Isaac Asimov's Utopia

by Roger MacBride Allen

  “How long have you been in his employ?”

  “One standard year and forty-two days.”

  “What are the specifications for your on-board memory system?

  “A capacity of one hundred standard years non-erasable total recall for all I have seen and heard and learned.”

  “Do you enjoy your work?”

  “No,” said Kaelor. “Not for the most part.”

  An unusual answer for a robot. Generally a robot, when given the chance, would wax lyrical over the joys of whatever task it was performing.

  “Why do you not enjoy your work?” Fredda asked.

  “Dr. Lentrall is often abrupt and rude. He will often ask for my opinion and then reject it. Furthermore, much of my work in recent days has involved simulations of events that would endanger humans.”

  Uh-oh, thought Fredda. Clearly it was a mistake to ask that follow-up question. She would have to reinforce his knowledge of the lack of danger, and then change the subject, fast, before he could pursue that line of thought. Thank Space she had turned down his pseudo-clock-rate. “Simulations involve no actual danger to humans,” she said. “They are imaginary, and have no relation to actual events. Why did you grab Dr. Lentrall and force him under a bench yesterday?”

  “I received a hyperwave message that he was in danger. First Law required me to protect him, so I did.”

  “And you did it well,” Fredda said. She was trying to establish the point that his First Law imperatives were working well. In a real-life, nonsimulated situation, he had done the proper thing. “What is the status of your various systems, offered in summary form?”

  “My positronic brain is functioning within nominal parameters, though near the acceptable limit for First Law–Second Law conflict. All visual and audio sensors and communications systems are functioning at specification. All processing and memory systems are functioning at specification. A Leving Labs model 2312 Robotic Test Meter is jacked into me and running constant baseline diagnostics. All motion and sensation below my neck, along with all hyperwave communication, have been cut off by the test meter, and I am incapable of motion or action other than speech, sight, thought, and motion of my head.”

  “Other than the functions currently deactivated by the test meter, deliberate deactivations, and normal maintenance checks, have you always operated at specification?”

  “Yes,” said Kaelor. “I remember everything.”

  Fredda held back from file impulse to curse out loud, and forced herself to keep her professional demeanor. He had violated her order not to volunteer information, and had volunteered it in regard to the one area they cared about. Only a First Law imperative could have caused him to do such a thing. He knew exactly what they were after, and he was telling them, as best he could under the restrictions she had placed on him, that he had it.

  Which meant he was not going to let them have it. They had lost. Fredda decided to abandon her super-cautious approach, and move more quickly toward what they needed.

  “Do you remember the various simulations Dr. Lentrall performed, and the data upon which they were based?”

  “Yes,” Kaelor said again. “I remember everything.”

  A whole series of questions she dared not ask flickered through her mind, along with the answers she dared not hear from Kaelor. Like a chess player who could see checkmate eight moves ahead, she knew how the questions and answers would go, almost word for word.

  Q: If you remember everything, you recall all the figures and information you saw in connection with your work with Dr. Lentrall. Why didn’t you act to replace as many of the lost datapoints as possible last night when Dr. Lentrall discovered his files were gone? Great harm would be done to his work and career if all those data were lost for all time.

  A: Because doing so would remind Dr. Lentrall that I witnessed all his simulations of the Comet Grieg operation and that I therefore remembered the comet’s positional data. I could not provide that information, as it would make the comet intercept and retargeting possible, endangering many humans. That outweighed the possible harm to one man’s career.

  Q: But the comet impact would enhance the planetary environment, benefiting many more humans in the future, and allowing them to live longer and better lives. Why did you not act to do good to those future generations?

  A: I did not act for two reasons. First, I was specifically designed with a reduced capacity for judging the Three-Law consequences of hypothetical circumstances. I am incapable of considering the future and hypothetical well-being of human beings decades or centuries from now, most of whom do not yet exist. Second, the second clause of the First Law merely requires me to prevent injury to humans. It does not require me to perform any acts in order to benefit humans, though I can perform such acts if I choose. I am merely compelled to prevent harm to humans. Action compelled by First Law supersedes any impulse toward voluntary action.

  Q. But many humans now alive are likely to die young, and die most unpleasantly, if we do no repair the climate. By preventing the comet impact, there is a high probability you are condemning those very real people to premature death. Where is the comet? I order you to tell me its coordinates, mass, and trajectory.

  A. I cannot tell you. I must tell you. I cannot tell you—

  And so on, unto death.

  It would have gone on that way, if it had lasted even that long. Either the massive conflict between First and Second Law compulsions would have burned out his brain, or else Kaelor would have invoked the second clause of First Law. He could not, through inaction, allow harm to humans.

  Merely by staying alive, with the unerasable information of where the comet was in his head, he represented a danger to humans. As long as he stayed alive, there was, in theory, a way to get past the confidentiality features of Kaelor’s brain assembly. There was no way Fredda could do it here, now, but in her own lab, with all her equipment, and with perhaps a week’s time, she could probably defeat the safeties and tap into everything he knew.

  And Kaelor knew that, or at least he had to assume it was the case. In order to prevent harm to humans, Kaelor would have to will his own brain to disorganize, disassociate, lose its positronic pathing.

  He would have to will himself to die.

  That line of questioning would kill him, either through Law-Conflict burnout or compelled suicide. He was still perilously close to both deaths as it was. Maybe it was time to take some of the pressure off. She could reduce at least some of the stress produced by Second Law. “I release you from the prohibition against volunteering information and opinions. You may say whatever you wish.”

  “I spent all of last night using my hyperwave link to tie into the data network and rebuild as many of Dr. Lentrall’s work files as possible, using my memories of various operations and interfaces with the computers to restore as much as I could while remaining in accordance with the Three Laws. I would estimate that I was able to restore approximately sixty percent of the results-level data, and perhaps twenty percent of the raw data.”

  “Thank you,” said Lentrall. “That was most generous of you.”

  “It was my duty, Dr. Lentrall. First Law prevented me from abstaining from an action that could prevent harm to a human.”

  “Whether or not you had to do it, you did it,” said Lentrall. “Thank you.”

  There was a moment’s silence, and Kaelor looked from Lentrall to Fredda and back again. “There is no need for these games,” he said. “I know what you want, and you know thhhat I I I knowww.”

  Lentrall and Fredda exchanged a look, and it was plain Lentrall knew as well as she did that it was First Law conflict making it hard for Kaelor to speak.

  Kaelor faced a moral conundrum few humans could have dealt with well. How to decide between probable harm and death to an unknown number of persons; and the misery and the lives ruined by the ruined planetary climate. And it is my husband who must decide, Fredda told herself, the realization a sharp stab of pain. If we succeed here, I
am presenting him with that nightmare choice. She thrust that line of thought to one side. She had to concentrate on Kaelor, and the precious knowledge hidden inside him. Fredda could see hope sliding away as the conflicts piled up inside the tortured robot’s mind. “We know,” she said at last, admitting defeat. “And we understand. We know that you cannot tell us, and we will not ask.” It was pointless to go further. It was inconceivable that Kaelor would be willing or able to tell them, or that he would survive long enough to do so, even if he tried.

  Lentrall looked at Fredda in surprise, and then relief. “Yes,” he said. “We will not ask. We see now that it would be futile to do so. I thought Dr. Leving might have some trick, some technique, some way of learning the truth without destroying you, but I see that I was wrong. We will not ask this of you, and we will not seek to gain the knowledge from you in other ways. This is our promise.”

  “I join in this promise,” Fredda said.

  “Hu-hu-humansss lie,” Kaelor said.

  “We are not lying,” Fredda said, her voice as urgent as she could make it. “There would be nothing we could gain by asking you, and thus no motive for lying.”

  “Yourrrr promisse does—does—does not apply to other humans.”

  “We will keep the fact of what you know secret,” Lentrall said, a note of hysteria in his voice. “Kaelor, please! Don’t!”

  “I tried tooo kee-keep the fact of wwwhat I knewww secret,’’ said Kaelor, “but yoooou realized that I had seeen what I saw, and that I woullld remember.” He paused a moment, as if to gather the strength to speak again “Othhers could do the same,” he said in a voice that was suddenly little more than a whisper, “I cannot take thhat channnce.”

  “Please!” Davlo cried out. “No!”

  “Remaininng alivvve represents inaction,” Kaelor said, his voice suddenly growing stronger as he reached his decision. “I must act to prevent harm to humans.”

  His eyes glowed brighter, his gaze turned from Davlo to Fredda, as if looking at each of them one last time, and then he looked straight ahead, at the wall, at nothing at all, at infinity. There was a low-pitched hum, the smell of burning insulation, and suddenly the light was gone from his eyes. His head sagged forward, and a thin wisp of smoke curled up from the base of his neck.

  The room was silent. Fredda and Davlo looked at each other, and at the dead thing hanging on the frame in the center of the room.

  “By all the forgotten gods,” Fredda whispered. “What have we done?”

  “You did nothing, Doctor,” said Davlo, his voice nothing but a whisper as he fought to hold back a sob. “Nothing but help me do what I would have done. But as for me,” he said, his voice close to cracking, “I’ll tell you what I’ve done.”

  He moved a step or two forward, and looked up at Kaelor’s body.

  “I’ve just killed the closest thing to a friend I’ve ever had.”

  * * *

  13

  * * *

  JADELO GILDERN LIKED to tell himself that his job was to guess—and to guess correctly. The job of an intelligence chief was not to know everything. That was impossible. But a good intelligence chief was capable of seeing the whole puzzle when many of the pieces were lost, or hidden, or even disguised. A good intel chief could see the underlying pattern, take what he knew of the facts, what he knew of the personalities involved and figure out how they would interact. He could calculate what a person’s words and actions—or absence of words and actions—actually meant.

  And as he sat in his office in the Ironhead Building, and thought over the situation, he was close to reaching an interesting conclusion. He was almost tempted to go the whole distance now. He knew it had to be the Settlers behind the Government Tower chaos, and it took no excess of brainpower to guess that they had been after Lentrall. And Gildern knew exactly what other steps he himself would have taken to suppress the information Lentrall had. Presumably the Settler leaders, Tonya Welton and Cinta Melloy, had as much sense as he did.

  That much was all speculative, of course. However, one thing he did know to something like a certainty. He had already divined where Kresh had vanished to. Gildern had been able to use the Ironhead taps into the air traffic control system, and spot three long-range aircar flights, two starting at the governor’s private residence, and one terminating there. One, the first, had been untraceable in the storm. The return flight of the same vehicle had come in from precisely one hundred and eighty degrees away from the direction of Purgatory. That was exactly the sort of thing a robot would do if told to take evasive action. And then, a third flight, with a flight plan filed, showing a destination of First Circle, a small and far-off suburb of Hades. First Circle’s air traffic control had no record of the aircar arriving. Either it had crashed, or it had gone somewhere else. Gildern could guess where.

  Three flights. One to carry Kresh, one to ferry back the aircar, and one to transport others to his side—perhaps his wife. But even without the return flight pointing in precisely the opposite direction, Gildern would have guessed Purgatory. One had to consider where the man would want to go at such a time. It was almost inevitable that he had gone off to consult the experts at the Terraforming Center on Purgatory. No, finding the man would be no problem. He would either be at the Center, or at the Winter Residence. He, Gildern, could get in an aircar and be face to face with the man in four hours’ time.

  But would it be worth the trip? Had he worked out the rest of it properly?

  There was, happily enough, a way to find out. Simcor Beddle had been good enough to inform Gildern what he was about to say in the speech he had decided to make. Gildern had felt a certain degree of surprise that Beddle was ready to take such daring steps. But he was not beneath using his master, when his master’s actions suited his purposes. Gildern was always prepared to manipulate Beddle in order to achieve some private agenda of his own.

  But this time Beddle had needed no prodding, no buttering up, no encouragement. For once, Gildern had not had to feed an idea to Beddle, and then convince Beddle the idea was his. For once, Beddle was acting on his own.

  If Beddle’s speech did not provoke a particular and immediate reaction from Alvar Kresh, then Gildern would know the governor was in trouble, and know it to such a high probability that it would be more accurate to call it a certainty. Gildern smiled. That would be most pleasant.

  For then Gildern would be in a position to do the governor a little favor, while serving his own master at the same time.

  And there were worse things in the universe than a planetary governor owing one a favor.

  GAMBLE, SIMCOR BEDDLE told himself. A wise man knows when it is time to gamble, and now is the time. He drew himself up to his full height behind the lectern—aided not a little bit by the tall step discreetly hidden place behind it for that purpose—and looked squarely into the camera.

  “I am here,” he said, “in order to make two announcements that I think you will find surprising.” An excited murmur filled the room—or at least it seemed to do so. There was no one in the room, other than Beddle and the robots operating the cameras and the sound system, but there was no need for the world to know that. Nor was “here” any place in particular, other than the broadcast studio in the basement of the Ironhead Building. He had not said where he was, but he had certainly made it sound like an important place, an important event, and that was all that mattered.

  He had help, of course. The robot operating the sound system knew his business, and knew just how to create a spurious murmur of surprise, the shifting of seats that were not there and even the subdued and subtle hum of imaginary datapads as nonexistent reporters took their notional notes.

  All of it worked on the subconscious, but it worked all the same. Simcor Beddle knew how the media operated on Inferno. He was feeding his speech direct to the news nets, but hardly anyone would see the speech now, live. It would be edited down, with a snippet presented as if it were the whole thing.

  People would see pe
rhaps ninety seconds of his speech on one or the other of the news services, a short enough slice of time that they would not expect a description of where and why the speech was made. They would hear the background sounds under his voice, see the opulent red curtains behind his head, catch the implication in his words that he was speaking to some very important group at some very important event. Subtle stuff. Subtle enough that the viewers would not quite know why they thought it was important, but the impression would be placed in their minds all the same. Simcor Beddle, the leader of the Ironheads himself, had addressed some group one didn’t quite catch the name of, and there had dropped his bombshells on a waiting world. When one had sufficient control over fantasy, one had no need of reality.

  Beddle looked alertly out over the audience that wasn’t there. “First, I would like to confirm the story that has been circulating since last night.” He paused dramatically. “There is indeed a government plan to drop a comet onto this planet, on the Utopia region to be precise. The impact will assist in the formation of a Polar Sea, which will, in turn, enhance Inferno’s planetary climate.” The sound effects robots brought up the appropriate murmur of astonishment and surprise. “The project is very much in its planning stages, and the government is not yet definitely committed to it. However, the government is making its preparations just the same, as well they should be. Time is short. The comet in question was discovered only recently, and preparations must be made in advance of the final decision to proceed if there is to be time to make it happen.”

  Simcor paused once more, and looked directly into the camera. “This brings me to my second announcement. There are those among you who will find it even more startling than the first. I fully support the government plan. I have seen certain planning documents and results projections and risk assessments. There are, beyond question, serious dangers involved. Nor will the task be easy. There is a tremendous amount of work that must be done in a very short time. But I have also seen the estimates of the probable fate of our planet, what will happen here if we don’t seize this chance. Suffice it to say those projections are grim. Grim enough that I have concluded we must seize this chance, risks and all.” Simcor paused once again, and looked about the room with a meaningful expression. “While I support the comet-impact plan, I must take the government to task most severely for the manner in which it has concealed its plans from you, the people of Inferno. Surely no one can question that this project will affect every man and woman on this planet. The decision should not have been made in secret.”