by Jerry Oltion
Derec fumed. Ariel had taken the news stoically, but it had to have been a blow for her. This arguing with the medical robots wasn’t helping her a bit.
But it was obvious that ordering the robot to do it would only result in another dead robot, and that wouldn’t help either.
“Cancel,” he growled. Over the comlink, he sent, Get me Avery.
A moment later, he heard Avery’s voice in his head. What is it?
We ’ re in the exam room. Can you come down here?
How important is it? I ’ m in the middle of something here.
It ’ s important.
Avery sighed audibly. All right. Be right there.
›“Avery’s coming,” Derec said to Ariel.
This time she didn’t say anything snide. They both knew that Avery was a better roboticist than Derec; if anybody could convince a robot to abort a malformed embryo, he could.
But it appeared, after they explained the situation to him and he tried reprogramming and re-reprogramming the medical robots, that he couldn’t do the job, either. The robots had had one too many redefinitions already, and they couldn’t handle another. Avery sent the single survivor away in frustration.
Ariel had gotten up from the examination table and was now standing beside Derec, their arms around one another and her head resting against his shoulder. Avery looked up at her from his chair before the computer terminal where he had attempted the reprogramming and said, “I’m sorry, my dear. It looks like you ‘II have to wait until we return to the original Robot City, or to Aurora.”
She nodded. Avery made to get up, but Ariel suddenly asked, “Can’t we make another medical robot, one with a narrow definition of human from the start?”
Avery looked embarrassed. “I would have thought of that eventually.” He turned back to the computer and began entering commands.
I have a question,a voice said in Derec’s head.
Who is this?
Lucius.
Lucius! Where are you?Derec turned his head from side to side, trying to get a fix, but the impression was fuzzy, as if coming from a wide area. Were all three robots transmitting simultaneously, to mask their locations?
Nearby. I have been monitoring your efforts.
You ’ ve been spying on us?
You could call it that, yes. I prefer to think that I am continuing to research the Laws of Humanics. Before you abort the embryo Ariel carries, I need to ask a question that you may not have considered yet.
What question?
If the baby were to grow to term, then be provided with a positronic brain, would it then be human by your definition?
Derec’s answer was instinctive, but no less correct for that. He shook his head violently. No!
“What’s the matter?” Ariel asked.
“Lucius,” Derec whispered. “He’s talking to me.”
“Is he-”
Why not?
“Just a minute.” It wouldn ’ t be human because it wouldn ’ t have a human brain, that ’ s why not! That ’ s the most important part.
You seem quite certain of this.
Of course, I ’ m certain.
I am unconvinced.
This time it was Ariel who flinched, but it wasn’t from anything Lucius said. She pulled away from Derec, shouting, “A rat!”
“Where?” Avery demanded.
She pointed toward the doorway, where a whiskered face was just peeking around the jamb.
“That’s mine!” Avery shouted, jumping up from his chair and lunging for it. The face disappeared with a squeak
“Stop! “ Avery ran out into the corridor, but his footsteps ceased abruptly. Derec and Ariel heard him laugh. He came back into the room holding the rat by the tail. It didn’t hang the way a rat normally did, with its feet spread wide. It looked more like a toy rat molded into a running position.
Avery laid it on its back on the exam table. “Stand up,” he said to it, and it obediently rolled over and stood on its feet.
“Squeak.”
The rat squeaked.
“Lift your right front paw.”
The rat lifted its right front paw.
“I’d say we have our answer,” he said to Derec. “You replace an organic brain cell by cell with a robot brain, and you still wind up with a robot.” To the rat, he said, “Go wait for me in the lab.” He pointed toward the door, and the rat jumped down from the table and scurried away through it.
I am convinced,Lucius sent.
Yousaw that?
I did.
How did you manage that?
If I reveal myself, will you promise that I will not be harmed?
Why should I promise you that?
Because I ask it as a friend. And I offer my help as a friend.
Your help in what?
I am now convinced that Ariel ’ s wishes are right. I am willing to perform the operation if she wishes it.
You are? But you ’ re not a doctor.
I can be within minutes.
He was right, of course: He could access the central library’s medical files as easily as could any other robot.
Just a minute.Aloud, Derec said, “Lucius is here somewhere. He’s making us an offer.”
“What offer?” asked Ariel.
“He’ll do the operation if we’ll let him. In return he asks that we don’t shoot at him anymore.”
“Ridiculous!” Avery said with a snort. He looked toward Ariel, saw the determination on her face, and added, “ Unless, of course, he and the other two agree to leave the rest of the robots in the city alone.”
I promise that for all three of us,Lucius sent.
“He promises.” To Ariel, Derec added, “But I don’t know what that’s worth. What do you think? I won’t blame you if you don’t trust him. We can make another robot do it.”
She balled her fists and bit her lip, looked up at the ceiling, then shook her head. “I don’t think he’s dangerous. He’s never hurt anyone intentionally. And I just want this whole business to be over with. So yes, tell him I’ll trust him.”
Derec was about to relay her words to Lucius, but he realized that he needn’t bother. “Okay,” he said aloud. “Come on out from wherever you’re hiding.”
There came a soft tearing sound, and a section of ceiling near the door peeled away to fall with a flop against the wall. It peeled off the wall as well, gathered into a lump on the floor, and quickly rose on two legs to become Lucius’s familiar form.
Despite his other failings, Lucius made an excellent surgeon. Within a day, Ariel was up and walking around again, though still somewhat sore. Even so, she was far better off physically than mentally, for in that area neither Lucius nor anyone else could help her heal. Derec was the only one who could even begin to ease the torment she was going through, but he was feeling it just as strongly as she.
Had they done the right thing? Of course they had. They knew they had. Hadn’t they?
As Derec struggled with his own feelings of guilt, he found himself appreciating Avery’s position for the first time, What a load his father carried around with him, considering all he had done! With a background like his, just carrying on from day to day would be a continual struggle, especially with Derec there as a constant reminder of it.
No wonder Avery strove to keep busy. It kept his mind off his past. After an absolutely disastrous day spent moping around the apartment, both Derec and Ariel realized the wisdom of his strategy, and followed his example.
While Derec and Avery set to work preparing the city robots for their reprogramming to suit the Ceremyons, Ariel and Wolruf set out to meet with them to find out what they had decided they wanted. The meeting was easy to arrange; Lucius contacted Adam and Eve, who were back with the aliens again, and between them they settled on a time and place.
Ariel left for the meeting in relatively high spirits, but she returned with a puzzled frown.
“The Ceremyons want us to make philosophers out of the robots,” she reported, slumping down in
a chair and putting her hand to her forehead. “I told them that’s not what robots were for, but they insisted. They said they’ve got a bunch of difficult philosophical questions that they haven’t been able to work out, so their council decided to let the robots have a try at them.”
“What are the questions?” Avery asked, looking up from his computer terminal.
“They didn’t say. They said they wanted us to reprogram two robots for philosophy and let them see how well they work.”
Derec and Avery looked at one another with eyebrows raised skeptically. Derec said, “I don’t know, the original Wohler thought he was a philosopher, but I didn’t think he was very profound.”
“He was just spouting other people’s philosophy,” Ariel added. “He didn’t come up with anything of his own.”
“Of course he didn’t,” Avery said. “That’s because he didn’t do any cross-correlation. “As Derec watched, Avery, s skepticism disappeared, replaced by a fanatic gleam in his eye that Derec recognized. Avery saw the aliens’ request as a challenge, and he intended to meet it. “He wasn’t programmed to combine old information into new patterns, so all he could do was echo the thoughts of others. But if we give our robots the ability to compare and to generalize, and for working material load them up with all the philosophy texts in the central library, they ‘11 be able to out-think these Ceremyons hands down. It won’t be real thinking, but with a big enough library behind them, it’ll be completely convincing to the user. Ha! It’ll be easy. “Avery turned back to the computer and began keying instructions furiously.
Without looking up, he said, “Get this city’s Wohler unit up here to try it on. It should accept the new programming easier than just a random robot.”
“You melted him along with the other supervisors,” Derec reminded him.
“Oh. Well, then, have another one made.”
Derec obediently contacted the central core and advised it that Avery wanted another Wohler.
“Here, you can help with the programming, too. Dig out the code the supervisors use to reject crazy buildings, and see if you can modify it to filter out crazy thoughts. I’ll work on the correlation routine.”
With a smile and a shake of his head for Ariel’s benefit, Derec got to work. Ariel and Wolruf stayed for a few minutes, but soon became bored and left. Lucius stayed, standing silently behind Derec and Avery where he could see what either of them did.
They spent the better part of the afternoon on the project, but they were ready by the time a new golden-hued robot presented itself at the door.
“I am Wohler-l0,” the robot said.
Avery looked up, rubbed his eyes, and said, “Good. Scan this.” He banded Wohler a memory cube, which the robot took in its right hand. The hand flowed until it completely enveloped the cube, then after a few seconds returned to normal. Wohler gave the cube back to Avery.
“What is the relationship between free will and determinism?” Avery asked him.
“Determinism is necessary for free will, but not the reverse,” the robot answered without hesitation.
“Did you think that up just now, or was it already in memory?”
“It was already in memory.”
“Hmm. How does free will differ from freedom, and how does that difference affect a robot’s behavior?”
Wohler hesitated slightly this time before saying, “Free will is the ability to act upon desires. Freedom is the ability to use free will indiscriminately. For practical purposes, a robot has neither. I can elaborate if you wish.”
“No, that’s fine. Was that your thought this time?”
“It was a correlation from existing definitions, but it did not exist previously in the data bank.”
“Good. What is reality?”
“I quote: ‘Reality is that which, when you cease to believe in it, does not go away. ‘ Source: Phillip K. Dick, twentieth century author, Earth. I have on file seventy-three other definitions, but that one seems most logical.”
Avery grinned at Derec and spread his hands. “One out of three responses are original. That’ s a pretty good average among philosophers. I think he’ll do.”
Lucius made a humming sound, a robotic clearing of the throat. “May I ask a question?”
Avery frowned. He obviously still didn’t trust the renegade robot, but with a shrug, he said, “Fire away.”
Lucius turned to face Wohler. “What is a human?”
Wohler hesitated even longer than before. At last he said, “That definition depends upon your point of view.”
Avery burst into laughter. “He’s a philosopher, all right! Come on, let’s fix up another one and give them to the Ceremyons tomorrow.”
Chapter 9. Friends
They chose a regular city robot for the second philosopher, testing him thoroughly to make sure that his answers were the same as the brand-new Wohler’s. His experiences in the city and his previous reprogrammings didn’t seem to affect his responses at all. They arranged a meeting through Lucius, and this time they all went to present the philosopher robots to the aliens.
They met at the edge of the spaceport farthest from the city, a spot no doubt chosen by the aliens to communicate their displeasure with the city and its inhabitants.
There were two of the living silhouettes at the meeting this time, as well as two alien-looking but obviously robotic companions: Adam and Eve. The robots ignored the humans, and the humans returned the courtesy. Sarco ignored the robots as well, but, realizing that humans couldn’t distinguish one alien from another, he introduced himself again, then introduced his companion, Synapo, whom all but Avery had already met the first time they had been to Ceremya.
“And these are the philosophers?” Synapo asked dubiously. “I believe I recognize this one. It directed the killing of two of my people when this city first began growing here. It is a most unpleasant robot.”
Derec had forgotten about that incident. It had happened because the robots didn’t see the aliens as human, and were following the simplest procedure to get them out of the way. It was a stupid mistake then, and Derec’ s decision to use a Wohler model for a philosopher was a stupid mistake now. Wars had been fought over lesser matters.
“This is a different robot,” he said, trying to smooth over the unintended insult. “The old Wohler was inactivated.”
“A wise decision,” Synapo said. The alien looked to its. companion, receiving an eyeblink and a rustling of its wings in response. That was evidently the Ceremyon equivalent of a shrug, because Synapo said,” Well, then, to the test. Sarco, do you wish to ask the first question, or shall I?”
“The honor is yours,” Sarco said.
Synapo bobbed down and up again in a gesture no doubt meant as an acceptance of Sarco’s courtesy. “Very well. The new Wohler, then. I ask you this: What is the value of argument?”
Wohler folded his arms across his chest, a gesture Derec had taught him, and said, “The value of argument is that it allows two opposing views to be expressed, along with supporting evidence for each, so that an examination of the evidence can then lead to a determination of the more correct of the two views.”
“A reasonable answer. And you, the other robot. Your name?”
“Plato.”
“Plato. What is your answer to the same question?”
“It must, of course, be the same answer.”
A tiny flame shot out from the darkness of Synapo’s face. Sarco said, “Why must it be?”
“It is the correct answer.”
“Then apply that answer to the discussion at hand!”
Plato looked at Sarco, then shifted its eyes to look helplessly at Derec. “I must disagree with a correct answer?”
Synapo’s flame winked out. “Of course you must!” he said. “That is the root of philosophical debate. If we all agreed, we could learn nothing.”
Plato tried. He said, “Then I…then argument has no value. It is a pointless waste of energy. The correct answer should be obvious to
all.”
“Wrong!”
“Of course it is wrong!” Plato said desperately. “You told me to disagree with a correct answer!”
“That did not mean you had to give an incorrect one. You are not a philosopher. Dr. Avery, these robots are useless to us.”
“Wrong,” said Wohler. “We are useless to you in our present form.”
Synapo jetted flame again, but Sarco jiggled up and down in obvious amusement. “It caught you!” the alien hooted.
Synapo’s eyes shifted to the robot. “I stand corrected. You are useless to us in your present form. Perhaps in another form you would not be useless. Dr. Avery, what else can these robots do?”
“What do you want them to do?” Avery asked in return.
“Philosophize, but that seems too much to ask. Sarco, do you have another suggestion?”
“You know I do,” Sarco replied. His eyes shifted to meet Avery’s. “At our council meeting, I suggested that the robots be used as musicians. It was my thought that each of us could be attended by a personal musician who could play melodies to fit our individual moods.”
“That’s simple,” Avery said. “They can do that without modification.”
“Unlikely,” Sarco said. “Our music consists of modulated hyperwave emissions.”
“Okay, then,” Avery said with a nod, “we’ll need to give them hyperwave transmitters. And you ‘II have to teach them some of your songs.”
“That can be done. Synapo?”
“Very well. My suggestion came to nothing; we’ll see how yours fares. When will the robots be modified?”
“I can have them back to you by tomorrow,” Avery said.
“We will be here.” Synapo backed away, gave a running hop, and was airborne. Sarco followed, and Adam and Eve, who had been silently flanking them all along, also turned to go.
“Wait a minute,” Derec said. “I want to talk to you.”
“What do you wish to say?” the one on the left asked in Adam’s voice.
“Why don’t you come back with us?”
“We do not wish to.”
“Why not? You can have the same deal we made Lucius. Peaceful coexistence while you figure out your definition of human.”