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Isaac Asimov`s Robot City, Robots And Aliens Book 2

1. alien placed Sarco s relationship to him in the same pattern as Wohler g to her Had Sarco intended that to be the case Had he misjudged Sarco s behavior during charge that morning Yes Miss Ariel Welsh Welcome to our world Synapo said The small alien turned away shaking allover after suddenly putting her hand over her primary and secondary vents She was obviously caught in a fit of ague Wohler 9 studiously ignored her condition The only reaction of the other the humaniform was a slight upward curvature at the corners of the robot s primary vent Her behavior and theirs confused Synapo and led him to wonder about the efficacy of the robots as suitable servants Surely one of them should have done something to ease her paroxysm She recovered quickly however and turned and said I am pleased to meet both of you and then she put one hand to her front the other to her back and doubled over at the waist which led Synapo to wonder if she had now suddenly been caught by a cramp like that which sometimes caught him when he was carrying too large an inventory of oxygen as he was at that moment But unlike her if a cramp hit him in this situation he would suffer through and ignore it That gave him a nice feeling of superiority CHAPTER 5 IMPASSE Ariel finally got control of herself and with a sober face turned back to face the aliens Their frightening appearance had almost paralyzed her until that first one
2. Adam unlatched and was going to let down a small ramp formed from a hinged section of the meter high sidewall of the cargo space but just as he unlatched it Eve belly rolled over the wall And what are you up to Adam asked as he latched the ramp back in place Looking for you Adam directed the cargo robot back into the Main Street traffic and then said You found me Now what Whipping down the street in a cargo robot isn t the best place for a quiet conversation It s not likely to get much better this morning T ll take my chances It can hardly get worse How did you get away from Miss Ariel Adam asked I m here in her service Oh Neither said anything more until they had left the city crossed the plain and were at the edge of the forest near where SilverSide had watched the minillamas the day before The herd was now grazing farther out on the plain He directed the cargo robot to park beside the entrance of a well worn trail the minillamas had made through the forest to a small brook and then he led Eve SilverSide to that quiet place Adam had brought along the photo sensitive switch the MP lamp and one of the MP motors He sat down on a large rock beside the brook placed the electrical parts on the ground in front of him and began to wire them together with the long electrical leads that were attached to each Now what has Miss Ariel got you up to this mor
3. You weren t I suppose What Calling you a chauvinist pig What do you call it Stating facts And the hyperwave modulation I suppose you call those facts too those aberrant mental peregrinations She didn t let on that she didn t know what peregrinations meant Continuous modulation is a fact you ninny And you don t need to take that from a silly woman Ask any Ceremyon Darn Ariel why are we fighting like this I just came in here to be nice Telling me how much I m hurting Wolruf That s nice It s the truth And you re going to be sure I know it s the truth right So you can hurt me a little more I didn t come in here to hurt you Just to try to poke some sense into your thick head Those are nice pleasant words too Keep it up Derec It s the truth though That s why I came in here How Wolruf feels isn t what s really bothering you is it Derec Oh What would you suggest It s really Jacob isn t it You re jealous of a robot aren t you I don t care if you love that freak machine It s none of my affair Ariel didn t say anything to rebut that last remark She was a tease and she wanted him to dwell on his last thought without being distracted No Derec said after the space of a breath or two I do care because if it s true you would be darn sick And I do love you Ariel whether you wan
4. Isaac Asimov s Robot City Robots And Aliens Book 2 Renegade Books in the Isaac Asimov s Robot City Robots and Aliens series BOOK 1 CHANGELING by Stephen Leigh BOOK 2 RENEGADE by Cordell Scotten BOOK 3 INTRUDER by Robert Thurston BOOK 4 ALLIANCE by Jerry Oltion BOOK 5 MAVERICK by Bruce Bethke BOOK 6 HUMANITY by Jerry Oltion ISAAC ASIMOV S ROBOT CITY ROBOTS AND ALIENS Renegade by Cordell Scotten Copyright 1989 NOTABLE ROBOTS BY ISAAC ASIMOV My robot stories and novels seem to have become classics in their own right and with the advent of the Robot City series of novels to have become the wider literary universe of other writers as well Under those circumstances it might be useful to go over my robot stories and describe some of those which I think are particularly significant and to explain why I think they are 1 Robbie This is the first robot story I wrote I turned it out between May 10 and May 22 of 1939 when I was 19 years old and was just about to graduate college I had a little trouble placing it for John Campbell rejected it and so did Amazing Stories However Fred Pohl accepted it on March 25 1940 and it appeared in the September 1940 issue of Super Science Stories which he edited Fred Pohl being Fred Pohl changed the title to Strange Playfellow but I changed it back when I included it in my book I Robot and it has appeared as Robbie in every subsequent incarnat
5. That must be what the aliens are talking about Let s go she said We re well ahead of time Jacob said Drive slow she said as she walked out of the apartment with Jacob trailing closely behind He had requisitioned a small nonautomated runabout the night before but not without some difficulty With the evacuation at its peak transport vehicles were in short supply Main Street was bumper to bumper with traffic but it was all moving briskly so that Jacob following her instructions to drive slowly parted the traffic like a rock in a turbulent river All eight lanes were flowing northbound to expedite the transfer of materiel Still they arrived at the dome opening at 9 40 AM more than twenty minutes ahead of time At the dome opening the street narrowed to four lanes and then turned into a dirt road a few meters north of the dome Wohler 9 was already standing vigil on the west side of the opening where the meeting with the aliens would again take place This time she did not plan to make Wohler 9 a participant Drive on north Jacob Ariel said I don t want to appear anxious She knew she must sound inconsistent edgy to leave one moment reluctant to arrive the next She had to remind herself that he was just a robot and couldn t care and so didn t judge her one way or the other It was a good thing She already felt inadequate enough Ten minutes later Jacob said We are at the halfw
6. Axonius was finished The only way he could possibly save his position in the elite after the foolhardy position he had taken that morning was to vote for Neuronius and hope that he would win Yet he was a gentle being and could not honorably endorse the violence recommended by Neuronius He had misjudged Neuronius and now he would have to pay the terrible penalty for that unfortunate error Synapo wondered how well Axonius would handle it He wanted to see him unbowed by defeat wanted to feel he had not completely misjudged him Honorable leaders fellow Cerebrons fellow Ceremyons I am placed this afternoon in an exceedingly awkward position Good Synapo thought that s the first promising observation I ve heard from a Cerebron all day This morning Axonius continued it was my opinion that Neuronius spoke from a position of superior competence in his assessment of what should be the posture of Ceremyons if we are to insure our proper place in the galactic hierarchy to use his terms It was not a decision arrived at lightly I have great respect for our leader and have never before seen him come to an erroneous judgment He is completely right in pursuing a policy of peaceful cohabitation with all life forms on our world But is he right in applying that same policy to any galactic species that may take a notion to inhabit our planet How can we determine and judge the intentions of an alien species without conducting
7. It landed behind him a distance equal to the distance it would have traveled in front of him if the wall had not been there Now a second demonstration will point up and clarify the dome s external characteristics Wohler 9 said He picked up the half crowbar that had just sailed back out of the blackness walked over tossed it into the lorry and then unclipped two sections of a tubular pole from the side of the vehicle When he fitted the two sections together he had a pole about five meters long From a locker he took a large piece of white cloth that he unfolded and tied to the pole to form a square flag a little less than four meters on a side With the flagpole in hand he walked along the outside of the dome until he was three or four meters from the edge of the opening Ariel followed him They were walking along the edge of a deep shimmering hemispherical pit two kilometers across and a kilometer deep From that viewpoint there was no evidence of the city that they knew existed inside the shimmer Under no circumstances let any part of your body touch or project into the transparent dome Wohler 9 said That part of you would go through and never be the same again Now observe the flag He pushed the flag through the dome s glimmer It seemed to disappear Perhaps it appears to be gone he said waving the pole but look carefully at the far side of the pit At first Ariel could see nothing u
8. The fourth book Robots and Empire was published by Doubleday in 1985 Lije s death brought some reaction but nothing at all compared to the storm of regretful letters I received when the exigencies of the plot made it necessary for R Giskard to die So it turns out that my robot stories have been almost as successful as my Foundation books and if you want to know the truth in a whisper of course and please keep this confidential I like my robot stories better Here in Renegade Cordell Scot ten has written an excellent example of why I like the robot stories A simple question arising from the Laws What is good for humans is developed into a complex and intriguing story CHAPTER 1 THE CEREMYONS Gently soaring basking under the sun the two blackbodies circled far above the shimmering atmospheric irregularity that was nearing completion on the planet s surface As high as a small mountain the iridescent transparency viewed from outside covered a smooth hemispherical excavation in the planet s surface two kilometers in diameter except for an open pie cut a not yet covered sector ten degrees wide Looking into the open sector structures built on ground not excavated paradoxically covered the entire inner area The most striking of these structures was a tall stepped pyramid centered under the dome The blackbodies floated a wingspread apart five times the armspread of an Avery robot Those beings
9. They might never see him again The thought of that filled Derec with dismay He had become vitally interested in the strange robot a fascinating study in alien robotics He had learned a great deal merely by association but he needed to learn much more including its origin and the purpose of its original programming And he had sucked Wolruf into the problem as well He had brought her half across the galaxy as she had so emphatically pointed out How was he going to explain that he would not need her services any longer That she had come all this way for nothing When Wolruf awoke she took the news of SilverSide s disappearance quite calmly Good she said Can I go ome now back to civilissation Can we at least go back to the city He ll come back Derec said more confidently than he felt We ll at least stay overnight He might not come back to the city but he ll come back here They spent a quiet afternoon Derec read Wolruf slept Mandelbrot stood guard just outside the clearing facing away from the campsite with his back against a tree on the other side of the brook SilverSide would have a hard time getting at his switch panel that way After dinner after it got dark hoping to attract SilverSide Derec built up the fire so that it lighted the entire clearing Mandelbrot stayed at his guard post Wolruf dozed in the warmth of the fire Derec thought about Ariel and that brought him to Jacob
10. Univac In this story and in some others of the period that dealt with Multivac I described it as an enormously large machine missing the chance of predicting the miniaturization and etherealization of computers 9 The Last Question My imagination didn t betray me for long however In The Last Question which appeared first in the November 1956 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly I discussed the miniaturization and etherealization of computers and followed it through a trillion years of evolution of both computer and man toa logical conclusion that you will have to read the story to find It is beyond question my favorite among all the stories I have written in my career 10 The Feeling of Power The miniaturization of computers played a small role as a side issue in this story It appeared in the February 1958 issue of If and is also one of my favorites In this story I dealt with pocket computers which were not to make their appearance in the marketplace until ten to fifteen years after the story appeared Moreover it was one of the stories in which I foresaw accurately a social implication of technological advance rather than the technological advance itself The story deals with the possible loss of ability to do simple arithmetic through the perpetual use of computers I wrote it as a satire that combined humor with passages of bitter irony but I wrote more truly than I knew These days I have a pock
11. Winterson and putting Jacob out of his mind brought him back full circle to worrying about SilverSide The fire died down Derec was talking when Wolruf quietly laid a hand on his arm and pointed across the fire to the other side of the clearing the side away from Mandelbrot s guard post There just inside the clearing in the faint light of the dying fire were two gray wolf like shapes sitting on their haunches When he looked at them the firelight caught the backsides of their eyes and came back at him as a ghostly green glow That must have been how Wolruf had seen them in the first place they were otherwise almost invisible Master Derec Mandelbrot called softly from behind them we are surrounded by animals circling around the campsite Should I take any action Can you suggest anything suitable Derec asked Not at the moment Mandelbrot replied Stay at your post then Derec said I ate stuff like this Wolruf said Why do you alwayss ave to bring me along Just then the shape on the right threw back its head and howled long and piercingly letting it trail off slowly into a series of soft sobs That howl was answered by an identical howl from the forest that seemed to progress halfway around the campsite before it too sobbed to a finish The two shapes rose then and trotted toward the campfire The one on the left was smaller Wolruf s size and as they approached
12. Wohler 9 said as he casually moved his arm in front of her With that warning she seemed to come to her senses and she moved back out so that she was facing the edge from a distance of a few meters her head cleared and from that position she could now see along both the inside and outside walls Wohler g then approached the edge of the wall to almost that half meter limit himself He stopped then facing the inner wall and said And don t become confused The wall may seem deceptively far away He took a baseball batter s stance then and with a lusty swing that brought the crowbar around in a horizontal arc perpendicular to the wall he struck the edge of the dome with the middle of the crowbar Without a sound the edge of the dome like the edge of a supersharp tool cut the crowbar neatly in half The far end of the crowbar sailed off The near end stayed firmly in Wohler 9 s hands as he completed his swing Then he casually tossed the remnant toward the inside wall Ariel s eyes had naturally followed the flight of the far end of the crowbar until it hit the ground and stopped skidding She looked back just as Wohler 9 tossed the piece left in his hand toward the interior blackness That piece seemed to curve in toward the blackness a fraction of the distance it would have traveled if he had tossed it straight up in the air with the same force and then it came shooting back out on a parabolic course obviously calculated to hit no one
13. ahead of him circling in Synapo s space hook set aggressively forward Although it was virtually unheard of and highly unethical to communicate political matters by radio Neuronius must have done just that radiating Synapo s defeat for all to hear while Synapo in shock had his sensory equipment shut down Else why would Sarco be up here already contesting Synapo s dominance So indeed it had been a conspiracy and it involved not only Sarco and Neuronius but Axonius as well Synapo ignored Sarco and with his hook set aggressively forward he winged Sarco out of the way and took up his station in a tight circle immediately over the center of the compensator What s up Sarco said meekly yielding the space You don t seem happy Synapo said nothing What happened down there Sarco asked again putting more insistence into his voice You should know Synapo finally said One of your Cerebron toadies has already radioed you What are you talking about Nobody has radioed anything and I can t stand toadies least of all a Cerebron Neuronius What about Neuronius Neuronius coached me in pronunciation of the alien language Does that make the poor soul a toady Poor soul my hook He was just trying to stir up trouble between you and me if you somehow don t relish that idea then he was using you Sarco and you must be exceedingly naive T must admit I thought i
14. if he doesn t we could be just as well off We ve probably got no business setting up shop on an inhabited planet I ve sort of felt that way ever since I arrived Ariel still didn t see any need to respond and even less to respond to his last remark He did have a minor point when it came to Wolruf It was her expertise that would have made the robot farms practical if SilverSide hadn t screwed up everything And anyway the robot farm project is a dumb idea Derec added The city robots are just that city robots City planners and city builders Trying to make farmers out of them is like trying to make a silk purse out of a sow s ear Now he was getting personal You re forgetting they ve already done it on a planet called Robot City Ariel said And you re such a great engineer you didn t know your own internal hardware was modulating hyperwave in continuous mode You even thought your screwy father had invented some altogether new form of communication Right genius You re likely wrong about that What are the odds that a woman and a bunch of dumb robots are going to come up with anything the least way innovative That s it isn t it Because the robot farms are a woman s idea it s a stupid idea You are a male chauvinist pig Derec Avery And you are a libertine tease Ariel Welsh I suppose you re referring to Jacob Getting down to the nitty gritty getting really personal
15. irrational Disparagement was a not uncommon diplomatic ploy that was sometimes effective but not often so yet still worth the gamble in her case He recognized that but would the haughty Neuronius recognize her ploy and properly discount it Or would he let irritation distort his analysis And would Neuronius recognize those subtle changes in her demeanor that were pure telepathy transmitting information more effectively than the spoken word We have other more compatible methods of cohabitating with you on this planet she continued The city under the dome in its present state would be essentially deactivated and serve merely as a coordination and communications center for the new effort She had switched diplomatic techniques discarding the superior haughty manner every bit as haughty as Neuronius and was now the companionable friendly tactician That was indeed the sign ofa genuine leader Would Neuronius recognize that and be able to switch tactics himself She had abandoned her mission s preferred goal apparently and was regrouping around an alternative again the sign of a true leader with full authority to make important field decisions Please describe this compatible method of cohabitation Synapo said Let me first ask a question Do I by myself constitute a weather node or my companion Jacob here or our vehicle here with us in it She had inclined her head toward the servant and pointed to
16. the Avery robots were even then streaming out of the incomplete sector evacuating the dome The blackbodies had learned the name Avery robot but the name lacked meaning beyond its intonation The construction was slowed by your absence yesterday Sarco one blackbody said to the other and I thank you for that You needed the day off Unfortunately the effort was only slowed It would have benefited by a complete interruption You are a rascal the other said his red eyes gleaming like bumming embers set deep in a black demonic body I ll bet you arranged for an Avery to cut me loose during tether last night At least they ve learned not to blow us up The blackbodies appeared identical in form a large white hook protruding from above deep set luminous red eyes a lacy silver frond languidly waving at the other end but bodies otherwise devoid of visible detail except as flying winged silhouettes Wrinkles in the skin if any and other possible lines of demarcation were lost in the soft blackness You were cut loose the first said Don t play the innocent Synapo Someone cut my tether last night and by the time I drifted into sunrise I was over Barneup It took me all day to get back Have you ever tried to grow a new hook while underway You do look a little beat But then so am I Trying to make sense of Wohler g is exhausting and so far he s the best of the Averies I learned very l
17. I don t need to know anything about engineering to do engineering Tell Avernus to ring up Derec and give him this message CRISIS HERE ON OYSTER WORLD YOU MUST IMMEDIATELY REPROGRAM AVERY ROBOTS I ALSO HAVE A BIT OF IMPORTANT ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY TO TEACH YOU DUM DUM IN FACT YOUR OWN INTERNAL ENGINEERING SO COME AT ONCE Sign it LOVE ARIEL and ask for confirmation For ten minutes Jacob said nothing while Ariel forked salad into her mouth and mooned over Derec With that wild imagination one has when extrapolating hope she visualized Synapo meeting with her before Derec arrived telling her the aliens had changed their minds and would accept her proposal She would then be the aliens kind of Leader No matter what the robots would have to be reprogrammed They weren t going to build any robot city on this planet While they were finishing their lunch Jacob broke the silence Avernus 8 has received this reply from Master Derec ON MY WAY SMARTY PANTS LOVE DEREC She spent the rest of the afternoon on the balcony which overlooked Main Street sitting in the subdued light of the perpetual dusk under the dome reading a book of poems she took with her whenever she traveled Selected Poetry of Old Earth It was an ancient book bound in soft brown imitation suede and printed in a small graceful font on one side of thin translucent parchment like paper It was the only thing her mother had ever given
18. I find them woefully inadequate in describing human behavior Rydberg and his companions are inexperienced in dealing with humans who are an unfathomable lot Emotions not laws govern their behavior And I think perhaps the female of the species is the most mysterious of all I have been researching the emotion of jealousy since I seem to have been acquired essentially to create that emotion in the breast of Master Derec I hardly think jealousy can reside in the breast of a human friend Jacob Mandelbrot suggested Merely a figure of speech used in the literature of the subject Jacob replied The key point of interest here however is the multiplicity of shades and overtones that exist in the minds of humans in their consideration of the opposite sex shades and overtones of emotion that apparently have nothing to do with reproduction of the species the ostensible reason for there being the two sexes in the first place Surprisingly SilverSide was becoming interested in the conversation after all She agreed with Jacob s assessment of any Laws of Humanics that would guide human behavior and supposedly parallel the Laws of Robotics that guided her behavior And now the subject of their conversation seemed to bear directly on her discomfort with the femininity of the Wolruf imprint that seemed paradoxically to be aggravated by the keen interest in everything feminine she had felt earlier in the masculine mode while impri
19. It was then that we learned of his interaction with Neuronius who had tried to pass himself off as the only human on the planet in order to win SilverSide s allegiance I hope I was able to forestall that I watched SilverSide descend to The Plain of Serenity and watched as he transformed to a being that looked from that distance somewhat like Wolruf but probably twice her size I last saw him entering The Forest of Repose in that form That would be his KeenEye imprint Derec said one of the lupine creatures he copied on that other planet Thank you At least we know he s still alive and hope he ll return Thank you very much The two Ceremyons turned then and took to the air Immediately after the meeting in the short time that was left before lunch Ariel Derec and Wolruf began planning the robot farm experiment discussing in broad outline the revisions in the programming of the Avery robots that would be required not only for the many different farms themselves but also for the creation of the city s new terminal facilities that would be needed to support the farms SilverSide had not returned by the time they sat down to lunch In spite of all the trouble he had caused her Ariel felt inexplicably concerned about his welfare CHAPTER 22 THE EGG Once again SilverSide was in turmoil All was confusion Who should he believe He wished only to evade the dilemma He metamorphosed escaping back to the relative peace o
20. Neuronius You and the elite have taken care of him Sarco For the moment perhaps but maybe not even for the moment He s dangerous Synapo Neuronius Dangerous To himself maybe He certainly confirmed that today No to you Synapo I think not He s devious and a liar and not to be trusted but hardly dangerous otherwise He was standing in back of you Sarco said You couldn t see his body language his undisguisable reaction to that last bit of terse indirect language Axonius used to describe his competence to guide the caucus But I was watching him intently Synapo then and again when I gave my harsh assessment of him He may even be dangerous to Axonius and to me but he s going to hold you responsible for his downfall and you re the target he ll be focusing on Perhaps but there s little you or I can do about that Synapo said His danger to the future of the tribes at least has been eliminated by his departure from the elite That was my primary concern He s still a danger to the tribes so long as he can get at you and me And what about Axonius Where does he stand in the elite now He helped save your hide I m not sure at this point This has been a rather full day I m too exhausted to think clearly now T was impressed with his handling of the caucus Synapo And so was I T ll leave you now May Petero guide your
21. Now his head gave a little twitch A glimmer came into his eyes They are meteorological terms Miss Ariel Jacob said Like in weather Yes We re disturbing their weather she exclaimed It would seem so Miss Ariel Jacob confirmed Wohler I must speak to this alien now tonight That will not be possible Miss Welsh Wohler said He has already retired to his balloon What to do Jacob she said in exasperation as much to herself as to Jacob What to do It appears you can do nothing until morning Miss Ariel Jacob said How do we contact him in the morning Wohler Ariel asked I know of no way to contact him Miss Welsh nor to lead you to him I can t tell one of the blackbodies from another And even if I could they are seldom on the ground except at night and then they are isolated in a hydrogen filled balloon So what do we do Ariel asked We must wait for him to come to us And when will that be He generally comes to the west side of the opening in the dome each morning That reminds me Wohler pass the word over the comlink that all future references to time of day and passage of time in general are to be expressed in alien terminology I want to become accustomed to their way of thinking When in Rome do as the Romans do So when will this blackbody come to the dome There was a pause before Wohler re
22. Sarco had spoken Wohler g9 had pointed them out before they began their drop while they were still lazily circling above the center of the dome And then that first one had landed coming in so fast it seemed like he could not possibly stop in time and then unexpectedly spreading his wings so wide he engulfed them all in a jet black space absolutely devoid of any detail as though they were suddenly and inexplicably thrown into the featureless black concavity of the dome When he retracted his wings they seemed to melt into his sides and disappear in the soft blackness The contrasts of color or lack of it heightened the disturbing appearance of the alien the vicious white hook that could obviously disembowel a human in one neat stroke and the disconcerting red glow of the sunken eyes that gave her the feeling she was peering deep into the bowels of hell Then the other one arrived much more decorously than the first and when he opened his mouth she was immediately transported back to Earth to Webster Groves one of the caves of steel that she and Derec had once visited And then the first one so confirmed that impression she could hardly contain herself And when the second one the one called Synapo had said Yas wekkom to ah wuld Miz Ahyahl Wilsh she had to turn away to suppress her laughter and an incipient sneeze caused by the tingling in her nose from the faint odor of ammonia they exuded She could hardl
23. Synapo was the leader of the Ceremyons The logical question came immediately to mind Where do you fit into the society of the Ceremyons T am not a Ceremyon Neuronius replied I may appear to be so but I am not I am far superior to any Ceremyon Are there others of your kind Not on this planet This one is mine The others each dominate a planet of their own SilverSide was impressed Yet there was something about Neuronius that bothered him his wordiness perhaps Mandelbrot bothered him that way but there it was a bother that need not concern him Mandelbrot was merely a robot But Neuronius was not a robot and his words were exceedingly tantalizing and yet disturbing uneasily so Mandelbrot had never made him feel uneasy If Neuronius were the only one of his kind on this planet he had to be the most intelligent being here if he were indeed more intelligent than Synapo So he was back to that simple comparison On balance Neuronius appeared to be the more intelligent He had delved far deeper into dome technology than Synapo had during his meeting with the mammals Synapo had seemed to be withholding information as though he were not altogether sure of what he was saying Neuronius certainly did not give that impression He seemed to be bursting with information So much so that SilverSide s positronic potentials on the subject of domes were now a complete jumble His indecision was excruciati
24. a bundle of simulated muscle as you ll ever see A cyborg Like Leong Wolruf was referring to Jeff Leong a young man whose brain had spent a rather unpleasant period in a mechanical robotic body while the Avery robots on Robot City had repaired and healed his damaged human body No a humaniform robot Derec said Looks exactly like a human Almost impossible to tell from the real thing u re jealous of a robot Wolruf gave that phlegm gargle again Derec said nothing The conversation was veering in an unpleasant direction Ah a sorrr point Wolruf said My apologies We re here Derec said as he pulled the runabout to the curb in front of the apartment He looked up anxiously to the second floor u re expecting trouble Wolruf said She was reading his mind again No Mandelbrot would have phoned me Derec said not quite truthfully for he did feel just a shade anxious as he got out of the small vehicle Mandelbrot and SilverSide didn t seem to understand one another Perhaps he should not have left a robot to babysit another robot But everything seemed normal when they walked into the small two bedroom apartment on the second floor Mandelbrot was standing in his storage niche in the wall near the door SilverSide was plugged into Derec s terminal and didn t even turn around when they came in Impressive Wolruf said her eyes going wide as she stared at the ro
25. an experiment and risking our survival in the very process of the experiment It is an unfortunate dilemma which risks on the one hand prejudging and punishing an alien species without a hearing but on the other hand risks our very survival not to do so not to prejudge Mine was not a decision arrived at impetuously this morning We have all been pondering the problem and updating our cerebrations with each report of the negotiations by our leader So this morning the risk to our survival seemed overwhelming and I favored the position of Neuronius as being the more competent exercise of leadership T shall not dwell unduly on the remarks of Neuronius this afternoon and will merely conclude by saying that I cannot in good conscience endorse them they do not reflect competent leadership His hook had remained pointing aft throughout his remarks He hurried on then no dramatic pauses words tumbling out of his mouth in an effort to somehow put distance between himself and his own pronouncement Would anyone else care to make a statement he said Synapo was proud of Axonius Almost ready to forgive him Axonius had stuck courageously to the position he had taken earlier that morning and yet had denied Neuronius that afternoon Synapo like everyone else was expecting any further remarks to come from the Cerebron elite before Axonius called upon him for a final statement giving him the traditional privilege
26. an Auroran confidence in dealing with robots that she no longer felt Eve gathered her up in one quick swoop handling her like a disobedient child with none of the gentleness Adam had used when he had taken her to witness Eve s birth That experience came immediately to mind Twice now these wild robots had subjected her person to gross indignities They were going out the street door as Jacob started up the stairs from the basement to the small lobby He heard Ariel s scream for help as his foot hit the first step Jaaaacobbbbb it came with that trailing Doppler effect He took the rest of the steps three at a time but he was slower than Eve and though he trailed her all the way down Main Street he could not overtake her She gradually pulled away from him Wohler 9 a block away and walking down Main Street in the course of his official duties also witnessed the abduction The First Law overrode those duties so he too took up the chase Although he was faster than Jacob the distance between them was too great and he never caught up Jacob put out an alarm on the comlink but the robots on the street could do little to stop Eve with her burden because that would endanger Ariel She was completely under the control of a wild thing who quite likely might not recognize their Laws of Robotics Jacob and Mandelbrot had planted that seed of doubt in the Avery robots and now it was working against them By the time Jacob
27. and I get along fine But he has deluded you No Quite the contrary Neuronius has deluded you Just like he confused and tried to take over Adam Fortunately Adam had talked to Synapo first And then Sarco later Together they were able to straighten him out It s unfortunate that Adam wouldn t talk to you We could have avoided all this if he had It would be better still if I hadn t sent you to Adam in the first place But now it seems I had good reason to It is Adam who is still confused He knows that Master Neuronius is the only human on the planet What Ariel wasn t sure she had heard that right Adam knows that Master Neuronius is the only human here Adam told you that No but he did not deny it just now Who did tell you then Surely not even Neuronius is that irrational That is the most important thing I learned from Master Neuronius And Adam confirmed it by his silence Adam s Laws cannot be my Laws or he too would recognize and obey our Master Surely you don t believe that Ariel wished desperately that Jacob would get back up with the storage cubes She couldn t stall much longer You must come with me now Eve insisted No We must talk to Adam He can clear all this up We ll go talk to Adam just as soon as Jacob returns In the meantime go stand in your niche Eve I have to get back to work Ariel turned back to the terminal feigning
28. around much like an eye rotating in its socket as though it were surveying the entire landscape The inspection narrowed then and starting at Ariel s feet the orb slowly scanned up until it was gazing at her head With that inspection completed the blob elongated and pulled itself through the hatch as though it were one large muscle like the foot of a huge snail It slithered out of the hatch coming to rest on the ground in front of Ariel like a thick pancake with the orb still intact in the center The facets of the orb slowly disappeared absorbed into a grayish green ring surrounding a black pupil while the bulk of the orb turned white A spherical mass the size of a small bowling ball began to rise from the pancake lifting the eye for it was clearly that now and a second eye took shape forming the first aspects of a face Slowly then head shoulders arms breast mounded chest hips and buttocks and legs all reared up out of the puddle until there was no puddle left the last sucked up into a pair of shapely ankles and feet and a silvery likeness of Ariel stood before Ariel SilverSide stepped from behind the bush then and silently inspected the new arrival Ariel had stood transfixed mute and motionless during the whole process Now SilverSide spoke up proudly christening this delightful new creation You are the female Eve SilverSide After allowing a moment for that to sink in to both Ariel and Ev
29. as he walked down the ramp of the cargo robot with the laser saw swinging from one hand She followed him into the forest and watched as he cut through the ten centimeter bole of a tall slender hardwood species that seemed to thrive in the dense shade of the predominately conifer canopy Get the hatchet he requested after the tree fell When she returned he was cutting off the large branches Trim off the small branches he said I ll take the big ones They worked together silently cutting down and trimming the slender hardwoods spacing their selections throughout the forest so as to minimize the effect in anyone area and dragging the long slender logs to a pile they created on the plain near the cargo robot When they had delivered the last log to the pile Eve sat down on the ramp of the cargo robot You ll not tell me then about your interaction with Neuronius she said making it more a statement than a question No Adam replied T ll have to talk to Neuronius then That would be a bad idea Eve You and Miss Ariel agree on that at least For good reason She s given you some idea what Neuronius is like then The viewpoint of the other Ceremyons They re naturally prejudiced Hardly an objective assessment Since you won t talk to me about your experience I ll have to get it from Neuronius himself If she thought that was going to pressure him into discussing a pain
30. associated symptoms that later as her knowledge increased she would identify by the term body language u re a blessed experience after a dreary period Wolruf said And you re a sight for sore eyes said Ariel Where s Derec We had to leave im behind on the wolf planet Wolruf said The look of consternation that immediately came to Ariel s face also went into SilverSide s catalog but she could only tag it with the word lie that she knew to be not an emotion but rather a lack of truth telling by Wolruf Still she had nothing else to tag it with for the time being And then Ariel s look changed to joy as Derec appeared on the ramp beside SilverSide You scamp Ariel said grinning at Wolruf Wolruf gargled phlegm a sound symptom SilverSide had long since associated with Wolruf and her strange affinity for what Derec called humor Ariel and Derec met in the middle of the ramp and hugged one another and pressed lips The look of joy had to be catalogued adjacent to the emotion of joy for Wolruf had already defined what it was they were feeling when they met once again after so long a time The same must be true of Ariel But joy still had no personal connection with SilverSide and so was only a word and a symptom in a file and incomplete without SilverSide s own positronic potential pattern Worry she now understood Joy she did not And yet it suddenly came to her she too had met be
31. deliberations You agree that the alien proposal for cohabitation should be given a fair trial T ll not argue that Sarco said not after what you ve been through Yes we ll postpone closure of the weather node compensator indefinitely He glided away Synapo balled and immediately closed and inflated his reflector to its full extent suitable for high altitude cerebrations Although his storage cells were still critically low and though his cerebrations in reflection mode would use a modest amount of juice he could recharge to full capacity as he leisurely beat his way back from wherever the gentle air currents would take him during his silvery ruminations His first step in the direction of those ruminations had been taken when he reached stable altitude and with only his hook eyes and primary vent protruding beneath the balloon he surveyed the vast panorama The Ceremyons were far below him at optimum charge altitude replenishing their juice stores in random flight circles that covered the globe in a loosely dispersed pattern up to the dusk band The dusk band was creeping toward him from the east powered by the natural rotation of his world and his slow easterly drift delineating day from approaching night that was just barely visible as a thin black crescent sliced from the edge of the globe From such high altitude he appeared to have drifted very little from the point where he had ballooned The comp
32. feeling of disoriented horror and a crimson flame shot out of the blackness beneath his luminous green eyes and bummed her hand She awoke drenched in perspiration her hand resting painfully on the sharp corner of the nightstand beside her bed She finally drifted back to sleep yearning for Derec to be there in bed beside her but back on Aurora not there on Oyster World By ten o clock the next morning the materiel transfer dwindled to a halt and with their limited possessions piled in the runabout beside them Ariel and Jacob stood outside the dome at the meeting site keeping vigil with Wohler 9 and his lorry waiting to witness the final closure of the dome Five minutes passed 10 05 AM and no blackbodies had shown up to send their shimmering additions down the edge of the dome then a half hour and then an hour and still no construction activity There weren t even any signs of preconstruction activity like the long line of blackbodies that had formed on other mornings heading toward the apex of the dome opening like an outspiraling thread unwinding from a black hole from a spherical black mass that from far away could not be resolved into individual blackbodies basking on the wing in the light of the sun There was no dull black ball in the sky this morning The blackbodies were up there like every other morning but unlike construction days they were loosely dispersed from horizon to horizon languidly circling soa
33. felt a longing for it quite unlike anything he had ever felt before He was still ten meters from that cool solace when one of the black winged aliens stepped with a short wobble from the concealment provided by the dense shrubbery You are the one called SilverSide the alien said True I am SilverSide the robot replied He continued toward the black alien but slowed as the alien wobbled backward staying between him and the forest T am Neuronius the alien said I must talk with you SilverSide I have already talked at length with your people Neuronius and now I must proceed into the forest to reflect on all that I have learned There is much more that I can teach you SilverSide much that would benefit you and your kind in their dealings with the Ceremyons I know too much now I cannot absorb all that I have heard already Would you have me even more at odds with myself But there is much more about the Ceremyons you need to know in order to properly serve Miss Ariel Welsh Would you throwaway such an opportunity The alien had wobbled back under the cover of the tall conifers as they talked leading SilverSide along a path through the dense shrubbery Now he stopped still facing SilverSide blocking his passage into the jungle Let me pass SilverSide said I do not wish to harm a being that so much resembles the mighty Synapo Synapo is nothing SilverSide
34. floating around overhead toting compressed hydrogen in close proximity to compressed oxygen Neither she nor Derec had been able to get anything out of Adam SilverSide concerning what had happened between him and Neuronius He had pleaded Third Law interference with the Second Law imperative whenever they tried They did not insist for fear what he called interference might be more seriously harmful to his positronic stability why else would he have claimed interference at all She resolved to have Eve work on him when it seemed propitious The disturbance was of a fairly major nature not so much from its intensity as from its low grade continual irritation her irritation with Adam SilverSide That finally came to a head on a day when things had not gone well and little irritations had mounted into raw abrasions She and Derec trying to bring some tranquility into the day were chatting quietly in midevening after dinner just the two of them on the balcony again It was where they went to escape inconsiderately leaving Wolruf in the company of the four robots After awhile they had lapsed into silence and Ariel s thoughts returned to Adam SilverSide She had given him two sets of Jacob s clothes distinctive sets that let her quickly identify him as Adam and not Jacob She supposed she knew now what Jacob looked like under his clothes for Adam SilverSide with visual records of Jacob and library records of humans had carried
35. had briefly lapsed into the day before This is my assistant Neuronius the middle alien continued bunching on the right side what looked like a shoulder in silhouette and this is my third in command Axonius and he bunched his silhouette on the left Ariel responded by inclining her head in the appropriate direction as each was introduced a casual restrained acknowledgment short of a pronounced nod The alien did not use the grand gesture that Sarco had used the day before when he had introduced Synapo but it still left Ariel wondering whether she was dealing with Synapo or Sarco Here she was on thin ice already and the meeting had just begun She guessed that it must be Synapo It was he who had dominated the meeting the day before On the other hand these others were subordinates They did not rate the grand gesture even if this were Sarco She had nothing with which to parley except the analysis of hyperwave modulation that Jacob and Keymo had concocted at her prodding And if this were Synapo and if she had construed properly that his green flaming the day before was an impatient assessment of Sarco s complaint then it must have been a trivial complaint in Synapo s mind and not much of a bargaining chip for her side Not knowing for sure whom she was dealing with she decided to stall She said I trust that you have now concluded that closing the dome does not have any immediate importance since it is alrea
36. had known how serious the situation was well before the meeting and her anxiety had steadily increased until the moment of confrontation How had she let the circumstances of their meeting so distract and deceive her The shimmer at the corner of her eye at that moment and the crackling sound that accompanied it marked the pass of a Myostrian far above and brought her attention back to the construction of the dome She noticed then that while they had been talking the edge of the dome had progressed toward the center of Main Street closing the opening by at least two more meters on that one side probably four meters considering both sides The city robots had extended Main Street into a road across the plain to facilitate their exodus The two edges of the wall were not far from the edge of the road itself four lanes wide where it exited the dome It was then Synapo s earlier comment came to the front of her mind My colleague Sarco informed me yesterday that the node compensator this dome will be completed tomorrow so that leaves us little time for negotiation She had not forgotten it It had simply been overlaid by a surfeit of sensory stimuli It was difficult to take in all the data and digest it in proper order But clearly they were in the midst of a negotiation in which she had reasoned herself into a corner a fact that she must honorably acknowledge in the presence of these aliens and time was running out Perhaps that acknow
37. had the shape of the being called Wolruf one of the three we talked with this morning Yes And you did not transform according to instructions by Miss Ariel Welsh No I imprinted on a being like you called Synapo who seemed to me the more intelligent of the two aliens at the meeting That is Synapo standing over there Sarco pointed with the middle appendage of his right wing toward his friend on the other crag T am Sarco the other one at the meeting the one of lesser intelligence His sarcasm was not lost on Synapo and the other members of the Ceremyon elite but it went completely by SilverSide He walked over to stand on the table rock below Synapo You are clearly the most intelligent being on this planet SilverSide said addressing Synapo You or someone very like you must have created me and so you must be a human being No Synapo replied I am not a human being What is a human Master Synapo the robot asked And then Synapo understood the robot s dilemma It was for the robot a difficult problem in semantics that had become clear to Synapo only at that moment when he replaced the words human being in the robot s governing laws with the word creator That was the way this particular robot for some reason actually thought about his laws Creator or human being or whatever term occupied that position in the robot s laws had not been defined That
38. her that she truly treasured Juliana Welsh had given her a lot of expensive things clothes jewelry cars fliers jumpers but seldom anything with the taste and thought that was reflected in the selection of that little book She wondered if her mother had picked it out or had merely asked one of their robots to pick up something via the hyperwave shopping service She came to a very short poem she had forgotten but when she reread it it seemed like a piece of wisdom that might apply at almost any time in a person s life Robert Frost wisdom The Secret Sits We dance round in a ring and suppose But the Secret sits in the middle and knows That s what she seemed to be doing Dancing around the solution to the problem She had come so close to the answer in that meeting with Synapo and his lieutenants He had said as much with that elaborate apology he had left her with as though he would have done things differently if it had been left up to just him In that case would he really have bought her proposal She looked up every now and then to stare at the opening in the dome It made her uneasy What if they could suddenly close it and trap them all inside that insidious blackness There would be no way out no way that human technology could provide But she didn t want to camp out and she certainly didn t want to spend any more time in that tiny cramped two passenger jumper than she absolutely had to After dinner Jacob
39. him from going astray Certainly she knew more about controlling robots than he did He might know more about what made them tick physically but she knew far more about how to get the most out of them socially even out of Mandelbrot who Derec had created himself Her upbringing on Aurora surrounded by robotic servants had given her experience in that regard a natural dominance over robots that could never be achieved without that easy confidence one acquires in childhood when waited on hand and foot by robots Strangely Derec had not had that common upbringing One can become quite attached to them and even treat them like pets The intelligence of some robots can make that attachment even stronger than that for an animal pet particularly if the robot is one of the rare humaniform creations the kind Aurorans were so leery of Jacob was certainly more than a pet That thought sneaked up on her and startled her now when it came so consciously to mind Before Derec had come to Oyster World she had been feeling guilty about Jacob about how obviously uncomfortable Derec had been in the company of that handsome robot on Aurora Now she didn t feel guilty at all Derec had more than overcome those odds with the robotic monster he had brought with him from the wolf planet With all her skill in handling robots she had no confidence at all that she could reliably control SilverSide And now he had caused an irreparable disruption of the
40. line that demarcated the forest from the plain That delineation led his eyes to the iridescent dome covering the robot city shimmering in the sunlight and seeming rniragelike to hang suspended above the horizon transparent and seemingly void of any contents He had a sudden impulse to spread his wings and glide away from the escarpment toward that dome and Miss Ariel Welsh That was the Laws speaking to him and for just a fleeting second he felt a contrary and equally powerful impulse to escape in the other direction and then the Laws reasserted themselves and wingless he began making his way recklessly down the escarpment using the superhuman strength in his fingers and toes to cling to the face of the rock and scurry down it like a chameleon As he passed down the jointed and folded stone strata exposed by the upheaval of The Cliff of Time he crossed earlier and earlier geologic ages of Oyster World and seemed himself to be carried back through the short time he had existed to his origin on another world as though he were descending through space and time to the forest of his birth He slid the last few meters down a steep talus of hard packed black gravel to a flat plate of rock that slanted into the ground where the grass of the plain began He got up and headed at a hard trot for the forest a half kilometer away intending to immerse himself in the lush jungle in a familiar habitat like that where he had first known being He
41. locker in the basement for a fresh box of positronic data storage cubes Personal robots were never around when you really needed them Yes Master Neuronius Eve replied He tried to teach Adam the science behind the compensator domes but failed He will succeed with me though Ah then he hasn t taught you yet No Not yet But I will learn when he teaches you Me Yes I will learn by listening to your conversation Ariel seriously considered the idea briefly but only for a moment Talk about upstaging Derec That would put her hyperwave modulation coup in the deep shade But she would not likely understand the technology even if she had the opportunity She hadn t understood even the idea when Synapo and Sarco had tried to summarize the dome construction for Derec And to get involved with Neuronius after Synapo s warning would be sheer idiocy Not likely Ariel said And you should stay away from Neuronius He is exceedingly dangerous You must come with me now Ariel Master Neuronius is waiting in the forest Don t be silly I have no intention of going with you nor of meeting with an insane Ceremyon Why do you say damaging things like that Master Neuronius does not deprecate you in that fashion Instead he has a great deal of faith in you otherwise he wouldn t be willing to help you in your struggle with Synapo I m not struggling with Synapo He
42. machete the arm that was made of Robot City material and cleared the way with a motion that bore some resemblance to a buzz saw This morning Derec led the way with Mandelbrot next then Wolruf and finally SilverSide bringing up the rear SilverSide kept up a steady conversation with Wolruf during the hour that it took to reach the clearing Derec could hear the buzz of conversation but was too far in front to make out what they were saying When he reached the clearing and as they approached he could hear them clearly but still couldn t understand them They were no longer speaking Standard Mandelbrot was already erecting the tent as Wolruf walked into the clearing I don t believe this she said ees already speaking my language Not fluently et But give im another decad and e ll be speaking it like a native Yes He has a marvelous affinity for new knowledge Derec said It made him uneasy that affinity Derec gathered some stones from the brook and built a fireplace Wolruf put the inside of the tent in order Mandelbrot gathered firewood SilverSide disappeared It wasn t until Derec finished construction of the fireplace that he noticed SilverSide was gone Wolruf was fast asleep in the tent on one of the cots she had erected She really wasn t much of an outdoors person not at all like Derec in that respect There was no point in looking for SilverSide This was his habitat far more than theirs
43. matter how delightful I might find it And then there popped into her mind the image of Derec waving standing far away at the end of a long row of waving green corn And she wondered where that memory came from She had never been in a cornfield with Derec Not that she could remember And that brought her back to her present responsibility which was more an obligation to Derec to carry out his wishes for she had only negative feelings for the robot city otherwise Still the obligation remained Do you see any sign of the aliens Jacob she asked Possibly Jacob said I see three blackbodies that have just descended into a circular flight pattern around the dome Can you time our return so that we arrive just after they have landed T will endeavor to do so He succeeded She got out of the runabout walked over to face the aliens and decided not to bow Jacob stood to one side and slightly behind her Affecting a faint note of haughtiness she said Good morning ambassadors They had called themselves leaders the day before but she refused to use that term for fear they might misconstrue themselves to be her leaders Gud mahnin Miz Ahyahl Wilsh the middle alien said Ariel could not help smiling broadly The Webster Grove accent took her by surprise again but she immediately set her mind to eliminate it from consideration so as to avoid the less than serious attitude she
44. not been reassuring But now we have reason to suspect that you have received some clarification of the situation if we understand a message you received yesterday morning I informed you of that message yesterday afternoon I now ask again Have you received further instructions Still the robot did not answer He had swiveled his head back to watch the procession of robots and vehicles passing out of the dome heading north across the plain bordered by the forest We will complete the compensator the dome tomorrow thwarting your prime directive Synapo added That brought a response Wohler 9 turned to face Synapo Miss Ariel Welsh will deal with you when she arrives this afternoon Wohler 9 said and swiveled back to watch the evacuation There was no point in attempting further dialogue Synapo took off and headed for charge altitude and a Cerebron caucus CHAPTER 2 THE DOMED PIT Ariel Welsh in her typical fashion came in too fast on a trajectory that was accordingly too flat and she skipped off the planet s atmosphere like a flat stone hitting the surface of a millpond Darn she said which seemed to understate the situation somewhat She turned the controls over to Jacob Winterson saying Here you do it You should have asked me earlier Miss Ariel the robot said You must save yourself for the negotiations with the aliens But I do have a few suggestions with regard to your appr
45. of last remarks before the vote So they were all surprised when Sarco spoke up standing on the crag to Axonius s right Honorable chairman under ordinary circumstances any remarks that I might make to a Cerebron caucus would be off the record unless I were called as an official witness which I have not been this day In fact quite the contrary The Myostrians are here because of Leader Privilege which I exercised recognizing this meeting to be of vital concern to the Myostria This is our world as well as yours Cerebrons and ordinarily decisions affecting our mutual welfare are jointly arrived at by friendly discussion between the leaders of the two tribes Today a matter of vital concern to both tribes is unavoidably going to be decided by the exclusive vote of a Cerebron truncated caucus without our leader being able to participate in the decision You can understand my concern then and the reason I ask to be considered an official witness in your proceedings How Say you Mr Chairman So noted and recorded Honorable Leader Axonius confirmed My remarks will not be brief yet neither am I given to excessive rhetoric I am fortunately not constrained by the extraordinary position Axonius finds himself in Quite the contrary I feel compelled to dwell at length on Neuronius s position this morning and his remarks this afternoon As he was concluding those words without pausing Sarco slued his hook aroun
46. only one with a pie cut of city buildings that extended to the center of the shimmering pit Jacob laid in a trajectory that would bring them through the atmosphere to a landing on the open plain half a kilometer north of the dome and near the path of evacuation of the Avery robots and then with the help of the jumper s computer he executed the maneuver flawlessly They disembarked less than fifty meters from the line of evacuation and commandeered a large courier robot carrying two packages Return to the city Ariel said as she sat down on one of the packages and motioned Jacob to sit down on the other one She would like to have said Take me to Wohler but the non positronic brain of the courier would not have been capable of interpreting and executing that command As they neared the open sector of the dome towering a kilometer above them Ariel said Can you raise Wohler on the radio Jacob I have Miss Ariel Jacob replied He is standing over to the right of the opening in the dome The robot pointed and said There by that large open lorry Up close the paradoxical nature of the huge iridescent bubble became more dramatic as Ariel looked down through the flickering wall of the dome into a pit that seemed to underlie a city built on solid ground Looking through the wall and the opening at the same time the city seemed to float above the excavation It left her feeling decidedly uneasy Take us
47. said Explain our sincerity and our lack of knowledge of this last transformation of yours T must always tell the truth I cannot do otherwise SilverSide said But you do sometimes omit things Derec said Try to tell everything that is relevant to our situation My first concern must be for my new masters but I do not easily forget those like LifeCrier and Wolruf who have been kind to me Roping and binding however can hardly be described as kind Think of Wolruf then Derec said And the many kindnesses I have shown you before this last incident I must go and confer with Sarco SilverSide said as he rolled to his feet still balled Then he partially straightened still bent sideways and sidled through the bedroom door CHAPTER 19 THE LAW OF HUMANICS Circling far above normal charge altitude Synapo watched the silver alien and his escort of Ceremyons all less than half his size as they headed toward The Cliff of Time far below toward the gathering Sarco had called to hear the words of the alien Sarco was already waiting on the pinnacle of The Cliff of Time Synapo had seen him arrive a quarter hour before not long after that final radio transmission that had set up the gathering Synapo balled and as he dropped he feathered an exposed edge of a wing so that it set him in rotation and in motion toward the Cliff of Time as though he were rolling down a ramp His progress tow
48. so easy as I had thought he said Help me shoo one into the chute He hung the shears on a nail projecting from the shearing chute s end post and opened the chute s inside gate Together they tried to herd the nearest beast into the chute but it escaped between them and trotted over to join the one on the far side of the corral that hada section of wool on its neck standing on end where Adam had made that initial cut Okay we move to Plan C he said He walked over vaulted the fence and took a coil of rope from the cargo robot He tied a noose in one end jumped back over the fence walked to the animal nearest the chute and slipped the noose over its head Now he said come with me And he started toward the chute The rope tightened and the animal dug in its hooves He couldn t pull on the rope any harder without hurting it Here he said handing the line to Eve You pull on the rope He went around behind the beast to push on its hindquarters Eve pulled and he pushed and the beast made ten centimeter furrows in the ground before it bellowed and lashed out with both hind legs catching Adam in the chest setting him on his rear end Then the animal reared back still bellowing and jerking the rope so hard Eve knew she was going to hurt it if she held tight She let the rope go and the animal trotted over to join the other two on the far side of the corral trailing the line across
49. that they leave interspersed among their new plants an equal stand of the natural grass that had covered the plain when they first arrived In that first experiment they decided to limit themselves to plant products The production of wool milk and meat and animal husbandry in general seemed less harmonious with robotic labor than the cultivation of nonsentient plant life Irrigation the dirt farmer s primary worry was not a problem on Oyster World Regulated rainfall was an integral part of the Ceremyons weather control system They had recognized the need of the natural vegetation long before they met humans The terminal facilities were built above the Main Street access and were patterned after those on Aurora modified to fit the special conditions demanded by the configuration of the opening in the dome All vessels arrived and departed from an array of oval openings that included configurations suitable for all designs of shuttle and small cargo vessels then known interstellar and otherwise The large interstellar transports would be serviced in orbit by smaller shuttles that could fit through the dome s opening During this exhilarating period of leadership Ariel experienced only one apprehension and one disturbance worth recording The apprehension had to do with Neuronius and Synapo s warning It was one thing to deal with insane humans It was another thing a good bit more unsettling to have an irrational alien
50. the campfire its form became silvery while the form of the other standing a meter at the shoulder became more distinctly mottled black and dark gray After coming well into the light of the fire the larger beast turned and loped into the forest The small silvery beast came around the fire and sat down on its haunches beside Wolruf That was LifeCrier the small beast said He wanted to inspect Wolruf SilverSide Derec queried Yes Surely you can tell it s me The imprint is quite realistic And did I pass muster Wolruf asked I wouldn t be here if you hadn t Mistress Wolruf SilverSide replied She had achieved a remarkable likeness to Wolruf considering that the robot was an organometallic construction from coarse cellular microbots The flat face the pointed ears the fingered forepaws were all in character She had even achieved a good simulation of the fur without creating individual hairs T think the wolves have gone Master Derec Mandelbrot informed them I would suspect so Mandelbrot Derec said SilverSide is back Perhaps you should come and meet her in this new form Mandelbrot crossed the brook and walked up to the fire He hardly glanced at SilverSide Would you like me to build up the fire Master Derec he asked Yes Derec said and then perhaps you should resume guard duty Other beasties may come calling some that are not so friendly
51. the last meeting with you That is good news indeed the alien replied The dome will remain open then so we may use it as a communications and transportation base Tf that is what you wish What else is involved in this new proposal The Avery robots like Wohler there must be reprogrammed That is no small undertaking However a task force I have summoned for that purpose will arrive late this afternoon I would like to meet with you and the leader of that task force tomorrow at this time Synapo said For what purpose the small alien asked I doubt that he will be able to contribute anything of significance to our negotiations For the purpose of planning our mutual interaction in implementing your proposal and establishing a timetable for its completion My Cerebrons are a nomadic tribe anxious to be on the wing again We have already stayed far longer at this Myostrian compensator than we find comfortable If you can assure me that you are familiar with the details of reprogramming the Avery robots then of course the presence of the other leader would not be required But you led me to believe otherwise Very well the small alien said We shall meet with you tomorrow morning Good Synapo thought That meeting should show who is dominant the he leader or the she leader and should also resolve once and for all which species is superior the Ceremyons
52. the office whenever he chose to assume them She had been neglecting someone else too She released Derec with her left arm and reached over to get a handful of Wolruf s fur pulling her into a three way embrace with Derec We have pulled it off she said You guys are something else Looking around Derec s shoulder she winked at Adam SilverSide He would know that was meant to include him in the embrace It was her painless way of thanking him without his knowing it and feeling smug and superior for his last ditch effort at The Cliff of Time It was he who had first jeopardized and then saved the whole show and strengthened the bond between Synapo and her in the process They were a strange pair Adam and Eve SilverSide Whence did they come If they didn t profess to obey the Laws of Robotics she would have been inclined to term them alien robots What did the future hold for them and for that matter what did the future hold for the rest of them having to deal as they must with Adam and Eve Synapo Because of his dominant personality the leader of the Cerebrons is also the unofficial leader at this particular time of all the superintelligent organisms called Cerebryons He plays a dominant role in the activities of both the Cerebrons and the Myostrians the two tribes which constitute the race of Ceremyons or Mycerons from a Myostrian point of view The Cerebrons are the mediators and deep thinkers of the
53. they were riding back in the lorry To answer your most immediate question first Master Derec forced SilverSide to lay on the floor of the small bedroom when we first came in Jacob said SilverSide had trouble getting through the doorways He was both taller and wider than the openings It was difficult for him to bend over and at the same time go through the doorway sideways while wrapped with rope To answer your first question the wild one as Mandelbrot calls him it seems particularly apt the wild one talked to us briefly but he gave no indication that a change was imminent He said nothing unusual then Ariel asked He seems not to know what humans are This matter of imprinting and changing from one form to another were you aware that he goes through these changes seeking to find the species he can finally call human Derec suggested that might be the case Will he then cease to protect what he considers the lesser species I presume so Derec seems to think so Does that not make him an entity of some danger to humans It would seem so Then should he not be deactivated I hadn t thought so before today Derec seems to regard him as a valuable experiment that must be protected And from the brief conversation we had I suspect he still feels that way Perhaps you should talk to him again Miss Ariel Both Mandelbrot and I are concerned that the wild on
54. time to fully digest those last remarks Ariel regained control of the meeting With firmness she said Now honorable Ceremyons our schedule calls for the first phase of our effort to be completed in two months That effort will provide sufficient farm area and production 1000 square kilometers for proof of environmental passivity Concurrently we will modify the city to provide terminal facilities for local and interstellar transport vehicles Those facilities will project through the opening in the dome but will be insulated and force ventilated to ensure that all harmful radiation and emissions will be retained within the dome Wolruf our farm engineering specialist and Derec our city engineering specialist will now describe the detailed schedules for those two activities SilverSide recorded all that but her attention her whole being was concentrated on the alien Synapo His domination of the dialogue told her that he was the superior of the two aliens and potentially more powerful more intelligent than any of the mammals she had become familiar with In short she had found the ultimate target for her final imprint or so she believed She left off recording the meeting with the aliens She had found a new role model to fit the beings the Laws of Robotics compelled her to serve She was no longer obligated to observe the orders of lesser beings Still she gave Wolruf a last thought filled with fondness t
55. to Wohler she said to the courier They disembarked at the lorry and walked up to Wohler 9 an imposing gold machine standing at the front of the lorry and facing the stream of evacuating robots I am Ariel Welsh she said I know said Wohler 9 What is going on here Ariel asked We are moving the necessary materiel for construction of a second Compass Tower and city on the other side of the plain five kilometers away Why This dome will soon be closed by the aliens blocking all traffic into and out of the city Why That is not clear Where is Derec Avery I do not know since he is not on this planet Ariel took a moment to absorb that When did he leave He has never been here the golden robot replied Now she felt slightly ill She had misunderstood that weak relay from a central computer which had led her to believe Derec would be here She had to keep talking or scream She had thought she would see him so soon Are all the supervisors here ninth generation she asked No I am the only ninth All others are eighth generation How did that come about Wohler sacrificed himself to rescue you from the side of Robot City s Compass tower during a life threatening thunderstorm Miss Welsh The Burundi s Fever Dr Avery had exposed her to amnemonic plague so called had robbed her of the links to her memory
56. to mind She could see the robots moving down the green weedless rows harvesting lettuce tomatoes cucumbers the very things Jacob was taking from the food processor Those same farms would flourish equally well right here on Oyster World This world could be the breadbasket for this part of the developing galaxy And without interfering with the aliens at all There would be no need for expensive and energy wasting food processors in this part of the galaxy if all one wanted was a simple green garden salad She had failed to create the same image in Synapo s mind But how could she have succeeded How was he to understand something that was as alien to him as his government was to her She had been expecting too much Yet was his government so strange She herself had seen many instances on Aurora city governments with their bureaus and committees and councils which Petero s Principle fit perfectly all positions filled with incompetents almost without exception T guess it s not so strange that the aliens didn t buy my proposal she said They are aliens and can t possibly think like we do Yet their government makes sense odd sense mind you as you might expect coming from aliens Nothing a bunch of humans would ever come up with It makes too much sense And I guess it s just wishful thinking to expect Synapo to change his mind So when you think about it I guess I m not really in a quandary am I Jacob So i
57. tremendous rapport she had established with the Ceremyons particularly with Synapo Sarco had remained a small enigma a sort of friendly enemy as best she could judge She sensed that it was not that he disliked her but more that he could not treat her as anything but an alien Well she felt the same way about him so that made them even And now with SilverSide s shenanigans Sarco was indeed the enemy she felt sure Derec walked into the bedroom at that moment and that feeling for Sarco was transferred to Derec except that in Derec s case the feeling was not nearly so mild Derec was more an enemy lover and one that she could not love now because he had become so much the enemy Come on out Ariel Derec said You ve got no reason to punish Wolruf by pouting in here Maybe you ve got a case against me and I m not even sure of that but you ve got no reason at all to make her feel bad too She s probably more on your side than mine After all she s the one who bailed out your farm project Ariel didn t say anything She was sitting in the far corner of the room burrowed into an overstuffed chair that resembled a bean bag more than a piece of furniture and looking out a corner window adjacent to the balcony which overlooked Main Street She could see Jacob and Mandelbrot standing at the end of the balcony looking toward the opening in the dome SilverSide may bring the Ceremyons around Derec continued but
58. was now clear Perhaps human beings had created the Avery robots but this robot was not at all sure that the same creatures had created him even though both he and the Averies were governed by laws that were structurally similar But from all the data it seemed quite clear to Synapo that it was the human beings who had created the robot and that it was they his laws referred to Miss Ariel Welsh and all those like her are human beings and it was human beings that created you Synapo said It is they you must serve and of all of them I would suggest you give your most devoted service to Miss Ariel Welsh We have gravely misjudged her and injured her now a second time And when you get back pick a being for your model for your imprint that will serve her best You make a poor Ceremyon There was a long pause A last question SilverSide finally said You have heard me recite the Laws of Robotics which govern my behavior It would help me serve Miss Ariel if I knew what the Laws of Humanics were Have you yet deduced those laws from your dealings with the humans Miss Ariel and Master Derec There is only one Law of Humanics All others are corollary to iL The Law of Humanics is the law of all natural beings whether of low intellect or high whether Ceremyon human or lupine like your Wolruf We all obey that one law without exception even though at times without thinking deeply it may se
59. weather how the Myostrians had capped and controlled the disturbance with the dome how they were ready to close it completely until she came up with her plan of a planetwide farm abandoning the idea of a planetwide city So you see she concluded your task is straightforward and reasonably simple just reprogram the Averies into farmers I presume that this is another example of your style of engineering Derec said Not bad huh Social engineering Derec Something you wouldn t understand There is just one minor problem He paused Ariel said And that is In order to program the Averies to pursue a particular technology one must know something about that technology I know all about cities I don t know the first thing about farms and I suspect you don t either Wolruf came into the compartment in time to hear Derec s last sentence She took the passenger seat next to SilverSide Ariel looked stunned That seems to be a piece of engineering she doesn t have covered Derec thought Perhaps there s more to engineering than meets her eye He was feeling smug and complacent The bit about continuous modulation of hyperwave had thrown him for a moment But now he felt that he was back in control of the expedition So u don t know the first thing about farms Derec So what Wolruf said I seem to ave come in on the middle of the show So you can t reprogram Avery robots to b
60. will do the same for mine It was an historic occasion A joint gathering of the elite of both tribes was something that occurred only once a decade or so if that often In an ordinary Cerebron caucus Synapo would be on station circling lazily above the center of the compensator in a large loose circle with the other members of the Cerebron elite flying to right and left above and below a wingspread apart In the larger assembly of a joint gathering however the flight caucus was not compatible with clear and audible communication so a grounded gathering was held on the high crags atop The Cliff of Time a ninety meter escarpment that cut across the intersection of The Plain of Serenity and The Forest of Repose eight kilometers to the northeast of the robot city and its node compensator Synapo with his hook set forward stood on the highest crag while the other ten members of the Cerebron elite stood below facing him in a line on a slightly tilted table of flat granite Their hooks were all set aft Neuronius stood in the middle of the line immediately below Synapo Axonius stood to his right the next in rank stood to the left of Neuronius and the other members of the Cerebron elite stood right and then left in descending order of rank in the hierarchy Sarco with his hook set aft stood on a nearby crag on Synapo s right above the same rock table with his elite gathered below him in similar fashion and within easy earsh
61. would be through grazing Derec busied himself with the pile of computer output on the table and then after a half hour went out on the balcony to read Adam then informed him he had some unfinished business to attend to and left Wohler 9 after delivering Jacob s remains to the disassembly station had gone about other business himself leaving the cargo robot parked in front of the apartment with all of Adam s gear still aboard Adam directed the cargo robot to the corral The minillamas were still grazing on the prairie but were nearer now anticipating the end of the day when they would return to the brook to slake their thirst and bed down in the shelter provided by the forest Adam parked outside the near gate let down the ramp and lay down on the ramp again to continue his interrupted observation of the Ceremyons Eve came out of the forest and walked up to stand beside him As she came near he heard her soft footsteps suspected who it was and rolled his eyes to confirm it but otherwise gave no indication he was aware of her presence until she was standing directly over him So the wild one returns he said She stepped over his head onto the ramp and sat down on the pile of rope that had earlier covered the remains of Jacob Winterson Master Neuronius was so convincing Adam Eve said Can you really be sure he was wrong Now there may be nobody we need serve Does that idea appeal to you Yes I su
62. your proposal As he made the last statement Synapo graciously gestured in Neuronius s direction and carefully watched his subordinate for involuntary reflexes the body language the telepathy that would tell him what was going through his subordinate s mind And if Axonius were competent for command he would also be studying the mindset that Neuronius would be bodycasting broadcasting with his body And Axonius would take that into consideration when he finally rendered his detailed analysis and final judgment of Neuronius in a caucus of the Cerebron elite So in a sense not only Neuronius and Synapo but Axonius as well was on trial for it would be the Cerebron elite in caucus who would render the final judgment that would restructure the government of the Cerebrons if this immediate negotiation proved to be a decisive node in their history And in that negotiation with the aliens Axonius must be the tie splitter on the spot if Synapo and Neuronius disagreed Axonius could be placed in a quite delicate position He could literally be dumped from the elite if he made a wrong decision no matter how the contest between Synapo and Neuronius came out However Axonius did have one factor going for him he had nine votes in a caucus that would exclude Synapo and Neuronius Each member of the elite had votes corresponding in number to his position in the hierarchy So now all of this was surely going through the minds of the ot
63. And she should have felt exactly the same way about Jacob but his appearance didn t allow it Now she said as she began eating our most pressing problem is how to carry out the objective of making this planet suitable for human life and at the same time avoid disrupting the weather The weather does seem to be the main concern of the aliens However that s too tough to handle during lunch It will ruin my appetite and upset my digestion Let s talk instead about the hyperwave noise the other way we re apparently disturbing them I can understand the weather problem sort of and even have a glimmer of what a puncture node is hot air punching up through a cold air layer I suppose but I ve got no idea what they mean by discrete and continuous modulation What s that all about Jacob I m not sure myself Miss Ariel Jacob said I am aware of only one type of modulation of hyperwave that which the alien called discrete Nor had I drawn the connection of hyperwave modulation with jump technology which permits us to travel through hyperspace Were you aware of such a connection Wohler No Wohler 9 replied but I was aware that teleportation using a Key to Perihelion is technologically different from jump teleportation This seems to me a minor problem involving new technology that we obviously should have been aware of Ariel said in true managerial style Get to work on it Jaco
64. Ariel said But to get on with this at the time of the incident the witness robot was sliced in half by the first elements of the present dome as its momentum carried it past the edge just as the crowbar was cut in half earlier today Yes Wohler replied You had had no interaction with the blackbodies until then Ariel said That is correct But then you began a dialogue No Not immediately But not to do so was to violate the Third Law Wohler On the contrary Miss Welsh we chose to comply with the Third Law by retaliation But Wohler that violated the First Law which protects intelligent life No Miss Welsh it does not It protects humans It protects Wolruf Wolruf was a dog like alien a friend of both Ariel and Derec They had been through several unpleasant experiences together starting with an alien pirate by the name of Aranimus who had held all three of them prisoner at one time That was when they had first met Wolruf But only because Master Derec chose to make an exception Wohler 9 said Dr Avery s original programming made no such exceptions The first law now protects humans and Wolruf But our definition of a human being is quite narrow It certainly does not include the blackbodies Dr Avery was Derec Avery s father and the erratic egocentric scientist who had created the original planetary Robot City He had suppressed his
65. Derec and I are equally pleased to meet again with the leaders of the Cerebrons and the Myostrians she said and pleased also to report that our program modifications are complete and being satisfactorily implemented Our new plants are sharing The Plain of Serenity with an equal stand of indigenous grass to minimize the ecological disturbance as our farms spread across the plain I am pleased to report that Sarco can find no significant disruption in our weather Synapo replied nothing that can be attributed to your activities That is good news indeed Ariel said Diplomatically there was no way to avoid the bad news it had to be dealt with before they could leave the planet feeling comfortable in their relations with the Ceremyons She continued without pause Now I must express our sorrow that an unavoidable incident took the life of one of your people and of one of ours That was Neuronius my errant friend and erstwhile assistant I fear he brought it on himself and though I regret his behavior and now his loss I regret more that he had to take one of your people with him We had thought it was the changeable one you call SilverSide He and Neuronius had had an earlier meeting which did not end too agreeably But it was SilverSide who arranged this meeting so it obviously cannot have been him Yes Iam Adam SilverSide Adam s voice startled Ariel She now regretted intensely tha
66. Derec asked No but he did something I would never do except to protect a human or myself Maybe e was protecting imself from urn ideass Mandelbrot Wolruf said Not likely Mandelbrot said I do not consider words and ideas to be a source of injury to a robot But he is in a very sensitive and impressionable state right now Derec said And that s another reason I want to get him out of the city and back to the forest where I found him where he s apt to be more comfortable and less perturbed by strange stimuli We ll take the runabout to the east exit and walk the rest of the way It s only a couple of miles to the place I have in mind there s a small grassy clearing in the forest near a clear pebbly brook very peaceful and quiet You and the wild one can trot along behind until we get to the east exit Mandelbrot Then we ll all walk Very well Master Derec Shall I get the tent and other Survival gear from the storage locker Yes Derec could not remember his childhood He knew that somehow it must have been different from that of other children on Aurora for he did not have the natural feel and easy confident way of handling robots that was so much a part of a normal Spacer s personality something acquired beginning in earliest childhood In all the nurseries and homes robots were the only nannies to be found On Aurora for instance the closest any adult ever got to
67. I can teach you the secret of the dome that separates space and time Then when your Miss Ariel Welsh must deal with him she can deal on equal terms That secret can be a weapon as well as a tool Confused as he was with Synapo ordering him to serve Miss Ariel it was as though Synapo himself were telling him to listen to Neuronius I will listen a short while then SilverSide said but then I must leave you So they proceeded a little way farther along the path to a small clearing alongside a brook Neuronius opened his wings fluttered them as though to shake out uncomfortable creases and then folded them to his sides again He tottered over to the brook sat down on a low flat rock lying half into the small stream and dangled his feathery tail in the water The secret of the dome is merely a matter of understanding space and time and their relationship to black concavities Neuronius said That relationship is best described in the terms of tensor analysis SilverSide was already familiar with tensor mathematics quantum mechanics general relativity and spacetime physics which although more sophisticated in their language and applications were still the basic sciences developed by Schroedinger and Einstein Hyperjump and hyperwave technology were little more than tools that man had discovered quite accidentally and still did not really understand any more than he understood what an electron was So now Neur
68. I ve got no way to reprogram it It s self programmed and seems to imprint like a newly hatched chicken at the drop of a hat and on anything it takes a mind to So ow can I elp Wolruf asked It had a wolf form when I first arrived It was the leader of a pack of intelligent wolf like creatures which it must have thought were human They were attacking the city s Avery robots The wolf robot gutted one of the Averies Robot City relayed their call for help over my internal monitor When I got here it imprinted on me after giving me a really hard time and I mean a really hard time It was still humanoid when I left it this morning and soaking up information from the city library like a second generation Settler on a mission to Earth What iss it u think I can do Wolruf asked It was wolf like when it came into the city after I arrived and then it imprinted on me Now it s coming along a little too fast too much personality change too quickly With your wolfish characteristics you make a natural model for imprinting a nice compromise between wolves and humans Amazing Why do u umans persist in thinking of us ass wolves There ss a species on my world the dongeedows that arrr a great deal like the gorillas in urn ssoos but I don t think of u now wait a minute I take that back u arrr beginning to resemble a dongeedowa great deal She gave that phlegm rattling gargle again And yes t
69. The memory had still been there but she had lost the connections to it Derec had helped restore those links by providing clues from their mutual experiences That particular experience involving Wohler must have been exceptionally potent for now her mind orchestrated that clue into an unnerving symphony of emotion as the experience condensed into consciousness The guilt of causing the termination of that magnificent golden robot laid on top of her misunderstanding of the relayed message from this planet left her momentarily faint She swallowed hard to regain her composure and then said brusquely What is the nature of the dome Why not simply destroy it A simple demonstration will suffice to answer your question Miss Welsh Wohler 9 replied He unclipped a meter long chrome plated crowbar from the side of the lorry and started walking toward the edge that bordered the right side of the opening in the dome s glimmer Ariel and Jacob followed him and as Ariel approached the interior of the dome getting a little ahead of Wohler 9 in her impetuous fashion she could see up close the soft blackness of the lining a blackness that demarcated the end of the ground and the beginning of what seemed open space Looking down at it sent her into a dizzying subjective vertigo She seemed to spin in that black space as it drew her down sucking at her mind Under no circumstances come closer than half a meter Miss Welsh
70. Then leave Wohler Despite her warm feelings for Wohler l she was fed up with this Wohler 9 Yet in his dialogue with the alien she felt there had to be some clue to the aliens to their behavior to their needs to their culture a clue to something that would make the aliens and humans compatible so that this desirable planet did not have to be abandoned and bypassed in the future She turned to the printout the courier had delivered before dinner Strange how that archaic form of transmitting information the printed word had stayed around so long Yet was it so strange when that marvelous instrument the human brain was taken into account the speed with which she could assimilate the words and conjure related images the speed with which she could scan the pages She quickly thumbed to where Wohler had left off in his projection that afternoon and scanned through the rest of the dialogue ten times the volume they had covered that afternoon and she did it in less than two hours And got more out of it by being able to easily and quickly replay fast forward skip and ponder over the significance of a phrase a word It was true that central core had eliminated the alien s accent and certainly that had speeded things up but the true efficiency came with the printed word itself the strange archaic telepathy that extracted alien ideas from an alien mind and moved them into hers Yet despite the ancient beauty of the pri
71. Those that had just left had not been nearly so friendly at one time Derec recalled And SilverSide you might post yourself on the other side of the campsite but don t stray so far into the forest this time Mistress Wolruf SilverSide said questioning with a rising inflection Yes Are those your wishes Of course SilverSide s fealty had clearly shifted to Wolruf Derec slept well until the middle of the night With SilverSide back in the fold his attention had shifted to himself and he went to sleep yearning to be with Ariel The gentle snore from the cot next to him reminded him of Ariel and aggravated the desire but it was not enough to keep him awake long That night he didn t dream of Ariel or of anything else The short hike the outdoor environment and the relief connected with SilverSide s return promoted sound sleep and he didn t stir until shortly before dawn when he was awakened by Avernus s call over his internal monitor transmitting Ariel s call for help CHAPTER 13 THE VOTE ON SUPERIOR COMPETENCE Immediately following the last disastrous meeting with the aliens Synapo had circled up to charge altitude with Neuronius and Axonius trailing far behind He was looking neither to left nor right nor up nor down His eyes were open but staring straight ahead staring unseeing out of a mind closed down by shock So when he arrived on station he was surprised to see Sarco there
72. a child was the human who supervised the nursery nannies Had he been raised by a human nanny maybe even his own mother Had that been a still earlier experiment of his eccentric father Dr Avery Derec knew in intimate technical detail how robots worked he was an expert roboticist but he did not have that natural insight into the positronic brain that almost all Auroran children had by the age of five The only robot Derec felt really close to was Mandelbrot It wasn t a matter of trust or distrust Robots were what they were programmed to be You could trust even the Avery robots that built Robot City and the other robot cities like the one here on the wolf planet if you knew who had last worked with their insides The only time you couldn t trust them was when someone like the irrational Dr Avery deliberately altered their programming He had for instance excluded Wolruf from protection when he revised the programming of the Robot City robots But Derec seemed to lack the upbringing to deal naturally with robots Mandelbrot being a possible exception or as much of an exception as to make it a rule and now he was confronted with SilverSide a being he had concluded from behavior and appearance must bea robot yet a robot as unpredictable and unsettling as any he had ever dealt with Like the Avery robots and like Mandelbrot s control of his arm SilverSide had the ability to change shape by changing the orientation of his cel
73. a parabolic trajectory that ascended to a peak and then dropped terminating precisely in Derec s lap Before Derec could answer Adam jumped out of the cargo robot hurried into the lobby and up to the apartment followed more slowly by Eve They walked through the apartment and came out on the balcony Derec tossed the wool back to Adam So that s what you ve been up to Derec said A commendable effort wouldn t you say Ariel 3 That s from just one animal Adam said It does show a great deal of initiative Adam Ariel said From Ariel s tone Adam was not sure it was so commendable It became less likely as Ariel continued However we decided early that we would not introduce any form of animal husbandry to this world I m afraid your woolgathering falls into that category But his initiative is quite commendable isn t it Ariel Derec said Yes Ariel said Quite commendable But to Adam it didn t sound so I was under the impression that animal wool was quite valuable Adam said and easily moved in the interplanetary marketplace Despite having admitted that he was experiencing bad aftereffects from his animal husbandry perhaps because of that it was not easy for Adam to gracefully absorb a second rejection by Ariel Perhaps in a second phase Adam But not in this first phase That decision has already been made And now Eve what brings you back Ariel
74. ackish gray with a soft silvery lustre just as she had finally given up matching the details of hair and skin coloring of the mammals Next she attacked the source and nature of the green flame that had burst from the alien Synapo She had the feeling that it was a tool if not a weapon that was required to provide a satisfactory imprint She designed a small electrolytic cell compressor and high pressure storage containers for hydrogen and oxygen and a release orifice at the rear of her oral cavity but she kept her conventional speakers for communication And she added a small factory to fix nitrogen in the form of ammonia to provide the trace of that compound that gave the flame its green color All during that period of analyzing the alien Synapo she was absorbing the powerful masculinity he radiated intercepting and recording the red glare of his eyes sopping up his physical essence the body language the subtle mannerisms that escaped that otherwise all absorbing black silhouette Finally she was ready and she set the organometallic cells of her body and their pseudoribosomes to the task of altering her genetic tapes her robotic DNA her equivalents of messenger and transfer and ribosomal RNA and the myriad other factors contained in her multibillion microbotic cells that would finally effect the alien imprint As her form changed she stepped up to stand on the back seat of the open lorry to give her forelegs room t
75. ad given the aliens that he could live with a compensator efficiency of 99 2 Sarco had not questioned his conclusion by Nimbar he better not have but Synapo wasn t all that sure in his own mind how the Cerebrons might react to it They were much more sensitive to small disturbances in the weather than were the Myostria The weather was important but in the short term it was the possibility of one of the elite striking for tribal dominance that had him most concerned There was a definite hierarchy throughout the Cerebron pack but it was exceptionally rigid among the members of the elite who currently numbered eleven If one of them were striking and involved him now it could seriously undermine his relations with Sarco and his negotiations with the aliens That was his primary concern He thought of himself more as a statesman than as a mere politician By the time Synapo had climbed to charge altitude he knew how to proceed When he leveled off on station he radioed Neuronius his second in command and as he summoned him for conference he noted with satisfaction that Sarco had taken up his customary station fifty meters below in a fifty percent tighter circle Sarco had called to him only once on the way up and Synapo had ignored him Now as Neuronius approached did Synapo note a more casual less deferential stroking of his wings The striker would surely be his second in command Yet unlikely as it might be it could be anyone
76. and Wolruf binding them together CHAPTER 18 THE BLACK VISITATION Ariel was about to wrap up the meeting Wolruf had hit the high spots of the technical effort involved in establishing the robot farms and had given her detailed schedule and Derec had described the external modifications of the city to provide local and interstellar terminal facilities the minimal effect those changes would have on the meteorology and the detailed schedule to effect those changes Ariel began her recap I would like to briefly review the farm program again and summarize the schedule but before I do are there any other questions on the work that Wolruf and Derec described No Synapo said It was all quite clear Was it acceptable she asked Yes Synapo turned to look at his companion Sarco he queried Any objections Not for the moment Sarco replied The farm machinery is highly suspect but we must take you at your word at least for now Time may tell us otherwise And too I am concerned He stopped talking briefly then By the Great Petero he exclaimed What is that Synapo Both aliens had turned slightly to the left to focus those red eyes on something behind her Ariel turned to look herself and saw a dark gray monstrosity on the back seat of the lorry with gigantic wings hovering over the vehicle like some kind of avenging angel Then it slowly folded its w
77. and let them in but don t let them back out I didn t come out here to be ordered around Eve replied Just help me and call it enjoying my companionship She did as he said without saying anything further He walked to the far gate to keep the animals from leaving there It took another hour for all of the small herd to enter the corral then he closed the gates Adam had tallied 31 animals Now we see if all this effort brings any reward he said He walked to the cargo robot took out the shears and vaulted the fence Eve stayed by the middle gate Come on he said I think this is going to require a great deal of companionship Putting one hand on the top rail she too vaulted the fence Adam had walked to the shearing chute with the shears in his hand He stood studying the chute for a moment When Eve walked up she said You re not going to hurt them are you They won t feel a thing No more than Master Derec feels when Miss Ariel gives him a haircut Oh you re going to shear them Yes and let s see if we can do it outside the chute We certainly can t hurt them that way He walked up to the nearest minillama it was quite tame grabbed a handful of wool near its ears and started to work the shears down its neck with the other hand The shears closed just that one time before the beast jerked out of his hand and trotted to the other side of the corral Not
78. and went inside Mandelbrot and Jacob were in the two niches Adam and Eve were standing rigidly by the door one to each side Wolruf was curled up on the couch watching a taped hyperwave drama Ariel had expected Derec to come in with her She could have used his moral support on this one but she was too proud to ask She walked over to Adam Would it upset your positronics greatly if I asked you to return to an earlier imprint the looser less detailed one you did on Derec T am not giving satisfactory service Miss Ariel The service is great Adam I wouldn t want your behavior in that regard to change not in quality at least But then I would be serving Master Derec Would that not be a drastic change in the quality of my service A change in direction Adam and a change I will regret but it should not cause a change in the quality of your service I would expect that to remain at the same high level I have enjoyed In fact if you could continue to serve me directly I would find that most gratifying That would not be logical Miss Ariel His tone was best described as haughty I was afraid that would be the case In that light do you still wish me to make such a change Yes I think it would be best Adam she said but would you do so in the bedroom I find the process unsettling Perhaps for good reason Miss Ariel Possibly Adam But there is little I
79. ard the Cliff of Time matched the progress of the small escort of Ceremyons who had the silver alien in their midst so that Synapo and they arrived at the gathering almost simultaneously Synapo took up his perch on the adjacent lower crag the position Sarco had occupied during that earlier gathering His Cerebron elite were already aligned on the table rock below The alien who called himself SilverSide stood in front of the center of the line of Myostrians below Sarco The Myostrian leader wasted no time He began the interrogation of the alien as soon as Synapo settled onto his perch Who are you and what is your purpose in contacting us Sarco asked I am a robot and I am here to serve you SilverSide replied In spite of himself Synapo was impressed The silver alien had mastered the Ceremyon tongue and now mouthed it with only a slight accent You are a servant like the servants who built the city we have nullified Sarco said Yes only somewhat more versatile the alien replied Were you created this morning at the time of our meeting with the aliens No I was created on another planet That was merely a transformation this morning To what end To follow as best I can the laws that I am governed by the laws of the beings who created me And what is the nature of those laws Sarco asked I may not injure a human being SilverSide replied or through i
80. as disturbed only by Neuronius by the rustle of his wings and the soft slap of his feet against the table rock as he moved to resume his position in the line Finally when even those sounds were complete the only thing to be heard was the soft sigh of excess oxygen being vented here and there among the assembly Synapo was appalled by the suggestion so disconcerted he had a hard time taking it in Finally he spoke again from his position on the table rock Axonius I appoint you temporary Chairman of the Caucus for the purpose of stating your position taking other statements from any who may care to speak and finally tallying the Vote on Superior Competence That was the standard statement to make at that point in the proceedings and that was fortunate for he could not have trusted himself to say anything else after Neuronius had presented such a quixotic solution to the alien problem Axonius now flew up to the topmost crag Neuronius had impaled Axonius on the horns of a terrible dilemma unless Synapo had completely misjudged the younger Cerebron Axonius was an opportunist that had become clear that morning but he was not a killer Synapo knew exactly what was going through Axonius s mind and could sympathize with him and feel his anguish a terrible anguish his body language clearly bespoke the flicker in his eyes the slight flutter of his cold junction the tight way he was hugging his wings to his body
81. as though the dome and the city weren t there Why can t we see the city inside The compensator s intense curvature of spacetime bends the light around the dome much as light from a distant star is bent slightly as it goes around our sun In the case of the compensator the bending is not slight It is calculated to produce the effect of invisibility and nonexistence one of its attributes as a compensator You had one more question Yes Why should a hyperspace flier fall toward the surface of the black concavity and escape only by the full thrust of its impulse engines as Ariel described to me last night an effect of the curvature of spacetime when the atmosphere the air inside the dome does not fall toward the blackness likewise You answered your own question Synapo said A small green flame hissed from the blackness a decimeter below his eyes and his voice took on a note of irritation as though his patience were about to be exhausted The curvature of spacetime as you suggested The flier was beyond the neutral shell in the gravitational field of the black concavity The planet s atmosphere is within the neutral shell in the gravitational field of the planet With a note of finality Synapo concluded with a question Did not your jumper have to achieve normal escape velocity to drive into the blackness before it could reverse and try to escape back to the planet Quickly before Derec had
82. asked I wish to serve you Miss Welsh Eve said And the alien Neuronius what about him He is dead as you know Yes but there are other aliens you could serve Master Neuronius was special Yes the only human on the planet Isn t that the way you put it Adam believes otherwise We re not concerned here with Adam What do you believe T am re examining the data Good You do that In the meantime why must I be burdened with you You were present at my birth Can t you see I m not up to this right now Your shenanigans have killed Jacob I want as little to do with you as possible I will endeavor to serve you well Miss Welsh As far as I m concerned you can go stand in that niche and never come out That s the best way you can serve me Eve walked over and backed into the niche Thus did Ariel end Adam s ranch initiative The next day he asked her for Eve s assistance and by midmorning the two of them had pulled up the fences and tidied up the area Eve was back in service but not forgiven CHAPTER 30 A SORT OF SWAN SONG Finally the experimental phase was over The robot farmers had been fully programmed to convert Oyster World into one big farm During that time Ariel and company had got no response from the Ceremyons negative or otherwise and until now when they were about to leave they had not solicited a response for fear it
83. at midmorning at a height of a little more than a kilometer directly over the Compass Tower and lasts for one hundred twenty passes of the blackbodies which generally takes a little over an hour Hour An ancient term from the vocabulary file It means one twenty fourth part The blackbody I conversed with used my access to central s files to search for an exact translation of their terminology one twenty fourth part of the period of planetary rotation And do they divide that further as we do with our centads Yes Their next division into sixty parts can be labeled minutes according to central The conversion of those units into our decads and centads gives for the hour I am quite capable of making that conversion Wohler Thus construction of the dome begins each day at ten AM and Ten AM At ten hours antemidday or more exactly in the ancient terminology ante meridiem being before noon Their day is divided into two twelve hour parts AM before noon and PM for post midday or after noon Didn t it seem odd to your alien that he could find terms that seem to describe their technology in our ancient history files No By my recording specifically in that regard he remarked How satisfying to find our own circadian rhythms the metabolic divisions of our natural clocks so faithfully reproduced in another species It seems darn odd to me
84. at Sarco and his ilk were fond of iterating for some reason beyond the fact that it was true And the truth of that adage was never more apparent than when he had started for the brook that morning He had actually felt sort of faint after the long inactivity of a night s tether Sarco had already left That became apparent after breakfast as Synapo climbed to optimum charge altitude Sarco was already on station in Synapo s favorite space immediately over the center of the compensator Naturally Sarco would be the only one of both tribes not to recognize that and defer to him It was the first time he had violated that space without permission Yet the times were unusual old little used protocols were easier to violate than those reinforced by continual use The concept of preferred location was not a natural one with the Cerebrons as it was with the Myostrians who tended to stay in one location for long periods in the process of constructing and destroying weather node compensators like the domed glimmer below The Cerebrons did not normally spend the night on the ground but instead tethered their reflectors together in large drifting nightpacks by interlacing their hooks They were normally nomads continually roaming allover the world in the state of deep cogitation that had brought their race to the intellectual heights it now enjoyed The last time they had anchored for any significant period of time was when both tribes were b
85. at s the way they arrived Synapo said But their discrete modulation of hyperwave and our small discomfort with the crosstalk on our continuous channels is a minor problem The real problem is your construction of the node compensator It s a mistake Sarco You ll have deactivated the aliens only temporarily And if I m right as I am more and more sure I am you ll have succeeded merely in deactivating a bunch of servants and probably not for long but you will have irritated their masters sure as the Great Petero is our guide And the Cerebrons what have they come up with The Myostrians are at least taking action In some contexts the plural Myostrian tribal name is better translated as Myostria and the racial name Ceremyon is better translated as Myoceron to reflect the Myostrian point of view We had a caucus yesterday afternoon Synapo said All agree I m close to a breakthrough with Wohler 9 Whatever you do don t close the compensator You ve already achieved better than 95 compensation Meteorologically you ve already won You ve got until sunpeak day after tomorrow to achieve your breakthrough Synapo There was no point in arguing further Synapo rolled out from under Sarco and drifted off to the left while climbing a temperature gradient to a slightly cooler stratum That inverted gradient so early in the day was a measure of the meteorological disturbance the residual effects of the alien
86. atched the thick muscles at work in his bull like neck watched the flexing of biceps the size of piano legs corded by thick veins reaching across his powerful forearms She had prevailed upon the ancient Vasilia Fastolfe the estranged daughter of the famed Or Ran to delve deep into the catacombs below Aurora s Robotics Institute and bring out Jacob from among the thirteen humaniforms left over from the aborted campaign to sell them to a recalcitrant Auroran public She had never seen Jacob naked though Derec didn t know that Vasilia had brought him up from the depths fully clothed And then he seemed so real so alive in the human sense that Ariel had never explored beneath the surface of the ample wardrobe she had provided him It seemed too much an invasion of privacy The idea appealed to her she had to admit but not so strongly as to overcome her loyalty to Derec In her mind her teasing was not a form of disloyalty no matter how miserable it made Derec Like the myriads of young women who preceded her she had no idea how miserable it really made him or she wouldn t have teased him On their third orbit Jacob located their destination the beleaguered robot city Wohler 9 had described by radio after they had jumped into the system Derec was apparently not in the city at the time Ariel had counted on hearing Derec s voice Their destination was the second largest iridescent domed pit they had seen on the planet and the
87. attling the weather effects of the great meteor fall a quarter century before the aliens arrived Thus preferred space was the Cerebron equivalent to the Myostrian preferred location The preferred space was naturally toward the center of the pack and the most exalted was dead center where the less taxing audio communication reached the greatest number of Cerebrons and the surrounding elite first and where the more taxing radio communication reached all the Cerebrons with the least expenditure of energy When the two tribes interacted as they were doing now and as they had during the meteor incident the dominant tribe tended to be the Cerebrons unless the Myostrians had an unusually aggressive leader and up until that morning Synapo had been the more aggressive in their interaction despite the fact that it was Sarco and his Myostrians who were aggressively building the compensator That was to be expected Synapo would have been a little alarmed contrary to the tenor of his words if the Myostrians had performed otherwise So in the context of past behavior it was surprising to find Sarco with his hook pointed aggressively forward on station in Synapo s space The natural disposition of both tribes was peaceful so Synapo meekly left his hook pointed aft and took up his station two wingspreads to the right of Sarco as Sarco circled around the center of the dome far below You are on the wing a tad early Sarco Synapo sai
88. ay turnaround point Miss Ariel She had been deep in her dome problem still unable to think of anything that could serve to stall the aliens further The closure of the dome seemed inevitable Fine she said and glanced at him Let s turn around For just a second a quick thrill of affection for Jacob coursed through her mind He was such a handsome hulk and so thoughtful and caring He was clad in an attractive short sleeve top of loose weave that she had picked out She had selected it for this occasion because of its casualness She was clad informally as well She didn t want the aliens thinking she was toadying up to them no matter that they might not be able to classify her attire one way or the other It was more a matter of establishing the proper frame of mind in her mind She reached over impulsively and patted him on the forearm She put out of her mind the thought that he was incapable of not being thoughtful and caring incapable of acting otherwise and programmed so And he was a handsome hulk He gave her a quick glance in turn Is there something else Miss Ariel Oh yes Jacob There is I just hadn t anticipated it back on Aurora when I first asked for your companionship After all he was only a robot She kept telling herself that over and over Then I can be of further service Jacob said questioning You could indeed Jacob It s just that I can t accept that service no
89. b Very well Miss Ariel Jacob said Where would you suggest I start For a moment Ariel thought that perhaps Jacob was being sarcastic and then she realized that could not be the case He was just a robot Still could the Robotics Institute have included an optional sarcastic module for the positronic brain of their humaniforms Not likely But it was an interesting thought that diverted her from these pesky engineering problems They were more Derec s forte than hers Social problems people problems sarcastic positronic modules all those she doted on Not pesky problems with meteorology and hyperwave She was quiet for awhile Jacob at the table and Wohler g in his niche said nothing Then she said Wohler is there a Keymo on the planet Yes Wohler 9 said Keymo eighth generation is in charge of Key control There s your lead then Jacob she said It was merely a people problem robot problem after all We want to develop continuous hyperwave modulation Synapo said there was a connection between continuous hyperwave modulation and Key teleportation Keymo on Robot City manufactured the Keys Keymo here in charge of Key control of all those here should be most familiar with Key teleportation and the one most likely to fathom continuous modulation See if the two of you can t cobble up some equipment to implement it Very well Miss Ariel Jacob replied Wohler Arie
90. best juice to be had all day Neither spoke which was the custom at breakfast nor would they speak until they were again on the wing Speaking unless forced by exigencies such as the discussion with Wohler 9 was strictly a waste process using the oxygen discarded from the electrolytic production of vital hydrogen Electrolyzing when their hydrogen sacs were full merely to generate oxygen for speaking was a luxury they seldom permitted themselves and a necessity only under the rarest of circumstances That morning however Synapo again planned to allow himself only an hour on the wing before he resumed his discussion with Wohler 9 He timed it so that he could watch the Myostrians at work as he had for the past several days He was depleting his cells to well below what he found comfortable he went around continually hungry but at least he would be generating hydrogen during the discussion and not wasting juice as he would be otherwise That was small comfort as his store of vital energy dropped lower and lower But Synapo felt that discussion was vital not for what it had revealed so far but for what it promised to reveal in the future With breakfast over and the gores of their reflectors tightly rolled into black ruffled collars they began the long climb to charge altitude Synapo with Sarco following slowly circled upward with languid but powerful strokes of his great wings He kept the hemispherical iridescence centered belo
91. bot at the terminal e s certainly got urrr scrawny shape SilverSide s lustrous silvery exterior only approximated the details of Derec s appearance but in size and proportions it was indeed an excellent approximation Wolruf was exaggerating of course Derec was not scrawny He was thin but well endowed with sinewy biceps and with the hard plates of muscle across chest and abdomen typical of an older teen s torso But with that humorous barb Wolruf had hit that sensitive nerve again Derec did feel inadequate whenever he thought of Jacob Winterson Everything under control Mandelbrot Derec asked He had walked to the center of the room hesitated when SilverSide did not respond to their entrance and then turned to address Mandelbrot He got no answer from the robot in the niche Mandelbrot he repeated Oh yes Master Derec SilverSide unplugged and turned to face them Everything is under control Derec glanced at SilverSide and then turned to walk toward the niche as he said again Mandelbrot you okay He s fine SilverSide said I deactivated him You what Derec s voice reflected his astonishment that SilverSide would have had the temerity to shut down Mandelbrot s microfusion reactor risking partial loss of positronic memory When you re not around he tends to give me unwanted advice SilverSide explained Here I ll bring him back up since it apparen
92. brook path but preventing loose beasts from the prairie from coming through the chute to the brook The gate was actuated by breaking a light beam across the brook path that activated a microfusion motor driving the gate so that it opened into the chute forcing back any minillamas waiting in the chute outside while letting out the beast leaving the brook The other gate closed off the exit from the narrow shearing chute that was formed along the woodside fence opposite the exit chute by a short parallel fence with a manual entrance gate Another short length of fence angled into the corral from the chute at 45 to form an entrance funnel He turned on the lamp and photodetector that would activate the motor on the check valve gate closed the gates at both ends of the shearing chute loaded all his tools and leftover supplies into the cargo robot and directed it in turn to each of the three outside entrance gates which he opened He wound up parking the cargo robot outside the entrance gate nearest the dome He was ready for business The thirst of the mini llamas should draw the beasts into the corral There was nothing to do but wait He let down the cargo ramp and sat down then lay back supine so he could watch the Ceremyons circling in the blue sky far overhead He remembered then that last flight he had taken to talk to Synapo when he had found Sarco instead During none of his flights neither on this planet or earlier on
93. c imprint He had opened a whole other world to her he and his library files So that confusion with the nature of the biological sexes and with her discomfort under a female imprint disturbed her and yes that disturbance was the emotion Wolruf had called worry She was worrying about her imprint on Wolruf because she was disturbed by a desire to return to the Derec imprint the male form uncomfortable Wolruf would have described it so she put that emotion down in her catalog together with its positronic potential pattern She was becoming more and more convinced that she should go back to the Derec imprint strictly from the standpoint of comfort That was a notion she catalogued as a strong future possibility but for now she would retain the Wolruf imprint for whatever help that femininity would provide in her analysis of Ariel and the strange effect she had on Derec SilverSide rose and walked through the hatch following Ariel and Derec who had just walked up the ramp and into the ship CHAPTER 16 THE AGAOBIOLOGIST So what s the crisis here Derec asked And that screwy message of yours that bit about my internal engineering What s that all about They were standing in the control room of the Xerborodezees where they had gone to get away from the others SilverSide walked in sat down in one of the deep cushioned passenger seats behind the pilot s upholstered bucket and listened to Ariel and Derec Some eng
94. can do about that She rejoined Derec on the balcony as Adam went into the bedroom Sorry Derec said I didn t see how my presence was going to make that any easier for either of you I suppose Ariel said But you better hope he s not the wild one again CHAPTER 24 THE RUSTICATION OF ADAM SILVERSIDE After his final imprint on Derec Adam SilverSide started taking long walks in the forest near the dome He now had the lean muscular appearance of a silvery Derec without the clothes and the fine detail His allegiance to Derec was weak Derec must have recognized that for he seldom gave Adam a direct order never used him as a servant as Ariel tried to use Eve SilverSide with only modest success and never expected him to account for his whereabouts The walks in the forest brought to Adam a peace and serenity he felt nowhere else He was comfortable with his Derec imprint and with Derec himself so long as Derec did not overdo his master role but Adam was basically uncomfortable in the city and just as uncomfortable around the Avery robots as he was around Mandelbrot Derec never questioned his roaming around in the forest For a while he did send a witness robot to watch him but Adam always quickly eluded the witness by dropping to all fours and running along the low canopied animal trails as though he were in his Wolruf imprint It was on one of his nature walks that an idea struck him of how he t
95. cells to eighty percent of full capacity so he tethered that night in the treetops with a feeling of satisfaction He had been so empty and so hungry for such a long time he felt almost like a glutton nearly sated He arrived over the compensator early the next afternoon and took up his station circling above the center of the shimmering dome Far below he could see the golden Wohler 9 standing on the west side of the dome opening The small alien leader and her personal servant were sitting in the creation Wohler 9 called a lorry Synapo kept Axonius in suspense for another four hours and then just before dusk he summoned him by radio T ll want you to accompany me to a meeting with the aliens at the usual time tomorrow morning And notify Petorius that he is nowa member of the elite Saying nothing more Synapo dropped to tether for the night in The Forest of Repose That was how Axonius learned of his promotion and who would be the lucky Cerebron to come in at the bottom in the moves that would bump Neuronius from the top The next morning Synapo was standing on the west side of the opening in the compensator with Axonius on his right facing the small alien and her servant the robot Jacob Winterson My government has reconsidered your proposal for cohabitation of our planet Miss Ariel Welsh Synapo said opening the discussion and I am pleased to report that they reversed the position taken by our representatives during
96. ched over the terminal and seemingly absorbed in the information that was flowing into his brain SilverSide has apparently put you down as an inferior Derec replied a variation on this planet s wolf species That was my conclusion SilverSide said as he unplugged and swung around in the swivel chair to face them and I have been unable to find any Wolruf biographical file or anything to contradict that conclusion Would you tell me all about yourself Mistress Wolruf SilverSide requested No Derec said emphatically Not now Plug back into the library The rest of us have got some things we must take care of now SilverSide turned back to the terminal and Derec motioned for the other two to follow him outside When they were standing by the runabout at street level Derec explained As I suggested to you earlier Wolruf he s coming along too fast now Deactivating Mandelbrot confirmed that in my mind 1 d consider that a violation of a sort of corollary to the Third Law How does a robot view that Mandelbrot The Laws are not infinitely rigid Mandelbrot said They are surrounded by side potentials that create what I can only call soft boundaries foothill potentials that lead to the ultimate peak The First Law has the hardest and sharpest boundaries of all but even so those boundaries are not absolutely and infinitely sharp Are you saying he violated the Third Law
97. creations the completed dome would eliminate After an hour of charge he was still quite hungry but nonetheless he balled and dropped wind whistling through the feathery frond of his cold junction until he neared the top of the dome Then he slowly spread his wings braking in a swoop that carried him on a complete circular inspection of the dome He made one more pass around the dome lower now looking for any sign of spacetime instability Why did he care The dome could nave leaked like Nimbar and it wouldn t have mattered to him It was a habit though a matter of professional pride pride in his race pride in Sarco s people and the technology they shared with the Cerebrons As he rounded again toward the open sector he braked to a slow gentle glide and stirring hardly a wisp of dust came to rest beside the Avery robot who called himself Wohler 9 He now had a fairly good idea what an Avery robot was He had a modest grasp of the language called Galactic Standard and even though it was certainly not standard in their part of the galaxy they had become aware of it from the occasional bursts of discrete hyperwave that had reached them beginning centuries before Translation of the language had been slow and incomplete lacking anything that might have served as a Rosetta stone but they had acquired a feeling for the language in terms of the mathematical development of the species and then with Wohler 9 on hand not quite a
98. d I watched the alien land last night Sarco said And monitored its jump into our zone two days before That perhaps explains their discrete modulation of hyperwave But not entirely The metal monsters phased in with continuous modulation How do you explain the jump Do we have two different sets of aliens No Not if I understand what Wohler 9 was telling me This new being is clearly a master of the metal ones Well this morning I m joining you I ll be able to observe the construction almost as well from your station as from mine And though I care not a whit for either set of aliens it would be a shame to destroy life unnecessarily I want to see for myself how you handle them Synapo said nothing further for the rest of the short charge He was already exhausted by the endless days of talk and the surfeit of poisonous oxygen that he felt compelled to hold in his sacs But he continued to carry his hook aft so that Sarco would know that his silence was not intended as an affront He could afford to allow Sarco to dominate this brief morning charge But that was all he could allow him They balled and dropped as Sarco s people were forming up for construction Synapo had not intended for Sarco to get ahead of him but from habit set by the short time the aliens had been on their world Synapo opened on glide path in his usual manner which took him on a high circular pass around the dome Sarco chose t
99. d Ariel didn t move and hardly noticed After a moment the hand was withdrawn When they got to the apartment she jumped out before the others and strode off It was a walking pout a demonstration for Derec s benefit and she admitted that with one part of her mind With the other part she half expected him to come after her and was disappointed when he didn t She could now think of several things she wanted to say to him She returned as Jacob was putting lunch on the table After a lunch that tasted like sawdust she went out on the balcony to get away from the others but took Jacob with her They sat down on the bench that lined the streetside rail Jacob did SilverSide give any indication he was going to pull a stunt like that Where is he anyway She hadn t thought to ask until that moment She had wanted to forget about SilverSide and she had succeeded better than she expected Her thoughts had been on Aurora She had felt quite homesick all through lunch and Derec hadn t helped He had been just as silent as she Her walk had cooled her irate thoughts She didn t feel up to an argument so she kept quiet and ate Immediately after lunch Derec had jumped up and gone into the small bedroom Her feeling of isolation had been intensified not only by Derec s silence but by Wolruf s silence as well That too had persisted all through lunch She felt again the soft touch of Wolruf s hand as it came to rest on her hand when
100. d their team with a proficiency in the language of the Ceremyons that balanced the Ceremyons proficiency in Galactic Standard Ariel was not enthusiastic about Adam s participation arguing that they were no longer negotiating so there was no need for a batancing act She finally agreed but for another reason if there was some confusion about the meeting site Adam would be able to communicate with the Ceremyons They walked through a hall that connected the new inner and outer facilities and at its end opened onto the plain Ariel stepped outside registered a small pang as she passed by Jacob s grave and went to stand in the deep grass well away from the terminal so as to be readily visible It was 9 45 AM Two black Ceremyons swooped down promptly at 10 00 AM braking with those black engulfing wings at the last moment in typical fashion Ariel was standing with Derec on her right and Wolruf on her left Adam SilverSide should have been standing behind Derec instead of to his right but Ariel had no control over that and Derec apparently didn t care But that forced her to share the center of the line with Derec The aliens seemed not to notice Synapo came to stand in front of Ariel Sarco and I are pleased to meet with you again small leader It was Sarco then who was standing in front of Derec A faint but pungent puff of ammonia tingled the tip end of her nose She controlled the sneeze only with great effort Wolruf
101. d until it pointed forward Taking the last first his final statements this afternoon confirm what I have long suspected he is a paranoid psychopath with a cunning way of hiding his affliction by artful words and soothing flattery until the hook needs be set Then his pent up fears and irrational solutions come bursting forth as we witnessed in stunned silence this afternoon If you were not stunned Myocerons then you need to examine your own state of mind Axonius obviously was and his introspection guided him accordingly Neuronius had him deluded with the promise of honorable ascension until this afternoon when all the honor evaporated in the course of an irrational grab for power I can understand Axonius s reasoning at this morning s meeting with the aliens but a true leader has to look deeper than Axonius did and reason rationally as Neuronius did not to find the ultimate solution to problems that solution which looks beyond immediate and easy resolution Typically Synapo summed it all up quite concisely in his opening remarks this afternoon somehow we can always count on him Neuronius could have spared us all a lot of grief if he had just been listening and taken heed if he had just been listening to Synapo s daily reports these past few days and taken heed Setting honor aside and the honor is quite as compelling to Synapo as the logic to strike blindly as Neuronius recommends is to possibl
102. degree did my assistance this afternoon serve in the preservation of the city Miss Welsh Very little I m sorry to say Ariel said Why do you ask Did you expect otherwise Certainly I had hoped otherwise Miss Welsh I proceed at all times in the direction that best serves the Prime Directive if that does not violate the more compelling laws that govern my behavior I have been neglecting my supervisory duties in the construction and operation of the city Miss Welsh for I concluded that your imperative best served the Prime Directive If that seems no longer to be the case I must return to my duties which are currently spread among the other six supervisors Very well Wohler Return to duty I will clear the dinner table request a maid to serve you in the future and then take my leave T ll clear the table Wohler And a maid won t be necessary Jacob will suffice But he is on another assignment Miss Welsh We ll handle it Wohler Just raise Jacob on the comlink tell him to get back here no later than ten PM and then leave She was anxious to be alone Wohler had begun to get on her nerves Wohler and that alien she had felt compelled to watch and listen to all afternoon Will you be needing me at the meeting tomorrow morning Wohler asked No Did you get hold of Jacob while you were chattering there Yes Miss Welsh He will be here by ten PM
103. do it again tomorrow he said They rode back to the apartment as the minillamas drifted out of the corral and into the forest Adam compressed the wool into a tight ball and tied it with rope as they bounced along Do you think that little bit of wool is worth the pain it caused Eve said And what will that poor beast do without its fleece That too has to be painful both the loss of warmth and the injury to its dignity Indeed it may not be worth it I feel some aftereffects myself from the afternoon s work We II let Master Derec be the judge And what about you Adam asked What aftereffects of the day s activities are you feeling How should I feel having just lost my Master she asked Perhaps you should stay away for a while You ve got some sorting out to do with respect to humans something I can help you with better than they Miss Ariel might just take you to the disassembly station Right now she might consider that a fair exchange for the little that was left of Jacob Winterson I suspect that s what she and Mandelbrot were putting in the ground as I left the city No I ve got to serve someone even a pseudomaster It might as well be Miss Ariel She was there at my birth I bear her imprint I ll serve her for now The mammals were all sitting on the balcony when they got back Master Derec catch Adam called still standing in the cargo robot He threw the ball of wool up in
104. dy ninety nine point two percent effective On the contrary we feel it would be better to close the compensator and to completely enclose any such creations in the future the alien replied Although the emissions from the creation that Wohler 9 calls a city have been brought under control we are still concerned for the city may merely be a harbinger of worse things yet things that lie off world and are yet to be inflicted upon us I can assure you that no such dire things exist We merely want to share this planet with you and are quite willing to go to great lengths to insure our mutual compatibility That would be more reassuring if it were to come from a leader That would be a member of your he clan if I downloaded Wohler 9 correctly Another male chauvinist like Wohler 9 Ariel thought This big bat had to be a male Clearly The entire universe was filled with insufferable males Not necessarily Women our she clan as you describe them have often been leaders and able leaders functioning quite as well as men our he clan But most leaders are still members of the he clan Is that correct Yes Ariel was forced to reply The discussion was certainly not going well Ariel decided to risk her only bargaining chip in an effort to turn things around Without giving the other a chance to respond she said But let s get back to the main points of our discussion the things
105. e he spoke again triumphantly feeling as though he had found his true identity at last And I am the male Adam SilverSide They stood like that no one saying anything and then the sound of Jacob s voice came to them and the sound of feet pounding the ground Miss Ariel where are you And then the pounding stopped and they could hear him thrashing through the shrubbery Miss Ariel he kept calling coming closer and closer Here Jacob Ariel called CHAPTER 23 A FINAL IMPRINT After the excitement of Eve s birth and the brief period it took for Eve to become properly functional and subservient to Ariel under Adam s guidance everything seemed to fall into place except for the uncertainty of how that enigmatic event could have taken place To discover Adam SilverSide on an alien planet was certainly unexpected an inexplicable robot on an inexplicable planet But to personally midwife the birth of another of the creatures was something altogether different it raised so many questions with the degree of involvement of the erratic Dr Avery heading the list When they finally put those unanswerable questions behind them and turned instead to the creative work that confronted them they found that the task though difficult was not as difficult as they had supposed it to be The farm programming that was used on the planet Robot City was intact in Pearl City s computer files ready for use should the need ar
106. e evening of our arrival Iam now modestly fluent in the language So fluent that I suspect you will find several representatives of their species awaiting us outside and probably well within flamethrowing range Derec jumped up from the bed and ran from the bedroom to the French window that opened onto the balcony Ariel followed him He started to go out but stopped There were two aliens perched on the balcony rail clearly visible through the sheer curtains in spite of the permanent dusk created by the dome They were silhouetted against the white building across the street like two huge black crows There were probably more at street level Derec and Ariel went back to the bedroom You have been talking to them Derec said quietly but with emphasis Yes SilverSide said I have already opened my own negotiations And who have you been talking to Derec asked The leader called Sarco And what do they want My release I told them I was being held prisoner Hardly You could have broken the ropes any time you wanted to either before or after we got here Perhaps but I didn t want to risk damaging my wings To make myself aerodynamic I ve had to sacrifice my original strength and ruggedness to the stamina and lightness needed for extended flight which unavoidably entails a certain fragility But now I must go talk to Master Sarco Tell them the truth Ariel
107. e farmers Derec said if you don t know anything about farming and farm technology ave no fear Wolruf iss ere the small furry alien said I wass raissed on a farm and educated at Agripolytech I m urn original ayseed engineerrr Okay Derec What do you say now Ariel said You think I didn t know that Where have you been all this time Derec ignored Ariel You a farmer He was looking at Wolruf What products do u think the Erani bought from my family Wolruf asked The Erani am not all pirates like Aranimas They rrr mostly traders and they live on an impoverished ball of rock that growss lichens betterrr than it doess tomatoess In theess days of overpopulation the Erani survive on the grain and farm products they buy from us And there was Ariel glowing now when she had been shocked half out of her drawers before Wolruf put in her two cents She had had no more idea than he that Wolruf was a farmer But Derec was quick to regroup and he was now admitting to himself that Wolruf s contribution might well amount to more than two cents Galactic Monetary Standard Okay I submit I ll handle the computer technology Wolruf will handle the farm technology and you can continue to handle the social technology Not entirely Ariel said You could tell she was about to reveal something that was not entirely easy to divulge You must meet with me and the al
108. e may get out of control We are both perturbed by the First Law and find it even more difficult to be around the wild one now that he has taken on this new alien form You re right Jacob I should talk to Derec She placed her hand on Jacob s neck and softly traced the muscles as though she were stroking a pet His concern touched her It was she he was concerned about It is difficult for a young woman to ignore such concern when it comes from a warm skinned being as handsome as Jacob He was a dear like a big brother That thought confused her When had she stopped thinking of Jacob as a robot Her regard for him was sisterly was it not It couldn t be anything more than that surely In spite of the way Derec ignored her in his interest with the wild one SilverSide Perhaps her own impetuous experiment was getting out of hand Since Derec had arrived on Oyster World he had not seemed the dear thing she had dreamed about so intensely And Jacob s concern was pleasing and the feel of his muscular neck was certainly stimulating With that wild thought she jerked her hand away jumped up walked into the apartment and threw open the door to the bedroom where Derec had gone immediately after lunch and where Jacob said they were keeping SilverSide Derec had removed the rope and SilverSide was sitting on the floor between twin beds He was leaning back against the wall and had balled in that curious way the aliens had of r
109. easure of life Experiencing the pleasure of taste has never been my privilege But of course he added swiftly so as to preclude generating displeasure for Ariel neither have I missed it Did you have any reaction to the meeting this morning then Pleasure displeasure My positronic potentials registered a sharp disturbance when it was apparent that the aliens were not going to endorse your proposal I was reacting however not to a subjective or objective analysis but to the knowledge that you were going to be intensely disappointed and in a quandary as to how to proceed You have certainly analyzed my reaction correctly Quandary is the operative word I ve held off calling Derec until now because I wanted to be able to tell him what he had to do rather than have him tell me what I had to do Jacob keyed the food processor and received a head of lettuce two tomatoes a cucumber a handful of mushrooms a block of cheddar cheese a block of ham a package of bacon bits and a package of croutons Derec had done a great deal to improve food processor technology while he was on Robot City T really had a darn good chance of being in the driver s seat Ariel continued When that farm inspiration came to me I really thought it was the answer I really thought old Synapo would buy it She didn t say anything more then The vision of green Auroran truck farms and golden wheat fields had come
110. ed from the Cerebron elite if he were He has been a member of Ceremyon society then Most certainly Something we all regret now but did little about at the time because Neuronius was so insidiously clever Cleverness however does not equate to wisdom and intelligence Thank you for your help You have been of great assistance I will take my leave now SilverSide balled and dropped CHAPTER 21 REPRIEVE They had posted Jacob and Mandelbrot on the balcony of the apartment to watch throughout the night for premature closing of the dome This reminds me of another night before you came Jacob said to Mandelbrot I spent it much as we are destined to spend this night but I did not have your company I trust nothing untoward happened that night Mandelbrot said No But that was the last night Miss Ariel spent under a dome that might imprison her inescapably She spent the next night in the lorry sleeping on the back seat The next morning that first crisis with the aliens was resolved Let us hope this crisis will be similarly resolved with a pleasant ending What are the chances of the wild one do you think As you observed earlier he is unpredictable Jacob said but I wished him a great deal of success for Miss Ariel s sake It would seem that wish has gone astray His return is long overdue I fear you are right Mandelbrot said Master Derec obser
111. educing their surface area That decreased his height by half Derec was sitting on the far bed and had to look up to peer into the robot s red rimmed eyes Ariel sat down on the other bed Jacob had followed her He stayed near the door standing with his back against the wall I have explained the crisis he has caused in our relations with the Ceremyons Derec said and SilverSide is willing to try to straighten things out He does not wish to offend the beings he is trying to emulate and serve They might likely destroy him before he gets the chance to do any serving Ariel said They were quite disturbed That is the chance I must take Ariel SilverSide said but I do not think that is likely The title Miss was stressed by its absence in SilverSide s remark He had clearly imprinted on the aliens in thought as well as in form Still you had best shout at them from a distance Ariel said Out of flamethrowing range Communication by radio accomplishes the same thing SilverSide said without the danger you suggest One must first understand their radiospeech Ariel said The modulation is pure ultrasonic gibberish I have been working on that ever since we arrived It is not different from the ultrasound they used to converse privately during your meeting with them That meeting provided the clues I needed to understand the radio transmissions I had picked up th
112. eeting Ariel interrupted him On the average she said Forty two minutes Wohler said T ll not have time to go over all that before tomorrow morning Yet I desperately need some clue as to how we may resolve this dilemma Wohler while I m thinking how to screen that material rapidly download to central core just the dialogue of your meetings with Synapo and get a printout back to me as soon as possible Download in progress Wohler 9 said A fraction of a minute later while Ariel was still pondering her problem Wohler 9 said Download complete A couple of minutes later she said I really don t know what I m looking for but I do know what I m not looking for Wohler delete all sections of the meetings dealing with linguistics and play back the rest at double speed She could understand neither Wohler 9 nor the alien at that speed Then when she slowed it down so she could understand Wohler 9 she still couldn t understand Synapo s Webster Grove accent She finally slowed it down to normal and could understand most of what Synapo said but not all She refused to slow it any further Just as she didn t hope for much from Keymo and Jacob she really didn t expect to get anything much out of listening to Wohler 9 and Synapo But it did keep her conscious mind actively on the problem and left her subconscious mind to freewheel on all the correlated branches of the main subject Neither her consciou
113. ell into place beside him matching his wing movements stroke for stroke so that the two were soon idling side by side effortlessly How may I serve you Master Eve asked Tf all else fails you must personally destroy the Cerebron leader Synapo Neuronius said Destroy Synapo I am programmed to preserve organic life I can do otherwise only if the act of preservation would conflict with my Robotic Laws That is the case It comes down to a matter of Synapo s life or mine Synapo is not human I am But first there is another way Neuronius added without pausing a more indirect and less violent way Your personal involvement with Synapo is only a last resort only if Miss Ariel Welsh cannot handle Synapo herself after we provide her with the powerful and lethal knowledge I tried to give SilverSide the wisdom that allows the Myostrians to construct weather node compensators You taught that to Adam Eve said And now you are going to teach me too She had been right to come to Neuronius This was going to be a truly exciting experience No This time I cannot take time for that I must pass the knowledge directly to Miss Ariel Welsh You must arrange that meeting Slight though it was and very faint deep down in the nethermost parts of her positronic brain that disappointment with Neuronius was something not easily dismissed But at the time it was overshadowed by the thri
114. em otherwise We all evolved from chaos and chaos governs our lives but a seeming purpose can arise paradoxically from chaos and it is that chaotic purpose which compels us to follow that one law The law is quite simple We each do always whatever pleases us most That is the only Law of Humanics Go now and serve well your Miss Ariel Welsh The wings of the robot SilverSide opened wide stretched to their full extent and as Synapo and all the Ceremyons watched the wings seemed to slowly dissolve and contract into massive upper appendages as the torso shrunk to less than half its original height as the legs swelled to produce heavy thighs and bulging calves When the transformation was complete Synapo realized he had seen only one other alien with a shape like that the alien servant Jacob Winterson If he had used a little forethought the alien SilverSide would have had an easier time getting back if he had not been so anxious to effect a transformation But Synapo thought no more about it as he took to the air headed for a charge station above the center of the node compensator to gamer what little was left of the sun s radiation that afternoon CHAPTER 20 NEURONIUS STRIKES BACK The contradiction the dilemma tore at his mind grabbing at his reason his sanity setting it adrift in small silent screams like flotsam flowing over the edge of The Cliff of Time SilverSide had found the superintelligence he was looking
115. emerged from the opening in the dome Eve was disappearing around the curve of the structure with Ariel still cradled in her arms Jacob didn t slow if anything he speeded up pounding down the trail of crushed grass left by Eve When he had them in sight again they were heading directly for the forest He was still a hundred meters away when they reached the cover of the trees and were lost to sight in the shrubbery Then he was engulfed in a dark shadow as one of Oyster World s dominant species landed in front of him wings outspread and blocking his path to the forest SilverSide you must not interfere the alien said Out of my way Jacob shouted not slowing or changing course or correcting the alien s mistaken notion of who he was The alien quickly withdrew its right wing just before Jacob would have run into it It flapped into the air overtook him and as it passed over him he heard it shout again You are making a great mistake serving the wrong master Again it landed in front of him this time near the edge of the forest but in its haste to brake stall and touchdown in front of him the alien misjudged not allowing enough time to retreat in case he didn t stop This time Jacob tried to avoid the wing but the timing and his momentum didn t allow it He ran into the wing spinning the alien around and entangling himself in the thin but tough membrane He could feel the wing bones cracking and
116. emisphere communicating with the other passing on the subconscious machinations of the one that are hidden from the other For the first time she felt in command of the situation CHAPTER 10 NEURONIUS STRIKES Synapo was growing impatient with the she alien The discussion was becoming tedious and unrewarding and at the same time had not yet provided a suitable circumstance for embarrassing and discrediting his striking subordinate Neuronius It was becoming more and more obvious that the small alien was in no sense a leader that Synapo must somehow contrive to bring to his world a true leader of the aliens In the meantime he would have to direct Sarco to close the compensator and to start construction of the next one if as he suspected they were beginning to construct a second city on the other side of The Plain of Serenity Those were the thoughts that had led up to his last remark and now the small tedious alien was speaking again There is no need to bring another leader to this world You are looking at one I had hoped to continue with the construction of our city but that appears now to be impossible in view of your irrational fear that we have some insidious and covert plan to irrevocably disturb this planet The manner and bearing of the little alien had changed her voice had taken on a different timbre Had Neuronius noticed the subtle changes He discounted her attempt to belittle them by use of the adjective
117. ensator with the pie cut sector lay only a small way to the west He closed his eyes purging his mind of stress and strain which gradually faded away to a calm serenity And he slept He awoke to a star studded frame surrounding the jet black circle of the planet And his mind went immediately to Axonius and to the answer to the question posed by Sarco as they parted that afternoon He would keep Axonius as his second in command To discard a competent aide who was now all the more valuable for the lesson he had just learned and all the more loyal for the gratitude he could not help but feel would be to exercise a petty vengeance that was not characteristic of the statesman Synapo That resolved the tribe s hierarchical question and the aliens had proposed a course that they felt promised harmonious cohabitation He had no more problems at that moment questions perhaps but no problems for he did not consider Neuronius a problem apart from the day to day governing of the Cerebrons and the only worthy question that remained the question of the possible superiority of the aliens he could do nothing to answer right then Their small leader would make a friendly pet but was in no wise a threat no more so than the servants the Avery robots The only question that remained was how did the small leader fit into the alien hierarchy that part that still lay off world He could do nothing to answer that question now With a serene mi
118. ent circumstances If conditions were appropriate it behooved me to give Neuronius his chance to prove competent in command to possibly prove superior competence in our continual striving to avoid the pitfalls that beset a governmental hierarchy described by Petero s Principle The Cerebron caucus has been called this afternoon to judge that competence while remembering our delicate situation with regard to our cohabitation with aliens Synapo then summarized the discussion with the aliens that had taken place that morning up to the point when he had turned over control of the negotiations to Neuronius After calling upon Neuronius to defend his response to the aliens proposal Synapo sailed down to the table rock to stand a pace in front of Neuronius who then sidled out from behind Synapo and with an awkward hop and a powerful flap of his wings arrived at the position on the topmost crag that Synapo had just vacated Cerebrons your challenge this afternoon is not just a matter of judging day to day competence of command The matter is far larger than that You must also judge competence in assessing and establishing the rank of the Ceremyons in a galactic hierarchy that includes the invading aliens His body language radiated confidence even arrogance There are many facets of superiority of one race with respect to another but the fact of most concern to us should be whether we are superior enough to eject t
119. er Neuronius was not yet ready for command decisions and might never be Synapo had merely to show that to Axonius and simultaneously educate Axonius in the difficulty of command Further it would not hurt to condition Neuronius in the direction that would encourage ineptitude that was not statesmanlike perhaps but certainly the political thing to do Synapo had only to enhance what was already natural Neuronius was by nature a haughty beast who acted as though he were infinitely superior to all those below him in the Cerebron pecking order Synapo had only to encourage and assure him that the aliens were also to be included in that inferior category He made it seem as though he were asking Neuronius s advice confiding in him passing confidential information to him beyond that which he had provided the Cerebrons in caucus and by bits and pieces he led Neuronius to the conclusion that the aliens were weak and ready to capitulate and leave the planet He was careful however never to say that directly but merely to imply it by innuendo Synapo was ready then for the next meeting with the aliens CHAPTER 7 CRISIS How do we stand right now Wohler Ariel asked She and the two robots had just left the meeting with the aliens and were traveling down Main Street in the lorry heading for the apartment The street lights stretched ahead toward the Compass Tower like a string of illuminated pearls in the dim light of a late du
120. er that they had had on him His only regret was that Eve would now likely hear how Neuronius had momentarily deluded him It was not something Adam remembered with serenity CHAPTER 25 NEURONIUS STRIKES AGAIN Eve arrived at the escarpment well before noon She sat down on a plate of granite that angled into the ground below a dammed talus of black gravel and braced herself from sliding by digging her heels into the soft turf where the stone disappeared into the grass She arrived early to give herself time to think about Miss Ariel s strange request that she probe Adam for information about Neuronius and to ponder Adam s equally strange reluctance to talk about his experience with Neuronius It was all quite fascinating to someone with as little experience as Eve She had a good education Adam had led her along the electronic pathways through the city library but she thirsted for the real life experiences that lay behind all that academic lore She was going to get it that morning for Neuronius arrived early also giving her little time to ruminate on the words of Adam and Miss Ariel He came in with that black engulfing swoop and stall that according to Adam the Ceremyons used to intimidate alien visitors to their planet It certainly impressed the experience thirsty Eve She drank it up exhilarating in a feeling of surprise in spite of Adam s forewarning a surprise that would likely have been fear in Miss Ariel s case The C
121. er the dome in Synapo s accustomed station SilverSide wobble hopped into the air and climbed in a long slanted rise gaining the necessary altitude to reach the alien in the course of spanning the distance from The Cliff of Time When SilverSide arrived above the dome the alien s hook was pointing aft so he must be amenable to conversation With his hook also pointing aft SilverSide quietly glided up beside the alien and said Leader Synapo I need to resolve a matter of Sarco the alien said Synapo will arise late this morning Talking to Sarco might be better than talking to Synapo Sarco knew both Neuronius and Synapo and was a leader himself Who better to judge between the two I must get a matter of extreme urgency resolved leader Sarco a matter of understanding Synapo better so as to compare him with Neuronius and properly place him in a hierarchy of intelligence relative to Neuronius who claims to be the most intelligent creature on this planet Neuronius By the Great Petero Sarco hissed emitting a small green flame simultaneously Neuronius says further that he is a human and not a Ceremyon that there are no others of his species on this planet T hesitate to term him a Ceremyon myself Sarco said but unfortunately he is a paranoid Ceremyon suffering delusions of grandeur He is certainly not more intelligent than Synapo take my word for it He wouldn t have been eject
122. eremyons were indeed quite impressive seen close at hand She got to her feet as he folded his wings T am Neuronius the alien said haughtily You are Eve Yes Eve replied What purpose is served by our meeting this morning What was the nature of your conversations with Adam SilverSide The man like robot who can mold silver wings out of his own substance Yes Perhaps you should talk to him T d like to hear it from your viewpoint Is he man like or wing like now Man like That adjective gave some confusion She presumed without thinking that he meant Adam s current form his Derec imprint Her mind was on other things of course and did not consider the possibility that Neuronius was referring to Adam s Jacob Winterson imprint And what is it you would like to know Eve What you told him What is it he s so reluctant to discuss Ah he s reluctant to talk about our conversation is he That is encouraging I did get through to him then I am confident he will ultimately embrace that truth and wisdom And what is that truth and wisdom Are you familiar with his governing laws the Laws of Robotics Yes I too am governed by them Ah so He said that in a peculiar way but with her limited experience she didn t know why it seemed peculiar and so it lingered in that uneasy state only momentarily until he s
123. ers drifting into deep tether as he lay suspended within his own skin His storage cells were not sated with a day s thermoelectric output from the sun s radiant heat as they normally would have been if the aliens had not been disturbing the atmosphere but little of the radiation he had been exposed to that day had escaped the nearly perfect blackbody absorption of his other skin That energy was all there save only the small expenditure for intense thought and languid motion and the large expenditure for electrolyzing water and compressing hydrogen and the unusual expenditure that day to converse if it could be called that with Wohler 9g Still he hada sufficient reserve of juice left in his cells It would take little to get him through the night just that amount needed to maintain body temperature to make up for the minuscule amount of energy lost by radiation from his silvery hide Sarco stayed aloft until Synapo tethered Then he balled and dropped and tethered nearby so as to confront Synapo the next morning first thing The Avery robots continued to stream from the open sector of the dome like ants abandoning an anthill Dusk was coming on rapidly but night would not hamper their operations Wohler 9 stood just outside the open sector He had watched Synapo and Sarco drop but had not distinguished them from the rest of the blackbodies which a half hour later began to fall from the sky like the gentle descent of a black snow t
124. ertainly matches Derec s description e looks uman but Derec said Ariel wass the only uman on the planet so that s got to be Jacob Are the females always smaller and more delicate Generally And that s true of most animal species in the galaxy I m certainly smallerrr than my consort Yes your library file told of you as a female SilverSide said And I ve considered you so without fully understanding the deeper significance which seems to exist beyond the functional reproductive purpose Derec seems driven by many other emotions when he talks of Ariel Just as Beores wass driven by otherrr emotions when e talked of Latiel I don t understand Who were they The first beingss that werrr created according to ancient myths Not the first humans That would be Adam and Eve according to the library history files Okay put it in uman terms The first man and the first woman And do all males have this strong affinity for females Mostly Some don t but they rn a small minority I can understand that such a feeling is necessary to promote the reproduction of the species But Derec s emotions seem involved with feelings far beyond simple procreation And that is confusing beyond even the confusion my lack of understanding of the nature of biological emotions in general Emotions can be just as confusing to those experiencing them Wolruf sa
125. et computer and I begrudge the time and effort it would take me to subtract 182 from 854 I use the darned computer The Feeling of Power is one of the most frequently anthologized of my stories In a way this story shows the negative side of computers and in this period I also wrote stories that showed the possible vengeful reactions of computers or robots that are mistreated For computers there is Someday which appeared in the August 1956 issue of Infinity Science Fiction and for robots in automobile form see Sally which appeared in the May June 1953 issue of Fantastic 11 Feminine Intuition My robots are almost always masculine though not necessarily in an actual sense of gender After all I give them masculine names and refer to them as he At the suggestion of a female editor Judy Lynn del Rey I wrote Feminine Intuition which appeared in the October 1969 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction It showed for one thing that I could do a feminine robot too She was still metal but she had a narrower waistline than my usual robots and had a feminine voice too Later on in my book Robots and Empire there was a chapter in which a humanoid female robot made her appearance She played a villainous role which might surprise those who know of my frequently displayed admiration of the female half of humanity 12 The Bicentennial Man This story which first appeared in 1976
126. euronius had expounded had only confused her offering information that conflicted with her earlier knowledge of space and time He had not clarified the physics but had instead muddied it and left SilverSide worse off than she had been before The new information was useless and worse than useless in the confusion it created about the physics she had once known As she sat there in the quiet heat of the afternoon studying the dome and trying to make sense of the aborted discussion with Neuronius she gradually became aware of a faint humming off to her left nearer the dome but deeper in the forest When the sound finally broke through her reverie she rose and trotted along an animal path that led in the general direction of the hum The path led past the hum and when SilverSide recognized that she had passed the point of closest approach she started through the vegetation heading directly for the sound Although the ground was covered in that area the cover was not dense and she had no difficulty weaving through the shrubbery As the hum grew steadily louder she almost ran into its source as she came around a tall bush covered with pink blossoms She recognized the source instantly It was a two meter sphere just as hers had been and the duodecahedral structure of the coarse silvery cells of its skin dulled by the heat of passage through Oyster World s atmosphere told her instantly it was an egg similar to her own It lay atop the cr
127. f his wolfish childhood back to the days when LifeCrier had guided him into the life of the pack on the wolf planet Thus midmorning found SilverSide imprinted on the wolflike female KeenEye trotting along an animal trail far from the robot city As she had the night before she spent the late morning and early afternoon exploring the vast Forest of Repose its trails brooks rivers and lakes that lay within ten kilometers of the city Monitoring the field lines of Oyster World s natural magnetism kept her oriented during her aimless roving so that as the morning waned she began to zero in on the dome without dwelling on what she was going to do when she got there In the early afternoon she came to the edge of the forest opposite the mirage like transparency that concealed the robot city She sat down on her haunches and stared at the dome with unseeing eyes mulling over as she had all morning what Neuronius and then Sarco had told her She could not escape the essential validity of Sarco s assessment of Neuronius a self centered paranoid psychopath nor could she any longer ignore Synapo s directive to serve Miss Ariel and the feeling that that could best be done in the male imprint of Jacob Winterson who was already serving Miss Ariel with apparently great efficiency and to her obvious satisfaction The Jacob imprint would help but it was still not clear exactly how she could best serve Miss Ariel The physics N
128. for and that intelligence had declared itself not human Ariel Welsh was human it said and Derec Avery Go serve Miss Ariel Welsh it said and find the form that would do that best He had to yield to that higher intelligence there was no escaping the logic yet he had violated the Laws he had not served humans well and that was a thought he could not bear to face He grabbed desperately at his reason rolling it into a tight ball and escaped into the all absorbing task of imprinting on the memories he had stored of Jacob Winterson He stood there on the table rock long after the Ceremyons had left throwing himself deeper and deeper into the imprint delving and exploring and testing far beyond anything he had ever done before changing his microbotic cells to create those of proper function and pigmentation with which to form this time the perfect image the bronze skin the brush cut blond hair with the same fine strands the corded neck that kept the girth of the head itself all the way to the shoulders the bulging biceps and chest muscles the narrow waist the powerful thighs wrapped beneath the skin with heavy muscular ropes He created the same unlined high forehead the fine Nordic nose the wide set deep blue eyes the high cheekbones the generous mouth the jutting cleft chin When the imprint was finally finished he walked to the edge of the table rock and stood there staring down from the escarpment at the sharp
129. ful experience that he had successfully put in a can she was wrong That was not something he was going to talk about T guess you will but I m telling you again it s a bad idea which you ll regret He had been attaching the motor to the post hole digger while they talked Now he began digging post holes four meters apart in a large rectangle that enclosed several paths trodden through the grass by the minillamas which all converged on the entrance of the forest path to the brook While he worked he listened to Eve contact Neuronius by radio Adam had taught her the Ceremyon language and the calling codes that identified and solicited responses from Synapo and Sarco He had not told her about Neuronius and so had given her no radio identification for him However he had explained the way a general hailing channel worked on their frequency modulated band and that was what she used now to quickly establish communication with Neuronius The Cerebron agreed to meet with her at noon at the base of The Cliff of Time where it intersected The Forest of Repose and The Plain of Serenity She set off at a leisurely jog in the direction of The Cliff of Time That was going to be an interesting learning experience for Eve but hardly a dangerous one Adam did not think she was as mixed up about humans as he had been He had started her out right with Ariel as an imprint Neuronius s warped ideas were not likely to have the effect on h
130. g since which gives rise to grievous thoughts within me 5 Evidence This was the one and only story I wrote while I spent 8 months and 26 days in the army At one point I persuaded a kindly librarian to let me remain in the locked library over lunch so that I could work on the story It is the first story in which I made use of a humanoid robot Stephen Byerley the humanoid robot in question though in the story I don t make it absolutely clear whether he is a robot or not represents my first approach toward R Daneel Olivaw the humaniform robot who appears in a number of my novels Evidence appeared in the September 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction 6 Little Lost Robot My robots tend to be benign entities In fact as the stories progressed they gradually gained in moral and ethical qualities until they far surpassed human beings and in the case of Daneel approached the god like Nevertheless I had no intention of limiting myself to robots as saviors I followed wherever the wild winds of my imagination led me and I was quite capable of seeing the uncomfortable sides of the robot phenomena It was only a few weeks ago as I write this that I received a letter from a reader that scolded me because in a robot story of mine that had just been published I showed the dangerous side of robots He accused me of a failure of nerve That he was wrong is shown by Little Lost Robot in which a robot
131. gh organometallic membrane rustled faintly as he unfolded the airfoil to its full twenty five meters He found then that he could not avoid measuring air currents He had not been aware of even a faint breeze as he had stood there on the back seat with his wings folded but now he felt the gentle pressure acting on his wings pressing his simulated feathery cold junction against the back o the seat He resisted the torque that was endeavoring to tumble him out of the back of the lorry only witha distinct effort by digging his toes into the seat cushion The effort was more than he cared to maintain so he folded his wings back against his body reducing the wind area Then he turned walked across the seat to the side of the lorry hesitated looking at Wolruf who was running toward him and shouting his name and then spread his wings again and hopped over the side He felt again the glorious sensation of flight of being airborne as he gently glided to the ground When his feet touched he fell flat on his face his wings outspread with a feeling of slow motion that began with his dragging toes digging shallow furrows in the dust next to the roadway With difficulty he got up using his wings to lever himself erect before folding them into his body and then Wolruf was on him hindlegs straddling his back and pinning his wings to his sides hands grasping his hook to keep her purchase And Derec was winding a rope around both him
132. gies Jacob replied We can only take your question under advisement As though to avoid further discussion Synapo turned abruptly and with a short wobbling run and an awkward hop he flapped into the air and started gracefully into a great climbing turn Sarco hesitated only a moment and then turned wobbled and with an even more awkward hop quickly followed him They were soon far above the dome At the end of the dome construction activity that day the edges of the dome had just started cutting into the four lane road CHAPTER 6 INTRIGUE Immediately after the meeting Synapo climbed more rapidly than usual to charge altitude He kept his hook aggressively forward something he almost never did when he was climbing to charge and he paid no attention to Sarco who was climbing in his wake again something neither a Cerebron nor a Myostrian did when there was the least possibility of someone sharing the climb In short he was exceedingly irritated with Sarco and he wanted Sarco to know it As he climbed he radioed the local Myostrian weather station for the optimum altitude in the compensator s zone the corresponding stability quotient and the forecast for the afternoon He had some deep cogitation to do and he wanted optimum conditions in which to do it First there was the matter of internal tribal dominance That took precedence over Sarco s unsettling behavior he would get to that and the assurance he h
133. hat new emotion she had found in her consideration of LifeCrier now far far away She would continue to protect Wolruf with just a little less weight than she gave herself under the Third Law the law of self preservation She turned her attention back to the alien on the right Synapo and concentrated now on the technical details of the imprint particularly the aerodynamic characteristics that would be the hardest to duplicate The calculations quickly showed that her wingspread and airfoil area would have to be several fold greater than that of the aliens in order to support her body weight Their body mass must be light indeed with mostly hollow structural reinforcements And she would have to increase the dimensions of her body to provide the geometry needed for the wing connections and the leverage required for the wing manipulators Not surprisingly that was going to decrease her body density to match that of the aliens She worked on the eyes next They were compound radiating red and infrared The radiation came from a ring that surrounded the conventional animal optic in the center and provided controlled illumination for viewing objects when the sun s radiation was blocked by the planet Then she turned her attention to the blackbody surface and found that to be more of a problem than the aerodynamics and the optics She experimented on her arm as she sat in the back seat of the lorry but finally had to give up and settle for a bl
134. hat melted to bright raindrops as it neared the surface raindrops inversely and miraculously suspended above the trees in defiance of gravity When the tiny amount of absorbed sunshine began to warm Synapo s reflector the next morning he awoke and began to deflate When his hook dangled free he sucked in his tether and drifted to the ground gently bouncing off the outer foliage of the tree When he reached the ground he unsealed the front seam of his reflector and pulled it around him like a bathrobe to preserve his body heat On his two short legs he waddled through the forest to a small brook Sarco was already there having breakfast and waiting for him His hook was turned to the back in nonaggressive posture which was a good sign Still he was having breakfast You could hardly expect anything else Anger cannot abide alongside intense creature satisfactions During the night the feathery cold junction that protruded from Synapo s rump had warmed and the millions of hot junctions distributed throughout his lampblack hide had cooled so that both cold and hot junctions were now at the same median temperature and he had fasted throughout the night Now as he backed up to the brook beside Sarco drew his reflector tight across his back to bunch it in front of him and squatted to dip his cold junction into the icy water he sighed contentedly as the fresh juice flowed into his storage cells That fresh shot each morning was the
135. he small alien s haughty disparagement when she used the term irrational It weighed in heavily with the fool s own irrationality his basic paranoia which I have long suspected Thank god for the level headed Axonius Now it was time for Synapo to cast his own vote If he agreed with Neuronius he would only have to say so and Axonius would be off the hook For Synapo to register his opposition he had only to ask Axonius for his opinion Which he did And how say you Axonius For the second time that morning Synapo felt some misgivings Axonius s body language showed fear and irresolution when he should have been exuding confidence and decisiveness Clearly Axonius said Neuronius has properly assessed the situation and has come to a remarkably astute conclusion Synapo was stunned His clever strategy had backfired completely His attention this past year had been too much on the paranoia of Neuronius and he had failed to properly assess Axonius who had always seemed such a reliable lieutenant That was where Synapo had gone wrong perhaps the difficulty of properly assessing someone you basically like and who invariably agrees with you It was a mere formality now Synapo was foremost a statesman and a loyal Ceremyon and a politician only when it wouldn t hurt the tribes He could have opposed his two subordinates and the elite might grudgingly have supported him but then he would have presented
136. he aliens from our planet All else is the weak juice of the soft degenerate culture Synapo would have us embrace That summarizes the results of my cerebrations and I responded accordingly There is no point in subjecting you to useless rhetoric I told the aliens that we could no longer tolerate their presence on our planet and terminated the negotiations Synapo was stunned for the second time that day That last was a brazen lie He Synapo had terminated the negotiations that morning For Neuronius to lead the caucus to believe otherwise was to presume the outcome of the forthcoming vote Neuronius paused for just a moment and then continued However I did not tell the aliens how I propose to insure their removal Threats merely alert the enemy and eliminate the element of surprise But to this caucus I suggest and strongly recommend that we immediately remove them the way one of their number accidentally and effectively removed himself from our world when he blindly ran into the edge of an embryonic compensator Neuronius paused for a moment Then he dramatically rotated his hook forward I suggest we ship them all into the black eternity that lies beyond space and time where those two part company in the bowels of a node compensator Neuronius stood silently on the crag for a moment and then sailed down to the table rock and waddled back to his place in the line behind Synapo For a while the silence w
137. he heard the grunt of the alien ejecting gases as their bodies came together then hot flame burned his eyes and his hair and his skin He was blind when the last stimuli he recorded came to his ears and face the muffled whoosh and the violent pressure of exploding hydrogen as his flailing arms crushed the alien s high pressure gas storage cells Jacob Winterson was essentially demolished except for the lower torso and thighs that remained in one piece cartwheeling through the air trailing remnants of burning clothing and synthetic skin before landing in the grass a half kilometer away not far from the forest Neuronius was even more finely divided CHAPTER 28 A SAD RITUAL Derec and Ariel met at the apartment after the explosion Using Derec s internal monitor Wohler 9 had informed him of the accident immediately after it occurred Ariel had witnessed the spectacle from the shelter of the trees and had broken away from Eve and run out to where grass and dirt had been torn away by the explosion to form a shallow bare depression in the ground so she didn t see Adam retrieve what little was left of Jacob Winterson He covered Jacob s remains with coils of rope before he picked up Ariel and Wohler 9 in the cargo robot Eve had disappeared Ariel sat down on the pile of rope and rode that way to the apartment not knowing she was sitting on what was left of Jacob She went directly up to the apartment while Wohler 9 stood in the cargo robo
138. he missed him so She had become quite fond of Jacob and didn t think of him as a robot with her fun mind for he was fun to be with He had a wry way of saying things that was quite amusing and Ariel suspected he had cultivated it for that very reason but of course he would never admit that he had the faintest conception of human humor Yes she had become quite fond of Jacob But it was Derec she longed for his pinched face his skinny frame Typically male his rapid teen growth had sacrificed meat and breadth to bones and height Yet she could still look down on him by several centimeters But she had stopped growing while he would probably reach and pass her as he filled out For the time she had she was going to enjoy being taller than he and use it to advantage whenever that seemed appropriate She loved teasing him He was so loveable And she slipped off into a lonely scary dream CHAPTER 4 DIALOGUE Synapo had never drained himself quite so low before The musculature of the legs particularly seemed weak as he walked toward the brook that morning He had exhausted the fat juice cells for long term storage around his chest and waist and buttocks and now he was drawing on the prompt supply cells that fed his muscles And those in his legs were nowhere near as plentiful as those that supplied the large pectoral muscles that powered the downbeat of his wings The legs were always the first to go That was an old Myostrian saying th
139. he proper form because it harmonized with the job and the world so beautifully but it was difficult at first for them to think ofa supervisor in any but humanoid shape She made Wheeler smaller than a Ceremyon so as not to intimidate the aliens but far larger than any of the other native flyers so that the Ceremyons would not mistake him at a distance for a natural denizen of their world She insisted too that his robotic laws recognize Ceremyons with all the weight ordinarily reserved for humans and that Derec revise the programming of the other supervisors to defer to Wheeler in matters dealing with Oyster World and the Ceremyons The problem of seeds had been worrying Ariel almost from the time she had first hit on the idea of a farm world but she found that there had been no need to worry Seeds for a variety of crops to match the farm programs had been carried during the initial migration to Oyster World and were stored in labeled bins that were indexed in the programs There was no need to get seeds from Aurora With Wolruf s advice to make the overall mosaic of the farm operation as benign as possible weather wise they interspersed the truck gardens and orchards among the fields of wheat oats barley and several other grains and among large fields of cotton a commodity that had never been matched for all around adaptation to the human dermal ecology And to minimize the upset to the planet s ecology she further advised
140. he trailing burr was definitely still part of the pattern You can joke all you want Wolruf but I don t regard this situation as very humorous Derec was not in the best of spirits It was good to see Wolruf again and that had cheered him momentarily They had known each other for a long time ever since she had been more or less a slave an indentured servant of the alien pirate Aranimas Derec had freed her with the help of Mandelbrot the robot he had put together from the pirate s supply of spare parts But Wolruf was hardly a stand in for Ariel Just seeing a good friend like Wolruf made him yearn for Ariel even more If it had just been her and not Wolruf who had run down the ramp of the Xerborodezees life wouldn t seem so grim right now He shouldn t have reacted adversely to Wolruf s weak attempt at humor He should at least give her credit for trying But he missed Ariel and he wasn t about to let anything cheer him up u arrr in a foul mood Wolruf said A rogue robot couldn t make u feel that bad Why issn t Ariel with u It was eerie the way Wolruf could sense his mood interpret it and put her finger on what was bothering him Let s not go into that Let s just say she wasn t too pleased with me when I left her on Aurora So she s probably pouting back there in a snit And he added as a bitter afterthought With her playboy Winterson You ve never met him Jacob Winterson As revolting
141. he way to Oyster World when Jacob had used it and she had been wanting to use it ever since It had such a ring of erudition Now she had played it back to him You suggested only that we look for a connection between continuous modulation and Key teleportation Neither of us could see any during a lengthy discussion which concluded only a half hour ago You dummy she thought the creative process is primarily a matter of drawing correlations If there is a connection between discrete modulation and jump technology as the aliens claim you must first ferret out and understand that connection Then maybe you can deduce what continuous modulation is by examining Key teleportation for the parallel connection the aliens say exists there She thought she had made that clear before he left He too had heard everything the alien had said Tonight while I m sleeping Ariel said examine everything in your memory concerning jump technology and discrete modulation of hyperwave Go back and forth comparing the two at every point Look for similarities Correlate one with the other And give me a report in the morning of all instances where you see a similarity between the two Very well Miss Ariel She retired to bed then and thought how she would like to see the full musculature of Jacob without his clothes on And that made her feel guilty and her longing for Derec came rushing in the longing she had been pushing fr
142. hen you re not likely to understand how such a rift is created and we should move on to more profitable subjects for discussion Synapo entered the discussion at that point The rift is created and enlarged by the intense application of electrons which themselves are convolutions in spacetime The stream of electrons highly focused on a microscopic volume at the initial point of separation enlarges the void progressively around the extent of the rift much as I separate the gores of my reflector when I untether each morning But as my colleague Sarco suggests perhaps we should move directly to a discussion of your schedule for implementing harmonious cohabitation Strictly from visual observations the dome seems to partake of the nature of a black hole Derec persisted Is that what you re saying Black hole Synapo said as though now having difficulty himself with the trend of the conversation Black hole Yes that is a good analogy The derivation of the word was not self evident Yes the compensator is a black hole but an unnatural one internal to the universe not on the edge a black hole as a concavity not asa convexity at the edge where space and time separate in the course of the natural decay of the universe Now may we move on Just two more questions Derec said When we look at the dome from the outside we can t see the city We see objects on the other side
143. her two Cerebrons as Synapo turned to Neuronius to obtain his response The bodycast was not good Neuronius radiated confidence and that must surely have an effect on Axonius which could make things difficult for Synapo if Neuronius took a contrary course Miss Ariel Welsh you plead a good case for the cause of your people Neuronius said Perhaps I do not fully understand all that you said but my mentor is an excellent instructor who has never failed me thus far so I m reasonably sure I understood the gist of your remarks You radiate confidence and sincerity and all the other aspects essential to the execution of leadership so you can surely not be found at fault in that regard And your proposed change to the labor intensive mode of agriculture seems on the surface benign as you so eloquently describe it The node compensator is operating at ninety nine point two percent efficiency and that has proved acceptable in Cerebron caucus so that certainly is a point in your favor And neither you nor your servant taken individually nor the small collection represented by one of your loaded vehicles all small thermal emitters constitute a weather node as my mentor has concluded Those are all positive arguments that weigh in your favor but we must counterpose on the scale the few negative things which argue against your proposal before we can assess which way the scale finally tips And surely
144. hey both began to eat Avernus 8 says that the connection with Derec s internal monitor is not made over hyperwave Jacob said It is a special system Dr Avery developed The equipment is mounted on the mobile platform supporting the computer mainframe and on the mainframe s backup platform but is accessible by all seven supervisor robots And who has detailed technical knowledge of the system Ariel asked User s manual wiring diagrams maintenance manual Avernus 8 and the technician on each of the two computer platforms T ll bet a pewter button that Derec s special link does use hyperwave but unlike it s ever been used before It s not common ordinary discrete modulation Dr Avery has beat us to it dam it He s already invented the aliens continuous modulation Jacob hook Keymo into your comlink connection and tell Avernus to describe Derec s monitor system to him See if the two of them don t agree that it s continuous modulation of hyperwave as Keymo would define it That connection and analysis took a little longer than quick but still consumed less than two minutes Avernus 8 replies in the affirmative Jacob said To communicate with all robot cities Master Derec s internal monitor metabolically manipulates hyperwave in a manner similar to what Keymo describes as continuous modulation Bingo Ariel said Derec does it and doesn t even know how he does it And
145. hich is currently on the second underground level of the Compass Tower When they came abreast of the apartment SilverSide jumped out Wohler g9 braked the runabout to a halt but remained seated I must take you to Master Derec Wohler 9 called to SilverSide s back Later SilverSide called over his shoulder as he ran into the building He took the stairs three at a time and burst into the apartment Ariel was sitting at the dining table reading a computer printout The table was strewn with piles of computer output Jacob was thumbing through the piles apparently hunting for the next printout she would need SilverSide took in the scene picked Ariel up cradling her in his arms like a fragile baby dashed out the door down the stairs and past Wohler 9 who was walking toward the apartment from the runabout Ariel had time to scream only once before she was deposited in the runabout As she was being gently scooped up she had screamed Jaaaacobbbb with a Doppler modulation that trailed off like the whistle of a passing train Jacob Winterson had responded with the millisecond speed characteristic of Dr Han Fastolfe s humaniform robots But that speed was no match for the microseconds it took for all of SilverSide s motions save for the brisk but gentle acceleration when he had picked up Ariel and started toward the door He and Ariel were speeding away from the apartment building in the runabout as Jacob came pou
146. his imprint to very fine detail indeed And she had observed the details of that imprint the day of Eve s birth when Adam had come charging into the apartment naked and carried her away Ariel broke the silence Was Adam s imprint on you less realistic than his current imprint on Jacob she asked Derec Yes More or less the same as Eve s imprint on you Derec said Eve would never need clothes Though an Ariel imprint she was not fashioned with the fine attention to detail Adam had used with Jacob Eve was merely a silvery organometallic robot How would he react do you think if I asked him to go back to that one You d no longer be Miss Ariel for one thing It would probably be Master Derec again Eve and Jacob are quite enough But how would he behave Would he be the wild one again I don t really know He s certainly been steady these past few weeks If it weren t for his quiet air of superiority a condition of his muscles I believe I d say he s achieved a state of agreeable servitude It s the muscles that bother me no not just the muscles his whole appearance Reminds you too much of Jacob Yes but more the fact that he is otherwise so little like Jacob It s the contrast that irritates me Do you mind if I ask him to imprint back on you No It would be another interesting experiment in robotics No better time than now then She got up
147. ht you will find that we have left both the farm and city operations under the supervision of a robot we call Wheeler who now has the form of a small Ceremyon the only robot on the planet with that form His Robotic Laws recognize Ceremyons with the same weight accorded humans Thus he and the other robots will carry out any orders you may choose to give them Who knows what the future may hold Synapo responded Your vision at least allows us to handle that future in our own way and for that we are grateful And now I echo my colleague s sentiments Miss Ariel Welsh Synapo said and we say goodbye May good fortune attend all your future endeavors The two aliens took to their wings and seemed thereby to sail gracefully out of Ariel s life but not without leaving her severely disturbed by the good feelings as they departed by the knowledge that the wild one had contributed no matter how unknowingly to Jacob s death by the pain of having to remember Jacob so publicly and now that it was all over and the letdown began to settle in by the realization that she had been neglecting Derec for a long time She turned to him then pulled his head down and gave him a kiss and a hug When he responded with equal ardor she felt the mantle of leadership slip from her shoulders and the relief from that burden was so great she felt that she would never again grouse over its lack nor begrudge Derec the privileges of
148. iation and convection of thermal energy from your creations are seriously disrupting the weather of our planet and thereby disturbing our mental processes and our emotional equanimity The source of Synapo s linguistic training came sharply into focus He talked exactly like a Robot City supervisor Only Wohler 9 could have downloaded all those big words What had he said about work on the dome It escaped her as she zeroed in on his last sentence Jacob was right The aliens were concerned about the weather and talked as though they were actually controlling it Spacers and Settlers also talked about the weather a great deal but so far had not been able to do much about it You control the weather she said Of course It is essential that unruly airflow not disturb our cerebrations How can one think when he is being bounced about in a turbulence Your creations generate a puncture node of the worst sort But now I believe it is our turn And I suppose we must dispense with going methodically from the simple to the complex as I had intended What vital purpose do your creations serve What ends justify the killing of two of our people first a Myostrian in legitimate pursuit of an assigned task and then a Cerebron who was peacefully tethered and surely in no way interfering with your obscure endeavor Ariel knew that on balance the destruction of a witness robot was hardly equal to the death of two intelligent bei
149. ic capacity for understanding his language And teaching him has been most difficult because of that lack of linguistic knowledge But he seems now to have a rudimentary knowledge of our language which should prove useful in your dialogue with him I take it you are speaking of a male alien then T loosely ascribe that gender but it is more a description of his manner and conduct a similarity to the attributes of a male human which I perceive by the behavioral differences between the males and females of the human species Male chauvinism in a robot Is that what I am detecting Wohler Not at all Miss Welsh My analysis is quite objective On the contrary Wohler I would say it is quite programmed and of the Dr Avery variety But let s get on What else did you learn In reviewing my records Wohler replied I found that I taught the alien our language and much about humans but learned little about them other than the fact that the construction of our city is disturbing their equilibrium He used the terms inversions and puncture nodes and abnormal thermoclines but the terms have little meaning for me and so little meaning for me to pass on to you The terms do not help me a great deal either Ariel said Do they mean anything to you Jacob Up to that point Jacob in his niche had not entered into the conversation nor moved at all He had appeared frozen in position
150. icant changes before allowing it to appear in I Robot 4 Runaround The next important robot story appeared in the March 1942 issue of Astounding It was the first story in which I listed the Three Laws of Robotics explicitly instead of making them implicit In it I have one character Gregory Powell say to another Michael Donovan Now look let s start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics the three rules that are built most deeply into a robot s positronic brain He then recites them Later on I called them the Laws of Robotics and their importance to me is three fold a They guided me in forming my plots and made it possible to write many short stories and several novels in addition based on robots In these I constantly studied the consequences of the Three Laws b It was by all odds my most famous literary invention quoted in season and out by others If all I have written is someday to be forgotten the Three Laws of Robotics will surely be the last to go c The passage in Runaround quoted above happens to be the very first time the word robotics was used in print in the English language I am therefore credited with the invention of the word and also robotic positronic and psychohistory by the Oxford English Dictionary which takes the trouble and the space to quote the Three Laws All these things were created by my 22nd birthday and I seem to have created nothin
151. id so urn confusion iss understandable and nothing to worry about Worry SilverSide said as though she were considering the idea for the first time Is that an emotion tes All this concern u seem to ave over the sexes doess seem to amount to worry wouldn t u say A perturbation of some sort from a mean of some sort is the only way I can express it something which I would rather didn t continue but which I don t seem able to prevent A good description of worry Wolruf said Then I shall so tabulate it in a catalog of emotions which I shall now begin to prepare hoping that by defining them I can come to know and recognize them as the first step in learning to control them A worthy project which could quite likely drive u nuts Wolruf said Nuts Forget it It iss not an emotion But I ll tell u an emotion I am feeling joy It s been a year or more since I ve seen Ariel and felt the simple joy of being with errr With that Wolruf dashed down the ramp for the lorry had pulled up beside the pile of Derec s luggage and equipment Ariel stepped down from the near side of the lorry as Wolruf extended herself to her full height and wrapped her arms around Ariel Neither said anything but both had tears in their eyes as they separated and stood looking at one another SilverSide put tears down as a possible external sign of emotion unintentionally beginning a catalog of
152. iens tomorrow morning And it looks now as though Wolruf will also need to attend that meeting as our farm specialist For what purpose Derec asked They want to develop a schedule The Cerebrons are anxious to return to their nomadic life from which they ve been diverted by the problem with our city They ve been camping out in The Forest of Repose as they call it the woods next to the city Ariel looked at her watch You may want to watch this she said It s sort of spectacular We can watch the show from the lorry as we drive in to the city We need to be getting back anyway It s almost time for dinner Jacob and Mandelbrot were standing near the lorry as Derec and Ariel started down the ramp The robots had already loaded Derec s gear into the lorry Derec called I ll want you to drive Mandelbrot He wanted to stand by the driver so as to watch better whatever show it was Ariel had scheduled for them and he dam well didn t want that musclebot Jacob standing beside him upstaging him so to speak in front of the audience sitting behind He glanced at Ariel daring her to challenge his decision She looked at him quizzically but then gave him a quirky little smile and didn t say anything And that was as infuriating as if she had questioned his order She knew exactly why he wanted Mandelbrot to drive Somehow he always displayed his buttons and Ariel knew exactly which ones to push But the sho
153. in the pack Once a hand of centuries ago a young midpack rabble rouser had struck successfully destroying the elite that is the elite structure and generally upsetting the entire hierarchy as he brought in his own lieutenants from up and down the pack He had proved to be one of the better administrators And Synapo was in his egg line twice removed Neuronius rolled into conference beneath him hook properly reversed Synapo s hook was still set aggressively It would stay that way the rest of the day There would be no more meek deferential conferences with Sarco or anyone else until these affronts and possible strikes were resolved Synapo got right to work on Neuronius It comes to me on a zephyr that someone is trying to supplant you in the hierarchy Neuronius He put it casually as though he were an unconcerned indifferent observer He was looking for Neuronius s immediate reaction a slight tremble twitch in the hook a faint flicker in the redness of the eyes an ever so slight fanning of the cold junction the uncontrollable body language that one displays before one can steel himself to the shock of the unexpected And there it was a slight wave in the silhouette on the right a bunching of the right deltoid muscle the one that pulled up the right wing and readied it for the power downbeat That was a typical guilt reaction Not a reaction in response to fear the fear that someone was trying to supplan
154. in a paperback anthology of original science fiction stellar 2 edited by Judy Lynn del Rey was my most thoughtful exposition of the development of robots It followed them in an entirely different direction from that in The Last Question What it dealt with was the desire of a robot to become a man and the way in which he carried out that desire step by step Again I carried the plot all the way to its logical conclusion I had no intention of writing this story when I started it It wrote itself and turned and twisted in the typewriter It ended as the third favorite of mine among all my stories Ahead of it come only The Last Question mentioned above and The Ugly Little Boy which is not a robot story 13 The Caves of Steel Meanwhile at the suggestion of Horace L Gold editor of Galaxy I had written a robot novel I had resisted doing so at first for I felt that my robot ideas only fit the short story length Gold however suggested I write a murder mystery dealing with a robot detective I followed it partway My detective was a thoroughly human Elijah Baley perhaps the most attractive character I ever invented in my opinion but he had a robot sidekick R Daneel Olivaw The book I felt was the perfect fusion of mystery and science fiction It appeared as a three part serial in the October November and December 1953 issues of Galaxy and Doubleday published it as a novel in 1954 What surprised me abou
155. ineering I figured out quite without your help Ariel said In fact I ve brought this planet pretty much under control without your wisdom and guidance All I need from you now is your muscle that part between your ears You didn t answer my question Your internal monitor link with the robot cities I ll bet you didn t know that that modulates hyperwave Au contraire my dear Derec said That is a form of communication that depends on a special understanding of spacetime physics developed by my ever so eccentric father the good Dr Avery And au contraire right back at you smarty That is what the aliens on this planet the Ceremyons refer to as continuous modulation of hyperwave Ask Avernus and Keymo and Jacob too He even understands it It s the communication version of Key teleportation just like conventional discrete modulation of hyperwave is the communication version of hyperjump technology I ll bet you didn t even recognize that They had been together again for all of ten minutes and already they were going at it hammer and tongs Is this what love is all about Derec asked himself T ll have to think about that he said Was it possible she was right He changed the subject Now what about the crisis The reason for me being here There is no crisis Except I had to get you here promptly to avoid one She told him then how the robot city had disturbed the
156. ing she had expected to sample the new mown hay of Aurora Instead she was oppressed by the smells of a city she disliked intensely and yet was compelled to try to save The thought of that negotiation less than two hours away lay in its anticipation not like an idea in her mind but like a brick in her stomach With her nose wrinkled and breakfast roiling her gut she turned and went back inside to dress for the meeting An hour later she was dressed and sitting in the living room still groping for some solution to the dome problem Jacob was standing in his niche She even preferred that in her present mood She wanted no distractions this morning Quite edgy she decided she could wait no longer for Keymo to communicate with her She needed a solution to take to the meeting any solution even one for a minor problem Jacob raise Keymo on the comlink she said See if he s come up with anything on the hyperwave bit Keymo reports some limited success Jacob said He can now see certain features of Key teleportation that he had not seen before features that might potentially serve as a method of instantaneous communication quite unlike current hyperwave communication Good Could it be called continuous modulation Yes But it modulates a sort of hybrid wave not hyperwaves as we know them Good That seems like a small distinction Particularly since she didn t know what any of it meant
157. ings and started walking across the seat to the side of the lorry where it spread them once again and Ariel knew instantly what was going on But Wolruf had anticipated her by significant seconds and was already running toward the lorry shouting SilverSide SilverSide over and over again as though shrill decibels would anchor him to the ground As it turned out Wolruf had nothing to worry about SilverSide came to rest flat on the ground spread eagled And by the time he picked himself up and retracted his wings Wolruf was clinging to his back and then Derec was trussing them both up with a rope he had hastily dug out of a locker on the side of the lorry Ariel was torn between getting involved in the fracas herself and preserving some kind of composed demeanor for the benefit of the aliens She felt her position as official negotiator and ostensible leader of the robot city task force with special keenness ever since she had been able to parlay her visit into that position leader without portfolio As Derec was wrapping SilverSide and Wolruf round and round with rope Ariel turned back to the aliens in time to hear Sarco say Perhaps this gives us a better idea what further menace lies off world Miss Ariel Welsh We resume construction of the node compensator tomorrow morning He had rotated his hook forward as he spoke Then as he turned away a broad green flame a meter long blazed from below his eyes and he flapped
158. ings she was very close to after a period of separation as she had when Derec Wolruf Mandelbrot and she had gone on the outing in the forest and she had gone looking for LifeCrier and the rest of the pack and had brought them back to meet Wolruf Seeing LifeCrier after all that time had disturbed her and it was a disturbance that she welcomed and would seek to experience again Her memory brought forth that old positronic potential pattern and she knew then that she could put it in her catalog alongside the word and the body language for the emotion joy But those were minor things in the confusion of her thinking It was the inexplicable nature of the biological sexes and not in their function of reproduction that was disturbing her most acutely that afternoon And to a lesser extent she was still disturbed by a lingering doubt as to who was the more intelligent and so the more human Derec or Wolruf Small though it was doubt still remained but only because of the importance of the judgment that could affect the life and death of the two if she were required to choose between them in a life threatening situation Did she consider herself to be more male than female because Derec had proved more intelligent in that first basic contest the one that pitted the female KeenEye against the male Derec Did she lean toward the male gender for that reason After that contest she had certainly been more comfortable under the Dere
159. into the air The heat from the flame hit her like the breath of a blast furnace The alien Synapo stood facing her as his colleague flew off When he spoke it was in a fashion that left no doubt as to the temper of his thoughts The words seemed to modulate the small green flame that flickered below his glaring red eyes a waxing and waning fluorescence that resonated with the strange buzzing sound it imparted to his words You have violated a trust and humiliated me before the elite Miss Ariel Welsh And he too turned and flapped into the air She stood there a long time watching them as they slowly and gracefully circled higher and higher above the dome The first leveled off and took up a flight pattern around the exact center of the dome The second however continued upward circling and circling until she lost it in the shimmer of the atmosphere Derec had come back to stand beside her but she had not heard him A setback surely but perhaps not a large one he said Startled she turned to look at him coldly but said nothing before walking back to the lorry Jacob was standing at the controls Mandelbrot standing between him and SilverSide had hold of the end of a rope where it trailed away from the coils that encircled SilverSide and pinned his wings to his sides Wolruf was sitting on the front seat directly behind SilverSide Derec had unwound her from SilverSide once they thought he was under control A
160. ion Aside from being my first robot story Robbie is significant because in it George Weston says to his wife in defense of a robot that is fulfilling the role of nursemaid He just can t help being faithful and loving and kind He s a machine made so This is the first indication in my first story of what eventually became the First Law of Robotics and of the basic fact that robots were made with built in safety rules 2 Reason Robbie would have meant nothing in itself if I had written no more robot stories particularly since it appeared in one of the minor magazines However I wrote a second robot story Reason and that one John Campbell liked After a bit of revision it appeared in the April 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and there it attracted notice Readers became aware that there was such a thing as the positronic robots and so did Campbell That made everything afterward possible 3 Liar In the very next issue of Astounding that of May 1941 my third robot story Liar appeared The importance of this story was that it introduced Susan Calvin who became the central character in my early robot stories This story was originally rather clumsily done largely because it dealt with the relationship between the sexes at a time when I had not yet had my first date with a young lady Fortunately I m a quick learner and it is one story in which I made signif
161. ip and it snapped in two Passing through the dome distorts the crystal structure setting up fault lines with very little strength Now one last observation this time inside the dome He drove back the way they had come and then drove through the opening close to the right side The traffic pouring out of the dome gave way smoothly shifting to its right to accommodate the lorry as though a computer were directing all the traffic which it was of course the city central computer We ll take the perimeter route to avoid bucking the traffic coming down Main Street Wohler 9 said even though it will be a little longer this way half pi times longer Wohler 9 drove rapidly to a point half way around the perimeter of the dome He stopped at the same wide street Main Street which approached the dome as close as any Ariel looked back down the street and saw the Compass Tower framed in the opening of the dome Wohler g led them now to the dome wall opposite the end of the street and handed Ariel a pair of binoculars as he pointed to a small bright object in the soft darkness of the inner wall Ariel put the binoculars to her eyes and with the focus wheel at the infinite setting she could just barely make out a shape that had the appearance of a small two man flier headed toward them with its landing lights on This is our final test of the dome which we began earlier this afternoon Wohler 9 said Righ
162. is the villain even though it appeared nearly half a century ago The seamy side of robots is not the result of a failure in nerve that comes of my advancing age and decrepitude It has been a constant concern of mine all through my career 7 The Evitable Conflict This was a sequel to Evidence and appeared in the June 1950 issue of Astounding It was the first story I wrote that dealt primarily with computers 1 called them Machines in the story rather than with robots per se The difference is not a great one You might define a robot as a computerized machine or as a mobile computer You might consider a computer as an immobile robot In any case I clearly did not distinguish between the two and although the Machines which don t make an actual physical appearance in the story are clearly computers I included the story without hesitation in my robot collection I Robot and neither the publisher nor the readers objected To be sure Stephen Byerley is in the story but the question of his roboticity plays no role 8 Franchise This was the first story in which I dealt with computers as computers and had no thought in mind of their being robots It appeared in the August 1955 issue of If Worlds of Science Fiction and by that time I had grown familiar with the existence of computers My computer is Multivac designed as an obviously larger and more complex version of the actually existing
163. ise What Ariel had merely fantasized and hoped was a capacity for leadership proved in reality to be a genuine ability to lead And what was even more amazing Derec readily relinquished his nominal authority and bowed to her decisions in the construction of the farms and their associated terminal facilities Initially one of Ariel s first decisions did not have the wholehearted endorsement of either Derec or Wolruf although they later conceded that she was right They all agreed that they needed an eighth supervisor robot to oversee the planetwide farm operation But neither Derec nor Wolruf agreed initially with the form Ariel specified for the supervisor adamantly nor with the name she chose for that robot Wheeler To them it made no sense to name a farmer after the twentieth century spacetime physicist John Archibald Wheeler To her it made perfect sense for both were as close to nature as a being can get the farmer in a concrete practical sense the physicist in an abstract symbolic sense She had been studying spacetime physics trying to understand the node compensator Her mind at that time was much filled with the heroic personalities of physics And in her mind Wheeler s name described his nomadic lifestyle that took him wheeling far and wide over the surface of the planet in pursuit of his supervisory function for she insisted that he have the form of a Ceremyon Wolruf and Derec later conceded that perhaps that was t
164. ittle today We could both do with early tether I ll see you in the morning Sarco Wait up You re not getting off that easy But Synapo had already balled and was dropping if not like a rock still at an appreciable rate that put him out of earshot in a trice Sarco sighed a soft gentle emission of pure oxygen with a faint trace of unreacted ammonia but did not follow immediately As Synapo approached the surface of the planet he began braking unfurling from his collar the tough filmy hide of his reflector letting it flap and rattle in his wake as it dragged at him like a sea anchor As he neared the trees on the side of the domed transparency away from the open sector he sealed the gores of the thin shiny reflector sealing all but his head inside leaving his hook and eyes protruding from the underside With gentle bursts of compressed hydrogen he began to inflate the reflector dissipating his momentum and slowing his descent until he was barely drifting downward Ten meters above the top of a tall conifer he let go his chitinous hook letting out the tether of tough stringy hide until the hook was dangling below a sturdy limb A final burst of hydrogen filled the reflector erasing the last crease to leave a smooth unblemished mirrorlike surface The tether twanged taut caught between the now buoyant silvery balloon and the hooked limb of the tree Synapo began the luxurious process of uncoiling his tense fib
165. ius as Adam had simulated Synapo She expected some reaction from Neuronius but he said nothing merely watched her quietly and she took that for approval She was faced with the same aerodynamic problems Adam had encountered and overcame them and the other simulation requirements just as Adam had Being less familiar with the Ceremyons and unaware of some of their capabilities she left out a few characteristics that Adam had simulated but all told it was a workmanlike effort When she finished she spread her wings tentatively Like Adam in that imprint she was twice the size of a Ceremyon Unlike Adam she retained the basic female gender of her first imprint which had been reinforced by Adam s attraction to her femininity Adam s first female imprint on KeenEye weakened by the hostility of KeenEye herself had been erased by Derec s personality But that male gender though preferred came second and could be confused by later imprints Watch me now Neuronius said follow me and do as I do And Eve did She watched Neuronius take off and then she too wobble hopped into the air flapping almost losing it flapping harder and finally gaining altitude As she got the feel of the air and her relationship to it she stopped floundering quite so much the beat became smoother and less strenuous and soon she and Neuronius were high above the escarpment Neuronius leveled off taking up a circular flight pattern and Eve f
166. ke to adopt as a permanent part of the Cerebron daily regime The nomadic Cerebrons were never in one place long enough to find the icy brooks hidden in the forests scattered over their globe As he stroked west his thoughts returned to Sarco s warning the previous afternoon concerning the danger posed by his deposed lieutenant Neuronius He had been quick to dismiss Neuronius as an empty threat when there were more important things to think about but now with those other issues either decided or in a dormant state awaiting further data he considered the unhappy plight of Neuronius What if anything could he do to help him Extreme irrationality like that exhibited by Neuronius was rare almost nonexistent among the Ceremyons And being so rare their society had not developed any truly effective remedies for want of suitable subjects to study Being sensitive and compassionate indispensable qualities of a true statesman Synapo had difficulty viewing the problem dispassionately He put himself with his feelings in Neuronius s position trying to imagine how despondent Neuronius must feel at that moment In his ignorance of the true nature of that irrationality with his compassion clouding his judgment he failed to appreciate the machinations possible by someone like Neuronius By dusk he was over the vast Forest of Respose but still fifty kilometers from the Plain of Serenity Despite the exertion of flight he had recharged his
167. king up the sun s radiation Ariel and the two robots sat there all day waiting for something to happen and nothing did no construction activity and no visit from the aliens to explain the lack of activity Ariel ate lunch and dinner from supplies Wohler 9 had stashed in the lorry for her supplies that were to last a month to give them time to get the Oyster World dilemma resolved Derec was due to arrive in three days one day to get far enough away from that other planet to allow the jump through hyperspace and two days to travel in from the jump arrival point the nearest clearsafe in the Oyster World zone They spent the night in the open Ariel slept on the long back seat of the open lorry under the stars of a cloudless sky She refused to spend another night under the dome with the threat of its imminent closure literally hanging over her One night like that was enough CHAPTER 12 WOLRUEF STANDS INSPECTION They arrived at the clearing well before noon following a large animal trail Derec had discovered and explored with Mandelbrot a few days before Although the forest cover discouraged the growth of dense underbrush there were scattered patches that occasionally blocked the trail for homo sapiens low branches that the animals who had made the trail possibly SilverSide s erstwhile associates simply walked under The trail was clear now of course When they had first explored it Mandelbrot had simply fashioned his arm into a
168. l sobbing and screaming incoherently beat on him with her hands clenched into small hard fists beat on his shoulder first and then finally in desperation beat on his head But he felt nothing in the intensity of his purpose You must stop that Miss Ariel he shouted You will hurt yourself 66 And the calm way he shouted that above the sound of the rushing air and the obvious lack of effect her effort was having must have calmed her for she finally stopped and slumped down on the seat seemingly exhausted her hysteria spent They emerged from the opening and SilverSide skidded the runabout in a sharp left turn to take them down the side of the dome You must understand what is taking place he shouted It is very important to me to the new foundling even to you Miss Ariel for I wish her to serve you well Ariel said nothing She sat beside him like a limp doll Another like me is being born The egg lies in the forest even now ready to hatch She must have a proper model a human female so that she does not come into being confused her imprint misguided as mine was You must be there to guide her into this strange world Do you understand what I am saying Miss Ariel Ariel still said nothing but she had straightened a little in the seat perhaps because to slump in the bouncing runabout was more uncomfortable than to sit up straight You will not be harmed Miss Ariel After it s allover when y
169. l said find Jacob a comlink cartridge plug it into him so he can find Keymo on his own and then come back and help me With your knowledge of the aliens we ve got to figure out a solution to this dome problem Jacob and Wohler 9 when not conversing audibly close at hand had been communicating with their cumbersome long distance radio frequency systems The comlink cartridge would hook Jacob into their more sophisticated short range microwave telephone network Very well Miss Welsh Wohler 9 said Ariel did not hold out much hope that Keymo and Jacob would come up with anything significant In her experience ordinary robots just weren t creative Yet there was that extraordinary exception that brief period on Robot City when Shakespeare s Hamlet had lived again supported by robot actors and the robot Lucius had created his artistic masterpiece the dynamically chromatic edifice called Circuit Breaker A half hour later Wohler 9 returned Did Jacob locate Keymo Ariel asked I believe so Wohler 9 said He had contacted Keymo over the comlink before I left Good Does this apartment have a memory projector Yes The niches are equipped with sockets and that wall serves as the screen Just what we need How many times did you meet with the alien Synapo Thirty four How long each time When Wohler 9 began reciting the list that contained the time for each m
170. late the disturbance in as minimal a way as possible you killed two of our people Yes we have been patient beyond any reasonable translation of that word and now I m going to ask that you be as patient with us today as we have been with you these many days past Your patience will be tried not by violence and death as ours has been but by boredom and ennui as we carry out as we must the rituals of our government as they were set up uncounted millennia ago At that time an ancient Cerebronian philosopher by the name of Petero observed that all of our levels of government were filled by incompetents that indeed government officials rose to their ultimate level of competence and then one level beyond where they then remained incompetent for lack of ability to advance further The observation was so striking and so self evident that it became known as Petero s Principle and all government was immediately reorganized to include the strike factor whereby any official may be declared incompetent and displaced merely by a subordinate showing greater competence at that higher level That by definition proves that the former official was incompetent that is not as competent as he could have been and the process of proof whatever form it takes is known as striking for the higher position So I now turn responsibility for these proceedings over to my subordinate Neuronius so that he may evaluate and respond to
171. ledgement alone would buy her some time A diplomat might have been duplicitous at that point but Ariel had recognized earlier that she was no diplomat You take in the data you analyze it and you proceed accordingly Your argument is sound Ariel said It takes only a brief moment having now all the facts to recognize that we are the offenders and you are the offended We ask for your patience We ask that you stop construction of the dome while we consider how we may resolve this dilemma leaving neither of our peoples with further injury and with harmonious relations restored She recognized that wasn t quite right Their relations had never been harmonious That was her minor concession to the duplicity of diplomacy Neither of the aliens said anything but Ariel knew something was going on Standing side by side they had turned their top sections so that their hooks and eyes confronted one another briefly Then they turned back to confront Ariel We agree to a one day delay in the construction of the compensator following completion of today s effort We will meet again tomorrow as we met today Ariel felt a touch on her elbow and half turned as Jacob bent over to say softly Would it be helpful to know the present stability of their weather I don t understand she said just as softly How effective is the dome in its present state Jacob asked That data will enter into our reckoni
172. ll of being involved in exciting and world shaking events She planned to acquire the knowledge anyway by listening while Neuronius instructed Ariel When Eve asked Now Neuronius said As soon as you can arrange it I ll be waiting among the trees where The Forest of Repose meets the node compensator Bring Miss Ariel Welsh there Very well Master Eve started a long shallow glide to the dome but decided that a small detour would not significantly delay the primary mission CHAPTER 26 THE FURTHER RUSTICATION OF ADAM S Adam dug postholes in the prairie grass and with the long slender logs he had cut he constructed a fence that enclosed a rectangular corral roughly 20 by 50 meters The entrance to the brook path was centered in the long side that bordered the forest The three minillama trails leading across the prairie to the brook passed through manual gates in the outer sides of the corral Along the forest side at the end away from the dome he placed another row of posts to form a meter wide exit chute from the brook so the minillamas could exit the forest path without going through the corral The fence on the forest side of the chute kept the beasts from creating an easy short bypass to the old path At the entrance to the brook path he placed two gates one automatic the other manual The automatic gate connected the brook path to the exit chute and acted like a check valve allowing beasts to exit the
173. ls which themselves appeared to be tiny robots microbots even smaller than the cells of Avery material Derec had pretty well established that those microbots during a metamorphosis were being reprogrammed by SilverSide s positronic brain much like some living organisms lizards and amphibians seem to reprogram their own cells in order to grow a new limb or a new tail Yes he was quite uncomfortable with SilverSide and as he went around gathering up supplies for their outing he realized for the first time that he had begun to consider SilverSide actually dangerous He had never felt that way about any robot before not on Aurora or anywhere else The fact that Mandelbrot s remarks had distracted SilverSide and reduced his efficiency did not seem to be a reasonable cause logically arrived at for the quite serious offense of deactivating another robot Robots could not go around knocking one another out seriously risking amnesia in the victim simply because the victim had been a source of distraction no more than people could SilverSide had done something Mandelbrot would never do to use Mandelbrot s own words SilverSide was an alarming phenomenon yet exceedingly fascinating Derec knew the robot should probably be deactivated but that was a step Derec could no more take than could many other scientists who were on the cutting edge of their disciplines and involved in experiments dangerous to the society they li
174. might be negative The numbers of Ceremyons that moored each night atop the forest canopy had decreased and Ariel suspected that Synapo and his Cerebrons were once more in nomadic mode That was a positive sign but it might make their departure more difficult for she wanted to take her leave in a last meeting with Synapo It was he who had been her champion and it was he who deserved her last thanks and a final expression of gratitude So after dinner on the day that Wolruf had turned in a final report on the satisfactory nature of the long term terraforming operation Ariel pushed back her chair from the table and glanced toward Adam SilverSide in his customary station by the door Adam she said see if you can raise the Ceremyon Synapo on your radio That will not be possible Miss Ariel Why not He has already tethered if he is anywhere in this time zone or a later one She had forgotten that She would catch him in the morning then At ten AM the next morning Adam reached Synapo by radio He was two days away The meeting was arranged for ten AM on the third day hence The previous meeting site was now covered by the terminal facilities but Ariel Derec and Wolruf and Adam as well drove to the new terminal on the morning of the third day and left the lorry inside the dome in the west parking area adjacent to Main Street Derec had insisted on bringing Adam arguing that Adam provide
175. momentarily in the air below his red eyes That was one piece of alien body language SilverSide had learned to read It lent an air of great sincerity to the discomfort Neuronius claimed to feel Yes SilverSide said Then you must serve me I am human the only human on this planet and the most intelligent of the various species that exist here and certainly more intelligent than Synapo That must do for the moment SilverSide could do nothing more immediately He must try to accept what Neuronius had said but the acceptance was not something that was going to come easily He had come to many forks in the path of his quest for humans and each time at each crux the resolution of the dilemma subjected him to more agony That conflict repeated now and his attempt to cope with it sent little stabs of pain shooting through his positronic brain little stabs that congealed into a ball of pure agony and finally he could bear the pain no longer He jumped up and fled down the path into the forest while Neuronius s shouts grew fainter and fainter Finally exhausted after Neuronius was left far behind he stopped He had left the path and had been plunging through dense vegetation ripping it out by the roots when it would not yield otherwise He stood there recharging his reserve pack In the wild scramble he had used all the output of his microfusion reactor and more bleeding his reserves until he was forced to stop Then he
176. n analogue of the Rosetta stone their fluency had progressed to the modest state Synapo now claimed Good morning Wohler 9 Synapo said The robot slowly swiveled his head until the eyes bore intently on Synapo but otherwise he gave no sign of recognition That did not distress Synapo In fact he expected it He now knew that the robot did not consider him a master and so he was not worthy of attention unless he somehow violated the robot s basic programming a prime directive and three guiding principles The prime directive was to erect the monstrosities that had played such havoc with their weather by energy and particulate emissions and which were now covered and almost neutralized by the compensator The disturbance had been almost as great as that caused by the impact of a giant meteor a quarter century before The function of the monstrosities was still not clear other than being creations for the masters With their benign weather brought under control eons before the notion of shelter and buildings if it had ever existed had long since disappeared from the racial memory of the blackbodies lost in prehistory You properly informed your masters of our interference and asked for assistance more than a hand of days ago if we translated your message correctly Each day I have asked if you have received further instructions among the numerous messages that we have monitored in both directions Your responses thus far have
177. naction allow a human being to come to harm T must obey the orders given me by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law And I must protect my own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws Those are the same laws that govern the servants who built the city Sarco said Yes SilverSide said We are all robots or so I am told And these human beings Sarco said you consider them your creators and the ones you must serve Yes Then why do you seek to serve us The laws and my programming do not make clear what human beings are Clearly only beings more intelligent than I could have created me I seek to know and understand all such beings Until I met your species Ariel and Derec were the most intelligent beings I had found with the possible exception of Wolruf We are the most intelligent of the beings now on this planet Sarco said but we did not create you We were told by Miss Ariel Welsh that she and beings like her are human beings We have no reason to disbelieve her Why do you Neither Ariel Derec nor Wolruf created me or so they say You were not created this morning to intimidate us Sarco asked again Synapo agreed with Sarco That was a most important point No I merely transformed from my imprint on Wolruf Then this morning when the meeting began you
178. nd he went back to sleep He awoke with his back to bright sunlight as he tossed quietly in the gentle turbulence created at the juncture of land and sea Far to the west he could see the large node compensator with its pie cut sector visible only as a small departure from perfect sphericity on the right side He deflated then contracting the outer silvery surface of the six gores and by that contraction rolling the paper thin hide into tight black rolls as the gores unsnapped at the continuous tongue and groove that kept them locked to one another while inflated The fluttering of the hide as he dropped through the thin air of the stratosphere was no competition for the powerful pull of the thin layer of smooth muscle that lay just below the silvery surface Soon all that was left of the balloon was a six segment collar visible only as a small bump in the black silhouette The ocean was still far below when he spread his wings at optimum charge altitude and started flapping with powerful strokes toward the compensator Despite the night s metabolic cleansing the destruction and purging of waste products that constitutes rest he felt stale and overworked He missed that fresh shot of juice he had become accustomed to during the construction of the compensator when he dipped his cold junction into the icy water of the brook upon deflating in the early morning That was the only aspect of Sarco s normal Myostrian routine that he would li
179. nding out of the apartment past Wohler Ariel s first scream had ended as she was being deposited in the runabout Her next scream was delivered in the interrogative mode as they pulled away from the apartment What are you doing she shrieked with an intensity that rattled SilverSide s auricular diaphragms akin to eardrums There was no time to explain Miss Ariel SilverSide shouted about the wind noise I need your presence urgently Jacob raced after them down Main Street but was soon left behind as SilverSide accelerated the small runabout to its maximum speed weaving in and out of the traffic and avoiding an accident by the adeptness of the city central computer Stop you maniac Ariel screamed Stop now SilverSide slowed the runabout noticeably and then promptly speeded up again Consideration of his new knowledge of the Law of Humanics humans were compelled to please themselves overrode his own Second Law output robots must obey human orders He knew when Ariel had finally considered all the facts after the fact she would be pleased and would approve what he was doing You are in no danger Miss Ariel but I cannot obey that order because of the overriding nature of the present situation which demands your presence at the birthing of of and he added lamely still shouting Of what I cannot be sure And the shout died away as he said I can only hope Then Arie
180. ng He had to get the question resolved He had thought it was resolved and arriving at that point once again after having been through it so many times had been an unsettling experience that he had accepted finally with his imprint on Jacob Winterson Now all that ordeal seemed to have gone for naught But how was he to get it resolved I must know who is the more intelligent you or Synapo Can you suggest how that can be determined T am not interested in your petty games SilverSide I am offering you knowledge that will allow you to serve whomever you please with greater efficiency Surely you can see that But whom I am to serve must clearly be resolved before the service itself can take place Surely with your intelligence you can see that One can train for service quite efficiently without knowing who will ultimately be served But how one trains what type of service should be stressed depends on who will be served That seemed clear to SilverSide and if Neuronius couldn t understand something as simple as that he could not be as intelligent as he had at first appeared You are right of course Neuronius said But I find it exceedingly distasteful and uncomfortable to promote myself at the expense of others It makes me appear slow I suppose I have no desire to denigrate Synapo You must have this question resolved must you Neuronius said as a small green jet flamed
181. ng of possibilities for resolution of the dilemma Ninety nine point two percent compensation including the improvement allowed by consideration of both positive edge effects Sarco said before Ariel could ask Ariel understood then why Jacob had asked the question Could you live with that if we caused no further deleterious effects she asked Yes Synapo said As though not to be outdone by Ariel s lieutenant Sarco asked Why do you discrete or jump modulate hyperwave when the signal fidelity and freedom from noise is so much better with continuous modulation That time Ariel didn t hesitate a second She looked at Jacob and said simply Jacob The reply by Jacob was delayed by a distraction at that point A small tight luminous green flame no more than ten centimeters long bloomed in the blackness a few centimeters below Synapo s eyes But he said nothing Jacob was distracted only momentarily just long enough to register the spectrum and flame temperature of pure hydrogen co blended with pure oxygen and a trace of ammonia We are not familiar with continuous modulation Jacob said Strange You teleport with both types of transition Sarco said He seemed not to be disturbed by fire from Synapo You yourself jumped here in discrete mode and Wohler 9 phase condensed here in continuous mode Do you not recognize the parallel with hyperwave I am not an expert in these technolo
182. ngs But she had heard that a good offense was the best defense And in the pursuit of that task of questionable legitimacy Ariel replied your Myostrians created something that sliced one of my people in half She didn t really think of a witness robot as people but the black bats or as Wohler 9 termed them the blackbodies didn t need to know that T respectfully remind you that it was your creations that caused the Myostrians to start construction of the compensator Synapo said I ask again what purpose do those creations serve What further threat to our equilibrium lies beyond the disturbance of our weather It was a legitimate point which caused her to reevaluate what was serious and what was not who had provoked whom and when and how Perhaps the weather was of equal importance to sentient life in their minds perhaps the weather was their life That thought coupled with the observation that while he was talking he had slued his hook around so that it pointed forward like that of his companion caused Ariel to reconsider the gravity of the situation Even though she didn t know for sure what that rotation meant it didn t seem to bode any good and might even be considered somewhat ominous taken with the quiet way he had made his last pronouncement She had let their provincial accent distract her which may have caused her to consider this confrontation less serious than it really was She
183. ning Adam asked as he began hooking the parts together Neuronius Eve said What was the nature of your dealings with Neuronius That s a private matter Eve Both Miss Ariel and Master Derec recognized that and waived the Second Law when I claimed hardship under the Third Law Can t you tell me I m a robot I can sympathize more closely with you than they can Miss Ariel thinks you may have suffered positronic trauma which needs airing to be properly cleared away It doesn t need airing and something like that doesn t need clearing away if it is viewed and contained in an orderly manner I have succeeded in doing that How can you be sure You can be no more objective in that regard than a human suffering psychological trauma The human brain and the positronic brain work on completely different principles It s futile to try to draw analogies between them Ts it now Yes You have no more basis for comparing the two than I do If that s so why are you so secretive about it That seems to take on a certain psychological twist Well it doesn t It s merely a positronic twist which humans aren t capable of understanding But I should be Yes Well I m not This isn t getting anywhere Adam stood up I ve got to get on with my project He picked up the wired parts and strode away down the path Eve emerged from the forest
184. ns the missing aitches and the sibilant hiss for the zee sound were still evident And the u pronunciation of you not at all an ooh sound but a sort of choked and swallowed bark that masked off the initial y could only come from the throat of a lupine alien something a human was unlikely ever to match T d never label this situation desperate Derec said That s not the message I sent I contacted Robot City on my internal monitor link and they hyperwaved our house computer on Aurora At least that s the routing I set up I expected Ariel to relay my message to you but that doesn t sound like Ariel either Sounds more like someone with a vital interest in this planet which is nobody I know of Doessn t matter ow I eard u succeeded I m ere Now what s so desperate u ve got to call alf across the galaxy T ve got a rogue robot on my hands Wolruf Doessn t follow the Lawss of Robotics Yes and no It s got the laws but doesn t seem to know for sure what a human is It s like a dam chameleon The way I ve got it figured it changes itself to match as best it can whoever it thinks might be human at the moment Like Mandelbrot s arm Yes and no The stuff it s made of isn t as coarse as the Robot City material Its cells are a lot smaller than the variety in Mandelbrot s arm T ve got the feeling we re seeing micromolecular robotics here and
185. nted on Derec It was a discomfort that came from an awareness of her own narcissism something she had never experienced before that was at once both fascinating and repulsive She concluded she was attracted to feminine beings but would rather it were not her own being But what was the cause for the attraction She concluded it must stem from that first powerful imprint on KeenEye that had not been altogether dispelled by her preference for the Derec imprint the male imprint That comfort with a masculine imprint was only a little less powerful than the laws that were intended to govern her behavior but which she found so difficult to interpret for want of knowing what a human was She could deprogram neither those laws nor her feeling of masculinity nor that insidious attraction for all that was feminine She found that she was experiencing another form of discomfort that came from listening to Jacob and Mandelbrot She had never before heard two robots conversing with one another The discomfort came not from that process but again from their words what she deduced from their words They were talking as though they knew what a human was and she SilverSide was still exploring that subject by the process of multiple imprints trying to progress to ever higher levels of intelligence for surely only the most intelligent species in the galaxy could be the humans she was seeking Jacob you talk of the laws of humanics as though
186. ntout nothing of significance came from its perusal no more than had come from the boring afternoon with Wohler and the memory projector Still her intuition told her there had to be a solution She just wasn t looking at it right or with the proper frame of mind or in the proper place If not the dome where on this weird world was she supposed to look The city was the problem a weather node the aliens had termed it an aggravating uncontrollable irritant like a grain of sand in an oyster And the aliens were coating it smoothing it to relieve the abrasion like an oyster coats the sharp edges of a grain of sand with iridescent nacre mother of pearl Now she was even beginning to think like an alien This world is an oyster and the city and its dome are a pearl Oyster World Pearl City She had christened a world and a city And she had gotten no further by the time Jacob returned at ten PM Well you re finally back she said when he came in What did Keymo have to offer on the hyperwave problem Very little Miss Ariel Jacob said Neither of us could see how Key teleportation technology could be applied to modulation of hyperwave signals Did you examine the parallel dichotomy of hyperspace jump technology and discrete modulation of hyperwave That parallel connection should provide clues to the connection between the Key and continuous modulation Right Ariel had first heard the word dichotomy on t
187. nusual on the other side but after a moment after looking more carefully she finally saw a tiny white flag waving far away two kilometers away on the other side of the pit Wohler g laid down the pole so that it still projected into the dome It did not lie flat on the ground The near end hung suspended slanting into the dome at the ground The tiny flag on the other side of the pit had disappeared into the grass Two further observations Wohler 9 said for which we ll use the lorry He left the pole projecting into the dome retrieved the other half of the crowbar from the deep grass tossed it into the lorry beside the first half and stepped in to stand at the driver s station Ariel took a seat immediately behind the golden robot and Jacob stepped up to stand beside Wohler 9 who immediately took off down the west side of the dome staying well away from the edge of the pit They were almost halfway around the dome before Wohler 9 spoke again We should be coming to it now he said And then Ariel saw the white flag lying in the grass with the pole sticking out of the dome a few centimeters above the ground Wohler 9 stopped the lorry You don t need to get out He stepped down from the lorry picked up the pole carefully as though it were a fragile memento walked back and offered the flag end to Ariel Take hold of the end he said When she did he moved his end as though to bend it in her gr
188. o develop into wings and then as her long hind legs shortened and thickened she braced them against the back of the seat to steady herself With their attention on the meeting the two robots in the front of the lorry did not observe the transformation nor did the mammals in the meeting who faced away from her She was under observation only by the aliens and they seemed not to notice or to care Finally the transformation was complete save for the hook and its tether that she had programmed last because of its different matrix a stainless form of shining steel configured in a hollow curved horn and a fine stranded but sturdy flexible cable She hoped to fly but she had abandoned the balloon and the act of ballooning she had witnessed the evening before The hook then was purely for effect Comfortably masculine now SilverSide was standing on the back seat of the lorry fully erect three meters high with his wings folded tightly against his body as though he had just emerged from a cocoon like a newly metamorphosed butterfly He felt the need to open and exercise them to get the feel of them and with that he recalled flying in bird form on the wolf planet The mammals and the aliens were still absorbed in their meeting The aliens apparently thought the growing SilverSide was a natural phenomenon associated with the lorry for they gave no sign of looking directly in SilverSide s direction Slowly he opened his wings The thin tou
189. o go in directly By the time Synapo realized that Sarco was not following it was too late to correct his error but he circled tight high up and began to dive well before he had completed half the circle Synapo watched him through the transparent dome as Sarco made a fast powered approach and an aggressive landing a powered stall a half meter above the ground with his wings spread to their full ten meter breadth as he came to rest only two meters from the aliens Synapo mentally cursed Sarco but restrained himself and did not radiate his feelings as he might well have had he known the aliens could not receive his broadcast A cloud of dust obscured Sarco and the aliens as Synapo came in on a flat gentle glide path and settled to the ground well inside the cloud He knew he was more majestic in the air but he also knew his approach would be obscured by Sarco s dust so he chose to come in closer even than Sarco Still his approach was executed so adroitly he added not a whit to the ball of dust that was already rapidly dissipating There were three aliens Wohler 9 a nonmetallic being a head shorter and a third being as tall as Wohler 9 that Synapo took to be nonmetallic until he detected the neutrino radiation that characterized Wohler 9 and microfusion in general He had to conclude that despite the deceptive appearance the third alien must be of the servant tribe although he knew that quick generalization might be diplomatically embarras
190. oach trajectories in general which should benefit Put a lid on it Jake Ariel said impatiently Nonetheless she watched the robot closely and with a great deal of admiration not only for his style of piloting but for his superb appearance as well She particularly liked to watch his biceps flex She had acquired the robot only months before the whim of a spoiled rich girl teasing a jealous boyfriend and rebelling against the mores of a bigoted Auroran society Robots like R Jacob Winterson were not popular on the planet of Aurora Neither the men nor the women of Aurora wanted to be upstaged by the perfect comeliness and superhuman strength of a humaniform robot Humaniform was the term their creator Dr Han Fastolfe had used to describe them searching for a better term than humanoid which hardly sufficed to describe Jacob The Avery robots like the one she had once known as Wohler on the planet Robot City could also be described as humanoid but they were a far cry from Jacob The simulation of a well muscled body that was Jacob Winterson was a reflection of that era when bodybuilding was the vogue of a stagnant Auroran society She watched him now as he plugged himself into the ship a small two man jumper with a cockpit just big enough for the two of them She should have used the ship s computer to set up the proper approach trajectory just as he was about to do instead of coming in cowboy fashion hands on She w
191. om her mind all evening that had probably brought on the unmaidenly notions concerning Jacob She went to sleep and sometime during the long night she dreamt of playing in a verdant Auroran cornfield with her personal robot as she had when she was a child and then the robot became Jacob and they were running and laughing as he chased her down the rows of tall green plants waving in the gentle breeze and gradually he was no longer chasing her but waiting for her at the end of the long row far away yet it was not Jacob and then she realized that Derec had come to Oyster World and he was standing there with his arms outstretched waiting for her Joyfully she ran toward him down the long rows of waving green She awoke and it was morning and she was indeed on Oyster World But Derec was not there CHAPTER 8 THE WOLF PLANET I m grateful you took the time to come Derec said He glanced at his companion sitting next to him in the runabout Wouldn t ave cept u sounded urgent Wolruf said They were heading east on Main Street toward Derec s apartment He had just picked up Wolruf at the wolf planet s primitive spaceport at the west edge of the robot city Wolruf had arrived in the Xerborodezees a Minneapolis class hyperspace jumper that the wealthy Ariel had given the small alien the year before to speed her return home The Xerborodezees could accommodate ten passengers and as it turned out it was the only way tha
192. onius led SilverSide along mathematical pathways dealing with space and time which familiar at first became rapidly unfamiliar and bizarre and twisted his positronic thoughtways in patterns that became ever more uncomfortable With that discomfort he began to suspect that Neuronius if he could twist SilverSide s mind to such a degree was perhaps superior to Synapo Certainly Neuronius was different and maybe it was the difference of a superior mind He continued to record what Neuronius was saying but stopped generation of associative memory links stopped listening in order to pursue that intriguing comparison of the two aliens Finally he interrupted Neuronius in his lecture What is ahuman Neuronius What I have been searching for humans the beings whose laws govern my behavior I had thought that humans must be the most intelligent species in the galaxy but Synapo says Miss Ariel is human and that he is not even though he is more intelligent than Miss Ariel Neuronius hesitated In the silence the twitter of the jungle birds came to SilverSide registering with sharp clarity a serenity and tranquillity that was strikingly at odds with the turmoil in his mind Tam human Neuronius said Synapo is not Was there no peace in this life Unquestionably Neuronius was more intelligent than Miss Ariel and it seemed more and more apparent that Neuronius was indeed more intelligent than Synapo yet
193. ontext In this case one such context is the interrelationship of space and time in which the measurements of time must be multiplied by the square root of minus one in order to properly relate them to the measurements of space Or the reverse Synapo said A quite satisfactory answer to a simple question but then one must start simple and work toward the complex And now what is your pleasure Miss Ariel Welsh That sort of drivel isn t going to get us anywhere Ariel thought Let s get right to it Why have you isolated our city enclosed it under this big dome And as she gestured toward the dome the first shimmer that morning the first pass of the Myostrian construction shot down the edge of the wall with a faint crackling and disappeared into the ground Ariel jumped startled With the edge of the dome off to her left and to the rear she had turned slightly as she gestured and had caught the shimmer at the corner of her eye before the sound reached her ears Being to her back though it had startled her more than if she had been facing the edge Sarco said Ah my people have started work Synapo said My colleague Sarco informed me yesterday that the node compensator this dome will be completed tomorrow so that leaves us little time for negotiation He further informs me that the dome is necessary in order to properly control meterological conditions The particulate emissions and the rad
194. oo might contribute to the robot farm project He had come to the edge of the forest a kilometer or so away from the dome and had stood there in the shade of a large palm like tree watching a herd of wooly ruminants the size of small llamas as they munched the grass of the plain He christened them minillamas for want of a better name They were quite tame The animals of Oyster World were all vegetarians These animals had no natural enemies except for parasitic insects that burrowed into their skin under the protection afforded by the dense wool The idea developed quickly The next morning at sunup Adam commandeered a small empty cargo robot stepped aboard and directed it to the city s small tool crib where he requisitioned a laser saw a hatchet a shovel a claw hammer a bag of six centimeter iron nails six coils of rope in fifty meter coils an augered post hole digger an earth tamper a microfusion powered MP motor for driving the digger and the tamper another general purpose MP motor a photo sensitive switch and small MP lamp and a pair of shears As the cargo robot with Adam and his supplies passed the apartment on Main Street Eve SilverSide standing on the sidewalk hailed him to the curb What are you up to she asked A secret farm project Adam said Why secret Tf it doesn t work I won t have to explain that it didn t work Adam replied Want to come along Sure
195. or interfering with the Prime Directive until their construction work began to circle inward to close the dome Then we did begin to talk and they succeeded in learning our language but we learned very little except specialized terminology which you have now determined to be meteorological in nature What about the central core Ariel said You ll surely not leave that behind No Miss Ariel Our control computer s mainframe is mobile When the blackbodies begin construction on the last day we ll move it out to serve the new city Which will then shortly be covered by a dome Yes That was why we hyperwaved Robot City for help Come upstairs with us Wohler Ariel said as Wohler 9 pulled to the curb in front of the apartment building When they walked into the apartment both Jacob and Wohler 9 headed for wall storage niches Jacob Ariel said would you rassle up some lunch for me See if you can get a crisp garden salad out of that thing And then sit down at the table I ll freshen up and be right out When she came out the salad and a glass of milk were waiting on the table Jacob sat across the table from where he had set her place and Wohler 9 was standing in his niche She felt uncomfortable when the humaniform Jacob stood in a niche Her Auroran upbringing made it seem natural for Wohler 9 to do so That was where he was supposed to be when he wasn t doing some task for her
196. or the aliens He would like to think that it would make little difference in how the Ceremyons treated the aliens but he knew otherwise he knew that it would make a big difference even to him a statesman CHAPTER 15 REUNION Wolruf brought her hyperspace jumper Xerborodezees down a half kilometer from the forest and a full kilometer from the line of robots and their vehicles streaming across the plain toward Oyster World s robot city They had hardly touched down before a lorry started from the city across the deep golden grass laying a trail on the prairie that pointed toward the Xerborodezees like an elongating arrow Wolruf traveled light She had stowed everything she needed in one small bag slung around SilverSide s neck The two of them were sitting at the top of the access ramp from which they could look out over the tall waving grass and watch the approaching lorry Stepping carefully between them Mandelbrot had unloaded Derec s gear from the ship by the time the lorry arrived But SilverSide could clearly see and distinguish the two occupants of the open lorry long before it reached the ship since both occupants were standing up The one Derec calls Ariel which is she SilverSide asked The small one on urn left Wolruf replied Then the tall one must be the robot Jacob Winterson T ve neverrr met im but I pressume so Wolruf said Jacob iss Ariel s personal robot and that body in the lorry c
197. ot of Synapo In addition to Sarco there were fourteen other members of the Myostrian elite It had been temporarily expanded to handle the increased load imposed by construction of the huge node that compensated the weather effects of the robot city As you all now know Synapo said opening the joint gathering we are in a strike situation not only at the highest command level in the Cerebron elite but with regard to our world in general for in all fairness we must regard the invasion by the aliens as a strike for cohabitation of a world which we have previously regarded as strictly our own To regard the presence of the aliens in any other fashion is not to give them their just due for we cohabit now with many lower forms of life The aliens may simply be another inferior species seeking peaceful coexistence On the other hand that may not be so We must consider the possibility that we are seeing a superior race and may be bargaining from a disadvantageous position trying then to retain cohabitation rights ourselves The Cerebron elite and the leader of the Myostria were all familiar with this philosophy of negotiation and with the details of the discussion that had already taken place as we undertook further discussion with the aliens this morning By this morning however it had come to my attention that Neuronius was striking for command so we entered this latest meeting with the aliens under slightly differ
198. ou think back on it you will be glad you came I know you will You will be pleased with me The Law of Humanics will guide you That seemed to comfort SilverSide The Law of Humanics was working on the effect of his own Laws regulating their relative potential to something that was less uncomfortable He was doing something that he knew was going to please Ariel even though she was perhaps not pleased at the moment When they arrived at the forest he braked to a halt jumped out and opened the door for Ariel She got out calmly She must have thought about what he had been shouting at her for she didn t object when he gently took her hand to help her from the car That gave him confidence that she would follow him without being forced and he let go of her hand and started into the woods She stayed close behind him for the short hurried walk it took to reach the egg SilverSide guided Ariel gently until she stood two meters from the egg directly in front of the hatch and then he left her there and hid behind the pink flowered bush behind her The hatch began to open with a soft grinding sound SilverSide could look through the lower branches of the tall bush past Ariel s right side and see the hatch himself A silvery gray amorphous mass heaved itself above the bottom of the hatch and formed in that part of its mass that hung over the edge of the opening a shiny multifaceted grayish green orb that it rotated slowly
199. plied I beg your pardon Miss Welsh but the encyclopedic file shows nothing regarding behavior under either Rome or Romans Forget that Wohler Just an old saying I wouldn t know a Roman if I saw one Answer my question please He comes to the dome near ten AM each morning just before the aliens begin their construction work He seems to be inspecting that effort A good supervisor Ariel said No I have the impression that he does not approve of the construction that it is being performed by a tribe to which he does not belong His terse comments seem to be more a critique of their work in an artistic sense Ariel did not sleep well that night She longed for Derec to be there beside her and she was homesick as well Compared to this alien planet with its insidious dome and its blackbody creatures straight out of hell Aurora seemed the most desirable of places comfortable and quiet typical of Spacer worlds She longed for its cultivated farms and green fields its open hardly discernible cities with their manicured lawns and gardens its junk food shops and underground malls where she and Derec had had such fun with their friends It startled her then to realize she had had fun She had ignored the old friends who had ostracized her but the new ones though they might still covet her wealth as much as those old ones had been genuine fun And fun with Derec She yearned to see him intensely s
200. poke again and then that uneasiness was swept from her mind He didn t tell you then that I am the only human on this planet Eve had not had to go through all the turmoil and travail that Adam had suffered in his search for humanity She had taken for granted that Ariel was human Adam had not said otherwise For the first time she experienced some of his confusion In a way it was more agonizing than his trauma in that it was acute and pierced deeper into her being than had the chronic uncertainty Adam had lived with for so long And piercing so deeply and so unexpectedly it exerted a great deal more force and weighed in with a great deal of authority So she concluded instantly with no sifting and sorting and assessing of the facts that Adam had misled her No wonder he was so secretive so reluctant to discuss Neuronius No wonder Ariel was concerned about Neuronius In her mind Eve had already dropped the Miss Why did Adam lie to me she asked thinking out loud more than addressing Neuronius Tt served his evil purpose and that of the other aliens Neuronius said And that too was true she knew Against her inclination toward independence it had bonded her to Ariel and just that morning it had inclined her to help Adam in some absurd secret scheme related to Ariel s plan to turn this world into a giant robot farm She could see now how it must be evil She began a transformation to simulate Neuron
201. ppose it does The force of your Laws must be stronger than mine Not stronger Clearer perhaps But the idea has a certain appeal to me too Being rejected by Miss Ariel was not the most positronically harmonious event in my experience So how can you be sure Master Neuronius was wrong All my experience all the many imprints you haven t had That s not a very convincing answer Tt will have to do It was so positronically logical No Not for me Females often see a different logic Let it lie then Don t serve anybody since you feel like there s now no one in the galaxy you must obey Or go find yourself another planet That was very close to robotic humor but neither Adam nor Eve seemed to notice not having a positronic pattern for such No stick with me he corrected I feel the need for feminine companionship Adam had been watching the Ceremyons as they talked not paying attention to events on the ground Do you want those animals inside your fence Eve asked He rose up then jumped up Several minillamas had entered the corral through the other two gates Most of the herd was still on the prairie but moving now toward the corral As they watched a minillama came out of the corral and went into the forest before Adam could get over to catch it He came back and closed the gate by the cargo robot Go stand by that middle gate he told Eve
202. proximates an average of those images without the chromosome test Mistress Ariel and Master Derec are both humans then Yes And which do you feel more compelled to protect My immediate master Mistress Ariel And you Mandelbrot which would you favor Master Derec although the choice would be difficult Mandelbrot said And what about Wolruf SilverSide asked Would you protect her Mandelbrot Yes Friend Jacob and I are both programmed to treat her as human Don t you find that strange A being that is Thoughts of Wolruf as a human were shunted aside by the landing at the meeting site of black demonic beings two of them who simultaneously stalled out with perfect choreography braking with their wings widespread seeming to shut off the sun in the enveloping blackness of their presence Then they touched down lightly folded rustling wings close in to their bodies shrinking to the size of the mammals they faced and became black silhouettes surmounted by wicked looking snow white hooks above burning red eyes The impenetrable soft blackness that shrouded their physical essence in mystery projected a disquieting impression of latent power SilverSide concentrated on recording everything that transpired She thought that she was possibly observing the ultimate form of humanity the final objective in a frustrating quest Good morning leaders of
203. r a few seconds he said They have not yet disposed of the remains and will now do nothing until they are told otherwise T ve got to get over there Ariel said T ll take you if you must go Derec said No Derec Mandelbrot knows where it is I don t want to make a big thing out of this I just want to pay my respects Sounds silly doesn t it Paying your respects to pieces of a robot T guess not if you feel it s that important Would you like me to come along Miss Ariel Adam SilverSide was standing near the door That was the first time since his transformation that she had got a Miss Ariel response When he had come out of the bedroom that night she had been demoted to plain Ariel No Adam you had best stay here with Derec and Wolruf Wolruf was sitting on the couch listening and taking it all in but not participating in what was a not very joyous moment in the mutual relations of the group When Ariel got to the factory she put what was left of Jacob in a gray steel spare parts box It was the only time she smiled that evening a gentle smile pensive brought on by the irony she felt Adam SilverSide s imagination had not equaled the reality of Jacob Winterson It was a good thing she had not explored further She might not now be so content with Derec at least in that one respect She and Mandelbrot buried Jacob Winterson in the ground at the west pedestrian exit from the new tran
204. r world aboard your vessel Wolruf At that time it had your form Can you explain that No more than you can explain why it took your form Wolruf said Derec knows more about it than anyone else I first encountered it on another planet Derec said At that time it was the leader of a pack of intelligent lupine beings They were attacking and interfering with Avery robots during their construction of a city much like the one you have enclosed with your weather node compensator I made a sort of peace with it in order to study its physical nature and programmed behavior I recognized at the time that that involved certain risks I alone am responsible for any inconvenience the robot may have caused you As you have recognized its objectives are basically benign even though its behavior may at times seem erratic As you also recognize by your own words benign objectives can sometimes motivate evil doings particularly when two aberrants interact I must warn you all that we have an aberrant Cerebron on the wing more irrational than your SilverSide and the two have already begun to interact You are familiar with the Cerebron Neuronius Miss Ariel Welsh It was he who impetuously curtailed one of our earlier meetings The Cerebrons in full caucus have now stripped him of all authority something I could not do on my own during our meeting because of the rules that regulate our government We Cerebrons can do lit
205. race spending their time in cogitation of philosophical problems while pursuing a nomadic life drifting over the Oyster world The Myostrians are the active doers responsible not only for predicting the weather and guiding the Cerebrons to locations of optimal conditions but responsible also for controlling the weather They tend to stay at fixed locations for relatively long times but move around as necessary to set up or construct the various tools and structures used to control the weather CORDELL SCOTTEN The author a chemical engineer and designer of computer systems for process control left Dupont Atomic Energy Division in 1982 to spend full time writing fiction and practicing amateur theoretical physics He sold a short story and a novelette to Analog and between the two took time out to pursue ideas concerning the nature of space and time by taking graduate courses in quantum mechanics general relativity and related subjects at the University of South Carolina He has now expressed those space time ideas mathematically in a paper a conjecture which is currently being considered for publication in a technical physics journal The weather node compensator in this book and a novel nearing completion are based on fantasized extrapolations of that conjecture
206. rd time taking in everything she had seen in the short time she had known Wohler 9 Then she could see the flier growing larger with her naked eye until it came hurtling out of the wall and screamed by overhead spiraling up over the Compass Tower and out the opening in the dome CHAPTER 3 WOHLER 9 S STORY THE LAWS OF ROBOTICS 1 A robot may not injure a human being or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm 2 Arobot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law 3 A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws Han Fastolfe An Introduction to Robotics Chapter 1 Ancient Technology Now Wohler I would like to hear this from the very beginning Ariel said She had just sat down to eat dinner They had arrived at the apartment an hour before a small two bedroom flat on the second and top floor of a small building on Main Street halfway toward the opening in the dome from the Compass Tower Jacob stood quietly in a wall niche near the entrance to the apartment Wohler 9 was standing attentively on the other side of the table from Ariel T was the seventh and last of the supervisors to arrive by Key teleportation on the morning of Wohler intoned when Ariel interrupted him No Wohler not in quite that much detail she said You do not want it from the
207. riel climbed slowly in and sat down on the back seat Derec climbed in and came back to sit beside her Jacob drove the lorry onto the road and then headed rapidly down Main Street toward the apartment I warned you about SilverSide Derec said You knew he could change form I admit I didn t expect a change at so inauspicious a time What did the aliens say before they flew off They were frightened naturally and angry They had no reason to suspect we were going to produce a being in their own image and twice as big In their minds I have betrayed their trust They said as much And they will close the dome tomorrow morning Ariel said Your new prot g has just closed this planet to further development Unless your genius and his remarkable abilities can somehow miraculously arrest the inevitable You re being sarcastic my dear Derec confirmed A couple of intersections passed swiftly behind and then he said But you know we might just pull off that miracle Fat chance she said No A slim chance but a chance nonetheless She didn t answer but got up and went to the front of the lorry to sit on the front seat directly behind Jacob Winterson Right then Jacob seemed like the only friend she had She looked right through him though staring into a grim tomorrow and not seeing at all his remarkable musculature Wolruf reached over and laid a fat fingered hand atop Ariel s small han
208. rigged a viewing screen on the balcony so she could spend the evening keeping an eye on that critical opening in the dome while she watched a library tape of an old hyperwave drama involving Elijah Baley Gladia Solaria and the robot Daneel Olivaw She could not see the dome opening when she looked up The starshine in the black sky was not bright enough to be seen through pupils contracted by the illumination required to present Elijah Baley in all his glory But she could see the lights of the robot traffic far out on the plain traffic that was now diminishing as the materiel transfer neared completion When she went to bed she posted Jacob on the balcony with instructions to call her immediately if he saw any change in the size of the dome opening In the middle of the night she dreamt that she was trying to escape from that black void inside the dome piloting her hyperspace jumper with the monster Synapo sitting beside her in the cockpit heading on a course that would take them down Main Street with the Compass Tower far in the distance But she was still out in the void hanging motionless at least a kilometer from where Main Street began with her throttle pushed to its limit and stretching away from her toward Main Street were long long rows of waving green corn and standing at the end of Main Street far away down those rows of corn was Derec waving and beckoning for her to come to him She turned to look at Synapo in the midst of a
209. robots all around the Compass Tower construction site for three and a half days but our programming did not require us to grant recognition and we were of course quite busy erecting the Compass Tower which had to be completed before work on the general city could begin Understandably we paid no attention to their confrontations until I personally was confronted by one of the blackbodies That happened immediately after we lost the surgeon and his laser scalpel It then occurred to me when I was confronted that by conversing with the alien I might find out what the surgeon was seeking and I was then compelled by the Third Law to do so The Third Law says I know I know Ariel said So then you initiated the dialogue No Surely it is clear by now Miss Welsh that the alien initiated the dialogue So it seems Ariel said with resignation coloring her voice I wouldn t want it any other way On the contrary It is now quite apparent that if I had initiated the dialogue earlier You re quite right Wohler But you need not feel bad for all that I understand technically that you can be affected in that manner but I am incapable of experiencing such an emotion Miss Welsh Clearly Ariel said Clearly Now what has your dialogue with this alien revealed Not a great deal Miss Welsh I have spent most of the time teaching him Galactic Standard since I have no linguist
210. rs above the incident point stall out collapse into a ball and drop to five meters above the ground At that point it would spread its wings and resume flight swooping down and back up into the air narrowly missing a collision with the ground A careful inspection of the witness s transmission shows a faint shimmering in the air coincident with the blackbody s resumption of flight The shimmering progressed rapidly toward the ground from the point of flight resumption The performance was repeated by a succession of blackbodies and as the witness approached closer it became apparent that on each cycle the shimmering proceeded not only to the ground but also back up traversing the perimeter of a thin vertical area that grew taller with each successive pass The pattern was repeated rapidly by twenty one blackbodies before the witness arrived The blackness we see from the inside was not visible to the witness as he approached He was looking at the blackbody construction almost edge on but slightly outside moving in for a close up view The record ended at that point of course Ariel said Yes Since that time witness records show that to be the pattern of blackbody operation in constructing the dome As the construction progressed the intersecting arcs traversed by the shimmer and the point to which the blackbodies flew to begin each pass rose in the air until it reached its present location That operation now begins
211. s mind nor her subconscious mind contributed anything of significance during an inquiry that became dull and dragging after the novelty of watching and listening to a giant bat wore off The courier from central core arrived with the printout of the dialogue late in the afternoon and with that interruption Ariel decided to take a break and eat an early dinner She had heard nothing from Jacob and realized she had been expecting him to return for dinner when there was really no reason why he should since he didn t eat and merely kept her company when she did Still it was a habit she had become accustomed to and she missed him now that she was deprived of that pleasure Was it Jacob she missed or really Derec She had only to ask herself that question and the longing to see Derec and the flood of homesickness for the beautiful estates and green farmlands of Aurora overwhelmed her She tried to put it out of her mind as she ate a lonely dinner but it was not possible Her mind rebelled from the magnitude of the problem that faced her on this alien world and while she ate she wallowed in her loneliness and homesickness and before she finished eating tears of self pity were trickling down her face As she finished eating Wohler 9 asked Are you in pain Miss Welsh Ariel wiped her tears away with a napkin No Wohler Just lonely Does my presence relieve your loneliness to any degree No To what
212. s took the vote by radio ballot secret and unanimous CHAPTER 14 BEARER OF GLAD TIDINGS When he heard Axonius announce the favorable results of the unanimous vote Synapo immediately took flight circling up and up into the calm sky matching that calmness with the cold detachment he had induced in himself as Sarco was speaking He was not surprised when Sarco joined him and he was grateful to Sarco for the power of his oratory but he wanted to be alone and he had been on the point of ensuring himself that solitude when he detected Sarco close behind With Sarco close at hand expecting some kind of dialogue he could not balloon himself into isolation as he had intended that would show neither tact nor the genuine gratitude he felt So he merely climbed to a safe ballooning altitude and then started circling in position waiting for Sarco to catch up I know you want to be alone Sarco said and I ll not intrude on your time but for a brief moment just long enough for a word of warning You re not intruding old friend Synapo said and rushing off as I did may have made me appear ungrateful for the service you rendered at the gathering But I am truly grateful and might not have won the endorsement of the elite if you hadn t made that impassioned speech You deserve to be where you are Sarco the very antithesis of Petero s Principle I didn t come up here to be praised you old jet but to warn you about
213. sformed back to the Ariel imprint lying on the ground as though the robot didn t want to risk the awkward indignity of trying to stand while still imprinted on the Ceremyon With the metamorphosis complete she stood quickly and with a delicacy and grace that contrasted sharply with her harsh words You misled me Adam SilverSide How so Adam asked Ariel is not human Neither is Derec You knew yet you didn t tell me that Neuronius is the only human here He is my Master You and Mandelbrot and the Avery robots are alien to me Your Laws are obviously not my Laws Something compels you to serve non humans in spite of Neuronius and the wisdom he tried to pass on to you She talked so fast Adam didn t get a chance to interrupt And then she wheeled abruptly and ran rapidly in the direction of the dome Although disturbed she didn t seem violently so She didn t seem dangerous even though she had clearly responded to the insidious persuasion of Neuronius Adam would have liked to have had a chance to counter that poison Still Ariel could probably do a better job than he and with more authority After all it was Ariel who had pushed Eve in the direction of Neuronius in the first place albeit unwittingly Adam sat there watching her progress toward the dome waiting patiently for his experiment to reach its climax when the minillamas would start entering his corral It was some time later after he resumed his s
214. sing if it proved wrong Sarco at least had the good sense not to open his oxygen vent prematurely And it was apparent that Wohler 9 was confused and not able to distinguish between Synapo and Sarco The robot s eyes kept flicking back and forth between the two of them Good morning Wohler 9 Synapo said There was no hesitation no ignoring Synapo this morning Wohler 9 swiveled his head and rolled his eyes around ahead of that motion so that they came to rest on Synapo well before the head caught up This is Miss Ariel Welsh the robot said as he gestured with a rather grand motion toward the diminutive alien who stood hardly as high as Synapo s shoulder joints And with a nod Wohler 9 dismissed the other alien as a servant beneath consideration a fact confirmed by his words And this is the humaniform Jacob Winterson Miss Welsh s personal robot The validity of Synapo s generalization was reassuring as was his initial reaction to the small alien s unimpressive appearance But Wohler g had failed to introduce Synapo a breach of etiquette not easily forgiven which was not reassuring Still the robot was only a servant and perhaps not as well schooled in diplomacy as the small master who was a she a member of the subordinate clan of the dominant tribe Synapo had guessed she would be from his earlier conversations with Wohler 9 Yet that was also disappointing since he would still not know after all the in
215. sk the permanent dusk created by the dome In what respect Miss Ariel Wohler asked With respect to the city Wohler The dome will be closed day after tomorrow unless we can get through to those monsters What are you doing about it We are moving the necessary materiel for construction of a second Compass Tower and city on the other side of the plain five kilometers away Yes I believe those were the very words you used earlier she said How could she be irritated by a machine that given the same stimulus came up with the same answer So your grand plan is to hop allover the planet a jump ahead of the aliens constructing Compass Towers and cities weather nodes while they follow along behind neutralizing them with their domes Was she still feeling guilty about Wohler 1 and taking it out on this poor machine that wouldn t know it even if she were We tried first to neutralize them and lost a pilot robot and flier Wohler 9 said and then we tried to learn more about them and lost a surgeon and laser scalpel You could have learned a lot more about them by just talking to them That has not proved to be true Miss Ariel and did not seem to be necessary at first since they destroyed only that one witness They did not interfere with our endeavor once we enlarged the patrol circle to avoid construction of the dome It did not appear they were violating our governing laws n
216. slowly began to transform from one imprint to the next trying to find peace of mind going back from Jacob to Synapo to Wolruf to Derec and finally to KeenEye to the form in which he had first known being and BeastTongue In the wolf like KeenEye imprint using only a fraction of the output from her reactor she began loping easily through the forest finding and following the animal trails that had been created by the natural denizens of Oyster World She found a measure of peace in the pleasant natural scents left there by those very basic creatures creatures much lower in the scale of life than LifeCrier but still so like him in their familiar but dissimilar musky scent The night passed as she roamed aimlessly through the Forest of Repose Dawn found her at the edge of the forest below The Cliff of Time back at the trail that led to the clearing where Neuronius had lectured her The night had served to clarify one thing She must talk to Synapo again before she could make a final judgment of the humanity of Neuronius She could find Synapo by radio but the only tactful way to talk to him was on the wing She could not ask him to come to her He had left the clear impression he did not want to talk to her further She must go back to the Synapo imprint in order to talk to him on his terms When SilverSide finished the transition to blackbody form the sun was just rising over The Cliff of Time There was a Ceremyon circling high ov
217. sportation terminal near where she had stood in her meetings with the aliens The funeral service was simple just a few thoughts as she stood there while Mandelbrot lightly tamped the loose soil over Jacob s coffin with the small shovel he had fashioned from his microbotic arm At that moment her recollection of Jacob s sensitivity came back and overwhelmed her She was remembering his discerning contribution during that first meeting They had been at a complete impasse in their negotiations At that critical point Jacob had suggested that she inquire concerning the effectiveness of the dome as a weather node compensator in its present state of completion When she thought about it now that knowledge seemed crucial to the final resolution of the dilemma she had been able to achieve in her negotiations with the aliens She was really going to miss Jacob Now she would never know what he would have been like as a lover She had not been aware that would be such a keen disappointment She gently tamped the ground covering the small grave with the toe of her shoe and with tears in her eyes walked back into the terminal followed by Mandelbrot CHAPTER 29 THE SHEARING OF ADAM SILVERSIDE When Ariel declined his offer to assist her with Jacob s remains and had left with Mandelbrot Adam waited to see if Derec was going to need his services but did not volunteer those services He had other plans for later in the day when the mini llamas
218. t explaining to Adam what had happened as much as he knew Adam had not seen what led up to the explosion Derec and Mandelbrot arrived while Adam was removing Jacob s remains from beneath the large pile of rope Wohler 9 took the cargo robot to dispose of the remains Derec and Adam stood on the sidewalk in front of the apartment while Adam took a quarter hour to explain to Derec in detail what had happened and what had led up to it including Eve s state of mind before and after she had talked to Neuronius Then they went up to the apartment and Derec told Ariel where Wohler 9 had gone I didn t know there was anything left Ariel said I m sorry Ariel but there s not much Derec said Where did Wohler take him Ariel felt a very strong loyalty and determination at that moment The disassembly station Derec said The recoverable parts area At the robot factory Yes They re already picking him to pieces About to stick little bits of him in some other robot Not likely I doubt if he s plug compatible They ll melt him down Her voice rose an octave Mandelbrot get hold of Wohler 9 immediately Tell him to stop them Now The last came out stridently almost incoherent Wohler 9 is probably on his way back Derec said Notify them at the factory Mandelbrot Mandelbrot standing rigidly in his storage niche shuddered slightly eyes quickening Afte
219. t Derec and his robotic companions were going to get off the planet He had accidentally demolished his means of transportation when he arrived Wolruf was the size of a large dog with sleek well groomed brown and gold fur and she was shaped like a dog except for the fat fingered hands and the flat face which despite its flatness bore unmistakable lupine characteristics Farther east on Main Street a half kilometer beyond Derec s apartment a large pyramidal edifice the Compass Tower was at that moment strikingly displayed in a glowing frame redshafted by the morning sun still hidden behind it You mean Ariel Derec said I sent my call for help through Ariel u signed it Not Ariel Wouldn t ave come if u adn t signed it Situation desperate Derec Goin call u Desperate Derec from now on She gave a funny gargling bark not a growl more a sharp rattling gargle as though her throat were laden with phlegm Derec had become so accustomed to her in times past he had forgotten that extraordinary chuckle and her uncommon treatment of Galactic Standard The imperfections in her pronunciation of Standard had regressed somewhat during the past year on her home planet but her rolling of the letter r had been almost entirely eliminated after prolonged exposure to Ariel and Derec and that improvement seemed to be still largely in place except for a trailing burr The left out and chopped off pronou
220. t himself Neuronius but instead a response to guilt concerning his own ambitious plans That guilt could lead to fear later as Neuronius pondered what Synapo s remarkable intuition might lead to but at the moment it was only a symptom of guilt Synapo knew then the shape of things within and without his tribe He could scheme up suitable responses Anticipation of the cerebral exercise involved the challenge filled him with keen anticipation Nowhere was there room for fear for anticipation that he might fail Neuronius was a threat he could meet head on And Sarco was an excellent engineer and an able administrator but not the political animal that he faced in a tussle with Neuronius Synapo listened keenly to Neuronius s answer to the needling remark I do not fear such a change if that Cerebron can serve you as ably as I Neuronius replied Ah suitably servile He was not yet ready not quite sure of himself That called for a less aggressive response at least for the moment We meet again with the aliens tomorrow morning Synapo said I want you and Axonius to accompany me Axonius was third in the elite hierarchy next in command after Neuronius It was essential that Axonius witness the ineptitude of Neuronius and discredit him with the elite Exactly how that would come about Synapo was not sure but he did not lack confidence in his ability to carry it out in some fashion during their meeting with the aliens or lat
221. t me to or not whether you love a robot or not So if it s true I want to help you and rather desperately He walked into the adjoining personal and closed the door It went on like that the rest of the night They didn t get much sleep Nor did they make up as they usually did when they had finally exhausted one another emotionally Derec slept on his side of the room and Ariel slept on hers but they didn t sleep much keeping each other awake by tossing and turning and generally flouncing around to enhance the other s anger Morning finally came They ate an early breakfast in silence and they all rode in the lorry to the opening in the dome well before the time when dome construction would normally start if it were going to take place It did not take place Instead the two aliens Synapo and Sarco arrived in their usual dramatic fashion with a great show of black wings Ariel Derec and Wolruf climbed down from the lorry to stand near the right front wheel and talk with the two Ceremyons It is our turn to request an audience Miss Ariel Welsh Synapo said for we have discovered that a misunderstanding exists between us You should not be held responsible for the errant behavior of servant machinery apparently not yours trying to pursue its orders in the best way it knows how I am referring of course to the servant you call SilverSide The question is Whose machinery is it and whence did it come It came to ou
222. t now the flier is held by the gravity of the black concavity at a virtual distance of four kilometers It is headed toward us but held motionless by the black concavity with the flier s impulse engines throttled back to 75 capacity equivalent to an acceleration of ten gees We plan to bring it in now Its fuel is almost depleted Ariel had a hard time taking the binoculars away from her eyes She turned to hand them to Jacob Here I want you to record this she said I want you as a witness Derec s not apt to believe any of this Thank you Miss Ariel Jacob said but with my 50 power binocular vision I have already recorded the unusual operation of this flier Ariel was tired It had been a long day already Altogether too much for one day Too much sensory stimulation too many strange ideas too much emotion She missed Derec and felt inadequate to the challenge presented by this alien world Unless you have further exhibits and demonstrations Wohler Ariel said I would like to shower and freshen up Later after some dinner you can give me a detailed report I have just ordered in the flier Miss Welsh Wohler 9 said We shall now proceed immediately to your apartment As they drove down the broad street toward the Compass Tower the faint sound of the flier grew louder Ariel turned to watch its lights growing brighter now in the soft darkness surrounding the city She had a ha
223. t she had brought him along She never intended for Adam to be an active participant in the meeting Yet there he was standing beside Derec as though he carried as much weight as Wolruf Before Ariel could say anything Adam continued Jacob Winterson was the one who was killed Miss Ariel s personal robot and the one whom I had taken as my imprint at one time I see now that Neuronius must have mistaken him for me That was not clear until this moment We regret that one of us took your trusted servant from you Miss Ariel Welsh Synapo said but we must rejoice that he did not take Adam SilverSide as well Neuronius was sick but refused all offers of help something we could do little to correct At that moment Ariel would have welcomed them taking Adam SilverSide as well We must all put those bad things behind us she said We have other responsibilities and must now leave your fair planet to resume other less rewarding efforts Our robots have all been reprogrammed their future mission is clear and I m sure you will find them pleasant cohabitants It has been a sincere pleasure to know both of you Leader Synapo and Leader Sarco Let me participate to this extent Sarco said that I assure you on your departure that all Myocerons will endeavor to do what is best for those you leave behind both the Myocerons and your robots Speaking of those we leave behind Ariel said one last thoug
224. t the book was the reaction of the readers While they approved of Lije Baley their obvious interest was entirely with Daneel whom I had viewed as a mere subsidiary character The approval was particularly intense in the case of the women who wrote to me Thirteen years after I had invented Daneel the television series Star Trek came out with Mr Spock resembling Daneel quite closely in character something which did not bother me and I noticed that women viewers were particularly interested in him too I won t pretend to analyze this 14 The Naked Sun the popularity of Lije and Daneel led me to write a sequel The Naked Sun which appeared as a three part serial in the October November and December 1956 issues of Astounding and was published as a novel by Doubleday in 1957 Naturally the repetition of the success made a third novel seem the logical thing to do I even started writing it in 1958 but things got in the way and what with one thing and another it didn t get written till 1983 15 The Robots of Dawn This the third novel of the Lije Baley R Daneel series was published by Doubleday in 1983 In it I introduced a second robot R Giskard Reventlov and this time I was not surprised when he turned out to be as popular as Daneel 16 Robots and Empire When it was necessary to allow Lije Baley to die of old age I felt I would have no problem in doing a fourth book in the series provided I allowed Daneel to live
225. t was an elegant idea using your second in command to advantage in our rivalry But Synapo it has always been a friendly rivalry Neuronius is striking Sarco And with Axonius on his side Why do you think I took them both with me and excluded you rather unceremoniously Frankly I didn t know and you didn t appear to want to explain So what did happen down there Neuronius made a wrong decision involving the aliens I reversed him and Axonius sided with him It was as simple as that That doesn t sound like Axonius Synapo Give me the details You three have involved all the Myocerons You can t expect me to sit idly on the sidelines Axonius had you fooled as well eh With that slight dig Synapo proceeded to describe the meeting in detail Before the end of the long account Sarco had rotated his hook so that it pointed passively aft expressing silently but eloquently whose side he was on When Synapo finished Sarco asked When are you having your caucus Synapo had put off that decision until Sarco prodded him His mind had been so paralyzed he had not worked out a plan of action during his slow climb to station One hour from now he replied making a quick decision I hereby exercise my right as leader of the Myostria Sarco said and proclaim that caucus to be a joint gathering a Cerebron caucus and a Myostrian hearing Please announce it as such to your people and I
226. t would appear Miss Ariel Jacob replied In a process that was too fast for the human eye to follow he had torn the lettuce into bits sliced the tomatoes and had diced everything else except the bacon bits and croutons Now he was tossing in a large bowl everything but the ham cheese bacon bits and croutons They ll close the dome tomorrow Ariel said and we ll be camping out That seems to be the only logical deduction So I ve got to call Derec for help right Quite so Jacob agreed How do I do that I do not have personal knowledge of that function I will check with Wohler 9 using the comlink At the same time he keyed the food processor for milk and thousand island dressing Ariel said nothing and then while he set the table Jacob reported from the comlink Avernus 8 supervises Mr Avery s special monitor link Tie in to him Ariel said T now have Avernus 8 Jacob said Tell him to transmit the following message to Derec Ariel hesitated thinking while Jacob finished putting everything on the table He had topped two bowls of salad with diced ham and cheese ladled out a generous dollop of thousand island dressing onto each and then sprinkled on the bacon bits and croutons Then she said No Ask him first what s special about Derec s link how does it work She sat down at the table and motioned for Jacob to do likewise and t
227. teenage son s memory and subjected him to irrational experiments in bizarre situations on and off the Robot City planet Derec had learned a great deal about himself but Avery left Robot City without restoring Derec s memory Proceed Wohler Ariel said How did you retaliate We attempted to stop construction of the dome by intercepting the flight path of the aliens ramming them with a one man flier but it was not entirely successful The alien was destroyed but so was the flier and the robot pilot Spectrographic and flame temperature records support a hydrogen explosion as the cause of failure So then you started a dialogue Ariel said No Logic dictated that we determine why a hydrogen explosion caused the failure so we decided to trap and examine an alien At night the blackbodies convert into silver balloons which they anchor to the tops of trees We successfully captured one which had anchored to a tree on the very edge of the forest five kilometers away We easily unhooked its anchor line after cutting the tree down However in order to examine the alien it was necessary to first remove the balloon which surrounded it Again a hydrogen explosion destroyed the alien and the surgeon when he attempted to cut the balloon away with a laser scalpel It figures Ariel said with a sigh So then you initiated a dialogue Surely No One or more of the aliens had been confronting
228. terminable discussion that would surely take place how dominant that other clan was and whether that other clan would also dominate the tribes of his world if this Miss Welsh did not prove to do so She was certainly not very imposing But her personal robot was imposing and he was only a servant That left Synapo with nothing to go on at that point but superficial appearances which he knew from long experience to be untrustworthy And then to Synapo s astonishment Sarco was talking Welcome to our world Miss Ariel Welsh Sarco said My name is Sarco which is as close as we can come to a translation into your language I am leader of the Myostria That caught Synapo by surprise He had not really expected Sarco to be fluent in the language Sarco had a better command of the language than Synapo would have thought possible from the brief radiated lessons he had given the Cerebrons Sarco had obviously monitored those lessons but he could only have picked up the audio patterns by special tutoring from one of the Cerebron elite And that too disturbed Synapo Someone of the elite must be striking for dominance and hard enough to risk undercutting Synapo in his rivalry with Sarco Synapo was so caught by surprise that before he could say anything Sarco with a gesture every bit as grand as Wohler 9 s said And this is Synapo leader of the Cerebrons Sarco s introduction could be taken two ways Synapo hoped the small
229. the creation behind her the vehicle No Synapo replied None of those entities singly or together create a weather node The thermal disturbance is too small and quickly dissipates Good she said We will switch then from an urban energy intensive mode to an agricultural labor intensive mode from a centralized society to a dispersed society from industrial products to agricultural products from robot cities which you feel compelled to cover with domes your node compensators to robot farms that you will find completely benign Wohler g had not provided the agricultural and farm terminology so Synapo could not immediately translate the small alien s words He had to extrapolate from all that he had been told by her and by Wohler 9 and from all the previous data he had acquired by monitoring the aliens hyperwave transmissions but still it took him only a moment By agriculture you mean the intentional cultivation of grasses and other plants like those growing on The Plain of Serenity and in The Forest of Repose and by farms you mean the land subdivisions where this takes place Is that correct Yes the small alien replied We have been exceedingly patient with your invasion of our world You did not inquire whether this was a reasonable thing to do nor negotiate ahead of time a suitable program for doing so and when it did not prove to be reasonable and we took steps to iso
230. the Ceremyons Ariel said This is Wolruf and this is Derec both members of our reprogramming task force Wolruf Derec I would like you to meet Synapo leader of the Cerebrons The alien on the right expanded slightly with the rustling sound of a bat s wings amplified by an order of magnitude and Sarco leader of the Myostria The alien on the left expanded rustling Derec spoke next My colleague Wolruf and I are honored that you will be working with us to produce an environment on your planet of benefit to both of our peoples That is to be desired the alien Synapo said with a strange accent more pronounced than Wolruf s which made understanding the alien even more difficult But first Derec continued would you explain the nature of the dome and the method of its construction so that we may determine how best to modify the city within to be as innocuous as possible The node compensator is a localized separation of space and time Sarco said He said nothing further as though that fully explained it Yes Go on Derec said That s it A localized rift in spacetime Sarco said with mild disdain as though he were lecturing a backward student a locus of points in the cosmos where our universe no longer exists And how do you create such a rift Do you understand what I mean by a rift in the cosmos Derec hesitated Not entirely he said T
231. the trampled grass Plan D Adam said He walked over to the animal with the noose around its neck loosened the noose and slipped it off It stood there tranquilly while he worked over it as though it knew it had won that round and had nothing further to fear He tightened the noose to a ten centimeter circle bent down grasped one of the animal s forelegs and started to lift it The animal jerked its leg from Adam s hand and trotted off a couple of meters before it stopped and resumed grazing Adam went to it again bent down again but this time with lightning motions he lifted the foreleg slipped the noose around it tightened it stood and whipped the rope completely around the animal jerked the rope tight so that the animal s legs were brought together and swept out from under it It fell to the ground with a loud bellow as Adam took two more rapid turns around the legs Eve walked over from the chute Plan D is rather painful she said In a good cause Adam said He retrieved the shears from the chute sheared one side of the beast flopped it over and sheared the other side He unwound the rope from the beast s legs slipped off the noose and slapped it on the rear It scrambled to its feet and trotted off By that time it was dusk Adam gathered up the blankets of wool threw them and the shears over the fence into the cargo robot and opened the three outer gates and the two chute gates We ll
232. the wolf planet had he considered the experience of flying itself At the time his mind was far too busy with other disturbing thoughts Now he looked back to those flights and realized that the act of flying had been an exceedingly enjoyable experience Watching the Ceremyons far above he relived those moments recapturing the pleasure he had unconsciously stored away without really savoring and appreciating it at the time Until it got quite close he failed to notice the large Ceremyon shape coming directly at him on a long glide path from the direction of The Cliff of Time Its dull silvery color blended into the grayish blue sky and because of its lack of motion in bearing and elevation the beast was almost invisible until it was nearly upon him Then it came at him with a rush flared its wings lost momentum and stalled but did so almost two meters too high so that it fell to the ground only a couple of meters away with a decided impact wings outspread The momentum of its low center of gravity had swung its body forward pivoting around the shoulders so that it fell flat on its back Adam couldn t help but recall his similar experience in testing the Ceremyon wings for the first time when he had glided from the lorry dragged his toes and fallen on his face From the size and the color he knew at once that it was Eve He had risen to a sitting position when he had detected the moving object Now while Adam watched quietly Eve tran
233. tle more at this time Yet he is a danger to all of us and his interaction with SilverSide benign though it may seem to the robot could create a very explosive situation So you see Derec you feel responsible for SilverSide and we feel responsible for Neuronius but our feelings can do little at this time to correct a nasty situation created by your scientific interest and our governmental restrictions which prevent both of us from neutralizing the agitators But the primary purpose of this meeting is to inform you that the compensator will not be closed and you may proceed with cultivation of your plants and construction of your transportation terminal Thank you Ariel said We are grateful for your foresight and will proceed with those projects We have not seen SilverSide for almost a full day now Derec said Do you know where he is or what he s been doing Sarco spoke now He is exceedingly confused about who his master should be Based on his own programming Miss Ariel Welsh is his most likely master and Synapo so instructed him yesterday afternoon at The Cliff of Time He immediately began a transformation into the form of your robot Jacob Winterson and was last seen that afternoon climbing down the rock face of the escarpment Then early this morning he ascended to meet me in the form of a Ceremyon as best he can manage and as you know that is a startlingly huge Ceremyon
234. tly displeases you to have him down It does a lot more than displease me Derec s voice shook with anger And stand back I ll reactivate him myself SilverSide stopped He had started walking toward Mandelbrot s niche Don t you ever I repeat and now Derec s voice was strident grating don t you ever deactivate Mandelbrot again Certainly not SilverSide said if that is your wish Master Derec That is most certainly my wish Very well Master Derec Derec had walked to the niche and now reached around to swing open a plate set flush in Mandelbrot s back that covered a switch panel Carefully watching for Mandelbrot s reactions at each step he reactivated the robot by flicking switches in a definite sequence Stabilizing the microfusion reactor was the most delicate part of the activation procedure and took the most time almost half an hour The robot s eyes were designed to guide that operation changing color in the spectral sequence whenever it was safe to move on to the next phase from black through purple blue green yellow orange red and finally back to colorless black Mandelbrot s switch induced standby state Completely ignoring Wolruf SilverSide had gone back to the terminal and plugged himself in again after his exchange with Derec Wolruf had curled up on the davenport and was fast asleep when Derec finished Battery backup should have provided the low po
235. to the aliens the picture of a race and a government in disarray It was more the position of the elite to acknowledge that disarray after the fact and to show magnanimity toward the aliens and flexibility in government by reversing the decision of their agents We agree then he said It pains me Miss Ariel Welsh but your proposal cannot be accepted In our short acquaintance I have come to admire and respect you your forthrightness and courage and unfailing good humor May all those attributes stand you in good stead as you take this painful decision back to your people He was finished as the leader of the Cerebrons unless he could get this decision reversed in caucus and in a caucus truncated to nine members with the nine votes of Axonius weighing in against him CHAPTER 11 S O S Immediately after the meeting Ariel and Jacob returned to the apartment Jacob started toward his storage niche but Ariel forestalled him Fix a large garden salad Jacob she said with thousand island and a couple of glasses of milk Set the table for two And then join me It won t hurt you to act human for a change like you re enjoying my company That s an order That is an order not difficult to comply with Jacob said Do you like thousand island dressing Ariel asked Whatever pleases you Miss Ariel Lacking true taste buds I really have no preference What a shame You re missing half the pl
236. upine position and his observation of the soaring Ceremyons that he heard the muffled explosion He rose up just as a flaming cartwheeling object landed in the grass midway between him and the activity near the dome where the explosion had taken place He jumped up raised and secured the ramp and directed the cargo robot to the location where the object had landed CHAPTER 27 NEURONIUS STRIKES OUT When Eve SilverSide found her Ariel was sitting at the computer terminal in the apartment examining Wolruf s latest report on the final steps needed to put the last of the robot farms in operation I have carried out your wishes Ariel Eve said The missing title the lack of polite address caught Ariel s attention and alerted her to possible trouble ahead She turned around to face Eve Eve continued I talked to Adam but he was quite uncooperative no help at all You did what I asked Ariel said I was hoping you would succeed where Derec and I failed But actually I had small hope that you could get anything out of him Not when he pleaded Third Law considerations Don t feel bad But I did succeed I found out what Master Neuronius told him all the things they talked about I don t understand I talked to Master Neuronius himself Neuronius Ariel began to feel apprehensive sensing impending calamity feeling very much alone Mandelbrot was with Derec She had sent Jacob to the
237. ushed base of two bushes framed by pink flowers set in green foliage which in close proximity to the foreign surface was now seared and wilted by the heat the egg had exuded earlier It was now almost cool to the touch almost ready for hatching And it came to her then what she must do She kept the KeenEye form to speed her dash through the thin shrubbery of the forest but when she came to the plain she began the transformation to the Jacob imprint stopping only long enough to fashion the heavy muscular legs that would take her the three kilometers to the dome s opening in the shortest length of time As she ran along the wall of the dome she completed the transformation to the masculine Jacob form well before he reached the opening on the north side As SilverSide approached the opening Wohler 9 called to him from a small runabout parked near the west edge I get no response from you on the comlink Jacob T am SilverSide he said as he hopped into the passenger seat Take me to Miss Ariel Welsh Wohler g started the runabout turned into the near southbound lane of Main Street and proceeded rapidly down the street in the direction of the Compass Tower I have instructions to take you to Master Derec at once SilverSide Where is Miss Ariel SilverSide asked At the apartment Good Then we are proceeding in the right direction Yes Master Derec is working at the mainframe w
238. ved in CHAPTER 9 INSIGHT While she was eating breakfast Ariel queried Jacob on the results of his nightlong cogitations I have made a list Jacob said of the technical features that jump technology and discrete modulation of hyperwave have in common Would you like me to project it on the screen Heavens no Ariel said I don t understand that stuff Transmit your list to Keymo over the comlink see if he can deduce a parallel list that allows him to predict the characteristics of continuous modulation from the characteristics of Key technology features they would likely share And tell him I d like an answer well before we go to the meeting with the aliens She finished breakfast and stepped out onto the small open balcony to sample the fresh smells of morning And she was assailed instead by the sterile leftover smells from night in a brand new city not even the yeasty smell of baking bread that characterized the city of Webster Grove at any time of day and was certainly to be preferred to the ozone and machine oil of Pear City Until that moment she had not really come to grips with how much she disliked cities She had put up with Robot City and with Earth s caves of steel and now with this city just to please Derec disliking it all the time but kidding herself into thinking she was having a great time She disliked cities any city and she disliked them most in the morning Without think
239. ved that the alien leaders returned in midafternoon to their normal stations though that was not altogether clear to me since one looks so much like another They had all waited sitting in the lorry outside the dome watching for SilverSide s return A flock of the black aliens had returned from the direction they took when they flew off with him in their midst But he was not with them on their return That did not bode well for the safety of the wild one For Jacob the night passed much as it had before except that this time he had the company and the conversation of Mandelbrot They had a short inconclusive exchange regarding the Laws of Humanics and then they began a long investigative conversation delving into the many ramifications of Jacob s new knowledge of hyperwave communication the knowledge that there were two types of modulation not just one the old discrete type that they were all familiar with and now this new continuous type that they had deduced from the aliens remarks and which now explained Derec s mysterious internal monitor link with the supervisors of the robot cities The technology for that link was developed by the erratic Dr Avery and understood only by him until Miss Ariel had pushed them into drawing parallels and connections with the two types of hyperspace travel jump teleportation which was related to discrete hyperwave modulation and Key teleportation which was related to continuous hyper
240. very beginning Miss Welsh You would like more of a summary Yes And confine the summary to your interactions with the aliens and their erection of the dome Very well We began cityforming the planetary surface with construction of the Compass Tower on the open plain one point zero two kilometers from the nearest forest vegetation We had progressed to the third floor of the Compass Tower when an unusual incident involving a witness occurred at the edge of the forest Ariel interrupted him A witness robot Yes Miss Welsh To alert us to the migration of planetary life into the construction arena we had established a rapid circular patrol of twelve witnesses on a perimeter two kilometers in diameter centered on the Compass Tower The unusual incident involved destructive bisection of a witness as it passed near the forest Bisection Wohler Yes Miss Welsh The witness was cut in half Just before the incident that same witness had been observing the flight of several of the aliens we now call blackbodies to a point near the forest about twenty meters above where the incident occurred Those observations by the witness constitute its last transmissions to core memory over the comlink Switch to memory detail Wohler Ariel said quietly The blackbody flight pattern began just after the preceding witness had passed by A blackbody would fly to a point about twenty mete
241. w so that when he finished his short charge he could drop rapidly to the open sector where he could see Wohler 9 still standing vigil right where he had been as Synapo dropped to tether the evening before When they reached a comfortable altitude Synapo slowed his flapping and rolled onto his back a wingspread below Sarco giving the other the dominant position as was his right as interrogator That had been the status of their conversation the afternoon before when Synapo had terminated it unilaterally Now Sarco you were saying Forget that Sarco said My tether was cut and I was fuming yesterday evening but it s no big deal A new hook and a night s rest and it s the same as forgotten Good Synapo thought but it wasn t an Avery it was my own burning breath which sent you into far sunrise He wouldn t have stooped to such a childish trick if the situation hadn t warranted it The thought of that piece of unstatesmanship lingered unsettling his conscience What is important Sarco continued is getting the weather back under control and stopping the godawful screeching of those tin aliens on hyperwave The weather I ll have under control as soon as my people finish neutralizing that node below I figure to have the compensator complete day after tomorrow But the hyperwave noise is about to drive us all nuts Synapo Haven t those metal morons heard of continuous modulation Of course Th
242. w was every bit as spectacular as she had intimated She stood up to point out the one she thought was the Cerebron leader Synapo circling high over the dome And it was he who dropped first a tiny black ball plummeting toward the forest like a lead shot becoming a small bomb trailing a shiny smoke that slowly expanded into a silver ball that drifted gently down into the tree tops and then bobbed up to rest on the top of the forest like a ball of mercury on a countertop That was a solo performance and then from near Synapo s flight circle another followed Sarco the leader of the Myostria Ariel guessed and after a time over the space of a quarter hour they all dropped until they were dispersed like myriad beads of silvery moisture over the surface of the green foliage CHAPTER 17 THE CEREBOT THE PROVISIONAL LAWS OF HUMANICS 1 A human being may not injure another human being or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm 2 A human being must give only reasonable orders to a robot and require nothing of it that would needlessly put it into the kind of dilemma that might cause it harm or discomfort 3 Ahuman being must not harm a robot or through inaction allow a robot to come to harm unless such harm is needed to keep a human being from harm or to allow a vital order to be carried out From Central Computer File Humanics Mechanical Access Drawer 667 Bin 82 Keyword Access Humans Sub key La
243. wave modulation In the course of the long night they drew parallels and derived conclusions that they recorded by joint effort as a long and comprehensive dissertation for the robot city s archives an exhaustive treatise that was intended to answer any and all questions on the subject It was a longer night for Ariel and Derec a night they spent closeted in their bedroom to avoid exposing Wolruf to their disagreement That friction had now escalated beyond the mild and not unusual interplay for dominance that characterizes the relationship of many pairs of lovers It started immediately after dinner when Ariel had gone into the bedroom to get away from the rest of them She was feeling intensely sorry for herself Why was it so important that she pull off this effort at conciliation and cohabitation with a bunch of aliens this attempt to save and incorporate into their galactic community a world she didn t give a dam about Was it merely a matter of pride an attempt once again to prove her capacity for leadership Derec had never insisted that his must always be the last word the final and ultimate judgment on things that affected both of them and that they were both mutually responsible for Yet why did he always make her feel childish when she tried to establish her individuality in that regard She had as much right to make decisions as he did and frequently the decisions he made that were right were right only because her advice kept
244. we have been doing that are disturbing to you We do not wish to disturb you in any way and are willing to go far to insure that that does not occur For instance we can change our modulation of hyperwave from discrete to continuous so as not to disrupt your listening comfort A small flame of irritation shot from beneath his eyes smaller than the day before but still a respectable quite noticeable luminous green jet Sarco he said like he was uttering a curse That hyperwave disturbance is not important enough to discuss here My esteemed colleague is a music lover and prone to give those minor disturbances more attention than they deserve She had shot her wad and at the wrong alien Still she said that does show how far we are willing to go to avoid disturbing your people That should reassure you as to our intentions Proper reassurance can only be supplied by your leader With strangely mixed emotions longing and irritation inexplicably intertwined she thought I am the leader here mister bat and you re stuck with me But I wish my darn partner were here instead of way off cruising down some alien cornfield She didn t stop to question where that strange image came from the vision of Derec at the other end of a green green cornfield the yearning for Derec was too intense and then the answer to the dome problem struck her with that marvelous insight that can come only from one brain h
245. weighing in against your proposal are the deaths of our two colleagues and in the particular case of the last fatality the passive state of our colleague before his death in tether a grim way to die without being able to defend one s self How many more deaths of Ceremyons lie in the future Yet those deaths which can be largely attributed to misunderstandings by incompetent servants and the small likelihood of more deaths in the future do not tip the scale against you Now we must weigh the true nature of the agricultural mode and the supporting partially compensated city nodes and there is where we stumble We know nothing about the agricultural mode except your reassurances of its serene harmlessness nor do we know what additional emanations may find their way out of the opening in the city compensator You term our fears irrational when any rational being considering your past performance must judge your actions to be frightening and such fears to be well founded We mourn our dead colleagues and we are ever so uncertain concerning the nature of your proposal so we have no choice but to vehemently oppose your further occupation of our planet We do not consider your intentions benign Miss Ariel Welsh not by a hooked eye Neuronius hunched his wings and fell silent The fool Synapo thought He has just cast himself from the elite There is little doubt of that And just as I suspected he reacted to t
246. wer needed to protect Mandelbrot s positronic brain from serious harm but there was always the possibility of a loss of long term memory during the nanoseconds required to effect the switch from one power source to the other Derec would never know until the gap revealed itself perhaps at some juncture when that particular memory would be urgently needed As he pressed the power reset button he cursed himself for having left the two robots alone together Mandelbrot s eyes lit up with a red glow that pulsed rhythmically How do you feel now Mandelbrot Derec asked Normal The wild one deactivated me I didn t realize what he was doing until too late The robot gave a small shudder Was that a Third Law reaction just now Derec asked T believe so Master I didn t protect myself properly as the Third Law directs I felta momentary disturbance upon reaching that conclusion which must have sent an associated potential wave through my motor control system Is that the way it appeared Yes I just wanted to be sure that it was not some damage from deactivation Derec said Ah Wolruf you re awake Wolruf yawned and stretched Mandelbrot okay It would appear so except for a normal Third Law reaction Derec replied Tt looks ass though anotherrr imprinting may not be ass likely ass u ad thought Wolruf observed The small hairy alien was looking at SilverSide who was hun
247. ws File Creator Rydberg 1 The next morning well before ten o clock Mandelbrot parked the lorry near the west edge of the dome opening and the three mammals got out instructing the three robots to stay behind in the lorry but to record everything that transpired once the aliens arrived Well friend Mandelbrot it is some time since we ve been able to talk privately Jacob Winterson said That will hardly be the case with the wild one present Mandelbrot said Watch what you say and what you do It is completely unpredictable It deactivated me on the wolf planet Jacob and Mandelbrot were still standing behind the control panel of the lorry SilverSide was sitting on the back seat that she had occupied with Wolruf on the way to the meeting site For your information SilverSide said I am not an it I am currently of the female persuasion having imprinted on Wolruf You may refer to me with the pronouns she and her Jacob And you need not think that I will deactivate either of you now that I know that Mistress Wolruf would not react kindly to that action Further Iam completely unaffected by what you may say or do now that I understand that Miss Wolruf wants me to modulate the Third Law slightly to accord you some modest protection So friend Jacob Mandelbrot said have you pondered further upon that imponderable the Laws of Humanics Yes I have Jacob replied and
248. y kick the toe of a giant who then as Synapo suggests may not be so willing to cohabit and might even shuffle all Myocerons into their own version of a space time partitioner or perish the thought some even more malevolent and painful form of annihilation To not strike blindly but instead to try to understand the aliens and I am already impressed by their small leader and think I understand their intentions is to soothe the giant under the worst of circumstances or to help and minister to a lesser species under the best of circumstances Both are honorable directions for the Myoceria Neuronius has sorely misguided you Cerebrons Synapo has already shown you the way I have merely reiterated what he so concisely and clearly pointed out Please do not fail him A silence as keen as that which followed Neuronius s last statement now fell upon the assembly Axonius seemed in no hurry to break the silence instead he seemed to be providing a space for the Cerebrons to ponder Sarco s remarks Finally he said Are there any others who would like to make a statement But now he waited not at all before he said If not our Honorable Leader is here provided the traditional last words before the Vote on Superior Competence I have nothing further to add to my colleagues remarks Synapo said and turned his hook until it pointed aft to accept humbly whatever the Cerebron elite might decide Axoniu
249. y contain the delightful relief that came with the knowledge that these demons had a comic side They were just naturally provincials of a Webster Grove persuasion Wohlerg99 could not possibly have given them that accent She recovered quickly however and without sneezing she turned and said I am pleased to meet you both and then she bowed This is an historic occasion which we shall surely carry with us always It saddens me that such an important meeting must be marred by discussion of the discordant incidents that have occurred before we can explore the great potential for harmony in the future relations of our two species She steeled herself to put his reply in the framework he surely intended and she found she could quite easily ignore the thick accent and concentrate on only the meaning We are equally saddened Synapo replied The protocol of my species in this situation suggests that you should select the first topic for discussion she said Immediately Synapo said Explain the square root of minus one His reply seemed completely at odds with the discussion she thought was going to take place She was not schooled in mathematics and was expecting more diplomatic double talk She hesitated for just a moment and then turned toward Jacob and said Jacob Immediately Jacob said The square root of minus one is a member of a class of numbers that cannot be given substance except in a specific c
250. you know what a human is she said Certainly Jacob said I am so programmed How else could I implement the Laws of Robotics Am I human she asked No You are a robot Jacob replied How do you know Master Derec says so Further my own senses tend to support his contention You are not a mammal What about Mistress Wolruf Is she human No But she is a mammal True But not all mammals are human What is a human Jacob Silverside asked There are many definitions some very complicated some very simple We are generally programmed with only one What is an example of a simple definition Accent in speaking Standard Most humans speak Standard so a simple definition for a special set of robots on a planet called Solaria once used the Solarian accent to define humans a very simple test not requiring any unusual instrumentation And how do you define a human Jacob By the number of their chromosomes and the configuration of their X and Y chromosomes And how do you determine that information With an instrument a cellular nanomachine built into my right index finger You don t make that determination each time you meet that same human do you No Once I determine that a being is human I put its image into a pattern recognition table Further I am inclined to accept as human any being that ap

Isaac Asimov`s Robot City, Robots And Aliens Book 2

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