Mirage

by Mark W. Tiedemann

  Tro Aspil did not answer. Benen Yarick accepted her call promptly.

  “This is Ariel Burgess, commerce liaison, from the embassy. I hope this isn’t an inconvenient time.”

  “No, not at all. No more inconvenient than anything else since we’ve been here,” Yarick said, her voice uneven and strained.

  “I understand that you’ve all requested immediate transport back to Kopernick--”

  “Oh, yes. And from there directly back to Aurora on the first available ship, yes. We are all... overwhelmed. Well, most of us are. We can’t function in our present condition. Perhaps another legation will come later, after...”

  “I understand your state of mind, believe me,” Ariel said. “But... please understand, normally I’m not the one you need to talk to about this--Ambassador Setaris should be the one--but I’m grateful for a chance to talk to you about it and I’ll do what I can to help. I deal with those Aurorans who come here to live, do business, have interests on Earth. That ends up with me acting as a very complex kind of interpreter between Terran and Auroran--”

  “You have my sympathy,” Yarick said.

  “It’s not all bad. After today I expect the rest of the year will be easy. But right now I’m trying to keep a panic from destroying everything we’ve built here. Humadros’s mission would have made my life--well, not easier, but at least more hopeful. ‘As it is, everything could fall apart.”

  “As I said, you have my sympathy. How does that concern us?”

  “It’s a question of appearances. I’d like you to reconsider your departure. Delay it, at least until the local authorities can make arrests. It would mean a great deal to the resident Aurorans to see the surviving members of Humadros’s legation--”

  “I’m sure it would, and I’m sure you mean well, and maybe you even shared Galiel’s vision of a stronger tie with this planet, but frankly I could care less right now,” Yarick interjected. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I watched people I loved and admired die today from an act that made even less sense than the actions these people usually make.”

  Yarick closed her eyes briefly and seemed to gather herself. “I’m quite honestly afraid, Ms. Burgess. The only reason we’re talking--well, there is no reason we’re talking, only blind chance. Humadros died right in front of me. Then Carset, then Shoal. They were the heart, mind, and spirit of this mission. Then all the others--Vorin, Janilen, Aspil, all dead right in front of me, and the wounded, Kitch, Moreg, Vanloonis, Graw... No, I want out. I’m just as glad Setaris forwarded me to you because I don’t want to talk to Ambassador Setaris. When she has the time, she’ll do her level best to talk us out of it, and she can be very persuasive.”

  Yarick shook her head emphatically. “I don’t want to be persuaded, and I don’t need any added guilt. I want these arrangements made quickly and with the least fuss. Everyone else on the embassy staff will be in sympathy with Setaris. I want a full escort to the shuttle. I won’t begin to feel safe until I’m on a liner back to Aurora. I’m sorry I feel that way, Ms. Burgess, but I do and I can’t stop shaking. I’m frightened of this place. If I stayed, what good could I do, hiding here in the embassy? Because I won’t set foot on a Terran street! They even killed their own representative!”

  “Please, Ms. Yarick, I understand--” Ariel began.

  “No, you don’t! Have you ever been shot at? Has your life ever been threatened so immediately that you believed your next thought would be your last? I don’t think you do understand!”

  “How old are you, Ms. Yarick?” Ariel asked quietly.

  “What? I--what?” Yarick frowned, off-balance.

  “How old are you?”

  “Ninety-eight.”

  “Do you know that the average life expectancy on this planet is less than eighty?”

  “I--yes, I knew that. I’m afraid I don’t see your point.”

  “You’ve reached nearly a hundred and this is your first brush with mortality. These people live with it daily once they hit forty. Part of Humadros’s mission might have given them some hope to change that.”

  After a long pause, Yarick said, “Are you implying that my reaction lacks perspective?”

  “Perhaps. You’re making a lot of assumptions about how little anyone else might understand.”

  “I see. Well, that may be true, and if so then I will apologize to you once I recover my perspective enough to appreciate it. But for now, I can’t get away from my own reactions. I’m sorry if that’s not what you wish to hear.”

  “I apologize if I seem insensitive,” Ariel said. “But I do understand.”

  “Very well. Yes, perhaps I was presumptive.”

  “Would anyone else of your staff be willing to stay? It would help if the entire Auroran legation did not abandon the mission.”

  “The wounded are already scheduled to go up to Kopernik. I can talk to Trina and Gavit, but they’re as badly shaken as I am. I do see your point, but--”

  “Anything you might be able to do would help. We can move you into the Calvin Institute wing --there would be a full staff of robots. I’m asking for a gesture, an act of faith--”

  Yarick laughed dryly. “The day has used up its allotment of gestures, don’t you think? But I promise, I’ll speak with the others. I’ll let you know in the morning, Ms. Burgess.”

  “That’s all I ask. Thank you.”

  The connection broke and Ariel let out a long, exasperated sigh. Sometimes her job made it difficult for her to see why she wanted it.

  She tried Tro Aspil again, but the link remained closed.

  Ariel paced the length of her living room and back, and by the time she reached her bar, the whiskey was gone, and she finally felt the first intimations of sleep coming on. She looked at the time--nearly one in the morning--and tried to ignore the knowledge of her early appointments.

  “Time for bed,” she announced to the room.

  The doorbell sounded, bright and clear.

  “What in--?” she groaned.

  Impatience mounted steadily to anger as she strode toward the door. She could think of only a couple of people in the building who might be so impolitic as to disturb her this late, but could think of no possible reason other than to bother her about what had happened today. She thought they would know better, but after a day of dealing with the skewed reasoning of her fellow Aurorans it should not surprise her that they might not.

  R. Jennie was already at the door by the time Ariel reached it.

  “It is after the hours during which Ms. Burgess accepts company,” R. Jennie explained through the intercom patiently. “Please return in the morning.”

  “I can’t,” came a small, tight voice. “I need to see Ariel now. Listen, I am ordering you--you are a robot?”

  “I am--”

  “Listen, I am ordering you--”

  “Jennie,” Ariel said. “Admit them.”

  “But, Ariel--”

  “Admit them.”

  “Yes, Ariel.”

  Ariel’s nerves danced as R. Jennie opened the door.

  Standing in the hallway, supported by the oversized arm of an immense robot, Mia Daventri smiled weakly at her.

  “Hi, Ariel. Sorry to bother you so late. Can I stay here for a few days?”

  _

  EIGHT

  The Phylaxis Group offices occupied three floors of a refurbished small industries complex in the Lincoln District, just off the Seventeenth Corridor. They were crowded between a modest heavy metals recovery business and a recently abandoned tailoring shop. The air always faintly smelled of hot ozone and acid. A small plaque by the main entrance identified the Group headquarters, but they received no walk-in business. Derec had put in a reception area when he had gotten the permits, but it had been a gesture, a visible symbol of what he had hoped would become more than just a promise among politicians. As he walked through the empty front office, he doubted any of his hopes would come true. Earth would surely reject all positronics now. And if not, the Fift
y Worlds had no reason to try to continue relations with them.

  When he entered the main lab, Rana turned from her console and grinned at him proudly. She was a compact woman, with close-cropped black curls and narrow hazel eyes. “I made a duplicate,” she said. “We still have an RI matrix to study.”

  Derec stared at her, uncomprehending. “A copy... how--?”

  “While the transfer to their buffer was going on. It was simple to just assign a secondary address.”

  Derec laughed. “It’s not traceable, is it?”

  “Please, Derec. Credit me with some sophistication. I didn’t want to say anything over the com earlier, just in case. You mentioned Special Service, and I just don’t trust those”

  “They’re not that bad. “

  “With all due respect, Derec, you don’t trust them either, otherwise you wouldn’t have ‘forgotten’ that you were on com with me when they showed up.”

  He sobered, thinking of the two agents arriving at the med facility--the same pair that had thrown him out of Union Station. No, he did not trust them, but he doubted they had tapped his comlines. But perhaps Rana’s caution would not be a bad example to follow until they knew more.

  “Well. In that case,” he said, “make another duplicate and hide it, just in case we get an on-site visit.”

  “Already working on it. “

  “Start a forensic. There’s an isolated segment in the RI where the recorded perceptions deviate radically from reality. We need to know how that happened.”

  “Deviated in what way?”

  “I don’t know. The roboticists on site told me it was a strategy game, but it looked like a full sensory hallucination. Thales?”

  “Yes, Derec?” the smooth, disembodied voice of their RI answered.

  “I want you to run a diagnostic through Union Station while you’re in there. See if you can find any irregularities in the support systems, comlines--anything that’s connected to the RI.”

  “Do you have a specific irregularity in mind, Derec?”

  “No... the RI started playing a strategy game called Coup when it went off-line. See if there’s anything about it in the regular datum files.”

  “Yes, Derec.”

  “Hallucination?” Rana said. “That’s impossible.”

  “Of course it is. Everyone knows positronic brains can’t hallucinate. But this one did. Did you get hold of our attorney?”

  “No, he’s in Chicago Sector. I left a message for him to call us in the morning. Have you called anyone else about this? We’re supposed to be doing all the troubleshooting on a positronic brain.”

  “Who would you have me call? I tried the subcommittee, but I only spoke to Vann and Hajer, and they didn’t know anything about this.”

  “What about what’s-his-name?” Rana asked. “Taprin?”

  Derec shook his head. “He’s doubtless up to his hairline in Clar’s death. I won’t bother him unless I have to. I’d rather talk to our lawyer, but I suppose morning will have to do. What about this RI? Have you given it a look yet?”

  “It’s a jumbled mess. I already found the collapse points, but we have a major problem.”

  Derec glanced at Rana, who glared at her screen. She stabbed at a couple of keys on her board, then sat back, sucking her lower lip under her teeth. Derec waited.

  “It went into nearly complete collapse once it came back online.” She jabbed a finger at the screen. “Here and here you can see the recursive loops it generated while trying to cope with the situation. They spiralled out of control as more data came available, and it reached the inescapable conclusion that it was responsible for the deaths of humans. Total First Law violation. It followed its own navel into oblivion.”

  “No one ordered it to shut down,” Derec said.

  “Evidently not. It just didn’t occur to anyone to think to preserve whatever data the RI might have.”

  “Or they assumed that collapse meant stasis.”

  Rana cocked an eyebrow at him. “Oh, sure, just like a human mind remains orderly during a psychotic break.”

  “Well, it does, sort of. The point is, a positronic brain isn’t a human brain, so the expectation is unrealistic. But most people don’t know that.” Derec studied the screens. “This looks worse than it should, though. There ought to have been discreet sectors, at least. This appeared to have no coherence at all.”

  “You said there were two positronic specialists there?” Rana said.

  “They were there when I arrived. Whether or not they were on watch when this happened...”

  The pattern on their screens resembled a collection of interference grids, moiré textures, coils, dark and light alternating rhythmically. Rana touched a spot on her screen.

  “What bothers me are these little loops here and here. Same sort of thing, but according to their size they never quite amounted to much, like a problem that solved itself. Now, that can theoretically happen in a positronic brain--confusion, ambiguity, indecision, all that can start a recursive loop that dissolves as soon as it finds solid footing. But not this much, and they usually have a distinctive endpoint pattern. These just evaporate...”

  “It’s likely the same event could trigger several loops.”

  “Sure.”

  “Of which only one or two develop into collapse.”

  “It depends, though, doesn’t it?”

  “On?”

  Rana scratched at her chin absently, eyes wide, lost in the configurations before her. Derec waited. She had been his best student on Earth. She grasped positronics better than anyone else he had trained here, but she still had to think her way through certain concepts that seemed to come naturally to him, or for that matter any positronic specialist from a Spacer world. It was said that one needed to be raised in the discipline to be good at it; Rana had proved that axiom false, but she still wrestled with it like a second language.

  He wondered where Kedder and Hammis had gotten their training...

  “Depends on when these loops developed,” she said finally. “Their location and configuration suggest that they happened earlier than these major loops. It’s hard to tell. Chronology in a collapsed positronic matrix is as jumbled as everything else. But if they’re earlier, then I’d like to know what triggered them.”

  “Wouldn’t it be more to the point to find out why it took itself off-line to playa game?”

  “Those loops could be tied to that.”

  Derec nodded. It made sense. At least he hoped it did. He suddenly realized how very tired he was and glanced at the time chop on one of the screens. Eighteen hours since he had started the day. Rana had been up longer, but she still appeared alert and engaged. Having a problem to solve energized her.

  “Okay,” he said, “you work on those. I need to sleep.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  Derec stood and looked around the room. Equipment covered the walls around them. Stations for eight people--all empty but for the two chairs Rana and he used--spoke of the ambitions of the Group more than the reality. Of the handful of qualified roboticists on Earth, Phylaxis employed four. All the other people he employed, field operatives, office personnel, and paralegals--twelve in all--were little more than eager amateurs. This room contained facilities to keep eight roboticists busy full time--given a commensurate workload. The treaty conference would have provided that work with a successful outcome.

  “I’ll be upstairs,” he said, and left.

  Derec climbed to the small apartment he kept on the premises, his legs seeming to grow heavier.

  The room contained a bed, a datum, comlink, a shower and toilet, a small closet, and its own food synthesizer. It was only slightly larger than a decent cabin on a starship. Derec kept a bigger, better-appointed apartment a few kilometers away, but he often spent his nights here, even if he had nothing to do.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed his face with the heels of his hands.

  Senator Clar Eliton, dead. He still could not ta
ke it in.

  What about our charter? he wondered. Without Eliton to champion the entire robotics cause, Phylaxis could end up without a license. Not that it mattered, because without Eliton the reintroduction of positronics to Earth could very likely halt.

  “Tomorrow,” he told himself.

  “You have several messages, Derec,” Thales told him.

  “List.”

  “Four from the Senate Select Committee on Machine Intelligence, two from the Committee on Import-Export, one from the Calvin Institute--”

  “Stop. Play last one.”

  “Message reads: ‘I see you got your wish. ’ Message ends.”

  Derec sighed. “Ariel.”

  “The message was not signed,” Thales noted.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Would you like me to continue?”

  “No. Store messages. I’ll go through them... later.”

  So I got my wish, he thought. He lay back on the mattress. What might that be?

  As much as he wanted to assume otherwise, he knew she meant Bogard. They had argued bitterly over it, she rejecting the idea of tampering with the Three Laws at any level. Robots, she believed, should be slaves, ideal servants, with only enough self-direction to interpret the inexactitudes of human commands and possibly anticipate human desires.

  But to construct a robot that could circumvent one of the Three Laws, no matter how little or how briefly, went against everything she believed about robots. It came too close to free will for her.

  Of all the things that might have driven a wedge between them, casuistry would have been the last thing Derec expected.

  “Incoming message,” Thales said.

  “From?”

  “Agent Sathen, Special Services.”

  Derec sat up. “Accept. Agent Sathen?”

  “Mr. Avery. I hope I’m not disturbing you--”

  “No, not at all. In fact, I just quit for the day. How can I help you?”

  “Well, I don’t think at all, really, but I’d like you to come back to the hospital.”

  “Why? Has your agent come out of coma?”

  “No, I’m afraid that’s not even a question anymore.” Sathen paused. “Her room was bombed a little while ago. She and the robot are gone.”