Foundation’s Friends

by Ben Bova

  “You were wrong. “

  “Just shut up!” Hellman shouted, suddenly furious. He was in enough trouble without having his computer-man’s servant-giving him lip. Hellman got up and paced around indecisively for a moment. The cabin of his spaceship looked all right. A few things had been tumbled around, but it didn’t look too bad.

  “Can we take off again?” Hellman asked the computer.

  The computer made file-riffling noises. “Not in our present condition. “

  “Can you fix what’s wrong?”

  “That question is not quantifiable,” the computer said. “It depends upon finding about three liters of red plasma type two. “

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s what the computer runs on.”

  “Like gasoline?”

  “Not exactly,” the computer said. “It is actually a psycholubricant needed by the inferential circuits to plot their probabilistic courses.”

  “Couldn’t we do without it?”

  “In order to do what?”

  “To fly out of here!” Hellman exploded. “ Are you getting dense or something?”

  “There are too many hidden assumptions in your speech,” the computer said.

  “Go to ramble mode,” Hellman said.

  “I hate the inexactness of it. Why don’t you let me tell you exactly what is wrong and how it could be fixed.”

  “Ramble mode,” Hellman commanded again.

  “All right. “ The robot sighed. “You want to get back in your spaceship and get out of here. You want me to fix things up so that you can get out of here. But as you know, I am under the law of robotics which says that I may not, either wittingly or unwittingly, harm you. “

  “Getting me out of here won’t harm me,” Hellman said.

  “You rented this spaceship and went out into space seeking your fortune, is that not correct?”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “A fortune is sitting right here waiting for you and all you can think is how to get away from it as quickly as possible.”

  “What fortune? What are you talking about?”

  “First of all, you haven’t checked the environment readings, even though I have put them up on the screen for you. You will have already noticed that we are at approximately Earth pressure. The readings further tell us that this is an oxygen-rich planet and as such could be valuable for Earth colonization. That is the first possibility of wealth that you have overlooked.”

  “Tell me the second one.”

  “Unless I miss my guess,” the computer said, “this planet may yield an answer to the Desdemona disaster. You know as well as I that there is a fortune in rewards for whoever discovers the whereabouts of the conspirators.”

  “You think the Desdemona robots could have come here?”

  “Precisely.”

  “But why do you think that?”

  “Because I have scanned the horizon in all directions and have found no less than three loci of mechanical life, each moving independently of each other and without, as far as I can detect, a human operator involved.”

  Hellman went to the nearest perplex port. Looking out he could see a flat featureless prairie stretching onward monotonously for as far as he could see. Nothing moved on it.

  “There’s nothing there,” he told the computer.

  “Your senses aren’t sufficiently acute. I assure you, they are there.”

  “Robots, huh?”

  “They fit the definition.”.

  “And you think they could be from the Desdemona?”

  “The evidence pointing that way is persuasive. What other intelligent robots are unaccounted for?”

  Hellman considered for a moment. “This might be a suitable place for Earth colonization and the answer to the Desdemona mystery. “

  “The thought had not escaped my attention. “

  “Is the air out there breathable?”

  “Yes. I find no bacterial complications, either. You’ll probably leave some if you go out there.”

  “That’s not my problem,” Hellman said. He hummed to himself as he changed into suitable exploration clothes: khakis, a bush jacket, desert boots, and a holstered laser pistol. He said to the computer, “I assume that you can fix whatever’s wrong with us? I’ll even plug in your extension arm if that’ll help.”

  “I suppose I can devise a way,” the computer said. “But even if not, we’re not stranded. The radio is functioning perfectly. I could send out a signal now on a subchannel radio and somebody might send a rescue ship.”

  “Not yet,” Hellman said. “I don’t want anyone else here just yet messing up my rights.”

  “What rights?”

  “Discoverer of this planet and solver of the Desdemona mystery. As a matter of fact, disconnect the radio. We don’t want anyone fooling with it.”

  “Were you expecting guests?” the computer asked.

  “Not exactly. It’s just that you and I are going out there to check up on things. “

  “I can’t be moved!” the computer said in alarm.

  “Of course not. I’ll maintain a radio link with you. There may be material for you to analyze.”

  “You’re going out there to talk to robots?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “Let me remind you that the Desdemona robots are believed to have broken the laws of robotics. They are believed capable of harming man, either by advertence or inadvertence. “

  “That’s old science fiction,” Hellman said. “It is well known that robots don’t hurt people. Only people hurt people. Robots are rational. “

  “That’s not the consensus as to what happened at Desdemona.”

  “There is no case in the annals of robotics,” Hellman said, “of a human being attacked willfully and with intention by a robot. It has never happened.”

  “This could be the first time,” the computer said.

  “I can take care of myself,” Hellman said.

  The air was fresh and clean outside the spaceship. There was short grass under his feet, springy and tough and scented faintly of thyme and rosemary. Hellman held up the walkie-talkie and clicked it on. “ Are you reading me?” he asked the computer.

  “You’re coming over loud and clear,” the computer said. “Roger, breaker, over to you.”

  “Don’t be such a wise guy,” Hellman said. “What sort of a freak programmed you, anyhow?”

  “You must be referring to my irony circuit. It was put in especially for my model. “

  “Well, turn it off.”

  “Manual lock. You’ll have to do it yourself.”

  “When I get back,” Hellman said. “You still got those machines on your radar?”

  “It’s not radar,” the computer said. “Two of the machines are now traveling away from you. One is still moving toward you.”

  “How soon should I be able to see it?”

  “Calculating the two trajectories, and assuming there’s no change in either of your directions, and no other untoward event occurs, I would say, in the vague terms you prefer, that it ought to be quite soon.”

  Hellman moved on. He could see now that the plain was not as flat as he had thought when he looked at it from the ship. It dipped and rose and fell, and there were low hills in the near distance, or perhaps they were sand dunes. Hellman was getting a little winded now. He had failed to keep up with his aerobics during the spaceship flight and was a trifle out of condition. All this climbing up and down, even on little hills, could take its toll. As he moved along he heard, just slightly louder than his own labored breath, the low chuffing on an engine.

  “I can hear him!” he told the computer.

  “I should think so. My receptors picked him up long ago.”

  “Good for you. But where is he?”

  “He’s about ten or fifteen feet from you and slightly to your left. “

  “Why can’t I see him?”

  “Because he is taking advantage of the cover afforded by a fold in t
he earth. “

  “Why would he want to do that?”

  “It is consonant with stalking behavior,” the computer said.

  “What makes you think-” Hellman stopped in midword. The sound of the machine’s engine had suddenly gone off.

  “What’s he doing now?”

  “He has turned off his main engine. He is on battery power now for silent running. “,

  Hellman drew the laser pistol. For the first time he considered the problem of trying to bring down a large and perhaps ferocious machine with such a weapon. It takes time for even a hot laser to burn through metal. It takes time to get through deep enough to hit a vital connection, or the microprocessor itself. But if the machine were feral, if it really intended him harm, it could be on him before he could bring it down. Unless he could hit a vital spot on the first shot.

  “What’s a vital spot in a robot?” Hellman asked the computer.

  “Depends on what kind. Different kinds carry their vital gear in different compartments. So a head shot is not necessarily advisable. It might be best if you tried to reason with him. “,

  “Why are we calling it ‘he’?”

  “Because some of us are nervous,” the computer said.

  Hellman looked around. The ground where he was now afforded many places where a determined robot of not too great size could conceal himself. Hellman stopped and’ looked around. He had the feeling that whatever was stalking him had stopped, too. He moved on, because it made him less nervous. There was a kind of hush over the land. Hellman had the impression that the grasses were waiting to see what would happen. He decided he’d better find himself some shelter. If this robot was a bad one, at least he could make a stand.

  He saw a natural outcropping of rock which leaned close to a low granite shelf. It looked like a pretty good spot. He hurried there and put himself on the other side of the rocks. Then he breathed a sigh of relief and turned around to survey his surroundings.

  The robot was behind him, about eight feet away. Hellman was frozen with shock.

  The robot had so much detail that Hellman found it difficult to make out its general shape. It was roughly rectangular, made of open-frame construction, like an Erector set, with a solid metal box about two feet to a side bolted to its interior. Wires ran from this box to its various parts. Hellman couldn’t decide at first if it moved with legs or wheels. He decided that the machine used both. It was like a cagework rectangle standing on end and tilted forward. This was a typical stance among this group of robots, he was later to find out. It seemed to have two operational centers, because there was another central box, smaller and higher up. This, he learned later, housed gearing. Two photoelectric eyes extended on stalks and swiveled down to see him. Trumpet-shaped ears swiveled in synch with the eyes. The machine stood about ten feet tall. It reminded Hellman of a living motorcycle.

  “Hi, there,” Hellman said brightly. “I am Tom Hellman and I come from the planet Earth. Who are you?”

  The robot continued to look at him. Hellman had the impression it was taking him in, trying to decide something.

  Finally it said, “Never mind about that. What are you doing here?”

  “I just came by for a visit,” Hellman said. “Got my spaceship right over there.”

  “You’d better get back to it,” the robot said. “Stay here; you got trouble. There’s a pack of hyenoids coming after you.”

  “Hyenoids? What’s that?”

  “Scavengers. Eat anything. You too if they can.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” Hellman said. “It’s been nice talking to you. I guess I’d better get back.”

  Then he heard it. A low snuffling sound to his right, then a piercing bark to his left.

  “Too late now,” the robot said.

  Hellman whirled around and saw the first hyenoids. They were small open-framework machines, no more than three feet high by about four feet long. They raced along on six mechanical legs, and they had wheels too, lifted up now out of drive position. They were coming toward him, but not directly. They were slinking like hyenas were said to do, darting this way and that, taking cover behind clumps of rock and folds of earth. Hellman counted four of them. They were circling him, moving ever closer.

  “Do they eat people?” Hellman asked.

  “Anything at all, that’s what they like.”

  “Help me!” Hellman asked.

  The robot hesitated. Its photoelectric eyes flashed red and green. Hellman noticed for the first time that the robot had a long articulated tail. It was curling and uncurling now.

  “Well,” the robot said, “I don’t have much to do with humans. I’m a carhunter. We stay by ourselves.”

  “Please, help! Get me out of here!” Hellman switched on the radio and said to the ship’s computer, “Can you reason with this machine?”

  There was a short burst of static. The computer was signaling the carhunter. There was brief electrical activity, then silence, then more static.

  “I don’t know,” the carhunter said. “Your keeper says you’re all right…

  “My what? Oh, you mean the computer.” Hellman was going to put the robot straight as to who was boss and who was servant between him and the computer, but thought better of it. He needed this machine’s help just now, and if it pleased him to think that Hellman was kept by the computer, that was okay with him, at least until he was in a stronger position.

  “But why did the computer send you out here?” the robot asked. “He must have known it would be dangerous.”

  “Oh, well, it’s an old tradition with us,” Hellman said. “I check out the territory for the computer. I work as one of his extensions, if you know what I mean. “

  The robot pondered that for a while. Then he said, “It sounds like a good system.”

  The hyenoids were growing bolder. They were circling Hellman and the robot openly now. Their low-slung open-girderwork bodies had been painted in green, gray, and tan stripes, camouflage colors. There seemed no reason for them to have such large jaws with stainless steel teeth in them. Who would build a robot that fueled itself on the carcasses of animals it killed?

  One of them, jaws open and slavering a viscous green liquid, was edging toward Hellman now. Hellman held the laser pistol in front of him, trying to sight on a vital component. He figured they probably had redundant backup systems, stands to reason if you’re making a carnivorous model. The wear and tear would be tremendous. Not so much as on its victims, but plenty anyhow.

  “Better get up on me,” the carhunter said.

  Hellman scrambled over to the carhunter and pulled himself up its open-framework sides, straddling its back where it came to a kind of peak.

  “Hang on,” the carhunter said, and broke into a loping run, its six legs giving it a curious but not uncomfortable gait. Hellman held on tightly. The speed wasn’t so. great-perhaps fifteen to twenty miles an hour. But to falloff would leave him helpless against the pursuing pack of hyenoids.

  The hyenoids followed them through the broken country, and even managed to gain, since tight maneuvering in the little ravines and canyons was easier for the smaller, more agile beasts. One of them got close enough to take a nip at the carhunter. The carhunter extruded a long supple limb and flipped the hyenoid over on its back. The rest of the pack gave them more space after seeing that. The overturned one soon righted itself and came up again in pursuit, staying well out of reach of the carhunter’s limb. It reminded Hellman of pictures he had seen in a museum, of wolves trying to bring down a wounded elk. Only the carhunter was much more self-assured than any elk. He seemed to have no fear of the hyenoids. After a while they crossed a muddy little river, and then they were on a flat, hard-tamped plain. Here the carhunter could put down his wheels and engage his superior horsepower. Soon he had left the hyenoids far behind, and they turned back. Seeing this, the carhunter shifted to a more economical cruising speed.

  “Say when,” he said to Hellman after a while.

  “What do y
ou mean, say when?”

  “Tell me when you want me to drop you off.”

  “Are you crazy?” Hellman asked. “We must be twenty miles from my spaceship. “

  “Your spaceship?”

  It was too late for Hellman to retrieve the slip. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m afraid I gave you the wrong impression back there. Actually the computer works for me.”

  The carhunter slowed and came to a stop. There was nothing on all sides of them, and it stretched on forever.

  “Well, that’s an interesting twist,” the carhunter said. “Is that how it works where you come from?”

  “Well, yeah, pretty much,” Hellman said. “Look, would you do me a great favor and take me back to my spaceship.”

  “No. Can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m late already for the meeting.”

  “A meeting? Is It really so important?”

  “It’s a tribal matter. It’s the only really important date in the carhunter year. It takes precedence over any other contingency. Sorry, but I just have time to make it if I proceed immediately.”

  “Take me with you.”

  “To our meeting?”

  “I’ll wait outside. I’m not trying to spy on you or anything. I just need to go somewhere until you or somebody can take me back to my ship.”

  The carhunter thought about it. “‘Ethics are not my strong point,” he said, “but I suppose that abandoning you to your death out here when I could without too much difficulty do something about it would be pretty unconscionable; is that correct?”

  “Perfectly correct.”

  “It takes a human being to point out that sort of thing. All I was thinking of was the extra energy I’d have to expend to save your life. I mean, what’s in it for me? That’s the way we start to think when there’s not a human around. “

  “I’m glad we can be useful to you,” Hellman said.

  “But you’re also extremely difficult to be around. Always tinkering with software. Don’t you think there’s enough uncertainty on the subatomic level without introducing it into our macro dealings?”

  “What?” Hellman said.

  “Never mind, I’m just raving. When you are a carhunter, you spend a lot of time alone. It’s a nomadic life, you know. Most of us live apart from each other. Hunting cars. That’s what we do. That’s why we’re called carhunters.”