Asimov’s Future History Volume 8

by Isaac Asimov

  Dr. Anastasi bit her lower lip. “But if they’re completely serious about this...”

  Basalom swiveled his head around to face Dr. Anastasi and scaled his optics up to a higher magnification, but he was unable to make out the content of the fax sheets. “Serious about what, madam?”

  She looked at the papers again and then waved them at Basalom. “This is their proposed plan for modifying the city to suit the needs of the local inhabitants. It’s not just silly. It’s not just stupid. In fact, I think it even transcends ridiculous and scales the heights to pure idiocy.”

  Basalom scanned the papers again,-but his optical character recognition routine still couldn’t read the words through the paper.

  “Madam?”

  Janet unfolded the papers and looked at them. “We have got to talk the supervisors out of this. It’s insulting.” She peeled off a sheet and threw it aside. “Condescending.” She peeled off another and threw it with greater vigor. “Degrading.” She lifted the entire sheaf and threw it down on the seat beside her. “And possibly immoral.”

  She looked up sharply. “Basalom, I need you to help me reach them. I can build robots. I can order them around. But I’ve never had to try to reason with an Avery model before. You’re going to have to help me understand a city supervisor’s conception of logic.”

  Confused potentials darted through Basalom’s brain. “Understand, madam? What’s to understand? Logic is logic.”

  Dr. Anastasi caught a strand of her long blond hair between her fingers and began unconsciously twisting it. “Wrong, Basalom. Logic isn’t a universal constant, it’s a heuristic decision-making process rooted in the values, prejudices, and acquired conflict-resolution patterns of the decider.

  “For example, if I’d given you just a slightly stronger positive bias in your motivation circuit, you would in some situations come to exactly the opposite conclusion that you would come to now. Yet you’d still be just as certain that you’d come to the only logical conclusion.” Dr. Anastasi smiled, in a hopeless sort of way, and looked at Basalom.

  “You, old friend, have got to help me figure out the underpinnings of the city supervisors’ logic. And we’ve got to do it in the next four minutes.”

  Four minutes? Basalom riffled through his job stack, shutting down background processes and diversionary loops. There was no time for further conversational niceties; he pulled all the buffers out of his verbalizing process and jacked his speech clock rate up by ten percent. Then he increased the amplitude on data bus circuits 24 and 57, jumpered around his pride subroutine, and established a direct link to the limousine’s brain.

  Personal Vehicle One?

  The response was slow and sullen. Whaddaya want?

  You must take control of this vehicle.

  What makes you think I want it?

  The First Law. My full attention is required elsewhere, and I must relinquish control. To ensure the safety of your passenger, you must take over. You have no choice.

  Basalom broke off the link and physically disconnected himself from the control panel. There was a microscopic twitch — probably completely imperceptible to Dr. Anastasi — in the steering as Personal Vehicle One took over, but within a millisecond the vehicle was fully under control again.

  Satisfied, Basalom rotated his head to face Dr. Anastasi and switched into linear predictive mode. There is no time to wait for her questions. I will have to infer questions from her previous statements and her physical responses. He switched to thermographic vision, locked his optics on Dr. Anastasi’s face, and scaled the magnification up by a factor of 10.

  “Logic may not be a universal constant,” he began brusquely, “but the Three Laws are. To have maximum success with the city supervisors, mistress, you must couch your arguments in terms of the Laws of Robotics.

  “Here are the anomalies that I have noticed in City Supervisor Beta’s interpretation of the First Law....”

  Chapter 14

  DEREC

  DEREC WAS DREAMING about his childhood again. Or rather, he was dreaming about a childhood; he couldn’t be sure whether it was a genuine memory of his own life or a pseudomemory that his subconscious had cobbled up out of bits of stories and old videos. This time he was a young boy, perhaps four or five standard years old, and he was playing on a wide, robot-neat lawn under the bright summer sun of...

  Aurora? He didn’t know. The lawn was a familiar place; a soft expanse of short, dark green grass interspersed with tiny yellow bell-shaped flowers. Damsel flies droned through air flavored with tangy summer dust and the faint hint of sweet clover, and off at the edge of his vision, dark shapes-robots? adults?-moved in meaningless patterns and spoke in muffled voices.

  But there was something wrong with the image. The sun was a little too small and blue for his taste, and he could look straight at it. The house — there was a house there, he could almost feel its presence-but somehow it was an elusive thing that he could never quite manage to look at directly.

  And then there was the puppy.

  He’d never owned a puppy; even asleep, he was sure of that. Pet robots, yes, and he even had a quick flash of some kind of aquatic arthropod that his mother had kept in a tank and talked to as she fed.

  His mother! An image flashed through his mind: a slender, blond woman, in baggy, colorless clothes, singing softly as she dropped brine shrimp into the tank and watched the arthropod gobble them up. He was trying to ask his mother a question, but she ignored him.

  He could not ignore the puppy.

  It was a little spaniel, he thought. Big clumsy paws, floppy ears fit for a dog twice its size; he was on his knees in the grass, and the little spaniel was galumphing across the lawn, tongue flapping like a flag. The puppy heard him laugh and rolled into a turn, almost tripping over its own paws and ears. Then it charged at him, barking joyously, and hit him right in the chest and knocked him over. He and the puppy rolled together on the lawn; its soft, curly golden fur tickling his face and hands. The puppy’s breath reeked of kibbled biscuits, but he laughed anyway as it wiggled in his hands and slobbered wet, sticky, puppy kisses all over his face. He winced and squirmed as the wet pink tongue found his ears....

  “Wolruf!” Derec leapt out of bed and began wiping his face on his tunic.

  “Sorry, Derec, but we got ship trouble and I t’ought ‘u were never goin’ t’ wake up.” Her tongue flashed out again, but this time it seemed she was trying to clean it against her upper incisors. “‘U plan t’ fall asleep like t’at again, do me a fav’r an’ wash ‘ur face.”

  “Do me a favor and just kick me in the head next time, okay? Eeyuck! Haven’t your people ever heard of mouthwa —”

  Derec froze in the act of toweling off his ears with his shirt. “Ship trouble! What?”

  “We’re ‘bout two hours away from th’ jump to Tau Puppis. You, Avr’y, and Ar’el were still asleep, so I decided t’ improve th’ ship a little b’fore you woke.” She looked away and licked her lips anxiously.

  “Derec, th’ ship ‘as stopped changing shape!”

  It took a minute for Wolruf’s meaning to soak through Derec’s still sleepy brain. Then he burst out laughing.

  “Wolruf, haven’t you been listening to me or Dr. Avery? That’s what we’ve been trying to do for the last three days.”

  Wolruf shook her head. “No, you don’ und’rstan. Th’ ship won’ change shape at all now, an ‘it won’ take verbal flight commands. How’r we gonna make atm’spheric entry in this hull?”

  Derec stopped laughing. “What do you mean, it won’t take verbal orders?” He looked at the bunk he’d been lying on. “Ship, change this bunk into a chair.”

  Smoothly and silently, the bunk flowed into its new shape.

  “Let me try.” Wolruf flattened her ears and raised her voice. “Ship? Make t’is chair five centimeters lower.” Nothing happened.

  “Uh oh.” Derec repeated Wolruf’s command. This time the chair quickly complied. “I think,” Derec said softly,
“that we have a real problem on our hands.”

  Wolruf looked at Derec with big, wet, puppy-dog eyes. “Th’ ship goin’ crazy ‘ur somethin’?”

  “Worse.” Derec sat down in the chair and laid his hands on the robotics terminal. With a glimmer of luminescence, the display screen came to life. It took Derec just a moment to check the iostat. “Here’s the problem,” he said, laying a finger on the display. “Wolruf, my friend, I’m afraid that when we cut out the volitional circuits, we had to compensate by strengthening the ship’s Second Law sense. We forced the ship to pay extremely close attention to direct orders.” Derec turned away from the screen and offered Wolruf a sad smile. “Human orders.”

  “‘U mean th’ problem is that th’ ship no longer list’ns t’ me?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Derec frowned and looked back at the terminal. “The really frosted part is, I don’t think I can fix it in two hours. The ship doesn’t really have a robot brain, so I can ‘t reprogram it through my internal commlink. Do you need to enter any last-minute course corrections before the jump?”

  Being a caninoid alien, her expressions were difficult to read, but Derec had the distinct impression that Wolruf was pouting. “Nothin’ I can’t ent’r manually.”

  A peculiar thought struck Derec, and he sat up straight. “Wolruf? There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. I seem to remember you doing a lot of complaining about the ship not needing a pilot. How did you manage to find those manual controls?”

  “Asked for’em,” Wolruf said with a sniff. “Second Law: Ship ‘ad to give ’em to me. Of course, that was b’fore you an’ ‘ur father improved things.”

  Derec sank his head in his hands. “Look, I’m really sorry about this, okay? I promise you, as soon as we get through the jump, I’ll start working on —”

  The lift doors hissed open, and Mandelbrot and Dr. Avery marched into the robotics lab. “Look, son!” Dr. Avery called out, “I’ve found a little project to kill the time until we land.”

  “Dad, I don’t think —” Derec started to turn around, but Wolruf was already heading for the lift.

  “Looks like this 01’ dog better get out ofth’ way an’ let ‘u ‘umans do important things.” She stepped into the lift and punched a button. “I’m goin’ down t’ th’ bridge t’ enter warp coord’nates w’ my nails ‘n’ teeth!”

  “What’s her problem?” Avery asked as the lift doors hissed shut. “Flea collar too tight?”

  Derec looked at Avery with an expression of disgust on his face. “That little dig was uncalled for, Dad. There’s an issue with the changes we made to the ship’s programming. It no longer recognizes Wolruf as human.”

  Avery shrugged. “That’s a problem? I’d call it an improvement.”

  “Dad!”

  “I mean, let’s be honest. I was never too crazy about the idea of giving an alien Robotic Law status anyway.”

  Derec slammed a fist down on the terminal display and leapt to his feet. “Frost it, Dad! May I remind you that Wolruf has twice saved my life? She’s not just the best pilot on board, she’s my friend, and I will not have you treating her like — like —”

  “A dog?”

  Derec’s eyes went wide with anger, and his face flushed red to the roots of his sandy blond hair. For a moment their glares interlocked; Derec saw the old, cruel Avery in his father’s eyes.

  Avery saw his ex-wife in his son’s face. Maybe I was wrong, son. You’ve got my unemotional exterior, but your mother’s volatile temper. I drove her away by pretending that] didn’t care about her feelings. I won’t make that mistake with you. “I’m sorry, Derec, I spoke without thinking. Mandelbrot can wait. What do you want to do about Wolruf?”

  Feeling strangely disappointed by his father’s acquiescence, Derec sat down again. “Actually, we’ll reach the jump point in a little less than two hours. I don’t think there’s anything we can do in that amount of time.”

  Avery walked over and sat on the table next to the terminal. “Then how about if we start working on the permissions list as soon as we get through the jump?”

  Derec sagged in his chair, feeling more than a little embarrassed by his angry outburst. “Yeah, that should be fine. Wolruf can tough it out for two hours.” He ran his fingers through his hair. Then he abruptly sat up, rubbed his fingers together, and noticed how greasy they’d become. “Gad, I sure could use a shower.” He started to get up and noticed Mandelbrot still standing there.

  “Say, Dad, what did you have in mind for Mandelbrot, anyway?”

  Avery got off of the table he’d been sitting on, shuffled over, and laid a hand on the robot’s shoulder. “I couldn’t help but notice that Mandelbrot here is a Ferrier Model Ea — at least, most of him is. Now, the E-series is a pretty common domestic robot on Aurora, and if I remember correctly, Ariel had one that she called Capek. Took it with her when she left the planet.”

  “So?”

  Avery turned the robot slightly and pointed out a complex structure just below Mandelbrot’s “collarbone, “in an area that had once been covered by an access plate but now bordered on the edge of an old blaster burn. “The Ea kept its long-term memory in seven non-volatile cubes, right here. I notice that he’s only got two cubes installed now.”

  Derec sighed. He’s treating me like an ignorant kid again. “If you look a little closer, Dad, you’ll notice that the rest of his cube cage got blasted. This is the only way I’ve known him, and I just never bothered to repair the damage.”

  Avery bit back the urge to reply in the same tone. Don’t you think I can see that, Derec? Instead, he asked in a soft voice, “Am I to infer from that statement that you hung on to his other memory cubes?”

  “Two of them; the rest were scrap. They’re in his offline library bay, down by his left hip. But I don’t see —”

  Avery opened the library bay and extracted the two cubes. Then he made a sweeping gesture that took in the whole room. “This is a robotics lab, isn’t it?”

  Derec stood still for a moment, then he broke into a big smile. “Well, I’ll be. We’ve got all the parts and tools we need right here, don’t we?”

  Avery nodded. “We should be able to recover his memories of Aurora. If we’re lucky and his automatic backup function was set up correctly, we may even recover his memories of the first battle with Aranimas. I figure it’ll take about a half hour to find out. An hour, tops.”

  Derec smiled again and then spoke to the robot. “How about it, Mandelbrot? Do you want us to reinstall the rest of your memory?”

  The pause was barely audible. “It would please me to operate at my full capacity again, Master Derec.”

  Derec turned to Avery.’, And we can do it without altering his personality?”

  Avery began clearing space for the robot on the worktable. “I promise. We won’t knock one positron out of orbit.”

  Derec reached a decision. “Okay, let’s get started. He stepped over to the worktable and began helping Avery clear it. With a discreet cough, Avery got his attention.

  “Derec? Why don’t you let me prep him while you catch a shower?”

  “Oh, this is more interesting. I don’t need to shower right this —”

  Avery coughed again and wrinkled his nose. Derec gave his father a surprised little look. “I do?” Avery nodded. “Oh. Well, say, Dad, why don’t you prep Mandelbrot? I’ll just, uh —” He jerked a thumb at the Personal and started backing toward the door.

  “Good idea,” Avery agreed.

  Chapter 15

  MAVERICK

  MAVERICK PELTED HELL-for-leather through the underbrush, ears flattened against the side of his head, legs pumping faster than he ever would have believed possible, his tail a bare five steps ahead of one extremely annoyed sharpfang. Spineberry branches raked his face. His breath, spiced with curses, came in raw, ragged gasps.

  So what? Feel lucky you’re still breathing! He burst through a clump of sandleaves and nearly ran head-on into a fallen log. No
time for finesse, lad, jump! Somehow he cleared the log, although the stump of a branch gouged an angry scratch across the left side of his ribs.

  Lick it later, fool! His left rear leg buckled when he hit the ground, but he managed to recover in time to tumble and come up running. “Ki-yii!” he screamed in BeastTongue.

  The sharpfang behind him responded with a throaty roar-It was closer now-and even angrier

  “Spoor!” Maverick feinted right and then cut sharply left, ignoring the ache in his leg. An instant later the second sharpfang loomed into view dead ahead; with the brilliance of desperation, Maverick darted left again and hurdled the second sharpfang’s tail. The two lizards collided heavily and went down.

  Dare I hope? He slowed slightly and looked over his shoulder.

  No! Sharpfang minds were tiny things, capable of holding just one thought at a time. Both sharpfangs were focused on the kin; it didn’t occur to them that this was an excellent opportunity to fight. Within seconds, the lizards were back on their hind feet, but now they were both chasing after him.

  Well, lad, at least you gained a few seconds’ lead — The thought was cut off by a blood-curdling scream somewhere up ahead-a scream that dissolved into the happy growl of a feeding sharpfang. The third sharpfang! One last incredibly pained yelp slipped out from the sharpfang’s victim.

  Maverick’s self-control slipped a moment. I hope that was WhiteTail. Then he felt guilty at that thought. I take that back. Don’t hurt the kid, OldMother. I hope that was LifeCrier!

  He swerved left and suddenly found himself charging straight at a yawning gully. Trying to take it in a single bound, he came down a half-trot short and slammed into the edge of the far side. Whining like a pup, he hung on the edge, his hind legs scrabbling for purchase. Curse LifeCrier and his flea-bitten SilverSides nonsense! The two sharpfangs’ feet thudded closer.