Foundation’s Friends

by Ben Bova

  His rescuer scuttled in front of him toward the furnace door, and opened it. Within, bright flames danced. The robot was revealed in its flames. He was about three feet tall, wore either a wig or had a full head of flowing dark hair and a clever, somewhat supercilious face with a bandit mustache. He was dressed in a tweed jacket and blue jeans. He was upright and bipedal. He wore sneakers. He also wore glasses.

  “I’m Harry, by the way,” the robot said. He swung one leg over the lip of the open furnace door.

  “Hey, I’m not going in there,” Hellman said.

  “The flames are fake,” Harry said.

  He swung his other leg over. Hellman put out a hand cautiously toward the fire. He drew it back.

  “It’s hot!”

  “That’s just simulated warmth. Come on, Tom, now’s not the time to crap around. Your computer warned me you’d be like this.”

  “I’m going to have a little talk with that computer,” Hellman said, putting one foot into the furnace, and then, when it wasn’t singed off, the other.

  “What’s going on in here?” a loud and familiar voice said. It was the house. Suddenly all the lights in the basement went on. An alarm bell went off. Hellman took a deep breath and jumped into the flames.

  The flames were bright around him. They raged and stormed, and there was a little warmth in them, but no real heat. Hellman was fascinated to find himself in the midst of fake flames and simulated warmth. He knew he was on his way. He was going to miss some of those meals that the house had prepared for him. The house was a good provider. There was probably a good future for houses like that on Earth. If there was no real reason against it, he might yet enter into partnership with Poictesme, sell their services on Earth, get rich quick.

  First he’d have to find out, however, if these were indeed the robots of Desdemona Station, and if so, had they indeed circumvented or canceled their conditioning to the Three Laws of Robotics. The FDA would never let him import them if they were able to kill people. But if they were the robots of Desdemona, with murder in their hearts, or rather, in their tapes, burned into their chips, as it were, then there would be rewards to claim, prize money to spend. Maybe in that case he’d bring Lana back. She was plenty cute and he was sure she liked him, even though she had some odd ways of expressing it.

  And he’d have a word with his computer too, when he got back to the ship. That was very peculiar behavior, giving out the access-code number. Sure, it was for his own protection, but was it, really? Might not his own computer have been reprogrammed by the antisocial elements of this planet of Newstart? And for that matter, what about the humans of Newstart? Had the robots spared some of them? What part did they play in all this?

  Hellman considered these things while the flames roared around him. He had quite forgotten where he was. Thus the mind protects itself when faced with an intolerable situation. Now he noticed that the flames were dying down. As the glare faded, he saw Harry, the robot who was rescuing him, standing nearby.

  “Why do you wear glasses?” Hellman asked.

  “My God! Is that the only thing you can think to ask at a time like this?”

  “Why do you robots talk about God so much?” Hellman asked. “Do you know something I don’t know?”

  “Your computer was right,” Harry said. “You are fun to be around. One never knows what you’ll say next. Come on, let’s get out of this furnace. I’ll bet you’re hungry too, and thirsty, and perhaps sleepy, as well?”

  “Yes, all of the above,” Hellman said.

  “How nice it must be to have such urgent conditioning. We robots have been trying to simulate appetite for a long time. It’s easy enough to model human drives, but difficult to put any real urgency into it.”

  “But why would you want to have that stuff anyhow?” Hellman asked. “Drives and emotions get you into plenty of trouble. Sometimes they kill you. “

  “Yes,” said Harry, “but what a way to go.”

  Hellman thought about Lana. “Don’t you ever get the urge to, like for example, mate with someone you know will be bad for you but to hell with that, you want to do it anyway?”

  “Not really,” Harry said. “We’ve learned to simulate perversity, of course, that’s not difficult. But the real article…Well, that’s tough. But we have begun a program by means of which we can experiment with it all.”

  “All what?”

  “All the human moods, nuances, feelings. We’re experimenting also with simulating every aspect of nature’s creative side. But more of that later. We’d better get out of here. “

  They were both out of the furnace now. Standing outside it, Hellman saw that it was not a furnace at all. Not now. Maybe it had been earlier. Somehow he had gotten somewhere else. He had stepped out of a small cellar door. He seemed to be in a very pretty pastoral place with bushy trees and green hedges and wild flowers.

  “Like it?” Harry asked.

  “Very nice. Yours?”

  “Yes. I like to come here when I can. The whole thing, is simulated, by the way, down to the last blade of grass.”

  “Why didn’t you just plant a garden?”

  “We need to express ourselves,” Harry said. “Come on, I’ve got a little place down here. I’m sure we can get you a drink and some lunch. Then you’ll need a nap and after that we can get on with it.”

  “Get on with what?”

  “The next step. Afraid it’s not going to be quite so easy as what’s happened so far.”

  Harry told Hellman he lived in the Gollag Gardens section of Robotsville, quite near the south bridge that crossed the River Visp. He was a dress designer by occupation. Hellman expressed surprise at this, because he had been used to robots only in industrial roles.

  “That was in the old days,” Harry said, “when robots were disadvantaged by the racist laws of Earth. All this talk about a robot not being truly creative! As if they had a clue! I can assure you, I do my job better than most designers on Earth. “

  “But who do you design dresses for?” Hellman asked.

  “For the other robots, of course.”

  “I don’t understand. I never heard of a robot wearing clothes before. “

  “Yes, I’ve seen the literature on the subject. Humans were really naive in the old days. They expected great things from their robots, but kept them naked. What creature with an ounce of self-respect and the slightest claim to civilization is going to do his best naked?

  “The news of your spaceship was received in the city like a bombshell. All of us have been theorizing for a very long time about what humans are really like.”

  “You have some here on this planet, don’t you?”

  “They don’t count. They’ve been away too long. They’re quite out of touch. They look to us for guidance.”

  “Oh. I see what you mean.”

  “We want to know what human is like from the horse’s mouth, a genuine human from the planet Earth.”

  It was only later that Hellman appreciated the strength of the robot’s drive to be seen as creative and nice.

  Harry had taken him through a bypass to a place outside Robotsville. He had a route planned out after they left his house. They would proceed on foot and with caution. There were political elements even in Robotsville, waiting to exploit the inevitable confusion that would ensue when Hellman arrived.

  Hellman’s first sight of Robotsville was not reassuring. The outskirts looked like a junkyard several stories high and stretching for a mile or so in either direction. Although it looked haphazard, the open-work structures were firmly welded into place. There were buildings and verandas and structures of all sorts, most of them lying at odd angles to each other, since robots have no bias in favor of right angles. Although there were ground-level roadways, most of the robots used elevated pathways to get from place to place.

  “I hadn’t expected it to be like this,” Hellman said.

  “It’s more convenient for a robot to travel monkey-fashion, using a number of li
nes, than to walk on the ground like men,” Harry explained.

  “But I notice that all of them have feet.”

  “Of course. Having feet is a mark of being civilized.”

  Civilized or not, Hellman saw that most of the robots in this part of Robotsville had small round bodies like squids, with six or eight tentacular limbs with differently shaped grasping members at their ends. As well as the legs, of course, which just dangled appendage-wise as the robots swung through the maze like chimpanzees. Soon they passed this suburban clutter and were in the middle of another district. This one was composed of five- or six-story buildings, some made of masonry, others constructed from what looked like wrought iron. As they walked they passed many robots, who were careful not to stare, even though most of them had never seen a human before. Politeness, Harry explained, seems to be ingrained in the robot psyche.

  Harry pointed out the Museum of Modem Art, the Sculpture Garden, the Opera House, and Symphony Hall.

  “There’s a concert later tonight,” Harry said. “Perhaps you will attend if you’re not too tired. “

  “What are they playing?”

  “It’s all modem robot composers. You wouldn’t have heard of them. But we’d be grateful for your opinion. It isn’t often we get a human to hear our efforts. And the painters and sculptors are quite excited, too.”

  “That’ll be nice,” Hellman said, doubting it.

  “Our efforts will seem provincial to you, no doubt,” Harry said. “But perhaps not entirely without merit. But for now, I’m going to take you to my club, the Athenaeum. You’ll meet some of my friends; we have prepared a light repast, and there will be suitable libations.”

  “That sounds fine,” Hellman said. “When do I get to go back to my spaceship?”

  “Soon, soon,” Harry promised.

  The Athenaeum was an imposing building of white marble, with Corinthian columns in the front. Harry led the way. A tall, thin robot dressed in a black frock coat like a butler or possibly a footman opened the door for them.

  “Good afternoon, Lord Synapse,” the butler said. “This is the friend you mentioned earlier?”

  “Yes, this is Mr. Hellman, the Earthman,” Harry said. “ Any of the other members about?”

  “Lord Wheel and His Holiness the Bishop of Transverse Province are in the billiards room. The Right Honorable Edward Blisk is in the members’ room reading the back issues of the Zeitung Tageblatt.”

  “Well then, that’s all right,” Harry said. “Come with me, Hellman.”

  As they walked through the carpeted hall, down the long line of oil paintings of robots on the walls, some of them wearing frock coats and wigs, Hellman said, “I didn’t know you had a title.”

  “Oh, that,” Harry said. “It’s not the sort of thing one talks about, is it?”

  The members’ room was large and comfortable, with deep bay windows and a purple rug. Several robots were sitting in armchairs reading newspapers which were attached to sticks. They all wore formal clothing complete with regimental neckties and highly polished brogans.

  “Ah, there’s Viscount Baseline!” Harry said, indicating a portly robot in a tweed shooting jacket reading a newspaper. “Basil! I’d like you to meet a friend of mine, Mr. Thomas Hellman. “

  “Delighted,” Basil Baseline said, starting to rise until Hellman indicated that he shouldn’t bother. “So this is the human fellow, eh? I believe I was told you are from Earth, Mr. Hellman?”

  “Yes, the dear old home planet,” Hellman said.

  “No place like it, eh?” Baseline said. “Well, take a seat, Mr. Hellman. Are they treating you all right? We may be backward here in Robotsville, but we know our manners, I hope. Eh, Harry?”

  “Everything is being done to assure Mr. Hellman’s comfort,” Harry said.

  Just then the butler came over and, bowing, said, “There is a light repast on the sideboard, Mr. Hellman. Nothing elaborate. Salmon, roast beef, trifle, that sort of thing.”

  Hellman allowed himself to be tempted. He tasted the food, cautiously at first, then with increasing abandon. The salmon was delicious, and the rosemary potatoes were second to none.

  Harry and Basil watched him eat with approval. “Surprised you, eh?” Basil said. “Bet you thought you’d get crankcase oil and steel shavings, eh? That’s the sort of stuff we eat, except for feast days when it’s boiled gaskets with iron punchings. Good stuff, eh, Harry?”

  “Very good indeed,” Harry said. “But not suitable for humans.”

  “Of course. We know that! Do try the trifle, Mr. Hellman. “

  Hellman did and declared it delicious. He considered asking how they had made it, but decided not to. It tasted good, it was the only food available to him at the moment, and there were some things he just didn’t want to know.

  It seemed almost churlish after such a meal to ask about his spaceship again. But Hellman did ask. The answers he received were evasive. His ship’s computer, after giving Harry the access code, had decided that the move had been premature and now had cut off contact with the robots of Robotsville. Hellman asked to speak to his spaceship, but Harry said it would be better to just let him alone for a while. “It’s quite a shock for a computer, you understand, coming to a place like this. Your ship’s computer is probably having a little difficulty adjusting. But never fear, he’ll come around. “

  The concert was interesting, but Hellman didn’t get much out of it. He enjoyed the first part, when the robot orchestra played old favorites by Hindemith and Bartуk, though even that was a little over his head. The second half of the performance, when the orchestra played recent compositions by the composers of Robotsville was difficult, however. It was apparent that robot hearing was much more acute than human, or at least more acute than Hellman’s, whose taste ran to rock and roll with the bass cranked up as high as it would go. The robots in the audience-there were nearly three hundred of them, and they all wore evening dress with white tie-really appreciated fractional intervals and complicated discords.

  After it was over the robots had another dinner for him, roast beef and baked ham, potatoes Lyonnaise, and gooseberry fool with clotted Devonshire cream. And so to bed.

  They had prepared a very pleasant suite for him on the second floor of the Athenaeum Club. Hellman was tired. It had been a long day. He determined to do something about his spaceship tomorrow. He would insist, if need be. But for now he was sleepy and filled with gooseberry fool. He went to sleep on silken sheets, spun, according to the tag attached to them, by special silk-spinning robots from the oriental section of Robotsville.

  Hellman was awakened in the small hours of the night by a scratching sound at his door. He sat upright in bed and took stock. Yes, there it was again. He could see nothing through the windows of his suite, so it must still be night. Either that or he had slept his way into a total eclipse of the sun. But that seemed unlikely.

  Again came the scratching sound. Hellman decided that a cat would make nice company now. Although he had no idea how a cat could have come to Newstart. He got up and opened the door.

  At first he thought the two people at his door were robots, because they were clad in silver one-piece jumpsuits and had elaborate helmets of bulletproof black plastic with glasslike visors through which Hellman couldn’t see but through which the wearers of them presumably could.

  “Any robots in there with you?” one of them said in a hoarse, very human voice.

  “No, but what-”

  They brushed past him, entered his suite and closed the door. They both opened their visors, revealing indubitably human faces of the tan and ruddy variety. The taller of the two men had a small black moustache. The shorter and plumper had a somewhat larger moustache with several gray hairs in it. Hellman remembered reading somewhere that robots had never succeeded in growing proper moustaches. That, even more than the plastic-encased identity cards they showed him, convinced him that they were indeed human.

  “Who are you?” Hellman asked, having f
ailed to notice their names on the identity cards.

  “I am Captain Benito Traskers, and this is First Lieutenant Lazarillo Garcia, a sus ordenes, seizor. “

  “You are from Earth?”

  “Yes, of a certainty, we are part of the Ecuadorian Assault Group attached to the Sector Purple Able Task Force.”

  “Ecuadorian?”

  “Yes, but we speak English.”

  “So I see. But what are you here for?”

  “To take you out of this, seсor. “

  “I don’t need anyone to take me out of anything,” Hellman said. “I’m not in any trouble.”

  “Ah,” Traskers said, “but you will be if you do not accompany us immediately to our ship. “

  “You have a ship here?”

  “It is the only way of getting from planet to planet,” Traskers said. “It is outside on the roof, camouflaged as a large shapeless object. “

  They seemed so nervous, glancing over their shoulders constantly at the closed door, that Hellman obliged them by dressing quickly in his space pilot’s outfit from Banana Republic and following them outside into the hall. They led him to the stairs that led to the roof.

  “But how did you know I was here?” Hellman asked, as they stepped through the skylight door and out onto the roof.

  “Your computer told us,” Garcia said.

  “So that’s what he’s been doing! And obviously he also told you where to find me.”

  “That’s not all he told us,” Traskers said, his tone insinuating in the Latin-American manner.

  “What else did he tell you?”

  They had reached their spaceship now. It was small and, once the shapelessness control had been turned off, trim. They hustled him inside and bolted the door.

  “But what about my spaceship?”

  “It is leaving this planet under its own power. You ought to be grateful you have a loyal spaceship, or rather, computer. Not every intelligent machine would have gone to all this bother. Thank God for the Laws of Robotics. “

  “But why all this secrecy? Why didn’t you land in the normal way and ask for me? These robots are most obliging.”