Robert Thurston - Intruder

Again Bogie hesitated. “The nature of the block upon information does not include such a question as the one you asked. Kid.”

Derec smiled. “Very good. It was a sort of ‘do you still beat your wife’ question, wasn’t it?”

“I do not have a wife. Kiddo.”

“It’d be an idea, though. Robot husbands and wives. Robot families. I might work on it when the mess here is cleared up. Would you like a family, Bogie?”

“I cannot have a family.”

“Isn’t there a family feeling among robots?”

“No, sir. Pal.”

“Okay, okay. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m bone-weary, and my mind isn’t even forming casual conversation effectively. Bogie?”

“Yes, Master-Pal.”

“I need Wolruf back here. Go to the medical facility and fetch her.”

“Fetch?”

“Bring her back here. In fact, since she just left, you might be able to catch up with her even before she reaches the medical facility. Well, what are you waiting for? Get a move on.”

“Yes, sir.”

Derec stared at the empty doorway for a long while after Bogie left. He seemed preoccupied. Then he turned suddenly and bellowed: “Timestep!”

Timestep immediately left his corner and went to Derec. “Yes, Master Derec?”

“Is something wrong with Bogie? Anything another robot can discern?”

“I do not know, sir.”

“Let me put it another way. Was that Bogie who just left here?”

“I do not know, sir.”

Derec looked worried. “Well, that’s some progress. You would know for certain if it was, wouldn’t you, Timestep?”

“Yes, Master Derec.”

“Then there’s a possibility that something has happened to Bogie?”

“Yes, that seems possible.”

“Is he malfunctioning?”

“I do not know, sir.”

“Right. I have to phrase the question differently. Is there a possibility that a robot such as Bogie could malfunction?”

“It is possible, but there would have to be a reason. He would have to be forced to resolve a dilemma involving the Laws of Robotics, or he would have to be given an order he could not carry out.”

“Are they the only possible reasons for him to act uncharacteristically?”

“No.”

“What’s another?”

“He is no longer Bogie as we knew him. He has been reprogrammed or has reprogrammed himself.”

“Mandelbrot? Do you agree with Timestep?”

“Yes. But there is another possibility. I tried to speak with him through comlink and he did not respond to his name. Also, there was a series of nicks along his right side before. They are no longer there.”

“What do you think about him?”

“I think it is not Bogie. I think it is someone else.”

“Our mysterious controller?”

“I cannot know that. But it is a possibility.”

“Timestep, what about this? Could it not be Bogie?”

“That is possible, sir.”

“Go after him, the both of you. Corner him. Bring him back to me.”

The two robots left the room, and Derec began to pace. He sensed that he was going to regain his control of the city. Even the chemfets inside him seemed to be reviving.

The rest of the dancers did not survive for long. Eve disposed of the next three, then returned for a somber death watch over the last, the formerly sturdy woman who had been the leader of the dancers. She was lying in the center of the desk, looking pale and weak, with no one to hold on to anymore. Ariel had leaned down close, watching the slight breathing movements of her tiny chest.

“I wonder what she thinks,” Ariel said to Wolruf

“Iss odd to me to wonderr what such a ssmall being thinkss.”

“Oh? We humans wonder about such things all the time. Part of our charm: our limitless curiosity about the universe.”

“I have at timess noticed ssuch.”

Avery, weary of the session with Adam, came to the desk. He stared down at the remaining dancer, whose arms rose upward for a moment in a characteristically graceful way.

“Let me have this one,” he said softly, sounding quite sane about it. “She is our last chance to find out something about them.”

“No,” Eve said. “I must take care of her.”

“Your care of them has been admirable, Eve,” Avery said, “but we shouldn’t waste this one on mere ritual, especially on ritual misunderstood by a robot. Ariel? It’s your decision really.”

“And you’ll abide by it?”

He sighed theatrically, as if assuming any judgment would be against him. “I will.”

Ariel looked from Eve to Avery, not certain how to say what she had been planning to say for some time.

“Eve, Dr. Avery is right. We must know about them, we-”

“But I must bury her.”

In a quick move, she picked up the last dancer from the desktop and held it close to her chest.

“Eve, put her back. You can’t bury her right now. She is still alive.”

“Alive is not the correct word,” Avery said.

“Shut up with your logic for once,” Ariel said. “Eve, I order you to return the dancer to the desk. You must obey my order. That is the Second Law, and the Laws are part of you, isn’t that true? You sense them inside you, don’t you?”

“No. Yes. I cannot be sure. Something seems to tell me to obey you, but I am not sure that I can.”

“You must. It is Second Law.”

“It is not just Second Law,” Adam said. He was standing behind Avery. “It is what we must do. We cannot continue if we do not discover what is wrong with the city, and the dancers are part of the mystery. Return the dancer, Eve.”

Eve gently settled the dancer back onto the desktop, then resumed her customary vigil.

“Eve,” Ariel said gently, “it is important to me to know whether or not these tiny creatures are living beings or merely some kind of experimental robots or even, as Dr. Avery has suggested, toys.”

“They are robots,” Eve said. “I have sensed no life in them, the kind of life I have felt coming from you, Derec, Wolruf. What I detect in them is the same as what comes to me from Mandelbrot and the other robots.” She pointed to the last dancer. “This, I believe, is a robot.”

Ariel was shocked. “You mean, you’ve known this all the time and not said anything about it?”

“You did not request it from me. And no, I did not know it all the time. Or even most of the time. When I first encountered these creatures in the vacant lot, I received my first glimmerings. As Adam did at the time, I felt little life in them. But I had not experienced much of this world, or any other world, and I was not sure at the time what constituted a living being and what constituted a robot. As I watched the dancers, I understood more and more what they were. My certainty has only come recently.”

“Eve, I-”

“Eve,” Avery interrupted, “what do you feel coming from Adam, coming from inside yourself? Do you feel, as you say, a living being or robot?”

“I cannot say. It is different. We are different.”

“That is so,” Adam said. “Since I came to awareness on the kin’s planet, I have not been certain what I am. I accept that we are robots, but actually, inside myself, I feel neither living being nor robot.”

“Fair enough,” Avery said.

“Eve,” Ariel said, “If you knew the dancers were not human, why did you treat them as humans?”

“I was not aware I was.”

“You cared for them, awarded them human death rituals, buried them as if they’d died. If they’re robots, then they didn’t really die and didn’t need to be treated as such.”

“They ceased to exist,” Eve said. “Isn’t a robot’s death as significant as a human’s?”

“Mistress Ariel,” Adam said, “you buried the robot Jacob Winterson on the blackbodies’ planet, did you not?”