Isaac Asimov's Robots and Aliens 5 - Maverick

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Maverick, Isaac Asimov's Robots And Aliens -- Book 5
ISAAC ASIMOV’S ROBOT CITY
ROBOTS AND ALIENS
Maverick
By Bruce Bethke
Copyright © 1990 by Byron Preiss Visual Publications
For John Sladek, Roderick, and Clifford,
The world’s stupidest springer spaniel.
INTRODUCTION
His memory has been erased. Hers was destroyed by a disease, and reconstructed
with his help. His real name is David Avery, but he knows himself as Derec.
Her name is Ariel Burgess.
Together they found Robot City and plumbed its mysteries. Derec, at peril to
his life and in the throes of one of his mad father’s experiments, learned to
master Robot City and its robots. Hordes of chemfets—microscopic robots—in
his blood gave him a direct connection with the central computer.
During a brief idyll, Derec and Ariel lived normal lives on Aurora. But
Derec’s final confrontation with his father had interrupted what the robots
called the Migration Program—the program had not been canceled. Some robots
had escaped from Robot City and had built new robot cities on new, uninhabited
planets. Planets, at least, that were supposed to be uninhabited.
Supposed to be, but were not. Derec’s placid interlude was shattered by a
distress call from one of the new robot cities, telling of an attack. Rushing
to the scene without Ariel, he and Mandelbrot discovered that the attackers
were beings who looked something like wolves—a race of intelligent wolves.
First, there was a meteor flashing through the sky. Then the strange one came,
the metallic-looking one they called SilverSides, who never ate and wished
only to protect the Kin and serve their wishes. It could only have been that
SilverSides had been sent by the OldMother, ancestress and creator of the Kin.
She had been sent to save them from the WalkingStones and the Hill of Stars
they had built.
Not even SilverSides knows that she was a robot, cousin to the robots that
were building a robot city on the Kin’s planet. She had been designed and
built not by Dr. Avery, Derec’ s father, but by Dr. Janet Anastasi, Derec’s
mother, who was running her own experiment in robotics.
SilverSides had been born shapeless, unformed, ready to imprint upon the first
intelligent being she encountered. But the plan had not allowed for a robot
city on the same planet. More intelligent than the Kin, SilverSides soon
became their leader in the struggle against the robots. She launched a raid
that crippled the city’s main planning computer, and, recognizing Derec as the
leader of the robots, attacked him.
Only Derec’s invoking the First Law of Robotics saved him. But SilverSides was
left with a dilemma. Were not the Kin human? How could they and Derec be
human, and protected by the First Law? SilverSides took on the form of a human
and the name Adam, but before this problem could be resolved there was another
distress call—from Ariel. Joined now by Wolruf, Derec, Mandelbrot, and Adam
went to her aid.
In Derec’s absence, Ariel had gotten a call from yet another robot city. This
one was also under attack by aliens, but aliens of a kind vastly different
from the Kin.
Ariel found this robot city almost completely enclosed by a dome. This
planet’s inhabitants, the bird-like Ceremyons, were as advanced, compared to
humans, as the Kin were primitive. Rather than attacking the city directly,
they were sealing it under a dome where it could do no harm. The robots,
following their programmed impulse to build and to prepare the planet for
human habitation, were arranging to rebuild the city at a different location.
As soon as Ariel arrived, she summoned Derec through his internal connection
with all the robot cities. But by the time he reached this planet, she had
reached a tentative compromise—the Ceremyons, living almost all their lives in
the air, would allow the robots to use some of the ground for farming, and
they would allow one small enclosed city for the export of the food. Derec,
with the help of the supervisor robots, reprogrammed the city.
Adam, still having no clear definition of what a human being is, imprinted on
the Ceremyons, but they, needing no protection and having no need of his
services, sent him back to Derec. Not yet certain to whom he owed Second Law
obedience, he voluntarily set up his own agricultural experiment. In the
course of this isolated work, he encountered a great silvery egg—an egg that
he recognized as another being like himself, but not yet imprinted. Rushing
back to the robot city, he brought Ariel to the egg in time for the new robot
to imprint on her. Thus was Eve born.
Eve also went through the trauma of imprinting on the Ceremyons, but she
encountered one who convinced her that he and he alone was human. Only his
increasingly obvious insanity freed her from that dangerous illusion.
The agricultural reprogramming finished, Derec and Ariel and Wolruf decided to
remove Adam and Eve from all possibly harmful influences—they would all go
back to Robot City.
They returned to a Robot City in shambles. An unknown influence had seized
control of the city’ s central computer, and tiny artificial humans—a few
inches tall—were tucked away in many of the buildings. The robots had turned
from maintaining the city to wild experimentation that reminded Derec and
Ariel of the days of Lucius.
The obvious culprit was Dr. Avery. Although the experiments were of the sort
that he had abhorred, he was the only one Derec knew who could seize control
of the city. But while Avery did turn up in the city, he was so angry over the
changes that he could not have been responsible. He was also no longer
responsible for his own actions; he was now completely mad, convinced that he
was turning into a robot.
Ariel took charge of the homunculi, and of Dr. Avery. She was more successful
with Avery than with the tiny people, effecting the beginnings of a cure.
Derec and Mandelbrot, meanwhile, tracked down the invading presence, an
intelligence that called itself The Watchful Eye. This intelligence, it
appeared, was guiding all the bizarre experiments in the hope of discovering
the nature of human beings—and whether it might be one.
With the city collapsing around them, all forces joined to corner The Watchful
Eye in its hidden lair. Finding it disguised as an ordinary piece of
furniture, they at last forced it to reveal and face its true nature: the
third of Dr. Anastasi’s “learning machines. ”
Taking the name Lucius II, the new robot immediately entered an intense
exchange of information with Adam and Eve. To the already unresolved question
of what constitutes a human being, Lucius II added the possibility that these
three robots may be humans.
These discussions took place in isolation from the humans and Wolruf. They
were concerned with the issue of what to do with the packs of small, rodent-
like animals that roamed the streets, a residue of some of Lucius II’s
experiments. Although they were clearly not human, these creatures had been
generated using human genetic code as a starting point. Were they, then, also
human, or could they be treated as vermin? This problem is complicated by
Ariel’s pregnancy, and the discovery that the fetus has been damaged by
Derec’s chemfets.
None of the medical robots on Robot City would even consider an abortion,
since they considered the fetus human, even though it lacked a complete
nervous system and could not survive birth. Adam offered to perform the
operation in return for transportation back to the planet of the Ceremyons.
The three learning machines hoped to consult with the Ceremyons on the
question of humanity.
Robot City created a ship, which Dr. Avery named the Wild Goose Chase, from
its own material. Surviving an accident that threatened all their lives, and
Wolruf’s definition as human, they reached the planet of the Ceremyons to
discover that their elaborate plans had been canceled. Someone—a woman, and
apparently a brilliant roboticist—had come and helped the Ceremyons reprogram
the entire city. Derec and Dr. Avery tried to adapt the city to serve the
Ceremyons, but at last the natives could find only one useful purpose for it.
As the humans, Wolruf, and the robots left for the planet of the Kin, they saw
the robot city slowly melting into itself, and taking on its new form as a
vast metallic sculpture.
PROLOGUE
ARANIMAS
He sat before the horseshoe-shaped control console, like a hungry spider
sitting in the middle of its web. Taut, alert, watching and waiting with an
almost feral intensity; nearly immobile, except for his eyes.
The eyes: Two black, glittering beads set in bulging turrets of wrinkled skin
on opposite sides of his large, hairless head. The eyes moved independently
in quick, lizard-like jerks, darting across the massed video displays and
instrument readouts, taking it all in.
Watching.
One eye locked in on the image of a small, starfish-like creature. His other
eye tracked across and joined it as the video display split-screened to show
the starfish on one side and the inky black of space on the other. A small ice
asteroid drifted into view, and a pair of ominous-looking rails smoothly rose
to track it.
He moved. An arm so gaunt and elongated, with carpal bones so long it gave the
appearance of having two elbows, more unfolded than reached out to touch a
small stud beneath the image of the starfish.
The grim, lipless mouth opened; the voice was high and reedy. “Denofah.
Praxil mastica. ” The rails flared brightly. An instant later the asteroid was
gone, replaced by a swiftly dissipating cloud of incandescent gas.
The mouth twitched slightly at the corners, in an expression that may have
been a grim smile. He pressed the stud again. “Rijat. ” The screen showing the
starfish and the weapon went blank.
An indicator light at the far right end of the console began blinking.
Swiveling one eye to the screen just above the indicator, he reached across
and pressed another stud. The image that appeared was that of a younger member
of his own species.
“Forrgive the intrrusion, Masterr,” the young one said in heavily accented
Galactic, with a piping trill on the “r” sounds. “But your orrders were to
reporrt any K-band interferrence instantly. ”
Both eyes locked on the image, and he swiveled his chair around so that he
was facing the viewscreen. “Did it match the patterrn? Were you able to get a
dirrectional fix?”
“Master Aranimas, it still matches the patterrn. Rrobots using hyperspace keys
to teleport; there must be thousands of them. We have both a directional fix
and an estimated distance. ”
“Excellent! Give me the coordinates; I’ll relay them to the navigator. ” While
the young one was reading off the numbers, Aranimas swiveled his left eye onto
another screen and pressed another stud. “Helm! Prepare for hyperspace jump in
five hazodes. ” Another screen, another stud. “Navigator! Lay in the fastest
course possible to take us to these coordinates. ” He repeated the numbers the
young one had given him.
When the orders were all given and the screens all blank, he sat back in his
chair, entwined his long, bony fingers, and allowed himself a thin smile.
“Wolruf, you traitor, I have you now. And Derec, you meddlesome boy, I’ll have
your robots, your teleport keys, and your head in my trophy case. ” He reached
forward and thumbed a button, and the starfish reappeared on a screen. “Deh
feh opt spa, nexori. Derec. ”
The starfish seemed quite excited at the prospect.
CHAPTER 1
JANET
Attitude thrusters fired in short, tightly controlled bursts. With a delicate
grace that belied its thirty-ton mass, the small, streamlined spacecraft
executed a slow pirouette across the starspeckled void, flipping end-for-end
and rolling ninety degrees to starboard. When the maneuver was complete, the
attitude thrusters fired again, to leave the ship traveling stem-first along
its orbital trajectory and upside-down relative to the surface of the small,
blue-white planet.
Slowly, ponderously, the main planetary drives built up to full thrust. One
minute later they shut down, and the hot white glare of the final deceleration
burn faded to the deep bloody red of cooling durylium ion grids.
A final touch on the attitude jets, and the ship slipped quietly into
geostationary orbit. Yet so skilled was the robot helmsman, so flawless the
gravity compensation fields, that the ship’s sole human occupant had not yet
noticed any change in flight status.
The robot named Basalom, however, patched into the ship’s communications
system by hyperwave commlink, could not help but receive the news. He turned
to the human known as Janet Anastasi, blinked his mylar plastic eyelids
nervously, and allocated a hundred nanoseconds to resolving a small dilemma.
Like the really tough ones, the problem involved his conflicting duties under
the Laws of Robotics. The Second Law aspect of the situation was clear: A
robot must obey the orders given it by human beings. except where such orders
would conflict with the First Law. Dr. Anastasi had specifically ordered him
to alert her the moment they entered orbit about Tau Puppis IV. He’d already
cross-checked the navigator’s star sightings against the reference library in
the ship’s computer; the small, Earthlike world currently situated some
35,000 kilometers overhead was definitely Tau Puppis IV. Unmistakably, his
Second Law duty was to tell Dr. Anastasi that she had arrived at her
destination.
As soon as Basalom started to load that statement into his speech buffer,
though, a nagging First Law priority asserted itself. The First Law said: A
robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to
come to harm. Ever since they’d left the planet of the Ceremyons, any mention
of the Learning Machine project seemed to cause Dr. Anastasi tremendous
emotional distress. Even an implied reference to her son, her ex-husband, or
the way the two of them had thoroughly bollixed the experiment by abducting
Learning Machine #2 was enough to send the woman’s blood pressure rocketing
and turn her voiceprint into a harsh and jangled mass of severe stress
indicators.
Now they’d returned to Tau Puppis IV, the world on which Dr. Anastasi had
dropped Learning Machine #1. Basalom integrated that information with the
data base he’d built up over two years of working with Dr. Anastasi, and
concluded with 95% confidence that breaking the news to her would precipitate
a negative emotional reaction. He could not predict exactly what her reaction
would be-no robot was that sophisticated—but he could predict beyond a
reasonable doubt that the information would cause Dr. Anastasi significant
emotional discomfort.
And that was Basalom’ s dilemma. How did this emotional pain fit within the
First Law definition of harm? His systems programming was not precise on that
point. If emotional pain was not harm, there was little point to his being
programmed to perceive it. But if evoking strong emotion was harm, then
obeying Second Law orders could become a terribly ticklish business. How could
he obey an order to tell Dr. Anastasi something that would upset her?
Basalom weighed positronic potentials. The order to provide the information
had been emphatic and direct. The harm that would ensue-that might ensue-was
only a possibility, and would, Basalom knew from experience, pass fairly
quickly. In addition, he recalled from experience that Dr. Anastasi’s
reaction to his not providing the information would be just as extreme an
emotion as if he did provide it.
The possibility of harming a human balanced; it was the same, no matter
whether he acted or refrained from acting. He began downloading the statement
to his speech buffer; as soon as he’d slowed his perception levels down to
human realtime, he’d tell her.
Of course, if blood spurted out of her ears when he voiced the words, then
he’d know that he’d caused some harm.
“Dr. Anastasi?” The slender blond woman looked up from her smartbook and
speared Basalom with a glare. “We have entered geostationary orbit over the
fourth planet in the Tau Puppis star system, mistress. ”
“Well, it’s frosted well about time. ” She reacted as if surprised by the tone
of her own voice, rubbed the bags under her bloodshot eyes, and smiled
apologetically. “I’m sorry, Basalom. I’ve shot the messenger again, haven’t
I?”
Basalom blinked nervously and did a quick scan of the room, but found no
evidence of an injured messenger or a recently fired weapon. “Mistress?”
She dismissed his question with a wave of her hand. “An old expression; never
mind. Is the scanning team ready?”
Through his internal commlink, Basalom consulted the rest of the crew. The
reply came back as a dialogue box patched through to the scanning team, and a
direct visual feed from a camera on the dorsal fin. From Basalom’s point of
view he saw Mistress Janet’s image in the upper right corner and the scanning
team’s input/output stream in the upper left corner. Both windows overlaid a
view of the ship’s top hull gleaming brightly in the reflected planetlight,
and as he watched, a long slit opened down the spine of the ship, and a thin
stalk somewhat resembling an enormous dandelion began rising slowly toward the
planet. At the tip of the stalk, delicate antennae were unfolding like
whisker-thin flower petals and dewsparkled spiderwebs.
“They have opened the pod bay doors,” Basalom said, “and are erecting the
sensor stalk now. ” He shot a commlink query at the scanning crew; in answer,
data from the critical path file flashed up in the scanning team’s dialogue
box. “The stalk will be fully deployed in approximately five minutes and
twenty-three seconds. ”
Dr. Anastasi made no immediate reply. To kill time while waiting for something
further to report, Basalom began allocating every fifth nanosecond to building
a simulation of how Dr. Anastasi saw the world. It had often puzzled him, how
humans had managed to accomplish so much with only simple binocular vision and
an almost complete inability to accept telesensory feeds. How lonely it must
feel to be locked into a local point of view! he decided.
At last, Dr. Anastasi spoke. “Five minutes, huh?” Basalom updated the
estimate. “And fourteen seconds. ”
“Good. ” She leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes, and tried to work a
kink out of her neck. “Boy, will I be glad to get this over with. ”
Basalom felt a tickle in his Second Law sense and formulated a suggestion.
“Mistress? If there is another place you’d rather be, we can leave for it
right now. ”
Dr. Anastasi opened her eyes and smiled wistfully at the robot; the expression
did interesting things to the topography of her face. Basalom quickly scanned
and mapped the wrinkles around her eyes, stored the image for later study, and
then backed down to normal magnification.
“No, Basalom,” Janet said, in that curiously slow output-only mode that humans
used so often. “This is where I want to be. It’s just... ” Her voice tapered
off into a little sigh.
Mistress Janet’s last sentence didn’t make immediate sense, so Basalom tried
to parse it out. It’ s just. That broke out to It is just. Substituting for
the pronoun, he came up with Being in orbit around Tau Puppis IV is just.
Quickly sorting through and discarding all the adverbial meanings of just, he
popped up a window full of adjective definitions. Reasonable, proper,
righteous, lawful, see Fair
Ah, that seemed to make sense. Being in orbit around Tau
Puppis N is fair. Basalom felt a warm glow of satisfaction in his grammar
module. Now if he only understood what Mistress Janet meant.
Janet sighed again and finished the sentence. “It’s just, I’ve been thinking
about old Stoneface again, that’s all. Sometimes I swear that man is the
albatross I’ll be wearing around my neck the rest of my life. ”
Basalom started to ask Janet why she wanted to wear a terran avian with a
three-meter wingspan around her neck, then thought better of it. “Stoneface,
mistress?”
“Wendy. Doctor Wendell Avery. My ex-husband. ” Basalom ran a voiceprint across
the bottom of his field of view and watched with familiar alarm as the
hostility markers erupted like pimples in Or. Anastasi’s voice. “Derec’s
father. My chief competitor. The little tin god who’s out to infest the galaxy
with his little tin anthills. ”
“By which you mean the robot cities, mistress?” Janet put an elbow on the
table and rested her chin in the palm of her hand. “I mean exactly that,
Basalom. ” She sighed, frowned, and went silent again.
Basalom stood quiet a moment, then switched to thermographic vision. As he’d
expected, Or. Anastasi’s skin temperature was rising, and the major arteries
in her neck were dilating. He recognized the pattern; she was building up to
another angry outburst.
He was still trying to sort out the First Law implications of defusing her
temper when it exploded..
“Oammit, Basalom, he’s an architect, not a roboticist!” Janet slammed a wiry
fist down on the table and sent her smartbook flying. “That’s my
nanotechnology he’s using. My cellular robots; my heuristic programming. But
do you think he ever once thought of sharing the credit?”
She kicked the leg of the table and let out a little sob. “The Learning
Machine experiments were beautiful. Three innocent, unformed minds,
experiencing the universe for the first time. Unit Two, especially; growing up
with those brilliant, utterly alien Ceremyons. Just think of what we could
have learned from it!
“But instead, old Stoneface dropped one of his architectural nightmares not
ten kilometers away and ruined the whole frosted thing. Now Unit Two is
traveling with Derec-Ghu knows what kind of hash is in its brain now-and the
Ceremyons won’t give us a second chance. ” Janet closed her eyes, plunked her
elbows on the table, and put her face in her hands. “I don’t know what I did
to deserve having that man in my life, but you’d think I’d have paid for that
sin by now. ” Her voice fell silent; a little sound that may have been a sob
slipped through her fingers.
Basalom watched and listened, the mass of chaotic potentials that symbolized
uncertainty surging through his positronic brain. Mistress Janet was in some
kind of pain; he understood that. And pain was equivalent to harm, that was
also clear. But while the First Law kept demanding that he take some action to
remove that pain, seven centuries of positronic evolution still hadn’t
resolved the question of how to comfort a crying woman.
He was saved from further confusion by a message from the scanning team that
came in over his commlink accompanied by the video image of the sensor stalk
at full extension. “Mistress ? The sensor pod is deployed and operational. ”
She did not respond. A minute later, an update followed. “The scanning team
reports contact with the transponder on the aeroshell, mistress. The flight
recorder appears to be intact. ” Pause. More data flashed through Basalom’s
mind, and a tactical plot of the planet with projected and actual reentry
curves popped up in his head. “The pod made a soft landing within 200 meters
of the planned landing site. Learning Machine #1 was discharged according to
program. Preliminary imprinting had begun. All indicators were nominal. ”
After a few seconds, Dr. Anastasi asked, “And then?”
“The umbilical was severed, as programmed. There has been no further contact
with Unit # 1 since that time. ”
Janet sat up, brushed back a few loose strands of her grayblond hair, and
dabbed at the corner of one eye with the cuff of her lab coat. “Very good,”
she said at last. She pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. “Very
good indeed. Basalom, tell the scanning team to begin searching for the
learning machine. Contact me the moment they find any sign
of it. ” She began moving toward the door. “I’ll be, uh, freshening up. ”
“Your orders have been relayed, mistress. ” At the door, she paused and
softly said, “And thanks for listening, Basalom. You’re a dear. ” She turned
and darted out of the cabin.
Basalom felt the draining flow of grounded-out potentials that was the robotic
equivalent of disappointment. Dr. Anastasi had called him a deer, but she’d
left the cabin before he could ask her to explain his relationship to Terran
herbivores of the genus Cervidae.
CHAPTER 2
THE HILL OF STARS
It was an old tradition, older than robotics itself. As was the case with so
many of the behaviors passed down to robots from their human forebears, City
Supervisor 3 found it to be slightly illogical; with the development of modern
telecommunications technology, it had been several centuries since it was
actually necessary for the participants in a conversation to meet physically.
Yet traditions have a way of developing an inertia all their own, and so when
City Supervisor 3-or as he was usually called, Beta-received the summons to an
executive conference, he readily bowed to centuries of custom, delegated his
current task to Building Engineer 42, and set out for the Compass Tower.
Not that it had been a terribly interesting task, anyway. He’d spent the last
few weeks overseeing subtle changes in building designs, and the task he’d
left was just one more round in a pattern of minor refinements. Beta’s
personality programming was not yet eccentric enough for him to admit to
feeling bored, but ever since Master Derec had reprogrammed the robot city to
cease expansion, he’d felt a certain sense of frustrated potentials.
Installing a new and improved cornice simply didn’t give him the same warm
glow of satisfaction as came from, say, completing an entire block of luxury
apartments.
Still, Beta reminded himself, a job’s a job. And any job that keeps robots out
of the recycling bin is worthwhile. Unbidden, a statement of the Third Law
flashed through his mind: A robot must protect its own existence, as long as
such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. ” Yes, Beta
thought, that’s what we’re doing. Protecting our existence. As long as we have
jobs, we can justify our continued existence. The Third Law potential resolved
to a neat zero sum and stopped bothering him.
As he strolled toward the nearest tunnel stop, Beta allocated a few seconds to
look around and review his earlier work. The avenue was broad, clean, and
straight as a laser beam. The buildings were tall, angular, and functional,
with no outrageous flights of engineering fantasy but enough variation in the
use of geometric solids to keep the city from looking monotonous.
We certainly have fulfilled our original purpose. We have constructed a city
that’s clean, bright, and beautiful. One of the advantages of being a robot
was that Beta could crane his neck and look up at the buildings without
slowing his walking pace. Perhaps we overdid it on the gleaming pale blue,
though. Maybe next week we can paint a few things, just for contrast. Looking
down again, Beta found the entrance to the tunnel stop. He started down the
ramp. Along the way, he passed a number of idle function robots.
For a moment he considered ordering them to report to the recycling bin. Then
he felt a pang of-could it be guilt?—at the idea of destroying even non-
positronic robots simply for the crime of being unemployed. Pausing a few
microseconds, he managed to think up a busywork assignment for them. It was an
illogical notion, of course, but he thought he detected a certain primitive
kind of gratitude in the way they clanked off to their new jobs.
In a sense, we’re all function robots. Some of us are a little more self-aware
than others, that’s all. Those function robots clean and lube things; I create
gleaming, perfect buildings.
Why?
A dangerous question: Already, Beta could feel the stirring of a latent
general command to self -destruct if he was no longer serving a useful
purpose. Fortunately, with the summons to the executive council still fresh
in his input register, he was able to duck that issue. He continued down the
ramp.
A half-dozen idle tunnel transit platforms were waiting at the bottom of the
ramp. Beta boarded the first one in the queue and gave it his destination.
“Compass Tower. ” A fast scanning beam swept over him; the transit platform
determined that its passenger was robotic and jumped into traffic with a
necksnapping jolt.
Always these subtle reminders, Beta thought. The city was built for humans.
Yet we who live here are not human.
The platform shot through the tunnels at maximum speed, darting across lanes
and dodging other platforms with reckless abandon. Beta locked his hands
tightly on the grips and became a rigid part of the platform.
The force of air alone would knock a human off this platform despite the
windscreen. Yet because I am a robot, the tunnel computer trades off safety
for efficient traffic flow.
We built this city for humans. We are only caretakers. So where are the
humans?
An interesting question, indeed. And one that Beta could not answer.
With another rough jolt, the transit platform slid into the station beneath
the Compass Tower and slammed to a stop. Beta unlocked his wrist and knee
joints and stepped off; he only had one foot on solid pavement when the
platform rocketed off into the storage queue. As i/there was a hurry. Beta
looked around the station, saw no one waiting to go anywhere, and dismissed
the experience with the positronic equivalent of a shrug. Moving off the
apron, he located the ascending slidewalk ramp and started up.
The meeting was to be held in the Central Hall. An apt name, Beta thought.
This pyramid we call the Compass Tower is the geographical center of the city.
And Central Hall is at the heart of the pyramid. That wasn’t the real reason
it was called that, of course; the name came from the fact that the hall
housed Central, the enormous, disembodied positronic brain that ultimately
controlled all activity in Robot City.
Or used to, anyway. Beta stepped off the last run of slidewalk and entered the
cavernous hall.
He was immediately stopped by two hunter robots, tall and menacing in their
matte-black armor. Tolerantly, Beta submitted to being surface-scanned, deep-
radared, and bitmapped. He was all too familiar with the need for tight
security in this, the most critical of all places. After all, it was a lapse
in security in this very room that had elevated him to the rank of Supervisor.
The hunters apparently were satisfied that he was who he claimed to be, and
had legitimate reason for coming to Central Hall. They waved Beta through the
checkpoint, and a moment later he stepped around the corner and got a good
look at Central.
Even in its disabled state, Central was an impressive being. A collection of
massive black slabs five meters high, resembling nothing so much as a silicon
Stonehenge, it blazed with communication lasers, twinkled with monitor lights,
and radiated an immense impression of great, dormant intellect on the 104
megahertz band.
At least, we hope it’s intellect. A vague mismatch of positronic potentials
flowed through Beta’s brain; he identified the feeling as sadness. Pausing a
moment, he watched the security observer robots drift overhead in tight,
metric patterns, and stole sidelong glances at Positronic Specialists I
through 5, who were once again up to their elbows in Central’s brain.
Beta was capable of free-associating. Looking at the brain crew at work always
reminded him of that terrible day
Terrible? Beta caught himself. A judgmental expression? Yes, Beta decided, it
was terrible. Great responsibility had devolved on him that day a year
before, when a malleable robot named SilverSides had appeared and adopted the
wolf-like shape of the local dominant species. Breaking into Central Hall, it
had attempted to destroy Central.
In that respect, SilverSides had failed. The backup and protective systems had
kicked in in time to save Central’s “life. ”
The city had survived, and Central’s authority was simply distributed to
first-tier supervisors, like Beta.
In another respect, though, SilverSides had succeeded. Where once Central was
a scintillating intellect that guided all the robots in the city and kept them
working and thinking in harmony, now it was a babbling idiot-savant, full of
bits and pieces of ideas, only occasionally lucid.
Still, we keep believing that it can be restored. We keep telling ourselves
that the damage caused by SilverSides can be repaired. and that it can again
be the Central we once knew.
Is this another example of how we are evolving? Simple efficiency demands that
we scrap Central and leave the supervisors permanently in charge. Yet we
supervisors are reluctant to even suggest the idea. We keep insisting that our
authority is only temporary. and that we will return power to Central just as
soon as it passes diagnostics. That only Central is equipped to administer
our fundamental programming.
Could that be the difference between being intelligent and being civilized?
Valuing preservation of a fellow robot over efficiency? Caught between his
evolving values and his orders to use resources efficiently, Beta felt himself
drifting closer and closer to a Second Law crisis.
He was saved by the arrival of his fellow supervisors, Alpha and Gamma. Alpha
spoke first. “Friend Beta, I have-with Central’s permission-called this
meeting to discuss the status of our mission. ”
Beta turned to greet the arriving robots. “Friend Alpha, Friend Gamma: I
received your summons and I am here. ” Beta couldn’t help but noting that his
reply was a redundant statement of a self-evident fact; still the traditions
had to be maintained. Alpha and Gamma walked past without breaking stride.
Beta wheeled and joined them. Together, the three marched straight into the
atrium at the heart of Central.
When they were in their assigned positions, Alpha raised his face and
addressed the slab that held Central’s console of audio/ video inputs and
outputs. “Central, we are here for the meeting. “
“Hmmm?” Central’s one great red eye glowed briefly, then dimmed.
“The meeting, Central. You remember, to discuss the status of our mission?”
“I have the greatest confidence in the mission,” Central said.
“That’s right, Central, we all have confidence in it. ” Beta and Gamma nodded,
in support of Alpha. “And, now, if it’s okay with you, we’re going to discuss
the status. ”
“What status?”
“Of the mission, Central. ”
“I have the greatest confidence in the mission,” Central said, then he began
softly singing “Daisy. ”
Alpha emitted a burst of white noise and turned to Beta and Gamma. “Let’s get
on with this. Beta, what exactly is our mission?”
Beta knew that Alpha and Gamma were both exactly as familiar with the mission
as he was. After all, it was darned tough to forget something that was coded
in ROM. Still, there were traditions that needed to be maintained, and the
recitation of common knowledge was one of them.
“Robot City is a self-replicating mechanism designed to convert uninhabited
planets for human use. Through the use of hyperspace teleportation keys and a
unique, cellular robot technology—”
“That’s enough, Beta. ” Alpha waved a hand to cut him off. “Gamma, what do you
think is the most important word in our mission statement?”
Gamma’s eyes glowed brightly. “The same word that’s the crux of the Laws of
Robotics. Human. ”
“Right. ” Alpha looked at Beta again, then back to Gamma. “We have
successfully established a viable robotic community on this planet. We have
initiated mining operations, developed a manufacturing base, and-insofar as
Master Derec allowed—built a city. What’s the one thing missing that prevents
us from completing our mission plan?”
Beta thought of his clean, straight, empty streets, and his perfect, unused
buildings.
“Humans,” Central said. The heads of all three supervisors jerked up as if
they were marionettes on strings.
“Central?” Alpha asked. The great machine’s one red eye glowed brightly.
“French: humain. Latin: humanus; akin to humus, the ground. Pertaining to,
belonging to, or having the qualities of mankind. ‘The human species is
composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow, and the men who lend. ’
Charles Lamb. ”
Alpha looked down again. “Forget it, Central. ”
“Forgetting. ” The red eye went out a moment and then came back on. “Oh,
Alpha, you came to visit!”
摘要：

Maverick,IsaacAsimov'sRobotsAndAliens--Book5ISAACASIMOV’SROBOTCITYROBOTSANDALIENSMaverickByBruceBethkeCopyright©1990byByronPreissVisualPublicationsForJohnSladek,Roderick,andClifford,Theworld’sstupidestspringerspaniel.INTRODUCTIONHismemoryhasbeenerased.Herswasdestroyedbyadisease,andreconstructedwithh...

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