Jerry Oltion - Humanity

Leaving the apartment, he and Wolruf entered a wide, high-ceilinged, gently curving corridor that led them after a few turns to an open atrium from which branched dozens of other corridors like the one leading to their apartment. Had there been other people on the planet, this would have been a neighborhood park, full of children playing and robots worrying that they would hurt themselves, but now it was silent, empty.

They moved through the atrium to the main corridor, this one straight and with slidewalks leading off into the distance in either direction. All up and down the walls were more atria and more neighborhoods identical to their own. They would no doubt be modified to suit the individual tastes of their inhabitants, if ever they got any, but until that time their most significant difference was in the addresses written in bold letters overhead. Those addresses-three three-digit numbers each-grew smaller to the left, but the slidewalks moved to the right; Derec and Wolruf took an elevated walkway over the slidewalks to the other side of the corridor, stepped on the first of the moving strips, and worked their way toward the faster lanes.

Despite all the machinery that must have been necessary to keep the strips moving, the ride was nearly silent. They heard only the gentle breeze of their passage, abated somewhat by windscreens placed every few dozen meters on the faster strips. A group of four robots passed them going the other way, but otherwise they were alone.

“It feels even emptier than before,” Wolruf commented. “I wonder w’ere all the robots are?”

“Holding up birds’ nests, I suppose,” Derec said. “I imagine keeping the ecosystem going takes a lot more of their time than maintaining the city. “

“Probably so.”

The three parts to the addresses over the doorways indicated the level, then the north-south coordinate, then the east-west coordinate. Derec and Wolruf rode on down the corridor until the second part of the addresses dwindled to zero, then switched over to another slidewalk running ninety degrees to the first and followed it until the third part zeroed out as well. That put them directly beneath the center of the Compass Tower. Stepping off the slidewalk at a bank of elevators, they entered one and ordered it to take them to the top.

The door opened to a biting wind. The sky was overcast, and the air smelled of rain. Derec marveled at how quickly the weather had changed, but he supposed with the new forest transpiring so much more moisture into the atmosphere than the city had, some of it was bound to rain back out, probably on a daily basis.

The wrecked starship wasn’t visible through the elevator door, so Derec stepped out, holding onto the jamb for support, and peered around first one side and then the other, but the ship wasn’t there. The rectangular elevator box was the only feature on the entire acres-wide expanse of roof surface.

“It’s already gone!” he shouted to be heard over the wind. Stepping back inside, he waited until the door closed before adding, “I’ll ask where they took the robots.”

Focusing his attention on his internal link, Derec sent, Central computer, what is the present location of robots Adam, Eve, and Lucius? Lucius II, he amended before it could query him about it.

Unable to locate, the computer responded. Its voice in his mind had no vocal origin, but the input went in along the same nerves, so it sounded like a voice to Derec. Itwas quiet, echoless, and inhuman, but it was nonetheless a voice.

What do you mean, unable to locate? They ’ ve got to be somewhere.

I do not receive their power signature on any of my scans, the computer insisted.

“Central claims it can’t find them,” Derec said aloud. “What do you bet they’re hiding from us?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Wolruf growled. The robots had run away from their human masters before, when they had matters they wished to discuss in private.

Where did you last observe them? Derec asked Central.

That information is unavailable.Unavailable? Why?

I was instructed to forget that location. Derec arched his eyebrows.

“What?” Wolruf asked.

“It won’t tell me where it last saw them. Says it was told to forget.” Derec didn’t bother to ask it to remember again; a robot might have been able to dredge a forgotten memory back out of storage by the way it affected other memories, since a positronic brain was an analog device, but Central’s memories were digital, each one separate and stored in peripheral memory cubes.

“So tell it not to forget next time,” Wolruf said.

“Right.” Next time you observe them, remember their location, Derec sent. And alert me that you ’ ve found them.

Acknowledged.

“Looks like they out-thought me again,” Derec said with a sigh. “Elevator, take us back down.”

The elevator obediently began its descent. About halfway down, Wolruf said, “ ‘Ow about Avery? ‘Ave you seen him since we got here?”

“Uh-uh,” Derec answered, “but that’s no surprise. He was pretty mad at me.”

“He might know where the robots are.”

“Yeah, he might.” Derec hesitated. Was it worth the harangue he was likely to get from Avery just to find out where the robots had gone? He didn’t think it was, but on the other hand he was going to have to patch things up with him eventually anyway, and the question would provide a convenient excuse to talk with him.

Nodding to Wolruf, he sent, Open a link with Dr. Avery.

I am unable to contact him, the computer replied.

Why not? Where is he?

Unable to locate.

Derec rolled his eyes. “Not again.”

“What?”

“It can’t find Avery, either.”

“That sounds a little suspicious.”

“Doesn’t it, though? I think maybe I ought to start poking around in the computer a little bit and see what all this sudden secrecy is about. “

The elevator door opened, revealing the central transport station. Wolruf stepped out first, looked up and down the long expanse of slidewalk, and said, “Tell you w’at. W’ile you’re doing that, I’ll look around out here. I don’t feel like going back to the apartment just yet.”

The chances of Wolruf’s finding anything were practically nonexistent, but Derec knew what she was really after. He nodded and slapped her on the back. “Have at it,” he said. “I’ll call you if I find anything. “

“I’ll do the same,” Wolruf promised, stepping on the nearest slidewalk and letting it carry her away.

Derec took the overhead ramp and rode the walks back to the apartment. To pass the time he started to whistle a tune, one Ariel had been playing for background music on the ship a few days earlier, but the echoes in the empty corridor soon defeated him and he rode the rest of the way in silence.

Janet looked at the apartment with a disdainful eye. Basalom had landed the ship in a clearing in the forest about twenty kilometers north of the Compass Tower and had then used his comlink to ask the city to let them in and provide them with lodging, but Janet wondered now if she would have been better off staying in the ship. This place was about as unique as a ball bearing, with all the personality of a brick. No, less than that. Bricks at least had cracks; this apartment was seamless

“This place is perfectly, absolutely Avery”, she muttered to Basalom as he carried her overnight bag into the bedroom and placed it carefully on the dresser. He turned around, saw her expression, and said, “You are displeased? We can alter it in any way you wish.”