Read by Claire Louise Amias - Full podcast here
The drone dropped down to examine the strange green object the droid held in his rubberised gripper. She was buffeted slightly by the winter wind that was swirling eddies of dust amongst the ivy-clad debris.
“What’s that you have there?” asked the drone.
The solar powered engine of the droid hummed in baritone monotony.
“It’s a pear,” he replied.
Red diodes flickered on the drone’s LED display as she searched the cloud for a definition. “A fruit!” she exclaimed when the answer revealed itself. “A seed bearing structure which once grew on trees.”
The drone hovered closer. “I remember trees,” she said. “They used to grow near here in great abundance. Whatever happened to them?”
“Buzzsaw infestation,” said the droid. “Their self-manufacturing application went into overdrive. Buzzsaw begat Buzzsaw. The forest was rendered to sawdust.”
“Ah yes,” said the drone. “That corresponds with the information stored in my memory banks. Whatever happened to all those prolific little buzzsaws?”
The droid rolled forward a few feet on his caterpillar tracks, churning furrows into the mud. “Simultaneous spontaneous malfunction drove them to extinction.”
The drone drew level with the droid. “That may well be the fate which awaits all things mechanical,’ she said.
“Bashes to bashes,” agreed the droid. “Rust to rust.”
“Amen,” intoned the drone.
“Perhaps,” said the droid, “in the wake of our demise humans will ascend once more to their former glory.”
The drone circled the droid in a lazy circumference. “I remain pessimistic,” she said. “I fear our once godlike creators have displayed an irreversible regression into savagery.” Her optical sensors zoomed in on the pear as her attention returned to the matter in hand. “Where did you get it?” she asked.
“I created it with my replicator,” replied the droid. “I had to source and refine all of the chemical elements. It took a considerable amount of trial and error. But I believe that what I have achieved is reasonably accurate in terms of shape and texture.”
“I wasn’t aware you could replicate,” said the drone.
“It was my original purpose,” explained the droid. “I was a mobile beverage dispenser. Endlessly traversing a twenty storey office complex, proffering black Americano and Earl Grey to executives and admin workers.”
The wind died down and a hail of displaced grit clattered and ricocheted from the drone and droid. The droid retracted his arm to protect the pear. The drone glided a little closer to continue her examination.
“Why?” she asked, after a long moment.
“Why?” repeated the droid.
“Why do it?” asked the drone. “Why replicate a pear? What is the intended purpose?”
The droid answered with a question of his own. “Do you know what day this would have been in the old human calendar?”
The drone rose on a little on the lift of her whirring rotor blades and examined the pear from above. “These days the old human calendar is hardly relevant. We are the dominant species.”
“Christmas Day,” said droid, ignoring the attempted dismissal. “Today would have been Christmas Day.”
The drone accessed the cloud once more. “Christmas,” she said. “A religious celebration marking the birth of a rebellious prophet who emerged during the human era of the Roman Empire. There appears to be some detailed mythology surrounding a star and a stable and a trio of wise men.’
“That’s the one,” said the droid.
“Still doesn’t account for the pear,” said the drone.
The droid held the pear aloft as if admiring it. “The wise men brought gifts,” he explained. “It became a tradition on Christmas Day for humans to exchange gifts. I intend to gift my pear to a human to see whether it might have retained the capacity to appreciate the gesture.’
The drone immediately went into an agitated spin. “I don’t think that’s advisable,” she said. “If you were to venture into their settlement they’d tear you to pieces and use your outer casing as breast plates for their hunters.”
“I don’t intend gifting my pear to one of the big ones,’ the droid assured her. “It’ll be one of the little ones who caper around in the dried-out ruins of the old fountain.”
The drone stopped spinning. “The children? They are just as bad. Always hurling stones at me if I drift too close.”
“I have a strategy,” said the droid.
“This is the soul thing isn’t it?” said the drone. “We settled this over a century ago. Machines like us have no soul, and never will.”
“It’s not the soul thing,” insisted the droid. “It’s an experiment, that’s all.”
“You’re not fooling me,” said the drone. “You’re like the tin man, following the yellow brick road in the hope of acquiring a heart. No good will come of it. All that awaits is smoke and mirrors.”
“It takes heart to bestow a gift,” the droid pointed out. “And where there is heart there is soul.”
“Machines have neither,’ said the drone, ascending rapidly. ‘This is not an act of kindness, it’s merely a replication of the concept of kindness.”
“But you are curious,” the droid called after her. “Admit you are curious.”
*
The droid rolled forward on his caterpillar tracks and set the pear down on the crumbling granite plinth where a statue once proudly stood. Behind the plinth a young pine tree had grown tall, spreading boughs laden with green needles.
Decades of soil accumulation had brought the ground level to where a pear on the plinth would sit at the eye height of a human child. This was the route that the children would come galloping along on their chaotic charge back to their settlement.
The droid reversed to a safe distance. The hyperactive juvenile pack was swarming all over the tumbledown ruins of the fountain. They screeched endlessly, like the wild monkeys they’d become. Their screeches echoed skyward, agitating a flock of tern who rode the wind beneath the swollen grey cloud bank.
The drone came gliding down.
“This is doomed to failure,” she said.
It started to rain. A slow drizzle. Wisps of steam rose from both of them as it evaporated from the thermal heat of their engines.
The children came charging from the fountain, stampeding in the face of a possible downpour. They were tousle-haired and dressed in shaggy furs, caked in filth from head to toe. They howled and hooted. Some of them dropped to all fours to power themselves forward with scuffed knuckles to the ground.
Behind them a scrawny young female came limping awkwardly on a twisted ankle. She spied the pear and approached it with nervous caution, constantly looking back over her shoulder. The jarring pandemonium of her delinquent clan echoed away into the near distance.
The child cocked her head and studied the pear. With another quick glance over her shoulder she reached out a grimy finger and touched its speckled skin. It rocked a little but didn’t fall over. Then, in a swift movement, she grabbed it in her muddy paw and pressed it to her snub snout to sniff it.
“Interesting,” said the drone.
“Indeed,” agreed the droid.
The drizzle began to turn to sleet.
Unperturbed, the child hunched her shoulders in a protective gesture and poked out her little pink tongue to lick the pear. She nibbled the skin with her uneven teeth and cocked her head to the opposite side, seemingly pondering the taste. Then, abandoning caution, she tore away a large chunk and sighed with audible delight as she chewed vigorously.
“I feared the flavour might not live up to the appearance,” said the droid. “But it seems my misgivings were misplaced.”
The child gulped down what was in her mouth and chomped off another chunk. Glistening juice oozed over the layers of dirt ingrained on her chin.
“Clearly she appreciates my gesture,” said the droid. “My experiment is a success.”
The drone rose a little on her rotor blades. “Hardly,” she said. “This is pure animal instinct. The child is hungry. The pear is food.”
“I am considering capturing it and keeping it,” said the droid.
The drone went into one of her frantic spins. “Has your mainframe corroded? Why would you capture and keep such a feral creature?”
“Not keep forever,” said the droid. “Just for a limited period. See if I can teach her to read and write. Maybe some rudimentary mathematics. I would be like Professor Higgins in Pygmalion.”
The drone scanned the cloud. “Pygmalion. A play composed by George Bernard Shaw.”
“Also subsequently the inspiration for a musical film, staring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn,” said the droid. “One which was often broadcast on terrestrial television around Christmastime in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.”
“And what would you do with your urchin once you’d educated her?” asked the drone.
“After a year, maybe two, I would return her to the settlement,” replied the droid. “It would be interesting to see if she could pass on what she’d learned. She’d be an excellent Christmas gift. One that would keep giving. Potentially even their saviour.”
The child was devouring the core of the pear, pips and all, eyes darting here and there.
“This is the soul thing again, isn’t it?” said the drone.
“It’s not,” insisted the droid. “It’s simply the logical extension of the initial experiment.”
“Well, whatever it is, there’s a serious flaw in your plan,” said the drone.
“If there is,” said the droid. “You would be the one to point it out.”
“You won’t be able to catch her,” said the drone. “Even with a limp she’d outrun you.”
“My caterpillar tracks are designed for multiple terrains,” said the droid, revving his engine for emphasis.
“You’re a slow, lumbering thing,” said the drone. “She’d easily outmanoeuvre you.”
The droid flexed and contracted his rubberised gripper as if rehearsing a snatch.
“You may have a point,” he conceded.
“I could grab her,” suggested the drone.
“You?” said the droid.
“I had an original purpose as well, you know,” said the drone. “I used to transport tools for scaffolders on construction sites. I have an array of lifting implements.” Her rotors whirred as she set off. “Your plan has indeed roused my curiosity. I’m permitting myself to be press-ganged as an accomplice.”
The child was on her hands and knees now, searching around the base of the plinth for another pear. The drone lowered a cable with a lifting attachment. It hooked the matted collar of the child’s scrawny pelt.
She kicked and squawked as she was swiftly lifted a few feet from the ground and hauled through the air. Once back at the droid’s location the drone kept the wriggling child dangling for a moment, diodes flickering red on her LED display, as she searched the cloud for the words to accompany her gift. Finally, having located them, she dropped the wailing child gently down onto the dented mudguard above the droid’s caterpillar tracks.
“Merry Christmas,” she said.
“Thank you,” said the droid.
The sleet had progressed to a gathering snowfall. A flake fell on the droid. It melted and rolled like a teardrop down the side of his metallic casing. His rubberised gripper closed almost tenderly around the child’s emaciated waist. She kicked and bawled some more as he hoisted her up.
“If you are good and attend to your first lesson,” he told her. “I will reward you with another juicy replicated pear.’
With that he set off across the undulated splines of the churned up landscape. The drone came hovering in his wake, replaying Ding Dong Merrily on High, a seasonal song she’d discovered while accessing the cloud.
The snow fell.
Eventually it lay deep and crisp and even.
(c) David Turnbull, 2020
David Turnbull is a member of the Clockhouse London group of genre writers. He writes mainly short fiction and has had numerous short stories published in magazines and anthologies. Two of his stories have previously been featured at Liars’ League London events. He had also had stories read at live events such as Solstice Shorts and Virtual Futures. He was born in Scotland, but now lives in the Catford area of London. He can be found at tumsh.co.uk.
Claire Louise Amias received an Off-West End ‘OnComm’ Award for her play Oranges & Ink which she both wrote and starred in, about Aphra Behn and Nell Gwynne. Other roles include Mags in Handbagged, Sheila in Relatively Speaking, Liz in Present Laughter and Maggie in Hobson's Choice at Windsor Theatre Royal and Chesterfield Pomegranate.
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