The Pilgrims of Rayne Read Online Free Page A

slow three-sixty, her eyes wide with wonder.
    â€œDon’t forget to breathe,” I cautioned.
    â€œUnbelievable,” she gasped.
    I’m relieved to say that Third Earth looked pretty much the same as I remembered. Gone was the crowded city of cement that was the Bronx of Second Earth. In its place was a vast parklike meadow. The air smelled sweet, with the faint hint of pine. I saw several green kiosks scattered about, marking other entrances to the underground city. Not too far away were the low, boxy buildings where some people still lived aboveground. The winding roads were there, with quiet electric cars gently moving along their way. People still rode bicycles.
    Courtney took a few steps away from me to soak it all in. I followed, in awe of what Earth had become, yet nervous about how the dados might have changed the equation.
    â€œPeople finally got it right,” she exclaimed. “No pollution. Respect for the environment. No overcrowding. No wars—”
    â€œAnd a bunch of robots to do the grunt work,” I added.
    â€œYeah, that.”
    In the distance I could make out the few remaining buildings of Manhattan, including the Empire State Building, which now had a shiny steel coat of silver. It seemed like nothing was different about Third Earth.
    Except for the dados.
    They were everywhere. Some repaired a section of roadway. Others were mowing the acres of beautifully kept grass. I saw a team of dados putting a fresh coat of blue paint on a footbridge that spanned one of the winding streams. A silent delivery truck cruised by with a dado at the wheel. One of the squat apartment buildings had several dados clambering on the outside walls, washing windows. None of the activity was strange, except that all the workers looked the exact same. Most wore deep red coveralls, but some had uniforms that designated a particular job, like the crossing guard who stood inthe road to halt traffic, allowing a group of giggling kids to run across. That guy wore a white sash, like the safety-patrol kids in my grammar school. The dado driving the delivery truck also wore a uniform that looked like the UPS guys wear. After all those years, the UPS guys still wore brown uniforms.
    All the dados seemed to be men, though with a robot there’s no such thing as sex. At least I don’t think there is. Let’s not go there. They all had the exact same perfect haircut: short and dark, parted in the middle. They were exactly the same size, too. I’m guessing about six feet tall with medium builds. The odd part was they all had the same face. I mean, exactly the same face. It wasn’t the same face as the dados on Quillan, but they were definitely all the same.
    â€œWhy would they make them all look alike?” Courtney asked.
    â€œI’m thinking if they didn’t, you’d never be able to tell them apart from real humans.”
    Courtney did a quick look around at the dados and nodded. “Really. Put a mustache on one of those dudes and he’d disappear into a crowd. How creepy is that?”
    â€œCreepy” was the word. I didn’t get it right away, but there was something about these dados that gave me the heebies. I mean, beyond the fact that they were even there. There was something about them that felt a little off. I kept staring, trying to focus on what it might be. It was right there, but I couldn’t grab on to it. They looked way more like real people than the robots of Quillan. When you watched those robots closely, you could tell their movements were stiff and almost too perfect. That was the difference. The dados of Quillan moved too perfectly. Real people don’t move perfectly. The dados of Third Earth didn’t move perfectly either. They seemed every bit as human as Courtney and I. If I had seenonly one, I never would have guessed it was a dado. But seeing hundreds of exact replicas, well, that pretty much screamed robot to me. Was that it? Was I