“No.”
“This is crazy.”
“On the contrary, it is fundamentally logical,” Analyst 17 said. “If we protect you, you will almost certainly die, which we cannot allow. If we fail to protect you, you may survive, but you will be placed in grave danger, which we cannot allow.”
Derec looked from Monitor 5 to the Analyst in disbelief, then back again. “So whatare you going to do with me?”
“Nothing,” Monitor 5 said. “No action is possible. If we help you to escape, we will be placing you in danger. But if we prevent your escape, we will also be placing you in danger.”
Derec was starting to get lost in the convolutions of the conversation. “Is that what you want me to do? Escape?”
The robot hesitated. “We want you to remain safe and unharmed.”
It seemed as though the robot were tiptoeing through a logical minefield. “What if I do leave?”
“When we discover that you are gone, we will have to pursue you.” It hesitated again. “However, until you are returned to our care the remainder of the community will be free to pursue the next highest priority directive.”
“In other words, if I escape, the First Law is no longer a factor. You can go ahead and destroy yourselves in good conscience.”
“That is essentially correct,” said Analyst 17, “though I must warn you there is a danger if you continue to discuss it.”
Derec ignored the warning. “Escape to where?”
“We cannot consider that question,” Monitor 5 said.
“Well, I can, and I don’t like the answer!” Derec snapped. “I’ll tell you what I intend to do-as soon as that ship is close enough to pick up the signal from a suit transmitter, I’m getting into one of those augments over there and going up to the surface to ask them to save me from you.”
“We could not allow that.”
“So what am I supposed to do? Go wander around on the surface until my air runs out? This is nuts. How can you even ask me to do such a thing?”
“Derec, I must repeat, there is a danger-,” Analyst 17 began.
“We have not asked you to do anything,” Monitor 5 said. “We have simply outlined for you the consequences of actions you may choose to take.”
“You may not be asking, but you’re dropping some loud hints,” Derec said. “You’re telling me that if I want to go kill myself, you’ll look the other way. I don’t understand how this whole conversation can even be taking place. What’s wrong with all of you?”
Monitor 5 answered. “I am following a highly conditional logic path proposed by Analyst 17-”
“So that’s why he’s really here.”
“-in which the uncertainty of your fate is modified by your own volitional acts to a positive value weighed against the high probability of harm due to inaction.”
“In other words, you talked yourself into it,” Derec said. “Well, you haven’t talked me into it. Your prime objective and your security don’t mean a thing to me. Do you think it’s important to me if you can’t destroy yourselves? I don’t care if that ship belongs to your worst enemy.
“In fact, I’m beginning to think that if they’re your enemy, that makes them my friend. I’m not going anywhere. And I’m sure as hell not going to go kill myself to get you off the hook.”
The robots were apparently not willing to let it go at that. When Derec left Level Zero, Analyst 17 followed. It took a different lift, and when they reached the warehouse level, it studiously trailed several steps behind him. But there was no question that he was under surveillance.
It did not make sense that immediately after asking him to escape, the robots would set a bloodhound to dog his heels. But since he had no intention of doing what the robots wanted, it hardly mattered if he understood. He could safely ignore his shadow.
The warehouse was still a hive of chaotic activity, and Derec retreated from it to the quiet of the E-cell. He thought Analyst 17 might content itself to watch and wait outside, since the cell had only one exit. But the robot came inside as well, and when Derec entered the wardroom, it followed him in and took a seat at the opposite end of the conference table.
At first, however, Derec barely noticed the robot’s entry. The video from a sky camera somewhere on the surface was being displayed on the com center screen. It showed a small, distant orange sun and a field of dim stars in which Derec saw no immediately recognizable patterns. A dark backlit hulk was moving across the star background, growing perceptibly larger as it closed on the asteroid. It was still too far away to show a distinctive profile, but it was clearly a massive spaceship of some kind.
“More propaganda?” Derec asked.
“The Analysts agreed that you have a right to know the source and current status of the threat.”
“Do you think I’m going to see that thing up there and panic? It won’t work. This isn’t much, but it’s home. I’m not leaving.”
The robot made no reply, and remained silent while Derec went to the autogalley and assembled a lunch. When he came back with it and sat down, he soon became painfully conscious of the robot patiently watching him.
“Whose side are you on, anyway?” Derec asked between mouthfuls.
“Clarify.”
“What are you doing here? I thought you wanted me to skip out. But I couldn’t make a move without you knowing about it.”
“Your conversation with Monitor 5 forced him into recognizing a First Law conflict.”
“You mean his little self-deception fell apart?”
“Monitor 5 is now deeply concerned that you may attempt to escape and harm yourself in the process or as a consequence. To relieve that potential and allow Monitor 5 to return to his duties, I offered to watch you.”
“What about you? Did I make your logic bomb blow up, too?”
“No.”
“So you’re not here to stop me,” Derec said, pushing his plate away. “You’re here to make sure no one else stops me.”
“Your observations are irrelevant to the situation. You have stated your intention to remain in our care.”
“Right.” Derec glanced up at the screen. The ship was still a dark shape without texture, but it now filled fully a third of the frame. “But I still think you expect me to start getting worried and make a move. Well, to show you just how worried I am, I’m going to go in the other room to take a nap,” Derec said, standing. “If you decide to come along, all I ask is that you pick out your own bunk. There isn’t room in mine for two.”
Chapter 6. A Rock And A Hard Place
Analyst 17 did not follow, and Derec did not nap. He lay on his bunk and stared at the ceiling, trying to regain perspective.
The robots’ predicament was real and substantial. It was not only the matter of being frustrated in their attempt to fulfill their Second Law obligations to their master. They were tiptoeing along the edge of a First Law chasm, a paradox capable of paralyzing not only individual robots, but the entire community. He was their first obligation, and yet there was nothing they could do for him but beg him to save himself.
If it were not so serious, it would be laughable. It was as though a person suffering from hiccups had asked a friend, “Please surprise me.” How could he catch the robots off guard, even with Analyst 17’s collaboration?
On top of which, the whole idea of escaping was absurd. Without help from the robots, he couldn’t possibly reassemble the pod before the ship arrived. And even if he could, there was no way it could run from the approaching ship.
If he continued to think of both the robots and the strangers as enemies, there were no solutions to the equation. Only by assuming that the strangers were coming to help him, or would be willing to help him even if they had other purposes there, could he envision a way out. He could wait until the ship was in orbit, then go to the surface in an augment and radio to them for help.
Just then the bunk shuddered under him, and he sat bolt upright. He thought for a moment that he hadn’t felt it, or experien
ced the sudden start which sometimes comes just before dozing off. But then another tremor shook the room, and he could no longer think it was an illusion. He jumped to his feet and ran across to the wardroom.
Analyst 17 was still sitting there as Derec had left him. “What’s happening?” Derec demanded.
“We are under attack,” the robot said, gesturing toward the com center.
Derec stared at the screen. The ship had tacked to a position where half of its sunward side was visible, allowing Derec to see details for the first time. What he saw confused him. The ship seemed to have been not designed, but collected. It looked more like a space junkyard than a dangerous raider. But raider it was.
Just in the part Derec could see clearly, there were eleven distinct hulls, as well as a tangled matrix of connecting structures. There were ships old enough to be in a museum and others new enough to be a shipwright’s showpiece. Sleek transatmospheric profiles nestled against the cylinders and grips of deep-space haulers. All across the mass of the ship, small red and orange lights were blinking on and off.
“Who are they?” Derec whispered.
“Unknown.”
“Well, didn’t they hail us? What do they want?”
“There was no signal on any frequency commonly used for communication.”
Derec felt another vibration through the floor. “What kind of weapons are they using?”
“The ship’s armament appears to consist primarily of phased microwave lasers.”
“And what do we have to fight back?”
“The community has no weapons.”
“What?” Derec demanded.
The robot’s answer was patient and calm. “It is highly probable that the ship contains humans. We would not be permitted to use weapons against them.”
Derec stared at the robot, then at the screen. Unlike in careless fictions, there were no stabbing beams of brilliant light to betray the energies pouring down from the radar ship. There were only the winking lights, and the ground moving under Derec’s feet. “Are we in danger?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“The ship began its attack in the area of our only permanent surface installation, the antenna farm located 170 degrees east of the primary shaft-”
“These vibrations we’re feeling are from that far away?”
“Yes. The primary assault was successful and communications are out. A number of tunnels in the region have apparently collapsed. Firing pattern now appears to be random. The ship is currently in a nearly synchronous orbit with a slippage of two degrees per minute.”
“So in less than ninety minutes they’ll be overhead.”
“That is correct.”
It was obvious to Derec that he could wait no longer to act. If the ship breached the complex’s pressure envelope while he was still in the E-cell, he would never get out. The breathers couldn’t keep him alive in a vacuum.
And there was another danger, just as acute-that the power would be interrupted or the lifts disabled, and he would be trapped on the warehouse level. Even in low gravity he did not think he could climb up a lift shaft by hand.
Not that running about on the surface in an augment was as attractive a proposition as it had been a short time ago. The chances were that he would be taken not for a prisoner trying to escape but for an enemy to be destroyed. Even so, dying buried in the icy heart of the asteroid was infinitely less appealing than dying out in the open.
“This logic path that you devised-am I correct in thinking that you and Monitor 5 are the only Supervisors who were able to follow it without hitting a First Law conflict?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Why you?”
“My experience with human beings has provided me with a more sophisticated perspective on their nature and behavior.”
“You’ve had contact with other humans? Besides me?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I am not permitted to say,”
Dead end. “Are the other robots even aware of what you asked me to try to do?”
“No.”
“How were you going to destroy the complex?”
“The material used to line all the tunnel walls contains an explosive. Once all the other Supervisors have been destroyed, the last Monitor and Analyst will together transmit the trigger signal. The resulting explosion should cause the entire excavated portion of the asteroid to subside.”
“I see,” Derec said. Great, he thought to himself. If I stay in the complex, the raiders will bring it down on my head. If I leave, the robots will blow it up under my feet.
Unless-
Unless there was some way to get off the surface, some source of thrust adequate to give him and his augment escape velocity. Considering the weakness of the asteroid’s gravity, escape velocity did not amount to much. He could probably put a ball in orbit just by throwing it as hard as he could. The leg servos of the augmented suit were likely powerful enough to permit him to literally jump clear.
Unfortunately, the safety regs on augment design required governors on the leg servos to prevent someone from trying exactly that. But what engineers had joined together, tinkerers could tear asunder-
At that moment, a bright flare seemed to appear on the body of the ship, and an instant later the energy beam burned out the eyes of the camera unit relaying the picture. Another camera some distance away took over, and the low angle at which it was focused showed not only the ship but the bilious clouds boiling off the surface where its weapons were trained.
The sight spurred Derec to action. “There doesn’t seem to be any escape for any of us,” he lied, wearing his best look of resignation. “I guess there’s nothing else for me to do but go prepare to die. I would be grateful if you could grant me privacy while I carry out the appropriate rituals.”
The lie passed. “I do not fully understand the purpose of such rituals,” the robot said, “but I will respect your privacy.”
Derec did not need long to put his rapidly developing plan in motion. Returning to his cabin, he swept up the pillows off two of the bunks, then ran to the airlock with them cradled in his arms.
“Open.”
The sound of the inner seal opening brought Analyst 17 out of the wardroom, but by then it was too late. Derec stepped inside the lock, and the door closed behind him.
“Cycle,” he said, fumbling with the straps of a breather.
When the outer door opened, he draped the pillows over the bottom sill of the hatch and then stepped out over them. Just as Derec had expected, the pillows kept the outer door from sealing, interrupting the cycle and imprisoning the robot inside. He did not know how long it would hold, whether there was some way for the robot to override the lock system, and he did not wait around to find out.
The line at the smelter included Supervisors, but they took no notice of him as he passed by. He rode the lift up to Level Zero, where he discovered that Monitor 5 had been busy taking precautions against his return. Two of the augments were missing, vanished as though they had never been there. The third was wedged against the wall by one of the tracked carriers, which in turn was barricaded in place by a four-legged auger unit.
He did not think the suit was damaged-tampering with safety equipment would almost certainly invoke the First Law-but it was going to take a little getting to. And part of the problem would be Monitor 5. The robot was seated at the console when Derec arrived, and rose and started for Derec the moment he stepped off the lift and placed it on standby.
Their paths intersected when Derec was a few meters short of the carrier. “The surface is a restricted area,” the robot said.
“I know that,” Derec said, circling and staying out of reach of the robot’s hands. “This equipment is improperly stored. I’m going to take care of it.”
But Monitor 5 was not going to be put off that easily.
“You may not leave. You are in no danger here,” it said, reaching for him.
D
erec backed away and scrambled up the steps into the enclosed operator’s station. “Wrong. If I stay here, I’ll be killed when the ship destroys the station.”
“We will protect you.”
Derec wasted no time or breath arguing the point. “You can’t even protect yourselves,” he said, and slammed and locked the door.
The operator’s interface was standard, and the functions of those few controls which weren’t were clear at a glance. He touched the power switch, and the display came alive with information on the vehicle’s status. The most important item was near the bottom:
POWER CELL…100,000 Kw… OK
The robot was politely knocking on the window and trying to attract Derec’s attention, but Derec ignored it. With a touch on one of two small joysticks in the armrest at his right hand, Derec unshipped the small crane which lay crosswise behind the control cab.
Since the controls had been designed primarily for robots with their fine motor control, Derec found them a little touchy. But the crane was semi-automatic, so when he had managed to swing the boom out over the backend of the carrier and bring the auger in range of the crane’s camera, all he had to do was say, “Pick it up.” The crane handled the rest.
Monitor 5 seemed slow to realize what was happening. Derec couldn’t decide if that was because it was still experiencing some internal conflict, or if he was just seeing the difference between a Monitor and an Analyst. But when Derec lifted the auger off the floor of the chamber and began to swing it out of the way, the robot suddenly became agitated.
“Analyst 17 was in error,” it said, grasping the door latch and shaking violently. “Derec-you cannot escape. You cannot leave. I am required to protect you. I am responsible.”
Saying nothing, Derec used the dangling mass of the auger to brush the robot away from the side of the carrier and back it toward the wall. The robot’s protestations went up in volume, but Derec did not stop until he had gently pinned the robot against the wall ten meters to the left of where it had done the same to the augment.
“Reverse slow,” Derec said, and the carrier crawled away from the wall. “Stop. Standby.”
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