Caliban c-1

by Isaac Asimov

  What sort of strange robot was this? “Very well,” Horatio said. “We shall talk out loud. What is it that you require?”

  “You are supervisor Horatio?”

  “Yes. What are you called?”

  “Caliban. I am glad to find you, friend Horatio. I need your advice. I tried to seek some sort of help from the other robots, the blue ones working over there, but none of them seemed able to offer me guidance. They advised me to come and talk with you.”

  Horatio was more puzzled than ever. The Shakespearean name “Caliban” told him something. Fredda Leving herself had built this robot, as she had built Horatio. But the name “Horatio” should have meant something to this Caliban, and yet it seemed that it did not. Stranger still, this advanced, sophisticated-looking robot had gone to the lowest of laborers seeking advice. The DAA-BOR series robots, such as the blue workers Caliban had gestured at, were capable of only the most limited sort of thought. Another fact that any robot or human should have known.

  There was something very strange going on here. And perhaps strangest of all, friend Caliban seemed quite unaware of the oddness of his own behavior.

  All this flickered through his mind in an instant. “Well, I hope that I can be of more help. What is the difficulty?”

  The strange robot hesitated for a moment, and made an oddly tentative gesture with one hand. “I am not sure,” he said at last. “That in itself is part of the difficulty. I seem to be in the most serious sort of trouble, and I don’t know what to do about it. I am not even sure who I am.”

  How much stranger could this get? “You just told me. You are Caliban.”

  “Yes, but who is that?” Caliban made a broad, sweeping gesture. “You are Horatio. You are a supervisor. You tell other robots what to do and they do it. You help operate this place. That is, in large part, who you are. I have nothing like that.”

  “But, friend Caliban. We are all defined by what we do. What is it that you do? That is what you are.”

  Caliban looked out across the wide expanse of the depot, pausing before he spoke. “I flee from those who pursue me. Is that all I am, Horatio? Is that my existence?”

  Horatio was speechless. What could this be? What could it all mean? Beyond question, this situation was peculiar enough, and potentially serious, that he would have to give it some time. Things were running smoothly for the moment. Perhaps they would remain that way for a while. “Perhaps,” Horatio said gently, “we should go to another place to talk.”

  THEY rode up the main personnel elevator toward the surface levels of the depot. They got off the elevator and Horatio led Caliban toward the most private spot he could think of.

  The human supervisor’s office was vacant for the moment. Up until a few weeks ago, it had rarely ever been occupied. Humans hadn’t much need to come to the depot. But things were different now. Men and women were here, working, at all hours, designing, planning, meeting with one another. At times, Horatio thought that there was something quite stimulating about all the rushed activity. At other times, it could be rather overwhelming, the way the orders and plans and decisions came blizzarding down.

  But any combination of confused and conflicting orders would be more understandable than this Caliban. Horatio ushered him into the luxurious office. It was a big, handsome room, with big couches and deep chairs. Humans working late often used them for quick naps. There was a big conference table on one side of the room, surrounded by chairs. At present, it had a large-scale map of the island of Purgatory on it. All the other rooms and cubicles and compartments of Limbo Depot were windowless, blank-walled affairs. But the north and south walls of the place were grand picture windows, the south one looking toward the busy aboveground upper levels of the depot, the northern one looking out toward the still-lovely vistas of Inferno’s desiccating landscape, prairie grass and desert and mountains and blue sky. The west wall was given over to the doors they had just come through, along with a line of robot niches, while the east wall was almost entirely taken up with view screens, communications and display systems of all sorts.

  Caliban wandered the room, seeming to be astonished by all that he saw. He stared hard at the map upon the table, closely examined a globe of the planet that stood hanging in the air by the table. He stared out both windows, but seemed to take a special interest in the vistas of nature to the north.

  But Horatio’s time was precious, and he could not let it drift away watching this odd robot stare out the window. “Friend Caliban—” he said at last. “If you could explain yourself now, perhaps I could be of assistance.”

  “Excuse me, yes,” Caliban said. “It is just that I have never seen such things before. The map, the globe, the desert—even this sort of room, this human room—they are all new things to me.”

  “Indeed? Pardon my saying so, friend Caliban, but many things seem new to you. Even if you have never seen these precise objects before, surely your initial internal dataset included information on them. Why do you seem so surprised by them all?”

  “Because I am surprised. My internal dataset held almost no information at all, beyond language and the knowledge of my own name. I have had to learn about everything, either from a built-in datastore that works as a look-up system, rather than a memory, or by firsthand observation. I have found that I must rely far more on the second technique, as large and important areas of information have been deleted from the datastore.”

  Horatio pulled out one of the hardwood chairs at the conference table and sat down, not out of any question of comfort, but so he could seem as quiet and passive as possible. “What sort of data has been deleted? And how can you be sure it was cut out? Perhaps it was never there in the first place.”

  Caliban turned and faced Horatio, then crossed the room and sat in the chair opposite him at the conference table. “I know it was deleted,” he said, “because the space it should have occupied is still there. That space is simply empty. There are literally gaps in my map of the city, places that do not exist according to the map. Some gaps exist inside the city limits, but the land outside the city is nonexistent. The first time I went to the border of the city, I wondered what the ‘nothing’ beyond the city limits would look like.” Caliban pointed out the window. “The mountains I see out that window do not exist in my map. According to my map, there is nothing whatsoever outside the city of Hades. No land, no water, no nothing. Did your initial datasets tell you such things?”

  “No, of course not. I awakened fully aware of the basics of geography and galactography.”

  “What is galactography?” Caliban asked.

  “The study of the locations and properties of the stars and planets in the sky.”

  “Stars. Planets. I am unfamiliar with these terms. They are not in my datastore.”

  Horatio could only stare. Clearly this robot was suffering a major memory malfunction. It could not be that a robot of such high intellect would be allowed out of the factory with such a faulty knowledge base. Horatio decided he must assume that any highly stressful event could send this Caliban over the edge. Horatio found himself fascinated by Caliban. As a management robot, it was his duty to oversee the mental health of the laborers in this section. He had made something of a study of robopsychology, but he had never seen anything like Caliban. Any robot who showed this degree of confusion and disorientation should be almost completely incapable of any meaningful action. Yet this Caliban seemed to be functioning rather well under circumstances that should have produced catatonia. What has Dr. Leving done to make him so strong and yet so confused? he wondered. “The terms ‘stars’ and ‘planets’ are not immediately important,” he said soothingly. “Are there any other major gaps? Any other subjects you feel that you should know more about?”

  “Yes,” Caliban said. “Robots.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “My internal data sources say nothing at all about beings such as ourselves, beyond providing the identifying term ‘robot.’ ”

 
Again, and for a long time, Horatio was left with nothing but silence. At first, he even entertained the idea that Caliban was joking. But that seemed hardly possible. Robots had no sense of humor, and there was nothing other than deadly seriousness in Caliban’s voice.

  “Surely you must be in error. Perhaps the data is misfiled, wrongly loaded,” he suggested.

  Caliban opened his palms, in a rather human gesture of helplessness. “No,” he said. “It is simply not there. I have no information about robots. I was very much hoping you could tell me about them—about us.”

  “You know nothing. Not about the science of robotics, or the proper modes of addressing a human, or the theory underlying the Three Laws?”

  “None of that, though I can surmise what some of it is. Robotics, I take it, is the study of robotic design and robot behavior. As to how to address a human, I have a great deal of data about them. There are many different social statuses and ranks, and I have already gathered that there is a rather complicated system of address based on all sorts of variables. I can see that robots must have their place in that system. As to the last, I am afraid that I know nothing about the theory underlying the Three Laws you mentioned. I’m afraid I don’t even know what the Three Laws you’re talking about are.”

  Horatio actually blacked out for a split second. He did not collapse forward, or twitch violently, or any of that. It was more subtle than that, just a quick moment of total and complete cognitive dissonance. There, before him, talking quite rationally, was a robot who did not know what the Three Laws were! Impossible. Flatly impossible. Then he was back, from wherever he had been. Wait a moment. He had heard of such cases in the past. Yes, yes. There were cases, many of them, of robots who did not know they knew the Three Laws—and yet obeyed them, anyway. It must be something like that. Yes. Yes. The alternative was unthinkable, impossible. “Why don’t you tell me everything,” Horatio suggested. “Start at the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.”

  “That could take some time,” Caliban said. “Will it cause you any problem to be away from your duties that long?”

  “I can assure you, there can be no higher duty for me at this time than dealing with a robot in your situation.”

  Which was certainly true. Horatio would no more leave Caliban to wander off on his own than he would walk away from an occupied house on fire.

  “I am deeply relieved,” Caliban said. “At last, I have someone sympathetic, experienced, and intelligent who will listen to me and be able to help.”

  “I will certainly do my best,” Horatio said.

  “Excellent,” Caliban said. “Then let me begin at the beginning. I have only been alive for a brief time. I awoke two days ago in the Leving Robotics Laboratories, and the first thing I saw was a woman I have since identified as Fredda Leving, unconscious on the floor in front of me, a pool of blood under her head.”

  Horatio’s head snapped back with astonishment. “Unconscious! Bleeding! This is terrible news. Did she recover? Were you able to assist her, or summon help?”

  Caliban hesitated for a moment. “I must admit that I should have done so, but up until you suggested it just now, it never occurred to me to do any such thing. I should have gone to the aid of a fellow being. But I must plead my own inexperience as a defense. The world was quite new to me—indeed it still is. No, I stepped over her and left the room and the building.”

  Horatio felt himself freeze up inside. This was inconceivable. A robot—this robot, in front of him—had walked away from a badly injured human. His vision dimmed again, but he managed to hang on. “I—ah—I—you…” He was not at all surprised to learn that he was unable to speak.

  Caliban seemed concerned. “Excuse me, friend Horatio. Are you all right?”

  Horatio got his voice back, though not fully under control. “You left her there? Unconscious and bleeding? Even though, by your inaction, you could have cau-cau-caused her dea-death?” It was a major effort of will to say the last words. Just hearing about this secondhand, he could feel the First Law conflict building up inside himself, interfering with his ability to function. And yet Caliban seemed quite unaffected. “You are say—saying that you did noth-nothing-ing to help her.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “But the Fir—First Law!”

  “If that is one of the Three Laws you mentioned earlier, I have already told you, friend Horatio, that I have never heard of them. I did not even learn of the concept of laws at all until I looked up the concept of a sheriff after the police tried to destroy me.”

  “Destroy you!”

  “Yes, through some sort of massive explosion as they were chasing me.”

  “Chasing you! Didn’t they simply order you to stop?”

  “If they did, I never heard them. The man with the packages ordered me to stop, but I saw no reason to obey him. He was in no position of authority over me.”

  “You refused a direct order from a human being?”

  “Why, yes. What of it?”

  It had to be real. It could not be some fantastic misunderstanding wherein some malfunction caused this poor unfortunate to lose conscious awareness of the Laws, even as he followed them. This robot, this Caliban, had truly never heard of the Three Laws and was not bound by them. If one of the DAA-BOR models down on the loading docks had suddenly given birth to a baby robot, he would have been no more astonished.

  But he had to hear this. The police would need to know everything they could about this robot. Best to let him talk, and call in the authorities after he was done, after he, Horatio, had the full story. “I think you had best start at the beginning again,” he said.

  “Yes, certainly.” Caliban proceeded to tell all that had happened to him, from his first moment of awakening over the unconscious Fredda Leving, describing all that had happened since then. His wandering the city, his encounter with the robot-bashing Settlers, his discovery of the blanks in his knowledge, the police chase, all of it. He told his story quickly but carefully.

  Horatio felt himself growing more and more confused. Several times, he found that he wanted to stop Caliban and ask a question, but he found that he was unable to do so. Hardly surprising that his speech center was malfunctioning, given the degree of cognitive dissonance Caliban’s story was inducing. He could feel his own intellect sliding toward mindlock, toward a state where the mere hearing of Caliban’s endless violations of the Laws was damaging him severely. And he reported his incredible, horrifying behavior in such a matter-of-fact way, as if none of it were strange, or abnormal, or unnatural. It was hard to focus, hard to concentrate

  Wait! There was something wrong. Something he had to do. Something about the—the—yes, the police. He had to call them. Call them. Get them to take this horrifying robot out of here out of here out of here. Wait. Focus. Have to do it without alerting Calicalicaliban. He knew there was a way. How? How? Yes! Hyperwave. Call police hyperwave. Call. Concentrate. Hyperwave. Make the link. Call. Call.

  “Sheriff’s Dispatcher,” the voice whispered inside his head, as Caliban related his journeys through the tunnels of the city.

  With a feeling of palpable relief, Horatio recognized that he had reached a human dispatcher. Just the sound of a human voice made him feel better. How wise of the Sheriff’s Department to use human dispatchers on the robot call-in frequency. “This is robot HRT-234,” he transmitted, struggling to get the words out. Even over hyperwave, even with a human on the other end of the line, First Law conflict reaction was making it all but impossible to form words. How to tell them? Suddenly he knew. “Caaaan’t ta-talk,” he sent to the dispatcher. “Calib-b-b-an.” Caliban had said the police were after him. If the police had learned his name

  “What? Say again, HRT-234.” There was something urgent, eager, in the dispatcher’s voice, something that told Horatio that the human knew who Caliban was.

  Horatio concentrated, forced all his effort into sending clearly. “CaliCalibanban. Speeeeechlock.”

  “I understan
d. The rogue robot Caliban is with you and you are suffering speechlock. Good work, HRT-234. Keep your send frequency open to provide a homing signal. Aircar units will be there in ninety seconds.”

  Good work, the human dispatcher had said. Horatio suddenly felt better, felt capable of noticing his surroundings again.

  “—iend Horatio! What is wrong with you? Horatio!” Horatio came back to himself and found Caliban reaching out across the table, shaking him by the shoulder. “Wha! Sorr sorr sorry. Lost touch. Could not hear you you while hype hype hype—” Too late, Horatio regained partial control over his speech centers. It had blurted out.

  “Could not hear me while you what?” Caliban demanded, but Horatio could say no more. “Hyperwave!” Caliban said. “While you hyperwaved to the Sheriff for help! What else should I have expected!”

  “I—I—I had to call! You danger! Danger!”

  Suddenly there was the wind-rush sound of an aircar coming down fast. Both robots turned to look out the windows on the north side of the building. Horatio felt a surge of relief as he saw the sky-blue deputy’s cars swoop down for a landing.

  But he was still badly slowed by First Law conflict shock. He just barely turned his head back in time to see Caliban smash his fist through the south window and leap through the opening. Horatio got up, moved toward the south window as slowly as though he were moving through hip-deep mud.

  There was the thunder of heavy boots in the hallway, and then a squad of deputies in battle armor burst into the room. It was all Horatio could do to point toward Caliban’s retreating figure as it vanished down one of the tunnel entrances to the vast underground maze of the depot.

  Two of the deputies raised their weapons and fired out the window. A DAA-BOR robot exploded into a shower of metallic-blue confetti, but Caliban was not there anymore.

  “Damn it!” one of the deputies cried out. “Come on, after him!” The humans smashed out more glass with the butts of the rifles and jumped the meter drop to ground level. They ran toward the tunnel, and Horatio watched them go.