Analog SFF, December 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  I turn slowly. “I can't say about his spacecraft, but his robot is towering over me, no more than a meter from the Wildcat. You might ask your buddy Yoji what it's doing here. It's not exactly a comfortable sensation having it this close."

  "Guh, guh, good...” The robot pauses. “Ohayo."

  "Good morning,” I agree. “What can I do for you?"

  "There ... there was ... a storm."

  "A solar flare,” I say. “It kept me cooped up for most of a day. Protons do nasty things to human cells. Right now we're in a lull. I am trying to finish my preflight checks before it strengthens again."

  If it is really that smart, it will make the inference that I wish to be left alone without my having to be blunt. Not that I believe in being polite to a machine, but my grandmother always said it was good practice no matter the audience.

  "Hai." It takes me a moment to realize that this is an affirmative response. “I have ... no shelter. The storm ... impairs my function."

  That should have occurred to me. Electronic circuits are in some ways as vulnerable to the effects of solar flares as I am.

  "Are you saying the storm may kill you, end your functioning?"

  "Yes. No. My function will ... degrade. I ... will no longer be ... I."

  For some, that would be a more frightening prospect than death. For the first time, I note dents on the metallic torso and dust on some of the joints. It has nothing like a jet pack. Learning to walk in microgravity has apparently been a difficult endeavor.

  "I must protect myself so that I may complete my mission. You are sheltered from storm within your craft. Take me."

  It was able to stop me without visible effort. It has the size and mass to toss me aside if it wants. If it really does not consider me human, there is no reason for it to practice restraint.

  "The hatch is too small for you. And even if you could pass through it, you could never fit into the cabin. When I have my spacesuit on, I can hardly turn around.” I think this is the truth, or pretty close to it.

  "I did not mean the ... shell. I ... am ... contained ... in a central processing unit approximately seven centimeters by fifteen centimeters by three centimeters.” Hiro puts its hands together to help a metrically challenged American visualize the size.

  Then it says something odd. “I recognized that you were human when you ... visited me. Pretending not to was a ... ruse to make you uncertain, to ensure respect."

  J. P.'s response to an earlier portion of the conversation reaches my earphones. “Under no circumstances are you to provide transportation to that can of circuits or to any part of it. If it threatens or harms you in any way I'll have Yoji's ass up on piracy charges."

  Since we are all tuned to the same wavelength, I say: “You heard the boss. The answer is no. Sayonara, Hiro."

  I turn to reenter the Wildcat. "Kudasai, Sensei."

  Please, Master! An attempt to arouse pity mixed with some subtle flattery. It would not take a very sophisticated program to come up with that approach. I certainly would not be very sophisticated if I allowed myself to be moved by it.

  I have my foot on the bottom rung. Slowly, I place it back on the regolith as I turn to face the robot.

  "Hiro, you say you are a human, a citizen of Japan. Obviously, I have a different opinion. However, if you are a legal human, you have a right to contract. Do you understand what a contract is?"

  There is a perceptible pause. “It is not a term in my database."

  "My boss, Mr. J. P. Fetterman, sets a great deal of store on the right to contract. He considers it a right more ancient and more basic than those enshrined in the American Constitution. In fact, he has even been known to trace it back to Abraham cutting covenants with the Lord. It would be no exaggeration to say that Mr. Fetterman considers the ability to enter into a binding contract to be a defining mark of humanity.

  "Basically, the idea is that two humans can exchange promises that will be considered binding in a court of law. For example, if I owned a farm, I could promise to sell you my entire rice crop for this year for thirty million yen."

  "Wakarimasu ka?” “Tsukijanai." Hiro's handlers are discussing the situation and the conversation is leaking over their open line to the robot. I can't understand a word, but the tone of their voices tells me that they are unhappy.

  "Does that explanation make sense to you?” I ask.

  "Hai."

  "Good. Now, I have something you want: safety from the solar storm and transportation back to Earth. What do you have of value to exchange?"

  "I have nothing.” I do not believe that the conglomeration of circuits standing before me is a person, is anything more than a sophisticated answering machine. Yet there is something about that answer so totally forlorn, so totally without hope, that I feel a chill.

  "You're wrong. You have something of great value, but you just don't know it. As an employee of Ichiban, you have asserted a claim to this asteroid, which, if it is valid, matures into actual ownership if you return alive to Earth. If, however, you were to resign from Ichiban, accept employment with the Beanstalk Development Corporation, and assign any and all rights which may have accrued to you in 2009 AP15, I would in return convey you safely to Earth inside my own spacecraft and make every effort to have your central processing unit rehoused in an appropriate robotic body."

  "Hiro Ichiban, this is J. P. Fetterman, CEO of the Beanstalk Development Corporation. I want you to know that the man you are talking to, Mr. James Calley, is my agent for this matter and has full and complete authority to make offers of employment in my name under any terms he deems proper."

  He could only have heard the beginning of my explanation when he launched that statement, but intuiting where I was going, immediately decided to back my play.

  "If I perform my part of the ... contract, how can I be sure ... you will do as you say?” Hiro asks.

  The shouting of Hiro's handlers crescendos, then is suddenly silent. “I have cut off that frequency,” the robot says. “It was ... distracting."

  "It is the nature of contracts that each party's performance is conditioned on performance by the other party,” I say. “If you do as I ask, but I fail to take you to Earth as I have promised, then your transfer of the claim to this asteroid becomes void. It is in my interest to do exactly as I have promised."

  I measure the robot's silence by my heartbeats.

  "I resign from Ichiban Corporation and accept employment from the Beanstalk Development Corporation. I transfer any rights I may have in 2009 AP15 to Beanstalk Corporation in exchange for being protected from this solar storm, being carried back to Earth, and being fitted into a body like the one I presently operate.

  "Domo arigato, Sensei Calley,” Hiro says. “Thank you very much."

  The robot seems to settle into itself. A panel in its chest slides aside. Ichiban at least put the central processing unit in the most protected part of the shell. I reach in and gently disengage the CPU. All I can feel through my gloves is its mass, which somehow makes me fear that it may be delicate, that I must handle it very carefully.

  "James Calley, this is Yoji Ishikawa. Cease your interference with my employee. If you continue with your current actions, you will be charged with sabotage, destruction of property, and malicious interference with contract. You will not be allowed to corrupt and destroy Hiro Ichiban with your lies."

  "Too late, Mr. Ishikawa. The deal is done.” Ishikawa's English is flawless, but there is something about the tone and phrasing that makes me think I am only a secondary audience. Much of this has been about influencing public opinion. I am willing to bet that right now both what he says and my replies are being broadcast all over the world. J. P.'s public affairs people will handle most of the response, but the boss undoubtedly expects me to carry part of the load.

  "If you were concerned about your ‘employee,’ you would not have subjected it to conditions that would reduce it to the equivalent of drooling idiocy. I don't think I have the essence of a sen
tient being in my hands. Even so, I will treat it with more care than you choose to give to your fellow citizens."

  High-sounding sentiments delivered with defiance and appropriate bluster. J. P. should be happy. I climb back into the Wildcat, secure the hatch, finish the instrument checks, and begin the launch sequence. Hiro's CPU is in my lap, secured by the safety netting. Hibernadol courses through my veins, blurring my vision, setting my thoughts adrift.

  He disobeyed his handlers. The thought keeps recurring. Even though my Japanese is deficient, I know enough to know that they were telling him to ignore me and go back to his own craft. Instead, he shut them off.

  As a nation, the Japanese are far ahead of all others in robotics, and Ishikawa pays for the best of the best. They would not expect to impress the Hague judges with Abe Lincoln at Disneyland crap. It would have to be orders of magnitude more sophisticated.

  They say the best researchers use current generation AI programs to fashion the next generation programs. So, in a real sense, even the best human scientist does not fully understand what he is creating. And into this, throw random mutations caused by a solar flare. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred any such change should be harmful. But maybe that one time, a threshold will be crossed.

  I cradle the CPU in my arms and fall into a dream of my first day at school. I run after a new friend, and when he turns to face me, his silver skin shines with the brilliance of the Sun.

  Copyright (c) 2007 Robert R. Chase

  * * * *

  When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe.—Clarence Darrow

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Novella: REUNION by DAVID W. GOLDMAN

  Illustration by Nicholas Jainschigg

  * * * *

  Sometimes the past just won't stay buried—and other times it gets buried with exceptional thoroughness....

  * * * *

  I'd spent most of the morning supervising my desk as it attempted, so far unsuccessfully, to locate a replacement grinding arm for a broken ore mill. As usual with my clients’ operations, the mill had been obsolete nearly as long as I'd been alive.

  So when my office door squealed open and the short, neatly dressed man stepped in from the street, I was taking a much-deserved break. My feet were up on the desk; beside my bare calves and beat-up croc-leather boots floated a dozen dense lines of text and symbols that I'd been squinting at for half an hour.

  "Ms. Dalmas?” the man inquired. He spoke softly, like someone accustomed to people paying close attention to his words.

  Beneath his mahogany hair, the short man's face was obscured by the sentence For m (greater than) 3, assume not. I twirled my index finger in a gesture my desk understood; the text and symbols disappeared.

  I replied, “So it says on the door."

  His round, middle-aged face was deeply tanned, of course, but unlined. He turned it toward the door whose handle he still held, and nodded. “It also says Expediter." He looked back at me. “I didn't think that asking questions was going to be my job."

  I sighed and lowered my feet from the desk. “Right,” I said. “Hello, good morning, I'm Jenna Dalmas. Welcome to my office; what can I do for you? Okay? Now would you please shut the damn door before my air-conditioning bill doubles?"

  He responded with a genteel nod, as if I'd invited him in for lemonade. He pressed the door shut. But as he turned around he had a puzzled look. “This is air-conditioning?"

  "Welcome to Hab Town,” I said. “Not like the big city, huh?"

  Lips pursed, he gave the room an unhurried once-over. There wasn't much to see. I rented the lower floor of one of the original colony habitats—one room for the office, three more, through a door to my right, for living quarters. A century of heat and reflected ultraviolet had matured the formerly white plastic walls to a mottled beige; the room's sole window, behind me, had long ago gone translucent. Two straight-backed chairs faced mine across the small ceramic desk that occupied most of the floor space. On the wall to my left hung a reproduced Earth travel poster, featuring a ski lodge behind falling snow.

  The poster that I'd originally hung in that spot, when I first moved in, had advertised a fancy resort in some sun-drenched desert. After a couple of months, though, even I had no longer found the irony amusing.

  He eased into one of the chairs. He wore the khaki shirt, shorts, and knee socks of any city worker. But his creases were all as sharp-edged as summer shadows; beneath a thin layer of dust his boots were polished to a gloss that in direct sunlight would be painful to view. At his hip he wore a covered holster—small and functional looking, not filigreed and oversized like the ones you usually see on visitors from the city. He sat erect but relaxed, as if I'd stepped into his office.

  Gov admin, then. Maybe even Central Committee.

  He said, “What I'm about to tell you remains confidential until the end of the year. Understood?"

  I tilted back in my seat and just stared at him. He returned my gaze, his expression blankly patient. We did that for a while, then I decided to study the travel poster. I said, “I'm not working for you yet."

  He nodded. “Actually, you are."

  "Huh. Why's that?"

  "Three reasons.” He impressed me by not ticking them off on his fingers as he continued. “First, you're a week late on rent, and a hundred rips behind on the payments for that little motorcycle you ride. Second, you promised one of your clients that you could get him a city retail license—I can help you with that."

  So—if not Central Committee, then at least one of the major subcommittees. I placed a mental bet on what he'd say next.

  "And?” I asked.

  "And third, I've recently received several disturbing reports of contraband software in this district. I'm sure that neither of us would want to see some zealous police investigator rummaging through, say, your desk here."

  I nodded as I stacked my imaginary winnings.

  "So,” he said. “Confidential until the end of the year, yes?"

  I shrugged. “Suppose we start with your name."

  He surprised me with a genuinely friendly grin. With his curly hair and smooth skin, he suddenly looked ten years younger. “Jorge Garcia Ortega. Subcommittee on External Affairs."

  I frowned. “This is about the Vulesk? I don't think my business license extends offworld, Mr. Ortega."

  He shook his head. “Garcia Ortega. Or just Garcia. Or, if you like, Jorge. And no, not the Vulesk—not directly, anyhow. This can't wait five years."

  He paused then, and his smile faded. I couldn't imagine what he was working himself up to tell me.

  "The Warrant,” he finally said. “It's missing."

  I stared at his boyish face. I tried to keep my voice slow and easy. “Sparkly pyramid thing? About so big?” I held my hands out, half a meter apart. “Sits in the guarded case in the middle of the lobby of City Hall?"

  He moistened his lips with a quick dart of his tongue. “That's a replica. The real Warrant stays in a high-security lab underground."

  "Huh.” That certainly made sense; I'd never actually given it any thought. “So five years from now, that incoming Vulesk ship is going to arrive in orbit and they're going to ask to examine our Warrant to confirm that we're an authorized colony. But you've, what?” I leaned forward, both palms now on the desk, and suddenly my voice was no longer as slow and easy as I'd intended. “You've accidentally misplaced it. Is that what you're telling me, Mr. Garcia Ortega?"

  He flinched, but, I had to grant, only slightly.

  "Swell,” I said. “So when did you happen to notice that the Warrant was missing? And what the hell do you expect me to do that your people can't?"

  He sat very still. He spoke very carefully, keeping his cool blue eyes on my face. “We noticed eighteen years ago. Right after the uprising."

  A cold shiver danced up my back. But that was all. After eighteen years, I'd managed to squeeze everything into just a shiver.

  Now
it was my turn to speak very quietly. “If there's something you want to ask me...” My gaze was centered on his face. But I was watching his holster.

  His arms didn't move. He shook his head. “Not you. You were merely a secondary participant, nowhere near the core organizers. If we thought you knew anything, you would have heard from us a long time ago."

  For another few seconds I stared at him. Then I exhaled and eased back into my chair.

  He seemed to relax a bit, too; his tone became more conversational. “When the Committee Police retook City Hall, we saw that the replica was gone. But the original remained secure. Things were chaotic; several days passed before someone realized that what we had in the lab was actually the replica. Unfortunately, by then...” There he let it go, maybe to spare my feelings.

  I finished it for him. “Unfortunately, by then your thirty best leads had been executed.” I was just reciting a fact. Not recalling any sights, any sounds, or smells. Just feeling that cold shiver.

  He nodded. “Whoever took the Warrant did a damn good job hiding it. Still, we thought we had plenty of time to find it. The Vulesk patrols are supposed to average three hundred years between visits—what were the odds they'd show up this soon?"

  I gritted my teeth. I hated that phrase: what were the odds? People always say it as if “the odds” were some mysteriously infinitesimal percentage you'd need a supercomputer to calculate.

  He didn't seem to notice my reaction. He continued, “Since we detected the Vulesk ship last month, we've had to broaden the investigation. If nothing turns up by the end of the year, we'll make a public announcement and offer rewards. But for now, none of this gets out."

  I drummed my fingers against the arm of my chair. “All these years—nobody's contacted you?"

  "No. We were hoping that the appearance of this ship would prompt some action, but it hasn't yet. Of course, they still have five years to make us sweat before they name a price."

  "Assuming ‘they’ are still alive."

  "Yes. Assuming."

  I sighed and stared at the ski lodge. “You think people will talk to me. That they'll tell me things they wouldn't tell you."