laughed sardonically. “You know what I mean. I saw you out there. I know you were listening in on the conversation.”

“Don’t be so sure,” the robot said quietly. “We are doing everything we can to restrict use of AIs on this mission. That’s why I’m so fuzzy.”

“Are you telling me you weren’t listening?”

The robot was silent. For a moment Justinian had the impression that the robot was telling the truth, but the conviction quickly gave way to suspicion that he was still being manipulated. Leslie was a robot. If his voice sounded convincing, it was because the robot had chosen to sound that way.

“I hate robots,” Justinian said. “You direct emotions and sidetrack conversations. Never mind whether you heard or not, just give me a straight answer. Why am I here?”

The robot answered without hesitation. “To find out why the AIs on this planet are failing to thrive.”

“You know that’s not what I meant. There must be hundreds, thousands of people better qualified than I am for this job. None of them has a baby to look after. Why pick me to come to this planet?”

Leslie moved forward, half blocking a viewing field. Down below, red mud was giving way to turquoise sea as the flier picked up speed.

“We’ve been over this before,” the robot said. “You have a lot of experience working with AIs and personality constructs, both at home and in the Enemy Domain. You’re good at what you do, Justinian-you must know that. And then there’s your wife, Anya; you have direct experience of the White Death. You have to admit, what happened to her is very similar to what happened to the AIs.”

“Similar, but not the same. We know that now!”

“You didn’t have to bring the baby with you.”

Justinian gave the robot a look of sheer contempt. “Leave my own child to be raised by someone else? What sort of a man do you think I am?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“Like the EA would allow it anyway.”

“Look, Justinian, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I’m not au fait with child development. It’s not part of my brief.”

“Yeah. You’ve made that excuse before. So what is your brief, anyway? Why are you here, dressed up in your fractal skin?”

“To look after you. You know that.”

“Oh…just be quiet,” Justinian snapped. The robot had successfully changed the subject again. Leslie shut down the floor’s viewing fields and the turquoise sea vanished. The robot was a blur standing on the orange-carpeted floor of the flier. Where it could be seen, Leslie’s body was humanoid, right down to the smooth, grey shapes of muscles molded into his arms and legs. Sometimes, when the robot relaxed in the flight chairs of the lounge, Justinian had seen his skin revert to a smooth, grey semitransparent crystalline form that he assumed was its natural state. It was a fascinating sight: the dark shapes of machinery could almost be seen through the skin, tantalizing half glimpses of the power that drove Leslie. At the moment, though, the robot’s body was nothing but a grey haze.

“Useless,” Justinian muttered, half to himself. He felt a sudden twinge in his right arm and rubbed it absentmindedly. The baby was ru

The baby chuckled and went back to biting at the fur collar. Justinian pulled the collar away and blew a raspberry on his son’s fat little cheek. The material in his passive suit bunched up around his right arm as he did so.

“The naughty robot won’t tell us why we’re here, will he? He keeps changing the subject! Why has he put us in this danger?”

He turned back to face the robot.

“Listen, Leslie. You let me think that the EA chose me because of Anya and my work in the Enemy Domain. Now I find my picture stored in the boot space of an AI pod, millions of light years from Earth. How can that be? No tricks, no sidetracking. Just tell me.”

“All right,” the robot said, suddenly firming up before him. The baby turned to look at the dark grey crystal shape that stood in the room. Leslie was really quite beautiful when like this.

“This is what I think. The AI pod is about to commit suicide, for whatever reason. Maybe it wants to warn others about what has happened. What to do? It has access to vast libraries of data. Records of every human that has ever lived are stored inside it. It does a search for the human most likely to help it. Is it any wonder that it comes up with the same answer as the EA has? You!”

Justinian stared at Leslie, wondering. Maybe it was true. Maybe he was being hasty, wanting to leave the planet. The baby bit at his collar again, then began slobbering over his cheek. Justinian made to push his son away, but stopped as he felt something grip his right arm.

“Ow!” he said. “What on Earth?”

Leslie began to blur. The baby was trying to kiss his cheek, and Justinian’s right arm was caught in a tight grip as he tried to push his son away. The baby didn’t like being stopped; he struggled harder. Justinian set his son on the floor and, to the rising sound of crying, began to pull off the top of his passive suit.

“Oh shit…” he whispered, feeling a sweat break out on his forehead. There, on the biceps of his right arm, glistened a BVB.

The flier skimmed at Mach 7 over the sea. Inside it the baby was still crying, and Justinian felt like doing the same, such was his frustration. Leslie was trying to calm him down.

“It’s not a problem. Once this is over we’ll take you back to Earth to have your arm removed. They’ll have another one on in no time. In the meantime we’ll put a heat bandage around your biceps to keep it warm and stop it shrinking further in the cold.”

“I’m not walking around for two weeks with this thing on me.”

Justinian couldn’t take his eyes off the black velvet band. It was beautiful in its way: a cold, terrifying beauty in the way it had so gently formed on his arm, underneath the quilt of his passive suit. He had barely noticed it appearing. Not until he had moved his arm.

Leslie was probing the band with his fuzzy hand, silver fingernails flashing in the light.

“It’s not a problem, Justinian, honestly. What’s the worst that could happen? You go three weeks without an arm. I’ll tell you what: if that happens, I’ll take one of mine off, too, to keep you company.”

Justinian glared at the robot. “The worst thing that could happen? What if we wake up and find there’s one formed around the baby’s neck? What if it forms inside his body? There may be one in there already, wrapped around his little heart! He’s a growing child!”

Justinian scooped up the baby from the floor and held him close. He felt his son’s warm cheek against his own bare chest. The child’s tears were cold on Justinian’s flesh.

Leslie insinuated his way around the cabin, flight chairs sliding out of his way, until he was standing right before Justinian. His face lost some of its fuzziness; he wanted Justinian to register its sincere expression.