by Isaac Asimov
“She never was practical in her work. I suppose that was another standoff in our marriage. She could go off on such flights of fancy that I couldn’t bring her back to ground.”
“I wish I could meet her.”
Derec’s words angered Avery.
“I can see what you’re thinking. If she’s behind these robots, then maybe she’ll be around to check on them. Well, forget that. She has to leave them alone, let things happen long enough for data to be collected. So she won’t be showing up to see how her little creations have evolved for some time, years maybe. Keeping a watch on the Silversides won’t bring about any reunions for you, Derec.”
Derec kept his anger in check. There was no point in irritating his father any further. Give him some time, and maybe he’d relent on the subject of Derec’s mother, although he did seem adamant in his hatred of her.
“I’ll keep all that in mind,” Derec said. “For now, we have to find this third robot. I hope Mandelbrot and Timestep haven’t lost him.”
“Now that we have a concept of what we’re looking for, we can —”
Avery was interrupted by the appearance of Ariel in the doorway. She was out of breath from running.
“Derec! Dr. Avery! Something’s happening outside. Buildings are, I don’t know how to describe it, they’re self-destructing or something. Folding inward, sliding into the ground, falling over, disappearing altogether. Come see.”
Derec began to run out of the room immediately, Avery close behind. Ariel led them out to the street just in time to see a structure down the block begin to tremble, then — without a sound — fall sideways against another building, which in turn fell forward.
“There’s an ancient game, dominoes,” Avery remarked. “Sometimes people lined them up and they fell, toppling each other, something like those buildings there.”
“What’s doing this?” Ariel yelled.
“I should have known,” Derec said and begun running down the street. “Our robot,” he yelled back to Avery, “he’s trying to destroy everything. He has to be at the central computer.”
“I think you’re right,” Avery said, and ran after Derec.
“What robot?” Ariel said before taking up her position as third in line.
Wolruf limped out of the doorway and watched the trio disappear around a corner.
In the distance there was a bright flash of light and a tall narrow building’s sides began to undulate before the whole structure seemed to collapse inward.
“No way to get any resst arround here,” she said and loped after them. As the pain worked its way out of her leg, she picked up speed.
Chapter 19
THE FIRST CONFRONTATION
THE WATCHFUL EYE had to proceed carefully, destroying the city by sections. Before an area could be removed, it had to make sure that no harm would come to anyone — humans, robots, the alien, the thousands of creatures in labs all over the city that still survived its genetic experiments. It merely wanted to dismantle the city and start again, so only uninhabited sectors could be destroyed.
Nevertheless, destruction was easier than creation. Many programming steps had been necessary for the design of a building, but a mere six strokes on the main computer center keyboard could remove it. The Watchful Eye scanned each structure for signs of robotic or human activity before performing the six strokes. It was still in its Bogie shape, and to a cynical observer, watching a robot attempting to destroy a city built by robots might have seemed ironic.
As soon as it had initiated its sequences of destruction, the Watchful Eye realized that the process it had to use was too well-planned, too methodical, too full of fail-safe devices. It would take a long time to demolish the entire city. If it had foreseen these complications, it would have restructured the computer’s architectural programming so that an automatic programmed sequence could be activated, one that would bypass all the fail-safe devices that the city’s clever originator had installed in the computer.
Checking the whereabouts of Derec and its other enemies, it saw that they were nearing the underground entrance. They seemed to be heading to its computer lair, no doubt to stop it from its systematic destruction of the city, and it had to stop them before it could continue.
Derec had discovered Mandelbrot and Timestep wandering the streets looking for the Bogie imposter. When they had finally worked their way through the building with the roughhousing creatures, the street outside the exit had been empty.
“It’s down at the central computer,” Derec said. “I’m sure of it. Come with me.”
The slowdown to talk with the two robots allowed Ariel and Avery to catch up. Wolruf was so far behind that the others were not even aware she was on her way.
They headed for the tunnel entrance. Just before they reached it, the frame of the entrance appeared to balloon outward and then, like an enfolding hand, cover the opening Derec had intended to pass through.
As Adam and Eve strode down a wide boulevard, they saw Wolruf lope across an intersection, then disappear down a side street.
“Let’s go after her,” Adam said. “She might know what’s happening to the city.”
Without consulting with each other, both Adam and Eve changed to the kin shape and began to pursue Wolruf, who had disappeared around a comer. When they rounded that comer, they did not see the alien ahead of them.
“She must have gone down one of those streets,” Eve said. “It will be difficult to find her.”
“I know. But these beings leave a trace in the air that we can detect through our olfactory circuits if we increase them threefold.”
Eve discovered Adam was right. There was a sweet scent of Wolruf’s fur that lingered in the center of the roadway.
Wolruf reached Derec and the others just as several buildings in a nearby block tilted, fell against each other, and collapsed, some into the street, others against buildings to the rear. The effect was as if the buildings had been made of playing cards and someone had knocked them down.
Wolruf took in the situation immediately.
“Iss there anotherr way down?” she asked.
“Lots of them,” Avery said, “but, with this creature in charge of the computer, it can block us from going in any entrance. In the meantime, it could reduce the whole city to rubble.”
There was bitterness in the doctor’s voice. No wonder, Wolruf thought, he was watching the city, his own creation, being demolished at the whim of what appeared to be a rogue robot.
“Our best bet may be to dig through this,” Derec said. “One thing our friend doesn’t know about, and that’s the potential of Mandelbrot’s arm.”
When Derec had built Mandelbrot out of spare robotic parts, he had used an arm from a Supervisor robot. It was made of an enormously malleable cellular material and could be formed into many shapes with differing densities. On many occasions it had become a most useful tool.
“Mandelbrot!” Derec said. “Do you think you could make some people-sized holes through that mess?”
He pointed toward the entrance. Although the main opening was gone, there were still some gaps where the edges of the twisted frame had not quite come together.
“Yes,” Mandelbrot replied.
“Then do it.”
“Wait,” Wolruf said. “Make a Wolrruf-sized hole firrst. I’m smallerr, and I can get down there fasster than any of ‘u.”
“No,” Derec said. “That robot isn’t like the others. It doesn’t regard you as human. Last time you went up against it, it might have killed you. It could kill you for sure this time.”
“All of ‘u take riskss. Iss my turn thiss time.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“Don’t be such an idiot, son,” Avery said. “Pinch Me can do too much damage if we waste time getting there.”
“Pinch Me?” Ariel said. “What are you talking about? That robot down there is named Pinch Me?”
“Just a pet name,” Avery said. “Let Wolruf go down there, Derec. W
olruf, just delay him. Don’t put yourself in danger.”
“Yes,” Derec said, “just concentrate on diversionary actions, okay?”
Wolruf came from a culture where there had never been much use for diversionary action. In a conflict, her people tended to go directly for the throat. But she said, “I will be careful, I prromisse ‘u.”
Derec considered the matter for a brief time before he said, “Okay, we’ll do it your way, Wolruf.”
“Thank ‘u.”
“I’m not sure that’s proper etiquette, thanking the leader for putting you in jeopardy. Mandelbrot, start digging.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mandelbrot raised his arm, which at the moment was configured into a good copy of a human limb. As he headed toward the tunnel entrance, which looked like a jumble of the city’s strange metal, the arm began to change. First, it lengthened and an extra joint appeared at the center of the forearm. Its hand widened and fingers thinned into what looked like pointed claws. Turning its palm up to the sky, the fingers became sharp-edged at their tips. When he reached the pile, his arm was ready, and he began to rake at the twisted metal of the door frame. He managed to insert one of the fingers into a tiny opening. Making the finger thicker, he made the opening just a little bit wider.
“The metal may resist whatever abilities that arm has,” Avery said. “It’s strong.”
“So is the metal of Mandelbrot’s arm,” Derec said. “Besides, it isn’t so much a matter of tensile strength as manipulation. Wherever there’s an opening in the material the city’s made of, it can be worked with. Only a solid wall of it can stop Mandelbrot — or, for that matter, any of us. Remember, Ariel, the time I wedged a hole open with my boot?”
Mandelbrot’s hand kept changing to fulfill the needs of the task. When the hole was wider, it became a whirling wheel that knocked against the sides of the hole, widening it more. After a moment, he could reach through it. He enlarged the mass of his arm slowly and, gradually, painstakingly, he carved a hole large enough for Wolruf to get through.
“Sstop now, Mandelbrrot,” Wolruf said. “Sstand by and give me rroom. Thank ‘u.”
Without so much as a farewell, the caninoid alien entered the hole, twisting and contracting her body to propel herself through it.
When she reached the other side and began loping down the dark tunnel, Mandelbrot resumed his work on the opening.
The Watchful Eye detected the activity at the tunnel entrance, but assumed it would take a long while before they could get through. It knew nothing of the abilities of Mandelbrot’s arm and did not detect Wolruf’s penetration of its improvised security barrier.
As it continued to pick and choose what part of Robot City it would destroy, it concentrated so completely on its efforts at annihilation that it did not detect Wolruf’s appearance in the computer chamber.
To make matters worse, it had been careless upon its return and left both the sliding door and wall open, so that Wolruf could silently creep into the mainframe area. She was happy to see that the Bogie that was not Bogie hadn’t even looked up from its work.
On a screen above the imposter Bogie, a spired building appeared. With a deft hand movement, the robot touched some keys on a massive keyboard. The screen showed the spired building appear to sink into the ground, as a ship might be swallowed by the sea.
Something must be done now, she thought. Derec had said something about a diversion. What kind of diversion was possible under these circumstances? she wondered. She decided none. Trickiness was not her way. Attack was her way. Her throat tightened as she remembered the pain of the pseudo Bogie’s last blow. But she hadn’t been prepared for that. Now she was ready.
Soon Mandelbrot had fashioned a hole large enough for Derec, Ariel, and Avery to pass through.
“Let me go first,” Avery said. “I know the networks and byways of this underground setup better than you possibly could. Better than anyone else could. Except, apparently, our little Pinch Me.”
He manipulated his body through the opening without waiting to see if anyone disagreed.
“Pinch Me, huh?” Ariel said.
“I’d love to,” Derec said, “but I’m kinda busy right now.”
“Ha ha. I hope somebody explains the significance of the name to me sometime.”
“It’d be a pleasure. You go next. Mandelbrot, you’ll never get your bulk through this pinhole. Go to the Compass Tower and man the computer terminal there. As soon as you get a signal from me on the screen, begin restoring the systems that are still out of order. I’ll work from my end with the chemfets. I want Robot City to be fully functional the next time we get together.”
“Yes, Master Derec. I will try.”
Timestep came forward, clearly expecting to be taken along. But he wouldn’t be able to work himself through the hole either, so Derec said, “And, Mandelbrot, take Timestep with you.”
“What is my assignment, Master Derec?” Timestep said.
Derec wished he could give him something legitimate to do, but this was no time to be concerned with manpower assignments. “Entertain Mandelbrot. Dance for him.”
“He never stops dancing,” Ariel muttered.
Mandelbrot and Timestep set off down the street as Ariel squeezed into the passageway, then Derec. Fortunately for them, the Watchful Eye did not observe their entrance. It was too busy with Wolruf.
Adam and Eve reached the tunnel entrance just after Derec had climbed into the hole. They had seen the bottoms of his boots shaking as he wiggled through the opening. Then the boots disappeared.
“What are they doing, do you think?” Eve asked.
“I would surmise that they are heading for the main computer.”
“Why?”
“I cannot know, but I would surmise that the present crisis in the city originates there.”
“We should follow them.”
“I agree.”
The hole was too narrow for them to go through in their kin shapes. Together, without consulting, they began to change, elongate. Restoring their basic Derec and Ariel facial features, their bodies became snakelike and sinuous, if snakes had long thin arms and legs to go with their bodies. When their mass had narrowed sufficiently, they were each about seven and a half feet long. Eve first, they slithered through the narrow opening easily.
At that moment the Watchful Eye had Wolruf, her jaws clamped around its wrist, hanging from its forearm. It tried to fling the alien away, but she hung on tightly. Slapping at her with its other arm didn’t have much effect either.
It was time to use its transmogrification potentials. concentrating on its arm, it flowed more mass into it, forcing the arm to swell up. Wolruf tried to bite harder, giving the hinge of her jaw great pain. The Watchful Eye’s arm enlarged more, prying Wolruf’s jaws apart. She dropped to the floor.
As the Watchful Eye brought its other arm down toward Wolruf’s head, she dodged sideways, then rammed the Bogie who was not Bogie in the legs. Like one of the buildings it had destroyed, the Watchful Eye toppled over, falling over Wolruf and hitting the computer chamber floor with a resounding thud. Wolruf scampered sideways to avoid being crushed.
The fall did not hurt it, but it wound up in an awkward position. Wolruf, who had realized she could not possibly defeat this metallic monster, hoped she could hold it off until Derec and the others arrived.
Avery led Derec and Ariel down several corridors, all of them dark or only partially lit, another feature of their enemy’s tampering with Robot City. At a junction whose tunnels led in three separate directions, Avery stopped suddenly. He looked from one tunnel to another, his face confused.
“What’s the matter,” Derec asked.
“The damn creature, robot, whatever he is — he’s altered the network of tunnels down here. They’re not laid out according to the original pattern. He’s rearranged them just like he’s redesigned the city.”
“Can we find our way?” Ariel asked. “Wolruf may be in trouble. You know her, D
erec. She won’t wait for us long. She’ll go on the attack.”
“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” Avery said. “I can work this out. I built this city, remember? No robot can fool me for long. We’ll go this way.”
He plunged into the right-hand tunnel with his usual recklessness. Used to it now, Derec and Ariel followed close behind.
The false Bogie struggled to a sitting position, and Wolruf jumped onto its back, pushing it forward, ramming its head against its legs. Only the suddenness of her attack allowed it to succeed. Wolruf could tell the robot was too strong for her. It had all the tireless force of any robot. And it was bound by Third Law to fight back so long as it continued not to perceive Wolruf as human.
She tried to hold its torso down, but it only had to push against the floor with its hands for sufficient power to fling Wolruf off its back and send her flying through the air. Instinct took over, and Wolruf landed on her feet, wobbly but still in control of the situation.
It was straightening up its back while at the same time turning around to face Wolruf, ready to fend off another leap. Wolruf looked up and saw an empty shelf high up on the wall next to her. Crouching down, she pushed hard with her legs and flew up onto the shelf. The Bogie that was not Bogie could just barely track her with its optical circuits. She had hardly landed on the shelf when she jumped again, this time at an arc that led downward to the robot. Kicking out with both feet, she struck the Bogie imposter on the forehead, snapping its head back. It fell heavily. Wolruf landed on the floor, too, on her back. When she stood up, she could barely walk. The leg injury from her previous battle with the robot flared up again.
And the false Bogie had somehow gotten to its feet and was hovering over her.
She tensed herself for a killing blow, but instead the robot merely looked down at her and said, “Why are you trying to hurt me?”
Its voice sounded hurt, but not in physical pain, as if its feelings had been hurt more than its body.