Hugo Awards: The Short Stories (Volume 2)

by Anthology

  The Baroni peered at the code. “What does AB stand for?"

  “Aldebaran. Alabama. Abrams’ Planet. Or maybe just the model number. Who the hell knows? We'll get him running and maybe he can tell us.” I tried to set him on his feet. No luck. “Give me a hand."

  “To the ship?” asked the Baroni, using sentence fragments again as he helped me stand the robot upright.

  “No,” I said. “We don't need a sterile environment to work on a robot. Let's just get him out in the sunlight, away from all this junk, and then we'll have a couple of mechs check him over."

  We half-carried and half-dragged him to the crumbling concrete pad beyond the barn, then laid him down while I tightened the muscles in my neck, activating the embedded micro-chip, and directed the signal by pointing to the ship, which was about half a mile away.

  “This is me,” I said as the chip carried my voice back to the ship's computer. “Wake up Mechs 3 and 7, feed them everything you've got on robots going back a millennium, give them repair kits and anything else they'll need to fix a broken robot of indeterminate age, and then home in on my signal and send them to me."

  “Why those two?” asked the Baroni.

  Sometimes I wondered why I partnered with anyone that dumb. Then I remembered the way he could sniff out anything with a computer chip or cube, no matter how well it was hidden, so I decided to give him a civil answer. He didn't get that many from me; I hoped he appreciated it.

  “Three's got those extendable eyestalks, and it can do microsurgery, so I figure it can deal with any faulty micro-circuits. As for Seven, it's strong as an ox. It can position the robot, hold him aloft, move him any way that Three directs it to. They're both going to show up filled to the brim with everything the ship's data bank has on robots, so if he's salvagable, they'll find a way to salvage him."

  I waited to see if he had any more stupid questions. Sure enough, he had.

  “Why would anyone come here?” he asked, looking across the bleak landscape.

  “I came for what passes for treasure these days,” I answered him. “I have no idea why you came."

  “I meant originally,” he said, and his face started to glow that shade of pea-soup green that meant I was getting to him. “Nothing can grow, and the ultra-violet rays would eventually kill most animals. So why?"

  “Because not all humans are as smart as me."

  “It's an impoverished world,” continued the Baroni. “What valuables could there be?"

  “The usual,” I replied. “Family heirlooms. Holographs. Old kitchen implements. Maybe even a few old Republic coins."

  “Republic currency can't be spent."

  “True—but a few years ago I saw a five-credit coin sell for three hundred Maria Teresa dollars. They tell me it's worth twice that today."

  “I didn't know that,” admitted the Baroni.

  “I'll bet they could fill a book with all the things you don't know."

  “Why are Men so sardonic and ill-mannered?"

  “Probably because we have to spend so much time with races like the Baroni,” I answered.

  Mechs Three and Seven rolled up before he could reply.

  “Reporting for duty, sir,” said Mech Three in his high-pitched mechanical voice.

  “This is a very old robot,” I said, indicating what we'd found. “It's been out of commission for a few centuries, maybe even longer. See if you can get it working again."

  “We live to serve,” thundered Mech Seven.

  “I can't tell you how comforting I find that.” I turned to the Baroni. “Let's grab some lunch."

  “Why do you always speak to them that way?” asked the Baroni as we walked away from the mechs. “They don't understand sarcasm."

  “It's my nature,” I said. “Besides, if they don't know it's sarcasm, it must sound like a compliment. Probably pleases the hell out of them."

  “They are machines,” he responded. “You can no more please them than offend them."

  “Then what difference does it make?"

  “The more time I spend with Men, the less I understand them,” said the Baroni, making the burbling sound that passed for a deep sigh. “I look forward to getting the robot working. Being a logical and unemotional entity, it will make more sense."

  “Spare me your smug superiority,” I shot back. “You're not here because Papa Baroni looked at Mama Baroni with logic in his heart."

  The Baroni burbled again. “You are hopeless,” he said at last.

  We had one of the mechs bring us our lunch, then sat with our backs propped against opposite sides of a gnarled old tree while we ate. I didn't want to watch his snakelike lunch writhe and wriggle, protesting every inch of the way, as he sucked it down like the long, living piece of spaghetti it was, and he had his usual moral qualms, which I never understood, about watching me bite into a sandwich. We had just about finished when Mech Three approached us.

  “All problems have been fixed,” it announced brightly.

  “That was fast,” I said.

  “There was nothing broken.” It then launched into a three-minute explanation of whatever it had done to the robot's circuitry.

  “That's enough,” I said when it got down to a dissertation on the effect of mu-mesons on negative magnetic fields in regard to prismatic eyes. “I'm wildly impressed. Now let's go take a look at this beauty."

  I got to my feet, as did the Baroni, and we walked back to the concrete pad. The robot's limbs were straight now, and his arm was restored, but he still lay motionless on the crumbling surface.

  “I thought you said you fixed him."

  “I did,” replied Mech Three. “But my programming compelled me not to activate it until you were present."

  “Fine,” I said. “Wake him up."

  The little Mech made one final quick adjustment and backed away as the robot hummed gently to life and sat up.

  “Welcome back,” I said.

  “Back?” replied the robot. “I have not been away."

  “You've been asleep for five centuries, maybe six."

  “Robots cannot sleep.” He looked around. “Yet everything has changed. How is this possible?"

  “You were deactivated,” said the Baroni. “Probably your power supply ran down."

  “Deactivated,” the robot repeated. He swiveled his head from left to right, surveying the scene. “Yes. Things cannot change this much from one instant to the next."

  “Have you got a name?” I asked him.

  “Samson 4133. But Miss Emily calls me Sammy."

  “Which name do you prefer?"

  “I am a robot. I have no preferences."

  I shrugged. “Whatever you say, Samson."

  “Sammy,” he corrected me.

  “I thought you had no preferences."

  “I don't,” said the robot. “But she does."

  “Has she got a name?"

  “Miss Emily."

  “Just Miss Emily?” I asked. “No other names to go along with it?"

  “Miss Emily is what I was instructed to call her."

  “I assume she is a child,” said the Baroni, with his usual flair for discovering the obvious.

  “She was once,” said Sammy. “I will show her to you."

  Then somehow, I never did understand the technology involved, he projected a full-sized holograph of a small girl, perhaps five years old, wearing a frilly purple-and-white outfit. She had rosy cheeks and bright shining blue eyes, and a smile that men would die for someday if given half the chance.

  It was only after she took a step forward, a very awkward step, that I realized she had a prosthetic left leg.

  “Too bad,” I said. “A pretty little girl like that."

  “Was she born that way, I wonder?” said the Baroni.

  “I love you, Sammy,” said the holograph.

  I hadn't expected sound, and it startled me. She had such a happy voice. Maybe she didn't know that most little girls came equipped with two legs. After all, this was an underpopulate
d colony world; for all I knew, she'd never seen anyone but her parents.

  “It is time for your nap, Miss Emily,” said Sammy's voice. “I will carry you to your room.” Another surprise. The voice didn't seem to come from the robot, but from somewhere ... well, offstage. He was recreating the scene exactly as it had happened, but we saw it through his eyes. Since he couldn't see himself, neither could we.

  “I'll walk,” said the child. “Mother told me I have to practice walking, so that someday I can play with the other girls."

  “Yes, Miss Emily."

  “But you can catch me if I start to fall, like you always do."

  “Yes, Miss Emily."

  “What would I do without you, Sammy?"

  “You would fall, Miss Emily,” he answered. Robots are always so damned literal.

  And as suddenly as it had appeared, the scene vanished.

  “So that was Miss Emily?” I said.

  “Yes,” said Sammy.

  “And you were owned by her parents?"

  “Yes."

  “Do you have any understanding of the passage of time, Sammy?"

  “I can calibrate time to within three nanoseconds of..."

  “That's not what I asked,” I said. “For example, if I told you that scene we just saw happened more than 500 years ago, what would you say to that?"

  “I would ask if you were measuring by Earth years, Galactic Standard years, New Calendar Democracy years..."

  “Never mind,” I said.

  Sammy fell silent and motionless. If someone had stumbled upon him at just that moment, they'd have been hard-pressed to prove that he was still operational.

  “What's the matter with him?” asked the Baroni. “His battery can't be drained yet."

  “Of course not. They were designed to work for years without recharging."

  And then I knew. He wasn't a farm robot, so he had no urge to get up and start working the fields. He wasn't a mech, so he had no interest in fixing the feeders in the barn. For a moment I thought he might be a butler or a major domo, but if he was, he'd have been trying to learn my desires to serve me, and he obviously wasn't doing that. That left just one thing.

  He was a nursemaid.

  I shared my conclusion with the Baroni, and he concurred.

  “We're looking at a lot of money here,” I said excitedly. “Think of it—a fully-functioning antique robot nursemaid! He can watch the kids while his new owners go rummaging for more old artifacts."

  “There's something wrong,” said the Baroni, who was never what you could call an optimist.

  “The only thing wrong is we don't have enough bags to haul all the money we're going to sell him for."

  “Look around you,” said the Baroni. “This place was abandoned, and it was never prosperous. If he's that valuable, why did they leave him behind?"

  “He's a nursemaid. Probably she outgrew him."

  “Better find out.” He was back to sentence fragments again.

  I shrugged and approached the robot. “Sammy, what did you do at night after Miss Emily went to sleep?"

  He came to life again. “I stood by her bed."

  “All night, every night?"

  “Yes, sir. Unless she woke and requested pain medication, which I would retrieve and bring to her."

  “Did she require pain medication very often?” I asked.

  “I do not know, sir."

  I frowned. “I thought you just said you brought it to her when she needed it."

  “No, sir,” Sammy corrected me. “I said I brought it to her when she requested it."

  “She didn't request it very often?"

  “Only when the pain became unbearable.” Sammy paused. “I do not fully understand the word ‘unbearable', but I know it had a deleterious effect upon her. My Miss Emily was often in pain."

  “I'm surprised you understand the word ‘pain',” I said.

  “To feel pain is to be non-operational or disfunctional to some degree."

  “Yes, but it's more than that. Didn't Miss Emily ever try to describe it?"

  “No,” answered Sammy. “She never spoke of her pain."

  “Did it bother her less as she grew older and adjusted to her handicap?” I asked.

  “No, sir, it did not.” He paused. “There are many kinds of disfunction."

  “Are you saying she had other problems, too?” I continued.

  Instantly we were looking at another scene from Sammy's past. It was the same girl, now maybe thirteen years old, staring at her face in a mirror. She didn't like what she saw, and neither did I.

  “What is that?” I asked, forcing myself not to look away.

  “It is a fungus disease,” answered Sammy as the girl tried unsuccessfully with cream and powder to cover the ugly blemishes that had spread across her face.

  “Is it native to this world?"

  “Yes,” said Sammy.

  “You must have had some pretty ugly people walking around,” I said.

  “It did not affect most of the colonists. But Miss Emily's immune system was weakened by her other diseases."

  “What other diseases?"

  Sammy rattled off three or four that I'd never heard of.

  “And no one else in her family suffered from them?"

  “No, sir."

  “It happens in my race, too,” offered the Baroni. “Every now and then a genetically inferior specimen is born and grows to maturity."

  “She was not genetically inferior,” said Sammy.

  “Oh?” I said, surprised. It's rare for a robot to contradict a living being, even an alien. “What was she?"

  Sammy considered his answer for a moment.

  “Perfect,” he said at last.

  “I'll bet the other kids didn't think so,” I said.

  “What do they know?” replied Sammy.

  And instantly he projected another scene. Now the girl was fully grown, probably about twenty. She kept most of her skin covered, but we could see the ravaging effect her various diseases had had upon her hands and face.

  Tears were running down from these beautiful blue eyes over bony, parchment-like cheeks. Her emaciated body was wracked by sobs.

  A holograph of a robot's hand popped into existence, and touched her gently on the shoulder.

  “Oh, Sammy!” she cried. “I really thought he liked me! He was always so nice to me.” She paused for breath as the tears continued unabated. “But I saw his face when I reached out to take his hand, and I felt him shudder when I touched it. All he really felt for me was pity. That's all any of them ever feel!"

  “What do they know?” said Sammy's voice, the same words and the same inflections he had just used a moment ago.

  “It's not just him,” she said. “Even the farm animals run away when I approach them. I don't know how anyone can stand being in the same room with me.” She stared at where the robot was standing. “You're all I've got, Sammy. You're my only friend in the whole world. Please don't ever leave me."

  “I will never leave you, Miss Emily,” said Sammy's voice.

  “Promise me."

  “I promise,” said Sammy.

  And then the holograph vanished and Sammy stood mute and motionless again.

  “He really cared for her,” said the Baroni.

  “The boy?” I said. “If he did, he had a funny way of showing it."

  “No, of course not the boy. The robot."

  “Come off it,” I said. “Robots don't have any feelings."

  “You heard him,” said the Baroni.

  “Those were programmed responses,” I said. “He probably has three million to choose from."

  “Those are emotions,” insisted the Baroni.

  “Don't you go getting all soft on me,” I said. “Any minute now you'll be telling me he's too human to sell."

  “You are the human,” said the Baroni. “He is the one with compassion."

  “I've got more compassion than her parents did, letting her grow up like that,” I said irr
itably. I confronted the robot again. “Sammy, why didn't the doctors do anything for her?"

  “This was a farming colony,” answered Sammy. “There were only 387 families on the entire world. The Democracy sent a doctor once a year at the beginning, and then, when there were less than 100 families left, he stopped coming. The last time Miss Emily saw a doctor was when she was fourteen."

  “What about an offworld hospital?” asked the Baroni.

  “They had no ship and no money. They moved here in the second year of a seven-year drought. Then various catastrophes wiped out their next six crops. They spent what savings they had on mutated cattle, but the cattle died before they could produce young or milk. One by one all the families began leaving the planet as impoverished wards of the Democracy."

  “Including Miss Emily's family?” I asked.

  “No. Mother died when Miss Emily was nineteen, and Father died two years later."

  Then it was time for me to ask the Baroni's question.

  “So when did Miss Emily leave the planet, and why did she leave you behind?"

  “She did not leave."

  I frowned. “She couldn't have run the farm—not in her condition."

  “There was no farm left to run,” answered Sammy. “All the crops had died, and without Father there was no one to keep the machines working."

  “But she stayed. Why?"

  Sammy stared at me for a long moment. It's just as well his face was incapable of expression, because I got the distinct feeling that he thought the question was too simplistic or too stupid to merit an answer. Finally he projected another scene. This time the girl, now a woman approaching thirty, hideous open pustules on her face and neck, was sitting in a crudely-crafted hoverchair, obviously too weak to stand any more.

  “No!” she rasped bitterly.

  “They are your relatives,” said Sammy's voice. “And they have a room for you."

  “All the more reason to be considerate of them. No one should be forced to associate with me—especially not people who are decent enough to make the offer. We will stay here, by ourselves, on this world, until the end."

  “Yes, Miss Emily."

  She turned and stared at where Sammy stood. “You want to tell me to leave, don't you? That if we go to Jefferson IV I will receive medical attention and they will make me well—but you are compelled by your programming not to disobey me. Am I correct?"