More Human Than Human Read online

  ALSO EDITED BY NEIL CLARKE

  MAGAZINES

  Clarkesworld Magazine—clarkesworldmagazine.com

  Forever Magazine—forever-magazine.com

  ANTHOLOGIES

  Upgraded

  The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 1

  Galactic Empires

  The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 2

  War Machines (forthcoming 2018)

  The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 3 (forthcoming 2018)

  (WITH SEAN WALLACE)

  Clarkesworld: Year Three

  Clarkesworld: Year Four

  Clarkesworld: Year Five

  Clarkesworld: Year Six

  Clarkesworld: Year Seven

  Clarkesworld: Year Eight

  Clarkesworld Magazine: A 10th Anniversary Anthology (forthcoming 2017)

  MORE HUMAN

  THAN HUMAN

  STORIES OF ANDROIDS, ROBOTS,

  AND MANUFACTURED HUMANITY

  EDITED BY

  NEIL CLARKE

  Copyright © 2017 by Neil Clarke

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Start Publishing LLC, 101 Hudson Street, 37th Floor, Suite 3705, Jersey City, NJ 07302.

  Night Shade Books is an imprint of Start Publishing LLC.

  Visit our website at www.nightshadebooks.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Clarke, Neil, 1966- editor.

  Title: More human than human : stories of androids, robots, and manufactured humanity / edited by Neil Clarke.

  Description: New York : Night Shade Books, 2017.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017023270 | ISBN 9781597809146 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Science fiction. | Androids--Fiction. | Robots--Fiction. | Humanity--Fiction. | Human beings--Fiction. | Artificial intelligence--Fiction. | Identity (Philosophical concept)--Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PN6071.S33 M67 2017 | DDC 808.83/8762--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017023270

  eISBN: 978-1-59780-618-3

  Cover illustration by Donato Giancola

  Cover design by Claudia Noble

  Please see page 657 for an extension of this copyright page.

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my sons, Aidan and Eamonn.

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  DOLLY — ELIZABETH BEAR

  A GOOD HOME — KARIN LOWACHEE

  THE DJINN’S WIFE — IAN McDONALD

  AND THE ENDS OF THE EARTH FOR THY POSSESSION — ROBERT B. FINEGOLD, M.D.

  PATTERNS OF A MURMURATION, IN BILLIONS OF DATA POINTS — JY YANG

  THE BIRDS AND THE BEES AND THE GASOLINE TREES — JOHN BARNES

  FIXING HANOVER — JEFF VANDERMEER

  GRAND JETÉ (THE GREAT LEAP) — RACHEL SWIRSKY

  BRISK MONEY — ADAM CHRISTOPHER

  ACT OF FAITH — FADZLISHAH JOHANABAS

  THE CARETAKER — KEN LIU

  SEVEN SEXY COWBOY ROBOTS — SANDRA McDONALD

  WE, ROBOTS — SUE LANGE

  THE EDUCATION OF JUNIOR NUMBER 12 — MADELINE ASHBY

  A HUNDRED GHOSTS PARADE TONIGHT — XIA JIA

  THE MAN — PAUL McAULEY

  THE ROBOT’S GIRL — BRENDA COOPER

  .IDENTITY — E. CATHERINE TOBLER

  AMERICAN CHEETAH — ROBERT REED

  ARTIFICE — NAOMI KRITZER

  SMALL MEDICINE — GENEVIEVE VALENTINE

  SILENTLY AND VERY FAST — CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

  I, ROBOT — CORY DOCTOROW

  BIT ROT — CHARLES STROSS

  ANGELS OF ASHES — ALASTAIR REYNOLDS

  THE OLD DISPENSATION — LAVIE TIDHAR

  TODAY I AM PAUL — MARTIN L. SHOEMAKER

  Permissions

  About the Editor

  INTRODUCTION

  NEIL CLARKE

  My introduction to androids was through the stories of Isaac Asimov, but as you might be able to tell from the title of this anthology, Philip K. Dick had more of a lasting impact. “More Human Than Human” is the motto of the android/replicant-producing Tyrell Corporation from the classic SF movie Blade Runner, based on Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Androids and other artificial humans appeared in several of Dick’s works, and like many of his predecessors, he often used them to challenge societal norms and how we define our humanity. His stories entertained and made me question assumptions, something that has shaped my appreciation of science fiction ever since. It’s only fitting that this book has a title connected with his work.

  Over the course of assembling this anthology, I spoke with a wide range of people on the topic and discovered some ambiguity about what people referred to as androids, robots, or cyborgs. Android—or “androides” in this case—is the oldest of these terms and traces back to 1728 in Ephraim Chambers’ Cyclopaedia, where it is claimed that Saint Albert the Great owned a mechanical brass head that could answer questions. Other uses in the mid-to-late 1800s continue in this vein of human-like mechanical dolls or beings.

  When Czech writer Karel Capek’s play R.U.R. premiered in 1921, it introduced the term “robot” into the English language. Those robots, however, weren’t artificial, but synthetic and organic, humanoids. That’s closer to androids—or maybe even clones—than it is to the common inorganic robots of today. Robotics, as in the field of study, wasn’t coined until 1941 by Isaac Asimov in his story “Liar!” By modern standards, robots are machines capable of carrying out complex actions automatically. They can take a wide array of forms, from vacuum cleaner, to bird, or even human form. Androids are therefore a subset of robots.

  Cyborg didn’t come along until 1960, when it was coined by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline. By their definition, a cyborg is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts and isn’t necessarily restricted to having human origins or form. It is, however, not a robot. Technically, I’m a cyborg thanks to a defibrillator in my chest. That chapter of my life inspired my Upgraded anthology, so if cyborgs are your thing, you might want to check that out, too.

  All that said, the edges can get blurry. Is a human brain in a mechanical or biomechanical android body an android, cyborg, or just some sort of vehicle? What if that brain has been uploaded and is either networked or transferred to that body? For the purpose of this anthology, I decided that when in doubt, I would favor fully artificial human-form beings that had not at some point been natural-born humans or clones. They don’t always have to be a subset of robots, but when they are, the line’s less fuzzy. As to their intelligence, which isn’t detailed in any of those definitions, I wanted stories where the characters had some degree of self-awareness and intelligence, even if it simply bordered on a modest expert system.

  Artificial intelligence, however, comes with a lot of baggage, something science fiction writers have long mined for story plots and twists. Given our own history, it’s not irrational to worry that we might place ourselves in jeopardy by creating beings that can—or will eventually—outthink or physically outpace us. As Stephen Hawking says, “One can imagine such technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand.”

  This fear is often addressed by another one of Isaac Asimov’s creations, the Three Laws of Robotics:

  1.A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

  2.A robot must obey the orders g
iven it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

  3.A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

  Isaac later added a fourth overriding law:

  0.A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

  The laws themselves are problematic, as Asimov often explored in his stories, but despite that they are often cited in discussions of artificial intelligence and ethics or incorporated into other fictional representations. As a literary device, they can be interesting, but my technology background makes them a bit distracting. Perhaps the lack of significance of these laws is what draws me more towards Philip K. Dick’s androids. Unshackled, I simply find them to be more compelling characters. Many will disagree.

  While there’s plenty to debate about the ethics of a set of laws that essentially creates a subservient slave race, various experts in the field have difficulty believing these rules can be implemented or even patched to work as intended. Even if it could be done, securing them from alteration would be nearly impossible. I point to the attempts to eliminate spam, adware, hacking, etc. I have no doubt that governments, corporations, terrorists, patriots, hackivists, and more would actively strive to patch or work around this coding to fit their own wide-ranging agendas.

  Whether or not there’s a robot uprising will likely depend more on how well we handle that leap to consciousness. Given where we are now, it’s not difficult to imagine that the first will be owned by someone, likely a corporation, as in Ex Machina (2015). The theme of the awakening is also being more thoroughly explored in the AMC series Humans, where the programmed rules—and the synth servants—go out the door with the arrival of synth consciousness the humans aren’t ready to accept.

  So, whether or not you fear or champion innovations in artificial intelligence, the android sits front and center as a shining example of our best hopes and deepest fears. Androids are, after all, humanity’s children, made in its own image. We want our children to do better and be better than us, but will they have that teenage rebellious phase where they think they know better, but don’t? Will they, upon learning our history, simply be disappointed in us? Or will they just end up like us, except smarter, stronger, and longer-lived?

  Books, stories, games, TV, and film give us the wide array of possible futures. In film we have the Terminator franchise, where androids are infiltrating what is left of human society to destroy mankind. In the Mass Effect video game franchise, the Geth rose up against their creators and drove them from their homeworld. In the Star Trek universe, we have Data and Lore, two sides of a coin, with Lore disassembled and Data ultimately succeeding on his path to become more human. In the most recent version of Battlestar Galactica, we’re exposed to a more complex mix of all of the above.

  This anthology isn’t meant to be a retrospective of androids throughout the history of short science fiction. Though I might have enjoyed working on such a project, doing it justice would require many more pages than permitted. If you’d like to check out some earlier stories, two older anthologies on the same theme are The Androids Are Coming, edited by Robert Silverberg (1979), and The Pseudo-People: Androids in Science Fiction, edited by William F. Nolan (1965).

  The focus of this anthology is on the modern portrayal of the android over the last two decades. While not nearly as prevalent in short fiction as it once was, androids are still an important and increasingly relevant figure in the genre. Through their eyes, we can be taken on a journey that sheds light on not only who we are, but what it means to be more human than human.

  Neil Clarke

  May 7, 2017

  Elizabeth Bear was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. She is the Hugo, Sturgeon, Locus, and Campbell Award–winning author of nearly thirty novels—the most recent of which are Karen Memory, A Weird West adventure, and The Stone in the Skull, an epic fantasy set among warring states in an analogue to the Silk Road area—and over a hundred short stories. She lives in Massachusetts with her partner, writer Scott Lynch.

  DOLLY

  ELIZABETH BEAR

  On Sunday when Dolly awakened, she had olive skin and black-brown hair that fell in waves to her hips. On Tuesday when Dolly awakened, she was a redhead, and fair. But on Thursday—on Thursday her eyes were blue, her hair was as black as a crow’s-wing, and her hands were red with blood.

  In her black French maid’s outfit, she was the only thing in the expensively appointed drawing room that was not winter-white or antiqued gold. It was the sort of room you hired somebody else to clean. It was as immaculate as it was white.

  Immaculate and white, that is, except for the dead body of billionaire industrialist Clive Steele—and try to say that without sounding like a comic book—which lay at Dolly’s feet, his viscera blossoming from him like macabre petals.

  That was how she looked when Rosamund Kirkbride found her, standing in a red stain in a white room like a thorn in a rose.

  Dolly had locked in position where her program ran out. As Roz dropped to one knee outside the border of the blood-saturated carpet, Dolly did not move.

  The room smelled like meat and bowels. Flies clustered thickly on the windows, but none had yet managed to get inside. No matter how hermetically sealed the house, it was only a matter of time. Like love, the flies found a way.

  Grunting with effort, Roz planted both green-gloved hands on winter white wool-and-silk fibers and leaned over, getting her head between the dead guy and the doll. Blood spattered Dolly’s silk stockings and her kitten-heeled boots: both the spray-can dots of impact projection and the soaking arcs of a breached artery.

  More than one, given that Steele’s heart lay, trailing connective tissue, beside his left hip. The crusted blood on Dolly’s hands had twisted in ribbons down the underside of her forearms to her elbows and from there dripped into the puddle on the floor.

  The android was not wearing undergarments.

  “You staring up that girl’s skirt, Detective?”

  Roz was a big, plain woman, and out of shape in her forties. It took her a minute to heave herself back to her feet, careful not to touch the victim or the murder weapon yet. She’d tied her straight light brown hair back before entering the scene, the ends tucked up in a net. The severity of the style made her square jaw into a lantern. Her eyes were almost as blue as the doll’s.

  “Is it a girl, Peter?” Putting her hands on her knees, she pushed fully upright. She shoved a fist into her back and turned to the door.

  Peter King paused just inside, taking in the scene with a few critical sweeps of eyes so dark they didn’t catch any light from the sunlight or the chandelier. His irises seemed to bleed pigment into the whites, warming them with swirls of ivory. In his black suit, his skin tanned almost to match, he might have been a heroically sized construction paper cutout against the white walls, white carpet, the white-and-gold marble-topped table that looked both antique and French.

  His blue paper booties rustled as he crossed the floor. “Suicide, you think?”

  “Maybe if it was strangulation.” Roz stepped aside so Peter could get a look at the body.

  He whistled, which was pretty much what she had done.

  “Somebody hated him a lot. Hey, that’s one of the new Dollies, isn’t it? Man, nice.” He shook his head. “Bet it cost more than my house.”

  “Imagine spending half a mil on a sex toy,” Roz said, “only to have it rip your liver out.” She stepped back, arms folded.

  “He probably didn’t spend that much on her. His company makes accessory programs for them.”

  “Industry courtesy?” Roz asked.

  “Tax writeoff. Test model.” Peter was the department expert on Home companions. He circled the room, taking it in from all angles. Soon the scene techs would be here with their cameras and their tweezers and their 3D scanner, turning the crime scene into a permanent virtual reality. In his c
apacity of soft forensics, Peter would go over Dolly’s program, and the medical examiner would most likely confirm that Steele’s cause of death was exactly what it looked like: something had punched through his abdominal wall and clawed his innards out.

  “Doors were locked?”

  Roz pursed her lips. “Nobody heard the screaming.”

  “How long you think you’d scream without any lungs?” He sighed. “You know, it never fails. The poor folks, nobody ever heard no screaming. And the rich folks, they’ve got no neighbors to hear ’em scream. Everybody in this modern world lives alone.”

  It was a beautiful Birmingham day behind the long silk draperies, the kind of mild and bright that spring mornings in Alabama excelled at. Peter craned his head back and looked up at the chandelier glistening in the dustless light. Its ornate curls had been spotlessly clean before aerosolized blood on Steele’s last breath misted them.

  “Steele lived alone,” she said. “Except for the robot. His cook found the body this morning. Last person to see him before that was his P.A., as he left the office last night.”

  “Lights on seems to confirm that he was killed after dark.”

  “After dinner,” Roz said.

  “After the cook went home for the night.” Peter kept prowling the room, peering behind draperies and furniture, looking in corners and crouching to lift up the dust-ruffle on the couch. “Well, I guess there won’t be any question about the stomach contents.”

  Roz went through the pockets of the dead man’s suit jacket, which was draped over the arm of a chair. Pocket computer and a folding knife, wallet with an RFID chip. His house was on palmprint, his car on voice rec. He carried no keys. “Assuming the ME can find the stomach.”