by Jerry Oltion
“I came to discuss terms,” Avery said. “You have me over a barrel with your damned patent and you know it. You said you didn’t like what I’m doing with my cities. All right, what do you want?”
Derec hadn’t heard about any patent, but he knew immediately what had to have happened. Janet had patented dianite when she’d left home, or else Avery in his megalomania had neglected to do it later and she had done so more recently. Either way it added up to the same thing: Avery couldn’t use the material anywhere in the Spacer-controlled section of the galaxy, or use the profit from sales to outside colonies, for fifty years.
Janet didn’t gloat. Derec Was grateful for that. She merely said, “We were just discussing that. Ariel and Wolruf just brought up an intriguing problem, but we think we may have solved it. Why don’t we run it past you and see what you think?”
“I know already what I’m going to think,” Avery said. He folded his good arm over his injured one, which brought the medical robot a step closer, checking to make sure he hadn’t bumped any of the regenerator settings. “Back off,” he told it, and it stepped back again, but its gaze never left his arm.
Derec could see him counting to a high imaginary number, but when he spoke it was only to say, “Give me a chair here.”
The floor mounded up and flattened out into a cushiony seat, grew a back and padded sides, and moved up to bump softly into the back of his legs. Avery sat and leaned back, resting his left arm on his leg. “Let’s hear it,” he said.
Janet mentioned casually that she would like a chair for herself, and after it formed she sat and began explaining about capricious city behavior and the Zeroth Law and moral dilemmas with large and small factions on either side of the issue. Derec and Ariel and Wolruf soon joined in, and the topic shifted to their concerns.
“I worry about w’at introducing robots will do to life back ‘orne,” Wolruf said. “We ‘ave a fairly complex system. We ‘ave four separate species on two planets, all interdependent. W’at’s good for one is usually not so good for another in the short term, but in the long term we need each other.”
“Even the Erani?” Avery asked. Aranimas had been Erani, one of the four races Wolruf spoke about.
Wolruf nodded. She seemed surprised to have Avery listening to her so intently. “Erani ‘ave their place. They keep Narwe for slaves, and sometimes us, but without Erani, Narwe would probably starve. They’re ‘ardly more than intelligent sheep. “
“ And your own people have a trading empire, don’t they?” Ariel asked.
“ ‘at’s right. Once robots start making everything everyone needs, our economy will collapse.”
“But those same robots will provide anything you want. Let it collapse! “
“ ‘Aving everything done for us wouldn’t be ‘ealthy,” Wolruf said.
“That’s right,” said Ariel. “If everybody started doing everything the easy way, it would wipe out their individuality. All four cultures would decline. That’s what I’m worried about, that robot cities are eventually going to make every civilization in the galaxy the same. “
“Wait a minute. I’m supposed to worry about homogenizing the galaxy? That’s not my problem!”
“You’re right, it’s not,” Janet said. “That’s because I’ve solved it for you already.” She explained about providing each city with a positronic mayor, one who would have the best interest of all its inhabitants at heart. Including the long-term effects of having too much done for them.
“So in Wolruf’s situation, we’d use four learning machines, one for each species. Let them learn the separate mores of each culture, and then have them get together and coordinate their work so they wouldn’t step on each other’s toes.”
Derec watched his father watching his mother as she spoke. Avery’s jaw seemed to be dropping lower and lower with each word, until when she finally stopped, his mouth was hanging open in astonishment. He closed it just long enough to take a breath, then bellowed out a laugh that shook the walls.
“Oh, that’s rich,” he said when he could talk again. “I can’t believe it. I wouldn’t inflict these…these walking conglomerations of simulated neuroses on my worst enemies, and you talk about giving them to paying customers?”
“I do indeed,” Janet said. “Obviously, the final version will need to have the Zeroth Law programmed in from the start, but now that these three-excuse me-these four, “ with a nod to Mandelbrot, “have already worked it out, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. “
“My God,” Avery said. “You really mean it, don’t you? You’d provide every city with a mechanical dictator who’s capable of slicing off a man’s hand just for shooting a robot.”
“I was protecting a being whose humanity is still not clear,” Lucius said, and Derec, hearing the emotion behind his words, suddenly realized that Lucius would be trying to solve that problem for the rest of his life, however many millennia that might be.
And thus are obsessions generated,he thought.
Avery waved his free hand expansively. “Oh, right, well, that makes it okay. It might have been human, after all.” To Janet he said, “Sorry, I’m not buying it. I’d rather do nothing at all than be part of your ridiculous scheme.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” Janet’s tone of voice was a little too glib, her mouth just hinting toward a smile as she spoke.
“What?” Avery demanded. “I know that tone, woman! How many other nasty little surprises do you have in store for me?”
Janet was grinning openly now. “Just one,” she said. “Just one more.”
Chapter 9. The Final Accounting
They had to postpone the landing while a heavy rain washed over the jungle around the Compass Tower, but as far as Ariel was concerned, that was just as well. The longer she could delay the inevitable, the better she liked it. And besides, the storm had left a wonderful aroma of rain and ozone in the air, and the complete double rainbow arching over the deep green forest canopy below was one of the prettiest things she had seen in weeks. It almost made being here worth it.
A fitful breeze played around the welcoming committee on the roof of the tower, tousling hair that had been meticulously brushed only moments before. Ariel watched three hands on three different people automatically rise to groom their owners’ stray locks back into place. Belatedly she added a fourth to the tally; she couldn’t suppress the urge either. Only Wolruf seemed to be immune to concern over the position of her hair. Perhaps it was because she had so much of it.
Everyone had dressed for a party. Derec looked handsome in his yellow, blue, green, and orange tie-died suit, currently the rage on twenty planets. Janet wore a voluminous black and gold dress that billowed and flapped in great folds around her, and even Avery had foregone his usual austere jacket and tie for a pair of flamboyant fuchsia slant-stripe pants, a turquoise shirt, metallic silver suspenders, and a lilac jacket with epaulets. Ariel herself wore a skintight body suit in black with cutouts that should have shamed a mannequin, but she still wondered if she was underdressed.
Wolruf’s concession to fashion was a single yellow bandana tied around her left wrist and a gold stud in the opposite ear.
Ariel became aware of a soft tearing noise wavering in and out of audibility. It sounded as if it were coming from behind her. She turned around and held her hand to her forehead to shield out the sun, and presently she saw a silvery speck just above and to the right, lowering steadily. The spaceship drifted left, its engines growing louder as it drew nearer, and crossed into the sun’s disk. Ariel looked down, blinking, while the noise grew louder, louder, almost unbearably loud, then softer.
She looked to the open expanse of tower surface, but the ship hadn’t landed. It had passed over instead. Ariel turned around and watched as it dropped down below the level of the tower, dipped beneath the rainbow, and banked around to come in for a landing.
“Cute,” she muttered.
In a way she was glad for the gesture; it proved that noth
ing had changed. The pilot had obviously not seen himself fly beneath the rainbow, since a rainbow always outpaces the observer, but of course the entire stunt had been performed for its effect upon the audience, not upon the people in the ship. That told Ariel what she needed to know: the few shredded memories of home to survive her amnemonic plague were still accurate.
Its entrance properly announced, the ship wasted no more time in landing. Within seconds it returned to the tower, pirouetted once around, and settled on its landing skids. A ramp extended itself, and two robots descended to stand on either side of the ramp. A moment later two young men-also in tie-died suits, Ariel noted with satisfaction-emerged and stood in front of the robots.
Mandelbrot, his body plating burnished to a lustrous glow, and Basalom, his arm replaced and good as new, bent down and began unrolling a red carpet toward the ramp. Ariel was impressed with their aim: they hit it dead center with only a fraction too much cloth.
Better too much than too little,Ariel thought.
Mandelbrot and Basalom took their places slightly behind and to the side of the robots from the ship. A few seconds passed, then a shadow darkened the doorway. A pair of red shoes appeared, then a pair of oversized legs from the knees down, then a matching red dress covering an equally oversized body, the arms connected to it bearing at least a dozen gold bangles each; then came a pair of absolutely enormous breasts-thankfully covered-a triple chin, then a pair of gold glasses punctuating a round face shrouded in thin, violet-tinged white hair.
Ariel turned away to hide her giggle. Juliana Welsh had prospered.
The enormous apparition in red jiggled her way down the ramp and stood at the bottom, clearly waiting for the welcoming committee to begin their journey as well. Derec’s parents led off, side by side but careful not to touch one another. Derec held out his arm for Ariel, and they followed a few paces behind. Wolruf would come next, she knew, and Adam, Eve, and Lucius last.
It was a long walk. At the end of it, Dr. Avery bent down and retrieved one of Juliana’s be-ringed hands, kissed it, and said, “Welcome to Robot City.”
Ariel’s mother nodded her acknowledgement, then, looking from Wendell to Janet, said, “Well, it’s nice to see you two have gotten over your little snit.”
In the stunned silence following that pronouncement, she pushed her way through to Ariel and Derec. “ And you, my dears. Still together as well. I guess this one’s probably it, eh, Ari? When’s the wedding? Or have you already-”
Ariel could stand it no longer. “Mother!”
“Still have your tongue, I see. What’s this? You look interesting. My name’s Juliana.” She held her hand out to Wolruf.
“Mine is Wolruf,” Wolruf said.
“Delighted. Are you one of the customers?”
“Beta tester,” Derec said quickly.
“Beg your pardon?” Juliana asked, tilting her head to the side, not quite enough to actually look at him.
“She’s one of our beta testers,” Derec said. “It’s standard procedure on any new product to give a few copies out free for people to test, so they can catch bugs before they go out in the main production version, and so they can offer suggestions for improvements. Wolruf has helped us quite a bit with that already.” Derec winked at Ariel, and she squeezed his hand.
“I see,” Juliana said. “Well, that sounds fine with me. Just so long as we don’t give it away to everybody. Ha ha! Wouldn’t be much profit in that, now would there?” She turned just a smidgen in Avery’s direction and said, “I heard rumors that these cities of ours were springing up all over out there on the Fringe, but I guess it must have just been these beta test thingies, eh? Well, thank you, Wolfur-Wolruf? Wolruf. Thank you for helping us out.”
Juliana let go of Wolruf’s hand and turned toward the edge of the tower. She began walking toward it. Everyone-including the two men who had arrived with her-exchanged glances that all summed up to “what next?” and for a lack of a better response, followed her in a huddle.
“Not much of a city, though, is it?” she asked without turning around. The arrogance of the woman, Ariel thought. Of course we’ll follow. She’s Juliana Welsh, after all. Just the richest woman on Aurora.
Avery opened his mouth to protest, but Juliana beat him to the punch. “Nice building,” she said, “but I expected a little more than this.” She stepped up to the edge, her two robots flanking her closely now, and looked down the sloping edge of the Compass Tower. “What’s all that down there? Is that really jungle? Frost, if you can make a livable city out of a jungle, you’ve got the contract, Wendy.”
Avery tucked his thumbs under his suspenders and stepped up beside her, Mandelbrot and Basalom following him just as closely as Juliana’s robots had followed her.
In a voice dripping with honey, he said, “ Allow me to demonstrate, madam.”
South and east quadrant monomasses. prepare to metamorphose on my command.Lucius resisted the urge to grow knuckles and crack them. His satisfaction integral was overflowing its buffer. This was what he was meant to do. Ever since he’d awakened here, formless and with no idea of his mission in life, he’d felt certain that his destiny was somehow intertwined with the city’s own powers of mutability. This was his moment of triumph. And working hand in hand with Dr. Avery, of all people, to achieve it was another personal triumph of equal proportion.
“Let’s start with a medium-class residential district,” Avery said, and Lucius sent, Plan A residential. Execute.
At once his comlink filled with the intense high-speed whine of incoming data. Morphallaxis was proceeding smoothly on all fronts; giant trees melting down to become tastefully spaced mansions with a few acres of grounds each, surrounded by a somewhat-thinned forest of living vegetation-
Priority stop, sections2534, 2535, and 2536.
Identify.
Predator I. We have a newborn fawn here, either too young to move or too scared to.
Redirect the building to avoid that area.
Affirmative.
The exchange took a few milliseconds. Within the next few seconds Lucius redirected fifteen more buildings, canceled five altogether, and modified the neighboring structures to account for the extra space so they wouldn’t look so isolated. He carefully monitored the expression on Juliana Welsh’s face for signs of disapproval, but in all the time it took to make the necessary changes, he noticed not a hint of anything but amazement.
Within five minutes of Avery’s command, there before them stood a residential district that might have been medium-class in a society composed entirely of Juliana’s peers. Jungle had given way to a lighter, more friendly forest with glades and houses and ponds scattered not at random but with an architect’s sense of proportion and scale. At least Lucius hoped he had understood the texts correctly. In a moment he would know for sure.
Avery surveyed the cityscape below him critically. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. But it wouldn’t do to let that supercilious positron-pusher know that. And besides, he could use the opportunity to make a good impression on Julie. “Hmmm,” he said, pointing. “That one over there looks a little out of place. How about moving it over about ten meters or so to the left?”
“To the left, sir?” Lucius asked.
“Yes, to the left,” Avery said calmly, wanting to shout, What did you think I said, idiot?
“That would present a problem, sir.”
Oh, frost, not now!He managed to say, “What problem, Lucius?”
“One of the natural trees there has grown a mass of feeder roots down into the subsoil of that area. Moving it would not be in the best interest of the tree. “
“It wouldn’t?”
“No, sir. In fact, it would probably ruin it.”
Juliana was looking at Avery with a strange gleam in her eye. “Who told you?” she asked.
“Who told me what?”
“That I refused to cut down my apple tree to expand the swimming pool.”
Avery nearly fell off the edge of the t
ower; he would have if Basalom hadn’t caught him. “I-didn’t know that, madam.”
“You sure you didn’t tell him?” Juliana asked of Janet. “No, ma’am. I didn’t know that myself.”
Juliana nodded. “I don’t see how you could have, since we only spoke briefly by vidphone, and I’m not in the habit of discussing my domestic difficulties with near-strangers. However, I find the coincidence, if that’s what it is, just a little too pat. “
“Dr. Avery had no knowledge of the incident,” Lucius said.
Juliana looked to the robot for the first time. “How do you know?”
“Had he known, he would not have been so blatant in using the information. He is more subtle in his deviousness.”
“Ha! You’re absolutely right, master robot. Well, then, you’ve scored a point by accident, Avery.”
Avery managed to keep his teeth from grinding audibly. Bowing slightly, he said, “Thank you, madam. Now if you’d like to look over this way, perhaps we can design a place where you and your company can be comfortable during your stay?”
Wolruf surveyed the scene before her with a sense of amusement she hadn’t felt in years. They had moved from the top of the tower to Juliana Welsh’s new palace, where she had decided to test the city’s catering facilities by throwing an impromptu cocktail party where the entire group of eight humans-counting Wolruf-and seven personal robots could engage in calculated debate amid a sea of hors d’oeuvres while dozens of service robots milled about making sure that everyone had a fresh drink and a taste of fish eggs on toast.
At least it had started out that way, but the party had finally broken into groups. Now Ariel and her mother stood a little to one side, whispering furiously to one another while everyone else pretended not to notice. Derec and Juliana’s two male companions, Jon and Ivan, sat in high-backed recliners with their feet up on puffy stools, laughing loudly at Derec’s stories of his adventures among the aliens of the Fringe worlds. Janet and Dr. Avery stood beside the champagne fountain, refilling their glasses often and shifting from side to side as they spiraled around and around the topic neither had dared to broach while sober.