Asimov’s Future History Volume 6

by Isaac Asimov

  Derec and Ariel stumbled out of the far side of the fruit orchard onto a well-traveled footpath headed straight up and down the slope.

  “I’m totally lost,” Derec wheezed. He stopped, bending forward to lean on his knees. “But this must be the migration route again. Look at all the robot footprints. This valley can’t have very much foot traffic. And if it did, they would have paved this.”

  Ariel nodded and prodded him up the slope, where the soft mud had been churned unevenly with the heavy use. The irrigation was obviously turned on at regular intervals. “C’mon,” she muttered breathlessly.

  They had just started up the incline when a large figure stepped out of the crops above them. It threw a massive shadow as it started down the slope toward them. Derec looked up at the great bulk of a Hunter as it moved toward them carefully, watching its precarious balance on the poor footing.

  “Come on!” Ariel yanked him sideways back into the fruit orchard. “Hurry.”

  “I can’t,” he whispered apologetically. “I’m too weak to hurry.” He followed her, though, until she halted abruptly a moment later.

  Another Hunter was waiting for them in the trees ahead, a dark silhouette against the glow of light behind him.

  They turned again and found two more Hunters pushing through the trees, breaking branches and shaking leaves as they did so, coming right up the slope without bothering to follow any rows and furrows. Their very silence and dispassionate demeanor discouraged rebellion.

  Derec leaned wearily on Ariel’s shoulders, unable to struggle. She wrapped her arms around him, more for his sake, he guessed, than because she was scared. He glared helplessly at the nearest Hunter.

  As he watched the Hunter reaching for them he saw a weirdly flexible robot arm curl around the Hunter’s neck from behind. It made a couple of quick motions and the Hunter froze, completely shut down.

  Derec blinked at it, too surprised to react.

  “Run!” Mandelbrot shouted, emerging from behind the Hunter. His cellular arm, which Derec had long ago installed and ordered him to disguise as a normal robotic arm of the time, was just now stiffening back to normal.

  “Come on!” Ariel shoved Derec past Mandelbrot to put their protector between them and the Hunters.

  They began stumbling through the trees again, their hope renewed by Mandelbrot. Ariel led him through a crooked trail, turning and twisting through the fruit trees in a clumsy, crashing route that ignored stealth entirely. At one point Derec got caught in a leafy branch and had to pause to get out. He took the moment to peer back at Mandelbrot.

  Four Hunters had originally closed in on them. Mandelbrot had apparently pushed the controls on that first one to neutralize it and then had attacked the other three. By attacking them, he brought the Third Law into effect, forcing the Hunters to protect themselves. This imperative overrode even the strongest programming, so that they could not continue their pursuit until they had subdued Mandelbrot.

  Mandelbrot was outnumbered, but had the advantage of instructions to use his cellular arm. Further, in the close quarters among the trees, the greater size of the Hunters impeded them. The struggle continued, buying Derec and Ariel more time as they hurried on.

  Ariel led the way until finally he reached out and grabbed her, too out of breath to speak up. She waited anxiously until he could, looking around fearfully.

  “Where are we going?” He panted.

  “I don’t know. Anywhere. Just away.”

  “Mandelbrot can’t win that fight. He can only slow them down. Then it’ll start allover again the same way.”

  “Have you got a better idea?” She demanded.

  He nodded and got down on the ground among the trees. “I’ve been thinking about this park. The way that robot path is chewed up by the footprints and all. It means this park normally doesn’t have an erosion problem.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So these crops still need water, and it’s obviously managed with their usual efficiency. If this valley is irrigated by underground pipes or something, we’ve had it. But I don’t think the robots would do that, because leaves need external moisture, too.”

  “Get to the point, will you? Or let’s go.”

  “Irrigation outlets. This valley has to have them in some form. If we turn them on, they’ll eliminate our heat trail.”

  “Well....” She knelt down beside him. “They could be anywhere. And it’s dark. Besides, Derec, this is a high-altitude valley. Maybe the natural fog and rain take care of all that.”

  “That would be leaving too much to chance. We have to figure this out.”

  “How?”

  He sat back and looked at her. His legs no longer hurt; they were nearly numb. “All right. Instead of looking at random, we have to work it out logically, like the robots would. Where would you place irrigation outlets for the greatest efficiency?”

  “How do I know?”

  “Well, I can hardly think at all!”

  “All right, all right. Concentrate. We’re on a slope.... Derec, come on. This way.”

  He nodded and forced himself after her, stumbling on feet he could hardly feel.

  After a walk that seemed much longer than it could possibly have been, they stopped along a row between the trees that ran horizontally along the slope. Now Derec was the one looking all around for Hunters that could come from any direction.

  “They must use these furrows as a kind of terracing,” said Ariel. “I think we’re right in the middle of the vertical rows. If they put the irrigation spigots near here, they would lose the least amount to runoff down the slope. The same with fire control.”

  “It sounds good to me,” said Derec, collapsing to the ground again. “Let’s find it.”

  “If it’s here,” she added, joining him on the ground.

  “I got something.” Derec’s hand had come across a small cylinder sticking up perhaps fifteen centimeters from the surface of the ground. He got down low to look at it in the faint light.

  “Now what?” Ariel whispered, moving next to him. “It doesn’t have any controls or anything. What if the sensors are somewhere else?”

  “It’s possible,” said Derec slowly. “But look how high it is. Why would they do that? They don’t do anything sloppily here, or without a reason. They don’t waste material, either.”

  “Derec, we can’t just sit here and try to outguess them. Who knows?” She shook her head. “Maybe we should just keep running, huh?”

  He shook his head. “This is the only real chance we have left. Come on, help me bury it.”

  “What?”

  “Hurry! Why else would it be so tall? This whole thing is its own sensor. It probably judges air moisture and precipitation and who knows what.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I think they designed it at this height so it wouldn’t be covered by minor shifts in the soil during hoeing and other care. If we cover it with dirt, it’ll stop sensing. Come on!” He was already scraping up the soft black soil, which the function robots seemed to keep turned constantly, and began packing it around the cylinder.

  She joined him without further argument. They found the soil damp enough to stick to the cylinder if they packed it hard, and before long it was covered. Derec wiped the dirt off his hands on some leaves.

  “Now what?” She asked, wiping off her own hands. “Nothing’s happening.”

  Chapter 18

  DOWN A HOLE

  AT THE FAR end of the valley, Wolruf sat quivering in the chilly air. She was huddled high in the mountains in a vertical crevice of rock. This was the compromise she had reached for her conundrum: she was in the valley where she could try to observe the humans or even Mandelbrot if they were here when day broke. At the same time, she would not lead the Hunters following her directly to them.

  Now she could not see any of them in the faint light down in the valley. In the nearer regions below her, function robots were visible doing their regular chores among the crops. Her
physiology kept her just warm enough at this altitude to remain for a while, but she was not comfortable. Nor did she have the energy left to run farther.

  She waited patiently, reviewing the moves she had made to break her trail. None of them could avoid a systematic search by the Hunters if they were close enough to detect her heat. Also, the Hunters probably had checked the pass at some point, because it was a bottleneck that could quickly tell them if she was inside the valley or out.

  If her heat trail had faded before they had reached it, they still had physical signs to rely on. She had been as careful as possible, but the robotic vision of the Hunters could detect extreme detail. The rest was up to them.

  Her ears perked up at the sound of footsteps on the rock fall below her. With no more energy left for fleeing, she waited patiently. The giant shape of a Hunter emerged from the darkness, thrown into silhouette by the distant glow emanating from the crops below. She knew it would not harm her, but it would take her prisoner and possibly deliver her to Dr. Avery, who could certainly harm her if he wished.

  She shivered as the Hunter reached down to pick her up.

  Derec was staring disconsolately at the dirt-covered sensor when it suddenly erupted in an uneven spray, knocking loose some of the dirt. Ariel and he both flinched. All around them, other spigots were also spraying jets of fine mist into the air.

  “That’s it!” Derec lifted his arms toward her. “Let’s go. Can you help me up?”

  Ariel took his arms and pulled. His legs gave out under him. She wasn’t strong enough to lift him.

  She started to pull again.

  “I can’t walk any more.” His lower legs and feet had lost all feeling.

  “You can’t walk at all?” Her shoulders slumped.

  “But I can crawl. Let’s go.”

  “Derec...?”

  “Come on!” He started crawling through the soft earth, which was quickly turning to mud.

  She stood and walked alongside him. “This is crazy. We’re hardly getting anywhere.”

  “We have a lot more time now. The Hunters can’t follow our heat trail so they’ll have to start a pattern search. And at least one of them will have to carry Mandelbrot after they’ve shut him down.”

  “Derec, you’ve only gone two meters!”

  He stopped, sighing, and looked ahead. She was right. He could barely move. “Hey — what’s that thing?”

  “What?” She looked, too.

  Some kind of large rectangular shape, at least a cubic meter in size, was emerging from the ground below the trees.

  “That... thing, there. We haven’t seen one of those before.” He started crawling again.

  “There’s one behind us, too,” she said. “And beyond that one. They’re coming up all over. They were completely hidden before.”

  “We must have triggered them along with the irrigation. Go see what it is.”

  She hurried ahead and stopped in front of the object, bending low in front of it. After a moment, she came back and knelt down. “I think we can get inside it. It looks like a ventilation duct or something.”

  Derec nodded. He had stopped crawling to get his breath again. His head was spinning dizzily.

  When she got down on all fours and moved under him, he let her. She gathered his arms around her neck and maneuvered under him. Then, supporting his weight, she began to crawl much faster than he had, carrying as much of his weight as she could.

  He hung on with his arms and closed his eyes against the spray of water.

  “Here,” she said, after a few moments.

  He opened his eyes into a gaping black opening with no other features. As she eased out from under him, he reached inside and felt for the shape of the object.

  “It’s not a straight drop.” She helped him climb inside. “You can feel a gradual incline.”

  Derec hesitated, too disoriented to speak but still reluctant to throw himself into an unknown hole.

  “Go on, get in before the Hunters see us.”

  He was losing all sense of his surroundings. Following directions was easier than arguing. He worked his way inside the opening and then suddenly was sliding downward and accelerating.

  All was in darkness. He felt a rushing of air, the smooth pressure of the surface against his back as he slid, and Ariel bumping against him from above as she slid with him. Vaguely, he realized he was too exhausted to feel any fear.

  He should have been terrified of winding up in a moving fan blade, for instance, or in the workings of some mysterious robot creation that would convert them both to fertilizer. Apparently he had been on Robot City too long for that. The robots couldn’t allow that much danger to a human to exist here.

  No, that wasn’t it, either. The reason was even simpler. Nothing on this planet was more frightening than the chemfets destroying his body from the inside at this very moment.

  The sensation of falling continued as they entered some turns, gradual curves, and finally reached a sudden upturn.

  In the short ascent, gravity broke their momentum and then they slid backward again. Derec lay motionless, aware that they had stopped in the bottom of this thing, whatever it was. No light reached them at all.

  He felt Ariel move a little, probably getting her bearings.

  “Derec?” She said softly.” Are you hurt?”

  A moment passed before he had the breath to answer. “No,” he whispered. “But I’ve had it.”

  “We’re safe now,” she said, feeling for him and stroking his hair.” At least from the Hunters. I’m sure of it. They’ll have to search the entire valley, and every one of these things. And these were popping up every few meters, it looked like.... well, every fifty or sixty, anyhow. Without a heat trail to follow, it’ll take them forever.”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “But we’re onto him! Avery, I mean. I’m sure of it.” She shuffled around and seemed to stand. “You know that upward curve at the end of our... little ride? It’s here and not very high. The duct continues on a level from here. Say, you know what else? There are handholds of some kind on the side opposite the one we slid down.”

  “Maybe for service robots to make repairs down here.” He thought a moment. The temptation to go on was strong. Confronting the crazy doctor after all the suffering he had endured... but he couldn’t move. All he wanted to do was sleep.

  “I think you’re right,” he said finally. “This is a ventilation duct. From the size and number of them, it must lead to an immense living space.”

  “Avery’s home. Robots wouldn’t need it or the produce in the valley. Come on, let’s go. I’ll help you up.”

  “You’ll have to go on alone. I honestly can’t move.”

  She was quiet a moment. “Do you really want me to go on without you?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right,” she said slowly. She waited, perhaps trying to think of something else to say. Then she got her arms around him and embraced him very hard, and held on.

  He was too weak to respond. After a moment, he felt her let go and stand up. Then she was climbing, and he heard her moving down the ventilation duct away from him.

  He closed his eyes and slept.

  Ariel felt her way forward slowly with her hands as she crawled, not making any move until she knew what was ahead of her. She was still in absolute darkness in some kind of giant tube that was so far stretching straight ahead on a level course. With Derec unable to move, she was painfully aware that she was the last of their group to have a chance at finding Dr. Avery.

  She was not exactly in top condition herself. Her hands and feet were painfully cold and she was drenched from the sprinklers. She was worn out, too, though not sick like Derec was. The climb up the mountainside and down into the valley had taken a lot of energy out of her.

  She hoped, with guarded optimism, that her memory was growing stronger. Those weird memory fugues had grown less frequent and she wished fervently that none would strike while she was alone in this thing,
whatever it was.

  She began to find branches and intersections in the passageway. Without any way to pick one direction over another, she attempted to go as straight as she could. Going in roughly one direction would at least prevent her from wandering hopelessly in circles. She suspected that the intersecting tunnels represented those other openings on the surface they had seen.

  After a while, she thought she had picked out a pattern. From what she could feel, smaller tunnels seemed to converge more often and become larger ones consistently to her left. She began to move leftward and discovered that the tunnels were now high enough for her to stand if she bent over.

  Now that she was moving in this direction, more tunnels converged around her all the time. Then they started branching out again, some of them splitting off above her. Finally she realized that she could see hints of shapes: dark spaces that represented openings one way, a faint reflection of an inner surface another way.

  The traces of a light source shone from just one direction.

  She dropped to all fours again to pursue the light source, now more concerned with making noise than with the height of the tunnel.

  Around a curve, she reached something recognizable: a covered opening into a room. Barely daring to breathe, she moved as quietly as she could toward it until she could peek through the opening.

  It was nearly opaque.

  The room was lit, but she couldn’t see much. It was carpeted in brown. Nor could she hear anything.

  After the silence had continued, she decided that she would have to risk entering the room. She began studying the edge of the covering to see if she could get it loose. In a moment, she found that pressure on the covering itself caused a hole to appear in the middle. The substance, whatever it was, receded from the hole to fade outward into the surrounding wall until the vent was entirely open.

  She let out a sigh of relief that the room was deserted. It was still silent, as well. After shifting around to get her feet out first, she dropped to the floor of the room and looked around.

  It was a small room, perhaps only three meters cubed. The brown carpeting went all the way up the walls and covered the ceiling as well. The light came from a globe floating just under the center of the ceiling.