Intruder iarcraa-3

by Robert Thurston

  Now that night had fallen, the darkness inside the Compass Tower office seemed total to Ariel. She stuck her head out from beneath the blanket and could not discern anything. After blinking her eyes a few times, however, details of the room appeared to emerge from the blackness.

  “It’s eerie,” she whispered.

  Derec, who had nearly fallen asleep, was startled awake and asked, “What did you say?”

  “Eerie, the darkness in here. I mean, the room. Usually all those view-screens are on, transmitting scenes from the outside world.”

  “They are on. There’s just so little light out there, you can hardly tell.” He sat up. “But it is awfully dark. Let’s take a better look.”

  After adjusting their clothing, Derec led Ariel to the desk that dominated one side of the room. Flicking on a small desk lamp (it had been so dark, even that flimsy light pained her eyes), he pulled out the slab of controls from its position just beneath the desk blotter. Sitting down, Derec worked the controls, searching for clearer pictures or any kind of image that would be displayed recognizably on a view-screen. Most of the screens remained shadowy. Here and there they could see the shapes of buildings, sometimes a few dim stars in the sky.

  He pointed one camera downward, and it picked up the pools of light near the Compass Tower. They came, he saw, from some light bands in a building across the way. Apparently the lighting system there had not broken down.

  “Look there.” He pointed to the view-screen. “Something’s happening down there.” He zoomed in on the movement, enlarging the image until they could plainly see Timestep doing his dance. The robot, with a movement approaching grace, leaped from pool to pool. Derec turned up the volume on the sound pickup, and they could hear the hollow, plaintive, echoing, tapping sounds.

  “Weird,” Ariel said. “Do you think that’s the dancer we met?”

  “Looks like him.”

  Timestep stretched his arms outward and tapped to the left, then he shuffled a bit and made the same move to the right.

  “It’s not like human dancing,” Ariel said, “but it has its own elegance, its own special grace. You know, once-when I was about twelve or thirteen-I was given an old mechanical toy, some kind of precursor to robots, perhaps, but really just a toy that was wound up and run. It was a little metal man in a harlequin costume, and it stayed in one place, a tiny pole running up its back. When it was switched on, it did this queer, floppy dance. Its legs bent in right angles at the knees, then came down and hit its pedestal a couple of times, then resumed its stance with the right-angled knees, then down again, and so forth. I was fascinated by it, played with it for hours. I liked it better than all the technologically fashionable toys that were arranged in clusters around my room. But I think my mother sneaked in when I was asleep and took it away. I don’t remember who gave it to me. Look at that.”

  Timestep had executed an extravagantly long soft-shoe glide, coming to a stop beside another robot she hadn’t previously noticed.

  “Say, that’s-what did he call himself?-Bogie, wasn’t it? What are those two doing down there?”

  “I don’t know, but it seems terribly coincidental that the two of them should wind up together and right near the Compass Tower entrance, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe. I wish Timestep’d dance again. He couldn’t possibly be tired.”

  “What did you get out of it? The dance, I mean. It might be a bit unusual, but it was just a robot dancing. They can do anything they’re programmed to do.”

  “Don’t be so pragmatic. There was a beauty in his dance.”

  “Only in your mind. A human doing the same dance with about the same ability, you’d find him awkward and minimally talented. That robot is about the same as the famous talking dog. It’s that he does it at all that’s amazing, but there was nothing remotely beautiful about it.”

  Ariel muttered, “Have it your way, Mr. Critic-at-large.” She walked away a few steps, then whirled around to say, “But I liked it!”

  Derec was used to Ariel being touchy on occasion, so he shrugged and said, “I’m sorry. Just my opinion. Let’s go down and pay these fellows a visit.”

  “It’s not necessary.”

  “C’mon. Maybe Timestep does encores.”

  The three robots and Wolruf stayed outside the perimeter of the tiny creatures’ encampment. After a flurry of interest in the intruders, the small people had turned their attention back to their ritual by the bonfire. There was a definite pattern to the ritual. First they circled the fire in a line, each creature keeping a hand on the shoulder of the individual in front of it. Then they broke up into couples and performed a dance that featured a complicated but rhythmic sequence of high kicks. The kick dance was followed by a synchronized turning toward the fire, the move accompanied by a high pitched wail. Wolruf was reminded of the noises of a high-flying bird-like species from her home planet.

  When the moaning had reached its loudest point, it stopped abruptly, and several of the small people dropped quickly to the ground. The ones left standing picked up their fallen comrades and dragged them away from the fire. After pulling them a short distance, they began arranging them in a number of piles. The wailing resumed, then the standing people clapped their hands three times, and the fallen bodies stirred and got to their feet. A short frenetic dance that looked like celebration followed. After that, another group took its place around the fire and executed the same ritual, step by step.

  “It is strange,” Eve commented.

  “What does the ritual mean?” Adam asked.

  “I would speculate that it has something to do with death and resurrection,” Mandelbrot said.

  “Why do ‘u say that?” Wolruf asked.

  “Some information about such rituals on other planets that I have stored in my memory banks. The rite here suggests that some of them die, the ones piled up, and then are in some way resurrected. The reason for resurrection is not clear to me. To understand, I am afraid we would have to observe their culture at length.”

  “I would like to do that,” Eve said. “They, too, seem to be human, Adam. Perhaps they would supply some data for our quest.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “But we have to meet Derrec and Arriel at the towerr,” Wolruf said.

  “You two go ahead,” Eve suggested. “We will follow soon.”

  “What will ‘u do?” Wolruf asked.

  “Nothing dangerous, I assure you. I just wish to study them a while.”

  “It would be best if you continued on with us,” Mandelbrot said.

  “No,” Wolruf said, “ ‘u know these two. They get idea, ‘u can’t stop them.”

  If Mandelbrot had been a nodder, he would have nodded. He and Wolruf quickly left the lot, heading toward the Compass Tower.

  A moment later, Eve crossed into the area where the tiny creatures were busy with their ritual. They didn’t seem to notice her. Adam followed. They stepped carefully, putting their feet down only in clear areas. This kind of walking was easier for a robot than it would have been for a human. If there had been any danger of Eve or Adam putting their feet down upon one of the tiny creatures, they would have sensed it quickly and been able to balance on one leg for as long as it took until a safe step could be ventured.

  When they were near the fire, Eve said, “They seem intelligent. Can we talk to them, do you think?”

  “We can try, Eve.”

  She crouched down, getting her head as low as she could without falling over. Reflected light from the bonfire seemed to move like the tiny dancers across her silvery surface.

  “Hello,” she said.

  Some of the dancers looked at her. They stopped, stood still, and stared up at her. “Can you understand me?”

  They said nothing. A tiny, prettily formed woman stepped forward. She had large bulging eyes and a swelling by her right ear. Eve expected her to say something, but she did not. She merely scrutinized her visitor, a quizzical expression on her face.

  “I
am Eve.”

  The small woman made some odd sounds in her throat and pointed up at Eve. Three others joined her, another woman and two men. They all appeared amused. The woman with the large eyes began jumping up and down, her odd raspy sounds getting louder. The trio behind her laughed merrily. One slapped his knee. Then they all began talking, if that’s what the chattering sounds they emitted were.

  “There seems to be a language,” Adam said.

  “Maybe we can learn it.”

  Saying hello again, Eve reached out her hand toward the small woman, who, scared, took some steps backward. Then she appeared to get control of herself. She turned her back on Eve and resumed her place in the bonfire ritual. The other three followed her. Soon none of them were paying any attention to the gigantic silver intruder who hovered above them. The ritual appeared to get fiercer each time they repeated it.

  Eve stood up and walked past the fire. Many of the small people were gathered in a corner of the lot, working furiously. She had to squat down again to see what they were doing. When she saw what it was, she called out to Adam to come and view it for himself.

  Gesturing for him to hunch down beside her, she indicated the group in the corner.

  “What are they doing, Eve?”

  “Look. There are rows and rows of these small creatures on the ground there. Beyond that, there are more of them in piles.”

  “Like the dance?”

  “No, not like the dance. The ones in this pile are dead, Adam. The others are burying them in the ground, but there are too many dead ones and they are not able to keep up the pace. Look, over there, more are being carried here.”

  From all points of the lot, it seemed, surviving creatures were hauling their dead compatriots to the burial ground. There was a slow rhythm to the way they walked, as if it, too, were part of the bonfire ritual. Eve noted that there was no human emotion on their faces. They were merely burying their dead methodically.

  When each corpse had been covered over, the gravediggers turned to the next tiny plot of land and dug a hole for the next in line.

  “Adam, I think there’s something wrong here. They are dying out, all of them. They will all be gone shortly. Yet I detect no signs of disease. No, it is more like they are just wearing out. Derec told us nothing of these creatures.”

  “I do not understand, Eve.”

  “I surmise that they did not exist a short time ago, when Derec and Ariel were first here. They have only existed for a short time, and now they are dying out. I suspect there is something sad in that.”

  She turned her head and saw that one of the corpses now being conveyed to the burial ground was the small woman with the bulging eyes.

  Even when he stood still, Timestep’s left foot kept tapping from side to side. Bogie recalled a character in a movie who had performed the same movement at the beginning of a dance number. He could not remember specifically because he rarely watched musicals, much preferring the mystery and action films that were so well represented in the Robot City Film and Tape Archives.

  He was about to suggest that one of them should again station himself in the hallway outside the office when he heard the last few soft treads of Ariel and Derec as they came to the outer door of the Compass Tower. As Bogie glanced toward the tower, he saw the door beginning to form itself before letting them exit.

  “Run,” he said to Timestep, “they’re coming out.”

  They both started clanking up the street, but the Second Law of Robotics, that they must obey an order coming from a human being, made them stop running when Derec yelled for them to stop. As Derec and Ariel walked up to them, Timestep’s foot resumed its slow tapping movement.

  “You two, you’re spying on us,” Derec said. His voice has assumed the firmness that humans often used when addressing robots. “Why?”

  “We are not allowed to tell that,” Bogie said. “It is a confidential order.”

  “From whom?”

  “We are not allowed to tell you that.”

  “Another one of your infernal blocks?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s my father,” Derec said angrily. “Only he would think up tricks like this.”

  “I still disagree,” Ariel said. “His tricks would be even more diabolical.”

  “And there’s no way I can remove these blocks right now?”

  “Only the one who put them there may remove them.”

  “Did a human put them there?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “You cannot say because you don’t know or because my father put in those blocks?”

  “I cannot say because I am prevented from saying.”

  “Nice try,” Ariel whispered, “trying to trick him into admitting your father’s the perpetrator.”

  “Well, tricks like that sometimes work, Ariel.”

  “I know, you’ve been around the block a few times.”

  Derec was about to continue his interrogation of Bogie when Mandelbrot and Wolruf rounded a corner and headed toward them at a fast pace. Wolruf was loping on all fours, as she sometimes did when she was tired. Since she stayed beside Mandelbrot, keeping at his pace, they looked like a man and his dog out for a stroll-if you didn’t look too closely.

  “Where’re our two mischief-makers?” Derec asked when they reached him.

  “A good question,” Wolruf said. She explained how they had left the Silversides behind to study the creatures they’d discovered, and she was surprised to see Derec’s eyes light up with interest. He turned to Ariel and said excitedly, “These may be more of the same pests that attacked us in that building. Let’s go see.”

  “Good idea. Anyway, it’s never wise to leave Adam and Eve alone anywhere they could cause trouble.”

  They started down the street, the way Mandelbrot and Wolruf had come. The alien and the ever-loyal robot walked right behind them. After a few steps, Derec glanced back at Bogie and Timestep.

  “Hey,” he called back to them, “you’re going to follow us and spy on us anyway, you two. You might just as well come along with us.”

  It was probably his imagination, but it seemed to Derec as if the two spies began their walk toward him with some eagerness in their stride.

  Chapter 9. Trouble Right Here In Robot City

  Even though Wolruf had described the vacant lot’s strange colony to him, Derec was unprepared for what they found there.

  First, the bonfire had gone out. It now smoldered pathetically, a few wisps of smoke rising from what proved to be some type of synthetic wood. The wood, now a jumbled pile of charred curls, gave off a strong chemical odor that reminded Ariel of a broken-down food synthesizer, never one of her favorite smells.

  Next, Derec saw the dancers. They were still a circle, but no longer moving. They were on the ground, some face down, some face up, their hands still joined, but clearly dead. Their bodies had not been moved because the carriers and the gravediggers had died out now. As he walked around the yard, he had to step over more than a hundred undersized corpses.

  Finally, he saw Adam and Eve at the half-completed graveyard. Eve was delicately picking up the creatures’ bodies, one by one, and placing them in a row of graves she had quickly dug with her hands. It was an odd action, Derec thought, one that seemed to indicate compassion on her part. While she could have some understanding of human feelings, he thought it doubtful she could feel such compassion herself.

  Still, Adam and Eve were a new breed of robot, one that had appeared as if by magic on two planets now (Adam having found Eve on the blackbodies’ planet after himself coming into sudden existence on the planet of the wolflike creatures, the kin), and so anything was possible. The way the Silversides kept surprising him, he might never get a fix on them. Perhaps they were indeed the prototypes for emotional robots, a concept that did not correspond with Derec’s present knowledge of robotics.

  “Where did they come from?” Ariel said, looking down at the many bodies.

  “I don’t know. They seem to
be one more thing that’s gone wrong with the city.”

  “Are they the same ones who attacked us in the warehouse?”

  “Maybe. Or that might have been another bunch.”

  Ariel shuddered. “You mean they may be allover the city, living in open spaces or dark places like rodents?”

  “Rodent may not be the proper analogy. They do seem to have been human or humanlike. What do you think, Adam? Eve?”

  Adam was holding one of the little corpses in his left hand while he poked at it with a finger of his right. The figure appeared to be a gaunt young man with a short beard. His body was extremely thin.

  Adam, while still strongly resembling Derec, had taken on some of the corpse’s appearance. His face had thinned and there was a hint of metallic bristles on his chin. He seemed to have grown taller and slimmer, also.

  “They seem to be miniature versions of humans, inside and out,” Adam observed. “I sense a musculature, a bloodstream, arteries and veins, small fragile bones.”

  “Bound to seem fragile. Anyone of us could crush anyone of them.”

  “Do you have to say things like that?” Ariel said.

  “Sorry, thought you were tougher.”

  She looked ready to slug him for making that remark.

  “Since when does good taste indicate weakness? Huh, Derec, huh?”

  “Okay, you made your point. I’m a bit dense when my world is disrupted this violently, okay?”

  She touched his cheek with the back of her hand. Her touch was so gentle, he immediately wished he could devote all his time and energies to her.

  “Adam,” he said, “you seem to have imprinted partially on the corpse. Have you learned anything from that?”

  “Only that I cannot do it very well. Before it died, I started to study it. I found I couldn’t imprint on it successfully. It was as if there was very little life in it when it was alive.”

  Derec nodded. “Well, it was already dying perhaps.”

  “Yes, but it was more than that, Master Derec. There was simply very little awareness inside here.” He held out the corpse. Derec flinched a bit. The corpse’s tiny, delicate face was twisted in pain. “The impression I had was similar to what I have received from small animals. What I concluded was that they resembled humans but were not human.”