by Jerry Oltion
Some of the rodents eyed the truck as it glided past, and Derec felt a momentary chill. When they got hungry enough, would they attack?
“We’ve got to do something about those,” he said to Avery, pointing out the window.
Avery nodded his head in agreement. “The robots can round them up. Make fertilizer out of them for the farm.”
If they hadn’t already found the farm, Derec thought, but he supposed that was unlikely. The farm was a long way away, partway around the planet.
He thought about Avery’s suggestion for a moment, wondering if killing them all was the right solution. He knew they were the result of an experiment that should never have taken place, that they were neither useful nor natural nor even pleasing in appearance, but he still felt uneasy about such a-final solution.
“Maybe we should take the opportunity to start a balanced ecosystem here,” he said.
“Whatever for?” Avery asked, obviously shocked by the very idea.
“Well, Lucius was on the right track, in a way. Eventually there will be people living here, but a planet covered with nothing but people and robots and buildings and a few plants is going to be a pretty dull place. They’ll want birds and squirrels and deer and butterflies and-”
“What makes you think there are going to be people living here?”
It was Derec’s turn to be surprised. “Well, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? You didn’t design these robots to build city after city just for the heck of it. I know you said you did, but that was back when you-well, you know.”
“That was when I was crazy, you mean to say.” Derec blushed. “I forget; you don’t mince words. Okay, that was back when you were crazy. But now that you’re not any more, you can see that the robots eventually have to stop and serve, don’t you?”
“Why?”
“Why? You’re kidding. If you didn’t build all this for people to live in, then what do you intend to do with it?”
The truck slowed coming into an intersection, and another truck flashed by in front of them. Derec flinched, even though he knew the robot driver was aware of the other traffic in the area via comlink. Avery gave no indication that he had even seen the other truck. “I built it as an experiment,” he said. “I wanted to see what sort of society robots would come up with on their own. I also wanted to see if you were strong enough to take over the cities with the chemfets I implanted in your system.” When Derec began to speak, he raised his hand to cut him off and said, “I’ve already apologized for that, and I’ll do it again. That idea was the product of an insane mind. I had no right to do it, no matter how interesting the result. But the original idea was valid when I had it, and it’s still valid now. The cities exist for the robots. I want them to come up with their own society. I think there are basic rules for behavior among intelligent beings-rules that hold true no matter what their physical type-and I think robots can be used to discover those rules.”
For Avery to reveal anything of his plans to someone else, even to his own son, was a rare occurrence. Especially to his son. Avery had never confided any of his plans to Derec, had in fact used Derec at every turn as if he were just another robot. He had tried to make him a robot by injecting him with “chemfets,” modified copies of the cells that made up the Robot City robots. Derec had survived the infestation, had even arrived at a truce with the miniature robot city in his own body-that was how he had acquired his comlink-but he had not forgotten what his father had done to him. Forgiven, yes, but not forgotten.
Now suddenly Avery was confiding in him. Derec pondered this new development and its significance for the space of a couple of blocks before he said, “Well, they do seem to be working on it, but I’m not sure I see how anything you come up with from studying robots in a mutable city like this could apply to anything but more robots in an identical city.”
Avery nodded his head vigorously. “Oh, but it could. In fact, the city’s mutability forces the robots’ society to be independent of their environment. That’s the beauty of it. Any rules of behavior they come up with have to be absolute, because there’s no steady frame of reference for them to build upon.”
Derec wasn’t convinced, but he said, “So what are you going to do with these rules once you discover them?”
Avery smiled, another rare occurrence, and said, “That would have to depend on the rules, now wouldn’t it?”
Derec felt a chill run up his spine at those words. Ariel and the robots-and Avery himself-had sworn he was cured, but who could be sure? The human mind was still a poorly understood mechanism at best.
Derec had been to Dr. Avery’s laboratory once before, as a prisoner. Now, under better circumstances, he had the opportunity to gaze around him in wonder. Every instrument he could imagine-and some he couldn’t-for working on robots was there. Positronic circuit analyzers, logic probes, physical function testers, body fabrication machinery-the equipment went on and on. The laboratory would have been positively cluttered with it if it hadn’t been so large, but as it was it was simply well equipped. Derec would have bet it was the most advanced such lab anywhere, save that he and Avery were using it to explore the product of a still more advanced one somewhere else.
The three locked-up robots rested atop examining tables that, at first inspection, would have looked at home in a human hospital. A closer look, however, revealed that the pillows under the robots’ heads were not simple pillows but were instead inductive sensor arrays for reading the state of a positronic brain. Arm, leg, and body sheaths served a dual purpose: to restrain the patient if necessary and also to trace command impulses and sensory signals flowing to and from the extremities. Overhead stood scanning equipment that would allow the user to see inside a metal body.
There had been a moment of confusion when the cargo robots unloaded the three inert robots from the truck; without conscious control over their mutable shapes, they had all begun to drift back toward their primordial blank state. They had never been easy to identify, but now what few distinguishing features they had were smoothed out, melted. Even so, when viewed from a distance, one of them still seemed faintly wolflike in shape, and that had to be Adam. The “Kin,” the dominant life form on the world where he had first come to awareness, was a wolflike animal, and Adam’s first imprinting there had evidently become a permanent part of his cellular memory, however faint.
Likewise, Eve displayed just a hint of Ariel’s oval face, widely spaced eyes, and gently curvaceous female form, for it had been Ariel upon whom she had first imprinted.
Lucius, having hatched and imprinted in Robot City, still looked more like a robot than either of the others, and for that reason it was he whom Derec and Avery began examining first. Outward form probably didn’t mean that the inside would be anything like a normal robot’s, or even a normal Robot City robot’s, but there was at least a chance of it, and in any case they could learn more from studying a similar form rather than from something completely different.
The positronic brain, at least, was universal among robots of any manufacture, and despite Derec’s fear that this might be the exception that proved the rule, the pillow sensor fit itself around Lucius ‘ s head without complaint, the indicator light glowing green when the link with the brain had been established.
That alone told them something. Not all robots kept their brains in their heads; some models kept them inside the more protected chest cavity. Avery had designed his to function as much like humans as they could, which meant putting the brain in their heads so they would develop the same automatic responses concerning it. Injury-avoidance behavior, for instance, might be different in a being who kept its brain in a different part of its anatomy. To find the brains in the heads of these robots meant either that they were such excellent mimics that they could determine where their subject’s internal organs belonged, or that their creator was also concerned with the subtle differences the location of the brain might introduce into her robots’ behavior.
“Definitely g
etting mental activity,” Avery said, nodding toward the display screen upon which marched a series of square-edged waveforms. He tapped a button and a different series replaced the first. “Cognition appears undamaged,” he muttered, and switched the display again.
Derec suddenly felt a burst of recognition reach through the veil surrounding his past. There on the screen was the basic pattern common to all robots: the Three Laws graphically represented as pathway potentials within the positronic brain. He had learned that pattern years ago, probably in school, though just when it had been he couldn’t remember.
It wasn’t a major revelation. Derec had already known he had training in robotics, but nonetheless it was a welcome shot of deja vu. It was a true memory in a mind mostly devoid of them, and as such it was as precious to Derec as gold.
Avery switched the display again.
“Hello, hello, test, test.” With each word spoken, what had been a smooth sine wave erupted into a fit of jagged peaks and troughs: Avery’s voice processed through the robot’s microphone ears.
Derec let out a sigh. The memory was already fading. To avoid the crushing disappointment that so often came from such a tantalizing glimpse into his past, he focused his attention on what was happening before him. “Looks like he’s hearing us,” he said. “The signal must not be getting processed.”
“Let’s see.” Avery switched the display again, spoke, “Hello, hello, test, test,” again, and again the waveform-a modulated square wave this time-burst into activity.
“It’s on the main input line.” Avery sounded puzzled. He switched again, spoke again, but this time the display remained a constant flat line.
“Aha! Not getting to the command interpreter. Something’s blocking it.” Avery switched the display back to the input line.
Step by step he focused the monitor deeper and deeper into the brain’s positronic pathways, searching for the block, and finally found it in a combination of potentials from the volition circuitry and the self-awareness logic. Plus, the comlink line was saturated with information. The information transfer rate was so high that no other inputs were being monitored.
“I tried listening on the comlink before, but there was just static,” Derec said when they discovered the comlink activity. He tried again and heard the same thing as before. “Still there.”
“Static, or information flow too fast to recognize?” Avery asked. He pressed keys on a signal processor beside the brain display, and the same static that Derec had heard over the comlink filled the room. Avery began slowing the signal down, and eventually, after being slowed by a factor of one hundred, the static resolved into the familiar bleeps of binary data transfer.
“Sounds like they’re having quite a conversation,” Derec said.
“Conversation,” Avery said disgustedly. “They’re ignoring us. That’s aberrant behavior. It’s already led them into disobeying orders.”
“Not really. They only follow the orders they can hear. If they’re really not hearing us, then they’re not disobeying anything.” Derec glanced over at Eve on the next table, and thus Avery’s next move took him completely by surprise. Before he knew what was happening, Avery’s backhand sent him sprawling on the floor.
“Talk back to me, will you?” Avery screamed. “I’ve had enough of your insolence, boy! Maybe a boot up alongside your head will knock some respect into you! “ He leaped around the table and drew back his foot to follow through on his threat.
Frost, he’s flipped again, Derec thought as he twisted frantically to avoid Avery’s kick.
Avery screamed in frustration. “Oh, you’re quicker than me, are you? We’ll see how long that lasts when I shoot you in the leg!” He snatched up a cutting laser from the rack of tools beside the examining table and fired toward Derec, but his shot went wide. Derec heard a loud crack of superheated metal vaporizing, but he was already scrambling for the relative shelter of Eve’s table.
Security Alert,he sent over the comlink. Avery ’ s laboratory. Help!
He heard another shot, then Avery’s quiet laughter, followed by, “Wow, they’re really out of it, aren’t they?”
Derec stayed silent, gauging the distance from his hiding place to the closest doorway, one leading into one of the lab’s other rooms. He was about to make his leap when he heard the scrape of metal sliding on metal, and the laser skidded to a stop beside him.
“False alarm,” Avery said.
Derec eyed the laser. Had Avery been playing with him before, or was this just a decoy to get him out into the sights of another laser now? Avery’s first shot had gone wide, but was that significant? Could he afford to guess wrong?
Well, Derec could play the decoy game as well as Avery. He pulled off his wristcomp and tossed it to his left, over the laser and beyond. The moment it hit the floor he was up and lunging for the tool rack beside Eve’s exam table. It tipped over with a crash, spilling equipment across the floor, but Derec was already rolling to his feet with the laser from the rack before the clatter had even begun to die down.
Avery stood beside Lucius, his hands held out to his sides, an amused expression on his face. “It really was a false alarm,” he said. “I wanted to test whether or not they’d respond to a First Law imperative.”
“Test,” Derec spat. “I’m tired of your tests! You’ve been testing me and using me since the day I was born and I’m sick of it! Do you understand me?”
It was then that the six cargo robots burst into the room. They had already left for their normal duties after carrying the other three into the lab, but they were evidently still the closest robots who could answer Derec’s frantic summons for help. The first one through the door surveyed the scene and reacted immediately, picking up a small circuit analyzer from a bench by the door and hurling it with all its might at Derec. Before Derec could even flinch, the analyzer knocked the laser from his hands, and both fell to the floor to die in a fit of sparks and smoke. The other robots rushed past the first and split up, two of them going for Avery while three more came for Derec and pinned his arms to his sides. Within seconds both humans were held immobile in the grip of the robots.
“Let me go,” Avery said calmly, but the robots didn’t budge.
The robot who had knocked the laser from Derec ‘ s hands said, “Not until we understand what has happened here. It was master Derec, was it not, who summoned our help?”
“That’s right,” Derec said. “He was shooting at me with a laser.”
“Yet you were the one holding the laser when we entered.”
“I grabbed it in self -defense. “
“Defense? I fail to see how a weapon can be used for defense.”
Derec blushed under his father’s sudden onslaught of laughter. “He’s got you there!” Avery said.
The robot had, Derec realized. If he’d actually used the laser, he would have been guilty of the very action he was defending himself against. In the robot’s eyes, harm to a human was harm to a human, no matter what the provocation.
It was embarrassing to have such a thing pointed out to him. He should have realized it from the start, should have felt an instinctive, rather than belated, urge to preserve his attacker as well as himself from harm.
Even if that attacker was his father.
“I stand corrected,” he said at last. “I should have retreated.”
“I am glad you realize that,” the robot said. Of Avery it asked, “Why did you shoot at him?”
“I needed to provoke a First Law response in these robots. I didn’t shoot directly at him, just close.”
“I see,” the robot said, scanning the room for verification. It probably did see, Derec realized. The heat trails of his path and the path of the laser beam would still be visible in infrared light; it would be easy for the robot to tell how close the beam had come.
“Do you accept his explanation?” the robot asked Derec.
“I guess,” Derec said with a sigh.
“Do either of you wish to conti
nue your hostilities?”
Derec shook his head. “No.”
“No,” echoed Avery.
“Very well.” Derec felt the robots let go of his arms, but the ones holding Avery still held him. The first robot, moving to stand closer to him, said, “You should understand that psychological shock, especially shock concerning fear for one’s life, is still considered harm to a human. You have caused Derec harm. Do you understand this?”
Avery scowled. “Yeah,” he said. “Let me go.”
“Only when I am convinced that you will not repeat your offense. Do I have your assurance that you will not?”
“Okay, okay, I won’t shoot at him again.”
“You must also endeavor never to scare him in another way, or to harm him either physically or psychologically in any way. Do I have your assurance that you will not?”
“Yes,you have my assurance. Now let me go.”
The robot turned to Derec. “Do you accept his assurance as truthful?”
Derec couldn’t resist laughing. “Hardly,” he said. “But that’s okay. After what he just did, I don’t think he can surprise me anymore. Let him go.”
The robots did. “We will observe you for a time,” the talkative one said.
Avery scowled. “I don’t want you to. Go away.”
“We cannot do that until we are sure that you will not harm one another.”
Avery evidently realized this was an argument that he couldn’t win. He shrugged and gestured at the mess on the floor. “Make yourselves useful then.”
The other robots began to pick up the scattered equipment, but the talkative one said to Avery, “A less destructive First Law test would have been to simply state that you were about to fall over without catching yourself. No properly functioning robot would allow that to happen.”
“Thank you for your profound input,” Avery said with exaggerated politeness.
“You are welcome.”
“Now get to work.”
Chapter 3. The Biological Laboratory