Asimov’s Future History Volume 6

by Isaac Asimov

  He did not like this state of affairs because he did not like to think that he and Ariel — both of whom were mentally handicapped at the moment — were the only ones who had ever encountered robots that were capable of searching, creative thought. He wondered if originality in humans was the result of logical thinking as much as transcendent inspiration.

  Besides, who was to say that robots didn’t possess subconscious minds of their own, minds capable of generating their own brands of inspiration, neither superior nor inferior to those of humankind but merely separate? After all, humans themselves hadn’t been aware of the existence of the subconscious mind until it had been defined by primitive scientists and doctors, before the era of colonization. Had anyone ever bothered to make similar explorations into the mental depths of robots? It frightened Derec to think that he had the potentially awesome responsibility of witnessing the robots during — and possibly midwifing them through — their mental birth pains. He hardly felt qualified.

  But then again, I’m not the type to miss an opportunity, either, he thought. Creative robots might be able to make the conceptual breakthrough I need to have them find a cure for Ariel’s ailment.

  Her disease was the reason for her exile from Aurora, whose population dreaded diseases of all sorts. They had managed to rid themselves of most illnesses, but whatever it was that Ariel had contracted, it was beyond the grasp of Auroran medical science. The doctors there had been able neither to diagnose nor cure what ailed her. The diagnostic robots here were completely stymied. And Derec himself had made exactly zilch headway. Perhaps a team of creative robots — whose inspirational talents leaned toward the sciences rather than the arts — could succeed where he had failed.

  But first Derec had to understand as much as he could about what was happening now — to Lucius, to Harry and the others, and even to the ebony. He had long since formulated his line of questioning, but he had decided to wait because he was reluctant to break the spell of silence that had fallen among the members of the group.

  Besides, Derec saw it was no use trying to pull Ariel into a conversation. She walked with her shoulders slumped and her hands behind her back. Her expression was pensive, her eyebrows narrowed. Derec knew from bitter experience that it did no good to engage her when she was this way. She rarely cared to have her depressed moods interrupted, rationalizing the unhealthy tendency by claiming the moods belonged to her and she preferred to enjoy them while she had them.

  Well, she’ll come out of her shell when she’s ready, he thought. I just hope this current episode ofintroversion isn’t the result of her disease.

  Of course, it was always possible that she wanted a little bit of attention and was reacting badly to the fact she wasn’t likely to get it. He had just decided to risk taking a few unkind words from her, in the hope of pleasantly surprising her, when Lucius surprised him by taking the initiative and breaking the silence.

  “Were you pleased with my creation?” the robot asked. “Forgive me if I seem to be overstepping the boundaries of politeness, but I’m naturally interested in your human reaction.”

  “Yes, absolutely, I’m pleased. It’s unquestionably one of the most spectacular buildings I can recall ever having seen.” An easy enough compliment, because he could recall so little — just jumbled images of Aurora, and what he had seen since awakening with amnesia. “The question is: were you satisfied?”

  “The building seems adequate for a first effort. Already its logical shortcomings seem all too obvious to me.”

  “But not to others, your circuits will be warmed to know.”

  “Yes, you are quite correct. They are,” he replied. “And they are warmed, too, by the fact that I have found some strange sense of purpose resolved in seeing the final product. Now my mind is free to formulate my next design. Already it seems inappropriate to dwell overmuch on past accomplishments.”

  “I found that by looking on your building, I personally experienced what I have always assumed humans to mean by the thrill of discovery,” said Mandelbrot, with a measured evenness in his words that he had never used while speaking to Derec. “Indeed, my positronic pathways concentrated easily on it.”

  “Then I am gratified,” said Lucius.

  “So am I,” said Derec. “I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say I felt almost privileged to be viewing the structure.”

  “Then I am doubly gratified,” said Lucius.

  “In fact, I would go so far as to say that never before in human history has a robot produced such a composition.”

  “Never before —?” said Lucius. “Surely I would have thought that elsewhere —” The robot shook its head, as if to assimilate the ramifications of the notion. The effect was disconcerting, and for an eerie moment Lucius reminded Derec of what a human might act like if he had a nervous tic.

  “I’ d like to know what prodded you to think in terms of art in the first place,” Derec said.

  Lucius responded by suddenly standing perfectly still and staring blankly straight ahead. Everybody, including Ariel, stopped walking. Something seemed terribly, terribly wrong.

  Derec felt an awful wrenching in his gut. Not since he had awoken alone and amnesic in the lifepod had he felt such dread.

  For Lucius’s words definitely indicated he had assumed he was merely the first robot in Robot City to produce art. It was hardly unreasonable on the face of it to assume that elsewhere, among the Spacer societies, other robots routinely conceived art and labored to make it reality.

  Robots are not programmed to take initiatives, especially those whose consequences are as yet unknown. They routinely rationalize anything, and freely expound upon the logic justifying every deed.

  And Derec felt certain Lucius’s immobile stance was the outward sign of what was happening in its brain, where its circuits were grappling with the inescapable fact that it had taken an unacceptable initiative, but were incapable of justifying it rigorously.

  As a consequence, Lucius’s brain was in danger of overloading. It would die the robotic death of positronic drift, an irreparable psychic burnout — thanks to an inherent inability of its programming to resolve apparent contradictions.

  Derec had to think fast. The body could be fixed up after the disaster happened, of course, but the worthless brain would have to be chucked into the recycler. The special circumstances that had brought about Lucius’s capacities for intuitive leaps might never again be duplicated.

  An angle! I need an angle to get inside Lucius’s mind! Derec thought. But what?

  “Lucius, listen to me very carefully,” he said through tense lips. “Your mind is in danger. I want you to stop thinking about certain things. I know there are questions in your mind. It is essential to your survival that you deliberately close down the logic circuits preoccupied with them. Understand? Quickly!

  Remember — you’re doing this for a reason. You’re doing this because of the Third Law, which dictates that you must protect yourself at all times. Understand?”

  At first, while Derec spoke, Lucius did nothing. Derec doubted his words were getting through the positronic haze. But then Lucius perked up and, hesitantly, looked around. It had regained a tenuous control of its faculties, but was clearly still in danger.

  “My thanks, sir. Your words have pleasantly rearranged my mental meanderings, for the nonce. I am most grateful. It is difficult to serve humanity when you are totally incapacitated. But I do not understand.

  I feel so strange. Is this what humans mean by whirlwind thoughts?”

  “Don’t even think about your physical efficiency,” said Derec anxiously. “In fact, I want you to direct your integrals only to those precise subjects I suggest.”

  “Sir, I must respectfully point out that that is impossible,” replied Lucius.

  “Perhaps I can impart some information to him that will assist you, master:’ said Mandelbrot.

  Derec nodded approval, and Mandelbrot then said to Lucius, “Permit me to introduce myself, comrad
e.

  My name is Mandelbrot, and I am a robot. But not a robot like you. You were built in a factory here in Robot City, but Master Derec personally built me. He constructed me from used parts he was given access to by an alien creature holding him prisoner against his will. Master Derec may not know the particulars of his past life, but he is certainly a superior roboticist. He can help you reason out of your dilemma.”

  “Right now reasoning is — is so difficult.” Lucius was slipping fast, down into a dreamstream of his own making. His sensor glow progressively dimmed, and unusual, cantankerous noises emanated from inside his body.

  “All right, Lucius,” Derec said, “I want you to think back very carefully. I want you to remember everything you can about what happened to you, oh, a few hours before you first conceived of the building. I want you to slowly, carefully tell me exactly the truth. Don’t worry about any apparent discrepancies. If something appearing dangerous to you comes up, we’ll take care of it before we go on.

  Just remember one thing, okay?”

  Lucius did nothing.

  “Okay?” Derec repeated more insistently.

  Lucius nodded.

  “Excellent. Just remember that, as a general rule, the contradictions of the moment are eventually erased in the cool light of sublime reflection. Can you remember that?”

  Lucius did not answer, did not move.

  “Answer me!” Frustrated, he tapped the shell of the robot’s temple — the sound reverberated from the buildings.

  Finally, Lucius nodded. “I understand,” it said simply.

  “A suggestion, master?” inquired Mandelbrot.

  “Anything — just be quick about it!”

  “Lucius’s problems stem from its belief that, by programming its building into the city, it has failed to adhere to the Three Laws, and hence has strayed from the path. Its conversation with the ebony back in the square may have contributed to the positronic imbalances, but mere words would have no effect if Lucius had not already been subliminally alert to the possibility.”

  “This is a suggestion?” exclaimed Derec impatiently. “What’s the point?”

  “Forgive me, but a robot can understand the paradoxes in the behavioral applications of the Three Laws more fully than any human — but until now only humans have made intuitive leaps of the imagination. Now I must ask you, Master Derec, so you may ask Lucius: why is that?”

  Derec turned to Lucius, rose to his tiptoes, and spoke directly into the robot’s auditory sensors. “Listen to me, Lucius. I want you to think back — and tell me of the time when you believe you became different from the others.”

  “Different?”

  “This is no time for equivocation, Lucius — tell me! Why are you different?”

  After a protracted pause — during which Derec heard his heart beating hard and his temples throbbing furiously — Lucius began to speak as if hypnotized. “It was during the period when you and the one called Ariel had first arrived in the city. The central computer had already responded defensively to the death of the man with your identical appearance.”

  “My double, yes,” said Derec tersely, folding his arms. “Go on.”

  “Erroneously concluding that the city was under attack by mysterious, unknown, and perhaps invisible adversaries, the computer promptly shifted into high gear and began redrafting the city at an unprecedented rate, approving the modifications it had suggested to itself before external factors such as need and compatibility were adequately integrated into the sketches. The rate of revision quickly became suicidal. Resources were strained to the utmost. The weather patterns were stirred to the boiling points.

  The city was destroying itself to save itself.”

  “I seem to remember most of this,” said Derec.

  “Forgive me if I am declaring the obvious, but I think it shall prove germane.” Lucius’s tones betrayed no electronic agitation at Derec’s impatience. On this score, at least, the robot had no doubt it was following orders. “Though I admit I have sought no empirical evidence to either prove or disprove it, I think it is safe to say that every robot in the city was so intent upon keeping up with short-term directives that no one realized a crisis was happening.”

  “And what do you think would have happened if some robots had?”

  “They might have deduced that their short-term directives were actually counterproductive, so far as the Third Law was concerned, and they might have attempted to communicate to central in an effort to countermand its orders.”

  “Central wasn’t talking, anyway,” said Derec impatiently. “It would have been a dead end! What makes you think they would have disregarded central when they did decide it was on the fritz?”

  “Because that is precisely what I did, following the logical actions dictated by my deductions.”

  “I assume you attempted communication several times?”

  “And each time the interplay indicated the channels were opened only one way. Central could talk to me, but I could not talk to central. This struck my curiosity integrals as significant, but, lacking further information, I had not the means to determine the deeper meaning of the issue.”

  “So what did you do then? Did you obey your short-term directives?”

  “No. I had already determined that they were counterproductive, so I had no choice but to try to discern, through whatever means available, a logical, constructive direction warranted by the circumstances. I wandered the streets, watching them metamorphose, studying their changes, attempting to discern the overall pattern that I suspected lay hidden beneath the shifting ones.”

  “Did you notice any other robots doing the same thing — just wandering around?”

  “No. Other robots I saw were simply going about their assigned activities, automatically performing their routines regardless of the supranormal rate of change. It was not complimentary to think so, but I viewed them, on one level at least, as mindless beings, who went about doing as they were told without ever stopping to consider the long-term consequences of their actions. The entire situation was unacceptable, but what could I do? I could only conclude that all my opinions were just that — opinions. And mine were not inherently better than theirs.”

  “Is that when you thought of it — when you conceived of your building?”

  “If you will remember, there was a series of torrential downpours at the time. The robots gradually shifted the bulk of their activities to stemming the environmental tides, but remained incapable of perceiving the root of the disaster. The significance of how this turn of events commented on the superficial way we accepted our customs could not escape me, and the blind acceptance seemed contrary, in some ways, to my programmed purpose of being.”

  “And exactly what was the comment?” Derec asked.

  “Just then I could not be certain; there seemed to be no concrete train of logic setting the proper precedent.”

  “Please go on — you’re doing well. So far I’ve seen no violation of the Laws. You’ve got nothing to worry about — You only think you do!”

  “I decided that I had derived as much empirical evidence of the city, as seen from the sidewalks, as would be useful. I needed to see the sky and rainfall clearly, unobstructed by the buildings, much as a human in an analogous situation might want to.”

  Derec shrugged. “Go on.”

  “Once the idea came to me, I acted immediately. So intent was Ion my goal that I neglected to appreciate what my sensors otherwise perceived quite clearly: the city streets beneath me had begun to undergo a kind of trembling that disguised any vibrations the rain and the wind might be causing. I felt the trembling through my legs; the sensation shimmered up my torso. And as I walked to the nearest skyscraper, the vibrations tingled in my fingertips.

  “Once I was inside, I realized my mind remained inordinately fixated on the thunderheads above. Their shades of black and gray swirled more vividly in my mind than when I had directly perceived them earlier; so intent was Ion holding onto the
image that when the first floor quaked without warning and nearly sent me tumbling against the wall, my only thought was to reach the lift without delay.” There Lucius paused, and reached out to grab Derec’s shoulder.

  Derec flinched instinctively, but when Mandelbrot made a motion as if to deflect Lucius’s hand, Derec stopped him with a gesture. Robots did not normally touch humans, but Derec sensed Lucius had need for tactile sensation, if for no other reason to reassure itself that its problems were isolated in its mind.

  Lucius held Derec’s shoulder just too hard for comfort, but the human tried not to wince. If he did, Mandelbrot would quickly decide that further inaction on his part would conceivably cause Derec too great a harm, and Derec did not want to risk Mandelbrot’s interference at this stage of the game.

  “I fear that was my first true transgression. The quaking of the building put into my head the notion of everything I had learned in my brief life about how humans sustain themselves through eating.”

  “Huh?” Derec said.

  “Meaning now that I was inside the building when its general behavior was indicating a change was about to occur, I had some notion about how a living creature swallowed by a human must feel once it has reached its destination.”

  Derec felt his own stomach go queasy. “Lucius, that’s barbaric! Nobody does that anymore — at least not that I know of.”

  “Oh. Perhaps my information is suspect, then. It is so difficult to tell fact from fiction when you’re trying to understand humans.”

  “Yes, I can certainly appreciate that,” said Derec, thinking of Ariel for an instant before resolving to keep his thoughts on the matter at hand. “Continue. You realized your existence was in danger, then, because of how the building was acting.”

  “Yes. It was either changing or being reabsorbed into the street. The Third Law dictated I should exit immediately. Indeed, I should have had no choice in the matter. But, strangely, I did not go. The urge to do so, in fact, was easily suppressed. Because for those brief moments it was more important to me to see the clouds unobstructed by the civilization that had spawned me than it was to ensure my continued survival. I was acting in a manner completely contrary to the path dictated by the Third Law, and yet I functioned normally, at least on the surface of things. It is only now... now... now...”