Jerry Oltion - Humanity

“I chased a robot with a ‘uman shape,” Wolruf said. “I thought it was one of these three.”

“Couldn’t have been,” Derec repeated. “They were squished down into undifferentiated balls of cells when I found them, brains and powerpacks all dead. And they haven’t left my sight since I revived them.”

“Well, I chased a robot that looked like a ‘uman, that much I know.”

“Where was he headed?” Derec asked, sudden excitement in his voice. Ariel thought she knew why.

“I chased ‘im about fifteen kilometers north of the Compass Tower on the main strip before I lost ‘im.”

“Did he look like any of us?”

“No,” Wolruf said. “‘E was taller, and ‘ad brown ‘air and wider shoulders than you or Ariel or Avery.”

“ Aha!” Derec shouted. “He belongs to somebody else, then. Somebody else is here in Robot City with us. And I think I know who it is.”

“Who?” Ariel asked, more to confirm her own guess than anything else.

“My mother,” Derec replied. “I think I’m finally going to meet my mother. “

Ariel sighed. Just what she’d thought. Great. Another quest for Derec to spend his time on. She picked up her book and started reading where she’d left off.

This time Avery was taking no chances. His new lab didn’t even exist, as far as the city was concerned. He had ordered it built in the forest and equipped with its own power generation and communications equipment, everything completely separate from the main city. He’d also ordered it camouflaged to look like a boulder, just in case. This time he would work uninterrupted until he was finished. After that he didn’t care what Derec or Janet or anybody else did; he wouldn’t be sticking around. Let them have his lab, if they could find it. Let them have the whole city-what was left of it after Derec screwed it up so thoroughly. Avery had no more need of it. It was obsolete anyway.

The howl of a wolf just beyond the wall sent a shiver up his spine. Obsolete wasn’t the word for it; retrogressed was more like it. Who’d ever heard of tearing a city down to put up a forest? The very idea was an insult to everything Avery believed in.

Was that why Derec had done it? Had he deliberately chosen the one thing that would most infuriate his father? Well, if that was the case, then he’d certainly succeeded. Avery couldn’t imagine why he’d tried to befriend the boy in the first place. He’d opened himself wide up for disappointment. He should have learned his lesson years ago when Janet left and kept his emotions in check.

He had kept them in check for years, but evidently he’d grown too confident, let down his guard. Well, it wouldn’t happen again. He would immerse himself in his work, concentrate on upgrading his city concept, and when he did have to interact with human beings again, it would be on his terms.

Already the work seemed promising. These new robot cells were amazing. They were only three-quarters the size of the previous model, but packed into that small size was easily double the morphallaxis capability. The new cells were stronger, faster, more versatile, and had greater local programming ability than the old ones. A city built with these cells would be much more responsive than his first-generation cities, just as the robots Janet had built with them were more versatile than his own.

Derec had had a good point about the robots, though: they were ultimately less useful than a regular robot. Avery would have to make sure that the ones he created were more stringently programmed than Janet’s.

Drat! In his haste to leave his old lab he’d forgotten the memcubes with their recordings. He cursed his momentary lapse, but it really hadn’t been his fault. How could a man work with so many distractions?

He put the memcubes out of his mind. He didn’t need them anyway. He had no intention of using Janet’s programming; he would create his own when he needed it.

Janet, though. He wondered why she was here in his city. No doubt to retrieve her robots, but he wondered if that was all. Could she still care about him, after all the bitter accusations they had hurled at one another in parting? It seemed impossible, yet Avery couldn’t help thinking it might still be true. There was evidence to support the idea. She had loosed all three of her robots on planets with his cities on them, after all. If she really were intent on avoiding him, she would have chosen other planets.

Good grief, were those robots of hers actually spies? They could have been…Yes, of course, and when he’d shut them off she’d sent another robot spy to take their place. All that business about searching for the Laws of Humanics had just been a smoke screen.

What was she after? Not his city programming; she could have gotten that anywhere. He hadn’t exactly been discreet in its deployment. No, she’d been following him, and there could only be one reason for that.

Avery laughed. The thought of Janet harboring affection for him after all this time seemed somehow pathetic. She’d been so careful to let him know how she felt only contempt for him when she’d left-but she’d evidently been fooling herself all along.

Well, if she expected some kind of reconciliation, she was due for a disappointment. Avery had no intention of including her in any of his future plans. Her underutilized robot material, yes; he would find a use for that, but Janet would have to take care of herself.

Derec sat alone in his study, contemplating the scenery in the viewscreen. He had instructed it to display a realtime image from directly overhead: what he would see out a real window if the apartment were on the surface instead of underground. It was a peaceful sight, the last few rays of golden light from the setting sun peeking through gaps in the forest canopy, spotlighting leaves or vines or gnarled tree trunks at random-but Derec felt far from peaceful even so.

He couldn’t get his mind off his mother. She was here; she had to be, but other than that one fact he knew nothing at all. Was she here merely to collect her robots, or did she have more than that in mind? If she did, did he want to help her do whatever it was she had come to do, or not? Was she as cold and cruel as Avery had insinuated in those few moments when Derec had managed to get him talking about her, or was she more…maternal? He didn’t know. He had racked his memory for traces of her, but whatever Avery had done to induce his amnesia had been especially thorough in wiping out references to that part of his life. She was a complete mystery to him. He didn’t even know her name.

He could probably find her through the computer, but every time he’d made a move to do it; he had stopped, the command dying on his lips. He really didn’t know if he could handle meeting her. Life with Avery was such a struggle, swinging from aloofness to trust to anger to contempt almost at random; he didn’t think he could bear another relationship of that sort. If his mother were just another Avery, then maybe he was better off without her.

What sort of person would marry a man like Avery, have a son with him, and then leave? What sort of person would create a kind of baby robot and abandon three of them on three different worlds? When he expressed the question like that, he didn’t much like the answer, but he knew those acts didn’t necessarily define the person. She might have had a perfectly good reason for doing them. No doubt she did; she had come back for her robots, after all. That implied a purpose.

But had she come back for him as well? He didn’t know.

He might never know if he didn’t make some move to find out. And not knowing was just as bad as knowing she hadn’t.

“Central,” he said suddenly, swiveling around in his chair to face the monitor. “See if you can find-” He stopped, mouth agape. His desktop was covered in formula again.