"Wakey, wakey!" caroled an annoyingly cheerful female voice. There was a subdued clatter as the tea tray was placed on the bedside table. Morning sunlight flooded the room as curtains were drawn back. "Rise and shine! Rise and shine for the Black Ball Line!"
Grimes unglued his eyelids and looked up at Clockwork Kitty as she stood over the tousled bed, the rays of the sun glitteringly reflected from the intricacy of moving clockwork under her transparent integument. (But those delicate wheels, on their jeweled pivots, were no more than decoration, an expensive camouflage for the real machinery of metal skeleton and powerful solenoids.) Somehow her vaguely oriental features, which possessed a limited mobility, managed to register disapproval. Although Shirl and Darleen had returned to their own rooms before dawn, it was obvious, from the state of the bed, that Grimes had not slept alone.
He blinked. Yes, that faint sneer was still there. A trick of the light? Just how intelligent was this robomaid? Oh, he was thinking of Clockwork Kitty as she—but spacemen are apt to think of almost any piece of mobile machinery as she. Just another example of his father's sense of humor, he decided. The old man had added certain expressions to her programming, just as he had added to her vocabulary. An historical novelist with a keen interest in maritime history would, of course, know the words of quite a few of the old sea chanteys, such as "rise and shine for the Black Ball Line" . . .
"Milk, sir? Sugar?"
The automaton poured and stirred efficiently, putting the milk and sugar into the cup first. (And that, remembered Grimes, was something that his mother always insisted on.)
"Thank you, Kitty," he said. (It cost nothing to be polite to robots, intelligent or not. And when one wasn't quite sure of a robot's actual intelligence it was better to play it safe.)
"Kitty, sir?"
"My name for you. When I first saw you I thought of you as 'Clockwork Kitty.' "
"The master's name for me," said the robomaid, "is Seiko. I was manufactured by the Seiko Corporation in Japan, the makers of this planet's finest household robots. Prior to our highly successful venture into the field of robotics we were, and indeed still are, the makers of this planet's finest timepieces. Robomaids such as myself are a memorial, as it were, to the Corporation's origins . . . "
"Yes, yes," Grimes interrupted hastily. What was coming out now was some of the original programming, a high-powered advertising spiel. "Very interesting, Kitty—sorry, Seiko. But I'd rather be getting showered, depilated and all the rest of it. What time is breakfast?"
"If you will make your order, sir, it will be ready shortly after you appear in the breakfast room."
"Surprise me," said Grimes.
He looked thoughtfully after the glittering figure as it moved silently and gracefully out of the room.
Grimes senior, who was a breakfast table conservative, tucked in to a large plate of fried eggs, bacon, sausages and country fried potatoes. Matilda toyed with a croissant and strawberry conserve. Shirl and Darleen seemed to be enjoying helpings of kedgeree. And for Grimes, after he had finished his half grapefruit, Seiko produced one of his favorite dishes, and one that he had not enjoyed for quite a long time. The plump kippers, served with a side plate of thickly cut new brown bread and butter, tasted as good as they looked.
Matilda, he decided, must have told Seiko what he would like. He commented on this. She, looking surprised, said that she had given no orders whatsoever regarding her son's meal.
So . . . A lucky guess? Do robots guess? But Seiko was absent in the kitchen so he could not make further inquiries until she returned to clear the table. And when she did so the humans were busy discussing the day's activities.
George Grimes said, "I'm afraid that I shall have to leave you young people to your own resources today. I've a deadline to meet. The trouble with the novel I'm working on now is that I'm having to work on it. It's just not writing itself."
"Why not, George?" asked Grimes.
"Because it's set in a period of Australian history that, somehow, makes no great appeal to me. Eureka Stockade and all that. I somehow can't empathize with any of the characters. And, although it's regarded by rather too many historians as a minor revolution that might have blown up into something larger, it was nothing of the kind. It was no more than a squalid squabble between tax evaders and tax collectors. But I got a handsome advance before I started writing it, so I'd better deliver on time."
"And I have to stay in today myself," said Matilda. "I've got the ladies of the Alice Springs Literary Society coming round for lunch. I'm afraid that you'd find them as boring as all hell—as I do myself, frankly. So why not take the car, John, and a packed midday meal, and just cruise around? I'd suggest Ayers Rock and the Olgas, but at this time of the year they're infested with tourists. But the desert itself is always fascinating."
And so it was that, an hour later, Grimes, Shirl and Darleen were speeding away from the low, rambling house, heading out over the almost featureless desert, the great plume of fine, red dust raised by the vehicle's fans swirling in their wake.
Grimes gave Ayers Rock and Mount Olga a wide berth—the one squatting on the horizon like a huge, red toad, the other looking like some domed city erected on an airless planet. Over each hovered a sizeable fleet of tourist dirigibles. Grimes could imagine what conditions would be like on the ground—the souvenir stalls, the refreshment stands, the canned music, the milling crowds. Some time he would have to visit the Rock and the Olgas again, but not today.
He came to the Uluru Irrigation Canal. He did not cross it but followed its course south. The artificial waterway was poorly maintained; the agricultural project that it had been designed to service had been cancelled, largely due to pressure by the conservationists. But water still flowed sluggishly in the ditch and, here and there along its length, were billabongs, one of which Grimes had known very well in his youth. It would be good, he hoped, to visit it again.
And there were the tall ghost gums standing around and among the water-worn rocks that some civil engineer with the soul of a landscape gardener had brought in, probably at great expense, to make the artificial pool look natural. And there was the water, inviting, surprisingly clear, its surface dotted here and there with floating blossoms. These were not of Terran origin but were, as a matter of fact, Grimes' own contribution to the amenities of this pleasant oasis, carnivorous plants, insectivores, from Caribbea. The billabong was free from mosquitoes and other such pests. (He recalled that some businessman had wanted to import these flowers in quantity but the conservationists had screamed about upsetting the balance of nature.)
He stopped the car just short of the ornamental bounders. He and the girls got out, walked to the steeply shelving beach of red sand. He said, "How about a swim?"
"Crocodiles?" asked Shirl dubiously.
"There weren't any last time I was here."
"When was that?" asked Darleen.
"Oh, about five Earth years ago."
He got out of his shirt, shorts and underthings, kicked off his sandals. As one the girls peeled the white T shirts from the upper parts of their tanned bodies, stepped out of their netherwear. Naked, long-legged and small-breasted, they seemed to belong to this landscape, more than did Grimes himself. They waded out into the deeper water. Grimes followed them. The temperature of the sun-warmed pool was pleasant. They played like overgrown children with a beach ball that some family party had left on the sand. (So other people had found his private billabong, thought Grimes. He hoped that they had enjoyed it as much as he was doing now.) They decorated each other's bodies with the gaudy water lilies, the tendrils of which clung harmlessly to their wet skins. Finally they emerged from the water and stretched themselves to dry off on the surface of a large, flat rock which was partially shielded from the harsh sunlight by the ghost gums.
Then Grimes felt hungry. He got to his feet and walked to the hover car, taking from it the hamper that had been packed by Seiko. The sandwiches were to his taste—ham with plenty of mustard, a variety of strong cheeses—and the girls enjoyed the sweet and savory pastries and the fresh fruits. The cans of beer, from their own special container, were nicely chilled.
Replete, Grimes got his pipe and tobacco from his clothing and indulged in a satisfying smoke. The New Alicians sat on either side of him in oddly prim postures, their legs tucked under them.
Grimes was feeling poetic.
" 'Give me a book of verses 'neath the bough,' " he quoted,
" 'A loaf of bread, a flask of wine, and thou,
" 'Beside me, singing in the wilderness . . .
" 'And wilderness were Paradise enow.' "
He laughed. "But I don't have a book of verses. And, come to that, I've never heard either of you singing . . . ."
"There is a time to sing . . . ." murmured Shirl. "And this could be such a time . . . ."
And Darleen had found two large, smooth pebbles, about the size of golf balls, and was clicking them together with an odd, compelling rhythm. Both girls were crooning softly to the beat of the singing stones. There was melody, of a sort, soft and hypnotic. Grimes felt the goose pimples rising all over his skin.
They were not alone. He and the girls were not alone. Silently the kangaroos had come from what had seemed to be empty desert, were standing all around them, regarding them solemnly with their huge eyes. There were big reds and grays and smaller animals. It was as though every variety of kangaroo in all of Australia had answered the New Alicians' summons.
Shirl and Darleen got to their feet. And then, suddenly, they were gone, bounding away over the desert at the head of the mob of kangaroos. It was hard to distinguish them from the animals despite their smooth skins.
What now? wondered Grimes. What now? He was, he supposed, responsible for the girls. Should he get into the hover car and give chase? Or would that make matters worse? He stood and watched the cloud of red dust, raised by the myriad bounding feet, diminishing in the distance.
But they were coming back, just the two of them, just Shirl and Darleen. They were running .gracefully, not proceeding in a series of bounds. They flung themselves on Grimes, their sweaty, dusty bodies hot against his bare skin. It was rape, although the man was a willing enough victim. They had him, both of them, in turn, again and again.
Finally, exhausted, they rolled off him.
"After the kangaroos . . . " gasped Shirl.
"We had to prove to ourselves . . . " continued Darleen.
" . . . and to you . . . "
" . . . that we are really human . . . "
Grimes found his pipe, which, miraculously, had not been broken during the assault, and his pouch, the contents of which were unspilled. He lit up with a not very steady hand.
"Of course you're human," he said at last. "The Law says so."
"But the heritage is strong, John."
"You aren't the only ones with a heritage—but you don't see me swinging from the branches of trees, do you?"
They all laughed then, and shared the last can of beer, and had a last refreshing swim in the waters of the billabong. They resumed their clothing and got back into the hover car, looking forward to an enjoyable evening of good food and conversation to add the finishing touches to what had been a very enjoyable day.
They were not expecting to find the Grimes home knee deep in acrimony.