Asimov's Future History Vol 2

by Isaac Asimov

  “Yes,” said Hunter. “He correctly judged that no threat of harm existed here that I did not have under control. So he was free to flee.”

  “Well?” Steve demanded. “Hunter, aren’t we going to chase him or something? Let’s go after him.”

  “I do not believe he has fled very far,” said Hunter. “But if I pursue him, he will run. You three cannot keep up.”

  “Can we try it?” Steve pleaded. “This is what we came for.”

  “I will not lead you barging through this forest recklessly — especially this late in the day. MC Governor will still have to respond to the Laws. Inducing him to come to us is a safer tactic for you humans than running around after him.”

  Steve sighed. “All right. I’ll let the stegoceras go.”

  “Not so fast!” Chad stepped up quickly. “First I want to record as much description of him as I can.”

  “He’s all yours.”

  Chad eyed the dinosaur and began muttering observations into his belt computer.

  “Something else is wrong,” said Jane. “That wasn’t a Governor robot. It was one of the six component robots that combine to create a Governor.”

  “I noticed that the footsteps were unexpectedly light,” said Hunter. “It was gone before I had a chance to turn and see it myself.”

  “Do you have any information that can tell us if he split here or back in our own time?”

  Hunter reviewed his data. “No. That is, nothing conclusive, anyway.”

  “So we don’t know if we’re looking for six robots here,” said Jane. “The others may also have separated, or they may still be together.”

  “If so, they’re apparently still microscopic,” said Steve. “They might also appear any time. Right?”

  “Now he’s a roboticist,” Chad sneered, looking up from the stegoceras.

  “I didn’t see you accomplish anything,” said Steve. “When I got back here, you were hiding in a tree.”

  Jane stifled a laugh.

  “Until further notice,” said Hunter, “we will focus our project on the robot who we know has reached full size. If the others are here and still microscopic, they will appear sooner or later on this spot.”

  “If we aren’t going to run after that robot, is there any objection if I make camp?” Steve squinted through the treetops at the sun. “Assuming you want shelter for the night, and maybe hot food.”

  “Did you find water?” Hunter asked.

  “Yeah. A small, clear stream about a ten minute hike from here.”

  “That’s not too far,” said Chad.

  “It will be, hauling water,” said Steve. “Especially stepping over all the fallen logs and around all the heavy brush. Suppose we make camp by the water.”

  “Unacceptable,” said Hunter. “If more component robots reach full size, they will do so here. While we concentrate our search on the known fugitive, we should also be prepared to see if the others appear. For now, that will be sufficient attention to them. I will carry water if necessary.”

  “It will be.” Steve shrugged and started opening up their supplies.

  Chad continued walking around the stegoceras and speaking into his belt computer.

  Hunter opened his radio link and transmitted. “This is R. Hunter, in the employ of the Governor Robot Oversight Committee. Respond, Mojave Center Governor component robot. We must discuss the danger to humans in the future.” Then, as he waited for an answer, he explained to Jane what he was doing.

  “Any answer?”

  “Not yet,” said Hunter. “Do you think he will answer?”

  “Hard to say. From his point of view, you are introducing a rather vague First Law concern. It will be open to his interpretation.”

  “In what way?”

  “If he feels that his own danger from us is more immediate than the theoretical danger he poses to humans in the future, then he may have the freedom of choice not to answer you.”

  “As a robot, I cannot give him a Second Law instruction,” said Hunter. “But I suspect that he — I will call him MC 1 — may have shut down his radio link to avoid receiving any transmission from me that might compel him to cooperate with us under the Laws of Robotics.”

  “I agree. As soon as he saw us, he must have known we were after him. Since the only radio transmission here would come from you or his own partner components, he won’t need it for anything else.”

  “That does mean he will not try to coordinate with the others if they are here.”

  “True. In fact, he may very well have shut off his aural capability, at least within the sound range of human speech. That way no amount of shouting from us humans can force his obedience under the Second Law.”

  “Yes, I understand.” Hunter listened again for some sound of MC 1 in the distance. Any number of large and small animals, presumably dinosaurs, were moving about in the forest within his hearing, but he heard no sounds that he could specifically identify as coming from MC 1.

  “We could still try trapping him again,” said Jane. “It simply requires staging a trap in his line of sight.”

  “The whole character of our search has to change,” said Hunter. “We have no way of anticipating now where he will be at any given time. So even if we decide to use a trap to catch him, we have to find him first.”

  “Do you have a revised plan?”

  “Maybe. Our new search has to be based on the fact that MC 1 is no longer miniaturized. My enhanced vision should be able to track him to some degree and my hearing may still reveal something, especially if I can detect a pattern to separate the sounds of his movements from those of dinosaurs.” Hunter walked over to Chad.

  The stegoceras was no longer struggling. It was now standing still, glaring suspiciously at all of them, effectively held in place by the two ropes around its neck. Chad was looking at it from several different angles.

  “We no longer need it,” said Hunter. “When you have finished gathering your data, we must free it unharmed.”

  “I’m finished,” said Chad, nodding his agreement. “This is really exciting, Hunter. I have the first raw data ever gathered from a living dinosaur. In fact, I’ve taped him with the camera built into this belt computer.”

  Hunter moved to the nearest rope and untied it from the tree trunk. “Chad, what are the chances that we can actually rope and tame some dinosaurs to ride?”

  “Ride?” Chad looked at him in surprise. “Uh — well, I’ll have to think that over.” He sat down on a large rock and consulted his belt computer again.

  Hunter held the rope taut as he moved toward the stegoceras. When he reached it, the small dinosaur tried to butt him in the stomach. Hunter ignored the slight collision and released the other loop from its neck. Then he led the stegoceras away from the humans by the first rope.

  “I will take him a short distance into the forest before I free him.”

  “I’ll walk with you,” said Jane.

  As they picked their way through the forest, Hunter kept the stegoceras tightly leashed and away from Jane.

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Jane. “You should have a better chance of chasing down MC 1 on your own now.”

  “Maybe in the short term,” said Hunter. “If I could catch him quickly.”

  “You know you can track him and keep up a pace of hiking and even running after him that we can’t match. Since you’re much bigger than the component robots, you can physically overpower him. You won’t need us humans to give him Second Law instructions. Maybe we should just stay in camp, out of your way.”

  “That is one possibility I must consider,” said Hunter, dragging the stubborn stegoceras after him on the rope. “However, the trail of MC 1 could lead me away from camp for a protracted period. I have to consider this environment largely unknown and potentially very harmful.”

  “In other words, you don’t want to leave us alone.” Jane ducked under a low-hanging tree branch.

  “Not for very long. I cannot. If any of you humans rem
ain in camp, the First Law will not allow me to leave you unsupervised for very long. That means I cannot go off on an open-ended chase. If I can arrange for you to come with me safely, then I can fulfill my First Law obligations to you while we are pursuing MC 1.”

  “I see. And if you and MC 1 start a footrace, the rest of us will need mounts to keep up with you.”

  “Yes.” Hunter stopped. “I think I can let our friend go now. Please step behind me in case he is still angry.”

  “All right.” Jane slipped behind Hunter, giving him some room to maneuver.

  Hunter held the dinosaur’s neck firmly in the crook of one arm while he took off the loop. Then he released the little stegoceras and stepped back warily. The dinosaur shook its domed head, glanced at him, and darted away through the thick underbrush. Still, Hunter listened to its footsteps until he was sure that the herbivore had truly lost interest in coming back to ram any of them.

  “Gone?” Jane asked.

  “Yes.” Hunter turned to start back to camp. “He was too small for anyone to ride.”

  They walked back to camp in silence. By the time they arrived, Steve had erected a large, blue-domed tent. He had set up the portable kitchen and also arranged the sleeping bags inside the tent. Chad was leaning back against a tree, still working with his belt computer.

  “I think our search for MC 1 may also involve a time limit of sorts,” said Jane thoughtfully.

  “A time limit? Of what sort?” Hunter had not been aware of any.

  Chad looked up with interest. Steve also stopped working in order to listen.

  “The miniaturization and subsequent reversal has almost certainly weakened MC l’s molecular structure, making him much more fragile than normal,” said Jane.

  ” You think a fight with a dinosaur might destroy him?” Hunter asked.

  “Possibly,” said Jane. “But another problem is almost guaranteed.”

  “Another problem?”

  “In this warm, humid climate, microscopic life must be very active,” said Jane. “As long as MC 1 was microscopic himself, he was defending himself directly from other microbes — possibly even fighting with them under the Third Law. But now he’s too big to do that.”

  “So the microbes are going to start interfering with his robotic body?” Hunter asked. “In a way that would not normally occur, without the effects of miniaturization and its subsequent termination?”

  “Yes, little by little.”

  “I understand. If he falls down unseen here in this forest, he may be impossible to find. At the very best, it will take more sophisticated equipment than we have.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Steve. “If the robot’s dead, so to speak, then he won’t be actively interfering with history. So we just have to catch the others, right?”

  “No,” said Hunter. “I cannot allow him just to remain here. According to chaos theory as applied to history, even his rusting, corroding remains could change some subtle part of human history in the far future.”

  “That seems hard to believe,” said Steve.

  Chad laughed. “You just don’t understand the general principle of the theory.”

  “All right, then,” said Steve. “Suppose you just tell me. How, here in the Late Cretaceous Period, can the body of one nonfunctioning robot possibly matter?”

  “You ever hear of the term ‘therapsids’?” Chad demanded with a smirk.

  “No,” Steve admitted.

  “That word, my ignorant friend, refers to some mammal-like reptiles that lived long before even this period that we’re in now. Generally, they were small, active, rather aggressive carnivores. All true mammals are descended from them — meaning that some of our very own human ancestors are alive right now, in one form or another. You follow me?”

  “Yeah.”

  Chad grinned and gestured toward the surrounding forest. “All kinds of little critters are roaming around this forest. In fact, though it’s unlikely — who knows? One of the little local monsters might actually be our own very great grandma!” He laughed.

  “So what does this have to do with a rusting robot?” Steve demanded.

  “So dense.” Chad rolled his eyes. “All right, look. That robot has compound substances in it that are modern industrial creations. They don’t belong in this time. If some of our very distant human ancestors poison themselves trying to eat that stuff, they die early — and maybe they won’t reproduce, or they may have chromosome damage that changes the traits of their offspring. Now do you see how human history could be changed by something like this?”

  “Yeah, I guess, but it still sounds pretty farfetched,” said Steve skeptically.

  “Yes, statistically it is quite unlikely,” said Hunter. “But not impossible. That is the problem that chaos theory presents me with under the First Law. The degree of probability that MC 1‘s permanent presence may harm all humans is still too great for me to accept.”

  Steve just shrugged.

  “Chad,” said Hunter. “What do you think about capturing some herbivorous dinosaurs we could ride?”

  “Well, from what little information I have, I would say there’s a reasonable chance.”

  “Can you recommend some likely species? Some that we can find in this forest?”

  “Yes. That is, I can suggest some that appear to be a good size and shape to ride. But the fossil evidence can’t possibly tell me something as subtle as how long a certain species might take for a rider to break.”

  “Understood,” said Hunter. “We will be the first to give it a real try.”

  “What kind of dinosaurs have you picked?” Steve asked.

  “What’s your hurry?” Chad snickered.

  Steve stiffened at his tone. “Nobody’s going to break a new mount without equipment. If you want to ride a dinosaur, you — and all of us — will need some kind of stirrups and halter at the very least, preferably a bridle and a saddle if I can rig them up.”

  “An excellent point,” said Hunter.

  “So,” said Steve, “I need to know the rough size and shape of the heads, necks, and torsos of the dinosaurs you expect us to ride. Then I can start checking our equipment for something we can use.”

  “All right,” said Chad, now speaking in a normal tone of voice. “Here, take a look at this screen. Our first choice is going to be the struthiomimus. It kind of resembles an ostrich.”

  Steve moved around and looked over his shoulder. “Two meters tall, three and a half meters long, head and neck like an ostrich. Got it.”

  10

  STEVE EYED THE sunlight that filtered brightly through a few gaps in the canopy of leaves overhead. The sun was low; only an hour or so of daylight was left. He made dinner with the supplies they had brought, using a small, portable electric stove.

  The group sat in a circle outside the front of the tent, eating from biodegradable dishes and utensils. Steve, remembering his camping experience, had been thinking ahead. He was determined to show Chad that he knew what he was doing, at least within his own area of responsibility.

  “This is going to take longer than you hoped, isn’t it?” Steve asked Hunter, between mouthfuls.

  “I believe so,” said Hunter. “If the stegoceras had been under control when MC 1 appeared, I could have given chase at that time. Once he was out of my sight and hearing, though, the moment was past. From that point, a new plan was required.”

  “Hunter, we have water for only another twenty-four hours. Our food will last a couple of days if we ration it, but we can stretch it indefinitely if we do some hunting and gathering here in the forest.”

  “Why not just go back home for more supplies?” Chad asked. “Now that we have a better idea of conditions here.”

  “That presents a problem,” said Hunter. “I have to conduct the time travel myself. The First Law stops me from leaving any of you alone for long and I would not dare leave any humans here without me. On the other hand, if we all go back and then
return here, I would have to bring us back only seconds, or maybe minutes, after we left.”

  “Why?” Steve asked.

  “Otherwise, the additional component robots might spring up from microscopic to normal size while we’re gone and we would miss them, too.”

  “So what’s the problem?” Chad shrugged. “You can arrange for us to come back here right after we left, can’t you?”

  “I do not dare cut it too close,” said Hunter. “All kinds of theoretical paradoxes are possible in time travel. With a tight margin of error, it is possible that a mistake could bring us back a few seconds before we left, and we would meet ourselves. The potential harm is immense, and the First Law will not even let me consider that.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Jane. “You still have to weigh the possible damage we will do to this time period if we start consuming resources.”

  “I have been making calculations about that,” said Hunter. “No action is totally without risk, but I think that some careful hunting and gathering of food and water for a day or two will offer the least amount of risk.”

  Jane looked up from her dinner at him for a moment. “Are you sure that our eating some fish or reptiles won’t set off a chain of events that totally changes our future? That is what the chaos theory is about, isn’t it?”

  “This is ridiculous,” said Steve impatiently. “I can’t believe that catching a couple of fish is going to end the world in our own time. This kind of talk drives me crazy.” He got up and started gathering the empty dishes and cups.

  Behind him, Hunter remained calm in the twilight.

  “I have to take this possibility seriously,” Hunter said. “However, I feel that consuming a small amount of food will do no more damage than staying here and stepping on the plants, climbing trees, or roping and riding dinosaurs. I do believe that we should catch fish, however, as opposed to dinosaurs or mammalian ancestors.”

  “What?” Steve turned around from the portable kitchen equipment. “You mean that eating a fish instead of a little dinosaur the same size might actually make a difference sixty million years from now?”

  “The chance of making a significant change is less,” Hunter said patiently.