Asimov's Future History Volume 5

by Isaac Asimov

  “What? How? How could the First Law require this? You don’t think this has harmed me? I’m a person, not a robot!” Jeff started to sit up again, but really didn’t feel like rising. He was not tired, or physically weak, but he didn’t want to move, as though he might somehow injure himself in this alien body.

  “You were injured when we found you,” said Research 1. “We do not have knowledge here of human thoracic and abdominal organs. Our medical library is inconsistent and uneven. However, we had some experimental information regarding the frontier of knowledge about the human nervous system. Since we could not allow you to come to further harm if we could prevent it, we were forced to use our experimental knowledge in preserving you as a living entity. “ #

  “I’m not sure I follow you,” Jeff whispered. “Say it out straight, will you?”

  “We have transplanted your brain into one of our humanoid robot bodies because we could not repair yours.”

  Jeff closed his eyes and lay still for a moment. When he opened them, he stared morosely at Research 1.

  “What happened to my body?”

  “It has been frozen. We believe, with our limited information, that it is actually not injured beyond repair.

  We do not, however, know how to fix it. Do you have medical knowledge that could assist us in repairing your body?”

  “Me? I’m just a kid on his way to college—a teenager. I don’t know anything about that. At least, not on the level you would need.”

  “We assembled this team specifically for this project,” said Surgeon 1. “We are not aware of other successful transplants of the same type.”

  “Great,” Jeff said sarcastically. “I guess.”

  “You do not seemed pleased with this success,” observed Surgeon 1. “Do you disbelieve that this is the least harm to you that we could arrange under the circumstances?”

  “No...no, I don’t disbelieve you. I just...don’t want to be a robot!” He sat up this time and yanked the monitor wires free of himself. “Don’t you get it? I’m not me anymore! I’m not Jeff Leong.”

  The robots made no move.

  “That is not entirely true,” said Research 1. “Your identity resides in your brain. Unless the trauma of the crash caused you to lose some memory, your identity is unchanged.”

  “But I’m not me —I mean, on the outside. I don’t look like this.” He held up his hands, open, and shook them at the robots.

  “In many ways,” said Surgeon 1, “your new robot body is more efficient than your human body. It can be repaired virtually forever, provided your brain is undamaged. Only your brain will age, and it will receive the optimum support in nutrition and intrabody care. You are stronger, and your sensors are much more efficient than your former sense organs.”

  “Some consolation. How long do I have to stay here?”

  “Your robot body is in fine condition. You are not confined to bed,” said Surgeon 1. “Some simple motor tests will tell us whether all the connections from your brain to the body are correct. Please stand.”

  Jeff cautiously swung his legs over the edge of the bed and got up. “No problem so far.”

  “Place your heels together, angle your feet away from each other, and tilt your head back. Now extend your arms out straight. One at a time, touch your hands to your nose.”

  Jeff complied.

  “Very well,” said Surgeon 1. “Research 1?”

  “According to the monitors, the robot body is functioning properly. We will need more space for my tests of gross motor skills. I suggest we introduce him to the exterior of this building.”

  Jeff walked out of the room with them and down a hallway, feeling not clumsy, exactly, but just a little too tall and too heavy. Outside, he was nearly blinded at first, but adjusted immediately. Surgeon 1 saw him flinch.

  “Your eyes see a wider range of the spectrum than your human eyes did. The same will be true of your other sensors. What you just experienced was an automatic dimming of your robot eyes to allow you to see comfortably. You did just the opposite when you woke up in near darkness a little while ago.”

  “Excellent,” said Research 1. “You are responding automatically, then. I have only a few more tests.”

  “Before we do that,” said Jeff, “I just thought of something. What am I going to do?”

  “Whatever you wish,” said Research 1. “We have no requirements, other than those imposed on us by the Laws and by our programming. That involves our society here, not you.”

  “But...what about college? I can’t go like this....They won’t even know who I am! I don’t look like Jeff Leong any more—I don’t have retinal prints, fingerprints, any kind of identifying mark.”

  “If your brain waves are on record anywhere, they will serve,” said Surgeon 1. “However, we do not have any spacecraft available for you, anyway.”

  Jeff whirled on him. “You mean I’m stuck here?”

  “We do not have spacecraft available,” Research 1 affirmed.

  “But...wait a minute! I can’t stay here!”

  “We have no hold on you,” said Research 1. “If we ever develop the means to repair your human body and reverse the transplant, we will do so. Should spacecraft become available, travel will also be open to you.”

  “But I can’t stay here. There’s nothing to do here!”

  “Please remain calm. After testing your gross motor skills, I will introduce you to the robot in charge of assigning tasks in Robot City. Perhaps you will find an activity that you will enjoy.”

  “Hey, now wait a minute.” Jeff backed away from Research 1, and found the other two robots grasping his arms. “Hey!” He twisted, stepped sideways, and yanked his arms free. “Lemme alone.”

  “We must conduct more tests to measure your welfare,” said Research 1.

  “Look, I just—let go!” Jeff pulled his arm away from Surgeon 1 again. “Listen to me! I’m human—I’m telling you to leave me alone. Second Law, remember?” he started walking backward, awkwardly on his new legs, keeping an eye on them.

  “We cannot allow you to harm yourself,” Surgeon 1 reminded him. “The First Law outweighs the Second. Come back.” He started for Jeff.

  Jeff spun around and started running.

  He found himself running down a broad thoroughfare nearly empty of vehicular traffic. Some robot pedestrians moved out of his way. He had no idea where he was going, but he wanted to think, and to do it alone.

  He could hear two sets of footsteps pounding after him—and was surprised to realize that his robotic hearing was so acute that he could actually distinguish the two separate pairs of robot feet. They were calling after him, not shouting angrily the way people would, but yelling that he was still experimental, that he might harm himself, that he had to stop. He didn’t stop, though; their voices simply spurred him on.

  Other robots were listening, however, and trying to block his path. He dodged a couple of them and burst through the outstretched arms of several more. They all gave chase, presumably responding to the calls of the medical team that he might violate the First Law. The other robots apparently would help catch him first if they could, and worry about explanations later.

  He rounded a corner without slowing down and started up a small side street. Even now, he could feel that he was running more comfortably than he had just moments before. His robot body responded quickly, and well. It had not been designed for footraces, but it was powerful and efficient. As he got more used to it, he began to turn up the speed and to hurdle minor obstacles.

  Unfortunately, of course, his pursuit was all robots, as well.

  He kept running.

  Chapter 8

  HITTING THE STREETS

  DEREC AND ARIEL stopped to rest on a small ridge of soil on the side of yet another construction site. As near as they could tell, the urban area of Robot City was expanding in all directions from its center, and they had been walking the perimeter of construction so they could question the robots they encountered.


  So far, they had traveled only a very small arc of the entire circle.

  ‘This isn’t doing us any good,” Derec complained. He lay down on the dirt and leaned back against the slope.

  “What isn’t?” She looked carefully to make sure the slope behind here was smooth, then also leaned back. “Resting here or asking around?”

  “Both, now that you mention it. But I meant asking robots at random like this. There are thousands of them, and they aren’t very observant of their surroundings unless it’s part of their job. They concentrate on their own tasks too much.”

  “I haven’t thought of anything better.” She closed her eyes. “My feet hurt. I’m not used to walking so much.”

  “I haven’t thought of anything else, either. There must be something, though.” He looked across the way, where a foreman robot was overseeing a large function robot of some kind. “Everything is so carefully organized. Nothing is wasted.”

  As they watched, the function robot raised an arm with a nozzle on the end and began to spray a heavy, viscous liquid onto the bare, level ground in front of it. Even after the liquid had landed, it swirled and shifted and moved in active currents beyond those in motion by the pressure at the nozzle. As the spray continued, the liquid formed a flat floor and then began to grow walls up from the floor, leaving space for a doorway.

  Ariel opened her eyes. “Did you ask that one robot earlier how the spray works? I went to talk to another one and didn’t hear your conversation.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t understand the details, but apparently the molecules are all coded. They know where to go, and slide around in liquid form until they reach the right spot. Then they bond with their right neighboring molecules.”

  “Just the way this whole city works,” said Ariel. “Except for us and our visitors. We don’t fit. That’s one thing we have in common with them, no matter who they are.”

  “You think it over,” Derec said wearily. “Here comes another transport vehicle of some kind. I can see a humanoid riding in it. I guess I’ll go interrupt its day and ask it the usual questions.”

  He got to his feet, and realized as he walked through a scrap area that his own legs did not have much more energy left, either. Most of the scrap was in huge, carefully stacked piles, but here and there individual pieces had fallen or been laid out to start a new stack. He noted with a mixture of interest and annoyance that none of the parts were recognizable. These Avery robots had an extremely ingrown technology.

  Derec had learned how to shortcut this process somewhat. He first called out that he was human to get the robot’s attention, and then ordered it to stop. In turn, the humanoid robot ordered the function robot—the transport—to stop. This time, Derec’s questions paid off.

  “I have seen two non-indigenous beings recently,” said the robot, looking down at Derec from the high cab of the transport.

  “Identify,” Derec ordered, with excitement.

  “I am Class 9 Vehicle Foreman 214.”

  “What did they look like? What were they doing?”

  “One was a robot that did not respond to my communication greeting. Apparently he was on a different frequency or malfunctioning. Also, his dimensions and proportions were not quite familiar.”

  “What about the other one?”

  “I did not see the other one clearly. It appeared to be no longer than a meter. This is an approximation.

  It had four extremities.”

  “A kid,” said Derec. “A robot and a little kid. That’s weird....Did you speak with them?”

  “No. They departed when I approached.”

  “What were they doing when you first saw them?”

  “Walking.”

  “Did you hear them speak? Or have any contact with robots of any kind?”

  “No.”

  “Say—why did you try to communicate with them?”

  “Because of their unusual appearance. I thought that if the robot required assistance to a repair facility, I would offer it.”

  “Did you report the sighting to the central computer?”

  “Yes.”

  “When and where did it take place?”

  “Two days ago. The time—”

  “That’s good enough. Where?” Derec grinned. The sighting was not one of those he had found listed in the computer. Ariel came up to join them as Class 9 Vehicle 214 gave him the city coordinates of the sighting. Then the robot went on its way.

  “It’s a start,” Derec said happily. “The sighting is two days old, but it’s solid.”

  He filled her in on the details.

  “A babysitter and a kid, maybe,” said Ariel. “They might have been ejected from a lifepod in a ship emergency, or something like that. But with the transportation in this city, they could be anywhere by now.”

  “We have to start somewhere. Come on.” Derec started in the direction of the nearest thoroughfare back toward the heart of the city.

  Ariel hurried after him. “It just doesn’t seem like much to go on. They must be long gone from there.”

  “Oh, come on! After all this time, this is the best lead we have. Why do you want to be so pessimistic?”

  “It’s not that, exactly.”

  “Then what?” He demanded angrily. “Don’t you want to get away from here? Would you rather just give up?”

  “Of course not! I didn’t say that.”

  “Well, then, come on.” Derec stalked along, his upbeat mood lost. The worst part of it was his realization that she was right. Their lead out here on the fringe of the city had come to nothing; chasing a two-day-old sighting might be just as hopeless.

  They marched in silence for a while, then topped on the edge of the avenue. Traffic here would be nonexistent until the next construction transport was ready to head into the city again. The trips were carefully planned and maintained, as the robots were too efficient to waste any fuel or time on unnecessary runs.

  After Derec had cooled down a little, he said, “Maybe these two sightings do tell us something. I think our visitors landed outside the city and entered in search of, I don’t know—food and shelter, I suppose.

  The sighting on the fringe, here, was older. So if they went into the middle of the city for a reason, they may stay there.”

  “It’s still a very big city,” Ariel said doubtfully. Suddenly, she gasped. “That’s it, Derec. What are they going to eat?”

  “Well—I guess they’ll get a chemical processor from the robots....”

  “But will they know that? Will they know to ask? Besides, the robots wanted you to solve a mystery for them, so we had special consideration.”

  “Maybe, but if the robots learn of the problem, the First Law will make them help out.” He was stung by the fact that he hadn’t thought of this himself. “Yeah, this must be the only city to be found anywhere that doesn’t have a single restaurant or anything like that.”

  “This is our first real lead,” said Ariel with a new excitement. “Once we get back to the tunnel system, let’s split up. I’ll follow up on our latest sighting and see if I can find a food source around there.”

  “Why? I thought you didn’t consider that lead worth much.”

  “Oh, Derec, stop griping. You need to get back on the computer and see if you can locate food sources through it. This way we can cover two leads at once, that’s all.”

  “Well, I can’t argue with that. Come to think of it, if they haven’t found any food, they could be in bad shape by now. We don’t want them dying on us.” He waved for her to follow him, pressed by a new sense of urgency.

  “We can’t walk all the way to the tunnel stop,” she said, but she was smiling. “It’s good to see the old enthusiasm back.”

  They actually walked some distance before a vehicle came by to give them a ride, but the walk paid off.

  The vehicle had departed from somewhere within the construction perimeter and would not have passed them out there. As Ariel had suggested, they split up in the tunnel
system. He returned home to their computer console, while she went on to the site that Class 9 Vehicle 214 had reported.

  Derec sat down at the console, glad to have another approach to use; but he hadn’t forgotten that this report had been lost somewhere in the system. He started by calling up a list of stores that were edible to humans. The only inventory was in the tank of their chemical processor, according to the screen. So either the visitors were getting hungry, or they had a food source not recorded this way.

  Next, he called up other materials that had been converted to edible form. Again, everything was accounted for. He asked if another chemical processor had been made or requested. Nothing like that had been recorded.

  As far as Derec knew, Robot City did not have any animal life that could be caught and eaten, even by the most desperate humans. Perhaps a very talented human could build a chemical processor without the help of the robots, but it would still require parts. Nor could it produce any food without raw materials of some kind.

  On the assumption that the visitors had landed outside the city and entered the perimeter where he and Ariel had first gone, he narrowed the focus of his requests and asked again if any robots in that area had sighted the strangers. Nothing turned up that way. He got the same result when looking for a record of their landing.

  The only certainty Derec had was that the computer was unreliable. The answers about the chemical processor and the foodstuffs might be accurate, but the visitors were here, and that meant they had landed somewhere on the planet in a spacecraft that could, in all probability, lift off again. There had to be some way to track them.

  He couldn’t think of anything. With a sigh, he got up and paced idly around the small room. So far, the computer hadn’t helped any this time; he wished he had gone with Ariel.

  He doubted she was in much danger, especially if the visitors were a robot and a small child. Besides, he knew she could take care of herself pretty well. His attitude toward her had changed, though, ever since he had learned of the seriousness of her illness. She didn’t seem quite so intimidating any more, though she was still older and more self-assured than he was. Ever since the day she had told him of the severity of her disease, and had cried in his arms, he had felt a growing protectiveness toward her.