Robert Asprin - Mirror Friend, Mirror Foe

He deliberately let his voice harden. “You remember what it’s like to kill people, don’t you?”

James’s gaze wavered and dropped to the floor.

Hosato fought and conquered an urge to console the boy. He waited in silence while the boy relived his first blooding.

“Hosato,” James said at last, not lifting his gaze, “I don’t know about the killing. Back at Ravensteel, when I killed those men… I don’t know. I’m glad I saved our lives, that I was good enough with weapons to do it, but I still feel a little sick when I think about it!”

“Are you proud?” Hosato asked.

“What?” James raised his eyes at last.

“Are you proud of killing two men. If you get a chance, are you going to brag about it to the Hungarian?”

The boy hesitated, then dropped his gaze once more and shook his head. “No,” he said softly. “They were just enemies I killed. They weren’t people, I guess. They were just enemies.”

“Look at me, James,” Hosato demanded. He fixed his eyes deep into James. “They were people you killed. They weren’t robots that you terminated. They were two human beings, lives with loved ones, lives with dreams—people capable of wonderful things, as well, of course, as killing you. They weren’t just enemies, they were human beings.”

Hosato slid an arm around the boy’s shoulders. “James,” he said. “Let me tell you what my grandfather told me, the same grandfather who trained me for this work. He said, 'You must learn to kill because it is necessary. To be effective, you must kill coldly and without hesitation. But killing is not to be taken lightly nor is it to be taken pridefully. Kill as well, as skillfully as you can, knowing that killing is man’s fatal flaw.'

“That’s good advice, James. Listen to it.”

They both turned, to find Sasha framed in the door.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but I think we’ve got something out here.”

Hosato clapped James lightly on the back. “Think about what I’ve said. There’s no rush. Now, go on ahead. There’s something I want to say to Sasha.”

The boy’s eyes darted between the two of them, and he smiled.

“Okay, Hosato,” he said, vaulting down off the counter. “I’ll tell them you’ll be there in a minute.”

“The kid looks like he’ll pull through this okay,” Sasha commented, watching James’s departure.

“Sasha,” Hosato began, “we’ve got to talk.”

“No,” she said firmly. “It’s pointless to talk about the future until we know for sure if we’ve got one. Now, come on and join the group. This is important.”

She was gone before Hosato could reply, leaving him no choice but to follow her back into the other room.

“There you are!” the Hungarian called. “For a world-saver, you spend a lot of time goofing off.”

“What have you got?” Hosato asked, ignoring the jibe.

“Well,” the Hungarian said, leisurely lighting his pipe, “the problem is that Turner didn’t think things through. That’s always a mistake. There’s always the temptation to let the computers do our thinking for us because they do it so much faster. It’s quicker to rough out an idea and let the machines develop it, then fine-tune it until it does what we want.”

Hosato writhed with impatience, but knew from experience it was useless to try to rush the Hungarian.

“That’s what Turner did, and learned the bard way the price of turning development over to machines. They think fast, too fast. Any mistake that’s made is carried out before you can correct your input, and Turner made a beaut.”

“Which was…?” Hosato prompted.

“He changed the 'no-kill' program. Now, he wasn’t completely stupid. He gave the computer specific parameters. He gave it the capacity to kill, to defend itself… if the computer or the manufacturing units were threatened.”

“What’s wrong with that?” James asked.

“Two things,” the Hungarian replied. “First of all, he didn’t define completely what constituted a threat, so the computer came up with its own definition.”

“So when Turner tried to shut down the operation, the computer interpreted it as a threat and had the prototypes kill him!” Sasha completed the thought with sudden awareness.

“Exactly.” The Hungarian beamed.

“That can’t be all of it, Tinker,” Hosato insisted. “I wasn’t directly threatening the operation when the robots took their first two tries at me… and certainly the families in the living mall weren’t a threat. What happened there?”

“That’s Turner’s second mistake,” the Hungarian announced, relighting his pipe. “Actually, it involves a completely different command, way back at the beginning of the project. Apparently Turner was afraid of anyone else stealing his idea, so he did two things. Fust, he put a voice lock on his program terminal. Second, he instructed the computer to keep the project secret from anyone who did not enter the program from his terminal. He was very explicit, instructing the computer to guard the Secret with every power at its disposal.”

“How was it supposed to do that?” Hosato asked.

“By giving meaningless or misdirecting information when asked,” Sasha informed him. “It’s a very bright computer and can be incredibly evasive when it wants. What I don’t understand is how that affects things. Most of the line managers put in secret preserving instructions when they start a new project. They’re paranoid that way. What makes Turner’s instructions any different?”

“You’re right, Sasha,” the Hungarian agreed. “By itself it’s quite innocent. The trouble comes when you add his later order giving the computer a kill capacity. Now killing is within its power, and it is to do everything in its power to preserve Turner’s secret. See the problem?”

“Oh, my God!” Sasha gasped as the enormity of the situation dawned on her.

The group sat in stunned silence. Only the Hungarian seemed unperturbed, puffing on his pipe as he continued.

“Actually, Hosato, there’s a good chance you triggered all this. It might have been better if the machines had killed you.”

“Wait a minute—” Hosato began, but the Hungarian waved him back to silence.

“I was merely pointing out that when you escaped from the manufacturing area, you signed the death warrant for everyone in the Mc. Crae complex. The computer couldn’t be sure whom you had talked to, so to preserve Turner’s secret, it simply killed everyone.”

“Now, don’t try to hang this on Hosato!” Sasha intervened. “He didn’t program the damn computer. Besides, all of us here got away from the robots, not just Hosato.”

“True enough,” the Hungarian acknowledged. “But that was to survive the attack triggered by Hosato’s earlier escape. However, that does raise an interesting problem. If I’m correct, the robots massacred the humans at the Mc. Crae complex to eliminate any information leak Hosato might have caused. Now, four of you escaped from the massacre. Extending the same logic…”

“…those things will try to kill every human in the universe,” Rick said softly. “All to preserve Turner’s bloody secret project. Mother of God!”

Hosato barely noticed the exchange. His mind was already turning over plans for a counterattack, analyzing them and gauging their strengths and weaknesses. Whether or not mankind as a whole was being threatened was inconsequential. He had indirectly been the cause of the death of several hundred innocent people. He was now honor-bound to destroy the murderers, to avenge those innocent deaths, even if his own life was sacrificed in the effort.

To the Hungarian fell the lot of traveling to Griin-becker’s Planet on a preliminary scouting mission. The others hadn’t liked it, but he successfully defended his suggestion. None could challenge his qualifications as a scout in this situation. Perhaps most convincing was his argument that of the five of them, he was the only one whose descriptive stats weren’t in the Mc-. Crae personnel-data files.