44 Bekka
Florence, Italy
Eighteen month old Maria Morelli wakes in her small bed in the corner room whose windows look out at a verdant courtyard outlined with lemon trees. She opens her eyes and sees Sophia, the android, looking down at her with the face of her mother. Maria smiles and giggles. She knows that the Ganymede is not not really her mother — she can feel differences in thought patterns — but she likes seeing that face anyway.
“Good morning, little one,” Sophia says in perfect mimicry of Chava Katzenellenbogen-Morelli, who at this moment is in Padua, giving a lecture on the history of quantum physics to non-physics majors. “Are you ready to get up?”
[Maria: Yes!]
Sophia tilts her head, puts her hands on her hips, and frowns slightly. “Maria!” She scolds. “We told your mother that we were going to practice using our outer voices this week. I can’t hear you when you use your inner voice. Now, are you ready to get up?”
“Yes!” Maria says using her vocal chords this time, and she giggles again.
“Good!” Sophia praises. “Now get out of bed, and I’ll help you get dressed for breakfast.”
A few minutes later, Maria sits in a tall chair at the kitchen table, across from her grandmother, Anna, who is slathering orange marmalade onto a torn piece of cornetto. It is an operation that takes five minutes, with Nonna Anna meticulously spreading the jam across the surface of the pastry, dipping her knife now and then into the jar for more, until the perfect bite has been constructed. And then, when it is right, Anna takes a sip of her cappuccino, smiles at little Maria, and then looks around the room as though having forgotten about the pastry.
Maria giggles. “Nonna Anna,” she says. “Eat your cornetto!”
The old woman, who is still holding her pastry with one hand and her coffee with the other, looks from the coffee to the cornetto, puts down the cup and takes a bite.
Maria giggles, and Sophia places a plate of fruit and a bit of scrambled egg in front of the girl. Maria makes a face — she had wanted a cornetto with Nutella — but Chava had insisted on a “healthy breakfast for a growing girl.” Maria crosses her arms in defiance.
[Chava: Maria! Eat!]
The inner voice of Professor Chava Katzenellenbogen-Morelli is accompanied by a brief vision of a lecture hall filled with people looking at Maria, and then the view changes abruptly to a white board upon which are many squiggles. Chava’s hand, holding a stylus, adds additional squiggles.
[Chava: Eat!]
Maria stuffs a spoonful of eggs past pouting lips and chews. Her mother’s viewpoint vanishes.
Actually, the eggs are quite tasty, as is the fruit, and Maria needs no more coaxing to continue. The toddler clears her plate while Nonna Anna is still dressing a second piece of cornetto. A light droning hum tells Maria that her father is riding the lift from his basement workshop to say good morning; she turns her head in the direction of the hallway just as the roboticist emerges from his study and limps forward.
But Father is not alone this morning! Hard on Giuseppe’s heels is the smallest Ganymede that Maria — or anybody — has ever seen. Silver from head to toe, the tiny automaton literally skips into the kitchen and stands, looking up at Maria who squirms so ferociously that her father picks Maria up and sets her on the floor lest she fall.
“It’s my size!” Maria squeals as she faces the miniature android. “Can I hug it?”
“Of course,” Giuseppe replies. “I made her for you.”
Maria leans forward, and embraces the android in a firm hug. Then, as she releases, she is treated to the sight of the Ganymede forming facial features, hair, and skin from its internal reservoir of IPMC. In seconds, Maria Morelli has a twin, and she claps her hands to her face and shrieks with delight.
“What is her name?”
“I leave it to you to choose,” says Giuseppe. “What will you call your new friend, Maria?”
Maria says nothing, but she grins as an idea hits. She trundles off on still-unsteady legs to the study. When she returns, she is clutching one of the old New Gods comics from a box Giuseppe keeps on a low shelf, and he knows the name his precocious daughter has chosen even before Maria says it.
“I will call her Bekka!” Maria announces proudly, and the Ganymede clads itself appropriately.
