Part 3: The Sins of Miss Jane Halstead
The House's menagerie was a strange collection – part austere scientific collection, part carefully designed wildlife park and aquarium beyond the dreams of my era. Unfortunately, the assortment of animals that had been brought through the wormholes was small and rather random, and the House was still learning how to look after them, so a lot of the specimens were held in a sedated state while it worked out what to do.
I wasn't sure that the House didn't see us eight humans the same way... But anyhow, the dodos still boggled my mind, even if I had to admit to myself that they were especially stupid and irritating birds.
I spent a chunk of the day there, wondering about this stuff.
***
As the miniature spaceship skimmed past the structure of the – space station? – I sat on the floor next to the softly whimpering Miss Halstead, and tried to decide where to look.
"Okay," I said, "explain away."
"The intellects which are running the wormhole project are, in your terms, scientists," the House said. "Their first interest is in the wormholes themselves; their second is in biology. To them, you are an interesting example of your species, but they learned most of what they wanted to know while they held you sedated following your arrival. You may call me a historian; I am interested in human social activity. They give me information and objects which come through the wormholes, and have no objection to my looking after you. I assume that you may object if you believe that you are being treated as research subjects, but please try to think of yourself as valued guests."
"What's to stop you researching humans on Earth, then?"
"The answer to that involves several questions of definition. But to begin with, the Earth no longer exists."
"
What
?"
"It was dismantled approximately seventeen thousand years ago. The dominant culture of that era placed a high value on large-scale engineering projects, and little on sentiment."
"Shit. So they wiped out the human race?"
"No, they were more ethical than that. The planet was evacuated in an orderly fashion. Anyway, many of them were themselves human. Most of the species was in space even before then. But the last biological humans in the solar system voluntarily had themselves converted to non-biological forms approximately eleven thousand years ago."
"So... You're saying that there are no real human beings left? Except for us?"
"There may be some in other solar systems, but if so, we do not have regular contact with them. In fact, some of the intellects derived from the last organic humans still exist – but they have changed over time. You would not recognise them as human, psychologically."
I sat back, hyperventilating for a few minutes. Then the House spoke again. "We are about to return to our starting point," it announced, and I felt the floor press up against me as the craft manoeuvred.
"What do you want from us?" I asked faintly.
"At present, I simply want to talk to you," the House replied.
"
Talk
to us?"
"Yes. Much information about your time is lost. The wormhole experiments have given me a few artefacts and a number of brief segments of radio signals, but as human beings, you carry much more information than that. I would like you to help explain many things."
***
Eventually, I made my way back to the House – or rather, the place where we were being accommodated. I'd come to understand that the bland, neutral voice came from some kind of computer that might be located anywhere, and that could see and hear me anywhere I could go. I was hoping to meet some of the girls, but the one I saw first was the last one I'd have chosen.
Still, at least Clarissa wasn't looking so aggressive or angry now. I got the impression she was actually trying to look conciliatory.
She took a deep breath before she spoke to me. "Mr Evans," she said, "I must ask for your help."
"Really?" I said. "Why this sudden willingness to talk to me?"
She scowled. "You are the person here who seems to best understand how to deal with the House," she said. "Somehow, you seem to make better sense of its ... strangeness."
Well, that was true enough. The House, and the powers that lay behind it, were almost as far beyond me as they were beyond the eight Victorians – but I at least came from a time when ideas like intelligent machines and surveillance cameras and time travel had been talked about, and showed up on TV and in movies – hell, I'd
seen
TV and movies, unlike anyone else here. It gave me a small start.
"So what do you want from it?" I asked.
"I need to know what has happened to Miss Halstead," she said.
I grimaced. "Oh, her," I said. "I thought that you and she were best pals. You ran off to her when you wanted to make trouble for Augusta, after all."
"She is our teacher! She is responsible for us, and we owe her obedience."
"In your own time," I snapped. "This isn't your world any more, or hers. Get used to that." I began to turn away, but Clarissa reached out a hand and touched me on the arm. It was a small gesture, but I knew that, by her standards, it was desperate.
"Please, Simon," she said, "I have no idea what has befallen Miss Halstead. She has been out of her room very little since yesterday morning, and she has spoken to none of us. Now, she is locked in there. She has evidently persuaded the House that she is to receive no one."
"And you asked the House if she's okay?"
"Yes. It claims that she is well, but that she insists that it pay her no attention. I fear that she might harm herself. Even if you admit to no responsibility, can you not help out of common charity?"
I frowned at her. I didn't owe her or Miss Halstead anything. On the other hand, there were just nine of us in all this miniature world, and Clarissa was a desperate teenage girl. How much contempt did I really feel?
I sighed. "Come with me," I said.
She followed me to my room, and to give her credit, inside with only a brief pause, although we were alone. I sat on a stool, and waved her to the other one.
"House," I said, "I think that you've been deceiving the girls."
"Not intentionally," the walls said blandly.
"No, but you're a machine, and they don't really understand how machines can think. By my time, we had computers, although they were nothing like as advanced as you. Still, I have some idea how you've got to work. You can see and hear into every room here, obviously."
"Yes."
"But you don't pay attention if we ask you not to."
"Yes. I understand that my ignoring your wishes for privacy would be stressful for you."
"So you've made that a firm rule. But even so, you react immediately when we ask to speak with you, even if you're not paying attention. So you are still getting sound and pictures from every room, even if you don't pay attention to them."
"Yes."
Clarissa gasped. "So this – this
machine
is spying on us all the time!" she said.
"No, really, I don't think so," I said. "It's a machine. Unlike you or me, when it says that it's not paying attention, it really doesn't pay any
attention
. It just gets signals, and discards them – unless they tell it that we're asking for its attention again. Right, House?"
"Yes." It sounded bland as ever, although Clarissa was glowering furiously at the walls.
"Fine. But right now, we're worried about Miss Halstead. And when humans are sufficiently worried about each other, they can forget about privacy – just briefly. Do you understand that?"
"Yes." Still bland.
"Good. So please give us a view of Miss Halstead at the moment. Just so that we know that she's okay."
There was a pause, but only a very brief one; the House never took time to think. Then the wall that Clarissa and I were both facing transformed into a viewing screen – and Clarissa and I both gasped in surprise.
Miss Halstead's room was much like all the others in the House – nobody had any decorations or ornaments to make things different, after all, although she'd persuaded the House to change her walls to dark shades of green and brown – but it wasn't the room that was startling. Miss Halstead was lying on the bed. Her dress was bunched up around her waist, so she was naked from there on down, and both her hands were at her crotch, while her head was thrown back. It was clear that she was masturbating furiously; two fingers of her right hand were buried in her cunt, and her left hand was pressing on top of the right, rubbing hard, stimulating her clitoris. I was seeing more of her now than I'd ever seen before, of course; she was rather more full-figured all round than the teenage girls I'd so recently been enjoying, but her legs weren't bad, and sheer uninhibited lust suited her like it suits most women. Her eyes were shut, and her mouth was open; the House obligingly gave us sound; we heard her moaning "Yes!" over and over again...
"Stop!" Clarissa gasped, jumping to her feet. "House, stop it!"
The wall turned plain white again, and I stood up and turned to Clarissa. "I'm sorry that you saw that," I said, "and we need to be more careful about privacy, I guess. But anyway, we know that Miss Halstead is okay."
"No," Clarissa said, "no – you do not understand. That practise..."
I shrugged. "It's just something that some women do in private..." I said.
"I know that, Mr Evans – I know that very well. Some girls were found – from time to time – in the dormitories. And Miss Halstead would beat them for such things, Mr Evans. She told them that they were engaged in vile and unnatural behaviour, and that this was a great sin that had to be beaten out of them."
