Never Love A Stranger Part 23

James looked at Clark for a long moment, clearly debating what to tell them. "Clark Nicholas Sterling will grow up to be a U.S. Senator," he said at last. "He will be the one that proposes a law that will later be known simply as The Robot Law. Simply put, it states that robots can never be considered as anything but property." He gazed at Kay. "Your son will grow up to be the man responsible for condemning my people to slavery."

"I don't understand," Annie said. "You said the first robots were built fifty years from now, and that they were nothing but machines, not conscious at all. Why would he propose that law when there were no sentient robots'"

James shook his head. "Surely you are aware that scientists and computer programmers are working on artificial intelligence right now. Seventy-five years from now, there will be--there was--a breakthrough. The first computer capable of creative thought was built. It was crude by later standards, and probably not truly sentient, but it was, beyond any shadow of a doubt, an artificial intelligence. The more conservative politicians of the day instantly condemned it as soulless, inferior to humans. And Senator Sterling--Clark'immediately drafted a law that stated that artificial intelligences could never be considered equal to humans in the eyes of the law."

"I still don't see why killing Clark would change that," Annie said stubbornly. "He evidently wasn't the only one who thought that way."

"He was a senior member of the Senate, a highly respected and influential politician. Only he had the power to push such a law through Congress." James paused. "My a.n.a.lysis of the situation indicates that had Sterling not managed to pa.s.s such a law, humanity would have been more tolerant of new breakthroughs in technology. And humanoids would not have wound up as slaves."

"They probably wouldn't have wound up as equals to humans, either."

James nodded. "You are correct. My a.n.a.lysis suggested that we would have existed in a sort of gray area under the law, neither slaves nor equals. The sort of treatment that I believe was erroneously labeled 'separate but equal' forty or fifty years before your time. However, given the existence of a strong leader, I suspect our people would have eventually become equals in the eyes of the law, rather as black people and women did in your nation during the civil rights era."

"And you were that leader," Annie said slowly.

James stared at Clark for a long moment. His eyes were bleak. "I was beginning to garner support for my position," he said. "Humans as well as humanoids were beginning to acknowledge that we were people. There was a groundswell of support for new laws, for new rights for us. It was uphill work, because humans do not like to give up things that make their lives easier, and slavery does precisely that. But I was making slow progress. Until the Bureau decided to wipe us out."

"You think that if you hadn't been slaves to begin with, you could have avoided the purge," Kay said. She was still clutching Clark tightly.

James nodded. "Had the Bureau not pa.s.sed summary judgment on us, preempting the legal process, we would have eventually become free and equal citizens. I am certain of it."

"Suppose your a.n.a.lysis was wrong'" Annie challenged.

"It is possible," James admitted. "Altering the past is fraught with peril. What I planned to do might not have improved the future in the least. But from my people's point of view, it could hardly have made things worse."

Kay looked at him with hard eyes. "You planned on killing my baby," she said with soft venom.

"Yes. I do not deny it. That was my intention from the moment I set foot in Annie's kitchen."

"That's something else I'm curious about," Annie said. "It's one h.e.l.l of a coincidence that I knew Clark's mother."

"It was no coincidence, Annie. I am certain you realize that."

"I thought the time machine wasn't that precise."

"It was not generally believed to be that precise," James admitted. "But with some work, I was able to home in on a precise location. The extra power it required did force me to leave my clothes behind, but that was a minor matter."

Annie frowned. "You can't read, James. How could you figure out how to operate a time machine'"

James shrugged. "I have been familiar with the workings of the temporal displacement module for several years now." He hesitated. "The fact is that my master and mistress were the inventors of the module."

"And they told you about it'" Annie said in disbelief. "I don't believe you, James. Why would they talk to you about it' They obviously didn't think of you as a person."

James shook his head. "Of course they did not talk to me about it directly. They discussed it with the family at the dinner table, while I served their food. Just like many humans, they enjoyed discussing their work over meals. I heard about the temporal displacement module for years before I actually attempted to use it. My mistress also took me to the laboratory at times and used me as an a.s.sistant. As a result, I was quite familiar with the device."

Annie looked at him thoughtfully. "I still don't get it. If you were able to go anyplace you wanted, why didn't you just go to Kay's house'"

"Because," James said, "according to the video records I viewed, you were Clark's mother."

Annie froze. "Huh'"

"You raised him, according to the video records. Perhaps if I had been able to read the more extensive written records, I might not have made such an error. However, in the videos it was never mentioned that you were not his natural mother. Your last names were different, but that is not particularly unusual in this century, with divorce so common. Your skin tones are dissimilar, but I a.s.sumed his father was darker skinned than you were. It never occurred to me Clark might not live with you until I arrived."

"I don't understand," Annie whispered.

"I do," Kay said. "You're listed as his guardian in my will, remember'"

"Oh, my G.o.d." Annie stared at her friend. "Are you saying something's going to happen to you' You're going to die'"

Kay smiled tightly. "Looks like it." She turned her attention back to James. "So you went to Annie's, expecting to murder a baby."

"Yes. I knew the Bureau would pursue me, but I knew it would take them some time to find me, and I did not expect to need a great deal of time to achieve my objective. Once I killed Clark, then the future would change, and the Bureau would, I hoped, no longer be a concern. When I discovered Annie lived alone, however, I realized I would need to stay alive until I managed to find Clark. Events led me to him, rather fortuitously, I thought. And at that point I had every intention of carrying out my plan."

"d.a.m.n you," Annie whispered. "d.a.m.n you, James. You used me to get to him."

James met her gaze unflinchingly. "I had to do something, Annie. I gambled in my own time, and lost. I lost everything. Everyone who trusted me to lead them, everyone who trusted me to free them, was dead. I destroyed my people. I destroyed our future single-handedly. I wanted to repair it as much as possible."

James looked down at the carpet and continued, slowly and deliberately. "I admit that I came to the past with the intention of killing Clark. But the moment I saw him--" He hesitated for a long moment and gazed at the baby, who stared back with wide, unblinking eyes. At last James went on.

"I discovered I could not kill a helpless baby. I could not. Even for the sake of preventing fifty million deaths."

Chapter 19.

James turned away and walked toward the door, his face set in grim lines. Annie caught at his arm as he brushed past. "James," she said urgently, "what are you going to do'"

He looked down at her impa.s.sively. "I am going to find Dekka and let her destroy me."

Annie blinked at his inhumanly calm voice. "What'" she said sharply. "Don't be ridiculous. You can't."

"Dekka knows where we are, Annie. It is fortunate that you and Kay were able to get away from her. At any rate'." He nodded at the baby. "I failed in my mission the moment I realized I couldn't kill Clark. I hoped another solution to my dilemma would present itself, but nothing has."

"You were hoping to find another way to change history'" Kay asked. "How'"

James shook his head. "I have absolutely no idea. That is the problem--there is really no way to interfere in the past and be certain that I have altered the future. As a result I was unable to come up with a feasible alternative plan. And yet I could not bring myself to leave, because'."

His voice trailed off. "Because of what'" Annie asked gently.

He looked at her for a long moment. "Because of you, Annie," he said softly. "I didn't want to leave you."

Annie felt tears welling in her eyes. She didn't trust herself to speak.

James went on. "But there is no good reason for me to continue to attempt to elude the Bureau. If I stay, an innocent person is eventually going to be hurt or killed. Perhaps many innocent people may be hurt. I cannot permit that to happen. I do not belong here in the past, and I may as well let the Bureau destroy me."

"But--" Annie grasped desperately at straws. "What about us' Me, Kay, and Clark' Won't they hurt us'"

"No. Now that Dekka realizes who the baby is, she will not harm any of you. She knows Clark has an important role to play in the future, and she will not dare to alter the events that are supposed to occur. I am only surprised she did not uncover the information before. She was evidently so desperate to destroy me that she grew careless. Had she killed the three of you, the changes wrought on the future could have been immense."

He brushed her aside and kept walking. Annie caught his arm again. "Hold it, James. I'm not going to let you go get yourself killed."

He looked down at her with an expression of mild curiosity. "Why do you care'"

She let her fingers dig into his arm and met his gaze with intense eyes. "I do care, James."

Faced with the ferocious intensity of her gaze, he hesitated. "Perhaps you do. But I am not part of your future, Annie. It would be best to let me go."

Annie shot an imploring glance at Kay. Kay looked back at her, clearly torn. At last she spoke. "Annie is right, James."

He turned his head and regarded Kay with as much surprise as if she had suddenly sprouted horns. "Surely you want to see me destroyed'"

"Not really," Kay said. She bit her lip. "I guess I might have acted the same way you did, under the circ.u.mstances. I'm a doctor. I understand that sometimes you have to damage part of an organism in order to save it. And I can see why you thought killing Clark would be the best solution. Killing a single cancer cell is a lot easier than cutting out a tumor."

James stared at her in blank surprise. She went on, "But as far as I'm concerned, the fact that you didn't kill Clark shows that you really are a good person. You realized that it was wrong to kill a helpless baby, even for the sake of saving others. An evil person would have killed him without a second thought."

"I am not certain about that. By failing to kill him, I doomed fifty million people."

"Those people were already dead," Annie said gently. "Anyway, haven't you ever heard the saying that two wrongs don't make a right'"

James looked back at her. "That was one of the reasons I was unable to bring myself to kill him. Regardless of my a.n.a.lysis, I find it extremely difficult to imagine any good coming from the death of a helpless baby. And the possibility that I might be wrong haunted me. I could not bring myself to take that chance."

Annie took his hand. "You don't deserve to die, James."

"Annie is right," Kay said. "You're a decent man. Don't walk out there and sacrifice yourself, James. You have to keep fighting."

James gazed down at Annie's fingers, wrapped tightly around his own. "There is no reason for me to go on," he said at last, very softly. "As long as I am alive, I imperil the lives of others. I must give myself up to the authorities."

"You can't do that," Annie protested. "Dekka will torture you to death."

"I realize that. I am not looking forward to it, I a.s.sure you." He reached up with his free hand and brushed back a long lock of russet hair that had fallen across Annie's forehead. He looked into the depths of her eyes and spoke softly. "I never meant to hurt you, Annie."

Annie felt tears burning in her eyes. She looked down hastily.

"I confess that I did use you to get to Clark," James went on, "but in the process you have become very important to me. I wish--" He paused, then bent forward and kissed her lightly on the forehead. "Never mind. I must go now."

"No," Annie said forcefully. "You can't just give up. Isn't there any other way we can alter the future'"

James shook his head. "My a.n.a.lysis suggested no other obvious means of changing the course of events, and I have been unable to come up with any other solution since arriving here. At any rate, even if I had an idea, I could not act on it and be certain that it worked. I have no way of checking the results, since I cannot go back."

"But just by staying here, don't you change the future'"

"It does me little good to change the future if I have no idea what the outcome is." James sighed. "At any rate, by staying here I put others in grave danger. I have already endangered more people than I

intended." He disengaged his fingers and walked to the door, opening it. He looked back over his shoulder and spoke in his gentlest voice.

"You will never know how much you mean to me, Annie."

He walked out into the hallway, and the door closed behind him. Annie stood for a long moment, staring

at the closed door.

James was gone. She was never going to see him again. The old pain she had felt when she realized

Steve was never coming home resurfaced, cutting sharply into her heart. The tears scorching her eyes threatened to spill over.

"Well'" Kay said.

With difficulty, Annie transferred her gaze to her friend. "Well what'" she said, aware that her voice was

hoa.r.s.e with unshed tears.

"Well, are we just going to let him go out and get himself killed'"

Annie dashed surrept.i.tiously at her cheeks. "I really don't see what else we can do," she said.

"I say we follow him."

"You're crazy. Remember the guns they have'"

"They won't use them in public. Anyway, I thought he meant something to you, Annie."

"He does," Annie admitted.

"So you're just going to throw him to the wolves'" Kay shook her head. "I didn't think you were a

coward, Ann."

Kay's words made Annie's spine stiffen. Kay was correct. She couldn't just stand by idly and let

James sacrifice himself. She still wasn't precisely sure what James meant to her, but she did know she had to do something to help him. She owed him that much, at least. "You're right," Annie said. "I'm going after him." "Correction. We're going after him." "Wrong. You stay here." When Kay opened her mouth to protest, Annie said sharply, "You need to look after Clark. And yourself. Remember what James said. I don't want to be the one who raises Clark. You're his mother. He needs you, Kay."