"And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh."
--Gen. 37:19

The suset was like burnished titanium in the west. Ferris 
thought that he had never seen sunsets quite as beautiful as the 
sunsets in the desert. They reminded him of his wife's eyes, 
even to this day. He was deeply in love with Clarissa, he had 
been as long as he could remember. She returned his love, and 
that security was a joy in his life. He thought of her, and of his 
home, now only a day's drive away.

The desert began to slip away into black. Ferris was tired. Even 
with the tinted windshield of his truck, his eyes--not at all young 
now--were strained, and his heart was tired from so much 
driving. He saw an evening breeze kick up a few grains of sand, 
and wondered whether there was a can of soup in his satchel. 
Ferris drove about a kilometer more, wrestling with the 
question of whether to press on or give in, and finally accepted 
his fate and pulled off the trail.

In ten minutes his load was covered with a tarp, and another 
had been strung from the upper railing of the flatbed, forming a 
lean-to that would keep any sandstorm at bay until he was wide 
enough awake to make it into the cab. Pleased with his work, 
Ferris dove into the passenger's side of the cab, and produced a 
small foot locker. He threw off the top and pulled a few contents 
out into the light from the interior bulb. "Chicken soup," he said 
merrily, and set the can aside. Next came a small pot and a ladel. 
Ferris closed the top and put the box on the cab's floor, pulling 
out the blanket it had been set upon. He unfurled it and shook 
it, casting off dirt and sand. He threw it across his shoulders, 
mindful of the rapid cooling of the desert under the night sky--
as well as his own advancing years.

Absalom Ferris had counted 67 years on the face of the planet. 
He had worked as a farmer, then a salesman, then finally as the 
supplier for Farm 12's only mechanics/electronics/optics trade 
station. He had done well in all his jobs, well enough to earn the 
respect of those around him and to provide a decent life for his 
family; in truth, each nourished the other. He had saved his 
chips wisely, and was planning on retiring sometime after his 
fourth great-grandchild was born. Ferris knew that he would 
have to find something to keep himself occupied, and had been 
slightly disappointed at his lack of interest in the hobby shops at 
Mine 124, his place of commerce.

Factory Law dictated that each Farm was required to put out a 
certain quota by any means necessary; any leftover could be kept 
for themselves. There hadn't been a severe year for most of 
Ferris' life, so they had enough surplus to feed themselves. 
Ferris bought a few bushels here, a few barrels there, then took 
them on his truck to Mine 124. Mine 124 had little in the way of 
fresh food, but they had an abundance of metal and stone things. 
Ferris traded for steel, coal, and wire, but most importantly he 
bought spare parts. He would load them onto his ethanol flatbed 
and ship them back home, charging a fraction of what a special 
order through the Factory would cost. His operations sometimes 
verged on the black market, but the profit was excellent. The 
startup costs had been immense. He had been forced to wait 
until his son David was earning enough money for them to 
invest in the truck. Now David had his own truck, and David's 
son Jiang was talking of buying Grandpapa out.

Ferris smiled heartily, his blistered hands warming themselves 
through the sides of his cup of coffee. Jiang had grown up on the 
farm, but hadn't worked more than five seasons on it. Jiang had 
been to the Factory school, and would tell Grandpapa Absalom 
things that it had taken him 20 years to understand. "Jiang..." 
Ferris whispered into the darkness, "...will be fine." He slurped 
another draught of bitter coffee, and decided that it was only his 
own obstenance that had kept Jiang out this long. Ferris liked to 
work. He liked to watch his ideas grow into reality, just like he 
had watched the green shoots grow into long shafts of wheat. 
Jiang would be good for their company, while he himself was 
hanging on to feel himself useful.

He hunched over his tiny camping stove and stared out into the 
darkness. The sky was now brighter than the land. The horizon 
was a demarkation between the dark sands and the crystaline 
night sky. Wind rushed across the undulating landscape, cooling 
without chilling. Home was a day's drive away. Ferris thought 
this almost the best of all possible worlds.

In the stillness his ears picked out a very strange sound. It was 
like the humming of a swarm of bees, but deeper, as though 
each bee was giantic. Ferris looked around in the night sky, 
looking for something--anything--to give away a little about the 
noise's source. Though his eyes were old, he looked eagerly 
around him, even up into the sky. There was nothing to tell 
him that the unknown being would be illuminated, or even 
visible. His ears told him that whatever it was, it was getting 
closer and closer. As the seconds became a minute, he felt 
absolutely positive that the noise 
was coming from something in the sky.

By a lucky chance, he happened to see a plume of sand kicked up; 
something had impacted with the sand close by. His 
curiousity overwhelmed him utterly. Ferris scrambled up into 
the truck's cab and threw open the glove compartment. He 
plucked out a halogen flashlight and, with the eagerness of a 
young boy, leaped down. His knees bawled in pain, but the rest 
of his body ignored them. Ferris dove under the truck, and 
emerged a moment later carrying his dirty little secret; 
purchased on the black market ten years ago, it was an air rifle. 
Even in the Outlands, guns were strictly prohibited. Ferris felt 
awful for owning one, but he knew that his strength was 
slipping away from him, and he would someday need more 
than his bulk to defend his merchandise.

He slipped a few assorted cartridges into the breast pocket of his 
flannel shirt and began padding across the dunes, already 
regretting his jump from the truck cab. From a distance of about 
200 meters came new sounds--sounds of machines being rent 
and electrical equipment short-circuiting. Strange flashes of light 
accompanied them. Ferris slipped a lead bullet into the chamber, 
primed it, and pumped the handle twice. He slipped the saftey 
off, slipped it back on to be safe, then trudged up the last dune 
and peeped over.

In the crotch between two dunes was a deep pit, formed by the 
impact of the aviatrix from on high. She lay writhing under the 
weight and force of a strange pack on her back, that buzzed and 
buzzed her downwards into the sand. Her brightly colored 
uniform was torn and tattered. Her weapon, whatever sort of 
energy gun it was, fired again and again, turning the sand into 
glass.
--
"What the bloody hell did you bring her home for?"

Clarissa Ferris had been incredulous of her husband's story, and 
his proof of its veracity had only replaced her incredulity with 
fear. It could only be dementia, as she had always worried; he 
wasn't just excited about his new find, he was ecstatic for her 
approval.

She shook her head. "Zalem. She could only be from Zalem. 
The headhunters from the Scrapyard will be here any day, 
asking 'round about Zalem's little air child..."

"And we give her to them then, and we collect a big fat reward." 
Mr. Ferris smiled a grand smile. He had had plenty of time to 
think up reasons to his wife's every excuse. She had complained 
when he brought home a stray puppy for the children, she had 
fretted when the strange young man from out of town had 
stayed in their house for a week, and who only knew what else 
during their 50 years together. Mr. Ferris knew his wife 
had every bit of his own generosity down in her heart, but she 
also had a dose of concern. It tempered his own over-
enthusiasm sometimes, and that was more than enough reason 
for him to keep her around.

"She'll be violent. She'll turn us in, tell lies about us."

"Cock's eggs, Mother! She has an onboard data recorder. If she 
ever has to be taken to a Factory or a Mine, they'll break the seal 
and see we're innocent. And if she do become violent, I'll just 
shut her body down. People know I have heaps of junk down in 
the basement, I'll just leave her down there to cool off."

Mrs. Ferris still looked doubtful. "What about the Barjack, luv? 
What if they come after her?"

"How the bloomin' heck would they have heard about her, if 
only you and I know?" Mr. Ferris lowered the corner of the tarp 
that covered his load, and turned to face his wife. "Honey, the 
Barjack haven't been here in a year, a year and a half. They 
'liberated' Farm 14 by shooting the Deckman, and then that was 
all. I don't see a dam thing changed. Do you?"

"No, I s'pose I don't." Her fear subsided and her curiousity 
waxed. "But why keep her, Father? Whatever do we need an 
android for?"

He smiled. "What do I hear from you all the livelong day? 'Luv, 
why don't we move in with Marilou and her family? They 
could take such good care of us, and you could slow down like 
the doctor tells ye to. Have you thought about getting a maid to 
live with us, dearie? My old bones aren't what they used to be, I 
need an extra pair of hands 'round the house.' This gynoid is 
exactly what you've been setting your heart for. I'll get her up 
and running, see if I can program her to help you out."

"Very well." They walked arm in arm around to the truck's cab. 
"Trust you to find a pretty girl in the middle of the desert!"

"What's that to mean?" Mr. Ferris was shocked. "I'm much too 
old for that type of thing, Clarissa! Anyway, she's got a metal 
arse."

"And what were you doing looking at her arse at all?" Mrs. 
Ferris laughed, and opened the door to the cab. She pulled up 
her dress to her mid-shins as she stepped up. "Would you give 
us a hand, luv?"

"Women! Why did I ever bring in ANOTHER one?"
--
Mrs. Ferris knocked politely on the workroom door then pushed 
the door open, knowing her husband wouldn't be coming to 
open it quickly. "Bite of lunch. Chicken sandwich, potatoes, and 
I made us ice tea."

"Bless your heart. Come down." Mrs. Ferris walked carefully 
down the stairs into the basement, balancing a tray with a plate 
luncheon and a two tall glasses of iced tea. Her husband was 
staring at some computer screens under a bare lightbulb. Their 
houseguest was laid out, face down, on a stone slab. Several 
wires led from her backbone and head into the computers. Mrs. 
Ferris noted that the gynoid's rump was not, in fact, made of 
metal.

Apart from her hands and the base of her skull, the woman was 
garbed in a moderate tan epidermis. What it concealed Mrs. 
Ferris could only conjecture. There was a long slit up along the 
spine that (from the presence of reclosable sutures on its inner 
lips) was almost certainly intentional. Against her better 
judgement Mrs. Ferris looked inside. The spine seemed to be 
nothing other than a replica of a human's, albeit one with a few 
sockets spaced along it. She turned to her husband. "Are you 
certain she's not a cyborg?"

"I'm certain. She's got less meat in her than a Factory fish stick. 
Have a seat." He gestured to a chair next to his own at the 
computer. She passed him the lunch tray as she seated herself, 
then took her iced tea from off it, pausing only for a silent toast. 
"No real spine, no real brain. A few organic chemical structures 
here and there--I'm fogged for what they do with 'em--but other 
than that, just computers. Computers, recursive computers, 
backup computers, I don't know how the hell she's able to keep 
from overheating."

"Must be from Zalem."

"Must be." Mr. Ferris paused to take a bite from his sandwich. 
"Fresh lettuce?"

"Yeah. Still a little this late in the year."

"Mmm, yummy. You do make the best." He wiped his fingers 
on a napkin, then tapped around a bit on the computer to show 
his wife the few fruits of his labor. "I've been playing with the 
diagnostics all morning, and I haven't gotten beans. I'm 
beginning to think maybe I should simply turn her on and hope 
for the best."

"D'you think you should?"

"I don't know. I haven't hurt her any  more than she was 
already, so I can't think of any reason why she should go 
berzerk. The worst that'll happen is that she's lost some of her 
memory. David's got a few programs I can borrow to help 
restore that."

Mrs Ferris set down her glass, then rested her chin on her hand 
before she said, "I suppose we might as well turn her on then. 
But you'd better have your gun somewhere nearby,just to be 
safe."

"Wait a mo...however did you guess about my gun?"

She smiled. "You really expected me to believe she had been hit 
by a lightning bolt?"

"I tried, Clarissa. Please believe me." He turned and faced her, 
looking into her brown eyes, imploring. "I'm not a young man 
anymore. I need to defend myself when I'm out alone. Just until 
Cassandra has the baby, and then I promise I'll sell out to Jiang."

She was silent, and he guessed she wanted a little more. "When 
I married you, there wasn't anything in the oath I took that said, 
'I will not take any more chances than necessary.' But there 
should have been. I may be as old as the river now, but at least 
I've got experience. I know what my limits are."

"I believe you." She leaned forward and they kissed, eyes closed. 
He sighed and reached under the desk in front of him. 
Whatever he produced, it didn't look like any gun she had ever 
seen. It looked like leftovers. "What the hell? That's a bunch of 
tinfoil, Absalom!"

He laughed. "I wrapped it up. If Izzy has infared vision, she 
could see through--"

"IZZY?"

"Take a look." Absalom led Clarissa around to the head end of 
the work table, and lifted up the gynoid's head. There was a large 
number 12 written on it in a metallic red color. "Ya see, when I 
fished her out of the hole, it was too dark for me to read right. I 
thought that was 'IZ' written there, not 12."

"Father, you're a silly one."

"Or practical." He let the head drop heavily, then turned and 
said apoligetically, "Sorry." Clarissa laughed. While she 
recovered, Absalom had another bite of his lunch and a deep 
draught of his iced tea. "Would you stand over this-a-way, luv?"

"Why?" She moved to where he was pointing, a good distance 
away from the table.

"Dunno how she'll behave once she gets power into her, but if 
she's anything like the other droids around here, she'll go 
through a self-diagnostic routine. That wouldn't be too bad by 
itself, but for her that involves making sure all her moving 
parts still can. So she'll kick and twist and punch a little, and 
help you if 
you're in her way." Absalom meditatively ate a potato chip and 
thought aloud, "Hope she don't kack the floor. I'll mop it up if she 
does. Anyway, inside the gun here are some piezoelectric crystal 
bullets. Don't know how they work, but when they smack into 
something, they let off a li'l electric pulse. If you hit her head, or 
her eye, or down her middle line, that should be enough to 
knock a marble loose in her. Don't fire unless either I tell you or 
I can't tell you. All right?"

"I hear you, Father."

"Then let's get it done." Absalom kissed his wife one last time 
on the cheek, then moved to the examining table. He unplugged 
all the cords from the gynoid's back and rolled the cables back 
onto the computer; then he pushed the computer back up 
against the room's wall. The sheet rock floor now had a very 
large clear patch in its middle. In the shadows of the room were 
shelves and storage cabinets filled with assorted odds and ends 
that the Ferris family had picked up in their years on the road: 
half-rusted parts, remaindered cybernetics, nebliges, and even a 
few gifts for unsuspecting family members. White daylight from 
a grime-covered window rained down, adding to the lone bare 
bulb in the room.

Absalom drew out a large remote control and pressed a button, 
aiming at the base of the slab/operating table. An unseen motor 
whirred to life, and the table began to hover on a cushion of air. 
He gently pushed the table into the center of the room, then 
pulled a small plastic box with a red cable on it from out of his 
pocket. He plugged it in to the base of the gynoid's skull and said 
in a loud whisper, "This'll boot the program to get her up and 
running." He pressed a button on the machine and stepped back.

Instantly the gynoid was up upon her feet. She stared blankly in 
front of her. Then, like a shivver passing through her whole 
body, she went through a series of preprogramed motions, each 
one obeying the rhythm of a heartbeat. Her face had a seizure, 
passing through a hundred expressions at once; her head jerked 
around on her neck; her arms flew around her, moving her 
elbows, wrists and fingers as they went; her trunk bent and 
turned; her legs kicked and swung.

At the conclusion of her gymnastics she stood perfectly still, 
arms shoulder-width apart, fists clenched. Her face was round, 
well-formed and noble. Her mouth was wide, and it looked a 
little wider than it should be. Her eyes were a glassy 
gray. Her hair was black and straight, parted over one eye. There 
were still scuffs and sand on her body, but they looked less like 
accidental abrasions than chisel marks from the hand that had 
first formed her. She had an aura of the color blue, of 
determination and focus, of absolute belief in herself and in her 
person.

She spoke in a bold soprano voice. "Please tell me at once my 
location and your identities."

Husband and wife exchanged a nervous glance before Absalom 
cleared his throat and said, "You're in Farm 12. I'm Ferris 
Absalom, this is my wife Clarissa."

The gynoid swung around before him. "Ferris Absalom. A12-
609. Licensed trader for Farm 12. Do you state that this 
information is correct and true?"

"Y-yes."

She turned on her heel. "Ferris Clarissa. A12-681. Former 
volunteer nurse. No current occupation. Do you state that this 
information is correct and true?"

"Yes, yes I do."

She nodded. Even as she processed the information, something 
seemed to slip from her character. She looked around 
confusedly. "I am underground. Is this someone's basement? 
How did I come to be here?"

"You crashed your wing thing in the desert. I brought you home, 
and I've been trying to get you back up and running since 
yesterday." Absalom found enough courage to step towards their 
guest. "Who are you, anyway?"

She paused for a moment, analyzing all of the variables she had 
before replying, "I am Alpha Replacement Unit 12, property of 
the Metropolis of Tiphares. You must comply with all my orders 
upon pain of betrayal of the Factory."

"Tifarays? Where's Tifarays?"

"Do you mean Zalem, miss? Why don'cha just say so?"

Once again, her composure faltered. "I--I have no knowledge of a 
place called Zalem. Please acquaint me with it's location."

"Umm..." Absalom sighed. "Maybe 500 kilometers north-
northwest of here?"

"This is not possible! That location corresponds exactly to where Tiphares is located, yet I am 
unfamiliar with that locality." The gynoid thought for a 
moment. "Abstract reasoning reports that the two might be one 
and the same place, though why one and not the other name is 
used is impossible for me to say at this juncture."

Silence enveloped the room. Vague noises from the outside 
filtered in. Dust particles flew around and around in the beam of 
sunlight. Absalom forced himself to ask, "What were you doing 
in the desert?"

The being identified as AR-12 stared into space, her eyes darting 
as she replayed her memory. "I was returning from a foray 
against the Barjack forces in the vicinity of Farm 36. 125 
casualties, 88 vehicles destroyed. At once, for some unknown 
reason, contact with Tiphares was lost. Lacking external 
command structure, my body went into torpor. The logical presumption is that, 
as a consequence, the Solid Wing unit crashed and my self-defence 
mechanisms were activated." She looked from one to the other of 
the Ferrises. "Please report how it was that you were able to override them."

"There was a lightning bolt," they said in unison.

She stared into space once again. "This locality is characterized 
by highly unstable weather patterns. Your observation has been 
noted." She resumed staring off into space again.

"What'll you do now, Izzy?" said Clarissa. "You don't mind if I 
call you Izzy, do you?"

"Negative. The misnomer has been recorded." Izzy sat upon the 
work slab and spoke earnestly. "All directives from the 
Metropolis of Tiphares are overriding. I have received no 
directive from Tiphares; in fact, I have received a nullity of 
directives. Primary directive is thus satisfied. Secondary 
directives dictate self-preservation. At the moment, my chassis 
and inner software are in need of minor modifications, but there 
is no external threat perceivable. Terniary directives dictate 
alegiance to Factory Law-abiding individuals and Factory 
extensions. I am forced to act upon these impulses." She bowed 
before her host and hostess. "I place myself fully at your disposal, 
citizens of Farm 12."