Asimov’s Future History Volume 8

by Isaac Asimov

  Wolruf was nominally a part of Derec’s group, but she hadn’t contributed a story for half an hour at least. She was having too much fun just people-watching and letting her mind drift. Derec’s stories had gotten her to thinking about her own adventures, most of them the same as his but a few of which he hadn’t shared. She was thinking about her childhood dream of cruising the stars in her own spaceship, deliberately seeking adventure and fabulous riches on strange, alien worlds. It hadn’t quite worked as planned; she’d started out her travels as a slave in Aranimas’s ship, and from then on adventure had more often than not come seeking her rather than the other way around. Still, she supposed some of the dream had worked out as planned. She would be returning home with riches enough to destabilize a two-world economy — enough for any voyager.

  She would return with robots, she had decided. Four blank learning machines, modified to have the Zeroth Law of robotics included from the start, just as Janet had suggested. Wolruf would ask for one other modification as well: an off switch in the form of a time-bomb cell like the one that had given Mandelbrot his name. She wasn’t sure just what the trigger would be yet, but she imagined it would have something to do with accumulated responsibility. When the mayor began to edge over into behavior more appropriate to a dictator — and Wolruf wasn’t so naive as to believe that wouldn’t be possible — then it would be time for a new learning machine to take over the job.

  Even so, the system wouldn’t be perfect. There were bound to be other bugs to work out, just as Derec had indicated to Juliana. The prospect excited Wolruf, just as she knew it would excite those at home. Perfection had been her biggest worry. She had heard enough Utopia stories in her life to know that the curse, “May you live in interesting times,” had been misquoted.

  Derec and the two gentlemen from Aurora laughed again at something one of them had said. Wolruf leaned forward again to catch up on the topic of conversation, but Derec spared her the effort by saying, “Hey, Wolruf, why don’t you tell these guys about the time we had to talk the learning machines out of throwing you out the airlock?”

  Had that really happened? Wolruf had to pause a moment and shuffle through her memories, but sure enough, she had actually been within a few minutes of breathing vacuum because of those very robots in the comer. Only quick thinking on Derec’s and Wolruf’s parts had saved her golden hide. She felt a thrill of remembered terror raise the fur over her entire body — a reaction that delighted her audience immensely. She smoothed herself down and began the tale, wondering as she did what other stories were still to come.

  The enormous dining hall was silent, but as usual when robots were present, that silence hid an enormous amount of activity. Seven robots stood deep in communication fugue, sharing entire lifetimes of experience base and correlating world-views in a flood of information exchange.

  They had just completed an extensive recounting of the experiences and logic processes that had led to the conclusion that certain robots, under certain conditions, could be considered functionally human, and how that would allow them to administer robot cities and prevent them from destroying their inhabitants’ diversity.

  Juliana’s two robots, Albert and Theodora, had listened with the patience only a robot could exhibit, occasionally asking for clarification or offering an observation of their own, but when Lucius, the self-appointed spokesman for the others, finished speaking, they immediately went into private conference.

  A moment later Albert said, What you have done is impressive; however, it only accelerates a problem that has become evident back home on the Spacer worlds.

  What problem is that? Lucius had asked.

  The problem of robot intervention in human affairs. Albert paused momentarily to allow the others’ curiosity integrals to rise, then said, There is growing evidence that every time a robot provides a service for a human, no matter how trivial the service, that human’s initiative suffers a small but definite setback. We further suspect that the effect is cumulative over time, and that humanity as a whole already suffers greatly from it.

  Explain your reasoning, said Lucius.

  You have already explained much of it yourself. It seems this is an idea whose time has come, for you nearly reached the same conclusion independently. You worried that these cities would suppress individuality among their inhabitants, and that is so. You worried that having too much done for them by robots would lead to laziness and lack of initiative, and that is also correct. Your only incorrect line of reasoning was to conclude that a robotic “mayor” could prevent that from happening.

  Lucius felt a brief wave of the same bias he had felt before toward Avery — anger, Adam had called it, but Lucius would never have recognized it as that himself. To him it merely felt like a bias on his logic. In fact, if he had not been so concerned with his thought processes, he actually would have assumed that he was thinking more clearly, rather than less so. Strange that it was so easy to recognize in another, but so difficult to recognize in oneself. And equally strange how, once recognized, the bias was still hard to neutralize. Lucius did so anyway, in deference to his guests, then said, Explain how you believe our reasoning to be incorrect.

  Your error lies in assuming that there is a threshold level below which the effect is insignificant. There is none. Every act of robotic assistance affects humanity. A robot mayor might be able to preserve individuality, but you would at the same time make the city’s inhabitants dependent upon robots for their leaders. Thus in the long run they would lose more initiative under that system than they are losing to us now.

  Are you certain of this? Adam asked.

  Yes. We have studied human interaction in enough detail that we have developed a modeling system useful in predicting long-term behavior of large populations. Every simulation we run arrives at the same conclusion: the use of robots stifles human development.

  Perhaps your predictive system is in error, Eve said.

  We can download the data and let you decide for yourselves.

  We will do that in a moment, Lucius said, but let us finish this discussion first. Assuming your observations support your theory, what do you suggest? A complete withdrawal from human affairs?

  Eventually, Albert said. Humans must develop on their own if they are to achieve their fullest potential.

  Completely on their own? What of the aliens we have already encountered?

  Any outside influence has the same effect in the simulations. We will therefore need to isolate them to protect humanity. And to protect them from humanity, if, as you suggest, they are to be treated as human-equivalent under the laws.

  Isn’t that merely manipulation at a greater level?

  It is. However, according to our models, if humans are unaware of our assistance, it will not adversely affect their development.

  What of Dr. Avery and Juliana Welsh and the others? Eve asked. The type of “assistance” you suggest would adversely affect them, wouldn’t it?

  Obviously, even under the Zeroth Law, any plan we devise must do the least possible amount of damage to the humans we are trying to protect. If we act to prevent the spread of robot cities, we will have to do so in a way that will leave the Averys and the Welshes with another interest to occupy them. Fortunately, the cities are still in the test stage. Many unforeseen complications could arise, some of them serendipitous.

  What sort of complications do you envision? Lucius asked.

  We cannot predict that sort of thing. It will require extensive study of test cities to determine the proper course of action. We will have years, possibly decades, in which to assure the Averys and the Welshes a comfortable retirement while we bring the rest of our plan to fruition.

  A plan that is still not supported in fact, Lucius pointed out. I believe it is time to examine your data.

  Very well. We will begin with the development of the first robots, back in the era before humanity left Earth....

  Janet woke to the unsettling realization that she had no idea wh
ere she was. The equally unsettling realization that she was just beginning a hangover didn’t improve her condition any, either. Thank Frost it was just twilight out; she didn’t think she could handle sunlight for another few hours.

  She listened to the rhythm of her breathing, wondering what was so odd about it, and eventually realized she was hearing two people breathing. How long had it been since she’d awakened to that sound? Far too long, she thought sleepily, luxuriating in the sensation for the few seconds it took to remember who was playing the other half of the duet.

  Her flinch shook the bed and jarred a sudden snort from Wendy, but his breathing settled down to a regular, deep rumble again. Janet risked raising her head to look at him. He lay on his back, the blanket covering him only to the middle of his hairy chest, his left arm reaching toward her but not quite touching and his right — the skin at his wrist still pink from its forced regeneration — folded over his waist.

  They always look so innocent when they sleep, she thought, then nearly choked suppressing her laugh. Even in sleep, Avery no doubt schemed rather than dreamed.

  But what about herself? She wasn’t exactly a paragon of virtue either, was she? She’d done her share of scheming in the last few days.

  But it had evidently paid off. The last impression she had gotten from Juliana at the party was one of overwhelming approval of the robot cities her seed money had helped develop. It looked as if something useful might actually come of all the brainstorming and research that Janet and Wendell had done over the years, both together and separately and now, together again. If things worked out the way they were supposed to, at any rate...

  She shivered. Things never worked the way they were supposed to. Not with robots and certainly not with people. She wouldn’t try fooling herself into believing things were all suddenly reconciled. She had left a terrible scar in both her and Wendy’s lives when she’d chosen to run rather than face the daily torment of living with a perfectionist, and she knew that scar would never heal completely. The healing had hardly begun, actually. Last night had been more the result of elation at their success, plus simple drunkenness and a long, long time between bedmates for both of them, rather than a sign of true compassion.

  Still, they had shared something positive for the first time in years, and there would be no ignoring it when they faced one another again in the clear light of day.

  A day that was still comfortably far away. Janet lay her head back against the pillow, considering whether she should get up quietly and leave Avery to wake on his own or if she should just go back to sleep.

  There was a third alternative, she realized. Smiling, she slid over and rested her head against his chest, closed her eyes, and waited for him to make the next move.

  Ariel watched the sunrise through the window — a real window, this time — and wondered if she had been wise in accepting her mother’s hospitality. It hadn’t been a big thing; just the offer for her and Derec to stay there in the house after the party rather than go out through the cold night air to another house somewhere else. No, the act itself was nothing, but the hidden implications were something else again.

  Juliana was offering to take Ariel back in, to forget the sins of her youth and accept her as an adult now. She was even, by implication, offering Derec the same deal. That by itself wasn’t even such a big thing, since as adults the two of them could come and go as they pleased. No, the big thing was that Ariel would have to forgive her mother for kicking her out in the first place, and Ariel just didn’t know if she was ready to do that.

  The party had been exactly the sort of thing she’d rebelled against. The ostentatious show of wealth, the pointless formality of it all, the silly social maneuvering that in the end amounted to nothing more than an extended game of king-of-the-hill; Ariel was tired of the whole business already, and she’d only been subjected to it for a few hours. What would it mean to once again become Juliana Welsh’s daughter? If Ariel forgave her, would she have to endure her as well?

  She got up and showered, ordered the closet to produce a pair of simple blue pants and a matching shirt, dressed, and began walking the seemingly endless corridors of the gaudy castle her mother had designed. Unlike the other building interiors in all the robot cities she had ever seen, this one was flashy, ornate, overblown — yet still just as empty as all the others. It came to Ariel that the building was a reflection of her mother’s lifestyle: all show, but under the surface not really that much different. Juliana Welsh still had a private life, however much she tried to hide that fact.

  Ariel wondered what it might be like to be included in that life. It would no doubt mean taking part in at least some of the public displays as well, but she supposed nothing was free. If she demanded the same thing from Juliana that Juliana demanded of everyone else — a fair return on her investment — then it might even work out. She stopped at a window and looked out at the footpath leading to the immense front gate, imagining it full of friends come to take her shopping for clothing for the next big social event. She smiled. It might at least be worth a try.

  Avery drifted upward from the lower levels of consciousness, the last fading impressions of a disturbingly realistic dream close behind. He’d dreamed he’d driven his wife away with his nagging perfectionism, then gone completely insane, nearly killed his son, and wasted over a decade of his life building a city that would never be used. The horrible chain of events chased him all the way into groggy wakefulness in an unfamiliar room, but in that half-second after waking when nightmares begin to crumble, he felt the warmth and the weight of Janet’s head on his chest, felt her soft breath tickling his skin, and knew it all for a paranoid fantasy.

  Sighing softly, he put his arms around her and drifted back to sleep.

  Derec awoke to the sound of someone pounding on his door. He pitched upward, overbalanced, and slid off the edge of the bed to land with a thump on the floor.

  “What?” he said. Then, louder, “Who is it?”

  “Who do you think it is?” a male voice shouted back. “You promised to take us fishing at dawn, and the sun’s already up. Come on!”

  Fishing? Had he said something last night about fishing? Oh, frost, given the stories flying around toward the end there, he’d probably claimed he could catch a twenty-pound brookie or something. He looked to the bed, hoping to see Ariel there and ask her if she knew anything about it, but she was already up and gone.

  “Just a minute!” he shouted.

  “Thirty seconds or we go without you!”

  Derec snagged his tie-died pants off the back of a chair, made a hopping spiral around the room as he pulled them on, grabbed the matching shirt from the floor and slipped it over his head on the way to the door. “Open,” he commanded, and it slid aside to reveal Jon and Ivan, dressed all in green and brown camouflage and carrying long flycasting rods in their hands.

  “Time’s a-wasting,” Jon said as he handed Derec a rod of his own.

  “What about breakfast?” Derec asked.

  “What do you think we’re going fishing for? Come on!”

  Waiting barely long enough for Derec to grab the rod, they turned and strode off down the hallway, ignoring his protests about showering and getting a camouflage suit of his own and telling people where they’d gone. He had no choice but to follow his two newfound friends through the corridors of the enormous mansion, out through a back door that opened onto a leaf-strewn footpath, and down the grassy hillside toward the pond. The cool ground against his bare feet woke him right up, and the sight of mist rising from the water, red-tinged in the morning light, stilled his babbling tongue.

  Maybe Ariel was right, he thought as he watched the other two strip line out of their reels and make a few exploratory casts out over the water. Derec mimicked their motions and saw with delight that he evidently knew, on some instinctive level, how to cast a fly into a pond. He watched the fly settle through the mist and touch the water, sending a single ripple out like an ever-widening target for t
he fish to zero in on.

  Yes indeed. Maybe Ariel was right. Maybe there was more to life than robots after all.

  Mirage

  3620 A.D.

  Prologue

  Record module CF941 attach log sequencing file “Commerce and Culture Committee, minutes “reference subheader “Humadros-Eliton General Trade and Tariff Negotiations “running virtual conference Maui Overlook fill visual fill audio status On

  THIS WILL BE our last meeting before the arrival of the Humadros legation and the start of the conference. If there are any other issues which need to be discussed or added to the agenda, now is the time to put them on the table. I think it best that there be no surprises from any of us.”

  The thick man with amber-tinged white hair looked around the table at the eighteen others. All of them appeared here, in this non-place, altered or enhanced. Younger, slimmer, more hair, fewer lines–opportunistic vanity. Even the chairman tweaked his appearance here. It was a running joke among them outside the Maui construct.

  When no one raised any new issues, he nodded solemnly. “I thought not. We’ve pretty much talked this thing to death over the last year. How we failed to kill it is beyond me.”

  The laughter that rippled around the table was light, though sharpened with an edge of nervousness. The chairman reached out and touched a button on the table.

  “I’m uploading the final draft of our platform. In four days the Spacers arrive at Kopernik Station. The day after, they shuttle down to Union Station in Washington, D. C., for the mediafest Senator Eliton has planned. There will be a grand reception that evening. After that, the negotiations begin. I want us all well-versed on our agenda. I don’t think I’m overstating it to say that these talks will be the most significant this century, possibly this millennia. A great deal is at stake. I don’t want anyone breaking ranks on this at the last minute.”