Jerry Oltion - Humanity

“Find what, Master Derec?”

“Who did this?”

“That information is-”

“Unavailable. Right. I think we’ve gone through this before. Can you record it?”

“I regret that I may not.” May not, Derec noticed. Someone had ordered it not to. It was a test, then, to see what he’d do. That smacked of Avery, but somehow this didn’t have the flavor of an Avery test. Avery would have carved the formula on the door to the Personal and ordered it not to let him in until he solved it. No, this had come from someone else, and Derec knew who that someone had to be. She had to be watching him, then, to have known he was in his study.

Well, he’d already made the decision, right? He looked into the monitor, smiled, and said, “Hi, Mom.”

Janet couldn’t help laughing. He’d seen right through her little subterfuge in an instant. The way he stared out of the screen at her, she almost thought he could see through that as well, but she knew her earlier order not to allow two-way communication was still in effect.

“I know you’re watching me,” he said.

Should she respond? She rejected the idea immediately. She couldn’t bring herself to do it, knowing all the questions and accusations and…emotions…it would lead to.

“I’ve got your robots here.” He paused, frowning, then said, “I don’t mean that like it sounds. I’m not holding them hostage or anything; this is just where they are.” He rubbed his chin in thought, then added, “They’re really mixed up, you know? They have to follow the Three Laws, but they don’t know what ‘human’ is, so their loyalty varies with every new situation. They’re trying to figure out the rest of the rules, too, but they don’t even know what game they’re playing. I think they’d like to know what you made them for. For that matter, r d like to know what you made them for.”

Derec looked down at his desktop, still displaying the bas-relief image of the robotics formula, and whispered” And while you’re at it, I’d like to know what you made me for, too.”

“Oh, spare me,” Janet said. “I’ve seen enough.” Her monitor obediently went gray, and she leaned back in her chair. “See what happens?” she asked Basalom, who stood just to her left. “The minute you get two people together-even when the conversation is one-way-things start to get mushy. People are so…so… .biological.”

“Yes, they are.”

Janet laughed. “You’ve noticed, eh? And what conclusions have you drawn?”

Basalom made a great show of pursing his vinyl lips and blinking before he said, “Biological systems are less predictable than electromechanical ones. That can be both a handicap and an asset, depending upon the circumstances. “

“Spoken like a true philosopher. And which do you think is preferable in the long run? Biological or electromechanical?”

Basalom attempted a smile. “To quote a popular saying: ‘The grass is always greener on the other side.”

Janet laughed. “Touche, my friend. Touche.”

Wolruf woke to bright sunlight striking her full in the face. She raised her head, sniffing the air, but it was the same dead, boring, metallic-smelling air she’d come to associate with the city. She squinted into the sunlight and saw that it came from a viewscreen. She growled a curse. She’d been dreaming of home again, a home full of others of her own kind; a busy, happy place full of the noise and smells and sights of people doing things. To wake up here in this silent metal cell was an insult to the senses.

She stretched her arms and yawned, still tired. Despite the dreams of home, she had slept poorly, as she had for-how long? Months? She hadn’t been counting. Still, she didn’t think she’d ever been so restless in her life. She knew what was causing it: too much time away from her own kind and her recent experiences with a species that was close to her both physically and socially-but knowing the cause didn’t make it go away. And hearing Derec talk about his mother didn’t help, either. His open enthusiasm at the prospect of regaining a bit of his past had only reminded Wolruf of what she still missed.

But she didn’t need to stay away any longer. Now that Aranimas was out of the picture, and with him her obligation to work off the family debt in his service, she could go back any time she wanted. Her family would welcome her openly, especially so if she brought with her this robot technology of Avery’s.

That was the problem, the one factor in the equation that refused to come clear for her. Should she take robots home with her and start an economic and social upheaval that would surely disrupt the normal pace of life there, or should she keep them secret, forget about her time among robots, and just go back to the home she remembered so fondly? And what would happen if she did that? Was Ariel right? Would her home become a backward place, an enclave of curiously anachronistic behavior, while the rest of the galaxy developed in ways her people would eventually be unable even to comprehend?

Wolruf didn’t know what to believe, nor why the choice had to be hers. She had never asked for that kind of power over her own people.

With a sigh, she got up, showered, and stood under the blow drier until she could feel its heat against her skin. She laughed at her image in the mirror-she looked twice her usual size and puffy as a summer cloud-but a quick brushing restored her coat to its usual smoothness.

All her thoughts of home made her consider another piece of the puzzle as well, and she turned to the intercom panel beside her bed and said, “Central, what ‘as ‘appened to my ship, the Xerborodezees? ‘ Ave you kept it for me?”

“It has been stored, but can be ready for use with a day’s notice. Do you wish us to prepare it for you?”

“Not yet. Maybe soon, though. Thanks.”

“You are welcome, Mistress Wolruf.”

Wolruf felt a bit of her tension ease. If she decided not to take any of the new technology home with her, she would need the Xerbo, for as far as she knew, it was the only noncellular ship on the planet. She considered going to check on it herself, wherever it might be stored, but decided not to. There was no reason to doubt Central’s word about it.

She opened the door and padded out into the kitchen to get breakfast. The apartment was silent; Derec and Ariel were still asleep, and the robots were being quiet wherever they were. As Wolruf stood before the automat, trying to decide between her four favorite breakfasts, she realized how much she had grown used to the humanway of doing things. She hadn’t even considered cooking her own meal. She had fallen completely out of the, habit. Nor had she shopped for food-or anything else, for that matter-since she had come into Derec and Ariel’s company.

Was that necessarily bad? Wolruf’s kind had been hunting and farming their food for millennia, and probably shopping for nearly as long; maybe it was time to move on to other things.

Maybe. But how could she know for sure?

From his place in the living room, seated on one of the couches, Lucius was aware of Wolruf entering the dining room with her breakfast. He sensed the others’ awareness as well; their comlink network paused momentarily while each of them gauged the relative degree of threat she presented to them. It was an inconvenience, this constant state of alert; it slowed their rate of exchange; but they were taking no more chances with a complete fugue state.

Wolruf presented no immediate threat. The silent network continued where it had left off, with Adam speaking.

Consider the distinction between ‘sufficient’ and ‘necessary’ conditions, he said. We have already concluded that if a being is both intelligent and organic, then it is functionally human, but those are merely sufficient conditions. They are not necessary conditions. They contain an inherent prejudice, the assumption that an organic nature can somehow affect the quality of the intelligence it houses. I call that concept ‘Vitalism,’ from the ancient Terran belief that humans differed from animals through some ‘vital’ spark of intelligence. You should note that while the concept has historically been considered suspect, it has neither been proven nor disproven. Lucius has pointed out that if Vitalism is false, then the only necessary condition for humanity is intelligence. Discussion?