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This time, someone answered.
It was a man, tall and slim and dressed in simple cotton clothing. He blinked at Eliana and said, “How can I help you?”
As soon as he spoke, Eliana saw it. The andie. He had almost fooled her, but his voice was too measured, too soft, too pleasant. She remembered her mother saying once that they unsettled you if you looked too closely, and she thought she could see why now—there was something too much about him. Too much of what humans thought made them human.
“I need to speak with Marianella Luna. I told her I’d be coming by.”
“Ah yes, of course.” The robot smiled. “Eliana Gomez, yes? Come in. I can show you to the library. I’ll let her know you’re here.”
He stepped back, still holding the door open. Eliana went inside. The lighting was the same as it had been out in the golden grass, muted and indistinct. The robot led Eliana into the library, past a parlor with a mirrored chandelier and a series of closed doors. Above one of the doors hung a cross wrapped in red lace; Eliana blinked, not expecting something like that in such a wealthy house.
The library was almost all window. Hardly any books, just a table looking out over the ocean of grass. The safe was set into the lone non-windowed wall, its door hanging open at an angle.
“I didn’t touch anything.”
Lady Luna’s voice was like a wind chime. Eliana turned around. Lady Luna stood in the doorway, her hair falling around her shoulders.
“That helps. Thanks.”
“This is Luciano,” she said, walking forward. “You said you might want to talk to him.”
Eliana looked at the andie, unsure of how to act around him. It?
“It would be my pleasure,” the andie said. “Although I don’t think I know anything of value.”
“You’d be surprised,” Eliana said.
Lady Luna and the andie stood side by side, watching her.
“If you give me a minute,” she said, “I’m just go
Lady Luna nodded. She put her hand on the andie’s arm, and they both turned away. It was a small gesture, an intimate one, and it made Eliana uncomfortable.
Lady Luna dropped her hand to her side as if she knew what Eliana was thinking.
Eliana turned back to the safe. She reminded herself of the stack of money she’d locked away in her own safe back at the office; then she knelt down on the carpet, moving slowly, her eyes sca
She felt around on the carpet in front of the safe. Nothing. The fuzzy artificial light made it difficult to see, so she straightened up and walked over to a nearby lamp. Lady Luna was sitting in a chair, her arm draped over the side. The andie was gone.
“I’m going to borrow this,” Eliana said, and before Lady Luna could answer, she yanked the cord out of the wall and dragged the lamp across the room. She plugged it in closer to the safe and shone the light on the floor, where she uncovered a solar system of dust and flakes of grass. Nothing of interest. She directed the light into the safe. Nothing there, either.
Eliana sat back on her heels. “I’d like to talk to the andie now, if you don’t mind.” She glanced over her shoulder at Lady Luna, who stared at her from across the room.
“Yes, of course.” Lady Luna leaned forward toward the coffee table and rested her fingers on top of a brass paperweight in the shape of a shell. It didn’t fit in with the rest of the library. Too old-fashioned. It made a loud clicking noise when she pressed on it.
A few moments later, the andie appeared in the doorway.
Eliana hesitated. He looked so much like a person. But she still found him u
She took a deep breath.
“What exactly did you hear last night?”
The andie glanced at Lady Luna, machine-quick.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing unusual.”
“What’s usual?”
The andie took on a blank expression. His eyes went slack. Eliana was aware of Lady Luna standing up, her arms wrapped around her chest like she was cold.
“Wind,” the andie said. “The maintenance drones increase it at night. The grass, of course. A handful of animals.”
“Animals?”
“Yes, field mice. Owls.”
“You have owls out here?” The city dome had rats and spiders. Eliana’d seen pictures of an owl once and hadn’t realized they’d been imported into Antarctica.
“Of course.”
“So are you sure you didn’t hear anything that you mistook to be an animal?”
Lady Luna was at Eliana’s side now, staring at the andie with a peculiar intensity. Intelligence, Eliana thought. Cu
Lines appeared in the robot’s brow, distressingly human.
“I did hear a—scratching, I suppose you could call it.”
“Scratching? You didn’t think that was unusual enough to report?”
“It’s not unusual,” the robot said. “You often hear scratching along the walls. I heard it three times last night, several hours apart.”
“He’s right,” Lady Luna said. “I hear it sometimes myself, as I’m trying to fall asleep. The emptiness out here—it amplifies sound. That’s what my husband used to say.” She smiled, her face incandescent.
“Fine. It’s not unusual. But it could still be something.” Eliana stared up at the robot. “Do you remember exactly where you heard it? Each time?”
“Of course.”
“I mean, do you know where it was coming from, not where you were—” Eliana’d worked with enough computers in secretary school to know that you had to be specific with them. And this man was a computer, even if he didn’t look like it.
“Yes, that’s what I thought you meant. I can show you.” The andie smiled politely, coldly. “Come.”
Eliana glanced at Lady Luna, but she was still watching the andie, her face intense again. It was unsettling. It made Lady Luna’s beauty frightening.
“The first was in the walls, here.” The andie led Eliana through the hallway and stopped in the parlor. The chandelier threw off dots of light. He pressed his hand against the wall. “It lasted five seconds and stopped.”
“The others?”
“One was upstairs, in the attic. Two seconds. I can show you if you insist—”
“The third one?”
“In the downstairs guest room.”
“The walls again?”
“No.” The andie shook his head. “Outside.”
“How long?”
“Seven seconds.”
Eliana frowned. She turned to Lady Luna. “Did you look in the guest bedroom this morning?”
“No. I didn’t think to.”
“Did you?” To the andie.
“No, ma’am.”
“All right, show me.” Eliana flicked her hand down the hall. “Is it close to the library?”
“Yes, it’s one room over.”
The air took on that tingle that meant she was getting close to something. She’d become a secretary because there weren’t many options for a girl like her, and she didn’t want to wind up like her parents. But she’d become an investigator because of that tingle. That joy of solving a puzzle and finding an answer.
The guest room door was closed but not locked. The room was decorated as tastefully as the rest of the house, but there was a coldness about it, an unlived-in quality that reminded Eliana of an exhibit in a museum. As in the library, nothing seemed out of place.
“Where exactly?” Eliana asked.
“By the window.” The andie walked across the room and laid his hand on the wall next to the sill. His movement rippled the diaphanous curtains stretched over the window. Eliana noticed they never fell still but kept moving back and forth like shimmer across the surface of a water puddle.