Asimov’s Future History Volume 7

by Isaac Asimov

  And the truth of that adage was never more apparent than when he had started for the brook that morning. He had actually felt sort of faint after the long inactivity of a night’s tether.

  Sarco had already left. That became apparent after breakfast as Synapo climbed to optimum charge altitude. Sarco was already on station in Synapo’s favorite space immediately over the center of the compensator. Naturally, Sarco would be the only one of both tribes not to recognize that and defer to him. It was the first time he had violated that space without permission.

  Yet, the times were unusual; old, little-used protocols were easier to violate than those reinforced by continual use. The concept of preferred location was not a natural one with the Cerebrons as it was with the Myostrians, who tended to stay in one location for long periods in the process of constructing and destroying weather node compensators like the domed glimmer below. The Cerebrons did not normally spend the night on the ground, but instead tethered their reflectors together in large drifting nightpacks by interlacing their hooks. They were normally nomads, continually roaming allover the world in the state of deep cogitation that had brought their race to the intellectual heights it now enjoyed.

  The last time they had anchored for any significant period of time was when both tribes were battling the weather effects of the great meteor fall a quarter-century before the aliens arrived.

  Thus, preferred space was the Cerebron equivalent to the Myostrian preferred location. The preferred space was naturally toward the center of the pack, and the most exalted was dead center where the less taxing audio communication reached the greatest number of Cerebrons — and the surrounding elite first — and where the more taxing radio communication reached all the Cerebrons with the least expenditure of energy.

  When the two tribes interacted — as they were doing now, and as they had during the meteor incident — the dominant tribe tended to be the Cerebrons unless the Myostrians had an unusually aggressive leader, and up until that morning, Synapo had been the more aggressive in their interaction despite the fact that it was Sarco and his Myostrians who were aggressively building the compensator. That was to be expected. Synapo would have been a little alarmed — contrary to the tenor of his words — if the Myostrians had performed otherwise.

  So in the context of past behavior, it was surprising to find Sarco — with his hook pointed aggressively forward — on station in Synapo’s space. The natural disposition of both tribes was peaceful, so Synapo meekly left his hook pointed aft and took up his station two wingspreads to the right of Sarco as Sarco circled around the center of the dome far below.

  “You are on the wing a tad early, Sarco,” Synapo said.

  “I watched the alien land last night,” Sarco said. “And monitored its jump into our zone two days before. That, perhaps, explains their discrete modulation of hyperwave. But not entirely. The metal monsters phased in with continuous modulation. How do you explain the jump? Do we have two different sets of aliens?”

  “No. Not if I understand what Wohler-9 was telling me. This new being is clearly a master of the metal ones.”

  “Well, this morning, I’m joining you. I’ll be able to observe the construction almost as well from your station as from mine. And though I care not a whit for either set of aliens, it would be a shame to destroy life unnecessarily. I want to see for myself how you handle them.”

  Synapo said nothing further for the rest of the short charge. He was already exhausted by the endless days of talk and the surfeit of poisonous oxygen that he felt compelled to hold in his sacs. But he continued to carry his hook aft so that Sarco would know that his silence was not intended as an affront. He could afford to allow Sarco to dominate this brief morning charge. But that was all he could allow him.

  They balled and dropped as Sarco’s people were forming up for construction. Synapo had not intended for Sarco to get ahead of him, but from habit set by the short time the aliens had been on their world, Synapo opened on glide path in his usual manner, which took him on a high circular pass around the dome.

  Sarco chose to go in directly. By the time Synapo realized that Sarco was not following, it was too late to correct his error, but he circled tight, high up, and began to dive well before he had completed half the circle. Synapo watched him through the transparent dome as Sarco made a fast, powered approach and an aggressive landing: a powered stall a half-meter above the ground with his wings spread to their full ten-meter breadth as he came to rest only two meters from the aliens.

  Synapo mentally cursed Sarco, but restrained himself and did not radiate his feelings as he might well have had he known the aliens could not receive his broadcast. A cloud of dust obscured Sarco and the aliens as Synapo came in on a flat gentle glide path and settled to the ground well inside the cloud. He knew he was more majestic in the air, but he also knew his approach would be obscured by Sarco’s dust, so he chose to come in closer even than Sarco. Still, his approach was executed so adroitly he added not a whit to the ball of dust that was already rapidly dissipating.

  There were three aliens: Wohler-9, a nonmetallic being a head shorter, and a third being as tall as Wohler-9 that Synapo took to be nonmetallic until he detected the neutrino radiation that characterized Wohler-9 and microfusion in general. He had to conclude that despite the deceptive appearance, the third alien must be of the servant tribe, although he knew that quick generalization might be diplomatically embarrassing if it proved wrong.

  Sarco at least had the good sense not to open his oxygen vent prematurely. And it was apparent that Wohler-9 was confused and not able to distinguish between Synapo and Sarco. The robot’s eyes kept flicking back and forth between the two of them.

  “Good morning, Wohler-9,” Synapo said.

  There was no hesitation, no ignoring Synapo this morning. Wohler-9 swiveled his head and rolled his eyes around ahead of that motion so that they came to rest on Synapo well before the head caught up.

  “This is Miss Ariel Welsh,” the robot said as he gestured with a rather grand motion toward the diminutive alien, who stood hardly as high as Synapo’s shoulder joints.

  And with a nod, Wohler-9 dismissed the other alien as a servant beneath consideration, a fact confirmed by his words.

  “And this is the humaniform Jacob Winterson, Miss Welsh’s personal robot.”

  The validity of Synapo’s generalization was reassuring as was his initial reaction to the small alien’s unimpressive appearance. But Wohler-9 had failed to introduce Synapo, a breach of etiquette not easily forgiven, which was not reassuring.

  Still, the robot was only a servant and perhaps not as well schooled in diplomacy as the small master, who was a she, a member of the subordinate clan of the dominant tribe. Synapo had guessed she would be from his earlier conversations with Wohler-9.

  Yet that was also disappointing since he would still not know, after all the interminable discussion that would surely take place, how dominant that other clan was and whether that other clan would also dominate the tribes of his world if this Miss Welsh did not prove to do so. She was certainly not very imposing.

  But her personal robot was imposing, and he was only a servant. That left Synapo with nothing to go on at that point but superficial appearances, which he knew from long experience to be untrustworthy.

  And then, to Synapo’s astonishment, Sarco was talking.

  “Welcome to our world, Miss Ariel Welsh,” Sarco said. “My name is Sarco, which is as close as we can come to a translation into your language. I am leader of the Myostria.”

  That caught Synapo by surprise. He had not really expected Sarco to be fluent in the language. Sarco had a better command of the language than Synapo would have thought possible from the brief radiated lessons he had given the Cerebrons. Sarco had obviously monitored those lessons, but he could only have picked up the audio patterns by special tutoring from one of the Cerebron elite.

  And that, too, disturbed Synapo. Someone of the elite must be striking for dominance, a
nd hard enough to risk undercutting Synapo in his rivalry with Sarco.

  Synapo was so caught by surprise that before he could say anything, Sarco, with a gesture every bit as grand as Wohler-9’s, said, “And this is Synapo, leader of the Cerebrons.”

  Sarco’s introduction could be taken two ways. Synapo hoped the small alien placed Sarco’s relationship to him in the same pattern as Wohler-9 to her. Had Sarco intended that to be the case? Had he misjudged Sarco’s behavior during charge that morning?

  “Yes, Miss Ariel Welsh. Welcome to our world,” Synapo said.

  The small alien turned away, shaking allover, after suddenly putting her hand over her primary and secondary vents. She was obviously caught in a fit of ague.

  Wohler-9 studiously ignored her condition. The only reaction of the other, the humaniform, was a slight upward curvature at the corners of the robot’s primary vent. Her behavior and theirs confused Synapo and led him to wonder about the efficacy of the robots as suitable servants. Surely one of them should have done something to ease her paroxysm.

  She recovered quickly, however, and turned and said, “I am pleased to meet both of you,” and then she put one hand to her front, the other to her back, and doubled over at the waist, which led Synapo to wonder if she had now suddenly been caught by a cramp like that which sometimes caught him when he was carrying too large an inventory of oxygen, as he was at that moment. But unlike her, if a cramp hit him in this situation he would suffer through and ignore it. That gave him a nice feeling of superiority.

  Chapter 5

  IMPASSE

  ARIEL FINALLY GOT control of herself and with a sober face, turned back to face the aliens. Their frightening appearance had almost paralyzed her until that first one, Sarco, had spoken.

  Wohler-9 had pointed them out before they began their drop, while they were still lazily circling above the center of the dome.

  And then that first one had landed, coming in so fast it seemed like he could not possibly stop in time, and then unexpectedly spreading his wings so wide he engulfed them all in a jet black space absolutely devoid of any detail, as though they were suddenly and inexplicably thrown into the featureless black concavity of the dome.

  When he retracted his wings, they seemed to melt into his sides and disappear in the soft blackness. The contrasts of color — or lack of it — heightened the disturbing appearance of the alien: the vicious white hook that could obviously disembowel a human in one neat stroke, and the disconcerting red glow of the sunken eyes that gave her the feeling she was peering deep into the bowels of hell.

  Then the other one arrived, much more decorously than the first, and when he opened his mouth, she was immediately transported back to Earth, to Webster Groves, one of the caves of steel that she and Derec had once visited. And then the first one so confirmed that impression, she could hardly contain herself.

  And when the second one, the one called Synapo, had said, “Yas, wekkom to ah wuld, Miz Ahyahl Wilsh,” she had to turn away to suppress her laughter and an incipient sneeze caused by the tingling in her nose from the faint odor of ammonia they exuded.

  She could hardly contain the delightful relief that came with the knowledge that these demons had a comic side. They were just naturally provincials of a Webster Grove persuasion. Wohler-99 could not possibly have given them that accent.

  She recovered quickly, however, and without sneezing, she turned and said, “I am pleased to meet you both,” and then she bowed. “This is an historic occasion, which we shall surely carry with us always. It saddens me that such an important meeting must be marred by discussion of the discordant incidents that have occurred before we can explore the great potential for harmony in the future relations of our two species.”

  She steeled herself to put his reply in the framework he surely intended, and she found she could quite easily ignore the thick accent and concentrate on only the meaning.

  “We are equally saddened,” Synapo replied.

  “The protocol of my species in this situation suggests that you should select the first topic for discussion,” she said.

  Immediately Synapo said, “Explain the square root of minus one.”

  His reply seemed completely at odds with the discussion she thought was going to take place. She was not schooled in mathematics and was expecting more diplomatic double-talk. She hesitated for just a moment, and then turned toward Jacob and said, “Jacob?”

  Immediately Jacob said, “The square root of minus one is a member of a class of numbers that cannot be given substance except in a specific context. In this case, one such context is the interrelationship of space and time, in which the measurements of time must be multiplied by the square root of minus one in order to properly relate them to the measurements of space.”

  “Or the reverse,” Synapo said. “A quite satisfactory answer to a simple question, but then one must start simple and work toward the complex. And now what is your pleasure, Miss Ariel Welsh?”

  That sort of drivel isn’t going to get us anywhere, Ariel thought. Let’s get right to it.

  “Why have you isolated our city, enclosed it under this big dome?”

  And as she gestured toward the dome, the first shimmer that morning — the first pass of the Myostrian construction — shot down the edge of the wall with a faint crackling and disappeared into the ground.

  Ariel jumped, startled. With the edge of the dome off to her left and to the rear, she had turned slightly as she gestured and had caught the shimmer at the corner of her eye before the sound reached her ears. Being to her back, though, it had startled her more than if she had been facing the edge.

  Sarco said, “Ah, my people have started work.”

  Synapo said, “My colleague Sarco informed me yesterday that the node compensator — this dome — will be completed tomorrow, so that leaves us little time for negotiation. He further informs me that the dome is necessary in order to properly control meterological conditions. The particulate emissions and the radiation and convection of thermal energy from your creations are seriously disrupting the weather of our planet, and thereby disturbing our mental processes and our emotional equanimity.”

  The source of Synapo’s linguistic training came sharply into focus. He talked exactly like a Robot City supervisor. Only Wohler-9 could have downloaded all those big words.

  What had he said about work on the dome? It escaped her as she zeroed in on his last sentence.

  Jacob was right. The aliens were concerned about the weather and talked as though they were actually controlling it. Spacers and Settlers also talked about the weather a great deal, but so far had not been able to do much about it.

  “You control the weather?” she said.

  “Of course. It is essential that unruly airflow not disturb our cerebrations. How can one think when he is being bounced about in a turbulence? Your creations generate a puncture node of the worst sort.

  “But now I believe it is our turn. And I suppose we must dispense with going methodically from the simple to the complex, as I had intended.

  “What vital purpose do your creations serve? What ends justify the killing of two of our people — first, a Myostrian in legitimate pursuit of an assigned task, and then a Cerebron who was peacefully tethered and surely in no way interfering with your obscure endeavor?”

  Ariel knew that, on balance, the destruction of a witness robot was hardly equal to the death of two intelligent beings. But she had heard that a good offense was the best defense.

  “And in the pursuit of that task of questionable legitimacy,” Ariel replied, “your Myostrians created something that sliced one of my people in half.”

  She didn’t really think of a witness robot as people but the black bats — or as Wohler-9 termed them, the blackbodies — didn’t need to know that.

  “I respectfully remind you that it was your creations that caused the Myostrians to start construction of the compensator,” Synapo said. “I ask again: what purpose do those creations serv
e? What further threat to our equilibrium lies beyond the disturbance of our weather?”

  It was a legitimate point, which caused her to reevaluate what was serious and what was not, who had provoked whom, and when, and how. Perhaps the weather was of equal importance to sentient life in their minds — perhaps the weather was their life.

  That thought, coupled with the observation that, while he was talking, he had slued his hook around so that it pointed forward, like that of his companion, caused Ariel to reconsider the gravity of the situation. Even though she didn’t know for sure what that rotation meant, it didn’t seem to bode any good and might even be considered somewhat ominous, taken with the quiet way he had made his last pronouncement.

  She had let their provincial accent distract her, which may have caused her to consider this confrontation less serious than it really was. She had known how serious the situation was well before the meeting, and her anxiety had steadily increased until the moment of confrontation. How had she let the circumstances of their meeting so distract and deceive her?

  The shimmer at the corner of her eye at that moment and the crackling sound that accompanied it marked the pass of a Myostrian far above and brought her attention back to the construction of the dome. She noticed then that, while they had been talking, the edge of the dome had progressed toward the center of Main Street, closing the opening by at least two more meters on that one side, probably four meters considering both sides.

  The city robots had extended Main Street into a road across the plain to facilitate their exodus. The two edges of the wall were not far from the edge of the road itself, four lanes wide where it exited the dome.