Isaac Asimov's Robot Mystery - Chimera

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ISAAC ASIMOV’S
THREE LAWS OF
ROBOTICS
1.
A robot may not inure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being
to come to harm.
2.
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders
would conflict with the First Law.
3.
A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not
conflict with the First or Second Laws.
ISAAC ASIMOV’S
ROBOT MYSTERY
CHIMERA
MARK W. TIEDEMANN
Mark W. Tiedemann’s love for science fiction and writing started at an early
age, although it was momentarily sidetracked--for over twenty years--by his
career as a professional photographer. After attending a Clarion Science
Fiction Et Fantasy Writers Workshop held at Michigan State University in 1988,
he rediscovered his lost love and focused his talents once more on attaining
his dream of becoming a professional writer. With the publication of “Targets”
in the December 1990 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, he began
selling short stories to various markets; his work has since appeared in
Magazine of Fantasy a Science Fiction, Science Fiction Age, Tomorrow SF, and a
number of anthologies. His bestselling novel Mirage, the first entry in the
Isaac Asimov’s Robot Mysteries series, was released in April 2000. Currently,
Tiedemann is working on the third book in the series, to be published in 2002;
his next completed novel (working title: Felony of Conscience) is scheduled
for release by ibooks in October 2001. Tiedemann lives in St. Louis, Missouri,
with his companion, Donna, and their resident alien life form--a dog named
Kory.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Isaac Asimov was the author of over 400 books--including three Hugo Award-
winners--and numerous bestsellers, as well as countless stories and scientific
essays. He was awarded the Grand Master of Science Fiction by the Science
Fiction Writers of America in 1985, and he was the man who coined the words
robotics, positronic, and psychohistory. He died in 1992.
ISAAC ASIMOV’S
ROBOT MYSTERY
CHIMERA
MARK W. TIEDEMANN
For Donna and Henry Tiedemann
Mom and Dad
with love, respect, and thanks
PROLOGUE
...brief touch, contact with the data port, numbers names dates prognoses, all
flow from the brief touch, a tiny surge that feels the way nerves should feel,
the stimulation of a hair drawn lightly along a fingertip, but inside, along a
conduit less than a hundredth a hair’s width, to a smaller place where it
grows and explicates and becomes meaningful in translation, revealing location
disposition architecture security, an excess of data that gives access, all
from a brief touch...
D
irector Ortalf stopped complaining about the lateness of the hour the instant
he saw the hole cut in the wall of the cafeteria at the Seth Canobil Hospice
Center, where he worked. His irritation turned quickly to confusion, then
embarrassment, and finally fear. He walked up to the opening and reached out
to touch the edge, but withdrew his fingers centimeters from brushing the too-
smooth cut. In the flat light it shone mirror bright.
“Ah...” he said, looking around. The police officers who had brought him
here stood impassively, their faces professionally expressionless. Director
Ortalf looked around at the people milling about the area. They moved in
groups of threes and fours, some in uniform, most in civilian clothes. Ortalf
started at the sight of a drone moving slowly across the floor, its sensors
inspecting every centimeter of the tiles.
“Forensic,” explained a deep, male voice nearby.
Ortalf looked around. A tall man in somber gray was watching him, his
face as ambivalent as everyone else’s--except for his eyes, which glistened
expectantly.
“Ah,” Ortalf said again. “Are you...?”
“Mr. Ortalf, “ the man said, ignoring the question. “Director Ortalf.”
“Yes?”
“You run this facility?”
Ortalf nodded sharply. “What is going on? Who--?”
“A routine maintenance monitor detected a power outage here,” the man
explained. “According to its logs, this was listed as a class-B primary site.
It attempted to restore the lines, but found irregularities. It then alerted
the local authorities. “
“Power outage...but we have a back-up.”
“Had.”
“Redundant system...had?”
“How many people work here, Director Ortalf?” The man--who must be some
sort of inspector, Ortalf surmised--walked away, forcing Ortalf to catch up
and walk with him.
“Um...six permanent staff,” he said.
The man paused briefly, then continued walking. “I understand you have
nearly three thousand wards here. “
Ortalf tried to think. “Your people got me out of bed not even half an
hour ago, Inspector. I haven’t had time to shower, to get breakfast, to--three
thousand? Yes, that sounds about right.”
“And only six staff.”
“Six permanent staff, I said. We have several interns and part-time
volunteers, but even so, almost everything is automated.”
They left the cafeteria and started down a long corridor. Emergency
lights glowed dimly along the floor and ceiling, even though the regular
lights were on.
“Who was on call tonight?” the inspector asked.
“I don’t--please, Inspector, what is going on?”
At the end of the corridor a short set of stairs led down into a nurse’s
station. Banks of screens showed a bright orange STAND BY flashing on them.
Ortalf’s gnawing apprehension worsened. He moved toward the main console, but
the inspector gripped his upper arm tightly.
“Please don’t touch anything. Who was on call tonight?”
“I don’t remember. Joquil, I think. Yes, Kilif Joquil.”
The inspector gestured toward a door that opened at the rear of the
station. Ortalf pushed it wide open. Sprawled over the cot that hugged one
wall of the cubicle lay a large body, face down.
Ortalf thought for a moment that the man was dead. But a sudden, labored
breath heaved through the torso. Dread gave way to impatience.
“What is going on?” the director demanded.
The inspector nodded toward the sleeping male nurse. “Did you know Kilif
Joquil used Brethe?”
“What? Now look--”
The inspector aimed a long finger at the nightstand at the head of the
cot. Ortalf stared at its contents for a long time before he recognized the
inhaler and an unlabeled vial.
“We screen our people carefully,” he said weakly.
“I’m sure you do. “
Ortalf looked at the inspector. “Habits can start any time. We scan
every six months. “
The nurse shifted in the cot again, then lay still. Ortalf turned and
left. The inspector said nothing, just followed, as the director headed for
the door to the first ward.
Ortalf stopped at the entrance. The room stretched, nearly a hundred
meters on a side, dwarfing the half-dozen or so strangers now wandering the
aisles of matreches. Ortalf searched the field of metal and plastic, looking
for the telltale difference: a flaw, damage, a sign of disruption. His pulse
raced.
“Not this one,” the inspector said quietly, just behind him. “Number
Five.”
Ward Five was two levels down. Ortalf’s breathing came hard when he reached
it. Twice the size of the first-level wards, it contained the same number of
matreches. These, however, were larger, more complex. More was demanded of
them; the lives within required special care.
Ortalf spotted the damaged units at once. He staggered toward them,
dodging down a jagged path between the intact incubators, till he reached the
first one.
Sticky fluid covered the floor around it. The shell had been removed and
the sac within punctured. Ortalf expected to see an asphyxiated, dehydrated
corpse in the bed, but the cradle was empty. The tubes of the support system
lay severed and useless on the cushions, a couple of them still oozing
liquids. Ortalf made to reach in, but hesitated--touch would tell him the same
as sight, that the child was gone. He looked around, confused and close to
panic. Nearby he saw two more violated matreches.
“But...but...” He stopped when he found the inspector watching him. “I
don’t understand,” Ortalf said finally.
The inspector came to a conclusion. Concerning what, Ortalf could not be
sure, but he recognized the change in the inspector’s face, from glassy
hardness to near pity. The inspector nodded and gestured for them to return to
the administration level.
Ortalf let himself be escorted back, dazed. He barely noticed the people
and machines that roamed through his facility. Police, forensic units,
specialists--insurance adjustors, too, for all he knew, and within hours the
lawyers would be calling.
The inspector brought him to his own office and closed the door.
“What’s happened?” Ortalf asked. He had wanted to make it a demand, but
it came out as a pale, exhausted gasp.
“I’d frankly hoped you might be able to tell me, Director Ortalf.
But...” He sat on the edge of Ortalf’s desk and gazed down at him. Some of the
hardness had returned, but mixed now with sympathy.
“From what we’ve been able to reconstruct so far, the entire clinic was
severed from outside communications. There was one independent oversight
program with a direct line to your maintenance chief, but after ten minutes
even that was cut. Most of it went down with the power. You may well have a
number of fatalities to deal with. I’m not sure how critical these systems are
to each unit--”
“Each matreche has its own power unit to protect from a complete outage.
“
“So I gathered from the manufacturer’s specs. Are they all up to par?”
“So far as I know. You’d have to ask our maintenance supervisor, Kromis-
-”
“We’d love to, but we can’t find her.”
“She...have you been to her apartment?”
“Police are there now. I’d like to have her employment file when you get
a moment. In fact, we’ll want the employment files on all your people, even
the consultants, interns, and part-timers.”
“Do you really think it could have been one of my people?”
“Not alone, no. But it’s clear that whoever it was had a thorough
knowledge of your systems.”
“Of course. Um...do you know how they broke in?”
“Once the power was down and the security net with it,” the inspector
explained, “a hole was cut through the point where there would least likely be
a back-up alarm they could know nothing about--nobody alarms cafeterias--and
from there they went through the clinic, cutting the rest of the power and
finally deactivating even your passive monitoring systems.”
Ortalf blinked. “It could take days to get everything back up.” He
stared off toward a wall, his thoughts an anxious jumble. “How many are
missing?” he asked.
“Twenty-four, I think. All from Ward Five.”
“All?”
The inspector nodded. “Who were they?”
“I don’t...you mean, who do we maintain in Ward Five? A special group,
I’m afraid. Very special.”
“Isn’t everyone in your facility special?”
Ortalf studied the inspector, unsure if he heard sarcasm in the man’s
voice. The face, though, remained impassive.
“Some more than others,” Ortalf said. “Those--Ward Five--have the most
severe situations.”
“UPDs, aren’t they?”
“Yes. Untreatable Physiological Dysfunctions.”
“Lepers.”
Ortalf started. “I’m sorry?”
“Nothing.” Impatience flashed across the inspector’s face. “Ancient
reference. It’s not important. Tell me, can you think of any reason someone
would want to kidnap them?”
“No.”
“Blackmail? Ransom?”
“I doubt any of them will live long enough outside their matreches to be
of any use in that regard. “
“Why is that?”
“The matreches--each one is specifically modified to its occupant.
They’re unique, like the individuals they support. They change over time, with
the condition of their charge. It would be nearly impossible to duplicate
those specifications in another unit quickly enough to save a removed
occupant. I have no doubt that a number of them are dead already.”
“I see. That leaves revenge. Who were they?”
“Revenge?” Ortalf stood. “You’re joking! What could any of these
children have done--”
“Not them,” the inspector said calmly. “Their parents.”
“Their histories are completely confidential. Inaccessible. “
“Really? You do that as efficiently as your employee background checks?”
“I’m the only one who can access those records.”
“And will you inform the parents when you’ve done so, to let them know
that their children have been lost?”
Ortalf, uncomfortable, sat down and shook his head. “That’s not the
arrangement we have.”
“They don’t want to know, do they? That’s why you have them in the first
place. “
“You have to understand, a lot of them have no family to begin with. “
“Discards. Abandoned.”
“Yes.”
“I’d be willing to wager that many of those whose records are so
carefully sealed are children with families.”
The inspector stood, and for a moment Ortalf expected to be struck. He
closed his eyes and waited, but the blow never came. When he looked up, the
inspector stood in the doorway, his back to the director.
“The records will be required,” the inspector said. “Please make
yourself available for further questioning.”
Ortalf watched the man walk away. Nearly a minute passed before he
realized that he still did not know the inspector’s name. At that moment, he
was just as glad not to.
_
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER…
_
ONE
C
oren Lanra watched from behind a grime-encrusted refuse bin in the recess of
an old, unused loading dock. A sneeze threatened, teased by sharp odors and
the chill air. Across the wide alley, members of a third-shift crew emerged
from an unmarked door. Even if they saw him they would pass him off as one of
the ubiquitous warren ghosts, homeless and destitute, that haunted the
districts surrounding Petrabor Spaceport. Coren wore a shabby, ankle-length
gray-black coat over worn coveralls; four days’ beard darkened his pale face
beneath oily, unwashed hair. He itched.
Three hours still remained in the third shift. Coren counted fifteen
people through the door--all but one of the full crew compliment of the
largely automated warehouse. They were unlikely to get into trouble--Coren
recognized their supervisor among them, marked by the thick silver rings
around his upper arms. They strode noisily up the alley, boots crunching on
scattered debris, laughter echoing off the walls, heading for a home kitchen
or a bar. They rounded a corner. Coren listened till their voices came as
摘要：

ISAACASIMOV’STHREELAWSOFROBOTICS1.Arobotmaynotinureahumanbeing,orthroughinaction,allowahumanbeingtocometoharm.2.ArobotmustobeytheordersgivenitbyhumanbeingsexceptwheresuchorderswouldconflictwiththeFirstLaw.3.Arobotmustprotectitsownexistence,aslongassuchprotectiondoesnotconflictwiththeFirstorSecondLaw...

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