"Jamie can read those?" He didn't remember when Leila had, but three seemed way too young. "Are you sure?"

"She struggles with it, but she read several pages to me. It was impressive."

He grinned. "You think?"

"I don't know for certain," Sam admitted. "I'm no expert with kids. I can actually define it better for EIs."

"She knows some math, too."

"Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. Other stuff. She can read an a.n.a.log clock. She told me she's been doing it since before 'this' birthday." Sam held up two fingers, ill.u.s.trating Jamie's gesture. "It's amazing."

He regarded her dourly. "Since when is that an accomplishment? It may be a lost art in your world, Doctor Bryton, but when I was a kid, everyone could tell time on a clock with hands and numbers."

"At two years old?"

That gave him pause. "I don't remember when I learned."

"Maybe it's normal. She seems advanced to me, though."

Even if they weren't certain, it pleased him that her a.s.sessment matched his own. It would be no wonder if Jamie was bright; her mother had graduated from Harvard Law School and her father was a world- cla.s.s mathematician.

"What makes a child like that?" he mused.

"Probably she was born with more neural structures than most people," Sam said. "I'll bet her mind establishes neurological pathways faster, too."

"You make it sound so clinical."

Sam finished her juice and set down her gla.s.s. "That's my job, to understand intelligence and translate it into something machines can process. But it pales compared to the miracle of a child learning the world.

What I do seems trivial in comparison." She spoke quietly. "Then I think of Alpha or Charon and I wonder if our machines will pa.s.s us by before we realize what happened."

"They won't."

"You sound so certain."

"You said it yourself: you consider Turner human. He's what we could all become someday."

An edge came into her voice. "Those who can afford it."

That gave him pause. Were they creating a stratified society where the wealthy could live for centuries,

with augmented health and intelligence, while the rest of society was left behind? He abhorred the

thought. But it didn't have to be that way.

"That's what we said about computers early on," he pointed out. "Yet now mesh nodes are in everything, our clothes, jewelry, even silverware. They cost almost nothing."

Sam let out a long breath. "The optimist in me envisions the day when our advances will be available to everyone. The cynic believes the rich and powerful will h.o.a.rd it for themselves."

"Refuse to let that happen. Let the cynic teach vigilance to the optimist."

"Well, we can try," she said. "So you really think our machines will become us?"

Thomas thought of the treatments he had taken. He could delay his aging, but he couldn't stop its inexorable march. As much as he valued his life and health, he could only go so far to keep them. Some people embraced biomech, but even having a doctorate in the related area of AI, he had never been comfortable with the idea of taking those advances within himself.

"For those who choose it," he said. "I can't help but wonder, though, if in reaching for the immortality of forma bodies, we will lose our humanity."

She answered quietly. "I don't know."

"Neither do I." He tried to smile. "Perhaps I'm being dramatic, eh?"

"Perhaps." But Sam didn't look convinced by her own answer.

* * * Pascal was in the same complex as Alpha. Thomas and Sam found him in a sunny room, sprawled in a gold armchair, his legs up on a coffee table, his blond hair tousled. He was reading a holobook. It brought home to Thomas what Sam meant about Pascal being human. He thought like a man. He could download the book into his matrix, but he chose to read instead. His fingers, however, offered a jarring reminder of his differences. They glinted below his cuffs, eight metal digits. His body had other modifications as well, and he was taller, stronger, and faster than before his changes.

Pascal looked up with a start, and his face brightened when he saw Sam. "Hey."

"Hey," Sam said. As he stood up, she went over to him. But they restrained their greetings. Thomas felt

like an intrusive third wheel. As much as he disliked leaving her alone with Pascal, however, it was her life.

"Well," he said awkwardly. "I will see you."

"Thank you," Sam murmured.

Pascal nodded stiffly. He and Sam knew they were monitored, but Thomas's departure would give them

a semblance of privacy. Earlier today General Chang had decided to release Pascal into Sam's custody.

Thomas couldn't tell them, though, until the paperwork was done. He knew Sam would take Pascal to her home in California. She had every right, but it saddened him to think of her leaving. It felt too much like when his sons had moved away. He missed them. He missed Leila, and she lived here. He missed Janice. He wondered why he had bothered extending his life when he had no one to share it with him.

Sometimes his solitude weighed so heavily, he felt as if his heart would fail just from loneliness.

"Dance?" Alpha asked, incredulous. "No, Charon didn't dance."

They were sitting by the lake on a fallen log covered with moss. Trees with looped vines hung over them, and they could gaze out under an arch of branches to the shimmering water. Thomas's tennis shoes sank into loamy ground littered with leaves. The smell of damp earth surrounded them, a welcome reminder of the farm where he had grown up. He had worn jeans and a sweater today instead of his

uniform, knowing he intended to take Alpha outside. Major Edwards and the orderlies stood among the trees, flashes of white and blue in the chill sunlight.

Alpha bent her leg so she could rest her elbow on her knee. He marveled at the fluid motion. Charon had

achieved one of the most challenging goals of biomech construction: motion that appeared human.

Designing an android that solved Schrodinger's equation of quantum physics was child's play compared to building one that walked smoothly. Biomech scientists a.n.a.lyzed motion and quantified its nuances.

He had long wondered if those wizards who did it best understood motion at a physical level, perhaps from time in a ball court or dance studio or some other pursuit that honed the body's physical skills.

"Did he do any kind of sports?" Thomas asked.

"Physical training, like in the military," Alpha said. "Why?"

"Your motion is so human. No glitches, nothing unnatural. Pascal doesn't move as well as you do, and

he has a human memory of how to deal with his body."

"Charon spent a lot of time a.n.a.lyzing women. How they moved." A muscle twitched under her eye.

"What he liked."

The twitch startled Thomas. Was it deliberate? He wanted to believe she felt distaste for the criminal

who had died trying to build an army of soulless mercenaries, but he should know better than to keep ascribing human qualities to her.

"You don't like Charon," he said.

"Of course I do." She spoke tonelessly. "He designed me to like him."

"Did you ever want to leave him?"

"No." She stared out at the water. "I have no purpose here."

"Do you want a purpose?"

"I don't want or not want." Her voice had gone flat.

He wondered if an AI could become depressed. She had reason, given her imprisonment. She might even "die" at their hands. Knowing they couldn't let her go didn't make him feel less guilty.

"What do you do to fill your time?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"Do you get bored?"

She watched wild geese sail across the lake. "Boredom is a human trait."

"We could give you a new purpose."

She finally turned to him. "You want my secrets. You want to reprogram me for your use. The ultimate agent, someone who pa.s.ses as human, but with an enhanced body and the advantages of an EI. Ideal for s.p.a.ce warfare. I don't breathe or eat. Microgravity won't bother me. I don't get sick. I can become part of a ship if necessary. It's no wonder your s.p.a.ce committee is interested."

"I take it you don't like that."

She fixed him with a cold stare. Or maybe he just interpreted it as icy. "You want what Charon wanted.