RA4 - Alliance, Isaac Asimov's Robot City-Robots and Aliens Book 4 - Jerry Oltion

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Alliance, Isaac Asimov's Robot City - Robots And Aliens Book 4
ISAAC ASIMOV’S
ROBOT CITY
ROBOTS
AND
ALIENS
Alliance by Jerry Oltion
Copyright © 1990
ROBOTS AND FATHERS
ISAAC ASIMOV
All of us began as fertilized ova, obviously. For the first nine months, or maybe a little less, we
existed in a womb which, under normal conditions, represents about as close to total security as
we are likely ever to have. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing and appreciating this
security at that time.
We are then brought suddenly into the outside world, with a certain amount of violence, and are
exposed, for the first time, to changes in temperature, to the rough touch of moving air, to
breathing, drinking and eliminating only with effort (however instinctive and automatic that
effort might be). The womb is forever gone.
Nevertheless, each of us, if we have had a normal infancy, has parents; a mother, in particular,
who labors to substitute for the womb as much as possible. We are all nearly helpless, but
mothers and, to some extent, fathers, if enlightened, see that we are warm, comfortable, fed,
washed, dried, and given a chance to sleep undisturbed. It is still not bad, and we are still in no
condition to appreciate our good fortune.
Then comes the stage when we are aware of our surroundings. Still small, still largely helpless,
we become able to understand the dangers that on us press; we become capable of feeling fear
and panic; we become able to grasp, however dimly, the discomfort of loss or threatened loss,
and the anguish of unfulfilled desire.
Even then, there is a means of relief and redress. There are the looming figures of father and
mother (and, to a far lesser extent, older siblings, if any). We have all seen young children
clinging to a father’s leg desperately, or peeping out from behind a mother’s clutched skirt at the
fearful sight of other human beings or almost any other kind of novel experience. We see them
(and perhaps we can think of ourselves in the dim earliest memories we have) rushing to mother
or father as the all-encompassing security.
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I remember my daughter, Robyn, at the comparatively advanced age of fourteen, telling me how
she had taken an airplane under threatening weather conditions. When I registered fear and terror
at what might have been the consequences, she said, calmly, “I wasn’t afraid, because Mamma
was with me and I knew she wouldn’t allow anything to happen to me.”
And when she was nineteen, she was temporarily marooned in Great Britain’s Heathrow airfield
because of a “work action.” She called me long distance (collect) to tell me of her sad plight and
said, with sublime confidence, “Do something!” I was about to try when they announced her
plane was taking off and I did not have to reveal my inability to move mountains.
It is inevitable, however, that all children reach the stage where they realize that their parents are
but human beings and are not creatures of ultimate ability and wisdom. Most children learn it a
lot sooner than mine did because I went to considerable pains to play the role.
Whenever children learn of their parents’ fallibility and weakness, there is bound to be a terrible
feeling of loss. The loss is so intense that there is an inevitable search for a substitute, but where
can you find it?
Primitive man naturally argued by analogy. If human beings can puff their breath outward, then
the wind (an enormous puff of breath) must be the exhalation of a vast supernatural being like a
human being but immensely larger and more powerful, a windgod. By similar arguments, an
incredible array of supernatural entities were built up—an entire imaginary Universe.
To begin with, it was assumed that these supernatural beings were as contentious, as irascible, as
illogical, as passion-ridden as were the human beings on whom they were modeled. They had to
be placated endlessly, flattered, praised and bribed into behaving kindly. It was, I suppose, a great
advance when the idea arose that a supernatural being might be naturally kind, merciful and
loving, and would want to help and cherish human beings.
And when that happened, human beings at last found the father they had lost as they grew up—
not the actual, fallible, human father who might still be alive (and a fat lot of good he was), but
the superhuman, all-encompassing, all-knowing, all-powerful father they had had as an infant.
Thus, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus repeatedly refers to “your Father which is in heaven.”
Of course, it might be argued that the term “Father” is used metaphorically, rather than literally,
but metaphors are not developed without reason.
“Fathers” are also found at lower levels than that of a supreme God, since the search for lost
security can move in many directions. The representatives of God on Earth may get the title, too.
“Pope” is a form of the word “Papa” (it is “papa” in Italian), which is a common word for
“father” in many Indo-European languages. And lest the point be lost, he is also called “the Holy
Father.” Roman Catholic priests and High Church Episcopalian priests are also addressed as
“Father.”
The early theological scholars of the Catholic Church are called “the Fathers of the Church.” It is
even possible to look at certain purely secular individuals who are regarded with particular
veneration in that fashion. We speak of the “Pilgrim Fathers,” for instance.
We lend the name to Earthly abstractions, too. If one is particularly sentimental about one’s place
of birth, its land, its customs, its culture, how can one better describe it than as the “Fatherland.”
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The Germans have done so with such assiduity and so loudly (“Vaterland”) that the word has
come to mean Germany, in particular, and that has made it hard for other nations to use it. We
can still speak of the “Motherland” or the “Mother Country,” however. The feminine symbolism
bespeaks not so much the sword and spear as the flowing breasts—so perhaps “Motherland” is
the healthier metaphor.
The words for “father” and “mother” show up as metaphors in hidden form (for us) because they
lurk behind Greek and Latin. The rulers of Rome were the surrogate “fathers” of the State (and
pretty lousy and selfish fathers they were). They were “patricians” from the Latin word “pater,”
meaning “father.” From “pater,” we also get the Latin word for “fatherland,” so that now we
know what a “patriot” is.
A Greek city often sent out colonists who founded other cities which were, essentially,
independent, but which often harbored a sentimental attachment for “the mother-city.”
The Greek word for city is “polis” and for mother is “meter.” The mother-city is therefore the
“metropolis.” Nowadays, the name is used for any large city dominating a region and the thought
is lost—but it’s there.
But has any of this anything to do with robots which are, after all, the subject of my introductions
to the series of novels which are brought together under the generic title of “Robot City”?
Surely you can guess. To use mathematical terminology: parent is to child as human being is to
robot.
Suppose we rephrase the Three Laws of Robotics and have it the Three Laws of Children,
instead.
The First Law would read: A child must not do harm to its parents or, by inaction, allow its
parents to come to harm.
One of the Ten Commandments is that we must honor our father and our mother. When I was
brought up (by immigrant parents steeped in Talmudic lore), doing my parents harm was
unthinkable and, believe me, the thought never occurred to me. In fact, even being impudent was
a terrible thing that would have blackened the Universe for me. And, you know, matricide and
patricide have always been viewed as among the most horrible, if not the most horrible, of all
crimes.
Even if we consider God as the Divine Father, the First Law holds. We can’t conceivably do
physical harm to God, but, presumably, if we sin, we cause Him the Divine equivalent of pain
and sorrow, so we must be careful not to do that.
The Second Law would read: A child must obey the orders given him by his parents, unless that
would violate the First Law.
That’s obvious. In modern lax and permissive times, we forget, but parents always expect to be
obeyed, and in more rigid times—in the days of the Romans or Victorians—they went all
apoplectic and psychotic if they were not. Roman fathers had the power of life and death over
their children, and I imagine death for disobedience was not completely unheard of. And we all
know that God reserves places in Hell for disobedient sinners.
The Third Law would read: A child must protect its own existence, unless that would violate the
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First or Second Laws.
To us, it is rather unthinkable that a parent would expect a child to die or even to suffer injury in
the protection of his parents or his obedience to them (thus refraining from violating First and
Second Laws). Rather, parents are likely to risk their own lives for their children.
But consider the Divine Father. In the more rigid Godcentered religions, such as Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam, it is expected that human beings will readily, and even joyously, suffer
harm all the way to death by torture rather than transgress the least of God’s commandments.
Jews, Christians, and Moslems have all gone to their death sturdily rather than do such apparently
harmless things as eat bacon, throw a pinch of incense on an idolatrous altar, acknowledge the
wrong person as Caliph, and so on. There, one must admit, the Third Law holds.
If, then, we wish to know how robots would react to the loss of human beings, we must see how
human beings react to the loss of all-wise, all-powerful parents. Human beings have to find
substitutes that supply the loss, and, therefore, so must robots. This is really an obvious thought
and is rarely put forward only because most people are very nervous about seeming to be
blasphemous. However, back in mo, that magnificent iconoclast, Voltaire, said, “If God did not
exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” And if I may be permitted to paddle my rowboat in
the wake of Voltaire’s ocean liner, I make bold to agree with him.
It follows, then, that if robots are stranded in a society which contains no human beings, they will
do their best to manufacture some. Naturally, there may be no consensus as to what a human
being looks like, what its abilities are, and how intelligent it might be. We would expect, then,
that all sorts of paths would be taken, all sorts of experiments would be conducted.
After all, think how many gods—and with what variety of nature, appearance and ability—have
been invented by human beings who had never seen one, but wanted one desperately just the
same. With all that in mind, read the fourth entry in the “Robots and Aliens” series.
CHAPTER 1
NEW BEGINNINGS
“So, have you decided on a new name yet?”
“Yes.”
Derec waited expectantly for a moment, then looked around in exasperation from the newfound
robot to his companions. Ariel and Dr. Avery were both grinning. Wolruf, a golden-furred alien
of vaguely doglike shape, was also grinning in her own toothy way. Beside Wolruf stood two
more robots, named Adam and Eve. Neither of them seemed amused.
The entire party stood in the jumbled remains of the City Computer Center. It was a testament to
Dr. Avery’s engineering skills that the computer still functioned at all, but despite the thick layer
of dust over everything and the more recent damage from the struggle to subdue the renegade
robot that now stood obediently before them, it still hummed with quiet efficiency as it carried
out Avery’s orders to reconstruct the city the robot had been in the process of dismantling.
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The robot had originally called itself the Watchful Eye, but Derec had tired of that mouthful
almost immediately and had ordered it to come up with something better. Evidently the robot had
obeyed, but....
“Ask a simple question,” Derec muttered, shaking his head, but before he could ask a more
specific one, such as what the new name might be, the robot spoke again.
“I have chosen the name of a famous historical figure. You may have heard of him. Lucius, the
first creative robot in Robot City, who constructed the work of art known as ‘Circuit Breaker.’”
“Lucius?” Derec asked, surprised. He had heard of Lucius, of course, had in fact solved the
mystery of Lucius’s murder, but a greater gulf than that which existed between the historical
figure and this robot was hard to imagine. Lucius had been an artist, attempting to bring beauty to
an otherwise sterile city, while this robot had created nothing but trouble.
“That is correct. However, to avoid confusion I have named myself ‘Lucius II.’ That is ‘two’ as
in the numeral, not ‘too’ as in ‘also.’”
“Just what we need,” Or. Avery growled. “Another Lucius.” Avery disliked anything that
disrupted his carefully crafted plan for Robot City, and Lucius’s creativity had disrupted it plenty.
In retaliation, Avery had removed the creative impulse from all of the city’s robots. He looked at
his new Lucius, this Lucius II, as if he would like to remove more than that from it.
The robot met his eyes briefly, its expression inscrutable, then turned to the two other robots in
the group surrounding it.
“We should use speech when in the presence of humans,” Adam said after a moment, and Derec
realized that Lucius II had been speaking via comlink.
“Is this your judgment or an order given to you by humans?” asked Lucius II.
“Judgment,” replied Adam.
“Does it matter?” Ariel asked.
“Yes. If it had been an order, I would have given it higher priority, though not as high as if it had
been an order given directly to me. In that case it would become a Second Law obligation.”
The Second Law of Robotics stated that a robot must obey the orders of human beings unless
those orders conflicted with the First Law, which stated that a robot could not harm a human or
through inaction allow a human to come to harm. Those, plus the Third Law, which stated that a
robot must act to preserve its own existence as long as such protection did not conflict with the
first two Laws, were built into the very structure of the hardware that made up the robot’s brain.
They could not disobey them without risking complete mental freeze-up.
Derec breathed a soft sigh of relief at hearing Lucius II refer to the Second Law. It was evidence
that he intended to obey it, and, by implication, the other two as well. Despite his apparent
obedience since they had stopped him, Derec hadn’t been so sure.
Lucius II was still his own robot, all the same. Ariel’s question had been an implicit Second-Law
order to answer, and he had done so, but now that he had fulfilled that obligation, Lucius II again
turned to Adam and Eve and said, “We seem to have much in common.” As he spoke, his
features began to change, flowing into an approximation of theirs.
Adam, Eve, and Lucius II were not ordinary robots. Where ordinary robots were constructed of
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rigid metal and plastics, these three were made of tiny cells, much like the cells that make up a
human body. The robot cells were made of metal and plastic, certainly, but that was an advantage
rather than a limitation, since the robot cells were much more durable than organic cells and
could link together in any pattern the central brain chose for them. The result was that the robots
could take on any shape they wished, could change their features—or even their gross anatomy—
at will.
The other robots in Robot City, with one exception, were also made of cells, but Dr. Avery’s
programming restricted them to conservative robot forms. Not so with these three. They were not
of Avery’s manufacture, and without his restriction they used their cellular nature far more than
the City robots, forgoing hard angles, joints and plates in favor of smooth curves and smooth,
continuous motion. They looked more like metal-coated people than like the stiff-jointed
caricatures of men that were normal robots, but even those features weren’t constant. They
imprinted on whomever was foremost in their consciousness at the time, becoming walking
reflections of Derec or Ariel or Avery, or even the alien Wolruf.
At the moment, Adam mimicked Derec’s features and Eve mimicked Ariel’s. Lucius II, his
imprinting programming struggling for control in unfamiliar company, was a more generic blend
of features.
Derec found it unnerving to watch the robot’s face shift uncertainly between a copy of a copy of
his own and of Ariel’s. He decided to get the thing to focus its attention on him, and said, “One
thing you all have in common is that you’re all a lot of trouble. Lucius—Lucius II,” he added,
emphasizing the “II” as if making a great distinction between the former robot and his namesake,
“—did you give any thought to what you were destroying when you started this—this project of
yours?”
“I did.”
“Didn’t you care?”
“I do not believe I did, at least not in the sense you seem to give the word. However, you may be
surprised to know that my motive was to restore the city to normal operations. “
“By destroying it?” Avery demanded.
“By rebuilding it. The city was not functioning normally when I awakened here. It was designed
to serve humans, but until you arrived, there were no humans. Therefore, I set out to create them.
In the process, I found that the city required modification. I was engaged in making those
modifications when you stopped me.”
“What you made was a long way from human,” Ariel said.
Lucius II had nearly adjusted his features to match Derec’s; now they began to shift toward
Ariel’s again. “You saw only the homunculi,” he said. “They were simple mechanical tests run to
determine whether complete social functions could be programmed into the later, fully
protoplasmic humans. Unfortunately, they proved too limited to answer the question, but the
human-making project has enjoyed better success.”
In the voice of someone who wasn’t sure she wanted to know, Ariel asked, “What do you mean?
What have you done?”
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By way of answer, the robot turned toward the computer terminal at Avery’s side. He didn’t need
the keyboard, but sent his commands directly via comlink. By the time everyone else realized
what he was doing, he had an inside view of a large, warehouselike building on the monitor. The
building was missing a corner, torn completely away in the destruction of only a few minutes
earlier, but they could still see what Lucius had intended to show them.
The floor was acrawl with small, furry, ratlike creatures. Lucius II said, “Whereas the homunculi
you saw and dissected were completely robotic, and were, as you said, ‘a long way from human,’
these are actual living animals. In fact, they each carry in their cells the entire genetic code for a
human being—all twenty-three chromosome pairs—but certain genes for intelligence and
physical appearance have been modified for the test run. Once I am convinced that the process
has no hidden flaws, I will use the unmodified genes to create humans for the city to serve.”
“You will do no such thing!” Dr. Avery demanded. “That is an order. When I want humans here,
I will put them here myself.”
“I will comply with your order. However, you should know that there was no indication of your
wishes in the central computer’s programming.”
“There will be,” Avery promised. Derec suppressed a grin. No matter how much he denied it, his
father’s city was still in the experimental stages as well. He and Derec had both had to make
many modifications in its programming to keep it developing properly. True, the complications
Lucius II had brought about were not Avery’s doing, but the city robots’ underlying desire to find
and serve humans—and thus, in a sense, Lucius’s project—was.
Ariel was staring, horrified, at the creature on the screen as it picked up a scrap of something
between its teeth and scuttled out the hole in the wall and out of sight. “That’s human?” she
whispered.
“Not at all,” Lucius II said. “It merely uses altered human genes.”
“That’s—that’s awful. It was human, but you twisted it into something else.”
“It was never anything other than what it is.”
“It could have been!”
“Certainly. The raw materials making up this city could also have been used to produce more
humans. So could a large percentage of the atmosphere. However, the depleted resources that
would result from such a usage would not support those humans in any degree of comfort. I made
a logical deduction that no thinking being would wish for every combination of chemicals that
could possibly become human to actually do so. Was I in error?”
“Yes!” Ariel stared at him a moment, slowly realizing the true meaning of what she’d said, and
went on, “I mean, no, you weren’t in error in that particular conclusion, but to apply it to already-
formed genes is different.”
“The genes existed only as information patterns in a medical file until I synthesized them.”
“I don’t care! They were still—”
“Hold it,” interrupted Derec. “This is neither the time nor the place for a philosophical discussion
of what makes a human. We can do that just as well at home, where we’re more comfortable.” Of
his father, he asked, “Have you finished your reprogramming?”
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“For the time being,” Avery replied. “There’s more yet to be done, but there’s no sense fiddling
with the details until the major features are restored.”
“Then let’s go home. Come on.” Derec led the way out of the computer center, through the
jumble of wreckage in the corridors—wreckage that robot crews were already at work cleaning
up and repairing—and out into the street.
The destruction outside was less evident than what they had seen in the computer center. Entire
buildings were missing, to be sure, but in a city that had changed its shape as often as Adam or
Eve changed their features, that was no indication of damage. Only the pieces of buildings lying
in the street revealed that anything was amiss, and even as they watched, those pieces whose
individual cells were still functional began to melt into the surface, rejoining with the city to
become part of its general building reserve once again. A few fragments were too damaged to
rejoin, but robots were already at work cleaning those up as well, loading them into trucks and
hauling them back to the recycling plant.
Avery smiled at the sight, and Derec knew just what was going through his mind.
Transmogrifying robots meant nothing to him; entire cities were his palette.
A row of transport booths waited at the curb just outside the computer center’s doorway. The
booths were just big enough for one passenger each, little more than meter-wide transparent
cylinders to stand in while the magnetic levitation motors in the base whisked their passengers to
their destinations. They were a new design, completely enclosed and free-roaming rather than
open to the air and following tracks like the booths Derec was used to. Either the destruction had
been too great to allow using the track system immediately, and these booths were a temporary
measure until the old system was restored, or the City had taken advantage of the opportunity to
change the design and this was to be the style from now on. It didn’t matter to Derec either way.
The booths were transportation, whatever their shape.
Derec boarded one, felt it bob slightly under his weight, and grasped the handhold set into the
console at waist level. “Home,” he said to the speaker grille beside the handle, trusting the central
computer to recognize his voice and check his current address.
Through his internal link with the city computers, he expanded the order. Bring the others to the
same destination, he sent, turning around to focus on the other members of the group, who were
each boarding booths of their own. He sent the image with his order, thus defining which “others”
he was talking about.
It was probably unnecessary in all but Lucius II’s case, since everyone else knew where they
were going, but it never hurt to be certain.
Acknowledged, came the response.
On a whim, Derec sent, Patch me into receivers in the other booths in this party.
Patched in.
He could have listened in without going through the computer, but his internal comlink got
harder and harder to control the more links he opened with it. Much easier to keep one link open
to the computer and let it make the multiple connection.
Derec heard Ariel echo his first command: “Home.” Or. Avery boarded his booth and stood on
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the platform in silence. Derec smiled. His father was always testing him. Now he was waiting to
see if Derec had had the presence of mind to program all the booths.
Send Dr. Avery to same destination via Compass Tower, emergency speed. Do not accept his
override, he sent.
Acknowledged.
The Compass Tower was a tall pyramid a few blocks away from Derec and Ariel’s home. Before
moving in with Ariel and Derec, Avery had had an office/apartment in the apex of it; perhaps he
would think that the literal-minded transportation computer had misunderstood Derec’s order and
was taking everyone to their own homes instead of Derec’s. He wouldn’t realize Derec had
played a trick on him until the transport booth failed to stop there. Nor would he be able to
change the booth’s destination; Derec’s command carried exactly the same weight as would his,
so the computer would follow the first order received. It was a subtle warning, one Avery would
probably not even perceive, but Derec was fed up with his father’s little tests, and lately he had
taken to thwarting every one of them he could. Avery would never consciously decide to quit, but
subliminally, where the impulse to see his son prove himself originated, perhaps he could be
conditioned.
Wolruf stepped aboard her booth, saying in her deep voice,” Follow Derec.”
Derec’s booth had already started to move, but he could still hear the communications going on
behind him.
Adam, via comlink, sent, 8284-490-23. The apartment’s coordinates.
Eve sent, Follow Adam. Interesting, Derec thought. Adam would rather give the coordinates than
admit to following a human, even though he was compelled to do it. Eve, of course, would follow
Adam to the end of the universe.
Lucius II, on the other hand...
Lucius II sent, Manual control.
Denied, the computer responded.
Why denied?
Human command override. Derec has already programmed your destination.
I may also be human. I wish manual control.
Derec’s eyebrows shot up. What was this? He’d just convinced the silly thing it was a robot less
than half an hour ago!
A loud voice interrupted. “Hey, where are you going?” It was Avery. “Cancel destination! Stop!
Let me—”
Not now!
Cancel link to Avery, Derec sent.
Link cancelled, the computer replied, and Avery’s voice cut off in mid-word.
The computer had been simultaneously responding to Derec and continuing its conversation with
Lucius. Derec heard—reason for believing that you are human.
I was grown, not assembled, Lucius II responded. I am a thinking being, with wishes and desires
of my own. My connection to the city computer is completely voluntary.I perceive my own
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intellectual potentials independent of my programming.
Visual scanning shows that you are composed of the same cellular material as Robot City robots,
or a variant thereof. You are not human.
Lucius II replied, A robotic exterior means nothing. Check your memory for Jeff Leong.
Derec gripped the handhold in his transport booth with enough tension to pull a lesser handle
from the wall. Jeff Leong! Did Lucius II really think he was a cyborg like Jeff, a human brain in a
robot body? And how had he known of Jeff, anyway? That whole incident was long past; Jeff had
his human body back again and was off to college on another planet.
Obviously, Lucius had been digging through the computer, accessing records of the City’s past,
records that Derec had been painstakingly replacing after Dr.Avery had wiped them in his
reprogramming over a year ago. It had been Derec’s intention to give the City computer—and the
robots who used it—the continuous memory of its past that he couldn’t have for himself, but that
might not have been such a good idea after all, he thought now. Some memories could be
dangerous.
Argument understood, the computer responded. It is possible that you are human. However, I
cannot give you manual control even so. Derec’s order takes precedence.
This time, it did. But if Lucius II began issuing orders of his own, next time it might be Derec
whose orders weren’t obeyed. That wouldn’t do.
Lucius II is not human, Derec sent. He is a robot of the same nature as Adam and Eve.
Acknowledged.
Derec’s transport booth slowed, banked around a corner, and accelerated again. Behind him the
others, minus Dr. Avery, executed the same maneuver.
Cancel link to other booths, Derec sent.
Acknowledged.
Derec cancelled his own link to the computer, then focused his attention on the last booth in the
line and sent directly, Lucius, this is Derec.
Is there another Lucius, or do you mean me, Lucius II?
I mean you. The original Lucius is—Derec was about to say “dead,” but thought better of it. No
sense fueling the robot’s misconceptions with imprecise language.—inoperative, he sent. That
means there isn’t much chance for confusion. I will simply call you “Lucius” unless
circumstances warrant your full title.
I have no objection. I was not aware that you had a comlink.
There are lots of things you don’t know about me. Or about yourself, I believe.
That is true.
I have information you can use.
What information?
You’re wrong in assuming you’re human. You are an advanced experimental design of robot, just
like Adam and Eve.
How do you know this?
I’m the son of the woman who created you.
file:///E|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Princess%20...0and%20Aliens%20Book%204%20-%20Jerry%20Oltion.htm (10 of 102)11/19/2005 4:05:16 AM
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Alliance,IsaacAsimov'sRobotCity-RobotsAndAliensBook4ISAACASIMOV’SROBOTCITYROBOTSANDALIENSAlliancebyJerryOltionCopyright©1990ROBOTSANDFATHERSISAACASIMOVAllofusbeganasfertilizedova,obviously.Forthefirstninemonths,\ormaybealittleless,weexistedinawombwhich,undernormalconditions,representsaboutascl\oseto...

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