Prodigy iarc-4

by Arthur Byron Cover

  The robot walked away from Derec and faced the computer against the distant wall. "By disrupting Lucius, I committed the same crime of which I had accused him. He was merely acquiescing to the hidden order of the universe, while I was the one who was denying it. I do not function properly. I must have myself dismantled at the earliest opportunity, and my parts must be melted down into slag."

  "You must do no such thing. I admit it-at first I thought you were evil, Canute. But robots are neither good nor evil. They merely are. And you must continue to be. You have learned your lesson, and now you must teach it to others, so the same mistake will not be repeated."

  "But Dr. Avery is suspicious of permitting the arts to flourish in Robot City."

  "Dr. Avery is wrong."

  "But how can we stop him from changing us? We must obey his orders. He can have us erase all memory of you and Circuit Breaker and the performance of the play if he desires, and then all will be just like it was before."

  "He can order you to forget, but it will not matter, because you have been changed, and you or someone else will create again, and then the cycle will begin anew."

  "I must think about these things. They do not compute easily. "

  "I didn't expect they would, but don't ever expect them to compute easily. It simply isn't in the nature of the questions."

  "This is all very illuminating," said Ariel sarcastically from her slab, "but none of it is helping us get out of this mess."

  "Ariel!" exclaimed Derec. "How long have you been awake?"

  "For some time, Derec. I knew you could talk, but I didn't think you had the strength to keep it going for that long a stretch."

  "Very funny."

  "Canute, I think the time has come for you to release us," said Ariel.

  "This one concurs," said Wolruf.

  "I would naturally obey you instantly, but my orders from Dr. Avery take precedence," said Canute. "He is my creator, and I am programmed to regard him as such."

  "Canute, listen to me," said Ariel. "The First Law states that no robot shall through inaction permit a human being to come to harm. Correct?"

  "Yes, it is so."

  "Dr. Avery knows my disease is driving me insane, and is causing. me great physical harm besides, yet he shows no sign of acting to help me. He is only interested in forcing things from our minds that he could easily learn himself. In fact, I think that if you examine his behavior, you'll perceive that he is mentally unstable, that he has changed from the man who initially programmed you."

  "That may very well be true," said Canute, "but humans often change over time. Such change is not always a sign of mental incompetence. As Derec has demonstrated, even I have changed in recent weeks, but my diagnostic subroutines indicate that I am still working at maximum efficiency. Dr. Avery does not appear to be concerned with your welfare, but he has done nothing to harm you. He may even be able to find a cure for your condition that is otherwise unknown. I am reliably informed that he is a genius."

  "He harms me by not helping me or allowing me to seek help elsewhere. If he were a robot, he would be violating the First Law."

  Canute stepped to the foot of the table where Ariel was confined, and placed one steel hand on the bar across her feet. "But he is not a robot. If our studies of the Laws of Humanics have taught us anything, it is that humans are not subject to the Laws of Robotics.

  "You are not in immediate danger. I cannot help you."

  "It's very simple," Ariel said. "The longer I stay on Robot City, the more insane I become. The longer Derec stays, the longer he lives without any knowledge of who he is-a state that I think you'll agree is also causing him some anguish. Anguish is harm, too."

  Canute's hand raised from the bar, then slowed to a stop in midair. "I think I agree, but Dr. Avery is my creator. He has instructed me that you are not in danger. I cannot supersede his judgment with my own."

  "If Dr. Avery does not have our well-being at heart, who does? Who is responsible? I believe it's you, the robot he left in charge."

  That's brilliant,thought Derec. I knew there was some reason why I liked this girl! "She's right, Canute. The same morality that troubled you for what you did to Lucius will trouble you if you allow Dr. Avery to harm us through inaction. You cannot say with any certainty that we'll get the medical attention we need."

  Canute's slow turn toward Derec showed the positronic conflicts it was experiencing. Derec pursued his point.

  "If the robots of Robot City are allowed to continue creating, they will be able to serve humanity better, but Dr. Avery will stop this process. His orders are not mentally incompetent, but they are morally incompetent. Are you still bound to obey them?"

  The robot's turn slowed to immobility. This was the crisis, Derec knew, where Canute would decide for or against them-or slip into positronic drift.

  Canute said nothing for several seconds. Then. "But, Master Derec, how can I say with any certainty that the two of you will have proper attention while you are in space? Is it not likely that you'll suffer while alone on your way to your destination?"

  "The answer to that question is simple," said Derec, forcing his voice to remain calm and reasonable. "That's where Wolruf and Mandelbrot come in. They'll take care of us between the stars."

  This time Canute did not speak or move for several minutes. It was all Derec could do to stop himself from adding something more to convince the robot to do what he wanted, but he was too afraid that the information already provided had confused the robot's integrals to a dangerous degree.

  "I have been thinking," Canute finally said, "of Dr. Avery's exact words. He said I should not touch the bars restraining our friend Derec, but he said nothing about the bars restraining our friends Ariel and Wolruf."

  That's the spirit!Derec thought with a grin.

  Wordlessly, Canute walked to the end of Ariel's slab, grabbed the bar across her feet, and, utilizing all his strength, pulled it away.

  Chapter 13. The Long Distance Good-Bye

  Dr. Avery's spaceship, a luxurious model equipped to handle as many as ten human-size occupants, was hidden in a cave on the outskirts of the city. After Canute had left the foursome-with really no idea of what to tell Dr. Avery except the truth about how his prisoners had escaped-it was a comparatively simple matter for Derec and the reactivated Mandelbrot to deduce how to run the controls.

  "Let's get off this place!" said Ariel. "We can plot a course for a destination later. I don't even care if we head toward the colonies, I just want to go somewhere as soon as possible."

  "Don't you care about the possibility that you might catch a disease?" asked Derec.

  "It's too late for that," said Ariel. "Besides, right now I think a colony will be the only place that will take us."

  After they were safely in space, and free to wander about as they chose, Mandelbrot inspected the radio equipment and said, "Master Derec, I believe someone is trying to send us a transmission.”

  “It's probably Dr. Avery, but switch it on anyway," said Derec. "We might as well hear what he has to say." He smiled as Wolruf's lip curled up over her teeth in anticipation of what they would hear.

  But instead of the irate words of Dr. Avery, they heard a familiar form of music, a tune played in twenty measures, over and over in an A-flat chord, with sounds weaving in and out of dominant chords over a pulsating, unforgettable rhythm. Derec listened to it for only ten measures before his foot began tapping.

  "That's wonderful!" said Ariel. "It's The Three Cracked Cheeks!"

  "Sayin' farrewell," said Wolruf softly. "Maybe neverr see ther like again."

  "Yes, I'm going to miss them," said Derec softly.

  "The signal is becoming weaker, already beginning to fade," said Mandelbrot.

  "We're traveling fast," said Ariel. "I think we'd better decide where."

  "Later, if you don't mind," said Derec. "Sorry, but I can't muster up a definite opinion right now. I'm too drained." He got out of his seat and slumped to the floor, lea
ning against the wall of the ship. He felt strange inside, oddly disjointed. For weeks he had labored to escape from Robot City, and now that he had, he already missed it, already wondered how the mysteries he had uncovered would ultimately be resolved. He might never know the answers.

  Just as he might never again hear the music of the Three Cracked Cheeks. The sound on the radio gradually faded, replaced by white noise, and he gestured at Mandelbrot to switch it off. He missed the music at once. He even missed Harry's jokes.

  Well, at least now he had the opportunity to achieve the two greatest goals he had at the moment. Somewhere in the universe would be the secret of his amnesia, and he was determined to find a cure for Ariel at all costs.

  Perhaps then he would be able to return to Robot City.

  He glanced up as Wolruf made her way to the food dispensary. She clumsily punched a few buttons with her paw, and then waited for the food to appear in the slot.

  But instead of food, they saw something that made them gasp.

  Inthe slot was a Key to Perihelion!

  Data Bank

  Illustrations by Paul Rivoche

  DR. AVERY (and his lab): As a young man, Dr. Avery was compared to Frank Lloyd Wright as a visionary architect and urban planner. As his interests turned to robotics, however, he was influenced by Kelden Amadiro, the head of the Robotics Institute on Aurora. Avery took Amadiro's idea of using humaniform robots to build new, ready-made colonies for the Spacers and transformed it into a huge experiment in robotics and social dynamics-Robot City. With the sponsorship and funding of Juliana Welsh, he created Robot City and then disappeared.

  [For himself he established two facilities on Robot City: an apartment in the Compass Tower and a complete laboratory. The laboratory provides full equipment for the most advanced robotics procedures, and a fairly complete set of medical, diagnostic and treatment equipment. It is here that Dr. Avery exercises the creative genius that enabled him to invent the cellular robotic chips that comprise most of Robot City.]

  [THE NEW GLOBE THEATRE: The New Globe designed by Canute is based on the spotty written records of the original Globe that survive from Shakespeare's day. The theatre is roughly circular in shape. Its stage is thrust forward, with the dressing rooms, storage space and electronic equipment directly behind. The audience surrounds the stage on the other three sides. A canopy partially covers the stage, supported by the primary structure upstage and two narrow columns about halfway downstage. The three trap doors on the stage permit entry from below.

  There are hidden cameras in the wings, and microphones concealed throughout the stage and galleries. There are also giant screens hung above the stage on which close-ups of the performers are projected. A technical director orchestrates lighting and the selection of camera angles and depth of field from the backstage control center.]

  [CIRCUIT BREAKER: This is the first work of art ever created by a robot, on Robot City or elsewhere. It is a tetragonal pyramid, two four-sided pyramids stuck together at the wide base, that rotates on one point. Circuit Breaker is composed of plasticrete, the same material as the rest of the city, but it has been reprogrammed so that its surface reflects crimson, ochre, and blue as it rotates. Each plane is a different color, and each color possesses nuances, as if it had been done with watercolors. All moving parts, especially the rotation mechanism, are underground where they will not mar the effect. Circuit Breaker is easily the most beautiful building in Robot City, the robotic equivalent of a Japanese garden. Unlike human art, however, it is equally effective for humans and robots.]

  CANUTE: Canute is a designer robot built with a tall, imposing black form. His face more resembles the helmeted head of a storm trooper than the featureless faces of most of Robot City's other inhabitants. Canute is the closest thing to a rigid conservative that exists in Robot City. His personality is extremely suspicious of change, creativity or anything else that would threaten the status quo of Robot City.

  HUNTER-SEEKER ROBOTS: These specialized robots come encased in featureless silver humanoid metal shells. Behind their blank faces, however, are massive amounts of surveillance equipment-radar tracking devices, infrared cameras, listening devices, recording gear-in short, anything that would aid them in pursuing and apprehending fugitives, whether human, robotic or alien.

  LUCIUS: Lucius has the standard slender, grey humanoid shape of most supervisor robots. What sets him apart from his fellows, besides his unique cognitive processes inside his positronic brain, is his slightly slumped posture and hesitant gestures and mode of speech.

  THE THREE CRACKED CHEEKS: Following the traumatic near-destruction of Robot City by environmental disruption, Lucius was not the only robot driven to seek a deeper comprehension of the Laws of Humanics through emulating humans. M334, Benny, and Harry came together in an attempt to understand the phenomenon of music. With only skimpy written records to guide them, they reinvented the instruments, created false lips to aid in the playing, and tried to reconstruct the style of jazz of the 1940's.

  AUTOMATS: Since the Robot City robots considered their First Law obligations on food fulfilled by providing nourishing, if tasteless, meals on request, Derec reprogrammed the Central Core computer to include user-controlled food synthesizers-automats-in one building out of ten. The automats combine varying proportions of supplies from their stocks of basic nutrients according to codes entered at the keyboard.

  Arthur Byron Cover

  The son of an American doctor, Arthur Byron Cover was born in the upper tundra of Siberia on January 15, 1950. He attended a Clarion Science Fiction Writers' Workshop in 1971, where he made his first professional sale, to Harlan Ellison's Last Dangerous Visions. Cover migrated to Los Angeles in 1972. He has published a slew of short stories, in Infinity Five, The Alien Condition, Heavy Metal, Weird Tales, Year's Best Horror Stories, and elsewhere, plus several SF books, including Autumn Angels, The Platypus of Doom, The Sound of Winter, and An East Wind Coming. He has also written scripts for issues of the comics Daredevil and Firestorm, as well as the graphic novel Space Clusters. He has been an instructor at Clarion West and was managing editor of Amazing Heroes for a time. Arthur Byron Cover is a co-editor of the forthcoming anthology The Best of the New Wave and the author of three Time Machine books for Byron Preiss Visual Publications.

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