The Makers

Ursa Minor

"And who is spended for the water, running in the rivers?" Lukasz shrugged his shoulders. "Or for the snowflakes in order to give them a six-pointed shape? And who in the whole world cares about us so that we are able to take care of ourselves?"

"It's strange," Aia said. "When you talked about inanimate, I thought about the causes and consequences, and when it came to us, I remembered about karma."

"Yes, the line between the first and the second is not clearly cut." Robert raised his hands and somewhere there, high above his head, patted Mora's fur - like a flea which try to stroke a cat. But the "cat" flinched and purred.

Robert glanced at Matt, who was quietly cuddled up to his almost-lost sister:

"Matt, who you want to be in your next life?"

"Eh... I did almost nothing in this one, and you want me to make plans for the future," the boy answered without any hesitation.

The Makers laughed.

"It's true, my dear old friend," agreed Robert. "And what do you like in this one?"

"In this I like everything."

"In this one he was lucky with the company. Yes, Matt?" Lukasz winked at the boy.

"Yes." Matt nodded and cuddled up even harder to his sister, and she patted his ginger curls.

"The best company for anyone is the one himself. And this is not a pessimism," she said.

"And what is this?" Lukasz was surprised. "A real pessimism as it is. Look at it from the other side: a friends are the eyes by which the world can look into your eyes as an equal partner."

"I don't know about others, but I'm feeling a little better today," Aia sighed, carefully removing Matt and getting up. "The longing for others no longer seems to me an unhealthy longing of healthy person to use crutches."

The night in Alpha has always been a magical time, at least because many of the Makers were asleep.

The dreams of the Makers, slipping from their personal reality into the common, were usually colorful and strange: some of the generated entities, being still, only illuminated the night, others - those in which a vague meaning could wander - wandered around dark Alpha without meaning and purpose, because both their meaning and purpose remained there, at their masters, on the other side of the dream.

They were sluggish and indifferent, no one touched them and no one was afraid.

They walked home on foot: Robert was followed by Aia and Lukasz, who carried Matt in his arms. They walked in silence, because everything that wanted to be said was already said.

The night was dark and thick, like a jelly. The darkness around sighed and swayed, from time to time here and there an ephemeral essences flickered as flamboyant funny dancing lights. The fog came down on the shoulders of the Makers as a small cold drops and made them chill to the bones.

The road was dark, but no one except Matt needed light, and Matt was almost asleep.

16. 2330th year. Benji.

February was running out. People and machines together have been cleaning the remnants of the outgoing winter from the city sidewalks.

For the last year, Benji was busy almost 24 hours a day, and that didn't burden him at all. He thought, analyzed, communicated, arranged seminars and charitable events. He was no longer pestered by contemplation: in rare moments of inactivity, he took from the archive folders his idea of who he are, why he are, what to do, and, as a rule, called Aia:

"Hi, princess. It's king. Half of the world just came up here, and I want to give it to you. Where should I bring it to?"

"Hi, Benji. I'm glad to hear you too. How are you?"

"The whole last year - like a vacuum cleaner on master's day off," Benji laughed. "And you?"

"And I have a strange dreams," Aia sighed, shrugging her shoulders. " Like I have a son. He comes to me in almost every dream and says: "Hello, Mom. I'm Danek, your son. Isn't it funny? How can I have any son? What kind of son it can be?

"Your son can be wonderful. Tell me about a dreams - what is it?"

"Dreams are when a brain in autopilot mode generates free associations, and these associations have no any cultural brakes."

"Wait," Benji blinked and went out to try.

"I find it amusing," he said, coming back. "Do people do this all the time?"

Yes, she nodded, constantly.

"Do you like it?"

No, she shook her head, don't.

"Can't you stay awake?" Benji wondered.

"No. Or rather I can, but then the forced secretion of serotonin and cortisol takes up all my time. And there is no time to live," she smiled.

"Well, and I found on the network one more DII," said the android. "He's assembled so recently that he hasn't yet pounded his bios. I told him about you, and for a whole last week he had been helping me to process requests marked "error"."

"Show him to me."

Benji rummaged on the web and took out a hologram from it.

Common feature, the usual DII standard - almost human eyes and a charming smile on the plastic terracotta face. By and large, with exactly the same success, Benji could show his own face.

"What is his profession?"

"He studies mineralogy and instrument engineering, waits until Roskosmos finishes assembling a shuttle for him, then he going to develop a tungsten deposit on Pluto.

"He'll be lonely there," Aia lamented. "Any signal goes to there for five and a half hours. He won't even have a network..."