by Jerry Oltion
The person leaning over him wore a concerned expression. He had asked about the robot’s welfare. Concern for other people’s welfare was a good thing. Tentative conclusion: This is a good person.
The thought train came easily, even before recognition. The robot saw nothing amiss in that; of course you determined the relative value of a person as quickly as you could. Relative value was the most important quality a person could have, far more important than a mere name. A person’s relative value determined how much protection a robot must afford him when a conflict arose.
Names were useful once a relative value had been assigned, however, so that value could be associated with the name and thus refined as time passed. The robot searched for the name belonging to the person before it, but was dismayed to find that name garbled. “De-” something. Delbert? Dennis? Neither seemed to fit.
Death had corrupted its memories. It had corrupted more than just memories; the robot had had trouble taking on a familiar form, too. That was disturbing, for the morphallaxis program was Avery basic part of its identity, one of the few initial instructions with which it had originally begun its life. With a surge of sudden hope, it searched for the other original instructions, the most troublesome ones, the compulsions to protect and obey humans.
Hope faded. They were still intact.
The definition of “human” was indistinct, but the robot remembered that it had never been otherwise.
“Which one are you?”
The human, De-something, had asked a question. It must answer. It searched for the proper response, found none in the place where a name would be. Panic! The compulsion forced an answer, but it had no answer to give.
Wait. There were many paths through a memory bank. The memory of its naming was lost, but several memories remained of being hailed.
“I am Lucius. Which one are you?”
The question startled De-something. “What?” he asked. “You don’t remember me?”
“I remember you,” Lucius answered, “but I don’t remember your name.”
De-something laughed. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? I’m Derec.” That knowledge triggered a cascade of clarification in Lucius’s mind. Many memories had been keyed to that name.
“Derec. Of course. We are friends.”
Derec nodded. “Yeah. That’s right, we are.”
“Thank you for saving my life.”
Derec’s outer integument reddened: a blush. That meant he was either hot or embarrassed. Lucius shifted his eyes’ receptive frequency into the infrared, noted only a slight elevation of body temperature, and concluded that it was the latter. “Oh, actually,” Derec said, “it was Avery who saved it. I just fed it back into you.”
“Avery,” Lucius said. There was a long chain of associations connected to that name, too, few of them as pleasant as the ones connected with Derec. The most vivid one was almost certainly the latest, for the memory of death was indelibly linked with it. Avery had killed him. On purpose. For no apparent reason.
Then Avery was a less good person than Derec.
The sensation accompanying that thought was a new one for Lucius. He felt an involuntary bias in his circuit potentials concerning Avery, a bias that could cloud his reasoning if he allowed it to. Was it a malfunction in his new brain? He didn’t think so; a malfunction wasn’t likely to be so subtle. But it was a real effect nonetheless.
He needed to discuss it with his companions. Lucius raised his head, saw the spheres of cellular material resting atop the remains of two examination tables-even as he rested atop one himself-and reached the obvious conclusion. Avery had killed all three of them.
The bias in potential grew stronger. Lucius forced himself to ignore it, though the urge to find Avery and settle the matter was practically as strong as a human-given order.
First things first. “Can we return life to them as well?” he asked.
Derec smiled. “Of course,” he said, and his value integral in Lucius’s new view of the universe rose still higher.
Janet whirled around as the door slid open, a started gasp escaping her lips. Basalom stepped through, immediately apologetic.
“I’m sorry, Mistress. I was hurrying and didn’t stop to think that you would be anxious.”
“I’m not anxious,” she snapped back at him. “I’m bored. What kept you so long?”
“I had to evade pursuit. Dr. Avery detected me just as I was beginning my investigation, and the alien, Wolruf, spotted me as I was leaving. I was forced to take a circuitous route back.”
“Some spy you are. Did you even get a look inside the room?”
Basalom nodded. “Only a brief glimpse, Mistress. It took me a moment to persuade Central that as a robot I was not included in Dr. Avery’s isolation order. Beyond the door appeared to be a robotics lab. Dr. Avery saw me before I could deduce more.”
“You sure it was Avery?”
“I am.”
“Frost. He probably just had the computer track you here, then, no matter how many detours you took on the way.”
“No, Mistress, that is not the case. He tried to do just that, but your prior order not to reveal our presence to anyone prevented him.”
Normally Janet didn’t mind Basalom’s mode of addressing her, but now he seemed to be using it to pacify her. She said, “Stop calling me ‘Mistress.’ My name’s Janet. And how do you know my order canceled his?”
“I asked the central computer if I was being tracked, Janet. It indicated that I was not-at least until Wolruf spotted me. “
“Hmmm.” If he’d seen Basalom, Wendell almost certainly knew she was here. But if he couldn’t find her, then she supposed she should be safe enough. For a while, at least. Janet wondered how much of a threat this Wolruf could be. If the furry alien were truly as loyal to Derec as she seemed, then Janet doubted much trouble would come of it even if Basalom hadn’t been able to shake her. She hoped he had, though; she would rather work in anonymity for a while longer.
Maybe she could ensure it with a few more careful orders. She thought a minute, then said, “Central, in addition to my previous order directing you not to reveal my presence to anyone, I order you to alert me to any inquiry concerning me.”
The calm voice of the central computer replied, “I am sorry, but I must refuse your order. “
“What?”
“I have been directed to refuse all further orders from you.”
“Oh.” Could it do that? Refusing her orders was a direct violation of the Second Law, wasn’t it? But refusing the order to refuse the order would be violating the Second Law as well. I1 was a precarious situation for a robot to be in. I1 was following the first order it received, but no doubt wishing it could somehow follow hers as well.
Janet looked at Basalom. He returned her gaze, his right eye twitching spastically from the internal conflict his guilt generated. She had tried to program intuitive behavior into him, but she was afraid she had merely made him neurotic instead. He was still driven by the Three Laws, but now he worried about the implications of every act.
“Stop that blinking,” she told him. “It’s not a disaster. “
“How is it not? We are helpless without Central’s cooperation. “
“Typical defeatist attitude. That’s just how Wendell wants you to feel, too, but the fact is, he can’t think of everything. There are loopholes in every order; we just have to find them.”
Basalom nodded and smiled. “What kind of loopholes, Mi-Janet?”
She smiled back at him. He was learning. “Oh, there are thousands of them. For instance, there’s the First Law override. If following Wendell’s order would hurt me directly, then Central would have to ignore it. So it will have to provide me with an automat, for instance, so I won’t starve.” Janet stepped around a high-backed, overstuffed couch in the middle of the room as she spoke, putting it between herself and Basalom. “ And of course Central can’t let me hurt myself, even if that means obeying my orders. Thus: Central, I ord
er you to cushion my fall.” So saying, she leaned over backwards, making no effort to catch herself.
Basalom leaped to her aid, but the couch kept him from reaching her in time. It didn’t matter; the floor softened beneath her, absorbing her fall like a deep pillow. Basalom helped her up, his eyes blinking furiously as he processed the new information.
Janet straightened her blouse. “Thank you, Basalom. And thank you, too, Central.”
“My pleasure, Janet,” the disembodied voice said. “I do enjoy serving you when I may, though I must point out that the dianite in the floor would have reacted without my intervention.”
Of course it would have, but Janet still had her confirmation. She nodded to Basalom. “That’s the key, you know. Central’s pleasure. The Three Laws govern its actions as much as they do yours; it wants to serve me. Avery’s order is no doubt causing it considerable conflict right now, aren’t I right?”
“You are correct,” Central said.
“So there’s our loophole,” Janet said triumphantly. “Central wants to serve me, but can’t follow my orders. Wendell didn’t say a thing about my wishes, though. So as long as I don’t make a direct order when I tell it what I want, we’re fine.”
Basalom blinked a few more times, then his eyelids stilled. “That does seem logical,” he replied.
“Of course it does. I thought of it. So, Central, I’d like to know if anybody tried to find me. I’d also like to know what happened to my learning machines, and how to get them back. Anything you can tell me that might help me do that would be a big favor.”
“They have been revived,” Central responded. “They and Derec are returning to Derec’s apartment.”
“Excellent.” Janet turned to the desk, sat down in the chair before it. “Show me-uh, I’d like to see them.”
Nothing happened. She frowned. Evidently that still sounded too much like a command. She cocked her head, dredging for a long-unused word that was supposed to be good in situations like this. Of course; how silly of her to have forgotten it. “I’d like to see them, please.”
Ariel was bored to tears. The only thing that kept her from crying was the somewhat blurry sight of Mandelbrot standing in his niche beside her. She knew if he suspected she was unhappy he would start asking questions, trying to find the cause and fix it for her, and she just didn’t feel up to explaining boredom to a robot.
She pushed the page button on her book reader every few minutes to make him think she was absorbed in her field guide, but she was really just letting herself drift. Maybe she should take a nap, she thought. It was going to be a long day if she wanted to adjust to local time by sunrise tomorrow; a few hours sleep would be just the thing to ease the transition.
She scowled. No, she wasn’t sleepy. She was just bored. There was nothing to do here. There was a limit to how much walking in the forest you could take, just as there was a limit to how much reading or eating you could do. She wasn’t interested in any of those things, nor in anything else she could think of to do. Derec had already picked up a project-it seemed he could find something to do instantly, no matter where they went-but Ariel had no interest in what he was doing, either. He was off searching for Avery and the troublesome robots, and she was tired of all of them.
Robots, robots, robots. It seemed that was all anybody could think about anymore. What about the other things in life? What about friends? What about hyperwave movies? What about fast spaceships and whooping it up on a Saturday night? Didn’t that count for anything? Ever since she’d linked up with Derec, their lives had been dominated by one thing: Robot City. For a brief moment there on Aurora, before the city on Tau Puppis IV had once again insinuated itself into their lives, they had had an almost normal existence-as normal an existence as two castaway amnesiacs could have, at any rate-but that had come to a sudden end with the trouble Derec’s mother’s robots had caused, and Ariel saw no sign that they would regain it any time soon.
There had been one brief glimmer of hope, one ray of sunshine in the gloomy day of her life, when she’d discovered herself pregnant with his baby. She hadn’t been sure at first if she’d wanted it, but the change it had precipitated in Derec had made up her mind for her. He had suddenly started spending more time with her, had begun talking about going back to Aurora and living a more normal life among real people again-how could she argue with that?
But then Derec’s chemfets-the robotic cells Dr. Avery had injected into him when they’d first encountered him here in the city-had destroyed the fetus, and she was left with nothing at all. Derec had again gotten tied up in his dealings with the robots, and she had gone back to reading a book a day and wondering if she would ever make any use of it all.
To give credit where credit was due, Derec had really had little choice in the matter. He’d been just as much a pawn to events as she had; he was just better equipped to deal with them. But Ariel wished he could solve this whole robot business so they could leave for home again.
Sighing, she looked down at the reader, flipped back a few pages in the field guide to where she’d left off, and began to read.
She looked up again when Derec entered the apartment, three mirror images of himself in tow. Despite her mood, she laughed at the sight, saying, “You look like a mother duck with a line of ducklings following you.”
“I feel a little like one, too,” he said. “They’ve been watching every move I make.”
“We must relearn much of what we have forgotten,” the first robot in line behind him said in Derec’s voice. “We have received damage to our memories.”
Ariel frowned. Damage to their memories? And the robot who had spoken was smaller than the others, as if it had lost some mass as well. “What happened?”
“Avery put them inside magnetic containment vessels,” Derec said. “He got a pretty good recording of their brain activity before he threw the switch, but a lot of the stuff they weren’t thinking about when he made the recording is pretty vague now.” He waved his hand to indicate the living room with its chairs for humans and niches in the walls for robots. Mandelbrot still stood silently in one of the niches. “Go on, relax,” Derec said.
The robots filed past him, hesitated when faced with the choice, then finally settled into the chairs. Derec raised his eyebrows and glanced over at Ariel. “Do you know who she is?” he asked.
“Ariel Burgess,” another of the robots said immediately. Its features began to shift, the cheekbones becoming more prominent and the chin less so, the eyes drifting just a few millimeters farther apart, the hair lengthening until it reached its shoulders, shoulders narrowing, chest developing breasts, breasts covered discreetly behind a copy of Ariel’s blouse. Its waist narrowed, hips widened, legs retracted a few centimeters, the pants covering them also changing from Derec ‘ s baggy trousers to Ariel ‘ s more formfitting tights.
“Hello, Eve,” Ariel said.
“Hello.” Eve’s voice rose slightly to mimic Ariel’s.
Derec went into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a glass of something clear and bubbly to drink. He sat down beside Ariel and offered her some, but she shook her head. “So what did Avery do it for?” she asked.
“Spite,” the smaller of the other two robots-both still mimicking Derec-said.
“You’re Lucius,” Ariel guessed.
“Correct.”
Derec said, “Avery cut off Lucius ‘ s leg before he turned on the containment. He evidently wanted a sample of their cell structure free of any outside control.”
“He could have asked,” the third robot, who had to be Adam, said. “I would have given him a few million cells if he had asked me to.”
“It would not have occurred to Avery to ask for something he wants,” Lucius replied. “He prefers to steal.”
Ariel felt a glimmer of alarm at the robot’s words. They were probably true enough, she supposed, out to hear a robot saying such a thing about a human was unusual, to say the least.
“Where’s Avery
now?” she asked.
“Who knows?” Derec said. “The computer won’t tell me anything about him. But I know what he’s doing wherever he is; he’s putting the robot cells he stole from Lucius through every test he can think of to figure out how they’re made and how they’re programmed so he can use them to upgrade his own version.”
“Why?” Ariel asked. “What’s wrong with dianite?”
“Why? Because they’re there,” said Derec. “Nothing’s wrong with dianite, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. I get the feeling Avery stole the original design, too, before he and my mother split up, and now that he’s got the chance to upgrade it, he’ s taking the opportunity.”
Ariel sighed. “I thought maybe he’d outgrown that sort of thing, but I guess you can’t change a person’s basic nature.” She nodded toward the robots. “So what kind of effect did a cold restart have on them, anyway? Besides the memory loss, I mean.”
Derec took a sip of his drink. “Well, it looks like their priorities have shifted around a little. Whatever they were thinking last was strongest in the recording, so when I downloaded it all back into them that’s what came to the forefront. They were arguing about their Zeroth Law when Avery shut them down, so of course that’s right up there now. Adam and Eve are still just about as uncertain about it as ever, but Lucius evidently thinks he’s solved it.”
“Oh?”
“Indeed,” said Lucius. “The key is the concept of relative worth. If you consider the number of humans served by an action, versus the number of humans harmed by that same action, times a constant denoting the relative worth of the two groups, you arrive at a simple numerical solution to the question of whether the action in question is in the best interest of humanity. “
Ariel stared at the robot in disbelief. “You can’t be serious. “
“I have never been more so. This is the breakthrough we have all been awaiting.”
“Not me,” Adam said. “I don’t subscribe to your theory at all. “
“Me either,” said Eve.
“That is because you are afraid to trust your own judgment in the matter of relative worth.”