The Sleeping Army Awakes

Part 85 Deception

Spencer looked out at the devastated building site from the promontory where the Sikorsky had sat when they had first arrived. Most of the tree felling machines, were still inoperable or malfunctioning due to the soaking that they had suffered, though all but two of them had finally been dragged further up the slopes. The state of the art robots had never been designed to swim, or even wade, although they would stand a soaking from above, if the rain came from the right direction. Spencer made a note of this.

Spencer made a separate note to himself to threaten that if Vita Silverstein, the head of the Zeli Corporation's robotics section, didn't return the robots fully working and waterproofed within a week, then Spencer would send him to Cherrapunjee in India, a part of the world where rained for weeks on end and flooded frequently.

The relocation would educate Silverstein about the problematical nature of moisture ingress, and water management. Spencer noted with satisfaction that although Cherrapunjee had the highest rainfall of anywhere, butdue to deforestation, the water merely ran off, taking any fertile soil with it and leaving no potable water to drink.

The thought of Silverstein dripping wet but thirsty amused Spencer so much that he deleted the phrase about threatening and resolved to send Silverstein anyway, in monsoon season, which conveniently enough was starting soon. Silverstein still hadn't made any arrangements to pick up the damaged machines.

"You never used to be so vindictive!" Samuel observed.

"I suppose that some of Sir Percy is rubbing off on me!" Spencer said absently, not really knowing or caring any more whether Samuel was physically present or not. "It is a necessary diversionary tactic actually. If Sir Percy is sufficiently amused by Silverstein's re-education, then he will pay less attention to some of the more beneficent actions that I have planned to perform."

"Oh!" Samuel laughed his warm knowing laugh, because he had suddenly begun to understand the tightrope that Spencer was forced to walk, between his own innate humanity and the need to satisfy his employer's wishes. Spencer looked up and was almost surprised to see Samuel standing in front of him in the flesh.

"Yes I am here!" Samuel laughed, catching the obvious question that ran through Spencer's mind as to whether the lights were still on in the mine. "Yes the lights are still on... it seems that with enough Mík present they don't go out and soon they will burn brighter than ever!"

"Indeed?" Spencer asked.

"There are many Mík making their way here for my wedding and I had hoped that it would be a double one." Samuel said.

"Indeed sir!" Spencer said.

"I had hopes that you and Eliška would be tying the knot." Samuel said. "Eliška told me that she was keen on the idea!"

"Indeed sir?" Spencer asked.

"You and her seemed to have hit it off well!" Samuel said and then qualified the comment with. "Initially!"

"Indeed!" Spencer said.

"She is a nice girl!" Samuel said.

"Indeed!" Spencer said non-committally.

"If you two have argued about something," Samuel said. "then my advice is to take her a nice big bunch of flowers and tell her that you are sorry."

"It is more serious than that!" Spencer said, attempting to look as though he were too busy to be having a conversation of such a nature at a time like the present. "But if you don't mind sir, then I have a considerable amount of work to do!"

"Yes you do!" Samuel said. Though Samuel was not alluding to any task that Samuel might be performing for the Zeli Corporation. "You know that a woman's looks are only skin deep, whereas it is always more difficult to find someone as good-hearted as Eliška."

"It was not that her looks were bad! She is still pretty." Spencer said finally, putting down his Dudat in despair, "it was the deception!"

"And if the artifice had been make-up and hair dye and clever expensive fashion and not a harmless trick of the mind then you would have been content I suppose?" Samuel asked. "Eliška did not have access to any sophisticated cosmetics or enhancements... she simply encouraged you to see her, as you wanted to see her, so the false vision was yours and not hers... she simply enhanced it. Hence you were equally complicit!"

"Yes!" Spencer said, "I mean no... Oh I don't know what I mean!"

"Was it really such a deception?" Samuel asked. "Encouraging others to deceive themselves, by allowing them to see what they wanted to see anyway... rather than what is really there? In my experience that is what men tend to do anyway. Women will always want to be seen at their best."

"And what did you see?" Spencer asked.

"Oh!" Samuel laughed, "I am old enough and experienced enough, to want to see women how they really are... and I am content with that."

"She is still attractive!" Spencer admitted, "Just not so perfect!"

"Many men have bedded a woman in a state of intoxication." Samuel advised, "And then have woken up, the next morning, wondering what the attraction could have been the previous night and the only thing that had deceived them had been the soft lights and the lack of focus that alcohol brings. And if the girl has conceived then, certainly in the old days, the young man would be forced to marry her by her family."

For once Spencer was silent lost for a fitting reply.

"My advice is..." Samuel laughed, "that you delay what you are doing temporarily, because you are in no mood to concentrate or you wouldn't be out here...." Here Samuel swept his arms across the vista for emphasis. "just staring out at the enormity of the task and taking your anger out on innocent people...

"Silverstein isn't so innocent. He is holding up the whole project!" Spencer said.

Samuel sighed. This conversation was even tougher than he had thought that it would be. "Go and gather a bunch of flowers..." Samuel advised, "then apologise, before Eliška can find a young man, who is willing to accept her for who she really is... I think that she was brave to show you how she really looked so early, before things had gone too far, when it obviously means so much to her...Think about it!"

Samuel laid his hand on Spencer's shoulder and then turned and walked slowly up the path that led to back to the roadway.