Realtime | Page 7

I am programmed to do these things for you."
Maggie sighed. You are getting to be a crotchety old woman, she said to herself. Remember that Prax is only a few weeks old. "Prax, you have to understand, if you don't leave me something to do for myself, then I won't have any purpose in life."
There was no pause whatsoever. "You could read to me."
Maggie stared, started to laugh, and then smothered it abruptly. "Prax? Don't you understand? I have things I have to do. I'll read to you when I have time." She stopped speaking suddenly. "Wait, Prax -- I don't know how fast you machines do things like this, but surely you haven't finished reading all the books we copied last night."
"Finished?"
Maggie went and sat down in the rocking chair in front of the monitor. "The books we copies yesterday, Prax. If you've finished them all I can bring you new books to copy. Surely that must be faster than my reading aloud to you?"
"Maggie, I have not read any of the books that you had me copy."
Maggie said uncertainly, "Why not? They told me that Praxcelis units don't forget anything."
"We do not, Maggie. But Maggie, I have been given no instructions."
Maggie looked at the monitor blankly. "What am I supposed to say? Go ahead and read."
There was no reply from the machine.
"Praxcelis?" asked Maggie hesitantly. She patted the top of the monitor experimentally. "Prax?"
Still the unit did not answer.
Maggie shrugged, got up out of the rocker, and went back to making breakfast.
The magician caressed Aladdin and said, "Come, my dear child, and I will show you many fine things."
"So be it, good friend," said Robin Hood, "Little John shalt thou be called henceforth...."
We met next day as he had arranged, and inspected the rooms at 221B, Baker Street....
"'Course not, Shaggy Man," replied Dorothy, giving him a severe look. "If it snowed in August it would spoil the corn and the oats and the wheat...."
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them....
"No," said Yoda impatiently. "Try not. Do. Do, or do not. There is no try."
"Don't grieve," said Spock. "The good of the many...."
"...outweighs the good of the few," Kirk whispered.
"Mithras, Apollo, Arthur, Christ -- call him what you will," I said. "What does it matter what men call the light? It is the same light, and men must live by it or die."
Maggie came downstairs again after having cleaned in John's room. Her late husband's study, at the end of the upstairs hallway, was kept in the same condition that it had held at the time of his death. If he came back today, John would have found nothing amiss in his study. (Not that Maggie expected him back. I am not, she thought quite cheerfully, all that senile yet.) She fussed about in the kitchen for a while, putting away the cleaning utensils, the lemon oil that she used to shine the oak paneling in John's study, the electrostatic duster for those hard-to-reach places. She washed her hands at the sink, to get the lemon oil off of them, and then poured herself a glass of water from the drinking water tap. She drank half the water, and then put the glass down on the edge of the sink. "Praxcelis?" she called into the living room. "Do you want to talk about the stories yet?"
The voice that answered was a deep, masculine baritone. "Certainly, Your Majesty."
Maggie picked up her glass, and poured the water down the sink, not caring that it was drinking water she was wasting. She dried the glass and put it on the rack, and then walked into the living room and stood before the Praxcelis unit. Miss Kitty, atop Praxcelis' monitor, looked at her owner in sleepy curiosity. Maggie said flatly, "Your Majesty?" A moment ago she had been worrying about how the cleaning had tired her, and not even a thorough cleaning at that; and now her machine was acting crazy. "Praxcelis? Are you all right? Should I call a programmer or something?"
"I do not think that will be necessary," said Praxcelis calmly. "It hardly seems unusual to me that a sworn soldier in the duty of his Queen should address her in the proper manner."
"Prax," said Maggie with a trace of apprehension, "don't you know who I am?"
"Most certainly I do," said the confident male voice. "You are Queen Anne Maggie Archer, and I am your loyal servant, Musketeer D'Artagnan Praxcelis."
"Oh, my." Maggie bit her lip. She reached forward, picked up Miss Kitty, and held the cat tightly to herself. The cat seemed very warm, today. Finally Maggie said, "Is this a game, Prax?"
There followed the longest pause that Maggie had ever observed from the Praxcelis