Engineman - Eric Brown [166]
"But you said earlier that you loved me," her vocal-assist pronounced through smiling lips.
She lay still beside him as darkness gathered, then closed her eyes and slept.
"Words," he murmured to himself.
In the morning she was gone.
At dawn he left the chalet and attempted to find her; he needed her acceptance, and rationalised that anything other than her refusal to tolerate his presence he could count as that acceptance. She was the only person to whom he had ever admitted the truth, and he could not bear the thought of her rejection.
She was not in her chalet, or anywhere else in the grounds. He spent the rest of the day performing an extended version of his morning walk, but the woman was nowhere to be found.
That evening, as darkness gathered and the patients began another of their interminable soirees, Fuller crossed the greensward to the fireside group and sought the Captain. He knelt beside the carriage and regarded the nub of flesh that, despite its appearance, was nevertheless human.
"Have you seen her?" he asked.
The party noise around him stopped abruptly. Their dialogue became the centre of attention. "Is she missing?" the Captain asked.
"She left this morning. I haven't seen her since."
The Captain seemed to vent a weary sigh. "Fuller... Fuller. Stop this idiocy, man! Don't you see that nothing can come of it?"
"I need her," he said, and the silence around him deepened.
"Oh, Christ... Fuller, please listen to me. Don't you realise - she's dead."
It was as if the Captain had physically assaulted him; for a second he was breathless, incredulous. "She can't be! She was with me just last night-"
"I'm sorry, Fuller. I'm very sorry. We thought you knew. She died six months ago in the shuttle accident. The woman you know is nothing more than programming."
He could feel the weight of their silent pity as he turned and ran.
The following morning he found her on the beach.
She stood in the wet sand, staring out across the ocean. Her shorts and tee-shirt were soaked, clasping her body. Fuller sank into a siting position on a nearby rock.
"The Captain told me about the accident," he said.
She turned to him from the waist and stared. Her face, as ever, was empty of expression.
"Biologically," she said, "she is dead. She died in the accident and all that survived was her body. She was brain-dead, so they manufactured a digital analogue of her mind and re-vitalised the remains of her body. Over a period, here on Earth, they rebuilt her... me."
Fuller stood and held the woman. "But you're still her - you have all her memories, her knowledge."
She avoided his eyes. "I am a continuation of her."
He sensed her doubt, her reservation.
He shook her. "But you're still human!"
Her eyes found his, accusing. "I tried to drown myself today... I failed, of course. I am programmed to save myself. I am a valuable asset to the Phoenix Line."
He looked into the vacancy of her expression, which he had thought of until now as merely distant. He recalled his own aborted suicide attempt, and he had the first stirrings of an awful premonition.
"Why...?" he released her and took one step back. "Why did you try to kill yourself?"
"I have her memories. She knew love before she died. Yesterday, with you, she would have been able to feel. I knew then for the first time that I could no longer pretend to be her. I am no longer human, and the part of me that was her cannot bear the thought."
A silver ambulance, with Phoenix Line emblazoned along its flank, drew up on the cliff-top. Two uniformed men climbed from the cab and came down the steps, and the woman allowed herself to be walked away without so much as a backward glance.
He followed, burdened with grief for the woman. He crossed the greensward towards his chalet and, as the vehicle started up, he recalled her words of yesterday, when she had said that they were very much alike. Fuller realised that, of course, they were. He also realised their difference: the