Brian Plante - Moondance.pdf - Brian Plante - margozap

MOONDANCE

by Brian Plante

JERRY NOONAN NOTICED the damage to his robot immediately at the start of the

shift. In his RC rig at home in New Jersey, he raised and lowered his arm,

but on the Moon the corresponding manipulator flopped about uselessly. It

also hurt like hell, and he had to turn down the feedback circuit until the

arm felt nearly dead. Some sort of accident had left its metal skin

deformed,

and the servo motors were responding erratically. The bastard on the previous

shift had messed him up good.

The job of raising and joining the huge cables that would support the dome

over the Huygens crater was grueling work, and Jerry was damn well not going

to work an entire shift with a bum manipulator arm. He radioed the problem in

to his unit chief and was given permission to take his robot over to the

repair shop. Better to spend a few hours in the shop getting a new arm than

struggling with the thing for a whole shift. Damage among the robots was not

uncommon in a job like the doming of Huy gens crater, and Jerry had been to

the repair shop a few times before, but this time he met Audrey.

"Aww, did the big burly cable-hauler hurt his poor little paw?" a feminine

voice from the inverted funnelshaped repair robot spoke into his earpiece.

Swell, Jerry thought. A lady robot mechanic.

"It was like this when my shift started," he said.

The repair meth circled once around Jerry's barrelshaped body, looking over

the damage before cradling his broken manipulator in its own metal arms.

Jerry could not tell how many legs this meth had under the round bumper

"skirt" of its body, but he noticed how the meth wiggled from side to side

as it moved, a most unusual gait for a robot. It was an incongruously

feminine walls.

"Wow, you really did a number on this arm," the meth said.

"I said I didn't do it," he responded. Even though she handled his

manipulator

gently; Jerry pulled away sharply, as if he were hurt. With the transmission

lag, his robot did not mirror the more for another second and a quarter, but

all the lunar robot operators were used to dealing with the time delay. "The

operator before me left it like this. If I could work around it, Id leave it

like it is, so the bastard would have to deal with it on his own shift."

The mech moved forward to scoop up the broken manipulator again, this time a

bit more forcefully, making Jerry wince with pain back home in his RC unit.

"Hey, I just fix them," the meth said. "Nothing personal, okay, buddy?"

"Jerryy. My name is Jerry Noonan."

"Pleased to meet you, Jerry Noonan. I'm Audrey."

"Audrey. You know, we don't get too many female operators up here on the

Moon."

Audrey chuckled and said, "and at these prices you won't get too many more."

"Huh?" Jerry mumbled.

"You know, the old bar joke about the talking kangaroo."

A joke? I'm sorry, I don't get out too much anymore. Not to bars, anyway."

"Too bad. Bars can sometimes be . . . useful," Audrey said as she attached a

wire harness into the test socket of his damaged arm. She walked her robot

over to a console on the other side of the room, again bouncing and swaying

in her unusual fashion.

"You walk funny for a robot," Jerry said.

"Funny?"

"Not funny ha-ha. Just different for a robot. It's kind of a girlish walk."

"Hmmm. Being a woman, I suppose I can live with that. You better turn down

the sensitivity on that arm now, or this might hurt a bit."

Jerry just barely felt a jolt of power surge through the manipulator before

he turned off the feedback. Without him controlling it, the arm began

flailing up and down under the mechanic's overriding commands.

"That didn't come out right," Jerry said. "I like the way you walk. It's

very feminine, if a pointy, metal cylinder can be feminine. Do you move like

that on purpose, or is it just the way you walk naturally?"

"Hmmm. I've never thought about it too much, so I suppose it's natural.

Probably something carried over from my dancing."

"You're a dancer?"

"Not a ballet dancer or anything like that," Audrey said, bouncing back over

to Jerry's side. "Just some social dancing on the weekends. Jerry, this arm

is shot. I'll just replace the whole thing, okay?"

"Yeah, whatever it needs. Do young people still go out dancing much these

days? It's been so long since I've been out, but I used to go dancing

before-"

Jerry was about to say "Before I was married," but just then she popped off

the fault, manipulator, and he fell silent as he gaped into the empty socket

where his arm had been.

Audrey shimmied over to an equipment locker and unpacked a replacement

manipulator. "All kinds of people go out dancing," she said from across the

room. "Not just young people. It's a very human thing to do."

"I don't know," Jerry said. "I guess it was fun when I was the right age for

it, but you get older and settle down."

"I certainly hope not," Audrey answered. "It's when you stop doing young

things that you start getting old."

"Hmm. Maybe you're right, but I just don't feel like going out much anymore."

"Come on. You don't sound so old to me.

"How old do you think I am?"

"You sound too young to be sitting at home. What are you, thirty-five? Forty?"

Back home in his RC rig, Jerry smiled. He was fifty-three and feeling ten

years older. In his younger days, he had not been unattractive, but he had

developed a paunch from so many years of inactivity; and the few hairs on his

head that hadn't fallen out yet were decidedly gray.

"Yeah," he lied. "Forty. What are you, late twenties or so?"

"You know you're never supposed to ask a lady that question."

"Yeah, I suppose. Sorry."

"But if it's any help, the manufacturing sticker on my chassis says I was

made in 2038."

"Very funny."

"So why aren't you laughing? Lighten up, McGraw."

Jerry fell silent as Audrey quickly installed the new arm and tested it with

her instruments. Perhaps he was being an old stick in the mud, but this was,

after all, the workplace. Jerry goosed up the feedback a bit while she still

cradled the new arm, and he imagined a flesh-and-blood person holding his

arm,

instead of the cold titanium and carbon fibers.

"Where are you working from, Audrey?" he asked.

Audrey lifted his arm carefully, checking her instrument readings, then

gently lowered it to his side. "Me?" she said. "New Jersey."

"You're from Jersey? Me, too. What part?"

"Woodbridge."

"Woodbridge! I'm over in Edison. That's only a few miles away. How's that for

a coincidence?"

"Well, the Huygens project recruited pretty heavily in central Jersey, so

there's bound to be lots of us from the area here."

"Audrey, we're practically neighbors. Well, then, where is this place you go

dancing? Maybe I know it."

"Mostly at the Candy Bar on Route Nine. It's across from the Pharmatex

building."

"Yeah, I know it. I used to go there once in a while when I was a lot

younger.

I wonder if the place is still the same as I remember."

"There's one way to find out. Why don't you come around and check it out for

yourself?"

"Well, maybe I will," Jerry said, although he couldn't realistically see

himself entering a dance club at his age.

"Good. Perhaps I'll see you there, then," Audrey said.

"Umm . . . what nights do you go there, and how would I recognize you?"

"Oh, I'm there a lot. Fridays and Saturdays, mostly. If you come, I'll find

you. I promise."

Jerry wanted to stay and talk a bit more, but the new arm was checked out and

ready to go. His crew would be looking for him before too long.

"Audrey?"

"Yes?"

"Could you just walk around the room one more time for me? I think it's

really cute how you make that robot move."

"Hmmm. Okay. How's this?"

Audrey, sashayed with an exaggerated bump and grind to the middle of the

room,

her arms held out slightly on either side. She finished with a pirouette and

then curtsied.

"Just beautiful. I can't wait to tell the guys about this -- a robot with a

sexy, walk. Audrey, you're priceless."

"See you around, tall, dark, and shiny."

THE WEEKS went by at work, and one by one the big cables were hoisted into

place along the crater's rim as the big spiderweb took shape. Each new

workday

was just like the last, and Jerry liked it that way. He had mentioned to his

wife Dana that he had heard the Candy Bar was still a popular spot, but she

just shrugged and said that dance clubs like that were for young people.

Jerry

grimly agreed and quietly went back to his rut.

One day a cable with a bad splice in it let go explosively as weight was

being

applied. The free end whipped around and brushed a couple of Jerry's robot

legs, snapping them off like matchsticks. He still had four mechanical walker

legs remaining, and while he was not stable enough for work duties, Jerry

was able to limp the robot over to the repair shop. The robot mechanic

wiggled

over in a familiar gait to greet him.

"Hey, robot 60148. Is that you in there, Jerry?"

"It's me, Audrey. Couple of missing legs this time."

"So I see. Well, that'll surely put a crimp in your dance step."

Jerry looked away guiltily. "Were you looking for me at the Candy Bar?"

Audrey went to the locker and retrieved a couple of leg units. Her robot

glided back to Jerry smoothly, without the usual bouncing around, and she

began installing the new legs.

"I was disappointed that you didn't show up at the club," she said, "but it's

okay. I have lots of dance partners."

"I really did mean to come out there, but I just couldnt convince my...

myself."

"So you chickened out. Happens to the best of them, I'm afraid."

"Audrey, if an older guy like me showed up at the Candy Bar. wouldn't people

stare?"

"Maybe if you were a really bad dancer they would, but forty's not so old."

Audrey popped the two new legs into the empty sockets and began testing them.

"I, um, wasn't quite honest about that," Jerrv said. "Actually, I'm closer

to fifty."

"It still wouldn't matter. It's how young you feel that counts. You come to

the club, and you'll be surprised."

"Are there many older people at the Candy Bar?"

"A few. Nobody thinks they're strange, and they seem to have a good time. Why

are you fighting with yourself over this? Just come on out and see for

yourself. Stop being so ... old."

"I'm a little rusty, no pun intended. If I came to the club, would you dance

with me?"

"Oh, Jerry, it's not a contest or anything. I'll dance with you right now if

you'd like. Come on, your legs are all fixed."

"Here?"

"Number 60148, may I have this dance?"

"Um, how about some music?"

"Music? Sheesh. Hold on a sec."

Audrey's manipulators slumped, and the robot sank an inch or two onto its

skirt. Jerry figured that Audrey must have slipped out of her rig back in

New Jersey and her robot was unmanned. A few seconds later the mech came

back to life, and music began playing in Jerry's headset.

"Audrey, what did you do?"

"I just patched my home audio rig into the headset and found a disc to set

the mood. Sorry I can't seem to light any candles up here, though."

The music was a Billy Joel classic that was already an oldie back in Jerry's

courting days. Dana and he had danced to this one for the last time at

their wedding reception.

"Take my hands, silly," Audrey said, snapping him back to Huygens.

Jerry clumsily reached over and lightly took two of Audrey's manipulators in

his. His sensors felt the. cold alloy and polycarbonate resins, but he

perceived a warmth, perhaps a false triggering of his robot's feedback

circuits, as he put an arm around the top of Audrey's metal torso.

They moved together clumsily at first. With the transmission lag, the robots

Brian Plante - Moondance.pdf

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