“I have asked Eva to leave with me, Pobyedov. What do you think?”
“I think Eva must follow her own heart, Ivan Atchmianov. What do
“I don’t know,” Eva said, still lost in the strangeness of the evening. “It’s unusual. I wonder about it, sometimes. We have artificial intelligences that think for us and they build machines that can reproduce. We are producing thoughts and artifacts that are beyond human capabilities, and yet we still have the handicapped. Even amongst the machines. Even some VNMs do not reproduce truly. They are born deformed.”
“They are not born, Eva,” Pobyedov said.
“You know what she means,” said Ivan, who normally would not agree with Eva’s choice of words either.
“I suppose I do,” Pobyedov said. “But what is your point, Eva?”
Eva was staring after the retreating group of people, outlined in silhouette now in the darkening evening, moving on down the V of the concrete path towards the painted Narkomfin.
“I don’t know,” Eva said. “It is almost as if the existence of the handicapped was written into the laws of the universe itself.”
Ivan made a dismissive noise. “Nonsense.”
“Someone seems to think so,” she muttered.
“No, it is just a fault in the replication process. Don’t smile at me like that, Pobyedov. I don’t want another argument.”
“You argue with yourself most of the time, Ivan Atchmianov.”
Eva let go of Ivan. It was her fault, she knew it. She had started this argument.
“How about if I built a handicapped robot?” Ivan asked, flushing red. “What if I made a machine and deliberately disabled its legs—like Wilson. Left it to push itself around in a chair? Why don’t I do that?”
Pobyedov smiled.
“You would not do that, Ivan Atchmianov, because God gave you a heart that tells you what is right and what is wrong.”
“Pah, there is no God! Everything you see is just a result of the fact that matter attracts matter.”
“Who made the matter?”
“Who made life?” retorted Ivan. “I tell you, no one. Simple chance. Matter attracts and forms molecules. By chance some of those molecules will be capable of replicating themselves. From this, you have life.”
“I do not dispute this, Ivan Atchmianov. But it does not prove that God did not teach you how to love.”
Eva interrupted. “Come on, Ivan, take me back inside.”
Ivan clenched her hand in his fist. It almost hurt, such was his temper.
“Listen, not thirty kilometers from here we saw a flower formed of metal. It was growing: a metal flower. Life!”
Pobyedov smiled. “There are many wondrous things in this creation…”
“But it was not life. It was just bad programming.”
“And who wrote the program that brought us here, Ivan Atchmianov?”
“Simple chance, Pobyedov. Cells form that can follow simple rules, but given enough cells and enough time and they form ordered patterns, and then thought emerges. This is inevitable. This is part of the universe. Tell him, Eva, tell him about the barge. Tell him about how they had to sleep on the barge in the old days.”
“Don’t get me involved.”
“Eva speaks of the competitive urge: how evolution causes animals to fight for resources.”
