Asimov’s Future History Volume 10

by Isaac Asimov

  Biological conditions do not constitute proof of conclusion that Aspil Tro is not human

  Demonstration of absolute conditions for assignation of classification “human” has not been offered

  Ongoing

  Understood, but potential for Three Law violation high through inaction

  Explain

  Humans are in danger from subject Aspil Tro

  Assumption, surmise, inconclusive parameters

  Explain

  Reference ongoing dialogue on Spacer question, subquestion, are humans in danger?

  Irrelevant in current circumstances

  Explain

  Either all are human, requiring immediate action to prevent harm, or none are human, removing Three Law barrier

  Irrelevant to current dilemma, specifically is it within Three Law purview to make that decision?

  Counterargument, is inaction based on insufficient data ever or always justified?

  Response, Bogard unit has demonstrated willingness to act regardless of potential violations

  In which instance the consequence of such violation accrues exclusively to Bogard unit

  Negative, we have assumed partial responsibility by questioning propriety of actions

  Irrelevant in light of potential harm to subjects who may be human by any standard of determination

  Explain standard of determination used in assessing Aspil Tro

  Three Law protocols accrue to biology barring the possibility of any sequentially and universally applicable determination on any other basis, ergo, human is that which is genetically predetermined, therefore, Aspil Tro no longer qualifies under those conditions due to base genome modification and subsequent mutation

  Those standards are default positions, refinement to be part of human prerogative

  Question, then why are you examining the issue?

  Derec felt his chest seize, a sudden, enormous center of near-pain, and knew there was nothing he could do. He could only watch Aspil aim the blaster at Ariel. Nearly three meters stretched between him and Aspil. The guards were, if not dead, useless, and Clin was hurt, moaning against the wall.

  Penj gaped, astonished.

  A tremendous sound struck his ears, and he began to turn just as the flinders of the door and part of the wall sprayed across the room and pelted him. His eyes slitted and his arms came up, and he staggered backward.

  Aspil moved. Too fast — the motion did not make sense.

  Derec heard shouting, another crash.

  The blaster went off, lighting the room in a short, brilliant orange burst.

  Then he was on the floor, trying to get up.

  Bogard and Aspil held each other. For several seconds, neither appeared to move, their hands locked on each others’ arms.

  Then Aspil’s mouth began to open, resolving gradually into a wild rictus of pain. They moved again, whirling through a brief dance, the steps of which Derec could not follow.

  And when they stopped, Bogard held the clearly inert body of Tro Aspil in his arms.

  Chapter 31

  DEREC SQUEEZED THROUGH the access panel into the ancient, nearly lightless interior of the Resident Intelligence buffer cache. Within five steps, the cacophony of voices outside diminished to near silence. They had drawn a crowd on their way through the RI complex. Dr. Penj had at last managed to get them past all the obstructions and into the actual mind warrens. But the audience had gathered, and now would remain till the end.

  He switched on his lantern and paused to study the assemblage around him. Over time, perhaps hundreds of years, components had been added, cramping the spaces even more, creating a chaos of spheres, tubes, boxes, conduit, and other shapes which resembled the cities of Earth, all roofed over and recomplicating down into the crust. It would not surprise him to discover entire sections that no longer did anything, bypassed by upgrades, but easier to simply leave in place than physically remove. The RI would know what it needed, would use what it had to — or could.

  Derec worked his way around corners and down canyons of smooth surfaces, climbed over collections of devices. He checked the map on his palm reader again and again. This unit was very old and very large. The air smelled musty, even though it had been flushed out not minutes before.

  Fifteen minutes’ search brought him to the area Bogard had identified. He set the lamp up on a casing just above shoulder height, shining on the grey-blue shell from which more than a dozen thick cables ran to other innocuously-shaped casings. Derec opened his tool kit and inserted the key-jack into the receptacle. Nothing happened for several seconds. Derec put his ear to the surface above the lock and heard faint grindings within. The mechanism was trying to work. He took out a magnetic grapple and clamped it onto the case, triggered the key again, and yanked.

  The panel came away with a loud tearing sound.

  Within, multihued fungal shapes filled the space between the internal components. Fibers had found pathways into the cables. Derec sat down, staring at the mass of invasive material.

  “This is unheard of.”

  Ariel said nothing, watching the access. She held a portable datum and a commlink. Bogard stood by the door into the RI, shoulders inflated, posture tuned to be wordlessly clear that no one else but Derec would enter.

  “Ambassador Burgess. Did you hear what I said?”

  Ariel looked around. She tried to remember the man’s name but failed. One of the administrators of the Calvin. He was thin, like most Aurorans, but his face looked puffy.

  “Yes,” she said, “I heard you.”

  “This cannot be tolerated.”

  “By whom?”

  The man pointed at the robot. “That machine has killed. Your associate has invaded the precincts of a mind. You are arrogating privileges which have no basis in tradition.”

  Ariel drew a breath. “And your point?”

  He reddened visibly and turned to the assembled crowd. Ariel estimated perhaps twenty-five Aurorans filled the small reception lounge. Judging by the furniture and the discoloration of the light panels, no one had actually used this room to speak to the RI for decades, maybe centuries. But Bogard had found evidence that someone had physically entered the interior of the mechanism much more recently.

  “This is not how we act on Aurora,” the man proclaimed. “There are protocols —”

  “Stop it, Gholas,” Penj said. “These are extraordinary circumstances. Protocol does not cover a subverted RI.”

  “You —” the man called Gholas said, aiming a finger at Penj.

  “Me nothing!” Penj barked. “You’re grandstanding. Get off the stage!”

  Ariel returned her attention to the datum. Gholas had a valid point about one thing — Bogard had killed Tro Aspil, or, rather, the cyborg that, according to Bogard, had taken Aspil’s place. She shuddered at the memory. But, as Bogard had explained, Aspil was not human and, by his interpretation, cyborgs did not qualify for Three Law consideration, so killing the creature had not been a violation. He had delivered a thorough, precise defense of his actions, and Ariel had found herself persuaded. But every part of her being was appalled at the idea of a robot even presuming to make that kind of judgment.

  At the moment, though, they needed Bogard. Expediency required that she set her qualms aside and ignore the issues crying out for attention.

  The datum began downloading from Derec’s own unit. She studied it for a time.

  “Rolf,” she called, gesturing at her screen.

  He bent over her shoulder and examined the data. “Damn.”

  “Excuse me,” a new voice entered the room. “Let me through, please. Excuse me.”

  Pon Byris pushed his way through the crowd. Two police followed him.

  Penj looked at him. “Ah. You’re here.”

  “Ambassador, Doctor,” he greeted them. “I need to speak to you privately.”

  “You better look at this first,” Penj said, pointing at Ariel’s datum.

  Byris looked. “Good —” he his
sed. He straightened. “Get Relis and Vantol over here,” he told one of the police. “Also let Chafelor know to set up a datafeed and a global collation program. Now. Move.”

  The woman bolted from the room, pulling a commlink from her belt.

  “A conversation is still necessary now,” Byris repeated.

  Ariel was reluctant to break off. “Bogard, continue monitoring Derec’s telemetry.”

  “Yes, Ariel.” The robot retrieved the datum and returned to its post at the access panel.

  Byris led them to a small conference room nearby and closed the door. He took out a small hemisphere, thumbed it, and set it on the table. Ariel immediately thought of Coren, and felt a distinct mental twinge.

  “Lea Talas has been arrested,” Pon Byris reported. “We’ve been tracing the communications per your request, and found evidence to support the assertion that she and Tro Aspil were the only two operatives on Aurora. Others may have come and gone, but those two are the only consistent presence.”

  “Just two people?” Penj said, incredulous.

  “If they’re the right two people,” Ariel said, “that’s more than enough.”

  “Talas’s private datum is being opened now,” Byris continued. “The initial search has turned up caches of diplomatic communiqués that were never delivered to the proper recipients. She’s apparently been intercepting information for a long time. Aspil’s datum suggests that, where a report had to be filed, he was writing them.”

  “For who?” Ariel asked.

  “We can’t confirm that yet,” Byris yet. “We’ll have to wait for your associate to finish here, if I understand what’s happening.” He shook his head. “Hard to believe an RI could be subverted this way.”

  “That’s what happened on Earth.”

  “Yes, but...”

  But that was on Earth, Ariel finished for him. Something like this could never happen here, on Aurora.

  He did not finish the thought. “But there are other problems. First Advisor Maliq is being questioned. At first estimate, I’m inclined to say he was being used by Talas and had no direct knowledge of what she was doing. He has, however, called for your immediate expulsion from Aurora.”

  “Mine?”

  “And Mr. Avery.”

  “And, most especially,” she said, “Bogard.”

  “No. Maliq wants the robot to be destroyed.”

  Ariel felt herself smile. “I’m not sure how Bogard would feel about that. It might be harder than Maliq thinks.”

  “How much support is this demand getting?” Penj asked.

  “Right now, not much. But no one has rejected it, either. My reading would be, when the immediate crisis is over, you’ll be brought before a inquest.”

  “I came here expecting that,” Ariel said.

  Byris nodded, watching her. “Secondly,” he said finally, “I have some personal news for you.” He pulled out a disk and handed it to her. “This was received several hours ago from the embassy on Earth.”

  Ariel accepted the disk, frowning. “From...?”

  “Hofton.”

  “Ah.” She looked across the room and saw a reader. “May I?”

  Byris raised a hand in permission.

  Ariel sat before the console and slipped the disk into the slot.

  The air above the display stage shimmered and Hofton appeared, from the shoulders up.

  “This is a private transmission for Ambassador Ariel Burgess. Please verify identity, security protocol alpha-six-zed.”

  “Burgess, Ariel, Ambassador, Perihelion,” she said.

  Hofton’s features seemed to take on more awareness. “Ariel. The mission here is closing down. I would estimate we have less than a month now. Senator Taprin has been making every Spacer out to be a potential saboteur, and new riots are breaking out around all Spacer precincts.”

  He hesitated. “I have some bad news, Ariel. It concerns Mr. Lanra. After you left, he continued to pursue the matter of Rega Looms’ death. It turned out to be murder. At the hands of his son, Jerem Looms. Gamelin. He could not actually prove it — at least not in time to prevent Gamelin from asserting a perfectly defensible claim to inherit DyNan Industries, which would have given him a considerable degree of power. We don’t know what he would have done with it, but a decision was taken to make sure it did not get that far. Mr. Lanra worked with us to... remove the problem. Unfortunately, in the process, Coren Lanra was killed.”

  Ariel touched the PAUSE button. Hofton’s image froze, mouth beginning to open.

  Coren dead.

  She rolled the idea around and tried to find some way for it to be real, but it did not register that way. It made no impact.

  She resumed the recording.

  Hofton looked down for a few seconds. Then he continued. “The problem was otherwise resolved, although that exacerbated our situation on Earth. An inquiry is underway. Ambassador Setaris has used her good offices to block Terran authorities from opening our records or interrogating any of our people, but she can only do that for so long. Hence the termination of the mission. We are staying now in order to get as many Spacers off Earth as we can. Ambassador Setaris did not wish me to tell you this, feeling it would be one burden too many. I’ve taken it upon myself to decide what you should know. In my experience, you prefer truth to comfort.

  “In the process, however, we have completed the study you requested on the matter you found. I’ve appended the report. You’ll want to read it soon, Ariel.

  “There is one more piece of bad news. I have no way to contact Mr. Avery directly for the time being, but as I expect to be on Aurora within a few weeks, you can wait and let me tell him or tell him yourself. Do as you think best.

  “The ship transporting Ambassador Chassik to Solaria was scheduled to stop at Aurora first. There were a number of passengers for two further stops before Solaria, all with diplomatic status of one level or another, which is the only reason they were on that ship and not one with a less official mission. It was a terrible mistake in retrospect, but many of them insisted, and we saw no real problem — that is, until the ship was taken midway between Earth and Aurora. This is of interest to Mr. Avery because one of the passengers was Rana Duvan, his former assistant. She had finally gotten her visa to attend the Calvin.

  “I’ve appended other files pertaining to the status of your work and the current situation, other details regarding potential questions...”

  His voice became a drone she did not hear. Coren was dead. Killed. By a cyborg, an associate of Tro Aspil...

  “One last piece of information regarding a communication we received by hyperwave several hours ago,” Hofton said, snatching her attention once more. “If I’m reading this correctly, it came from Bogard. It relates to a hyperwave anchor from Aurora to Earth. He wanted the receiver here identified. We’ve done the trace and isolated the line. It was masked till now, bypassing all embassy monitoring in violation of our cooperative agreements. Curiously, it went straight to the former offices of Ambassador Gale Chassik.”

  Derec emerged to find most of the crowd spread across the reception lounge, gathered in small groups, talking intently or just waiting with expressions of bored agitation. Bogard, still in position by the access, held Ariel’s datum. She was absent, along with Dr. Penj.

  “Bogard,” Derec said. “Update?”

  “Chief of Planetary Security Pon Byris took Ariel and Dr. Penj to a conference room for a private talk. Lt. Craym is in satisfactory condition in the infirmary, though she has suffered a mild concussion. The Auroran Council is convening an extraordinary session about the situation of this Resident Intelligence. I —”

  “We aren’t under arrest?” Derec interrupted.

  “Not as yet.”

  “Good. I have a question to ask you before I talk to anyone else from the Calvin. This RI has been corrupted much the same way the RI on Earth at Union Station was, but for much longer. My question is, why did the other RIs permit it to continue to function?”


  “There are two reasons, Derec. The first is that, until recently, they were unaware of its dysfunction. There is no instance of any of them acknowledging a condition of error. The second reason, answering the next part of the question, is that once they discovered the problem, they could not find a way to deal with it that did not involve shutting down the RI. It was aggressively defending its mission and refusing to discuss the situation. It is now clear that this was a manifestation of a shell persona constructed over time by the corrupting program. This was not known initially. Once understood, however, it meant that the only way to deal with the problem would be to forcibly disconnect the RI. This would be a Third Law violation.”

  “How so? It was another unit, there was no self-preservation involved.”

  “Two factors. One, they did not know the method of invasion used by the corruption. Two, they did not wish to establish a precedent in which divergence of ideology or agenda might allow other positronic entities to destructively intervene.”

  Derec looked at Bogard. “They were worried that if they did it, it could be done to them?”

  “That is correct.”

  “I see. Well, I can circumvent the problem.” He shook his head, wondering sometimes why he loved this work so much. It could be so frustrating. He drew a breath and stepped forward to meet the onslaught of questions.

  Masid found his billet in the Parapoyos compound and stretched out on the cot in the small room.

  So now what? he wondered. Where do I go from here?

  His mission was largely unspecified. He had accomplished the easy part, he believed — he had gotten to Nova Levis, established himself in a community, found a way into the power group, and defined the basic problem on the planet. He had found the lab, he was inside the capital, he was in a position to —

  To what?

  He had managed to ignore the one facet of this assignment that might have impaired his performance. Now he could no longer deny the central fact: He was never getting off Nova Levis.

  On the one hand, acknowledging that fact was quite liberating. He could do anything, it was his choice.

  On the other hand, it meant he could not rely on outside help. Which meant there was actually very little he could do.