Robot Blues

by Margaret Weis; Don Perrin

  Returning from the communal bathroom he shared with the other tenants of the building (or would have shared had there been any other tenants), Grant glanced out a window and was astonished to see the sun was sinking low into the smokestacks. The machine was still flashing, still humming. Grant knew that it would continue to flash, continue to hum. He knew that it was not going to explode. His faith had been rewarded.

  “Good work, men.” He congratulated his squadron of research material.

  Walking over to the machine, with which he now felt sufficiently aquainted to be able to call it by its correct name: Collimated Command Receiver Unit. Grant gave it a moment of reverent, silent respect. His research had proven that the miracle wasn’t so miraculous, but this had not lessened his awe. If anything, it had enhanced it. He had formed a theory as to why the unit had suddenly been activated. His theory was perfectly sound, borne out by his research, and if what he theorized was true, then he stood a chance of making one of the greatest scientific finds of this millennium.

  First, Jeffrey Grant must find the courage inside himself to touch the unit. He must type in the correct command sequence to engage the Command Decoder. Just placing his fingertips on the keys of the machine, such an old machine, was a sin of immeasurable scale, but Grant reminded himself that this was for a greater good. This was a Command Receiver Unit. It was now receiving. The manuals described the method by which Grant could ask the unit for the coordinates of the device which was sending the signal which had caused his Collimated Command Receiver Unit to flash its message-received light.

  What Grant was about to do was something he had never before done in his life, something he had never considered doing, something that, with all his imagining, he’d never imagined himself doing. Picking up the machine, handling it with extraordinary care and gentleness, Grant rested his trembling fingers on the keyboard.

  After a few moments of impotence, when his fingers refused to obey the admittedly weak orders coming from his brain, Grant regained hold of himself. He typed in the requisite series of commands. The screen went dark.

  Grant experienced a moment of fear that would have served him well had he ever faced any Corasian fighters.

  And then the screen returned to life. Information scrolled rapidly past his wondering gaze. The scrolling stopped.

  He didn’t understand most of it, but he didn’t need to understand most of it. All he needed was a number, and there it was, at the bottom of the screen.

  Grant copied the number onto a pad, took the pad to his personal computer, pulled up a stellar map, and typed in the numbers he had on the pad. The computer gave him his answer.

  He then placed the unit in the old worn leather container in which it had been originally found, strapped the straps, made certain the unit was still humming. He slid the three disks into a pocket of the leather case. After a moment’s consideration on proper wording, he wrote a note stating: “Closed. Indefinitely.”

  He put on his hat and coat and left the museum—a full half hour ahead of his usual time. Shutting the door, he locked it, slid the key into his pocket, and posted the note on the glass.

  This done, he stood a moment on the sidewalk, feeling tense and light-headed and buoyant and nervous and, above all, determined.

  “You can do it, Captain,” he said to himself. “The admiral has every confidence in you.”

  Tightening his grip on the machine’s case, which was heavy and rather awkward to carry, Grant walked down the sidewalk. In the distance was his home.

  He took a right—not a left—at the corner.

  He did not go home. He went to an automated bank, removed his entire life savings from his account, indulged in a taxi ride to the nearest spaceport, and rented a spaceplane.

  “Destination?” the attendant asked Grant, handing back his pilot’s license.

  “Pandor,” said Jeffrey Grant.

  Chapter 20

  Now the dang robot’s a-wearin’ my shoes.

  I got the robot blues . . .

  Anonymous, “Robot Blues”

  The robot was no longer confused. It had received an answer to its signal. The Doctor had responded. Directions were given. The robot knew now what it was supposed to do, if not necessarily how to go about doing it.

  The robot had been busy during the night it had spent in the packing crate. It had taken the opportunity provided it by the Rescuer to assimilate the situation, determine what had happened in the past, decide how best to proceed in the present. Also, during this time, the robot set its programming to work, studying the unknown speech pattern of the Rescuer in an attempt to open channels of communication, should that eventuality become necessary.

  The robot did a complete scan of its own memory banks, starting from the time that memory had been initiated, up to the present. It had a memory of the Doctor, whose commands must be obeyed without question, although the ‘bot was free to use its own determination on how best to carry out those commands. It had a memory of its spaceplane—a nonentity, as far as the robot was concerned; a mindless machine that did what it was told to do in a plodding manner, had nothing to say for itself, and was incapable of acting on its own. The robot also had a memory of that spaceplane being shot down.

  The Doctor had Enemies. Information on the Enemy had been entered into the robot. Information on evading the Enemy had been entered into the spaceplane.

  If approached, retreat.

  If fired upon, retreat.

  If hit, self-destruct.

  At all costs, avoid capture.

  The robot had no difficulty with these orders, but the spaceplane did, apparently. The plane had been both approached and fired upon. The spaceplane had been unable to retreat and should have blown up itself and the robot. Destruction had not occurred, with the result that the plane had plummeted down through the atmosphere, ended up by burrowing nose-first into an enormous sand dune. To give the plane credit, it had attempted to self-destruct, but something had gone wrong. The robot did not know this, however, and had, in its report—recorded on the way down—castigated the plane quite severely.

  At this point, the robot noted a blip in its memory. Nothing really very serious, rather like a hiccup, but there was definitely a segment of time missing. The robot determined that this blip must have been due to damage sustained in the crash. It had detected a loose connector in its neural pathway circuitry. Logic dictated that the loose connector had been put back into place by the first Rescuer, when that Rescuer found the robot in the storage closet.

  As to what the robot had been doing in the storage compartment—that was uncertain. The ‘bot’s last memory before the blip was of the plane descending at a steep angle, the robot sliding across the deck, the storage closet door flying open, sudden darkness, and nothing.

  Until the Rescuers.

  In the event that any of the robots ran into trouble, the Doctor had provided them with a “help” signal. The cry for help was not general, it would not bring ships from all over the quadrant to the rescue. The cry was specific, would reach only the Doctor and his team. The robot sent out its call for help as the spaceplane descended.

  Then came the slide into the closet, the crash, the momentary blank-out. Then the Rescuer, with repairs.

  The robot found it impressive that help arrived so quickly. And it noted, in its report, that haste was probably the reason the Rescuers acted in such a peculiar and illogical manner. The robot also noted, for future reference, that it would be useful if the Rescuers spoke a language which the robot was programmed to understand.

  Looking back on its encounter with the Rescuers, the robot could make very little sense out of what had happened. However, since the incident involved humans, this was only to be expected.

  Rescuer A had discovered the robot in the closet, repaired the robot, and then, instead of bringing the robot out of the closet, had entered the closet with the robot.

  When Rescuer B had arrived on the scene—standing outside the damaged plane and
yelling something unintelligible—the robot had started to leave the plane to go to the Rescuer—as it was programmed to do. Rescuer A, for some unknown reason, had attempted to keep the robot inside the closet.

  This was illogical. The robot was not going to be able to perform its functions inside the closet. And so it had left. Detaching the arm onto which the Rescuer was holding, the robot had floated through the damaged plane, had reached the open hatch. The robot had confronted Rescuer B, who had then behaved in the most illogical manner thus far recorded.

  Rescuer B had screamed and run away.

  Really, the Doctor needed to hire better help.

  The robot had spoken to Rescuer A, who did not understand. Rescuer A had spoken to the robot, who did not understand. The robot had scanned Rescuer A, discovered it to be a mixture of human parts and machine parts—a cyborg. The robot had set about recording the cyborg’s speech, storing it away, analyzing it in order to learn the language.

  The Rescuer had been able to communicate his wishes to the robot by means of gestures. The robot was able to deduce that the Rescuer wanted the ‘bot to accompany him. The logic for this move became apparent when the robot saw the storage crate.

  Which was where the robot was now.

  But not for long.

  Safely tucked away inside the storage crate, the robot assumed it would be placed aboard a plane in order that it could, once more, commence with its duties.

  The robot was extremely discomfited when it found its crate being deposited in what its scanners revealed to be some sort of storage facility for broken-down machinery!

  The robot was willing to give the Rescuer the benefit of the doubt. The Rescuer obviously thought the robot was in need of repair, did not realize that the robot was designed to repair itself. Which reminded the robot—it was missing its #20 arm. It needed to make a note to have the arm replaced. This accomplished, the robot beamed its customary signal to the Doctor. Do I have my orders straight? Am I supposed to return to duty?

  Ordinarily the response was immediate. This time, the wait was rather longer and, when the response came, it was extremely weak. Investigation revealed that the signal was emanating from a different portion of the galaxy. The signal was clear, however. The robot was to carry on.

  Escaping from the storage crate was easy. The robot selected a tool built into one of its many arms, adjusted a valve, which caused the air pressure inside the compartment to increase. The pressure grew until the lid on the storage container popped loose. Using a second arm, and a levering device, the robot pried the lid of the container open. Activating its air jets, the robot floated out. The ‘bot reattached its arm, then closed the lid to the crate. The crate had been really quite comfortable. The robot did not want all these strange-looking machines sitting around the crate to contaminate it.

  Once free of the crate, the robot began its search for a suitable transport spaceplane. The robot’s spectrum analyzer isolated no less than forty different space-to-tower communications. A launch facility must be nearby.

  The robot tucked its twenty arms up inside its head and soared off in the direction of the communications tower of the spacefield.

  Chapter 21

  Grasp the subject, the words will follow.

  Marcus Porcius Cato, Ars Rhetorics, I

  “The topic of this lecture is ‘Foreign Object Damage to Spaceplane Engines.’ I regret”—Xris paused, repeated himself, with emphasis—”I truly regret the fact that Colonel Jatanski, who is an acknowledged authority on this subject and who was supposed to be here today to deliver this lecture, was called away last night to serve at a court-martial proceeding. It has fallen to me to carry on in the colonel’s absence. I’ll ... do the best I can,” Xris concluded, and, because he’d moved his head too close to the antiquated mike, the last statement was lost in ear-piercing feedback.

  “Oh, sorry.”

  Xris stepped back hastily from the mike, nearly fell off the rostrum. He caught himself by grasping hold of the podium. In the audience, Tess ducked her head, put her hand over her mouth to smother her laughter. Xris recalled what she’d said yesterday about imagining the audience completely naked. Contrary to popular opinion, this did nothing to help his composure.

  Unfortunately for Xris, the turnout for the lecture was quite good. He’d been nursing a secret hope that no one would show up. He couldn’t understand why anyone would want to attend who wasn’t ordered to do so. A few whispered words exchanged with Tess prior to the speech gave him the explanation.

  “Life is so boring on Pandor that any break in the routine, even a speech on foreigners stuck in spaceplane engines”—she had grinned at him—”is a welcome change! I predict a sellout crowd.”

  “Wonderful,” Xris had muttered. “You know what I said yesterday about fainting during show-and-tell, that wasn’t exactly the truth. I didn’t faint. I threw up.”

  “You’re not joking, are you?” Tess had regarded him in concern. “You really hate this. It’ll be over soon. I’ll buy you a drink later.”

  “After last night, I may never drink again. You made it back okay? The MPs didn’t stop you?”

  “No, but then they weren’t trying real hard. How about you?”

  “They had me surrounded,” Xris had told her. “Brought me in at gunpoint. I asked to be locked up in the brig for life, but they said no, my sentence was to give a speech.”

  Tess had laughed, kissed him lightly on the cheek “for luck,” and had gone to sit next to her roommates.

  The small auditorium held about two hundred people and, as Tess had predicted, it was practically a sellout. Someone in back shut the doors leading into the auditorium. The crowd settled down, if not to enjoy the speech, at least to find some amusement in the discomfiture of the speaker.

  Xris opened his mouth. His voice cracked. He coughed, cleared his throat, and looked around nervously. “If I could ... uh ... have a glass of water?”

  Colonel Strebbins himself rose from the seats in the front row to pour Xris a drink, placed it next to him on the podium. He patted Xris on the back, said gently “You’re doing fine. Captain,” and resumed his seat.

  “Thank you, sir,” Xris mumbled. He looked down at Jamil’s notes, which now appeared to have been written in hieroglyphs. He could make nothing of them.

  Lifting his head, he looked again out into the audience and was immediately sorry he’d done so. His panicked thoughts flitted to the time he’d gone behind enemy lines, sneaked into a Corasian “meat locker” to rescue his estranged wife. He was being hunted by the deadly, flesh-devouring aliens. Breaking out of their robotic cases, the fiery orange blobs oozed across the floor toward him. He fired at them, but they kept coming....

  Xris stared into the flesh-devouring eyes of his audience and would have liked to do now what he had done then.

  Run. Run like hell.

  Colonel Strebbins gave a polite cough. “Anytime you’re ready, Captain.”

  Xris gulped down more water, sucked in a breath, activated the holographic display, and launched into his speech.

  “Er, um, as you well know, the delicate Clormin Turbocharged Hyper Velocity Spaceplane Engine used on the lighter spaceplanes can be a difficult maintenance job. Even when working correctly, the engine can act up for a variety of reasons. Now let’s imagine ...”

  Xris paused, fumbled with the controls, and finally brought up the first holograph—a beautiful human female clad in the uniform of a maintenance worker, holding a soft-drink can. A Dirk fighter was warming up in the background.

  “Let’s imagine,” Xris continued, “what would happen if our corporal here were to let go of that Coke can....”

  Xris shifted to the next holographic image, which showed the same Dirk fighter, smoke billowing out the engine port, and the beautiful woman running for her life. The audience was highly amused, and someone in the back gave the holographic woman a cheer to spur her on.

  Colonel Strebbins turned, glared at the unknown offender. Th
e audience quieted.

  Xris lost his place. By the time he found it, he had decided that the best thing he could do was get this over with as quickly as possible.

  “Just imagine what a plasma retainer screw or ...”

  Proceeding at a rapid pace, without any real idea of what he was saying, he tried, at all cost, to avoid looking at his audience. He kept his gaze fixed on his notes in order not to lose his place again. But the sound of the door opening at the back of the auditorium drew his attention. A man in uniform was attempting to sneak in quietly.

  The door shut behind the man. Xris went back to his notes. Suddenly he realized who the man was. Xris looked up in astonishment. What he had been going to say dribbled away to an incoherent burble.

  Dr. Bill Quong, wearing the uniform of any Army medical officer, attache case in hand, was seating himself in the back row. Quong might have made some hand sign to Xris, but at that moment Colonel Strebbins, attracted by the sound of the door opening, again whipped around to glare at whoever was interrupting.

  Seeing a strange medical officer, Strebbins stared, turned to his aide, whispered something.

  The aide glanced back, spotted Quong, who gave a slight nod of apology and subsided into a seat. Shrugging, the aide turned back to the colonel, who shrugged and turned back to Xris.

  Xris had no idea what Quong was doing here. Why had he come? How had he known that the job had gone sour? Xris wasn’t at all sure he was glad to see him. The fewer of them involved in this mess, the better.

  The audience began to stir restlessly. Xris tried to remember where he’d left off, didn’t have a clue. In attempting to bring up the next holograph image, he accidentally shut off the machine and had no idea how to start it again. Choosing a place in the notes that looked as good as any, he began to speak. By the time he’d reached the third sentence, he realized he was repeating himself. At that point, it didn’t matter. He floundered on.