by Isaac Asimov
“Thank you.” Derec hesitated a moment, considering reward theory as a tool for conditioning, then sent to the computer, Echo my comlink conversation to the com console.
“Echoing,” the computer responded aloud.
What were you planning to do on Ceremya? he sent to the robots. He wasn’t sure which of the three he was talking with, or if it was all three at once, but he didn’t suppose it mattered at this point.
“What were you planning to do on Ceremya?” The computer simulated his voice faithfully; it sounded as clear over the corn console as if he had actually spoken aloud.
We must continue to research the Laws of Humanics. Also, Eve did not have the opportunity to imprint properly upon the Ceremyons while she was there, and we believe doing so may be important to our joint development.
The echo was distracting, but Derec held his hands over his ears and sent, What type of development do you expect?
If we knew that, we wouldn’t have to go, the robots replied with characteristic logic.
The spaceship was like none Derec had ever seen before. Normal ships were usually streamlined for atmospheric passage, but not to this degree. This ship was smoother than streamlined; it was seamless. It looked as if it had been sculpted in ice and then dipped in liquid silver. Derec, standing before it, realized that the design robots had, however inadvertently, produced a work of art.
Resting on the runway in takeoff configuration, it was a sleek, fast airplane, but Derec knew that its present appearance wouldn’t last beyond the atmosphere. Once away from gravity and wind drag, the ship would transform into whatever shape most easily accommodated its passengers, for its hull and most of the interior furnishings were made of the same cellular material that made up the City. The hyperdrive and the more delicate mechanisms such as control, navigation, and life support were made of more conventional materials, but the majority of the ship was cellular.
It was one of perhaps three dozen at the spaceport, all built within the last few weeks. Derec had ordered them constructed on a whim, remembering when he and Ariel had been stranded in Robot City for lack of a ship and deciding to remedy that problem for good now that the robots had his own ship to refer to, but he had been too busy to inspect them until now.
“It’ll do,” he told the ground crew robots, who were hovering about anxiously, pleased that the humans had chosen this ship for their journey yet nervously awaiting rejection all the same.
Ever mindful of his duty to protect his human charges, Mandelbrot asked, “Has it been tested?”
“We took it on a test flight of twenty light-years round trip,” one of the ground crew replied. “Six days of flight and four jumps. All its subsystems performed flawlessly.”
“Does it have a name?” Ariel asked. She, Dr. Avery, Wolruf, and the three experimental robots stood beside Derec amid a pile of baggage.
The ground crew robot turned its head to face her. “We have not named it yet.”
“Flying a ship without a name!” she said in mock surprise. “I’m surprised you made it back.”
“I do not understand. How can a name be a significant factor in the success of a test flight?”
Ariel laughed, and Wolruf joined her. “I didn’t know ‘umans had that superstition too,” the alien said.
“It’s supposed to be bad luck to board a ship without a name,” Ariel explained to the puzzled robot, but her explanation left it no more enlightened than before.
“Bad... luck?” it asked.
“Oh, never mind. I’m just being silly. Come on, let’s get on board.”
“Name first,” Wolruf said with surprising vehemence. “May be just superstition, may not. Never ‘urts to ‘umor fate.”
“Then I dub it the Wild Goose Chase,” Avery said with finality, gesturing to the robots to pick up his bags. “Now let’s get this ridiculous expedition into space before I change my mind.” He turned and stomped up the extended ramp, not noticing the black letters flowing into shape on the hull just in front of the wing.
Wild Goose Chase.
Was it? Derec couldn’t know. Avery certainly seemed to think so, but he had allowed his curiosity to overcome his reservations all the same. Derec had been all for the trip, but now he was feeling reservations, both about the trip itself and about the deeper subterfuge it represented. Should he go through with it? He followed Wolruf and Ariel and the robots up the ramp, pausing at the door, debating.
Do it, a tiny voice seemed to whisper in his head.
Okay, he answered it. To the central computer, he sent, Investigate my personal files. Password: “anonymous.” Examine instruction set “Ecosystem.” Begin execution upon our departure.
Acknowledged.
Derec turned away into the ship and let the airlock seal itself behind him. Avery hadn’t destroyed everything when he’d destroyed Lucius’s labs. Derec still had his files on ecosystems, and now the central computer did, too. It would give the robots something useful to do while they were gone, and when they returned, the place would be lush and green, with animals in the parks and birds and butterflies in the air. Avery would have a fit — but then Avery was always having fits. It wouldn’t matter. By the time he found out about it, it would be too late to stop.
“I want to keep it,” Ariel said.
They were in their own stateroom on the ship, hours out from Robot City. Beyond the viewport the planet was already a small point of light in the glittering vastness of space. The sun had not yet changed perceptibly, but as the ship picked up speed in its climb out of the gravity well toward a safe jump point, the sun, too, would begin to dwindle until it was just another speck in the heavens.
Derec had been staring out at the stars, contemplating the vastness of the universe and his place in it, but now, upon hearing Ariel’s words, he spun around from the viewport, the stars forgotten. She could be talking about only one thing.
“The baby? You want to keep the baby?”
She was sitting on the edge of the bed. Now that she had gotten his attention, it seemed as if she was uncomfortable under his gaze. Looking past him into space herself now, she said, “I think so. I’m not sure. I’m still trying to make sense of it all, but after that gardener locked up I realized what I was considering, and after Avery said what he said about it, I realized it wasn’t as simple a decision as I thought at first.”
Her voice took on a hard edge. “He’d like it to be, but it’s not. If we were on Earth I might agree with him, but here, with all this space to expand into, with all those robots practically falling over themselves to serve so few of us, it’s a different equation. An Earther gives up the rest of her life to a baby, but I only have to give up part of my comfort for part of a year. For that we get a new person.”
She looked into his eyes as if seeking reassurance, then plunged on: “And if we treat him — — or her — right, then we’ll have a family. I know it’s not the way we were brought up; I know Aurorans aren’t supposed to care about our parents and our children, but I’ve seen what happened to us, and I don’t like it. That’s why I’m telling you this now. If I have this baby, I want us to be a family. I want it to grow up with us, to be a part of us; not just some stranger who happens to share our genes. Can you accept that?”
Derec could hardly believe his ears. She was asking him to accept exactly what he had wanted all along. “Can I accept that? I love it. I love you!” He took her hand and pulled her up from the bed, put his arms around her, and kissed her passionately.
Behind him, the door chimed softly and Mandelbrot’s voice said, “Dinner is ready.”
“Damn.”
One of the nice things about a cellular ship, Derec discovered, was that the common room was much more than just a place with a table in it. As dinner wound down and the mood shifted toward the pleasant lethargy that comes after a good meal, the table enclosed over the dirty dishes, dropped into the floor, and the chairs widened and softened from dining chairs to evening couches, simultaneously moving
back to give the room a less-crowded atmosphere. The lighting dimmed and soft music began to play.
Derec merged his chair with Ariel’s and put his arm around her. She leaned her head over to rest on his shoulder, closing her eyes. His hand automatically went to her upper back and began rubbing softly, kneading the muscles at the base of her neck and shoulders.
“Oh, yeah,” she murmured, bending forward so he could reach the rest of her back.
The robots had not eaten dinner, so they were not sitting in chairs, but instead stood unobtrusively beside and behind the four who were seated. Avery was leaning back with eyes closed, off in his own universe somewhere, but Wolruf watched Derec and Ariel with open interest. At last she sighed and said, “That looks ‘onderful.” Turning to Eve, she asked,” ‘ow about it? You scratch mine; I’ll scratch yours.”
“I have no need to have my back scratched,” Eve replied without moving.
Somewhat taken aback, Wolruf said, “Do mine anyway, please,” and turned to give Eve an easy reach.
“Why?”
“Because I’d like to ‘ave my back scratched,” Wolruf said, a hint of a growl to her voice now.
“Perhaps you are not aware that I am engaged in conversation with Adam and Lucius.”
Derec had stopped scratching as well, and was looking at Eve with an astonished expression. Hadn’t they been ordered not to use their comlinks when humans were present? No, he remembered now. That had been just a suggestion, and from another robot at that. They could ignore it if they wanted. But this business with Wolruf — this was different.
“What does your conversation have to do with anything?” he asked. “She wants you to scratch her back. That’s as good as an order.”
“Wolruf is not human. Therefore I need not be concerned with her wishes.”
“You wha —? That’s absurd. I order you to —”
“Wait a minute.” It was Avery, evidently not so far away as he had appeared. “This is intriguing. Let’s check it out. Wolruf, order her to scratch your back.”
It was hard to read expression on the alien’s scrunched-in canine face, but Derec was sure he was seeing exasperation now. Wolruf took a deep breath, shook her head once, then said, “All ri’. Eve, I order you to scratch my back.”
Eve stood her ground. “I refuse.”
“Order Lucius to do it,” Avery said.
“Lucius, scratch my —”
“I refuse also,” Lucius interrupted.
“Adam,” Wolruf said, taking Avery’s nod in Adam’s direction as her cue, “you scratch my back. Please.”
The small politeness made a difference, but not the one Wolruf had hoped for. Adam said, “I do not wish to offend, but I find that I must refuse as well.”
“Why?” Wolruf asked, slumping back into her chair, resigned to having an unscratched back.
“Wait. Wolruf, there’s one more robot here.”
Wolruf looked to Mandelbrot, standing directly behind Derec and Ariel’s chair. Mandelbrot didn’t wait for her order, but moved silently over to Wolruf and reached out to scratch the alien’s furry back.
“Thank you,” Wolruf said with a sigh.
“You are quite welcome, Master Wolruf,” Mandelbrot said, and Derec would have sworn he heard a slight twist to the word “master.” Could Mandelbrot disapprove of another robot’s conduct? Evidently so.
“Interesting,” Avery said. “Eve, turn around to face the wall.”
Silently, Eve obeyed.
“Hold your right hand out to the side and wiggle your fingers.”
Eve obeyed again.
“Adam and Lucius, follow the same orders I just gave Eve.”
The two other robots also turned to face the wall, held their right hands out, and wiggled their fingers.
“That’s a relief,” Avery said. “For a second there I thought they’d quit obeying altogether.”
“Relief to you, maybe,” said Wolruf, shifting so Mandelbrot could reach her entire back.
“It looks like they’ve independently decided what makes a human and what doesn’t. Am I right?”
Silence. Three robots stood facing the wall, their right hands fluttering like tethered butterflies.
“Lucius, am I right?”
“You are correct, Dr. Avery,” the robot answered.
“So what’s your definition?”
“We presently define ‘human’ as a sentient being possessing a genetic code similar to that which I found in the Robot City library under the label ‘human.’”
“A sentient being,” Avery echoed. “So those rats of yours still don’t qualify?”
“That is correct.”
“How do you know Avery has the proper code’?” asked Derec.
“He has medical records on file. We accessed them when the question first arose. We also examined yours and Ariel’s.”
“But not Wolruf’s.”
“There was no need. Her physical appearance rules out the possibility that she might be human.”
“Even though she’s obviously sentient.”
“That is correct. A being must be both sentient and carry the proper genetic code to be human.”
“What about the baby I’m carrying?” Ariel asked. “Isn’t my baby human?”
Lucius was silent for a moment, then he said, “Not at present. The embryo cannot formulate an order, nor does it require protection beyond that which we would normally provide you; therefore we need not be concerned with it.”
“That sounds kind of heartless.”
“We possess microfusion power generators. What do you expect?”
Adam spoke up. “May we stop wiggling our fingers? It serves no useful purpose.”
“No, you may not,” Avery said. “It pleases me to see you following orders.”
“Enough,” Wolruf growled, whether to Mandelbrot or to the humans neither knew. Mandelbrot stopped scratching her back as Wolruf stood up and said, “This is depressing. I think I’ll go check on our jump schedule.” She favored the three hand-fluttering robots with a sour look, then moved off toward the control room.
“Listen here,” Derec said when she was gone. “I order all of you to —”
“Wait,” Avery interrupted. “You were about to order them to follow her orders, weren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Let’s wait on that. Let’s see if — just a minute. You three, stop moving your hands.”
The robots stopped moving their hands. On their own, they dropped those hands back to their sides. Avery frowned at that, but said simply, “When I tell you to give me privacy, I want you to stop listening to our conversation. Filter out everything but the words ‘return to service,’ upon which you will begin listening again. Do not use your comlink in the meantime. In fact, this is a general order: Do not use your comlink for conversation between yourselves. Do you understand that?”
“We understand,” Lucius said, “but we — I — wish to protest. Using speech to communicate will necessarily slow our joint thought processes.”
“And it’ll keep you from locking up on us again. I order it. Now give us privacy.”
The robots made no motion to indicate whether they had heard or not.
“Wiggle your fingers again.”
No motion.
Avery turned to Derec and Ariel. “Okay, what I want to do is this: Let’s wait and see if they modify their definition of human to include Wolruf on their own, without our orders. Wolruf isn’t in any danger from them, and Mandelbrot will take her orders if she needs a robot.”
“In the meantime she gets treated like a subhuman,” Derec protested. “I don’t like it.”
“She is subhuman,” Avery said, “but that’s beside the point. Think a minute. You convinced me to let these robots go to Ceremya — and to come along myself — so we could see what kind of new developments they came up with. So here’s a new development. Let’s study it.”
Avery’s argument had merit, Derec knew. He did
n’t like it, but it made sense. That’s why they had come, to study these robots in action.
“We should at least give her First Law protection,” he said.
“No, that’d skew the experiment. Look, your furry friend isn’t in any danger here; let’s just let it go for now. If anything happens, we can modify their orders then.”
“All right,” Derec said. “I’ll go along with it for now, but the moment she looks like she’s in danger...”
“Fine, fine. Okay, return to service.”
The robots shifted slightly. Eve asked, “May we turn away from the wall now?”
“I suppose so.”
The robots turned to face one another. “Since we must communicate verbally,” Lucius said, “I suggest we each pick a separate tone range. That way we may at least speak simultaneously.”
“If you do, do it quietly,” said Ariel.
“We intend to,” the robot replied.
Derec gave Ariel a last squeeze, then stood up and announced, “I’m going to talk to Wolruf. She sounded pretty unhappy.”
“Go ahead,” Ariel said. “I think I’ll read.”
Avery grunted noncommittally, his eyes already closed in thought again.
The control room was large enough for only two people. The ship was largely automatic, but in the interest of safety it also carried a complete set of manual controls. Derec found Wolruf in the pilot’s seat, a glimmering holographic star map floating over the controls before her. It was the only illumination in the cabin, save for the real stars shining in through the viewscreen. In the midst of the map a thin silver line connected five dots in a not-quite-straight line. One point was no doubt Robot City; the other Ceremya. The kinks in the line in between were jump points, places where the ship would stop along the way to reorient and recharge its engines.
A ship could theoretically make the entire trip in a single hyperspace jump, discounting the time it took to crawl slowly through normal space to the safe jump points in its origin and destination systems. That was seldom done, however, except for short trips. It was much easier, both for navigation and on the engines, to make a series of short jumps from star to star along the way, correcting for minor deviations in course and allowing the engines to rest each time.
