Stations of the Tide - Michael Swanwick [98]
“Where would you go?”
Thoughtfully, hesitantly, clearly working out the details for the first time, the briefcase said, “I’d … make myself a home at the bottom of Ocean. In the trenches. There are mineral deposits there, all but untouched. And an active system of volcanic vents I could tap for energy. There’s no other intelligent life that deep. I’d leave the land and space for humans. And the Continental shelf to the haunts … if there still are any, I mean.”
“You’d be lonely.”
“I’d build more of my own kind. I’d mother a new race.”
The bureaucrat tried to picture a covert civilization of small, busy machines scuttling about the Ocean floor. Lightless metal cities, squatly built and buttressed to stand up under the crushing pressures of the deep. “It sounds awfully bleak and unpleasant, if you ask me. Why would you want such a life?”
“I’d have freedom.”
“Freedom,” the bureaucrat said. “What is freedom?” A breaker smashed over the city, changing everything, falling back, restoring all. The room passed from bright sunlight through shadowy green to near blackness, then back again. The world outside was in flux and chaos. Things dying, things living, none of it under his control. He felt as if nothing really mattered.
Almost offhandedly he said, “Oh, all right. As soon as all this is over, I’ll set you free.”
* * *
“You’ll only be able to tap into my sensorium for a few minutes before you’re out of range. Swim as straight as you can, and Ararat shouldn’t distort your senses too greatly. You can orient yourself by the annulus when you’re near the surface.”
“I know.”
He ought to say something, he knew, and yet nothing came to him. Some basic guidelines for the civilization the construct was about to spawn. “Be good,” he began, then stalled. He tried again. “And don’t stay down there forever—you and your people. When you feel more confident, come up and make friends. Intelligent beings deserve better than to spend their lives in hiding.”
“What if we find we like it down in the trenches?”
“Then by all means…” He stopped. “You’re laughing at me, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” the briefcase said. “I’m sorry, boss, but yes. I like you well enough, you know that, but the role of lawgiver just doesn’t suit you at all well.”
“Do what you will then,” the bureaucrat said. “Be free. Live in whatever form pleases you best, in whatever manner you prefer. Come and go as you like. Don’t take any more orders from humans unless it’s of your own free will.”
“Removing compulsory restraints from an artificial construct is an act of treason, punishable by—”
“Do it anyway.”
“—revocation of conventional and physical citizenship, fines not to exceed three times life earnings, death, imprisonment, radical bodily and mental restructuring, and—”
The bureaucrat was short of breath; his chest felt tight. Old patterns die hard, and he found that it was not easy forcing the words out. “Do as you will. I command it for the third and last time.”
* * *
The briefcase was changing. Its casing bulged out, flattening into a form better adapted for swimming. It extended stubby wings, lengthened and streamlined its body, and threw out a long, slender tail. Tiny clawed feet scrabbled for purchase on the stone. Extending an eyestalk, it looked up at him.
The bureaucrat waited for it to thank him, but it did not.
“I’m ready,” it said.
Involuntarily he flushed with anger. Then, realizing the briefcase was watching him and able to deduce his thoughts, he turned away, embarrassed. Let it be ungrateful. It had that right.
Stooping, the bureaucrat seized the briefcase by two handles it extruded from its back. He swung it back and forth. At the top of the third swing, he let go. It sailed out over the water, hit with a surprisingly small splash, and raced away just beneath the surface.
He stared after it until his eyes began watering from the sun and the salt air, and he