Robota

by Doug Chiang

  The machine spoke.

  The voice, coming suddenly as it did, startled him so he did not listen at first, and when he began to pay attention, he found that although he understood most of the words, none of the sentences meant anything to him. What was Font Prime? What did the machine want him to do? It seemed as though the message might be instructions on how to do something, but he had no idea of the purpose or the process. It might as easily have been directions for a journey, but he had no idea of the destination or the route.

  1.2The Cryptic Messenger

  What has happened to me, he wondered, to leave me so ignorant of who I am or what I am supposed to do or why I’m in this place at all?

  A shadow passed across a window of the machine. Someone was outside.

  His first thought was to rush out and ask for explanations.

  Then it occurred to him that not everything that could cast a shadow would be harmless, let alone friendly.

  He looked for a weapon he might use to defend himself, but all he could find was what seemed to be a tool. It was not designed to kill anything, but it was metal and would give greater force to any blow he might strike with his hand.

  1.3The Forest Clearing

  He unlatched the door and pushed. It opened easily, swinging up under its own power. Outside, the machine was surrounded by a grass meadow, which was rimmed by enormous trees. Climbing to the top of the machine, he looked around for the source of the shadow.

  At that moment there burst from the forest a monstrous creature that must have been fifteen meters high. It pounded the ground with each footfall as it loped toward him.

  “Run!” cried a shrill voice behind him.

  He whirled to see who was speaking, only to have a monkey leap to his shoulders and screech again in his ear. “Run, you fool!”

  The giant creature was almost upon him. Monkey on his shoulders, he leapt from the machine onto the grass and ran toward the trees.

  The monster kept running, but it made no effort to follow him. Instead, it headed straight for the trees on the opposite side of the clearing from where it had entered.

  The jodphur is running away, he thought.

  And then he thought, How do I know it’s called a jodphur?

  A loud crack rang out. The huge creature stumbled, fell into a tree, then spun around in a slow, clumsy dance and fell to the ground, dead.

  “Stay still,” whispered the monkey on his shoulder. “Make no sound.”

  He stood in the shadows, hidden in the undergrowth, as the hunters came into the clearing. At first they were only shadows moving in the green shade of the trees. One of them smoked a pipe, as if he were out for a leisurely stroll rather than hunting monsters.

  Then the hunters emerged into sunlight. They were not men at all. They were robots, carrying long thin rifles in their equally thin arms, moving on slender legs with the grace and precision of spiders.

  1.4Rend

  1.5Kaantur, the Hunter

  “Tinheads,” whispered the monkey scornfully.

  Even the one with a pipe was a robot.

  How absurd. What pleasure could the fumes of a smoldering leaf bring to a mechanical mind?

  The monkey began to tremble. “It’s Kaantur-Set. He’s going to find us, find us, find us.”

  “Quiet.”

  “He has a tool that lets him find us!” The monkey’s voice rose in fear until it became a screech.

  The smoking robot and several of the others turned their heads languidly toward him, and rifles began to shift in metal arms.

  “Run!” cried the monkey.

  But he was already running, the monkey clinging to his shoulders, his clothing, his hair. Behind him, he could hear the rhythmic pounding of the robots’ feet as they bounded after him in perfect unison. Beat, beat, beat, beat. Closer, louder.

  And before him the ground dropped away, three times deeper than the jodphur had been tall, steep as a wall. Before him stretched the walls and towers of an abandoned human city, overgrown with trees and vines, yet still splendid in its majesty. The nearest building was fifteen meters away, an ancient temple whose wall was shaped like a human face. No bridge spanned the gap. No man could jump so far.

  The monkey leapt from his shoulders and scrambled down vines that clung to the face of the cliff. The man knew he would never be able to match the monkey’s speed in climbing and would make too large a target, helpless as he descended.

  The pounding of the robots’ feet grew louder. He could hear them crashing through the undergrowth.

  So he leapt.

  He had no time to think of what he could or could not do; he simply jumped outward. He had no running start. He just pushed off with all the strength of his legs. As soon as he was in the air, he knew that he would die, for the drop was too far for a man to fall and still live.

  But he did not hit the ground. Instead he slammed into the parapet atop the temple on the far side of the chasm.

  He had no time to wonder how he could have leapt so far. He had to get over the parapet and behind the massive tree that grew atop the sculpted head like a spear that had pierced it.

  As he scrambled upward, the ancient, moss-eaten stone crumbled under his hands and feet. He slid. He fell, bumping against the nose and then crashing onto bare stone at the temple’s base.

  1.6The Leap

  He must have been dazed by the fall, for by the time he was able to raise his head from the ground and look around, two robots were already upon him, pointing their rifles at him.

  But they did not shoot. Waiting? For the one with the pipe? The one the monkey had called Kaantur-Set?

  Was there some way to escape? I am stronger than I imagined possible, he thought, to have made the leap I made. Yet these robots must have strength beyond anything a human’s bones could support. Strength and quickness and accuracy. I couldn’t run away quickly enough; fighting them would be useless; yet to lie here and die …

  Suddenly a tall shape moved into view behind the robots, silhouetted by the sun behind it. Something sinuous in its movements told him this newcomer was alive, not a machine. Not a jodphur this time. Rapidly it moved toward the robots and, with huge hands, struck blows that knocked the weapons from their grips. The hunter-beast picked up one robot, then the other, and broke them like branches.

  1.7No Escape

  1.8Juomes and the Robots

  Without showing a sign that he had even seen the man, the hunter-beast bent over and pried the antennae from the robots he had just broken.

  The hunter-beast wore an apparatus on its head that covered its ears and had a thin rod that extended near its mouth. A headset, the man realized. So it can hear. And speak. It has language.

  “Thank you,” said the man.

  “This is no place for humans,” answered the hunter-beast.

  Of course it could speak. Like the monkey, hadn’t it been bred partly from human genes? A robot-killer that could handle enemies that ordinary humans could not fight?

  Why do I know this, and yet so little else?

  “Tinheads kill any animal they find,” said the hunter-beast.

  “What’s your name?” asked the man.

  “Juomes,” said the hunter-beast. “What’s yours?”

  He could not answer because, of course, he did not know. “There were robots behind me, up on top of the cliff.”

  “Then soon they’ll be down here,” said Juomes. “When they get the trail of a human, they never give up.” Trophies in hand, Juomes turned and climbed onto a large flea-like creature.

  “Don’t leave me,” said the man. “I don’t know where I am or where to go.”

  Juomes barely paused. “When they follow you, I don’t want them to find me. Rend will lead you.”

  “Rend?” said the man to Juomes’s back. And then the hunter-beast was gone.

  At once the monkey leapt from a low branch and scampered along the foot of the temple wall.

  “I’m Rend, you fool!” cried the monkey. “Don�
��t you remember anything? They’re coming, they’re going to find you, follow me! Follow me, Caps!”

  “Is that my name?” asked the man.

  “It is until they kill you because you’re too stupid to move out of this clearing!” screeched Rend.

  Caps followed him into dark low paths among the trees, winding upward, around the steep cliff that Caps had jumped. “You know me, then?” he asked.

  “We go through this every time,” said Rend. “Don’t you learn anything?”

  “I don’t remember ever doing this before,” said Caps.

  “Well, I can promise you I don’t plan to do it again,” said Rend.

  “Take me back to the machine I came out of,” said Caps. “Where you found me. There must be something there that will tell me what I’m supposed to do. Maybe it’ll play the message it played before, and you can listen to it and help me understand it.”

  Rend leapt up and dangled from a branch before his face. “I don’t go in there,” said Rend. “You’re on your own.”

  Rend pointed the way for Caps to go, then swung up into the higher branches, calling down as he climbed, “You’re on your own now!”

  Moving as quickly as he could in the direction Rend had pointed, Caps soon emerged into the clearing where his machine had been. But it was not there.

  It had been dragged away from the clearing. Since the machine was large and heavy, Caps was not eager to meet whatever it was that had moved it. Yet if he was to find out more about who he was and what he was supposed to do, he had no choice but to follow its path into the forest.

  Caps might have the ability to leap across chasms, but that did not make him good at stealth in the woods. He did not see the hunter robot until he was almost upon him.

  1.9Juomes’ Warning

  This robot was not quite like the others — he was marked with orange on his right arm, though what the marking meant Caps could not guess. And instead of pointing his weapon at him, the robot merely gestured harshly for him to leave.

  But he did not speak. Because he could not? Or because he did not want to be heard?

  When Caps did not obey, the hunter shook his head and then ran off into the woods.

  Caps looked around to see if the hunter was warning him of something. But how far could he see into the underbrush? He looked up into the branches of a tree and saw nothing there, either.

  1.10Hunting Party

  1.11The Encounter and the Warning

  And yet his eyes kept returning to one spot, as if some deep part of his brain recognized something that his conscious mind did not. He studied the place, and gradually came to realize that, even though it was very still, there was something alive perched among the branches.

  Alive, not a robot. Even before he realized it was a human, he knew it was not a machine.

  As he stared, the figure moved, emerging from its hidden posture to stand openly on a heavy branch. It was a young woman, luminous with beauty, wearing ragtag clothing that, astonishingly, was white. How had she managed to remain concealed? Why would she wear white in a place where robots were hunting? She seemed to have ample reason for confidence, judging from the robot-antenna trophies she wore on her belt.

  Why is she watching me? Or was she watching the hunter robot? Did I spoil her kill? Or …

  Before he could speculate further, Rend burst screeching from the woods, soaring three meters over Caps’s head. “I found your nest!” he cried. “But the hunters found me!”

  Caps did not wait to see how close behind Rend the hunter robots were. He followed him into the woods, and the chase was on again.

  Rend knew where he was going, and Caps did not, so this time Caps followed him faithfully. Soon they were back at the temple ruins, and Rend flung himself into a shadow that did not look like an opening.

  As he dropped to the ground and slid into the opening, Caps realized that it still didn’t look like an opening, or not much of one. The robots were more slender than any adult human — they could go through any aperture Caps could fit through. But what made this passage a good escape was that it bent almost immediately between stones, first to the right, then down, then left, then up, then out, in turns so tight that Caps had to contort himself in ways he had not imagined possible in order to fit.

  Robots might be stronger and quicker and thinner than humans, but their joints weren’t as flexible and their skin had no give to it. This was one of the few places where a man could go and a robot couldn’t.

  Caps wondered, briefly, if that’s precisely why this passageway was built.

  But how could it have been? This temple dated from the glorious days when robot and human were still friends, living together, cooperating, learning from each other.

  How do I know that? wondered Caps yet again.

  In the darkness he bumped into something hairy.

  “Rend?” asked Caps.

  “Up or down?” asked Rend.

  “How should I know? You’re the one who knows the passageways, not me.”

  “I only come here to hide from predators. I wait till they go away or fall asleep. But Kaantur-Set will post a watch. Robots never sleep. Robots never disobey.”

  Caps thought of the orange-marked robot and wondered.

  Outside the passageway, they could hear a harsh voice reprimanding the hunters. “You had him in your sights. You didn’t fire. Why?”

  Caps heard no reply. Then a single gunshot suggested there would never be a reply.

  Again the harsh voice. “And you? Where were you?”

  “I thought I saw him in the trees.”

  Could this be the orange-marked robot?

  “Thought?”

  “I saw something, and thought that it was him.”

  “I should shoot you, too.”

  “If I deserve it, you will,” said the robot.

  “Stand guard, and shoot any beast or man that comes out of that hole,” said Kaantur-Set. “I will also have a guard stand watch on you, from up there, where you can’t see.”

  Could it be the orange-marked robot? Kaantur-Set had not killed him, but he did not fully trust him, either. Had the orange-marked robot been trying to save Caps’s life by motioning him to leave?

  Don’t try to find explanations alone in the dark, Caps told himself.

  “Up or down?” Caps asked Rend.

  “I asked you first,” said Rend.

  “Down, then.”

  This passageway was much smoother, and instead of sharp angles it had gentle curves and bends.

  Then a stone rocked downward and sent Caps and Rend slipping down a steep slide. They didn’t stop until they became entangled in a net, which swung out to dangle in the middle of a dimly lit room.

  “I think this is a trap,” said Rend.

  “But not an ancient one,” said Caps. “Because this net is new.”

  “You smell like a human,” said Rend, sniffing disdainfully.

  “I’m allergic to monkey fur,” said Caps.

  “I thought you didn’t remember anything,” said Rend.

  “I didn’t remember it. I discovered it,” said Caps.

  The room had once been ceremonial. The walls were painted with heroic-sized depictions of humans and robots engaged in solemn activities together. But all around the room, shelves and tables had been put up, many of them makeshift contraptions that could barely support their contents.

  What they held were a few books, a lot of papers in haphazard-looking stacks, and bottles, jars, vials, boxes, tubes, trays, dishes, and a weird assortment of once-living things — heads and other body parts of various animals, lots of different leaves and roots, and hundreds of herbs growing in pots placed along the one wall, which would presumably be scanned by sunlight from the high windows during the course of the day.

  Specimens. Whoever used this room was a biologist. This was a laboratory.

  Then they heard the grinding sound of stone rolling across stone, and they fell silent, waiting to see who their captor was.r />
  It was the hunter-beast Juomes, who had saved him after he fell. Juomes moved about slowly, taking off his trophies and weapons, putting them away, giving no sign that he saw that his net was full. Neither Caps nor Rend felt any need to break the silence.

  “Got away from the tinheads,” said Juomes at last, chuckling, “and came to visit me.”

  He lowered the net to the ground and unfastened it at the top. Rend immediately scampered away, running for safety, hiding somewhere. Caps didn’t have that option.

  Instead he studied his … what, captor? Deliverer? He noticed that on a jewel that hung on a chain around Juomes’s neck, there was inscribed a symbol Caps had seen inside the machine where he awoke. The symbol had no meaning to him, but he thought it significant that Juomes voluntarily wore something that might be connected to the machine. It did not prove him to be either friend or foe. It was simply a fact, which Caps would remember and try to make sense of. If there was some link to the machine, there was a chance Juomes would know something to help Caps understand who he was and what had happened to his memory.

  1.12Juomes

  2.1Portrait of the Hunters

  But it was Juomes who asked the questions, not Caps, and when he learned of the machine, he insisted that Caps and Rend lead him there. Once they got him in the vicinity, Juomes took the lead, sniffing the air and holding still, listening and watching carefully, and then moving branches slowly so that the three of them made no sound as they passed through the underbrush to a good vantage point.

  The robots had webbed the machine with cables and were hitching it to several large beasts. Apparently they meant to haul it somewhere — probably to a road. Caps thought it ironic that the robots had to resort to the labor of beasts when a really difficult task was at hand. Later, when he said as much to Juomes, the hunter-beast spat and said, “They have no problem with domesticated animals. If we were tame and they could use us as tools, they’d not kill us, either.”