by Jerry Oltion
“Don’t strain yourself smiling,” Derec growled.
Avery shook his head. “You sound overjoyed. One would suppose you weren’t ready for it. Is that it? Did it take you by surprise?”
“None of your business,” Ariel said.
“Of course not. However, as a father myself, I do have a certain interest in the situation. You may be happy to know that it is reversible.”
Ariel shot him a dark look. “I’m aware of that.” She turned away, heading down the hallway toward her and Derec’s room.
“Good,” Avery said to her receding back. He turned back to the window. “I ordered Lucius’s laboratories destroyed,” he said nonchalantly.
“You what?”
“Really, you should have your hearing checked. That ’ s twice in two days. I said I ordered Lucius ’ s laboratories destroyed, and all the robots in them as well. You didn ’ t really think I ’ d let you turn my city into a zoo, now, did you?”
“A balanced ecosystem is not a zoo.”
“Wrong. A zoo is not a balanced ecosystem, granted, but the converse is not necessarily true. To me, any ecosystem in this city-other than the minimum necessary to sustain the farm-would be a zoo, and I acted to prevent it.”
“Youacted. What about me? What about-”
“Alarm. Alarm. Alarm,” the living room corn console interrupted. “Experimental robots have awakened.”
“Ah, good. Keep them under restraint,” Avery commanded.
“Restraints ineffective. The robots have changed shape and slipped through them. They are now leaving the laboratory.”
“Where are they headed?”
“Destination uncertain. Wait. They have entered transport booths. Destination…spaceport.”
Chapter 4. The Wild Goose Chase
“The spaceport! They’re trying to escape!”
“A likely assumption,” Avery said, even as Derec sent, Adam, Eve, Lucius, this is Derec. Stop.
There was a burst of static-Derec recognized it now as high-speed data transfer-then the response, Why have you ordered this? We do not wish to stop.
I don ’ t care. Come back to the apartment.
Acknowledged. Please explain why.
Beside him, Avery spoke to the corn console. “They are to return to the laboratory at once. I order it.”
Ignoring him, and the robots’ request, Derec asked, Why are you going to the spaceport?
We are no longer going there, since you ordered us not to.
Whywere you going there? he asked with exasperation.
We intended to leave for Ceremya, the planet upon which Eve awakened. We have unfinished business there.
“I am unable to comply with your order,” the central computer told Avery through the com console. “Derec’s order supersedes.”
“What order? What’s going on?” Avery noticed Derec’s distracted expression. “You’re talking with them? This is your idea, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“You’re helping them escape!”
“I am not!”
“You expect me to believe that? You’ve wanted to let them go all along, and now as soon as I tell you I’ve stopped your other little project, you bust them loose. Well, it won’t work. I’ll have them back inside half an hour, and this time I’ll take all three of them apart with a rusty knife! Central, direct the hunters to stop what they’re doing and capture the runaway robots. They may shoot to destroy, if necessary, but I want the pieces.”
“Cancel that,” Derec said.
“I am sorry; now Dr. Avery’s order supersedes,” the central computer responded.
“Cancel it!” Derec commanded, but he was staring at Avery, not the console.
“I regret-”
“Masters, please calm down,” Mandelbrot interrupted, but Derec ignored him. Avery ’ s order involves a Third Law violation, he sent to the computer. My order does not. My order should take precedence.
How does Avery ’ s order involve a Third Law violation?the computer asked.
The question brought Derec up short. The Third Law stated that a robot had to protect its own existence; it said nothing about another robot’s existence. All right, he sent, it ’ s not a direct violation, but it does violate the spirit of the law. Since I ’ ve ordered them to return anyway, following Avery ’ s order would cause three robots to be needlessly destroyed. That ’ s obviously not the best solution to the situation at hand.
The computer didn’t respond immediately. That almost certainly meant it was considering Derec’s argument, but wasn’t yet convinced. On sudden inspiration, Derec added, The first part of Avery ’ s order can stand. Let the hunters stop what they ’ re doing. The conflict of potentials in the computer’s robot brain would be even less that way, possibly enough so to tip the balance toward Derec’s order.
“Acknowledged,” the computer finally replied, using the com console.
“What did you do?” Avery demanded. “Canceled your stupid order,” Derec replied. “It wasn’t necessary. I’ve already stopped them, and they’re on their way here.”
“Is that true?” Avery asked the console, but the computer evidently thought he was asking Derec and remained silent.
“Yes, it is,” Derec answered for it. “I’m also trying to find out why they tried to escape in the first place. Now be quiet so I can hear myself think.”
“How do I know you aren’t plotting against me?”
Derec rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “You want your own comlink, inject yourself with chemfets. Until then, let me use mine.”
Avery glowered, balling his fists in frustration, but at last he let out a deep breath and said, “Go ahead.”
“Thank you.” Derec hesitated a moment, considering reward theory as a tool for conditioning, then sent to the computer, Echo my comlink conversation to the com console.
“Echoing,” the computer responded aloud.
What were you planning to do on Ceremya?he sent to the robots. He wasn’t sure which of the three he was talking with, or if it was all three at once, but he didn’t suppose it mattered at this point.
“What were you planning to do on Ceremya?” The computer simulated his voice faithfully; it sounded as clear over the corn console as if he had actually spoken aloud.
We must continue to research the Laws of Humanics. Also, Eve did not have the opportunity to imprint properly upon the Ceremyons while she was there, and we believe doing so may be important to our joint development.
The echo was distracting, but Derec held his hands over his ears and sent, What type of development do you expect?
If we knew that, we wouldn ’ t have to go,the robots replied with characteristic logic.
The spaceship was like none Derec had ever seen before. Normal ships were usually streamlined for atmospheric passage, but not to this degree. This ship was smoother than streamlined; it was seamless. It looked as if it had been sculpted in ice and then dipped in liquid silver. Derec, standing before it, realized that the design robots had, however inadvertently, produced a work of art.
Resting on the runway in takeoff configuration, it was a sleek, fast airplane, but Derec knew that its present appearance wouldn’t last beyond the atmosphere. Once away from gravity and wind drag, the ship would transform into whatever shape most easily accommodated its passengers, for its hull and most of the interior furnishings were made of the same cellular material that made up the City. The hyperdrive and the more delicate mechanisms such as control, navigation, and life support were made of more conventional materials, but the majority of the ship was cellular.
It was one of perhaps three dozen at the spaceport, all built within the last few weeks. Derec had ordered them constructed on a whim, remembering when he and Ariel had been stranded in Robot City for lack of a ship and deciding to remedy that problem for good now that the robots had his own ship to refer to, but he had been too busy to inspect them until now.
“It’ll do,” he told the ground crew robots,
who were hovering about anxiously, pleased that the humans had chosen this ship for their journey yet nervously awaiting rejection all the same.
Ever mindful of his duty to protect his human charges, Mandelbrot asked, “Has it been tested?”
“We took it on a test flight of twenty light-years round trip,” one of the ground crew replied. “Six days of flight and four jumps. All its subsystems performed flawlessly.”
“Does it have a name?” Ariel asked. She, Dr. Avery, Wolruf, and the three experimental robots stood beside Derec amid a pile of baggage.
The ground crew robot turned its head to face her. “We have not named it yet.”
“Flying a ship without a name!” she said in mock surprise. “I’m surprised you made it back.”
“I do not understand. How can a name be a significant factor in the success of a test flight?”
Ariel laughed, and Wolruf joined her. “I didn’t know ‘umans had that superstition too,” the alien said.
“It’s supposed to be bad luck to board a ship without a name,” Ariel explained to the puzzled robot, but her explanation left it no more enlightened than before.
“Bad…luck?” it asked.
“Oh, never mind. I’m just being silly. Come on, let’s get on board.”
“Name first,” Wolruf said with surprising vehemence. “May be just superstition, may not. Never ‘urts to ‘umor fate.”
“Then I dub it the Wild Goose Chase,” Avery said with finality, gesturing to the robots to pick up his bags. “Now let’s get this ridiculous expedition into space before I change my mind.” He turned and stomped up the extended ramp, not noticing the black letters flowing into shape on the hull just in front of the wing.
Wild Goose Chase.
Was it? Derec couldn’t know. Avery certainly seemed to think so, but he had allowed his curiosity to overcome his reservations all the same. Derec had been all for the trip, but now he was feeling reservations, both about the trip itself and about the deeper subterfuge it represented. Should he go through with it? He followed Wolruf and Ariel and the robots up the ramp, pausing at the door, debating.
Do it,a tiny voice seemed to whisper in his head.
Okay,he answered it. To the central computer, he sent, Investigate my personal files. Password: “anonymous.” Examine instruction set “Ecosystem.” Begin execution upon our departure.
Acknowledged.
Derec turned away into the ship and let the airlock seal itself behind him. Avery hadn’t destroyed everything when he’d destroyed Lucius’s labs. Derec still had his files on ecosystems, and now the central computer did, too. It would give the robots something useful to do while they were gone, and when they returned, the place would be lush and green, with animals in the parks and birds and butterflies in the air. Avery would have a fit-but then Avery was always having fits. It wouldn’t matter. By the time he found out about it, it would be too late to stop.
“I want to keep it,” Ariel said.
They were in their own stateroom on the ship, hours out from Robot City. Beyond the viewport the planet was already a small point of light in the glittering vastness of space. The sun had not yet changed perceptibly, but as the ship picked up speed in its climb out of the gravity well toward a safe jump point, the sun, too, would begin to dwindle until it was just another speck in the heavens.
Derec had been staring out at the stars, contemplating the vastness of the universe and his place in it, but now, upon hearing Ariel’s words, he spun around from the viewport, the stars forgotten. She could be talking about only one thing.
“The baby? You want to keep the baby?”
She was sitting on the edge of the bed. Now that she had gotten his attention, it seemed as if she was uncomfortable under his gaze. Looking past him into space herself now, she said, “I think so. I’m not sure. I’m still trying to make sense of it all, but after that gardener locked up I realized what I was considering, and after Avery said what he said about it, I realized it wasn’t as simple a decision as I thought at first.”
Her voice took on a hard edge. “He ’ d like it to be, but it’s not. If we were on Earth I might agree with him, but here, with all this space to expand into, with all those robots practically falling over themselves to serve so few of us, it’s a different equation. An Earther gives up the rest of her life to a baby, but I only have to give up part of my comfort for part of a year. For that we get a new person.”
She looked into his eyes as if seeking reassurance, then plunged on: “And if we treat him-or her-right, then we’ll have a family. I know it’s not the way we were brought up; I know Aurorans aren’t supposed to care about our parents and our children, but I’ve seen what happened to us, and I don’t like it. That’s why I’m telling you this now. If I have this baby, I want us to be a family. I want it to grow up with us, to be a part of us; not just some stranger who happens to share our genes. Can you accept that?”
Derec could hardly believe his ears. She was asking him to accept exactly what he had wanted all along. “Can I accept that? I love it. I love you!” He took her hand and pulled her up from the bed, put his arms around her, and kissed her passionately.
Behind him, the door chimed softly and Mandelbrot’s voice said, “Dinner is ready.”
“Damn.”
One of the nice things about a cellular ship, Derec discovered, was that the common room was much more than just a place with a table in it. As dinner wound down and the mood shifted toward the pleasant lethargy that comes after a good meal, the table enclosed over the dirty dishes, dropped into the floor, and the chairs widened and softened from dining chairs to evening couches, simultaneously moving back to give the room a less-crowded atmosphere. The lighting dimmed and soft music began to play.
Derec merged his chair with Ariel’s and put his arm around her. She leaned her head over to rest on his shoulder, closing her eyes. His hand automatically went to her upper back and began rubbing softly, kneading the muscles at the base of her neck and shoulders.
“Oh, yeah,” she murmured, bending forward so he could reach the rest of her back.
The robots had not eaten dinner, so they were not sitting in chairs, but instead stood unobtrusively beside and behind the four who were seated. Avery was leaning back with eyes closed, off in his own universe somewhere, but Wolruf watched Derec and Ariel with open interest. At last she sighed and said, “That looks ‘onderful.” Turning to Eve, she asked,” ‘ow about it? You scratch mine; I’ll scratch yours.”
“I have no need to have my back scratched,” Eve replied without moving.
Somewhat taken aback, Wolruf said, “Do mine anyway, please,” and turned to give Eve an easy reach.
“Why?”
“Because I’d like to ‘ave my back scratched,” Wolruf said, a hint of a growl to her voice now.
“Perhaps you are not aware that I am engaged in conversation with Adam and Lucius.”
Derec had stopped scratching as well, and was looking at Eve with an astonished expression. Hadn’t they been ordered not to use their comlinks when humans were present? No, he remembered now. That had been just a suggestion, and from another robot at that. They could ignore it if they wanted. But this business with Wolruf-this was different.
“What does your conversation have to do with anything?” he asked. “She wants you to scratch her back. That’s as good as an order.”
“Wolruf is not human. Therefore I need not be concerned with her wishes.”
“You wha-? That’s absurd. I order you to-”
“Wait a minute.” It was Avery, evidently not so far away as he had appeared. “This is intriguing. Let’s check it out. Wolruf, order her to scratch your back.”
It was hard to read expression on the alien’s scrunched-in canine face, but Derec was sure he was seeing exasperation now. Wolruf took a deep breath, shook her head once, then said, “All ri’. Eve, I order you to scratch my back.”
Eve stood her ground. “I refuse.”
“Order Lucius to do it,” Avery said.
“Lucius, scratch my-”
“I refuse also,” Lucius interrupted.
“Adam,” Wolruf said, taking Avery’s nod in Adam’s direction as her cue, “you scratch my back. Please.”
The small politeness made a difference, but not the one Wolruf had hoped for. Adam said, “I do not wish to offend, but I find that I must refuse as well.”
“Why?”Wolruf asked, slumping back into her chair, resigned to having an unscratched back.
“Wait. Wolruf, there’s one more robot here.”
Wolruf looked to Mandelbrot, standing directly behind Derec and Ariel’s chair. Mandelbrot didn’t wait for her order, but moved silently over to Wolruf and reached out to scratch the alien’s furry back.
“Thank you,” Wolruf said with a sigh.
“You are quite welcome, Master Wolruf,” Mandelbrot said, and Derec would have sworn he heard a slight twist to the word “master.” Could Mandelbrot disapprove of another robot’s conduct? Evidently so.
“Interesting,” Avery said. “Eve, turn around to face the wall.”
Silently, Eve obeyed.
“Hold your right hand out to the side and wiggle your fingers.”
Eve obeyed again.
“Adam and Lucius, follow the same orders I just gave Eve.”
The two other robots also turned to face the wall, held their right hands out, and wiggled their fingers.
“That’s a relief,” Avery said. “For a second there I thought they’d quit obeying altogether.”
“Relief to you, maybe,” said Wolruf, shifting so Mandelbrot could reach her entire back.
“It looks like they’ve independently decided what makes a human and what doesn’t. Am I right?”
Silence. Three robots stood facing the wall, their right hands fluttering like tethered butterflies.
“Lucius, am I right?”
“You are correct, Dr. Avery,” the robot answered.
