Robot City 1 & 2

by Isaac Asimov

  He was gone, perhaps dead, and she was alone on this crazy world. Though David/Derec, whatever he wanted to call himself, had never looked on this place as anything but an adventure, to her it had been nothing but a prison. A first priority for anyone marooned in a Spacer port would be access to radio communications to inform search parties and anxious waiters; yet the robots seemed reluctant--no, evasive--when it came to thetopic of communications. That frightened her more than anything else that was going on.

  "Did you sleep well?"

  She jumped to the sound, turning quickly to see Rydberg standing in the doorway, a light static issuing from his loudspeaker.

  "I didn't invite you in here!" she said in anger and frustration. "Get out! Now!"

  The robot turned without a word and moved from the door, Katherine following him out into a small hallway.

  "What do you want?" she asked. "Has there been any . . . news about Derec?"

  Rydberg turned back to her. "I did not mean to intrude upon your privacy," he said. "Please accept my apologies. I've brought you food."

  "I'm not hungry."

  Rydberg just stared at her.

  "Has there been any word about Derec?" she asked again, softly this time.

  "Yes," the robot replied. "He was seen notthree decads ago, but ran away when another of our supervisors called to him."

  She clapped her hands together loudly. "So, he's alive!"

  "Apparently so. Why would he run away? Is this a sign of guilt?"

  "It's a sign that he wants to check out this crazy place without a gaggle of robots hanging all over him." She moved past him toward the living room. "Now, where's that food? I'm so hungry I could eat a . . . " She stopped herself, then looked at the robot. "I'm hungry."

  "But you just said . . . "

  "Forget what I just said. Correction!" She caught herself before the robot could explain its memory. "I mean never mind. Where's the food?"

  He led her back down the hall to the living room, where the food sat at the same table she had eaten at the night before. Strangely enough, the room was different, squatter, widerthan it had been the previous night, the table closer to the wall.

  She moved quickly to the table. There was a variety of what appeared to be fruits and cooked vegetables there. She sat down and tentatively ate a small piece of greenish fruit. It was delicious. Rydberg stood nearby as she greedily sampled everything on the table, all of it good. She didn't invite the robot to sit with her as Derec had done. The machines were servants and needed to be treated as such. She'd never understand his insistence on treating them as anything other than the machines they were.

  "When do we get to make outside radio contact?" she asked once the initial hunger pangs had died down.

  "We will all meet later and discuss those questions."

  "Are you going to put us on trial," she asked, "for the murder of this other human? We areentitled to a trial, you know."

  "Derec has told us that he will try to solve this mystery," Rydberg said.

  Katherine stopped eating and stared at him. "And what if he doesn't? What if we don't ever discover what really happened? You have no right to hold us here as it is. We can't go on indefinitely like this."

  "If he cannot find out the truth of the matter," Rydberg said, "then we will assume our original supposition to be correct."

  "I don't believe you," she said. "You have no right to determine my guilt or innocence without proper evidence. I'm not Derec, and I hold no romantic visions of a robot-controlled world. You cannot be allowed to have any power over the way I live my life. If you want to hold me for murder, you must put me on trial and prove it. If you put me on trial, I must be allowed to defend myself. I therefore demand immediate access to a radio so that Imay provide myself with proper defense representation. I want a certified legal rep, and I want one now!"

  "We will discuss the situation later today," the robot said, "after Friend Derec has been returned to us. Meanwhile, your food is getting cold and will lose its appeal."

  "It already has," Katherine returned, pushing the plate away from herself. She didn't like the way this was turning. The radio seemed to get more and more distant to her, and with it, any hopes of ever leaving this place. Her arguments to Rydberg were based solely on laws and customs common to Auroran society. But all law, all freedom, was merely a rationalization away where a robot civilization was concerned.

  The final result to her was quite simple: the machines were in charge and they could do anything they wanted.

  Derec knew nothing with which to comparethe size of Robot City, but as he drove its breadth, he couldn't help but feel its vastness.

  As the parts truck moved quickly through the city streets, the round drone bounced from one machine to another, squeaking loudly, its silver body lighting up in dozens of places, then winking out again as it performed automatic (but definitely sub-robotic) pre-troubleshooting functions on the broken machinery. Finally, it came to rest on Derec's lap, all of its lights blinking madly, its squeaks turning into a high-pitched whine.

  "So, where are we going?" he asked the troubleshooter while idly stroking its dome.

  The machine whirred and bounced, but never answered. All at once, its whine turned to a loud, siren-like wail.

  "Stop it!" Derec ordered, turning to the front of the truck to make sure he wasn't attracting attention. He bent double over the thing, trying to muffle its sound without success."You're going to have to stop," he told the thing. "I can't just . . . "

  It sent a jolt of electricity through its body, shocking Derec, moving him off.

  "All right," he said, pointing a shaking finger at the silver ball. "I don't have to take that from you."

  The thing started bouncing up and down, higher and higher. Derec looked both ways over the truck back, then calmly brought up a foot and shoved the thing right off the truck, where it hit the street angrily, its wail louder as it bounced around like a rubber ball.

  Within a few blocks, the vehicle slowed its pace, then got in line behind several other trucks, all filled with equipment. Derec got on his knees and looked over the piles of computers.

  The trucks were pulled up to a gate, where a whole line of robots were moving up to the truck back, each taking a single piece of equipmentequipment and returning with it to a blockhouse that wasn't much larger than a single doorway. Beside the blockhouse was the most amazing thing Derec had ever seen in his short memory.

  A huge, gray machine rumbled softly, yet with undeniable strength and power. From it issued what could only be described as a ribbon of city. In five-meter-square slabs, the city appeared to be simply extruding from underground through the medium of the gray machine.

  It pushed itself along, the slabs gradually forming and reforming as they moved, following some incredible preprogramming that actually let them build themselves. And as the slabs formed walls and floors and corners and stories and windows, they spun off in every direction in a slow, graceful dance that pushed against the already existing buildings, the mechanism that triggered the entire magnificent clockwork of Robot City.It was as if the entire city were one mammoth, living organism always growing outward, always changing and replicating like the cells in a body, moving in imprinted patterns toward a complete, fully formed being.

  It was a plan of monumental scale, an atmosphere of total, logical control for a given end. As he watched a skyscraper literally build itself from the ground up, each story pushing up the story above it and self-welding according to some unseen plan, he experienced the grandeur of an idea so vast that his limited knowledge was humbled by its power. This civilization was the product of a mind that refused to believe in limited options, a mind that accepted that what the imagination could conceive, the hands could make.

  To such a mind, anything was possible. Even, perhaps, Perihelion.

  The truck lurched, nearly knocking him from his knees. It had pulled up to the gate.The line of robots was now reaching into his bed for their equipment. />
  If all the action was happening below ground, that's where Derec wanted to be. Hurrying out of the truck, he grabbed a small terminal that looked as if it had been shorted out by water, and took his place behind a robot heading toward that doorway into the ground.

  He reached the doorway, cradling the computer like a baby. Warm air greeted him as he stepped through into barely lit darkness. He was confronted by a short flight of stairs leading down, and followed the robot that walked down before him.

  The stairs terminated in a large holding area, brightly lit, frenetic with activity. Automated carts carried robots and mining equipment at breakneck pace. The cars zipped around one another in seemingly rehearsed fashion, their movements perfected over time, since it seemed impossible to Derec that they couldmove so quickly without hitting one another.

  On the far wall sat a bank of elevators, perhaps twenty in all, some of them remarkably large. The robots that moved down the stairs headed toward these elevators, apparently going from here to a lower level where repair or scrap work was being done.

  Having no idea of where to go, Derec chose an elevator at random and moved toward it with his burden. A large elevator nearby slid open, and a group of minerbots, covered with mud and soot, moved out bearing the non-operating carcass of one of their own above their shoulders.

  Derec reached the elevator. It had no formal controls, but opened for him as soon as he stepped near.

  A voice boomed behind him. "Nothing awaits you below, but death!"

  He turned to see a huge supervisor robot, twice the size of a man, glaring down at himwith red photocells. The robot's body was burnished a bright, shimmering black.

  "I've come to inspect your operation," Derec said, feigning authority. He turned back to the elevator and began to step in.

  The robot's arm flashed out, his mammoth pincers clanging loudly around Derec's forearm, squeezing tightly but not painfully.

  "You are caught," the machine said, and Derec's computer crashed loudly at his feet.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE COMPASS TOWER

  As the door to the apartment slid open, Derec tucked under the arm of the big robot, watched Katherine's facial expression change from horror, to relief, to unbridled amusement--all in the space of three seconds.

  "Let me guess," she said, putting a finger to her lips,

  "you're a ditty bag."

  "Cute," Derec returned as the robot set him gently on the ground. He looked up at the huge, black machine. "Thanks for the ride, Avernus."

  "My pleasure, Friend Derec," the robotreplied, bending slightly so that the hallway could accommodate his height. "But I must ask you to stay away from the underground. It is no place for a human."

  "I appreciate your concern," Derec said noncommittally. He walked into the apartment, then turned back to Avernus. "Will we see you at the meeting?"

  "Most assuredly," he returned. "All of us look forward to it with great expectation."

  "You can go now," Katherine told Avernus coldly, the robot nodding slightly and moving off, the utility robot guard sliding quickly to fill the door space with his squat body.

  Katherine punched the door stud, the panel sliding closed. "You missed breakfast and lunch," she said, moving to sit listlessly on the couch.

  "Avernus got me something before he brought me back," Derec said. "He got my wounds cleaned up, and even let me sleep fora while." Finally, he couldn't ignore her mood any longer. "What's wrong?"

  "You," she said, "this place . . . everything. I don't know which way is up anymore. Did you find out anything?"

  Derec spotted the CRT screen set up on the table and walked to stand before it. "It's a place designed for humans," he said, "and the building is going on at a furious pace, as if they're in some kind of hurry to get finished. I think the buildings may be . . . I don't know, alive, I guess is the best way to put it." He pointed to the screen. "Where did this come from?"

  "Rydberg brought it," she answered, "But it only receives. What do you mean, the city's alive?"

  "Watch this," Derec said, and ran full speed across the room, banging into the far wall. The wall gave with him, caving inward, then gently pushed itself back to a solid position.

  "I laid awake all night worrying about you,while you were discovering the walls are made of rubber?" she asked loudly.

  He turned to her, smiling. "Did you really worry about me?"

  "No," she replied. "What else?"

  He walked over and sat on the couch with her, his tones hushed. "I saw the city building itself, literally extruding itself from the ground. I tried to go down there, but Avernus caught me. I think he's in charge down there. The only thing I can figure is that there are immense mining operations underway below ground and that the buildings are positronic, some kind of cellular robots that make up a complete whole. It's fascinating!"

  Katherine was unimpressed. "Did you find a way out of here?"

  He shook his head. "Not yet," he answered, "but I don't really think that's going to be a problem."

  "That's because you're so eaten up with yourrobot friends you can't think of anything else!" She suddenly jerked her head toward the wall. "If the walls are robots, I wonder if they can hear us now?"

  Just then the screen on the table came to life, Rydberg's face filling it. "So, you are back, Derec," he said. "Good. Prepare yourselves. An honor guard is coming right now to bring you to your preliminary trial."

  "Trial?" Derec said.

  "Uh oh," Katherine said, putting a hand to her mouth. "That may be my fault. I all but dared them to put us on trial."

  "But we haven't had a chance to investigate yet."

  She shrugged. "I was trying to find if we could have access to outside communications." She snapped her fingers. "Maybe this means we're going to get it."

  "Yeah . . . maybe," Derec said, but he was skeptical. Robot City was too precious a gem tobe hanging out in the ether for anyone to pluck. At this point, he wasn't even sure if he wanted to communicate with the outside.

  He looked at the screen. It had already gone blank. "Whatever the reason," he said, "I believe we're going to get some answers at this point."

  "Let's hope they're answers we can live with," she sighed. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life here."

  Within minutes, the utility robot was knocking on the door. Derec hurried to open it. Euler greeted him, accompanied by a supervisor robot he'd not seen before. This one was the robot most closely molded to a human that Derec had seen, with chisled, though blank, mannequin-like features.

  "Friend Derec," Euler said, "Friend Katherine Burgess, may I present Arion, who will be in attendance at our meeting."

  "Pleased to meet you," Derec said."Rydberg called it a trial," Katherine said.

  "This is a great moment for us here," Arion said. "I trust that your stay so far has been satisfactory. I am doing my best with what little time I have to try and prepare some entertainment for you. We know that humans enjoy mind diversions."

  "We'd appreciate anything you could do," Derec said.

  "Sure," Katherine said. "How about conjuring up a radio for us to call the outside for help?"

  "Oh, that's quite impossible," Arion said.

  "That's what I thought," Katherine answered.

  "I have a present for each of you," Euler said, extending his right arm. "Then we must be off to the meeting."

  Derec moved to the robot. His pincers held two large watches, dangling on gold chains. "You may know the time here now," Euler said. "It is of importance to humans, and so, to us.We will do more to make you feel comfortable in this regard."

  Derec took the watches, giving one of them to Katherine. They had square faces encased in gold. On both of them, the LCD faces read 3:35. "They run on a twenty-four hour day," said Euler. "We thought it would be more comfortable for you if we adjusted the length of our hour than if you had to adjust to a twenty-and-one-half hour day. Our hours, decads, and centads are approximately eighty-five percent of stand
ard." Derec walked out onto the veranda and looked into the sky. The sun had already passed its apex and was slowly crawling toward the eventual shadows of evening.

  "Right on the money," he said, returning to the apartment.

  "You doubted it?" Arion asked, looking at Euler.

  "Do you understand now?" Euler said to him.

  "Interesting," Arion said, cocking his head inan almost human fashion.

  "We must go," Euler said and hurried out of the apartment, the others following.

  They rode the elevator to street level and boarded a multi-car tram that had no apparent driver. It started off immediately when they were seated. Euler turned to Derec, who sat, with Katherine, behind him and Arion. "You put yourself in extreme danger last night," the robot said. "Why?"

  "I've a better question," Derec returned. "If this is such a perfect human world, why was it so dangerous?"

  "Spacer worlds conquered weather problems eons ago," Katherine interjected. "For you to have them in such an advanced culture makes no sense."

  Arion turned to her and bowed his head. "Thank you for calling our culture advanced."

  "The weather," Euler said, "is quite honestly part of our overall problem right now. It isunder our control, but also not under our control. Unfortunately, for security reasons, we cannot discuss it in detail."

  "Great," Katherine said. "Everybody can do something about the weather, but nobody talks about it."

  "To answer your original question," Derec told Euler, as he watched them move in a direct line toward the tower where they had initially materialized, "I have no memory and no past. My curiosity, my search for answers about myself, leads me to do things not necessarily in my best interest."