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Prodigy - Isaac Asimov's Robot City Book 4 - Arthur Byron Cover

ISAAC ASIMOV’S

ROBOT CITY

BOOK 4: PRODIGY

ARTHUR BYRON COVER

THE SENSE OF HUMOR

ISAAC ASIMOV

Would a robot feel a yearning to be human?

You might answer that question with a counter-question. Does a Chevrolet feel a yearning to be a Cadillac?

The counter-question makes the unstated comment that a machine has no yearnings.

But the very point is that a robot is not quite a machine, at least in potentiality. A robot is a machine that is made as

much like a human being as it is possible to make it, and somewhere there may be a boundary line that may be

crossed.

We can apply this to life. An earthworm doesn't yearn to be a snake; a hippopotamus doesn't yearn to be an elephant.

We have no reason to think such creatures are self-conscious and dream of something more than they are.

Chimpanzees and gorillas seem to be self-aware, but we have no reason to think that they yearn to be human.

A human being, however, dreams of an afterlife and yearns to become one of the angels. Somewhere, life crossed a

boundary line. At some point a species arose that was not only aware of itself but had the capacity to be dissatisfied

with itself.

Perhaps a similar boundary line will someday be crossed in the construction of robots.

But if we grant that a robot might someday aspire to humanity, in what way would he so aspire? He might aspire to

the possession of the legal and social status that human beings are born to. That was the theme of my story "The

Bicentennial Man" (1976), and in his pursuit of such status, my robot-hero was willing to give up all his robotic

qualities, one by one, right down to his immortality.

That story, however, was more philosophical than realistic. What is there about a human being that a robot might

properly envy—what human physical or mental characteristic? No sensible robot would envy human fragility, or

human incapacity to withstand mild changes in the environment, or human need for sleep, or aptitude for the trivial

mistake, or tendency to infectious and degenerative disease, or incapacitation through illogical storms of emotion.

He might, more properly, envy the human capacity for friendship and love, his wide-ranging curiosity, his eagerness

for experience. I would like to suggest, though, that a robot who yearned for humanity might well find that what he

would most want to understand, and most frustratingly Jail to understand, would be the human sense of humor.

The sense of humor is by no means universal among human beings, though it does cut across all cultures. I have

known many people who didn't laugh, but who looked at you in puzzlement or perhaps disdain if you tried to be

funny. I need go no further than my father, who routinely shrugged off my cleverest sallies as unworthy of the

attention of a serious man. (Fortunately, my mother laughed at all my jokes, and most uninhibitedly, or I might have

grown up emotionally stunted.)

The curious thing about the sense of humor, however, is that, as far as I have observed, no human being will admit to

its lack. People might admit they hate dogs and dislike children, they might cheerfully own up to cheating on their

income tax or on their marital partner as a matter of right, and might not object to being considered inhumane or

dishonest, through the simple expediency of switching adjectives and calling themselves realistic or businesslike.

However, accuse them of lacking a sense of humor and they will deny it hotly every time, no matter how openly and

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Prodigy - Isaac Asimov's Robot City Book 4 - Arthur Byron Cover

how often they display such a lack. My father, for instance, always maintained that he had a keen sense of humor and

would prove it as soon as he heard a joke worth laughing at (though he never did, in my experience). Why, then, do

people object to being accused of humorlessness? My theory is that people recognize (subliminally, if not openly)

that a sense of humor is typically human, more so than any other characteristic, and refuse demotion to subhumanity.

Only once did I take up the matter of a sense of humor in a science-fiction. story, and that was in my story "Jokester,"

which first appeared in the December, 1956 issue of Infinity Science Fiction and which was most recently reprinted

in my collection The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov (Doubleday, 1986).

The protagonist of the story spent his time telling jokes to a computer (I quoted six of them in the course of the

story). A computer, of course, is an immobile robot; or, which is the same thing, a robot is a mobile computer; so the

story deals with robots and jokes. Unfortunately, the problem in the story for which a solution was sought was not the

nature of humor, but the source of all the jokes one hears. And there is an answer, too, but you'll have to read the

story for that.

However, I don't just write science fiction. I write whatever it falls into my busy little head to write, and (by some

undeserved stroke of good fortune) my various publishers are under the weird impression that it is illegal not to

publish any manuscript I hand them. (You can be sure that I never disabuse them of this ridiculous notion.)

Thus, when I decided to write a joke book, I did, and Houghton-Mifflin published it in 1971 under the title of Isaac

Asimov's Treasury of Humor. In it, I told 640 jokes that I happened to have as part of my memorized repertoire. (I

also have enough for a sequel to be entitled Isaac Asimov Laughs Again, but I can't seem to get around to writing it

no matter how long I sit at the keyboard and how quickly I manipulate the keys.) I interspersed those jokes with my

own theories concerning what is funny and how one makes what is funny even funnier.

Mind you, there are as many different theories of humor as there are people who write on the subject, and no two

theories are alike. Some are, of course, much stupider than others, and I felt no embarrassment whatever in adding

my own thoughts on the subject to the general mountain of commentary.

It is my feeling, to put it as succinctly as possible, that the one necessary ingredient in every successful joke is a

sudden alteration in point of view. The more radical the alteration, the more suddenly it is demanded, the more

quickly it is seen, the louder the laugh and the greater the joy.

Let me give you an example with a joke that is one of the few I made up myself:

Jim comes into a bar and finds his best friend, Bill, at a comer table gravely nursing a glass of beer and wearing a

look of solemnity on his face. Jim sits down at the table and says sympathetically, "What's the matter, Bill?"

Bill sighs, and says, "My wife ran off yesterday with my best friend."

Jim says, in a shocked voice, "What are you talking about, Bill? I'm your best friend."

To which Bill answers softly, "Not anymore."

I trust you see the change in point of view. The natural supposition is that poor Bill is sunk in gloom over a tragic

loss. It is only with the last three words that you realize, quite suddenly, that he is, in actual fact, delighted. And the

average human male is sufficiently ambivalent about his wife (however beloved she might be) to greet this particular

change in point of view with delight of his own.

Now, if a robot is designed to have a brain that responds to logic only (and of what use would any other kind of robot

brain be to humans who are hoping to employ robots for their own purposes?), a sudden change in point of view

would be hard to achieve. It would imply that the rules of logic were wrong in the first place or were capable of a

flexibility that they obviously don't have. In addition, it would be dangerous to build ambivalence into a robot brain.

What we want from him is decision and not the to-be-or-not-to-be of a Hamlet.

Imagine, then, telling a robot the joke I have just given you, and imagine the robot staring at you solemnly after you

are done, and questioning you, thus.

Robot: "But why is Jim no longer Bill's best friend? You have not described Jim as doing anything that would cause

Bill to be angry with him or disappointed in him."

You: "Well, no, it's not that Jim has done anything. It's that someone else has done something for Bill that was so

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wonderful, that he has been promoted over Jim's head and has instantly become Bill's new best friend."

Robot: "But who has done this?"

You: "The man who ran away with Bill's wife, of course."

Robot (after a thoughtful pause): "But that can't be so. Bill must have felt profound affection for his wife and a great

sadness over her loss. Is that not how human males feel about their wives, and how they would react to their loss?"

You: "In theory, yes. However, it turns out that Bill strongly disliked his wife and was glad someone had run off with

her."

Robot (after another thoughtful pause): "But you did not say that was so."

You: "I know. That's what makes it funny. I led you in one direction and then suddenly let you know that was the

wrong direction."

Robot: "Is it funny to mislead a person?"

You (giving up): "Well, let's get on with building this house."

In fact, some jokes actually depend on the illogical responses of human beings. Consider this one:

The inveterate horseplayer paused before taking his place at the betting windows, and offered up a fervent prayer to

his Maker.

"Blessed lord," he murmured with mountain-moving sincerity, "I know you don't approve of my gambling, but just

this once, Lord, just this once, please let me break even. I need the money so badly."

If you were so foolish as to tell this joke to a robot, he would immediately say, "But to break even means that he

would leave the races with precisely the amount of money he had when he entered. Isn't that so?"

"Yes, that's so."

"Then if he needs the money so badly, all he need do is not bet at all, and it would be just as though he had broken

even."

"Yes, but he has this unreasoning need to gamble."

"You mean even if he loses."

"Yes."

"But that makes no sense."

"But the point of the joke is that the gambler doesn't understand this."

"You mean it's funny if a person lacks any sense of logic and is possessed of not even the simplest understanding?"

And what can you do but turn back to building the house again?

But tell me, is this so different from dealing with the ordinary humorless human being? I once told my father this

joke:

Mrs. Jones, the landlady, woke up in the middle of the night because there were strange noises outside her door. She

looked out, and there was Robinson, one of her boarders, forcing a frightened horse up the stairs.

She shrieked, "What are you doing, Mr. Robinson?"

He said, "Putting the horse in the bathroom."

"For goodness sake, why?"

"Well, old Higginbotham is such a wise guy. Whatever I tell him, he answers, 'I know. I know,' in such a superior

way. Well, in the morning, he'll go to the bathroom and he'll come out yelling, 'There's a horse in the bathroom.' And

I'll yawn and say, 'I know, I know."'

And what was my father's response? He said, "Isaac, Isaac. You're a city boy, so you don't understand. You can't

push a horse up the stairs if he doesn't want to go."

Personally, I thought that was funnier than the joke.

Anyway, I don't see why we should particularly want a robot to have a sense of humor, but the point is that the robot

himself might want to have one—and how do we give it to him?

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Prodigy - Isaac Asimov's Robot City Book 4 - Arthur Byron Cover

CHAPTER l

CAN YOU FEEL ANYTHING WHEN I DO THIS?

"Mandelbrot, what does it feel like to be a robot?"

"Forgive me, Master Derec, but that question is meaningless. While it is certainly true that robots can be said to

experience sensations vaguely analogous to specified human emotions in some respects, we lack feelings in the

accepted sense of the word."

"Sorry, old buddy, but I can't help getting the hunch that you're just equivocating with me."

"That would be impossible. The very foundations of positronic programming insist that robots invariably state the

facts explicitly."

"Come, come, don't you concede it's possible that the differences between human and robotic perception may be, by

and large, semantic? You agree, don't you, that many human emotions are simply the by-products of chemical

reactions that ultimately affect the mind, influencing moods and perceptions. You must admit, humans are nothing if

not at the mercy of their bodies. "

"That much has been proven, at least to the satisfaction of respected authorities. "

"Then, by analogy, your own sensations are merely byproducts of smoothly running circuitry and engine joints. A

spaceship may feel the same way when, its various parts all working at peak efficiency, it breaks into hyperspace.

The only difference between you and it being, I suppose, that you have a mind to perceive it."

Mandelbrot paused, his integrals preoccupied with sorting Derec's perspectives on these matters into several

categories in his memory circuits. "I have never quite analyzed the problem that way before, Master Derec. But it

seems that in many respects the comparison between human and robot, robot and spaceship must be exceedingly

apt."

"Let's look at it this way, Mandelbrot. As a human, I am a carbon-based life-form, the superior result of eons of

evolution of inferior biological life-forms. I know what it feels like because I have a mind to perceive the gulf

between man and other species of animal life. And with careful, selective comparison, I can imagine—however

minimally—what a lower life-form might experience as it makes its way through the day. Furthermore, I can

communicate to others what I think it feels like."

"My logic circuits can accept this.”

“Okay then, through analogy or metaphor or through a story I can explain to others what a worm, or a rat, or a cat, or

even a dinosaur must feel as they hunt meat, go to sleep, sniff flowers, or whatever."

"I have never seen one of these creatures and certainly wouldn't presume to comprehend what it must be like to be

one."

"Ah! But you would know—through proper analogy—what it must be like to be a spaceship."

"Possibly, but I have not been provided with the necessary programming to retrieve the information. Furthermore, I

cannot see how such knowledge could possibly help me fulfill the behavioral standards implicit in the Three Laws."

"But you have been programmed to retrieve such information, and your body often reacts accordingly, and

sometimes adversely, with regards to your perceptions."'

"You are speaking theoretically?”

“Yes."

"Are you formally presenting me with a problem?"

"Yes."

"Naturally I shall do my best to please you, Master Derec, but my curiosity and logic integrals are only equipped to

deal with certain kinds of problems. The one you appear to be presenting may be too subjective for my programmed

potentials. "

“Isn't all logic abstract, and hence somewhat subjective, at least in approach? You must agree that, through mutually

agreed upon paths of logic, you can use the certain knowledge of two irrefutable facts to learn a third, equally

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irrefutable fact. "

“Of course."

"Then can't you use such logic to reason how it might feel to be a spaceship, or any other piece of sufficiently

advanced machinery?"

“Since you phrase it that manner, of course, but I fail to comprehend what benefit such an endeavor may bring me—

or you."

Derec shrugged. It was night in Robot City. He and Mandelbrot had been out walking. He had felt the need to stretch

his muscles after a long day spent studying some of the problems complicating his escape from this isolated planet.

But at the moment they were sitting atop a rectangular tower and staring at the stars. "Oh, I don't know if it would be

of any benefit, except perhaps to satisfy my curiosity. It just seems to me that you must have some idea of what it is

like to be a robot, even if you don't have the means to express it."

“Such knowledge would require language, and such a language has not yet been invented."

“Hmmm. I suppose."

"However, I have just made an association that may be of some value."

“What's that?"

“Whenever you or Mistress Ariel have had no need of my assistance, I have been engaging in communication with

the robots of this city. They haven't been wondering what it means or feels like to be a robot, but they have been

devoting a tremendous amount of spare mental energy to the dilemma of what it must be like to be a human."

“Yes, that makes sense, after a fashion. The robots' goal of determining the Laws of Humanics has struck me as a

unique phenomenon."

"Perhaps it is not, Master Derec. After all, if I may remind you, you recall only your experiences of the last few

weeks, and my knowledge of history is rather limited in scope. Even so, I never would have thought of making

connections the way you have, which leads my circuits to conclude your subconscious is directing our conversation

so that it has some bearing on your greater problems."

Derec laughed uncomfortably. He hadn't considered it before. Strange, he thought, that a robot had. "My

subconscious? Perhaps. I suppose I feel that if I better understand the world I'm in, I might better understand myself."

"I believe I am acting in accordance with the Three Laws if I help a human know himself better. For that reason, my

circuits are currently humming with a sensation you might recognize as pleasure."

"That's nice. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to be alone right now." For a moment Derec felt a vague twinge of

anxiety, and he actually feared that he might be insulting

Mandelbrot, a robot that, after all they'd been through together, he couldn't help but regard as his good friend.

But if Mandelbrot had taken umbrage, he showed no evidence of it. He was, as always, inscrutable. "Of course. I

shall wait in the lobby."

Derec watched as Mandelbrot walked to the lift and slowly descended. Of course Mandelbrot hadn't taken umbrage.

It was impossible for him to be insulted.

Crossing his legs to be more comfortable, Derec returned to looking at the stars and the cityscape spread out below

and beyond, but his thoughts remained inward. Normally he was not the reflective type, but tonight he felt moody,

and gave in easily to the anxiousness and insecurity he normally held in check while trying to deal with his various

predicaments more logically.

He smiled at this observation on what he was feeling. Perhaps he was taking himself too seriously, the result of lately

reading too much Shakespeare. He had discovered the plays of the ancient, so-called "Immortal Bard" as a means of

mental escape and relaxation. Now he was finding that the more he scrutinized the texts, the more he learned about

himself. It was as if the specific events and characters portrayed in the plays spoke directly to him, and had some

immediate bearing on the situation in which he had found himself when he had awakened, shorn of memory, in that

survival pod not so long ago.

He couldn't help but wonder why the plays were beginning to affect him so. It was as if he was beginning to redefine

himself through them.

He shrugged again, and again pondered the stars. Not just to analyze them for clues to the location of the world he

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was on, but to respond to them as he imagined countless men and women had throughout the course of history. He

tried to imagine how they had looked to the men of Shakespeare's time, before mankind had learned how the

universe came to be, where the Earth stood in relation to it, or how to build a hyperspace drive. Their searching but

scientifically ignorant minds must have perceived in the stars a coldly savage beauty beyond the range of his

empathy.

One star in the sky, perhaps, might be the sun of his homeworld. Somewhere out there, he thought, someone knew

the answers to his questions. Someone who knew who he really was and how he came to be in that survival pod.

Below him was the city of towers, pyramids, cubes, spires and tetragons, some of which, even as he watched, were

changing in accordance with the city's program. Occasionally robots, their activity assisting the alterations and

additions, glistened in the reflections of the starlight reflected in turn from the city walls. The robots never slept, the

city never slept. It changed constantly, unpredictably.

The city was like a giant robot, composed of billions upon billions of metallic cells functioning in accordance to

nuclei-encoded DNA patterns of action and reaction. Although composed of inorganic matter, the city was a living

thing, a triumph of a design philosophy Derec called "minimalist engineering."

Derec had partially been inspired to ascend to the top of this tower—through a door and lift that appeared when he

needed them—precisely because he had watched its basic structure coil, snakelike, from the street like a giant,

growing ribbon. And once the ribbon had reached its preordained height, the cells had spread out and coalesced into

a solid structure. Perhaps they had multiplied as well.

Two towers directly in front of him merged and sank into the street as if dropping on a great lift. About a kilometer

away to his right, a set of buildings of varying heights gradually became uniform, then merged into a single, vast,

square construction. It stayed that way for approximately three minutes, then methodically began metamorphosing

into a row of crystals.

A few days ago, such a sight would have instilled within him a sense of wonder. Now it was all very ordinary. No

wonder he had sought to amuse himself by engaging in what he had thought was a slight mental diversion.

Suddenly a tremendous glare appeared in the midst of the city. Derec averted his eyes in panic, assuming it was an

explosion.

But as the seconds passed and the glare remained, he realized that no sound or sensation of violence had

accompanied its birth. Whatever its nature, its presence had been declared as if it had been turned on by a switch.

Feeling a little self-conscious, he slowly removed his fingers from his eyes and ventured a look. The glare was

coalescing into a series of easily definable colors. Various hues of crimson, ochre, and blue. The colors changed as

the tetragonal pyramid they were coming from changed.

The pyramid was situated near the city's border. The eight-sided figure was balanced precariously on the narrow tip

of its base, and it rotated like a spinning top in slow motion. From Derec's vantage point it resembled a tremendous

bauble, thanks to those brilliantly changing lights.

Watching it, he gradually felt all anxieties cease. His own problems seemed dwarfed into insignificance compared to

the splendor of this sight. What beauty this city was capable of!

Soon this feeling of calm was uprooted by his growing curiosity, a restless need to know more that quickly became

overwhelming, relentlessly gnawing. He would have to examine the building firsthand, then return to his "roost"

where his access controls were, and get down to seriously plumbing the depths of the city's mysterious programming.

Like the plays of Shakespeare, the strange structure seemed a good place to escape to for a time. Besides, he never

knew—he might find out something that would help him and Ariel get off this crazy planet.

"So there you are!" said a familiar voice behind him. "What are you doing here?"

He looked up to see Ariel staring down at him. She stood with her legs apart and her hands on her hips. The breeze

blew strands of hair across her nose and mouth. She had a mischievous light in her eyes. Suddenly it was time to

forget the city for a moment and to stare at her. Her unexpected presence had taken his breath away. His nerves had

come back.

All right, he admitted to himself, so it's not just her presence—it's her—everything about her!

"Hi. I was just thinking of you," he managed to say, the catch in his voice painfully obvious, at least to him.

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"Liar," she said with combined sarcasm and warmth. "But that's all right. I wanted to see you, too."

"Have you noticed that building?"

"Of course. I've been standing here for the last few moments, while you've been zoned out. Amazing, isn't it? I bet

you're already trying to figure out how to analyze it."

"Oh, of course. How did you find me?" he asked.

"Wolruf sniffed you out. She and Mandelbrot are waiting downstairs."

"What's Wolruf doing down there?"

"She doesn't like the cold air up here. Says it makes her too nostalgic for the wild fields during those cold autumn

nights." Ariel sat down beside him. She leaned back and supported herself on her palms. The fingers of her right

hand almost touched his.

Derec was acutely aware of her fingers' warmth. He wanted to stretch out his hand the half-inch it would take to

touch them, but instead he leaned back on his elbows and scrunched his hands close to his sides.

"What are you doing up here in the first placer' she asked.

"Making a pit stop.”

“Huh?"

The moment's silence between them was decidedly awkward. She blinked, then stared at the rotating building.

During that moment, Derec's thoughts shuffled like cards, and he was on the verge of blurting many things. But in

the end he finally decided on the noncommittal, "I've just been taking a break from things."

"That's good. It's healthy to stop thinking about worrisome things for a while. Have you come up with a way out of

here yet?"

"No, but you must admit the here-and-now isn't a bad place to be in, compared to some of our predicaments."

"Please, I don't want to think about hospitals now. If I never see another diagnostic robot again, it'll be too soon for

me."

"But you'll be better off when you do!" Derec exclaimed, immediately regretting the words.

Ariel's face darkened with anger. "Why? Just because I've got a disease that's slowly driving me insane?"

"Uh, well, yes. For a beginning."

"Very funny, Mr. Normal. Hasn't it occurred to you that I might like the disease, that I might prefer the way my mind

is working now to how it worked during the time when I was 'sane'?"

"Uh, no, it hasn't, and I don't think it has occurred to you, either. Listen, Ariel, I was attempting to make a joke. I

didn't mean to offend you, or even to bring the subject up. The words just stumbled out. "

"Why am I not surprised?" Ariel turned away from him with a shrug.

"I want you to be well. I'm concerned for you."

She wiped her face and forehead. Was she perspiring?

Derec couldn't tell in the dark. "Listen, you've got to understand that lately I've been experiencing serious difficulty

in keeping my thoughts straight," she said. "It's not always bad. It comes and it goes. Even so, sometimes I feel like

someone is pulling my brain out of my head with a pair of pliers. I just got over one of those moments."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know." Derec suddenly felt like his heart had been caught in pliers, too. The inches between them

seemed like a gulf. He wondered if he was insane, too, to think of crossing that gulf and taking her in his arms. He

wondered if she would relax when he glided her head to his chest.

He decided to change the subject, in the hopes of changing the unspoken subject, too. "You know, even though I still

don't know my identity, I think I've managed to find out a lot of things about myself since I awoke on that mining

complex. I've discovered I've got pretty good instincts. Especially about being able to tell who my friends are."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And upon due consideration, I've come to the conclusion that you just might be one of them."

Ariel smiled. "Yeah? You really think so?"

Derec smiled in return. "That's for me to know and for you to find out."

"Well, I can live with that." She pursed her lips. "So tell me, Mr. Genius, how does that building fit in with the city's

programming?"

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"I don't know. It's an anomaly.”

“What do you call that shape?”

“A tetragonal pyramid."

"Looks like two pyramids stuck together to me.”

“That's why it's called tetragonal."

"Look how it shines, how the colors glitter. Do you think Dr. Avery is responsible? He's responsible for everything

else."

"If you mean did he plan something like that, I'm not sure I know."

"That's a straight answer," she said sarcastically.

"Excuse me, I'm not trying to be obtuse. I mean, the structure could be implicit in the programming, to some degree

anyway, but whether or not Avery knew it when he set Robot City in motion, I can't say.”

“If you had to make a guess—"

“I'd say not. I've studied the programming of the central computer system pretty closely, not to mention cell

specimens taken both from the city and from various robots, and I certainly hadn't suspected anything that. "that

breathtaking was possible."

"Have you noticed how the hues in the crimson plane give the illusion of depth, as if it were made of crystallized

lava? And' how the blue plane most resembles the Auroran sky?"

"Sorry, but I can't remember having seen lava, and I've only vague memories of the Auroran sky."

"Oh. I'm the one who should be sorry now.”

“Forget it. Come on. The building's probably even more beautiful close up."

"Absolutely! But what about Wolruf and Mandelbrot? Wolruf might be impressed, but I don't see how a robot like

Mandelbrot is going to have his reinforced curiosity integral aroused by something his programming hasn't prepared

him to appreciate. "

Derec shook his head. "Don't bet on it. If my suspicions are correct, it's a robot who's personally responsible. I'm

interested in finding out which one. And if I'm interested, Mandelbrot will be interested."

"I see. You'll doubtlessly spend hours with him trying to pinpoint some obscure, insignificant detail, instead of trying

to get us out of here," Ariel observed sneeringly. "Don't you ever get tired of robots?"

Derec realized her sudden mood swing wasn't her fault, but couldn't help saying what he did. "I see you're 'not

forward but modest as the dove—not hot but temperate as the mom."'

Much to his surprise, Ariel burst out laughing.

And much to his chagrin, Derec felt insulted. He had wanted the joke to be his own private one. "What's so funny?"

"That's from The Taming of the Shrew. I read that play last night, and when I reached those lines, I happened to

wonder aloud if you'd ever say them to me."

Now Derec felt inexplicably crestfallen. "You mean you've been reading Shakespeare, too?"

"Can I help it? You've been leaving printouts of the plays allover the place. Most untidy. Come on. Let's go

downstairs. I know where a couple of fast scooters are sitting, just waiting for us to hop on."

CHAPTER 2

BECALMED MOTION

Ariel and Derec found Mandelbrot and Wolruf in the lobby, standing before one of the automats that Derec had

programmed via the central computer to appear in at least ten percent of the buildings. He had done this to insure that

the three on this planet who did require sustenance would have more or less convenient access to it.

Indeed, as he and Ariel stepped off the lift, Derec couldn't help but notice that Wolruf was down on all fours,

hunched over a plate of synthetic roughage. It looked like it was red cabbage disappearing down that mighty maw.

Mandelbrot was punching the automat buttons at a steady pace, ensuring a steady supply. Both seemed so intent on

their respective tasks that neither seemed to have noticed the creaking of the lift, or the hissing of its opening doors.

"Forgive me, I know my understanding of culinary needs is limited since robots partake of food only for diplomatic

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purposes," said Mandelbrot, "but is it not vaguely possible that more consumption will result in the untimely

reemergence of a significant portion of your meal?"

"Thisss one judge that!" said Wolruf, belching rudely before taking another gulp. "Thisss one forrgot to eat today!"

Derec stood on his tiptoes so he would be that much closer to Ariel's ear (she was several centimeters taller), and he

whispered from the side of his mouth. "Is it my imagination, or is Wolruf putting away enough to sink a moon?"

"She has a big appetite as a result of her high metabolism," Ariel whispered in return.

Derec raised an eyebrow. "I hope Wolruf hasn't been doing that since you first came up on the roof. If she keeps

using raw materials at this rate, she could start her very own energy crisis."

"Her people have a custom of big meals, anyway. Perhaps it's a sublimation of their other animal urges."

"You mean her kind might have begun their evolutionary history as meat-eaters, then evolved into vegetarians whose

big meals relieved them of their urges to kill for food?"

"The predilection toward violence wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

"Hmmrn. From what I've seen of her sublimation activity, it's no wonder her species was unaware of space travel

until their homeworld was first visited by aliens. They were all simply too busy burping to have time for scientific

pursuits."

Derec had intended the remark perfectly innocently, but Ariel appeared genuinely shocked. "You know something,

Derec? Your penchant for low humor never ceases to amaze me."

"Aw rrright, thiss one heard 'nuff this converr-sation line," said Wolruf in mid-chew, finally looking up from the

plasti-dish. "It customary for ourrr kind to eat 'til full ohverrr and ohverrr when food is plen'iful. Ingrained instinct

born of the trrrial and trrribulatshons of untold centurrries of hunting."

Mandelbrot stopped pressing dispensary buttons, turned, and looked down at the caninoid. "Forgive me, Wolruf,

perhaps it is not my place to make such observations, but I estimate that once the energy from your repast is stored in

your body cells, you will lose point-zero-zero-one percent of your natural speed, thus diminishing your survival

abilities should fleetness of foot be required. Your next meal, should it be as large as this, would do even more

damage."

"If she can't run, I'm sure she can roll," said Derec, crossing the lobby toward the alien and the robot.

The left side of Wolruf's mouth quivered as she growled. She cocked one ear toward the humans, and the other back

toward the robot behind her. "Thiss one convinced humanz lack funnee bone."

Derec recalled as well how scratchy Wolruf's brown and gold coat had appeared when he had first met her, when he

was being held captive by the alien Aranimas. Now her fur was slick and soft to the touch, no doubt due to the

dietary improvements the robots had taken upon themselves to make. In some ways she resembled a wolf, with her

flat face, unusually long, pointed ears, and her sharp fangs. A fierce intelligence burned behind her yellow eyes,

reminding Derec that she was an alien from a culture about which he knew next to nothing, a creature who would

have been new and strange and wonderful—perhaps even dangerous—in a world where she was the only mystery.

On the other hand, Mandelbrot was dependable and old-fashioned and predictable, and hence all the more wonderful

because Derec had built him himself, from the spare parts provided by Aranimas, who had also indentured Wolruf as

an aide. Mandelbrot was programmed to serve Derec first and foremost of all human beings. The other robots in

Robot City were programmed to serve Doctor Avery first, and so Derec could never totally depend on them to follow

his instructions to the letter. Sometimes when they did, they violated the spirit of the instructions. Mandelbrot

adhered to the spirit as well.

Derec did not blame the robots of the city for their frequent evasions. After all, what else could anyone reasonably

expect of a robot, so long as his behavior did not conflict with the Three Laws?

"How was your meditation, master?" asked Mandelbrot. "Did you achieve any insights that you would care to share

with us?"

"No, but I did manage to get a few wires uncrossed." Before Mandelbrot—who tended to interpret Derec's remarks

quite literally—could ask him which wires and where they might be, Derec told them about the spectacular building

the city had grown. "It doesn't fit the character or context of the city's minimalist engineering at all, as if it's somehow

the product of a totally different mind."

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"No, therr'r cells here," protested Wolruf. "Could be result of unprezi'ented evolu'-onary developmen'."

Derec rubbed his chin as he thought about what Wolruf was saying. It made sense. The city's DNA-like codes could

be mutating and developing on their own, just as bacteria and viruses evolved without mankind's notice or approval

on the civilized worlds.

Mandelbrot nodded, as if deep in thought. The truth was, however, that his positronic potentials were sifting through

all the information gained from the moment he had awakened in Derec's service, selecting the points relevant to the

situation at hand in the hope that when they were juxtaposed into a single observation, it would shed new light on the

matter. The conclusion that resulted from all this micromagnetic activity, unfortunately, left something to be desired.

"It is much too early to speculate on what created the building, who did it, or why. Candor forces me to admit,

though, that my private conversations with the native robots indicate their creative efforts might be permitting

particular individuals to make what scholars refer to as a conceptual breakthrough."

"Why haven't you told me this earlier?" Derec asked in an exasperated tone.

"You did not ask, and I did not think it germane to any of our discussions of the last few days," said Mandelbrot

evenly.

"Ah," said Ariel, her eyes widening. "Perhaps the robots have decided to experiment with humanoid behavior in the

hopes of gathering empirical evidence. "

"I hope not," said Derec laconically. "It disturbs me to think I might have become some kind of scientific role model

to them."

"What makes 'u think therr studying 'u?" asked Wolruf slyly.

"Come on," said Derec impatiently. "Time's a-wasting!"

Outside, the low, thick clouds rolling in from the horizon had began to reflect the opalescence, which in turn was

mirrored in the shimmering, multifaceted buildings surrounding Derec and his friends. He felt as if the entirety of

Robot City had been engulfed in a cool fire.

And deep in the city was the glowing point of origin—rotating with those varying shades, as if an industrial

holocaust of mammoth proportions had disrupted the fabric of reality itself, exposing the scintillating dynamism that

lay hidden beneath the surface of all matter. It was easy for Derec to imagine—just for the sheer joy of idle

speculation—that the glow was expanding, gradually absorbing the rest of the city into its coolness.

Indeed, so bright were the reflections from the building beyond and the clouds above that occasionally a street's own

lighting fixtures, which automatically switched on and off whenever it was occupied, stayed deactivated. The four

found themselves traveling down streets shining with undiluted hues of blue or crimson, as if they had suddenly

become immersed in the semihospitable fires of a mythological netherworld.

So it was indeed natural for Derec to assume that neither Mandelbrot nor Wolruf commented on the particulars of the

unusual incandescence because some other matter was uppermost in their minds. That matter being the speed of the

scooters he and Ariel were piloting through the streets. The hums of the electric engines echoed from the buildings as

if a blight of locusts was nigh, and the screeching of the tires as they made their turns was like the howl of a photon

explosion, blasting its target into an antimatter universe.

Ariel naturally had taken the lead. She had designed the scooters herself while Derec was preoccupied with other

activities, and she had even convinced the engineer robots that the scooters' extra horsepower was actually good for

the driver, since it would give her a chance to alleviate some of the "death wish" humans carried around with them.

"Why do you think a First Law—either Robotics or Humanics—is necessary in the first place?" she had said. The

engineers, who were quite mentally adept at solving practical problems, were unprepared to deal with that kind of

logic, and so had no choice but to acquiesce to her demands.

"Master! Can we not proceed at a slower pace?" implored Mandelbrot beside him in the sidecar as the theoretically

stable three-wheeled vehicle tilted radically to the left to compensate for Derec's swerve into a boulevard. "Is there

some urgency to this matter that I have yet to perceive?"

"No! I'm just trying to keep up with Ariel!" Derec replied, unable to resist a smile at how Wolruf was cowering down

in the sidecar of Ariel's scooter, nearly half a kilometer ahead.

"Perhaps the Master will forgive me if I point out that keeping up with Miss Burgess is itself a full-time proposition.

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