Asimov's Future History Vol 2

by Isaac Asimov

  “Well, it all depends on Hunter right now.” Jane stopped and watched the surf splash around her legs, holding her skirt up with one hand. “Without his robotic abilities, we wouldn’t be able to get this little sailboat made. If I can keep Hunter focused on action, instead of on frustration over the First Law, then he’ll be worth any number of buccaneers.”

  “I don’t doubt that part.”

  “What really makes me angry is Rita’s lack of professionalism, running off like that.” Her tone was hard.

  “I know,” Steve let himself fall into the cool water on his back, then spat out water and regained his footing. “I have to say, this life-style seems pretty carefree. Fruit and fish everywhere, the sea and the beaches, and a feeling of adventure.”

  “Not you, too.”

  “No, not really. Let’s start back.”

  By the time the sun was low in the west and the fishing boats were coming in, Hunter had cut and shaped all the wood. Steve had done what little he could. Most of all, he was glad to feel the cool air of evening.

  “Dinnertime,” said Steve. “Tonight I wish Jane and I could just get what we need from the sunlight, but it won’t work for us.”

  Hunter looked up at both of them.

  “We can leave you here to keep working,” said Jane.

  “No,” said Hunter. “The waterfront is too violent at night. I will come with you.”

  “I had a hunch you would,” said Steve.

  Rita stretched out on the deck of the Hungry Hawk after dark like the rest of the buccaneers, except for those on duty. The masts and sails rose high above her, their tops now beyond the reach of the torchlight on deck. Dinner had been fairly good, a sort of stew. On their first night out of port, the fresh meat and produce were still good. She knew that in such a warm climate, the fare would quickly turn to salted fish and pork, and hard biscuits.

  Roland had picked out a spot in a corner of the deck toward the stern for the three of them. They were right under the rail, wadding up some empty burlap bags he had brought to use as pillows. MC 2 lay down near Rita, still imitating the behavior of the humans around him. Roland sat down on her other side.

  “Faring well, sweet lady?” Roland whispered.

  “Well enough.” She looked out over the water, where the moon was rising.

  “A fair night.”

  “Yes, it is.” She decided to ask him some of the questions she had been considering, hoping that this would be a good time. Still looking away from him, she spoke casually. “Tell me about your travels.”

  “My travels?” He sounded surprised.

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I was born to a London waterfront family. Nothing to speak of there, except the ships were always coming and going. So I grew up wanting to get out, and the sea was the way to go.” He shrugged.

  “How old were you?”

  “I was an eleven-year-old cabin boy on a trader to Holland and back first. Later, I came out this way.”

  “When did you, uh …”

  “Join the buccaneers?” He grinned. “I jumped ship off a brig in Tortuga a few years ago. Liked the climate and the freedom. Then I came to Port Royal with some shipmates just last year. It was too crowded in Tortuga.” He shrugged. “It’s a better life than I ever had in Old England.”

  Rita didn’t dare look at him. Instead, she watched the bright moon in the dark sky. It looked the same as it did in her own time.

  She was telling herself not to ask any more about his life. He must have killed people, of course. His was a violent time and a violent life. He was a creature of his time and he had survived so far.

  Uncomfortably, she reminded herself again that from the vantage point of her life and time, he had been dead for centuries. That was her professionalism coming to the ore again. After all, she repeated to herself, she was here first as a historian. She was merely doing field research, the same way anthropologists, zoologists, and other scientists had always done.

  “Is something wrong?” Roland slipped his arm around her shoulders.

  Rita stiffened, startled though not exactly surprised. Roland was exciting but his action scared her. She tried to push his hand away, but he held on.

  “Ah, Rita, speak to me. What’s on your mind?”

  “Let go.” Suddenly more afraid, despite his calm manner, she struggled to get free.

  Instead, Roland grabbed her arm with his other hand. “What is it? All of a sudden, you’re —” He stopped abruptly.

  Rita saw that MC 2 had sat up and taken hold of one of Roland’s wrists in a smooth, quick motion. MC 2 slowly but firmly pulled Roland’s hand away from Rita.

  “Go back to sleep,” Roland ordered. “Or go away. Take a walk, Shorty.”

  Instead, MC 2 pushed Roland’s other hand off Rita’s shoulders.

  “Hey, what’s wrong, Shorty?” Roland moved up into a crouch, ready to fight if necessary. “You’ve been taking orders up to now without a complaint. Gone sweet on the lady, eh?”

  Rita scooted out from between them. She got to her feet and moved to the rail. Her heart was pounding.

  “You have quite a grip, there, Shorty.” Roland stood up, eyeing MC 2 cautiously and rubbing one wrist.

  MC 2 remained seated on the deck, watching Roland.

  Rita, now relieved, suppressed a smile. MC 2 was far stronger than any human, even with his small size. If he was really forced to prove that, of course, he would no longer be able to get lost in the crowd of buccaneers. For now, though, Roland didn’t seem inclined to fight with him.

  “Think I’ll take a stroll about the deck,” said Roland. He nodded to Rita and walked away, glancing back once to make sure that MC 2 was remaining where he was.

  Rita sat down next to MC 2 again. She felt safe now, but was still wide-awake. Still, she was also glad to know that MC 2 would keep her from harm if he could.

  11

  DR. WAYNE NYSTROM, robotics researcher and inventor, was not comfortable. He stood in the shadows on the deck of the Old Laughing Lady, watching three different drunken brawls among members of the crew. Every man in the crew had started drinking rum from the moment the ship was under sail, not the least of them Captain Mick Tomann himself.

  “Stand away! Stand away, lads!” Tomann was swaggering about the deck with a tankard in his left hand and a flintlock pistol in the other. As Wayne watched, the captain sighted drunkenly up into the rigging and fired. The ball chipped a piece of wood off a yardarm. “Ha! Got it.” He stuck that pistol into his belt and drew another.

  The sound of scraping metal rose from one of the brawls. The fight between two men had grown more serious; cutlasses had been drawn and Wayne could see the yellowish light from a swaying ship’s lantern shining on them. Curious, but still careful, he moved up a little to watch.

  “Hold! Hold there, I say!” Tomann somehow staggered toward the impending sword fight on the moving deck, brandishing his second pistol.

  The crowd of buccaneers surrounding the fighters opened the way for him.

  “Drop ’em!” Tomann heaved the rum out of his tankard into one man’s face, then flung the tankard itself at the other. “Fight all you want, but save the cutting for the Spanish. We have gold to win tomorrow!”

  Drunken cheers rose from the crew. A couple of men took the cutlasses away from their companions and gave them more rum instead. Distracted, they drank up. Tomann stumbled away in search of more rum.

  Wayne sighed with relief and stepped back into the shadows. Then he looked out across the moonlit sea. The Hungry Hawk was hidden by the darkness, but Tomann had managed to get his crew together and set sail before it had been out of sight for long. Wayne had pointed out the way and, as Tomann had promised, the Old Laughing Lady was a faster ship. Shortly before sundown, the Hungry Hawk had come into sight again in the distance.

  Steve stood with Jane on the dock, watching their small sailboat bob on the water, tied securely. Hunter had finished it near midnight. As Steve had suggested,
one tall mast rose from a short, sharply pointed hull. Now that it was in the water, with the keel out of sight, it looked unbalanced, but the keel was big enough to help stabilize the little boat. Two long poles extended from the starboard side, holding a thick, smoothly polished log. The outrigging would make the craft even more stable. Hunter had stretched a canvas tarpaulin across part of the hull to provide some shelter for the humans when they crawled under it.

  “Looks good so far,” said Steve.

  “Let us load it,” said Hunter. “Steve, if you will stand inside, I will hand the containers to you.”

  “All right.” Carefully, he moved from the dock into the sailboat. It swayed, then steadied. “Hunter, don’t wooden boats normally have to season in the water? So the wood will expand from absorbing the water and fill the cracks between the boards?”

  “Usually, yes,” said Hunter, handing him a keg of fresh drinking water. “I included this problem in my calculations. The hull was already watertight as I constructed it.”

  “Handy,” Steve muttered to himself, impressed.

  Earlier, right after dinner, Hunter had accompanied Steve and Jane to buy and carry some food and water for their trip. After they had loaded the supplies and Steve and Jane had taken seats in the boat, Hunter cast off the lines and stood on the dock, still holding the bowline.

  “We have a moderate onshore wind,” he said. “However, this boat is very maneuverable. I do not expect a problem.” He stepped into the boat with a robotic sense of balance that hardly made the boat sway at all.

  “We should name this craft,” said Steve. “And break a bottle over its bow.”

  “Why?” Hunter looked at him. “That would waste valuable drinking water.”

  “It’s another joke, Hunter,” said Jane, grinning at Steve.

  “Oh. Was this one funny?”

  “Not any more,” said Steve, smiling back at Jane. “Here.” He reached down into the water and splashed water up against the hull. “I hereby christen her the Jamaica Jane.”

  Jane rolled her eyes, laughing.

  In one smooth motion, Hunter hoisted the sail and sat down at the tiller, holding it firmly as the wind filled the sail with a jerk. Steve flailed for a handhold and got a fistful of Jane’s hair. She jumped in surprise, then laughed as they both braced themselves against kegs of water.

  Hunter took the Jamaica Jane away from the dock in a firm, sure tack against the wind. The boat tilted hard to starboard, driving the outrigger under the surface of the water. It held, however, preventing the sailboat from taking too extreme an angle.

  Steve squinted against the breeze, feeling the cold spray hit his face. The night was cool but not cold, even over the water. He felt a surge of excitement.

  “Hunter?” Jane turned around awkwardly to face him. “Can we really move fast enough to catch up?”

  “Yes. We have an excellent ratio of sail to water resistance. Also, I have made careful calculations of the wind and currents.” He leaned over the side and reached out with his long arm to dip one hand into the water. “As we go, I will continue to feel the currents. This will help me calculate the best angle at which to sail.”

  “Can you really do that? Feel the currents by sticking your hand into the water while we’re moving?” Jane looked at the dark water doubtfully. “I know your robotic sensors are good, but does the water tell you that much?”

  “Yes,” said Hunter. “My data on sailing include some information about ancient Polynesians doing this. They could even calculate where unknown islands would be, from miles away, according to how the water moved around them.”

  “No kidding,” said Steve. “Really?”

  “Yes. We do not need to follow the Hungry Hawk precisely, or to use only line of sight to find it. Since I know the direction it took, the winds and currents it has had available to use, and the level of technology on the ship, I should be able to intercept it by sometime tomorrow.”

  “Sounds like we’re all set,” said Steve.

  “We have one serious vulnerability,” said Hunter. “This craft will not take high waves well. I will keep my sensors carefully trained on changes in ions, humidity, and temperature to predict the weather.”

  “I won’t complain about that,” said Steve, grinning. He felt a surge of excitement as the wind whipped his hair and the boat rose and fell with the waves.

  “Good idea, Hunter,” said Jane.

  Steve leaned toward her. “Exciting, isn’t it? Chasing a pirate ship across the Caribbean?”

  She nodded, more nervous than excited. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ve been thinking about these pirate ships. And the danger to MC 2. He’s heavier than water.”

  “You mean if he goes overboard during an attack?”

  “Yes. He can swim … if he’s close enough to land, he can get back. But if it’s too far —”

  “He’ll sink to the bottom.”

  “Actually, he doesn’t need oxygen. He could sink and walk to shore. But again, he has to be close enough not to use up all his energy first. And walking through water would drain his energy much faster than ordinary walking.”

  “If he’s lost on the bottom, we’d never find him.”

  “No. But when the right time comes, he’ll still explode with the same force, wherever he is on the seafloor.”

  The next morning after a rather spare breakfast, Rita again stood by the rail with MC 2, staying out of the way of the buccaneers. Everyone was excited. As dawn had broken over the sea, they had spotted a Spanish merchant ship on the horizon. Rita watched it all morning, realizing for the first time how painfully slow the race between the ships would be.

  “This feels like it will take forever,” said Rita. Then she wondered if she could engage MC 2 in conversation while Roland was up in the rigging helping to sail the ship.

  “Tell me why these two ships sail at different speeds.”

  Under the Second Law, MC 2 did not hesitate.

  “Both ships are using the same wind for power out in the open sea. The only difference in their speed comes from the design of the ships and the weight they carry. Occasionally, one ship might move into a fast-moving current before the other, also giving it an advantage.”

  “Thank you.” Rita smiled, pleased that getting the robot to talk was so simple. “Your eyesight must be better than mine. Tell me what you can see about that ship up there.”

  “By the name on its side, it is the Cadiz. That name suggests that it is Spanish. It is riding low in the water, obviously full of cargo. Also, from the shape of the ship I can see above the waterline, I infer that the shape of the hull below the water is wide and bulky. This creates more resistance against the water, slowing it down.”

  Rita knew he was correct. “Is there any chance it can get away?”

  “By its own actions, I do not believe so. However, the sailors on our ship could conceivably make a mistake in their handling of the rigging or their calculation of the changes in the wind. Also, of course, the sails and rope on this ship are in various conditions. Any unexpected problem, such as broken rigging or torn sails, could affect the accuracy of my prediction.”

  “Or a change in the weather.”

  “I detect no atmospheric alterations that signal a coming change,” said MC 2. “But in principle of course, even a small storm could separate the ships.”

  “Realistically, then, we’re going to catch the Cadiz,” said Rita.

  “Yes.”

  “How long will it take, under present conditions?”

  “Approximately six hours.”

  “Six hours?” Rita watched MC 2 for a moment before looking out across the sea again toward the Spanish ship. Of course, from the perspective of her own time, the Hungry Hawk had either caught the Cadiz on this voyage or it had not; everything the buccaneers did, at least without the influence of the time travelers, was already decided. That left her wondering what MC 2 would do when the pirates attacked the Spanish.

  Even a ro
bot, acting alone, could not possibly stop all those humans from harming each other. Rita was no roboticist, of course, but any human of her time knew something of robots and the Three Laws. She decided to instruct him outright to tell her what he would do, even though doing so would reveal her as a human from his time.

  “Tell me if the First Law will force you to try to stop the fight.” Rita glanced at the buccaneers nearest them. None was paying attention to them. They wouldn’t understand the entire question, of course, but they wouldn’t like to hear that anyone might want to stop the coming fight.

  “I did not know a fight was certain,” said MC 2. “But of course, if you know the Laws, you must have pursued me here. Have you come to take me back?”

  “I certainly should,” she said carefully. “You are not to leave my company. That’s an instruction under the Second Law. Understood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then tell me what I asked.”

  “I suspected a fight would occur, but the buccaneers have talked specifically of taking the ship and the cargo, not of harming humans. I am hoping that the Spanish will surrender without resistance.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that,” said Rita.

  “Then you must know that the First Law requires that I prevent harm to humans.”

  “Changing history could harm them,” said Rita. “Though I’m not sure this little isolated voyage is going to change much of anything.”

  “I am not certain what I will have to do,” said MC 2. “I cannot forcibly stop two entire crews of humans from fighting each other.”

  “If your interpretation of the First Law will allow it, I instruct you to prioritize protecting Roland and me. Will that be acceptable?”

  “I believe so,” said MC 2.

  All that day, Wayne sat on a keg by the rail of the Old Laughing Lady, watching the two ships sailing in front of it. One was the Hungry Hawk, of course; he couldn’t read the name of its prey, but he was very relieved it was there. He had been gambling when he had told Captain Tomann that Captain Quinn knew of a merchant ship. Now he had been vindicated.