really is totally indistinguishable from a human being. In fact the professor did a little experiment. He actually introduced her as if she was a real person and we were all fooled. It was really extraordinary! I wonder how they manage to programme in all those expressions and gestures and tones of voice so accurately?’
I poured myself a large drink. I didn’t know what I was feeling. I was shaken and rather appalled by what had happened earlier with Lucy. But I knew I would soon go there again.
‘They don’t programme every muscle movement individually,’ I said, quoting the TV programme which had first shown me Lucy. ‘It’s more like making a video. They get actors to perform a repertoire of gestures and expressions, then make a copy. It changes gradually as the SE loops throw in small random variations…’
The alcohol hit my bloodstream. I was suddenly enormously hungry. I told Charlie to heat up the steak.
‘It’s only when you see her trying to pick up a pencil or something like that you can see, you know, that slight clumsiness that robots have,’ Ruth said, following behind me, ‘Do you know what I mean? Like Shirley? But her skin is perfect. I wouldn’t mind skin like that myself. And she’s very pretty. The professor can’t take his eyes off her…’
I turned on the TV, loudly. Big blasphemy trials were going on in Germany. There was talk there of bringing back the death penalty by burning.
The old X3 brought me in my steak.
11
‘Yet another from the City,’ the taxi-driver observed as we lurched and bumped along the potholed road from the airstrip into the mountain town of Ioannina. Throughout the eastern Mediterranean, Illyria was known then as ‘the City’, just as imperial Byzantium had been known in times past.
The driver introduced himself as Manolis. He stuck a fat roll-up into his mouth and lit it. It crackled like a bonfire.
‘I have had many people from the City in my car. Some come to stare, some to escape, some to buy things that the City can’t sell them…’
He glanced knowingly at me in his mirror, ‘Whatever it is they want, I always do my best to oblige.’
‘I’m here on business,’ I told him, and gave him the name of the hotel by the lakeside where I would be staying.
‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘on business. You’re all coming here on business now. But perhaps you’ll have time for a look around? I can show you around. A whole day, however many kilometres you want: four hundred drachmai.’
Illyrian diplomacy about that time was trying to develop a ring of comparatively moderate client states around Illyria itself, by strengthening the hands of various more pragmatic factions through trade and the judicious supply of arms. One of these client states was Epiros, the fiefdom at that time of one Archbishop Theodosios who had his capital at Ioannina. An Illyrian government delegation was here to talk trade with him, but the interpreter had become ill, and I’d been hired from Word for Word as a last minute replacement.
‘Three hundred drachmai then,’ said Manolis, mistaking my lack of response for a bargaining ploy.
There were shrines beside the road. Murals of bleeding Christs. Even from Manolis’ mirror there dangled a Virgin Mary.
Everything looked dirty and run-down.
The women wore headscarves and long dresses.
Animals ran around in the road.
There was no mistaking it: I was in the Outlands.
We arrived in the town. There was a lake with an island on it. Beyond that a great bleak wall of mountains.
And all around seethed human life: old and young, rich and poor, shouting, laughing, haggling, talking, wailing. For a while we nudged slowly through this mass of humanity. Faces peered in through the windows. Mouths opened, treating me to views of bad teeth and antique dental work. Then the crowd grew denser and finally the taxi came to a halt at an intersection with a main road, immobilized by the sheer volume of people.
‘A saint’s day,’
I poured myself a large drink. I didn’t know what I was feeling. I was shaken and rather appalled by what had happened earlier with Lucy. But I knew I would soon go there again.
‘They don’t programme every muscle movement individually,’ I said, quoting the TV programme which had first shown me Lucy. ‘It’s more like making a video. They get actors to perform a repertoire of gestures and expressions, then make a copy. It changes gradually as the SE loops throw in small random variations…’
The alcohol hit my bloodstream. I was suddenly enormously hungry. I told Charlie to heat up the steak.
‘It’s only when you see her trying to pick up a pencil or something like that you can see, you know, that slight clumsiness that robots have,’ Ruth said, following behind me, ‘Do you know what I mean? Like Shirley? But her skin is perfect. I wouldn’t mind skin like that myself. And she’s very pretty. The professor can’t take his eyes off her…’
I turned on the TV, loudly. Big blasphemy trials were going on in Germany. There was talk there of bringing back the death penalty by burning.
The old X3 brought me in my steak.
11
‘Yet another from the City,’ the taxi-driver observed as we lurched and bumped along the potholed road from the airstrip into the mountain town of Ioannina. Throughout the eastern Mediterranean, Illyria was known then as ‘the City’, just as imperial Byzantium had been known in times past.
The driver introduced himself as Manolis. He stuck a fat roll-up into his mouth and lit it. It crackled like a bonfire.
‘I have had many people from the City in my car. Some come to stare, some to escape, some to buy things that the City can’t sell them…’
He glanced knowingly at me in his mirror, ‘Whatever it is they want, I always do my best to oblige.’
‘I’m here on business,’ I told him, and gave him the name of the hotel by the lakeside where I would be staying.
‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘on business. You’re all coming here on business now. But perhaps you’ll have time for a look around? I can show you around. A whole day, however many kilometres you want: four hundred drachmai.’
Illyrian diplomacy about that time was trying to develop a ring of comparatively moderate client states around Illyria itself, by strengthening the hands of various more pragmatic factions through trade and the judicious supply of arms. One of these client states was Epiros, the fiefdom at that time of one Archbishop Theodosios who had his capital at Ioannina. An Illyrian government delegation was here to talk trade with him, but the interpreter had become ill, and I’d been hired from Word for Word as a last minute replacement.
‘Three hundred drachmai then,’ said Manolis, mistaking my lack of response for a bargaining ploy.
There were shrines beside the road. Murals of bleeding Christs. Even from Manolis’ mirror there dangled a Virgin Mary.
Everything looked dirty and run-down.
The women wore headscarves and long dresses.
Animals ran around in the road.
There was no mistaking it: I was in the Outlands.
We arrived in the town. There was a lake with an island on it. Beyond that a great bleak wall of mountains.
And all around seethed human life: old and young, rich and poor, shouting, laughing, haggling, talking, wailing. For a while we nudged slowly through this mass of humanity. Faces peered in through the windows. Mouths opened, treating me to views of bad teeth and antique dental work. Then the crowd grew denser and finally the taxi came to a halt at an intersection with a main road, immobilized by the sheer volume of people.
‘A saint’s day,’
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