RA5 - Maverick, Isaac Asimov's Robot City-Robots and Aliens Book 5 - Bruce Bethke

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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

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

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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

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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

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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?”

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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

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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

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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

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

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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

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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!”

“For—” Alpha caught himself. Turning to the other two supervisors, he said, “So this is our problem. How do we

serve humans if there are no humans here to serve?”

Gamma thought this over a moment. “There are humans on other planets, correct?”

“We can presume so. ”

“And they have some means of travel?”

“Again, we can presume so. ”

“Then we ca—ca—ca—”

Beta reached through to Gamma by commlink. Priority override. Abort thought pattern. Gamma’s eyes dimmed, and

he twitched involuntarily as the reset command upset his joint motors.

He was fine a moment later. “Thank you, Beta. There’s a strong Second Law block in my system. I can’t even voice

the thought. ”

Alpha nodded. “I know. I have the same block. Beta?”

“I also. However, if one were to phrase it carefully in passive voice, one could suggest that perhaps a robot with a

quantity of hyperspace keys could be sent out to recruit human inhabitants. ”

Alpha agreed. “One could indeed suggest that. However, since we all share the common basic instruction block, one

could presume that there are no robots in Robot City capable of carrying out this mission. ”

“In theory, I agree,” Gamma said.

Alpha turned back to Beta. “So if one cannot recruit humans directly, and if one has a similar block regarding

building a hyperwave transmitter and broadcasting our location, how would one go about finding humans to serve?”

“The indigenous species?” Gamma suggested.

Beta shook his head. “No. They are clearly not human. ”

“But Master Derec treated them as equals. ” All three supervisors fell silent.

In a small, hesitant voice, Central said, “A equals B. ” Alpha looked up. “What did you say?”

“A equals B,” Central repeated.

Alpha looked to Beta. “Do you have any idea what it’s talking about?”

“If A equals B, and B equals C,” Central said, quite confidently this time, “then A equals C. ”

Slowly, it dawned on Beta. “Central, is A human?”

“Yes. ”

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“And is B Master Derec?”

“Yes. ”

Gamma broke in. “What’s C, Central?” But the massive idiot had begun softly whistling an inane ditty.

Beta caught Gamma’s attention. “Don’t you see? If human equals Master Derec, and Master Derec treats the local

inhabitants as equals—”

Gamma’s eyes flared brightly. “Then the local inhabitants are equivalent to humans!”

Alpha protested. “Incorrect. A human is a primate of the genus Homo—”

Beta and Gamma both turned on Alpha. “We’re not saying that the local inhabitants are truly human. We’re just

saying that they’re equivalent to humans. ”

For long seconds, Alpha’s eyes went dim. Just when Beta was beginning to worry about whether the supervisor had

gone into First Law lockup, Alpha spoke.

“ Agreed. For our purposes, we can treat them as nearhumans. Now we have a new question: How can we best serve

them?”

“That information is unavailable,” Gamma said.

Beta considered the question. At the same time, not all of his energies were focused on the question; at a lower level

in his brain, he sensed the joyous flow of harmonious potentials that came from finally having a clearly delineated

problem to work on. “We must study the local environment,” he said at last. “Send out observer robots to study the

local inhabitants in their native habitat. Obtain chemical analyses of the substances that are important to their well-

being. ”

“Agreed,” Alpha and Gamma said together.

“Above all,” Beta continued, “we must allocate all available resources to linguistic studies. We must establish verbal

communications with them. ”

“Agreed. ”

Alpha stepped back and looked first to Beta and then to Gamma, with a warm glow in his eyes. “Friends, I cannot tell

you how satisfied I am with the progress we have made in this meeting. Now, at last, we can fulfill the final goal of

our mission. ”

“I have the greatest confidence in the mission,” Central said.

Alpha spit out a message at the maximum rate his commlink would allow. “Meeting adjourned!” Switching their leg

motors into high speed mode, the three supervisors hurried from the hall as fast as dignity would allow.

CHAPTER 3

ARANIMAS

The assault team leader licked his lips nervously, as if punishment could be inflicted by hyperwave. “Yes, Master?”

Aranimas fixed the figure on the viewscreen with a glare from both eyes. “I am still waiting for your report. How

many robots have you taken? Have you been able to capture the traitor Wolruf, or the human Derec?”

The assault team leader’s right eye twitched rapidly, and he licked his lips again. “Actually, Master, we have

encountered some, ah, difficulties, and, ah—”

Aranimas leaned in close to the video pickup, and dropped his voice to its most forceful pitch. “How many robots

have you taken?”

With a fearful glance at his portable communicator, the team leader blurted it out. “None, Master. ”

“What?”

The team leader smiled helplessly. “We arrived too late. They’re all gone. That static we intercepted was the sound

of every last robot on the planet teleporting out. Apparently the natives—they call themselves Ceremyons—could not

tolerate the robots. So the robots left. ”

Aranimas spat out several choice curses in his clan’s dialect. When he’d recovered some control, he glared at the

viewscreen again. “Did they leave any artifacts? Buildings, parts, or tools?”

“Sort of. ” The team leader turned his video pickup around to capture what he was seeing: a vast lake of liquid metal,

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