by Isaac Asimov
Too much to do, too little time, Derec thought. But if he was going to make better use of the night hours than he had last night, he needed to be better rested. “Alpha.”
“Yes, Derec.”
“What time is it?”
“I do not know what time it is, since my temporal register has not been reset since I was deactivated. However, it has been fourteen decads since reinitialization.”
Decads were units of Auroran decimal time, Derec recalled. “I’m going to take a nap. Wake me in a Standard hour.”
“Yes, sir.”
But it was Aranimas, not the robot, who woke him.
“Are you finished? Is my servant ready?” he demanded, looming over Derec like some long-limbed water bird.
“Not yet,” Derec said sleepily, sitting up. He noted with satisfaction that the robot was standing inert by the workbench. It, at least, had not been taken by surprise.
“Then why do you rest? To keep me waiting?”
“I rest so I don’t get so tired that I make a mistake that’ll damage the robot,” Derec said. “Maybe your kind doesn’t have that need, but humans do.”
Aranimas did not take offense at Derec’s tone. “I have observed that humans are even less efficient than Narwe. You would make very poor workers, wasting one third of your time in rest.” He turned his back on Derec and went to where the robot stood. “But then perhaps that is why you have invented such machines, which labor in your service tirelessly. How is it done?”
“What do you mean?” Derec asked, coming to his feet.
“What is the source of energy?” Aranimas asked, tracing a line down the robot’s torso with his long fingers.
Derec knew that being evasive or pretending ignorance would only anger the alien. “A microfusion powerpack,” he said. “There’s one on the bench there, just to the left of the scanner.”
Aranimas picked up the damaged powerpack and studied it. “So small. How days’ service does it contain?”
“It depends on how hard the robot is working. The fuel capsule is good for several hundred days of light duty, like domestic service. A laborer would obviously need refueling more often.”
“Remarkable,” Aranimas said, returning the powerpack to the bench. One of his eyes seemed to focus briefly on the transplanted arm, then swung back toward Derec. “You are making progress?”
“I am.”
“How long until you are ready to activate it?”
“I’ll be ready to start testing its systems tomorrow or the next day. How soon it’ll be ready will depend on how much is wrong.”
Aranimas seemed to accept that. “The first job of this robot will be to help you make more robots.”
Frowning, Derec stepped forward. “How many more?”
“We will begin with fifty.”
Derec wondered if that figure represented the number of Narwe on board. He briefly enjoyed the thought of Aranimas replacing his browbeaten crew with an array of obedient robots, only to discover that, at a word from Derec, he couldn’t command them at all. But he could not kid himself or allow Aranimas to entertain unreasonable expectations.
“I don’t think you understand the complexity of these machines,” Derec said. “They’re not something you put together as a hobby, no matter how good a materials lab you have. And frankly, this isn’t a very good one. I’ll probably be able to get this robot put together and keep it repaired. But if you want fifty robots, you’re going to have to look somewhere else for them. I’m not magician enough to pull positronic brains or microfusion cells out of a hat.”
“If you had not destroyed your robot colony —,” Aranimas said, his voice rising.
“I told you before, the robots did that on their own,” Derec insisted. “But that doesn’t mean you’re stuck. You take this ship to any Spacer world and you’ll find millions of robots. And you won’t have to steal them, either. Robots are a major trade item between the worlds. Any one of them would be happy for a new customer.”
That was not entirely true, of course. It was highly doubtful the Spacers would willingly turn over examples of their most advanced technology to an alien race, and even if they were willing, there was the problem of what Aranimas could offer as payment. But if Derec could make Aranimas believe it was the truth, coax him to take the ship to a human world, he would at least have succeeded in alerting them to the aliens’ existence, and possibly have laid the groundwork for his own release.
“If commerce is so welcome, why did your robots destroy themselves?”
“Because you came in firing your weapons and declared yourself an enemy,” Derec said. “If you’d come in as a friend, it would have been different. Take me to your navigator. I’ll help him set a course for the nearest Spacer world.” And find out where we are in the process, he added silently.
“I will evaluate the options,” Aranimas said, moving toward the corridor. “In the meantime, you will continue your work. I will return tomorrow to see my robot activated.”
The reprogramming could not be postponed any longer, Derec decided, He did not think Aranimas would return soon. He would have to hope that Wolruf would not, either.
Unfortunately, Derec did not have the equipment to alter the robot’s programming directly, which would have been risky anyway. Since it was intimately bound up in the Laws of Robotics, the robot’s definition of what a human was comprised some of the most crucial and most deeply engraved patterns within its brain. What needed doing would have to be done more indirectly.
“Alpha,” he said. “Did you scan the organism that was just here?”
“Yes, Derec.”
“And earlier today, did you scan another type of organism visiting the lab?”
“Yes, Derec.”
“What’d you think of them?”
“I have no previous knowledge of humans of this type —”
That was the kind of response Derec had been fearing. “Stop. They’re not humans.”
“Sir, I am aware that my data library is not complete. However, I am unable to categorize them in any other fashion unless you can provide me with evidence for your assertion.”
“Compare their appearance with mine.”
“Sir, I acknowledge that there are numerous anomalous differences. However, those differences fall in areas where the definition of a human has a wide latitude, such as skin color and covering, dimensions, and vocal timbre. The similarities are in more fundamental areas such as bilateral symmetry, bipedal locomotion, oxygen respiration —”
“They are humanoid, as you are. But they are not human.”
“I note your assertion, sir, but I am unable to confirm it.”
Derec understood that he was not being called a liar. When it had no independent knowledge, a robot would ordinarily accept the word of a human as gospel. But a robot was under no obligation to accept a human’s claim that it was raining when its own sensors told it otherwise.
This was not that clear-cut an issue, but the robot was biased toward a generous definition of what a human was. Otherwise there was the danger of a robot’s being used as an assassin by the simple step of persuading it that its target was not a human. Derec understood, but even so was annoyed. “I suppose that if they had twelve arms and belched fire when they talked, you might believe me.”
“Sir, in the matter at hand the morphological considerations are not primary in my analysis.”
“Explain. What are the discriminators?”
“Sir, I base my conclusion on the observation that the organisms called Aranimas and Wolruf are intelligent beings capable of independent reasoned thought.”
“How do you know?”
“Sir, you carried on a dialogue with each of them. Although humans on occasion talk to nonanimate objects and may give the appearance of carrying on a dialogue with certain animals, I perceived your discussions as having a qualitatively different character.”
“Are you saying that because I treated them as human, you have to think of them
that way?”
“Where there is uncertainty, as thee may be when a human wears a costume or disguise, I am obliged to use such cues as are available. Your behavior created a strong presumption that Aranimas and Wolruf are human.”
“I talk to you the same way I talked to them. Does that make you a human?”
“No, Derec. I am a robot, a technological artifact. To the degree that I may seem to be human, it is only because I have been designed to do so in order to more easily interact with humans.”
Derec was growing frustrated. “Tell me this, then. How do you tell the difference between a robot and a human at a distance?”
“Sir, just as I have an operational definition of that class of organisms called humans, I also have one of that class of objects called robots. It is ordinarily possible to distinguish between the two based on the characteristics they do not have in common. It is not a perfect system, however, and may be fooled, as by a humaniform robot of the type developed by Dr. Han Fastolfe.”
Derec had to concede the point to the robot. If only I could show it skin scrapings from the three of us — but if Aranimas or Wolruf happened to have a cellular structure, I’d be no better off. It might even decide its right arm is human —
“Robot, are Spacers, Settlers, and Earthpeople all human?” he asked suddenly.
“Yes.”
“Have you personally observed every member of those groups?”
“No, Derec. There are approximately eight billion Earthpeople, five billion Spacers, and —”
“If you have not observed them individually, how is it you are able to classify them all as human?”
“Spacers and Settlers are descendants of the original human community on Earth,” the robot replied. “Therefore, any individual correctly identified as a Settler or Spacer cannot be other than human.”
“Why is that?” Derec asked, though he knew the answer.
“They share a phylogenetic relationship. The offspring of a human must be human.”
“In other words, what really counts is biology-the genes and DNA humans carry in their cells.”
“Yes.”
“And the guidelines that are built into your definition of a human are simply shortcuts to make it unnecessary for you to subject everyone you encounter to a biological assay. The final criterion is DNA.”
“That is correct, Derec.”
“But you have no way of examining a person’s DNA directly.”
“No, sir.”
“Fine. You said that each of the anomalies in Aranimas’s appearance fell within the acceptable parameters for natural variation and mutation.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I ask you to calculate the probability that all of Aranimas’s anomalies would appear in a single organism.”
The robot scarcely hesitated. “The probability is extremely small.”
“And for Wolruf?”
“The probability is somewhat higher, but still on the order of one chance in ten to the fifteenth power.”
“In other words, there is less than a one in ten thousand chance that a mutation this extreme would have arisen once in all of human history. And here there are two of them, not only alive at the same time but in the same place, and both as different from each other as they are from me.”
“It is quite remarkable. No doubt further study of these individuals would be of great benefit.”
Derec sighed exasperatedly. “Listen, my thick-headed robot friend. Stop thinking one step at a time. Isn’t the probability that an independently evolved lifeform might be bipedal, bilateral, and oxygen-breathing greater than the probability that these creatures are mutant humans? Can’t Aranimas and Wolruf be intelligent without being human?”
“Yes, that is possible.” The robot paused, a sign of great activity in its positronic pathways. “However, since no independently evolved intelligent lifeforms are known, it is difficult to assign a probability to a specific form.”
“I challenge your premise,” Derec pounced. “Why are most robots humanoid?”
“Higher robots are humanoid because it is a successful generalized design and because —”
“The other reasons don’t matter,” Derec said. “Apply that standard to the question of Aranimas and Wolruf.”
Again the robot paused before answering. “My positromotive potentials are extremely high on both sides of the question,” it said at last. “I believe this state may be similar to that which a human describes as confusion.”
“Get to the point. What’s the verdict?”
“It is my tentative conclusion that Aranimas and Wolruf are not human.”
“You are not obliged by the First Law to protect them or the Second Law to obey them?”
“No, Derec.”
“Good,” he said with relief. “You can live. Now listen closely. I have some important instructions for you concerning our alien hosts —”
Chapter 11
TAMPERING
WITHIN THE GREATER world of the raider ship, Derec had been confined to one small island. As he prepared to begin his nocturnal wanderings, that island consisted of the route from the lab (in what he thought of as Hull L) to the dispensary and Personal (in Hull D). Linking the ends of the trail were two sections of storage corridor forming a short transfer tunnel between the hulls. And that was all Derec knew.
He did not know where the lab was in relation to Aranimas’s command center, though he felt certain that it was some distance away. For that matter, he did not know the way to any of the other places he had been — the hull where he had seen the star-creatures, the corridor in which he had awoken, the hold from which the salvage team had operated, the section of lockers where the robot parts had been stored. He did not know where Wolruf slept, or where the fifty Narwe were most likely to be found.
The corridor to the dispensary was also the only part of the ship which he had explicit permission to be in. Aranimas had not forbidden him to roam farther afield, but neither had he invited it. It seemed to Derec as though it might be some kind of test. The problem was, he didn’t know whether he would fail through action or inaction: by exploring, or by staying close to home.
In the end, Derec set aside his uncertainties with the thought that it was always better to know more than to know less. If Aranimas found out and objected, Derec could always offer the excuse that he was scouting for places and tasks to test the robot.
The ranks of closed lockers in the transfer tunnel had been gnawing at his curiosity for nearly two days, and he started by opening all that were within his reach. He did not know exactly what he had expected to find, but the fact that more than half the lockers were empty came as a surprise.
Those that were full contained some recognizable objects, such as bolts of the cloth from which the Narwe clothing was made, replacement electrodes for the microwelder in the lab, and vacuum-sealed food stores. A few of the lockers were either jammed or locked — Derec could not determine which.
Just as he was finishing in the section closest to the dispensary, one of the false-horned Narwe entered through the single side door. Startled, Derec jumped guiltily, then froze. Without making any sign of acknowledgment Derec could recognize, the alien turned its back and left by the lab-end door, saying nothing.
Alone again, Derec felt foolish, for he had every right to be there and the alien had seen nothing incriminating. But his heart raced as though he had been caught by Aranimas himself. He was not worried about the Narwe trying to stop him, since he was confident that he could be at least as intimidating as Wolruf.
But there was always the chance a Narwe, perhaps hoping to curry favor, would carry a tale to Aranimas and bring him investigating. Since Derec did not want to give Aranimas reasons to mistrust him, he decided he would have to forego rummaging through the lockers, at least as long as there were still Narwe afoot. It was the one activity his excuse would not cover.
Derec next took up a fuller exploration of the two hulls he had ready access to.
Three doors down from the Personal in Hull D, he found a compartment containing five deep-cushioned chairs arrayed in a circle and facing inward. At the center of the circle was a pale white globe mounted on a black cylindrical base. The globe was so large that Derec’s arms could reach barely halfway around.
But finding did not mean understanding. For all he could divine, the globe could as easily be a religious totem as a communications device, and the compartment as easily a sanctuary as a bridge.
And there was no point in risking his position just to multiply his ignorance. So for the second time in half an hour, Derec altered his strategy. All that mattered was rediscovering the route back to Hull A — Aranimas’s quarters — and to Hull T, where the transfer bay and perhaps his augment could be found. Nothing else was of any consequence whatsoever.
There were five exits from the deck of Hull D, two from Hull L, and two from the transfer tunnel. He considered simply taking one and following it wherever it led, but he did not trust himself to find his way back.
Instead, he worked at expanding the boundaries of his known world slowly. Each time he opened a new door and started off on an unfamiliar corridor, he would turn left and then left again as soon as possible in the hopes of returning in a loop to some part of the world he knew. Only when he had memorized each of those additions would he take a branch off a branch.
The first time, his strategy worked. The side door in the transfer tunnel led him, three turns later, to Hull L, one deck down from the lab. Despite the fact that he sighted two Narwe along the way, the success gave him a rush of confidence.
But then it began to get messy. The other exit from the lab level of Hull L went on through seven sections with no side branches. Possibly it went on still farther, but Derec would never know, since he grew timid and turned back.
One of the exits from Hull D led down a sloping ramp into a weapons turret occupied by one of Aranimas’s kin and a Narwe — another hasty retreat. Another, farther aft, led to one of the hexagonal junction points. He chose a door at random and found himself in another junction.
