“Energy column for Jupiter. They drop a stack of these things about four thousand kilometers long into the upper atmosphere. They sing like tuning forks, I’m told.”
Judy eyed the wishbone appreciatively. She wondered: if she took a little blue pill, would she be able to hear the latent note that would someday ring from it?
“Why don’t you grow your body like that, Frances?” she wondered aloud.
“I thought about it,” said the voice on her console. “But I want to live on a human scale and see the world the way you see it.”
“I still don’t quite understand why. But thank you anyway, Frances. Thank you for inviting me to your birthday.”
“Who else would I invite? Now, that looks like the place.”
A white rectangle, the size of a large room, had been painted on the factory floor. The area inside was stacked with rolls of silver cloth, piles of black chips, rusty tangles of steel wire, fluffy clumps of white stuff, glistening blue sponge…
“My birthplace,” Frances sighed.
Judy stepped onto the white rectangle and looked around. She felt dwarfed by the activity of the rest of the factory. Some people called this place the Source; it was where the first sections of the Shawl had been designed. Now they reproduced by themselves in the space beneath the factory, the blue-white disc of the Earth lying thousands of kilometers below. If you looked down through the great transparent lens in the factory floor, you could see some of the newly born sections turning end over end, waiting to be joined to the uppermost row of the Shawl itself, from where they would begin their long procession downwards as other rows were added above them, until eventually they were released….
But there were other things made here, too. Some of them were quarantined: new types of robot, experimental star drives, VNM designs that had the potential to reproduce unchecked. But everything else was open to inspection. Not far away was a swarm of silver VNMs busily working away, repeatedly forming themselves into metal towers, springing almost as high as the wishbone above before shrinking to nothing, rising and falling like the bars on a graphic equalizer as they tried and failed to find an optimal shape.
“Frances?” The voice came from Judy’s console. It was deeper, yet in some imprecise way more feminine than her friend‘s.
“Sukara!” Frances called, “I’m so pleased you’re here.”
“Don’t forget us!” chorused two other voices.
“Lemuel! Cadence!”
“We couldn’t let you leave us without saying good-bye.”
“But I’m not leaving you!”
Judy tried to adopt an impassive expression, but she couldn’t manage it. Her face wobbled in a tearful smile. She was dimly aware of the sacrifice Frances was making.
“Now, stop that, Judy. We need you to look after our friend!”
“I will,” Judy said, wiping her face with the back of her hand.
“She will,” Frances agreed. “They know you will, Judy. That’s why they’re having this conversation at a human level-so you can listen in. They respect you. They think you’re all right.”
“For a human,” Sukara laughed.
High above, a cloud of scarlet gas was twisting as it drifted up the side of the incredibly high, domed roof of the factory. Judy guessed the shape that was coalescing up there must be the size of a small town. The gas, the wishbone, the heaving mass of VNMs, all these made her aware just how small she herself was. She had a sudden, greater, insight into what Frances was doing: cutting herself loose from the wider domain of the processing spaces to trap herself in one small body.
“Frances,” Judy said, suddenly humble. “You know I’m flattered, but why me?”
“I’ll tell you, but you might think I’m being rude.”
“I won’t. I’m a counselor for SC. We’re supposed to understand other points of view. You helped train me.”
“And I saw a potential in you I have seen in no other human. You know that. But that’s not why I chose you. You want to know why? It’s because I know your limitations better than any other human’s.”
Judy smiled. “I can see how that could be a compliment.”
“It wasn’t intended as a compliment,” Frances said. “It was just a statement of fact. Now, I think I’m ready. See the blue sponge?”
It looked like glistening transparent blue jelly, sitting in a shallow tank near her feet. Tiny silver bubbles fizzed inside it.
“I see it,” Judy said.
“Drop one of the reserve VNMs from your console into the sponge.”
Judy held her console over the blue jelly, the silver bubbles fizzing excitedly towards her, and watched as a tiny silver-grey machine dropped into the tank.
“Will that be enough?” she asked. “Don’t you need special machines? That VNM is the one that I usually use for repairing rips in clothes.”
Frances and the other AIs laughed from the console. “That’s such a human thing to say, Judy. All machines can make other ones eventually. There is nothing special about the materials-only the shaping intelligence.”
The little machine seemed to dissolve into the tank.
“How long will it take?” Judy whispered.
“Shhh…It’s happening already.”
The silver bubbles in the tank were rushing together, forming shapes. Silver rods formed of bubbles rose to the surface, bringing the jelly up with them. A blue spongy skeleton began climbing from the tank, even as it formed itself. Blue arms gripped the sides as a blue blob looking something like a brain pulled itself clear of the surrounding goo.
“All right,” Frances said, “I’m ready… ”
Voices called from the console.
“Good-bye.”
“Good luck, dear.”
“Come home to us.”
The blue skeleton swayed as it rose from the tank. In some strange way, it seemed to be looking directly at Judy. She backed away uncertainly.
“No, Judy, stay. I need to touch you.”
The voice came from her console, but Judy had no doubt that Frances was now speaking from the blue skeleton. She swallowed hard, then held out her arm. The blue skeleton took her wrist in a cold, fizzing grip.
“I’m giving up so many viewpoints, Judy, but this. To really touch something for the first time… ”
Something like a blue hand ran itself across Judy’s face. She forced herself not to flinch.
“Oh, Judy, I have so many more ways of experiencing the world than you, yet even so, I feel so restricted. But if I was everywhere, I would not be a robot. It is necessary for me to withdraw into this body to get the human perspective.”
The blue skeleton gripped Judy for support as it looked around the factory, up at the scarlet
