Dex gave her a grateful look. They knew that she knew that Dex usually wanted a minute to sit and catch their breath before getting swept up in the family melee once more. “Yeah, we’re good out here,” they said with a smile.
Their mom nodded. “Okay, monsters,” she said with a clap of her hands, getting the kids’ attention. “We’ve got a million potatoes to scrub; let’s go.”
There were a few protests, but the pack obeyed, following Dex’s mom back inside and leaving them in peace.
“In-credible,” Mosscap said in a hush. It looked Charlotte up and down with unbridled astonishment. She continued to giggle, until the split second in which she didn’t anymore, and instead began to kick and fuss. Mosscap became distraught. “What have I done?”
“Nothing,” Dex said. “Babies just do that when they want something.”
“What does she want?”
Dex watched the baby’s pudgy feet flail against the air. “I think she wants to be put down.”
Mosscap looked at Dex. “You don’t know for sure?”
“Well, no, she can’t tell me,” Dex said. “You just have to guess.”
“What happens if you get it wrong?”
“Then she’ll cry, and we try something else.”
With devoted concentration, Mosscap crouched down and began to lower Charlotte toward the deck, feet first.
“Oh, no,” Dex said, holding out a halting hand. “She’s too little to stand. You need to set her down on her belly, so that her hands are on the ground too.”
“Oh,” Mosscap said. The robot adjusted the angle of its hands, lowering the baby down as though she were made of glass. It let go of her, ever so slowly.
At once, Charlotte stopped her fussing. With a happy coo, she began to scoot forward on all fours.
Mosscap laughed with surprise. “She’s crawling!”
“Yeah,” Dex said dryly, eyebrows raised with amusement. “They do that.”
“All infant humans do this?”
“If they’ve got a typical body, then yeah.”
Mosscap pointed at the baby. “Did you do this?”
“So I’m told.”
“You don’t remember?” Mosscap asked.
Dex laughed. “You might want to pick up a book on babies. We don’t remember the first few years of our lives.”
Mosscap stared at this. “Whyever not?”
“I…” Dex paused. “I don’t know. Our brains just … don’t save that stuff. I don’t know if it’s because they physically can’t or … I dunno.” They gestured at the house. “You should ask someone in there.”
Mosscap continued to watch Charlotte crawl around the deck, headed no direction in particular. “You don’t still ambulate this way, right?”
One of Dex’s eyebrows traveled higher. “Have you ever seen me crawl, Mosscap?”
“No,” Mosscap said. “But could you?”
“Uh, yeah, I can crawl.”
Mosscap looked at Dex with brightly glowing eyes. “Would you?”
“What, now? No.”
The robot was a bit disappointed by this but did not press the issue. It sat down on the deck, watching the infant who apparently had places to be. “If what you say is true, then … she won’t remember me. She won’t remember this moment.”
“I’m afraid not,” Dex said. “But we’ll tell her about it, when she’s older.”
A dejected note slipped into Mosscap’s voice. “How very sad,” it said. “This is already quite important to me.”
“Here,” Dex said, reaching into their pocket and retrieving their computer. “Pick her back up. I’ll take a picture of you two so I can show her one day.”
“Oh, what a good idea,” Mosscap said. It began to reach toward Charlotte, then paused. “Does she want to be picked back up?”
“We’ll find out,” Dex said.
Charlotte, as it turned out, did not mind. She reached for Mosscap’s face again, trying in vain to grab its glowing lenses.
“You’ll make sure she gets a copy?” Mosscap confirmed, unbothered by the grubby fingers slamming against its eyes. “So that when she starts making memories, she’ll know we’re already friends?”
Dex smiled. “Yeah,” they said. They switched on the computer’s camera and aimed. “I’ll make sure.”
* * *