Capacity by Tony Ballantyne Page A

the pear halves? They’re in the bowl over there.”
    “I can’t,” the robot said sulkily. “My hands are too fractally.”
    “Fractally?” Justinian said. “Is that a word?” He looked intently at the robot. “How can a robot be so lazy?”
    “It’s not being lazy,” Leslie replied petulantly. “It’s about the appropriate expenditure and conservation of energy. If you were a robot, you’d understand.”
    Justinian laughed as he went over to fetch the bowl. Now that he knew he was leaving the planet, his mood was suddenly a lot lighter. When he got back, the baby was hitting at a Schrödinger box that had appeared on the sauce-spattered tray in front of him.
    Justinian made to flick the box from the tray, then paused just for a moment. In under two hours he would have left this planet and would no longer be encountering these bizarre artifacts. It was odd how, in just three weeks, he had become so blasé about something so unusual. He picked up the box and examined it carefully. It was small: about the size of the first joint of his little finger, almost a cube but for a slight taper to its shape. Merely looking at it fixed it in position; holding it clenched tight in his hand put a fix on it and kept it in place. He slipped it in his pocket, where he couldn’t feel it through the padded material of his passive suit, then almost immediately he put his hand back into the pocket. The cube was gone.
    He suddenly became aware that Leslie was watching him. “What?” he demanded.
    “Nothing,” said the robot.
    Justinian squeezed the handle of the spoon, making it frictionless for a moment. Orange sauce slipped from it to the tray. He squeezed the handle again and scooped a spoonful out of a pear half. Another Schrödinger box had appeared, lodged amid the pears themselves.
    “They never did figure out what these things were doing,” he murmured to himself. “They haven’t figured out anything on this planet.” He raised his voice. “Hey Leslie,” he called, “have they even figured out how to get into the Bottle yet?”
    “The Bottle?” said the robot, in surprised tones. “Why bring that up?”
    “I was just thinking about all the things I will leave behind when I get off this planet. Can they get into it yet?”
    “No. Do you think they really want to?” There was still an edge of sulkiness to its voice.
    The ship suddenly spoke up: “Electrical storm coming up. Do you want to go around it?”
    “No, straight through,” Justinian said. “And let’s have full visual.”
    “No problem,” said the ship. It was nice to speak to a PC that didn’t automatically disagree with him, Justinian thought.
    Viewing fields expanded all around, and the scattered flight chairs and carpeted interior of the flier gradually disappeared, leaving Justinian, the baby, and the robot seemingly hanging in empty air. There was nothing but the deep blue sea below them, the blue sky above, and, ahead of them, the sinister black line of storm clouds approaching at Mach 7.
    “It’s AI five’s region,” explained the ship. “Lots of warm air rising from the ocean heat exchange.”
    The black line of the storm clouds lengthened and grew, towering higher and higher above them, and Justinian felt a thrill of anticipation as he saw the flicker of lightning. Puffs of grey skittered past them, the sea below glimmered in an unearthly violet, and then, with a breathtaking suddenness, the storm enveloped them. They flew into the space between the anvil clouds, the darkness lit by an eerie electrical glow. Lightning arced from the seething dark below them, up to the towering masses of clouds above. Justinian flew through the dark cathedral spaces feeding pear pieces to the baby, who turned his head this way and that at the strange glowing lights, so fascinated that he almost forgot to eat.
    At the front of the flier, slumped in a flight chair, Leslie sulked.
             
    The baby was crawling across the soft