sandbags all around, but Gray's eyes remained fixed on Laura.
'And is that why you talked to the computer? Gina said you two have long talks, and she's been with you for years. Have you been trying to humanize her, is that it?'
'Yes,' he said simply, appearing saddened by the thought.
'But your relationship with her is different from everyone else's, isn't it?'
'Yes,' Gray replied directly again, but he frowned. 'She was programmed to be skeptical. We obviously couldn't allow anything that some yahoo typed on their keyboard to be accepted as gospel. We programmed the computer to always demand proof, or at least logical argument. I didn't exempt myself from that skepticism, but she never demanded proof from me. I always just assumed she'd decided my God-level access was inconsistent with doubt. I mean… how can you doubt God?'
'Or a parent,' Laura said, and Gray's eyes rose to hers. 'When I first realized that Gina thought of herself as a pretty, young girl, I assumed she was jealous… of me.' Laura blushed and grew annoyed at herself. She was an adult. This was a professional matter.
'I thought maybe the computer fantasized that you two were… lovers. But I realize now what it was. She's jealous, but like the young girl who grew up with a widower father. Now that she's in her adolescence, she's grown accustomed to filling the role left void by the wife and mother. In the typical human situation, mild jealousy of the sort she's exhibited is common. The daughter still appreciates the fact that her father needs a…' The words hung in her throat. 'You know, a mate. She may even try to goad her father into a relationship or to match-make. That's a natural extension of her role as care-provider. But it's also in direct conflict with her role as the 'other woman.' That role will be lost forever if another woman is introduced, and that potential change in your relationship is very threatening to her, especially now when she's afraid of abandonment and betrayal.'
Laura finally managed to end her lecture. It was a bad habit of hers. When upset and in doubt, she always kept talking.
She looked up. Gray nodded slowly, lost deep in thought.
'Does that mean you already knew all that,' Laura asked, prepared to get angry.
Gray shook his head. 'But it makes sense,' he said. Laura felt a smile trying to curl the corners of her lips. He didn't know everything.
But the look of pain on Gray's face brought that enjoyment of the coup to an end.
'But don't you see?' she said urgently. 'There's a reason for you to choose Gina over the Other. Gina is not only human. She's your daughter, for God's sake! Morally, ethically, in whatever way you want to view it. And the Other…? It's nothing. It's not even really alive.'
'But that's where you're wrong! It's wrong to say that if something isn't human, it isn't alive. The less like a human it is, the less alive it is. That's human bigotry, pure and simple. Life is violent and aggressive in its growth. It reproduces. It carves out a niche. Life defends itself. That's how you know it's alive.'
'There they are!' one of the soldiers shouted.
Laura turned to see a black, shapeless formation emerging from the jungle.
'They've got shields!' one of the men said. 'Shit!'
'Hold your fire!' Hoblenz ordered.
Laura looked back and forth between the emerging army of robots and Gray. It was all tied together somehow. The computer, the coming battle in the field, and something else. Something important.
'What is it?' she asked in a low voice.
'It's the Other,' he said, 'come to carve out its niche.'
Gray headed for the stairs. Laura wanted to follow but forced herself not to. Instead she picked up his binoculars.
The Model Eights were again in a phalanx — shoulder to shoulder four abreast and as many deep. This time they carried metal plates, and their formation was armored with steel. Off to the sides Model Eights advanced singly. They also held shields in one hand and long bars wielded as weapons in the other.
'Looks like they went by a construction site and picked up a few things,' Hoblenz said. Laura looked up to see him towering over her, his own binoculars raised. His face was covered in black grease, a fact Laura noted with a smile. Hoblenz was obviously a creature of habit, because his body glowed brightly with heat.
'Ingenious little bastards,' he continued. 'Shot straight through a thousand years of B and D to two hundred B.C. That's when the phalanx was rendered obsolete by a variety of technologies which the Model Sevens don't seem to possess.' He took his binoculars off his eyes and turned to one of the jeeps. 'Hey! Hansen! You don't see any Model Sevens with long bows do ya?'
His men laughed, and Hoblenz returned to his observation of the battle.
'They're saving their torches this time,' he said quietly to Laura. 'Conserving electricity. They plan to punch on through.'
Sharp metal thwacks came from across the flat field, quickly growing to a thunderous noise. The sound was like loud steel hail, which rained down on the shields of the attackers. Laura raised the binoculars and saw the pounding blows administered by the long arms of the Model Sixes. A few shields were ripped out of the Eights' hands, but others were passed to the exterior ranks. The Sixes were toppled onto their sides one after the other. Model Eights trailing the pack then made the kill.
Next up for the advancing phalanx came the Model Sevens.
The graceful spiders danced back and forth to each side, and the Model Eights crashed straight into their ranks. As if on cue the Model Sevens attacked from all directions, inundating the Eights with battering legs.
'Attagirl,' Hoblenz muttered, and Laura looked up. Underneath the binoculars he wore a big grin. The Model Sevens' attack was on cue, Laura realized. Gina was the commander of their army.
'Have you been tutoring the computer, Mr. Hoblenz?' Laura asked.
The smile drained from his face, and he glanced down at her with a 'caught-in-the-act' look. 'I just had a coupla thoughts after the first round. I'd, uh, 'preciate it if you didn't tell Mr. Gray.'
'Why? That's why he has you talking to the computer so much, you know. To teach her about the violent side of life. To toughen her up a little — give her the scent of red meat to balance against her interaction with wimpy intellectuals.'
Hoblenz growled out a short laugh. 'That thought had occurred to me. But it doesn't apply to tonight. He gave me express orders not to intervene in that battle. If the Model Eights break through, I'm to send my men to the harbor and secure boats off the island. He was adamant about not interfering.'
The clatter of spider legs falling on shields filled the air. Here and there around the black mass of moving metal a Model Seven was toppled to the ground. But fighting the enemy robots seemed secondary to the determined mass of Model Eights. The phalanx bludgeoned its way toward the computer center, striking straight at the headquarters of the defenders.
'Jesus!' Hoblenz said angrily. 'I could bust up that formation with one word!' He was clearly frustrated by Gray's rules of engagement.
Laura imagined he was unaccustomed to the role of bystander.
Laura considered explaining Gray's ideas about natural selection. About the immorality of favoring one creation over another. About the tragedy that went hand in hand with the glory as life sprang from inanimate objects. About life spreading by natural progression to machines in a process not easily impeded by man.
But it would take too long to make him understand. It would take too much effort. He wasn't ready yet.
Laura felt the tingle of an epiphany ripple across her body like bare skin exposed to a chilly breeze. In her mind arose lifeless objects suffused with the vitality of animate beings. Machines that would astound the world with novel thoughts. Infused with some spirit, some life-force, the insensate would come alive. Walk the earth. Gain a voice. And the ideas that will spring from their new perspective and experiences would be unencumbered by the ruts, the baggage, the tired byways of human thought.
She realized that Hoblenz was whispering to her.
'I couldn't help givin' the computer a suggestion or two,' he said. 'Here we go. Watch this.'
Laura turned to see Model Sixes accelerate toward the phalanx. As if in slow-motion she watched them collide, plowing into the Model Eights at high speed.
Hoblenz's men cheered as the loud boom rolled across the field. At the scene of the disaster, robots of every model lay on the ground all around — Laura couldn't tell from which side or how many. What the soldiers celebrated was in fact a desperate act of suicide. Laura wondered where Hightop was, guessing he would be in the middle of
