I hadn’t expected that. I had looked forward to a lovely vacation with Douglas and he had promised me some skiing as well as sex- not that I insisted on skiing. I knew that I had an implied obligation to go to bed with his group brothers if asked. But that didn’t worry me because an artificial person simply can’t take copulation as seriously as most humans seem to take it. Most of the females of my crèche class had been trained as doxies from menarche on and then were signed up as company women with one or another of the construction multinationals. I myself had received basic doxy training before Boss showed up, bought my contract, and changed my track. (And I jumped the contract and was missing for several months- but that’s another story.)
But I wouldn’t have been jumpy about friendly sex even if I had received no doxy training at all; such nonsense isn’t tolerated in APs; we never learn it.
But we never learn anything about being in a family. The very first day I was there I made us all late for tea by rolling on the floor with seven youngsters ranging from eleven down to a nappy-wetter
plus two or three dogs and a young tomcat who had earned the name Mister Underfoot through his unusual talent for occupying all of a large floor.
I had never experienced anything like that in all my life. I didn’t want to stop.
Brian, not Douglas, took me skiing. The ski lodges at Mount
Hutt are lovely but the bedrooms aren’t heated after twenty-two and you have to snuggle up close to keep warm. Then Vickie took me out to see the family’s sheep and I met socially an enhanced dog who could talk, a big collie called Lord Nelson. Lord had a low opinion of the good sense of sheep, in which he was, I think, fully justified.
Bertie took me to Milford Sound via shuttle to Dunedin (the “Edinburgh of the South”) and overnight there-Dunedin is swell but it’s not Christchurch. We took a flubsy little steamer there around to the fjord country, one with tiny little cabins big enough for two only because it’s cold down at the south end of the island and again I snuggled up close.
There isn’t any other fjord anywhere that can compare with Milford Sound. Yes, I’ve been on the Lofoten Islands trip. Very nice. But my mind’s made up.
If you think I am as blindly pigheaded about South Island as a mother is about her firstborn, that is simply because it’s true; I am. North Island is a fine place, with its thermal displays and the world wonder of the Glowworm Caves. And the Bay of Islands looks like Fairyland. But North Island does not have the Southern Alps and it doesn’t have Christchurch.
Douglas took me to see their creamery and I saw huge tubs of beautiful butter being packed. Anita introduced me to the Altar Guild. I began to realize that, maybe, just possibly, I might be invited to make it permanent. And found that I had shifted from OhGod-what’ll-I-do-if-they-ask-me to Oh-God-what’ll-I-do-if-theydon’t-ask-me and then simply to Oh-God-what’ll-I-do?
You see, I had never told Douglas that I am not human.
I’ve heard humans boast that they can spot an artificial person every time. Nonsense. Of course anyone can pick out a living artifact that does not conform to human appearance-say a man creature with four arms or a kobold dwarf. But if the genetic designers have intentionally restricted themselves to human appearance (this being the technical definition of “artificial person” rather than “living artifact”), no human can tell the difference-no, not even another genetic engineer.
I am immune to cancer and to most infections. But I don’t wear a
sign saying so. I have unusual reflexes. But I won’t show them off by picking a fly out of the air with thumb and forefinger. I never compete with other people in games of dexterity.
I have unusual memory, unusual innate grasp of number and space and relationship, unusual skill at languages. But, if you think that defines a genius IQ, let me add that, in the school I was trained in, the object of an IQ test is to hit precisely a predetermined score-not to show off your smarts. In public nobody’s going to catch me being smarter than those around me . . . unless it’s an emergency involving either my mission or my neck or both.